Beyond the Operant: Healing Your Traumatized Dog

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dr Edwards (00:02):
Hello everybody and welcome to the whole Energy Body
Balance podcast where weexplore all kinds of things that
can make life better, bringhealing, more connection, better
relationships for humans andfor animals, and we hope that we
will inspire you.
We might challenge you a littlebit today, because normally
when we talk about interesting,deep things there's some

(00:23):
challenge in it.
I'm your host, Dr Edward, theHealing Vet.
I help deeply caring people andpets and horses unfold profound
healing.
And today we've got AnniePhoenix, who has got a whole lot
of a whole big box full ofcertifications and things like
that to do with canine behavior,fear-free certification, dog

(00:50):
training, all sorts of things.
So could you give us a littlebit of a rundown and introduce
yourself and let us all know whoyou are, why you do what you do
and how did you get to thispoint?

Annie Phenix (01:05):
yeah, I am located in utah in the united states
and I'm not from utah.
I've been here about sevenyears and because I like
mountains is the main reason,and I've been working with dogs
professionally for like at least25 years and I came out of
rescue, which I think made methe trainer that I am more than

(01:27):
anything else, any coursebecause I was in central Texas
in the wild west from like 1990to 2010, where I wasn't really
sheltering I mean, I was born inTexas but that's when I was
very active in rescue and itwasn't the shelters were not
there to foster or adopt oranything, it was just an on full

(01:49):
scale slaughter.
For especially in the ninetiesit was really bad.
So I started working with a newgroup then called Austin Dog
Rescue, and my role I livedoutside of Austin at the time
was to go into the ruralshelters and the city ones and
find the best temperament dogsthat we could.
We weren't breed specific, um,but because it was rural there
was a ton of herding dogs whichI is my, my absolute favorite.

(02:12):
And what me and the ladiesstarted at love german shepherds
.
And so we pulled germanshepherd after and you know we
would you have to temperament.
We didn't temperament test.
I used my best judgment, havingbeen around a lot of dogs,
having having a lot of GermanShepherds and walking into a
cage unsupervised in the dog'smost stressed out time of its
life, and so I had to learncommunication like that and I

(02:34):
was never bitten and including.
I mean, if there's a Rottweiler,a German Shepherd, call me, I'm
going to come see it.
I just liked those breeds and Ihad to learn really fast, and
pit bulls too, and nothingagainst any of those breeds.
I love them all and they taughtme to be the trainer because I
had to learn body language froma very stressed out animal.
I got burned out, whicheveryone you work with animals

(02:57):
long enough.

Dr Edwards (02:58):
Well, everyone who works in rescue at that level is
prone to burnout.

Yeah, and it was 10, 15 years.
My husband and I together hehad never had an animal in his
life fostered more than 400 dogs.
Whoa yeah, and it adds up fastwhen there's puppies.
You know a litter of 10.
But I realized I was done withthat part of my life in 2010

(03:23):
when I had a litter of threepuppies that needed help.
One was white, one was brown,one was black, and I couldn't
think of any names because wehad named so many.
So they were Whitey, Brownieand Blackie and those were their
names.
Those people kept their names.
I'm like I'm just done.
And then I realized there's sucha massive influx of dogs into

(03:45):
shelters for what I call sillyreasons that are quite trainable
, like jumping on people,pulling on the leash, maybe
growling at other dogs and so Iwasn't an official trainer, but
I went to a training school inTexas and that was my goal and
this was like 20, really around27, 207.
I want to get those dogs whenthey're young and help people so

(04:07):
that they don't have to dumpthe dog.
For that reason at least,because it seemed preventable,
At least I could stop some of itanyway, and I ended up going to
a Schutzen school, which istotally opposed.
If people don't know, it's asport that's like military style
training.
They teach bite work and attackand trailing and high level

(04:31):
obedience.
It's not for pet dogs.
Actually, I don't mind thesport, I don't like how it's
trained and I didn't like.
I was trained there and I knewthat I would have to learn the
shot collar, but it was the onlyschool in Texas and I was
totally against it.
I'm glad I did it because I atleast know exactly how they work
.
I had to put it on a rescue dog.
I took my own dogs and Irefused to put it on my dogs.

Dr Edwards (04:54):
So I'm just going to interject because I can't help
myself, because I think it'sfascinating to talk to someone
with your philosophy who hasactually used shock collars,
because I refuse to haveanything to do with them.

Yeah, I do too on a philosophical level.
It was really the only schoolat the time and I wanted
certification.
That was so important to me andI knew it was going to be
difficult.
But it has served me well,because one of the big arguments
here against the cookie pusherslike me is you don't know how
to use it.

Dr Edwards (05:25):
You don't know what you're doing.
Yeah, so you, you've trainedand you know how to use them,
according to how they use them Iknow better than they do
generally, but do you still usethem no no god absolutely not
awesome.

I never use them again and I knew I wouldn't.
And, um, one thing I saw whichI can speak to, that most force
free trainers cannot speak to isso.
It's a big metal building inthe middle of Texas and the
trainers with the kennel dogswere at one end of the building
and we, the students, were theother with our dogs, or we had
to train a rescue dog and that'sthe dog.

(05:59):
I'm sorry that I had to put ashotgun on, and almost every day
they were German shepherdsbecause they were just big,
tough, macho kind of dog ownersand dog people.
A dog would break loose fromthe trainers with all their shot
collars, no leashes, and comeand try to attack one of our
dogs and they run through theshock Every like once or twice a

(06:21):
week and some of our dogs werehurt.
And so I'm like this.
It it doesn't work if the dogis determined enough and strong
enough.
I mean the dog.
It was horrible, it was abusive.

Dr Edwards (06:31):
Not only that, if the dog goes into hot, orange or
red zones of arousal, theirpain, tolerance drops off and
their brain turns off.
Then nothing's going to makeany difference.

And since then I know trainers here in the States
who still use them and sayoddly on podcasts oh well, yeah,
I had a German Shepherd but hegot hit by a car.
And I'm like, why did he gethit by a car?
Because you have the shockcollar on him and you trusted
that it is a guarantee.
And I have not had a dog hit bya car because I have a leash.

Dr Edwards (07:03):
No, I hear you and I'm really curious about that,
and it's a good conversation tohave in that.
One of the things they say isit saves dogs lives and you know
, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
That's a big argument from theshockers, as I like to call them
, and I don't agree with that.

I don't either.
There's no proof of thatwhatsoever.
So that was traumatizing for meand I knew it would be and it
was not a good experience.
But I have that knowledge.
I can talk to people who usethem because I can say I have
used them once one dog 15 yearsago and then I found clicker
training and that was kind ofjust becoming the big thing.

(07:43):
And then I'm a journalist aswell.
I grew up in a journalism familyand a writer and I started
writing for this company calledDogster, which at the time was a
big online, one of the firstonline community for talking
about dogs, and I was their leadtrainer and I ended up writing
a book for Dogster which is theMidnight Dog Walkers.
It was my first book and Icalled it.
Midnight dog walkers was myfirst book and I called it

(08:04):
midnight dog walkers because myclients I was really I was
always in behavior Like I don'tcare.
I did sports stuff on my ownnose work but I don't care about
, and it's fine if you want todo that, but to me I'm.
I want to help the troubleddogs it was, I don't know.
I think it's because I I knowit's because I had trauma in my

(08:28):
own life as a child and feltthat when you're out of control
and you don't have any controland it's scary and I could see
it in the dogs.
So I called it the midnight dogwalkers, because my clients
would say I walk my dog atmidnight because it's reactive.

Dr Edwards (08:37):
It's the only time when I know I'm not going to
meet another dog, right.

I'm like, except you're all out meeting each
other, um, and it did reallywell and um, it's kind of half
memoir.
And then I got burnt out.
By then I'd been dealing withdogs 15, 20 years and we again.
So I keep trying to retire andI did for five years, like after
the book came out 2016 to 2020and we were selling a property
in Colorado.
It was a horse property.
I know you have a horsebackground too and I love horses

(09:08):
and we were moving to Utahbecause of my husband's job and
so I just was in and out of the,I just quit all and it's so
political and it's so.
There's so much infighting, allthe stuff.
It reminded me of adysfunctional family with lots
and lots of trauma on our side.
I don't know if it is there inAustralia, but there's so much
fighting on the force-free sideagainst each other.

Dr Edwards (09:30):
Oh yeah, and you know the whole force-free, the
whole absolute positivereinforcement thing.
I think you can go too far withthat too.
You know, and I've seen somedogs that are just like fat
puddings, that will only movefor a treat and they won't do
anything else ever in their life.

And then people say well, what you use is not
force-free, but what I use isforce-free.
And how dare you?

