Understanding Canine Emotions: Andrew Hale on Emotional Safety and Connection

Episode Transcript
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Dr Edward (00:02):
Hello and welcome everyone to the Whole Energy
Body Balance podcast, where weexplore all kinds of
possibilities, practices andphilosophies that bring greater
healing, connection and harmonyto pets, people and horses.
So we aim to inspire you.
We may well challenge you alittle bit in a beautiful way,
and we really want to inspireyou to grow and create positive

(00:23):
changes and healing in your lifeand in the lives of all the
beings you care for.
So if you're interested in that, you're in a good place.
I'm your host, dr Edward theHealing Vet, and I help deeply
caring people, pets and horsesunfold profound healing and
healthy relationships throughsomatic awareness, loving,
therapeutic touch, intuitiveperception, kind training and

(00:47):
energy work.
I also practice worldwide as anintuitive, integrative
veterinarian and healer, helpingpeople, pets and horses.
So we've got Andrew Hale with us, who started off as a
psychologist yeah, that's right,human with humans, human

(01:09):
psychologist and now is acertified canine behaviourist
and he's the behaviouralconsultant for Pet Remedy, proud
to be an expert advisor forcanine arthritis management and
a Kids Around Dogs trainer.
And Andrew has a businesscalled Dog Centred Care, which
focuses on supporting a dog-led,emotionally centred approach to
providing the best care andsupport for dogs and their

(01:32):
caregivers.
And what we're going to bedoing today is exploring the
emotional experience together.
But before we start that, wealways start with this question,
which is Andrew, who are you,why do you do what you do and
how did you get to this point inyour life?

Andrew Hale (01:52):
Well, thanks for having me, Edward, and that's a
very deep place to start, isn'tit?
How am I?
That's very profound.
No, so I think.
So I've got a human psychologybackground and I made the shift
over to animals.
Actually, that all came aboutbecause of my own breakdowns.

(02:12):
I had a really big breakdownmental health breakdown in my
30s, very much based on mytrauma as a child, and this is
why I'm very it's all connected,though I share those things
because it's relevant to thestory, I guess, because I mean
we can unpack that a little bitin a bit.

(02:32):
But so, yeah, so I was workingin human psychology, human
therapy, and then I had mybreakdown, and then I had
something like a breakdown tohelp you to re-evaluate life,
and then I made a shift over toworking with animals and that's
why I think I'm reallypassionate about one thing

(02:53):
that's kind of connected throughall along is this real interest
in the individual livedexperience, whether that's a
human or the animal lived in myexperience, whether that's a
human or the animal.
Uh, focusing specifically ondogs now, but it doesn't matter
whether it's a dog, a cat or ahorse uh, you know, we all share
three very fundamental things.

(03:14):
For me uh, the need to uh feelheard, especially when we're
trying to communicate.
Need, uh, we all want to feelsafe, physically safe, of course
, but emotionally and sociallysafe especially, and we all want
to find relief.
For me, edward, the mostimportant it's one of the most

(03:34):
important words in thepsychology of behavior really is
the notion of relief.
Because when you experiencesomething you know, especially
something that isn'tparticularly pleasant physical
pain, emotional pain, socialpain, whatever you seek relief,
and a lot of challengingbehaviors that we see in young
children and animals areactually just relief seeking
behaviors.
So there's a connection therefor me with all those things.

(03:56):
So that's kind of who I am andwhy I do what I do, and a lot of
it like this is often the casea lot of my motivations in life,
even going down the, I lookback now and recognize even
pursuing human psychology wasmore about finding myself and

(04:17):
understanding my trauma,understanding what happened to
me, happened to me and, um, uh,yeah, so, so that that's.
It's all very neat really inthat.
In that case, really um a lotof threads there, but they all
kind of tie together.

Dr Edward (04:36):
okay, so with with the emotional experience of
beings and I think I think wecan confidently say that humans
and animals have very similarkinds of emotional experiences
what are the major emotions thatyou understand and can see and
work with in the dogs thatyou're working with?

I think it's worth framing the emotional experience
before we go into some of themore specifics, because this is
the big thing for me, that theemotional experience lens is the
one I like to look throughbecause, like you say, we all
have an emotional experience.
So that emotional experience ishow we feel, how we get
affected by things, how we copewith things, the different

(05:21):
things that motivate us allthese, these kind of things.
It's that experience of how wefeel, and especially with
animals.
There's been this thing that'sbeen said in the past what's to
get said now?
That well, we don't know howanimals think and feel, so we're
not going to go there.
Uh, that's changed a bit overtime, but, um, uh, but that has

(05:42):
ended up with a focus on justlooking at changing behavior.
So we don't know how they thinkand feel, so we're just going
to look at behavioral output.
Can we get more of it or can weget less of it?
Um, but the thing is about theemotional experience.
We all have one.
The, the horse has one, the dog, the cat, us.
But the second thing about it isit is unique to us as an
individual.
You know, we are all a uniquecombination of our genetics, our

(06:04):
early experiences, our trauma,our secure and insecure
attachments, our learninghistories, all these kind of
things you know, come together,which is why guess what it's
complicated.
Um, so the point there iswhilst, yes, I don't know how a
dog in this case talking aboutdogs thinks and feels, but the
point is edward, I don't knowhow you think and feel.

(06:25):
That's the point.
So do I ignore that and justmake you do stuff and behave in
a way that I deem to beappropriate?
Um, or do I find ways of findingout more about how you think
and feel as an individual?
There are a lot of things thatconnect us, of course, and I
think when we think about, uh,you know, um, the, the primary
emotional states of feeling,anger and fear and joy and all

(06:48):
these kind of things, we canlook at that, but for me, it's a
case of utilizing what sciencegives us.
Um, uh, but especially when I'mworking with the dogs I work
with, um, I want that dog.
Yeah, I'm quite happy with thestudy of one.
As I say, I don't necessarilywait for a, for the next paper

(07:12):
to come out to tell me somethingit's more of, actually,
especially on the emotional sideof things.
I'm just waiting for science toto kind of yeah exactly so I
think it's important to be to beled by the science, but not
necessarily defined by it.
I think you know we have to.
So that's just my personal viewon it.
But yes, so that's the thingabout the emotional experience
is, you know, we all have themand we have to be mindful, for

(07:35):
me, that there's all thesedifferent camps out there
regarding behaviour, all thesedifferent kind of philosophies,
ideologies and scientificdisciplines.
The same happens in human,human side of things, as well as
animal behavioural science.
For me, there's only two typesof behaviour.
I think when we see it likethis, we then start to really

(07:56):
understand why we have to thinkabout things, especially when
working with animals, in aslightly different way.
The first is the behaviour wejudge in others, and we have to
understand what that's about andthe problems that come with
that, uh and secondly, thebehavior we do ourselves.
Uh, so, um, uh, yeah, we are, weare kind of designed to judge

(08:18):
our brains like uh and um, andespecially we create this kind
of safe world view, if you like,especially as adults, based on
our belief systems, our valuesystems, and our brain doesn't
want to have to change that verymuch.
You know, appraisals, cognitivereappraisal is quite difficult.
So actually a lot of thejudgments we make about another

(08:39):
sort of saying a minute ago,about, you know, do I get you to
behave based on my judgments ofwhat is safe and right and
everything else?
And and this brings us on tothat kind of good bad continuum
which we can look at in a minuteum, but when we think about the
behavior we do ourselves, guesswhat?
It's complicated, it'scomplicated, that's the point.
And our behavioral outputs getmore, especially for us as
humans, because a lot of ourbehavioral outputs are managed

(09:04):
and molded through societalconformist norms.

Dr Edward (09:09):
Yeah.

So I think when we start thinking about these
things, it starts to open up howimportant it is, if we are
going to turn up to influence,change, modify or whatever the
behavior of another livingsentient being, we need to be
really aware of what we're doingand what that behavior actually

(09:31):
represented for that animal inthe first place, or the human
indeed, yeah, um, I like tothink of the word inspire.

