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Raised by Wolf's with canine DNA in his blood, having trained more than 24,000 pets helping you and your fur babies thrive. Live in studio. It's Pet Talk today with Will Bangura answering your pet behavior and training questions. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome your host and favorite pet behavior expert. Will Manura.
Speaker 2:It's working
Speaker 3:Well. Good Saturday morning. Yes. Second time around. That's, that's right. I'm Will Bandura. And I'm Jordan Mar. Stellar. And hopefully now you're listening to Pit Talk today here on Facebook Live. We were having some technical difficulties, um, so nobody could hear us. We apologize. Hopefully everybody can hear us. Hopefully you've stayed with us. Do us a favor. We've lost some people as a result of those technical difficulties, please share this right now to your Facebook page. Please hit that like button. We're gonna jump right into today's show. Um, today's probably one of the most important shows that we could do. And of course we're gonna be met with technical difficulties, but we're not gonna let that persuade us from helping you because so many of you have problems with dogs that have fears, anxieties, phobias, aggression towards other dogs, aggression towards people, aggression towards other pets or dogs in the same home. We're gonna be talking about counterconditioning and desensitization. That is the mainstay, that is the go to the gold standard for helping dogs that have problems with aggression, fears, phobias, anxiety. You are not going to take a dog that is aggressive or reactive and correct the behavior out of the dog. Absolutely not. When somebody says that, you know, we just need to correct that behavior. We need to show that dog whose boss we're talking about, suppressing outward behavior of maybe barking, lunge and growling, snapping, biting. We're not talking about doing anything to help the underlying emotional state that's at the root of why that behavior's even happening. And, and so there's a lot of people out there thinking, you know, you know, we just gotta show the dog whose boss and give him a heavy hand. And it might look good. You might shut that behavior down for a day, a week, two weeks, a month, two months, three months, four months, five months. But I guarantee you, if you don't change the underlying emotional state, how the dog perceives that trigger that it's being aggressive towards, or that trigger that it's being, uh, afraid of, if you don't change that underlying emotional state, nothing ever is going to change with that behavior. And so we're gonna talk about what science says. We're gonna be talking about, uh, science based, evidence based solutions that you can use yourself to be able to help your dogs. Now we've got different kinds of fears. Yeah. Different kinds of
Speaker 4:Phobias.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. Um, different type of aggression, but for the most part, the principles of counter conditioning and desensitization are primarily the same. Absolutely. Um, what are some of the different types? And, you know, and we're talking about different types of, uh, fears, phobias, anxieties, um, and really when we're talking about aggression, we're talking about fear.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, you know, well, really and truly, there's, there's like five basic categories that, uh, that we like to break these triggers down into. And by a trigger, it, it means almost exactly what you would think it means. It's something that triggers fears, phobias, aggression, reactivity, anxiety, something that causes your dog to feel internally, dissonance, and then externalize that we're looking at things like something that your dog can see. You know, whether that is something on the tv, somebody approaching the home, you know, maybe your dog sees a
Speaker 3:Cat or
Speaker 4:Sees a
Speaker 3:Stranger. Now, why this is important is because we have to manipulate the senses. Absolutely. Okay. In order to make things, you know, better. So, you know, in one respect, you're talking about what they see. Exactly. We talking about visual cues. Exactly. And so if the first thing that gets the dog triggered is something that it sees, we need to know that as we're working with counter conditioning and desensitization. Exactly.
Speaker 4:Okay.
Speaker 3:Exactly. And, and, but there's not just visual.
Speaker 4:No, there's many more. So there's also an auditory cue. Maybe it's not. Maybe you have that dog that's just laying on the couch mm-hmm.<affirmative>, and suddenly out of nowhere it hears something you can't even tell what it can hear because you can't hear it. And the dog gets up and starts barking, going crazy, or maybe the exact opposite. The dog gets up, tucks its tail, ears go back and it runs and it hides because it's very fearful. You know, that is something that your dog is hearing. Maybe it is the doorbell. Maybe your dog is hearing thunderstorms, maybe your dog is hearing fireworks. Maybe it's the noise of your neighbors bringing their trash cans out. That's such a common one that I hear. Um, haha, pun intended, because I hear it<laugh>. But anyways, so we have visual, your dog sees it, or auditory, your dog hears it, but there are still more than that. Maybe you have a dog that doesn't like being touched certain ways. This is, you know, a tactile
Speaker 3:Trigger. Grooming issues. Right, exactly. Grooming
Speaker 4:Issues. Or maybe just not even just grooming. Maybe you can't pet your dog in certain places. Maybe you have that dog who you can't grab their collar. You know, things like that. And even though this would trigger the vast majority of dogs, I still need to know this one. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, maybe your dog doesn't like when it gets its back legs grabbed, or if you grab its tail, you know, something that
Speaker 3:Children maybe, maybe your dog can't be handled at a vet visit. You know, and that's, that could be a combination of things, but part of that being tactile, part of that is can't handle touch and pressure.
Speaker 4:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:We have a lot of people that, um, you know, especially the breeds that really need to be groomed because they're, you know, very labor intensive type grooming type breeds, and they're scared to death of being bathed. Yeah. They're scared to death of being brushed. They're, and their, their nails being trimmed and, and so it's, it's a nightmare. It's a mess. They, they've gotta be practically sedated, knocked out to be groomed.
Speaker 4:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Um, and and the same thing for dogs that really freak out at the vet's office. So that component, the tactile, the touch component is, is another type
Speaker 4:Of, it's very important. And a lot of people forget about that. Yeah. Then, you know, we, there's, there's a few others. One one's, uh, that I personally and I know that we at Phoenix Dog training love to also make sure that we're taken care of is situational or location based triggers as well. Maybe you have a dog that's a resource gardener. Maybe you have a dog that cannot, like maybe your dog. You can walk up, you can take its food bowl. You can do all of those things. But the moment that another dog comes into the room, it's like Cujo gets released. You know, we have a situational based trigger here. So that's resource guarding, right? Um, or maybe your dog protects the couch. Maybe that has to do with just the location. It doesn't matter who walks up. Then we also have other sensory cues. This is another one that can be big for resource gardening. I see it all the time. You're cooking dinner and your dogs can smell that really good yummy tasting stuff. And they're in the kitchen wagging their tail. Like, Ooh, I wonder if mom's gonna give me some, I wonder if mom's gonna give me some. And then your child or your other dog, or your cat or somebody else walks up into the kitchen and your dog is like, no, get away. Because they think that somebody's gonna come in and they're going to take this resource from them. You know, again, this is another resource resource. Guarding your, your dog's nose can absolutely trigger anxiety, fears, phobias and aggression. Plain and simple. And then another big one that a lot of people don't think about. Well, I've done the counter conditioning for the thunderstorms. I've done it. I do, I've done the counter conditioning for the rain. I've done all of that. But for some reason, before the rain even starts, before the thunder even starts, my dog still gets fearful. Well, guess what? Have any of you ever experienced a pressure migraine? Have you ever, like have, do you have someone in your family or even yourself where you can be like, oh my gosh, it is absolutely going to rain today because my head is pounding. We're looking at an atmospheric pressure change. Your dogs feel that it's the reason why suddenly before it rains, you can tell the behavior of the birds change. You can see it, their songs change, their flight patterns change. They start grouping up around trees, things like that. So atmospheric pressure is absolutely also a cue or a trigger for your dog. So we, we've broken it down into, you know, six basic categories here. Visual triggers, things that your dog can see, auditory triggers, things that your dog hears and triggers them. Tactile triggers, things that your dog feels touch. Then we have location or situation based triggers. These are gonna be like your resource guarding things, whether it's a couch, a bed, a cushion, an area of the house, food, water, toys, things like that. Then we have other sensory triggers like your dog using their nose to be able to smell high value food in the kitchen. And then finally we have their ability to discern the atmospheric pressure changes, because that's a big one when it comes to thunderstorms and rainstorms that scare dogs plain and simple. Um, and I guess we could also even add into that situation based, maybe your dog knows that they're about to go to the vet. You know, they're, you're, you're, you're starting to cue your dog because now we've pulled out the muzzle and we've pulled out the leash and we're headed to the car and your dog just starts freaking out. Cause they know that they're going to the vet cuz the only time they get in the car with the muzzle and all of that is when it's time to go to the vet. So we have to look at all of these angles as to what is queuing my dog and what really is the trigger
