Ep. 8 Transcript

Episode 8: unPACK Session #4 Kami

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00:03
This is your look behind the scenes as we unpack intra-household conflict and Daisy and Duke's case plan with Cammie.

00:11
the assessment, we talked a little bit about, and when I say we, I mean, Jerry and I, Jerry and I discussed that, you know, there obviously was conflict between Daisy and Duke for always, right? And it was something that just seemed to be like a mismatched preference, just due to their personalities, right? But it was the corrections and her response to his, just Duke mostly just being Duke, right? Just being a goofy guy and she's like not having it. And...

00:40
I think it's one of those where she was, and I hate to simplify it down to a word that's gonna seem as cavalier as this one, but I really think Daisy was just annoyed, right? Like that's where it probably started, was she was super annoyed and it started with, get off, leave me alone. Get off, leave me alone, right? And it would, but when that isn't listened to over time, right, it's gonna be, get off, leave me alone.

01:06
get off, leave me alone. And at a certain point I'm throwing bows, right? Like I'm gonna make sure that my boundaries are respected. So I do think that the core of where this started, we didn't have like a resource issue. It wasn't like one was reacting and then they redirected on one another. It seems like it was just that she was really annoyed and her boundaries weren't being respected. So we definitely want to...

01:32
in order to safely reintegrate them. Because even though it is, from our perspective, it is Duke's behavior that is the first kind of domino to tip over, right, to tip over. But Daisy's escalation is where safety becomes an issue. So that's why the muzzle training is, I think, more important. Muzzle training is important, I think.

01:58
for both of them. And it's a skill that we're gonna continue to do for both of them because we would never wanna have a situation where, I don't know, if Duke was getting Nibbly with her, you know what I mean, or in some way, to where she would be more restricted than him. But I just don't think that we're going to need the muzzle with Duke as much as often or as critically as I think that we need it with Daisy, to be able to change how we feel.

02:25
about the situation. 100%. I was like, for me, like I look at them and I'm like, oh, you're still separated. Like it kind of makes me sad, but then I'm the thought of not having that barrier. Yeah. Right? And like experiencing that again, I'm just like, no, not a fan. And that's gonna put you in a certain frame of mind when we are trying to reintegrate that is gonna have you on edge, which Daisy is gonna read as, oh yeah, me too. Like I'm on edge too.

02:55
I'm ready, mom. Yeah. Okay, so then for Duke, again, I think it is just mostly just that he is more rambunctious than what Daisy would choose for her housemate. It doesn't mean that she doesn't have some form of doggie love for him, right? Because they obviously do, they did have a good relationship before things turned south. But in order to safely reintegrate them, we put in a lot more structure so that

03:23
when Duke is not making the choice that we need him to make, we can really influence him towards that. And regardless of what choice he makes, we make sure Daisy's boundaries aren't crossed. So we're gonna talk about getting different kinds of barriers to be able to kind of play around with that. And we'll just slide into the next page, which is the management system. And I just wanna compliment you again on how thorough your management is

03:52
You know, I can tell you were not gonna let anything fall through the cracks. You were not gonna let this happen again by accident. You know what I mean? This is something where, and this type of management is really, really critical. However, even when we are that buttoned up, you know, management fails still happen. Like mistakes happen, gear breaks, right? Like we can have a gate just totally not hold up. My cousin has like an 85 pound dog and he wanted to get one of those just pressurized gate. I said, kid, if you do not...

04:21
get hardware and mount that thing in. Like there's just no way. Yeah. So, you know, we, even though management is really good and really important to be buttoned up, that's why I think it's really important to step into a solution and actually working on changing the emotions because man, like create and rotate is great, but I just know in my experience, more often than not, eventually something happens. And we just don't want, we don't want to ever get to that point. Yeah. Okay. And it's our reaction too. Like we had a,

04:51
we had a situation, I don't know how long ago it was, but like, you know, miscommunication, right? Cause there's a lot of people in the house. So miscommunication and one dog was here and, you know, Duke came down and actually kind of jumped over Daisy, like didn't realize she was there. And I didn't realize that was happening. And my husband didn't realize, you know, it was all of that. And it was like, like I reacted, like I screamed. I may think I made the situation worse, but it scared the shit out of me.

