AN OPEN-MINDED PODCAST.
Ep. 16 Transcript
Episode 16: unPACK Session (Allison)
​
00:00
This episode of Unpacked is brought to you by the Complex Canine Community, a supportive space for owners of complex and complicated dogs. This is a truly one-of-a-kind space in the dog world. Jess Adam, licensed therapist and coach with a passion for helping the human side of the leash, helps guardians and trainers work through the very real emotions of working with big feeling dogs, drawing from proven clinical psychotherapy techniques. In this community, you'll have access to discussion threads, a resource library,
00:30
professionally-led monthly support calls, and opportunities for community connection. You can use code unpackedpod, that's U-N- to get a month free when you join the Complex Canine community. Go to Comp or click the link in the show notes and use code unpackedpod for a free month.
00:58
Welcome to Unpacked, an open-minded podcast taking a clinical, not political approach to helping pet parents around the world. I'm Sailor Jerri, certified dog trainer, virtual dog training revolutionary, owner of Tulsa Pack Athletics and creator of The Open-Minded Approach. And I'm Mattison, her friend, certified dog trainer and behavior consultant. Together we have nearly three decades of experience in behavioral dog training.
01:22
We've been working with real dogs and the humans who love them to create solutions to problematic behaviors that feel too big for them to tackle on their own. In this episode, we are giving you a peek into our worlds and minds, following through on our promise to add transparency to this industry. This is your chance to listen in as we fully unpack a case plan with one of our incredible guests. You will hear a breakdown of specific suggestions and protocols that are given at the start of a training program.
01:50
You will also hear every question our insightful and inquisitive guests toss at us. If you're looking for a glimpse behind the scenes of detailed training plan conversations, settle in with us and unpack.
02:04
Well, Alison, we're super excited to get into your plan. And this is kind of neat because we are, you know, in the general same part of the world and country, which doesn't happen too often. I don't find myself in the city very often because it's just not really my scene, but I do, when all this is said and done, have a couple of people that I can point you in the direction of if you should need some more help in person. So it is helpful when we have kind of that connection to be able to do that.
02:34
Um, but yeah, we really just want to prep you, I think, for something that we're really excited about. And that is you getting to work with one of our students who has offered to donate a daily program to you and Lucy. And so that's going to be starting on Monday, Jerri. I don't know if I've fully looped you into that, but she started with Holly. I saw Holly Monday. I saw Holly's name in the Slack feed and I was like, oh,
03:02
Allison, ask Holly how many languages she speaks when you meet her. I won't be able to interact with any of them, but... She's one of the few people in my life I've met that I'm fully, fully aware has a level of intelligence far higher than my own, yet somehow hides it with humility. I don't even know. She's really cool. You're really going to like her. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. And...
03:32
I think that you and Lucifer definitely are going to benefit from that daily interaction and sort of being able to adjust and advance things that frequently. So let me just go through a little bit of the high level situation. And I'm also excited to talk a little bit about how things have been going with some of these fundamental skills, because I know you've already had some like small wins and things so I do want to touch on that.
04:01
For the listeners out there, Allison is living in an urban environment in Philadelphia. And that can be especially tricky with a reactive dog. And Lucifer, Lucy, affectionately known as Lucy, has a moderate to high level of reactivity, both on the leash and kind of within his own apartment and the city environment. And a lot of the sound triggers are...
04:28
pretty intolerable to him and we're seeing a lot of like restless behavior. And some of that persists from before you were in quite as busy of, you know, of a neighborhood or, or area. But we also have a lot of stranger danger where he is pretty nervous meeting anybody outside of his immediate social circle and is going to display some aggressive behavior in that case. He's, he's trying to get space. He wants them to move away.
04:56
So when we have a situation like this, where there is a lot of behaviors that we are trying to sort of get our arms around, I think it's important to bucket them into goal groups where we are really being focused on where we can get started. And I think your modification plan, but really the whole framework.
05:20
in the situation is like a one foot in front of the other kind of a thing where we've just got to start with the easiest and lightest triggers and get some more kind of decompression skills in response to those before we can ever dream of tackling some of those bigger ones. And in this case, we also have something that we don't always have a bunch of information on a dog's background or on kind of the beginning of their life.
05:49
We do know that Lucy had a pretty unstable puppyhood, to say the least. One might even call it traumatic in the events that happened in the early weeks and months of his life. And so it's not something that we are going to focus on. And Jerri and I both as trainers really never get into the war stories of it, because we just don't see the value there. But we do think it's important to acknowledge when you have something.