Dr Edwards (09:53):
You're frozen on me.

I did oh no.

Dr Edwards (09:58):
Oh, we're back.
We're back.
There's been a little internetglitch here.

I hope I'm.
I probably froze with a weirdface, anyway, so I quit.
I mean, I was still workingwith clients, because I've
always done that, but I just Iwas out of groups, I wasn't
participating.
I had a good time, I hadhobbies, I painted furniture and
learned to cook, I spent timewith my dogs and then I wrote.
I was asked by my publisher towrite a second book in 2020,
2020, covid.

(10:25):
Nothing else was going on inthe world and I almost didn't
write this book.
And this book changed my lifeand I'm training again because
of what happened in this book.
I'm halfway through the.

Dr Edwards (10:36):
Just tell us the name, because you know some of
this is going to be audio only,so we can't see it.

It's Positive Training for Aggressive and
Reactive Dogs and it is inAustralia and it just was
released on audio cool as welland it's been a bestseller.
It was a bestseller year beforeit was released and it's been a
bestseller on amazon.
So one reason it's a bestselleris I I'm a journalist and so I
just here.
What happened is I almostdidn't write the book.

(11:03):
I'm like it's too's too muchtrouble.
You don't make money.
I'm kind of retired but I saidlet me see if there's anything
new.
I don't want to talk counterconditioning or the four
quadrants ever again in my lifeto help these troubled dogs.
What is new?
And I saw Andrew Hale, who Isaw you had interviewed him in
Beyond the Operant, and he wasinterviewing Sarahah fisher and

(11:27):
laura donaldson, who they're allin my book, and I said what is
beyond the operant?
I'm finally people are talkingabout something other than
operant conditioning, not to gettoo dark what is?

Dr Edwards (11:35):
give us the?
Give us a little summary ofwhat is beyond the operant.

Um, we've used operant conditioning for the
skinner.
It goes all the way back toSkinner and Pavlov and we're
trying, we're saying, oh, we canchange the internal emotion
around a scary event for a dogthrough little by little,
counter desensitizing.
And I in my book I said chickenwill fall from the sky when the
dog sees the trigger, areactive dog.

(12:02):
And we're trying to say to thedog let's make a healthy
association, don't be scared ofthe chicken.
And for my clients it didn'toften work.
They didn't like it, theydidn't get it.
I thought it was too slow andno one was talking about trauma
to bring it back to trauma.
So I watched Beyond the Operant, which is still on YouTube.

(12:22):
It was fascinating and I got soexcited I said, yes, I'll write
the book and I interviewed 17,16 experts around the world that
were doing fascinating thingsthat were kind of somewhat new
to me, like Sarah Fisher withfree work, and I got excited
again.
I really probably the firsttime as a trainer, and I started

(12:42):
focusing on trauma and becauseof the trauma in my own life.
And then I got two healers,finn and Cooper, who are five
now.
I got them 2019.
They were five weeks of age andI knew taken.
I never took to the person whotook them from Northern Idaho to
Southern Utah.
So a seven hour car trip atfive weeks of age, taken from

(13:04):
their mother.
I only talked to the wife overtexts.
I never met the people and Isaid I'm kind of concerned that
they're five weeks old.
They should have stayed withtheir mother at least till eight
or nine weeks.
And they're like oh, we didn'tknow that and I tried for adult
foster dogs.
My beloved, highly trainedborder collies had passed away

(13:30):
so I was in an emotional state.
Anyway there was a white one atleast.
Red, big, fluffy and a blueheeler.
And I always wanted a blueheeler cattle dog, australian
cattle dogs, and I've always hadherding dogs.
I just hadn't had healers andthey were mixed with Border
Collies, supposedly.
So two of my favorite breeds andI had tried adult dogs.
They just didn't work in theenvironment that we're in now
and I thought at least a puppy Ican influence.
But I knew at five weeks I gotthem at five and a half weeks.

(13:51):
That is a tremendous trauma andthey were thrown in a backyard
unsupervised and they werefighting each other over food
because they probably imaginedthey'd just put kibble out
during the day and good luck.
And so that's a massive,massive trauma.
And when the brain is stillforming and they're still there
just to me, they're just sayingam I safe or am I not safe?

(14:13):
And they're like we are notsafe.
We are definitely not safe andit took me because I took so
many photographs, because Ididn't have enough from my
previous puppies, 20 years inthe past I took some videos and
I noticed that on the seventhmonth their bodies relaxed, so

(14:33):
they trusted us, but their bodykept the score of that.
Oh, they had worms two types ofworms and fleas.
So they were neglected, yeah,and traumatized, and so they are
a big part of this book too.
And that's when I got and Istarted writing the book, maybe

(14:54):
a year later, and I stillremember the day.
So when they were growing up,we would sit on a chair and have
our feet up on a coffee tableand both dogs love to put their
back feet on the ground andtheir front feet on us, and I
didn't realize that that's aform of grounding for dogs.
I learned that from Dr LauraDonaldson.

Dr Edwards (15:14):
Is this one of the reasons why dogs like to jump up
on you?

Exactly.

Dr Edwards (15:19):
Oh, this is new to me.

We punish them for that, you know.
So they miss being petted at atthe right time.
It should happen with thebreeder way before they ever get
to you.
So even with all the love andeverything I knew I knew they
were going to be a lot of workthey're still apprehensive about
just petting.
They think they think it'sweird, even though we did all
the puppy stuff.

(15:41):
So I'll ask Finn, who's 75pounds, can I pet you?
And he knows what it is.
And he'll sit down and he looksdejected and he's like gross.
And I noticed that heself-grounds.
He's a completely different.
I should show photos for thosewho can see this.
If he puts his back feet on thefloor and jumps on the kitchen

(16:01):
counter, which we also punishwith his front feet, he's never
stolen one thing in five years.
He looks like a happy-go-luckylab.
His mouth is open, his tail iswagging, I can do his ears.
He's very comfortable if he'sgrounded.
And it was Dr Laura Donaldson,who's a US trainer out of New
York, who taught me that there'salso the outside grounding and

(16:24):
the negative energy, and that'salso Laura.
Laura brings the science andimproves all that.
And now when I see a dog that'sfrantically jumping, I'm
teaching my clients to have themtrain to jump up here on your
arm like this.
Teach this as a cue.

Dr Edwards (16:41):
So personally, you know I like to have boundaries
around my personal space andownership of my personal space
with a dog, but I'm very happyto invite them to jump up on me
as well.

Yeah, and that's a personal decision, but I think,
if we understand, the behavioris not a bad dog.
Necessarily they're tryingtheir own way to calm their own
self, and so there's other wayswe can do it.
Jump on the arm, jump on thecounter if you need to.
I mean they're not mine are notcounter-surfing.
They can smell whatever's there.
They've had opportunity.
They don't do it.
And Cooper, his brother, is ashort, more short.

(17:15):
He's got more healer in himbecause I got their DNA and he
looks like a blue healer.
And Finn looks like a bordercollie and he has a border
collie coat, which isfascinating, and he's more
neurotic.
Cooper is that kind of I saidif he was a guy in a pub he'd
buy everybody around to drinksand tell all the stories and
he's just happy-go-lucky butalso stubborn, which he's not

(17:37):
like.
Using that labor, cooper's inlife for Cooper, whereas Finn
has got the oh my god, where'smy family?
Almost circling, whereling,where are you?
Where are you?
Like we go on a walk togetherand Finn is watching us.
Where are you?
Where are you?
Where are my sheep?
And Cooper's like I'm going togo over here because I want to
smell that.
So Cooper doesn't ground asmuch.
But Cooper also doesn't like tobe petted, just he doesn't know

(18:00):
how to normally be petted.
So I brought in a little bit ofT-Touch and Sarah Fisher's work
a free work and Laura Donaldson, where I touch pressure points
here, here at the top of theirhead and there's a spot here on
his paw, and when there'sthunderstorms and Finn is scared

(18:23):
and Cooper is not bothered, Iwill tap, use tapping on Finn.

Dr Edwards (18:29):
Yeah, on yourself as a surrogate, yeah.

Well, no, I'll tap on Finn because he likes it, or
massage, but Cooper, you tap onhim and he gets up and leaves
Like, don't do that, but Cooperlikes this, and so I don't have
to pet them because they're notcomfortable, because they missed
it at that critical age.

Dr Edwards (18:49):
That's an interesting thing for me to hear
because you know my whole thingis therapeutic touch and one of
the big things with therapeutictouch is how it causes
relaxation responses andoxytocin release and if you do
it consistently over a period oftime, consistently see very big

(19:11):
improvements in terms of betterregulation, less anxiety,
healing of trauma and all thatsort of thing.
And you have to teach them howto accept the touch because a
lot of them number one they'venever been touched, so it's
weird.
But number two when theytouched, so it's weird.
But number two when they relax,it's scary.