Speaker 3:In order to turn these things around. You know, currently if you've got a dog that has anxiety, if you've got a dog that's got fears, if you've got a dog that has phobias, if you have a dog that is aggressive, if there are any triggers out there in the world that cause any of that distress for your dog, you can help your dog through the use of counter conditioning and gradual and systematic desensitization. Currently, if you have a dog like that, your dog has been conditioned to have a trigger, as we talked about. It could be a visual trigger. Maybe your dog is afraid of people, strangers. And the visual cue could be that stranger walking into the house. Yeah, okay. Maybe your dog has a visual cue. Your dog is aggressive. And when it sees a dog on a walk, it wants to go after and attack that dog. Maybe it's that way towards a person on a walk, a stranger on a walk. Jordan talked about thunderstorms and auditory cue that maybe you've got a dog that's scared to death when thunderstorms come or when fireworks come. Or maybe you've got a dog we talked about that's scared to death of the groomer or scared to death of the vet. Maybe you got a dog that's scared to death of getting into the car and going for a car ride. It doesn't matter what, it doesn't matter what it is. Okay? There's an association with the trigger, whether it's visual, whether it's auditory, whether it's something that the dog smells. Okay. Whether it's a location specific trigger, whether it's tactile or a combination of all those things. There is a negative association that as soon as any one of those triggers are presented or any combination of those triggers are presented, the dog immediately goes into this very disempowered emotional state. And it could be, you know, I like to say they go into fight or flight. Bottom line. Yeah, absolutely. Fight or flight. Now obviously if it's primarily fears and phobias, well it's gonna be flight. But we all know that fear aggression is a real thing too. And fear aggression's not flight. It's fight. But I still will say that all aggression is based in fear. Cuz no animal goes into fight or flight unless they perceive something as threatening. So these triggers the stimulus, the dog views as threatening. Now here's the kicker folks. It doesn't matter if it's a real threat or not. Okay? You might be bringing a box into your house, okay? Maybe every year you go into the attic and you bring down the box with the Christmas decorations and every year that same box comes down and it's out for the entire Christmas season and your dog's scared to death of it. And your dog is seven years old. And this has been going on for the last seven years for the dog. And it's scared to death of the box. There's no real threat. The box is doing nothing. Okay? So it's all about the perception of your dog. Okay? Now, what counter conditioning is going to do, it is going to condition the opposite with the trigger to keep it very simple, it's gonna condition the opposite. So right now, those triggers cause the fears, the anxieties, the phobias, the aggression, the combination of those things. When that triggers presented counter conditioning, we are going to associate and pair something extremely positive with that trigger. Now, there's a very specific way that we need to do that. Absolutely. Because some people say, oh, I understand, I understand counter conditioning. Matter of fact, we hired a trainer, uh, that, uh, helped us to do counter conditioning with, with our dog's, um, aggression. And, uh, it really didn't work. And then I started asking, I said, well, how did you do it? What, what did they have you do? Well, they had us go for a walk and as soon as my dog saw another dog, I was to start feeding treats to the dog. And I said, well, was there more to it than that? And they're like, no, that was it. And they said, you know, it got a little bit better, but, you know, then it really just stopped working. And in fact, it's gotten worse over time. Well, a little bit of knowledge is dangerous. Okay? One of the things we do in counter conditioning is yes, in most cases we are going to pair food with the trigger. But there's a right way and a wrong way to use food. And not all food is equal. Absolutely. And there is a, when I say a right way and a wrong way to use food, when it comes to counter conditioning, it's about how black and white can you make the association. How clearly can you help the dog understand In this case, the trigger brings on wonderful things and the trigger makes those wonderful things go away. Now we're gonna get into more details far as what that means. But here's the thing. If, if I take my dog out who has issues with other dogs, and I'm going for a walk and I see another dog and I start feeding treats to my dog, okay, there's a whole lot of stuff that's going on in that environment. Me feeding treats might not be associated with that strange dog in the environment that I'm trying to desensitize my dog to, to create a better emotional response. Because there might be children around and the dog might think it's about the kids. There might be cars around, dog might think it's about the cars. So there's very, very specific ways and protocols that we have to follow. Um, one of the things that you have to do though first Yeah. Is you have to understand that you are not curing the problem. No. You're looking at this behavior and you're looking at the underlying emotional state and you're looking at what does that all entail? Well, this behavior happens in a specific location. It happens at a certain rate of frequency. The trigger in the certain location elicits certain specific behaviors. And that can have a certain level of intensity. It can last a certain amount of time, and it might take my dog a certain amount of time before it gets back to normal. So when we're looking at how we're going to help the dog, first of all, we need to be able to say, okay, what is this that we can measure now? Yeah. So that we can reevaluate and measure it later and be able to say, Hey, are we making any progress?
Speaker 4:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Because, you know, when it comes to a dog that has severe aggression, um, it's not always about a cure. It's about, you know, managing severely, decreasing the frequency of, of reactivity or aggressive acts. It's about decreasing the intensity or severity, you know, more than anything. Yeah, absolutely. And like you said, management Absolutely. You've got a special needs child. Exactly. Now that doesn't mean that we don't try to change the dog's perspective so that they can live more comfortably Yeah. Um, amongst these triggers that they're very reactive with, with. Exactly. Um, let's talk a little bit about, um, what a trigger spreadsheet is cause Yeah,
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Before you can do this work, you've gotta have a map. And I always like to say the trigger spreadsheet is a map. That trigger spreadsheet allows us not only to have a map and a guide to the work we're gonna need to do, but it also allows us to be able to measure our progress along the way. Absolutely. So talk a little bit about that. Absolutely.
Speaker 4:Can. So when we're measuring for, we measure for a few reasons. The first reason is we need to firstly identify is my dog only becoming fearful, reactive, anxious, phobic, aggressive when triggers are present? Or is my dog becoming fearful, reactive, phobic, and or aggressive when there aren't any triggers present? Because if, if it's occurring when there isn't anything around, then it may be time to have a conversation with a behavior specialist as well as your veterinarian about the possible addition of medication. Um, when you have a dog who, it doesn't matter what's going on, whether there's triggers or not, and they are reacting this way, you're probably more than likely looking at a neurochemical imbalance that needs to be helped with the addition of medication. And then the other aspect that we look at for medication, then I'm gonna get into the actual trigger spreadsheet, is when we're doing this work that we're about to be teaching you, if it doesn't matter how low I turn, the intensity of the trigger, how much I back off and make it as if, if I can't not get any further from the dog for like a visual cue or turn the volume any lower for an auditory cue, and my dog is still reacting, it means we can't get the work done. And maybe you might need to talk to your veterinarian about medication.
Speaker 3:So basically, you know, let, let's just, we do this every day, it makes sense to us. Yeah. But let's paint a better picture for those that might not understand us completely. Um, the dog that has, uh, thunderstorm phobias, we start to help that dog by playing sounds, recorded sounds of thunderstorms, but at very super low volumes. Absolutely. At such a low volume that the dog doesn't even care about it. But when the dog hears that very, very low volume thunderstorm, we pair food at the exact same moments, the sounds are happening. So the unpleasant stimulus, the sound of the, uh, thunderstorm, at the same time the dog's being given very high value food rewards. Um, and those are paired together, but it's played at such a low volume that the dog doesn't care. But
Speaker 4:If you can't get it to that low volume,
Speaker 3:If we can't get there Yeah. And we're like, I mean, you can barely one, you know, 0.5 Yeah. And the dog's freaking out. What do you do?
Speaker 4:That's a good question. You know, you gotta talk to your veterinarian
Speaker 3:Right. In that instance. So that's a classic example of where you need medication Yeah. In conjunction with this behavior modification. But you're not gonna be able to do the behavior modification work because the dog is just absolutely too severe. Exactly. With, with the sound folding with the sound sensitivity. Now it can be the same thing with a visual cue.
Speaker 4:Yeah, absolutely. If
Speaker 3:You've got a dog that is so severely dog aggressive that a strange dog cannot be far enough away, visually, it cannot be far enough away. Just it's a little ant so far away and your dog's freaking out, you can't do this work.
Speaker 4:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:It's been a combination of medication and behavior modification.
Speaker 4:Exactly.
Speaker 3:That is something that we would have to refer you to your veterinarian, get your dog stabilized on some medication. Yeah. So that we can do the work. Does your dog need to be on the meds forever? Probably not. But it allows us to do the work and that we can get some work. But now let's set aside the behavior medicine because this is not, is showing that. Let's talk about, all right, how do we begin to do the counter conditioning desensitization? Our first step is creator trigger spreadsheet. Exactly. What is that look like? What is that all about?
