Be BiteSmart: Protecting Children from Dog Bites with Dr. Nicholas Dodman and Vivian Zottola

What if we could drastically reduce the 4.5 million dog bites that happen annually—half of which affect children—through innovative education that teaches kids to "speak dog"? That's exactly what the Be BiteSmart initiative aims to accomplish.

Dr. Nicholas Dodman, one of the world's most celebrated veterinary behaviorists, and Vivian Zottola, anthrozoology consultant and behavior specialist, join forces to discuss their groundbreaking approach to preventing dog bites to children. Through the Center for Canine Behavior Studies, they've developed age-appropriate resources that go far beyond traditional "don't pull the dog's tail" warnings, employing animated videos, interactive coloring books, sophisticated apps, and even virtual reality experiences, all designed with input from child development psychologists.

Be BiteSmart - Center for Canine Behavior Studies

Vivian Zottola

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Today I'm joined by not one but two powerhouse
guests, dr Nick Dodman andVivian Zatola, to talk about an
ambitious new effort to keepkids safe and dogs out of
trouble the Be Bite Smartinitiative.
We dive into why children aredisproportionately at risk for
dog bites, the gaps in currentbite prevention programs and how

(00:25):
Be Bite Smart is usinganimation apps and even virtual
reality to teach respect andsafety in dog-human interactions
.
We also touch on the medicalside of aggression, the
long-term impact of bites onfamilies and the broader mission
of the Center for CanineBehavior Studies to reduce

(00:45):
surrender and euthanasia throughevidence-based research.
Let me tell you about ourspecial guests.
Dr Nicholas Dodman is one ofthe world's most celebrated
veterinary behaviorists, boardcertified in both anesthesia and
behavior.
He founded Tufts University'sAnimal Behavior Clinic and now
serves as president of thenon-profit Center for Canine

(01:08):
Behavior Studies.
He's authored best-sellingbooks, hundreds of scientific
articles and holds multiplepatents aimed at improving
animal welfare.
Vivian Zatola is ananthrozoology consultant, writer
and the creative force behindBe Bite Smart's animated lessons
.
A certified behavior consultantand fear-free professional,

(01:30):
vivian runs a Boston-basedpractice specializing in
human-dog relationship therapyand volunteers as a research
associate with CCBS.
And before we jump into today'sepisode, a quick heads up If
you're looking to learn moreabout helping dogs with
aggression issues, head over toAggressiveDogcom, because we've
got something for everyone.

(01:51):
For pet pros, there's theAggression in Dogs Master Course
, which is the mostcomprehensive course available
on aggression, packed withexpert insights and CEUs.
For dog guardians, check outReal Life Solutions, a practical
course for everyday challengeslike leash reactivity and dog to
human aggression.
And if you want full access toexpert webinars, live mentor

(02:11):
sessions and exclusive discounts, the Ultimate Access membership
is just $29.95 a month.
You'll also find info on the2025 Aggression and Dogs
Conference happening inCharlotte this September.
That can all be found ataggressivedogcom.
Check it out after the show.
Hey, everyone, welcome back tothe Bitey End of the Dog.

(02:32):
This week, I have two reallyspecial guests, vivian Zatola
and Dr Nick Dodman, who havethis exciting project they're
going to be talking about, aswell as dog to child bite safety
and awareness.
So I'm really excited becausethis is a very important topic
to us, of course that listen tothe show and talk about

(02:52):
aggression in dogs.
So welcome to the show, vivianand Nick.
It's great to have you here.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
Thanks for having us Good to be here.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
So let's jump right into what the CCBS, or the
Center for Canine BehaviorStudies, is and how this Be Bite
Smart project came about.
Do you want to tell us a littlebit of background about CCBS?

Speaker 3 (03:12):
Well, I'll start, mike, because it originally
started with me and my sort ofco-founder, chris Gianelli, who
is now our board chair.
We were working on a differentproject, which was about human
health, which was getting verycomplicated, and in the meantime
we said you know, we can use alot of the same technology to

(03:33):
start something purely for dogs.
So we founded this 503Cnot-for-profit organization
called Center for CanineBehavior Studies in 2012.
And we've kept going year afteryear thanks to the support of
generous benefactors andsupporters.
At one time we had probablyabout 9,000 members.

(03:58):
I think we might be down tolike four and a half to 5,000 at
the moment.
There were some dupes that wehad to cut out, and we call
these people citizen scientistsbecause what they do is they
help us with our studies.
They respond to questionnairesasking them about their dog and
their experiences, and then weformulate that using a very
clever informatics expert inDinwoody to create scientific

(04:23):
articles.
The first one we did was thedays before Din Woody.
We used a differentstatistician and that was about
the relationship of how yourpersonality affects your dog's
behavior.
It turns out there is an impact, that you do have an influence
on your dog's behavior.
It's only about a 15% influencebecause you've got other things

(04:45):
like genetics and environmentand circumstances and management
, but there's an impact and it'sexactly along the lines you'd
expect.
The next one was anaward-winning paper about the
demographics of dog behaviorproblems and what's called
comorbidity, like which problemstravel together, and that one
got the award for the bestwelfare paper for the year it

(05:08):
was published, and Ian Dinwoodygot the Young Investigator Award
as well.
So we were cruising.
We did one on aggression allthe different types of
aggression, who they went to seeto get advice on the problem,
how it worked out for them, whatprograms worked, what
medications were used, if any,and so on.

(05:29):
And then we repeated the samekind of study with behavior
problems that were due to fearand anxiety.
We actually somewhere in thewings, we have something about
compulsive disorders too, whichwe haven't fully analyzed, and a
house-soiling paper which we'reworking on at the minute.
So we've been going through that, but at the moment I think it
was our board chair, chrisGianelli, who said you know,

(05:51):
looking at all this data, itdoes seem that there's a
tremendous need.
For you know what is our mainmessage?
Prevention as opposed totreatment.
Don't be after the gold rush.
Don't be the fire engineservice.
Be the people who helps totreatment.
Don't be after the gold rush.
Don't be the fire engineservice.
Be the people who helps toprevent, and one of our key
messages was helps to preventsurrender.

(06:12):
But, of course, one of thespecific things that leads to
dog surrender is if they showaggression, which in most
publications, is about 70% ofall dog behavior problems.
So it's a very common condition, many different causes, but we
were specifically focusing ondog bites to children.
The reason is that there are4.5 estimated 4.5 million dog

(06:38):
bites to people every year andabout half of those are directed
towards children, and that'sbad news for the child, it's bad
news for the parents and it canbe particularly bad news for
the dog, because our interest istends to slant towards the dog.
We want to save them from beingin these predicaments that lead
to them being aggressive, butalso, you know, we don't want

(07:01):
children to get bitten either.
So we've got two missions, thedog mission and the child
mission, and that all started in2010 and it's still going
strong in 2025 with this project, which Vivian can perhaps
explain a little bit about wherewe're at with it.

Speaker 1 (07:18):
Yeah, I would love to hear your role too, vivian, and
especially with your influenceas a trainer and successful
business owner.
You know how did you getinvolved with this program.