Yeah I do pet them on the bed because that's where
they're comfortable if they'relying down and I you know it's
just like, but they don't likeany kind of pet like, and we
don't hit them anyway or petthem, but they just it's not
relaxing for them.
Yeah, in a traditional way.
And it reminds me of I.
I read this horrible studyyears and years ago.

(19:50):
They used to do, and still do,horrible things to animals, as
you know, as a scientist andveterinarian anyway, a study
that I have not seen since, butI know that I read it and maybe
you've heard of it.
It was a long time ago thatthey had two kittens that are
blind at birth and they sewedone eye shut before both eyes

(20:10):
opened and so then this eyeopened and this was sewn shut
and the cat developed normallyand then, at like three months
of age or four months of age,maybe six, they took this, the
stitches out, and this eye wasblind.
It didn't get the informationthat it needed to learn to see
Like, it just missed it while itwas growing and they never saw

(20:33):
out of this eye again.
And I thought that was veryinteresting and same with
petting sometimes, and I tell astory about my own life, where
my family is very small, verydysfunctional.
There's only four kids and nobig relative family or anything.
And just you know, we weren'ttouchers, we weren't huggers, we

(20:53):
didn't say love, you Justneurotic and not neurotic,
neglectful.
Mostly we weren't a loving,close family by any stretch.
And then I meet my husband,who's seven of seven children,
from a Catholic family fromBaton Rouge.
So when you marry into thefamily you have to agree to go
to Christmas, because thatChristmas is a big thing.

(21:15):
For a week they celebrate for aweek.
We're called the outlaws.
It's like you, as an outlaw,you agree to go to Christmas.
I didn't like care for myfamily, so I'm like, fine with
me, and the first few years wewould go, his family is hugger,
they're huggers.
So we're seeing 40 people overfive days, which is a lot for me
, and they're hugging.
They hug when you come in, theyhug when you come out and I

(21:37):
would be like, don't, I'm justlike Finney Cooper, like I don't
just met you and I'm like Ijust saw you this morning, do I
have?

Dr Edwards (21:45):
and you can't say that as the newest girlfriend, I
hear you and I I can relate tothat because personally I had
terrible problem in receivingany kind of intimate touch for a
large part of my life.
So I'm on the spectrum autisticADHD and it's something that
I've had to learn to accept.

(22:05):
And now that I've had you know,my partner is the cuddliest
woman in the world I've had tolearn how to educate my nervous
system to to get comfortablewith that touch and I I don't
know it's been really good forme doing that, but it's's been
challenging.

Yeah, because we just didn't.
We didn't to me.
I didn't get it as a kid and itfelt uncomfortable and that's
how I can relate to Finn andCooper, the dogs that don't like
it.
So the first couple of years Iwould cry on the eight hours
there and I'm not a big crierlike oh, I would cry on the way
home because I missed it.
I'm like I'm not going to be infor the next year by 20 people

(22:50):
or 40 people.
I adapted.
It wasn't.
Nothing scary happened, itwasn't.
You know, if you're a kid andthe wrong person hugs you or
makes you feel uncomfortable andyou're out of control, that's
gross, but I was an adult.

Dr Edwards (23:03):
You just said you adapted, you had an experience
and nothing bad happened, and Iso.
That's exactly what we need todo for our dogs, isn't it?

yeah, keep and guarantee them that they're safe
.
I stopped teaching growly dogclasses and I taught it in
durango, colorado.
We helped so many dogsacclimate to like.
I kept saying I want 10 feet, Iwant you to be able to pass.
You know your dog doesn't haveto live other dogs, but I don't
want.
We want to convince them thatthey're safe enough with you

(23:33):
that they don't have to do thegrappling, lunging because it's
not productive or it's scary andall that.
So we would convince all thedogs over an eight week course,
more less, that you're safe,through a long process and then,
almost all the time, within amonth or two months, I would
hear they were attacked byoff-leash dogs in a city park

(23:53):
where leashes are required.
So I felt like I'm telling thedog you're safe, you're safe,
you're safe.
And then some human yeah.
So I stopped teaching thecourse and instead taught a
course on how to protectyourself and your dog on walks,
because it will happen.

Dr Edwards (24:10):
I don't know how big of a problem it is in australia
, but they're it's a massiveproblem and you know, I remember
, I remember in one dog park ondusk with my three dogs in
melbourne and suddenly a staffiecomes galloping in and
blindsides us with a flashinglight on its collar and the

(24:30):
human's like 100 metres away,Just total loose cannon.
And at that time Mitzi wasquite reactive so it was not a
good circumstance to be in.
But yes, it's a problem.

It's terrifying and it seems to be almost
everywhere.
So I got defensive and reactive, like I am now, because I had
senior border collies and I'mlike you your dog is not allowed
to hurt my senior bordercollies.
These are my children and nowmy two.
So back to Finn and Cooper.
I didn't care about traininganymore.
I was burnt out.
My border collies had lots oftitles.

(25:08):
They were nose work competitors.
Echo became a therapy dog atage six and they were semi-feral
.
When I got them they were alsobrother and sister, so they
loved it.
They love that work.
Some of these Border Colliesare like I want to work, I want
to work and they loved it and wehad a great relationship To me.
They were wonderful, perfectdogs.

(25:29):
I get these highly traumatizedyoung healer with.
Throw some healer in there andI knew that I had to heal them
versus train them.
And they did all.
The sit down, stay in the worldis not going to help trauma,
it's it's it's stupid.
And we've always told people sitdown, stay, take your puppy to
puppy school.

(25:49):
Well, the puppy's traumatizedbecause it just left everything
it ever knew.
If it had a good home, even ifit had a bad home, it's still
what it knew, and I'm trying toget people to treat puppyhood as
sacred as it is for a mom and ahuman baby.
We know that they need thatconnection.
They need the skin to skin.
We know that they need thatconnection.

(26:10):
They need the skin to skin.
Um, they need you know.
Normal countries, unlike my own, give six months or whatever,
of mother baby time, or evenpaternal time.
Um, we know it, and so we treatinfants and mothers with more
respect, a little more.
We know that it's important,and we don't with mother dogs
and we don't with the puppies.
It's like eight weeks go and wedon't I don't know.

Dr Edwards (26:31):
I mean, I started training jem, our 14 month old
whippet, as soon as she got hereat eight weeks.
I started teaching her things,but I also did a lot of touch
work and healing work right fromthe beginning too, to help her
not only heal but to teach herhow to regulate and relax, which
humans are dreadful at teachingdogs.

(26:52):
They're very good at teachingdogs how to be raised up and
over the top and excited andstimulated because we're monkeys
and I think we're really goodat being monkeys, but we're not
very good at giving dogs whatthey need on that level.

Yet and I say to now it's a difference.
Are you raising your dog?
Are you training your dog?
Are you training your child?
Are you raising your child?
And I I say to now it's adifference.
Are you raising your dog?
Are you training your dog?
Are you training, are youraising your child?
And I I say to my clients Iwant you to be that mama bear
and to nurture your dog first,or your papa bear, go ahead and
nurture your dog.
They start crying becausethey're like what it has to heal

(27:23):
, it has to.
I think we will get to that.
I'm not saying, if anyone'slistening, don't ever train your
dog.
I trained five skills, reallythree that were important to me.
Come when you're called,because that's life or death,
don't on me, preferably staydown, stay, stay down.
Respect my space if I ask you toand um the others for my me

(27:45):
because of my lifestyle.
Where we live, we have a liveon a corner in a busy
neighborhood with a wooden wirefence, so kids come by and stick
their hands through the fence.
So I'm like, I need you to likepeople and not be scary.
And I need you to like otherdogs because I have other dogs
coming through To the best ofyour genetic capability and they
do that.
My dogs do that and preferablydon't yank my arm off on a walk,

(28:07):
but you can sniff and it's notabout healing and making me look
good.
All my other dogs had all thetraining.
I know I can do it, but thesedogs are the happiest dogs I've
ever had and they're silly andthey're like.
It's a miracle to me, given whatthey had to begin with and that
it took me seven months to earntheir trust in their bodies.

(28:28):
They had to begin with and thatit took me seven months to earn
their trust in their bodies.
With everything that I know, Ican't imagine an average person
with two people and a job andthree kids in the house being
able to devote the amount oftime that my husband and I did,
because we don't have kids andwe work from home.
I mean, it was a lot, a lot ofwork.
They were attacking each otheras well, which think that's why,
um, people think they'resibling problems and I I haven't

(28:52):
seen anything about that andthis is my second pair of
siblings, but to me they had somuch nervous energy and that
they had been together theirwhole lives, and so they would
play, play, play, and then onewould pull a bite really hard
and squeal, and when one squeal,the other went in harder and
they were, so they didn't getthat.