Speaker 4:So our trigger spreadsheet is used to be able to monitor progress throughout the training itself. All right. The first thing that we're looking at here, and I'm seeing lots and lots of comments, I wanna let you all know we will get to your comments and your questions. All right. Just keep'em in there, keep'em in your mind. And when we open up the floor for questions, we will get to those. The first thing that we're looking at is location. Where is this trigger occurring? Does it occur everywhere? Does it only occur in the backyard? Is it only in the kitchen? Is it only in the car? Is it only at the veterinarian? Is it anywhere inside? But outside it's fine. Is it only outside? We have to know where it's happening.
Speaker 3:So I've got a client that has a dog that if it goes out the front door to go for a walk is extremely aggressive and reactive on a walk.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Take the dog out the back door and out the side gate. The dog is not reactive and is not aggressive on the walk. Absolutely. Talk about location specific.
Speaker 4:Exactly.
Speaker 3:Okay. Exactly. Now that's just a kind of a more rare type situation, but it just shows you how powerful and why we look at location.
Speaker 4:Exactly. The next thing that we have to look at is frequency. So if I was to put my dog into a situation with that trigger 10 times, how many of those 10 times would my dog trigger? Is it all 10? Is it only five? Is it four? Is it, you know, 70% of the time we have to look at how often when the trigger is presented that my dog reacts. This is very important because when we move forward in a few months, we look at it again and we go, wow, you know what? Before we started, every single time that my dog saw another dog on the tv, he would go crazy. But now mm-hmm.<affirmative>, it only happens like four outta 10 times. So we're seeing progress after that. We're then grading the actual reaction itself, the actual triggering of my dog, the behavior that my dog is displaying. And in fact, we actually, um, before frequency, I, I apologize, is behavior, what is your dog doing? What does your dog do in response to the trigger itself? So we gotta make, make sure that we're looking at what the actual
Speaker 3:Behavior is and don't say aggression. Don't say my dog's afraid. Okay. So a behavior of fear might be panting, pacing, um, drooling, trembling, tail tucked, running away. Exactly. Those are actionable behaviors, aggressive behaviors, growling showing its teeth, hair raised on its back lunging, forward barking, snapping, actually biting. Exactly. Okay. Those are actionable, observable behaviors. So that's what you put down. Don't put down an emotional state.
Speaker 4:Exactly.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 4:Exactly. Now we're grading intensity. How intense is the reaction? So for example, I have a dog who every single time that they see somebody walk by the house out that window, and it happens 100% of the time they will bark. But when they bark, it's just a quick little woohoo. And then the dog kind of just goes back to their, to what they were doing. So, you know, maybe that's an intensity of one or two. It's not very intense the way that your dog is reacting. Or maybe it's the other way around. Maybe only like 25% of the time your dog is going to, uh, react to the trigger itself. But when they do react, it is a 10, they are going insane, bonkers, trying to just get at whatever it is freaking out. And if anybody's nearby, they're gonna get bit, you know, maybe that's a 10 out of 10 on the intensity sch um, intensity scale. After we've rated all of that frequency, intensity, location, and identified the actionable behaviors, we then look at duration. How long does your dog actually react and trigger? How long does the behavior itself continue to occur? Right? This is, this is very specific. Whatever that actionable behavior is, how long does that occur for? After the trigger is presented? For
Speaker 3:A lot of these things, it's gonna be till the trigger goes away. Exactly,
Speaker 4:Exactly. For some of them it's maybe it, it, it, it's only an initial reaction. And then the trigger can be around still and the dog stops doing it. Right. And then for others it can continue after the trigger is gone. Um, next we're looking at reinforcers and consequences. What comes right after the behavior?
Speaker 3:Let me do that one. Yeah, absolutely. I like doing this one. So all behaviors continue because there's a reinforcer. If there's not a reinforcer, eventually the behavior will extinguish, it'll stop. It just won't happen anymore. Now, there's two kinds of reinforcers that strengthen and reinforce behaviors. There's positive reinforcement and there's negative reinforcement. We all understand positive reinforcement. Okay? The dog does a behavior because it anticipates or knows something good's gonna happen. The dog sits so it can get a food reward. Okay? Positive reinforcement, getting the food reward. That behavior is functional because the consequence, what happens right after that behavior of sitting is the dog gets a food reward. So that is the consequence. That's the reinforcer. That's what keeps that behavior there. That is what strengthens the behavior. Negative reinforcement is the second type of reinforcement. Now, when you think about negative reinforcement, think about the behavior is functional because the behavior, at least in the dog's mind, makes something scary or yucky, go away. Okay? So for example, let's say that, um, the Amazon driver comes, I was gonna say is my favorite example, that Amazon guy brings the package to the house and your dogs run up to the dorm there barking and barking and barking and barking and barking and barking and barking, okay? And they're going ballistic. And of course, after the Amazon guy drops the package, the guy goes away, okay? The reinforcer. And why your dogs keep doing that behavior over and over and over and over again in your dog's mind that they believe it was their behavior that got the scary guy with the boxes that with the truck, that made lots of noise to go away. Because think about what happens. Amazon guy comes bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark. Amazon guy goes away in the dog's mind, Hey, my barking work to get the Amazon guy to go away. And if I don't like the Amazon guy, if I'm a little bit fearful or territorial and I can feel powerful because that behavior gets that yucky or scary thing to go away, then I'm gonna keep doing that over and over again. It's functional. It's being reinforced. Now let me give you another example. Let's say that you have an aggressive dog. You're on a walk, okay? And here comes somebody around the corner with their dog, and all of a sudden your dog starts getting super aggressive and the other people with their dog, they get the heck out of there and you get your dog outta there. The something yucky was that the trigger, that dog was too close, okay? And that functional behavior of barking, lunge and growling, snapping resulted in the distance and space or making that something scary or yucky go away. And that reinforces that behavior. Negative reinforcement is the removal of something yucky or scary or unpleasant. The behavior that happens right before that is what becomes that functional behavior. So we're always looking for, when we're looking at these triggers and these behaviors, we're looking at, okay, what's the consequence? What is the reinforcer? What happens immediately after the behavior? There's always a reinforcer and it, there's only two kinds, positive and negative reinforcement. Negative reinforcement. Always think about, Hey, it's the removal of something yucky or scary. That's what the behavior is functional for. Exactly. At least in the dog's mind. Exactly.
Speaker 4:So now we've looked at all of these things and the next thing that we are recording and measuring here is recovery time. So this is for those dogs who continue after the trigger is gone
Speaker 3:Me with, with behaviors that are problematic and, and exactly, you know, emotional distress. So, you know, for example, um, on the 4th of July, um, you might have a dog that's trembling and its tail is tucked and it's maybe drooling and panting and pacing. Um, and all that stuff is going on until four hours after there's no longer any fireworks. Okay? So the duration of behavior was all the way till four hours post fireworks. Exactly. However, recovery, what you don't know, the dog I'm talking about was scared to walk outside for the next 10 days. The dog did not recover for 10 days. The dog did not get back to baseline normal for 10 days. And now that is not gonna be for every trigger with every dog. Yeah, exactly. But these are things that we measure. And not that we're gonna talk about medication, but let's say that a dog did need medication, it would be very important to have these measures before medication. The dog then goes on medication and reevaluate and measure these triggers again to see how helpful is the medication. Just like when we're doing behavior modification, you know, we wanna work hard, but we wanna work smart. And the way that we're gonna work smart is by being able to measure and know where the deficits are and then know as we're employing strategies, how we're progressing. Does that make sense? Yeah. Okay.
