March 30, 2025 • 62 mins
The silent heroes who serve alongside our military personnel often walk on four legs. In this eye-opening conversation, Dr. Kassara Andre draws from her experience as an Army veterinarian to explore the profound world of military working dogs – their training, deployment, and the complex psychological impacts of their service.
These remarkable canine soldiers are selected for their exceptional drive, intelligence, and resilience. They operate in high-stakes environments, often taking the greatest risks as they lead their units through dangerous terrain or detect explosives with their extraordinary senses. But what happens when their service ends? Dr. Kassara reveals how these dogs face challenges similar to their human counterparts, including symptoms consistent with PTSD.
Most fascinating is the bidirectional healing relationship between handlers and their dogs. When working with traumatized military dogs, Dr. Kassara observed that teaching regulation techniques benefited both species simultaneously – as handlers helped their dogs calm down, their own nervous systems would follow suit, creating a mutual healing pathway that traditional therapies often miss.
The conversation takes a forward-looking turn as Dr. Kassara discusses emerging research possibilities, including careful exploration of psychedelic therapies for canine veterans. She emphasizes that any such research must proceed with extraordinary attention to ethics and consent, highlighting that the most significant healing occurs not during treatment but in the integration period afterward.
Whether you're a dog lover, interested in therapeutic modalities, or simply curious about the powerful interspecies bonds that form in extreme circumstances, this episode offers remarkable insights into how we might better honor and care for all beings who serve. Listen now to gain a deeper understanding of these extraordinary canine warriors and what their experiences can teach us about healing across species boundaries.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dr Edward (00:02):
Hello and welcome to the Whole Energy Body Balance
podcast.
I'm Dr Edward and today we areexploring the world of the
canine soldier the dogs thatwork with the armed forces, with
Dr Kassara Andre, I'd like towelcome you to the podcast,
where we explore all kinds ofpossibilities and practices that
(00:24):
bring greater healing,connection and harmony to pets,
people and horses.
We aim to inspire you.
We don't mind challenging you alittle bit now and then.
We really want to help you growand create positive changes in
healing your life.
If that's what you like doing,this is probably a good place to
be.
I'm your host, dr edward, thehealing vet.
I help deeply caring people,pets and horses unfold profound
(00:47):
healing and healthyrelationships through somatic
awareness, loving, therapeutictouch, intuitive perception,
kind training and energy healing.
I also practice as an intuitive, integrative veterinarian and
healer, helping pets, people andhorses in person and all around
the world.
And, if I can get the rightlayout here, I would just like
(01:12):
to welcome onto the stage DrKassara Andre.
Welcome, it's ages since I'vespoken to you.
It's lovely to see you again.
How are you going?
Dr Casara Andre (01:22):
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
It's a pleasure to be back.
It's great to see you.
Thank you so much for theinvitation.
Dr Edward (01:29):
You're welcome.
We're going to have fun today.
So Dr Kisara Andresahilo,consistently motivated by her
desire to help mammals of allspecies repair and sustain their
health and well-being, she's aveterinarian by education and
training, and she is an armedforces veteran.
She was an army veterinarian.
(01:58):
Yeah, yep, that is correct.
So we're going to start offwith a big question, because
it's good to have deepconversations and big questions,
I reckon.
So who are you, why do you dowhat you do, and how did you get
to this point in your life?
Dr Casara Andre (02:12):
That is a big question.
I would love to tackle that onestraight off the bat.
Thank you, it is such apleasure to be back with you, dr
Edward.
Great to see you virtually.
It was more fun to see you inperson Hi to all of your
audience.
It's always a pleasure to sharewith like-minded colleagues and
people around the world.
I am a practicing veterinarianin Colorado and, as Dr Edward
(02:34):
mentioned, in my early career Iwas a veterinarian for the US
Army Veterinary Corps.
So that was really what startedmy love of the working dog and
gave me a really particularviewpoint into their lives, into
their service and as theveterinarian caring for their
health and well-being, as wellas their relationship with their
partner, with their humanpartner.
(02:55):
There's just a lot that youlearn about care of the canine
soldier and what happens to thatcanine veteran after they
retire.
How do we care for them inretirement.
So I am very interested inbehavioral health and its
implications in somatic healthand those intersections between
(03:15):
which I know you are as well, drEdward, and I feel that this
topic one it's just interesting.
It's an interesting thoughttopic to dive into who is the
canine soldier, who is thecanine veteran?
But I think it gives us areally unique opportunity to
think about behavioral healthdiseases that we see in the
human veteran population, thatwe also see mirrored in the
(03:38):
canine population.
What are we doing for both andI'm really interested in?
Can we achieve better healingfor both by actually looking at
those diseases together and areusing some bi-directional
healing ideas?
Dr Edward (03:53):
So one thing that immediately comes to mind for me
is, you know, choice.
I mean these animals are takenin and trained and then taken
off and work in incrediblyintense, dangerous, stressful
situations.
Could you talk us through alittle bit about what happens
with these little puppies fromyour perspective as a vet
(04:15):
working with them?
I imagine you would have seenthem right throughout their life
cycle.
Dr Casara Andre (04:19):
Yeah, Most of the animals that I worked with
were two years and older, soonce they had been received at
their duty site, I did work fora short period of time on
Lackland Air Force Base, whichhas its own dog breeding program
.
(04:39):
Many of the other dogs arepurchased from kennels or bred
at Lackland or owned bycontractors, so that is an
interesting piece of coming tothe scene just as I was actually
leaving the military was thatwe had a lot of dogs that were
not actually owned by themilitary service but used by
contractors, and kind of the oddrole of how veterinary care was
(05:01):
given to those animals was aninteresting thing.
So I was mostly interacting withdogs that had been trained,
already gone through their basicboot camp, essentially, and
then paired with a handler andthen had had arrived at their
first duty site, or dogs thathad already been serving for a
period of time.
I really appreciate your callout for consent in the midst of
(05:22):
this, which I think, along withany animal topic, no matter what
it is, we're discussing, justfrom vaccines and surgeries to
service in the military where isan animal's consent in there?
Where should we be asking forit?
What does that look like?
And, for sure.
How do we allow them to consentin every way we possibly can,
(05:43):
particularly, I think, aboutmedical care, cooperative care,
training, things along thoselines.
So that was almost all the dogsthat I was working with.
Dr Edward (05:50):
And these dogs are generally extremely high drive,
extremely intelligent andprobably pretty tough like high
pain tolerance, high emotionalthreshold type dogs and I would
imagine that they would love thework.
Is that true, do you think?
Dr Casara Andre (06:09):
I absolutely, that's true, absolutely from a
drive perspective, from a brainwork perspective, from the
challenge perspective, frombeing paired with a human and
then that bond sharing.
Amazing to watch thosewell-paired human-animal bonds
exist.
I will say that one thing thatwas difficult to often see
(06:31):
sometimes were mismatched pairs,so maybe the very experienced
dog with a very new handlerthose were.
It was an interesting role totry to step into as a
veterinarian to help both on thetraining side and also the
medicine side, but really itcame down to strengthening that
bond and that definitely informsa lot of the work that I do now
(06:55):
.
Whether it's for a military dog, a working dog or just a
household pet, it's really thebond that I think makes that
animal's life um good, that,whatever their experience is on
this world, to have that bondwith a human um really is what
shapes and strengthens theirability to live well, live
(07:18):
happily so with a working pair,a human and a dog?
Dr Edward (07:23):
does that dog kind of live with the handler?
Are they full-time, 24-7, withthe handler when they're out in
the field?
Because this is something thatreally fascinates me.
I mean, what happens whenthey're out, wherever they might
be, if it's, you know, in aless intense environment or
somewhere like Iraq or whereverwhere there's full-on, you know,
(07:44):
really really intense stuffgoing on?
Dr Casara Andre (07:47):
It does depend a little bit on which service
they are working for.
So how each service wouldhandle their working dogs a
little bit up to that kennelmaster kind of how that they,
how they run their kennel andalso the infrastructure that's
available.
So I was stationed US bases andso when there was a full kennel
, that's where all the dogs werehoused at night or when their
(08:09):
handler was on leave, etc.
And so, as you mentioned beforethose high drive dogs, you can
just imagine what those kennelenvironments are like.
They're very loud, they're verychaotic.
Teaching that animal orallowing that animal to settle
and recuperate, even after asurgery or procedure, definitely
had to be thought aboutcarefully.
And then in deployment that dogand handler would just be
(08:34):
together.
So depending on whichinfrastructure was available,
they might be separate, in abarracks and a kennel or
literally on the same cottogether.
Dr Edward (08:42):
So if they were out on active assignment in a
battlefield, what happens then?
Dr Casara Andre (08:49):
Probably on the same cot together, just
absolutely deployed as a pair.
You know, what was reallyinteresting was to hear the
reflections of handlers that haddogs with them and how the
presence of that animal sopositively contributed to their
own mental health experience,but also their unit's mental
health experience, that even ifthat dog was not necessarily
(09:12):
approachable or did not want toplay the therapy dog role or,
you know, just did not want tointeract with other humans other
than their partner, their humanhandler would still always
report that other soldiers wouldcome just to hang out, just to
watch the dog train, just to bearound that animal presence.
And I think it speaks so much tothe many roles that animals
(09:36):
play, not just in a soldierenvironment and the veteran
environment but in all of humanexperience.
To really really have thatemotional tie, that, um,
psychological well-being tie,and if we're receiving that gift
from them, then get behooves usto think about.
How are we returning that, howare we caring for that?
How are we making sure thatthey have the resources to give,
(09:57):
since we're we're happy theygive them, how do we make sure
that they're happy and safeminutes of that?
Dr Edward (10:03):
so I know we're going to really dig into what happens
with these dogs after activeduty, when they are retired and
they're a veteran, but there's acouple of other things that I'd
really like to explore a littlebit before we get there.
So one thing is you know whathappens?
Do these dogs always have thesame handler, or is there
transitions?
Is there changeovers forvarious reasons, and how do you
(10:26):
think that impacts the dog andthe humans when that happens?
Dr Casara Andre (10:30):
That's a great question.
So again, there is somedifference between how the
different services will runtheir dog.
So I was US Army VeterinaryCorps and the Army provides
veterinary services to all ofthe Department of Defense.
So we would be stationed onmultiple different bases serving
different services Navy, marine, army but how the care of the
(10:53):
dogs, the training of the dogsand their day-to-day life, that
was dictated by the service thatessentially owned them.
And it was interesting to see,just as you've mentioned, the
thought process behind how thosedogs were placed with a handler
, the training that those thatpair received together, even who
got to be a handler between theservices.
(11:15):
Others would have the humanpartner work their way up
through sort of kennel training,kennel help, shadowing, to earn
, you know, being able to be adog handler and, and definitely
that makes a difference, youknow if you are an animal
hearted person and that you wantto be able to work with a dog,
(11:38):
that gives you a completelydifferent motivation than sort
of just like you're, you're adog handler now and definitely
contributes, I think, to thatanimal's experience.
Most of the services that Iworked for would rotate the dog,
potentially separately, so thatdog could be deployed with a
different handler if thathandler retired or was sent
(11:58):
somewhere else.
And I'll speak to how I thinkthat that was hard on both human
and animal, to how I think thatthat was hard on both human and
animal in the moment.
But say first that I did have achance to work with a National
Guard unit.
So these, because they arestationed within a state, kept
the same dog throughout theirentire working lifetime and the
handler was usually the same.
So that idea of a morestationary unit versus the
(12:22):
larger army or Navy that wouldabsolutely move throughout bases
and could definitely be movedseparate from the animal, the
relationship and the partnershipbetween the animals and the
humans that stay together, itwas significantly better.
The wellbeing of those animals,I definitely felt, was better
and from a medical careperspective it was much, much
(12:43):
easier to have everyone on thesame page about recovery,
recuperation, things that neededto be changed because that
message was directly to theirhuman partner an idea of what
(13:06):
kinds of activities they'reexpected and invited to do, what
kind of service they need to doand what kinds of stresses and
traumas they might be exposed towhen they're out in an active
battlefield.
Absolutely, or even just atraining scenario, I mean
medical problems happen on thetraining field.
So we think mostly about whatare the skills that we utilize
(13:27):
from dogs, and olfactory senseis huge, so whatever they're
detecting explosives, narcotics,a mix of different molecules,
so sort of that detection side.
