In this episode, we navigate through the difficult topic of behavioral euthanasia in aggression cases. Our expert guests Trish McMillan and Sue Alexander share their expertise in animal behavior, sheltering, and the incredible support group they co-founded, Losing Lulu. We also explore the caregiver burden, the impact it can have on a family, and how to deal with criticism from those who do not understand the situation.
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About Sue:
Sue has over 25 years experience training and handling dogs, both her own and those of her clients. Sue has been teaching dog obedience lessons since 1993. She has participated in a wide variety of dog sports including obedience, tracking, retrieving, Schutzhund, nose work, and agility with her own dogs and those of her clients. In the past year, Hawkeye has joined Sue as her most recent canine partner. Outside of the dog training world, Sue is an avid outdoorsman, participating in camping, hunting, fishing, and canoeing and she is also an enthusiastic equestrian athlete. Sue enjoys riding her gelding, Kahless, and learning the finer points of dressage.
Sue founded Dogs in the Park and she was a student at the University of Guelph, and she co-owns that with her husband John. Sue is particularly interested in the rehabilitation of aggressive dogs and the resolution of behavioural problems with dogs in family homes. In 2003, Sue passed the Certificate of Professional Dog Training and in the fall of 2004, she was accepted into the International Association of Animal Behaviour Consultants as a clinical member. More recently she passed the Certificate of Behaviour Consulting Canine, Knowledge Assessed.
Sue is a well respected speaker, both on line and in person and has delivered programming in Canada, the USA, the United Kingdom and Ireland. Sue has delivered webinars, seminars and lectures on Applied Behaviour Analysis, Resolving Behaviour Problems and Working with Clients.
https://www.dogsinthepark.ca/
About Trish:
Trish McMillan is an internationally-known speaker on the topics of animal behavior and sheltering. She holds a master of science degree in animal behavior, and is a certified professional dog trainer. Trish first walked into a shelter in the mid 90’s and has been hooked on shelter behavior ever sinc
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
The topic of behavioral euthanasia can often
be controversial and stir manyemotions in our community.
Trish McMillan is back, alongwith our wonderful colleague,
sue Alexander, to inform us whythis is a topic that needs to be
discussed more so that we canaddress the controversy as well
as dispel many of themisconceptions.
Trish and Sue also talk abouttheir amazing support group
(00:23):
Losing Lulu.
For anyone that has gonethrough the journey of living
with a dog where behavioraleuthanasia was the ultimate
outcome, trish is aninternationally known speaker on
the topics of animal behaviorand sheltering.
She holds a master of sciencedegree in animal behavior and is
a certified professional dogtrainer.
Trish worked for the ASPCA fornearly eight years, first as
(00:44):
director of animal behavior atthe New York City Shelter and
then with the field team,helping assess and rehabilitate
dogs from cruelty cases, dogfighting and hoarding situations
.
She speaks and consultsnationally and internationally
on animal sheltering issues, dog, cat and horse behavior, dog
aggression and defensivehandling.
She also runs a popular onlineshelter dog behavior mentorship
(01:06):
and other courses through theShelter Behavior Hub and is one
of the co-founders of thatLosing Lulu Facebook support
group.
Sue Alexander has over 25 yearsof experience training and
handling dogs, both her andthose of her clients.
Sue has been teaching dogobedience classes since 1993,
she has participated in a widevariety of dog sports, including
obedience, tracking, retrieving, schutz and nose work and
(01:30):
agility, with her own dogs andthose of her clients.
She founded Dogs in the Parkand she was a student at the
University of Guelph and shecones that with her husband,
john.
She is particularly interestedin the rehabilitation of
aggressive dogs and theresolution of behavioral
problems with dogs and familyhomes.
Sue is a well respected speaker, both online and in person, and
(01:51):
has delivered programming inCanada, the USA, the UK and
Ireland.
Sue has delivered webinars,seminars and lectures on applied
behavior analysis, resolvingbehavioral problems and working
with clients.
And don't forget, you cansupport this podcast by going to
aggressivedogcom, where thereare a variety of resources to
learn more about helping dogswith aggression issues,
(02:11):
including the upcomingAggression in Dogs conference
happening from September 29ththrough October 1st 2023 in
Chicago, illinois, with both inperson and online options.
You can also learn more aboutthe Aggression in Dogs master
course, which is the mostcomprehensive course available
anywhere in the world forlearning how to work with and
help dogs with aggression issues.
Hey guys, welcome to the biteyend of the dog.
(02:35):
I'm here with two of my goodfriends, trish McMillan and Sue
Alexander.
I usually jump into people'sbios at the beginning of the
show, but I'm going to tell youa little bit of my personal
experiences with both of theseguys.
I've known them for a while.
Trish is my partner in crime onthe workshop circuit.
She's actually helped me getout onto the speaking stage and
I give much of that credit toher on teaching me so much about
(02:56):
behavior in general in theshelter world as well.
Trish is a guru in working withthe ASPCA.
She's got the masters in animalbehavior.
She has McMillan animalbehavior, which is in North
Carolina and also is on PibbleHill, which is this really cool
place If you ever want to govisit this magical place with
all kinds of different animals,or you can learn about horses,
cats, dogs, chickens, goats andso many other critters.
(03:20):
I'm really excited to haveTrish here.
Sue I've known back way backfrom the IW ABC days, sort of
like a mentor in my early daysof the old Yahoo groups.
Sue was always very helpful instaring me in the right
direction with some of mybehavior misconceptions.
I would say We have thisrunning jokes who's sort of like
the hardcore Trish, because youguys might not know It was
(03:45):
broken foot or broken where didyou break?
You broke something.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
I broke my leg for all the ligaments of my foot.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Yeah, sue's hardcore.
She's like, oh, let me justthrow a little spit and mud in
that.
Two days later she's travelingaround and walking around on
this thing.
Every time Sue's got somethinggoing on, it's two days later
she's up and around and moving.
It's definitely very hardcorebehavior, but Sue's dog's in the
park up in Canada and we'regoing to be talking about more
(04:15):
about that as well.
But we're going to drive intothe conversation of something
that really is sometimesdifficult to talk about,
something that needs to betalked about more though in our
industry.
I know the conversation's beenongoing for the last few years
more readily, but it'sdefinitely something that often
is kind of a tough path forpeople to navigate, especially
(04:36):
for trainers talking to clients.
I do want to give a contentwarning in the beginning for
anybody that might beconsidering behavioral
euthanasia or maybe has had toexperience this previously, that
we will be talking aboutbehavioral euthanasia throughout
the episode.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Can we add in the non-content warning of, even
though we're going to talk aboutsomething really, really
difficult, trisha and I arehappy people and we have a lot
of fun and we are playful.
That's a really important partof how we approach behavioral
euthanasia.
So, yes, i want us to be reallyaware of this as a sensitive
(05:15):
topic.
But, mike, there's somethingelse we've got to keep in mind,
and that is the animals that weare talking about are really,
really important to the people,the people that we work with.
So it's really important thatyou understand that, although
this is a sad topic and it's adifficult topic, there's also
moments of enormous joy.
(05:37):
The people who come to us thatwe help with their dogs and
sometimes cats and giraffes andllamas and elephants and
hippopotamia those animals arereally important to people, and
so when we're talking about this, we may have a moment where we
get sad and I might cry.
I've cried on camera more thantwice about this and I'm used to
(05:58):
it, trisha's used to it.
You might cry, it's okay, idon't mind.
It's okay too if we laugh.
You know there's been somereally funny things that have
happened that are surroundingbehavioral euthanasia, and what
I want people to understandabout behavioral euthanasia is
that the range of emotions.
That's cool, it's okay.
(06:20):
So it's okay to laugh about thetime that I had to take a dog
for behavioral euthanasia.
I loaded him up in the back ofthe car and we drove to the vet
and on the way to theveterinarians he got into a box
of motor oil and he bit into it.
Then in my rear view mirror Isee arcs of motor oil on the
(06:42):
inside of my car.
You know, although it was areally sad day when we lost Alex
I mean it was tragic It wasshortly after I got married.
It was my husband's dog and itwas a behavioral euthanasia We
tried to attack one of my staffmembers.
It was a horrible day in my life, and every time John and I talk
(07:04):
about it, we also laugh aboutcleaning up all that motor oil.
It was a whole case.
It was 12 liters of motor oil,and so I think it's really
important that we understandthat when we're talking about
behavioral euthanasia, let's letourselves be emotional in all
(07:25):
aspects.
It's okay to laugh and it'sokay to laugh and cry at the
same time, and it's okay to sayI love this animal and I hate
him so much And he's hurt me sobadly and he's so important to
me and my family.
That is actually normal andit's really really cool that
(07:48):
we've got that opportunity toexperience that range of emotion
, And it's something Chris and Italk about a lot.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Yeah, this is a really important point and I'm
glad you brought that up,because we often think of
behavioral euthanasia as justthe negative emotional aspects
of it.
But we need to, as youmentioned, bring in the positive
side to sort of balance thingsout for ourselves as well and to
survive through that.
Shish was on I think it was onfour years ago, three, four
years ago on season one, wherewe were talking about behavioral
(08:17):
euthanasia and the formation ofthe group Losing Lulu, the
Facebook group, which has growntremendously since then and
evolved.
So, trish, can you tell us alittle bit how that came about
and sort of what you've seenevolve over the years?
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Yeah, yeah, it's been .
Is it five years or four yearswe've been doing?
Speaker 1 (08:34):
losing.
This will be season four, soyeah, well, you had started it,
though, before that.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Yeah, i think it's four years since we lost Lulu
And the thing with these dogs,who are euthanized for behavior,
is if they were 100% aggressive100% of the time, it would be
an easy decision.
But they all have the greatsides and they all they tend to
be very smart dogs.
They tend to have some reallywonderful qualities, and Lulu
(09:03):
was a dog that I brought from ashelter.
I brought her home as a fosterI occasionally foster dogs And
she was just this sweet, happy,wiggly dog And she'd recently
had a litter of puppies and shewas looking pretty rough And I
thought bring you home, get youspayed, get you cleaned up and
you're going to be a beautifuldog.
(09:23):
And when I got her home, ittook a while.
It took a number of monthsbefore it came out that she had
some issues with other dogs Andat first they were just mild
issues and she was picky abouther friends and she hadn't done
any damage And she was still inthe category of let's find her
home with a maybe she doesn'twant a dog roommate.
But on one really terrible nightNew Year's Eve 2018, i believe
(09:50):
she attacked my smaller dog, mylittle Puerto Rican street dog,
in a way that was.
She was out to kill her.
She was not going to let go.
Fortunately I had a trainerfriend over.
It took two of us and a breakstick to get them split up And
she did $800 worth of damage tomy smaller dog in the couple of
(10:12):
minutes that it took us Andthank goodness we had the right
tools to break up that fight AndI called the rescue group I was
working through.
I said this is no longer a dogthat meets our criteria for
adoptability And they agreed topay for behavioral euthanasia.
So we had a lelly in one carand we had Lulu in another car
(10:33):
and we took her in and had hereuthanized And my friend who was
with me was just like don't sayanything about this on the
internet, just lie to theother's friends, tell them she
got adopted.
Let the whole thing die down.
And that is not my style.
I'm a terrible liar.
They would want pictures.
I'm not going to be able toPhotoshop Lulu into pictures.
(10:56):
So I waited a few days before Itold the story and I told it on
my social media first and myfriends understand.
If Trish McMillan makes abehavioral euthanasia decision,
there's probably good reason forit.