Dr Edwards (29:12):
I don't know five to eight weeks of um bite
inhibition, training andsocialization that they would
get with their mom and the otherpuppies and that sort of thing
probably.

Hey and learning to back off.
They were, and I even said tomy husband if I can't fix it,
I'm gonna have to get rid ofCooper because he would not bite
.
I knew that Finn was going tobe a biter and he proved me
right he hasn't hurt anyone, buthe will, because he's a cattle
dog and if he's pushed he'sgoing to use his teeth.
Cooper will not and I said Ineed to probably rehome Cooper

(29:43):
while he's cute and small.
But I said but I don't want to.
So I started puppy play datestwice a week at about two months
old, two or three months old,and then COVID hit because I got
him in August of 2019.
We went through February butthose other dogs taught them

(30:03):
what I could not, which is toback off and to if I yelp, you
need, and if I give you cut offsignals or stop signals, you
need to stop.
And some of them were bigger.
They were all about Iquestioned everybody and so now
I'm like there are times,especially a young dog have to.
They have to learn it fromother dogs.

Dr Edwards (30:24):
Safe dogs, they need to yes, use jim, my little
whippet with puppies, to do that.
Except she's actually she won'tteach really pushy puppies how
to back off, so she's too softfor that, but okay, so, um, you
said you know you've started totouch on this first point we're

(30:44):
going to cover.
We have to shift our thinkinghealing first, training second.
So what do you do what?
What do you use?
What are your strategies andskills for healing trauma in
dogs?

yeah, I love that question, um, and I'm sure
owners that's you know well nowthat we know we need to do it
how, how, and every dog is anindividual individual.
So you know it's like some dogsmay crave petting and that
gives them comfort and minedon't find it as comforting, so
I don't do it as much as I mighta different dog.
So a lot of it does depend.

(31:18):
But I do know that they need tofeel and I got this term from
Laura Donaldson who I've learnedso much from.
She told me about the grounding, she's trauma-informed as well
for humans and dogs.
She knows that deep safety.
They need to feel deep safety,particularly when they're taken
as puppies or you've got the dogfrom the shelter.

(31:38):
I say to people what number homedo you think you are with your
dog?
Oh, I'm the second because Igot it from the shelter.
I said no, he had a home beforethe shelter, probably more than
one.
The litter home, however scarythat was, because most of them
are not well done, adopted orbought or whatever shelter you

(32:00):
probably so at least three otherhomes, probably four.
That's a lot for anybody, andso they come up with their own
code.
So it's not just for puppies.
But puppies, we have a uniqueopportunity to prove to them you
are safe.
And so my big message is slowdown, don't get a puppy on
Thursday and have a kid's partyon Saturday so all your, all the

(32:22):
neighborhood kids can comestick their hands on the dog.
And we've been so wrong aboutsocialization the way we do it.
They have to be socialized, butI say that first 30 days.
Whether it's a shelter dog, anolder dog or a puppy, this is
the time for you and the dog toget to know each other, and for
your, because everything is new.

(32:43):
The smells are new, your houseis new, your routines are new.
Even if it lived in a house,everything is, but particularly
for a puppy.
The, your house is new, yourroutines are new, even if it
lived in a house, everything is,but particularly for a puppy,
the whole world is new.
And so I'm like please, 30 days.
And if you have vacation time,people will tell me good, good,
loving people will say I'vegotten a puppy, I'm picking it
up on Thursday.
I'm going to stay home Thursday, friday, saturday, Sunday,

(33:05):
monday, I go back to work andit's in a crate like four days
is not enough to acclimate frombeing everything that it just
lost.
And I said take a week off Ifyou, if there's two adults, take
two weeks off and you each takea week, and that's the time to
teach them some self-regulation,start reinforcing calmness.

(33:26):
In between the frantic puppystuff laying down chewing, they
have to have something to chewon, because that's self-soothing
, appropriate things.
It's really that 30 days.
I learned this from a horsetrainer.
He was kind of a jerk, a jerkcowboy, because I had a horse
off the racetrack at the timeand I took him straight to a

(33:47):
weekend trainer who I thoughtI'd heard good things about and
I was so worried this horse wasgoing to buck me because he had
never he'd only been a, he was apony horse, so he ran in
circles all day long.
He didn't really have anytraining and he was huge.
He was a big, gruey horse and Iwas scared of him and I was on
the horse, clenching, and I keptturning, turning, turning,

(34:09):
turning, just waiting for him toerupt, and I wasn't helped,
that emotional contagion I wasnot helping the horse calm down
and he screamed at me in frontof everyone, which is not the
best way to learn, but it stuckwith me.
He said you on the blue horse,do less faster.
And I go, do less faster.
What the heck?
I was so stressed out and hesaid put your hand, put the

(34:32):
reins down.
I'm like I can't, he'll buck me, put the reins down.
I'm like, yes, sir, and I hadto put him down and it was hard
to you know.
I just was holding him to thesaddles Western saddle for dear
life and he basically likeyou're micromanaging the hell
out of that horse and you'remaking his tension go through
the roof and he will buck you asopposed to, I have to co, we

(34:54):
co-regulate and we mirror eachother and I have to call myself
first, because I'm sitting onhim and I'm the human and that
horse and I had a wonderfulrelationship after he learned to
be a horse, after being aracehorse, a pony horse, and
kept in a stall.
He didn't know what grass was,and so I tell my dog trainer

(35:14):
clients do less, faster.
And they're like what does thatmean?
It means don't get a new dogand go walk in the neighborhood
within two days and I and I havea 30 day reset program that
says this is what I want you todo every day for 30 days and
it's five to 10 minutes.
We'll get to the training.
I mean you have to do pottytraining.
I usually get potty trainingdone in 24 hours almost always

(35:38):
and it dogs should be pottytrained really and it's
miraculous to me that they canin a whole house.
They figure it out.
Our house is 3,200 square feetand they know not to pee in the
house, like that's crazy.

Dr Edwards (35:51):
Pretty good, isn't it?

Yeah, but the sitting, the down, the staying,
the trading objects, so youdon't get resource guarding.
All that will come in time, butthat dog needs to trust you and
we don't spend time on trust.
We don't spend time on trust.
We don't spend time on beingI'm your mom or whatever you
want to say that pisses peopleoff for some reason.
I'm your nurturing some peopleoff.

(36:16):
Yeah, not everybody, that's okay, you are the social support for
that little bitty being who haslost everything he or she knew,
or the new rescue that's beenin a shelter, in and out in
three or four homes and doesn'tknow what's going on.
It works for both.
So what you do first is thinkabout deep safety.
How do I convince this dog I'mnot going to hurt it?

(36:38):
And it's also about getting toknow that dog and not sit down,
stay and cranking.
And we're going to the park andwe're going to go to Home Depot
.
I say don't go to the vet thefirst unless the dog is sick,
until you have a rapport withthat dog, because you're the
safety vet.
As you know, vet offices can beso stressful for I get started

(37:00):
absolutely.

Dr Edwards (37:01):
I did the fear-free certification a couple of years
ago and I learned a lot moreabout just how stressed dogs
were when they come to the vet.
It's probably more than half ofthem are really suffering when
they come in.

And I'm stressed because I can see it on them how
stressed they are.
I now have vets who come to thehouse.
Well, actually I have for yearsbecause we had horses, so they
were large animal vets and theydid both and that was such a
luxury to have the shot.
But so, number one, deep safety.
I'm replacing the mother dog,I'm replacing the siblings.

(37:34):
If I have a dog in the house,I'm going to go so slow
introducing the two.
There's a trainer in the USnamed Diane Garrett.
She did go to Australiarecently.
She's all about detoxing andde-stressing.
She got a beautiful Germanshepherd that had been she has
shepherds that had been sent toseveral homes and it came to her

(37:54):
and it was young, maybe threemonths old, and she had two
senior, older dogs that werevery well trained and used to
dogs.
She spent four months goingvery slowly, introducing,
introducing, introducing and shecould have done it in four days
.
But she knew the nervous systemand those dogs are best friends
and it wasn't a guarantee thatthe 14-year-old dog would accept

(38:18):
the four-month-old dog.
And so if you have another dogin the house you have to go so
slow.
Even if your dog loves dogs,that older dog needs some space
away from the puppy.
So slow it down, don't takeyour dog everywhere.
I would rather you spend 30days let's just say 10, if
that's all you can give and likeat the end of 10 days.