The protection or the patrolside would be some of the bite
work so you can have, and inthat category you could have
(13:49):
dogs that are tracking, so itwould track an individual or a
scent or air scent, so kind ofmore area search than actual
tracing.
We definitely see therapyequine, so we had a lot of
recreational equine units thatwas really fun to work with.
(14:09):
I am mostly focused on dogs soI didn't have a lot to do with
equine medicine but that wasreally fun um case on unit, some
of the the dress dressage units, um, so protection and scent
would probably be the biggestcategories of skills that we use
those animals for.
And so with that comes training.
So lots of wear and tear onjoints, musculoskeletal injuries
(14:29):
from traumatic injuries,running into something a fence,
uh get into a fight Hopefullynot If your trainer, your
handler knows what they're doingand then definitely things in
in um combat, which could beanything from uh stepping on IED
going through a door andreceiving a gunshot wound or a
knife wound.
(14:49):
So really the same risk that ahuman soldier would face, except
that the animal's usually atthe point.
Usually the animal's goingthrough the door first or
tracking an IED, so very likelyto be exposed.
And the skill of these animalsis really well known.
So a unit that has a detectiondog is going to be really good
at finding any explosives in thearea, so sometimes those
(15:12):
animals can actually be targetedokay, so they.
Dr Edward (15:16):
They then become a target for the opposing forces
as well, because they they helpthe soldiers.
So well, right yeah, correct andthen I think about the
psychological environment, theenergetic psychological,
psycho-spiritual environmentthat these dogs are in so you
know, intensely traumatic,probably possibly exposure to
(15:40):
explosions, injuries, blastforces.
You know, I know that I've seensome stuff recently that
they're seeing these kind ofdiffuse tbis in soldiers that
that have firing rockets and allthat sort of stuff and exposed
to explosives.
It's not just the physical bodythat gets, but the actual brain
(16:02):
gets injured.
Dr Casara Andre (16:03):
Yeah, Absolutely, absolutely, and
we've mentioned it already thepsychological component of your
handler.
So what is the psychologicalhealth of the human that you're
really connected to, the dog'sabsolutely feeling the effects
of that of the unit as well asthe actual physical danger.
You know what's interestingabout the canine side and we did
(16:28):
speak with a canine handler.
He had the dog after retirement.
The dog recently passed awayand one of the veterinarians on
our team was actually hisveterinarian and helped with his
euthanasia.
That handler was talking aboutso many years after the animal
had retired would still be ableto practice his scent work,
(16:50):
practice his bite work, that theability of him to turn it on in
a moment's notice, even yearsafter being retired, was like
that.
And what that brings up in mymind is the idea of canine PTSD.
We already struggle so muchwith answers for human PTSD and
we can tell the human thatthey're not in an active war
(17:13):
environment.
We can tell the human you arenow retired and yet that
distinction of what might happen, what risk you're in, how do we
communicate that to an animal?
And this retired canine handlerwas talking about the fact that
he felt that in his retiredcanine veteran that was
something he struggled with, ofhow to turn off, how to be
(17:35):
restful, because that wasn'tsomething that he practiced
during his career.
Dr Edward (17:39):
Well, we could diverge a little bit there, and
I think that is something thatis not taught across the board.
In domestic dogs, in all kindsof working dogs, in all kinds of
situations and circumstances.
The importance of teachingself-regulation and relaxation
in dogs is something that I'mjust really, really passionate
about, and that's somethingthat's not taught about at vet
(18:01):
schools.
It's something, something thatjust is really rare, and humans
in general, being monkeys, tendto love to take dogs into
high-stimulation states androast them up, and they're
really, really bad.
You know, I see it, when I wasworking in the vet clinic, a
puppy had come in.
The puppy's a bit like this thenurse goes oh, how are you
going?
The puppy gets excited.
(18:21):
The nurse gets more excited.
Next they say oh, how are yougoing?
The puppy gets excited, thenurse gets more excited.
Next thing, the puppy's jumpingaround like a mad thing.
It's like, oh God damn it,don't do that, don't do that to
the puppy, you know.
So I think there's a real deepprimate thing there.
That is a bit of a clash and aproblem for dogs.
Dr Casara Andre (18:41):
I agree absolutely, and I think that it
also steals a huge piece oftheir athleticism to not
intentionally train the offstate between and high level
(19:05):
athletes and yes, these dogs areamazing athletes and in their
working career they can beamazing athletes but could they
be safer, could they be better,could their retirement be better
if we actually balanced whattheir muscles were doing,
balanced that time that thatnervous system was off, instead
of essentially just running themout?
But you know, I think we see alot of these same ideas for
human veterans as well.
We put them into high stress,high stakes environments without
(19:26):
training the off, and then,when it's done or you're off
duty, none of your training isbeen for that moment.
And I think that we need tothink about what how that
applies to dogs as well.
Dr Edward (19:38):
You are stuck on and I think post-traumatic stress is
a state of stuck on this fight,flight in a in a very complex,
absolutely multimodal, somatic,mental, emotional.
The whole thing is stuck on andeven if it's off, it's ready to
jam on at the slightest littlehint of any kind of thing that
could be perceived as danger.
Dr Casara Andre (19:59):
Yeah, yes, absolutely, absolutely, and we
can see it it so clearly when wethink about any type of service
animal.
But a military service animalmakes that even a little bit
more distinct.
You even have just a monetaryvalue of how much training has
gone into that animal, much lessthe value to their partner, to
(20:21):
the human lives that they'vesaved, to the unit themselves
that I spoke about, like all ofthe humans that care for that
animal.
If we're not caring for allthose aspects, we're losing and
definitely not utilizingvaluable assets in multiple
different spheres, much lessthat well-being of the animal.
How do we care for it in activework so that it can have this
(20:43):
lovely retirement?
Dr Edward (20:45):
yeah, and I suppose how can we switch from thinking
of the animal as a resource thatwe can extract work out of?
to a conscious, thinking,feeling empathic, empowered,
being who, and you know I kindof this whole thing of dogs in
armed forces.
I think the whole consent thingis muddy or murky at the very
(21:07):
best, even with the dogs thatwant to work.
Well, I think it's a bit thesame with soldiers, human
soldiers, to be honest.
I mean, how much real consentis there at the whole level of
soldiers being trained to go outand go into violent, difficult
circumstances, of soldiers beingtrained to go out and go into
violent, difficult circumstances?
I think it's such a complex,worrisome kind of thing on all
(21:30):
levels.
Dr Casara Andre (21:32):
Absolutely, absolutely, especially when we
don't have mechanisms to help,when that imbalance occurs
because there was a circumstancethat they didn't consent to or
that no one knew, knew about orno one was prepared for.
Now can we repair that hurt?
And I think that that isimplicit in responsibility of
can you prepare enough to repairthe hurt or the risk or the
(21:56):
harm if it happens?
And if you aren't thinkingabout that, I think you're wrong
from the beginning.
And really thinking about thecare of that animal holistically
and can they survive well inthis environment is really,
really important.
We can extrapolate even furtherto other high drive dogs, other
(22:17):
jobs, other service animals Arethey the right fit.
Is their job a right fit forthem?
Is their partner, is theirhuman partner, a good fit for
them?
And, obviously, from theveterinarian side, how do we
care for that, how do we monitorfor that, how do we know when
it's not going well?
And how do we convince theother humans who care for them
that we need to make a medicalintervention?
Dr Edward (22:40):
Yeah, I've got a mentor, Lockie Phillips, who has
created this thing calledemotional horsemanship, and when
it comes to riding horses, he'sgot this concept of a bio
window the length of time that ahuman can be on a horse's back
without it starting to causedamage to the spine.
And this concept is somethingthat has fascinated me a bit and
(23:00):
I'm thinking well, what's thebio window for working dogs?
What's the bio window forhumans, dogs, what's the bio
window for humans?
And this is not just physical,but mental, emotional,
psychological as well.
You know, I suspect it's wayshorter than what most animals
are being demanded uponabsolutely.
Dr Casara Andre (23:17):
You know, I think about some of the therapy
dogs or therapy teams, humansand the dogs and their handlers
that we work with in some of ourdisaster response scenarios and
those animals are emotionallysupporting humans and they're
exhausted at the end of theirshift.
So, without even the physical,somatic injury component, it's
(23:42):
exhausting to do your job,whatever that might be, and we
need to recognize that, monitorfor it and then be prepared to
somehow repair, somehow makethat better, if we can't avoid
it to begin with.
Dr Edward (23:56):
So we've explored a little bit of the world of
coming in and doing the thing asa working dog.
So what happens?
What's the process of thembecoming a veteran, of being
moved out of the forces?
Dr Casara Andre (24:08):
What happens, yes, so the whole process would
be called disposition and againit depends a little bit on which
service you're working for andthe reasons for dispositions.
So there can be medical ortraining and from the medical
side, which obviously I was morefamiliar with, arthritis would
be a super common cause.
(24:30):
Year old German Shepherd thatreally isn't able to do those
job functions well, or medicallyyou're able to say this is not
a good idea for this dog's body.
Let's think about retirement.
So that was the most commonthing that I saw.
But I'll I'll mention it can befor behavioral health reasons
and often because of how thatdog was handled, how that dog
(24:53):
was cared for or not, and thosewere really really difficult to
work with.
But I will say, for all theones that I had experience with,
the handlers and the kennelmasters were the first to go to
bat for that animal, but it wasvery hard to see the consequence
of that animal's working lifecreep up to its retirement.
(25:14):
So this could be kind ofcumulative layers of stress and
trauma, PTSD, anxiety-typebehaviors you're talking about
Absolutely so just aggressionbiting at the wrong time.
How often do we see that incompanion animals?
(25:34):
Because they're not beinglistened to?
And so then add in these highstress environments, teams that
are rotating around, um, humansthat are stressed already in
stressful scenarios, um it's.
It's an environment wherethere's a lot of potential for
harm and a lot of potential forthings to get missed, which is
why I think it's so importantthat when there is a medical
(25:56):
oversight piece, that we'rereally, really attentive.
Dr Edward (25:59):
How rehomeable are these dogs if they've got
behavioral issues?
Dr Casara Andre (26:04):
Highly, highly rehomeable.
I've actually never worked witha case that was a behavioral
euthanasia.
Those do happen but they wouldprobably be at Lackland Air
Force Base and sort of workingwith a behavioral specialist.
So every dog that I worked withfor disposition found a home,
which was lovely.
There's usually quite a longlist of families that want to
(26:27):
adopt and again in my experiencewould go through list of
previous handlers, would getfirst choice.
Members of the armed forces orpolice force that maybe have
experience with working dogswould sort of be next Two
civilians.
It rarely made it too far downbefore that animal found a home
and usually a prior handler wasusually who adopted them.
Dr Edward (26:50):
Okay, so you tend to get continuity with that Okay.
Dr Casara Andre (26:54):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and I have some
precious pictures of some ofthose dogs in retirement, of
chilling on a couch eating anice cream cone.
So, they can have some reallyamazing retirements.
Dr Edward (27:08):
So then, care of the veteran, the canine soldier
who's in retirement, and this iskind of where we really want to
get into the meat and bones ofwhat we want to talk about today
.
So you've got a couple ofthings that you want to explore
with with us today, um, and thefirst point was importance of
caring for psychological systemsand their impact on physical
(27:29):
body systems.
So let's dig into that.
Dr Casara Andre (27:31):
That's a juicy topic yeah, I'm I'm fascinated
by this one.
We've already touched on it acouple of times throughout
through our intro, and I thinkit comes down to the fact that
we can't separate them out.
We cannot consider physicalsystems and psychological
systems as separate, becausethey're in the same entity and
(27:52):
particularly in canines, who areso geared to connect to us as
humans and, bidirectionally, usto canines, we're going to have
those systems interact andoverlap and when we think about
these bonded pairs, we have boththe physical and psychological
aspects of the canine, but thenwe have the physical,
psychological aspects of thecanine, but then we have the
physical, psychological aspectsof the bonded human.
(28:15):
And then what does that?
What do all of those maketogether?
And considering them as a unit,I think, is where, um, probably
you and I are most interestedof how to, how do we work on
that as a entity all together?