But Theodore has 40,000 friendswho just love pitbulls and Lulu
was a pitbull-type dog And mostof them were understanding but
(11:20):
it was more sort of pet peopleor beginner rescue people who
hadn't had to deal with a doglike Lulu before.
And I got a lot of grief fromthat contingent and I was called
a murderer.
I was called worse things I'mnot going to repeat them on your
podcast And just got so muchjudgment for making this call
(11:42):
And I mentioned it to Sue andSue said you know we need a
place to talk about this And Iwas like, yeah, and I need a
pony and a unicorn And that'sfine, but you don't say that to
Sue Alexander.
So take it, sue.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Well, my favorite comment came from a it was
probably a pet owner who waspretty passionate about pets And
she said you didn't evenconsult a trainer.
Love that comment Because youknow exactly what trainer did.
She figure was going to havemore information than Trish.
But you know, it reflects whatwe go through when we face a
(12:22):
behavioral euthanasia, and thatis that most people don't
understand.
And in fact I started losingLulu after being on a thread
where somebody said we shouldhave a support group And
somebody else said, well, that'sa good idea.
And somebody else said, well,that's a good idea, yeah, we
should really have a supportgroup.
And it just kept.
All these people kept piling on.
(12:43):
And I'm sitting there looking atmy computer and thinking to
myself well, if we should, whydon't we?
And if we don't, what can I doabout that?
And, as with many good ideas,it started with how hard can
that be?
And so I started a Facebookgroup with the intent of it
(13:04):
might be a couple of hundredpeople, like you know, maybe my
good friends, you know, maybeMichael join and maybe Trish
will join and maybe I'll bethere.
You know, we can all hang outand drink coffee and talk about.
You know how hard this is.
Well, within the first week wehave 400 people And I remember
having just an absolute panicmoment of looking at this and
(13:27):
going I don't know how I'm goingto hope cope with this many
people.
Two weeks later we had 1000.
And it's been growing eversince.
We're almost at 24,000 now.
And what I did?
as you know, mike and Trishknows, i live with a traumatic
brain injury, which means thatsometimes my screen time is very
(13:48):
limited And my screen time wasreally limited at that point.
So I was able to do, you know,a little bit of screen time, but
it very quickly became apparentthat we needed to moderate this
And we have the most incrediblegroup of people who help us to
moderate this.
We've got one person who prettymuch manages all the people who
(14:12):
asked to come in And we have awhole bunch of other people who
managed the post queue, becauseall the posts are moderated.
And we have a motto.
one of our volunteers made up amotto And it has changed my life
.
It has absolutely changed who Iam.
It's changed what I am, itchanged how I practice And that
(14:34):
is keep it kind.
And my gosh, if all we did inour whole lives was kept things
kind.
Imagine what we could do.
And the thing for me is I don'thave to imagine it because
every single day I get theinformation of keeping it kind
(14:56):
matters.
It matters a lot, and we havecreated the kindest, most
thoughtful place that you canimagine.
Yeah, it is strictly strictly,strictly moderated.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
If somebody comes in and they're like why didn't you
try this?
Bye-bye, you cannot be onlosing Lulu if you're going to
second guess it, because what isthe person going to do?
Dig up their dead dog,reanimate them, get a different
trainer, try a differenttechnique, it's too late.
Even if you don't agree withevery single decision that's
(15:31):
been made, these animals aregone, and it's not just dogs.
We have cats, horses, rabbits,snakes, all kinds of animals.
They're all dearly loved,they're all missed.
People are suffering And secondguessing is not going to help
anything.
The kindest thing we can do islet them tell their story, be
(15:53):
free of judgment.
And it is a really unique placeon the internet.
It is on Facebook, it is notanywhere else at this point, but
we do have a website.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
No, that's true, we have a website now, i didn't
know that We have losinglulucom.
It's brand new.
Well, it's not brand newanymore.
It's now about six months old.
We did that because we wantedto make sure that we maintained
control and copyright of ourcontent, so we have what we call
Hippo.
App says And Trish, you'regoing to be very excited.
(16:25):
I went to the mat today.
I'm in New York City.
I went to the mat.
You told me, mike, that I couldgo off topic a little bit.
Oh, you're just going to be soexcited.
So dangerous It is so dangerous,it's so, so dangerous, but it's
so good I got something.
It's name is William.
I did not know that Lulu'spartner was going to be called
(16:50):
William.
Where did William go?
Okay, tell them about.
Hippo.
App says well, i find William.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
So one thing that Sue is really good at is creating
communities and, you know,getting everybody pulling in the
same direction.
She has wrangled this group.
We call them the horrors aregroup of people who moderate the
list And we are all pulling inthe same direction And we all
agree on rules And we havemeetings and we have coffee, and
(17:19):
one of the wonderful thingsshe's done to keep the culture
of the group alive is to writethese essays And she calls them
Hippo essays.
She picked in an animal that weare unlikely to see, on Lulu,
and she talks about keeping itkind via the Hippo essays and
why we have the culture we have,and they're brilliant, they're
(17:41):
wonderful.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Oh, that's great Yeah .
Speaker 3 (17:45):
What is that made out of?
That looks delicious.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
It is a magnet.
I actually get Do hippos, twohippos there.
So at the mat, i didn't knowthis.
At the mat, their mascot is ahippo And the hippo's name is
William And I needed a hippomagnet.
(18:10):
And, mike, i will take apicture of this and send it to
you.
This should be the icon forthis particular episode.
I will, i'll take a picture andsend it.
I'm so excited about this.
And, trish, i got a hippopostcard to send you and
everything.
Because, you know, i wanted tochoose an animal that we could
(18:33):
talk about in the abstract, sothat we could talk about.
You know, if we want to talkabout training and I talk about
dog training then the person whohas lost their cat is going to
say, well, that doesn't apply tome.
But if I want to talk abouttraining in the abstract and I
want to say, you know, yeah, wemay not have chosen the best
(18:56):
training method for our Lulu andmaybe that contributed, but it
doesn't matter, because now thatyour Lulu is gone, you can take
that lesson and you can move on.
And so one of my hippo essays Italk about the importance of
not naming names, because it'sreally hard on the internet If
(19:18):
somebody you know goes onlineand says, oh, i worked with Sue
Alexander and she told me Ishould kill my dog.
That's going to hurt meprofessionally And in fact
that's not what I would ever sayto a client.
So when I'm talking aboutbehavioral euthanasia with a
client, i will say I think weshould talk about behavioral
euthanasia.
I do not say you must kill yourdog, and so one of our rules is
(19:43):
you can't name names.
And we needed somebody to talkabout this in the abstract.
So I said, if you had ahippopotamus and you went to a
very famous hippopotamus trainerand then your hippopotamus
flipped over a tourist boat andate the firefighters who came to
rescue everybody, that's kindof a funny way of talking about
(20:04):
it.
And so we sort of ended up withthe hippopotamus as our model.
And I did not know that manypeople refer to pit bulls as
house hippos And I had no idea,and so I just put this out there
.
And so we refer to my essaysand I've got about I don't know
(20:26):
a dozen of them that talk aboutvarious aspects of behavioral
euthanasia.
One of them is running aroundand saying I worked with Trish,
i worked with Sue, i worked withMike, i worked with whomever
And then saying you know, and mydog died.
That's not useful informationwhen you're grieving.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
You get so much shame and blame from every other
place that we try to get peopleto tell their stories, but
without blaming the breeder,blaming the shelter, blaming the
trainer, blaming them.
A lot of them blame themselvesAnd it's just.
It's so painful Reading thecases on losing Lulu and if you
(21:09):
are a dog trainer or a shelterperson you are welcome to join.
Just answer the screeningquestions appropriately and
honestly.
They are some of the mostfascinating case studies you
will ever see And so many ofthem are so similar.
You know people get a puppyfrom wherever There's some early
(21:30):
signs and social maturity hits.
It often gets worse.
They go through a process ofdifferent trainers, different
meds, different veterinariansAnd we all end up in the same
place.
Like it's one of those romancenovels.
You know they all end the sameway.
Lulu's story is kind of all inthe same way, but it's been
(21:51):
really interesting that peoplehave come from all over the
world.
The animals have come from alldifferent places.
They are all different breedsof dogs But the stories are so
similar And a lot of thefeelings are really similar And
I talked on the last bitey endof the dog.
I told my personal story.
If you want to go back to thatone.
(22:12):
I'm not going to tell it againbecause I will start crying, but
a lot of the feelings arereally similar And I try to
prepare people, whether you'rein the shelter, whether it's a
personal client who is goingthrough a behavioral euthanasia.
One thing is you're going towant to try everything, and the
(22:32):
person that I co-owned my dogwith made an actual list and put
it on the fridge, and everytime we got near the bottom of
the list I'd be like okay, iguess we have to make the
decision.
He would find one more thingLike we haven't tried this
medication or we haven't triedmore exercise, or haven't tried
the Midnight Walk Club, likethere is always going to be one
(22:54):
more thing to try.
And I like Sue's line you don'thave to try everything, you
just have to try everything thatis reasonable for you.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Alright, we're going to take a short break and we'll
be back to hear more from Trishand Sue.
Hey friends, it's me again andI hope you are enjoying this
episode.
You may have figured out thatsomething I deeply care about is
helping dogs with aggressionissues live less stressful, less
confined, more enriched andoverall happier lives with their
(23:31):
guardians.
Aggression is so oftenmisunderstood and we can change
that through education, like wereceive from so many of the
wonderful guests on this podcast.
In addition to the podcast, ihave two other opportunities for
anyone looking to learn moreabout helping dogs with
aggression issues, which includethe Aggression and Dogs Master
Course and the Aggression andDogs Conference.
(23:52):
If you want to learn more aboutthe most comprehensive course
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The course gives you access to23 modules on everything from
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(24:14):
plans we use in a number ofdifferent cases, including
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You'll also receive access to aprivate Facebook group with
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After you finish the course,you'll also gain access to a
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(24:37):
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We're approved for just aboutevery major training and
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This is truly the flagshipcourse offered on aggression and
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This year's lineup includesmany of the amazing guests you
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(26:26):
All right, we're back here withTrish McMillan and Sue Alexander
to talk about the wonderfulresources they've created around
this difficult topic.
I want to also jump into,though, and just take a moment
to give kudos to you guys and toyour team for creating such a
safe space and the creative waysyou're doing it too.
(26:47):
Kindness, you guys know, is aword I use quite often in my
messaging, and I can't imaginethe monumental task of having to
create a safe space for 24,000people discussing probably one
of the most difficult topics onthe planet to discuss, so I just
wanted to make sure that youare receiving the recognition
(27:09):
that that deserves, because itis not an easy task.
I mean, to run any kind ofFacebook group on any topic is
hard enough as it is.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
And it is our mod team.
I give all the kudos to themthere.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
It's the most amazing kind people on the planet And
you know like it's so importantto understand that being kind
actually takes fairly firm hand.
So you know, if somebody says,well, you should have they will
(27:43):
get that moderated.
That comment will be moderatedout.
Often we will have discussionson the moderation list about a
post and it'll be a post that wekind of look at it and we say,
okay, is this going tocontribute to grief support?
And often what we come to isthat's not actually grief
(28:05):
support, that's anger, and it'snot misplaced anger.
It's fine to be angry And it'sfine to be angry in ways that
are productive.
Anger should help you to knowwhat you need to change.
And it's fine to say I'm reallyangry that this happened.
(28:25):
I am really angry at my breederbecause she knew that mom was
aggressive.
And or I'm really angry at therescue because they knew the dog
had severe separation anxiety.