06:18
that occurs during those really, really key early phases of development. Because there are things that happen in the brain, and there are things that happen in the brain that need help healing when there's that kind of trauma. I thought it was sad. And I've heard so many stories. I'm not saying that they're not all sad. I've just heard all of them. And then when you share one like that, though, where you know...
06:44
Like that would have been traumatizing for me. That would have been traumatizing for one of my children. That would have been scary and no stability, complete isolation for a long, you know, hearing everything that's going on, but not being able to, to understate and or process that definitely will do something to you. I think regardless of species. And I think we see that carried over in what Jerri and I in our discussions see as
07:14
One of the most sort of concerning pieces here, which is his sound sensitivity and the number of kind of fear and panic moments he's experiencing within a day a week without being able to kind of reset from that. And that's not something we see that often where it's kind of that frequent and that much where we would feel, you know, that it's really pivotal to moving forward is really working on that and starting there.
07:44
Um, which is, like I said, it's kind of a different, uh, different approach for us, I would say, but the, the groups that we have sort of bucketed for you, the first one is managing arousal. And that's something that we just want to start building skills to make the everyday a little bit less stressful. The stuff that is already a part of your life, um, building some just stronger, more active management.
08:13
strategies and styles, both in the home end and out in the world, because we don't have a backyard where we can take them out to go to the bathroom and avoid all the triggers. That's not possible. We are in a city. We have to go out amongst the people and the chaos just to go to the bathroom. So building more active management there is definitely going to be part of the beginning phases. And then again, focusing heavily on that sound sensitivity.
08:42
And I do want to also pause and give you a chance for your questions, but it seems like there had been some improvement or progress or noticeable shift with the sound sensitivity or the barrier reactivity using some of GP's just foundational skills of managing the arousal. Yeah. So he will definitely check in with me a lot of times when he hears a trigger, especially in the home. Like that's...
09:10
That's where we're seeing the most improvement outside. We haven't seen anything yet, even sounds or anything. But he does understand that, like, I'll try to redirect him with treats or try to redirect him with toys or whatever. So he's like, sometimes I think he even pretends to hear something that I don't hear so that he can come up to me and get a treat because he knows that that's gonna pick me up. Teacher, pick me. Teacher. Yeah. Teacher, pick me.
09:38
I, that stuck out to me. I like highlighted it and wanted to say something about it. Um, it can be hard, but I think it's important. And Allison and I had like a brief chat about this of pulling apart and deciding and being able to differentiate between emotionally fueled behavior and attention seeking behavior. Yeah. That's, that's, that's kind of where I was going with it. Can you tell me Allison, what the percentage of the time that that dog spins?
10:06
That dog, I don't know why I said it like that. That sweet little tiny lacy. You're looking at him. Man. You're looking at him. I know, you tell me right now what that dog, that's kind of more my... Tell me how much time, like give me a rough percentage of how much time you think he spends in the water and out in the woods or out in an environment that would be similar to that. Versus verbin. Okay. Okay, bye. We go like once a week.
10:34
to an empty field where I can help him decompress. But even then sometimes the sounds in the suburbs are too much. So we do our best, but often he's like, okay, I'm done. I'm out, like over threshold. I can't handle it anymore. So we are 99% of the time urban. I want to take a second and talk about this, Mattison. You have what you described as an American
11:04
bread labrador. And I'm not trying to get into like some serious pedigree conversation because that's not the point. But American bread labs are different than English bread labs. They have a much higher drive. They have smaller heads, more narrow muzzles. They're generally a little bit lighter, like not as like heavy of a skeleton. And they have what I would consider to be generally pretty high arousal.
11:33
outside of their also high drive to retrieve and do things like that and work in the wood. I think I just, I have a lot of clients in Philadelphia as well in the city. I just got done with one that I posted about today and she has a pit bull named Malcolm and she lives right in the city just like you. And I have done this enough now and seen enough dogs all over the
12:03
of what we are describing as reactivity or sound sensitivity is maybe perhaps being mislabeled. And let me qualify that. Those dogs are made to stand next to gunfire. They're not sensitive to sound. I think what's happening is that sound sensitivity is a byproduct of them not being able to process the environment that they're in.
