Dr. Melanie Uhde --- How Neurotransmitters and Hormones Affect Training

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to balanced training with suburban canine Nelson
Vloss. How are you guys doing well?
Doing great. Are you excited for our guest?
You have to say yes. Very, very excited.
Super excited. So joining us today, we have
Doctor Melanie Udah. She is pretty awesome.

(00:20):
Welcome, Doctor Melanie. Thanks for coming on.
My pleasure, my pleasure. We are excited to have you.
I'm going to give a really quickbio as promised.
I won't drag it out. Melanie is the owner of Canine
Decoded. She is all over social media.
If you follow dog training, you are seeing her constantly.
Of course, what's really neat isthere's a lot of dog trainers

(00:43):
out there, but Doctor Melanie isa doctor.
She is a PhD in natural sciences, I believe, and a
master's in biology. Is that correct?
Correct, All right, which is an uncommon combination in the dog
training field, which is what makes her so fun to talk to
because she brings a lot of knowledge that other people just
simply don't have. We'll have, you know, doctor

(01:05):
Melanie get just give a quick overview of herself.
But for anyone who wants more, she has been on literally every
dog training pod. We were actually last on the
list. She has been on every dog
training podcast already her. I've interviewed her twice now
on dog pro radio. So if you want to hear her
there, go there. There's many other places.
I mean, you've been on, I think you were on canine paradigm.

(01:26):
You've been on all kinds of shows, right?
So there's you can get any information you want on her, but
could you give everyone just a quick explanation of who you are
and what you're all about? Yeah, what am I all about?
I think maybe one good point is like what I'm doing all the
stuff, educational stuff, dog training was not planned.

(01:49):
It happened well, as by accident, probably one of the
good things because then you feel like this is really what
you want to do because you didn't you didn't necessarily
odd you're going to do it. But yeah, educational wise, I've
been in academia for the biggestpart of my life, started in
Germany and I thought I'm going to go down the 10 year track and
I did my postdoc at Calum University in New York.

(02:11):
And it was right at the edge of thinking about an associate
professor. And then I realized that I don't
want to be in academia anymore for various reasons.
And you know, it's like these little things that happened in
life and all these bigger life stories always feel like or make
it sound like there was one big event and it changed life
completely. It wasn't like that by little by

(02:33):
little things found to place andstarted to get more interested
into animals as in hands on animal.
I started I was a cat person also, so I didn't ever thought
I'm going to have a dog at some point.
That's a big shift. It is.
And I wonder now, why was I everinto cats?

(02:55):
Like you can't do anything with them.
That's not true. Some cat people now say we can
train cats, but not the one I have.
But anyways, and, and as I was transitioning and out of
academia and I had my dog and I,you know, as a biologist, you
have some sort of natural curiosity about the creature in
front of you. And things didn't make sense as

(03:19):
in like what I saw and what I wanted to do in terms of
training. There was a rescue dog.
So I'm not like anything purebred or whatever.
And I kind of all planted the seed for me trying to combine my
academia background and knowledge with just training my
own dog. And then, you know, my brain.

(03:40):
Fortunately or unfortunately, sometimes it's a hassle.
I don't really, I'm, I'm a horrible student that way.
I don't really do things unless I know why I'm doing things.
So I don't want to. I'm working with my gal is right
now my puppy. And whenever he tells me
something, he knows by now that I'm going to ask why I'm doing
it before I'm actually going to do it.
So that way, it also happened with my dog.

(04:04):
Then I'm like, why am I doing this?
And as you try to answer your own questions, I go to the
literature, I go to my scientific background, and I
shadowed and studied as far as Ican remotely.
All kinds of trainers force freeversus balanced.
I didn't even know that there's a thing until I knew that it is
a thing. Yeah.

(04:26):
And, and Long story short, that's basically me kind of
trying to figure out and trying to answer questions.
It didn't make sense to me. And then I realized, oh, it
doesn't make sense to other people either.
And I started talking more aboutit.
And thanks to social media, it reached a bunch of people.
And then I realized, I think that's, that could be a thing
that I'm doing. And eventually after after then

(04:50):
COVID happened and maybe it was a good thing because I then
transitioned out of corporate after academia, I went to
corporate and then transitioned out of that into my full time
business because I kind of was pushed to do that.
And now here we are on my I don't know if it feels like
hundreds podcast, science and doc training a. 100th in the

(05:14):
last probably 2 weeks I'm guessing.
Something like that. You must have a lot of storage
on your phone because I see reels from you constantly.
They're they're always being posted.
It's horrible. It's yes, I have to pay for
storage, but even finding thingsand but you know, you've took,
took taken the video that you had an idea for and you can't

(05:36):
find it anymore. And then now it's all puppy
photos and puppy puppy videos too.
It's it's a lot. And the problem is I'm not, you
know, when we talk about contentcreation stuff, my, my programs
and everything, that is very like, you know, I set time aside
and I planned this out and I settime aside for the research, the

(05:57):
content creation stuff. It is a lot.
And it seems like I'm, and I'm spending time on it, but it's
all happens very spontaneously. It's like, oh, I have an hour,
let's post something. And that sometimes creates a lot
of careless. So it's, you know, it's, yeah,
it's a struggle. Your husband walks in.
You're like I'm recording right now.

(06:19):
Yes, that happened too, for sure.
Yeah. You know, you mentioned Michael
LS and asking him questions and I just picture a picture of
those conversations devolving into like 30 minutes of operant
conditioning and the nuances. And like how long does the leash
pressure have to be before it's no longer positive punishment?
And that's actually negative reinforcement at that point.

(06:40):
When you release it, I could seelike taking notes and friendly
little arguments happening fly on the wall.
That'd be fun. Yes, yeah, that, that certainly,
that certainly happens as we're walking from 1 field to the
other. And then, yeah.
So it's, you know, throwing out the question and then him
telling things. And then I was like, I read the

(07:00):
study and then I go, yeah, and this and this and that.
And then and then we're like allfascinated and like, you know,
all the place. I'm like, yeah.
And OK, let's train dogs. All right, so to frame the
episode for today, the the idea we had for everybody is we're
going to talk through neurotransmitters and hormones
and you're going to give us justamazing scientific info that

(07:23):
none of us have. So we're excited about that.
And once we've had our fail and we understand more than we did
at the start, then we're going to dive into specific examples
and try to figure out what's going on in the dog's brain when
they're leash aggressive, when they're food aggressive, when
they're fearful, when we're pulling them out of the crate
and they're showing teeth. And we're trying to figure out,

(07:45):
you know, how to manage that, what's happening in the dog's
brain. Because what's interesting, I
think as a trainer is very oftenwe know how to fix something and
we know it works and we have an explanation as to why it works.
But if you said what's actually happening in the dog's brain
from a neurotransmitter hormone standpoint, like, I don't know,

(08:08):
he's calmer than he was at the start.
So I'm, I'm excited to hear yourtake and all of that stuff.
And I think it is important for all dog trainers to be able to
admit we sometimes we feel like we have to know everything.
As dog trainers, your clients expect you to kind of know
everything. But when it comes to stuff like
this, First off, no one knows everything.
But also very few dog trainers are going to be an expert on

(08:32):
this topic. And that could seem short, you
know, short sighted. But what I had mentioned to you
earlier, Doctor Melanie, was, I mean, these are similar things
to what are going. It's what we have in a human
body as well, right? And very few of us are our
experts on our own body or I mean, we've raised kids for all
of human history without knowingall this stuff.
So you can be an incredible dog trainer and know literally none

(08:55):
of the stuff we're going to talkabout in the episode today.
But obviously knowledge is power.
Where did that come from? Is that a Spider Man reference?
Knowledge is no, that's with great power comes great
responsibility. That's that one that doesn't
fit. But anyways, this is this
knowledge is going to make you abetter trainer.
So I'm excited for it. Where is knowledge is power?

(09:16):
Where did that come from? Or is that just a saying?
I don't think I've ever heard any specific like cultural, you
know, significant piece of artwork where that came from.
I've just heard it said as a child.
OK, well, knowledge is power, all right?
Well, there's so many ways we could frame this and start, but

(09:39):
I guess Doctor Melanie, could you just walk us through from
your end what you consider the most important or most relevant?
Well, I guess how about a question.
What's the difference between a neurotransmitter and a hormone?
Can we start there and then diveinto them?
Yeah. So both of those things you can
consider as messengers, they kind of carry some some sort of

(10:01):
information from A to B and havecertain consequences when it's
being, you know, released. Now, neurotransmitters that
usually happen, mostly the effects happen in the brain.
Now, there are sites outside of the brain.
The gut can, for example, produce serotonin.
We know serotonin is a neurotransmitter, but the

(10:23):
effects happen in the brain mostly.
And for hormones, they are produced in the periphery by
organs. They enter the bloodstream and
their effects happen throughout the body.
That's I would say and and you know, there are always kind of
edge cases here and there, but for the like the general

(10:44):
understanding new transmitters, we usually associate this with
any kind of information and activation in the brain and
hormones being associated with something that happens in the
body outside the brain. OK.
And I feel like I've heard hormones are generally longer
lasting. Is that accurate?
Yes. So there are hormones that have
big, fast and quick actions and responses.

(11:08):
And in general, though they have, it takes a little bit
longer and they're, until they're being cleared from the
bloodstream and even their effects themselves on organs or
body functions, they can take longer, they travel fast and
longer. They have longer ways from going
from one side to the other. And, and therefore, you know,

(11:31):
for example, cortisol as a hormone, right?
We always associate this with asa stress response.
And we know a stress response can kick in very, very quickly.
But cortisol actually peaks 5-10minutes at least we notice in
the human body after the stress response started.
It does take some time and then you know, everyone who's been
really, really stressed also knows you can calm your brain a

(11:53):
little bit, but your body still,the heart still beats faster.
You may be still sweating. It takes some time until all the
effects have basically come backto baseline level.
I think that's going to be interesting to talk about later
on, right? When we're talking about what's
happening in a dog's body or brain at this given moment.

(12:13):
Because if they do something andor something happens and a lot
of hormones are released to try to wrap our heads around how
long, even if we can manage themand calm them down, how long
before those hormones are no longer, you know, stressing them
out or making them excited or fighting fight or flight,
whatever. I think that'll be interesting
to dive into, you know, on a case by case basis.

(12:36):
Yeah, for sure. All right.
And I guess last big picture question are, are these the same
in humans as as in dogs? So everything we're going to
talk through today, is it basically the same in humans or
are there pretty big differences?
They're not big differences, butthere are some differences
between mammals of different species.

(12:58):
We can find structural differences that sometimes is
reflected and naming it differently, but the overall arc
or understanding of how things function of fairly conserved
across, let's say higher intelligence species.
And we can, we can assume that alot of those things because

(13:19):
they, they seem very similar in rodents and, and monkeys and
humans and, you know, sometimes even birds and insects, we can
assume that on at least to the level that that concerns us as,
as dog trainers, it's fairly similar.
OK, good. So what we learned here today,
we can like armchair psychologist and like talk to

(13:43):
our spouses and be like, wow, there's a lot of a lot of
cortisol being released in your body right now or something
along those lines. Perfect.
All right. Well, do you want to just start
running us down whatever path you want to on some of the some
of the neurotransmitters and hormones that you think are
important and relevant here? I think you should give me one.

(14:05):
Maybe one of you guys give me one.
What did you have heard? What what?
What is something to be real themost nowadays being talked
about? I mean, cortisol for sure, and I
feel like we hear about that so much because of the idea that
it's a negative thing, right? Where people don't like to talk

(14:25):
about positive. I don't really feel you hear
people talk about dopamine very much.
You know, generally it's more cortisol, but how about those
two? I'd love to talk about either of
them or both. Yeah.
So we have cortisol, the hormoneand then you have dopamine, the
neurotransmitter. So yeah, in a way it kind of
covers both sides of the spectrum that we that we
mentioned. So cortisol I think from from

(14:53):
from a scientific perspective, you know, like we would not be
able to stay alive without it. It's actually incredibly
important and it's not, we call it a stress hormone, but it's a
metabolic hormone, meaning it activates the metabolism within
the stress response. That means you're, you know,

(15:14):
helping to, to provide the energy to, to the muscles that
are needed to run away or to initiate a flight.
But in any other way also like waking up in the morning,
increased cortisol helps you also to get up and get your
going that you get stay awake orat least wake up and be active.

(15:38):
So it's, it's not just somethingthat is associated with a stress
response, but we are most often talking about it within the
stress response because at leastin a dog training world, no one
else cares about what else cortisol is doing in the body.
And then we assume it's only doing that.
I mean, there's very little, I don't know of any really of any

(16:00):
hormone or neurotransmitter thatjust have one function because
they, they, they don't have functions that carry messenger
messengers. And these, what kind of message
it is depends on the target organ or the target brain area.
It is a, the first thing within the stress response.
You know what's faster being released is adrenaline.

(16:22):
Also the, the sympathetic nervous system is being
activated the fastest to actually increase your heart
rate. And then as the, as the stress
response Rams up, cortisol is being released and that kind of
accelerates the whole, the wholething.
The, you know, the stress response is being triggered or
starts in the brain more or less.

(16:42):
The brain obviously gets some feedback from from the body, but
we have a certain brain area. It's called the hippopalamus,
super important brain area. I'm kind of responsible to to
keep track of everything like are we hungry?
Are we thirsty? Do we feel safe?
And then it gets information as to like this might be a threat
or not. And it starts telling the body,

(17:04):
hey, we need to initiate the stress response.
And hence cortisol, adrenaline, everything is being activated
now because cortisol is a metabolic hormone and because we
wouldn't be alive without it, itreally just means that it helps
us, any living being that that releases cortisol to adapt to

(17:27):
change, you know, and change canbe the change of temperature or
the change between daylight and the night and the change between
feeling safe and not safe. So anything that kind of
requires change in terms of the behavior output, cortisol kind
of helps with that, supports that.
And if it means running away, you know, as a zebra from a line

(17:48):
that helps you to stay alive. And if it means chasing a zebra
and activating the stress response to chase, that means
you stay alive because you potentially get to eat.
And, and that activation, short term at least, there's a lot of
good things too, because it's kind of practicing the body or
preparing the body to be able toadapt to change.