Speaker 2 (07:28):
Yeah, so I'm a little bit of a dog nerd.
And back in 2018, I went to DrDodman's seminar.
He had just published Pets onthe Couch and Chris was there
actually Chris Cianelli and Ispoke with them about
volunteering with the center.
He shared the Center for CanineBehavior Studies, that it was

(07:51):
fairly new and, yeah, and I justasked him if I could do
anything volunteer, and sothat's when I started with them
and I was just helping withanything that they were working
on and I was eager to learnabout certainly having access to
Dr Dodman right, that wasreally something special being

(08:11):
able to ask him questions andI'm a behavior consultant, so
I'm working on cases and so wewere able to talk a bit.
And then I started my graduatestudies and that worked well
with what we were doing at thecenter, because I started then
working as a research associate.
So participating in some of thestudies, working with Dr Dodman

(08:34):
and Ian Dinwoody and two otherbehavior consultants, was very
educational for me as well.
I was studying as ananthro-zoologist, getting my
master's of science degree.
My role was moreproject-directed Whatever came
up I would jump in, and whenthis BiteSmart initiative

(08:56):
developed, I was really excitedbecause a lot of my clients are
families with children, and so Iwas certainly utilizing the
information that I learned fromFamily Paws Parent Education
Jennifer Shryock, which is awonderful course that she offers
, and as a professional, it camein handy so I'm able to help

(09:22):
the team both brainstorm andcome up with storylines that
have to do with real life events, as well as work on the
animated lessons and the facial,the body posturing, the
different low level stresssignals that dogs give out and

(09:43):
provide people with to let themknow that they're uncomfortable.
So it's been very, veryrewarding to be able to
participate in these projectsand the lessons.

Speaker 1 (09:54):
Yeah, and it's an amazing resource and we'll
definitely link to those in theshow notes.
The Bee Bites Spark videos areexcellent.
I was looking at those actuallythis morning and they're very
well done and educational.
That's, whose voice is behindthat?
Is it your voice behind some ofit or somebody else's?

Speaker 2 (10:07):
no, that's uh.
We hired fable vision, which isa company in, I think,
watertown nick somewhere likethat, yeah watertown,
massachusetts.
We worked very closely with them.
The whole process was reallyinteresting.
We worked with their creativedirectors and their staff maybe
seven to 10 staff helped us putthat together.

(10:30):
We came up with again thestoryboard, the storyline, and
then provided that to them andthe voice was someone that they
hired.
Yeah, and we have it in Englishand we have a version in
Spanish, which the IABC, dotBaisley, and their Spanish

(10:52):
language director.
They were wonderful.
They translated the lesson inSpanish for us.
So we'll be working with themagain, hopefully in the future.

Speaker 1 (11:04):
And it sounds like you have some really wonderful
partnerships already in placeand one of the obvious goals of
this initiative is to reallyjust to help the dogs, help the
children.
But you know, in terms of yourultimate outreach, who's the
audience you're most looking togo for right now.
If you had a wish list of let'sget this out into the world,
because we often as trainers,trainers we're kind of stuck in

(11:24):
the trainer community or theveterinary community.
It's hard to break out into themasses and the general public,
so kind of talk us through moreof that.
What are some of your goalpoints here with the overall
reach?

Speaker 2 (11:36):
yeah, in terms of channels of distribution where
we've been aligning with avsav,avs, avs and veterinarians, the
pediatric community, the medicalcommunity, because they have
really been the voice behindwanting more educational content
and upon doing some research,we found that what we were

(11:59):
hearing is there wasn't enoughinformation out there, at least
it wasn't getting to thecommunity, children.
So we're looking to tap intomaybe schools channels would
also include veterinarians, as Imentioned, the medical
community, anyone that lives orhandles at a shelters, rescues.

(12:21):
So our space as providingpreventative information,
research information that's ahard space to be in because it's
not sexy, right, and so thathas been the biggest issue for
us is to get that informationout there before an event
happens, right?

(12:41):
Not after the event.

Speaker 1 (12:43):
Yeah, yeah, well, let's talk more about that,
because what you're just sayingthere was completely resonating
with me.
Because people don't have aproblem with it.
It's kind of like changing theoil in a car there's not a
problem until they see there'sactually something's gone wrong.
And that's the unfortunateaspect of dog bites, because we
know that and I'm going to throwout some common statistics, but
you know, dr Dahman was justmentioning the four to four and

(13:05):
a half million dog bites thathappen a year, with the vast
majority happening to children,and I think it's five to
nine-year-old boys that are themost significantly impacted by
dog bites.

Speaker 2 (13:16):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (13:16):
But many parents.
They don't see the potentialrisks until something happens,
right.
So I'd love to hear yourthoughts, dr Dahnman, as well as
you, vivian, in terms of whatcan we do to get this messaging
out there.
Because, let's face it, peoplecan hear about science and the
studies and the data, but untilit impacts them at home, it's
tough for them to actually seethe importance of it.

(13:37):
So what are your thoughts there?

Speaker 3 (13:39):
Well, sometimes there are warning signs of almost
aggression that people sort ofignore and usually it's the dog
that gets punished and that'susually the child that's doing
the wrong thing and invading thedog's personal space.
I mean, one very dramaticexample I heard of years ago was
a St Bernard up in NewHampshire and it had never been

(14:02):
before.
It was the opposite of warning,it just suddenly out of the bit
this child quite severely andthe dog was obviously admonished
but also put to sleep.
But because of the rabiespotential and they have to
examine the brain to make sureit doesn't have rabies, you know

(14:22):
niggery bodies in the brain inthe process of doing the
dissection they discovered thatthe child had rammed a pencil
down the dog's ear canal andpopped through its eardrum and
the dogs screamed in pain andbit the child.
So this is just a ratherextreme example of child not

(14:43):
understanding, doing the wrongthing to a dog.
So we're simultaneously tryingto educate both children in
their own language, using childpsychologists or developmental
psychologists, professors andsuch like to get the right
medium in the videos to reach acertain age group.
And the minute we're doing likethe three to five age group,
then there'll be the five tonine, then there'll in the

(15:04):
videos to reach a certain agegroup and the minute we're doing
like the three to five agegroup, then there'll be the five
to nine, then there'll be thenine to 13,.
Then there'll be the 13 to 18.
That's when childhoodofficially ends.
Or some could argue it's alittle bit earlier than that.
But I don't think a 17-year-oldyoung man would appreciate
being called a child.
But I guess legally they are, sothey're doing the wrong thing.

(15:25):
And Vivian was explaining aboutall of the different outlets
that we want to get the messageout, about how to educate
parents as well as the childrenabout what the dog enjoys, what
it doesn't really enjoy and whatit really won't tolerate,
because all dogs are capable ofaggression.

(15:45):
I remember I once did a talk toabout 150 trainers with, you
know, co-talking with ian dunbar, and he was the one he stood
there and asked all these peoplewhich one of you has never
yourself personally got into asituation where you responded
aggressively and only one personput their hand up.

(16:06):
He said God bless you, you're asaint, but you know, most
people have had some aggressiveincidents, so dogs do too, and
they don't use boxing gloves,they use their mouth and their
teeth, and different dogs havedifferent biting styles and
severity, sometimes according tobreed and sometimes upbringing.
So we just wanted to educatepeople, but we're concentrating.

(16:29):
You mentioned, mike, the videos, but we also, from the videos,
we've developed coloring books.
So when you're sitting therecoloring in a page of a dog with
certain expressions, you knowas a child, a five-year-old,
with a colored crayon.
You're spending a long timelooking at that picture and it
sinks in more.
So another thing we've gotbeing developed with a group

(16:50):
called Teams in Chicago is anapp, and this app is very
sophisticated and you can enterit with any situation of child
of any age and dog of anypersuasion and it will guide you
through measures that you cantake to keep that child at that
age group safe from that dog.