05:20
out of me. Well, yeah, we weren't prepared for that. And that was it. Wasn't prepared. And I was like, what? Like, what did that get up? Right, and it's not like anybody like left a gate open. It just like, things just happen. And that's just life. And when you have, like you said, a lot of people, a lot of moving parts, more things can happen. So yeah, all the barriers, all the gates, they're really effective and they're really important. And I think that you're doing a phenomenal, phenomenal job with management. And I think that the muzzle training is for sure on the right track.

05:48
I think that we're definitely at the point where we can kind of accelerate that, especially for Daisy, just because that's what's needed to be able to take the next step is to get that muzzle training to, you know, the next level. So I would say any and all time dedicated with Daisy is just all about the muzzle and we integrate the muzzle training into other stuff. So find activities that are her favorite. If it's food boring, great. If it's trick training and teaching her high five and spin, great. We do those in like 20 second sessions.

06:16
with the muzzle on. Now the muzzle is not just, oh, the muzzle goes on and there's treats and the muzzle comes off and there's no treats. The muzzle is a part of this routine that you have with her where you're engaging, you're interacting. It goes on, good things happen, it goes off. Things kind of die down for a second. And then we go back in, because both dogs love to interact and engage and train and just do stuff with you. I think the food's part of it, but I think that the people, I think it's really equal for both of them. Yeah, I agree. Okay.

06:45
Definitely tighten the straps around the neck because when it's more properly fit, when it's more properly fit, they tend to mess with it less. So you might think in your mind like, oh, tighter is harder, but sometimes when it's like hanging down at the end of their nose and they're like, what is, it just makes them more likely to kind of fidget with it. So I think we're at the point where we can get the straps too close to how they should be and how they would be. I think we could also at a certain point,

07:15
Once you're really through the muzzle training and get into some of the reintegration exercises, once we judge how much we think Daisy's gonna be wearing it, we can discuss if we wanna get her a slightly more comfortable muzzle. Something that's gonna allow more pant room, something that's gonna be, not like I don't think that she needs like a custom muzzle, but something that has more granular sizing so we can get one that is gonna give the right fit. But again, if she's only wearing it for like 20 to 30 minutes a day, for me,

07:41
the Baskerville is fine. I think that if they're gonna be wearing it more than about 30 minutes a day, you wanna look at something that's gonna be a little bit more personalized. Okay. And the pricing on those at a dog that size, mind you, the brand that I send people to, this brand I tend to have to send people to them because their dogs are too big for a size six Baskerville. They're too big for the biggest Baskerville. So most of like the Mastiffs and Great Danes have to go to this brand.

08:09
And the pricing for those muzzles is like 70, 80 bucks. So I'm imagining her size would be like the 40, 50 kind of a range, which is obviously a lot more than the basketball, but less than a 130 that the custom muzzles cost. Yeah. Yeah. OK. So, oh, place is another one. You can combine it with place. You know, I think I think both of them are pretty active dogs, but Daisy is a little bit more like content to chill. So it might be that it's the opposite. It might be that.

08:37
she doesn't want to wear it and do tricks. Maybe it's just, she wants to wear it while she's on place. And then we take it off when we release her and it becomes more about a chill time. And, you know, using the pouches still to just kind of feed her and have her be calm wearing the muzzle, you know, play with it, figure out what's going to suit her best. Maybe it's a little bit of both, right? It doesn't ever have to be all or nothing. It could just be that she wears it no matter what we're doing for training. And we just do those really short sessions. Okay. Okay, the changes to routine. I definitely want to add in some more structure.

09:06
and create a lot of predictability for them. So you don't have to have like a rigid schedule that you follow, but I like to break the day into chunks and then make the activities that happen within each chunk kind of happen in the same order each day. That way, again, like they know what time things are gonna happen. That way we can build up to having their integrated time basically happen at the same time each day. That way it's all predicted, you know what I mean? It's all.

09:34
something that they know exactly what's gonna happen. And their integrated time for, I don't wanna give a timeframe around it, but potentially weeks will be them being across the room, not even interacting at all, right? Like that's the first step is for them to be in the same room observing, not reacting, not caring. And for that, we're gonna need Daisy to be comfortable wearing the muzzle. And we're gonna need Duke to be provided with very, very, very clear alternatives.