Or even I'm really angry at theadvice that I got from my
trainer.
But what's not appropriate isto use Lulu for retribution,
(28:49):
because we do need to processanger.
I'm angry at lots of things Andto be able to say you know, i
am angry that I didn't get a jobor I didn't get an opportunity,
that's fine.
But if I say, oh well, andthat's all you know, i thought
Trish was my best friend andit's all Trish's fault, that's
(29:10):
just going to hurt Trish Andthat's not going to make our
friendship better.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Yeah, and I'm glad you're bringing up the emotions
aspect because I kind of want totake a deeper dive into that
And it seems to be the theme ofthe the seasons episodes
actually.
well, you'll hear some of theother guests I have on were
diving much more into the humanside of things.
We talk about dogs, of course,but the human side is really an
element that is a focus of theshow this year.
(29:34):
So I'd love to get yourtakeaways on.
you know you had mentionedanger as one component.
that can be an emotion that weexperienced, but some of the
other ones that often don't gettalked about in, when somebody's
gone through this decision orconsidering this decision and
all of their emotions that theyhave to go through, so things
like guilt and, you know, asadness, grief, you know all of
(29:57):
those things start to pile up.
So what have you learned overthe last few years?
now that you've kind of got ahuge data size, sample size of
really seeing people's emotions,can you kind of give?
Speaker 2 (30:05):
us some of your takeaways there.
Grief and relief.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Yeah, it is a weird kind of grief, like if you put
your old animal down.
It is mostly grief.
His dog has been with me 16years.
He's been with me through allof these life changes And I have
to say goodbye.
There may be a little bit ofrelief that I don't have to get
up in the middle of the night tolet her out six times anymore.
But with a behavioraleuthanasia the grief can be so
(30:33):
profound because the animalsusually leaving us much before
their time And you get your lifeback.
You feel relieved that whenChinook left I thought I could
have people over for dinneragain.
I could go for dog walks duringdaylight hours I could.
I don't have to shut off allthe lights on Halloween and turn
(30:54):
off all the stereo and justpretend I'm not home so that he
doesn't blow up over and over.
And then there's the guilt atfeeling relieved that your best
friend is no longer with you.
So it's such a and I think manyof us with a behavioral
euthanasia.
The good days seem so much moregood.
I made the decision toeuthanasia twice and the first
(31:17):
time he had such a great day.
He had his last walk, he hadhis last steak.
There was no aggression.
There was no and we chickenedout.
We called the vet right beforethe appointment and said we
cannot do it.
And I think when you have agood day, when you're living
with an animal who has some veryprofoundly terrible moments,
(31:39):
those good days feel so muchbetter than the good day with my
lovely friendly dogs I have now.
They're all good days, they'reall kind of the same, but when
it's like this it's a wholedifferent feeling.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Well, I think the other thing about the grief and
relief aspect of it is that whenI look at the level to which
some of the people, on losingLulu, go in order to accommodate
the needs of their profoundly,profoundly ill animals and I
want to be very clear that Ibelieve that we are not
(32:16):
euthanizing healthy animals, Weare euthanizing animals who are
not healthy, because healthincludes behavior, And if you're
not behaviorally healthy, ifyou're not able to live in a
normal situation, even withsupport, then we are alleviating
suffering when we euthanize.
(32:38):
And so I think about one casethat was on Lulu about a week
ago, and it was a lady who wastalking about how guilty she
felt for euthanizing a dog thatthey had kept going for about
five years.
They raised it from puppyhoodand at about the age of two, so
social maturity right there.
The dog began to becomeaggressive and it became
(33:01):
progressively more aggressive Asof last November.
During the AmericanThanksgiving holiday she moved
out of their family home into atrailer on their property with
the dog so that the dog couldkeep breathing, But it meant
that she left her children andher husband and her other dogs
(33:25):
living in the house and she wasliving separate from them.
It meant that her family wasremoved of having her there at
Thanksgiving because the dog wasnot able to be left for long
periods of time.
The dog was self-injurious, Ibelieve, as well as being
dangerously aggressive For theChristmas holidays.
Her family is very much afamily that celebrates Christmas
(33:48):
and they like to have guestsover.
Her family had Christmaswithout her because she needed
to be in the trailer with thedog.
When she finally got to thepoint where she realized that
this stopgap measure didn't meetthe dog's needs and the dog
attacked her and she could nolonger care for the dog, she
(34:08):
euthanized it and she says Idon't feel like I did enough.
I think one of the things thatwe have to realize about this is
that when you live with ananimal with a profound behavior
problem for a very long time,normal isn't normal.
I had a horse that I euthanizedfor a behavior problem.
She was very dangerous to meAnd Trisha and I talked about
(34:31):
behavioral euthanasia with kayakmany, many, many times, like
for years, And when it finallybecame apparent that I was not
going to be able to resolve thisand I decided to euthanize her,
I was able to say I am going togive her the last couple of
(34:51):
weeks and it's going to bewonderful for her And I will
tell you what it made the griefrelief cycle so much better even
though it feels like itwouldn't because on her last day
she had five pounds of carrotsand a pound of gummy spearments
and she had her friends and shegot brushed and she got to eat
(35:13):
grass and all the things that ahorse loves to do.
And when I look back on that, Idon't have the memory of having
had to move out of my house andmiss great family events,
because there are so manyconfusing, conflicting parts of
grief there, because not only doyou end up grieving the loss of
(35:35):
the animal and the loss of thepotential of the relationship,
you also end up grieving thingslike that lady is going to have
missed her children's Christmasin 2022.
Forever That's gone and thereis a grief to that as well, And
I think that that's one of themore complex things that I've
(35:58):
become aware of in the lastcouple of years is that we don't
just grieve the animal.
We grieve the years we didn'tgo on vacation and we grieve
that we couldn't go to ournieces christening because we
couldn't leave the dog alone, orwe couldn't have people over to
celebrate, you know, ourspouse's graduation from
(36:21):
university, or you know there'sall these things that it's not
just the loss of the dog's lifethat we grieve, It's everything
that surrounds that.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
Well, the caregiver burden is huge.
Mike and I had someconversations with Kelly
Valentine at the Indiana seminar.
She's written about thecaregiver burden on living with
profoundly behaviorallydisturbed animals And it is not
uncommon for somebody to besleeping on the couch with the
(36:56):
dog and the other person to besleeping upstairs with the kids
And it breaks up relationships.
Like I said, my ex he became anex over this dog.
Part of it was I was okay withbehavioral euthanasia before.
He was Like there's no suchthing as you both agreeing on it
on the same time.
So if there's more than oneperson involved in the animal's
(37:19):
life, often one person comes tothe decision first and that can
cause so much friction.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
That's such a good point Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
When I'm counseling families about a dog with a
serious behavior problem.
One of the things that I liketo talk to the clients about is
that we have to come to anagreement that everybody is
comfortable with when we'retalking about living with an
animal with a profound behaviorproblem, because I have actually
(37:47):
had about 10 families where theadults have ended up in divorce
because of the dog.
And the one that I often thinkabout the most is was two
Huskies that I worked with Andthey were trying to eat each
other literally eat each otherAnd they had terrible damaging
(38:08):
fights over and over again Andthe family kind of put up with
this And when I say eat, i domean consume.
That was what they were afterThey had terrible damaging
fights And then the family had ababy And mom decided I can't
live with this with a baby, i'mperfectly content living with it
(38:29):
when we don't have a child inthe house, and that actually
ended the relationship becausedad said I'm not going to
euthanize a dog that is inelderly And thank you.
Ru Ru has opinions on that too,And it's something that I think
is really important that we talkabout with families is that you
(38:52):
know what is the impact on yourchildren, What is the impact on
your spouse, What's the impacton the relationship that you
have with the important peoplein your life.
It's really important becausewe can't live solely vicariously
for the dog.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
It's not appropriate and you're bringing up so many
salient points, because what I'mthinking about as well is, you
know, you sometimes see commentsin the training community About
this particular method Causingmore behavioral euthanasias, or
this particular tool orsomething like that, which, when
you think about it's prettyridiculous because we, what it's
not factoring in is all ofthese things you're talking
(39:34):
about, all of these factors thatare so unique to each
individual and to each dog, toeach family That impacts that
decision.
It's not, you know, trainingmatters, but it's just such it.
When you take a step back, it'ssuch a small piece of the
entire puzzle of when it comesto having a dog with aggression
issues right, and in that regard, people will face a lot of
(39:54):
criticism from others, whetherit's before or while they're
trying to make the decision orAfter they've made the decision.
So what are some copingstrategies or strategies really
to deal with those, those folksthat are throwing hate at you?
I'm sure you've seen somestrategies talked about in the
group, but also like what areyour experiences there?
Speaker 3 (40:13):
I Am big on deleting and blocking what I did when I
was getting hate on my dog'spage.
I'm not gonna leave thosecomments up.
Calling me a murderer like thatis Not relevant to what.
What's going on here.
That's not just hurting me,that's hurting everybody else
who has gone through this aswell.
So I am a big fan of not givingany air to these arguments, and
(40:38):
we certainly do that on Lulutoo.
Just if you are not here forsupport, you are not here.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
I Also like to think that it's important that we
start fostering good allybehavior And we hear that tossed
around a lot, but this isreally really concrete in the
training community.
Up until very recently, sayingI spoke about Behavioral
euthanasia to my client has beenvery taboo and I've gotten a
(41:07):
lot of grief about it.
I know many, many years ago, atthe first I double ABC
conference, i was one of thespeakers.
I was talking about servicedogs and I said at the end of it
They were asking you know, whatelse should we have
conversations about?
I said we need to talk about beeuthanasia and I got a lot of
pushback From people at theconference that that wasn't our
(41:29):
purview, that wasn't Appropriate, that we should never be
talking about behavioraleuthanasia and I thought, okay,
but if I don't talk about it,what am I supposed to do with my
client who has two Huskies whoare giving damaging bites, who
are injuring people, who aretrying to pull them apart, and
now there's a crawling baby inthat house.
(41:51):
What am I supposed to suggestto them?
What am I supposed to talk toto them about?
because that isn't somethingthat is particularly safe And
it's not something that I canrecommend re-homing and so for a
long time We were in limbowhere people just didn't want to
talk about it.
And I think now We're at a pointnow where you know, when you're
(42:13):
at the conferences and you'retalking to other Trainers, and a
trainer says you know, hey,i've got this really really,
really difficult case and Idon't know what to do about it.
And it's an Australian shepherdcrossed with a Norwegian gutter
hound.
And you know, and you go well,what an interesting cross that
might be.
(42:33):
There is no such thing as aNorwegian gutter hound as far as
I know.
That's my mythical breed that Iuse when I I talk about sort of
theoretical dogs.
But somebody says I've got this, this dog on my caseload and
you know, the dog got loose in apark and it Caused a damaging
bite, and you know, and this andthis and this and, and the dog
(42:56):
keeps getting loose.
And I want to talk about whatour options are, but I don't
have a lot of good options left.
And one of the things thathappens then is people say, oh
well, let's talk about tools.
It's obviously all about tools.
And I say, no, it's talking,let's talk about quality of life
.
The first thing is is your,your clients dog has a really
(43:17):
crappy quality of life and yourclients have a crappy quality of
life and let's be really clearthat You know the best trainer
in the world may not be able toresolve problem X, whatever
problem X might be, and I haveseen personally cases that
involve behavioral euthanasia,with everything from aggression
(43:41):
Through separation, anxietythrough pica.
I worked with a dog that waseating things that were just not
food items and in the end wasnot redeemable.