Dr Edward (28:29):
because they're really not separate, they're not
able to be separated well,they're intimately co-regulating
on every level of consciousness, energy, physiology, the whole
time that they're, they'retogether right absolutely,
absolutely.
Dr Casara Andre (28:45):
And you know, today we're talking mostly about
the, the canine veterans, ofthe, the animal that has served
as a soldier, but I'll also justthrow in a nod to the emotional
support animal for a veteranand the animal learning to
support the human veteranthrough the emotional changes
they may be going with, throughPTSD and thinking medically, are
(29:07):
we supporting that animal?
Knowing the turbulence of thehuman's emotional state?
Is the animal's physiologicstate able to handle the
turbulence there?
Does that idea make sense?
Dr Edward (29:22):
I'm I know it does to you from your work that it is
so similar, but we can dive intothat more that's kind of like a
capacity thing, right, um, andwith the greater resilience and
um self-regulation capacitythere is, the more input of
stresses and traumas and thingslike that an animal can cope
(29:44):
with in a healthy way would bewhat I would think of that yeah.
Dr Casara Andre (29:50):
Absolutely.
But if that human is not awareof what they're putting off onto
their animal, that can getreally overwhelming really
quickly for the animal,especially if they're untrained.
And again that's a little bitmore on the service animal side.
But it just brings up thisbeautiful, all-encompassing idea
of the unit, the family unit,that those bonds that are
(30:11):
absolutely so inseparable thosebonds that are absolutely so
inseparable.
Dr Edward (30:18):
I haven't done a lot of direct work with service dogs
like army kind of armed forcesdogs, but I have had a client
that I've been seeing recently.
That is a dog, that is a supportdog for a human who's got
pretty severe post-traumaticstress after a really bad
traffic incident.
And you know, one of theprimary things I do is teach
(30:38):
people how to regulate, helptheir animals regulate with,
with touch, with relaxing touch.
And I've got to say I'venoticed a big difference in the
human with him doing that withhis dog, because the he's
shifting his dog's nervoussystem but then his nervous
system is shifting in responseand co-regulating.
And I nearly always see thiswith all the animals and I kind
(31:00):
of think of most domestic dogsas unsung therapy dogs, support
dogs, emotional support dogsanyway, and I see this kind of
universally.
You get an anxious dog and youteach the human how to teach the
dog how to regulate.
I see all sorts of changes inthe humans really quickly too,
absolutely absolutely.
So what sort of things do yourecommend when it comes to
(31:24):
caring for the psychologicalsystems of the animals, these
veteran animals?
Dr Casara Andre (31:30):
You know, dr Edward, at the moment I'm really
focusing on just awareness forthe human partners of what that
impact is.
Because, just as you said amoment ago, that if the human
can be regulated by guidingtheir animal, the human being
aware of the turbulence they'recreating, really is such a
(31:52):
powerful step to calming thosewaves, really is such a powerful
step to calming those waves,not that the dog can't continue
to help, but just the awarenessin that bond of what's going on
allows us to monitor the animal,assess whether it has the
resources that it needs tosupport the human, that it gets
medical care, and monitoringthat it should and that we can
intervene if we start to seestressors on its physiologic
(32:13):
system.
I've really been interested.
Well, you, you, I know thatyou're also working with the
endocannabinoid system andcannabis support or other
support to the ECS.
You know I've really beennoticing how I see systems
really get weaker, like urinary.
(32:34):
I see a lot of urinary issues,skin issues, immune system
issues and it's a blessing to beable to think about how can I
support the endocannabinoidsystem to regulate all these
subsystems that might be takingextra strain.
But I've also encountered acouple of situations where I
feel like there needs to be alot of care in how I support the
(32:55):
ECS because sometimes,sometimes the turbulence is
inappropriate and I don't.
I've found a couple scenarioswhere it has been not helpful
for me to support the animalsECSA with cannabis without very
directly addressing theturbulence the human was causing
.
Because, as we're supportingthe ECS, we're essentially
(33:17):
teaching it to balance, to whereit is and if the situation is
bad.
Dr Edward (33:22):
We're sort of teaching balance to an abnormal
state and I think that can havesome consequences makes me think
of a client I had years andyears ago who was had a dog with
epilepsy, and this fellow had atraumatic brain injury so he
was inclined to be very volatile.
But when I told him, hey, yourvolatility is actually harming
(33:46):
your dog, there was the biggestpositive change in that man's
behavior that no otherintervention had ever ever got
close to yes, yes, absolutelybehavioral health disorders are
not exclusive to humans, too.
Is the next thing you're goingto say something?
Dr Casara Andre (34:07):
sorry, I butted in I actually think that that
ties in really well.
Um, I was just going to mention, I practice in colorado, as you
know, and we have someinteresting policies around
psychedelics at the moment, andso, while this is well, I'll
approach it from two points.
I think that we should beconsidering psychedelics for
(34:30):
care of the canine veteran verycarefully and with a lot of
oversight and a lot of slow,slow progress.
Dr Edward (34:40):
Slow progress.
We're particularly interestedin.
Dr Casara Andre (34:42):
DMA yes, yes, yes.
And consent how are weaddressing consent in some of
these?
So it's so many things totackle there.
But I think therapeuticallyabsolutely we should be
considering them in canineveterans.
But we're also seeing a lot ofunintentional support animals.
So you mentioned supportanimals and emotional support
(35:02):
animals and we see a lot ofveterans pursuing psychedelic
use for their own mental health.
My question is are the animalsin their sphere trained and able
to support their human throughthat experience?
And I think that that'ssomething that's not being
considered carefully enough inthe landscape that's emerging,
(35:24):
definitely in our state, butjust more broadly, as humans try
to delve into some of thesemental health issues of their
own, what is the consequence andimpact on animals that might
have their own behavioral healthissue to begin with, but also
we're essentially just trying toshed the human health
behavioral issue into the animal?
Is their capacity, does thatpiece of the bond, that side of
(35:48):
the bond, have the capacity tocarry that emotional outburst,
that emotional turbulence?
Dr Edward (35:57):
That's a good point.
Now, now I'm going to apologizein advance if any of the
renovatory noises come throughon the recording.
I'm just going to be kind ofmuting myself in between cassara
speaking, because someone onthe roof outside with a rattle
gun making all sorts of noise,moving the background noise.
Depression will deal with it,but it might not.
So what sort of behavioralhealth disorders do we see in
these veteran dogs and how doyou approach helping them with
(36:20):
them?
Dr Casara Andre (36:24):
You know well, musculoskeletal for sure.
So that's like a clear cut.
Yes, obviously, arthritis.
We need to be taking care oftheir bodies.
We need to be taking care oftheir bodies and I really
thinking about how can we extend, extend their longevity of
health and well-being withoutjumping to cannabis, massage,
(36:45):
acupuncture, the modalities thatreally help that body rebalance
in and of itself, and I want tocall out some of the work that
you're doing of just teachingthe autonomic nervous system to
regulate where it should be.
I think if we focus a lot ofour modalities simply on
creating that internalresilience, we wouldn't end up
(37:06):
so quickly at our non-steroidalsteroid surgery and we might, we
still might need thosethroughout the animal's lifetime
.
But, as we said throughout thisconversation, I think if we
focused more on that internalbalance and helping that system
know where it is on versus off,we would see a lot of our
modalities be more effective andlonger lasting well, personally
(37:29):
I I reckon that dogs should bein healthy relaxation, or what I
call the green zone of arousal,80% to 90% of their life,
including sleep time, of course,which is a large part of that.
Dr Edward (37:40):
But some dogs don't even get that in sleep.
They're kind of like they'renot really asleep, they're just
poised to wake up because of theslightest little sound or
anything right.
Dr Casara Andre (37:49):
Yes.
And what if they're human?
It's equally jumpy.
So that could complicate thematter in and of itself.
So we have this animal thatwe're trying to get to rest and
that yet its biologic rhythmsare being set abnormally by
what's going on around it.
That for me carries a lot ofweight because I think that
(38:12):
again here in my state we'reseeing a lot of veterans pursue
psychedelics for themselves, fortheir own mental health.
But we really need to thinkabout who else is in their
household.
And it might not be a retiredcanine veteran, they might not
have their own version of caninePTSD, but their service animal
might not be appropriatelytrained for this.
So it's just this biggeroverarching concept of how do we
(38:36):
care for that intersection ofphysiologic systems and
psychological systems got loudnoises here.
Dr Edward (38:48):
Sorry about that.
That you wanted to talk aboutis the potential of leveraging
existing human animal bonds topotentiate healing across
species in human animal bondedpairs of grips.
Now that is a mouthful of asentence, but I think there's
some very interesting.
Dr Casara Andre (39:05):
That was a long one.
Dr Edward (39:08):
I'm so excited about this one.
Dr Casara Andre (39:12):
Fascinating.
Yeah, I'm so hopeful for thepotential that this bullet point
holds.
So in human veteran mentalhealth care, a hard piece of
(39:53):
success is establishing therelationship with the therapist,
with the care providers.
When humans, mental health andI think that's a big theme among
our world of not necessarilyconnecting with the therapist or
someone who's trying to help,and we definitely see that on
the animal side how many timesdo existing behavioral health
issues prior an appropriateclinical handling?
So clinic induced trauma,emotional trauma, how many times
is that prevent our ability togive appropriate, timely,
adequate medical care Becausethe animal's like no thanks, I
(40:16):
don't want to participate.
And those are really reallytrue in canine veterans as well.
Service dogs, high drive dogs sothat's a large portion of my
other clientele is just highdrive dogs that they're on, and
when you give clinical restraintinappropriately, they're really
likely to interpret that in avery negative light.
(40:38):
So we have this barrier of howdo we actually create
relationship and rapport enoughto guide an animal through a
medical experience whatever thatis massage, acupuncture, an
actual experience, whatever thatis Massage acupuncture, an
actual procedure, doesn't matter.
How do we establish thatrapport?
So this idea really talks aboutleveraging existing bonds
(41:01):
instead of thinking about andI'll just personify me myself as
the provider.
I'm going to make you better.
I'm going to come and interveneand work on this bond, or your
body or your mind.
For me, this idea captures thethought of me having a little
bit more distance, a little bitmore respect for some of the
trauma that might be alreadypresent.
So, working from a traumainformed veterinary care
(41:23):
perspective and asking how can Ileverage someone that this
animal already trusts, how can Ileverage an environment that
this animal already finds issafe?
And if we're thinking about avery dynamic bond, maybe there
are behavioral health issues onboth sides.
You said exactly this.
Can we leverage that connectionto make both the human and the
(41:45):
animal better?
So, like your gentleman who wasguiding its animal through
autonomic regulation for massageagainst a seizure, was feeling
better themselves.
I think that's a perfectexample of this.
That human was not able to takeaction for their animal until
you guided them to thatbi-directional exchange, to
(42:06):
leveraging each other'swell-being to reach that common
goal.
And I love that idea as apractitioner, especially when
you bring in ideas ofendocannabinoid system balance
and tone, the dynamics of afamily unit or a bonded pair,
and I think we already see allthese connections and patterns
(42:27):
and the, the tone between umindividual entities in the, in
those pairs, and if we canreally utilize that, I think
we're already multiple stepstowards that healing better than
we would be on our own so howdo you see this rippling through
a whole family or a group or inthat kind of active dog thing,
(42:49):
a unit that the dog's embeddedin?
Yeah, I.
What we are really thinkingabout for this at the moment is
towards research in thepsychedelics for the canine
veteran.
So let's take for a moment theidea of utilizing NDMA for the
(43:09):
canine veteran.
As we see research come out foruse in the human veteran, can
we extrapolate that to designresearch for the canine in?
In that scenario, who is theguide?
How do we establish enoughrapport in advance to guide
(43:31):
guide an animal through adysphoric experience?
And this is where I think weabsolutely, if we're going to
pursue that type of research,need to really think about how
that handler becomes involved socan you explain what you mean
by dysphoric experience?
(43:56):
Absolutely so.
A dysphoric experience could beactually with any drug.
So you can give a sedative, youcould give a pre-anesthetic,
and that dysphoria is thefeeling not in your right mind.
Dr Edward (44:04):
I don't understand where I am am this doesn't feel
okay.
Dr Casara Andre (44:08):
Um, I feel different and I don't know what
to do about this and it's notnecessarily bad, it's just not
the same, and that's tough forhumans.
