July 9, 2025 • 47 mins
Your Dog Is Smarter Than You Think—Here’s the Proof
🐶 What if your dog is more intelligent, intuitive, and emotionally aware than most people realize?
In this heart-expanding episode, Em sits down with Jennifer Holland—journalist and author of Dog Smart: Life-Changing Lessons in Canine Intelligence—for a beautiful and eye-opening conversation about how dogs think, feel, and communicate.
💡 In this episode, you’ll learn:
• Why your dog is communicating, even in silence
• How canine senses and instincts make them uniquely brilliant
• Real stories of problem-solving and deep emotional connection
• How slowing down can strengthen your bond in powerful ways
Whether you're brand new to dog life or a longtime behavior nerd, this one will leave you seeing your dog in a whole new light—and appreciating the genius behind their eyes.
⸻
📚 Learn more about Jennifer and Dog Smart:
https://a.co/d/gTbBo2L
📌 Stay Connected:
Follow Straight Up Dog Talk for more insights and updates on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.
Explore more resources at straightupdogtalk.com.
💛 If this episode moved you, share it with a friend or leave a review—it helps others find the support and knowledge they need.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to Straight Up Dog Talk,the podcast for pet parents, pet
guardians, and pet professionalswho want real solutions to real
dog challenges. If you're overwhelmed by
conflicting advice, frustrated by dog behavior issues, or
uncertain about your dog's health and nutrition, you're not
alone and you've found the rightplace.
Every Wednesday, we dive into misunderstood behaviors,
controversial training methods, nutrition myths, and the gaps in
(00:23):
the pet industry no one else is talking about.
Through honest conversations with experts and everyday dog
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the complexities of dog parenting with confidence
because every dog is different and every human is too.
Subscribe and follow us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and
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(00:44):
And you can listen or watch every episode on Spotify, apple
podcasts, YouTube or anywhere your podcasts are streaming.
Welcome to straight up dog talk.I'm em and we are back again
this week with another amazing guest.
This week we have Jennifer Holland who is the author of
Likely Friendships A4 book series that you can find
published by National Geographic, as well as her new
(01:06):
book Dog Smart, Life Changing Lessons in Canine Intelligence.
How are you doing today, Jennifer?
Great. Thanks for having me on.
Absolutely. I love to talk dog and we love
to talk about canine intelligence on this program.
It's so important for people to understand dog is a different
species, and learning how to communicate with them and
(01:29):
understand them from their perspective instead of ours is
such an important part of being a pet professional, a pet
guardian, a pet parent. And your book shows the
evolution of you learning that lesson yourself.
So I think it's a great guide for anyone, whether they're
(01:49):
experienced or brand new at this, to understand that
mistakes will be made and lessons are always being learned
and that you just have to be ready to pivot in the moment.
Why don't you tell the listenersa little bit about you, how you
got started writing and the dog that inspired this journey?
Yeah, sure. So I've been writing pretty much
(02:10):
all my life. My grandmother had, at some
point in my teenage years, started taking notes and writing
down all of my horrible poetry. She kept all of my short stories
that I wrote as a kid. She inspired me, actually, and
at one point even said someday maybe you'll write for National
Geographic. And it turned out that I did get
to do that and wrote for the magazine for more than a decade
(02:31):
and continue to occasionally do an article for them, which
inspired me because I was reallyfocused on Natural History and
animals has always been my, my big passion.
I've really had these wonderful opportunities to write about
animals in all sorts of contexts.
And at some point it sort of occurred to me, I'm, I'm
spending a lot of time thinking about animals in the wild when
(02:53):
we have this remarkable animal sitting right here at my feet.
And it's really only been, I think, fairly recently that
scientists have even really thought that dogs make an
interesting subject because we tend to think of them as this
created creature. They're not a real animal
because we've affected them so much.
And in reality, they have so much to teach us and we have so
(03:14):
much to learn about them, about our relationship with them,
about, as you said, to understand them from their
perspective. I think that's what generated my
interest in thinking about what does it mean to be intelligent
for a dog and how does that affect those relationships with
us and how does that affect how we treat our animals.
So that was, I guess the long answer to how I got to the point
(03:36):
of this particular book. That's.
Awesome and go Grandma for giving that manifestation the
beginning of its journey. How cool is that?
That's right, that's so awesome.Especially when you have family
that believes in you and sees what you're doing and lifts you
up and supports you. Sometimes those expectations can
be a high bar, but clearly you are ready to meet it.
(03:57):
Why don't you tell everybody a little bit about the journey
that started this specific? Book.
It always starts with your own pets, I think, if you're going
to write about the kinds of animals that we keep.
And when I started working on the book, I had had two dogs.
Unfortunately, one of them has since passed away, but they
really had a very interesting relationship.
One of them, he had been a stray.
We didn't really know his background, and we brought him
(04:19):
in. He was a Korean Jindo, an
interesting breed, and he came in a bit of a bully.
And it was fascinating to watch our other dog navigate that
relationship. I've noticed really, really
interesting dynamics between them.
And I think that sort of struck something in me just to observe
the way Monk, our other dog, knew what the mood was and
(04:41):
navigated the room and knew whento sort of stay off to the side.
And even as I talk about in the book, even sort of tricked the
the bully a couple of times intogiving up his spot on the bed.
There was just a lot of funny little stuff going on if you
really paid attention. And that was one of the things
that made me start thinking about my husband liked to say
that that Getty are the the bully dog played checkers and
(05:05):
Monk our our other dog plays chess.
And the idea being that you could see the little wheels
turning in Monk's head as he figured things out for the long
term and really planned, it appeared how to keep the peace
in the house. So I started with writing some
personal experience stories and and observing them.
And what did that look like and what did it mean?
And that got me thinking about how we define intelligence in
(05:27):
humans. We have a pretty specific way of
thinking, thinking what intelligence means, sometimes to
a fault because we miss out, I think on a lot of the really
interesting artistic and other kinds of skills that people have
if we don't really think about those as parts of intelligence.
But it's really all going on in the brain.
It's really about problem solving and thriving and doing
(05:48):
interesting things. And dogs certainly have lots of
different ways that they solve problems and adapt.
We don't tend to think of those as intelligence, but I started
to and the more I I dug into that, the more I realized how
smart their noses are, so to speak, and how intelligent their
communication methods are and really kind of a language so
(06:09):
that they have that. Some people argue about that
term, but I really came to see their body language as a very,
very robust and interesting and intricate language of their own.
Their social intelligence, the way that they're, they have
emotional intelligence. There's really a lot of neat
things to think about when it comes to what it means to be
smart for a dog and think, thinking about how to address
(06:31):
that. I wanted to meet with and visit
and observe the dogs that have been given the most
opportunities to be intelligent,to show off all of their their
natural intelligence and the things that they've learned.
And that is the world of workingdogs for sure.
Because the dogs that have been trained for everything under the
sun really are remarkable in in many, many ways.
(06:51):
I started reaching out and and trying to find excuses and
opportunities to spend time withsome of the smartest dogs that
really I had so much material. I had to really sort of rein it
in and and figure out what I wanted to say in this book.
I love that there are two categories that are very
specifically my favorite things to talk about when it comes to
(07:12):
dogs. The first one is nutrition
because it is such a controversial topic.
It is truly something that contributes to our dogs behavior
and well-being and people just don't understand that.
I didn't set out to do but now have turned.
This. Portion of the journey into
educating on that, but working dogs, sport dogs, these really
(07:36):
incredible talented actor dogs, all of these dogs that just bam,
bam, bam, bam, they just perform.
And it's just so cool because they're doing what they were
built to do. They're doing all of these
things that their body was physically made to do.
And we just suppress that so much in our dogs.
One of the things that I love todo is define terms.
(07:58):
The online dictionary from Google says intelligence is the
ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills.
And that right there perfectly, I think sets us up for this
conversation because in the sports dog world, in the working
dog world, dogs learn things through repetition, through
(08:20):
pattern and through performance.We teach them this sequence of
things and then they learn to follow through.
But the problem with dogs is, isthat they are so very smart and
they pick up on things that we don't expect them to.
They can smell our emotions. They can smell our heart
palpitations. They can smell our cancer and
(08:41):
our ear infections. They can smell drugs or rats or
anything, and we can teach them to hone in on those things and
really, really turn them into these crazy intelligent species
because now they can do this multitude of things that we have
absolutely no ability to do, which makes them even more
(09:01):
special. It's so cool to see when people
actually let dogs learn skills and apply skills.
I know you've shared a lot of stories, but what do you think
was the most shocking one? The one that you just went, not
necessarily in a bad way, but just the one that made you go,
oh, wait a second. What?
Yeah, yeah, that's a great question.
(09:22):
I would, I guess I would point to to two things that just
really impressed me in a way that I didn't expect one would
be. I spent some time with the
shepherdess and and herding dog and I've always been impressed
watching videos of of herding dogs doing their thing.
It's really cool. But when I realized the, the
intricacies of this sort of dance that these dogs do in
(09:45):
paying attention not only to theanimals they're hurting, but
also to this woman who to me, I couldn't believe the dog even
could hear what she was saying. Because she would have these
very soft spoken whistles and body movements and things.
And somehow this dog was out there and knew when to pause,
when to turn and was really at this interesting intersection, I
think between two other species.And I had never thought of it
(10:07):
that way. But here's this, this animal
that is 1 species and it's, it'smanaging and listening to and
paying attention to these two other species entirely and
somehow seems to be in charge ofeverything and is doing this
remarkable thing, assessing whatit needs to do and following
instructions. But also when it knows something
better than the shepherdess knows, the dog will follow
(10:30):
sometimes its own instincts. It was a fun, interesting kind
of experience to observe that and to think about it in a
different way. And Speaking of that, sort of
sometimes listening to their own.
I think one of the other things that fascinated me was this idea
of intelligent disobedience. I saw this the most with seeing
eye training dogs, with the ideathat here is a dog that has been
(10:52):
so, so beautifully trained to follow instructions and, and has
to because it's keeping somebodysafe.
But they have to really, really be able to follow commands, but
they also need to know when not to follow a command because they
have information that the persondoesn't have.