We couldn't solve that problem.
I've seen dogs who werespinners, so you know compulsive
disorders, and so we look atthese things and we say you know
(44:02):
, if it's not my job to talk tothese people about the
possibility of it and find outwhere they sit with it, then
whose job is it?
Well, if we refer to theveterinarian, the veterinarian
gets 15 minutes at most twice ayear to get to know that client.
I See my clients when they'rein active program, usually three
(44:26):
times a week.
So I'm seeing them in a groupclass, i'm seeing them in an
online check-in and I usuallysee them at an off-leash dog
walk and I will often see them afourth time for a private
lesson.
I'm seeing them for an hour ata time.
So I've got a lot strongerrelationship Just by the fact
(44:49):
that I see them for longer and Isee them more.
So, if you know, if I take itover to the veterinarian, the
veterinarian now has to take ahistory.
They hopefully are going toread all of my notes and They
have to know the client, theyhave to know the dog.
They have to do a lot of things.
I can help a lot By having theconversation with the client and
(45:12):
then writing the veterinarian anote that says I've seen this
dog for X amount of time, we'vedone X number of things, we've
tried this, we've tried that andthe behavior problem is so
deeply profound that we cannotresolve it and We would like to
ask you to consider behavioraleuthanasia with us.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
Yeah and that just makes things so much easier for
everybody it's interesting justhow much the The industry's got
to be evolved, at least over inthe last five years, because
yeah, right.
I mean, it's something that wasavoided being talked about and
it still kind of is, and a lotof people's minds is that it's.
It's not a Successfulresolution, right?
(45:53):
So we're not getting success ifwe're not training the animal
because we're animal trainersright, and air quotes there And
if we are to face euthanasia,then that's a failure as and the
eyes of, you know, a lot ofpeople looking at these things.
But what's not talked about isthat the behavior of euthanasia
can be the success.
In that case, that can be thepositive outcomes.
(46:15):
And if we don't talk about itAnd if we don't educate
ourselves on how to have theseconversations and what criteria
we would be bringing theseconversations to the table right
, then we're missing asignificant piece of again
navigating the conversationswith humans, helping the humans
really in these cases as well.
So, yeah, I mean it's good tosee that we're talking about it
more, right?
I?
Speaker 2 (46:37):
Have yet to have a dog, write me a check or give me
their credit card.
It has not happened yet.
I'm not gonna say it won't, butit hasn't happened yet.
We can't forget the welfare ofthe human think that's that's so
important to consider.
Speaker 3 (46:52):
And Not every dog since this is the mighty end of
the dog podcast will stick withdogs.
Not every dog is a Fit forevery household.
I have lived with someprofoundly dangerous dogs that I
did not euthanize Because Ilive by myself.
I am a dog trainer.
I have been willing to Make mylife smaller For for this reason
(47:14):
, but I have gone to see verysimilar behavior problems in a
family with three little kidswhere Making them go through a
whole behavior program would notbe kind or safe to those
children.
The decision like getting ourclients to that decision Sooner
when it is absolutely obviousthat this is not a safe place
(47:37):
for that animal.
I think that is part of our joband I wish there was more
training around Talking topeople about the less savory
options.
Speaker 1 (47:47):
Yeah, i mean think about the disservice to the
community as well.
If we're kind of giving falsehopes to somebody that has a dog
, that's truly dangerous toeither their family or the
community, and that's that'sanother aspect We don't talk
about.
We kind of get stuck on theseMaking a good impression to the
rest of the training community.
I'll take the most difficultcases, the most dangerous cases,
and fix them like it's asomething we could put on our
(48:09):
fireplace mantle.
But for me, the trainers thatI'm gonna respect more, that
they're able to help clientsnavigate all of those prognostic
Factors in their case, right,that's, what impresses me is
when somebody really shows adeep understanding of people's
emotions And when they need torecognize that and maybe even
read between the lines sometimesin their conversations.
That is skilled to me and it'snot always, again, saving them
(48:32):
all right.
Speaker 2 (48:34):
Well, and I think that brings up a really
important thing.
You know, you say saving themall, but I Have.
I've talked to a lot oftrainers, particularly trainers
who are newer to the industry,who Have the idea that if you
just know enough, if you justhave enough experience, if you
just use the Right tool, you aregoing to be able to avoid ever
(48:57):
having to euthanize anythingunder any circumstances.
I am here to tell you, i amvery, very experienced, i am
very well educated in this.
I am a junkie for technicaldetails.
Okay, i have been doing thisfor 30 years and I think that
(49:19):
we've got to avoid this heroNarrative that we have for
ourselves.
Well, i could fix that dog Theyshould never have euthanized it
because I could fix it.
And I think, okay, you can fixone or two or three, but at a
certain point you become ahoarder and you have 72, and
(49:43):
then you have another problementirely, and I think that this
is something that we've got tobe very, very aware of and we've
got to keep our feet firmly onthe ground.
I have helped thousands of dogsand I've told people you know,
this is a dog that we need tohave a conversation about and
had them go and see anothertrainer and come back to me and
(50:04):
say, see, sue, see you werewrong.
And I'm going to tell you whatthe answer is.
When somebody comes back to youand says, see, you were wrong,
we didn't need to euthanize thisanimal, the answer is I'm glad
to be wrong, that's it.
I don't need to discuss it withthem, i don't need to tell them
they're wrong.
I just need to say I don't needto be a hero.
I'm enough of a hero in my ownlife.
(50:26):
Okay, i've got all these crazythings that I do.
I can be a hero in other ways,and the way that I like being
the hero the most is by beingkind to somebody and helping
somebody out.
Heroism, in my opinion, comeson a much smaller level.
Saving every single dog withevery single behavior problem is
(50:48):
a recipe for making sure that Ican't do the rest of my life
well.
Speaker 3 (50:53):
Yeah, i just wanted to tag on to Sue's point that I
went and got a master's degreein animal behavior, in large
part to try to figure out what Icould have done differently
around my first behavioraleuthanasia.
And the only thing I wouldchange if I had Shadduk again in
2023 instead of 1997 is I wouldeuthanize him more promptly.
(51:18):
Theodore has things to sayabout that.
I would know now that a dog whois growling at me at three
weeks of age like not in aplayful way, has a profoundly
abnormal brain And I think Istill would have tried some
things.
but I think what experience hasgiven me is the knowledge of
(51:38):
what is not fixable.
And it is okay if you are ayoung trainer and you are going
through your first behavioraleuthanasia with a client.
We've all been there.
If you train long enough, youwill have this discussion.
Speaker 1 (51:53):
Yeah, that's a really important point.
Speaker 2 (51:56):
Yeah, I really want to encourage anybody who's new
to the field to understandyou're not going to resolve
every case and turn them allinto Larry the Labrador.
That's not going to happen.
Speaker 1 (52:13):
It's okay, that's a national progression in our
journey as trainers.
We kind of move through that oflike I want to take all the
cases, i'm going to takeaggression cases, i'm going to
fix them all, and then yourealize that that is an
impossible type of goal.
It's a good goal to have, butit's not possible.
And as we get more experiencewe learn the nuances that only
(52:33):
come with time and experience.
Right, and so I would love toif you guys could point out some
resources.
So I know when the Facebookgroup first started it was
actually there was not a lot outthere on grief support and
other support services that areout there that are kind of in
this topic.
So there's obviously lots ofmental health professional and
(52:54):
different avenues to go in thatdirection.
But what have you guysdiscovered in the last few years
for this particular topic, forresources?
Speaker 2 (53:01):
Well, we do keep a resource list on losinglulucom
and we try and keep that up todate and keep those links live.
So, rather than give you guys abunch of links that you'll have
to remember off a podcast, i'mgoing to encourage you to just
go to wwwlosinglulucom and lookunder the resource pages there,
(53:22):
because that's where you'regoing to find the most up to
date links.
There are a couple of thingsthat are really important to
understand.
We don't actually have a lot ofmental health links there
because it's an internationallist And so periodically we'll
get people who want to post, youknow, some of the newer three
digit codes for suicideprevention and mental health
(53:44):
support and that kind of thing,and we don't usually put those
up on losinglulu because thoseare very regional.
We do have resources like whereto find some certified trainers
, because that's a moreinternational thing.
I have certainly referred manyof my clients to your podcast,
mike, because you've discussed alot of issues in behavior.
(54:06):
Those are really reallyvaluable, and Trish and I are
aware that these discussions areso tricky, and so one of the
things that we do is we run acouple of different courses.
So we've got an on demandwebinar called Introduction to
Behavioral Euthanasia forFamilies And that will be in the
show notes so that you can findit.
(54:27):
So if you are a pet owner whois dealing with a dog who is
particularly difficult, that isactually a really good starting
point because it talks about howdo we look at the criteria.
We also have a four week course.
We're recording this in thewinter right now, so we're on
I'm not sure which week of thatAnd Trish and I do that, and
(54:52):
then we've got another one aswell.
So we've got BehavioralEuthanasia for shelter staff and
volunteers And we've just putin place a pro version So you
can buy five or 10 seats on thecourse, and we have discussion
groups, guidelines and all kindsof things for shelter workers.
(55:16):
So those are kind of thenutshell, but, trish, you might
have a few others that you wantto want to share.
Speaker 3 (55:22):
Yeah, I'll just mention that all of those are
available onShelterBehaviorHubcom And I also
teach a 13 week behaviormentorship shelter dog behavior
mentorship And one of the thingsthat we talk about for a whole
week because I think it's soimportant is setting the ability
criteria for shelters, becausejust having a document that says
(55:45):
what do we adopt out and whatdo we not adopt out, without
some little face with littlebrown eyes looking at you at the
time, Having an objective listis really, really important.
It'll never cover everything,but it will help shelters make
appropriate decisions with theirmore difficult animals.
And such an important thing forus to do And I offer consults
(56:08):
on that privately as well.
Speaker 1 (56:11):
Awesome And anything else you guys are working on.
Speaker 2 (56:14):
I've got a new in person mentorship that I'm
offering at Dogs in the Park.
We also have something at Dogsin the Park called the Dog
Trainers Crucible, and the DogTrainers Crucible is a online
group.
It's got a social mediacomponent and it has a monthly
webinar, but it also has amonthly discussion group and it
(56:39):
has guests.
So I'm hoping Mike I've got toreach out to you I'm hoping
you're going to come and be aguest on the crucible with me
sometime, and it's 15 bucks amonth, canadian, which is cheap
because it's meant to helptrainers who are new to the
industry, and so often we'll getpeople talking about cases that
(57:00):
they might be consideringbehavioral euthanasia on the
crucible, and that's a newresource.
Speaker 1 (57:07):
And I'll be sure to link to that in the show notes.
for sure, Trish?
do you have anything else youwanted to add to that list?
Speaker 3 (57:12):
Yeah, i mean Shelter Behavior Hub.
we have new stuff happening allthe time McMillan Animal
Behavior, which istrishmcmillancom.
If you're a new trainer and youwould help talking a client
through a behavioral euthanasiaboth Sue and I do private
consulting You can send yourclient to us.
you can hop on the call as welland hear how we talk to them.
(57:34):
But we encourage you to comeand take the four week course
with both of us called Talkingto Clients about Behavioral
Euthanasia, because I wasn'ttaught this in school.
I did an apprenticeship.
I did an in-person dog trainingschool.
I got a master's degree inanimal behavior.
Nobody taught me to talk to myclients about it And I put my
foot in my mouth more times thanI can count And I would love to
(57:57):
help you not do that with yourclients.