Dr Edward (09:40):
I want to inspire animals to to change their
behavior.
I know it's a little change inlanguage, but it implies that
they want to change, thatthere's value in them changing.

You know, I like that and I think, um, I I use
the word invitation, I thinkit's similar to me uh,
everything has to be aninvitation, but I think, um, yes
, and.
And the thing is, when we thinkabout what behaviour is what it
represents.
You know, behaviour is anexpression of need, the need to

(10:13):
connect, especially if you'resocial, the need to feel safe,
as we talked about a minutephysical, emotional, social
safety, the need to find relief,and also behaviour is an
expression of self.
We don't talk about that enough.
You know, as a member of theLGBTQ community, it's
interesting if we think Imentioned about the good-bad

(10:35):
continuum.
It might be worth explainingthat a little bit now, because
we're all indoctrinated in thegood-bad continuum, which is
this notion of behavior is goodthrough to bad.
Uh, and underpinning that is abig societal focus on rewarding
the good and punishing orignoring depends on what you're

(10:57):
use the bad yeah and that soundsso compelling, doesn't it it's
like?
but we want more of the good, ofcourse, we want less of the bad
until we we ask the simplequestion who's deciding what is
good and bad?
This comes back to those twotypes of behavior the behavior
we judge in others, behavior wejudge in others.
So who's deciding what's goodor bad?
How representative of that isbased on the actual needs of the

(11:19):
other that we've decided is bad.
So, as I say as a member of thelgbtq community, I know that,
you know, I'm married now withmy husband and it's all
wonderful, um, but um, literallywhat?
60, 70 years ago I could havegone to prison.
Yes, for the expression itself,um and uh, yeah.
So I think this is important.
We've got to start thinkingabout these different components

(11:40):
, about the richness of theindividual lived experience and,
whilst the having the objectiveis important, and I think
definitely in dog training, uh,we needed the science.
Uh, at one point, because itwas a bit of a wild west at one
point, we needed some of thescience.
I think it's gone the other waya little bit.
I think we've almost weaponizedthe science a little bit.

(12:00):
Uh, in in that thing.
But the objective is important,but the richness of the
individual lived experience liesin the subjective and the
anecdotal.

Dr Edward (12:10):
Actually, that's that study, I agree.
So what is your objective whenyou meet a dog and I know you
work with a lot of dogs that are, you know, inverted commas
dangerous, aggressive, that sortof thing what's your objective
for the dog when you meet a dog?

For me it's no different to working with humans
.
In many ways.
I think I have my learn,support, teach mantra.
So my first thing is to learnfrom the dog first, learn from
the dog first.
Really important to learn fromthe dog first, learn from the
dog first.
Really important.
Um, you know, I've shared insome of the talks I've given,
with um footage of either someof the dogs that I work with

(12:52):
that already struggling, butalso even with young puppies.
I do a lot of support work.
I do um like consultation witha couple of the big assistance
dog here in the uk and we'recompletely redoing what happens
in that first 12 months.
Because once we start thinkingabout things differently,
everything we traditionally doin that first 12 months with the

(13:12):
dog and everything but a lot ofit, we have to rethink it
because it's not helpful, um,because, um, you know, a lot of
the things that we teach dogstrade through training has a
little intrinsic value to thedog, yeah and uh.
So that's a problem then,because the dog support you want
, they want to feel safe, theywant to find relief, all these
kind of things, um.
So, um, yeah, um, learn,support, teach is what I tend to

(13:35):
look at.
So I've got to learn from thedog first.
I need to learn as much as Ican from that dog without
influencing them too much.
I also I see behavior a littlebit like painting a picture.
I need that dog to paint thatpicture for me and I've got to
resist the temptation to try andgrab the brush off them and
think I can paint the picturebetter.
And of course, if you've got adog who's potentially dangerous,

(13:55):
we have to mitigate for that.
But I just really want a dog tobehave.
I want them to feel they canbehave.
No dog is safer to be around bybeing made to feel less safe,
and part of that thing aboutfeeling safe is being able to
communicate, and they have tocommunicate.
So learn from the dog first.
Learn um and uh.
There are three really importantwords for trying to understand

(14:17):
safety in another, especiallyone who can't talk to you
directly, and that is theirprocessing, engagement and exit
preferences.
So how do they need to processthe world?
What do they need to do toprocess?
Most of them need to process.
How well is that sensoryintegration process working?
What is stopping them frombeing able to process well?
And I've got my doors of thebrain analogy for processing.

(14:43):
So if you imagine the dog,dog's brain, same goes for horse
, same goes for us, by the way.
Um, if you imagine the brainhas lots of little doors in it,
it is many doors to be open forthat brain to have a chance of
being able to process well, uh,and for the sensor integration
process to work well.

Dr Edward (14:59):
Pain, trauma, stress, um, you know physical pain,
emotional pain, social pain, um,all big door closes we know
they, um, they increase arousaland as arousal increases, well,
when you get to a certainthreshold of arousal, you start
to lose cognitive capacity,right?

exactly, and the thing is with doggies especially
, is what you're going torecognize is, uh, the first
doors are likely to startclosing when that elevation,
that arousal happens.
Are recognize is, uh, the firstdoors are likely to start
closing when that elevation,that arousal happens are likely
to be the training doors that weput training behind um, because
they have little intrinsicvalue to the dog.
The doors are likely to stayopen.
Of the survival doors, right um, and this is why it's really

(15:38):
challenging, because thecaregiver, the general public,
have been convinced that themost important thing I put is a
well-trained, obedient dog.
So we've already got a bighurdle there.
Oh God, yes.

Dr Edward (15:51):
Oh God, yes, I actually love it when my dogs
disobey me consciously,deliberately decide not to do
what I ask them.
I think that's incrediblybeautiful most of the time.

Well, exactly, I think this is the thing.
Everything's about balance, ofcourse, but um, I think, um, uh,
and it is, you know, a molly,who's our younger dog.
You know, we brought her up ina very naturalistic way and, um,
you know that first 12 monthswe didn't inadvertently train
her anything, but that didn'tmean she wasn't learning, she
was learning all the time andshe was learning fundamentally

(16:23):
important things.
She learned that she had avoice.

Dr Edward (16:27):
Yeah.

And a big one.
She learned that she could.
She could have safety on herterms and, importantly, that my
husband and I were her return tosafety.
This is really important We'llperhaps come on to this in a bit
because social attachment iskey on so many levels and it's
so connected to not onlyemotional and social safety but

(16:49):
also physical health.
Now, we know this, we know somuch about.
So, um, yeah, so learn, learnfrom the dog.
So, processing, how does thisdog process stuff?
So, um, how does the dogprocess me?
How does they process theenvironment?
An important way, why is thatdog unable to process some
things at some, at some points?
Um, and that's where pain comesin.

(17:09):
Often, you know, and nothingcloses doors like trauma, and
you can't force those doors open.
Um, taking a trulytrauma-informed approach, the
first thing we think about isnot add more trauma.
Well, how can you do thatunless you are able to back off
and just learn what you can?
So learn learning is reallyimportant for the dog.
I think part of the problem.

(17:30):
I think, with dog trainingspecifically, it's like I know,
uh, you know, um, I know whatI'm going to do straight away.
I'm gonna dive in and do sometraining, because I have the
knowledge the dog has to learn.
We've got to turn it around.
We're going to learn from thedog first, even the puppy.
So molly came to us at 16 weeks.
She already had two homes.
She was a very fizzy puppy.