So a branch is hanging down low and, and the person is, is
(11:13):
telling the dog, let's go. The dog is thinking, no, no,
that's going to injure you. Not even that it injuries the
dog, but it will injure the person.
So that a dog can assess a situation, hear a command and
know what it's supposed to do, but then choose to disobey and
be making the right decision wasincredible to me.
And this is for seeing eye dogs.This is for military dogs,
(11:34):
police dogs, a lot of dogs that are helping people have to be
smarter than the people sometimes and, and have to make
a judgment call. And whoever really thought about
our dogs making judgment calls of that sort, you know, it seems
like they're just disobeying us.But often there is a reason that
they're doing what they're doing.
It's not just to be stubborn or bullheaded or whatever we like
(11:55):
to say, but they are taking in information in ways that we
don't really understand fully that their sensory experience is
so different. And the fact that they can take
this information and shuffle it around in their brain and and
figure out what to do with it just really opened my eyes to
dogs being particularly smart. Yeah, to your point, service
dogs, medical alert dogs. Right.
(12:18):
You can be telling your dog we're going to do this, we're
going to walk this way, and yourdog is telling you, no, you need
to sit down. Yes, here is your medicine.
Yeah. Let's talk about human labels
for a second because you just mentioned a couple of words that
I am constantly when I'm workingwith my training clients, saying
these are words that we are assigning our dogs.
(12:39):
Let's be careful with our language because when we apply
human language to dog behavior, it doesn't always equate and it
doesn't always actually mean. Like I said, I like definitions,
what we say. So a dog is actually not
stubborn. A dog is actually not defiant.
(13:00):
A dog is not actually being a jerk.
They're not being spiteful or any of that.
Dogs don't have the same emotional depth and processing
that we do as humans. That's a human brain thing.
They don't understand how to be spiteful or hateful.
(13:20):
They don't plan against us. They don't try to be difficult
or any of those things. They do something because they
can sense something that we cannot.
Yes, and I think that if people could hear that.
So I'm going to say it again. Dogs behave in certain ways
because they can sense things that we cannot.
(13:43):
If more people could grab on to that understanding and look at
their dog and go, what do we need to change in our
environment? What do I need to change about
my emotional response? What do I need to change when it
comes to this or that? Is my dog in pain?
The doorbell sound? Does that hurt their ears?
Is there something that we can do to change the situation
(14:05):
instead of blaming our our dogs?Right, we need to.
Be looking at the situation as awhole, that is just a huge thing
for a lot of people that it justhasn't settled in yet.
Yeah, absolutely. I talk in the book about this
idea of the Umvelt that has to do with the sensory experience
(14:26):
of another species and the fact that we are trying, but still
not very well versed in a dog's experience in terms of
especially, I would say with, with olfaction, we're still just
beginning to understand what those things are that they're
sensing and what that might meanfor their experience and why
they're reacting the way they are.
I'm, I'm glad that there's more and more studies of all of that.
(14:47):
I think it's, it's fascinating to, to learn more and more.
One of the scientists I met withsaid we don't really have the
tools yet to fully understand, for example, how sensitive a
dog's nose is and what that experience is for them of that
onslaught of scent. I would imagine it's very much
like visual stimuli for us. We have to be able to make sense
(15:08):
of the chaos and pick out and zoom in on the thing that's
important. And dogs are doing that with,
with smell and, and their other senses as well.
I completely agree. I think we, we do tend to react
as humans and with human mindsetand through a human lens, which
makes sense. But if we can just pause a
moment and, and think about thisis a different species.
(15:29):
They have a completely differentworld, even though they're
experiencing many of the same things and and we need to give
them the benefit of the doubt a little bit more and certainly be
more patient and more thoughtfulsometimes in our responses to
them. Yes to all of that.
Let's define olfaction. Olfaction is the scientific term
for the sense of smell encompassing the detection and
(15:51):
perception of odors, and involves a complex system of
receptors, pathways, and brain regions that process the
olfactory information. Yes.
Here's the thing though guys, dog's sense of smell is 10,000
times better them ours. There's legitimately nothing we
can compare to our scent experience that would explain
(16:15):
what a dog can do. Dogs smell in layers.
That is why when people find drugs on a fishing boat and
they're like, how did they find that?
Well, because the dog can smell the fish skin, they can smell
the fish meat, they can smell the fish organs, then they can
smell the plastic bag and then they can smell the drugs in that
(16:36):
plastic bag. OK, dogs have this incredible
sense of smell. Plus all of their other senses
are so much higher than ours. They're hearing their sight,
even the ability to feel and sense things with their fur.
We really just don't give dogs enough credit for how how much
information they are processing at 1:00.
(16:57):
Time yeah, yeah, one of the scientists, I, I probably going
to mangle the number, but I think he said to hear what a dog
hears, if you had a piano, you'dhave to add, I think he said
maybe 52 more keys in the upper range to sort of get at the
range that they hear. So they maybe don't hear quite
as well in the lower range, but they hear things that we're just
not going to be aware of there at all.
And same with vision. In the dim light, dog can see so
(17:20):
much better. In the periphery, they can see
so much better. It's not that they even though
the nose is sort of the most important in some ways for a
dog, their their other senses are remarkable in their own way.
Yeah, And just because dogs can only see a limited array of
colors, Gray, black, white, blue, orange, they still see in
a much higher definition than wedo, especially, as you
(17:42):
mentioned, in low light, which is kind of crazy, right?
Because when we go out in the dark, we're stumbling over
everything. And the dog is is made for that
because they were wild animals once.
They came from a different area in the world, living in a
different place than than we currently have them in.
When people say my dog is struggling, I don't understand.
(18:06):
And then they tell me that they live in New York.
They live on the 18th floor. And then they go in the elevator
or they walk the stairs. There's so many people that live
in this building and there's notanywhere that they can go near.
And there's crowded sidewalks and bikes and skateboards and
scooters. No wonder.
Everything it's like Jeez Louiseand you have a herding breed on
(18:28):
top of this. Of course your dog is
genetically programmed to be like, that's what look over and
you're just triggering your dog every second of the day.
So you really have to build in that trust and foundation with
your dog to say, we got this, let's go through this together
and teach them. But they don't have to bark and
(18:48):
snap or get upset about everybody that passes.
That's another thing when it comes in to dogs just in general
and people bringing dogs into their home is how important it
is to select A dog that fits your lifestyle.
Yes, because of how smart dogs are and because of how they're
going to react due to their genetics.
(19:10):
Yeah. Do you want to talk a little bit
about that? Yeah, yeah, I feel it's only
fair to the dog to to choose a dog that is going to suit you
and suit that life. I completely agree.
And I think we, we forget that people kind of fall in love with
a breed or a style of dog and they're more focused on that
aspect of it and not thinking, well, I live in an apartment and
this is just not the life that this dog was built to have.
(19:34):
People always ask me how much isit about breed?
And I think breed is important. Obviously we've sort of created
these breeds, but but there are these very strong tendencies
that you're going to see in a breed because we've been
selecting for that. But of course, within a breed,
you're going to have huge variation just like you would in
with with any creature. So it may be that there are some
(19:54):
border collies that would be OK in an apartment, but I think you
just really need to be very, very aware of the tendencies of
that breed and really select theappropriate animal.
Another thing that one of the the scientists said to me is we
owe it to our dogs to teach themwhat we expect of them if we're
going to have expectations of our pets.
So we can't expect them to figure that out.
(20:14):
And if they're not learning it, it's probably something we're
doing, not something they're doing.
And and so being a good trainer or getting a good trainer or
really again thinking from. The dog's perspective and
figuring out why is she not learning this thing that I want
her to learn or why is she jumping on people or what is it?
You know, there's, there's a reason, there's always a reason
(20:34):
for it. And if you're going to correct
it, then that's up to you. It's it's not the dog to figure
it out for themselves. If you could give one piece of
advice on dog body language, every single person that was
interested in dogs dog body language, what would that piece
of advice be? Learn it.
I guess that's too big. For starters, I pay attention.
(20:55):
If you don't know a dog, and frankly, even if you do know a
dog, never trust that the dog isgoing to not suddenly do
something that you don't expect because they're telling you what
they're going to do. That information is there, but
if you're not really watching it, paying attention, if you
haven't really learned what the ears in this position might mean
something different when combined with the tail that's
(21:18):
between the legs versus a wagging tail.
There's so many pieces of that and we pay no attention.
We primate, we run up, we hug dogs, we pet dogs that don't
want to be petted. There's so many ways that we
make mistakes. Children running up and
shrieking and screaming and being sticky and acting like
rabbits. And then we're surprised if the
dog on a leash. So that's being restrained is,
(21:40):
is acting in a way that seems sopoor manners in some way.
You should just never, never assume, I think, pay very, very
close attention and really learn.
And what those those signs are, what are they telling us?
We're always training our dogs to learn our language and
there's nothing wrong with that.But to turn around and give them
the opportunity to teach us, I think is is probably more
(22:03):
important because that's what's going to keep us from getting
into trouble with animals. I completely agree, by the time
this episode posts it'll probably be way back.
But I recently just remixed a video where it was someone
showing how they harshly pat their dog in order to teach them
to accept that from children. And my argument on that was why
(22:25):
don't we just teach the childrennot to do that?
Or if the child is going to do that, the child is not allowed
to interact with the dog. Why does the dog have to be
uncomfortable? Why do we have to suppress the
dog's emotions for an interaction that we want, not
that they want? Yeah, yeah.
Now it's an excellent point. I think it was Doctor Stanley
(22:48):
Corn who said it's amazing that our dogs don't eat more
children. He loves to say that.
I think he said it in many talksI've listened to.
But he's right. We allow kids to be kids around
dogs. And I think it's that's our
mistake. We're training a dog to accept
bad behavior from a child. That's not really a fair thing
to do to to our pets. And then we blame the dog when
(23:09):
the dog reacts right after we have said you must behave this
way and then they don't. Yes, yeah, exactly.
I'm sorry, but personally, if a child was jumping on me and
slapping me in the face, I wouldnot be happy about it either.