Speaker 2 (58:01):
Me too, because I also put my foot in my mouth way
more often than I should have.
Speaker 1 (58:07):
Trish Sue, thanks so much for coming on.
I appreciate you guys.
I definitely linked all thethings you mentioned.
Speaker 3 (58:15):
Thanks so much for addressing this difficult
subject.
Speaker 1 (58:18):
Yes, yes, Thank you guys.
I hope you enjoyed thisinformative conversation with
Trish and Sue.
They've been amazing friendsand colleagues and I can't thank
them enough for all of theircontributions to the dog
training and shelteringcommunities.
Don't forget to head on over toaggressivedogcom for more
information about helping dogswith aggression, from the
(58:38):
Aggression in Dogs Master Courseto webinars from world-renowned
experts and even an annualconference.
We have options for both petpros and pet owners to learn
more about aggression in dogs.
I also have the Help for Dogswith Aggression bonus episodes
that you can subscribe to.
These are solo shows where Iwalk you through how to work a
variety of types of aggression,such as resource guarding,
(59:00):
dog-to-dog aggression,territorial aggression,
fear-based aggression and much,much more.
You can find a link tosubscribe on the show notes or
by hitting the subscribe buttonif you're listening in on Apple
Podcasts.
Thanks again, and remember it'snot about the destination, it's
often all about the journey.
The topic of behavioral euthanasia can often
be controversial and stir manyemotions in our community.
Trish McMillan is back, alongwith our wonderful colleague,
sue Alexander, to inform us whythis is a topic that needs to be
discussed more so that we canaddress the controversy as well
as dispel many of themisconceptions.
Trish and Sue also talk abouttheir amazing support group
(00:23):
Losing Lulu.
For anyone that has gonethrough the journey of living
with a dog where behavioraleuthanasia was the ultimate
outcome, trish is aninternationally known speaker on
the topics of animal behaviorand sheltering.
She holds a master of sciencedegree in animal behavior and is
a certified professional dogtrainer.
Trish worked for the ASPCA fornearly eight years, first as
(00:44):
director of animal behavior atthe New York City Shelter and
then with the field team,helping assess and rehabilitate
dogs from cruelty cases, dogfighting and hoarding situations
.
She speaks and consultsnationally and internationally
on animal sheltering issues, dog, cat and horse behavior, dog
aggression and defensivehandling.
She also runs a popular onlineshelter dog behavior mentorship
(01:06):
and other courses through theShelter Behavior Hub and is one
of the co-founders of thatLosing Lulu Facebook support
group.
Sue Alexander has over 25 yearsof experience training and
handling dogs, both her andthose of her clients.
Sue has been teaching dogobedience classes since 1993,
she has participated in a widevariety of dog sports, including
obedience, tracking, retrieving, schutz and nose work and
(01:30):
agility, with her own dogs andthose of her clients.
She founded Dogs in the Parkand she was a student at the
University of Guelph and shecones that with her husband,
john.
She is particularly interestedin the rehabilitation of
aggressive dogs and theresolution of behavioral
problems with dogs and familyhomes.
Sue is a well respected speaker, both online and in person, and
(01:51):
has delivered programming inCanada, the USA, the UK and
Ireland.
Sue has delivered webinars,seminars and lectures on applied
behavior analysis, resolvingbehavioral problems and working
with clients.
And don't forget, you cansupport this podcast by going to
aggressivedogcom, where thereare a variety of resources to
learn more about helping dogswith aggression issues,
(02:11):
including the upcomingAggression in Dogs conference
happening from September 29ththrough October 1st 2023 in
Chicago, illinois, with both inperson and online options.
You can also learn more aboutthe Aggression in Dogs master
course, which is the mostcomprehensive course available
anywhere in the world forlearning how to work with and
help dogs with aggression issues.
Hey guys, welcome to the biteyend of the dog.
(02:35):
I'm here with two of my goodfriends, trish McMillan and Sue
Alexander.
I usually jump into people'sbios at the beginning of the
show, but I'm going to tell youa little bit of my personal
experiences with both of theseguys.
I've known them for a while.
Trish is my partner in crime onthe workshop circuit.
She's actually helped me getout onto the speaking stage and
I give much of that credit toher on teaching me so much about
(02:56):
behavior in general in theshelter world as well.
Trish is a guru in working withthe ASPCA.
She's got the masters in animalbehavior.
She has McMillan animalbehavior, which is in North
Carolina and also is on PibbleHill, which is this really cool
place If you ever want to govisit this magical place with
all kinds of different animals,or you can learn about horses,
cats, dogs, chickens, goats andso many other critters.
(03:20):
I'm really excited to haveTrish here.
Sue I've known back way backfrom the IW ABC days, sort of
like a mentor in my early daysof the old Yahoo groups.
Sue was always very helpful instaring me in the right
direction with some of mybehavior misconceptions.
I would say We have thisrunning jokes who's sort of like
the hardcore Trish, because youguys might not know It was
(03:45):
broken foot or broken where didyou break?
You broke something.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
I broke my leg for all the ligaments of my foot.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Yeah, sue's hardcore.
She's like, oh, let me justthrow a little spit and mud in
that.
Two days later she's travelingaround and walking around on
this thing.
Every time Sue's got somethinggoing on, it's two days later
she's up and around and moving.
It's definitely very hardcorebehavior, but Sue's dog's in the
park up in Canada and we'regoing to be talking about more
(04:15):
about that as well.
But we're going to drive intothe conversation of something
that really is sometimesdifficult to talk about,
something that needs to betalked about more though in our
industry.
I know the conversation's beenongoing for the last few years
more readily, but it'sdefinitely something that often
is kind of a tough path forpeople to navigate, especially
(04:36):
for trainers talking to clients.
I do want to give a contentwarning in the beginning for
anybody that might beconsidering behavioral
euthanasia or maybe has had toexperience this previously, that
we will be talking aboutbehavioral euthanasia throughout
the episode.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Can we add in the non-content warning of, even
though we're going to talk aboutsomething really, really
difficult, trisha and I arehappy people and we have a lot
of fun and we are playful.
That's a really important partof how we approach behavioral
euthanasia.
So, yes, i want us to be reallyaware of this as a sensitive
(05:15):
topic.
But, mike, there's somethingelse we've got to keep in mind,
and that is the animals that weare talking about are really,
really important to the people,the people that we work with.
So it's really important thatyou understand that, although
this is a sad topic and it's adifficult topic, there's also
moments of enormous joy.
(05:37):
The people who come to us thatwe help with their dogs and
sometimes cats and giraffes andllamas and elephants and
hippopotamia those animals arereally important to people, and
so when we're talking about this, we may have a moment where we
get sad and I might cry.
I've cried on camera more thantwice about this and I'm used to
(05:58):
it, trisha's used to it.
You might cry, it's okay, idon't mind.
It's okay too if we laugh.
You know there's been somereally funny things that have
happened that are surroundingbehavioral euthanasia, and what
I want people to understandabout behavioral euthanasia is
that the range of emotions.
That's cool, it's okay.
(06:20):
So it's okay to laugh about thetime that I had to take a dog
for behavioral euthanasia.
I loaded him up in the back ofthe car and we drove to the vet
and on the way to theveterinarians he got into a box
of motor oil and he bit into it.
Then in my rear view mirror Isee arcs of motor oil on the
(06:42):
inside of my car.
You know, although it was areally sad day when we lost Alex
I mean it was tragic It wasshortly after I got married.
It was my husband's dog and itwas a behavioral euthanasia We
tried to attack one of my staffmembers.
It was a horrible day in my life, and every time John and I talk
(07:04):
about it, we also laugh aboutcleaning up all that motor oil.
It was a whole case.
It was 12 liters of motor oil,and so I think it's really
important that we understandthat when we're talking about
behavioral euthanasia, let's letourselves be emotional in all
(07:25):
aspects.
It's okay to laugh and it'sokay to laugh and cry at the
same time, and it's okay to sayI love this animal and I hate
him so much And he's hurt me sobadly and he's so important to
me and my family.
That is actually normal andit's really really cool that
(07:48):
we've got that opportunity toexperience that range of emotion
, And it's something Chris and Italk about a lot.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Yeah, this is a really important point and I'm
glad you brought that up,because we often think of
behavioral euthanasia as justthe negative emotional aspects
of it.
But we need to, as youmentioned, bring in the positive
side to sort of balance thingsout for ourselves as well and to
survive through that.
Shish was on I think it was onfour years ago, three, four
years ago on season one, wherewe were talking about behavioral
(08:17):
euthanasia and the formation ofthe group Losing Lulu, the
Facebook group, which has growntremendously since then and
evolved.
So, trish, can you tell us alittle bit how that came about
and sort of what you've seenevolve over the years?
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Yeah, yeah, it's been .
Is it five years or four yearswe've been doing?
Speaker 1 (08:34):
losing.
This will be season four, soyeah, well, you had started it,
though, before that.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Yeah, i think it's four years since we lost Lulu
And the thing with these dogs,who are euthanized for behavior,
is if they were 100% aggressive100% of the time, it would be
an easy decision.
But they all have the greatsides and they all they tend to
be very smart dogs.
They tend to have some reallywonderful qualities, and Lulu
(09:03):
was a dog that I brought from ashelter.
I brought her home as a fosterI occasionally foster dogs And
she was just this sweet, happy,wiggly dog And she'd recently
had a litter of puppies and shewas looking pretty rough And I
thought bring you home, get youspayed, get you cleaned up and
you're going to be a beautifuldog.
(09:23):
And when I got her home, ittook a while.
It took a number of monthsbefore it came out that she had
some issues with other dogs Andat first they were just mild
issues and she was picky abouther friends and she hadn't done
any damage And she was still inthe category of let's find her
home with a maybe she doesn'twant a dog roommate.
But on one really terrible nightNew Year's Eve 2018, i believe
(09:50):
she attacked my smaller dog, mylittle Puerto Rican street dog,
in a way that was.
She was out to kill her.
She was not going to let go.
Fortunately I had a trainerfriend over.
It took two of us and a breakstick to get them split up And
she did $800 worth of damage tomy smaller dog in the couple of
(10:12):
minutes that it took us Andthank goodness we had the right
tools to break up that fight AndI called the rescue group I was
working through.
I said this is no longer a dogthat meets our criteria for
adoptability And they agreed topay for behavioral euthanasia.
So we had a lelly in one carand we had Lulu in another car
(10:33):
and we took her in and had hereuthanized And my friend who was
with me was just like don't sayanything about this on the
internet, just lie to theother's friends, tell them she
got adopted.
Let the whole thing die down.
And that is not my style.
I'm a terrible liar.
They would want pictures.
I'm not going to be able toPhotoshop Lulu into pictures.
(10:56):
So I waited a few days before Itold the story and I told it on
my social media first and myfriends understand.
If Trish McMillan makes abehavioral euthanasia decision,
there's probably good reason forit.
But Theodore has 40,000 friendswho just love pitbulls and Lulu
was a pitbull-type dog And mostof them were understanding but
(11:20):
it was more sort of pet peopleor beginner rescue people who
hadn't had to deal with a doglike Lulu before.
And I got a lot of grief fromthat contingent and I was called
a murderer.
I was called worse things I'mnot going to repeat them on your
podcast And just got so muchjudgment for making this call
(11:42):
And I mentioned it to Sue andSue said you know we need a
place to talk about this And Iwas like, yeah, and I need a
pony and a unicorn And that'sfine, but you don't say that to
Sue Alexander.
So take it, sue.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Well, my favorite comment came from a it was
probably a pet owner who waspretty passionate about pets And
she said you didn't evenconsult a trainer.