Speaker 4:Yeah, exactly. And then finally what we measure is onset. When did this behavior, this reaction, this triggering, when did it begin? At what age, what time period in your dog's life was it at? Has they always been like this since the time that you got'em at eight weeks of age? Maybe it didn't start until they were a year and a half old. You know, these are things that we need to know because then we look at a few things. Firstly, we look at different developmental stages in your dog's life to see if we see a pattern with specific stages in most dogs' development, that certain issues sometimes pop up. And then additionally, when we look and we see that 90% of your triggers all popped up six months ago, I'm then gonna go, okay, let's look at 8, 9, 10 months ago and six months ago, and figure out what happened in your dog's life that might have changed. What might have occurred. Was there a triggering event? Was there something traumatic that happened to your dog around that time period? Did something change in your family? Was there a big life event? Like what occurred six months ago to cause this very sudden onset of all of these triggers? It's very important for us to know all of these things. So again, we're measuring location, frequency, intensity, duration, reinforcers and consequences, recovery, time and onset. All right? Once we have measured all of these different things, it's time for us to actually start getting ready for the work itself. And the first thing that we need to do is we need to start identifying our dog's thresholds. That's the very first step. Because if we don't know, and let, let's talk about what I mean by thresholds. Threshold is the moment when whatever it is, whatever the characteristic about the trigger, whether it's a visual characteristic, an auditory characteristic, a pressure characteristic, whatever it is that triggers your dog and your dog goes from being okay to not being okay. What do I mean by okay versus not? Okay? When I say, okay, I don't mean my dog is not barking, my dog is not growling, my dog is not reacting. I mean something even more nuanced than that. I mean, is my dog displaying stress signals versus calming signals? Is my dog displaying appeasement signals or distance increasing signals? I, and and what I mean by this, this is, this is where it's so important to become familiar with canine body language. Because if I was to look at you and say, okay, your dog is in the house, and a stranger walks in, and when the stranger walks in, we look at our dog and our dog's tail, our dog is laying down, somebody walks into the house, your dog stands up, his tail comes up, and it starts wagging really, really fast. Just back and forth, fast, fast, fast, fast, fast, fast, fast. And then his tongue just starts poking out straight forward and back in straightforward, back in, straightforward back in. And there's tenseness around his eyeballs, right? You can literally see the muscles around his eyes are tense and his ears are straight up and forward. And he's just looking at that, at that person. What is your dog saying? What, what is, what does that mean? And I'm here to tell you that we've got a tongue flick, which is absolutely a stress signal, sometimes considered a distance increasing signal. We've got, uh, tenseness around the eyes, that is a stress signal. And then when we have that high fast wagging tail because of the height, if we get it to that point where it starts pointing forward, that's distance increasing. If it's just above that 90 degrees and fast wagging, that's just anxiety and stress. When your dog's ears are alert and forward, that's targeting, okay? That is your dog targeting, that be that specific trigger and saying, this is the thing that is making me feel this way. And you can tell that your dog went from a calm state of laying down to, now I am standing up in stoic, right? So all of these things tell me, yeah, my dog may not be barking, my dog may not be growling, but my dog is absolutely uncomfortable, and that means I've gone too far too fast. And that's not where I'm doing the work. I need to turn it down before my dog gets to that point.
Speaker 3:So when, when I'm discussing thresholds with clients, and I will tell them that, um, the dog is over threshold, anytime the trigger is presented and the dog has any level of care, any level of concern, because what I always say is the distance you need to be working, if it's a visual trigger, the distance your dog needs to be from that trigger when it's at that distance, your dog cannot have a care in the world. It can't have any concern. It knows that that triggers there. So let's say that it's reactive, aggressive to dogs. Yeah, there's a dog in the distance. It knows that that dog is there, but it's far enough away. There is a distance that you can find where your dog does not have a care in the world. At any point that you get closer at any distance, where your dog begins to have even the slightest bit of care or concern, your dog is over threshold. Absolutely. You cannot do this work if your dog is over threshold. We need to stop your dog from being over threshold. This is not about presenting your dog with a trigger. Like somebody thinks that this is a great idea. Hey, my dog's aggressive, let's get my dog to be reactive, and now let's correct the dog, which is just code for punishment. Okay? Suppresses behavior does nothing about the underlying fear and the anxiety where you do the work is at a distance where your dog does not have a care in the world. If it's a person that they have issues with, fear or aggression. If it's another dog, they have issues with fear or aggression. Okay? It is something that not only when you're doing the work, which will get into all the steps, but even before you do the work, you must avoid all the triggers. If your dog's day in and day out life is, they keep on experiencing the fears, anxieties, phobias, they keep getting aggressive because they keep getting flooded with these triggers. Things are never gonna get better. That is powerful stuff that you're fighting. We're talking about massive adrenaline coursing through your dog's veins, okay? You are not going to have any headway. First thing we gotta do is take your dog out of the combat zone, your dog's, you know, living in PTSD for crying out loud. All right? So get your dog outta the combat zone, avoid the triggers. And now the only time your dog should be exposed to the triggers is when it's in a training situation. The only time until the work is done, avoid the triggers. Triggers are presented in a very specific way. Counter conditioning and desensitization during training sessions only. Now, these training sessions that we're gonna give you the steps to, you have to commit to doing these three to five times a week per, per trigger. And you probably can only, sometimes you're only gonna be able to work one trigger at a time. Sometimes you might be able to work two, maybe three, but for now, just worry about and think about one trigger at a time. And you're gonna have to commit three to five times a week. Sessions are short, you'll, you'll hear about this. Sessions are short, they're five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes would be an incredibly long session, absolutely three to five times a week. And you need to commit months. This is not something that happens in a day, in a week, in two weeks, months, months, months. There's no quick fix to get rid of fears and phobias and anxieties. No quick fixes. And there's no quick fix for aggression, which is rooted in fear. Okay? All right, so we talked about the visual threshold, not a care in the world. So what if it's a sound issue? Absolutely. Same thing, right? It's the exact same thing. If I'm playing thunderstorms, fireworks recorded sounds, I've gotta play it at a level. We talked about it just a second ago, where the dog doesn't have a care in the world. Remember we talked about the dog, you couldn't get it low enough and the dog was still freaking out. Why that dog would need medication? Okay, well listen, the dogs that don't need it, we get it to that level where there's not a care in the world. That's our starting point.
Speaker 4:Exactly.
Speaker 3:And we never increase or we never bring that distance closer to the dog when it's visual, until the dog is ready for it. We never bring the volume up on an auditory trigger till the dog is ready for it. You can only work as quickly as the dog's pace. Jordan was talking about all the very important things that you need to learn about canine body language so that you really understand what's going on on the inside of your dog. What's their emotional state? You know, you can't just go by observable outward behavior. What's their internal emotional state? Unless you know your dog really well, but again, they can't have a care in the world. So let's take one example, let's take one trigger, okay? And I'm gonna say, how about, let's do, um, dog aggressive. Okay? Okay. Because I think that's probably the mo more common one is, hey, I take my dog for a walk. My dog's dog aggressive. My dog, uh, was great, uh, at doggy day for a while, was great at the dog park, and all of a sudden it's going after dogs. Yeah, okay. Yeah, absolutely. Now, before we get started in that, we need some equipment. Yeah, what kind of equipment do we need to do this?
Speaker 4:Absolutely. The first thing that you're going to need, let's start with the obvious stuff. A nice good quality harness and leash. Okay? We need to have something that is not going to cause our dog any strain or stress in the event that we do accidentally put our dog over threshold and they start reacting, pulling on that leash. We don't wanna choke our dog and mess up our dog's necks. So we have to have a good harness. That way if our dog does react, we're not harming our dog a good quality leash. Because again, we wanna make sure that if our dog does react because mistakes happen, that our dog is not able to get off leash and get at whatever it is that he or she is reacting to. Next, we are going to need a good quality treat po Well, it doesn't really have to be good quality, but a treat pouch and something that I personally love, go to Walmart, Costco, Safeway, whatever. Go to your nearest grocery store and get these little squirt bottles at Walmart. They sell'em for like 97 cents. You know, the ones that uh, that like, you know, ketchup and mustard come in at the, at the restaurants that have the little, the little funnel thing on top of them. Nozzle,
Speaker 3:Nozzles, nozzle. Yeah, there we go.
Speaker 4:Nozzles. Get one of those. The reason why, like those, yeah, a little squeeze bottle. The reason I like that is because we're gonna take something like chicken, steak, beef, Turkey, whatever, and then we're gonna get some, you know, stock, some like, you know, soup broth. And we're going to mix that together in a blender until we get a consistency that is, you know, imagine kind of like a really runny, creamy peanut butter. That's kind of the consistency that I'm looking for here. And we're gonna fill that squirt bottle up because now I have a way to constantly feed my dog something very, very high value, very easily. I just squeeze it into their mouth. It's so simple. Once we have those things, you have the basic equipment that you need to get this work done. It's that simple. It really is. Now we have to start creating scenarios where we can control the stimuli and the triggers. If you, if you have friends that have dogs who are not reactive to other dogs, you can get in contact with them and be like, Hey, let's meet up at this location at this time because you know that there's not gonna be many other dogs in this location at that time where I have lots of room. It could be a park, a football field somewhere with lots and lots of space. And we're gonna start by turning the triggers down. And what I mean by that is we're going to put one dog on one side of the football field, the non-reactive dog, and then the other dog on the other side of the football field, maybe behind a wall or something like that where they can't see the other dog. Or it could even be vice versa. Whichever way works best for you. And then we allow the visual of the other dog to begin whether that is your dog being brought out from behind the wall or the other way around. And mind you come this point, we are a football field length apart and hopefully your dog is not reactive. We're not getting a care in the world from your dog. And once that happens, as soon as eye contact is made and that stimuli is now being exposed to your dog simultaneously, we are going to start feed, feed, feed, feed, feed, feed, feed, feed, feed that high value food for about five to 15 seconds. Then we're going to turn the trigger off by taking it out of view. And the moment that it is out of view, we stop feeding for about five to 15 seconds and then we're gonna do it again. And now a lot of people, they say, okay, cool, my dog has been successful three times in a row. Time to get closer. No, not necessarily. In fact, you may have to stay at that distance for weeks. Who knows? Your dog is the one who's going to guide this part of the training.