(17:50):
We had to learn from her firstand there's a lot that we
learned from her.
So learn, then support.
Once we've learned that stuff,then we can support what we've
learned.
And we can and a big part of itis doing things like get
analysis and all this kind ofstuff so we can think about
whether the dog might beuncomfortable physically, but
also look for those signs thatdog not processing well socially
, not doing social threatevaluation very well, whatever

(18:12):
it is that we do through ourobservations, just taking our
time to spend lots of timeobserving a dog.
So if I've got a dog whostruggles around with the dogs,
for example, the last thing Iwant to do is see the dog around
other dogs.
Yet I want to spend a lot oftime just seeing them in other
contexts because there's arichness to their lived
experience that I can learn from.
So learn, support and then thefinal thing is teach.
If I am going to teach anything, I want to try and make sure

(18:34):
that I'm teaching things thatare intrinsically valuable to
that dog, not just getting themto do something else instead and
this is a big thing, I thinkgetting them to do something
else instead, and this is a bigthing, I think for positive
reinforcement trainers tounderstand, and that is the
potential of reinforcement.

Dr Edward (18:53):
If we're just um, of either positive reinforcement or
negative reinforcement.

They can both be coercive right well, yeah, of
course, and I think this is thekey, I think anything.
There's a great saying in humanpsychology which is um, the
path to coercion can often belaid with good intention.
Oh, yes, so we have to bemindful of that.
So just because we can getanother behavior doesn't mean
necessarily that the dog isfinding the relief they were
seeking, feel any safer.

(19:21):
You know, whatever it is, youknow, um.
So we just have to be mindfulof stuff, so we have a better
chance at working by this, bytaking our time, slowing things
down, doing good observations.
I follow a lot of um, kind ofsensory mapping stuff.
We're just trying to get thebrain to map stuff as we build
things up, um, so, yes, that'show I kind of approach things

(19:43):
with dogs, and they have asurvival story to tell us.
Edward, this is the point, andI think we need to try and work
that out as best we can.

Dr Edward (19:52):
So I'd be curious.
Then you know you have to haveboundaries as well.
So how do you find a healthyway to express boundaries with
dogs, with puppies, that youmight need them to be out of
your personal space for a periodof time or you know whatever?

Yeah, perhaps it's important, but they shouldn't be
barriers to unmet need.
That is the important thing.
So I think what we have torecognise, especially all the
everything, pins back to theimportance of secure attachments
.
You know, when John Balby cameout with the initial kind of

(20:34):
attachment ideas and the notionof secure base, but he was very
much influenced by the studiesthat have been happening on
animals.
So he took those and thoughtabout the, the mother and infant
and then it was mary ainsworth,who doesn't get talked about
enough really, um, uh.
But she worked with john balbybut she kind of built on this

(20:57):
notion of attachments andactually she took herself over
to africa because she was veryaware of her kind of um, kind of
cultural bias in the West andshe said, well, I'm going to go
and look at how they bring upchildren in Africa.
And she really saw thisconnection, this way of putting
the child, those child socialneeds at the forefront.
And literally it wasn't justthe mom, it was other women in

(21:20):
the village, if you like, allsupporting to make sure that
child felt secure.
And Mary Ainsworth added to thekind of work that John Bowman
did by looking at differenttypes of insecure attachments.
It's interesting that a bigmeta-analysis was done looking
at criminals violent criminalsin the States and Europe, of

(21:43):
violent criminals in the Statesand Europe, and looking at all
these different studies on themale population of prisons.
But 70% across the wholemeta-analysis identified as
insecure, having insecureattachments.

Dr Edward (22:00):
Wow.

And it makes sense really, because if you feel at a
young age that your attempts toconnect with another are either
, um, you know, not forthcomingor, even worse, having the the
abuse put to you physically,emotionally, whatever then it's
hard to think that you can, canget another to care.
Um, I share a little, a littlestory with you here, because my

(22:25):
husband's a, he's a hospicenurse, he's an end-of-life nurse
yeah and um, uh, what?
this is going back quite a fewyears now.
But um, one of the localprisons had a violent offender
in there and um, he was end oflife and they couldn't look
after their symptoms within thehospital at the prison.

(22:45):
So they arranged for thisprisoner to come to the hospice.
So the hospice became a diptoprison, if you like, well, that
particular room.
So my husband was giving himcare, this gentleman, and at
first he was very dismissive ofcuring very cold, very, whatever
.
It's all very challenging.
But my husband's amazing at hisjob.

(23:06):
So as the days went on hebecame more open to the care of
my husband and there was a bigmoment when he said to my
husband, once they'd made aconnection, that he was one of
the.
He said to my husband you'reone of the first person who's
ever cared for me.
Oh, wow, when Kieran told methat, that really hit me and it

(23:29):
showed the challenges for us asa society, both with, obviously,
on the human side, but alsowith dogs.
Actually, because remember alot of the stuff that we learned
about attachment, social pain,social processing we learned
from studies on predominantlymonkeys and dogs.
The social pain hypothesis camedirectly from dogs.

(23:52):
That's Panskepp.
He took puppies away from mom,very upset.
Then they injected the puppieswith a mild opioid and the
puppies seemed to cope betterand he hypothesized that maybe
social pain was like physicalpain.
Jump forward to modern day.
Matthew Lieberman and NaomiEisenhower I can't quite

(24:13):
remember her name, anyway, naomi, it'll come to me in a minute,
but anyway, matthew Lieberman iswell over at UCLA in the States
.
They've proven that.
Now, with the FMS Moving oneven more to now, we recognize
that, um, social exclusion,loneliness, if you like, social
rejection, um.
So, going back to math, theyliterally found that the part of

(24:35):
the brain that dealt withphysical pain and social pain
overlapped, because it hurts andit's supposed to.
Um.
Coming back even more to theforefront now is um, uh, the
evidence seems to show that whenwe experience chronic social
detachment loneliness, if youlike, our inflammatory system

(24:55):
gets dialed up and our antiviralsystem gets dialed down.
Now, all this stuff, if youtake it all in its entirety, it
makes sense because, as a socialspecies, it makes sense because
, as a social species, if I'mdetached from my social secure
base, my body's going to thinkright, well, there's no point
being protected againstantiviral stuff because I'm not
around anybody, but I'm possiblygoing to get attacked by

(25:18):
something, so I better get myinflammatory system ready just
in case it makes sense, um, theneed for secure attachment as a
social species, even when youthink about polyvagal theory and
the social element of that,this notion that we reach out to
our social network.
This is your area, I know, andif that fails then we're more

(25:38):
likely to go into that otherthing.
If you look at all the bits, itmakes sense and I think for
dogs, then we are, with a lot ofthe things we do, with this big
focus on training and obedienceprimarily, remember, the
general public have beenconvinced that's the most

(25:58):
important thing.
So they know how to teach, sitand to get it, all the flipping
time regardless, right, but theydon't know about pain, um,
about stress, about social, uh,connection, social processing,
development stages.

Dr Edward (26:12):
So actually that everybody's being failed here a
little bit, especially the dog,because a lot of those behaviors
that are being seen asdifficult, challenging, dominant
, you know, vertical well, wewill have to talk about the idea
of dominance and the alpha andstuff in a minute, because
that's another very, very deepmisunderstanding that humans
have with dogs.

Hey, Well, yeah, I think it's probably one of the
most damaging things that we canthink of.
You know, social hierarchiesexist, of course they do, and
dogs as they do with us, butactually all the kind of things
show that it's more on a.
Deference is a better word thandominance.

Dr Edward (26:49):
yes, oh, that's a great word.
I'm gonna.
I'm gonna use that one and justto loop back a little bit to
what you're saying about the,the whole social thing, I think
there was some other researchwith rats that were given um
access to to drugs and ifthey're on their own they became
junkies, but if they had otherrats they weren't interested in
the drugs, which I think isanother very interesting piece

(27:11):
of research I love.