Love that comment Because youknow exactly what trainer did.
She figure was going to havemore information than Trish.
But you know, it reflects whatwe go through when we face a
(12:22):
behavioral euthanasia, and thatis that most people don't
understand.
And in fact I started losingLulu after being on a thread
where somebody said we shouldhave a support group And
somebody else said, well, that'sa good idea.
And somebody else said, well,that's a good idea, yeah, we
should really have a supportgroup.
And it just kept.
All these people kept piling on.
(12:43):
And I'm sitting there looking atmy computer and thinking to
myself well, if we should, whydon't we?
And if we don't, what can I doabout that?
And, as with many good ideas,it started with how hard can
that be?
And so I started a Facebookgroup with the intent of it
(13:04):
might be a couple of hundredpeople, like you know, maybe my
good friends, you know, maybeMichael join and maybe Trish
will join and maybe I'll bethere.
You know, we can all hang outand drink coffee and talk about.
You know how hard this is.
Well, within the first week wehave 400 people And I remember
having just an absolute panicmoment of looking at this and
(13:27):
going I don't know how I'm goingto hope cope with this many
people.
Two weeks later we had 1000.
And it's been growing eversince.
We're almost at 24,000 now.
And what I did?
as you know, mike and Trishknows, i live with a traumatic
brain injury, which means thatsometimes my screen time is very
(13:48):
limited And my screen time wasreally limited at that point.
So I was able to do, you know,a little bit of screen time, but
it very quickly became apparentthat we needed to moderate this
And we have the most incrediblegroup of people who help us to
moderate this.
We've got one person who prettymuch manages all the people who
(14:12):
asked to come in And we have awhole bunch of other people who
managed the post queue, becauseall the posts are moderated.
And we have a motto.
one of our volunteers made up amotto And it has changed my life
.
It has absolutely changed who Iam.
It's changed what I am, itchanged how I practice And that
(14:34):
is keep it kind.
And my gosh, if all we did inour whole lives was kept things
kind.
Imagine what we could do.
And the thing for me is I don'thave to imagine it because
every single day I get theinformation of keeping it kind
(14:56):
matters.
It matters a lot, and we havecreated the kindest, most
thoughtful place that you canimagine.
Yeah, it is strictly strictly,strictly moderated.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
If somebody comes in and they're like why didn't you
try this?
Bye-bye, you cannot be onlosing Lulu if you're going to
second guess it, because what isthe person going to do?
Dig up their dead dog,reanimate them, get a different
trainer, try a differenttechnique, it's too late.
Even if you don't agree withevery single decision that's
(15:31):
been made, these animals aregone, and it's not just dogs.
We have cats, horses, rabbits,snakes, all kinds of animals.
They're all dearly loved,they're all missed.
People are suffering And secondguessing is not going to help
anything.
The kindest thing we can do islet them tell their story, be
(15:53):
free of judgment.
And it is a really unique placeon the internet.
It is on Facebook, it is notanywhere else at this point, but
we do have a website.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
No, that's true, we have a website now, i didn't
know that We have losinglulucom.
It's brand new.
Well, it's not brand newanymore.
It's now about six months old.
We did that because we wantedto make sure that we maintained
control and copyright of ourcontent, so we have what we call
Hippo.
App says And Trish, you'regoing to be very excited.
(16:25):
I went to the mat today.
I'm in New York City.
I went to the mat.
You told me, mike, that I couldgo off topic a little bit.
Oh, you're just going to be soexcited.
So dangerous It is so dangerous,it's so, so dangerous, but it's
so good I got something.
It's name is William.
I did not know that Lulu'spartner was going to be called
(16:50):
William.
Where did William go?
Okay, tell them about.
Hippo.
App says well, i find William.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
So one thing that Sue is really good at is creating
communities and, you know,getting everybody pulling in the
same direction.
She has wrangled this group.
We call them the horrors aregroup of people who moderate the
list And we are all pulling inthe same direction And we all
agree on rules And we havemeetings and we have coffee, and
(17:19):
one of the wonderful thingsshe's done to keep the culture
of the group alive is to writethese essays And she calls them
Hippo essays.
She picked in an animal that weare unlikely to see, on Lulu,
and she talks about keeping itkind via the Hippo essays and
why we have the culture we have,and they're brilliant, they're
(17:41):
wonderful.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Oh, that's great Yeah .
Speaker 3 (17:45):
What is that made out of?
That looks delicious.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
It is a magnet.
I actually get Do hippos, twohippos there.
So at the mat, i didn't knowthis.
At the mat, their mascot is ahippo And the hippo's name is
William And I needed a hippomagnet.
(18:10):
And, mike, i will take apicture of this and send it to
you.
This should be the icon forthis particular episode.
I will, i'll take a picture andsend it.
I'm so excited about this.
And, trish, i got a hippopostcard to send you and
everything.
Because, you know, i wanted tochoose an animal that we could
(18:33):
talk about in the abstract, sothat we could talk about.
You know, if we want to talkabout training and I talk about
dog training then the person whohas lost their cat is going to
say, well, that doesn't apply tome.
But if I want to talk abouttraining in the abstract and I
want to say, you know, yeah, wemay not have chosen the best
(18:56):
training method for our Lulu andmaybe that contributed, but it
doesn't matter, because now thatyour Lulu is gone, you can take
that lesson and you can move on.
And so one of my hippo essays Italk about the importance of
not naming names, because it'sreally hard on the internet If
(19:18):
somebody you know goes onlineand says, oh, i worked with Sue
Alexander and she told me Ishould kill my dog.
That's going to hurt meprofessionally And in fact
that's not what I would ever sayto a client.
So when I'm talking aboutbehavioral euthanasia with a
client, i will say I think weshould talk about behavioral
euthanasia.
I do not say you must kill yourdog, and so one of our rules is
(19:43):
you can't name names.
And we needed somebody to talkabout this in the abstract.
So I said, if you had ahippopotamus and you went to a
very famous hippopotamus trainerand then your hippopotamus
flipped over a tourist boat andate the firefighters who came to
rescue everybody, that's kindof a funny way of talking about
(20:04):
it.
And so we sort of ended up withthe hippopotamus as our model.
And I did not know that manypeople refer to pit bulls as
house hippos And I had no idea,and so I just put this out there
.
And so we refer to my essaysand I've got about I don't know
(20:26):
a dozen of them that talk aboutvarious aspects of behavioral
euthanasia.
One of them is running aroundand saying I worked with Trish,
i worked with Sue, i worked withMike, i worked with whomever
And then saying you know, and mydog died.
That's not useful informationwhen you're grieving.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
You get so much shame and blame from every other
place that we try to get peopleto tell their stories, but
without blaming the breeder,blaming the shelter, blaming the
trainer, blaming them.
A lot of them blame themselvesAnd it's just.
It's so painful Reading thecases on losing Lulu and if you
(21:09):
are a dog trainer or a shelterperson you are welcome to join.
Just answer the screeningquestions appropriately and
honestly.
They are some of the mostfascinating case studies you
will ever see And so many ofthem are so similar.
You know people get a puppyfrom wherever There's some early
(21:30):
signs and social maturity hits.
It often gets worse.
They go through a process ofdifferent trainers, different
meds, different veterinariansAnd we all end up in the same
place.
Like it's one of those romancenovels.
You know they all end the sameway.
Lulu's story is kind of all inthe same way, but it's been
(21:51):
really interesting that peoplehave come from all over the
world.
The animals have come from alldifferent places.
They are all different breedsof dogs But the stories are so
similar And a lot of thefeelings are really similar And
I talked on the last bitey endof the dog.
I told my personal story.
If you want to go back to thatone.
(22:12):
I'm not going to tell it againbecause I will start crying, but
a lot of the feelings arereally similar And I try to
prepare people, whether you'rein the shelter, whether it's a
personal client who is goingthrough a behavioral euthanasia.
One thing is you're going towant to try everything, and the
(22:32):
person that I co-owned my dogwith made an actual list and put
it on the fridge, and everytime we got near the bottom of
the list I'd be like okay, iguess we have to make the
decision.
He would find one more thingLike we haven't tried this
medication or we haven't triedmore exercise, or haven't tried
the Midnight Walk Club, likethere is always going to be one
(22:54):
more thing to try.
And I like Sue's line you don'thave to try everything, you
just have to try everything thatis reasonable for you.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Alright, we're going to take a short break and we'll
be back to hear more from Trishand Sue.
Hey friends, it's me again andI hope you are enjoying this
episode.
You may have figured out thatsomething I deeply care about is
helping dogs with aggressionissues live less stressful, less
confined, more enriched andoverall happier lives with their
(23:31):
guardians.
Aggression is so oftenmisunderstood and we can change
that through education, like wereceive from so many of the
wonderful guests on this podcast.
In addition to the podcast, ihave two other opportunities for
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aggression issues, which includethe Aggression and Dogs Master
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(23:52):
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(26:26):
All right, we're back here withTrish McMillan and Sue Alexander
to talk about the wonderfulresources they've created around
this difficult topic.
I want to also jump into,though, and just take a moment
to give kudos to you guys and toyour team for creating such a
safe space and the creative waysyou're doing it too.
(26:47):
Kindness, you guys know, is aword I use quite often in my
messaging, and I can't imaginethe monumental task of having to
create a safe space for 24,000people discussing probably one
of the most difficult topics onthe planet to discuss, so I just
wanted to make sure that youare receiving the recognition
(27:09):
that that deserves, because itis not an easy task.
I mean, to run any kind ofFacebook group on any topic is
hard enough as it is.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
And it is our mod team.
I give all the kudos to themthere.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
It's the most amazing kind people on the planet And
you know like it's so importantto understand that being kind
actually takes fairly firm hand.
So you know, if somebody says,well, you should have they will
(27:43):
get that moderated.
That comment will be moderatedout.
Often we will have discussionson the moderation list about a
post and it'll be a post that wekind of look at it and we say,
okay, is this going tocontribute to grief support?
And often what we come to isthat's not actually grief
(28:05):
support, that's anger, and it'snot misplaced anger.
It's fine to be angry And it'sfine to be angry in ways that
are productive.
Anger should help you to knowwhat you need to change.
And it's fine to say I'm reallyangry that this happened.
(28:25):
I am really angry at my breederbecause she knew that mom was
aggressive.
And or I'm really angry at therescue because they knew the dog
had severe separation anxiety.
Or even I'm really angry at theadvice that I got from my
trainer.
But what's not appropriate isto use Lulu for retribution,
(28:49):
because we do need to processanger.
I'm angry at lots of things Andto be able to say you know, i
am angry that I didn't get a jobor I didn't get an opportunity,
that's fine.
But if I say, oh well, andthat's all you know, i thought
Trish was my best friend andit's all Trish's fault, that's
(29:10):
just going to hurt Trish Andthat's not going to make our
friendship better.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Yeah, and I'm glad you're bringing up the emotions
aspect because I kind of want totake a deeper dive into that
And it seems to be the theme ofthe the seasons episodes
actually.
well, you'll hear some of theother guests I have on were
diving much more into the humanside of things.
We talk about dogs, of course,but the human side is really an
element that is a focus of theshow this year.
(29:34):
So I'd love to get yourtakeaways on.
you know you had mentionedanger as one component.
that can be an emotion that weexperienced, but some of the
other ones that often don't gettalked about in, when somebody's
gone through this decision orconsidering this decision and
all of their emotions that theyhave to go through, so things
like guilt and, you know, asadness, grief, you know all of
(29:57):
those things start to pile up.