(17:12):
But it's also got things onthere that are entertaining and
educational for children or willhave, because it's a work in
progress.
There will be games wherechildren can interact with a dog
on a screen and as they walk upto the dog and pet it on the
head, it causes the dog to havesome facial expressions that are

(17:34):
not right and it takes you backto the level before and you can
go back and try again.
There's no punishment, it'sjust only progression and you've
progressed to learn how you gothrough the stages and there
will be rewards when you reachcertain levels, just like there
are in other video games.
You know you could win littletokens and this, that and the
other.
Maybe you can buy a new jacketfor your dog and you can go up

(17:56):
the scale.
So these educational games willbe.
I've seen some examples of whatwe're going to do and they're
pretty amazing and ultimately,this is a little bit further in
the future, I mean maybe fiveyears virtual reality, where the
child can.
An image of a dog can beprojected onto the floor and the
child can interact with thisprojected dog and it will send

(18:19):
signals that are appropriate orinappropriate depending on what
the child's doing.
So this is a multi-prongedapproach, from studies that
we're doing and videos andcoloring books, app games,
virtual reality.
Basically, there isn't any sortof medium that we're not
following and, like I said, it'sgoing to be for about five

(18:41):
different age groups.
So everything that we do forthe three to five age groups,
we're going to replicate now ata level for the five to nine and
our psychologists will keep usonline as to what is the best
way to entertain these people,what can they understand, what's
too much for them and so on.
So it's a major project.
It does involve lots of players, lots of players for the

(19:02):
behavioral stuff.
Vivian and I kind of boots onthe ground in terms of.
You know, in the videos, whenthe child, who we've named alex,
approaches the dog who we'venamed charlie, what does he do
when he's sleeping and the childapproaches him and disturbs him
when he's sleeping and whathappens to his ears and his eyes

(19:22):
and his mouth and the signs andthe tail.

Speaker 2 (19:26):
It's like building an ethogram right in which it's
visually talking about them.

Speaker 3 (19:30):
Right, we call it canine literacy.
Yes, so it's like learning tospeak another language and the
language is dog.
We're teaching the children tospeak dog and we're teaching the
parents to understand whatcould be triggers for a dog.
They don't like everything.
Some dogs will tolerateanything.
I had one that you know.
Children could ride him like asmall horse, but I didn't let

(19:52):
that happen because I know toomuch.
But you know, some people havedogs that have very low triggers
.

Speaker 2 (19:58):
So what I've done is I've taken videos actual videos
of dogs and children, slowedthem down for the team and
analyzed and pointed out becausewe're all learning, right.
So I'm using this as anopportunity to teach my
co-workers but my team aboutbody language and stress signals
.
We're using the same low levelstress signals that we use in

(20:21):
fear-free and that's beingtaught across the board.
But when Nick and I have alittle bit of a because it's all
context driven, right we knowthat and sometimes a startled or
fearful look might change tosomething else, maybe aggression
, and these are subtle, right,these are very subtle.
When you're a behaviorconsultant, that's one of the
first things that we learn is westudy ethology, we look at

(20:43):
animal behavior because we don'twant to be bitten, right.
So there have been times whenNick and I have maybe had a
question about something, notdisagreed, but we need to pull
someone else in.
So we've leaned on ourscientific advisor, dr Mark
Bekoff, on a couple of occasionsto ask him.
And so we're all learning.

(21:04):
We're all learning andimproving upon our craft as well
.
So it's been interesting.
And earlier, mike, you hadasked about family dynamics and
one of the things that I havefound is that something that?
And this isn't something wetalk about specifically in our
educational lessons, but we dobring up agency, respecting the

(21:27):
bubble, respecting the dog,allowing them to have consent to
being approached, and youngchildren don't understand that.
So the lessons are designed toexplain one theme at a time.
We have 10 on the books thatwe'd like to develop.
It's all driven by donationsthat we get because we're a
nonprofit.
We have had some peoplegenerously donate and so we have

(21:51):
our second lesson that we'reworking on now.
But there are some higher levelconcepts that we don't really
talk about specifically, butthey do come up in how we design
our lessons.
Another one that we won't reallytalk about in our lesson is the
way that we name our animalsright.
We do consider them part of thefamily and we might name them

(22:14):
as a sibling, right.
And I've heard my clients sayto me well, it may have been a
dog bite, for example, or a nearmiss, and they'll name their
dog or they'll label them theirbrother or their sister, right.
And so when that happens, theirbiases drop their defenses.
They're not really, maybeproactively, observing the dog

(22:36):
because they trust the dog, butthe dog is, of course, it's an
animal right.
Anything can happen and theymay not be versed in dog
language and stress signals andso miss some of that and all it
takes is, you know, a secondmoving away from your child.
So we want to try to reduce therisk of bites and we're hoping
that people will start to thinkabout some of these things about

(22:59):
labeling their animals.
Well, refraining from labelingtheir animals as a brother or
sister, certainly a familymember.

Speaker 3 (23:08):
In a way it's very much like people.
I mean, especially these dayspeople must and again it's
terrible trouble if they don'trespect the bubble of a person's
personal space.
You know, if you just walked upto somebody on the underground
station on the metro and theygave them a big hug and kissed
them on the lips, I mean, andyou don't know them, and that is

(23:29):
an assault and they might turnaround and swing.
If it's a man to a woman, itmight turn and smack him in the
face with a pocketbook.
You know you react.
So we have to respect eachother's personal space.
And even with a brother and asister, you know you don't want
the brother barging into thebathroom while the sister's
taking a bath or a shower.
So it sort of applies to people.

(23:50):
But the thing about the dog isit's a nonverbal species, so
they can't express themselves inany other way other than this
body language, body tension, eyepositions, whatever, and
vocalizations which we're tryingto teach people to read them.

Speaker 2 (24:04):
And it's also a completely different species and
that's something that peopleoverlook completely right, we
bring our dogs into our homes,away from their biological
family, into our homes, and weforget to enculturate them into
our homes, teaching them the waythat we live and what's
appropriate, what's notappropriate.

(24:25):
People don't think thatlearning the skills, dog
training skills, or even simplethings like antecedent
arrangements and moving thingsaround to improve behavior, they
don't even think about thosethings and they think children
will understand which they don't.
If a parent is saying, well,this is your brother or your
sister, they're going to takethat literally, right?

Speaker 1 (24:47):
Very good point, and I just want to back up for a
second, too, to the app that youwere talking about.
That is not out yet, correct,it's in development.

Speaker 3 (24:55):
Yeah, I've seen like blueprints for it and they're
really impressive.

Speaker 1 (25:00):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (25:01):
And the only reason it's not going faster is, of
course, what else Funding.
And we almost had anopportunity with the drug
company CEVA, c-e-v-a, ceva, whohave very deep pockets and
they're mainly a edicts of whatthey're supposed to fund.
But we did get into the veryfinal thing.

(25:28):
We almost got we're talkinglarge amounts of money, like
globs of $250,000 and multiplethereof, to end up with our
final thing.
And we are approaching otherlarge corporate entities, mars
for example, to fund thesethings because you know it's
good work, it saves lives andthe misery that a child

(25:51):
experiences after a dog bite, Imean it can be totally extreme.
They can have terribledisfigurement, they can have
psychological problems, ptsd.
We don't want that to happen.
We don't want dogs to bepunished for things, especially
if they're not their own fault.
We don't really thinkpunishment's a very good
strategy period.

Speaker 1 (26:10):
Absolutely, absolutely.
And is there going to be a namefor the app that people should
look for if it does come out?

Speaker 3 (26:16):
It hasn't got a name yet.

Speaker 1 (26:17):
Okay To be named.

Speaker 2 (26:19):
Well, it'll be under the guise of Be Bite Smart.