I'm now I'm not going to buy my bite.
I would definitely, I might yell, I might, you know, push
(23:30):
the child away and and in some cases people would react very
severely to that as well. But I'm sorry, I just don't
think that it is fair. The amount of expectations that
we put on our dog and then look at ourselves and think, well, I
wouldn't put up with that, but my dog can put up with that,
right? Well, I don't understand why one
(23:51):
has to be higher than the other.Why can't we be mutually
respectful in those areas? Yeah, yeah.
And to accept that again, these are these are dogs.
This is a different species. What they're built for, what
they're prone to do is, is different.
In Western countries especially,we give them what we think is a
good life for a dog, but we're taking a lot away and we don't
(24:12):
ever think about that. The fact that they can't do
their doggy things, we're alwayspulling them along.
Don't put your nose too close tothat garbage and get off the
couch and stop humping at the dog park and whatever they're
doing. But these are the things that
that are natural for the dog andas guardians or owners or
however you want to put it, we owe it to them to let them do
(24:33):
those things when we can. Of course, it's not always a
possibility, but there are so many opportunities when and we
can give them that back. And I think that's, that's so
important. That's one of the things I've
really took away from my research and have applied is
just to look at what my dog is doing and, and think, OK, so
he's getting a little muddy. Whatever, let him do it.
(24:54):
He's enjoying it. He clearly is finding something
interesting to sniff in that mud.
What difference does it make? It's, it's not important to pull
him away. Let's just let him be a dog and,
and do what he wants. It's good for him emotionally,
it's good for him mentally. It's only fair that he he gets
to be a dog. I'm.
So glad that you brought that upbecause it's on my list of
things to talk to you about Chapter 17, Letting our dogs be
(25:17):
dogs. That is one of my main things
when it comes to dog advocacy isyes, we need to provide
enrichment. Yes, we need to give them chews
and the right food, and we need to keep their health and
nutrition at a certain level. But letting our dogs be dogs is
the best thing that we can do for them.
And if that means running aroundin the back yard and barking at
(25:40):
the neighbors that are walking by, or barking at the dogs on
the other side of the fence, or digging a great big hole in the
middle of our backyard. Or like you said, getting really
muddy or taking them for a hike and letting them jump in the
pond or the lake or whatever. All of those things.
Sniffing, peeing on trees, scratching at the bark on the
(26:01):
tree, chasing a squirrel, chasing a chipmunk, whatever it
is those things, that is dog brain in full motion right
there. And the best thing we can do for
our dogs is let them do them. If it's not hurting anybody, if
you're not destroying someone else's property, yeah, there is
(26:21):
obviously a time and a place that we cannot allow these
things to happen. We don't want our dog to run up
to some lady on the street and pee on her leg or anything like
that, right? That's not very polite.
But if they're not destroying property or disturbing people,
let your dog. Let him.
Damn. Yeah, it's fine.
Yeah. Even things, small things like
letting them make a decision and.
(26:43):
And I talk in the book about if it's turning left or right at
the corner. It's silly stuff, but it makes a
difference. And I've.
I've started doing it. It takes absolutely nothing for
me to let him make those choices.
I read a study about how lettingdogs choose actually effects
their motivation and it just it makes them happy to do stuff
like that, their confidence. Levels.
(27:03):
Exactly. Exactly.
So what's the big deal? So I was planning to go buy that
other house, but let's go this way instead because that's the
way he wants to go. Who?
Cares. And to that point, we don't give
our dogs choice in a lot of things.
We pretty much control when theyeat, where they eat, how they
play, when they play, all of those things.
So let your dog choose how they want to play.
(27:24):
Let your dog pick what toy they want to play with.
Let them pick where you go on the walk.
If you're going on a walk, guys,if you're going on a walk for
your dog, let the walk be for your dog.
If you want to go on a walk and look at that house, or go look
at that certain neighborhood that has beautiful flower beds,
go by yourself. Don't take your dog right?
(27:45):
Go by yourself, like giving themthe choice to jump on the rocks
and make a little obstacle course out of the tree line,
jump up and down off of park benches or whatever it is.
Those are all confidence building skills that give your
dog the ability to make choices,have a stronger relationship
with you, and bolster how they feel about walking around in
(28:08):
this world in general. Yeah, that's, that's an
excellent point. Whatever you feel about dog
parks, a lot of people do make use of them.
And I have found just observing there that people really, again,
they don't know the body language well enough to know
when to just let them do what they're doing.
It's OK, They're figuring it out.
They're going to wrestle. Sometimes it's going to get a
little rough. Obviously you don't want dogs
(28:29):
tearing each other's ears off and there are times when you
need to separate them. But for the most part, dogs are
very, very socially intelligent.They know what to do.
They don't want to fight what's not good for them to get
injured. That's something that that any
mammal is going to not really wewant to do.
And and so I always sort of watch that and think, I wish
people would just take it. Just take a deep breath and
(28:51):
let's observe and watch and makesure that we really need to be
intervening. That's just the dog doing what
the dog does, and there's nothing wrong with it.
We'll agree with you to a point,because I really don't like that
phrase. Let them figure it out because I
think that that is where the miscommunication happens with
people who understand dog body language and people who don't
(29:13):
understand dog body language. The person who usually doesn't
understand dog body language is saying letting them figure it
out and their dog is legitimately about to attack
another dog. The observation part 100%.
I agree with you on that. You need to be observing your
dog. If you go to the dog park, do
not sit on a bench and read a book.
(29:34):
Do not scroll through your phone.
Do not just focus on other people.
You need to be focused on your dog.
Look at your dog, watch your dog.
Make sure you're watching your dog's body language and then
watch the body language of the dogs that are around your dog.
There will be clear signals. There will be flat back ears.
There will be tucked tails. There will be curled lips.
(29:55):
There will be tight body posture.
There will be signs. Guys, you will know if something
bad is about to happen. If one dog is getting ganged up
by a bunch of other dogs, you need to be able and ready to
intervene. Dogs to a point, yes, they are
very good at interacting socially and they are very good
(30:15):
at walking away from situations or moving away from play.
And then there are dogs who are like people who are kind of tone
deaf and they don't realize thatmaybe they're a little extra for
this group that they just joinedin and now they've created a
problem. And when nobody is there
observing and helping, right, that's when we see conflict.
(30:36):
So letting them figure it out isn't exactly the the right way
to do it. Just know, like you said, learn
body language, know when you need to step in, know when you
need to intervene. And don't always let them figure
it out. Because if, if you're seeing
certain signs of body language or irritation, signs of
aggression, take it out, intervene, get those dogs apart.
(30:57):
Yeah. And get it out of the dog park
because it will escalate. And then people who say, I don't
know where that came from or it came out of nowhere or there.
Was attention. You were not paying attention
because it was. Exactly, And I do think also the
dog park, it's a constrained place and people come in with a
dog on a leash and there are some things that can set things
(31:19):
up for a problem because again, people aren't paying attention.
They don't realize. In that case, you should have
taken your dog off the leash because your dog was was being
held back and it needed to interact in a certain way and it
wasn't able to. So yes, I absolutely agree with
you. It's it's about if, if you're
paying attention and you know the body language, you're going
to know when there is a real problem coming.
(31:40):
And dog parks can certainly set dogs up for issues.
My dog Fitz was the first dog that I ever had that was high
energy crazy. I lived in an apartment when I
first got him and his parents lived right below me.
They had an accidental litter ofpuppies from rescuing a side off
a dog off the side of the road. And they were always so well
behaved. And I didn't know that they were
(32:00):
going for long walks and hikes every day.
They didn't tell me that. And so I get this dog who's just
a ball of us and I take him to the dog park and he doesn't like
other dogs. He's trying to avoid people and
he's trying to run back to the car.
So the dog park made my dog reactive.
But with my experience as a vet tech with getting into dog
training, all the things I'm outthere breaking up dog fights,
(32:23):
I'm seeing all this negative stuff happening.
I'm getting yelled at. So we stopped going to the dog
park. And I don't usually tend to
coach people to go to the dog park unless it's it's your only
outlet. Or if you can go to the outside
of the dog park and work with your dog outside side of the dog
park, observe what's going on inthere.
Because unfortunately, the reality is probably 95% of
(32:48):
people in there are not paying attention and 5% of people are
paying attention. And there are some people.
We had a girl come on, I think it was episode 37.
Come on, who has an excellent dog park culture where everybody
knows each other, everybody helps each other, everyone
babysits each other's dogs when they're out of town, like really
(33:09):
good group of people and they police their little dog park.
Excellent. That is not the case for pretty
much everyone, right? I would wish that that could be
something that we could work on.But unfortunately, most people
just take their dogs to run. And, and this is where I will
say, hey, if you want to do that, there's this really
awesome thing called sniff spots.
(33:29):
You can rent an area that's private for your dog, and then
you can sit down and scroll through your phone and just let
your dog be a dog because you don't have to worry about
anybody else. Yeah.
And I think that's incredible. Yeah, yeah, that is ideal.
We've we've found immediately that our, our dogs that we've
had in the past have not been interested and we're
uncomfortable for sure with withall the attention.
(33:51):
So that that ended quickly. No more dog park for us.
Well, and that's another situation too, where there's
small children running around and running up into your dog's
face and people, can I pet your dog?
We're not asking can I pet your dog?
And my dog is, he's a Velcro dog.
He's like, I don't want to play with those other dogs.
I'm going to walk right here by you.
Did he have a leash on? No.
(34:11):
Was he under any kind of control?
No, he didn't need to stay there.
He was allowed to do what he wanted to do, but he was
uncomfortable enough that he wasgoing to stay right there
because that's where he felt comfortable going back to this
whole thing. We put our dogs in situations
that they're uncomfortable, thatwe don't even realize that we're
doing. That could be as simple as
putting our dog in the car and taking them for a pup cup.
(34:33):
The dog is shaking and drooling in the back seat and the dog
hates it. But we think that we're doing
something nice for a dog. You want to do something nice
for your dog? Make your dog a pop cup at home.
Yeah. Not every dog wants to go to
Starbucks, right? Unfortunately.