(38:38):
I want to know if I called youand said what does your dog love
Like?
What does it love most in theworld?
Is it sleeping?
Are they getting enough sleep?
Most dogs do not, especiallypuppies.
We're constantly interruptingthem.
Does your dog like a walk?
Hopefully you don't know theanswer because you haven't taken
him.
I don't walk the dog for awhile.
We need that nervous system,not forever.

(39:00):
We will get to the walk.
But if you've walked the dogbefore the dog is really settled
and trust you, you're justtrigger after trigger, you're
trigger stacking the dog beforethe dog is really settled and
trust you, you're just triggerafter trigger, trigger stacking
the dog.
Um, yeah, 10 days, whatever.
Um, have a puppy play date, butmaybe not for a month you have.
If it's a, really if it's, ifit's a four month old dog, I'm

(39:21):
spending that time to build andif I don't have a safe dog, it
has to be a safe dog about thesame age or an older dog that
really likes puppies.

Dr Edwards (39:31):
So this is very different than what the majority
of people tell you to do, right?

Go to puppy school , terrorize the puppy in a class
, yeah.

Dr Edwards (39:46):
So what do you say to people then?
So say, people are hearing thisfor the first time.
I find with my clients that alot of them immediately go to oh
my god, I did the bad thing.
I'm an awful pet parent.
I've harmed my dog.
I've got gonna shower toxicguilt all over myself for the
rest of my life because I didn'tknow what was the best thing.

(40:06):
What do you say to these peopleright now?
What can they do to feel goodabout themselves and maybe help
the dog that didn't get helpearly on?

That's a great question and guilt is.
There's a whole lot of shamingand everyone is an expert, by
the way, on your puppy.
That's another thing.
My clients will tell me.
But my neighbor said, but myneighbor has will tell me.
But my neighbor said, but myneighbor has shot collar.
But my uncle said, by my bestfriend, raised dog for 30 years.
And I like, tune it out, listento your inner nurturer first and

(40:38):
foremost.
Like the whole thing of lettingpuppies cry it out in a crate,
no, we, please don't do that.
For 20 years ago it was, or Idon't know how long ago, because
again I didn't have children,it was let.
Or I don't know how long ago,because again I didn't have
children, it was let the infanthuman cry it out in the crate.
I mean the crate.
See, I've never had kids in thecrib.
And thank God we matured andsaid pick up the baby, nurture

(41:01):
the baby, don't let it.
Don't let a baby cry, it's afreaking baby.
It needs that connection.
Don't let a puppy cry in thecrate.
If they're crying in the crate,they're not ready to be alone.
And go get it out of the crateand spend shorter amount of time
than the crate you're, you'rebringing your nurturing self
forward.
We've kind of taken that outaway because of the higher

(41:23):
critical sit down, stay, make melook good when I'm healing you
in the park and instead of thisdog is so little, my world is so
big and the dog that.
Cars don't make sense to dogs,vets don't make sense to.
Living in a house doesn't makesense.
Most dogs do not live in ahouse.
In the world, 80 don't live inhouses.

(41:43):
So all of these are humanconstructs that work for us and
some and the thing about feelingguilty is guilt to me is an
unawakening in a way, unlessit's just somebody else is
putting guilt on you and youdidn't do it, but internal guilt
and a little feeling of I couldhave done that differently, I
think is good in some ways aslong as you're not just beating

(42:06):
yourself up for 10 years orsomething.
But guilt is an awareness to me.
Could I do this differently?
I don't like how I treated thatfirst dog and it turned out it
wasn't a very happy dog or itgot more reactive instead of
less reactive.
And can I do it differently?
So a little bit of guilt to meis an awakening.
You don't need to overdo it andthen start questioning.

(42:27):
That's what some of my favoritetrainers, like Sarah Fisher in
the UK who created free work.
Her favorite question is why,why, why, why, why do I feel
guilty?
Take that out and examine itand say, instead of just being
guilty, I'm going to do itdifferently this time.

Dr Edwards (42:45):
I'm not going to put the dog in the crate for 10
hours a day.

I'm not going to take the dog to Home Depot after
two days after I got it out ofthe shelter.
The dog has to decompress.
I'm going to switch and sayinstead of what is my dog doing
for me?
Because we put so muchexpectation, like all the COVID
dogs that people got, becausethe world was freaked out, those
dogs are the trouble that thosedogs have because we had to go

(43:08):
back to work and I think it'sbecause the world shut down and
we were terrified and dogs arevery good at many dogs at
comforting us, yeah.
And then we have thatexpectation and then it's like
the separation anxiety.
I saw a study from like the dogsfrom 2020 to 2022 up 700%.
Noise phobia is through theroof because we gave them one

(43:32):
thing for the first year oftheir life and then, sorry, I
got to go back to work andyou're all whatever.
So if you have guilt, listen toit, learn from it and say I'm
going to figure out a better way.
And honestly, when I say topeople you know how to nurture.
Even if you don't have kidsunless you're a psychopath you

(43:53):
know how to nurture something.
So you may not get it exactlyright, but if you know that
you're creating a safe space foryour dog and you take some time
to educate yourself about a dog.
Dogs need 14 to 16 hours ofsleep.
Puppies have to have those naps.
They have to process whathappened to them Mine were like

(44:14):
just maniacs if they didn't gettheir naps.
Like it was Montessori schoolfor six months where canine
enrichment and I was much moreconcerned about enrichment and
creating resiliency and creatingjoy.
Resiliency and joy has gone outthe wayside for dogs because

(44:34):
we're just micromanaging thehell out of them.
Oh yeah.

Dr Edwards (44:38):
There's no freedom.
Any dog that experiences anyfrustration, the human instantly
rescues them, so they never getto work through frustration and
learn how to regulate andbecome resilient.
So, joy and resilience.
How do you support that in apractical way?
How do you, how do you helpdogs enjoy those?
Well, their skills in a way,aren't they?

yeah, and it's up to us to teach them that they
don't.
I mean, they do have inherentthings, but particularly like
mine, that were taken at fiveweeks of age.
Their answer was to attack eachother because they were so
stressed out.
That's not joy, that's notresilience, that's not going to
be good for the rest of theirlife.
So we did a lot of separating.
My husband would take one and Iwould take one.

(45:18):
I would have done that anyway,just so they can be okay by
themselves.
At some point.
They slept in separate cratesimmediately.
But if they were scared in thecrate, they slept in separate
crates immediately.
But if they were scared in thecrate, I would get them out and
go spend some time with them.
Most of the time we did so muchenrichment, but slow.
Most day I was outside.
Sitting in the front yard withthem is what I was doing,

(45:39):
because our yard is fenced andit happened to be lovely weather
and I spent so much time and Iliked, I loved it.
I loved being outside.
I did all my work outside and Ichanged my schedule,
particularly for the first 30days.
I'm there, I'm your support andI started teaching a recall
right away.
So people might've heard me sayI teach healing first and we'll

(46:00):
get to training.
Recall is so important to methat I do start teaching that,
but that a recall is also arelationship.

Dr Edwards (46:08):
I'm asking oh, oh, say that again.
Everybody listen very carefullyto this.

This is pure gold a recall to me is a relationship
like if we could see what theysmell.
We would be shocked that anydog ever comes back to us
outside and because their noseis so powerful and we're asking
them to ignore it ignore thedeer that came through the yard
last night, ignore the cat thatwandered through the yard, even

(46:35):
if it's just your yard ignoreall that and come back and all
the things that they can hearthat we can't hear.
And it's remarkable.
And I can tell to me what isyour relationship off leash work
with your dog.
That's the other thing is my.
I always do off leash work in asafe area.
That's training.
Then you, that's a relationshipand giving you a choice.

(46:58):
Do you want to come to me?
No, why don't you want to cometo me?

Dr Edwards (47:01):
How can I inspire you to want to come to me?

Yeah, have I scared you or are you just being
a puppy, you know, know?
Or did I call you when you werereally involved in a sniff,
instead of waiting until youkind of looked at me anyway and
made it successful?
My dogs have excellent recalls,and they always have, because
another.

Dr Edwards (47:19):
Another thing that people can try is to tape up
your mouth and then work withyour dog so you can't talk, you
can't make words and you can'tdo the human vocal thing, and
that can be deeply frustrating,but it can be a very powerful
learning experience too andthey're so into watching us, and
so their.

Your body language is crucial.

Dr Edwards (47:39):
It's like dogs know when you're going to go for a
walk versus you're going to thegrocery store because we dogs
know when you're coming home,when you're outside their
sensory range of awareness too,so you know they're.

They're incredibly energetically sensitive as well
and I think they're amazing andthey're a gift and they're just
so common and that anyone canget one.
I don't know that they're.
They're some people some of usdo our dogs are our life and we
get that um but other peoplethey're like it's a car, you

(48:12):
know it's.