So what have you learned overthe last few years?
now that you've kind of got ahuge data size, sample size of
really seeing people's emotions,can you kind of give?
Speaker 2 (30:05):
us some of your takeaways there.
Grief and relief.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Yeah, it is a weird kind of grief, like if you put
your old animal down.
It is mostly grief.
His dog has been with me 16years.
He's been with me through allof these life changes And I have
to say goodbye.
There may be a little bit ofrelief that I don't have to get
up in the middle of the night tolet her out six times anymore.
But with a behavioraleuthanasia the grief can be so
(30:33):
profound because the animalsusually leaving us much before
their time And you get your lifeback.
You feel relieved that whenChinook left I thought I could
have people over for dinneragain.
I could go for dog walks duringdaylight hours I could.
I don't have to shut off allthe lights on Halloween and turn
(30:54):
off all the stereo and justpretend I'm not home so that he
doesn't blow up over and over.
And then there's the guilt atfeeling relieved that your best
friend is no longer with you.
So it's such a and I think manyof us with a behavioral
euthanasia.
The good days seem so much moregood.
I made the decision toeuthanasia twice and the first
(31:17):
time he had such a great day.
He had his last walk, he hadhis last steak.
There was no aggression.
There was no and we chickenedout.
We called the vet right beforethe appointment and said we
cannot do it.
And I think when you have agood day, when you're living
with an animal who has some veryprofoundly terrible moments,
(31:39):
those good days feel so muchbetter than the good day with my
lovely friendly dogs I have now.
They're all good days, they'reall kind of the same, but when
it's like this it's a wholedifferent feeling.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Well, I think the other thing about the grief and
relief aspect of it is that whenI look at the level to which
some of the people, on losingLulu, go in order to accommodate
the needs of their profoundly,profoundly ill animals and I
want to be very clear that Ibelieve that we are not
(32:16):
euthanizing healthy animals, Weare euthanizing animals who are
not healthy, because healthincludes behavior, And if you're
not behaviorally healthy, ifyou're not able to live in a
normal situation, even withsupport, then we are alleviating
suffering when we euthanize.
(32:38):
And so I think about one casethat was on Lulu about a week
ago, and it was a lady who wastalking about how guilty she
felt for euthanizing a dog thatthey had kept going for about
five years.
They raised it from puppyhoodand at about the age of two, so
social maturity right there.
The dog began to becomeaggressive and it became
(33:01):
progressively more aggressive Asof last November.
During the AmericanThanksgiving holiday she moved
out of their family home into atrailer on their property with
the dog so that the dog couldkeep breathing, But it meant
that she left her children andher husband and her other dogs
(33:25):
living in the house and she wasliving separate from them.
It meant that her family wasremoved of having her there at
Thanksgiving because the dog wasnot able to be left for long
periods of time.
The dog was self-injurious, Ibelieve, as well as being
dangerously aggressive For theChristmas holidays.
Her family is very much afamily that celebrates Christmas
(33:48):
and they like to have guestsover.
Her family had Christmaswithout her because she needed
to be in the trailer with thedog.
When she finally got to thepoint where she realized that
this stopgap measure didn't meetthe dog's needs and the dog
attacked her and she could nolonger care for the dog, she
(34:08):
euthanized it and she says Idon't feel like I did enough.
I think one of the things thatwe have to realize about this is
that when you live with ananimal with a profound behavior
problem for a very long time,normal isn't normal.
I had a horse that I euthanizedfor a behavior problem.
She was very dangerous to meAnd Trisha and I talked about
(34:31):
behavioral euthanasia with kayakmany, many, many times, like
for years, And when it finallybecame apparent that I was not
going to be able to resolve thisand I decided to euthanize her,
I was able to say I am going togive her the last couple of
(34:51):
weeks and it's going to bewonderful for her And I will
tell you what it made the griefrelief cycle so much better even
though it feels like itwouldn't because on her last day
she had five pounds of carrotsand a pound of gummy spearments
and she had her friends and shegot brushed and she got to eat
(35:13):
grass and all the things that ahorse loves to do.
And when I look back on that, Idon't have the memory of having
had to move out of my house andmiss great family events,
because there are so manyconfusing, conflicting parts of
grief there, because not only doyou end up grieving the loss of
(35:35):
the animal and the loss of thepotential of the relationship,
you also end up grieving thingslike that lady is going to have
missed her children's Christmasin 2022.
Forever That's gone and thereis a grief to that as well, And
I think that that's one of themore complex things that I've
(35:58):
become aware of in the lastcouple of years is that we don't
just grieve the animal.
We grieve the years we didn'tgo on vacation and we grieve
that we couldn't go to ournieces christening because we
couldn't leave the dog alone, orwe couldn't have people over to
celebrate, you know, ourspouse's graduation from
(36:21):
university, or you know there'sall these things that it's not
just the loss of the dog's lifethat we grieve, It's everything
that surrounds that.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
Well, the caregiver burden is huge.
Mike and I had someconversations with Kelly
Valentine at the Indiana seminar.
She's written about thecaregiver burden on living with
profoundly behaviorallydisturbed animals And it is not
uncommon for somebody to besleeping on the couch with the
(36:56):
dog and the other person to besleeping upstairs with the kids
And it breaks up relationships.
Like I said, my ex he became anex over this dog.
Part of it was I was okay withbehavioral euthanasia before.
He was Like there's no suchthing as you both agreeing on it
on the same time.
So if there's more than oneperson involved in the animal's
(37:19):
life, often one person comes tothe decision first and that can
cause so much friction.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
That's such a good point Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
When I'm counseling families about a dog with a
serious behavior problem.
One of the things that I liketo talk to the clients about is
that we have to come to anagreement that everybody is
comfortable with when we'retalking about living with an
animal with a profound behaviorproblem, because I have actually
(37:47):
had about 10 families where theadults have ended up in divorce
because of the dog.
And the one that I often thinkabout the most is was two
Huskies that I worked with Andthey were trying to eat each
other literally eat each otherAnd they had terrible damaging
(38:08):
fights over and over again Andthe family kind of put up with
this And when I say eat, i domean consume.
That was what they were afterThey had terrible damaging
fights And then the family had ababy And mom decided I can't
live with this with a baby, i'mperfectly content living with it
(38:29):
when we don't have a child inthe house, and that actually
ended the relationship becausedad said I'm not going to
euthanize a dog that is inelderly And thank you.
Ru Ru has opinions on that too,And it's something that I think
is really important that we talkabout with families is that you
(38:52):
know what is the impact on yourchildren, What is the impact on
your spouse, What's the impacton the relationship that you
have with the important peoplein your life.
It's really important becausewe can't live solely vicariously
for the dog.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
It's not appropriate and you're bringing up so many
salient points, because what I'mthinking about as well is, you
know, you sometimes see commentsin the training community About
this particular method Causingmore behavioral euthanasias, or
this particular tool orsomething like that, which, when
you think about it's prettyridiculous because we, what it's
not factoring in is all ofthese things you're talking
(39:34):
about, all of these factors thatare so unique to each
individual and to each dog, toeach family That impacts that
decision.
It's not, you know, trainingmatters, but it's just such it.
When you take a step back, it'ssuch a small piece of the
entire puzzle of when it comesto having a dog with aggression
issues right, and in that regard, people will face a lot of
(39:54):
criticism from others, whetherit's before or while they're
trying to make the decision orAfter they've made the decision.
So what are some copingstrategies or strategies really
to deal with those, those folksthat are throwing hate at you?
I'm sure you've seen somestrategies talked about in the
group, but also like what areyour experiences there?
Speaker 3 (40:13):
I Am big on deleting and blocking what I did when I
was getting hate on my dog'spage.
I'm not gonna leave thosecomments up.
Calling me a murderer like thatis Not relevant to what.
What's going on here.
That's not just hurting me,that's hurting everybody else
who has gone through this aswell.
So I am a big fan of not givingany air to these arguments, and
(40:38):
we certainly do that on Lulutoo.
Just if you are not here forsupport, you are not here.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
I Also like to think that it's important that we
start fostering good allybehavior And we hear that tossed
around a lot, but this isreally really concrete in the
training community.
Up until very recently, sayingI spoke about Behavioral
euthanasia to my client has beenvery taboo and I've gotten a
(41:07):
lot of grief about it.
I know many, many years ago, atthe first I double ABC
conference, i was one of thespeakers.
I was talking about servicedogs and I said at the end of it
They were asking you know, whatelse should we have
conversations about?
I said we need to talk about beeuthanasia and I got a lot of
pushback From people at theconference that that wasn't our
(41:29):
purview, that wasn't Appropriate, that we should never be
talking about behavioraleuthanasia and I thought, okay,
but if I don't talk about it,what am I supposed to do with my
client who has two Huskies whoare giving damaging bites, who
are injuring people, who aretrying to pull them apart, and
now there's a crawling baby inthat house.
(41:51):
What am I supposed to suggestto them?
What am I supposed to talk toto them about?
because that isn't somethingthat is particularly safe And
it's not something that I canrecommend re-homing and so for a
long time We were in limbowhere people just didn't want to
talk about it.
And I think now We're at a pointnow where you know, when you're
(42:13):
at the conferences and you'retalking to other Trainers, and a
trainer says you know, hey,i've got this really really,
really difficult case and Idon't know what to do about it.
And it's an Australian shepherdcrossed with a Norwegian gutter
hound.
And you know, and you go well,what an interesting cross that
might be.
(42:33):
There is no such thing as aNorwegian gutter hound as far as
I know.
That's my mythical breed that Iuse when I I talk about sort of
theoretical dogs.
But somebody says I've got this, this dog on my caseload and
you know, the dog got loose in apark and it Caused a damaging
bite, and you know, and this andthis and this and, and the dog
(42:56):
keeps getting loose.
And I want to talk about whatour options are, but I don't
have a lot of good options left.
And one of the things thathappens then is people say, oh
well, let's talk about tools.
It's obviously all about tools.
And I say, no, it's talking,let's talk about quality of life
.
The first thing is is your,your clients dog has a really
(43:17):
crappy quality of life and yourclients have a crappy quality of
life and let's be really clearthat You know the best trainer
in the world may not be able toresolve problem X, whatever
problem X might be, and I haveseen personally cases that
involve behavioral euthanasia,with everything from aggression
(43:41):
Through separation, anxietythrough pica.
I worked with a dog that waseating things that were just not
food items and in the end wasnot redeemable.
We couldn't solve that problem.
I've seen dogs who werespinners, so you know compulsive
disorders, and so we look atthese things and we say you know
(44:02):
, if it's not my job to talk tothese people about the
possibility of it and find outwhere they sit with it, then
whose job is it?
Well, if we refer to theveterinarian, the veterinarian
gets 15 minutes at most twice ayear to get to know that client.
I See my clients when they'rein active program, usually three
(44:26):
times a week.
So I'm seeing them in a groupclass, i'm seeing them in an
online check-in and I usuallysee them at an off-leash dog
walk and I will often see them afourth time for a private
lesson.
I'm seeing them for an hour ata time.
So I've got a lot strongerrelationship Just by the fact
(44:49):
that I see them for longer and Isee them more.
So, if you know, if I take itover to the veterinarian, the
veterinarian now has to take ahistory.
They hopefully are going toread all of my notes and They
have to know the client, theyhave to know the dog.
They have to do a lot of things.