Speaker 1 (26:21):
Okay, so we'll recognize the branding.
You know it's very impressivebecause I actually have not seen
any of the projects.
We've seen a lot of initiativesand campaigns on dog bite
safety, whether it's to childrenor just to the public in
general, but I don't think I'veever seen anything where
somebody's collaborated directlywith the human psychologists to

(26:42):
integrate what's going to work.
And that's quite impressivebecause, let's face it, many of
us trainers, when we'readvocating for bite safety, we
pull the science.
We might see a study or wemight reference things.
But we've actually, I don'tthink anybody's worked directly
to see.
Okay, this is how it's actuallygoing to work best for children
to learn.
So I'm really excited for theapp, but also everything else

(27:04):
you're doing, because it'sbacked by good data, which I
would expect nonetheless.
So let's talk about that alittle bit more.
We've been kind of talkingabout a lot of different things,
but we touched upon therelationship and the
ramifications, and Dr Dahman wasjust mentioning the really
awful dynamics that can happenin these kind of situations.

(27:25):
But let's go a little bitdeeper into that.
You know, we all know somebodythat's been bitten as a child
and they're an adult now andthey have xenophobia or fear of
dogs or you know.
So what else can you see andeducate the masses that are
listening as far asramifications for dog bites to
children age zero to 17, let'ssay, Just backing up to the

(27:50):
videos, a second Vivian said wewant to make 10 of these videos.

Speaker 3 (27:51):
I just want to point out that it's 10 for that age
group, and then 10 for the nextage group, and then 10 for the
next, and when the price tag foreach video is $20,000 to
$25,000, you know, we need toraise a ton of money.
Yes, yes, yes, but go ahead.

Speaker 2 (28:05):
Vivian, you were going to say something.
So, michael, you're askingabout mitigating bites.
Is that what?

Speaker 1 (28:11):
Well, we could talk about that, but I'd like to just
kind of make sure everybodyunderstands their ramifications,
because that's one of thethings If it hasn't happened to
somebody then they may not beaware of the real damaging
consequences.
We hear about dog bites.
We hear about dog biteshappening to friends and things

(28:32):
like that, but sometimes wedon't recognize the gravity of
the situation when it's a childthat's been bitten, especially
by the family dog.
So talk us through that, likethe relationships that are
fractured the outcomes, even thedivorces we might see.
I mean, there's some seriousoutcomes that can happen.
So what do you think on that?

Speaker 2 (28:50):
Yeah, it's very heartbreaking and it's an honor
to be able to help people.
But when they're faced withhaving to surrender their dog
because the dog is a bite risk,if we could just get to them
sooner, right?
So when they're looking toadopt that dog, if they choose

(29:10):
adoption or acquiring a dogthrough a rescue or shelter,
educating them at that point,staying close, you know, maybe
even ensuring that they workwith a trained professional to
help them understand stresssignals, even something as
simple as our lessons, we'rehoping that it'll be enough to

(29:31):
at least help people pause andsay, hmm, maybe I need some help
, and then reach out right.

Speaker 3 (29:38):
But the thing is, even with all this good stuff
that we're trying to teach,unfortunately we cannot be 100%.
Not every single person in theworld is going to see our
problem, I think, and that rightnow not everybody knows about
it.
So the bites are happening, andMike's right that it totally
changes family dynamics and youoften end up in a situation
where, let's say, the man istotally enamored with his dog,

(30:02):
it's his buddy and that the wifesays, yeah, these are my
children and you're exposingthem to a risk of bites in the
future.
And he says, no, I'll make surethat that doesn't happen
because I'll keep him by my side.
And she says I don't trust thisdog.
You can't be there all the time.
You have to do this, you haveto do that.
And then the wife's parentsjoin in.
And then somebody else and hisbrother comes in and the whole

(30:25):
family is feuding.
I've had that numerous times.
One of them it wasn't a child,but it was a man who's a very
good friend of mine and he wasdriving along in his car with
his springer spaniel in the backand he said to his wife could
you just give the dog a littlebit more water, because I think
he's thirsty.
It's been a long car ride.
She grabbed the water bottle,reached over the back and poured

(30:48):
it, but apparently she didn'tknow there's a special way of
doing it so as not to aggravatethe dog, which is kind of weird.
It bit her right in the hand,broke a bone in her hand.
She had to go into hospital.
She had antibiotics for threedays and then continued
antibiotics when she got homeand she said that dog must go.
And the man said that dog can'tgo.
That dog is my heart and thiswas a client of mine as well as

(31:16):
a friend now.
Client first, friend later.
And I got called up by his sonone night.
I'm just cooking dinner and thephone rings.
I don't know how he got mynumber, maybe from his dad, and
he said I don't know why you'releading my dad on to think that
this dog is not going to biteagain.
And I said I'm not leading himon.
I said what you don'tunderstand is people have a very
close association with theirdog, they're absolutely, totally

(31:38):
bonded to it and if you do havethat dog put down, I mean your
dad could go into depression.
So that's why I'm trying towork to keep things safe and in
fact it did work out.
That dog eventually died of oldage but fortunately the man was
wealthy enough to build a smallkind of almost other house in

(32:02):
his backyard where the dog livedand he'd go there and spend
time with it.
But later the dog became blindand he was allowed back in the
house and the woman got someconfidence.
But that could have been a deaddog and I could tell you
several stories like that, wherethere's this family feud and it
could even be that there isn'ta resolution, like a house in

(32:22):
the backyard, and people haveseparated as a result of this
complete different view of thesame situation.

Speaker 2 (32:30):
And what happens is it's the dog that gets
sequestered and people think youknow they'll put their dog in
the basement.
I'm not suggesting that dogsare more important than humans
or anything like that, but it'sjust finding a way to coexist.
There are people that will lovetheir dog so much they'll agree
to train the dog on a muzzle tokeep the dog in the house.

(32:52):
So the dog's always wearing amuzzle, so you know they find
solutions that work for them andeach family is unique and their
tolerance levels are unique.
I mean, I've worked withclients that they've had 10
bites to one of the adults andmore, and they've continued to
try to make it work.

Speaker 3 (33:12):
One of the common causes of dog bites is the
children kissing the dog.
Children are very oral and theytend to put everything in their
mouth.
It's kind of testing theenvironment and they see the dog
and they know about kissing andthey go up and they grab the
dog by the snout and startapplying their lips and this is
an insult and that can result inthe dog triggering into

(33:34):
aggression and I've seen thateven with adult human beings.
I had a woman come in once.
She had a German shepherd andit had bitten her in the face
three times and I said what wereyou doing to get bitten in the
face?
She said I was loving on him, Iwas kissing him, right?
And I said you've got to stopthat.
And she said I can't, right, Ilove him so much.
I said well, you're just goingto keep getting bitten in the

(33:55):
face then.

Speaker 2 (33:56):
That's something that when I go in and work with
families.
We go over body language, we goover modeling right, children
watch their mothers, theirfathers, kissing on their dogs
and then they model it.
They think it's okay to kissother dogs in the park or
running up to other dogs.
I think more parents arerecognizing and guiding their

(34:18):
children, but I still seechildren running up to my dog,
who's an old man now, but yeah.

Speaker 3 (34:25):
But most of the dog bites are a lot of them are to
dogs in the home.
In the home, yes, so it's a dogthat you live with and your
children, yes, but unfortunatelythose dog bites aren't covered
by insurance because that's thefamily and such like.
But they can also be if you'vegot children, especially in the
sort of five to nine age groupor a little older.
They will have friends comeover and the friends maybe don't

(34:49):
know as much as they do unlessthey're schooled by their mates.
Don't do that to Peggy.
No, she doesn't like it.
But if they get bitten, that'son your household insurance and
the household insurance- $900million.
It's close to a billion dollarsa year paid out and those kinds
of bites.
You'd think somebody would wantto invest in a program that
would help to prevent that,because what we're teaching

(35:10):
applies to these visitors to thehouse too.