10:04
It's not like, okay, Duke, make good choices. It's like Duke place, right? Duke sit, Duke down. That way Daisy sees, and we're gonna set this up in one room. And I think we have two options when we go to set these up on if you could have two humans and one human holds each leash. Or you could have a tether and you just put a little bracket in the wall. And then Daisy has a leash over there and you can clip her to that. And she's on her place and we're gonna get a little gate to kind of.

10:32
corner her off, that way Duke literally can't enter her space. And then you train Duke. And that's it. She gets to hang out in her palace. She can have, you know, she can have something once we're sure Duke's not going to be obsessing over her, we can give her something of high value. She can just chill. Like her only job at that point is to just like not interact, observe, and to learn that Duke is not going to mess with her. That's it. Okay. And that to me would be build that trust. First step.

10:59
Like I'm good. He's going to ignore it. She doesn't have to be like worried about it constantly. Like, like a hyper vigil notice. He's been doing like, we're going to notice one day that she's like, she like turns her back on him or something and takes a big deep breath and we're going to be like, oh, she finally has learned to relax and not, you know, she probably is waiting for him to just pounce, you know, probably happened enough times that she is just kind of on edge like that. And that is.

11:24
definitely a massive contributing factor as to why her corrections to Duke escalated because she was getting more and more tense as she was waiting for it and expecting it and didn't want it, you know? Yeah. So has Daisy ever had any other dog friends? Yeah. And how does she play with them? Like what is the play style? What does it look like? Yeah, I mean, we used to take her to the dog park. She loved it before we got Duke when she couldn't play with our older dog because I was like, she cannot wrestle.

11:53
with him. So when we would go to the dog park with her, she would just run. She would want to run and she would like tumble and play. And they were always, I felt like some of the dogs were more aggressive with her. Like she didn't necessarily play aggressively. She just wanted to run and like, let's go like chase each other. And that kind of, when you think that, that she and Duke, sorry, go ahead. Even on, on neighbor, we have, there's a neighbor up the road. Um, and when we take a walk,

12:22
Daisy is so submissive. She would get lower than the corgi. Yeah, and be like, hi, my friend. Hi, my friend. You know, she was, and the other dogs, she would instantly go on her back with other dogs. I'm like, okay, girl. Yeah, okay. Don't give up so easy. Yeah, so she's a little low confidence too. Yeah. So what about Duke? What's Duke's sort of play style? Is he a little bit more physical, a little bit more rough and tumble? He's physical.

12:52
He's definitely more, I think more physical and he, he does not like anything to be lorded over him. Like he even us, like if we go to like, if he especially if he's laying on the couch and it's like nighttime and everything is kind of chill, like he does not like anything to be over him. So even I noticed when they would play, he doesn't like, I think that's why he reacts to some dogs. Like we had my friend's dog over a couple of years ago and

13:21
like they just, he, the other dog played like where I want to be kind of on, I'm on top, you're on top and like Duke cannot. Yeah, too much. So he was definitely, he likes to run, like they would always like chase each other, like run, circle. Okay. So he doesn't. He like took the lion king, boom, they would kind of collide and they would rumble and they would run and they would, they play, they would play. Is that with the neighborhood dog or with Daisy? Just Daisy. We, yeah.

13:47
Duke from the very beginning did not like neighborhood dogs. He was hyper, he would get really, what's the word when he would get around any dogs on any dog we've saw? Well, never on leash. Like he would react to dogs on leash when we would walk them. And so we were like, no, we're not gonna do that. And then a couple of times we introduced him. I mean, Barley was here when he was little.

14:16
He was okay. The three of them were okay. It was, we definitely had to monitor. Like I felt like I couldn't trust Duke because I didn't know what would bother him. Where Daisy was a little bit more easy going. And, but she would, even when her and Duke would play, she would like opt out and be like, I'm done. Right. And he kind of like- And he still wants to keep going. No, it's been interesting with Duke now with them being separated for so long that he is

14:43
giving her space, even if it's just the gate, you know, like they come in for a walk and daisies up on that side of the gate and like, do go kind of there was little stairs there. He'll go up and like see her and be like, good, good. I like that. That's becoming his default is like, I don't want no smoke. And then the last thing too, at nighttime, because we have them leashed on the couch is on different ends of the couch. They each have their own side so we can hang out. Otherwise it feels like, you know, we always take Daisy out first.