Speaker 3:So let me paint a picture because again, it's easy for us, you know, to understand how this works. Now, the way that counter conditioning works, okay, it's pairing two things, making a very black and white cause and effect association. And that is taking the offending trigger. In this case, we're talking about a strange dog. We're presenting that trigger. But at a distance, far enough away from your dog, if your dog has aggression issues towards strange dog far enough away where your dog can see the other dog, but doesn't have a care in the world. Now the way this starts, there's no food present, there's no trigger present. But you've got food, you've got this squeeze bottle full of yummy chicken paste, okay? Your dog doesn't see it, you've got it in your pocket, behind your back, something. Now all of a sudden your helper with the dog comes around a corner or from behind a blind, okay? And you have to know that your dog sees the trigger dog. As soon as your dog sees the trigger dog, then you take your squeeze bottle out and you start feeding your dog.
Speaker 4:Now will, what happens if when that trigger dog comes out, my dog starts reacting, what am I supposed to do then
Speaker 3:If that happens, you need to turn your dog around and get your dog out of there. Your dog's over threshold. You probably are done for the day. Yeah. And try it again tomorrow. And you need to be at a much, so be more conservative. Air on the side of caution. Okay? But I wanna say this again. This is really important. Do not present food until your dog notices the other dog. Exactly. I watch people, you know, the other dog comes out and they just start feeding, feeding, feeding. No, your dog needs to see the trigger. Then present the food to your dog and feed continuously, constantly. Feed, feed, feed, feed, feed for three to five seconds. And then we want that helper dog to move out of sight. When that helper dog moves out of sight, then you remove the food. The food is out of sight. It's a very specific sequence. I don't recommend that you use food pieces. I recommend you use the squeeze bottle and keep a constant stream of food going the entire time from the start of the dog seeing the trigger start feeding trigger goes outta sight. Stop feeding. Make sure you don't present the food until your dog sees the trigger. Now. Now let me just say this though. Yeah, cuz this is so important. Okay? So very important. I've seen this work and I've seen this not work. And little subtleties make the difference. If you follow that sequence, there's gonna come a point in time. You're gonna get out there, your dog's gonna look at the trigger and your dog is going to turn and look to you for the food. It's gonna happen because of the sequence, how you made it happen. Present the trigger. Now I give you food. Trigger goes away, food goes away. We're creating that black and white cause and effect association, creating a pairing of a trigger at a distance where the dog doesn't have a care in the world. And now getting the dog to start to understand through lots of repetition. Hey, when that trigger appears, the greatest thing in the world happens. You get this unbelievable yummy chicken. And if our timing's just right and if we keep the dog below a threshold, dog doesn't have a care in the world, the dog is going to love this game. And as soon as the dog sees the trigger, at some point when he understands how this all works, it's gonna get happy and excited and it's gonna look to you for the food then and only then have you done it correctly then? And only then have you done it correctly. The dog's feedback that I'm talking about is your gauge to know that you have done this correctly at the first distance. Now you get to move a little bit closer, a little bit. Don't get greedy. Don't get greedy, you get too close, it's gonna get scary and then it's gonna set you back. Little baby steps. You might be several weeks at that one. You know how, I don't know how long it takes for your dog to figure out the game and look at you for the food. When that happens, you get to move a little closer and you might do that for several weeks. And when your dog's loving that game, remember three to five times a week each session, five to 10 minutes long, gotta do it three to five times a week minimum. You can do it more. Very gradual progress. Always pairing high value food, always making that black and white cause and effect association. Now you gotta be sure that your dog understands what you're trying to associate. So if I go to this park, or maybe I'm doing this in my neighborhood, right? And I'm on my sidewalk by my driveway in front of my home and around the corner here comes my helper with the dog. Okay? And I walk out to there, here comes the helper with the dog. And I'm doing the feeding. It's all great. The helper and the dog, they leave. I stop feeding. We do that back and forth. I need to take my dog out sometimes. And that trigger not appear.
Speaker 4:Exactly. Absolutely
Speaker 3:Believe not feed the dog. Because the dog might think being in that location is why I get fed. Make sure your dog understand it's only because of the trigger of the
Speaker 4:Dog. Exactly.
Speaker 3:So you gotta play around with that a little bit by sometimes having the dog go into that situation, you know, and for 10 seconds there is no dog getting out of that situation, coming back into that location. And now there is a dog and then the feeding happens and maybe the next time there isn't a dog and no feeding happens. And the next time there is a dog and the next time there is a dog. But making sure that you're creating this very black and white cause and effect association. Needless to say, make sure you do these sessions when your dog is hungry.
Speaker 4:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3:Very hungry. Very hungry. Now it's not difficult.
Speaker 4:No,
Speaker 3:It is not difficult. It's patient. It's about being patient. It's about keeping this very simple. It's about keeping your dog below threshold. It's about avoiding triggers when you're not doing counter conditioning and desensitization, but a little bit over time, months probably, you'll be able to get closer and closer and closer and closer to the strange dogs. Now some of you are saying to me, Hey, where am I supposed to find these dogs? I don't have helpers, I don't have bait dogs that I can use. Well, here you go. There you go. Puppets.
Speaker 4:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3:Um, especially at a distance. Dogs do mean not, let me tell you. No, they don't know.
Speaker 4:I have three puppet dogs that I use and they work wonders. I'm telling you now, it can't just be any stuffed dog. It has to be idealistic. Yeah. Um, because the thing is, oh, like I I kid you not I I know I see it, I see the, the laughing comments and the laughing reactions in, in the video. But here's the thing. It works. It really does. It works. This is how much it works. I have a dog, her name is Harley. Okay? I had her with me because I was using both her and my puppets one day with one of my clients. And I went to the back of my vehicle, took out the, uh, the puppet dog that I was using and she watched me take this puppet dog out of the car as I closed the back of my vehicle and walked around the side with this puppet dog. Harley sees this puppet dog next to me cuz I ha I keep it on leash so I can kind of, so I can kind of walk the puppet dog. And she was at the window ears perked, just like looking at the puppet dog. Like what is dad doing with that dog? What is happening? That is how well they work. Literally five seconds later, Harley forgot that I just took this dog out of the back. I was like, what is, what is that? What is that? That's a dog. That's a dog, right?
Speaker 3:Trust us. We work with hundreds of dogs, thousands of dogs. We use these realistic looking puppet dogs and the dogs don't have a clue that they're not real. All right? Exactly. Once we start getting closer, then we start making sure we're dealing with real dogs. Okay. Exactly. But we can get very close, very close. If we've got a dog that's got a big threshold and we have to be very far away, um, we can use these puppets for a very long time to get closer and closer and closer and closer and closer. Yeah. Um, they work wonders. I use mannequins for people aggression.
Speaker 4:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Same thing. Okay. Same thing until we get close enough. Yeah. But the bottom line, when we're talking about a visual trigger Yeah. And we're primarily dealing with dogs that have fears, phobias or aggression towards dogs and people. And it's all the same. It's not difficult. It's as simple as I broke it down. Don't make it more complicated than that. Exactly. Now the only thing that I'll say that you need to think about, where does the upset begin? Yeah. So for example, people that say, Hey, my dog's aggressive when it goes for a walk, is your dog already anxious? The instant you take the leash out?