12:32
I want to just make sure that we're not, and I'm not saying this to Mattison because she, her and I have in-depth conversations about this. I'm saying this to the listeners that where is the sound sensitivity coming from? Where is it from a dog that just has general anxiety because they live in an environment that's not conducive to what they are? Is it because they've had a traumatic event? Is it, you know, all these different kinds of things. But I...
12:59
It's just something I've really been thinking a lot about lately. So go easy on yourself and remember that he is what he is. And the most important thing that you'll ever be able to do for him is let him be who he is. And that involves water, that involves retrieving in any way that you can make that happen, you know, just those kinds of things. And I think if you set your intention there, it will keep you from going mad.
13:29
like that are really bred to work in partnership with a person. And he is obsessed with you. So being able to engage with you and having things be about being a team out in the world, I think that could shift things, making things be goal oriented of we are doing this together. We have a goal together because that's what retrievers are for. They are to work in partnership with their human. Yeah, I would encourage you
13:59
If you have never watched field trials, to watch how incredibly brilliant those dogs are, I mean, they will move off like a person moving this many degrees of their hand or this many, it's really, you know, they're capable of a lot, so just get creative and we can, Holly will certainly help you with that. Get creative on how you can fulfill that. She has a real passion with scent work as well. So she may have some ideas on how to put his nose to work.
14:27
Yes, we did an Easter egg hunt on Sunday. That's amazing. So the next sort of bucket or group of goals is the barrier reactivity. And that is, again, very much grouped with the sounds and the activity of the apartment lifestyle and apartment living. And we have been managing the visual and working on just building some general.
14:53
decompressed, relaxed energy. Because Lucy hasn't been really offering up a lot of like off switch time. He's been kind of ziggy-dee-boo-woo, go, go, go. Um, and we want to help him learn how to turn it off. But to Jerri's very, very important point, we need to balance that with finding additional and more creative ways to meet his needs. And I think there is a level of.
15:22
anxious energy and emotions driving some of his behaviors. But I think that we also see this sort of restlessness as a byproduct of us really having challenges in terms of checking those boxes because it's not as easy as walking out your back door. It's just not. And so it's not something that can be done every day maybe, right? So there are ways to create compromise and to kind of build a routine that just makes
15:51
a ton of sense for both you and for Lucy. So we can be really setting him up for success, finding the things that make him just step into who he is, while also kind of looking at the things that are more emotionally driven and less sort of just needs driven. And the next bucket is the leisure activity. Now this is the one that we know we're not going to be...
16:19
you know, maybe seeing that progress immediately or tackling this immediately until we can start to see some of the skills and offer some of those skills in easier environments than being on a city street, whether that's in your apartment or whether that's finding a more neutral location to start working. I don't know. And Jerri, I kind of had a question pop up in my head. And maybe you have the answer from some of your city clients, but, and Allison, I might be putting a question in.
16:48
in your mouth, so please tell me if you're like, yeah, no, I didn't. I wasn't worried about that. But how do we balance meeting needs and fulfilling a dog when the act of going there, the location, immediately sends them past threshold? Because the answer can't be don't go there. Well, they need it. Right. So now we're in this catch-22. So what are your thoughts there? So I think you have to get pretty creative about what you're willing to do. I posted a video today of the dog in silly.
17:18
And he's holding his chew toy as they go in and out of, because it's comforting to him, it helps him. He's got something to do. But man, you walk out the door and the streets just on top of you. And the doors are just right there. Like he didn't even know which door was his. He was like, well, this one seems fine. You know, they all look the same. It really is a lot of, I'm gonna say it again, creativity.
17:47
and thinking outside of the box in terms of this. The box is what dog traders say. The box is what you can't, well, you shouldn't let it have his bow like that. What, you know what? You know, this is what it is. So it may be little things like that. I know with my last client, she was very, very willing to use her car. She was very willing to get in her car and just go places because it was so much easier for us to work on.
18:16
front door to car and then the car, which went great because we're protected, right? So it's like this little mobile hamster bubble. Well, I guess all hamster bubbles are mobile. It depends how much you're willing to work. Right? Exactly. And then when you get to said park or area that you're going to, you can repetitively practice that one place.
18:40
And it will be floppy the first few times. You just accept it. And it's just gonna look like shit and feel like shit the first couple times. And if you're lucky, well, if you're lucky, but the reason that you go to these places often and sometimes without your dog, so you can get a pattern of what is it like there? Run a little algorithm for me on this park. What are the- I love data. You know, I love data. Art. That's right.