As cute as they look eating the pup cup on on social media, it's
not always the right thing to do.
Absolutely agree. What's your favorite?
(34:54):
Chapter That's a hard one. I liked that I was able to mix
the talking heads and the experts and the field stuff with
my own personal stories. And in my writing career, my
favorite things to do are to write about things I've done and
seen or dig into how it's affected me.
And although this isn't a chapter but more sections that
appeared throughout. I befriended a dog named Odin in
(35:16):
the beginning of my journey on doing this book.
And it turned out that he was this wonderful teacher for me
throughout the process. And the way that I spent time
with him and the way that he affected me, I think really
exemplified some of the different kinds of intelligence
that dogs can have and taught mea lot about how to react to
(35:38):
dogs, how to pay attention to dogs.
Odin, I think he's appears five times in the book.
And I think I most enjoyed writing those sections because
they were touching for me and I was very emotional for me at
times to be with him. He was there kind of there for
me, if you will, when my my dad was dying and he was the dog
that I went back to after spending time with my father
(36:00):
taught me some very interesting lessons about what dogs can
sense in that he sensed a pregnancy in the woman that owns
him and and let her know in someways that were were interesting
to to write about. The pieces about Odin are some
of my favorite writing in the book.
I would say it. Will never cease to fascinate
me. How dogs can communicate with us
(36:22):
again about things that we don'teven know are happening.
Pregnancy, migraines, heart attacks, cancer, anxiety.
Right. I had a therapist several years
back and they had a dog that would just hang out in the
waiting room. Nobody ever said anything about
why the dog was there. He just had a vest on that said
I'm working and nobody at the front desk ever said anything.
(36:45):
One day the dog got up and he went over and he sat on this
man's feet and put his head down, like on the man's lap.
And the man started petting him and started crying.
And everybody in the waiting room was just looking around
like, OK, what is happening? Everything just kind of stopped.
(37:06):
And the gentleman looked up and I was sitting next to him and he
said I have cancer and I think he can smell it.
And I'm coming here to deal withmy grief of this is going to be
the end of my life because I'm basically almost into palliative
care care. I ended up asking the therapist
in my session. I said, is that a medical alert
(37:27):
dog? Like, what is that?
And she said, yeah, it's a medical alert, dog.
Amazing you can. Detect cancer, you can detect
anxiety, he can detect migraines, He can detect all
these things. But we don't tell people that
because we're afraid that it will make them uncomfortable.
Sure. He's there to comfort people
when he senses that they need it.
Yeah. And I was just like, oh, my God.
It was really cool. And I thought it was neat that
(37:50):
the gentleman was able to open up about and talk to complete
strangers about it in the waiting room, just because the
dog was able to say, it's OK, I'm here for you.
Yeah. Just.
It was such a cool. Cool.
Experience, it's remarkable. And I have a chapter about kind
of emotional intelligence and dogs that that do that sort of
work. And then even the many cases you
(38:11):
hear of dogs not being trained to do it, but just doing it,
sensing something and coming to the person in the room that
needed it most is the one that the dog chose to approach.
And again, we don't maybe give them enough credit for sensing
all of that and taking all that in.
And for those dogs that are trained to take on our stress
and to comfort us, it's important for us to remember
(38:34):
that, you know, they need a break from that too, because
they are absorbing the negativity or the sadness.
So it's wonderful that they're doing it.
And we appreciate it so much that that appreciation needs to
always go to making sure that they're not doing it all the
time, that they have time again to be a dog, to just get all of
that stuff out that they are carrying around with them by
(38:54):
just being being a dog. I love it when I hear a service
dog handler say my dog is off duty right now and they take the
vest off and they let him go runand play or they say my dog
isn't working today. I actually have a personal
friend who has two service dogs.She has to rotate the dog so
each dog can have time off because of the number of medical
(39:16):
conditions that she has. But she will say the same thing.
They need their own time, they need their own life.
They need their own ability to be dogs and have fun.
You'll did find her dogs doing funny things with her daughter
and what's really cute to see those interactions, but it's
also really cool that she has that much forethought that she
(39:36):
knows that she needs to rotate her dogs so that they can have a
life that is not just in serviceto her.
Yeah, one of the group of peopleI talked to were people who were
working out the idea of having dogs for Alzheimer's patients.
And I was thinking a lot about what that life could look like
for the dog and how 24/7 that isand unpredictable it can be and
(39:57):
how negative it can become. The person happens to be someone
who gets aggressive or gets angry or confused a lot.
And, and just thinking about that and about how important it
would be for that dog to be released from that as often as
possible so that they don't feelthis sort of constant need to be
observing every single thing andresponding to it appropriate.
You would need definitely somebody secondary to come in
(40:20):
and make sure that the dog was cared for, right.
Somebody with Alzheimer's isn't going to remember to let the dog
out to go to the bathroom, feed the dog.
Yeah, things like that. So, yeah, that that would be a
really, really tough one. Yeah.
I think, I don't know, honestly know how I feel about that.
That's definitely something I'm going to have to think on
because you're right. Where is the line when it comes
(40:41):
to the dog being in service and the dog being off duty?
Because that that is something health issue like that is
something that is permanent. It does not go away.
And then it continues to be great as as they go through the
process. That's just so sad.
Yeah, yeah. And it may be that that's not
ultimately an appropriate way toto train a dog.
(41:03):
And, and there may be parts of it that it's fine that the dog
can help with certain things, but to insert a dog into that
life without, as you say, another person who's there all
the time, it'll be interesting to see what comes of that.
Obviously you've had a lot of interactions with dogs.
We've already heard about a dog that detected a pregnancy.
What are a couple others examples of Cool things that you
(41:25):
saw dogs do? I spent quite a bit of time with
people who use their dogs in conservation related activities.
So I spent some time out in Washington state going around
with a young woman whose dog is trained to find the scat of
particular endangered species inthis one region of Washington
and helping to determine what's out there, where they're living,
(41:48):
if they're moving, where this group of animals might live,
which was great fun. And the dogs just love it.
You can just tell they're so excited to work.
They just want to be out there because they're, they're using
their natural skills. You know, this is sniffing and,
and reacting to their person andrunning and all the things that
they really enjoy. Also in the conservation mode, a
woman whose dog sniffs out whalepoop that is floating on the
(42:10):
surface of the ocean. The dog actually guides the, the
driver of the boat to where the stuff is floating so that they
can grab a sample of it before it sinks.
And this is to, again, to look at a population of, of orcas in
this case and try to understand how they're doing nutrition and
how big the population is and all the things that
conservationists and biologists want to know.
(42:30):
That was a really fun thing to to be a part of just to go out
on the boat and watch the dog find that scent in the air and
move around the boat following that scent cone and trying to
help. And we're zooming boat in the
boat left and right trying to reach this, this big Patty of
poop on the surface of the sea. What a funny, crazy thing that
that someone thought of and realized, hey, my dog could do
(42:52):
that and started training. And now there's more than one of
these dogs that will can help them help them with this sort of
task. So those were great fun.
Anything having to do with humanremains is fascinating.
Dogs that are finding very, veryold remains in unmarked
cemeteries or or other locations.
And in some cases helping, for example, to mark the boundaries
(43:14):
of a historic cemetery that wasn't ever marked properly.
And they they use the dogs to help them find where the people
were buried. And these are bones that may be
hundreds of years old and the dogs can can find it just
remarkable, especially the olfaction, I would say, But
certainly the dogs that that offer comfort and, and as I
said, the herding dogs, the hunting dogs, all of the others
(43:36):
that get out there, the trick dogs, sport dogs, great fun to
watch how they learn and just all the things they can do is is
quite remarkable. It really is.
Cadaver dogs are next level. It's very intense to watch a dog
search like that, even if it they're not searching for
cadaver, but when they're looking for missing children,
(43:57):
missing people, all that kind ofstuff.
That scent work is incredible tome.
But whale poop, think about whales pooping until until it's
like, OK, well they they hunt out the whale poop and before it
sinks. How specific is that?
So crazy. And the distance that they can
(44:17):
probably smell that from. Exactly.
And with the wind and the water and all the conditions that can
affect that and they don't, oh, it's not always successful.
Certainly it depends on the conditions.
I was impressed with how often they they actually are able to
get the samples that they need. It just really speaks to how
incredible they are and how muchwe limit their potential when
(44:39):
when we look at bigger picture things like that.
That's crazy. Before we wrap up, is there
anything else that you would like to say about the book?
I'm really proud of the book. My previous books were
individual stories of odd animalpairs and they were a lot of fun
and and true stories. But this book really challenged
me to put together a more of a real book with, you know, a
(45:00):
thread going through it and, andthings that that have to make
sense where they are in the book.
I felt really good about what I was able to cover and the
wonderful voices that are in there, the amazing people who
let me come. Even during the pandemic, I was
doing a lot of this field work and went to a military base and
was out with hunting dogs and with trainers.
I was so fortunate to have theseopportunities.
(45:23):
I'm really excited about the book and I hope people will pick
it up and read it or borrow it, doesn't matter.
Get it from the library. It has a lot of, I think, nice
material to just help us think alittle differently about our
dogs and appreciate them even more than we have before.
Where can people find your book?Where can people find you?
How can we get into contact withyou and follow your?
Journey the online retailers good old Amazon has the book, of
(45:47):
course, barnesandnoble.com. You can get it on the Disney
books website. It is a National Geographic book
which falls under Disney. Now my website is
jenniferhollandwriter.com. You can actually reach me
directly through that site and you can also find links to that
book and to my. Amazing.
It was wonderful to have you here today.
(46:07):
Jennifer, what would you like toleave the listeners with?
I would say just step back and remember this is another
species, this thing that we bring into our homes and that we
we adore. We really, really do love them.
But that doesn't always mean that we do what's best for them.
And I think the more we sort of take that moment to think about
what they might be experiencing and appreciating them as dogs
(46:31):
and giving them opportunities tobe dogs in whatever that I think
we really owe it to them to do that.
I. Completely agree with you.
Thank you so much for being herethis week.