Speaker 1 (35:13):
It's exactly what I've been saying.
Yeah, for many years.

Speaker 3 (35:17):
Yeah, so you know.
And then what happens is theytake dog bites off the insurance
.
Yeah, and then if there'sanother one happens, you could
end up with a massive bill.
I had one lady yeah, it was alady, not a child, but it could
easily be a child she was bittenby a brace of dogs who jumped
over a fence and knocked herdown, and that's, that was
settled for eight hundred andfifty thousand dollars if you

(35:37):
don't have insurance.
Eight hundred fifty thousanddollars.
Most people wouldn't be able toput their hand in the back
pocket and pull that out.
So you can go broke, yeah yeah,the average dog bite lawsuit.

Speaker 1 (35:46):
I think the last statistic I looked at was about
two years ago from the insuranceindustry.
It's around $54,000 now Exactly, and that's up from around
$18,000 just a few years prior,so that the insurance costs have
ballooned significantly for anykind of dog bite related
lawsuits Absolutely.
I want to talk more about thoseramifications, but we're going
to take a quick break to hear aword from our sponsors and we'll

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All right, we're back here withVivian and Dr Nick Dodman and

(39:25):
we're talking about dog bitesafety as well as the specific
demographic of children and allof the ramifications involved.
And you know we had beentalking earlier, before the
break, about relationships.
But what can we do to helpfamilies when there's a
fractured relationships?
We were talking about, you know, divorced families and what can
happen with the adults.
But what about the child andthe dog?

(39:46):
And we can kind of look at bothsides how does the dog feel
about the child?
How does the child feel aboutthe dog?
Is it something that we need tocommunicate more to the parents
about what they might not beseeing, because sometimes
they're advocating for their dogor their child and they don't
see the other party's emotionsand how they're viewing the
relationship.

(40:06):
So, vivian, we can start withyou with the cases you've worked
with or you've had to try tohelp repair that relationship.
Or maybe you can even talkabout a case where it was not
repairable because the child wasso scared of the dog or vice
versa.

Speaker 2 (40:19):
Yeah, I worked on a case with.
The child was on the spectrumand the dog was a rescue dog.
The spectrum and the dog was arescue dog.
They had sent the dog to a bootcamp those of you who don't
know about boot camps sometimesthey're using aversive measures.
The dog came back worse andwhen I worked with them the

(40:40):
child wanted to get closer tothe dog but the dog was afraid
of the child.
So we were working on certainlykeeping them safe with each
other.
We introduced gates to separatethe child.
We'll separate them physicallybut still have the dog and the
child be in the same room.
But we worked on thebiofeedback protocol Dr Karen

(41:02):
Overall's biofeedback protocolwhere we are gradually working
toward teaching the dog to becalm.
We were working on somedesensitization with the child
and the dog.
So I was working with both ofthem and also using some of I
don't know if you're familiarwith Dog on Safe.

Speaker 1 (41:22):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (41:23):
Okay the games, and I've been introducing the video
that we have as well as alearning tool just to help the
child understand when the dogneeded space.
And we also used I bought juston Amazon, it's yellow and it
says just I need space.
So whenever the because I wasalso educating the adult to

(41:47):
understand the dog's stresssignals and when the dog needed
to move away this was a smallapartment that they had but in
that case she ended up gettinganother dog in Newfoundland,
thinking I don't know what shewas, thinking that it would help
their dynamics and that causedsome issues between the

(42:09):
Newfoundland because theNewfoundland puppy became very
big.
The two dogs had some issues.
She favored the Newfoundland.
The original dog ended upfinding another family.
So that was actually a goodstory for them, I guess,
although it was a completely newenvironment for that dog.
Yeah, each case is going to bedifferent and depending on whom

(42:31):
is feeling nervous about theother, whether it's the dog
feeling nervous about the childor the child feeling nervous
about the dog.
I approach it that way andfocus on the one in need at the
time and sometimes it's theparent.
So again, I'm using the samesimilar tools that I would with
the child Visuals illustrations,pointing out, I take video as

(42:57):
well and I break down the videosjust to show them real time.

Speaker 1 (43:02):
Do you find that helps to build maybe some
understanding and empathy withinthe child If they are able to
say, well, oh, the dog's doingit because of this, or this is
their body language,communicating this where they
didn't see it before, right?

Speaker 2 (43:14):
You ever?

Speaker 1 (43:14):
see kind of that epiphany shift.
Obviously it's going to be achild of a certain age.

Speaker 2 (43:19):
Depending on the age of the child.
Yeah, yeah.
When they're three years old.
Two years old, they don'tunderstand crawling, they don't
understand.
They don't understand crawling,they don't understand.
But it's that five, six, sevenyear old that understands.
Oh, aren't there days when youneed space from your sisters and
brothers or your mother orfather?
Right, yes, you know?
So, using those analogies.

Speaker 3 (43:39):
Well, your dog doesn't speak in words, so you
were just saying that they gotanother dog, and I remember a
famous quote from the late greatRK Anderson, and someone in the
audience said it was a video hewas showing.
He was in someone's house andthey said, well, maybe we should
get another dog.
And he just said, well, thenyou would have two problems.

Speaker 2 (44:00):
Right yeah.

Speaker 3 (44:01):
And that's not always the case, but it's very often
the case, right?
And I just wanted to mention wedid a study recently about the
circumstances leading to dogbites of children.
And you're right, mike, as yousaid in the beginning, it's
mainly in a five to nine agegroup, mainly boys, who of
course are made of slugs andsnails and puppy dogs tails, as
opposed to the girls.

(44:22):
But one of the questions weasked in that survey was you
know how was your childafterwards with the dog?
Were they standoffish?
And, strangely, a lot of thekids who are bitten it didn't
change the relationship at all.
They said they still loved thedog and he was fine and they
were happy with him being in thehome and being in the home and

(44:42):
some other people you know gavethe dog a wide path and that
they, you know they didn'trespect that dog.
Some of them became phobic ofdogs in general.
So this huge spectrum frombeing really quite tolerant of
the situation, the bad situationthat had occurred to it, sort
of morphing into this much widerproblem with all dogs yeah,

(45:04):
there's not many things that weget for our kids that have such
a potential for great happinessand also potentially great harm,
other than maybe the first.

Speaker 1 (45:14):
That's a good point, maybe their first car as a
teenager Been through that phasetwice in my life and then
trampolines maybe.
But you know, when you thinkabout it there's such a I think,
when there's such a romanticismabout having you know we're
getting a family dog, a puppy,happiness and then it turns into
something so different,especially if there's a major
dog bite incident.

Speaker 3 (45:35):
But it can be very educational to teach your
children an interaction with adifferent species and I think,
if it's done properly, it canteach empathy.
And I never really trust peoplewho, you know, just have no
time for animals at all.
It's just like they're widgets,you know.
But I find that the average dogis nicer than the average

(45:58):
person.

Speaker 1 (45:59):
Yeah, I think that we can all argue for sure or state
that the benefits certainlyoutweigh the risks of getting a
dog right.

Speaker 2 (46:06):
You know, mike, you brought up a good point, and
it's managing expectations.
The onus is on whom, though?
Who should help manage aparent's or a family's
expectations?
Who should take on that role?
Is that something that all theveterinarians, you know, all of
us trainers, veterinarians, themedical community, pediatrics

(46:29):
should we all take on that?
Should we ask the questions atintake?
So, as a society, I mean,that's, I guess, a societal
question.

Speaker 1 (46:37):
A social media question too right.
Right, I mean if you thinkabout all the bad influence that
you know, because there's lotsof people kissing their dogs on
social media.