19:08
You've got to get the data. And are there off-leash dogs running through here once a day? Well, that's a problem. So I think being willing to use your vehicle if you have one, and if you don't have access to do that, you have to stick to the same places. And for the love of God, learn patterning. There has to be some kind of structure, because there is. It's a lot. A song and dance.
19:35
Let's do a song and dance and make it seem every time. Five, six, seven, eight. When you give them something to expect that they can predict, it's much easier to fall into paying attention to that than the chaos that you perceive to be around you. Isn't that it? That was perfect. Perfection. Oh, yes. Okay, well, if he really didn't like that, then he's definitely not gonna like bucket number.
20:04
Number five, which is cooperative care. I'm glad that was his response to my area of expertise. Cooperative care is not. So, Raoul, all you want to tell me. Oh my gosh. That was hilarious. So Lucifer struggles with the nails and the tub. And we do have a framework to start working on that. Again, it's not something that is at the very, very top of our list, but a lot of the things that we're going to be doing.
20:31
and a lot of the skills that we're gonna be building, we can translate over to some of that communication with him. But knowing that that's not the most urgent goal for you, that one kinda got scooted down. So I wanna pass it back to you and see if you have any questions from the plan. I know that we've done some foundational work on like managing the reactivity in the apartment, some stationing, some muzzle, very, very beauty, the stages of muzzle conditioning.
21:01
So we've been working on the place stay and actually on Sunday when we did our Easter egg hunt, I was super impressed that he stayed in place while I put the eggs out. That sounds so much fun. I bet we can do something like that regularly with him where we are, you know, using that established skill to just, you know, work his brain a little bit and then rewarding him with something that is super fulfilling of getting to go around and find food.
21:31
Yeah, and then so the muzzle, like we haven't clipped it yet, but we have like, our face has been in it and long enough to do more than one treat through the thing. We got the- Don't clip it yet. I'll send the next step of the sort of process, the four steps, but we're not at clipping it on his face yet. Clip it. We've kind of been using like, it's a little bit different, but we've kind of been using like the same idea of the consent with the muzzle to kind of-
22:00
get some other things as well. Like we have wipes that we use since we can't get in the tub right now. And I've been, he's never been a fan of those. So I've been like asking for his consent essentially to use them now and using the treats to associate that positive like idea with it. And he did that with his brushing this weekend too, to brush his hair out and stuff. Good. Doesn't work so much with like sound things like the vacuum at least yet.
22:30
We're going to have to break that down into like, we call them approximations. It'll just be like basically a recording of a vacuum on a lower volume and Holly will guide you through that. And that's one of the ways I struggle with because he doesn't always have an issue with the vacuum. So a lot of the times I think it's more of that attention seeking behavior and not an issue with the sounds from the vacuum because when he's fine, he's fine. He just lets it go.
22:59
lets the vacuum happen. I disagree with that. And I'm going to disagree while also saying that your hypoxosis is also possible. I just think it's more likely that there are days where he's over on his baseline and he's going for the vacuum then. I think that dogs do things that are more statistically probable to get them what they want.
23:26
they're not able to manipulate attention in the way that I believe. Sometimes we think they are. I think they do the thing that most likely gets them what they're looking for. So it might just be on those days, again, it could be possible, but it might be on those days that he's just up here and then, oh, I threw my pen. Just like that. Yeah. Just like that on the vacuum. I'm not able to.
23:56
He had to kind of pull those up. That was for dramatic effect. He had to push the buttons. So sometimes when he wants to follow the vacuum around, he'll turn it on. And then other times when he's tired of it, because it's a cheap Roomba, he'll turn it off and send it home. He's like, no, that's enough. OK, so it's an automatic vacuum. Yeah, it's slightly different. Slightly different. Yeah, because he'll have worked too hard to send that. I was going to say, I'll have to touch face with Holly and.
24:25
and tell her to give us a Roomba updates. Right. Yeah, it's not like all the time. So like, it's hard to catch on video, but he does. Sometimes he's like, okay, no, no, thank you. I'm done with this. Another question I have in regards to like the leash reactivity. How, because sometimes it's necessary to have someone else walk him. How do I not worry that they can't handle him?