(18:10):
And as we know, things always change.
There's nothing that always stays the same.
There doesn't have to be big changes, but are still slight
changes. So without cortisol, we wouldn't
be able to and other hormones, again, we wouldn't be able to do
that. And the body and the brain also
kind of rewards us ourselves forhaving that, you know, having a

(18:33):
little bit of activation and stress response helps boost the
immune system, right? It helps all kinds of things.
What else, It keeps the brain a little bit healthier.
And most importantly, it also helps strengthen the the
mechanism that is needed to shutthe stress response off.

(18:54):
And cortisol is involved into and that too.
So it's a beautiful, you know, positive, negative feedback loop
saying hey, we need to activate the stress response and cortisol
also helps deactivating the stress response.
And if that happens in short bouts every now and then, it
kind of keeps the whole Organismfit and healthy.

(19:14):
It obviously has the opposite effect if it's chronic and then
we have some some major imbalances.
But for short term stress, that's what Caldosal does and
that's why we love it. So I, I feel like you might have
given the answer to this just a moment ago, But so when cortisol
is released, I think most dog trainers or most people, if you

(19:36):
said why is cortisol released, they would know it's because of
stress. But what does it feel like?
What is it doing? So if you could, just like if we
could inject Nelson right now with just like 50 CCS of
cortisol, what does he feel like?
What? What does it actually do in your
body? How much cortisol do you want to

(19:57):
inject? Oh, I have no idea.
I'm not sure how to even measureit.
So there are a bunch of little things.
Again, it's a metabolic hormone,It, it increases the blood
sugar, right? And so it helps to, to make
blood sugar or like sugar available for energy, right?

(20:18):
What do we need energy for? Muscle contraction, either of
like actually the muscles in your limbs to run in your fist
to start a fight if Nelson wanted to start a fight, right?
So cortisol helps with that and then it also suppresses
functions like that are not important in that moment.
So it helps to suppress digestion or the urge to

(20:39):
reproduce, like all these thingsthat are not important in the
moment. If you wanted to have the kind
of fight or flight response or stress response happening, then
Colossal also helps with that. It's like, don't worry about
reproducing, don't worry about digesting.
I don't know, the banana, just run or fight.
And then it also helps indirectly in the brain.

(21:00):
It kind of helps to to increase alertness and focus because we
need to know what are we lookingat?
Like what are we running away from?
Is it still behind us or not? Or who do we need to fight?
What is that person or whatever,whoever you're finding doing so
alertness and focus is needed. And cortisol does does that in

(21:22):
particular too. And then like more from like a
metabolic perspective, you know,blood pressure and sleep, wake
cycle, all these things that I already mentioned, but for the
acute stress response, that's usually what we what we
associate cortisol with. So in the short run, cortisol's
like a superpower. It really is.

(21:43):
Yeah, yeah. It is.
I mean, it doesn't do it just byitself, but it does definitely
has a pretty big influence on doing the right things at the
right time if needed. OK, it's fascinating to think
that it's on both sides. You know, you had the example of
the zebra and the lion. You know, when I think of

(22:04):
cortisol and kind of what I've always heard of or looked into
is more along the lines of thosesympathetic nervous system.
And so that would be more along the lines of that zebra, right?
You know, something's happening,there's danger, you have to run,
you know, your heart, you know, you start breathing really fast,
your heart rate goes up, you canfeel the adrenaline, you know,

(22:26):
all that stuff. But then it was, it was kind of
like a, oh, I didn't think aboutthat being on the lion's end as
well, right? Of, you know, hurry up, jump on
this thing, grab it as quickly as you can because they too
can't be losing too much energy,you know, themselves in case
they're unsuccessful. And so, yeah, I guess it was

(22:46):
just a little bit more fascinating to think that it's
it's all-encompassing as opposedto just being on the prey side
of it all. So you both kind of hit on this
over the last few minutes, but it sounds like cortisol and
adrenaline share, at least to me, a lot of characteristics.

(23:06):
Is that accurate? It is accurate, the speed and
like you know a lot adrenaline and cortisol, they bind to
certain organs and the speed at which that happens, the speed at
which something is being released, they they vary a
little bit. So adrenaline is a lot faster,

(23:27):
but ultimately they have similar, they're, they're like
teamwork, right? They're on the same team when it
comes to the stress response. OK so I've never thought of
cortisol as sharpening your mental focus.
To me that sounds like adrenaline, so I was intrigued

(23:48):
to hear that they have some similar similar roles.
Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, again, like adrenaline,
act super fast. That's like within second.
It does help to like as soon as if you get startled by something
like your walk down the street and then you get startled or
like a dog walks down the streetand gets startled by something.

(24:08):
I mean, they turn immediately totry to Orient towards whatever
that sound was and that sharpened focus.
And that moment is 100% adrenaline.
It's like happening within seconds, if not milliseconds.
And then cortisol is more like, you know, if you have to keep
running after the zebra, after you keep running away from the
line, it kind of like sharpens and you have to stay focused.

(24:29):
That's what cortisol helps with because it provides the energy
to these things. It's kind of like, think of it
like the cortisol in particular and adrenaline as well.
But you know, just the time is alittle bit different, but
cortisol sustains the energy because everything that comes to
fight or flight is all, it's allreally, really energy consuming

(24:49):
the unless you get something outof it, which we know a lot of
dogs do. The reason why most dogs rather
avoid it and they behave differently, but they behave
differently off leash than on the leash is because they rather
avoid things because it takes a lot of energy to get into a
fight and takes a lot of energy to survive a fight or to win the

(25:09):
fight, right. And and cortisol helps like
sustaining the energy if if needed and stays on longer.
Like we talked about just now, adrenaline is being metabolized
a lot faster and they are like these differences.
But overall, you know, all of these things come together to

(25:31):
activate the sympathetic nervoussystem through adrenaline and
the stress response releasing cortisone, all that through the
HPA axis. And just to make sure I have
this, you know, kind of clear, the cortisol being the hormone
is slow acting and slow going. So, you know, what I think about

(25:54):
when it comes to feeling the adrenaline or anything like that
is, is if I'm working with a more aggressive dog on a leash
and it decides to, you know, tryand jump up at me and, you know,
now I'm trying to work my, my way through that, right?
Again, the heart rate goes up, the breathing and everything.
And even after I've gotten the dog under control again, you

(26:17):
know, it takes a little bit for,for my heart rate to go down for
me to, you know, fully catch my breath, start breathing normally
and everything like that. And that's, that's the slober
response being the hormone side of it, right?
Correct. So the first initial, like you
being able to keep the dog away from you, that that's what it
ran on, that's like immediately ready.

(26:37):
That's what adrenaline does. And cortisol kind of helps you
work through this whole thing. And then, yeah, it takes a
little bit longer to bring it all back down, which is the the
aftermath of the cortisol release.
Yeah, not fun by the way, does. That sound like it.
Well, but it only happens to youa couple days a week, Nelson.
So it's not a big. Deal.

(27:00):
We see a lot of wild dogs, which, you know, we could
probably get into some of that later, but we definitely see a
lot of aggression cases, a lot of dogs coming up the leash at
you and it's, you know, I mean, it's pet dog trainers.
I feel like that's pretty common, right?
We see a lot of that. Definitely.
All right, I've got one more basic question.

(27:22):
Adrenaline and epinephrine, are those different?
No, they're the same. They're exactly the same.
Exactly the same. It's just epinephrine and rather
than the same name, there's no adrenal, there's no adrenaline
or N.O.R.E epinephrine, they're slightly different.
Adrenaline you can again, hormone in the body, no

(27:42):
adrenaline in the brain. More so similar functions.
Obviously one acts on the brain,one acts in the body, but
epinephrine and adrenaline exactthe same thing, different names.
OK. All right.
So I threw those at you, Vloss or Nelson, anything in

(28:04):
particular you want to talk about?
I've got more questions on my list, but any other hormones or
neurotransmitters that are burntin a hole in your brain?
I think it'd be interesting to hear more on the
neurotransmitter side, the dopamine, you know, and how that
actually plays out for dogs and where they're actually getting

(28:25):
the rewards right and doing naughty things versus doing the
right things and how we can switch that over.
You know, that being the end goal for for all of us as
trainers. Yeah, I mean, that's that's a
huge topic and there's so many nuances to it.

(28:48):
The way we talk about dopamine is usually in the context of
reward, right. But I think now as it has been
talked about more, I think people pay more attention to the
nuances. It's the anticipation of the
reward that matters and the ability to anticipate a reward

(29:08):
with high energy and like with alot of obsession and passion is
a, is a matter of learning and amatter of genetic
predisposition. Meaning, you know, the, the
amount of dopamine one can a dogcan associate or associates with
the anticipation of a reward depends on how much they get out

(29:31):
of that reward. And it starts out by obviously
experiencing the joy of rewards,whether this is the food or the
toy. And for certain breeds, you
know, almost working with sport dogs have really, really, really
big dopamine dump in anticipation of play and toy.

(29:51):
And that anticipation meaning wanting, wanting to have the
reward. It's not the same as liking the
reward. So when we talk about I like
something, it's when I have it in the moment.
When we talk about I want something this, I don't have it
in the moment, but I don't want to have it.
So that's, that's where dopamine, that's what dopamine

(30:14):
plays a role and the spike of dopamine meaning how much they
wanted, that's our level of saying, OK, you wanted that
much, so you're willing to put in effort and work to get the
reward. That's what we are leveraging
for training. If there is no anticipation, if
there is no wanting, desiring the reward, then we can really

(30:38):
get the dog to put voluntarily effort into the training to get
the reward. That's where we slip into
pushing and forcing and challenging too much, right?
Because there is no desire for the reward.
And that's basically that's, that's kind of our, our, our
lever as trainers and finding out what the dog likes as a

(31:01):
reward so that we can enter sacked with, OK, now you're
anticipating this. Now I can put in some, some
other rules as to like, you got to do this first.
You go to do this first and thenyou get the reward is, is
ultimately the whole sphere of dopamine, right?
The other thing that dopamine isinvolved in is movement.

(31:22):
We don't know what's associated with this.
But again, like I said, dopamineis not the function.
There's no function as anticipation or reward or
pursued. It's a message that happens in
the reward system of the brain and hence has these effects.
But dopamine is also being released in other parts of the
brain that are responsible for movement and a dysfunction of

(31:44):
dopamine and those in those circuits of the brain, for
examples associated with Parkinson's.
Do you see the movements? They are being imbalanced and
I'm not coordinate anymore. And we know that is due to
dopamine imbalances. And you know, like The funny

(32:04):
thing, it's not funny at all. But you see these effects
because one of the medications for Parkinson's is to increase
the dopamine. So you give them dopamine
medication basically to increasetheir dopamine.
And one of the big side effects of these medications is that
they get really cravings for things that are disruptive.

(32:25):
They get obsessed with shopping.They go obsessed with gambling.
They can get obsessed with all kinds of like behaviors that are
addicted like addiction, like because of their now increase of
dopamine and the early medication for Parkinson's has
had, sorry, it's not doctor related, but it kind of helps to

(32:46):
understand the effects of that. The early implications that
these early medications for Parkinson's had was really
detrimental. People destroyed their lives
because they got addicted to it,but they had less symptoms of
Parkinson's not led to like somereally big class action
lawsuits. What is pharmaceutical companies

(33:06):
so dopamine neurotransmitters, they don't just have one
function. They are messengers and
understanding what it does, you know when it's being released.
Understanding your doc's behavior in the in the context
of that will help you understand.
It's like, OK, I can push more. I cannot push more.
Like I have a good reinforcementreward system in place, or I
don't, or it's maybe a little bit too much.

(33:28):
My dog is now addicted to that stuff and I can get my dog to
think clearly anymore. That's not good either.
So that's all I'd like dopamine does, and it's very powerful.
It's very, very powerful. So let me ask my basic question
on that one. What is dopamine feel like?

(33:48):
So if a lot of it's being released, what does that do in
the body and if can you feel it,and if So, what would it feel
like? So it, it, it really depends on
the dog. Most often it's activating in
anticipation of a reward and depending on like what the
reward looks like. In most cases it activates just

(34:10):
like adrenaline does because it kind of is interconnected.
I mean, so how does this look like in the dog that is
anticipating movement? You know, tippy tapping around,
pacing, whining, all kinds of things.
Really, really adopted is really, really, really, really,
really having a dopamine dump inanticipation of reward is just

(34:34):
chill and hanging out, right? Usually they are hard, hardly
like really focused on something, hopefully on you or
wherever they anticipate something to happen.
If it's a dog addicted to chasing squirrels, you will see
a hard stare on every kind of tree on the walk, right in
anticipation of that. And like the best way to the

(34:57):
best way to describe it is like,you know, the the night before
Christmas, kids anticipating thegifts, right?
They, they don't leisurely run, walk down the stairs and maybe,
I don't know, brush teeth first.They're running down the stairs
in anticipation of and can't wait.
That's what dopamine does, and in concert with other with other

(35:19):
neurotransmitters and hormones. So just to try to explain it in,
in layman's terms, what I'm trying to wrap my head around.
So you say that so a dog is anticipating a reward.
So the body or the brain releases dopamine.
But if with the human medicationyou were talking about that had

(35:39):
a lot of dopamine in it now thatcaused them to go searching for
the reward, is that basically what happened?
That as the dopamine's in the brain, they assume that there's
going to be a reward and they'relooking for what's rewarding to
them or or what causes the. Yeah.
It's. It's so I would.
I don't know if it's actually the dopamine itself.