Speaker 2 (46:45):
That goes viral.

Speaker 1 (46:46):
Right yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:47):
And everyone's trying to upstage each other.

Speaker 1 (46:49):
And they don't see the risks because so many people
get away with it with the dogson social media Right.
And then you have peoplereplicate.
You know the child's at homewatching that on.
Tiktok, and then they're goingto go try that with their own
dog.

Speaker 3 (47:00):
Right.

Speaker 1 (47:00):
That's when the disaster happens, and it's
really hard to compete with thatbecause you can't well, first
of all, show gory videos onsocial media.
You could show some reallyshock, terrible videos of what
happens to children.
But that's not going to makethe algorithms or make it even
pass the filters on social media.
So it's an uphill battle forcertain.
I know, I've heard that forsure on social media.

Speaker 3 (47:22):
Maybe we should put our video on TikTok.

Speaker 1 (47:25):
Absolutely.
I mean, the first thing that'scoming to mind right now is that
today is January 15th, as we'rerecording this, and TikTok's
supposed to be not around, Ithink in a couple of days,
facing a van.

Speaker 2 (47:35):
It'll be around.

Speaker 1 (47:37):
Well, we'll see, but absolutely share the sentiments
of getting this information outthere any way we can, absolutely
.
So let's kind of get into somefor the dog pros that are
listening in some of the moreadvanced cases you might have
seen, or concepts, what's top ofmind for you when you think
about I want dog pros to knowthis information or be aware of

(48:00):
this particular dynamic.
So kind of thinking of you knowwe have lots of dog guardians
that listen to this.
But if you want to get to moreof the advanced stuff, stuff,
any particular research latelyor whatever what's top of mind
for you in that regard?

Speaker 3 (48:11):
I've got one thing to throw out, and that is if you
have a dog who has been, youknow, quite well behaved and
calm and respectful and fun andgoes on, walks with you and
everyone's copacetic, and thensuddenly at the age of six you
notice a change in his behavior,that all of a sudden he's very

(48:34):
grumpy and growly and stuff likethat, usually that indicates a
medical problem.
That's something where you needto start out the consultation
with the vet, who would pull allkinds of blood work and make
sure that it wasn't thiscondition and that condition.
And it's very controversial.
But I think that borderline lowthyroid conditions, which tend

(48:54):
to develop in older dogs, canincrease anxiety like they do in
human beings, and anxiety is abig, you know, kindler for
aggression if you're an anxious,shoulders up by your ears type
person or dog.
I had a funny twist on that onetime because there was a friend
of mine at the gym and his wifesaid you know, we've got this

(49:15):
golden retriever.
Well, golden retriever isnumber one breed for
hypothyroidism.
And all of a sudden he startedto show aggression and I just,
you know, getting into my car, Isaid have the vet check his
thyroid.
Just, you know, getting into mycar I said have the vet check
his thyroid.
And so the next thing she cameup a few weeks later she was
hugging me and said you know,thank you so much, you saved the
dog.
And I said well, it was lowthyroid, right?

(49:37):
She says, oh no, it was high,really right.
What?
Because it's almost neveroccurs.
Yeah, so what it was was athyroid tumor and they operated
and the dog went back to normal.
That's great.
So super high aggression andborderline low anxiety to
aggression.
We did publish one paper onthat.
The effect of thyroid hormonereplacement did not actually

(50:01):
produce any significant resultson improvement in the biting
until the sixth week oftreatment.
So it's not something thathappens overnight.

Speaker 1 (50:10):
Interesting.
And just to touch on that,since we're on the topic of
thyroid, are they stillrecommending the full panel and
the T4 and the free to test forall of that when they're looking
at thyroid levels?

Speaker 3 (50:20):
I think a free T4 is probably the most accurate way
because T4 itself, justthyroxine, can go up and down
with sort of general healthproblems.
You know, if they've got avirus condition or something
like that it'll get knocked outof kilter.
But the free T4 is the mostexpensive.
It's not free at all.
But the TSH that's the othertest that's used in humans to

(50:41):
diagnose it.
And TSH I think it's worthdoing but in fact it's not
always because the test isbasically designed on human
fundamentals.
It's not always accurate fordogs.
So but I think if you've got20% of dogs where it's not an
accurate reading, it's stillworth doing for the other ones
and it's absolutely definitiveif you have low free T4 and high

(51:06):
TSH.
I mean that's nail in thecoffin of the diagnosis.
But we found some othercurveballs, Like if you do the
full panel with the T3 and freeT3 and thyroid antibodies, we
found some dogs where theconversion doesn't work well and
the T3 is low.
So instead of treating withthyroxine, it's triiodothyronine

(51:27):
instead.
Very comprehensive things to doa full panel and the people at
Michigan are pretty good atinterpreting that for you.
You know they'll say this isvery suspicious of this, and so
vets can pull panels, send themto Michigan.
I think Dr Jean Dodds atHemopet also does these tests,

(51:51):
but she's definitely not abeliever in the um tsh.
She said it's garbage in dogsbut it's not complete garbage,
like I just said.

Speaker 1 (51:55):
Speaking of medical issues, since we're on that
topic, let's dive a littledeeper, because I think the the
cause for a lot of our caseswell, many aggression cases in
terms of under diagnosis.
We can talk about pain andmedical issues.
Pain, especially arthritis, andit's sort of the perfect storm
when you have children climbingall over or touching a dog that

(52:16):
might be experiencing medicalissues.
So maybe Vivian, and then DrDobman, you can chime in too as
far as the most common medicalissues that are occurring.
You might go specific intocertain pain issues or certain
conditions, but what do youtypically see in your work when
it comes to children as well?
I mean it could be, of course,occur in any aggression case,
but especially in yourchild-directed aggression cases.

Speaker 2 (52:39):
So arthritis.
They're jumping on the dog,they're sitting on the dog,
they're pulling their tails.
Dental is one as well.
Touching the dog's mouth orsqueezing, those are the top
ones that I've.
When they've come back from theveterinarian.
They've let me know that ifthere's an underlying medical
it's for that reason.

Speaker 3 (53:00):
Well, we did a couple of studies looking at the
medical causes and the firststriking finding was that 15% of
all dogs that have behaviorproblems if they've seen a vet,
15% are diagnosed with a medicalcondition which is contributing
to the behavior problem.
So that means it's almost worthgetting a clean panel of health
from the vet in every case.

Speaker 2 (53:22):
That's what I always ask.

Speaker 3 (53:23):
And then, in terms of the order of things, pain came
out in both the studies, forjust plain aggression and fear
and anxiety, pain was the numberone.
And pain can arise in any partof the body.
You can have earache, dentalissues, you've got arthritis in
the neck, you've got abdominaltumors, all kinds of things.

(53:46):
Anything could cause pain, butarthritis is clearly a big one.
And then, going down the list,we had things like thyroid was
on the list seizures, and Idon't mean convulsive seizures,
I mean these partial seizures,simple partial seizures, where
they maintain, not necessarilyViv, but they maintain
consciousness.

(54:07):
But they go into this strangewarp and you can usually see
some sort of what they callpre-ictal sign, like the dog,
not always, but sometimes thedog appears a little off for a
few minutes before and then itgoes into this completely
different mode, sometimes ragingaggression, and it's sometimes
called rage.
And then in the post-ictictalperiod, after the ictus, which

(54:30):
is the seizure, the partialseizure they can act kind of
depressed or as if they've justexpended a lot of energy.
And of course there's otherthings too, like tumors, you
know, brain tumors and such like.
There's a whole slew of things,but those four or five came up
in both studies almost the sameorder and the same prevalence.