And then when?
You put an animal in adysphoric experience you.
Dr Edward (44:25):
You can either get a positive dysphoric or a negative
dysphoric experience.
I could imagine.
Dr Casara Andre (44:30):
Well, I think it might.
Well, there's so much comingout in terms of what we can know
here, so I think there's a lotthat we have yet to learn.
But maybe the idea is that thedysphoric experience is not
positive or negative, but itallows the brain circuits to be
mapped one way or the other.
Dr Edward (44:52):
so potentially, that dysphoria is yeah I was more
thinking of using the kind ofbehavioral medications that we
do use, that you can get um, isit cool?
But it doesn't work.
I can't remember.
The proper technical term isfalling out of my head right now
(45:14):
.
Um, where they get paradoxicalexcitation.
That's the word I'm trying tothink of, right, so that's kind
of a dysphoria thing, it's,whereas another dog might have a
dysphoria which is kind of likeI feel calm and that's actually
a good thing.
That's which is kind of like Ifeel calm and that's actually a
good thing.
That's what I'm kind of gettingat.
Does that make sense?
Dr Casara Andre (45:34):
Absolutely Well .
Let's just chat for a momentabout dysphoria on THC.
So it's.
You know, the substance doesn'tmatter what the substance is.
The dysphoria is simply beingout of your normal state.
This is not what I normallyperceive, and we can have that
with any set of molecules.
Again, pre-anesthetic drugs,pain medications and cannabis is
(45:55):
something that I have a lot offamiliarity with, and I know
that you do as well.
Sometimes we need to creep thatanimal up towards that
dysphoric state.
So think about a seizure reallysevere anxiety, to begin to
soften some of their existingideas, the existing patterns, to
then shape them in a differentway.
So say, using THC before amassage, using THC before you're
(46:20):
going to do some body work, sogetting enough of those patterns
to break down.
Sorry, let me find my mic.
Dr Edward (46:27):
You might use low doses so that they can then
habituate to the dysphoric state, so that it can then become a
positive experience rather thana negative experience.
Is that what you mean?
Dr Casara Andre (46:38):
Absolutely.
But recognizing that dysphoricstate can be negative.
And if we're not there to takea lot of care about guiding them
through that state, then we'rekind of just tossing the dice up
in the air and like, hope youdo okay.
But I think this is exactlywhat the human side of medicine
(46:59):
is working on now about guidingthrough a psychedelic experience
, guiding through a difficult,having a coach to help you
figure out what step could comenext.
How do we do that for an animal?
How do we establish thatrapport?
Again, that's kind of whatwe're talking about here.
Can we leverage something thatanimal already trusts?
When we're going to change apattern?
(47:19):
Can we lean on patterns thatare already present, already
strong, already positive, sothat as we change and mold some
other patterns, we're much morelikely to go positive than have
a negative experience under asubstance that's really really
powerful?
Dr Edward (47:38):
So are there any research studies getting set up
for MDMA in dogs, or are we notquite at that point of
structuring and working out howto do that?
Dr Casara Andre (47:51):
no, not that I'm aware of and not that our
team is um to a stage ofadvancing we do.
We have been speaking with a fewum universities that have
interests.
But I will say I have a lot ofconcerns about the human
psychedelic research field.
I think there's a lot of animalabuse happening now in some of
(48:15):
the studies that are coming outthat you just look at these
study designs and question theethics review board and who
thought that this was an okaything to try?
And then you read some of theliterature that's coming out
from the human side and I haveconcerns about the ethics and
(48:37):
the strength of that currentresearch environment to properly
care for an animal.
So at the moment we are notactively pursuing that with any
(49:05):
group because I don't know thatour research industry has the
ability to think about consentand the right way to take care
of an animal, to really take itslowly enough to be careful.
There's so much drive for thequick answer to have the
patented thing that I think wereally need to be cautious when
animals are involved.
They need a lot of advocacy.
Dr Edward (49:17):
Yeah, my thought would be that you need to start
at very low dose and inch it up,and inch it up until you see
the slightest little signs ofanything and see what happens
and see what kind of responsesyou get at that point, rather
than going towards thresholddoses and high doses.
I don't think that very good.
Dr Casara Andre (49:35):
Absolutely.
And what can we do withleveraging these bonds so that
it's less about dose and it'smore about rewiring a circuit?
And we know that if we canreally get that bond tight and
healthy, that that's trulywhat's going to make change.
We know more about the periodafter exposure to a psychedelic
(49:57):
that say psilocybin or MDMA.
The two to three weeks afterthe exposure are actually where
that critical period is open andthose circuits are rewiring.
That has nothing to do with thedose.
We see that those criticalperiod reopening really tied to
how long you were exposed to thesubstance during the journey a
(50:19):
human would say, or the ceremonyor the experience but it's what
you do in the weeks afterwardsthat really dictate those
long-term changes.
So in animal work I think weshould be looking more at what
does their month look like aftertreatment?
What does it look likebeforehand, what does it look
like afterwards?
What is the environment thatthey're in?
And if we cannot safelyguarantee that environment, then
(50:43):
we shouldn't be pursuing thatinitial exposure.
And that, I think, is hard forour human research environment
to kind of get behind.
We like to see big results anddramatic results and working
with respect in animals requiresus to go slow.
Dr Edward (51:01):
Okay, so maybe that's not an option just yet.
Just curiously, have there beenany anecdotal, accidental or
deliberate MDMA stories you'veheard of people using it,
perhaps a little bit what youmight call tongue in cheek, very
much off label, and if so, whatkind of things have happened?
Dr Casara Andre (51:22):
Yeah, we do have an exposure survey out and
we do get interestingsubmissions to it.
We have one of our teamsworking on an article
publication about a gentlemanspeaking about use of ayahuasca
in a cat and that's had somereally interesting positive
outcomes.
Now for your listeners,ayahuasca is a very, very
(51:44):
powerful psychedelic, very longlasting, so not kind of slow
slow approach that dr edward andI were talking about it's like
the biggest one of all in someways, yes, and I don't know.
I don't know why that tends tobe something that comes up, but
again, emphasizing respect,emphasizing consent, emphasizing
(52:05):
safety of what happens andaround that experience for the
animal and afterwards is soimportant.
Again, I'm in Colorado so Ihear lots of anecdotal reports
of animals being exposed topsilocybin.
Particularly the ERs aredefinitely seeing exposures and
again, what's really coming upis that it's what happens
afterwards, what happens afterthat exposure.
(52:27):
That's the most important andthat we need to be prepared for
that.
As we see exposures in the ERjust from an accidental
intoxication.
It's not just about that moment, it's not just about while
they're in your clinic.
It could be more important tocheck in on them a week, two
weeks, three weeks out, becausethat might be where we're
actually seeing some newbehavioral health issues arise
(52:50):
that we're not even catchingbecause it's past the exposure.
But those next couple of weeksare really impactful.
Dr Edward (52:58):
So, in general, with these accidental or potentially
kind of gray zone deliberatethings, are you seeing positive
or negative impacts overall?
Dr Casara Andre (53:08):
Depends on how it's done, depends on how
intentional that human is andhow safe the environment is.
There's lots of reports of theaccidental ingestion.
So into the stash, you know,just like it used to be for
cannabis.
We're at that time in historywhere psychedelics are not quite
as stigmatized and so they're alittle bit more openly used,
but that means that they're leftout on the counter or using a
(53:31):
little bit more of arecreational setting.
So exposures are definitelyincreasing.
But I've definitely heard someamazing reports.
We have some really interestingreports from owners who are
working with surrogate healing,so intentionally working with a
psychedelic themselves to beclean and hygienic about the
(53:54):
bond they're sharing with theiranimal and sometimes really
making a lot of progress withthat animal's healing, because
the human is really working ontheir own emotional and physical
health and those arefascinating, those are so
interesting to dive into.
And physical health and thoseare fascinating, those are so
interesting to dive into and toguide and we're really focusing
on the monitoring through those.
Can we use some of thesein-home tests, some of the urine
(54:16):
stress tests, some of thecortisol testing?
How can we make sure thisanimal's going through this
experience?
Even if it's a human that'sconsuming.
It's still a stressfulexperience for everybody.
Absolutely and hopefully are youstressful rather than harmful?
Stressful, yeah, yeah, Growthand change.
(54:37):
I will say that I'm reallyinterested in it's far from well
, I don't know that it's too farfrom our canine veteran concept
, but I'm really interested inthe use of psychedelics for
immune system disorders andthinking about can we begin
working towards reorderingsomatic side, the somatic side
(55:00):
of the body?
There's so much focus on thenervous system side, the
cognitive pieces, the cognitivecircuitry, but the nervous
system is in the periphery aswell.
Can we really approach some ofthese tough external diseases in
some new and inventive ways bythinking of that body as a whole
and focusing more on regulationand balance than the disease
(55:24):
states?
So I think that would befascinating than the disease
states.
Dr Edward (55:27):
So I think that would be fascinating.
Well, I personally see thenervous system as somatic anyway
, because that neurofascialnetwork is everywhere and the
fascia and the neurologicalsensory awareness is.
More than half of the awarenessof the whole body is coming
from the soma, the body.
Dr Casara Andre (55:43):
So yeah, that would be very interesting.
Dr Edward (55:47):
And I hope that we'll get you back sometime and talk
about a study that's being setup for ethical, beautiful mdma
experimentation with animalswith post-traumatic stress.
But that might be a year or twooff by the sound of it, or
maybe longer well, when it is,you'll be the first to know.
Dr Casara Andre (56:04):
We will keep you in the loop.
Dr Edward (56:06):
Yeah, so let's wrap this up, and I'd like to finish
off with a couple of questions.
The first one what is thechange that you want to be and
inspires others to be in thisworld?
Dr Casara Andre (56:20):
Thank you for that question.
It was well phrased and it wasfun to think about.
The answer that I wanted toshare was I'm really interested
in building and sharingparadigms that focus on this one
health aspect and we've talkedabout it all throughout today's
discussion the fact that animal,human and ecosystem health are
(56:42):
inseparable.
We really focus on the humananimal connection, but we exist
in the world around us, whetherit be your household, your
geographic region.
We have to think about all ofthat interconnectivity if we're
going to care for anyone part ofit.
So propagating one healthsolutions, one health ideas,
(57:03):
would be the way that I wouldlove to bring some healing to
the world.
Dr Edward (57:08):
Beautiful, and what do you think is humanity's
biggest blind spot when it comesto your work and our shared
journey of evolution and healing?
Dr Casara Andre (57:20):
Similarly to my previous answer, I think the
anthropocentric perspective thatwe take, so the human-centric.
What do I think about what I'mseeing?
How is what I'm seeing viewedthrough my context, through my
lens?
I think it is our biggest blindspot and while our ability to
project has gotten us so far, Ithink it has made us miss a lot
(57:43):
of beauty and a lot of ways thatwe can be well and in unity
with everything that's around us.
And if we can switch that to aone health perspective and
really thinking about our animalcompanions, maybe leveraging
their well-being, I think wewould see a lot of progress
towards planetary health Itotally agree.
Dr Edward (58:04):
I've been starting to do some, some study and
learning with um the caro peoplewisdom through elizabeth
jenkins, who's just had a sevenweek course out on the shift
network, and their thing is thateverything is living energies
and we want to be in rightrelationship with everything,
(58:25):
whether they be conscious beingsor trees or the places on the
earth or whatever.
And I think that really goesback to that that whole one
health, one earth.
We are all part of one bigthing that's alive and
intelligent and the more we canrealize that, the more our
behavior is going to naturallychange in ways that will heal
the everything.
(58:45):
I think I agree 100 beautiful.
Thank you so much for your timeand energy and wisdom today.
It's been a reallybroad-ranging, very, very
interesting conversation.
Um so, dr cassara, where canpeople find you?
I mean if, if you're incolorado, I would be running off
(59:05):
to to find out when drcassara's next got some
availability.
If you're in Colorado, I wouldbe running off to find out when
Dr Pizarro's next got someavailability, if you see her,
because she's totally awesome.
Dr Casara Andre (59:14):
Well, thank you so much.
Our website, our psychedelicwork, veterinarypsyorg is
probably the best place to findsome of our newest work and
definitely for things going onin Colorado place to find some
of our newest work anddefinitely for things going on
in Colorado and we'd love toconnect for whatever interesting
reasons strikes your brain,please reach out.