(36:01):
It's more likely that the medication, just like, as is our
medication for example, either releases more dopamine or keeps
dopamine lingering longer as it is being released.
So it's more likely that's something that they already
liked, you know, to moderate levels or something that are
naturally liked and enjoyed has now had an accelerated or

(36:22):
enhanced effect through the medication that became then more
like addictive behavior. OK.
I feel like I've been doing a lot of the talk and Nelson
Vloss, any follow up questions there?
Well, I guess, you know, with that, right, And maybe this is

(36:44):
kind of better suited for later on because when we start talking
about the anticipation of a reward or we start talking
about, you know, your example, which was something that I was
thinking of too, is a dog being on a walk and looking for
something. They're scanning for something
to be reactive towards, you know, and in your case, it was

(37:04):
the squirrel. You know, we see a lot of dogs
as well, that kind of stuff. If you don't do anything about
it and you are just going for a walk and your dog is scanning
And then probably from what it sounds like, and definitely
correct me if I'm wrong, you know, they're they're releasing
dopamine as they are scanning and searching for dogs in the

(37:26):
anticipation that they will get to be reactive and either bark
or charge or, you know, jump, whatever the case may be, or, or
even squirrels. But if you don't do anything
about it, essentially, they can just become addicted to
searching, you know, and they can be addicted to always being
that stimulated and, and feelingthat, you know, that surge of

(37:49):
dopamine, whether they're successful or not.
You might not even actually see any dogs, but just it's not the
reward, it's the anticipation. And so again, not being able to
kind of change that framework oror that frame of of mind your
dog is, is essentially just, I don't want to say driving itself

(38:10):
crazy, but essentially it's becoming addicted for the for
the hunt, for the search. Right, right it's you know, it's
the the the the release of dopamine per SE feels good.
It's it's a nice state to be in it's euphoric.
It's like woof, you know, and atthe end of the day, when you

(38:33):
have the reward, when you and the wild, when you finally get
to eat the prey, that's a completely different mindset.
You know, in consuming mode, it's not the same as like the
hunting. And within that predatory
sequence, you know, it's not they're just like, oh, I don't
never let my dog taste the squirrels.

(38:53):
Not about the chase either. It could be, I mean, like it
would probably be even worse because the chase does feel good
too. But even scanning, orienting,
searching can be a big hobby fordogs, right?
And if it's not being channelledsomewhere else, that can turn
into, you know, it doesn't that even have to be all the way to

(39:15):
like a crazy addiction, althoughthat does happen.
But it can just be continues to be rewarding and an adrenaline
is being released and that's theoutlet for the energy and it
becomes some sort of hobby. And the longer that goes on, the
more it manifests into a habit too.
And there are plenty of studies,especially with certain breeds
that have the tendency to like these things, to like the, when

(39:36):
you talk about dog, dog reactivity, that like conflict,
that like the idea of like provoking and blowing up another
dog and getting a kick out of it.
Not because they're mean. They're just like the state that
they are in when they are reacting, meaning adrenaline
junkies kind of thing, right? And they're looking forward to

(39:59):
this. And for dogs that are really
into that, the longer it goes on, the more they also get
resistant to punishment. Punishment at some point doesn't
mean much to them anymore, no matter how well you would have
to be really harsh. But it still won't necessarily
change things because it has been rehearsed and practiced for
so long. And it's it's ingrained now.

(40:21):
So now you kind of not just talking about taking that option
off the table. You know, you're talking a lot
about management too. And that's, that's kind of like
what dopamine also does, right? And has its evolutionary role in
there. Like we, we talk about this all
the time, but we, I don't think we are aware of like how
profound that is because we've none of us is ever, that's not

(40:43):
true. But in that sense, none of us
here is ever going to be in a situation where you have to
wonder, am I going to eat or survive or die of hunger?
But like in the wild, like go into the jungle, it's like
someone said, it's a, it's a death March.
Like you can die at any given 2nd.
And if you don't keep trying as much as you can, no matter how

(41:05):
tired or hungry you are, you're going to die very, very quickly
because you're going to be prey,right?
And if you're a predator, then you're still going to die
potentially because you might drown.
You might, you know, starve to death.
So the only way nature can ensure that under such harsh
conditions, you keep doing the things that keep you alive is

(41:26):
this concept of I'm always goingto seek pleasure and pleasure
can. It's not just the consumption of
food at the end or reproduction.It's also the chase, the hunt.
The hunt is thrilling. And, you know, like, sure, we're
not in the jungle and our dogs aren't like lions and, I don't
know, leopards and whatnot, but they're still predators and they

(41:48):
still have a reward system. And we bred them partly to have
certain functions that they really, really, really get
hooked on. And it's not just the end
result. Very rarely is it about the end
result of, you know, finally having that that squirrel.
As soon as the squirrel is dead,it usually also loses the dog
loses interest in it. So and then we kind of create

(42:10):
these paradigms where we create unacceptable situations where
the dog now accidentally got hooked on reacting to other dogs
or, you know, fence running withyour neighbor's dog or
potentially even, you know, getting chasing or hurting
children. It's not their fault they didn't
like think why don't we do this?It just happened to trigger or

(42:34):
pull the right triggers in theirbrains to to behave that way,
and dopamine plays a big role onthat.
See, that's fascinating. And, and this is kind of why I
was so excited to, to be on herebecause very, very often I'm
asked by clients, especially thefirst time that we meet them, as
to why do we feel the need to heal?

(42:56):
You know, the majority, if not the entirety of a Walker or
anything like that. Very commonly.
I'll hear, you know, I'm not on this walk for me.
And so why do I need the dog to be calm and at my side if I want
them to explore and I want them to, you know, have a good time
on the walk. And my, my typical answer is

(43:17):
that it becomes over stimulating.
You know, your dog is learning, you know, looking for things
constantly. And that will just kind of keep
them energized to to continuously do the same thing.
And then when you get home, yourdog's not tired.
But it's seems way more, I don'tknow, enthralling to me to be
able to explain that the act of searching, right, the act of

(43:42):
either searching for the squirrels or searching for the
dogs and feeling that dopamine can only keep them going longer
right in. And they can learn to seek that,
that feeling out by hunting and not by being calm and not by
getting tired at the end of the walk.
You know, as opposed to just me saying, hey, they'll they'll be

(44:04):
tired and they'll be awesome when you get back home if you
have them in a, you know, in a nice calm heel.
Instead, it's like, well, actually they can.
They can go wrong behaviorally because they'll start to seek
out dopamine in a, in a unproductive way, right?
In a way, that's only going to make life with them a little bit

(44:25):
tougher. Yeah, yeah, I think, you know,
it's like the the whole walk thing is, is, is like a weird
thing, right? Like we're trying to like all of
these, all of these things is pretty unnatural for a dog.
Like walking on the leash. It's like why they're not born
with the understanding there's no gene.

(44:45):
It's like, oh, this is how I walk on the leash, right.
Sure. That's that's Lauren behavior
and it has to because otherwise they tend to make the wrong
decisions, if not on the ration.Obviously, we see this all the
time. The problem with just, you know,
overdoing one or the other is that on one end, like we have

(45:07):
this idea of like, I'm going on a walk to exercise my dog.
So as soon as you step outside the door, you kind of like, I'm
only keeping my dog on the leashso the dog doesn't run away, but
then I am turning into nothing as the handler and I just let
you sniff and do your own thing.So we're becoming irrelevant and

(45:28):
how the brain kind of contextualized this is leash
outside means owner ignore. And that's a problem because
then if the dog starts to have bad habits, because you have
planted that context of outside means I'm not relevant as the
human other end of the leash object.

(45:52):
Because of that, it's going to be very hard to now tell the
dark, Hey, listen to me, right? Because up until because we
usually don't get help until something really bad happens or
until we actually have problems,we have bad habit, bad habit,
bad habit. I'm exploring this, I'm doing
this, I'm doing this. And then now the only time the
owner has to say something is don't do this, don't do this,

(46:12):
don't do that. So now we're creating conflict
and interjecting A context that the dog was like, what do you
mean? You've never told me anything
here. Now you want me to not do things
anymore, right? That's one extreme.
The other extreme is we'll just have this like you're just on

(46:34):
the heel and always has to be loose leash walking.
Then it becomes kind of like a treadmill situation, like you're
just walking for the sake of walking.
But we have to also understand that the outside world is the
only time the dog can really enrich and interact with all his
or her senses, touch and smell and whatnot, which is ultimately

(46:59):
the enrichment. So how do we combine this?
Like, how can we? And that's where I think, you
know, responsible ownership comes in because it's ultimately
the level of effort one is willing to to put in.
If you live in New York City, inManhattan, you're gonna just
have to learn that your dog is gonna stay on the leash nicely.

(47:19):
And then you got to drive out somewhere at some point and go
on a hike and let your dog really engage in nature, right?
If you live somewhere here, Santa Rosa, when I walk through
the neighborhood, I don't have aperfect heel for her, but just
don't pull me and walk with me, right?
And we're not stopping at every corner, but every day or every

(47:40):
other day. I'm also going somewhere where
you're like on a longer leash and then you can, you know, do
your thing and sniff all kinds of things.
So the balance really here is like, and with limitations, like
you still don't get to chase anysquirrels no matter what, you
know? And that part is, it's not, it's
not as like either or like you got to find something that that

(48:06):
allows you to, because if you don't let the dog do these
things, there will be some otherdestructive behaviors happening
elsewhere. Maybe at home, walking out the
window is like a whole nother thing when the mailman comes,
right? So there's this whole enrichment
and, and, and satisfaction of a dog, a dog.
Letting a dog be a dog is hard in society.
You can't do that, but you got to find ways to do that because

(48:32):
seeking pleasure, it is a thing and it will never stop.
The brain will never stop to seek pleasure.
You can't suppose as much as youwant.
It will come out at some point, and most likely done in areas
where you don't want it to be ifyou don't intentionally provide
it elsewhere. So hearing you talk about all
this that really is, is making me think about how important it

(48:55):
seems neurotransmitters and hormones can be in the
communication with your dog, right?
Like, I feel like that's what a lot of it is coming back to is
you can use these things to helpyou communicate with them and
ensure that you're focusing on the right things.
It it sort of makes me wonder about is there a great way that
we could track the levels of these as we're doing stuff with

(49:18):
the dog to see like, OK, this what we did here had this
reaction with them, this spiked at this point so that we know
this is what the dog is thinking.
Is that something that's possible?
Not probably never going to be with dogs per SE in the real
world scenario because you wouldhave to actually put something

(49:39):
into their brain to really get from an idea of the actual
concentration. If you talk about dopamine, you
got to rely on your understanding of the dog's
behavior and reading the dog andthe moment and understanding
that, you know, this is a dog that is anticipating, this is a
dog that is excited, this is a dog that is scared, this is a
dog that is frustrated. And then relate that to

(50:03):
potentially your understanding of, of, of, you know, this kind
of new chemistry stuff and then understand, I think more so it
will help the understanding of it will help troubleshoot if
things go wrong. And like, why like an
adrenalized dog of the right breed.

(50:24):
If you, if you know the owner yelled at the dog, like shut up
or I don't know, leave it or sitand energize the dog.
But anticipating to chase something will have a very, very
hard time doing that unless the ingredients is really, really
good. But assuming it's not, you add a
lot of conflict in that moment and breaching that moment where

(50:48):
adrenaline, cortisol, like I said, they energize the muscles.
The muscles are on standby. They're like ready to bounce and
sitting, being calm. What is an often expected in a
very high intense moment, it's gonna add conflict.
What does conflict do? Well, it kind of does not great

(51:09):
things to your relationship in the moment, although you can
recover from that if you have good baseline.
But more importantly, it kind ofmakes the whole situation just
so much worse for the dog. And that will be remembered
because caldo adrenaline also sharpens focus and memory.
And it's like, oh, this situation again.
And every time this happens, shetells me to sit and I'm having

(51:30):
such a hard time to sit now. I hate her in the moment or him,
whatever. And and that part knowing
understanding neurotransmitters or hormones or a little bit of
the biology of excitement or frustration can help.
Like I, I think he has a really hard time sitting right now.
Let me redirect the energy for asecond, try again and then gauge

(51:52):
at what point is my dog much more.
I don't want to say willing, butcan comply in the way that
doesn't add as much conflict andyou can work on that and get
that to a better state basically.
Well, I guess we're in agreement.
We're not going to put things inthe dog's brain to keep an eye

(52:15):
on this, right Vloss? Is that what you're thinking?
You want to, you want to. You don't think open.
You don't think the? Military's done that already.
I guarantee the military's done that.
And a dog so that they can they can track everything.
I think we know the CIA is doingthat with people, so I'm sure
it's been done on dogs. Vloss is going to put an Apple
Watch on a dog's collar so that he can track the the app on it.

(52:39):
Hey I. I would be very interested.
To see the data. So let's shift gears from the
CIA and secret experiments, which I did read a fascinating
book on the CIA and LSD. I don't know if I told you guys
about that, but it was super interesting.
And some of their secret experiments they've done over
the years. But shifting gears from that

(53:01):
serotonin I feel like we haven'ttouched on at all and that is
commonly tossed around. Could you walk us through that?
Yeah. So serotonin, if we talk about
dopamine, serotonin is kind of like the opposite in the way.
So when we talk about dopamine being wanting serotonin is like,
I like where I am, I like what Ido, I'm content, I don't need

(53:24):
anything. And that's basically the idea of
serotonin. And we associate it with
calmness. And it is kind of like the
calmness is the consequence of that.
There is no urge to act to achieve anything else.
And the balance of dopamine and serotonin, right kind of is the

(53:45):
idea of, of that's the idea of awell behaved dog that we usually
have. And it would be associated with,
you know, serotonin. The the higher the serotonin it
has been associated with or likethe decrease of serotonin, it's
been associated with more aggression, more aggressive
behavior per SE more likely because aggression.

(54:10):
And then this is I think studiesfrom rodents and and monkeys,
maybe aggression then is is usedto achieve something status, for
example, might look goal oriented behavior.
And you know, the more serotoninyou have, maybe the less likely
you're motivated to achieve something.
Therefore the connection with aggression.

(54:31):
But yeah, serotonin is also the one that we're trying to
increase when we talk about anxiety and medication.
So I have a serotonin question for you, but this might branch
into other things. Obviously this could turn into a
long conversation. Maybe you'll want to try to keep
it short. But what can you do outside of
medicines like SSRI's or I don'tknow what else is out there, but

(54:51):
what can you do naturally to getbetter?
You know, higher serotonin levels naturally or any, any
hormones, any brain chemistry balance?
What are some natural things youcan do to get your dog, or I
guess yourself, in a better state of mind?
Well there are various ways to induce.