Speaker 2 (54:52):
Yeah, I'm always asking my before starting a case
.
I'm always asking them to seetheir veterinarian first, right,
because they're calling me fora reason.
They're calling me for eitherit's pre-bite or post-bite.
I'll ask them to first get aclean bill of health from the
veterinarian.
That's first and foremost.

Speaker 3 (55:13):
The other thing, nick , is when the dog is sleeping at
night, when they're aroused andyou were sharing with me that
sometimes that can be partialseizures while they're sleeping-
yeah, I've got a good video ofthat and it was, um, it was a
sort of rather not a very goodspecimen of a golden retriever
and it was lying there sleeping,and and suddenly it starts to

(55:36):
twitch.
You know, we all know that whendogs sleep and dream they have
little movements.
But this wasn't that.
This was twitching around themuzzle.
It was twitching and then allof a sudden the dog called comet
would raise up, absolutelyraging, crazy, and it would
attack anything.
If there's nobody there, itwould attack a blanket.
I had a bull terrier that hadthat too, and when it was

(56:00):
sleeping it would.
The woman would lie in bed andher dog was on a blanket beside
the bed or around bed orsomething, and suddenly in the
middle of the night it wouldjump up and rage and and she's
trying to defend herself bestshe can.
So I suggest, for your safety,you know, while we work on some
medical things, put the dog on alead, a strong lead, like a
leather lead or a chain link, sothat it can't actually reach

(56:23):
you.
And she said thank you.
And she told me that becauseyou, you know, in a follow-up
call she said he woke up ragingagain and he stopped like six
inches from my face because hehad this thing.
And there's also postpartumaggression too.
So, um, you know, when a bitchhas had puppies, you know
they're very protective, justlike all females when they've

(56:45):
got youngsters to protect, andthere can be this postpartum
aggression I saw that in a bullterrier and if you've got
children, they of course theywant to go and they want to pet
these little cute little thingsthat are just she's going to
protect them.
So I fixed that problem in onecase by giving the bitch
progesterone, which I wouldn'tdo lightly because it's got a

(57:07):
number of side effects.
So basically put it back intothe more well-being state of
pregnancy instead of thepostpartum and, of course, going
forward.
The advice was to, you know, ifthey didn't want any more
puppies was to spay the bitch,which they did because it was
just too dangerous a situation.

Speaker 1 (57:24):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, now we're getting intostuff.
I could talk to you guys foranother couple hours ago, so but
I want to be respectful of yourtime.
But I just want to just swingback to the rage.
What they used to call it was Ithink they used to call in dr
diamond, you can correct me fromcocker rage, springer rage,
yeah, springer rage.
And then they kind of shiftedaway from that, saying well,
could happen with any dog.

(57:45):
So then they just startedsaying like, at least from what
I'm hearing in the circles, isjust rage syndrome.
And even that they started tosay, well, is it because it
looks like rage?
So the dog wakes up in a veryagitated, highly aroused state.
That is indicative of not afear-based response, where we're
seeing weight shifts away,darting away, lip retraction.

(58:05):
We're seeing much more of whatwe consistent with the emotion.
Or, if we're looking atPanksepp's work, the system of
rage, where you see much moreagonistic or overt aggressive
responses.
So agonistic, puckers, hardstaring ears forward, really
uninterruptible type ofaggressive response.
So what is the correct kind ofway to look at it now?

(58:28):
And we're talking about thoseneurological things like a
partial seizure, where a dog isjust sort of indiscriminately
attacking whatever blanketperson nearby, whatever's next
to them, and it can happen froma resting state or even an alert
state.
So would you still consider theproper label rage syndrome, or

(58:48):
is it more neurologically basedor seizure related?
What's the way to properlyassign the label to that now?

Speaker 3 (58:55):
Well it is.
You know, I think the labelrage is going to stay around
because a term like that's beenused for such a long time.
And Dilla Hunter, who wrote atextbook on neurology from
Cornell University, went aheadand described precisely that
issue in Springer Spaniels andthat's why, really, it got

(59:17):
labeled as a Springer condition.
Of course Cockers are soclosely related to Springers,
then of course Cockers wouldshow it too.
I reported it in Bull Terriers,but I'd seen it in other dogs,
other breeds, pit Bulls and suchlike.
And when you think about it, inother dogs, other breeds, pit
bulls and such like, and whenyou think about it, seizures
certain breeds are more prone toseizures than others, and the

(59:44):
ones who are more prone toseizures may also be prone to
partial seizures, right?
So in humans it's about 50% ofall seizures are the full-blown,
what you might imagine as aseizure, a tonic or clonic or
tonic-clonic seizure, wheresomebody's on the floor and
either stiff like a board orwrithing.
The other 50% are the partialseizures.
So if vets are only diagnosing,you know the rolling around on

(01:00:08):
the ground type seizure they'remissing 50% of them.
Know the rolling around on theground type seizure they're
missing 50 of them.
So, and it's, I agree with you,mike, it's not just the one
breed, it's not the samemechanism, but in humans there's
a term called intermittentexplosive disorder, which has
different pathophysiology butit's, you know, it is
intermittent and it's explosiveand one of the key diagnostic

(01:00:31):
factors is that it's for I likethe expression it's for trivial
or no reason at all.
One case I saw with Dr Marder along time ago the man was
sitting at a table this was apit bull, a staffer or something
.
He's sitting at his table justreading the newspaper and all of

(01:00:52):
a sudden, what was he doing?
He might have turned a page,but for this trivial,
non-challenging, non-threateningmove.
The dog suddenly raised up likea raging bull and charged right
at him and attacked him.
And it was in the days beforethe term was more widely
accepted as it is today.

(01:01:12):
And Amy looked at me and saidyou think of what I'm thinking?
I said, yeah, so I don't knowif it was the absolute correct
treatment, but it did work.
But we put the dog on along-acting Valium-type drug and
Valium is an anticonvulsant andthat did seem to solve the
problem in the short term.
I wouldn't use Valium thesedays.
I would use one of the longeracting, safer, fewer side effect

(01:01:34):
type anticonvulsants.
But I've fixed a number of theseand they can manifest in
different ways, not just rage.
Pretty much any naturalbehavior can be expressed during
a partial seizure, depending onwhich part of the brain the
seizure is in.
So if it is occurring in areasthat promote aggression,
aggression will be theoutpouring.

(01:01:55):
There's another one I reported.
It was a very unusual case and Icalled it snoofing because the
owner said my dog's snoofing.
I said what's that?
And they said he's going aroundthe floor snoofing up all these
dust particles and you know,all stuck around his face.
And then all of a sudden he'sgot this bizarre look on his
face, his eyes are wide and he'sspacing out and he asked to go

(01:02:16):
out and I let him out the backdoor and he starts eating great
big chunks of dirt.
And I had another case exactlythe same and almost within a few
weeks that, and they said youknow, my dog's glugging.
I said what's glugging?
Well, it turns out they makethis glugging noise too.
So as they're snoofing on theground, they sometimes there's
this swallowing thing goes ontoo.

Speaker 2 (01:02:37):
Pre-seizure.

Speaker 3 (01:02:39):
Not pre-seizure, it was a partial seizure.
It never became a full seizure,it's another partial seizure.
That was the seizureInteresting.
And you know they start chewingup linoleum on your floor.
If they start chewing uplinoleum on your floor, if it's
lino floor, they'll bite theedges of it and they go around
all the dust and they do thisswallowing thing and then they
look into space, they freeze fora second.
Their pupils are massive and ifyou let them out they'll chew

(01:03:02):
on grass and everything.
All of a sudden it's gone.
Just lasts a few minutes.
Both of those dogs responded tophenobarbital anticonvulsant
and I followed them up for yearsand it never happened again
once they were treated.
We didn't do an EEG on thosecases.
We did on one RAGE case andfound abnormal EEG.
But those ones we justdiagnosed by response to

(01:03:25):
treatment.
I mean it's not 100% but if yougive an anticonvulsant and the
behavior stops, there's a goodchance that it might have been a
seizure.