15:12
and put her in her crate and he will not move. From the couch. He stays like he's absolutely asleep, almost like playing possum. And as soon as she walks into her crate and we close it, he's like, I'm up. You know, I think that would be the right time of day to do their integrated training would be right before family sofa time. That way after we're done their integrated training, we have our family sofa time. And then because that way, the way that that session ends, same way as all the same way the night's always ended, right?

15:42
I like that because that's like a small shift. Integration. Well, and we have like down here in this where the couch is, we have a bed over there in the corner that I showed, like we could easily gate that section. Yeah, make that be her little space. Yeah. And if we have a leash already on the couch and so it reaches over to there. So like she would already be tethered. Yeah. I think that sounds good.

16:11
It's definitely a spot, because then we can train Duke kind of over here. She would see him. Yeah, whatever. She would see him. At first, we definitely want to, if possible, have both humans there. So somebody can be while one of you is training Duke with honestly, it could be anything. It could be following. It could be literally anything and become also constantly paying Daisy at first, the first couple of sessions, because Daisy is desensitized to.

16:40
a non-moving Duke. That's what family TV time is, right? Like a non-moving Duke at the other end of the sofa on a leash is not a worry for her. She's not on guard. A moving Duke is a different situation and a Duke that's like moving animatedly and excite. She's gonna be like, mm-mm, mm-mm. He's getting too, you know, I can tell. I already know. He's getting out of here. I need to discipline him. Like I need to be in charge, not you guys, yeah. So think about keeping the intensity of the energy when you're training Duke as low as possible to start.

17:10
Right? That's how we make it as easy as possible. Duke, sit. Good boy, Duke. Right? Instead of like, woohoo, good Duke. Right? That's gonna make her be like, playground police, you know? You're having too much fun over there. Bring it down. And you know, hearing you describe their play styles, to me, it does not sound like they have a mismatched play style. It sounds like their play styles actually align pretty well. I think it, and speculation, I think it has more to do with the fact that Daisy has an off switch and Duke doesn't.

17:40
And when she wants to be relaxing and off duty, he's still up here. But she doesn't mind if they're both up here and they're playing and it's playtime. But for her, playtime is a small portion of the day. Whereas for him, all the time. And I think even potentially him just reacting out on the leash probably annoyed her. Like, dude, shut up. I'm just trying to have my walk. Like, you're making this way more than it needs to be. You know? So I think, do they still walk together on leash or do we walk them separately?

18:09
walk them separately. Okay, yeah, yeah, I think that's good for now. Just because I bet Duke's reactions bother her. I bet she's like, oh, this again. Totally. And she would sometimes correct him on walks. Like if it was like one person walking both of them, she would be like, enough, all right. Or she would definitely be on guard. And they would do the whole like, you know, he wants to be in front. And she would like, right, it was sort of that energy versus like, we're just walking. Yeah.

18:36
You know, and then probably feel that when he charged forward, he was more likely to explode. She was like, no, dude, he bring it down, bring it down. That's what I'm saying. Like she probably whispered a hundred thousand times to him to chill. And when he didn't, he didn't. It's not that Duke isn't listening. I don't believe that. I think it's Duke's not hearing it, you know, because he's up there and just to whether it's just the arousal, the stimulation, the joy, the reactivity, all of it. He just seems like he feels a lot of things. Well, and he's been I noticed.

19:06
too, we hadn't had puppies in a long time. Like Daisy was our first puppy since we were newly married. Like years. And then the difference between the two of them, like Daisy was like, you know, she could sleep through anything. Where Duke, even as a puppy was like a little noise and he would be like, away. So he just has like a little bit more twitchy of an energy anyway. Yes, yes, totally. And that affected her bringing that into the home. To me, it's also breed too. You know, Duke is a...

19:34
got Hound in him, he's got, I gotta be on alert, I gotta chase, where Daisy's more like, I'm gonna protect and sit and watch. Daisy sometimes goes out in the porch in like a pry, like the lioness, she looks upon her land and she just surveys very calmly, where Duke is like, ooh, I'm gonna circle, make sure we're good, then we're safe, where Daisy's like, I'm gonna look very calmly and casually, and Duke's like- Does Duke have a really strong prey drive? Yes. Yeah. Okay, yeah, yeah, okay, Hounds, man, Hounds. I know.