Yes, it's a brilliant piece of research
because the, the, the kind of umreceived wisdom was you know,
uh, and this, this is.
This is part of the problemwith the more kind of setting.
The setting stone.
Behavior is a model really,because you know, oh yeah,
you've got a rat there, they'vegot a choice between normal

(27:33):
water and water with cocaine init and they went for the cocaine
because it made him feel greatand that's reinforcing them and
it's all right.
So that was how it was lookedat and a lot of, a lot of um I
say this as somebody who has hada drug addiction himself.
Actually part of my, that'spart of my breakdown um, so I, I
, I feel this quite deeply,actually, this notion that it's
just the fact that it makes youfeel good, that that and you're

(27:55):
kind of connect to the feeling.
No, it's about lack ofconnection elsewhere, and that's
what was shown with the, withthe experiment, because I can't
remember who was there but this,the person doing the research
created like rat city.
Right, it was just amazing.
It was just this great placewith all those stuff going on.
The rats weren't interested init because they had connection,
they had, they had friends.

(28:15):
They had things to do, uh anduh.
So it's important and I thinkshow you a bit on my own story a
little bit here, just goingback a bit because I think it's
it's relevant again.
Um, I had, I had, sexualisedtrauma as a child with
non-family members.
Now, before that happened, Ihad everything as a kid my

(28:37):
parents were amazing, lots oflove, it was all fantastic.
The thing about trauma nothingactually changes around you.
My parents were the same, myfamily was the same.
What changes is your perceptionof stuff?
This is really important.
My perception of the worldaround me fundamentally changed
then.
This is that thing aboutfeeling safe, and I felt very

(28:58):
unsafe, of course, and mybehavior changed in a big way.
I became very disruptive, Ibecame very challenging, all the
kind of things we want to do.
My school took a very punitiveapproach, really, so I got into
more and more trouble untileventually I got the cane.
We used to hit kids with sticksback in the day, but yeah, I

(29:19):
had that and guess what, Ididn't want to be hit with a
stick anymore.
So my behaviour changed.
So punishment works.

Dr Edward (29:27):
But did your internal state change?

well, this is the point, it didn't.
And, um, my behavior changed atschool through punishment.
My, my father had a differentapproach because he recognized
the reason I had everything as akid was because my parents
worked very hard and they werevery successful and and they
were away doing stuff a lot.
And and my father thought mybehaviour changed was actually
because I was kind of rebellingagainst them not being there so

(29:52):
much.
So he's like you know what?
We're going to do more as afamily, I'm going to do less at
work, contingent on you behaving.
So guess what?
Again, my behaviour changedbecause I wanted their love.

Dr Edward (30:04):
But again it wouldn't have resolved the trauma right
and that's probably whyeventually you crashed and
burned and I had.
You know, I went to boardingschool at the age of 12.
I grew up on the cattleproperty and did school by mail
and radio.
Before that I had an idyllicchildhood and then went to this
hellscape.
So I have some similarity inunderstanding how my you know

(30:28):
similar experiences.

yeah, that must have been a huge adjustment then
, because I think you know, whenyou had that secure base, when
you had that safety, and thenliterally a car ride, and then
everything changes.
It's quite dramatic.
It's not a gradual thing.

Dr Edward (30:45):
It was.
I mean there were some otherissues with my family of origin
and attachment and stuff there,but comparatively it was really
beautiful, yeah, and what's more.
My mum said oh, it's going tobe fun, it's going to be lovely
at boarding school, you're goingto really enjoy it.

Oh my god well, I think this this comes back to
that uh thing about what wejudge for others and what we do
ourselves, and projection, a lotof projection about our own
perceptions of safety.
The thing about safety is, whenwe think about safety in
another, we tend to think interms of physical safety,

(31:21):
because that's what our braincan get feedback from.
But our own brain is moreinterested in emotional and
social safety, and this is whywe can be safe physically but
not feel it.
Um the wonderful rachel leather, who's a trauma expert she was
um human trauma expert, now sheworks with animals.

(31:41):
She says the problem is youcan't teach safety because the
other has to feel it problem isyou can't teach safety because
the other has to feel it.

Dr Edward (31:53):
That's it, and I suppose that, um, you know
you're too prompt.
I've been taking some noteshere because it's just so much
information coming out of you.
It's unreal you've got such awealth of knowledge.
Um, so safety and relief arethe two big things, yeah, and
for me, I add in care slash loveto that.
I think that's the other thingthat all living beings want to
feel is care and love, whichcomes back to that social kind

(32:15):
of connection.

Yeah, yeah, I think care and love are really
important.
As far as seeking that safetyand seeking the relief, remember
, relief is about if you'vealready got especially from the
care and love and you have thatsecure attachment, then then
there isn't then any relief.
Seeking that you're looking at,invariably, is about returning

(32:36):
back to your point of safety,which is that return to safety
stuff.
So, yeah, I completely agree,it's all very interconnected all
of it, and I think, um, uh, andyou're right when I think back,
you know, as I say, my behaviorchanged based on those two
inputs, uh, the both twoextrinsic motivators of

(32:58):
punishment and, and, uh, morepositive stuff.
But the real consequence for mewas that drug addiction
breakdown some 15 years later.
This is the point, as you say,because and this is what we have
to be mindful of we, when we'reworking with animals, that
behavior change itself.
Just because we can change thebehavior of another doesn't mean
anything to that individual ifthey're still struggling to find

(33:22):
that relief or you know,whatever it is.
Um, and especially, you know,we know that, you know,
especially with the daniel millsstudy that came out a few years
ago, looking at dogs withchallenging behaviors and
finding that 80 percent of themhad a physical pain component.
Doesn't mean that wasnecessarily primary, but it was
definitely an aggravator.
Um, we've got to make surewe're looking at that dog in a

(33:43):
very kind of holistic way really, and very much in the round
well, yeah, and another thingthat I've found in my work over
30 years in practice, you know.

Dr Edward (33:55):
Firstly, I got triggered into looking at neck
and back pain by a fellow thathad started working with horses
and he would anesthetize thehorses and bend their neck and
mobilize the vertebrae and thesehorses that had a falling
lameness that they would havenerve blocked, an x-ray several
times sometimes couldn't findany reason and deal with the
nerve root compression andsuddenly the lameness goes away

(34:17):
and more than half of theanimals that I see have
significant pain that is totallyinvisible to their humans soft
tissue pain that's invisible tox-rays, that vets aren't trained
about and vets miss all overthe place too.

So it's a huge problem well, you know, chronic
pain is just so misunderstood.
And my facials, after you talkabout, they're the kind of
neuropathic stuff and, um, uh, II do work with with cam canine
arthritis management, um, and,and I do a lot of work with

(34:49):
Hannah, who's the vet there, andDr Amber Batson, who's amazing,
sarah Fisher, who's justabsolutely, um, if you've not
had her as a guest, then pleasedo, because I think you two
would find loads to talk abouton this stuff, because that's
Sarah's bag really, and how muchactually damage we do to horses
and dogs just through thetraining process getting a dog

(35:09):
looking up, left all the time toget the treat, and all this
kind of, and you're creatingthese kind of things.
So, um, you know, uh, I wouldsay of all the dogs I work with
who are the most challenging,those kind of more dangerous
dogs, if you like.
I can't think of one in thelast 10 years that wasn't in
pain, physical pain often, but,as I say, emotional and social
pain are equally as importantand it's often all connected, of

(35:32):
course.

Dr Edward (35:33):
This is the point, it's all and trauma right, which
is kind of like.
For me, trauma is physical,emotional, social pain that's
got trapped in the body, mind,system what a great way of
seeing.

I think that's a good way of looking at it.
I think, and uh, you know, um,uh, say, rachel leather, who's
who's I've done a lot oflearning from uh on the trauma
side of things.
You know, she doesn't make anyreal distinctions between
working with humans and workingwith animals.
A lot of the core things arethe same that we have to look at
how we approach these things.
And, and again, it's especiallywhen you're having a

(36:07):
trauma-informed approach, but itit is allowing the other to
behave, you know, within thereasons, within the, within the
kind of confounds of physicalsafety, of course, both for the
animal and for us.
But um, uh, you know a goodexample a dog who's quite shut
down and maybe has come in aquite traumatized state.