It was an honor to talk to you and it was a wonderful journey
to read your book and I can't wait to talk Dog with you again
in the future. Thank you, I had a lot of fun.
(46:52):
Well, you guys, I hope you enjoyed this episode.
You should definitely pick up this book.
Remember, it is called Dog Smart, Life Changing Lessons in
Canine Intelligence by Jennifer Holland and we will see you guys
next week on Straight Up Dog Talk.
Straight Up Dog Talk is created,edited, produced and hosted by
Emily Breslin under the supervision of Straight Up Dog
(47:13):
Talk, LLC. If you're enjoying the podcast,
be sure to follow or subscribe so you never miss an episode and
leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform.
Want even more honest, relatabledog content?
Check out our sister show Unpacked with Jerry Sheriff and
Madison Simpson. Thanks for listening to Straight
Up Dog Talk. We'll see you next Wednesday for
another real, unfiltered conversation.
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(00:23):
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(00:44):
And you can listen or watch every episode on Spotify, apple
podcasts, YouTube or anywhere your podcasts are streaming.
Welcome to straight up dog talk.I'm em and we are back again
this week with another amazing guest.
This week we have Jennifer Holland who is the author of
Likely Friendships A4 book series that you can find
published by National Geographic, as well as her new
(01:06):
book Dog Smart, Life Changing Lessons in Canine Intelligence.
How are you doing today, Jennifer?
Great. Thanks for having me on.
Absolutely. I love to talk dog and we love
to talk about canine intelligence on this program.
It's so important for people to understand dog is a different
species, and learning how to communicate with them and
(01:29):
understand them from their perspective instead of ours is
such an important part of being a pet professional, a pet
guardian, a pet parent. And your book shows the
evolution of you learning that lesson yourself.
So I think it's a great guide for anyone, whether they're
(01:49):
experienced or brand new at this, to understand that
mistakes will be made and lessons are always being learned
and that you just have to be ready to pivot in the moment.
Why don't you tell the listenersa little bit about you, how you
got started writing and the dog that inspired this journey?
Yeah, sure. So I've been writing pretty much
(02:10):
all my life. My grandmother had, at some
point in my teenage years, started taking notes and writing
down all of my horrible poetry. She kept all of my short stories
that I wrote as a kid. She inspired me, actually, and
at one point even said someday maybe you'll write for National
Geographic. And it turned out that I did get
to do that and wrote for the magazine for more than a decade
(02:31):
and continue to occasionally do an article for them, which
inspired me because I was reallyfocused on Natural History and
animals has always been my, my big passion.
I've really had these wonderful opportunities to write about
animals in all sorts of contexts.
And at some point it sort of occurred to me, I'm, I'm
spending a lot of time thinking about animals in the wild when
(02:53):
we have this remarkable animal sitting right here at my feet.
And it's really only been, I think, fairly recently that
scientists have even really thought that dogs make an
interesting subject because we tend to think of them as this
created creature. They're not a real animal
because we've affected them so much.
And in reality, they have so much to teach us and we have so
(03:14):
much to learn about them, about our relationship with them,
about, as you said, to understand them from their
perspective. I think that's what generated my
interest in thinking about what does it mean to be intelligent
for a dog and how does that affect those relationships with
us and how does that affect how we treat our animals.
So that was, I guess the long answer to how I got to the point
(03:36):
of this particular book. That's.
Awesome and go Grandma for giving that manifestation the
beginning of its journey. How cool is that?
That's right, that's so awesome.Especially when you have family
that believes in you and sees what you're doing and lifts you
up and supports you. Sometimes those expectations can
be a high bar, but clearly you are ready to meet it.
(03:57):
Why don't you tell everybody a little bit about the journey
that started this specific? Book.
It always starts with your own pets, I think, if you're going
to write about the kinds of animals that we keep.
And when I started working on the book, I had had two dogs.
Unfortunately, one of them has since passed away, but they
really had a very interesting relationship.
One of them, he had been a stray.
We didn't really know his background, and we brought him
(04:19):
in. He was a Korean Jindo, an
interesting breed, and he came in a bit of a bully.
And it was fascinating to watch our other dog navigate that
relationship. I've noticed really, really
interesting dynamics between them.
And I think that sort of struck something in me just to observe
the way Monk, our other dog, knew what the mood was and
(04:41):
navigated the room and knew whento sort of stay off to the side.
And even as I talk about in the book, even sort of tricked the
the bully a couple of times intogiving up his spot on the bed.
There was just a lot of funny little stuff going on if you
really paid attention. And that was one of the things
that made me start thinking about my husband liked to say
that that Getty are the the bully dog played checkers and
(05:05):
Monk our our other dog plays chess.
And the idea being that you could see the little wheels
turning in Monk's head as he figured things out for the long
term and really planned, it appeared how to keep the peace
in the house. So I started with writing some
personal experience stories and and observing them.
And what did that look like and what did it mean?
And that got me thinking about how we define intelligence in
(05:27):
humans. We have a pretty specific way of
thinking, thinking what intelligence means, sometimes to
a fault because we miss out, I think on a lot of the really
interesting artistic and other kinds of skills that people have
if we don't really think about those as parts of intelligence.
But it's really all going on in the brain.
It's really about problem solving and thriving and doing
(05:48):
interesting things. And dogs certainly have lots of
different ways that they solve problems and adapt.
We don't tend to think of those as intelligence, but I started
to and the more I I dug into that, the more I realized how
smart their noses are, so to speak, and how intelligent their
communication methods are and really kind of a language so
(06:09):
that they have that. Some people argue about that
term, but I really came to see their body language as a very,
very robust and interesting and intricate language of their own.
Their social intelligence, the way that they're, they have
emotional intelligence. There's really a lot of neat
things to think about when it comes to what it means to be
smart for a dog and think, thinking about how to address
(06:31):
that. I wanted to meet with and visit
and observe the dogs that have been given the most
opportunities to be intelligent,to show off all of their their
natural intelligence and the things that they've learned.
And that is the world of workingdogs for sure.
Because the dogs that have been trained for everything under the
sun really are remarkable in in many, many ways.
(06:51):
I started reaching out and and trying to find excuses and
opportunities to spend time withsome of the smartest dogs that
really I had so much material. I had to really sort of rein it
in and and figure out what I wanted to say in this book.
I love that there are two categories that are very
specifically my favorite things to talk about when it comes to
(07:12):
dogs. The first one is nutrition
because it is such a controversial topic.
It is truly something that contributes to our dogs behavior
and well-being and people just don't understand that.
I didn't set out to do but now have turned.
This. Portion of the journey into
educating on that, but working dogs, sport dogs, these really
(07:36):
incredible talented actor dogs, all of these dogs that just bam,
bam, bam, bam, they just perform.
And it's just so cool because they're doing what they were
built to do. They're doing all of these
things that their body was physically made to do.
And we just suppress that so much in our dogs.
One of the things that I love todo is define terms.
(07:58):
The online dictionary from Google says intelligence is the
ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills.
And that right there perfectly, I think sets us up for this
conversation because in the sports dog world, in the working
dog world, dogs learn things through repetition, through
(08:20):
pattern and through performance.We teach them this sequence of
things and then they learn to follow through.
But the problem with dogs is, isthat they are so very smart and
they pick up on things that we don't expect them to.
They can smell our emotions. They can smell our heart
palpitations. They can smell our cancer and
(08:41):
our ear infections. They can smell drugs or rats or
anything, and we can teach them to hone in on those things and
really, really turn them into these crazy intelligent species
because now they can do this multitude of things that we have
absolutely no ability to do, which makes them even more
(09:01):
special. It's so cool to see when people
actually let dogs learn skills and apply skills.
I know you've shared a lot of stories, but what do you think
was the most shocking one? The one that you just went, not
necessarily in a bad way, but just the one that made you go,
oh, wait a second. What?
Yeah, yeah, that's a great question.
(09:22):
I would, I guess I would point to to two things that just
really impressed me in a way that I didn't expect one would
be. I spent some time with the
shepherdess and and herding dog and I've always been impressed
watching videos of of herding dogs doing their thing.
It's really cool. But when I realized the, the
intricacies of this sort of dance that these dogs do in
(09:45):
paying attention not only to theanimals they're hurting, but
also to this woman who to me, I couldn't believe the dog even
could hear what she was saying. Because she would have these
very soft spoken whistles and body movements and things.
And somehow this dog was out there and knew when to pause,
when to turn and was really at this interesting intersection, I
think between two other species.And I had never thought of it
(10:07):
that way. But here's this, this animal
that is 1 species and it's, it'smanaging and listening to and
paying attention to these two other species entirely and
somehow seems to be in charge ofeverything and is doing this
remarkable thing, assessing whatit needs to do and following
instructions. But also when it knows something
better than the shepherdess knows, the dog will follow
(10:30):
sometimes its own instincts. It was a fun, interesting kind
of experience to observe that and to think about it in a
different way. And Speaking of that, sort of
sometimes listening to their own.
I think one of the other things that fascinated me was this idea
of intelligent disobedience. I saw this the most with seeing
eye training dogs, with the ideathat here is a dog that has been
(10:52):
so, so beautifully trained to follow instructions and, and has
to because it's keeping somebodysafe.
But they have to really, really be able to follow commands, but
they also need to know when not to follow a command because they
have information that the persondoesn't have.
So a branch is hanging down low and, and the person is, is
(11:13):
telling the dog, let's go. The dog is thinking, no, no,
that's going to injure you. Not even that it injuries the
dog, but it will injure the person.
So that a dog can assess a situation, hear a command and
know what it's supposed to do, but then choose to disobey and
be making the right decision wasincredible to me.
And this is for seeing eye dogs.This is for military dogs,
(11:34):
police dogs, a lot of dogs that are helping people have to be
smarter than the people sometimes and, and have to make
a judgment call. And whoever really thought about
our dogs making judgment calls of that sort, you know, it seems
like they're just disobeying us.But often there is a reason that
they're doing what they're doing.