Speaker 4:I just, I just had this conversation with a client yesterday. Is
Speaker 3:This where you need to start your counter conditioning? Do you need to start pairing high value food rewards with just the leash being shown to the dog? And do that over and over for weeks? Do you need to then take weeks to little by little move a little closer to the front door? A little closer to the front door? Yeah. Opening that front door Is your dog all jacked up before you ever get out the door? Because every time your dog gets out the front door, it has a bad experience and becomes very reactive to other dogs. And so the cue the signal for your dog that those bad experiences with dogs are gonna happen, start the instant you take the leash out. Because if you start counter conditioning outside with the presentation of a dog and it's starting the instant you bring that leash out, it's not gonna work. Yeah. You're gonna have to back way up. Yeah. Way up. A classic one is, um, dogs that have, um, uh, phobias of riding in the car.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah. Oh,
Speaker 3:Absolutely. Trust me, that fear. But by the time your dog has developed that phobia, the fear starts way before you're pulling out the driveway. Absolutely. Okay. Absolutely. Um, and for some of you, you know, everything's fine when we go out the front door with the dog, but when we go out the door that leads to the garage. Oh, that's the cue. I've gotta go in the car with mom and dad to the groomers, or I gotta go in the car with mom and dad to the vets, or I gotta go in the car with mom and dad to doggy daycare, or I've gotta go in the car with mom and dad to the boarding facility. Yeah. And I'm falling apart. I'm trembling, I'm shaking, I'm drooling, I'm panicking. I'm petrified.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Okay. So we need to take a look at where does this anxiety, where does the stress? Yeah. Where does, remember the dog shouldn't have a care in the world. That's where we
Speaker 4:Start for where does the care
Speaker 3:Start? Where does the concern, where does
Speaker 4:The start? Some people, what you gotta realize is this is we are, we have a dog that we wanna get to step Z. Right? And step Z could be walking down the street next to another dog 10 feet away without my dog reacting, step Z could be my dog being able to successfully ride in the car all the way to the veterinarian. Getting into the car itself isn't necessarily even step one. Step one might be you putting on your shoes. Step one might be you opening the front door. Step one maybe for your dog is once they realize, oh, we're not going for a walk, we're going to get in the car because you're walking towards the vehicle versus towards the street where the sidewalk is. These are, this is what you have to think about. Now, there's a very important question that just got asked by Sandra that I really do want to address. Um,
Speaker 3:Boy, there's one in every group, isn't there?<laugh>, go ahead, Sandra. What's
Speaker 4:Your question? And so that question is, what if a dog isn't food motivated? That is a fantastic question.
Speaker 3:So let me tell you. Yeah. Um, if your dog is alive, your dog is food motivated. Absolutely. All right. Your dog has to eat to live. Um, now there's one of two things. Alright? There are dogs that truly just have really poor food motivation, food drive, what I call, yeah. Okay. Some very, very poor food drive. But then there are some owners that just don't have a good sense of what's high value food reward,
Speaker 4:Or how to appropriately help our dogs be a little bit more food motivated,
Speaker 3:Right? So one of the things that you can do, okay, is start testing different food items to find out, you know, what's best. And, and look, it's usually gonna be something that you and I like, you know, cut up hot dog. Yeah. Cook chicken. Mmm, cook steak, something like that. Okay. Um, and they're carnivores. Alright. I hear people say, well, my dog likes blueberries. Oh, give me a break. Okay? Your dog likes steak better than blueberries. I've never, no, I've never seen a dog that liked blueberries better than steak will.
Speaker 4:I had a client, I had a client who we had to use blueberries. And the reason for that was because it was because of food allergies
Speaker 3:For one. Yeah. Well, that's different.<laugh>. Okay, that's different. Put it out there in the poor soul, you know,
Speaker 4:But no. Yeah. So
Speaker 3:Rather they euthanize me if all I could have was blueberries. I don't know. You
Speaker 4:Know, and here's the thing. Here's the thing. The first step is you gotta find the high value food that your dog wants. That's the first step. Second step, it's like, well, Jordan will, I've done that. I've given my dog full layman yawn. I've tried wao beef. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, I've done ground beef, ground Turkey. I've tried it all. Okay, that's absolutely fine. Well, then a lot of dogs we might have to put onto a diet known as contra Free loading. Contra free loading is when we withhold their free food. Your dog no longer receives their food out of their food bowl. Yep. I am not telling you to starve your
Speaker 3:Dog. No. Your dog's getting, I'm saying as much food, if not more. Exactly. All right. It's getting all of its chloric needs
Speaker 4:Ex every bit of it. Yep. The way that it works is, let's say your dog gets two cups of food a day, right? Instead of putting one cup of food into the food bowl in the morning, and then one cup of food into the food bowl in the evening, you're gonna take one cup of food, put it into a baggy, put that into your treat pouch, and this is what you're going to use for training throughout the day. Your dog now learns, oh my goodness, if I wanna survive, if I want to eat, I gotta listen to mom and dad. I gotta do the training. Plain and simple. That is contra freeloading science shows that your dog would prefer to work for their food than take the free food. Anyways, it, it shows it. It's, it is, there's been multiple studies that have proved exactly this. So if your dog is not food motivated, first step, high value food, second step. If that's not working, let's switch to a contra freeloading.
Speaker 3:Yeah. You're gonna go ahead and use your counter conditioning and desensitization sessions for your dog to get its
Speaker 4:Food. That's when your dog eats and they're like, oh my goodness. It's eating time.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And quite frankly, um, why not do that anyways? Yeah.
Speaker 4:This
Speaker 3:Is, this is a very, these are serious problems, okay? And that is your power, that is your motivation. And if you withhold it and use it for training, it's gonna be that much more powerful. It's gonna go that much quicker for you. Absolutely.
Speaker 4:And
Speaker 3:For your dog. Absolutely. Now, you know, we've talked right now about the visual cues and we said, Hey, the rules are the same. Yeah. But for us, we do it every day. So we need to spell out what are we doing for a dog that has, uh, fears of thunderstorms or fireworks? How do we make the same type of counter conditioning, uh, work to help our dogs to be able to handle
Speaker 4:That? And, and so the way that I start that out, I'm gonna tell you how I start most of my clients out with the fear of thunderstorms. And then I'm gonna give you the more severe cases where I gotta change it up a little bit. How I, how I do those? So the vast majority of dogs that have a problem with thunderstorms or noises in general, I'm going to take a Bluetooth speaker and I'm going to go on YouTube and find a high quality video. Now, it's not about the high quality of the video itself, it's about the audio. Okay. I literally type in high definition thunderstorm audio into YouTube, and then I find the one that says 4K audio. Um, and then I'm going to play that on a Bluetooth speaker. Let's say your dog is in the back right corner of the house. I'm gonna take that Bluetooth speaker and I'm gonna put it in the front left corner of the house as far away from the dog as I can possibly make that speaker right Now, if there's lots of doors and walls and things like that between my dog and the speaker, I might need to get a little bit closer, okay? Because it is just a Bluetooth speaker. Um, and your dog does still need to hear it. And then I'm gonna turn that volume way down, turn it all the way down. Now, a big thing here is will, was talking earlier that you have to make sure that your dog notices the trigger. Now, when it comes to auditory triggers, it's a little bit different. Just a little bit. Basically, if your dog, when, if you press play and your dog suddenly whips their head and they're looking in the direction of where that sound is coming from, that's probably too much. We need to turn it down below that. Okay? So with that being said, if you can hear it, I guarantee your dog hears it. So you're looking for your dog to just be able to hear the noise. So we have the volume at volume 1.5, volume three, whatever it is where you can hear it. And your dog is not reacting to the noise. We press play and then feed, feed, feed, feed, feed, feed, feed, pause, stop, feeding, play, feed, feed, feed, feed, feed, feed, feed. Pause, stop feeding for about five to 15 seconds each direction. All right? And we're going to repeat this process for about five to 10 minutes. Okay? Now, outside of that, let's say you have a dog who just cannot handle even that. Well, let's take the speaker outside, let's move the speaker even further away. Let's get it as quiet as we possibly can, where we know that our dog can still hear it, but is not, but is not, uh, becoming reactive to that sound. Um, is there anything that you want to add to this process here with auditory, uh, triggers?
Speaker 3:Well, with, with auditory triggers, you know, sometimes because we're, we're using a sound system Yeah. And there are cues like pressing play and little bit of sound coming out, the speakers, you can also make it black and white for the dog to understand that it's the actual storm sounds or the, uh, sounds of, uh, fireworks by also throwing in and pressing play on a sound that's not related and not feeding. Yeah, Okay. I know that seems strange, but dogs are patterns and we need to make sure that they understand that it's specifically related to that sound. And so when we're talking about presenting a trigger, three to five seconds, okay, I might present the trigger for one second. Quick feed. Get rid of the trigger. Yeah. Present the trigger for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 seconds. Feeding the whole time trigger's gone. Present the trigger for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 seconds. Feed the whole time trigger's gone. Present the trigger for one, two seconds, feed for two, and gone mix up the amount of time. Yeah, absolutely. And pairing it with the trigger and the food back and forth. So it's very clear, Hey, it's, the reason this feeding is happening is definitely because of presentation of the trigger coming and going. And we've gotta be very clear whether that's an auditory trigger, whether that is a visual trigger.