(36:28):
As they start to find some ofthat confidence and they start
to connect to the caregiver andthey start to feel more able to
express out of the blue, theysuddenly start barking at the
mailman and then the temptationis to jump on the barking
because I can't be barking, butactually now the dog's like I

(36:48):
just felt safe enough tocommunicate and now I don't feel
safe again.
And that's the thing aboutemotional safety especially.
There's two things aboutemotional safety.
One is this is very muchapplicable to us humans.
I can't say it's necessarilythe same for animals.
But first is feeling safe toeven feel right.

Dr Edward (37:05):
Oh my god, we've all been yeah, I, I personally think
animals are much better atbeing with feelings and
experiencing feelings than mosthumans.
I think we've been socializedso heavily.
You know, men are allowed to beangry, women allowed to be sad,
and that's about it in oursociety, um yeah, but I, I
honestly think animals have gota lot more emotional freedom

(37:27):
than humans in a lot of waysunless humans have stuffed that
up, of course.

That's a really good point.
So if you listen to ethologistslike Kim Brophy and Simone
Gabois and others, there ishardly any dysregulation in the
adult species in Mother Nature,and that's really amazing
because they're fighting fortheir life on a daily basis in
the adult species in mothernature and that's really amazing
because they're fighting forthe life on a daily basis.
But if you think about emotions, moods, feelings, behavior and

(37:53):
consequences, if you think aboutall those together, mother
nature has stitched thosetogether nicely.
So you feel stuff, you act onit.
What's the consequence?
I'm still alive.
Phew, that's okay, so it's quiteyeah um, whereas, as you say,
through our civilizing processin inverted commas, civilizing

(38:15):
um we've detached behavior andconsequence because, um, you
know that we have to behave in acertain way and and the
consequences are, are very muchconnected to behavior, not to
actually how we feel.
So you're absolutely right as a, especially here in the kind of
west um, we have this now,especially in the uk, with a
stiff upper lip kind of thing.

(38:35):
Um, you know, you can feel whatyou like, but you just don't
show it and that, and that'sreally damaging.
And especially when you'rebeing pushed to conform, it's
only the kind of rich emotionalsocial peg, uh, that we have,
the square peg being pushed to aconformist round hole.
It's quite damaging often andour whole educational system is
kind of is pushed onto thisstuff as well.

(38:58):
Even you know, and there's abig friction between structured
learning and experientiallearning.
You know there's a great littlesaying in human psychology game,
which is there's a great littlesaying in human psychology,
which is there's a differencebetween what we are taught and
what we learn, and that ishugely important.
Perhaps some of the mostdamaging few words really is

(39:19):
well, they gotta learn.
You know, um, they say that tothe kids.
You know, when I was workingwith humans who had social
anxieties, many could pinpointback to their formative years in
adolescence, where they wereforced into social engagement
that they couldn't cope withbecause somebody thought you've
got to learn, you know?
Did they learn to be moresociable?
No, uh.

(39:40):
Did they learn to be more safeto be social?
No, they learned to mask better.
They learned different copingmechanisms and guess what, when
they became adults and they hadmore agency, it's easy just not
to turn up to social stuff thenactually go through it again.
So this is the things that ifyou do what we taught, what we
learn people think back toschool days.
We don't remember much of whatwe were taught as such.

(40:02):
There'll be things that we doremember that had intrinsic
value or really kind of um, uh,inspirational teachers, whatever
.
But we are still affected bywhat we learned intrinsically a
lot of the time how we connectedto our peers, how we connected
to authority, how we connectedto the learning experience and
that friction between attainmentand achievement.
You know, if you imagine littlejohnny is in school today,

(40:24):
that's an achievement for him.
It's an achievement for himbecause he didn't have breakfast
this morning or he didn't sleeplast night or he's traumatized
by what's going on at home.
Because of that state, he cannow not match what is needed
from an attainment point of viewwithin that class, so his
behavior will change.

Dr Edward (40:45):
His learning doors are closed.

Exactly, yeah, he can't learn, but he will be
classed as being disruptive,naughty, difficult, challenging.

Dr Edward (40:52):
This is the story.
I went to boarding school and Iwon some year prizes for
subjects in year eight and byyear 10 I had to repeat because
I just hated it and I stoppeddoing anything.
I just shut down.

And the problem there is Edwardward.
Those around you saw you asbeing the problem.
Yeah, not the other way around,which was the environment was
the problem for you and your andsome of those needs that you
needed, especially feeling safe.
I was saying about the twothings with emotional safety.
One is um feeling safe to evenfeel.
The second one is feeling safeto communicate how you feel that

(41:32):
is a big one and um, uh andthis is a big one especially uh
I do emotional health kind ofworkshops for animal care
professionals and um withinveterinary and within rescue yep
, both both very challenging,challenging professions.
Very challenging professions andwhere, if you're in the wrong

(41:54):
environment, if you're in thewrong culture, where you're
being told, look, you know, beprofessional.
Which is a kind of way ofsaying you know, do as you're
told, but be professional, don'tget involved, don't get
attached, don't be emotional.
The problem is you're going tobe all those things, but now you
feel you can't talk about it,so you're now working in an
emotionally unsafe environment.

Dr Edward (42:20):
Emotional safety for animals.
Yeah, I suppose you know I alsothink so mentioned when we were
just before we went live thatBucky Phillips is a mentor of
mine with Emotional Horsemanshipand he talks about dominant
emotions and how they drivebehavior.
You know, care drives one kindof behavior, rage drives another

(42:43):
, seeking drives another, lustdrives another, I can't remember
.
I don't think I've got thewhole list there.
I haven't remembered them all.
I think that's interesting.
You know, I think that thatemotional states drive behavior
and if we don't take that intoaccount when we're trying to
understand and you know we as aveterinarian, if I have an
anxious animal come to me, anaggressive animal, well, we want

(43:06):
to, we want to have behaviormodification, we want to have
changes that make that dog agood, safe and family member.
But we don't want to just makeit good and safe, we want the
dog to be happy and secure andhave a good internal experience
at the same time.

Yeah, but that's why, if we're going to provide
safety for the animal, it has tobe on their terms.
It becomes more risky if wejust change behavior, because
what will happen is behavior,the, the, you know the animal
might adapt slightly, but then,um, if some of the, if some of

(43:41):
the fundamental things haven'tbeen addressed, then we're
likely to get get the behavioreither come back or even more
severe stuff that comes back andthis happens.
This is definitely the casewith the punishment, of course,
which is just a way of stoppingany communication.
But what you're saying aboutthe different things, I think
this very much falls intoPanScape stuff with the seven

(44:04):
regions.

Dr Edward (44:04):
Yeah, it is PanScape.
Yeah, that's where it comesfrom.

And what's interesting, there is the one
part of the brain that is alwayson is seeking really?
Yeah, it's always on, soseeking is the one that's always
.
And this is if we startthinking about things in in
relation to geek, you know, inrelation to core affect space,
how we plot mood state, um, andhow we think about how different
parts of the brain areactivated.

(44:28):
Seeking's on all the time, butit's dialed down until you want
something and then it's dialedup and then it integrates in
with other parts of the brain.
You know that might come in um,but this is very relevant
especially with a lot of um.
A lot of aggressive behaviorscome down to frustration not
being able to get what you'reseeking yeah so um, especially
if you're seeking connection,seeking safety, seeking care

(44:50):
seeking, they all, I?

Dr Edward (44:53):
I'm just seeing this in a whole new way.
They all have a seekingcomponent, don't they?

they all have a seeking burden they have to have
uh, so, um, and what's really?
So I, I've got my little kindof donut example here, so so
they're quite nicely now.
Sorry, everybody's going to bethinking about donuts now.
Anyway, when you think you wanta donut, your brain, your
seeking circuit, dials up.

Dr Edward (45:15):
now it's like right, I really want a donut, simmy,
sugary, nice and hot.