Dr Edwards (48:12):
I bought this five thousand dollar, whatever, and
it's not um, treated as anamazing creature that somehow
agreed to live with us so, whenit comes to relationship, what
are your kind of key takeawaysfor helping people build that

(48:37):
beautiful, deep, wide, connected, respectful loving bond with
their dogs?

Honestly, I love that question too.
It's hearing the dog and seeingwhat they're communicating.
Because the trauma to me as ayoung kid was my needs were not
met basic needs and I was notallowed to be myself because it
was a transactional relationship.
I had to be XYZ to be loved oreven just to get a pat on the

(49:10):
head in my family.
And if you have a transactionalrelationship with a dog or a
child, you have to be X in orderto get my affection or calmness
or even food.
That messes a creature up.
And so I beg owners tounderstand canine communication
and canine body language, thingslike calming signals.

(49:32):
Because I say once I show youwhat your dog is saying to you,
without a voice other than abark, of course, or a growl, but
all the stuff they're doing intheir face and their tail and
their body, once I show it toyou, you cannot unsee it, unless
you're just willfully wantingto because you don't want to,
you want to use something harshon the dog or whatever, or you

(49:53):
just don't want to see it.
And I say the same about trauma.
Once I say to you this abouttrauma, once I say to you, this
is freeze, a freeze, it could bea trauma response.
A dog like people.
I hate videos on social mediawhere the dog just sits down in
the middle of the street andwon't go any further.
Well, it could be tired forsure, and then they drag it.
No, a freeze is not a goodthing.

(50:15):
Generally speaking, a freezecould come before a bite, but it
could also be.
I am overwhelmed right now now,and I am not stepping forward,
and so once I start showing bodylanguage, I do a lot of
videotaping of clients.
I mean, I ask them to videotape.
First and foremost.
Let's go through, show me yourdog's day in three or four short
videos and then I'll say stopthe film.

(50:36):
Did you see the lip lick?
Did you see the slow blinking?
That's really hard for people,is a slow blinking.
Did you see the dog turn hishead away from the other dog?
Did you see the dog suddenlystart scratching?
All of these are so subtle andwe are not good, and studies
have even said that that mostowners cannot recognize anxiety

(51:00):
in a dog.

Dr Edwards (51:01):
Oh God, no, Not at all.
So how do you interpret slowblinks and those soft, heavy,
sleepy kind of eye things thatthey do?

I see it as it needs to be, contextual.
It's kind of like a shake-off,where a dog does this.
You know it's like, well, youjust had a bath.
That's contextual.
That's shaking off the water.
But if you're in your kitchenand a loud noise happens and the
dog does a shake off, then I'msaying I almost think they're
resetting their nerves a littlebit.
I don't know for sure, but it'slike a yawn or a heavy sigh, or

(51:33):
when we do this to be, it'slike oh, that stressed me out a
little bit.
So to me, blinking in myinterpretation and anybody you
can interpret anything you wantum is a couple of things.
One is a calming signal toanother dog.
I don't mean you any harm, Idon't mean you, especially if
they're kind of turning.
My dog, finn um, is exquisiteand he's white with dark

(51:58):
eyeliner around his eyes, and sohis slow blinking is I almost
think he's either trying to sayyou're stressing me out a little
bit and or I'm trying to figureout what is happening in the
moment with Finn Um because, um,uh, thunder one night and then
the stupid smoke alarm went offand he started shaking and and I

(52:21):
actually thought he was almosthaving a seizure.
but um, when he kind of came outof it, he just was slowly
blinking like what in the hellwas that?

Dr Edwards (52:30):
and social processing is huge yeah, I I
when I'm doing relaxing touch.
That's a very common hallmarkof response to relaxing touch is
this often sleepy, heavy eyetype, slow blinks and stuff like
that.
So I kind of wonder if it's aself-regulation, as in the
parasympathetic nervous systemis switching on a little bit and

(52:52):
that's one of the kind of signsof that.

Yeah, and people do not see blinking or yawning.
They don't see the dog yawning.

Dr Edwards (53:00):
Oh God, I do.
In fact I do slow blinks topeople and they respond to it.

Yeah, yeah, and that's the calming part of it
for sure.
It's fascinating.

Dr Edwards (53:16):
Well, it's also like I feel safe with you because
I'm willing to shut my eyeswhile you're here with me.
Yeah, there's another way thatI interpret that, because you
know, if your dog's anxious,they're never going to close
their eyes.
They're going to be watchingyou.

Yes.

Dr Edwards (53:27):
If they trust you, closing their eyes is kind of
also for me at least some levelof trust to close your eyes.
And cats too.
I've got my kitten here.
He's asleep on the bench.
Coolest kitten ever.
But cats, if you give them aslow blink when you meet them,
they'll often give you a slowblink right back and then say

(53:48):
come right up to you and befriends.
And the people say my cat nevertalks to anyone.
What do you do?

We should challenge people.
Start blinking at animals andwatch them blink.

Dr Edwards (53:59):
Slow blinks.
I call them eye kisses becauseI have situations where dogs
will come and do that and it'sin a relaxed context and they're
just wanting to connect andcommunicate.
And they'll come up and they'lldo the little soft half blinks
and slow half blinks and I callthem eye kisses as well.

And I've even paid more attention to mine again
because of free work and filmingfilming my own dogs.
I think that they are throwingme calming signals quite a lot,
not because they're calming medown, they're just a lot of dogs
don't like direct eye contact.
Some do they.
You know, let's share the lovehormone by looking in each
other's eyes.
We know that that happensbetween the species, but some of

(54:40):
the hurting dogs in myexperience can be so sensitive
that just a direct stare is likeyou're being really rude.
And I've started paying reallyclose attention to my dogs, and
Cooper particularly, even thoughhe's rowdier than Finn or not
as sensitive.
When I try to look him in theeye he just he's turning his

(55:01):
cheek and he doesn't like directeye contact.
And so I'm like are youthrowing me a calming signal or
I think he just doesn'tappreciate.

Dr Edwards (55:10):
It makes him a little nervous it's like that's
too intrusive, it's too invasive, whoa too much yeah, just the
eyes.

So imagine how we touch dogs and we, just our
hands are all over them, we justthrow on a harness or whatever
and drag them by the neck.
I mean, they're giving us somany signals and that, to me, is
the first step is watch videos,find out which are good and
healthy ones like Fear FreePrets has a ton of a very

(55:38):
sensitive video library andhealthy ones like Fear Free
Pretz has a ton of a verysensitive video library.
I find a positive reinforcementtrainer and there's one I love
in Canada called Happy HoundsDog Training.
She's got excellent videos.
There's so many really goodones that you can trust.
But if you don't know who totrust, you could go down a
rabbit hole.
When I wrote my first book, Ityped in in 2015, could go down

(56:00):
a rabbit hole.
When I wrote my first book, Ityped in in 2015, aggression in
dogs, and at the time Googlewould say 680 million responses
in 2.3 seconds.
So if you're dealing with a dogthat's growling and lunging and
you go to the internet, youcould get Jim Bob or Kathy Sue,
who has no training whatsoever,not a single certification, and

(56:20):
says, oh, I can cure your dog'saggression, guaranteed in 30
days because they can go get ashot.
You know, use some discernmentand if you do and that's where
listening to yourself and yourown heart comes in If you're
like that looks harsh, I don'twant to spray my dog in the face
with a water bottle.
That seems gross to me.
I don't want to spray my dog inthe face with a water bottle.
That seems gross to me.

(56:41):
Yeah, it stopped it, but whatdoes that do to the relationship
?
Well, I'm not going to throw achain at my dog on the floor or
crate it or scare it.
A lot of us can see,particularly if the dog is
crouching or has the whale eye.
I mean, use your heart.
We've gotten away from that intraining because it's science,
science, science says that'swhat has happened in the

(57:07):
industry anyway, as trainers,and it's like that's going back
to joy.
We get dogs for a reason andmost people get it because they
love dogs Most, not all people.
Some people are assholes todogs, for sure, but they.
And if you get so bogged downinto the training or you have a
difficult or frustrated dog oranxious dog that's barking and
lunging, and then yourfrustration grows and you don't
get help from a qualified andthere are fewer and fewer force

(57:31):
free behaviorists who arebehavior consultants who really
can help with reactivity, and alot of it is because they're not
looking at it as a traumaresponse.
My dogs actually were also carphobic because of that very
early journey taken at fiveweeks they were in a truck for
seven hours.
In my mind they were just inthe back of a truck, maybe in a

(57:52):
crate.
They were the most phobic carand I've worked with car phobic
dogs before, mostly counterconditioning and desensitizing.
If one more, when I was writingI wrote a whole horse about
them because now they're they'remostly over it.
We go places every week.
I didn't for two years becausethey had streaming diarrhea and

(58:13):
streaming vomit and their heartswere pounding so hard.
It was traumatizing to them tobe in a car and we tried the
medication.
We work with vets and if onemore person told me, give them
ginger snaps that'll fix it,that'll fix the trauma, that'll
kill the trauma, just like thatjust does not fix trauma.