(55:15):
Think of like serotonin and being this the stabilizer.
I mean, like so homeostasis and anything that we as humans do,
you know, to kind of bring ourselves back into the moment.
And it's usually really with people that, for example, that
suffer from anxiety, it's they're overwhelmed with things

(55:35):
that they feel like they need todo, overwhelmed with things that
they need to fix, overwhelmed with things, problem, potential
problems in the future. But it's always like the future
and things that we usually do ashumans that kind of bring us
back to the moment, You know, all the things, meditation and,
and breathing and you know, certain things that you know,

(55:58):
don't work. Like for me, these things don't
work. I can't sit down and meditate.
And I know people are like, well, you just have to do it.
Then you have to do it more often.
All these things. And I tried it all.
Meditation is not my thing. What helps me is running,
actually. It's not tricking my brain.
It's like I'm still moving, but I'm running.
And because I'm running and likeexhausted, I can't think about

(56:19):
anything else. And that for some reason centers
me staying in the moment. And there's some biology behind
the vision too. But anyways, for dogs, obviously
we can't have them meditate and we can't have them.
I know they're like protocols out there that say I can teach a
dog to take a deep breath and they calm down.

(56:41):
I don't think really that this is working, but would you help
them in various situations? Help them to be content in the
moment, Meaning you OK is often by saying OK, now is the time
and you want to make sure that the dog hasn't urged like needs

(57:02):
that need to be fit for me to bemet first, right?
Like a dog that is a high energyand hasn't worked out for two
months, probably going to have ahard time being content.
A dog that is really hungry, it's going to be a hard time not
wanting to forage or scavenge for food.
These kind of things. Just like overall all your needs
are met and now I'm taking away all choices that are there for

(57:24):
you to self entertain. You're just going to be here.
You're just going to be here next to me.
That could be just on the leash or like oftentimes with a, with
a certain, we can put obedience on top and the idea of like a
dog learning, I don't have any choices that I need that I could
opt into to entertain my brain that will ultimately like, OK,

(57:47):
now let me explore what it meansto just be here.
And it that's kind of the same for humans too.
And I don't know if it necessarily increases serotonin
per SE, but the mindset is stillthe same.
Like I can be content with doingnothing.
And then they're like, well, theother things where you in the

(58:07):
context of the stress response, behavioral training that you can
do where you not necessarily need medication, but I think
the, the, the overall mindset and goal is to the the idea of
contentment. And that's easy.
But some dogs like my lab shepherd mix.
Now he he's the opposite. He doesn't want to work for
anything, no motivation. He is like, put me here.

(58:30):
I'm content, right? Unless you see this world that's
indeed his own addiction, but he's content anywhere I can go
to new places I could travel with him, he'll be content
except when he's next to my cat.He hates my cat.
But like with my male or like even my new male is like
contentment is like it's evil. It's hell for them being in

(58:52):
place, right? So that requires a lot more, a
lot more training per SE, and a lot of showing them pictures as
to you can just hang out here and you're gonna be OK.
And that doesn't necessarily feel good right at the beginning
at least, but they can learn to be OK that way.
I don't know if that actually answered your question, but I
went down. It did in a way because it takes

(59:15):
us down the training path, whichis I think there's a lot of
interesting things we can talk about later about how we build
contentment and, you know, teaching dogs to be at peace.
But anything diet related or thegut, because I feel like that's
tossed around so much for peoplethat if you're trying to get
your head right, you need to focus on your diet, focus on

(59:36):
your gut overall, obviously focus on sleep.
Are any of those things relevanthere, do you think?
Yeah, so this brings us to like the really big elements of like
a welfare related living a good life overall, right?
Every it's less of let's say if like something like this sleep,
rest and sleep, right? A dog that doesn't rest and a

(59:57):
dog that doesn't sleep. And I'm purposefully saying rest
and sleep are two different things because, you know, sleep
is what I consider the night andrest is throughout the day.
Rest and sleep, nutrition, emotional support, physical
exercise and cognitive health. If any of those is out of whack,
then it can do a lot of different things to a dog, and

(01:00:19):
that can turn into anxiety, thatcan turn into disruptive
behavior, activity, a question, all these things, right?
So you want to at least make sure that there's a good base
thing for all of these things. Sleep is important.
We all know how important sleep is, not just for learning, but
just to restore and recover and clean up the brain.
The messy brain with the dog learns overnight, during the
day, the same with the rest. And then nutrition obviously is

(01:00:45):
a very tricky topic. It's very hard to get consensus
on what the good nutrition or like the optimal nutrition.
We don't even have it down for humans.
Like we constantly shift trends as to like 1 is the keto diet
and then it's the Atkinson diet or whatever all these diet names
are right? And then then it's vegetarian

(01:01:07):
and then it's plant based forward, but a little bit of
meat. And then as long as you, if you
hold on to this long enough, someone will come with a study
and say like, well, now you're at risk of this and this and
that, right? So overall though, I think we
can have a understanding of nutrition for dogs, meaning it

(01:01:29):
is, see, even there. And I'm not, I'm not, I'm not
per SE a nutritionist that I would like to give too much
information here because I thinkyou're going to get some angry
comments here. But I think I personally don't
think pure kibble and nothing but kibble is a healthy diet for

(01:01:52):
dogs. But that's me.
I do feed kibble though, you know, I have like a little bit
in there because I think for a dog it is very, very active.
Some carbs is important and my mouth is very active, but her
main diet is going to be raw diet and some vegetables in the

(01:02:14):
you can supplement that. But even if you only feed
kibble, understanding like a differences in quality, which
really exists there and what youwant to ultimately achieve is a
healthy gut microbiome. What is a healthy gut
microbiome? Well, they're bad bacteria in
your gut and then there are goodbacteria in your gut and there
will be bacteria. There is no universe where we

(01:02:36):
don't or animals don't have bunch a ton of bacteria in their
gut. It's just a matter of do you
feed the good ones or do you feed the bad ones?
And bad science is not, that's not necessarily rocket science,
right? How do you, how do you, how do
you foster bad ones while you constantly give your dog some
sort of medications, constantly on antibiotics and killing all

(01:02:59):
the bad ones so that the, the good ones and the bad ones kind
of like throw a party and start to invade the gut and then you
have diarrhea and whatnot. How else do you do you foster
the bad ones? Chronic stress, because then
your whole gut immune system is out of whack and now your dog

(01:03:20):
gets sick and now your dog has skin issues and now your dog
has, what's it allergies to certain foods, right?
So how do you foster the good ones?
Well, you give the good bacteriawhat they want, you know,
probably some fiber, carbs. They're fine with carbs.
They don't necessarily need carbs and whatnot.
And just like make sure that youhave some balance there, maybe

(01:03:43):
switch it up. And that ultimately does a lot
of good things too. Not just the immune system, but
some of the things they produce serotonin.
Serotonin is produced a lot in the gut that all reaches the
brain. It helps.
It does produce dopamine. It keeps the whole like Holusol
thing in check. Having a good like, I don't

(01:04:07):
think we talk a lot about it because as trainers we usually
are being called in to fix things or like you sow more than
than I. But if the dog is like on a crab
diet and doesn't exercise and you know is like never really
resting, you're not going to fixyour activity to the point where
it could be because the other life elements are not in check,

(01:04:30):
are not optimal enough for the dog to to have the welfare it
needs. I feel like we're all going to
be signing our dog up for Viome after this conversation.
Sounds. Like they're going back to raw
then? There, there are pills that you
can give now like that. They're like extracted Figo

(01:04:51):
matters from dogs that have beenspecifically on the raw diet and
apparently they do wonders in terms of a dog.
It has a lot of diarrhea, for example, and I tried it like not
that particular one, but I triedhills of Kegel matters just to
restore them biodiversity and mymelts my mouth because she she

(01:05:12):
had a ton of diarrhea for a longtime and worked.
I mean, she's never had the diarrhea since so I can't
complain. I fed raw years ago and it was
not from nothing to do with behavior, but the dogs just
thrived on it. It just became hard.
We had so much raw chicken in our fridge at all points in time

(01:05:34):
and the mixes and the liver and it was like we had kids and
we're like, this is just too much.
We would need a dog fridge and maybe even a dog chef to always,
we're always defrosting chicken like this is ready for today.
This one's going to be ready in like 3 days.
This is five days. It was nuts.
Yeah, it's a hassle. It's not, it's not fun.
I mean, I'm not, I'm, I'm, I'm not like putting those like

(01:05:59):
constructing these meals myself.We have like, you know, the, the
meal that we just thaw. But even that it's like we've
never spaced in the freezer. Like there's never have a frozen
pizza in my freezer because it'sall this this raw food and it
becomes a hassle and unfortunately also much more
expensive than, you know, other options.

(01:06:19):
We currently do the easy route. We do kibble with a different
protein put in each meal. Yeah.
And. Exactly.
It works and it's it's simple. So what have we missed?
We've talked through a lot of different things.
I had a question about the sleeping actually.
So the difference between sleep and rest.

(01:06:41):
You said that rest is during theday and sleep is during the
night. And, and I'm, I, I guess I'm
assuming that that's kind of a shorthand.
Is the difference really being like REM sleep, you know, being
the actual sleep and then resting just being the, you
know, kind of rebound of the day's energy or expenditures

(01:07:04):
and, and that kind of stuff for or what is the real difference
between that rest and that sleep?
It's a good question and you know, it's everything that
happens during sleep is like, you know, it goes in cycles and
I'm actually, I don't know how what the cycles look like and

(01:07:24):
how this really like compares tohumans in terms of R.E.M. sleep.
I don't know if there probably been some studies and
development do it. But the most important part
doing like the night sleep is really letting the brain do its
cleanup thing. And it does happen.
It doesn't happen quickly. It just got to, you know, like
dog's dream, obviously, right. I don't know what again their

(01:07:45):
time cycles is, but that all means that they're kind of
processing, they're throwing outthings in terms of memory.
That was an important day putting into when I say like all
these things when we talked about cortisone adrenaline at
all, it's very energetically expensive.
So is long term memory and you know, doing the connections that

(01:08:06):
are needed, you don't have time to do that or like your brain
doesn't have the capacity to do it during the day.
It has to happen during the night.
It's kind of like in the background now, OK, we did this
and this and this and this and now this was important.
Let's store that into a long term memory.
Let's put everything in place that we need to, you know, it's,
it's incredibly important to do.So dogs that don't have these
really restorative nights of sleep, think of like sheltered

(01:08:30):
dogs. They have a really hard time
learning like I don't know, I sometimes I see shelter programs
and they're about obedience to sit and wait to get them
adoptable, but it's very hard. It's very unlikely they're going
to retain that information if they don't have at least a good
sleep. And I think in shelters there's
constantly some disturbance and it just can't totally relax.

(01:08:54):
Now for rest, especially with high energetic dogs, they need
to rest for two reasons. For one, they do need to like
have a moment where they decrease their muscle tension,
right? Where they get a chance of
decreasing their heart rate if they're constantly on, where
they can also disengage, right? Because yeah, high rouser dogs,

(01:09:17):
certain sport dog work dogs, they always seeking out
something and they're constantlyfocused on something.
They need time to like, not do these things.
But it also helps them not to condition themselves to be on
all the time. When we've seen this and hurt us
all everywhere, we're like, I'm giving my dog so much exercise
because it's a Dutch Shepherd, but it just never gets tired

(01:09:40):
because we're conditioning them to be on.
They're going to collapse eventually and they're going to
sleep and then be knocked out. But it's because they're
completely fatigued. It's not because they're rested
or they're like have a natural state of rest and that we do not
want because then once they wakeup, they're like, it's on, on,
on, on, on again. And you're just going to play

(01:10:01):
and catch up with that for the mental fatigue.
We don't want them to be that way.
So it's kind of like almost an interval, a little bit of
interval training for like dogs like that, Not to increase their
capacity, but to say, hey, you were on for like an hour now and
I need you to rest right now andcondition yourself to rest every

(01:10:22):
now and then. It's ultimately that it's
healthier. What I think this talk about
sleep is a good segue, especially with what Nelson just
had in his hand. So as a biologist, what do you
think? Nelson, can you show Doctor
Melanie what you're drinking? I am drinking a cherry limeade
ghost in Cubs colors. Nelson is addicted to energy

(01:10:46):
drinks. We think this is actually an
intervention right now. This was a sly move then.
What? As a biologist, what do you
think? Like, what is he poisoning
himself? How many do you have a day?
Three. Probably a coffee and two energy
drinks a day. What do you think, Doctor

(01:11:07):
Melody? Coffee and two energy drinks.
That's it's the caffeine might not 3 coffees.
Just because this has way more caffeine than coffee does.
I think this is like 200 milligrams or something like
that of caffeine, so. Yeah, I mean, I'm not, I'm not

(01:11:31):
here. I'm not a doctor, right?
I can tell you like the effects that it has, you know, what
caffeine does and like to a certain, to a certain level, I
think caffeine is good. You know, it does increase your
alertness, reduce the perceptionof fatigue, all that stuff.
And it's basically, it's basically blocking.

(01:11:52):
It's blocking certain mechanismsthat that would usually make you
sleepy or lower your arousal. And the thing with just
everything is, and like I think 2 coffees a day, just like with
everything else, the more you use it, the more desensitized
your body becomes to it. And then it just has less
effects and you feel like you need it just to keep a certain

(01:12:14):
baseline. But I think with these energy
drinks, I don't know all the other stuff that's in there.
That's probably the health concerning part of it.
I would agree everything else isprobably where the poison comes
from. It's not caffeine necessarily.
Well, you know me, Nelson. I don't have strong opinions on
food ingredients and whatnot. I'm pretty pretty easy going.

(01:12:36):
That's narcasm for the record, Doctor Melanie.
You. Do well, you do have to keep in
mind that caffeine has like a half life of five to six hours,
right? So like, even though you might
not feel super alert, it's stillin your system and then it might
disrupt your sleep. And that's the unhealthy part
that comes when you eat when youhave coffee too late in the day.
Preaching to the choir, I told him that we filmed an episode at

(01:12:56):
like 7:00 PM one night and he was still drinking one of these
giant energy drinks. Now again I can drink 1 and go
right to sleep. I especially in high school
instead of water bottles by my bed it was the energy drinks of
the day. So it doesn't affect me that
way, but you know, having an energy drink will keep me on

(01:13:19):
this podcast a lot longer. So, well, on that note, shifts
and gears again, I don't think we're going to convince you to
get healthy. You've got to make your own life
choices. I've been drinking more water if
it makes you feel any better. That makes that does make me
feel better. Thank you.