Speaker 1 (01:03:32):
Fascinating, Fascinating.
I wish we had another 10 hoursto go through all of Dr Dodman's
interesting cases, because I'msure there's lots of juicy
nuggets in there that would bereally interesting for the dog
pros out there.
However, I do want to berespectful of your time, so
let's wrap up with just talkingabout what you have going on in
the future.
Where can people find out moreabout this project and anything

(01:03:55):
else you want to give a shoutout to?

Speaker 3 (01:03:57):
Well, I think one thing we should mention is
Vivian's written a book.
I've written a few in my time.
My best sellers were the Dogwho Loved Too Much and the Cat
who Cried for Help.
But there were other ones, likeVivian mentioned my one with
the pets on the couch.
But Vivian herself has writtena very instructional book that
I'm sure she would like to say aword about.

Speaker 1 (01:04:16):
Yeah, please, please.

Speaker 2 (01:04:17):
Yeah, it's a labor of love.
As Dr Dodman knows, it takesyears to write a book, and this
one certainly did, and it willbe supposed to be released for
sale in February.
It is entitled being a Good Dogin the Human's World, and
actually I didn't tell you this,nick.
I used your book as a model.

(01:04:39):
I was so impressed with yourbook and the cases and the
stories that you wrote, so Iused that structure talking
about some of the cases.
I talk about our relationshipwith our animals.
I talk about some systemicproblems.
I didn't want it to be atraining book, because there's
so many out there.
I wanted to really just keep ita little bit more philosophical

(01:05:01):
, as Dr Dodman calls meaphilosopher sometimes.
So just to help shape and shiftpeople's thinking about our
animals and as our family, butcontinuing to recognize they
have their own umwelt, their ownunderstanding of the world and
that impacts how they respond.

(01:05:21):
And so I do have some trainingtips in there, but it's more
storytelling and, yeah, I thinkI'm hopeful people will like it
and another thing circling backto the beginning of what we were
talking about.

Speaker 3 (01:05:34):
I would encourage people to go to the website for
the Center for Canine BehaviorStudies, which is most easily
accessed through the URLdogstudiesorg.
So dogstudies is all one wordD-O-G-S-T-U-D-I-S, dot, O-R-G.

Speaker 2 (01:05:51):
Yeah, we found the Center for Canine Behavior
Studies too long.

Speaker 3 (01:05:55):
Yeah, so we got that shorter URL and the BeBite Smart
program is up there as one ofthe things.
There's a section called OurStudies and the ones that I was
referring to can all be read,either in their scientific form
or we had a PhD English person.
She works with us and she's gota PhD in English language.

(01:06:15):
She read these articlescarefully.
She's an animal loverextraordinaire with a house full
of about 12 animals.
She wrote what we call, youknow, a simplified version.
It's not really simplified,it's just converted into
user-friendly version of scienceto translate the language of
science.
User-friendly version ofscience to translate the
language of science which isscientese, into proper English

(01:06:40):
that people can understand.
So there's those things thereand people can ask questions,
and there's all sorts ofinteresting things on that
website.

Speaker 2 (01:06:44):
You can also participate on upcoming studies.
So if you want to be a memberand it's free, and we try to
offer as much free informationBe Bite Smart videos are located
there and also the coloringbooks that you can download are
on the Be, so you can alsoaccess the Center for Canine
Behavior Studies withbebitesmartorg.

(01:07:05):
We didn't give a shout out toour team.
You know we do have.
We're a collection of wonderful, intelligent people.
Yeah, robin Grimm.
Allie Tellier she was in theshelter world for about 15 years
.
Nahid I can never pronounce herlast name.

Speaker 3 (01:07:22):
Shazakian.

Speaker 2 (01:07:23):
Designer, graphic designer.
And Robin is she actually runs.
I forget what organization.

Speaker 3 (01:07:30):
She runs the town of Sturbridge in Western
Massachusetts.

Speaker 2 (01:07:35):
Massachusetts, yeah, sturbridge.

Speaker 3 (01:07:37):
Massachusetts, famous historic village Recreation of
times that were long gone, withpeople walking around with funny
hats on and brewing things inpots.
But she runs the entire town,not just the village, does
animals and works with us.
So she's wonderful.

Speaker 2 (01:07:52):
She actually has a farm.
She has chickens and horses andcows.
Then we have Ian Dinwoody isour statistician and Chris
Gianelli is the co-founder.
He's a very interesting man.

Speaker 3 (01:08:06):
By the way, everything we've talked about,
from the center to the Be BiteSmart, to the coloring book, and
everything is free.
So we are not for profit, wedon't make a profit.
We just rely on donations tokeep us afloat and we do our
good work and the results wehope will be on the preventive

(01:08:26):
side.
The prevention of problems,whether it's aggression or fears
or phobias, compulsivedisorders, house-soiling,
address all of the issues, buton a sort of proactive lens.

Speaker 1 (01:08:40):
I love it and that's always been my inkling as well
is if I could be out of a job,right, so not working on the
side of what happens after dogbites, then I would be happy
because that means there'd be nodog bites happening anymore.
Of course, that's a big wish,but I think that's what we're
all striving for is let's beproactive and prevent these

(01:09:00):
things, so we don't get hiredafter the fact, right?

Speaker 2 (01:09:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:09:04):
And you can always make things better, right, you
can make it even if you can'tcompletely fix all the problems
in the world you can at least doyour bit to make things better.

Speaker 1 (01:09:14):
Absolutely, absolutely Well.
I'll make sure I include all ofthe links you mentioned in the
show notes, and I reallyappreciate both of your time and
sharing this wonderful project.
So, vivian and Nick, thank youso much for coming on and I hope
to see you again in the future.

Speaker 3 (01:09:28):
Yeah, I hope so, mike , it's great.

Speaker 2 (01:09:29):
Thank you so much for having us.
Thank you Great to meet you.
Yeah, I hope so, Mike.
It's great.
Thank you so much for having us.

Speaker 3 (01:09:31):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:09:34):
Great to meet you.
It was such an honor to speakwith Nick and Vivian about the
Be Bite Smart project and thebroader work of the Center for
Canine Behavior Studies.
Their commitment toevidence-based education,
cutting-edge technology andgenuine empathy for both
children and dogs is exactly thekind of innovation our
community needs.
And dogs is exactly the kind ofinnovation our community needs.

(01:09:55):
If today's conversationresonated with you, please visit
BeBiteSmartorg andCanineBehaviorStudiesorg to
learn more, watch the firstPause to Parent video or lend
your support to future researchand outreach.
And if you're ready to go deeperinto understanding and helping
dogs with aggression, visitAggressiveDogcom.
Whether you're a professionalor a dedicated dog guardian,

(01:10:16):
you'll find everything from theAggression and Dogs Master
Course, which is the mostcomprehensive program of its
kind, to expert-led webinars,informative articles and the
Aggression and Dogs Conferencehappening from September 26th
through 28th 2025 in Charlotte,north Carolina, with both
in-person and virtual options.
And don't forget to check outthe Help for Dogs with
Aggression bonus episodes, whichare solo shows where I walk you

(01:10:39):
through real-world strategiesfor issues like resource
guarding, fear-based aggression,territorial behavior and more.
Just hit, subscribe or head tothe show notes for more info.
Thanks for listening in and, asalways, stay well, my friends.