24:52
in the city. Like, does that make sense? A thousand percent it makes sense. I know that I can handle him because we've been doing this for so long and it's hard when we're walking and he reacts. But like sometimes I have to travel for work or something where I just can't get out of it or if I get stuck at work and would need to send someone to walk him or whatever. At the moment I can't trust anyone to do that because I just don't feel like anyone could handle this. What do you think is behind you not trusting anyone to do that? Do you think that...
25:20
No one is physically capable of understanding the instructions or physically capable of doing it. There's a couple things that first of all, I don't want to put anyone in a situation where they feel uncomfortable of like they wouldn't know what to do when he reacts. Okay. So what would precipitate that? Do you see what I'm getting at here? I'm working backwards. It's okay. That's okay. Let's work it backwards.
25:49
So the reason I think that you have that feeling, and you'll correct me if I'm wrong, is because you don't have anybody that you can trust. You just said that, the reason you don't have any. And let's say that that person appears. Well, that would mean you would trust them because they had the knowledge that you have, and you had worked with them on making sure that they had it. That would be the only way to bring about that trust. So it's not that the person doesn't exist. It's that you gotta train them up. You gotta train them up.
26:19
And then you do, there's no way for a person to just be out there unless they specifically knew that they're a dog driven and walks dogs, which I had yet to come across that person. What you're, what you're wanting is not statistically possible. There's not a person out there that's like that, but there is a person out there that's totally capable of learning what you're saying and, and maybe coming and visiting a couple times and learning the protocols. And then you would feel comfortable.
26:49
that like, okay, they physically saw what I was doing. I explained it, I've got a handbook that I left them, they're down, that would be a trustworthy person. And I think he could do that. Yeah, I often, a part of it probably comes from the fact that a lot of the people I talked to just can't imagine doing as much as I do for him. And they add so much, they're like, that's why our dogs should just like, you know.
27:16
be walked and that's it or whatever. It's too much of an emotional and more time than most people expect. Well, I'll tell you that people do the same thing with children. People do the same thing with children. They think that and then they have a baby with Down syndrome and then they figure out like, it's not extra stuff. This is my life. This is who I have. This is what it is. So to the right people, it's not extra. You just have to have the right kind of people around you.
27:46
And lucky for you, I know a bunch of Philly dog owners that also have reactive dogs that would love to have a little group. Yes, because that's I also like, I just never know what what to do in those situations, because sometimes like you can't say no to like, like I have to earn the money to pay for all the things that I need to help it with. That's I can't say no, I can't travel for work. But then.
28:14
my options at the moment are drive him to DC, to my mom's house, to drop him off, to come back to work, to travel. Yeah, that's a lot. We want to build at least one other option. Clothes. Yeah, I like that. Ideally more. And I do have someone who at least is willing for me to like come out to her, she's in the suburbs and she's at least willing to be like helping him get desensitized to people.
28:42
And so I don't know if maybe if we do that, if she'll understand the level that it would take to walk him or whatever it may be. It's just not an option that we completely dove into yet. Yeah, well, Jerri and I know quite a few people. So we will see who we can connect you with through this process. And on Monday, you'll start with Holly and spend four weeks working with her every day. And she and I will be touching base throughout the process. All of us will be. And...
29:10
You are just in the best hands and we're so excited to see all that you guys can do in just those four weeks. Yeah, we're really excited too because like I said, we've made some big, big progress even just doing what we've done so far. Though I will say the demand barking at least like so yesterday for instance, because we had some tummy trouble and so I was cleaning up after it and he's...
29:38
yelling at me the whole time that I'm not paying him attention, that I'm cleaning up after him. That can be top of the list for something that you and Holly are just regularly looking at and digging and getting curious and figuring out what is the barking really about. And then I think we can address it based on what it's communicating. So.
29:59
Okay, I will be checking back in on Monday just to see that things have, you know, gotten started and rocking and rolling. But thank you so much for coming on with us today. Yeah. Going through the plan. We are just again so excited to have you here and to see you work with Holly. And please do reach out to us if you have any questions in the meantime. Yes, thank you so much. Bye. See you.
30:26
Unpacked was created by Jerri Sheriff and Mattison Simpson, edited and produced by Josh Wasta under the supervision of Straight Up Dog Talk, LLC and Emily Breslin. If you are enjoying this podcast, follow or subscribe to be sure you don't miss an episode and leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. Looking for more honest and relatable dog content? Check out our sister podcast, Straight Up Dog Talk. See you next time.