Dr Edward (59:33):
We'd definitely love to connect with you.
Do you have a website for?
Dr Casara Andre (59:39):
your clinical work too.
I mostly would work throughthat one and people can reach
out to that email receptiondeskat bednarsciorg and then my team
will make sure that thatinquiry is routed Again.
We'd love to connect.
It is such a fruitful feel.
There's so much that'shappening.
Dr Edward (59:56):
It really takes a lot of collaboration, beautiful.
Thank you so much.
We're going to say goodbye fornow.
Hopefully we'll see you back inthe next episode.
And until we next see you,pleaseara and myself, give your
pets a lovely slow, relaxing,regulating pat.
Hello and welcome to the Whole Energy Body Balance
podcast.
I'm Dr Edward and today we areexploring the world of the
canine soldier the dogs thatwork with the armed forces, with
Dr Kassara Andre, I'd like towelcome you to the podcast,
where we explore all kinds ofpossibilities and practices that
(00:24):
bring greater healing,connection and harmony to pets,
people and horses.
We aim to inspire you.
We don't mind challenging you alittle bit now and then.
We really want to help you growand create positive changes in
healing your life.
If that's what you like doing,this is probably a good place to
be.
I'm your host, dr edward, thehealing vet.
I help deeply caring people,pets and horses unfold profound
(00:47):
healing and healthyrelationships through somatic
awareness, loving, therapeutictouch, intuitive perception,
kind training and energy healing.
I also practice as an intuitive, integrative veterinarian and
healer, helping pets, people andhorses in person and all around
the world.
And, if I can get the rightlayout here, I would just like
(01:12):
to welcome onto the stage DrKassara Andre.
Welcome, it's ages since I'vespoken to you.
It's lovely to see you again.
How are you going?
Dr Casara Andre (01:22):
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
It's a pleasure to be back.
It's great to see you.
Thank you so much for theinvitation.
Dr Edward (01:29):
You're welcome.
We're going to have fun today.
So Dr Kisara Andresahilo,consistently motivated by her
desire to help mammals of allspecies repair and sustain their
health and well-being, she's aveterinarian by education and
training, and she is an armedforces veteran.
She was an army veterinarian.
(01:58):
Yeah, yep, that is correct.
So we're going to start offwith a big question, because
it's good to have deepconversations and big questions,
I reckon.
So who are you, why do you dowhat you do, and how did you get
to this point in your life?
Dr Casara Andre (02:12):
That is a big question.
I would love to tackle that onestraight off the bat.
Thank you, it is such apleasure to be back with you, dr
Edward.
Great to see you virtually.
It was more fun to see you inperson Hi to all of your
audience.
It's always a pleasure to sharewith like-minded colleagues and
people around the world.
I am a practicing veterinarianin Colorado and, as Dr Edward
(02:34):
mentioned, in my early career Iwas a veterinarian for the US
Army Veterinary Corps.
So that was really what startedmy love of the working dog and
gave me a really particularviewpoint into their lives, into
their service and as theveterinarian caring for their
health and well-being, as wellas their relationship with their
partner, with their humanpartner.
(02:55):
There's just a lot that youlearn about care of the canine
soldier and what happens to thatcanine veteran after they
retire.
How do we care for them inretirement.
So I am very interested inbehavioral health and its
implications in somatic healthand those intersections between
(03:15):
which I know you are as well, drEdward, and I feel that this
topic one it's just interesting.
It's an interesting thoughttopic to dive into who is the
canine soldier, who is thecanine veteran?
But I think it gives us areally unique opportunity to
think about behavioral healthdiseases that we see in the
human veteran population, thatwe also see mirrored in the
(03:38):
canine population.
What are we doing for both andI'm really interested in?
Can we achieve better healingfor both by actually looking at
those diseases together and areusing some bi-directional
healing ideas?
Dr Edward (03:53):
So one thing that immediately comes to mind for me
is, you know, choice.
I mean these animals are takenin and trained and then taken
off and work in incrediblyintense, dangerous, stressful
situations.
Could you talk us through alittle bit about what happens
with these little puppies fromyour perspective as a vet
(04:15):
working with them?
I imagine you would have seenthem right throughout their life
cycle.
Dr Casara Andre (04:19):
Yeah, Most of the animals that I worked with
were two years and older, soonce they had been received at
their duty site, I did work fora short period of time on
Lackland Air Force Base, whichhas its own dog breeding program
.
(04:39):
Many of the other dogs arepurchased from kennels or bred
at Lackland or owned bycontractors, so that is an
interesting piece of coming tothe scene just as I was actually
leaving the military was thatwe had a lot of dogs that were
not actually owned by themilitary service but used by
contractors, and kind of the oddrole of how veterinary care was
(05:01):
given to those animals was aninteresting thing.
So I was mostly interacting withdogs that had been trained,
already gone through their basicboot camp, essentially, and
then paired with a handler andthen had had arrived at their
first duty site, or dogs thathad already been serving for a
period of time.
I really appreciate your callout for consent in the midst of
(05:22):
this, which I think, along withany animal topic, no matter what
it is, we're discussing, justfrom vaccines and surgeries to
service in the military where isan animal's consent in there?
Where should we be asking forit?
What does that look like?
And, for sure.
How do we allow them to consentin every way we possibly can,
(05:43):
particularly, I think, aboutmedical care, cooperative care,
training, things along thoselines.
So that was almost all the dogsthat I was working with.
Dr Edward (05:50):
And these dogs are generally extremely high drive,
extremely intelligent andprobably pretty tough like high
pain tolerance, high emotionalthreshold type dogs and I would
imagine that they would love thework.
Is that true, do you think?
Dr Casara Andre (06:09):
I absolutely, that's true, absolutely from a
drive perspective, from a brainwork perspective, from the
challenge perspective, frombeing paired with a human and
then that bond sharing.
Amazing to watch thosewell-paired human-animal bonds
exist.
I will say that one thing thatwas difficult to often see
(06:31):
sometimes were mismatched pairs,so maybe the very experienced
dog with a very new handlerthose were.
It was an interesting role totry to step into as a
veterinarian to help both on thetraining side and also the
medicine side, but really itcame down to strengthening that
bond and that definitely informsa lot of the work that I do now
(06:55):
.
Whether it's for a military dog, a working dog or just a
household pet, it's really thebond that I think makes that
animal's life um good, that,whatever their experience is on
this world, to have that bondwith a human um really is what
shapes and strengthens theirability to live well, live
(07:18):
happily so with a working pair,a human and a dog?
Dr Edward (07:23):
does that dog kind of live with the handler?
Are they full-time, 24-7, withthe handler when they're out in
the field?
Because this is something thatreally fascinates me.
I mean, what happens whenthey're out, wherever they might
be, if it's, you know, in aless intense environment or
somewhere like Iraq or whereverwhere there's full-on, you know,
(07:44):
really really intense stuffgoing on?
Dr Casara Andre (07:47):
It does depend a little bit on which service
they are working for.
So how each service wouldhandle their working dogs a
little bit up to that kennelmaster kind of how that they,
how they run their kennel andalso the infrastructure that's
available.
So I was stationed US bases andso when there was a full kennel
, that's where all the dogs werehoused at night or when their
(08:09):
handler was on leave, etc.
And so, as you mentioned beforethose high drive dogs, you can
just imagine what those kennelenvironments are like.
They're very loud, they're verychaotic.
Teaching that animal orallowing that animal to settle
and recuperate, even after asurgery or procedure, definitely
had to be thought aboutcarefully.
And then in deployment that dogand handler would just be
(08:34):
together.
So depending on whichinfrastructure was available,
they might be separate, in abarracks and a kennel or
literally on the same cottogether.
Dr Edward (08:42):
So if they were out on active assignment in a
battlefield, what happens then?
Dr Casara Andre (08:49):
Probably on the same cot together, just
absolutely deployed as a pair.
You know, what was reallyinteresting was to hear the
reflections of handlers that haddogs with them and how the
presence of that animal sopositively contributed to their
own mental health experience,but also their unit's mental
health experience, that even ifthat dog was not necessarily
(09:12):
approachable or did not want toplay the therapy dog role or,
you know, just did not want tointeract with other humans other
than their partner, their humanhandler would still always
report that other soldiers wouldcome just to hang out, just to
watch the dog train, just to bearound that animal presence.
And I think it speaks so much tothe many roles that animals
(09:36):
play, not just in a soldierenvironment and the veteran
environment but in all of humanexperience.
To really really have thatemotional tie, that, um,
psychological well-being tie,and if we're receiving that gift
from them, then get behooves usto think about.
How are we returning that, howare we caring for that?
How are we making sure thatthey have the resources to give,
(09:57):
since we're we're happy theygive them, how do we make sure
that they're happy and safeminutes of that?
Dr Edward (10:03):
so I know we're going to really dig into what happens
with these dogs after activeduty, when they are retired and
they're a veteran, but there's acouple of other things that I'd
really like to explore a littlebit before we get there.
So one thing is you know whathappens?
Do these dogs always have thesame handler, or is there
transitions?
Is there changeovers forvarious reasons, and how do you
(10:26):
think that impacts the dog andthe humans when that happens?
Dr Casara Andre (10:30):
That's a great question.
So again, there is somedifference between how the
different services will runtheir dog.
So I was US Army VeterinaryCorps and the Army provides
veterinary services to all ofthe Department of Defense.
So we would be stationed onmultiple different bases serving
different services Navy, marine, army but how the care of the
(10:53):
dogs, the training of the dogsand their day-to-day life, that
was dictated by the service thatessentially owned them.
And it was interesting to see,just as you've mentioned, the
thought process behind how thosedogs were placed with a handler
, the training that those thatpair received together, even who
got to be a handler between theservices.
(11:15):
Others would have the humanpartner work their way up
through sort of kennel training,kennel help, shadowing, to earn
, you know, being able to be adog handler and, and definitely
that makes a difference, youknow if you are an animal
hearted person and that you wantto be able to work with a dog,
(11:38):
that gives you a completelydifferent motivation than sort
of just like you're, you're adog handler now and definitely
contributes, I think, to thatanimal's experience.
Most of the services that Iworked for would rotate the dog,
potentially separately, so thatdog could be deployed with a
different handler if thathandler retired or was sent
(11:58):
somewhere else.
And I'll speak to how I thinkthat that was hard on both human
and animal, to how I think thatthat was hard on both human and
animal in the moment.
But say first that I did have achance to work with a National
Guard unit.
So these, because they arestationed within a state, kept
the same dog throughout theirentire working lifetime and the
handler was usually the same.
So that idea of a morestationary unit versus the
(12:22):
larger army or Navy that wouldabsolutely move throughout bases
and could definitely be movedseparate from the animal, the
relationship and the partnershipbetween the animals and the
humans that stay together, itwas significantly better.
The wellbeing of those animals,I definitely felt, was better
and from a medical careperspective it was much, much
(12:43):
easier to have everyone on thesame page about recovery,
recuperation, things that neededto be changed because that
message was directly to theirhuman partner an idea of what
(13:06):
kinds of activities they'reexpected and invited to do, what
kind of service they need to doand what kinds of stresses and
traumas they might be exposed towhen they're out in an active
battlefield.
Absolutely, or even just atraining scenario, I mean
medical problems happen on thetraining field.
So we think mostly about whatare the skills that we utilize
(13:27):
from dogs, and olfactory senseis huge, so whatever they're
detecting explosives, narcotics,a mix of different molecules,
so sort of that detection side.
The protection or the patrolside would be some of the bite
work so you can have, and inthat category you could have
(13:49):
dogs that are tracking, so itwould track an individual or a
scent or air scent, so kind ofmore area search than actual
tracing.
We definitely see therapyequine, so we had a lot of
recreational equine units thatwas really fun to work with.
(14:09):
I am mostly focused on dogs soI didn't have a lot to do with
equine medicine but that wasreally fun um case on unit, some
of the the dress dressage units, um, so protection and scent
would probably be the biggestcategories of skills that we use
those animals for.
And so with that comes training.