20:03
And we and we back up to the woods so like literally he's like, you know, there's the fox back there the other day he was like, and he just sits in you know and the fox is like, hey, I mean, he could care less but that's why we have a fence plus a like the electric electric fence and we had to with him because he just he get vocal when he sees prey. Yes. Okay. So what I want you to do is and it's not in the plan.

20:30
Um, looking at the behavior modification sheet, Duke's section, I want you to that first bullet point where it says Duke's number one priority is decompression and stationing. I really want to use that and apply that in relation to the prey. Oh, okay. Maybe not forever with the stationing because I find that, you know, you take a dog like Duke who's already a little tightly wound and he's just seen a prey. So he's up here and then you're like, okay, hold still. That's tough.

20:59
That's tough. But what I'm suggesting is once he's up here, get him enough distance from that trigger, if it's a window, if it's a door, whatever it is, and then get him to decompress on place. Because the thing with prey drive is that the predatory motor sequence in animals, let's see if I get them in order, eye, orient, stalk, chase, grab bite, kill bite, dissect, consume, whole predatory motor sequence, right? It's in all animals. Our dogs are not able to complete that full sequence for various reasons.

21:28
And looking at a hound type dog, they're going to be more focused on the kind of front end of that. Detecting, where is it? And then finding it, right? It's less about kind of the second half of it. And the issue there is that is like an unfulfilling and incomplete cycle. So he's able to, when he can see them through a glass door.

21:58
he's able to do like two or three steps of that sequence. And then there's a barrier keeping him from doing anything else. And then those first couple sequences are designed to ratchet him up a little bit. And then there's nothing to bring him down because normally at the end of that sequence, they eat. And what does eating do? Activates the parasympathetic nervous system, tells you to calm down. It doesn't have that. So we have to find a way to get him distance from that and get some, you know, use a scatter and bring him down because otherwise he stays up here.

22:27
And that sounds like he kind of does that a lot anyway. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, because I just think about him. We have a big picture window in the front. And if there's like, I have a bird feeders out there and like the squirrels will be out there and he'll be like, you know, and I'm just- Well, let's have our first goal with him is not to have him not react to those things. It's to decrease the amount of time it takes for him to cool it after. You get what I'm saying? We're trying to accelerate how quickly he decompresses because-

22:55
Like I said, I think he's just kind of- What does he do then? Like if he's on the couch and he's doing- Cause sometimes it's hard, he won't even listen to me. Like- Start having him wear a leash. Start just having him wear the leash for now. That way you can just grab the leash and direct him over that way, like really easily. Okay, great. I would, if he, you know, you can definitely do a find it scatter. You can practice that when there's no trigger, right? When he's just looking out the window. Duke, find it and do a scatter in the kitchen. He's gonna be like, absolutely, and come running to the kitchen. You got enough muscle memory of that?

23:23
even if he sees something and here's Duke find it. And then here's Kibble hit the floor. Like, yeah, I'm gonna find it. Yeah. He gets it outside. So the last thing at night, they go outside, you know, potty before bed. And occasionally there's something out there and he won't come in. And I'm like, come on, Duke, you know, and I use touch and he'll like, if there's nothing going on, I can't see him. I yell touch. He's like in the door, he's getting a treat. He's like, this is the best thing ever when there is something out there. And he's...

23:53
reared up, you gotta go all the way out there and like, get hit like, hey. It's like, hey, eyeballs. Yeah. I think that that prey drive is definitely like the loudest thing to him is gonna be his prey drive. So we definitely wanna build up just any skills in terms of like him choosing you over the prey. So that means being out there with him on a leash when that happens, kind of knowing, all right, there's probably gonna be an animal out there tonight.

24:22
So I'm gonna clip the leash on, we're gonna go out together, I'm gonna have a handful of treats, and I'm gonna start paying him to look at me before I think he's even gonna notice that, right? And then once he does notice it, try and use that food to draw him back to you while you're still attached to him with the leash. Because to your point, he's definitely not gonna come inside when there's something exciting outside if he couldn't even give you eye contact in that moment. If he couldn't even angle his body from the thing to you, then he's definitely not gonna come inside. So I would say just...