And when the seeking circuits is confined up
in that very specific way.
It wants two outcomes.
It either wants the donutthat's the ideal outcome or it
might settle for somethingthat's a bit similar yeah it's
only this I say sweet and hotand whatever it is that you like
.
Problem is, if it doesn't getthose outcomes, the um, the rage

(45:46):
circuits will take over.
Now that sounds very dramatic,but rage really is just
frustration.

Dr Edward (45:51):
Well, it's a lot of things but frustration is that
if you had a grade of one to tenof rage, then frustration might
be down two or three.

Yeah but, but frustration is really
challenging because this is whychildren have tantrums, of
course, and actually a lot ofstudies have looked at kids and
just by providing young childrenwith more choices and
predictable outcomes has amarked reduction in tantrum like
behaviors well, you know I'vegot about a year old with it and

(46:21):
she's a very active, veryintelligent, very sensitive dog
and she's the first dog I'veever had that I've not used any
kind of aversive stuff.

Dr Edward (46:30):
You know, my other dog's 14 years old and I was
still using physical punishmentwhen he was a puppy.
I didn't know better at thattime, but on the weekend we went
for an extended walk and shewas on the lead the whole time
and she experienced quite vastamounts of frustration.
But one of my things is, Ithink, that kind of frustration

(46:52):
allowing, if you don't let dogsfind their way through
frustration, they don't learnhow to regulate either.

This is actually a little bit tricky.
Learn how to regulate either.
Oh, this is a little bit tricky.
It's a little bit trickybecause, um, learning to
self-regulate is everything andit's not only nothing.
We have to learn it.
Um, all juvenile mammals I don'tknow, it might be the same for
the species I don't know are thebrains are designed to

(47:19):
dysregulate.
Really, this is reallyimportant because there's a part
of the brain, the moderating,modulating part of the brain,
which helps us to regulatebetter.
Um, but it's very lackingbecause it's not, it's not
connected and wired up.
So, for dogs specifically, thenthat part of the brain doesn't
even start until 18 months, oh,really.
So when we think back to thedoors of the brain analogy for

(47:40):
that adolescent dog, a lot ofthose dogs aren't even open yet,
let alone being able to utilizethem.
Um, so, and it kind of makessense a little bit so it's
really hard for children toregulate well, so, uh, so it's
important.
So, yes, so a lot of this iswhy, coming back to um
attachment stuff, uh, howimportant it is for us, as the

(48:04):
secure attachment, to offerco-regulation in those formative
in the case of dogs, months and, in the case of children, years
to be able to hold space, to beable to allow the child to go,
stress cycles, um, uh.
But if you have a I'm talkingdogs now um, a dog who's just

(48:26):
constantly going throughfrustration, frustration,
frustration, everything'sfrustrating because they're not
being able to do some of theirbreed specific stuff, some of
their oh yeah, and that is Iwould not do.

Dr Edward (48:35):
I'm not doing that.
That is not you've got.
I only can have a dose offrustration.

That would be what I think is healthy, right but
it's better to provide anoutcome because that helps the
cycle.
So, um, if I'm working with adog, for example, who really
wants to kind of bark up a treewhen it sees a squirrel and
happily stay there barking forhours, um, the barking is coming
from the fact the seekingcircuits are involved.

(49:00):
It can't get the donut which isthe squirrel or anything like
it.
Uh, we have to provide this iswhat we do with gundog training,
of course because a lot ofthose seeking circuits that
we're using them very stronglyactually for them to do the
dog's work we want to activatethem, we want to strengthen them
and make them a real dominantfeature right but.
But we also need to create anoff switch for it.

(49:22):
We need to create an outcomethat that that um reduces that
nervous system but gets theparasympathetic parasympathetic
system back in going here, so wecan get back to kind of a
homeostasis process rather thanjust leaving the dog on a high.
And it's the same with kids tosay you know, um, they say a lot
of these concept has beenlooked at.
Giving kids choices, givingthem outcomes.

(49:43):
You know, we can all recognizethe rage bit, because a really
good example is if you go into acar park looking for a parking
space, seeking circuits arefully on board.
Now, if somebody pulls out ofthe one space this is the worst
of all scenarios now, seekingbreaks, like, well, I've now
seen the outcome, I know theoutcome and I can have it,

(50:04):
brilliant.
And then you're just about topull in, some bugger pulls in
ahead of you.
Right, you will feel likeexactly you will feel it now.
Most of us, the majority of us,we're.
We might get a bit fruity withour language or give some hand
gestures, um, but that's it,because we can regulate back

(50:25):
some people one of these violentmen that's had a life where
they've never had any care andblah, blah, blah.
Maybe they get out of the carand murder them right well,
that's a very, that's the otherextreme, um, but even those who
have struggled to learn toregulate well, uh, and are at
the mercy of some of those,those kind of base emotions and

(50:47):
and it's hard for them to getback to a kind of homostatic
baseline, uh and um, weunderstand the importance of
co-regulation.
So, again, mary ainsworth sawthis a lot when she was over in
africa, in uganda, seeing howwell they held space for the
young children and allowed thechildren to feel stuff and

(51:09):
remember emotional safety and,you know, being safe to feel uh
and to and to communicate howyou feel.
So I think all these things areimportant for us and when we
start thinking this, we thinkright, we need to start thinking
about things differently thanfor the early development or the
dogs that come into our lives.
The training, as in traditionalfunctional training sit down,

(51:29):
come, stay with.
Actually, I'm not saying weshouldn't do training, but
rather than be the mostimportant thing is actually the
add-on bit, it's the extra bitand it can wait.

Dr Edward (51:38):
Actually it can wait this solution I really think
what I want to teach more thananything else with dogs is is
regulation, self-regulation, andyou know, dopamine is the
seeking hormone and oxytocin isthe regulation hormone.
So I'm very, very I really wantto trigger oxytocin, but not
only in the in the animal, butin the human, and the way that

(51:59):
I've managed to stumble on tothat I found is very effective,
for this is certain qualities oftouch, relaxing touch, and you
can help a dog regulate andlearn to regulate with touch.
It's a really interesting thing.

And there's a lot of crossovers there again with
children.

Dr Edward (52:19):
Yeah.

Yeah, usually.
Wasted blankets and firm hugsand all those kinds of things,
yeah, and the nervous systemfeeling the quality of the
presence of another yes, whichis?
Important, isn't it?
Because one thing we now knowwith babies which is really
interesting, so jen shyrock.
Jennifer shyrock is a great umeducator.

(52:42):
She does a lot of um.
She came from child developmentworking with children and then
works with dogs.
Now that specializes in workingwith dogs and children oh good,
I must get her complex.
Well we um and uh, uh the um.
We used to think that, you know, babies are just a mushy brain,

(53:06):
right, and they're all like goo, goo, ga ga and they're not
able to think and whatever.
What we now know is that thenervous system is, is, is the
thing that's already welldeveloped, yeah, even pre-natal.
So, um and so, whilst the brainmight not be doing much, the

(53:26):
nervous system is learning allthe time, and this is so anyway,
because it has to right andbecause, if you think about it,
if that baby's gonna have tomake a connection and it has to
feel safe and um, and itconnects to mom, um, and we know
that.
You know my sister.
When her kids were growing up,they didn't want uncle andy for
sure.
They didn't feel the quality ofmy present um, because they

(53:49):
screened their eyes out wheneverI picked them up but, um, but
so it's important, isn't it?
I think so.
Touch is everything.
You know what makes it a lot ofthe stuff you talk about
learned behavior all the time, alot of the stuff you know.
We talk about learned behaviorall the time, a lot of the
things especially with the dogsI work with the learned behavior
isn't from a cognitive base.
It is more from a nervoussystem base and we can change

(54:12):
things cognitively.
But if that nervous systemdoesn't believe it, if that
nervous system doesn't feel safe, it will override the cognitive
stuff and it does.

Dr Edward (54:20):
Yeah, and, and you know the emotional states that I
think the nervous system isdriven more by the emotional
experiences than the cognitive.
I think that's a deeper layer.