So lots of wear and tear onjoints, musculoskeletal injuries
(14:29):
from traumatic injuries,running into something a fence,
uh get into a fight Hopefullynot If your trainer, your
handler knows what they're doingand then definitely things in
in um combat, which could beanything from uh stepping on IED
going through a door andreceiving a gunshot wound or a
knife wound.
(14:49):
So really the same risk that ahuman soldier would face, except
that the animal's usually atthe point.
Usually the animal's goingthrough the door first or
tracking an IED, so very likelyto be exposed.
And the skill of these animalsis really well known.
So a unit that has a detectiondog is going to be really good
at finding any explosives in thearea, so sometimes those
(15:12):
animals can actually be targetedokay, so they.
Dr Edward (15:16):
They then become a target for the opposing forces
as well, because they they helpthe soldiers.
So well, right yeah, correct andthen I think about the
psychological environment, theenergetic psychological,
psycho-spiritual environmentthat these dogs are in so you
know, intensely traumatic,probably possibly exposure to
(15:40):
explosions, injuries, blastforces.
You know, I know that I've seensome stuff recently that
they're seeing these kind ofdiffuse tbis in soldiers that
that have firing rockets and allthat sort of stuff and exposed
to explosives.
It's not just the physical bodythat gets, but the actual brain
(16:02):
gets injured.
Dr Casara Andre (16:03):
Yeah, Absolutely, absolutely, and
we've mentioned it already thepsychological component of your
handler.
So what is the psychologicalhealth of the human that you're
really connected to, the dog'sabsolutely feeling the effects
of that of the unit as well asthe actual physical danger.
You know what's interestingabout the canine side and we did
(16:28):
speak with a canine handler.
He had the dog after retirement.
The dog recently passed awayand one of the veterinarians on
our team was actually hisveterinarian and helped with his
euthanasia.
That handler was talking aboutso many years after the animal
had retired would still be ableto practice his scent work,
(16:50):
practice his bite work, that theability of him to turn it on in
a moment's notice, even yearsafter being retired, was like
that.
And what that brings up in mymind is the idea of canine PTSD.
We already struggle so muchwith answers for human PTSD and
we can tell the human thatthey're not in an active war
(17:13):
environment.
We can tell the human you arenow retired and yet that
distinction of what might happen, what risk you're in, how do we
communicate that to an animal?
And this retired canine handlerwas talking about the fact that
he felt that in his retiredcanine veteran that was
something he struggled with, ofhow to turn off, how to be
(17:35):
restful, because that wasn'tsomething that he practiced
during his career.
Dr Edward (17:39):
Well, we could diverge a little bit there, and
I think that is something thatis not taught across the board.
In domestic dogs, in all kindsof working dogs, in all kinds of
situations and circumstances.
The importance of teachingself-regulation and relaxation
in dogs is something that I'mjust really, really passionate
about, and that's somethingthat's not taught about at vet
(18:01):
schools.
It's something, something thatjust is really rare, and humans
in general, being monkeys, tendto love to take dogs into
high-stimulation states androast them up, and they're
really, really bad.
You know, I see it, when I wasworking in the vet clinic, a
puppy had come in.
The puppy's a bit like this thenurse goes oh, how are you
going?
The puppy gets excited.
(18:21):
The nurse gets more excited.
Next they say oh, how are yougoing?
The puppy gets excited, thenurse gets more excited.
Next thing, the puppy's jumpingaround like a mad thing.
It's like, oh God damn it,don't do that, don't do that to
the puppy, you know.
So I think there's a real deepprimate thing there.
That is a bit of a clash and aproblem for dogs.
Dr Casara Andre (18:41):
I agree absolutely, and I think that it
also steals a huge piece oftheir athleticism to not
intentionally train the offstate between and high level
(19:05):
athletes and yes, these dogs areamazing athletes and in their
working career they can beamazing athletes but could they
be safer, could they be better,could their retirement be better
if we actually balanced whattheir muscles were doing,
balanced that time that thatnervous system was off, instead
of essentially just running themout?
But you know, I think we see alot of these same ideas for
human veterans as well.
We put them into high stress,high stakes environments without
(19:26):
training the off, and then,when it's done or you're off
duty, none of your training isbeen for that moment.
And I think that we need tothink about what how that
applies to dogs as well.
Dr Edward (19:38):
You are stuck on and I think post-traumatic stress is
a state of stuck on this fight,flight in a in a very complex,
absolutely multimodal, somatic,mental, emotional.
The whole thing is stuck on andeven if it's off, it's ready to
jam on at the slightest littlehint of any kind of thing that
could be perceived as danger.
Dr Casara Andre (19:59):
Yeah, yes, absolutely, absolutely, and we
can see it it so clearly when wethink about any type of service
animal.
But a military service animalmakes that even a little bit
more distinct.
You even have just a monetaryvalue of how much training has
gone into that animal, much lessthe value to their partner, to
(20:21):
the human lives that they'vesaved, to the unit themselves
that I spoke about, like all ofthe humans that care for that
animal.
If we're not caring for allthose aspects, we're losing and
definitely not utilizingvaluable assets in multiple
different spheres, much lessthat well-being of the animal.
How do we care for it in activework so that it can have this
(20:43):
lovely retirement?
Dr Edward (20:45):
yeah, and I suppose how can we switch from thinking
of the animal as a resource thatwe can extract work out of?
to a conscious, thinking,feeling empathic, empowered,
being who, and you know I kindof this whole thing of dogs in
armed forces.
I think the whole consent thingis muddy or murky at the very
(21:07):
best, even with the dogs thatwant to work.
Well, I think it's a bit thesame with soldiers, human
soldiers, to be honest.
I mean, how much real consentis there at the whole level of
soldiers being trained to go outand go into violent, difficult
circumstances, of soldiers beingtrained to go out and go into
violent, difficult circumstances?
I think it's such a complex,worrisome kind of thing on all
(21:30):
levels.
Dr Casara Andre (21:32):
Absolutely, absolutely, especially when we
don't have mechanisms to help,when that imbalance occurs
because there was a circumstancethat they didn't consent to or
that no one knew, knew about orno one was prepared for.
Now can we repair that hurt?
And I think that that isimplicit in responsibility of
can you prepare enough to repairthe hurt or the risk or the
(21:56):
harm if it happens?
And if you aren't thinkingabout that, I think you're wrong
from the beginning.
And really thinking about thecare of that animal holistically
and can they survive well inthis environment is really,
really important.
We can extrapolate even furtherto other high drive dogs, other
(22:17):
jobs, other service animals Arethey the right fit.
Is their job a right fit forthem?
Is their partner, is theirhuman partner, a good fit for
them?
And, obviously, from theveterinarian side, how do we
care for that, how do we monitorfor that, how do we know when
it's not going well?
And how do we convince theother humans who care for them
that we need to make a medicalintervention?
Dr Edward (22:40):
Yeah, I've got a mentor, Lockie Phillips, who has
created this thing calledemotional horsemanship, and when
it comes to riding horses, he'sgot this concept of a bio
window the length of time that ahuman can be on a horse's back
without it starting to causedamage to the spine.
And this concept is somethingthat has fascinated me a bit and
(23:00):
I'm thinking well, what's thebio window for working dogs?
What's the bio window forhumans, dogs, what's the bio
window for humans?
And this is not just physical,but mental, emotional,
psychological as well.
You know, I suspect it's wayshorter than what most animals
are being demanded uponabsolutely.
Dr Casara Andre (23:17):
You know, I think about some of the therapy
dogs or therapy teams, humansand the dogs and their handlers
that we work with in some of ourdisaster response scenarios and
those animals are emotionallysupporting humans and they're
exhausted at the end of theirshift.
So, without even the physical,somatic injury component, it's
(23:42):
exhausting to do your job,whatever that might be, and we
need to recognize that, monitorfor it and then be prepared to
somehow repair, somehow makethat better, if we can't avoid
it to begin with.
Dr Edward (23:56):
So we've explored a little bit of the world of
coming in and doing the thing asa working dog.
So what happens?
What's the process of thembecoming a veteran, of being
moved out of the forces?
Dr Casara Andre (24:08):
What happens, yes, so the whole process would
be called disposition and againit depends a little bit on which
service you're working for andthe reasons for dispositions.
So there can be medical ortraining and from the medical
side, which obviously I was morefamiliar with, arthritis would
be a super common cause.
(24:30):
Year old German Shepherd thatreally isn't able to do those
job functions well, or medicallyyou're able to say this is not
a good idea for this dog's body.
Let's think about retirement.
So that was the most commonthing that I saw.
But I'll I'll mention it can befor behavioral health reasons
and often because of how thatdog was handled, how that dog
(24:53):
was cared for or not, and thosewere really really difficult to
work with.
But I will say, for all theones that I had experience with,
the handlers and the kennelmasters were the first to go to
bat for that animal, but it wasvery hard to see the consequence
of that animal's working lifecreep up to its retirement.
(25:14):
So this could be kind ofcumulative layers of stress and
trauma, PTSD, anxiety-typebehaviors you're talking about
Absolutely so just aggressionbiting at the wrong time.
How often do we see that incompanion animals?
(25:34):
Because they're not beinglistened to?
And so then add in these highstress environments, teams that
are rotating around, um, humansthat are stressed already in
stressful scenarios, um it's.
It's an environment wherethere's a lot of potential for
harm and a lot of potential forthings to get missed, which is
why I think it's so importantthat when there is a medical
(25:56):
oversight piece, that we'rereally, really attentive.
Dr Edward (25:59):
How rehomeable are these dogs if they've got
behavioral issues?
Dr Casara Andre (26:04):
Highly, highly rehomeable.
I've actually never worked witha case that was a behavioral
euthanasia.
Those do happen but they wouldprobably be at Lackland Air
Force Base and sort of workingwith a behavioral specialist.
So every dog that I worked withfor disposition found a home,
which was lovely.
There's usually quite a longlist of families that want to
(26:27):
adopt and again in my experiencewould go through list of
previous handlers, would getfirst choice.
Members of the armed forces orpolice force that maybe have
experience with working dogswould sort of be next Two
civilians.
It rarely made it too far downbefore that animal found a home
and usually a prior handler wasusually who adopted them.
Dr Edward (26:50):
Okay, so you tend to get continuity with that Okay.
Dr Casara Andre (26:54):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and I have some
precious pictures of some ofthose dogs in retirement, of
chilling on a couch eating anice cream cone.
So, they can have some reallyamazing retirements.
Dr Edward (27:08):
So then, care of the veteran, the canine soldier
who's in retirement, and this iskind of where we really want to
get into the meat and bones ofwhat we want to talk about today
.
So you've got a couple ofthings that you want to explore
with with us today, um, and thefirst point was importance of
caring for psychological systemsand their impact on physical
(27:29):
body systems.
So let's dig into that.
Dr Casara Andre (27:31):
That's a juicy topic yeah, I'm I'm fascinated
by this one.
We've already touched on it acouple of times throughout
through our intro, and I thinkit comes down to the fact that
we can't separate them out.
We cannot consider physicalsystems and psychological
systems as separate, becausethey're in the same entity and
(27:52):
particularly in canines, who areso geared to connect to us as
humans and, bidirectionally, usto canines, we're going to have
those systems interact andoverlap and when we think about
these bonded pairs, we have boththe physical and psychological
aspects of the canine, but thenwe have the physical,
psychological aspects of thecanine, but then we have the
physical, psychological aspectsof the bonded human.
(28:15):
And then what does that?
What do all of those maketogether?
And considering them as a unit,I think, is where, um, probably
you and I are most interestedof how to, how do we work on
that as a entity all together?
Dr Edward (28:29):
because they're really not separate, they're not
able to be separated well,they're intimately co-regulating
on every level of consciousness, energy, physiology, the whole
time that they're, they'retogether right absolutely,
absolutely.
Dr Casara Andre (28:45):
And you know, today we're talking mostly about
the, the canine veterans, ofthe, the animal that has served
as a soldier, but I'll also justthrow in a nod to the emotional
support animal for a veteranand the animal learning to
support the human veteranthrough the emotional changes
they may be going with, throughPTSD and thinking medically, are
(29:07):
we supporting that animal?
Knowing the turbulence of thehuman's emotional state?
Is the animal's physiologicstate able to handle the
turbulence there?
Does that idea make sense?