I can help a lot By having theconversation with the client and
(45:12):
then writing the veterinarian anote that says I've seen this
dog for X amount of time, we'vedone X number of things, we've
tried this, we've tried that andthe behavior problem is so
deeply profound that we cannotresolve it and We would like to
ask you to consider behavioraleuthanasia with us.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
Yeah and that just makes things so much easier for
everybody it's interesting justhow much the The industry's got
to be evolved, at least over inthe last five years, because
yeah, right.
I mean, it's something that wasavoided being talked about and
it still kind of is, and a lotof people's minds is that it's.
It's not a Successfulresolution, right?
(45:53):
So we're not getting success ifwe're not training the animal
because we're animal trainersright, and air quotes there And
if we are to face euthanasia,then that's a failure as and the
eyes of, you know, a lot ofpeople looking at these things.
But what's not talked about isthat the behavior of euthanasia
can be the success.
In that case, that can be thepositive outcomes.
(46:15):
And if we don't talk about itAnd if we don't educate
ourselves on how to have theseconversations and what criteria
we would be bringing theseconversations to the table right
, then we're missing asignificant piece of again
navigating the conversationswith humans, helping the humans
really in these cases as well.
So, yeah, I mean it's good tosee that we're talking about it
more, right?
I?
Speaker 2 (46:37):
Have yet to have a dog, write me a check or give me
their credit card.
It has not happened yet.
I'm not gonna say it won't, butit hasn't happened yet.
We can't forget the welfare ofthe human think that's that's so
important to consider.
Speaker 3 (46:52):
And Not every dog since this is the mighty end of
the dog podcast will stick withdogs.
Not every dog is a Fit forevery household.
I have lived with someprofoundly dangerous dogs that I
did not euthanize Because Ilive by myself.
I am a dog trainer.
I have been willing to Make mylife smaller For for this reason
(47:14):
, but I have gone to see verysimilar behavior problems in a
family with three little kidswhere Making them go through a
whole behavior program would notbe kind or safe to those
children.
The decision like getting ourclients to that decision Sooner
when it is absolutely obviousthat this is not a safe place
(47:37):
for that animal.
I think that is part of our joband I wish there was more
training around Talking topeople about the less savory
options.
Speaker 1 (47:47):
Yeah, i mean think about the disservice to the
community as well.
If we're kind of giving falsehopes to somebody that has a dog
, that's truly dangerous toeither their family or the
community, and that's that'sanother aspect We don't talk
about.
We kind of get stuck on theseMaking a good impression to the
rest of the training community.
I'll take the most difficultcases, the most dangerous cases,
and fix them like it's asomething we could put on our
(48:09):
fireplace mantle.
But for me, the trainers thatI'm gonna respect more, that
they're able to help clientsnavigate all of those prognostic
Factors in their case, right,that's, what impresses me is
when somebody really shows adeep understanding of people's
emotions And when they need torecognize that and maybe even
read between the lines sometimesin their conversations.
That is skilled to me and it'snot always, again, saving them
(48:32):
all right.
Speaker 2 (48:34):
Well, and I think that brings up a really
important thing.
You know, you say saving themall, but I Have.
I've talked to a lot oftrainers, particularly trainers
who are newer to the industry,who Have the idea that if you
just know enough, if you justhave enough experience, if you
just use the Right tool, you aregoing to be able to avoid ever
(48:57):
having to euthanize anythingunder any circumstances.
I am here to tell you, i amvery, very experienced, i am
very well educated in this.
I am a junkie for technicaldetails.
Okay, i have been doing thisfor 30 years and I think that
(49:19):
we've got to avoid this heroNarrative that we have for
ourselves.
Well, i could fix that dog Theyshould never have euthanized it
because I could fix it.
And I think, okay, you can fixone or two or three, but at a
certain point you become ahoarder and you have 72, and
(49:43):
then you have another problementirely, and I think that this
is something that we've got tobe very, very aware of and we've
got to keep our feet firmly onthe ground.
I have helped thousands of dogsand I've told people you know,
this is a dog that we need tohave a conversation about and
had them go and see anothertrainer and come back to me and
(50:04):
say, see, sue, see you werewrong.
And I'm going to tell you whatthe answer is.
When somebody comes back to youand says, see, you were wrong,
we didn't need to euthanize thisanimal, the answer is I'm glad
to be wrong, that's it.
I don't need to discuss it withthem, i don't need to tell them
they're wrong.
I just need to say I don't needto be a hero.
I'm enough of a hero in my ownlife.
(50:26):
Okay, i've got all these crazythings that I do.
I can be a hero in other ways,and the way that I like being
the hero the most is by beingkind to somebody and helping
somebody out.
Heroism, in my opinion, comeson a much smaller level.
Saving every single dog withevery single behavior problem is
(50:48):
a recipe for making sure that Ican't do the rest of my life
well.
Speaker 3 (50:53):
Yeah, i just wanted to tag on to Sue's point that I
went and got a master's degreein animal behavior, in large
part to try to figure out what Icould have done differently
around my first behavioraleuthanasia.
And the only thing I wouldchange if I had Shadduk again in
2023 instead of 1997 is I wouldeuthanize him more promptly.
(51:18):
Theodore has things to sayabout that.
I would know now that a dog whois growling at me at three
weeks of age like not in aplayful way, has a profoundly
abnormal brain And I think Istill would have tried some
things.
but I think what experience hasgiven me is the knowledge of
(51:38):
what is not fixable.
And it is okay if you are ayoung trainer and you are going
through your first behavioraleuthanasia with a client.
We've all been there.
If you train long enough, youwill have this discussion.
Speaker 1 (51:53):
Yeah, that's a really important point.
Speaker 2 (51:56):
Yeah, I really want to encourage anybody who's new
to the field to understandyou're not going to resolve
every case and turn them allinto Larry the Labrador.
That's not going to happen.
Speaker 1 (52:13):
It's okay, that's a national progression in our
journey as trainers.
We kind of move through that oflike I want to take all the
cases, i'm going to takeaggression cases, i'm going to
fix them all, and then yourealize that that is an
impossible type of goal.
It's a good goal to have, butit's not possible.
And as we get more experiencewe learn the nuances that only
(52:33):
come with time and experience.
Right, and so I would love toif you guys could point out some
resources.
So I know when the Facebookgroup first started it was
actually there was not a lot outthere on grief support and
other support services that areout there that are kind of in
this topic.
So there's obviously lots ofmental health professional and
(52:54):
different avenues to go in thatdirection.
But what have you guysdiscovered in the last few years
for this particular topic, forresources?
Speaker 2 (53:01):
Well, we do keep a resource list on losinglulucom
and we try and keep that up todate and keep those links live.
So, rather than give you guys abunch of links that you'll have
to remember off a podcast, i'mgoing to encourage you to just
go to wwwlosinglulucom and lookunder the resource pages there,
(53:22):
because that's where you'regoing to find the most up to
date links.
There are a couple of thingsthat are really important to
understand.
We don't actually have a lot ofmental health links there
because it's an internationallist And so periodically we'll
get people who want to post, youknow, some of the newer three
digit codes for suicideprevention and mental health
(53:44):
support and that kind of thing,and we don't usually put those
up on losinglulu because thoseare very regional.
We do have resources like whereto find some certified trainers
, because that's a moreinternational thing.
I have certainly referred manyof my clients to your podcast,
mike, because you've discussed alot of issues in behavior.
(54:06):
Those are really reallyvaluable, and Trish and I are
aware that these discussions areso tricky, and so one of the
things that we do is we run acouple of different courses.
So we've got an on demandwebinar called Introduction to
Behavioral Euthanasia forFamilies And that will be in the
show notes so that you can findit.
(54:27):
So if you are a pet owner whois dealing with a dog who is
particularly difficult, that isactually a really good starting
point because it talks about howdo we look at the criteria.
We also have a four week course.
We're recording this in thewinter right now, so we're on
I'm not sure which week of thatAnd Trish and I do that, and
(54:52):
then we've got another one aswell.
So we've got BehavioralEuthanasia for shelter staff and
volunteers And we've just putin place a pro version So you
can buy five or 10 seats on thecourse, and we have discussion
groups, guidelines and all kindsof things for shelter workers.
(55:16):
So those are kind of thenutshell, but, trish, you might
have a few others that you wantto want to share.
Speaker 3 (55:22):
Yeah, I'll just mention that all of those are
available onShelterBehaviorHubcom And I also
teach a 13 week behaviormentorship shelter dog behavior
mentorship And one of the thingsthat we talk about for a whole
week because I think it's soimportant is setting the ability
criteria for shelters, becausejust having a document that says
(55:45):
what do we adopt out and whatdo we not adopt out, without
some little face with littlebrown eyes looking at you at the
time, Having an objective listis really, really important.
It'll never cover everything,but it will help shelters make
appropriate decisions with theirmore difficult animals.
And such an important thing forus to do And I offer consults
(56:08):
on that privately as well.
Speaker 1 (56:11):
Awesome And anything else you guys are working on.
Speaker 2 (56:14):
I've got a new in person mentorship that I'm
offering at Dogs in the Park.
We also have something at Dogsin the Park called the Dog
Trainers Crucible, and the DogTrainers Crucible is a online
group.
It's got a social mediacomponent and it has a monthly
webinar, but it also has amonthly discussion group and it
(56:39):
has guests.
So I'm hoping Mike I've got toreach out to you I'm hoping
you're going to come and be aguest on the crucible with me
sometime, and it's 15 bucks amonth, canadian, which is cheap
because it's meant to helptrainers who are new to the
industry, and so often we'll getpeople talking about cases that
(57:00):
they might be consideringbehavioral euthanasia on the
crucible, and that's a newresource.
Speaker 1 (57:07):
And I'll be sure to link to that in the show notes.
for sure, Trish?
do you have anything else youwanted to add to that list?
Speaker 3 (57:12):
Yeah, i mean Shelter Behavior Hub.
we have new stuff happening allthe time McMillan Animal
Behavior, which istrishmcmillancom.
If you're a new trainer and youwould help talking a client
through a behavioral euthanasiaboth Sue and I do private
consulting You can send yourclient to us.
you can hop on the call as welland hear how we talk to them.
(57:34):
But we encourage you to comeand take the four week course
with both of us called Talkingto Clients about Behavioral
Euthanasia, because I wasn'ttaught this in school.
I did an apprenticeship.
I did an in-person dog trainingschool.
I got a master's degree inanimal behavior.
Nobody taught me to talk to myclients about it And I put my
foot in my mouth more times thanI can count And I would love to
(57:57):
help you not do that with yourclients.
Speaker 2 (58:01):
Me too, because I also put my foot in my mouth way
more often than I should have.
Speaker 1 (58:07):
Trish Sue, thanks so much for coming on.
I appreciate you guys.
I definitely linked all thethings you mentioned.
Speaker 3 (58:15):
Thanks so much for addressing this difficult
subject.
Speaker 1 (58:18):
Yes, yes, Thank you guys.
I hope you enjoyed thisinformative conversation with
Trish and Sue.
They've been amazing friendsand colleagues and I can't thank
them enough for all of theircontributions to the dog
training and shelteringcommunities.
Don't forget to head on over toaggressivedogcom for more
information about helping dogswith aggression, from the
(58:38):
Aggression in Dogs Master Courseto webinars from world-renowned
experts and even an annualconference.
We have options for both petpros and pet owners to learn
more about aggression in dogs.
I also have the Help for Dogswith Aggression bonus episodes
that you can subscribe to.
These are solo shows where Iwalk you through how to work a
variety of types of aggression,such as resource guarding,
(59:00):
dog-to-dog aggression,territorial aggression,
fear-based aggression and much,much more.
You can find a link tosubscribe on the show notes or
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