(58:33):
Counter conditioning does notfix trauma.
So I used I finally, all mydogs I would with, and these two
never went hiking with me and Istarted missing it.
They were fine in theneighborhood, they didn't care,
that's what they grew up with.
But I knew that we could behiking in these gorgeous
mountains and it was weird to meto walk without a dog, like I

(58:53):
haven't done it in 30 years,like what's the point of walking
when you don't have a dog.
And so I missed it.
So I said I have to help themand I started looking.
There wasn't a course.
There's hardly any courses andif they are, they're old and not
of use.
And medication didn't help them.
I mean, the car was wrecked.
Basically, we would put so manylayers down.
We tried to take a little triphere and little trip there, try

(59:14):
the gym.
I mean nothing.
I mean it was a huge traumaresponse to them because of what
had happened to them.
So I used free work, which isSarah Fisher's program.
I put the car in the garage offwith the door shut.
You don't want to turn your caron in the garage.
I have to say that, yeah, withthe door shut.

(59:34):
And then we did free work onceor twice a week with the car in
there.
Ignore it, I don't care, Idon't see a car, do you see a
car?
And free work is they're doingstations and smelling and
sniffing and seeking it lightsup their brain and I'm just
observing, I'm not sayinganything, do what you want.
And they're finding treats hereand there, licky treats,
crunchy treats, and I'mobserving the whole thing is

(01:00:03):
watching what they're doing.
And so then I would go to thecar door open with no car on,
and that is a little bit ofcounter-conditioning and
desensitizing, but the free workis what engaged their mind and
calmed their bodies.

Dr Edwards (01:00:13):
So free work would be a kind of serotonin-dominant
kind of thing.
Yeah, because of seeking.

Annie Phenix (01:00:20):
It does everything .
It's a.
I mean it almost seems likemagic because it can do so many
things.
Like sarah says, don't go intoit expecting anything because we
put too much expectations.
But I still kind of use it thatway.
Like finn is ball obsessed tothe degree that I think is
unhealthy, and so I was talkingto sarah fisher about it, he
came up with free work and sheworks with police dogs that kind

(01:00:44):
of fail out of the coursebecause they won't let go of the
ball because they're so theybreed them to be toy driven and
all of that.
And that's Finn like his lifeis ball.
And she kept saying she did awhole police course of free work
, one dog, one at a time wherethey could very quickly, with
one or two sessions of the dogbeing off leash, free work,

(01:01:05):
sniffing here, sniffing there,seeking, digging through snuffle
mats and not being talked to ormanaged, maybe encouraged.
But we're not our job, it's notus, it's the dog is being a dog
.
That's one reason it works.
Yeah, and then the owner couldjust drop a ball.
And so then the question forSarah is does the dog need the
ball as a security blanket?

(01:01:26):
Because she's noticed her.
She has a big arena that'soutdoor but covered, and so she
would notice most of the dogswere able to leave that ball and
I didn't believe it because I'mlike Finn will not leave the
ball and I started filming it.
I went through a course of hersand she said she did notice
that sometimes if dog couldignore the ball, which is huge,

(01:01:46):
but a flock of birds would flythrough or an airplane would go
over and the dog would kind ofget out of it and it really
helps.
Noise phobic dogs noisesensitive because they're busy
working.
But if they kind of come out ofthe trance or whatever they're
in and they hear the noise, someof them might go grab that ball
because it's kind of anemotional and chewing the
chewing is helpful.

(01:02:06):
So I did it with Finn, exceptit wasn't a ball, because I
worked a way up to a ball.
It was a snake toy and I haveit on video and because I
couldn't believe it.
I always feel my free workbecause I'm learning from my own
dogs and so he's gone throughthe free work, gotten all the
food he knows what free work isand then the snake was left and

(01:02:28):
he brings it over and I couldsee it in his eye it's not,
doesn't shape like a ball at all, and he brings it over and he
drops it.
And he brings it over and hedrops it, and I just kind of
look away, I don't correct them,and he starts whining and
that's what he wants.
I don't care what it is, justthrow something.
And I just kind of said, Ididn't say anything, I just sat
there and just kind of turned mycheek away a little bit and he
looked at me because I'm stillfilming and he looks at the

(01:02:50):
thing and he looks at me and youcould see him like but there
might be a treat over there,might be something I didn't find
, and he goes and he leaves itand he goes and he's done.
He doesn't do it again and Iworked up to a ball.
Um, so that's, that's the andthat's how I helped them with
getting over their car phobia.
Because when I opened the doorwhich they ignored for a long

(01:03:11):
time, but when they're happy,seeking free work the day finn
jumped into the back seat, Istarted, started crying and said
I can help him now becausethat's consent.
He jumped in that car becausewe forced him in the car and he
chose after.
I mean, it wasn't even thatlong, maybe a month of building

(01:03:36):
up to that, the door open.
And then I did the old counterconditioning, which is we're
doing free work, jump in the car, jump out of the car, jump in
there.
And I wasn't bribing him.
You don't throw the ball inthat some people want to do that
.
That's mixing something heloves with something he's
terrorized by.
I got him very comfortable in astationary car, not turned on,
even with me in the driver'sseat, him at the door shut,

(01:03:58):
because then they're trapped,even with me in the driver's
seat, him with the door shut,because then they're trapped.
And then we started doing thelittle drives around and I'll
give him a choice.
We walk out our garage door andI'll say do you want to go for
a ride or do you want to go fora walk?
And he'll go to the car doorevery time.

Okay, cool, that's a massive transformation.

And it was that consent, and we don't think
about consent.
He chose yeah, and it was thatconsent, and we don't think
about consent.
He chose to get in the car.
It wasn't such a big scarything anymore and it took time.

When it comes to consent, um, and you've got dogs
that need to be handled orexamined or have interventions
and stuff like that, how do youmanage that?
Because that that's kind oflike sometimes necessity is is
urgent.
How do you do that in a waythat serves everyone?

that, to me, goes back to resiliency.
So if something happens whereyou have to take a car phobic
dog into the and this is onereason we need to get them past
the car phobia because therewill be probably a time that
they might even you might have amedical emergency and they have
to go stay with somebody else,but they have to get there in
the car.
I mean, we are car drivenhumans, I'm driven, that's a pun

(01:05:09):
.
But so to me, resiliency of Ihave worked so hard on showing
you new things and building yourtrust up over time, but putting
trust into the trust bank.
And so if something scaryhappens, like that time that we
had thunder and then the firealarm, smoke alarm went off and
it was one of those ones wecouldn't stop, and those things

(01:05:30):
are so loud and they go off,they're horrible.
And I feel for dogs, even ifthey go off and the owner's not
home, because they cannot getaway from it.
So I took him out to the garage.
It was like two in the morningin winter so it was freezing and
my husband almost beat thething with a bat to get it and
we've unplugged it and it'snever been plugged back in.
But that was very traumatic forFinn.

(01:05:51):
But I had built so much trustin him that I will help you
solve your problems.
But I also want him to solvesome problems.
I teach him how to solveproblems.
I give him agency.
He has a lot of choices that hemakes day to day so he can
trust himself.
I have a dog door and a fencedyard.
We control when they're outthere and they're never out

(01:06:13):
there if we're not home.
But that dog door gives themthe choice to go inside or
outside.
If I have to pee I can gooutside, that sort of thing.
I look for agency, I look forbackup.
I'm your social support.
I will help you through thesescary things.
And it's really that sevenmonths I took of calming that
nervous system and saying youare safe, you are safe, you are

(01:06:37):
safe.
So when that accident happens.
Yeah, I may have to put you inthe car, even if we hadn't
already gotten over it, butyou're you're bleeding, so we
got to go, that's you know it'snot an option.
Yeah, yeah, but if they haveresiliency and a lot of dogs are
not resilient or if somethingdoes happen.
You're walking your dog andhe's had a great life for three

(01:06:58):
years with you, never beenapproached or scared by an
off-leash dog and one day theycome flying out of a door and
hurt your dog.
That's trauma and we need to gohome and we need to give 10
days off of walking or whatever.
Every dog's different.
A lot of people go.
I'm going right back tomorrowso you won't be scared in that
spot and I know the nervoussystem needs if you, if you have

(01:07:24):
a big trauma in your life timeto figure out what just happened
to you and let that body rest.
And we don't do that.
We don't.