Dr Edward (29:22):
I'm I know it does to you from your work that it is
so similar, but we can dive intothat more that's kind of like a
capacity thing, right, um, andwith the greater resilience and
um self-regulation capacitythere is, the more input of
stresses and traumas and thingslike that an animal can cope
(29:44):
with in a healthy way would bewhat I would think of that yeah.
Dr Casara Andre (29:50):
Absolutely.
But if that human is not awareof what they're putting off onto
their animal, that can getreally overwhelming really
quickly for the animal,especially if they're untrained.
And again that's a little bitmore on the service animal side.
But it just brings up thisbeautiful, all-encompassing idea
of the unit, the family unit,that those bonds that are
(30:11):
absolutely so inseparable thosebonds that are absolutely so
inseparable.
Dr Edward (30:18):
I haven't done a lot of direct work with service dogs
like army kind of armed forcesdogs, but I have had a client
that I've been seeing recently.
That is a dog, that is a supportdog for a human who's got
pretty severe post-traumaticstress after a really bad
traffic incident.
And you know, one of theprimary things I do is teach
(30:38):
people how to regulate, helptheir animals regulate with,
with touch, with relaxing touch.
And I've got to say I'venoticed a big difference in the
human with him doing that withhis dog, because the he's
shifting his dog's nervoussystem but then his nervous
system is shifting in responseand co-regulating.
And I nearly always see thiswith all the animals and I kind
(31:00):
of think of most domestic dogsas unsung therapy dogs, support
dogs, emotional support dogsanyway, and I see this kind of
universally.
You get an anxious dog and youteach the human how to teach the
dog how to regulate.
I see all sorts of changes inthe humans really quickly too,
absolutely absolutely.
So what sort of things do yourecommend when it comes to
(31:24):
caring for the psychologicalsystems of the animals, these
veteran animals?
Dr Casara Andre (31:30):
You know, dr Edward, at the moment I'm really
focusing on just awareness forthe human partners of what that
impact is.
Because, just as you said amoment ago, that if the human
can be regulated by guidingtheir animal, the human being
aware of the turbulence they'recreating, really is such a
(31:52):
powerful step to calming thosewaves, really is such a powerful
step to calming those waves,not that the dog can't continue
to help, but just the awarenessin that bond of what's going on
allows us to monitor the animal,assess whether it has the
resources that it needs tosupport the human, that it gets
medical care, and monitoringthat it should and that we can
intervene if we start to seestressors on its physiologic
(32:13):
system.
I've really been interested.
Well, you, you, I know thatyou're also working with the
endocannabinoid system andcannabis support or other
support to the ECS.
You know I've really beennoticing how I see systems
really get weaker, like urinary.
(32:34):
I see a lot of urinary issues,skin issues, immune system
issues and it's a blessing to beable to think about how can I
support the endocannabinoidsystem to regulate all these
subsystems that might be takingextra strain.
But I've also encountered acouple of situations where I
feel like there needs to be alot of care in how I support the
(32:55):
ECS because sometimes,sometimes the turbulence is
inappropriate and I don't.
I've found a couple scenarioswhere it has been not helpful
for me to support the animalsECSA with cannabis without very
directly addressing theturbulence the human was causing
.
Because, as we're supportingthe ECS, we're essentially
(33:17):
teaching it to balance, to whereit is and if the situation is
bad.
Dr Edward (33:22):
We're sort of teaching balance to an abnormal
state and I think that can havesome consequences makes me think
of a client I had years andyears ago who was had a dog with
epilepsy, and this fellow had atraumatic brain injury so he
was inclined to be very volatile.
But when I told him, hey, yourvolatility is actually harming
(33:46):
your dog, there was the biggestpositive change in that man's
behavior that no otherintervention had ever ever got
close to yes, yes, absolutelybehavioral health disorders are
not exclusive to humans, too.
Is the next thing you're goingto say something?
Dr Casara Andre (34:07):
sorry, I butted in I actually think that that
ties in really well.
Um, I was just going to mention, I practice in colorado, as you
know, and we have someinteresting policies around
psychedelics at the moment, andso, while this is well, I'll
approach it from two points.
I think that we should beconsidering psychedelics for
(34:30):
care of the canine veteran verycarefully and with a lot of
oversight and a lot of slow,slow progress.
Dr Edward (34:40):
Slow progress.
We're particularly interestedin.
Dr Casara Andre (34:42):
DMA yes, yes, yes.
And consent how are weaddressing consent in some of
these?
So it's so many things totackle there.
But I think therapeuticallyabsolutely we should be
considering them in canineveterans.
But we're also seeing a lot ofunintentional support animals.
So you mentioned supportanimals and emotional support
(35:02):
animals and we see a lot ofveterans pursuing psychedelic
use for their own mental health.
My question is are the animalsin their sphere trained and able
to support their human throughthat experience?
And I think that that'ssomething that's not being
considered carefully enough inthe landscape that's emerging,
(35:24):
definitely in our state, butjust more broadly, as humans try
to delve into some of thesemental health issues of their
own, what is the consequence andimpact on animals that might
have their own behavioral healthissue to begin with, but also
we're essentially just trying toshed the human health
behavioral issue into the animal?
Is their capacity, does thatpiece of the bond, that side of
(35:48):
the bond, have the capacity tocarry that emotional outburst,
that emotional turbulence?
Dr Edward (35:57):
That's a good point.
Now, now I'm going to apologizein advance if any of the
renovatory noises come throughon the recording.
I'm just going to be kind ofmuting myself in between cassara
speaking, because someone onthe roof outside with a rattle
gun making all sorts of noise,moving the background noise.
Depression will deal with it,but it might not.
So what sort of behavioralhealth disorders do we see in
these veteran dogs and how doyou approach helping them with
(36:20):
them?
Dr Casara Andre (36:24):
You know well, musculoskeletal for sure.
So that's like a clear cut.
Yes, obviously, arthritis.
We need to be taking care oftheir bodies.
We need to be taking care oftheir bodies and I really
thinking about how can we extend, extend their longevity of
health and well-being withoutjumping to cannabis, massage,
(36:45):
acupuncture, the modalities thatreally help that body rebalance
in and of itself, and I want tocall out some of the work that
you're doing of just teachingthe autonomic nervous system to
regulate where it should be.
I think if we focus a lot ofour modalities simply on
creating that internalresilience, we wouldn't end up
(37:06):
so quickly at our non-steroidalsteroid surgery and we might, we
still might need thosethroughout the animal's lifetime
.
But, as we said throughout thisconversation, I think if we
focused more on that internalbalance and helping that system
know where it is on versus off,we would see a lot of our
modalities be more effective andlonger lasting well, personally
(37:29):
I I reckon that dogs should bein healthy relaxation, or what I
call the green zone of arousal,80% to 90% of their life,
including sleep time, of course,which is a large part of that.
Dr Edward (37:40):
But some dogs don't even get that in sleep.
They're kind of like they'renot really asleep, they're just
poised to wake up because of theslightest little sound or
anything right.
Dr Casara Andre (37:49):
Yes.
And what if they're human?
It's equally jumpy.
So that could complicate thematter in and of itself.
So we have this animal thatwe're trying to get to rest and
that yet its biologic rhythmsare being set abnormally by
what's going on around it.
That for me carries a lot ofweight because I think that
(38:12):
again here in my state we'reseeing a lot of veterans pursue
psychedelics for themselves, fortheir own mental health.
But we really need to thinkabout who else is in their
household.
And it might not be a retiredcanine veteran, they might not
have their own version of caninePTSD, but their service animal
might not be appropriatelytrained for this.
So it's just this biggeroverarching concept of how do we
(38:36):
care for that intersection ofphysiologic systems and
psychological systems got loudnoises here.
Dr Edward (38:48):
Sorry about that.
That you wanted to talk aboutis the potential of leveraging
existing human animal bonds topotentiate healing across
species in human animal bondedpairs of grips.
Now that is a mouthful of asentence, but I think there's
some very interesting.
Dr Casara Andre (39:05):
That was a long one.
Dr Edward (39:08):
I'm so excited about this one.
Dr Casara Andre (39:12):
Fascinating.
Yeah, I'm so hopeful for thepotential that this bullet point
holds.
So in human veteran mentalhealth care, a hard piece of
(39:53):
success is establishing therelationship with the therapist,
with the care providers.
When humans, mental health andI think that's a big theme among
our world of not necessarilyconnecting with the therapist or
someone who's trying to help,and we definitely see that on
the animal side how many timesdo existing behavioral health
issues prior an appropriateclinical handling?
So clinic induced trauma,emotional trauma, how many times
is that prevent our ability togive appropriate, timely,
adequate medical care Becausethe animal's like no thanks, I
(40:16):
don't want to participate.
And those are really reallytrue in canine veterans as well.
Service dogs, high drive dogs sothat's a large portion of my
other clientele is just highdrive dogs that they're on, and
when you give clinical restraintinappropriately, they're really
likely to interpret that in avery negative light.
(40:38):
So we have this barrier of howdo we actually create
relationship and rapport enoughto guide an animal through a
medical experience whatever thatis massage, acupuncture, an
actual experience, whatever thatis Massage acupuncture, an
actual procedure, doesn't matter.
How do we establish thatrapport?
So this idea really talks aboutleveraging existing bonds
(41:01):
instead of thinking about andI'll just personify me myself as
the provider.
I'm going to make you better.
I'm going to come and interveneand work on this bond, or your
body or your mind.
For me, this idea captures thethought of me having a little
bit more distance, a little bitmore respect for some of the
trauma that might be alreadypresent.
So, working from a traumainformed veterinary care
(41:23):
perspective and asking how can Ileverage someone that this
animal already trusts, how can Ileverage an environment that
this animal already finds issafe?
And if we're thinking about avery dynamic bond, maybe there
are behavioral health issues onboth sides.
You said exactly this.
Can we leverage that connectionto make both the human and the
(41:45):
animal better?
So, like your gentleman who wasguiding its animal through
autonomic regulation for massageagainst a seizure, was feeling
better themselves.
I think that's a perfectexample of this.
That human was not able to takeaction for their animal until
you guided them to thatbi-directional exchange, to
(42:06):
leveraging each other'swell-being to reach that common
goal.
And I love that idea as apractitioner, especially when
you bring in ideas ofendocannabinoid system balance
and tone, the dynamics of afamily unit or a bonded pair,
and I think we already see allthese connections and patterns
(42:27):
and the, the tone between umindividual entities in the, in
those pairs, and if we canreally utilize that, I think
we're already multiple stepstowards that healing better than
we would be on our own so howdo you see this rippling through
a whole family or a group or inthat kind of active dog thing,
(42:49):
a unit that the dog's embeddedin?
Yeah, I.
What we are really thinkingabout for this at the moment is
towards research in thepsychedelics for the canine
veteran.
So let's take for a moment theidea of utilizing NDMA for the
(43:09):
canine veteran.
As we see research come out foruse in the human veteran, can
we extrapolate that to designresearch for the canine in?
In that scenario, who is theguide?
How do we establish enoughrapport in advance to guide
(43:31):
guide an animal through adysphoric experience?
And this is where I think weabsolutely, if we're going to
pursue that type of research,need to really think about how
that handler becomes involved socan you explain what you mean
by dysphoric experience?
(43:56):
Absolutely so.
A dysphoric experience could beactually with any drug.
So you can give a sedative, youcould give a pre-anesthetic,
and that dysphoria is thefeeling not in your right mind.
Dr Edward (44:04):
I don't understand where I am am this doesn't feel
okay.
Dr Casara Andre (44:08):
Um, I feel different and I don't know what
to do about this and it's notnecessarily bad, it's just not
the same, and that's tough forhumans.
And then when?
You put an animal in adysphoric experience you.
Dr Edward (44:25):
You can either get a positive dysphoric or a negative
dysphoric experience.
I could imagine.
Dr Casara Andre (44:30):
Well, I think it might.
Well, there's so much comingout in terms of what we can know
here, so I think there's a lotthat we have yet to learn.
But maybe the idea is that thedysphoric experience is not
positive or negative, but itallows the brain circuits to be
mapped one way or the other.
Dr Edward (44:52):
so potentially, that dysphoria is yeah I was more
thinking of using the kind ofbehavioral medications that we
do use, that you can get um, isit cool?
But it doesn't work.
I can't remember.
The proper technical term isfalling out of my head right now
(45:14):
.