(01:13:41):
Anything we've missed? So any big hormones or no
neurotransmitters you feel like we should have talked about
before we move into dog behavior?
For me, I don't, yeah, this is not.
I don't know. There's so many and nothing like
I think we have covered the big ones.

(01:14:03):
OK, so this part of the conversation I feel like could
go so many ways and I'm intrigued to see where it takes
us. But I think we just pick a
scenario that we see a lot and maybe we could talk through at
the start what you, you know, what you your guess of what's
happening in the dog's brain at that point.
We could then tell you what we would do as trainers to solve it

(01:14:26):
in that moment. You know, one of the options and
there's obviously there's many ways, and then we could think
about what's happening in the dog's brain during that process.
Like a fun game to play. Yeah, let's do it.
Okay, and we could start with, Idon't know is leash reactivity
is I feel like somewhat overplayed with how much it's
talked about. Why don't we talk about

(01:14:48):
something interesting like food aggression?
So we see a lot of resource guarding and the way we fix it
very much depends on the dog. There's obviously a lot of ways
to go about it, but if you were before we even get into that, if
there's a dog laying there in the living room, he's got his
bone next to him. You walk up to him, dog stares

(01:15:11):
at you and tent stare and his growling.
What's what's happening in the dog's body or brain at that
point? I mean, obviously he's saying
don't touch my bone, we've got that, but I'm a hormone or
neurotransmitter. What?
What's happening there? I mean, it depends on the
intensity of the of the behavior.
But if it's like a known situation, a known dog family

(01:15:32):
member and just like it's a bone, let's just say it's a bone
and the dog really enjoys and maybe doesn't happen that has
that often or even hazard often,but just really, really likes
it. Whatever the the context is,
it's just an there is like a level of of threat response,
right? Feeling threatened, as in
something's being that's valuable to me is being taken

(01:15:53):
and I just want to keep it. I don't think there's if again,
depends on the intensity of the behavior.
Like my, my, my German Shepherd,you know, he's like his two
behavioral things. Other than that, he's perfect.
He's loves to chase squirrels. And if he gets a, if he gets
something he really likes, not just something he likes and

(01:16:16):
really likes, he will resource guard.
And it's a, you know, it's like this, this classic hovering over
the thing and like really watching where you are.
And you know, he's like, he's even then being sweet about it
where you feel like, I really don't want to do it, but I will
if you come any closer. And you know, there's just like

(01:16:37):
some sort of like threat response happening.
The amygdala is firing because the brain is saying, hey, we got
to protect that this is ours. And the threat response will
increase in that case, sympathetic nervous system as we
talked about, right? Increase the alertness and
everything that comes from the behavioral standpoint of like,
what do you need to do in order to achieve your goal of keeping

(01:17:00):
it? You hover over it, you know,
you, you send clear signals thathopefully the human will read in
the right way or not, and it will just kind of shoot some
shoot some activation. I don't think necessarily in my
case, at least for my dog, it's not a huge activation.
It's not a dramatic response. It's just like, hey, watch out

(01:17:25):
where you're going. I'm going to keep it.
And that can accelerate, right? And that has that kind of like a
learning process attached to it.And then saying like, every time
I send these like, mild signals,I'm getting ignored and some
bigger conflict happens, then it's becoming a different story.
So I guess let's talk about that.
The bigger story then. So when we see a lot of resource

(01:17:48):
guarding, you know, we get callson that every single day.
So let's say you you have a dog and trainer's at the house, dog
is on leash and the someone getstoo close to the bone and the
dog goes into, you know, either lunge or attack mode.
So they're over threshold and they spun around and jump up and

(01:18:08):
try to bite. And let's say you stop them with
the leash. What's what's happened in the
dog's brain at that point? Well, that's been the full blown
fight of light response, the amygdala, you know, our our
threat detector and that also attaches an emotional availance
to the situation basically determined that this is all this

(01:18:28):
is all not good. This is all something that needs
to be taken care of and sends all the signals to have we
talked before, before the hippothalamus activate the
stress response, activate the sympathetic nervous system and
do something about it. And then that's a nice way and
that's, that's, that's again, that's all the stress response.
But it's also kind of like the like the, the stress response

(01:18:51):
isn't just like run or the stress response isn't I'm hot.
It's the stress response is withthe goal of not losing
something, guarding it, right. And that kind of, you know, the
Hippothalamus also not just activating the stress response,
but the Hippothalamus depending on the the behavior strategy, it

(01:19:16):
is being chosen by the dog also activates, for example, forward
aggression, proactive aggression.
And that that part so that this you make that I was like, oh,
threat alarm, alarm alarms. Tell this to the Hippothalamus.
The Hippothalamus is OK, Got it.Activating muscles, activating

(01:19:36):
heart rate, activating sympathetic nervous system,
releasing potentially stress response and cortisol, but also
activating behavior. Behavior equals aggression.
And that moment that goes to a different part of the brain.
Now that's like, OK, this is thebehavior.
This is aggression. Activate vocalization, activate
your jaw muscles, activate, you know, forward muscle movement,
whatever it is, and bite if needed.

(01:19:56):
And until the conflict is being resolved, the threat is being
resolved. So just to dig a little deeper
there, when it comes to resourceguarding, I'm a big believer
that if, if you just focus on management, the dog, when it's
serious, I don't mean minor resource guarding, but major
resource guarding. If you just focus on management,

(01:20:18):
the dog's going to bite someone and get euthanized.
It's just, I've seen it too manytimes.
You know, management is not realistic for a dog that really
resource guards. So we need some process to fix
it, of course, right? And so if we have a dog on leash
and we walk by the bone, it goesinto attack mode.
What I would do personally is heal the dog off.
You know, they're going to know that already if we're working

(01:20:39):
with it, you know, on resource guard.
And I would heal them until theychill out.
But to me, it's important to getclosure and make sure that
during that session we make someprogress.
Otherwise, the next time someonegoes by the bone, we know what's
going to happen. The dog's going to try to attack
them again. So we need a way to get closure
in that moment and make some progress, even if it's a small
amount. What I'm intrigued about is

(01:21:02):
what's being released into the dog's brain or body.
So you mentioned earlier that cortisol was way more long
lasting than adrenaline. So if we walk the dog off, is
the dog in a different state now, 30 seconds later than when
you started? Like what's going on in their
brain? And is there something as
trainers, we should be aware of that?

(01:21:23):
Now the dog has way more cortisol in their body, and
here's the effect of that. Yeah, that's a good question.
I think we need to, if we're talking about a very intense
case where the dog feels threatened or triggering that
guarding as an, you know, that is a threat maybe easily.

(01:21:45):
The goal of training is to like desensitize that threat
response. The way you desensitize a threat
response is kind of like, hey, the presence of AB and C doesn't
mean you're going to lose your bone.
In that sense. Right now, the management like
there's there's something to be said like with the dog that is a

(01:22:07):
big resource, Carter, and we know it's potentially genetic.
It's going to be very difficult to change it if it's genetic
because it's genetic, right? Like something that is
unexpected, especially novelty and something unforeseen will
potentially always trigger some guarding very quickly.
If it's food in the like, if it's something that can be

(01:22:30):
controlled in a training setting, like food and the bowl,
you know, the desensitization there part is, hey, the amygdala
screams do something because thepresence of AB and C is
triggering now, like the prep because the the dog thinks it's
going to lose it. The idea here for the amygdala,

(01:22:50):
for the brain is to know, hey, just the presence doesn't mean
I'm going to lose it. Present doesn't mean I'm going
to lose it. Present doesn't mean I'm going
to lose it, right? And depending on what the
situation is, you can do that indifferent ways.
You can call it like for safety reasons, the dog is hovering
over something, call the dog off, you know, can the dog let
that thing go and you kind of use obedience, therefore to, to

(01:23:14):
to say, hey, come off, I'm goingthere, grab the bone and give
you something else, right? But this my point is the
desensitization. You know, we need certain
repetitions. That doesn't mean that the
stress response is being or thatthe threat responds and and
perception of the threat response has changed

(01:23:36):
immediately. So the dog will be potentially
at edge the entire time. There's obedience you can layer
in and there was compliance, butcompliance doesn't mean the
emotional state has changed. Meaning as a trainer you're
probably less likely to let yourguard down.
As an owner, you're much more likely to let your guard down
too early, meaning the dog is still at edge.

(01:23:56):
Yes, the dog complied. It does not mean that the dog
isn't keeping an eye on that bone.
And as soon as you let the dog then make its own decision
again, it will lead to some accidents, right?
So there's, again, we're workinglike with two levers here as
trainers, we're trying to changethe emotional state, which comes
to a petition and desensitization saying, hey,

(01:24:18):
don't worry about these things, you're not getting taken away.
But then you also have to layer in obedience, which is part of
management, and then together set up situations to prepare,
show the dog the pictures that are most relevant to the dog's
life. If the dog is resource guarding,
not just food or like it resource guards a lot of other

(01:24:40):
things too. I think then the the part is
because if you're threatened constantly, then there are
bigger issues. It's not just the resource
guarding. Then usually it's like some sort
of chronic stress or stress or hypersensitivity or like, you
know, all these other elements that we talked about before that
makes the dog extra irritable. Because you know, the dog can be

(01:25:02):
irritable and the threat response can be firing
constantly and be right at edge and just needs a little trigger
to spill over. And that can turn into a
resource guarding as the dog is like hey, this is mine, this is
mine. Because nothing in this house is
mine. Nothing in this house has a
secret for me. Nothing in this house is where I
have my quiet peaceful time. So if I get something, I will do

(01:25:26):
whatever I can to not lose that too.
So it sounds like at least the last bit kind of a holistic
approach would be much, much better.
And in the fact of it's not justthe resource, it's being calm in
the house all together. You know, it's, it's having

(01:25:47):
confidence because you're not living with unpredictability.
You know, one of the things thatI constantly say about dogs that
are untrained is that their their lifestyle is unpredictive,
unpredictable because they don'tnecessarily know what the owner
is going to be upset about or not upset about.
And, and you know, when they're going to have that conflict.

(01:26:08):
So it's not just about working on that bone, it has to be we're
training kind of everywhere because otherwise those dogs are
at, you know, right at that threshold and just need a little
push, you know, training again, everything and just getting the
dog to be a calmer, more respectable, more respectful dog

(01:26:31):
all together can keep them well under threshold that you can
actually, you know, get a lot ofprogress done.
Yeah, I wouldn't even say keeping it under a threshold, I
would just say, I would just saylike making sure that the dog
has no, I guess it's somewhat the same, but it's if everything
constantly stresses you out, you're not just above threshold,

(01:26:55):
you're just not happy. Like you don't know, you don't
know who you are basically. And they're dogs, they're like
two things can happen. They're dogs that are very
sensitive and there's like constant chaos and that just
manifests and like, I'm guardingeverything I can, right?
And then there are dogs who justmaybe there is no chaos.
Maybe it's just, you know, the dog and the owner, just the two

(01:27:17):
of them living, but it's his or her baby and it's precious and
they're the dog just has no, never gets to understand.
This is your framework. This is how I want you to behave
in those situations that the dogmakes up his or her own rules.
It's a different mindset than compared to a dog who's just

(01:27:38):
needs some, you know, peace. And they both need to
understand, hey, I want you to do this now.
But the one that is stressed, it's like, I want you to do this
now because this is going to give you some peaceful time.
And the other one is I want you to do this now because this is
what I want you to do. As simple as that, right?
And some dogs, they just need toknow what to do in situations.

(01:28:02):
And if they never get to be toldwhat to do in certain
situations, they will make the wrong decisions.
And for some dogs, like I'm going to guard it because I like
it and I don't want you to have it, as simple as that.
There's no bigger meaning behindit.
Sometimes it's just like, I don't want you to have it.
And because I can make the decision whenever I want to, I'm
going to be a dog and I'm going to guard it right.

(01:28:23):
And you know, there you got to be careful sometimes to not rely
too much on overly do overdo it with obedience because often the
teamwork is also missing betweenthe owner and the dog.
They just don't have a good communication happening.
They don't they they're like this.

(01:28:44):
But if they're actually, most dogs are social creatures and if
they're like, oh, I'm not supposed to do that, but I can
do this instead, then a lot of other things fall in place with
resource guarding. It can be very tricky, right?
Because he was just guarding. It's like some people say it's
just the, the some people say resource guarding happens

(01:29:09):
because there's just this dog isjust chronically stressed.
Others say the chronic stress happens because the dog is
constantly resource guarding. What way do we go here?
And how to deal with that can bevery, very tricky because like
you said, mad like management, we can't manage these kind of

(01:29:29):
things all the time. Them things will happen, but you
also have to make sure that you give a dog the chance to make
the right decisions by putting the dog up for success, setting
the dog up for success. And then, you know, is it a
matter of desensitization is a matter of obedience is a matter
of management. All these things come together

(01:29:50):
for, but ultimately coming back to neuroscience, ultimately you
don't want the dog to go into threat mode as quickly and you
want a dog to be able to put it into context like, OK, what am I
doing in those situations? I want you to recall to me.
I want you to go on your place bed before I grab the bone or

(01:30:10):
whatever it is. And if these things start to
make sense for the dog, the dog is less likely to have such a
negative emotional response to it.
So what time you can then changethe valence of the emotional
response and you don't want the dog to be happy to get the bone
taken away. That's not going to happen.
But at least set up things so you can take it away and it's
neutral and the dog is like, OK I get it.