Yeah 100, and this is almost the friction you know,
in the human psychology worldyou have those who are very much
into you know, if you think it,it'll happen.
Uh, and then you have and um,and I get get that to a point.
But the point here is there isno one answer.
That is the biggest thing.
The most important thing Iwould invite everybody today is

(54:49):
just stay humble enough to thinkthere's something more to learn
.
Yes, especially about the livedexperience of another, let
alone the lived experience ofour own.
And to give ourselves graceactually actually for our own
lived experience, actuallybecause you know the reason that
I share about my own kind ofchallenges when it's relevant is

(55:10):
because being vulnerable likethat is the best antidote to
shame.

Dr Edward (55:15):
Well it is, and you know, though, growing up on the
cattle property was lovely,there was incredible violence
towards animals, which left agreat amount of trauma in my
system, and we had a headstockman who had a very
traumatised background andtraumatic brain injury and was
extremely volatile and would gooff the handle, screaming at
things all the time, and thenwent to boarding school and I

(55:39):
ended up you know, my collapsewas chronic fatigue for 20 years
, so my nervous system and myimmune system just got fried to
the point where I got reallysick, and I had a marijuana
addiction for quite a number ofyears too.
So I understand from a livedperspective that I've had to
learn how to self-regulate, andI think one of the things that

(56:00):
I've had to learn how toself-regulate and I think one of
the things that I've foundreally important in that is to
build an appetite for what Icall healthy discomfort, and I
think this is a principle we canapply with animals too Little
doses of frustration so theylearn how to regulate through
that and come out the other sideand help them co-regulate with
us and that sort of thing.

But I know I wouldn't have got well if I
hadn't been able to do hardthings like get up and exercise
every morning and and and workwith therapists to go through my
uncomfortable stuff andassimilate and integrate trauma
and all that you know yeah, Ithink you know there's an
element of almost reparenting,uh, for ourselves and definitely
for me, um, everything is aboutour relationship with stuff and

(56:45):
so it's not about not feeling,it's about changing our
relationship with it, changingour relationship with our trauma
, changing our relationship withthe world around us, all these
kind of things.
I think there's some in my.
It's only my opinion, but Ithink some of the advice that
gets given out there for peopleisn't very helpful when it's
about trying to push away stuff.

(57:07):
You know emotions and feelingsand our mood state.
We talk about mood, emotion,feelings, interchangeably.
They're all very, they're veryseparate.
But we have this for a reasonand when you think about it,
mother Nature is the one thingthat has gone through millions
and millions of years ofevolution, that side of things.

(57:28):
We were all a nerve net once.
We were the first kind of thingthat became a nervous system.
The kind of prefrontal cortexcame along a lot later.
So for Mother Nature, then,emotions kind of work they have
a reason along a lot later.
So for mother nature, then,emotions kind of work they have
to, they have a reason.
As you said earlier, we've kindof detached ourselves from a
lot of stuff as we've in avertical, um uh, and it's not

(57:49):
healthy and it's a case ofsitting with.
There are things that I know Istill find triggering.
There are things I know thatare that that I know are
difficult for me, um, uh, andbut I I won't say I welcome the
fears, but I know them.

Dr Edward (58:07):
Now and I don't welcome them, but I will embrace
them yeah yeah yeah, and I, and, and, and.

It's as well as self-regulation, but I think
it's our improved self-awarenessthrough that process.

Dr Edward (58:24):
Look, I'd love.
I mean, we could talk for days,I reckon, but I would love to
just talk a little bit about thewhole alpha thing, which I
think is just one of thegreatest disservices we've done
to the canine kingdom possible,and I also want to talk a little
bit about the possible harm ofpositive reinforcement.

Well, the dominance thing is a fairly serious thing
, all these things we can divedown and rub our holes, but I
think the history of that reallyis because of the wolf studies
back in the day David Meck isthe name that kind of comes to
mind but um, where they lookedat wolves and they were like,

(59:07):
yeah, there's definitely ahierarchy here and we're going
to name the top ones as alphaand we're going to, you know,
and this notion of rank hi,who's that?
Who's that?

Dr Edward (59:16):
jim nearly always comes and joins us in the
podcast, if you're watching onyoutube, you'll be able to see
Jen.
If not, she's just jumped up tosay hello.
She's a very lively, veryloving little whippet.

Oh, she's absolutely adorable, and.

Dr Edward (59:31):
I love her name too.

She looks like a gem, yeah.
So, and you know a lot ofthings about kind of rank and
about all these kind of things.
And then the word dominance gotattached to that, because I'm
not comfortable with the worddominance period.
Really, I think it's a veryhuman kind of creation, really,
how we look at stuff and theyuse it in other terms.

(59:53):
Anyway, ethology has a differentway of looking at dominance,
looking at dominance ofconfidence, but.
But so the this, the, thestudies came out, the dog
training world at the time,which was very kind of, um, uh,
authoritarian and uh, very kindof punitive in nature.
Oh yeah, dog's wool is verysimilar.
Uh, we've got to make surewe're the boss, so we're going
to put them in their place andthey better do, is at all that

(01:00:14):
kind of stuff, so all kind ofset, I think.
Also, at the same time we had abig explosion in the marketing
world.
When you think about the 50sand 60s and what we know.
This is just my extra bits I'mthrowing in here, but we know,
when we think about thebehavioral kind of scientists
behind marketing, they foundthat men were quite hard to sell

(01:00:37):
to, that men were quite hard tosell to.
Ah yes, this theory came alongabout alpha right pack leader
and it was a big, big explosionof a lot of advertising in that
period, utilising this notion ofbeing the alpha, being the
whatever.
So it really takes hold right.

Dr Edward (01:00:55):
Is that a whole toxic masculinity, aggressive Western
Anglo-Saxon invasion,overtaking colonisation kind of
cultural thing?
Yeah.

Andrew Hale (01:01:08):
A hundred percent.
And that is still, I feel, partof the problem we've got with
even just aversive trading moregenerally, but especially the
dominance thing.
But David Mackie kind of cameout with that stuff.
He brought another paper orbook or whatever or some five or
six years later saying I gotall that wrong actually.

Dr Edward (01:01:28):
Well he did, because the other thing about it was
that the wolves were containedwithin an enclosure, so the
adolescent males couldn't moveaway, which is what drove a lot
of the aggressive behaviourwhich you don't see in a family
pack, which is really a familyunit with two elders and a whole
lot of loving, caring, deferentkind of behaviours.

And there were walls from multiple family units
because they were all puttogether artificially in a zoo.

Dr Edward (01:01:52):
I didn't know that.

That makes it even worse, even worse.
Well, I don't know whether youhad Big Brother over there, the
TV show, but you only have toget with the humans, you only
have to put people fromdifferent family units into a
space where you can't get awayand you will end up with a
pecking order of some sort.
So when he studied wolves innature, he's like actually, yeah
, this is more deferential, it'sa family unit, and they don't

(01:02:15):
even call them alpha anymore,they call them the primary
breeding pair.
And so when you think aboutwhat that translated to then
into human things, it's like youmust go through the door first,
you must eat first.
It's just, it's just rubbish.
And it stopped the dog'sability to be able to
communicate all those reallyimportant needs and try and make

(01:02:35):
a secure attachment.
Uh, uh.
So, um, and also I thinkanother problem we've still got
in dog training which we'removing away from.
My, my um platform is calleddog-centered care, and I took
that title really fromchild-centered care, the
child-centered care movement,the progressive side of child
educational, psychology anddevelopment, where I get a lot

(01:02:56):
of my kind of inspiration from,really.
But um, we used to havechildren should be seen, not
heard, right, and this is verymuch based on that kind of good
bad continuum and also thenormalisation of pain in
discipline.
I had the cane right, it wasnormalised, you're told, or I
will whack you Exactly.