Um, where they get paradoxicalexcitation.
That's the word I'm trying tothink of, right, so that's kind
of a dysphoria thing, it's,whereas another dog might have a
dysphoria which is kind of likeI feel calm and that's actually
a good thing.
That's which is kind of like Ifeel calm and that's actually a
good thing.
That's what I'm kind of gettingat.
Does that make sense?
Dr Casara Andre (45:34):
Absolutely Well .
Let's just chat for a momentabout dysphoria on THC.
So it's.
You know, the substance doesn'tmatter what the substance is.
The dysphoria is simply beingout of your normal state.
This is not what I normallyperceive, and we can have that
with any set of molecules.
Again, pre-anesthetic drugs,pain medications and cannabis is
(45:55):
something that I have a lot offamiliarity with, and I know
that you do as well.
Sometimes we need to creep thatanimal up towards that
dysphoric state.
So think about a seizure reallysevere anxiety, to begin to
soften some of their existingideas, the existing patterns, to
then shape them in a differentway.
So say, using THC before amassage, using THC before you're
(46:20):
going to do some body work, sogetting enough of those patterns
to break down.
Sorry, let me find my mic.
Dr Edward (46:27):
You might use low doses so that they can then
habituate to the dysphoric state, so that it can then become a
positive experience rather thana negative experience.
Is that what you mean?
Dr Casara Andre (46:38):
Absolutely.
But recognizing that dysphoricstate can be negative.
And if we're not there to takea lot of care about guiding them
through that state, then we'rekind of just tossing the dice up
in the air and like, hope youdo okay.
But I think this is exactlywhat the human side of medicine
(46:59):
is working on now about guidingthrough a psychedelic experience
, guiding through a difficult,having a coach to help you
figure out what step could comenext.
How do we do that for an animal?
How do we establish thatrapport?
Again, that's kind of whatwe're talking about here.
Can we leverage something thatanimal already trusts?
When we're going to change apattern?
(47:19):
Can we lean on patterns thatare already present, already
strong, already positive, sothat as we change and mold some
other patterns, we're much morelikely to go positive than have
a negative experience under asubstance that's really really
powerful?
Dr Edward (47:38):
So are there any research studies getting set up
for MDMA in dogs, or are we notquite at that point of
structuring and working out howto do that?
Dr Casara Andre (47:51):
no, not that I'm aware of and not that our
team is um to a stage ofadvancing we do.
We have been speaking with a fewum universities that have
interests.
But I will say I have a lot ofconcerns about the human
psychedelic research field.
I think there's a lot of animalabuse happening now in some of
(48:15):
the studies that are coming outthat you just look at these
study designs and question theethics review board and who
thought that this was an okaything to try?
And then you read some of theliterature that's coming out
from the human side and I haveconcerns about the ethics and
(48:37):
the strength of that currentresearch environment to properly
care for an animal.
So at the moment we are notactively pursuing that with any
(49:05):
group because I don't know thatour research industry has the
ability to think about consentand the right way to take care
of an animal, to really take itslowly enough to be careful.
There's so much drive for thequick answer to have the
patented thing that I think wereally need to be cautious when
animals are involved.
They need a lot of advocacy.
Dr Edward (49:17):
Yeah, my thought would be that you need to start
at very low dose and inch it up,and inch it up until you see
the slightest little signs ofanything and see what happens
and see what kind of responsesyou get at that point, rather
than going towards thresholddoses and high doses.
I don't think that very good.
Dr Casara Andre (49:35):
Absolutely.
And what can we do withleveraging these bonds so that
it's less about dose and it'smore about rewiring a circuit?
And we know that if we canreally get that bond tight and
healthy, that that's trulywhat's going to make change.
We know more about the periodafter exposure to a psychedelic
(49:57):
that say psilocybin or MDMA.
The two to three weeks afterthe exposure are actually where
that critical period is open andthose circuits are rewiring.
That has nothing to do with thedose.
We see that those criticalperiod reopening really tied to
how long you were exposed to thesubstance during the journey a
(50:19):
human would say, or the ceremonyor the experience but it's what
you do in the weeks afterwardsthat really dictate those
long-term changes.
So in animal work I think weshould be looking more at what
does their month look like aftertreatment?
What does it look likebeforehand, what does it look
like afterwards?
What is the environment thatthey're in?
And if we cannot safelyguarantee that environment, then
(50:43):
we shouldn't be pursuing thatinitial exposure.
And that, I think, is hard forour human research environment
to kind of get behind.
We like to see big results anddramatic results and working
with respect in animals requiresus to go slow.
Dr Edward (51:01):
Okay, so maybe that's not an option just yet.
Just curiously, have there beenany anecdotal, accidental or
deliberate MDMA stories you'veheard of people using it,
perhaps a little bit what youmight call tongue in cheek, very
much off label, and if so, whatkind of things have happened?
Dr Casara Andre (51:22):
Yeah, we do have an exposure survey out and
we do get interestingsubmissions to it.
We have one of our teamsworking on an article
publication about a gentlemanspeaking about use of ayahuasca
in a cat and that's had somereally interesting positive
outcomes.
Now for your listeners,ayahuasca is a very, very
(51:44):
powerful psychedelic, very longlasting, so not kind of slow
slow approach that dr edward andI were talking about it's like
the biggest one of all in someways, yes, and I don't know.
I don't know why that tends tobe something that comes up, but
again, emphasizing respect,emphasizing consent, emphasizing
(52:05):
safety of what happens andaround that experience for the
animal and afterwards is soimportant.
Again, I'm in Colorado so Ihear lots of anecdotal reports
of animals being exposed topsilocybin.
Particularly the ERs aredefinitely seeing exposures and
again, what's really coming upis that it's what happens
afterwards, what happens afterthat exposure.
(52:27):
That's the most important andthat we need to be prepared for
that.
As we see exposures in the ERjust from an accidental
intoxication.
It's not just about that moment, it's not just about while
they're in your clinic.
It could be more important tocheck in on them a week, two
weeks, three weeks out, becausethat might be where we're
actually seeing some newbehavioral health issues arise
(52:50):
that we're not even catchingbecause it's past the exposure.
But those next couple of weeksare really impactful.
Dr Edward (52:58):
So, in general, with these accidental or potentially
kind of gray zone deliberatethings, are you seeing positive
or negative impacts overall?
Dr Casara Andre (53:08):
Depends on how it's done, depends on how
intentional that human is andhow safe the environment is.
There's lots of reports of theaccidental ingestion.
So into the stash, you know,just like it used to be for
cannabis.
We're at that time in historywhere psychedelics are not quite
as stigmatized and so they're alittle bit more openly used,
but that means that they're leftout on the counter or using a
(53:31):
little bit more of arecreational setting.
So exposures are definitelyincreasing.
But I've definitely heard someamazing reports.
We have some really interestingreports from owners who are
working with surrogate healing,so intentionally working with a
psychedelic themselves to beclean and hygienic about the
(53:54):
bond they're sharing with theiranimal and sometimes really
making a lot of progress withthat animal's healing, because
the human is really working ontheir own emotional and physical
health and those arefascinating, those are so
interesting to dive into.
And physical health and thoseare fascinating, those are so
interesting to dive into and toguide and we're really focusing
on the monitoring through those.
Can we use some of thesein-home tests, some of the urine
(54:16):
stress tests, some of thecortisol testing?
How can we make sure thisanimal's going through this
experience?
Even if it's a human that'sconsuming.
It's still a stressfulexperience for everybody.
Absolutely and hopefully are youstressful rather than harmful?
Stressful, yeah, yeah, Growthand change.
(54:37):
I will say that I'm reallyinterested in it's far from well
, I don't know that it's too farfrom our canine veteran concept
, but I'm really interested inthe use of psychedelics for
immune system disorders andthinking about can we begin
working towards reorderingsomatic side, the somatic side
(55:00):
of the body?
There's so much focus on thenervous system side, the
cognitive pieces, the cognitivecircuitry, but the nervous
system is in the periphery aswell.
Can we really approach some ofthese tough external diseases in
some new and inventive ways bythinking of that body as a whole
and focusing more on regulationand balance than the disease
(55:24):
states?
So I think that would befascinating than the disease
states.
Dr Edward (55:27):
So I think that would be fascinating.
Well, I personally see thenervous system as somatic anyway
, because that neurofascialnetwork is everywhere and the
fascia and the neurologicalsensory awareness is.
More than half of the awarenessof the whole body is coming
from the soma, the body.
Dr Casara Andre (55:43):
So yeah, that would be very interesting.
Dr Edward (55:47):
And I hope that we'll get you back sometime and talk
about a study that's being setup for ethical, beautiful mdma
experimentation with animalswith post-traumatic stress.
But that might be a year or twooff by the sound of it, or
maybe longer well, when it is,you'll be the first to know.
Dr Casara Andre (56:04):
We will keep you in the loop.
Dr Edward (56:06):
Yeah, so let's wrap this up, and I'd like to finish
off with a couple of questions.
The first one what is thechange that you want to be and
inspires others to be in thisworld?
Dr Casara Andre (56:20):
Thank you for that question.
It was well phrased and it wasfun to think about.
The answer that I wanted toshare was I'm really interested
in building and sharingparadigms that focus on this one
health aspect and we've talkedabout it all throughout today's
discussion the fact that animal,human and ecosystem health are
(56:42):
inseparable.
We really focus on the humananimal connection, but we exist
in the world around us, whetherit be your household, your
geographic region.
We have to think about all ofthat interconnectivity if we're
going to care for anyone part ofit.
So propagating one healthsolutions, one health ideas,
(57:03):
would be the way that I wouldlove to bring some healing to
the world.
Dr Edward (57:08):
Beautiful, and what do you think is humanity's
biggest blind spot when it comesto your work and our shared
journey of evolution and healing?
Dr Casara Andre (57:20):
Similarly to my previous answer, I think the
anthropocentric perspective thatwe take, so the human-centric.
What do I think about what I'mseeing?
How is what I'm seeing viewedthrough my context, through my
lens?
I think it is our biggest blindspot and while our ability to
project has gotten us so far, Ithink it has made us miss a lot
(57:43):
of beauty and a lot of ways thatwe can be well and in unity
with everything that's around us.
And if we can switch that to aone health perspective and
really thinking about our animalcompanions, maybe leveraging
their well-being, I think wewould see a lot of progress
towards planetary health Itotally agree.
Dr Edward (58:04):
I've been starting to do some, some study and
learning with um the caro peoplewisdom through elizabeth
jenkins, who's just had a sevenweek course out on the shift
network, and their thing is thateverything is living energies
and we want to be in rightrelationship with everything,
(58:25):
whether they be conscious beingsor trees or the places on the
earth or whatever.
And I think that really goesback to that that whole one
health, one earth.
We are all part of one bigthing that's alive and
intelligent and the more we canrealize that, the more our
behavior is going to naturallychange in ways that will heal
the everything.
(58:45):
I think I agree 100 beautiful.
Thank you so much for your timeand energy and wisdom today.
It's been a reallybroad-ranging, very, very
interesting conversation.
Um so, dr cassara, where canpeople find you?
I mean if, if you're incolorado, I would be running off
(59:05):
to to find out when drcassara's next got some
availability.
If you're in Colorado, I wouldbe running off to find out when
Dr Pizarro's next got someavailability, if you see her,
because she's totally awesome.
Dr Casara Andre (59:14):
Well, thank you so much.
Our website, our psychedelicwork, veterinarypsyorg is
probably the best place to findsome of our newest work and
definitely for things going onin Colorado place to find some
of our newest work anddefinitely for things going on
in Colorado and we'd love toconnect for whatever interesting
reasons strikes your brain,please reach out.
Dr Edward (59:33):
We'd definitely love to connect with you.
Do you have a website for?
Dr Casara Andre (59:39):
your clinical work too.
I mostly would work throughthat one and people can reach
out to that email receptiondeskat bednarsciorg and then my team
will make sure that thatinquiry is routed Again.
We'd love to connect.
It is such a fruitful feel.
There's so much that'shappening.
Dr Edward (59:56):
It really takes a lot of collaboration, beautiful.
Thank you so much.
We're going to say goodbye fornow.
Hopefully we'll see you back inthe next episode.
And until we next see you,pleaseara and myself, give your
pets a lovely slow, relaxing,regulating pat.
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