(01:30:34):
So let me try. I want to ask that question.
I asked again, but in a slightlydifferent way, a slightly
different scenario. So picture a dog food bowl,
middle of the kitchen, dog is onleash.
We see a lot of severe resource guarding and a dog who you can't
call away from it. There's no, there's no other

(01:30:56):
thing you could show them that'sbetter than the food, right?
Then when they're guarding, they're guarding.
You can't show them, you know, agreat treat and they're going to
come away from it. So to me, the only option to fix
a dog when it's that serious is leash and collar on.
And I'm going to start by healing him away from the food.
So dogs buy the food, I tell them heal, I walk off.
Some dogs explode at that point and I'm going to heal them until

(01:31:17):
they chill out. So we're just going to walk back
and forth and I'll tell the client I don't know how long
we're going to heal. We're going to heal to the dogs
calm, right? And then we'll figure out our
next step from there. What I'm curious about is did
something happen in the dog in that moment?
Like let's say cortisol releasedis did anything happen that you
could say? You know what, even if the dog

(01:31:38):
looks physically calm, I would make sure you heal them for at
least 2 minutes in that scenarioto allow this hormone to kind of
wind itself out of the body and start dissipating.
Or are they all, are they, are they all there for long enough
that 30 seconds versus 2 minutesversus 4 minutes until your next
Rep is somewhat irrelevant? That's a good question.

(01:32:04):
I don't know. I don't know.
You know, like depending on how stressful something is and if
the dog had, for example, already like a stressful morning
or whatnot, the cortisol can be there and up like for 24 hours.
Like you're not going to necessarily want to wait or like
want to rely on having that go to back to baseline through
healing. I think the, the bigger impact

(01:32:26):
that you have through potentially healing that dog
away from that situation is justswitching the context until the
dog let's go of the initial context.
And that has an impact on the, the how close the dog is to
blowing up or how close the dog is to getting back into this,

(01:32:50):
this resource guiding thing. It's a little bit like, you
know, when you go from one room to another and then you forgot
all of a sudden why you went from one room into the other.
So you're back to the old room to remember.
Oh, that's what I wanted to do. It's like kind of the same
thing, except your context switching here with like healing
and it's a very different behavior.

(01:33:11):
It's obviously obedience related.
It's movement. It's very different than
hovering over and it's probably walking outside of the kitchen
unless you're actually walking in circles in the kitchen.
But then I would probably try walking in and out and switching
the context. That kinda switches also the
emotional. It's like, oh, I'm doing
something else but resource guarding.

(01:33:32):
And then the proximity obviouslycould trigger the old behaviour
back and then you switch to context again.
And that context switching can have an impact on, you know,
what the brain thinks is the most important, the priority
switching in that sense. And that's probably more likely
that you want to pay attention to as to how fixed it is.

(01:33:53):
The dog still on the old behavior versus can commit to
the old new behavior rather thanhoping that the cortisol goes
down or the stress response goesdown.
Cuz it might not for a while, but you can still kind of get
the dog into a different mindset.
OK, last question on this. So the cortisol it sounds like
is you're not going to rely on that going down.

(01:34:15):
What about adrenaline when they first blow up?
I'm assuming there's a big adrenaline dump.
How long until that starts to drastically dissipate?
They can be very quickly. The adrenaline is like it spikes
very quickly and it's being metabolized quickly too.
And that usually happens with the end, almost with the end of

(01:34:39):
the behavior itself. It's like drowning goes down and
then it lingers a little bit. Yes, the heart rate is still up
and all that. That kind of would be not
healthy to have a heart rate go from very quickly high and very
quickly to normal. Again, something would be off.
But that usually happens a lot, a lot quicker.

(01:35:00):
OK. So it sounds like by the time
the body is calm and you can seethe dog is no longer targeting,
staring at the food, lunging, barking, they're healing well,
the adrenaline is pretty much dissipated at that.
Point for the most part, yeah, it's not, it's not the
determining behavioral factor asmuch anymore.

(01:35:21):
All right. Vloss Nelson, do you want to
switch gears here or any questions from your end on that?
Not specifically on the resourceguarding, but I did have a
different scenario that I thought might be, might be
interesting to kind of dive into.
And the, the one that I've been thinking about it, especially as

(01:35:43):
we've been kind of running through this podcast is
separation anxiety. And that the context
specifically being there's a dogand the crate and we're
practicing, you know, being out of the room, right?
And I really started thinking about this when we started
talking about dopamine being the, you know, it's the

(01:36:04):
anticipation. Whether they like the reward or
not, it doesn't matter nearly asmuch as the anticipation.
And so a lot of the times, you know, we've seen dogs who will
bark, bark, bark, knowing full well that they're going to be
corrected. But seeing you, at least this is

(01:36:24):
the way I've always kind of explained it to people is seeing
you was worth it, right? And like just having again,
someone come back into the room is worth the, the correction,
whatever it is, you know, that that kind of deal.
I would love to know if, if I'm on target with that, if it, if
the dopamine is again, it doesn't matter that you're going

(01:36:48):
in there to correct. It's the anticipation of someone
coming in that kind of keeps them going or or kind of
anything that you guys have found out through research as to
what's actually happening to thedogs and in those situations.
So separation anxiety is is Yeah, it's also tricky.
Like, is it a dog? Like there, there are various

(01:37:12):
reasons why a dog could suffer from separation anxiety too
here, right? Is it a dog who it's actually
scared to be alone or left alone, you know, or is it a dog?
Is it a dog that is just, you know, just doesn't want to be
separated? You would kind of treat that
very differently in terms of like how you can help overcome

(01:37:34):
that. The it's it's less I would, you
know, the the separation part here.
I would, it's less of I'm anticipate, I'm excited for my
owner to come back because you know, if you have the
anticipation often, especially when it comes to vocalization,
the anticipation itself can quiet a dog down.

(01:37:59):
And that depends on, on the dog and it depends on the, on the
thing. But like let's say bite work,
sports work, right? Sometimes we want a dog to bark
the bark and hold and whatnot. But if they anticipate to get
the bite, which is the huge reward for them, they kind of
shut up. And it's because they're like
ready to bite. Barking is kind of like not

(01:38:22):
helpful in that sentence in thatmoment.
But what keeps them barking again is the frustration of not
getting it when they realize they're being pulled away, for
example. And for separation anxiety,
let's just say it's not a doctorthat is scared or like is scared
in that environment or has not been, you know, like when I

(01:38:44):
brought my puppy home at the beginning and doesn't want to be
alone because it's just like it's a puppy.
It's like for the first time being alone and any kind of, you
know, added aversive experience would make it even worse.
So that's a whole different story about like a dog that
maybe has rehearsed that for a while.
And it's just like, I just don'twant to be here, right?

(01:39:05):
That's the first, like the person leaving, it's frustration
and that frustration makes them bark and freak out often.
It's like they just don't want to be in there right now.
If you then, for example, correct the behavior, it depends
on have they rehearse it or not?Because then it becomes a habit

(01:39:27):
and they made-up their mind. But then the correction is like,
I'm just keep doing it because Ireally don't want to be here.
The frustration of not wanting to be here is still bigger.
It's like one evil versus the other that they keep going,
right? And then the problem is that
just you coming into the just you coming into the room gives a

(01:39:52):
sense of relief from that frustration, just being there,
just seeing that person be there.
And it's more like instead of the doping, the anticipation of
your like you being there as a reward, it's more like the
relief of like, oh, thank God she's here.
I'm not alone, right? And.
In the same sense, you could sayit's worth it.

(01:40:13):
It's just like from being miserable or like not wanting
frustration to a little less frustration.
It's worth whatever, you know, they have to endure in that
moment. So separations, I can be very
persistent in that, in that sense.
And if you, if you deal with this, if you know, OK, we have
overcome this, you're fine by yourself.

(01:40:35):
You can be fine by yourself. You've been in this room, you
had good experiences in this room and all that.
If that is being taken care of and you then deal with the
actual separation anxiety itselfat the right time, then there's
a good chance that you can overcome that quickly.
Because then it's like, OK, it doesn't this, there's no point

(01:40:58):
in getting frustrated. I'm not going to get out of my
crate for like the next time until I'm quiet, right?
The whole thing that we usually train with, like stay, don't
come in until the dog is actually quiet, then then can
work really, really well. Although, like with my puppy, it
was it was, it was geez, it was horrible.

(01:41:20):
Like I did not know that a little male puppy has so much
lung capacity to scream and scream and hammer against the
crate doors. Like, jeez, you're a little
monster. And I did just did not stop.
I was like, this will never going to work ever.
And then once I yelled back and then somehow that worked like

(01:41:41):
ever since, like, but for dogs who have rehearsed that for a
really long time, it's like it'sa thing, right?
And then most likely the owners at some point gave up.
I'm like, I'm going to let you out now because I can't take it
anymore. Or they come back home and
immediately open the door. And then the frustration has

(01:42:02):
been relieved. And that relief is like really
reinforcing per SE. They're just like, Oh my
goodness. And can render sometimes that
to, to being resistant to any kind of punishment.
So if you ask me like how to deal with these things and it's
very persistent, separate. And then there's very persistent

(01:42:23):
separation anxiety that is really medical, like really etch
case, borderline man, adaptive, really bad where they hurt
themselves and whatnot. I think there it's a little bit
of like paranoia involved and that's also very extreme case.
But for those cases that are like, really, really extremely
hurt themselves, I think there'susually something else going on

(01:42:45):
too that needs to be addressed in their lives.
Is that another case where it'd be like a like a holistic type
of thing like the food aggression or would that be
something that you'd be looking into neurochemical type of Ave.
Potentially both, but in the in the weird way like a dog where

(01:43:07):
you feel like this is this isn'tjust frustrating and like, you
know, a dog just being really mad in the crate.
This is this is maladaptive. The dog is willing to really
hurt him or herself. The one thing I would look into
and it sounds counterintuitive, but often there is an insecure
attachment potentially with the owner and it's not a healthy

(01:43:29):
attachment. Another healthy, healthy
communication. Even though it's not a good like
it's more likely that there is an insecure attachment.
What I mean by that is like the dog needs the the proximity to
the owner, but it doesn't reallygive the dog a sense of

(01:43:51):
security. That's that's basically insecure
attachment feels like I need this, I need something.
But even when I'm close to you, it's like all confusing.
I'm not really feeling that muchbetter, but it creates somehow
like really like nothing helps, but still need you kind of
really weird craving and that can make this whole thing like

(01:44:12):
really like really. So there.
I would usually start also out with like you got to learn to
communicate and be a team with your dog and have a really good
style of like how you guide yourdog through things and when to
give your dog the attention and love and, and, and, you know,
affection needed. But also when to kind of tell

(01:44:35):
your dog like all the things we talked about before, plus less
nutritiously. But usually I would look at the
the attachment style, the dog too and the other one with the
frustration right then that that's just you got to break
that cycle in other ways. So I have a follow up question

(01:44:56):
there. So, you know, we see a lot of
resource guarding and generally,like you alluded to a minute
ago, we, we get the cases when they're serious, right?
Not just a puppy that's barking,but someone that's letting go
for a year, 2 years, whatever. But when it comes to preventing
or fixing minor cases, we've seen big success.

(01:45:16):
And I think a lot of trainers dothis and teaching the client
there should not be a reward when you come back.
And I don't mean a reward like atreat.
I mean a reward like a lot of excitement and they start to
anticipate that. I'm assuming that would dopamine
would play into that, but so I guess I'll just throw this out
there. We stress to clients, do not let

(01:45:36):
them out and throw a party and like, oh, my good dog and pet
them and play with them. You know, don't make it a big
deal. Just come back, open the door,
let them out, go get a drink of water, hang out for a minute and
then praise them, pet them, you know, you know, away from the
cage or away from the front door.
What are your thoughts on that and is that dopamine related?

(01:45:56):
Yeah, that's kind of like the the idea here is then when when
you know, you come back home, you come back into the into the
room and you open the crate and then the dog gets like a whole
bunch of rewarding experiences that turned that becomes like a
contextual experience as an owner coming home means I'm

(01:46:17):
getting a reward, right. And that can then even if your
dog is fine in the crate and theseat is a lot too.
I don't know if you have that too, but I hear I have that a
lot with dogs when I asked them like, yeah, my dog is totally
fine in the crate when I leave, but my dog will not be in the
crate when I'm in the home. Like in the same house and

(01:46:37):
putting the dog up, like the social exclusion while the dog
knows you were there, It's kind of like, hey, I'm always want to
have access to you because I'm getting rewards, I'm getting
attention. I'm craving the attention.
If you can't have it anymore, I'm going to, I'm going to be
really mad, right? In the same way you come home
and then the dog anticipates, oh, coming home means AB and C,

(01:47:00):
which is then the reward that can turn a dog that is now nice
in the crate. You blow up as soon as you step
into the house or as soon as youstep into the room.
And then the next time it's not when you step into the room,
it's when the dog hears immediately the keys in the
door. And the next time it's not when
the keys are in the door, but then the car is coming into the
driveway and then the dog startsto like anticipate coming home

(01:47:23):
before you're even home. And then you turn the sock that
was fine in the crate potentially into like a maniac
in the crate right. So here we do have this kind of
understanding of like hands anticipating this reward.
And I think we and they're like,you just want being neutral.
I don't think when you open the you come home, you take off your
shoes, maybe you go to the restroom, maybe you have a glass

(01:47:45):
of water, put your groceries down, whatever it is, right.
And then you'd let your dog out of the crate.
You just don't make a big deal. Like I let my dog out of the
crate and I say, hey, I pet them, but then I move on with my
life for a moment, right? And they're much more like
they're likely to follow me around, follow me around, you
know, like do your thing And I let them out probably to pee and

(01:48:06):
they pee and I go back and they follow me around and then that's
it. And then it's like, hey, I'm so
happy that you're here. I'm still going to give you some
attention. I'm just being like normal.
I don't know. Like sometimes we have to make
these events events by being so overly emotional.
We don't even do this like imagine you come home to your

(01:48:27):
partner, like as soon as you come home, like, yeah, here's a
piece of we don't do this either.
We're like, hey, hey, how was your day was good.
And then eventually you end up both on the couch and you have a
conversation major or whatnot, right?
It's just neutralizing to the act of like how we are together,
like the lifestyle you're creating.
And it doesn't have to it doesn't always have to be this

(01:48:49):
big party for anything really. And with the wrong dog riling
them up while they're restrainedin the crate, there's no good
news, definitely not good news for like the yippee, yippee dogs
who like barking. And you know, you can be normal
and you can be just open the crate.
You don't have to like, like, you know, it's like, I don't see

(01:49:10):
you. I'm not paying attention to you.
That's not going to work either.Just be normal.
It's just, you know, like, go your day and your dog will find
you and your dog will find you when you have time to cuddle
like you said, and then that's it.
All right, Nelson, any more on separation anxiety?