We don't let dogs rest yeah, look, and I think
that's one of the probably thebig key things overall is we
don't let dogs rest, we don'tsupport downtime and relaxation,
we don't teach dogs how toself-regulate and build capacity
.
I really see that thatself-regulatory capacity is
resilience, you know.

It is Exactly, and there's so much that we're
learning and their nervoussystem is just like ours, we
co-evolved.
And so that's when we say I'm ahuman trauma informed person.
And then I moved over to dogcanine trauma informed because
they have an amygdala, they havethe frontal cortex, they have a

(01:08:16):
nervous system cortex, theyhave a nervous system.
They can respond in many of theways and do respond that we
respond physically, like ourbodies the freeze, the fight um
flight.
A lot of dogs just want toescape and get the hell out when
they're scared.
But we've put a leash on themand the pigeon, of course yeah,

(01:08:37):
it's, if you can help a humanbody regulate like talking, like
I had a startle reflex for manyyears and a cold shower finally
finally helped me.
When nothing, you can't talkthrough a somatic body response
in talk therapy it's like aginger snap.
It's not going to help solvetrauma oh look, I, I agree.

Um, after my marriage I had post-traumatic
stress because I'd spent sevenyears with a covert, narcissist,
abusive type of human being andthat somatic experiencing
approach changed my whole lifeand now that's my core practice,
and when I do my somaticpractices I see all the dogs in
the room relax in response to medoing an internal practice

(01:09:18):
relax in response to me doing aninternal practice.
Yep, it's crucial.
Oh, it's absolutely the thing.

And it's like we put training before healing and
training before trusttraditionally, and we put
learning and school and road andsociety above somatic body work
.
To me, that was my final I mean, you're never finally healed
but it was the missing piecethat I could never get to in my
own trauma is the cement, thetapping, the cold water, deep

(01:09:47):
breathing.
It's like it should be taughteverywhere and it's just not.
And for a long time it wasridiculed.
In fact, I have this.
I wanted to bring this up.
I don't know if you can readthis.
You probably can read that.
I'll read it.
Have this.
I wanted to bring this up.
I don't know if you can readthis.
You probably can read that.
I'll read it.
Um, peter levine and I love andthis is from the cptsd
foundation, which is in uk, andI love their stuff.
It's a um incredible uh websiteand I love their memes, but

(01:10:13):
this was I was where I got itfrom.
Peter levine is a psychologisttrauma, is perhaps the most
avoided, ignored, belittled,denied, misunderstood and
untreated cause of humansuffering, and I scratch out
human suffering and say caninesuffering.
It's for both of us yeah, andequine especially horses.

(01:10:35):
I don't have horses anymore.
While they they passed away.
I kept them until they passedaway, but, um, like I can't
stand how horses are treated intexas, give me a break.
I rode without a bit, finally,and I had a runaway horse.
He didn't have a buck, but hewas.
I mean, I almost went throughfences with him and he didn't
like the bit, and because I tookthe bit out and I learned how

(01:10:57):
to work him in just a lightharness halter.

Hackleball halter, yeah, those things.

He never ran away.
That alone, I think it's like adeep breath.
I don't need to outrun the bit.

Yeah, what an interesting conversation we've
had today.
We've covered a lot of ground,and a lot of really important
ground, I think, and you'vecertainly given me a whole lot
of food for thought.
I've given everyone else outthere who's listening food for
thought.
Um, so one question that thatwe'll finish off with.

(01:11:35):
What is the change that youwant to be and inspires others
to be in this world?

I think it goes back to what I said about seeing
dogs as something to cherishand not just an accessory.
It's not a fashion statement,it's a living, breathing,
feeling dog.
That is an animal that is verysimilar to us and they're a gift
and they've given us a gift ofquiet understanding of us.

(01:12:07):
I feel like they have tounderstand us, or they do,
because they're watching usconstantly.
They can be such a source ofemotional relief for us because
of their natures.
Like we don't have raccoons inthe house, we don't have possums
in the house, you know youdon't have bears, you shouldn't

(01:12:29):
anyway.
And this one animal, of all theanimals, said, yeah, you're
kind of cool, or whateverhappened.
And over 30,000 years we havethis incredible opportunity and
relationship and they've been sohelpful throughout our history.
Um, you know they used to allhave jobs, important jobs.
You know, guarding the flock.

(01:12:51):
Or you know rottweilers used to.
I had a rottweiler and theyused to be carry um like a wagon
behind them and the butcher putall the meat back there because
the dog wasn't going to let youget the meat, but also just
useful.
And the little terriers weregetting the barbers you don't
want mice back in the plaguedays.
I mean, they've served us sowell and so honorably and I

(01:13:15):
think they're a very kindspecies that is easy to mistreat
because they don't have a voice, they don't have lawyers, they
don't have lobbyists.
They have their teeth and ifthey bite it's probably the end
of the road for them most often.
And they're just, I mean,they're a gift from somebody I
don't know who, and I want themto be elevated to that that they

(01:13:38):
deserve all the respect, allthe gentleness that we have to
give them that maybe we didn'tget, and to honor them and to
say they have a right to have agood life.
And what there is important tothem may not be important to me.
What may be important to me,like I want an agility dog.
Well, my dog may hate agility.

(01:13:58):
Then we say yes, yes yes, yesyeah, they deserve a wonderful
life, and how many of them?
And a wonderful life to anamerica, to a human.
A human is, I'm going to say,american is maybe the nicest car
or the biggest piece of jewelry, or the trip to cabo or
whatever.
I don't know what it would bein austral terms, but it's stuff

(01:14:20):
and it's experiences.
Maybe, or the best dinner.
That's not what a dog makes adog happy and it's up to us to
know what it makes a dog happy.
A lot of it is being with us,but it's also the sniffing, the
seeking, the chewing, therolling and the smelly stuff.
Being able to run.
When do dogs get to run offleash in a safe space, you know?

Not a lot Many dogs.

So that's what I wish I want dogs to not be
thought of as just a throwawayobject.
They need to be respected andhonored as much as they have
given to us.

I think it's our turn to give back to them.
I wholeheartedly agree with you.
Now you do have a free download, a free gift for people, which
will be in the show notes.
If anyone wants it, just tellus a little bit about that.
And where can people find youif they want to connect with you
?
And I don't know, work overZoom or anything like that?

Yeah, I do work with clients all over the world.
Today I've talked to Canada, aCanadian person, and Australia
twice today.
So I do virtual consults allthe time.
But the seven steps to healingis seven steps that I've.
You know.
People say what do I do first?
What do I do tomorrow?
My dog's traumatized, what do Ido?

(01:15:45):
So it's a free seven stepprocess of here's the seven
things you can do.
It doesn't have to be in thatexact order, no, it depends on
your dog.
But it's the slowing down,recognizing body language, some
of the things we've talked abouttonight.
So that's free.
And then I started an offFacebook community called the
Canine Trauma Clinic, becauseI've even had trainers tell me

(01:16:09):
that dogs can't have trauma andI'm like, do they have a nervous
system?
Of course they can experiencetrauma Like force-free educated
trainers like that's silly.
Experience trauma likeforce-free, educated trainers
like that's silly.
And so there's still a lot ofeducation that has to be done

(01:16:30):
about trauma, and trauma is howwe respond to our life.
You know you could be in a carwreck and it doesn't scare you
as much as me.
Being in a car wreck scares mefor a variety of reasons.
Maybe I had a scary one when Iwas a kid scares me for a
variety of reasons.
Maybe I had a scary one when Iwas a kid.
You know your house burns downand you move on.
Or a hurricane or whatever.
You move on pretty quickly.
I maybe can't and I'mtraumatized by the idea of fire.
It's how our body systemresponds to what life throws at

(01:16:53):
us.
So I started the Canine TraumaClinic.
It is on Mighty Networks.
It's a paid community andpeople can get all of my courses
.
All of my courses are abouttrauma healing because there's
big t and little t's.
You know there's this and thefaster you help the smaller t's,
then it doesn't become the bigt's absolutely and I'm a.

(01:17:15):
my website ischooseotrainhumanecom.

Say that again, please.

My website is choosetotrainhumanecom.

Choosetotrainhumane.
I like it.

It's a choice Every day you wake up, and how
you're going to treat your dogis a choice.

That's true too.
Thank you so much for your timeand your wisdom today.
It's been really fascinating.
We'll say goodbye to everyonenow.
If you enjoyed this, please youknow, rate give us a rating.
Share it with your friends andwe'll see you in the next
episode, whenever that might be.
Thank you so much, everyone forlistening and be lovely to your
dogs, but also remember to belovely to you too.

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