It's not just to be stubborn or bullheaded or whatever we like
(11:55):
to say, but they are taking in information in ways that we
don't really understand fully that their sensory experience is
so different. And the fact that they can take
this information and shuffle it around in their brain and and
figure out what to do with it just really opened my eyes to
dogs being particularly smart. Yeah, to your point, service
dogs, medical alert dogs. Right.
(12:18):
You can be telling your dog we're going to do this, we're
going to walk this way, and yourdog is telling you, no, you need
to sit down. Yes, here is your medicine.
Yeah. Let's talk about human labels
for a second because you just mentioned a couple of words that
I am constantly when I'm workingwith my training clients, saying
these are words that we are assigning our dogs.
(12:39):
Let's be careful with our language because when we apply
human language to dog behavior, it doesn't always equate and it
doesn't always actually mean. Like I said, I like definitions,
what we say. So a dog is actually not
stubborn. A dog is actually not defiant.
(13:00):
A dog is not actually being a jerk.
They're not being spiteful or any of that.
Dogs don't have the same emotional depth and processing
that we do as humans. That's a human brain thing.
They don't understand how to be spiteful or hateful.
(13:20):
They don't plan against us. They don't try to be difficult
or any of those things. They do something because they
can sense something that we cannot.
Yes, and I think that if people could hear that.
So I'm going to say it again. Dogs behave in certain ways
because they can sense things that we cannot.
(13:43):
If more people could grab on to that understanding and look at
their dog and go, what do we need to change in our
environment? What do I need to change about
my emotional response? What do I need to change when it
comes to this or that? Is my dog in pain?
The doorbell sound? Does that hurt their ears?
Is there something that we can do to change the situation
(14:05):
instead of blaming our our dogs?Right, we need to.
Be looking at the situation as awhole, that is just a huge thing
for a lot of people that it justhasn't settled in yet.
Yeah, absolutely. I talk in the book about this
idea of the Umvelt that has to do with the sensory experience
(14:26):
of another species and the fact that we are trying, but still
not very well versed in a dog's experience in terms of
especially, I would say with, with olfaction, we're still just
beginning to understand what those things are that they're
sensing and what that might meanfor their experience and why
they're reacting the way they are.
I'm, I'm glad that there's more and more studies of all of that.
(14:47):
I think it's, it's fascinating to, to learn more and more.
One of the scientists I met withsaid we don't really have the
tools yet to fully understand, for example, how sensitive a
dog's nose is and what that experience is for them of that
onslaught of scent. I would imagine it's very much
like visual stimuli for us. We have to be able to make sense
(15:08):
of the chaos and pick out and zoom in on the thing that's
important. And dogs are doing that with,
with smell and, and their other senses as well.
I completely agree. I think we, we do tend to react
as humans and with human mindsetand through a human lens, which
makes sense. But if we can just pause a
moment and, and think about thisis a different species.
(15:29):
They have a completely differentworld, even though they're
experiencing many of the same things and and we need to give
them the benefit of the doubt a little bit more and certainly be
more patient and more thoughtfulsometimes in our responses to
them. Yes to all of that.
Let's define olfaction. Olfaction is the scientific term
for the sense of smell encompassing the detection and
(15:51):
perception of odors, and involves a complex system of
receptors, pathways, and brain regions that process the
olfactory information. Yes.
Here's the thing though guys, dog's sense of smell is 10,000
times better them ours. There's legitimately nothing we
can compare to our scent experience that would explain
(16:15):
what a dog can do. Dogs smell in layers.
That is why when people find drugs on a fishing boat and
they're like, how did they find that?
Well, because the dog can smell the fish skin, they can smell
the fish meat, they can smell the fish organs, then they can
smell the plastic bag and then they can smell the drugs in that
(16:36):
plastic bag. OK, dogs have this incredible
sense of smell. Plus all of their other senses
are so much higher than ours. They're hearing their sight,
even the ability to feel and sense things with their fur.
We really just don't give dogs enough credit for how how much
information they are processing at 1:00.
(16:57):
Time yeah, yeah, one of the scientists, I, I probably going
to mangle the number, but I think he said to hear what a dog
hears, if you had a piano, you'dhave to add, I think he said
maybe 52 more keys in the upper range to sort of get at the
range that they hear. So they maybe don't hear quite
as well in the lower range, but they hear things that we're just
not going to be aware of there at all.
And same with vision. In the dim light, dog can see so
(17:20):
much better. In the periphery, they can see
so much better. It's not that they even though
the nose is sort of the most important in some ways for a
dog, their their other senses are remarkable in their own way.
Yeah, And just because dogs can only see a limited array of
colors, Gray, black, white, blue, orange, they still see in
a much higher definition than wedo, especially, as you
(17:42):
mentioned, in low light, which is kind of crazy, right?
Because when we go out in the dark, we're stumbling over
everything. And the dog is is made for that
because they were wild animals once.
They came from a different area in the world, living in a
different place than than we currently have them in.
When people say my dog is struggling, I don't understand.
(18:06):
And then they tell me that they live in New York.
They live on the 18th floor. And then they go in the elevator
or they walk the stairs. There's so many people that live
in this building and there's notanywhere that they can go near.
And there's crowded sidewalks and bikes and skateboards and
scooters. No wonder.
Everything it's like Jeez Louiseand you have a herding breed on
(18:28):
top of this. Of course your dog is
genetically programmed to be like, that's what look over and
you're just triggering your dog every second of the day.
So you really have to build in that trust and foundation with
your dog to say, we got this, let's go through this together
and teach them. But they don't have to bark and
(18:48):
snap or get upset about everybody that passes.
That's another thing when it comes in to dogs just in general
and people bringing dogs into their home is how important it
is to select A dog that fits your lifestyle.
Yes, because of how smart dogs are and because of how they're
going to react due to their genetics.
(19:10):
Yeah. Do you want to talk a little bit
about that? Yeah, yeah, I feel it's only
fair to the dog to to choose a dog that is going to suit you
and suit that life. I completely agree.
And I think we, we forget that people kind of fall in love with
a breed or a style of dog and they're more focused on that
aspect of it and not thinking, well, I live in an apartment and
this is just not the life that this dog was built to have.
(19:34):
People always ask me how much isit about breed?
And I think breed is important. Obviously we've sort of created
these breeds, but but there are these very strong tendencies
that you're going to see in a breed because we've been
selecting for that. But of course, within a breed,
you're going to have huge variation just like you would in
with with any creature. So it may be that there are some
(19:54):
border collies that would be OK in an apartment, but I think you
just really need to be very, very aware of the tendencies of
that breed and really select theappropriate animal.
Another thing that one of the the scientists said to me is we
owe it to our dogs to teach themwhat we expect of them if we're
going to have expectations of our pets.
So we can't expect them to figure that out.
(20:14):
And if they're not learning it, it's probably something we're
doing, not something they're doing.
And and so being a good trainer or getting a good trainer or
really again thinking from. The dog's perspective and
figuring out why is she not learning this thing that I want
her to learn or why is she jumping on people or what is it?
You know, there's, there's a reason, there's always a reason
(20:34):
for it. And if you're going to correct
it, then that's up to you. It's it's not the dog to figure
it out for themselves. If you could give one piece of
advice on dog body language, every single person that was
interested in dogs dog body language, what would that piece
of advice be? Learn it.
I guess that's too big. For starters, I pay attention.
(20:55):
If you don't know a dog, and frankly, even if you do know a
dog, never trust that the dog isgoing to not suddenly do
something that you don't expect because they're telling you what
they're going to do. That information is there, but
if you're not really watching it, paying attention, if you
haven't really learned what the ears in this position might mean
something different when combined with the tail that's
(21:18):
between the legs versus a wagging tail.
There's so many pieces of that and we pay no attention.
We primate, we run up, we hug dogs, we pet dogs that don't
want to be petted. There's so many ways that we
make mistakes. Children running up and
shrieking and screaming and being sticky and acting like
rabbits. And then we're surprised if the
dog on a leash. So that's being restrained is,
(21:40):
is acting in a way that seems sopoor manners in some way.
You should just never, never assume, I think, pay very, very
close attention and really learn.
And what those those signs are, what are they telling us?
We're always training our dogs to learn our language and
there's nothing wrong with that.But to turn around and give them
the opportunity to teach us, I think is is probably more
(22:03):
important because that's what's going to keep us from getting
into trouble with animals. I completely agree, by the time
this episode posts it'll probably be way back.
But I recently just remixed a video where it was someone
showing how they harshly pat their dog in order to teach them
to accept that from children. And my argument on that was why
(22:25):
don't we just teach the childrennot to do that?
Or if the child is going to do that, the child is not allowed
to interact with the dog. Why does the dog have to be
uncomfortable? Why do we have to suppress the
dog's emotions for an interaction that we want, not
that they want? Yeah, yeah.
Now it's an excellent point. I think it was Doctor Stanley
(22:48):
Corn who said it's amazing that our dogs don't eat more
children. He loves to say that.
I think he said it in many talksI've listened to.
But he's right. We allow kids to be kids around
dogs. And I think it's that's our
mistake. We're training a dog to accept
bad behavior from a child. That's not really a fair thing
to do to to our pets. And then we blame the dog when
(23:09):
the dog reacts right after we have said you must behave this
way and then they don't. Yes, yeah, exactly.
I'm sorry, but personally, if a child was jumping on me and
slapping me in the face, I wouldnot be happy about it either.
I'm now I'm not going to buy my bite.
I would definitely, I might yell, I might, you know, push
(23:30):
the child away and and in some cases people would react very
severely to that as well. But I'm sorry, I just don't
think that it is fair. The amount of expectations that
we put on our dog and then look at ourselves and think, well, I
wouldn't put up with that, but my dog can put up with that,
right? Well, I don't understand why one
(23:51):
has to be higher than the other.Why can't we be mutually
respectful in those areas? Yeah, yeah.
And to accept that again, these are these are dogs.
This is a different species. What they're built for, what
they're prone to do is, is different.
In Western countries especially,we give them what we think is a
good life for a dog, but we're taking a lot away and we don't
(24:12):
ever think about that. The fact that they can't do
their doggy things, we're alwayspulling them along.