(01:49:31):
No, I think a lot of things thatI was thinking were confirmed,
you know, in the explanation, especially when it comes to
throwing a party when you when you come home and everything.
And you know, we, we see that make such a huge difference
right in in bad behavior. So it's good to know that you

(01:49:53):
know, me and you, Matt, are not crazy and that it's a
significant thing. We might be a little crazy.
We're just. Not on that though, not on this
particular thing. I have to like, just like to
throw this in, you know, we always have to remember that the
brain loves to make predictions.That's what the brain is like.

(01:50:13):
Maintaining bodily functions to stay alive is 1 function.
The other function is making prediction in order to either
avoid discomfort or, you know, seek pleasure.
It's always making predictions. We are good at making
predictions, wrong predictions in the future.
But dogs are like still making predictions and they're picking
up cues when it comes to like not throwing a party.

(01:50:35):
Not getting a reward is a prediction too.
Like it's not a passive or I'm just didn't get a reward.
The dog is predicting when my owner comes home, I'm not going
to get a reward. And that makes a dog not behave
crazy, right? So you still give the dog and
it's still learning. You still give the dog

(01:50:55):
information. You're not just ignoring the
dog. The dog is getting information
and processing, oh, coming home means no reward.
That's a prediction that you would want your dog to make.
Going on the walk and not greeting every person that I see
is also a prediction. That's how you create neutrality
to things that you want to create neutrality to.

(01:51:15):
It's nothing that passively happens.
It's still a conscious, active process that we need to be aware
of that we're doing or not doingas to like, what is my dog going
to predict if I do this every single time?
And what are the consequences from that?
Yeah, I love that. I tell people that all the time,

(01:51:35):
specifically when they're socializing their puppies,
right, Is getting them used to the fact that not everybody says
hi to your dog because then those puppies grow up.
They're six months old. They're not the cute little
things that they were and nobodysays hi to them, but they're
anticipating the fact that for the rest of their life,

(01:51:56):
everybody's going to want to come and say hi to them.
And from what it sounds like, itin this case, it's the
anticipation, the dopamine dump that then creates the
frustration of of unfulfilled expectations.
Yeah, it's oh, hey, I'm going tosee, say hi to someone and then
the person is not saying hi. Plus, you're probably being held

(01:52:20):
back by the leash. Sure.
Dopamine goes like wait, wait, wait that that discrepancy
creates huge frustration. What is the frustration?
What is the frustrated dog on the leash rolling, barking,
lunging, potentially whining, you know, then you say don't do
that. And you're like, what do you
mean don't do that? That's what I've been doing for

(01:52:41):
the first six months of my life.Like, why the heck am I not
doing this anymore? Right?
And it's the dog doesn't know. That dog isn't cute anymore.
Like all dog knows. And still the cutest dog alive.
You know, it's like everyone said hi to me.
This is how you foster like an ego in the dog.
Yeah. And, and and you know, like
that, that thing doesn't just change.

(01:53:02):
And especially in early on socialization, that kind of
sticks. So I'm thinking we went about
this whole episode wrong. We should have just Nelson,
things you and I disagree on, just argued and made Doctor
Melanie take. No.
No, no. Oh, that would have.
Been fantastic that would. Have been delightful and we

(01:53:24):
could even say it in ways like, well, I'm not going to tell you
who said this or who said that, but then you explained your
position well and you misrepresent the others.
That could have been so fun. Well, I've been told by a crazy
guy. I know I'm not going to name
names, but. Yeah, no, I would come up with a
third option. Well, that's that's what we do

(01:53:47):
with clients when they try to draw us into an argument between
them, like we come up with another option that is hopefully
a good option that's not going to further the fight.
For sure. All right, well, switching gears
again, why don't we spend at least a little bit of time on
leash aggression or reactivity? And I didn't want to start there

(01:54:08):
just in case we we know we didn't have enough time, but I
think it'd be fun to spend a couple minutes there.
And just to walk you through Doctor Melanie, how we address
it. I mean, there's so many ways and
obviously different trainers do different things.
We are not big fans of having a dog sit when it sees a dog
approaching and fighting with them to keep them still.
We believe movement is, I mean, movements, energy, energy.

(01:54:31):
You need to get that energy out of the dog's brain and body.
So we're very big on movement, we're big on trying to keep them
under threshold as much as we can.
So if I have a dog who's reactive, I want to control as
much of the environment as I can.
I don't want to take them somewhere.
There's going to be 100 unpredictable dogs I can't
control. In a perfect world, I'd have

(01:54:52):
another trainer there or a neighbor with a dog.
But we're going to get the dog in a calm state first on leash.
We're already going to have taught them heal.
And we're going to try to work under threshold and teach the
dog to focus on us while we're healing around another dog and
progressively get closer and closer and closer through time
until we're acting normal, however long that takes, right?

(01:55:13):
And passing the dog and doing all the normal stuff.
So that's kind of our theory in a nutshell, and I'm just curious
hearing that and how we address it.
I'm curious how you handle leashreactivity.
But also if you could walk us through what you think is
happening in a dog's brain and especially like what's being
released. You know, adrenaline on a lot of

(01:55:35):
dogs, I'm assuming have a lot ofdopamine being released where
they anticipate and they seem tolove and thrive on leash
reactivity. So the floor is yours.
I know this could be a long topic, but what are your
thoughts on on that? Yeah, I guess it really depends
on when you catch a dog being reactive and what kind of you do
to either steer in the right direction or not.

(01:55:57):
And depends on the genetics and the predisposition of a dog and
the temperament and maybe learning history and all these
things, right. These two activities such a
complex topic and I think sometimes we may be over.
I like to over complicate things, you know, and I have to
remind myself, well, you know, like there's probably a whole
cocktail of things happening andin my dog's brain right now.

(01:56:21):
But like what really matters is don't do that, do this.
So it kind of comes down to this, right?
But how you get the dog to that,OK, I don't do this, I do that.
That's a matter of how you set up your training.
And like, I, I know how many different approaches I have seen

(01:56:43):
and heard about when it comes toleisure activity.
So I think, and I think a lot ofthem have validity as in like,
and you might be surprised, like, oh, this is a completely
different approach and it kind of gets me to where I wanted it
to be. But I'm more interested in the
question that helped me a lot more to say, OK, this is

(01:57:04):
something that I would do or notdo is kind of like what is what
is the dog's? What does the dog think his or
her options are right? And if the dog thinks my only
option is to react, that's usually happening at the

(01:57:25):
beginning, right? And when you had the dog
rehearsal, but it's like, well, let me give you other options
first, right? And then if the dog never heard
how to heal or never learned howto redirect and have fun with
the owner, or you know what you said in movement and redirection
drills and whatnot, let me work on that first, right?
I got it instilled into my dog'sbrain.

(01:57:46):
Other options. It doesn't matter if your dog
can heal perfectly in your yard.Healing outside on the street is
a completely different story. So let's work on that.
And these kind of things like here are new options.
These are all the cool and fun things.
And sometimes it's a heal and sometimes it's play, sometimes
it's food games, sometimes it's walking to the side and changing
even directions. Whatever it is, here are our new

(01:58:09):
options and you want to do that.Not necessarily to perfection.
No one needs perfection with petdogs, I think, but to a point
where the dog has an understanding and you feel like
you have with your leash and your robo cue some good things
happen. So it's like, OK, these are new,
new options. And then you'll see, OK, how

(01:58:29):
easy is it for the dog to committhese new options and sometimes
takes care of its alone. If it's a dog's just really
scared or really like a little confused about the world, you
know, it's like, oh, just do this instead.
I'm a happy go lucky guy and I'mlike, I can do that easily.
OK, then you know, that's it. The leisure activity.
We caught it early. We showed new options.
No problem anymore. Mostly it doesn't happen because

(01:58:54):
your dog client comes and says, oh, my dog has been like this
for five years. OK, that makes the thing a lot
harder because now this one option that your dog thought is
the right thing has been basically confirmed for five
years and convincing a dog to not follow that option easily,

(01:59:14):
it's not going to happen. So here that the next question
then will be like, OK, I showed you all the other options.
But and this is where sometimes,you know, where I'm trying to
strike a balance between obedience that will help me to
for example, I'm walking on the street.
I just I just need to be able towalk by this other yippie,

(01:59:37):
yippie dog without a blow up andjust stay in the heel.
You know, that's that's your task.
I'm going to put myself between the other dog and you.
You're just going to stay in theheel.
Don't worry about anything else.That's your obedience, right.
But then back to my initial questions like what does my dog
things the options are and but if I did not have a heel right

(02:00:00):
now. Would my dog still think that
blowing up is an option? Probably yes.
And that's what we also have to take care of at some point.
Because I've seen a lot of dogs who are very compliant and then
the owners think it's fixed and they push the dog into a
situation where the dog can handle it with obedience and

(02:00:21):
will blow up massively. So it still needs the dog
understanding of that's not an option anymore.
And that's where in a certain time space and you know, lots of
things need to be considered correction or punishment for the
wrong option comes in. If the dog has had variable

(02:00:42):
reinforcement, sometimes it got punished for it, sometimes it
didn't. Maybe went through different
trainers, went through differentowners, Then even punishment
becomes very, very conflicting. And then you have to resort way
more to to management. But say it's a green dog.
It's like a dog, but you actually OK?
Yeah, it's done it for five years, but we've never used
punishment ever. Then you have a chance of like,

(02:01:04):
OK, here, all the options that you can do, I help you.
Here's the obedience. I guide you.
This is not an option anymore. So in any case, if you're on the
grass area and I have you on thewall, moose leash and a dog is
in the distance, I still don't want you to blow up just because
you're not in the heel command. And I think that kind of puts

(02:01:25):
everything into a framework for the dog to make sense of the
dog's context and world. That's not an option.
That's what I do when I heal. These are all the other things I
can do. And this is how I can have fun
with my dog. And if you have that in place,
naturally it comes with like a good communication, good
teamwork, and all these good things where you're like, yes,
I'm still kind of enjoying. I would still enjoy that kind of

(02:01:46):
conflict, but I can control myself.
I really am aroused. I'm going to tug with my owner.
If I'm really unsure, my owner is going to give me the heal
command. You know, like that's where you
need to understand what you do when with the dog that is of a
certain temperament. But you want to have all the
pieces together. Meaning you want your dog to

(02:02:08):
understand under all circumstances what does the dog
thing the options are and then given your input or not your
input. And that helped need to at least
kind of structure certain training programs in the right
timing. It's like, I'm not going to
start with correctional punishment.

(02:02:28):
I'm not going to start necessarily with obedience of
the communication or like a goodteamwork isn't there yet.
But then eventually all these things play a role because the
life is chaotic. And you know, the same way I do
with my dog, Anya, right? Like if I just need to walk by a
dog, like this morning I was on the trail and I saw these two
dogs and I know they're reactive.

(02:02:49):
Like I'm I'm not going to play tack with you on this super
narrow path right now. It's not going to happen.
So I'm going to just put you in the heel and you have to like
walk with me now. And she was fine.
Another circumstances when there's more space, I would give
her like you can decide what youwant to do.
You can enrich yourself and sniff on that Bush or you can

(02:03:10):
make the wrong decision, but I'mgoing to let you know whether or
not you did the right decision. And that kind of adds a little
bit of choice and agency. Even though people think you're
like restricting, it's like, no,I'm giving her freedom, I'm
giving her agency by saying justdon't do this.
You can do this, you can do that.
And I'm telling you, you can do all these things right by not

(02:03:33):
giving you obedience command. You just know you're on a leash
and we have far enough a way where I know this is a safe
distance for you to make the right choice.
So make the right choice. So I think there was, I don't
know if that kind of gave a goodidea of like how I think about
it, but that's I think it's important for leisure activity.
And I like that you brought up giving them some agency when

(02:03:55):
it's appropriate and giving themthe chance to mess up with a
plan, of course, to get them calm or under threshold again if
needed. Absolutely.
Because, you know, we don't wantthe dog to live in a heel.
Of course, we need some other options for the dog learns to
coexist without healing. And I think it's, it's not just

(02:04:15):
that, but like, I thought about this a lot, even from a human
psychology perspective, like howdo we, how does the dog know
something is wrong unless we cantell the dog that was wrong?
Like, and that, that goes into like the idea of force free,
right? You can get very far with force
free and well, let's just hang it there.

(02:04:37):
We can get far with force free and then and then the rewards
and reinforcement with the rightdog.
But the dog never knows that theother option is wrong.
Like it will never know that this is wrong.
If the dog never knows that thisis wrong, doesn't that
automatically leave that option open?
And doesn't that automatically put the dog at risk if there
will be a moment where really bad things might happen versus

(02:05:01):
telling the dog this is not an option anymore?
So you don't have this situationever.
You know, it kind of you could argue, well, we know not to run
a stop sign because we know it'swrong and we know we never, we
don't need to get into an accident to know not to run into
a stop sign. But, and I heard that, I think I

(02:05:23):
heard that before, but that's completely different.
We have like the capacity to, we've made those rules like we
did. We do it ourselves.
Of course we know what happens if not.
And we probably have a stop signbecause there has been a time
where it didn't work and where people have died.
Because, by the way, I have never seen a country with so

(02:05:44):
many stop signs. I don't know what's wrong with
American driving. Like, do you not know to look
left and right? Like, do you need a stop sign to
stop in Germany if we don't see that many stop signs?
Sorry. Really.
So you just look at each intersection.
Yes, it's always like, look to your right, if there's a car,
you wait. So I feel like you only see that

(02:06:07):
in the states. In the country gravel roads
often intersect with no stop sign and if you're from town and
you haven't grown up that way itcan be pretty dangerous.
I didn't realize Germany operated that way with a not as
many stop signs. No, you, you.
No, if there's I. Think it's Germany is the
autobank too. Right.
Say again. In Germany, isn't there the the

(02:06:31):
Autobahn the the highway that has no speed limits?
And yeah, stretches a bit, right?
Yeah. They're obviously very much more
trusting of drivers in Germany than there are in the States.
There are, but yeah, it's to me it was insane.
And every time I see us at the beginning, I saw stops and it's
like something weird or dangerous must be here that they

(02:06:51):
make me like have to tell me to stop was like, no, it's just an
intersection. People need to know to stop.
Like, yeah, I mean, wouldn't you?
But anyways, OK there was. It's uncommon to see an
intersection without stop signs here, yeah.
Sure noticed, I noticed. But yeah, but so again, by back
to that thing, right, It's kind of like the dog needs to know at

(02:07:14):
some point to complete the picture and didn't you want your
dog? That's where agency comes in or
choice comes in, by knowing whatchoice to make, not by always
the choice. Like we always think like, oh,
I'm just reinforcing the right behavior.
That's not choice. That's just reinforcing one
behavior. Choices.