Speaker 4:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Now when we're talking about grooming Yeah. And touch, oftentimes, you know, we've got grooming tools, so we've got the clippers or the rumble, we've got a brush, um, a hair dryer or something like that. Yeah. So there's a lot of things think about, got visual cues mm-hmm.<affirmative>, then we've got tactile pressure
Speaker 4:Cues. And sometimes we have
Speaker 3:Auditory and we've got auditory cues, right? Yeah. And so the first thing that we need to begin to do alright, is get the visual cues down as the visual triggers. Yeah. Getting those tools and visual triggers closer to the dog and the dog being okay using exactly the same principles that we talked about. Yeah. All right. It is the same, no matter what you're doing, don't complicate this.
Speaker 4:Yeah. And there's, there's a few options when it comes to these tactile issues. You know, one thing that I like to do is that squeeze bottle is a great tool. It absolutely is a fantastic tool. But another thing you can get is something known as a lick mat or, uh, you can even just use some tape, right? And you're gonna take that tape, put it on your fridge or your, your cabinet at your dog's height, and then you're gonna put a smear of peanut butter or a smear of your meat, uh, puree that you've created. Put it on there. And then you're going to present the grooming brush, present the Dremel, present the blow dryer. If you blow dryer your dog present the towel, present whatever the object is, the tool that we use to accomplish this task. And as we present it, we start letting the dog lick off of the lick mat lick off of the tape or, or lick off of, uh, the, the squeeze bottle. And we do that for five, 10 seconds. And then we stop letting them lick it at the same time as removing the visual stimuli of whatever that tool is. And we do that over and over and over. And eventually we pull that thing out and they go from going, oh my gosh, it's grooming time to, ooh, oh my gosh, it's feeding time, it's food. Where's my high value food? This is fun. And when that occurs, we're also simultaneously, if we're, if we're talking about trimming of the nails, one of the things that we have to get our dog used to is touching of the feet. So same thing. And
Speaker 3:Let me just say about touch, cuz there, there's a couple components to the touch. Yeah. Um, there's the amount of pressure. Yeah. So starting off at the lightest amount of pressure and pairing that with high value food and over time increasing the pressure. Okay. But then there's also the duration of pressure. You know, there's the, the pressure itself, and then there's how long that pressure. So imagine, you know, if I'd have a brush, of course, it's been a long time since my head saw a brush, but if I had a brush and I am touching the hair, like I said, it's been a long time since my head saw a brush, but if I'm touching my hair, there's a certain amount of pressure. But then there's also how long are you brushing? What's the duration? Okay? So you might be able to work up to, um, very light pressure for long duration, but you can't increase the pressure at all. Absolutely. You might be able to, um, get pressure for long duration and increase the pressure, but you can't move it. And so these are characteristics of triggers.
Speaker 4:Yeah,
Speaker 3:Absolutely. And there's all kinds of little things that might be what I call trigger layers. Okay. You know, a layer to a tactile trigger is going to be duration and pressure and also speed. How fast is the movement happening? Yeah, absolutely. Okay. It's one thing if you're very gently brushing lightly versus a hard pressure. Very vigorous brushing. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Um, so there's lots of things. We're looking at auditory, we're looking at the physical touch, the tactile triggers. Uh, we're talking about visual, auditory, all of it when it comes to veterinary's office, all of it when it comes to grooming. Yeah. Okay. Um, and then unfortunately the car's a part of that, right? Yeah. So it just becomes this whole vicious cycle and Yeah. You know, what door do we exit to get to the car? So again, taking a look from the dog's perspective, where does the concern start? Even mildly, you gotta back up from there. And that's where you start the counter conditioning and desensitization. Yeah. And studies. I told you, this is not a quick fix. The studies that are out there are showing that if we're committed to three to five times a week, um, what was the study? I think, um, I think it's good. Two sessions over 94 days, 70 something like that. 72 counter conditioning and desensitization sessions over about 90, 94 days. Um, so it's gonna take months. And the more severe, the more severe the trigger, the longer it's gonna take. Exactly. Now remember I said, really we're teaching this game that hey, it's the trigger that brings the good stuff. And when the trigger goes, the good stuff goes away. Right? Um, to teach your dog the game, pick the least offending trigger that your dog has to start with teaching the game of counter conditioning. Yeah. Okay. Once they understand the game for the first one, the second one goes a little quicker. Once they understand the game for the first one than the second one, the third one goes a little quicker. Don't get greedy. Don't go too fast. Okay? At any point in time you're working with a sound trigger and you're going up in the volume and your dog gets concerned and upset. You've gone too loud too soon. Any time you're working with a visual trigger, maybe a dog or a person, and your dog gets to a certain distance and it starts getting some kind of concern or care, you've gone too close too soon. You've got to go at your dog's pace. You've got to make sure that you're keeping your dog away from triggers, away from triggers. The only time your dog gets exposed to these triggers is when you're doing the work, it will get better. But there's some very specific guidelines that you need to follow. And it's none of it's difficult time consuming, inconvenient. We always say that it's inconvenient and time consuming. Um, but there's not a whole lot more to it than that. No, I know people wanna make it complicated, but that's what you do and that's how you begin to help your dogs. Now, if you're doing everything right, if you're doing everything right and you're working months and months and you're getting absolutely little to no improvement and you're doing everything right, well, maybe you've got a dog that might need medication, you might need to go see the veterinarian. Yeah. Okay. Um, you might need the help of a professional. You know, there are little nuances, you know, um, had a client that was working on getting their dog out the door because the dog had problems, um, on walks. Well, I got out there and came to find out no, their problems started when the leash came out. Yeah. And they were way over threshold starting things. They had to back way, way up. So sometimes it's just having that professional eye to be able to see what's going on. You might need a professional, but make sure that you're dealing with a professional that is a behavior consultant that understands what counter conditioning is, understands what desensitization is, understanding that these problems are rooted in fear and that they're not about punishing or correcting or it's not an issue of dominance. Okay. That really what you have to deal with is resolving the underlying fear and the anxiety. And when you have made that, uh, change, that emotional state now has a different meaning. When it sees that trigger, there's a different emotional state. Now you've really made some change. Yeah,
Speaker 4:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:You really made some change at a deep, deep level.
Speaker 4:Yeah, absolutely. And you know, we, we have, we have people in the, in the chat that are, that are asking about what about resource guarding? What about resource guarding? Well, the first thing I wanna say there is, um, resource guarding Absolutely. Fixing it is through a process of counter conditioning and desensitization. But, but, but, but that is a very in depth thing that requires mm-hmm.<affirmative> its own show. And we did well
Speaker 3:We did, we did
Speaker 4:Three Yeah.
Speaker 3:Specific shows on resource guarding. Yeah. Um, and, you know, you could go back and, and look through
Speaker 4:The feed.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Or go to the, uh, pet Talk Today podcast and look through that
Speaker 4:Feed. Maybe, maybe it's something that, that we can discuss about, uh, doing another series on, uh, resource guarding in the future. Because we had a, we had a lot of people, people that asked about that. And the only reason that we can't get to resource guarding, there's
Speaker 3:A lot of
Speaker 4:Steps. There's a lot. It is something that requires, it really does it require,
Speaker 3:Requires us to, with resource gardening, you know, how we talk about keeping the dog below threshold and being at a distance where the dog doesn't have a care in the world. Um, when we talk about the grooming issue, okay. We talk about, okay, there's a visual cue, there's an auditory cue, there's a tactile cue. Well, when we're talking about resource guarding, we've got a location issue. Okay. We have a specific resource issue. Yeah. We've got a distance issue. Um, we've got movement issues, we've got touch issues, we've got speed of movement issues, we've got height, direction, approach, direction. Yeah. So there's all these different things that we really have to do. Because you approach a dog one direction doesn't mean you can approach a dog a different direction and be okay. Um, and we would have to give it, it would be dangerous for us to give you a little bit of information. Yeah. And you get hurt.
Speaker 4:The resource guarding is easily the most common way to
Speaker 3:Get bit. Absolutely. Yeah. Most, most thing I'll tell you right now, don't take anything away from your dog. Yeah. All right. That's not the way to do it under any circumstance. Yeah. Don't take away anything from your dog. Okay. Um, you're usually gonna lose. They're quicker than you and usually they're gonna bite you before you're gonna get it. So don't take the stuff away from your dog right now. Trade, get something of higher value trade, you know, until you can do the work. Um, yeah. We can probably do a show again on resource guarding. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but, but that, that's very in depth. That's that And intrado aggression. Yeah. Multiple dogs in the same household fighting and resource guarding. Those are the two Yeah. Most in depth, difficult things that have more detail.