24:51
Just kind of practice that. Just go out with them, spend three minutes getting some eye contact and hand feeding. And then once you're sure that there's not gonna be something that's gonna like really pull him away from you, unclip them, head in, let him do his business and call them into you. And almost make being calm and giving you that little bit of focus the first step of the last potty break. I mean, I know it's late and sometimes that can be a lot and you can decide, you know, hey, that's not actually that important to us. We're just gonna deal with it or we're just gonna put them on a leash because that's...

25:19
We don't want to train at 10 o'clock at night, you know, it's whatever makes sense for you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So yes. And then just teaching him, like I said, to use the stationing. So using his bed as like a decompression zone. So we're going to do that. The best way to start that is with something that is going to escalate him, but in a really fun way. So play. So the very, very first thing I want you to start with Duke while you're working on the muzzle with Daisy is we play, we get hype, we go to place, we calm down. Okay.

25:49
We play, we get hype, we go to place, we calm down. Once you see him like really chill on the place bed, you're gonna release him. And I do have that full protocol, yeah, the place for decompression. It's the very, very last page. So that's gonna explain exactly what you wanna do in terms of just getting him to calm down on that bed. So we just like form this pattern. Duke gets escalated, we go to place, you calm down, you get released. And we use like tug or fetch or something like, like I said, fun. That's gonna get him hype, get him to like a seven.

26:16
But it's not a reaction. He hasn't been triggered. It's a little bit easier to calm down from the happy emotions than the frustrated or nervous ones. Again, the reintegration sessions that we're working up towards are we have to have the muzzle with Daisy at just a slightly... Although, saying that, if we have two people, I feel far less that we absolutely have to have the muzzle on for that session.

26:44
I always like to have two levels of management when we're doing integration sessions. So that could be the leash and the muzzle, or that could be the leash and the gate, right? If you get the gate and put the bed back there and have the leash on, then we don't really need the muzzle, because we already have a leash and a gate. Like we feel confident that they're not gonna meet each other. And a leash on Duke as well, obviously. Now, if you wanted to be able to get to the point where it was just one of you, that's where I would say like, okay, let's tether and put the muzzle on.

27:12
because now we've got an extra level of safety. And especially once we get to the point where that barrier, that gate is gonna go away, that's where the muzzle's necessary. What kind of gate, do you have a recommendation on? Yeah, I'll send you a link, just like an X-pen, just like a standard X-pen. Sometimes on Facebook Marketplace, you can find really cheap plastic panels from an old baby pen, where you can get three or four of those, it'd probably be enough.

27:42
Daisy's gonna, if she really wanted out, she would just hop over it. Like that's not, it's not to keep her in, it's to show her this is your boundary. We will not let Duke cross this. This is your safe space. And when you're behind it, ain't no one gonna mess with you. Okay. More like it doesn't have to be. More like boundary just like her crate. Like she knows when she's in there and when he's in his crate, she definitely feels better. Exactly. Exactly.

28:09
And then eventually we remove the boundary, but the sentiment stays the same, that she has this bubble, right? We are creating a physical bubble so she can see it, so Duke can see it, so everyone can see it. And then when it goes away, the respect of that boundary stays. Okay. Okay, I know we are running low on time. Do you have any other questions? No, I think that was a lot. Very informational. Yeah, very helpful.

28:35
And obviously you still have tons of access to us. So if you think of any questions, just drop them in. You can type them in, you can film yourself. We're going to do a small mini pack, or a short mini pack with me and Jerry before we put you into the three months of the Tulsa pack aftercare. So you'll do a six day period with Jerry and I, where you're submitting videos every day. So that'll really help us get the ball rolling.

28:58
We have one more person that I think still needs to do her mini pack and we're just doing one at a time. So I'll get you the dates soon, but it'll be, you know, in the next month. Yeah, no problem. That's no problem. So we'll just work on this stuff for now and then get ask any questions, give you feedback, videos, whatever. Hey, this is working, not working. And then you'll let us know next steps. Yeah, absolutely. Yep. You're gonna hear from me soon with those mini pack dates. Awesome. Great. Awesome. Thank you guys. I'll talk to you soon. All right. Have a good one. Bye. Bye.

29:33
Unpacked was created by Jerry Sheriff and Madison Simpson and edited and produced by Josh Wasta under the supervision of Straight Up Dog Talk, LLC and Emily Breslin. See you next time!