(02:07:36):
You have an option without me having to reinforce and guide
you and you just know that this is not an option, but you pick
what else you want to do in the safe setting, right?
To me, that would be on a very wide, super grassy area with my
reactive dog and she's maybe on a six foot leash and there's a
dog within. It's like pick, pick, make your

(02:07:58):
pick. And I'm going with it.
And I know you're going to make the right choice because we
talked about it. And then you want to move away,
Let's move away. You want to sniff the grass,
Let's sniff the grass. You want to just watch for a
second? Watch for a second fucking with
me, right? And I think that's where a dog
has a lot more and I think a little bit, and I mentioned that
before. That's why we sometimes see such

(02:08:18):
big differences between awfully trained off leash dogs and dogs
that always on the leash automatically comes with a
little bit more choice that the dog can feel he or she has.
But we can mimic that to a certain extent, even on the
leash by not, you know, always reinforcing like here's food,
food, food, food, food, right? Or here's all the time the input

(02:08:41):
from me. Sometimes it's you have a
choice. I like that.
A couple of things that come to mind, you know, and I like that
too, because it's something thatwe preach all the time.
Matt, you had that. I think it was an article,
right, about proofing that it's something that that we are

(02:09:01):
constantly talking to our clients about is if you don't
give them the opportunity to pass or fail and be able to kind
of correct that, you'll, you'll never actually be able to trust
your dog either, right? Again, exactly what you're
talking about is the you have tobe there to influence them
always, right? As opposed to trusting that they

(02:09:23):
can make a proper decision on their own.
We do that a lot when we're talking about, you know, socks
or Kleenex and, you know, just item discernment in general.
But what it what it always kind of reminds me of is the people
who are walking and are taught themselves to teach their dogs

(02:09:45):
to sit and stay every time they see anything.
And how not natural and weird that would actually be if your
dog were to be off leash, because if there's a dog off
leash, people are immediately going to try and catch it.
And you're inviting and at leastin my mind, right, you know,

(02:10:08):
you're, you're inviting a lot more conflict that way as
opposed to a dog that was taughtto just, you know, ignore things
that are happening and just kindof keep existing.
You know, those dogs seem like they would probably get into
less fights and things as opposed to sitting and staring
at absolutely everything that passes by just just for the fact

(02:10:31):
that again, they're they're not actually taught any choices or
given the opportunity to learn to be accustomed to people
passing dogs passing buses, passing whatever.
As opposed to, you know, like when we're healing and we do
teach those dogs, they're like, who cares, dude, it's a bus,
let's keep moving. Just seems like better choices

(02:10:51):
can be made when you're when you're given the opportunity.
Yeah. I mean, like, like two things.
Sitting for a dog that is wanting to act and then focusing
on it. Like both of these things do not
go well together. And, you know, like, just look
at the border collie who's stalking perfectly still, you

(02:11:13):
know, perfectly still, like, feel further in place, but
staring. So like, being stationary does
not equal to being neutral. And then we have this, this,
this weird idea that if I can get my dog in a Sid, I can allow
my dog to look because my dog's not going to do anything.
But I think that's where often what we see is not what you get,

(02:11:35):
just like looking by the behavior, although staring, if
you really look at the behavior and understand what you're
looking at, then you can put one-on-one together.
But like the build up and I'd belike one day when I don't get a
sit, that will be my chance and I'll build that up for like a
year or two. You can.
The dog will channel the entire past of having to build up and

(02:11:59):
stay in the sit until this one chance that the dog gets to, I
don't know, go after the squirrel or the other dog across
the street and we'll get hit by a car.
So sometimes it's just like not for you.
Just keep going. To tie those two things
together, what you both just said is the dog that's always in
the sit never gets a chance to have any agency, right?

(02:12:21):
Because they're always in the sit, they're never practicing
the loose leash. So you have really no idea what
the dog's going to do when you're no longer controlling the
dog. And when you're doing what
Doctor Melanie said a few minutes ago of letting the dog,
when you have space and you can control enough of the
environment and you have the room you need, you give the dog
a chance. You see, if they mess up, you

(02:12:42):
calm them down and that's how you get to the point where your
dog is actually good. Definitely.
So we've been at this a long time.
I want to make sure we don't thea couple things I want to cover
before we wrap up is give DoctorMelanie a chance to walk through
some of the seminars and things you're doing.
I know we had signed up for one this week.

(02:13:03):
That's pretty awesome. So I guess are there any
questions, Nelson or Vlos? Vlos, I muted you because you
were clickety clacking when you were typing.
It was like, it was like you hada couple chickens dancing on
your keyboard over there. Sorry, I was checking.
I was checking if there's a hurricane going on right now.
It sounds like it's crazy outside.

(02:13:24):
Is there I? I don't think so.
Good. Any questions you guys want to
make sure we cover before we start wrapping up and talking
about some of the other stuff Doctor Melanie's been working
on? I don't have any questions.
This has all been super fascinating.
It's it's all very interesting to me to hear the science kind

(02:13:46):
of confirm what it is that we see every day working with these
dogs. So I'll, I'll throw one last
question at you. This one is from a member of our
team. Shout out to Remy.
Remy was did some reading and apparently there's some
literature that says, and I'm not a huge medicine person open

(02:14:08):
with that, but there's some literature that says when
puppies are given Prozac at a young age, or I think a
specifically Prozac at a young age, if they're showing signs of
stress, it can actually rewire some of the pathways in the
brain and make changes that it wouldn't be able to do if it was
given to them. You know, when they're older,

(02:14:29):
that there's some benefit to this being given to the dog at a
very young age. And I'm just curious is that is
there, have you heard about that?
Is there any truth to that? When, when I hear drug companies
talking about how good it is to give medicine to puppies or, you
know, young children, my, my hair always stands up a little
bit and I get worried when I hear that, but I could be

(02:14:50):
completely wrong and off base. So have you heard that?
And what are your thoughts there?
So Remy's saying there's literature that shows that if
you give. So was it puppies, a young age?
Prozac. It rewires the stress response
for the better. Yes.
Permanently, basically. Yeah, I mean, that's how I took

(02:15:14):
it. I don't know if you stopped
taking Prozac, would you lose those benefits.
But my understanding was supposedly what this shows is
that, you know, the benefits of starting early.
You know there's more benefits there that you wouldn't the dog
wouldn't receive if you did thislater on.
Yeah, don't do that. Like puppies, Any young animal

(02:15:35):
where the brain has not developed fully yet, There
should not be any medication. And in terms of like anxiety
medication happening, I know that we attempted to do that.
I know that like a crazy neurotic puppy seems like
impossible, you know, but then no, then it's not the right
puppy for you. But like it will have an impact

(02:15:57):
on the brain for sure. But I don't know how you can say
that it's not a it's not a suppression of the entire kind
of like expression and personality of the dog.
Sure, it might look like the dogpotentially has not such a
fulfilled or like exacerbated stress response.
But I think chances are that you're actually altering

(02:16:18):
something that has other impacts, negative impacts.
It's much more likely there is research on, there's research on
SSRI's or anxiety medication given to pregnant animals.
It wasn't dogs. I don't know what species it was
and it does have negative impacts on the pups, basically

(02:16:39):
on the offspring and long lasting impacts in terms of less
memory retention. Actually more anxiety and I
think similar things happen, canhappen if you give any anxiety
and medication to puppies. So bad idea.
OK, thumbs down from Doctor Melanie.
Down both all thumbs. All the thumbs.

(02:17:01):
All the thumbs. All right.
Well, fill us in a little bit on.
We probably should have done this at the start, but some of
the things you've been working on.
So I know you've got a scent work online seminar going on
right now, which is really awesome.
Anything you'd like to walk us through that you're particularly
excited about that you're working on?
You know, like what am I workingon?

(02:17:25):
So I'm, I'm kind of wrapping up some things that that have been
on the back burner that I want to make available again.
I had a bunch of webinars earlier last year, earlier this
year, I don't remember what are we not last year that I want to
make accessible again and just kind of putting it together and
editing a bunch of stuff that I've done in the past.

(02:17:47):
There was a young dog workshop is 1 and then something that
I've been that I'm actively thatI'm currently very excited about
or two things really well, neverstops.
But two things I'm really excited about currently is I'm
looking more into physical health and physical fitness and
animals, particularly dogs and how that impacts brain health

(02:18:08):
and how it impacts training. And in particularly, you know,
for sports dogs, preventing injury and creating some sort of
conditioning programs in the context of neuroscience for for
dogs, because we all know, we all know that we don't exercise
our dogs enough and that's the pet dog or nothing the right
way. So kind of working on like a
program there, a short mini program kind of style webinar,

(02:18:31):
maybe even for pet dogs or sports dog people.
That's one thing. But I also do with my own dogs
then. And then the other thing is
research wise, what I'm digging into currently is the concept of
generalization. I've been stumbling over that
many times in different contexts, whether this is for

(02:18:52):
detection, how they generalize looking for a certain odor and
the order is mixed with other things or in different
environments or you know, rehabilitation programs.
Don't just react. Don't just not reacting on the
dark in the training facility, but also on walks, not just in
the group setting where everyonesits, but also on trails when
you walk. So likely biology or newer

(02:19:12):
biology, in particular of how the dog, how the brain
generalizes behaviors, what needs to happen in order to
generalize. And it's more in the context of
how often do you have to change the picture, Meaning how often
do you change environments? How often do you how fast do you
progress before it's being basically stuck as this is what

(02:19:34):
I do. This is what that means.
And looking more into like nuances, there is like my
research part. I love that.
That sounds incredible because if I'm understanding it
correctly, two of the biggest challenges with dog training,
like for pet dog training, is when you change the environment
or you change the handler. Those two things obviously

(02:19:55):
become problematic sometimes. And learning how to have a dog
generalized better, of course, would seem, if I'm understanding
correctly, would make a world ofdifference for those two things.
Yeah, correct. And like even just for
obedience, if you would want to like advanced obedience stuff,
you know, when do you like? Sometimes we have the obedience

(02:20:17):
for complicated behaviors, a focus here almost to perfection
before we start doing it outsideof the training field.
But then it kind of breaks down again.
Could you introduce that earlier, even though the
behavior is not perfect and you might get a little bit of
messiness. Or maybe it's almost like when
kids learn multiple languages, they are behind behind a kid

(02:20:40):
that learns just one language interms of the fluency in school.
But eventually it will catch up.And then they will be fluent in
all languages that they learned.And in the same way as like, can
you can you accept some, you know, messiness early on, but
then get perfection later in various environments with
generalization. So yeah, that's what I'm looking
into. And then the last thing will be

(02:21:01):
my my Trouble Helix program, which will then be running
again. And in October as the next
season, my third season of that program.
Could you give us just a real brief rundown of what that is,
in case any of the listeners don't know?
So it's basically what we did today, but much more and much

(02:21:22):
deeper with pretty slides. So all the like real like
everything like how the dark perceives the world in terms of
sensory inputs, right? All the neurotransmitter on home
loans, how it influences behavior, anxiety, fear
reactivity, aggression. But also a little bit insight
into scientific literature, whatwe actually know, insights into

(02:21:46):
motivation, dopamine punishment,how negative reinforcement
versus positive punishment works, how positive
reinforcement works, all these kind of things in like a
scientific, I don't get protocols, step by step
protocols because I think everyone comes in with like most
that take that are dark trainersor enthusiasts.
So they have some understanding,but like case studies and

(02:22:09):
putting it into context of what the person's already doing.
So literally what we kind of didtoday.
Awesome. Well, I wish maybe we'll have to
shoot a new intro before the intro, like a huge long bio for
you and we'll just put that on. It'll be like 5 minutes of us
talking about how awesome you are.
Because I do want to say really appreciate having you in the dog

(02:22:33):
training community for a lot of reasons.
But there's very few people, maybe none besides you that do
such a good job of bridging the gap between average dog trainer
and let's say ivory tower or, you know, academia.
There's there's not much of that.
So there's people that love to tell you from a science

(02:22:53):
standpoint, how to train dogs that don't actually train dogs.
And then there's a lot of dog trainers that are really, really
talented, but probably know not much of the science or, you
know, can't explain it well. They just know what works.
And to have someone bridging that gap I think is amazing and
is going to just continue to do wonders for the industry.
So very excited to see what you turn to next.

(02:23:15):
Thank you. I really appreciate that.
Should I make that the intro? What do you guys think?
Nelson, Vloss. No, I think right here at the
end is kind of perfect, right? Because then they'll be like,
oh, definitely going to buy that.
Let's go buy all the tickets to all the things.
Absolutely. Well, thank you for taking the
time to come on here. Did I know?

(02:23:36):
We kept you for quite a while, but this was a lot of fun.
Hopefully you had fun, but I think our audience will really
enjoy this and hopefully learn alot from it.
Yeah. I I enjoyed it and with good
questions for sure. I mean, it didn't feel like 2.
I think it was 2 1/2 hours. Didn't feel.
Yeah, so. Let's it goes quick.

(02:23:56):
It does, Yeah. Well, sometimes it doesn't, but
this time. I feel the same every time I
talk to you is that I get done. I'm like, I still have a lot of
questions I want to ask. So there's a never ending list,
that's for sure. Well, there will be a key
conference, so. Absolutely.
There you go. Looking forward to it.

(02:24:17):
Yes. All right, Well, thank you,
everybody. And thank you, everyone for
listening it. Definitely take the time to drop
a comment and tell us how awesome you thought Doctor
Melanie was. And don't forget to rate the
show. 5 stars is the correct rating.
Thanks everybody. Thanks.
Thanks.

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Dr. Melanie Uhde --- How Neurotransmitters and Hormones Affect Training

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