Speaker 4:And I think, I think really quickly, I think really quickly a, a good idea for us, the way that we end today's show is to kind of go over a few do nots.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 4:A few do nots. Like for example, I saw a comment earlier, I can't remember who asked in, I'm not gonna scroll back up. Um, I won't
Speaker 3:Shame you.
Speaker 4:Yeah.<laugh>. Um, now the, the question was we prefer harness over prong collar. Let's talk about that.
Speaker 3:Who
Speaker 4:Prefers that? Um, they were saying we as in us, you and I, um, well, when we're counter conditioning, um, and desensitizing Absolutely. What,
Speaker 3:What would I need a prong collar for? Exactly. Why do I, if, if I've got a dog that is in a situation where it doesn't have a care in the world, doesn't have a care in the world, happily taking food, I can't imagine why I would need a prong collar when I hear I need a prong collar, I'm hearing I've got a dog that's outta control and I'm gonna use force pressure punishment to get the dog under control. Absolutely. Um, and if your dog's outta control, you're too close to the trigger. If you need a prong collar to control the dog, and if you think that the prong collar is what's really helping you, your dog, if it's over threshold, emotionally might be reacting with outward, observable behaviors that are seemingly out of control. And now we're using this prong collar to try to control the dog. All we're doing is suppressing outward behavior. You have not changed the dog's perception as far as wanting to be aggressive or reactive, uh, towards that trigger. You just put a lid on top of it. Now the dog has no outlet and the pressure starts to build and build and build that gets worse. Um, so no, we would never use a prong collar for counter conditioning and desensitization. We would never need to use
Speaker 4:One. Exactly. And then another do not is if your dog has become triggered mm-hmm.<affirmative>, if you've accidentally pushed your dog over threshold, you can not do the counter conditioning. We are now only reinforcing that bad behavior.
Speaker 3:We're reinforcing an emotional state. Exactly. Of panic, anxiety. Exactly. Rage.
Speaker 4:And then a lot of people think that when our dog gets into that emotional state, that the answer is to cuddle and tell'em it's okay and pet them and love them. No,
Speaker 3:No. You're positively reinforcing exactly that particular
Speaker 4:State. I get it. I get it. When, when we're talking about our children, our human children, that is much different. It is much different to look at your child and say, it's okay. It's okay. I know that you're feeling these emotions. It's okay. Let me love you and help you regulate these emotions. Because humans, as humans, we don't see as black and white as dogs do. We aren't as binary. We're, we're we, are we, we see levels and depth behind all of our situations so we can interpret situations and interpret gray areas. Whereas dogs, it's black and white, plain and simple. When I'm coddling my dog because he is scared and fearful, yes, it is absolutely potentially going to help our dog feel better, but it is reinforcing that emotional state. That's another no-no. Another one is a lot of people, they don't really understand the importance of timing. You have to make sure that trigger starts feeding starts, trigger stops, feeding
Speaker 3:Stops in that specific order. Feeding does not start before the trigger. And just because the trigger is there doesn't mean you start feeding. The dog has to see the
Speaker 4:Trigger.
Speaker 3:Exactly. When the dog sees the trigger, then the feeding starts. Exactly. When the dog sees the trigger leaving, the feeding stops.
Speaker 4:Exactly.
Speaker 3:When it's auditory, it's uh, now it's the cue of the sound starts feeding starts. Exactly. Sound stops. Feeding stops.
Speaker 4:Exactly. Exactly. And so we actually just got the question. Um, I I love this. Somebody just said, don't tell'em it's okay if it's clearly not okay. That's right There. You are smart enough to know. Um, and so we just got the question, what do we do if they are scared and shaking during a thunderstorm? Well, the first thing is you have to look at your weather, be like, okay, we're gonna have a thunderstorm tonight. Be prepared. And as soon as that atmospheric pressure is changing, if that's queuing your dog to start becoming fearful, as soon as that begins, that's where we start our work. We start creating a positive environment. One of the things that we love to tell our clients to do is you find a closet in the middle of your house and make it nice and comfy for them. Keep the clothes in there to dampen the sound. And science shows us dogs. Favorite music for calming is reggae. All right. I'm very serious. Reggae is the best thing. Play some reggae music, let your dog know that this is a calm situation. But before your dog can start reacting
Speaker 3:To the, did my dog have c b d with the reggae,
Speaker 4:You know, that's
Speaker 3:Great question. Science
Speaker 4:Has also shown us that c b d one is not helping with anxiety, but more so than that it is also destroying our animals' livers. Yeah. Um, so we do not recommend cbd. Um, now, uh, this show is getting very, very long. Um,
Speaker 3:And, and we do have to wrap it up folks. Yeah. And we apologize. You know, we started late, but we're, we're at an hour and a half. Yeah. And we had a jump back in because we had, uh, technical difficulty today. Um, take a look through the questions, Jordan, see if there's one in there that really stands out, um, that we can answer. And then, and we need to wrap
Speaker 4:This out. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So we actually, let's see.<laugh>. Okay. Okay. Okay. So we have a question right here. So the question is that Robin says, uh, that both of her, Jack Russells have normal reactions to delivery people, but become shaken intense. When males come near the house also come dark, one of them will wake up barking, growling and has bit her twice, um, within a month time period. He's had a fear of darkness that has gradually gotten worse over a couple years, but now is very disruptive. Um, they have worked with a vet and they just started gabapentin. So, you know, when I'm looking at this, I'm seeing that we can identify a
Speaker 3:Few triggers here. Oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Yeah. When you say you've worked with a vet, has this dog's eyes been examined? That's what
Speaker 4:I was going to
Speaker 3:Say. Veterinary ophthalmologist.
Speaker 4:That's what I was going to say first was let's
Speaker 3:Look at first and foremost, listen, I don't care what you do. Get your dog to a veterinary ophthalmologist. Okay. You start telling me that things are going on when it gets dark, there's usually one or two things going on. Okay. Either have a very old dog and we're talking about sundown or syndrome. Yeah. Or we've got a dog that is having visual problems and their night vision typically goes before the daytime vision. So, um, let's rule that out first. Yeah. And foremost. Okay. Um, and maybe you
Speaker 4:Have Yeah, but
Speaker 3:That's what I wanna say about that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Now we also have some very identifiable characteristics here that we need to counter condition and desensitize. The first one we have it males, specifically males coming near the house. So that's what we need to work with. We need to work with males and we have to figure out where that dog's threshold is, how near the house is near the house. And then we take it a few steps further away
Speaker 3:From Well, and then the question is, um, is this something that happens when the dog is outside or is it when the dog's in
Speaker 4:The houses
Speaker 3:Or both? And how are they different? And how do we then set up our counter conditioning and desensitization training sessions different as a result.
Speaker 4:Exactly. Exactly. Then we have a situation where it is our dog sleeping. Our dog sleeping, wakes up, gets startled and has bit, has redirected the bite. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. So first things first, I'm assuming, and I could be wrong here, I'm assuming that that was because the dog was sleeping near you, near your feet, or in your bed with you on the couch with you, things like that. The first step is we gotta teach our dog to go sleep somewhere else. Get a good place command, get our dog used to sleeping on that place. Cot, get our dog used to that because now if something wakes them up and startles them, they're not going to be able to redirect and bite us. Plain and simple. Um, and then we need to start teaching our dog and all of our family members how to appropriately wake up our sleeping dog. And that is from a distance. We get our dog's attention by saying their name, something like that. Once our dog is awake, I then immediately give them a task. I tell them here, I tell them place, whatever it is, I give them a task, something to do. So my dog has to think. It breaks that cycle of I've just been startled. Let me find something to redirect. Instead I go, Harley, Harley wakes up, and then I redirect her. Plain and simple, just like that. Um, and again, the fear of darkness, that's gradually gotten worse. We're looking at get those eyes checked. If you haven't, we need to check your dog for visual deficits. Um, other than that, uh, I hope that that answers your question, Robin. Thank you all for listening. Um, today's been a very informative day and I'm very glad that we were able to get through all of that.
Speaker 3:Well, we've ran over time. That sound means that we are definitely outta town. Absolutely. Out of time today. Um, do us a favor, people, if you haven't hit that like button, please hit that share button. Uh, be sure to tell your friends and family about Pet Talk today so that they can benefit, uh, from what we do here. We'll see you next Saturday. Have a fantastic weekend, everybody. Work with your dogs.