Don't put your nose too close tothat garbage and get off the
couch and stop humping at the dog park and whatever they're
doing. But these are the things that
that are natural for the dog andas guardians or owners or
however you want to put it, we owe it to them to let them do
(24:33):
those things when we can. Of course, it's not always a
possibility, but there are so many opportunities when and we
can give them that back. And I think that's, that's so
important. That's one of the things I've
really took away from my research and have applied is
just to look at what my dog is doing and, and think, OK, so
he's getting a little muddy. Whatever, let him do it.
(24:54):
He's enjoying it. He clearly is finding something
interesting to sniff in that mud.
What difference does it make? It's, it's not important to pull
him away. Let's just let him be a dog and,
and do what he wants. It's good for him emotionally,
it's good for him mentally. It's only fair that he he gets
to be a dog. I'm.
So glad that you brought that upbecause it's on my list of
things to talk to you about Chapter 17, Letting our dogs be
(25:17):
dogs. That is one of my main things
when it comes to dog advocacy isyes, we need to provide
enrichment. Yes, we need to give them chews
and the right food, and we need to keep their health and
nutrition at a certain level. But letting our dogs be dogs is
the best thing that we can do for them.
And if that means running aroundin the back yard and barking at
(25:40):
the neighbors that are walking by, or barking at the dogs on
the other side of the fence, or digging a great big hole in the
middle of our backyard. Or like you said, getting really
muddy or taking them for a hike and letting them jump in the
pond or the lake or whatever. All of those things.
Sniffing, peeing on trees, scratching at the bark on the
(26:01):
tree, chasing a squirrel, chasing a chipmunk, whatever it
is those things, that is dog brain in full motion right
there. And the best thing we can do for
our dogs is let them do them. If it's not hurting anybody, if
you're not destroying someone else's property, yeah, there is
(26:21):
obviously a time and a place that we cannot allow these
things to happen. We don't want our dog to run up
to some lady on the street and pee on her leg or anything like
that, right? That's not very polite.
But if they're not destroying property or disturbing people,
let your dog. Let him.
Damn. Yeah, it's fine.
Yeah. Even things, small things like
letting them make a decision and.
(26:43):
And I talk in the book about if it's turning left or right at
the corner. It's silly stuff, but it makes a
difference. And I've.
I've started doing it. It takes absolutely nothing for
me to let him make those choices.
I read a study about how lettingdogs choose actually effects
their motivation and it just it makes them happy to do stuff
like that, their confidence. Levels.
(27:03):
Exactly. Exactly.
So what's the big deal? So I was planning to go buy that
other house, but let's go this way instead because that's the
way he wants to go. Who?
Cares. And to that point, we don't give
our dogs choice in a lot of things.
We pretty much control when theyeat, where they eat, how they
play, when they play, all of those things.
So let your dog choose how they want to play.
(27:24):
Let your dog pick what toy they want to play with.
Let them pick where you go on the walk.
If you're going on a walk, guys,if you're going on a walk for
your dog, let the walk be for your dog.
If you want to go on a walk and look at that house, or go look
at that certain neighborhood that has beautiful flower beds,
go by yourself. Don't take your dog right?
(27:45):
Go by yourself, like giving themthe choice to jump on the rocks
and make a little obstacle course out of the tree line,
jump up and down off of park benches or whatever it is.
Those are all confidence building skills that give your
dog the ability to make choices,have a stronger relationship
with you, and bolster how they feel about walking around in
(28:08):
this world in general. Yeah, that's, that's an
excellent point. Whatever you feel about dog
parks, a lot of people do make use of them.
And I have found just observing there that people really, again,
they don't know the body language well enough to know
when to just let them do what they're doing.
It's OK, They're figuring it out.
They're going to wrestle. Sometimes it's going to get a
little rough. Obviously you don't want dogs
(28:29):
tearing each other's ears off and there are times when you
need to separate them. But for the most part, dogs are
very, very socially intelligent.They know what to do.
They don't want to fight what's not good for them to get
injured. That's something that that any
mammal is going to not really wewant to do.
And and so I always sort of watch that and think, I wish
people would just take it. Just take a deep breath and
(28:51):
let's observe and watch and makesure that we really need to be
intervening. That's just the dog doing what
the dog does, and there's nothing wrong with it.
We'll agree with you to a point,because I really don't like that
phrase. Let them figure it out because I
think that that is where the miscommunication happens with
people who understand dog body language and people who don't
(29:13):
understand dog body language. The person who usually doesn't
understand dog body language is saying letting them figure it
out and their dog is legitimately about to attack
another dog. The observation part 100%.
I agree with you on that. You need to be observing your
dog. If you go to the dog park, do
not sit on a bench and read a book.
(29:34):
Do not scroll through your phone.
Do not just focus on other people.
You need to be focused on your dog.
Look at your dog, watch your dog.
Make sure you're watching your dog's body language and then
watch the body language of the dogs that are around your dog.
There will be clear signals. There will be flat back ears.
There will be tucked tails. There will be curled lips.
(29:55):
There will be tight body posture.
There will be signs. Guys, you will know if something
bad is about to happen. If one dog is getting ganged up
by a bunch of other dogs, you need to be able and ready to
intervene. Dogs to a point, yes, they are
very good at interacting socially and they are very good
(30:15):
at walking away from situations or moving away from play.
And then there are dogs who are like people who are kind of tone
deaf and they don't realize thatmaybe they're a little extra for
this group that they just joinedin and now they've created a
problem. And when nobody is there
observing and helping, right, that's when we see conflict.
(30:36):
So letting them figure it out isn't exactly the the right way
to do it. Just know, like you said, learn
body language, know when you need to step in, know when you
need to intervene. And don't always let them figure
it out. Because if, if you're seeing
certain signs of body language or irritation, signs of
aggression, take it out, intervene, get those dogs apart.
(30:57):
Yeah. And get it out of the dog park
because it will escalate. And then people who say, I don't
know where that came from or it came out of nowhere or there.
Was attention. You were not paying attention
because it was. Exactly, And I do think also the
dog park, it's a constrained place and people come in with a
dog on a leash and there are some things that can set things
(31:19):
up for a problem because again, people aren't paying attention.
They don't realize. In that case, you should have
taken your dog off the leash because your dog was was being
held back and it needed to interact in a certain way and it
wasn't able to. So yes, I absolutely agree with
you. It's it's about if, if you're
paying attention and you know the body language, you're going
to know when there is a real problem coming.
(31:40):
And dog parks can certainly set dogs up for issues.
My dog Fitz was the first dog that I ever had that was high
energy crazy. I lived in an apartment when I
first got him and his parents lived right below me.
They had an accidental litter ofpuppies from rescuing a side off
a dog off the side of the road. And they were always so well
behaved. And I didn't know that they were
(32:00):
going for long walks and hikes every day.
They didn't tell me that. And so I get this dog who's just
a ball of us and I take him to the dog park and he doesn't like
other dogs. He's trying to avoid people and
he's trying to run back to the car.
So the dog park made my dog reactive.
But with my experience as a vet tech with getting into dog
training, all the things I'm outthere breaking up dog fights,
(32:23):
I'm seeing all this negative stuff happening.
I'm getting yelled at. So we stopped going to the dog
park. And I don't usually tend to
coach people to go to the dog park unless it's it's your only
outlet. Or if you can go to the outside
of the dog park and work with your dog outside side of the dog
park, observe what's going on inthere.
Because unfortunately, the reality is probably 95% of
(32:48):
people in there are not paying attention and 5% of people are
paying attention. And there are some people.
We had a girl come on, I think it was episode 37.
Come on, who has an excellent dog park culture where everybody
knows each other, everybody helps each other, everyone
babysits each other's dogs when they're out of town, like really
(33:09):
good group of people and they police their little dog park.
Excellent. That is not the case for pretty
much everyone, right? I would wish that that could be
something that we could work on.But unfortunately, most people
just take their dogs to run. And, and this is where I will
say, hey, if you want to do that, there's this really
awesome thing called sniff spots.
(33:29):
You can rent an area that's private for your dog, and then
you can sit down and scroll through your phone and just let
your dog be a dog because you don't have to worry about
anybody else. Yeah.
And I think that's incredible. Yeah, yeah, that is ideal.
We've we've found immediately that our, our dogs that we've
had in the past have not been interested and we're
uncomfortable for sure with withall the attention.
(33:51):
So that that ended quickly. No more dog park for us.
Well, and that's another situation too, where there's
small children running around and running up into your dog's
face and people, can I pet your dog?
We're not asking can I pet your dog?
And my dog is, he's a Velcro dog.
He's like, I don't want to play with those other dogs.
I'm going to walk right here by you.
Did he have a leash on? No.
(34:11):
Was he under any kind of control?
No, he didn't need to stay there.
He was allowed to do what he wanted to do, but he was
uncomfortable enough that he wasgoing to stay right there
because that's where he felt comfortable going back to this
whole thing. We put our dogs in situations
that they're uncomfortable, thatwe don't even realize that we're
doing. That could be as simple as
putting our dog in the car and taking them for a pup cup.
(34:33):
The dog is shaking and drooling in the back seat and the dog
hates it. But we think that we're doing
something nice for a dog. You want to do something nice
for your dog? Make your dog a pop cup at home.
Yeah. Not every dog wants to go to
Starbucks, right? Unfortunately.
As cute as they look eating the pup cup on on social media, it's
not always the right thing to do.
Absolutely agree. What's your favorite?
(34:54):
Chapter That's a hard one. I liked that I was able to mix
the talking heads and the experts and the field stuff with
my own personal stories. And in my writing career, my
favorite things to do are to write about things I've done and
seen or dig into how it's affected me.
And although this isn't a chapter but more sections that
appeared throughout. I befriended a dog named Odin in
(35:16):
the beginning of my journey on doing this book.
And it turned out that he was this wonderful teacher for me
throughout the process. And the way that I spent time
with him and the way that he affected me, I think really
exemplified some of the different kinds of intelligence
that dogs can have and taught mea lot about how to react to
(35:38):
dogs, how to pay attention to dogs.
Odin, I think he's appears five times in the book.
And I think I most enjoyed writing those sections because
they were touching for me and I was very emotional for me at
times to be with him. He was there kind of there for
me, if you will, when my my dad was dying and he was the dog
that I went back to after spending time with my father
(36:00):
taught me some very interesting lessons about what dogs can
sense in that he sensed a pregnancy in the woman that owns
him and and let her know in someways that were were interesting
to to write about. The pieces about Odin are some
of my favorite writing in the book.
I would say it. Will never cease to fascinate
me. How dogs can communicate with us
(36:22):
again about things that we don'teven know are happening.
Pregnancy, migraines, heart attacks, cancer, anxiety.
Right. I had a therapist several years
back and they had a dog that would just hang out in the
waiting room. Nobody ever said anything about
why the dog was there. He just had a vest on that said
I'm working and nobody at the front desk ever said anything.
(36:45):
One day the dog got up and he went over and he sat on this
man's feet and put his head down, like on the man's lap.
And the man started petting him and started crying.
And everybody in the waiting room was just looking around
like, OK, what is happening? Everything just kind of stopped.
(37:06):
And the gentleman looked up and I was sitting next to him and he
said I have cancer and I think he can smell it.
And I'm coming here to deal withmy grief of this is going to be
the end of my life because I'm basically almost into palliative
care care. I ended up asking the therapist
in my session. I said, is that a medical alert
(37:27):
dog? Like, what is that?
And she said, yeah, it's a medical alert, dog.
Amazing you can. Detect cancer, you can detect
anxiety, he can detect migraines, He can detect all
these things. But we don't tell people that
because we're afraid that it will make them uncomfortable.
Sure. He's there to comfort people
when he senses that they need it.
Yeah. And I was just like, oh, my God.
It was really cool. And I thought it was neat that
(37:50):
the gentleman was able to open up about and talk to complete
strangers about it in the waiting room, just because the
dog was able to say, it's OK, I'm here for you.
Yeah. Just.
It was such a cool. Cool.
Experience, it's remarkable. And I have a chapter about kind
of emotional intelligence and dogs that that do that sort of
work. And then even the many cases you
(38:11):
hear of dogs not being trained to do it, but just doing it,
sensing something and coming to the person in the room that
needed it most is the one that the dog chose to approach.
And again, we don't maybe give them enough credit for sensing
all of that and taking all that in.
And for those dogs that are trained to take on our stress
and to comfort us, it's important for us to remember
(38:34):
that, you know, they need a break from that too, because
they are absorbing the negativity or the sadness.
So it's wonderful that they're doing it.
And we appreciate it so much that that appreciation needs to
always go to making sure that they're not doing it all the
time, that they have time again to be a dog, to just get all of
that stuff out that they are carrying around with them by
(38:54):
just being being a dog. I love it when I hear a service
dog handler say my dog is off duty right now and they take the
vest off and they let him go runand play or they say my dog
isn't working today. I actually have a personal
friend who has two service dogs.She has to rotate the dog so
each dog can have time off because of the number of medical
(39:16):
conditions that she has. But she will say the same thing.
They need their own time, they need their own life.
They need their own ability to be dogs and have fun.
You'll did find her dogs doing funny things with her daughter
and what's really cute to see those interactions, but it's
also really cool that she has that much forethought that she
(39:36):
knows that she needs to rotate her dogs so that they can have a
life that is not just in serviceto her.
Yeah, one of the group of peopleI talked to were people who were
working out the idea of having dogs for Alzheimer's patients.
And I was thinking a lot about what that life could look like
for the dog and how 24/7 that isand unpredictable it can be and
(39:57):
how negative it can become. The person happens to be someone
who gets aggressive or gets angry or confused a lot.
And, and just thinking about that and about how important it
would be for that dog to be released from that as often as
possible so that they don't feelthis sort of constant need to be
observing every single thing andresponding to it appropriate.
You would need definitely somebody secondary to come in
(40:20):
and make sure that the dog was cared for, right.
Somebody with Alzheimer's isn't going to remember to let the dog
out to go to the bathroom, feed the dog.
Yeah, things like that. So, yeah, that that would be a
really, really tough one. Yeah.
I think, I don't know, honestly know how I feel about that.
That's definitely something I'm going to have to think on
because you're right. Where is the line when it comes
(40:41):
to the dog being in service and the dog being off duty?
Because that that is something health issue like that is
something that is permanent. It does not go away.
And then it continues to be great as as they go through the
process. That's just so sad.
Yeah, yeah. And it may be that that's not
ultimately an appropriate way toto train a dog.
(41:03):
And, and there may be parts of it that it's fine that the dog
can help with certain things, but to insert a dog into that
life without, as you say, another person who's there all
the time, it'll be interesting to see what comes of that.
Obviously you've had a lot of interactions with dogs.
We've already heard about a dog that detected a pregnancy.
What are a couple others examples of Cool things that you
(41:25):
saw dogs do? I spent quite a bit of time with
people who use their dogs in conservation related activities.
So I spent some time out in Washington state going around
with a young woman whose dog is trained to find the scat of
particular endangered species inthis one region of Washington
and helping to determine what's out there, where they're living,
(41:48):
if they're moving, where this group of animals might live,
which was great fun. And the dogs just love it.
You can just tell they're so excited to work.
They just want to be out there because they're, they're using
their natural skills. You know, this is sniffing and,
and reacting to their person andrunning and all the things that
they really enjoy. Also in the conservation mode, a
woman whose dog sniffs out whalepoop that is floating on the
(42:10):
surface of the ocean. The dog actually guides the, the
driver of the boat to where the stuff is floating so that they
can grab a sample of it before it sinks.
And this is to, again, to look at a population of, of orcas in
this case and try to understand how they're doing nutrition and
how big the population is and all the things that
conservationists and biologists want to know.
(42:30):
That was a really fun thing to to be a part of just to go out
on the boat and watch the dog find that scent in the air and
move around the boat following that scent cone and trying to
help. And we're zooming boat in the
boat left and right trying to reach this, this big Patty of
poop on the surface of the sea. What a funny, crazy thing that
that someone thought of and realized, hey, my dog could do
(42:52):
that and started training. And now there's more than one of
these dogs that will can help them help them with this sort of
task. So those were great fun.
Anything having to do with humanremains is fascinating.
Dogs that are finding very, veryold remains in unmarked
cemeteries or or other locations.
And in some cases helping, for example, to mark the boundaries
(43:14):
of a historic cemetery that wasn't ever marked properly.
And they they use the dogs to help them find where the people
were buried. And these are bones that may be
hundreds of years old and the dogs can can find it just
remarkable, especially the olfaction, I would say, But
certainly the dogs that that offer comfort and, and as I
said, the herding dogs, the hunting dogs, all of the others
(43:36):
that get out there, the trick dogs, sport dogs, great fun to
watch how they learn and just all the things they can do is is
quite remarkable. It really is.
Cadaver dogs are next level. It's very intense to watch a dog
search like that, even if it they're not searching for
cadaver, but when they're looking for missing children,
(43:57):
missing people, all that kind ofstuff.
That scent work is incredible tome.
But whale poop, think about whales pooping until until it's
like, OK, well they they hunt out the whale poop and before it
sinks. How specific is that?
So crazy. And the distance that they can
(44:17):
probably smell that from. Exactly.
And with the wind and the water and all the conditions that can
affect that and they don't, oh, it's not always successful.
Certainly it depends on the conditions.
I was impressed with how often they they actually are able to
get the samples that they need. It just really speaks to how
incredible they are and how muchwe limit their potential when
(44:39):
when we look at bigger picture things like that.
That's crazy. Before we wrap up, is there
anything else that you would like to say about the book?
I'm really proud of the book. My previous books were
individual stories of odd animalpairs and they were a lot of fun
and and true stories. But this book really challenged
me to put together a more of a real book with, you know, a
(45:00):
thread going through it and, andthings that that have to make
sense where they are in the book.
I felt really good about what I was able to cover and the
wonderful voices that are in there, the amazing people who
let me come. Even during the pandemic, I was
doing a lot of this field work and went to a military base and
was out with hunting dogs and with trainers.
I was so fortunate to have theseopportunities.
(45:23):
I'm really excited about the book and I hope people will pick
it up and read it or borrow it, doesn't matter.
Get it from the library. It has a lot of, I think, nice
material to just help us think alittle differently about our
dogs and appreciate them even more than we have before.
Where can people find your book?Where can people find you?
How can we get into contact withyou and follow your?
Journey the online retailers good old Amazon has the book, of
(45:47):
course, barnesandnoble.com. You can get it on the Disney
books website. It is a National Geographic book
which falls under Disney. Now my website is
jenniferhollandwriter.com. You can actually reach me
directly through that site and you can also find links to that
book and to my. Amazing.
It was wonderful to have you here today.
(46:07):
Jennifer, what would you like toleave the listeners with?
I would say just step back and remember this is another
species, this thing that we bring into our homes and that we
we adore. We really, really do love them.
But that doesn't always mean that we do what's best for them.
And I think the more we sort of take that moment to think about
what they might be experiencing and appreciating them as dogs
(46:31):
and giving them opportunities tobe dogs in whatever that I think
we really owe it to them to do that.
I. Completely agree with you.
Thank you so much for being herethis week.
It was an honor to talk to you and it was a wonderful journey
to read your book and I can't wait to talk Dog with you again
in the future. Thank you, I had a lot of fun.
(46:52):
Well, you guys, I hope you enjoyed this episode.
You should definitely pick up this book.
Remember, it is called Dog Smart, Life Changing Lessons in
Canine Intelligence by Jennifer Holland and we will see you guys
next week on Straight Up Dog Talk.
Straight Up Dog Talk is created,edited, produced and hosted by
Emily Breslin under the supervision of Straight Up Dog
(47:13):
Talk, LLC. If you're enjoying the podcast,
be sure to follow or subscribe so you never miss an episode and
leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform.
Want even more honest, relatabledog content?
Check out our sister show Unpacked with Jerry Sheriff and
Madison Simpson. Thanks for listening to Straight
Up Dog Talk. We'll see you next Wednesday for
another real, unfiltered conversation.
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