(01:03:17):
And over here in the UK we havea ban on corporal punishment
and also on certain levels ofsmacking and they're looking at
actually banning smacking periodIn the dog world.
I think the perpetuation ofthis normalisation of pain is
still being pushed and I thinkoh, check collars, God damn it.

(01:03:38):
Yeah.

Dr Edward (01:03:38):
Check collars are a big example Okay, so I'm looking
.

Yeah, that was a big example.
Okay, so I'm looking yeah.

Dr Edward (01:03:46):
I'm just going to divert a little bit here, but
there's some really interestingthing that came out of studying
wild dogs in Africa.
They noticed this huffing orsneezing behavior, like a kind
of thing.
They tried to work out what itwas.
Well, it turns out it's let'sgo hunting, but in that pack.
If the lead turns out is let'sgo hunting, but in that pack, if
the lead dogs didn't want to gohunting, about 70 of them would
have to display this behavior.

(01:04:07):
If the lead dogs did want to gohunting, only about 30 would
have to display that behavior.
And when I do it to my dogs,they go oh and get really
excited.
It's really interesting.
I just thought I'd throw thatin because it's kind of fun,
yeah it.

It's interesting and I think for me, I think
especially.
I know we've heard of SindorSindor Pangal over in India.
She's doing amazing stuff withlooking at the streeties over
there and how they interact andhow they work socially and
moving away very much away froma lot of the kind of dominance

(01:04:42):
hierarchical stuff.

Dr Edward (01:04:44):
You know, going to Bali and Peru, which are two
countries I've gone to, they'vegot a lot of street dogs.
They're very harmonious.

And there's hardly any conflict between them
because they're regulating.
Well, you know, they work stuffout.
They're like well, I don't knowwho you are, let me just back
off, let me work it out.
That I don't know who you are,let me just back off, let me
work it out.
They're not already pumped upand they're charging over.
You know, I live on a beachdown here in Devon in the UK and
the dogs are running aroundlike crazy.
They're not doing any threatevaluation or anything and it's

(01:05:15):
no wonder they end up barkinguntil they get into scraps all
the time because they're allover the shop and actually heavy
extrinsic motivation throughtraining is not going to help a
dog intrinsically regulate well.

Dr Edward (01:05:29):
No, actually my thing is that treats are stimulating
and they are kind of theopposite of regulating, in a way
, and I tend to.
I will use them, but I tend towant to use touch and
communication as my primarymodes of working with and
helping dogs heal and learn howto regulate.

I hear you on that, and I think this is the thing
it's about having a relationship, hasn't it it's about?
For me, everything's a request.
Everything's a request.
People can call it a command ora cue.
For me it's a request, andbecause the dog will either do
it or they won't uh, that's thereality and we need to be
available to that feedback thatwe get.
We need to allow everything isan invitation.

Dr Edward (01:06:10):
Yes, and if the dog says no, well then you just got
to do a better job of inspiringthem.
It's not your job to punishthem.
It's your job to get better,yeah, or to work out why.
Most of the time, it's notbecause they to punish them.

It's your job to get better, yeah, or to work out
why.
Most of the time, it's notbecause they won't, it's because
they can't.
They're preoccupied withsomething else.
Their nervous system is focusedon something else in the
environment that is moreimportant to them at that moment
, and we've just got to getbetter at picking up on the cues
from the dog, not for them topick up on cues from us, so we
can understand.

(01:06:40):
Actually, do you know what?
You are well regulated, you'reold enough.
You're good at learning.
Let's go and do some.
That's gonna have some fun inthe in a teaching point of view,
and understanding our dogs inthat way.

Dr Edward (01:06:53):
It's a beautiful thing, I think, um to have that
kind of more relational approachI think, our relationship first
is my whole thing with animals,with people, with all the
living energies of the world.
I think it is the essence of alife well lived is is a
continual growth into stronger,better relationships.

(01:07:14):
Yeah, 100.
Okay.
I think it's time for us towrap up.
We're going to close up withjust two questions.
First one is the wake-up call.
What do you think is humanity'sbiggest blind spot when it
comes to our shared journey ofevolution, healing and wellness?

uh, I think that good, bad continuum doesn't help
the way that we see behavior inin a very arbitrary way, but I
think also um, the the otherring, the notion of other ring,
because which is which fits inwith that.
It fits in with everythingwe've talked about actually from
us as a social species, becausepart of our brain wants to find

(01:07:54):
social safety, so we will seeksimilarities, of course, but
we've ended up with especiallypolitical classes that want to
make a lot of things aboutblaming others for stuff.
And I think that other ring,that dehumanizing it's a scary
thing and I think the world atthe moment edward on many levels
is, is um showing us that it'sstill very alive and well, sadly

(01:08:18):
.

Dr Edward (01:08:20):
Oh yes, yes, I think that is true and I think it's
very scary.

And the political chatterings that create a lot of
this we've had it here in theUK happening in America now.
Lot of this we've had it herein the uk happening in america,
I know uh is is the symptom,actually not necessarily the
cause, and I think we have tothink about the
disenfranchisement of manypeople, um, because they don't

(01:08:54):
feel safe emotionally orsocially that we need to stop
billionaires taking 95 of thewealth and everyone else being
poor and struggling.

Dr Edward (01:09:04):
You know, I think that's probably the other thing
is that there's just anincredible lack of care and
generosity when it comes to howresources are distributed among
the world.

Definitely, and this is part of that
disenfranchisement for people.
I think, well, definitely, andthis is part of that
disenfranchisement for people.
I think you know, and, um, yeah,so I.
So I think that's uh, uh, I'vegot my, uh, my cake acronym.
Uh, because we all love cake,right?
Uh, compassion, awareness,knowledge and empathy, and I
think, um, I, I think it'simportant to try and bring cake.

(01:09:41):
And the thing about compassionfor others.
You know, compassion isn'tabout condoning, it isn't about
approving, it's about turning upanyway, and I think that's an
important thing for us.
The example I gave earlier withmy husband he was very aware of
the person he was caring forand what their offences were,
and his compassion was not a wayof approving, it was I will

(01:10:05):
turn up anyway.
And the awareness, truly tryingto be aware of the lived
experience of another, to tryand bypass our own distortions
and our own biases.
It's not easy, edward, it's noteasy.
Do you know what?
Um, trying to be like this inthe way that you and I want to
try and live our lives isn'teasy.
It takes work and there's a lotof things we have to navigate

(01:10:27):
and I think, sadly, within someareas of society, viewing things
this way is somehow seen asbeing snowflakey or whatever.

Dr Edward (01:10:38):
Don't get me started on how you're denigrated for
compassion by being a snowflakeor a communist, because you want
to have some kind ofprogressive policies that
actually care for everyoneequally.
It gets me a little hot underthe collar.

I think it's the pinnacle of human existence.
It's easy to be driven byinstant judgments and lack of
awareness.
It's easy to do's the easy,yeah.
So yeah, compassion, awarenessand then knowledge, genuinely
seeking knowledge of the otheryeah knowledge we have, and then
I think that allows more ofmore of the chance of a of a

(01:11:14):
right of bringing in empathy, um, you know, but yeah, so, so
that's our pay grade.
All we can do is try and do ourbit, I think, but, um, I do
have.
But having said that, I justwant to say this I do, I do
still have faith.
You know, over here in the ukwe had, we had these riots not
so long ago, uh, very muchdriven by the fire, right, uh,

(01:11:37):
and it was all pretty horrendous.
But you know what, the peoplewho came out to clear up after
the riots, and the masses ofpeople that came out against
that rhetoric, that's where hopelies.
Hope lied within those crowds.

Dr Edward (01:11:50):
For me, yeah, yeah, I , I hear you and and I think
that that is definitelysomething that the human nature
there's a lot of good in it andthe final question is what is
the change that you want to beand inspires other to be in this
world, which I think you'vekind of almost answered in the

(01:12:11):
answer.

The first question in a way, do you want to do with
?
Anything I do is is to inviteothers.
It's not to think differently,necessarily, but to feel
differently about stuff.
I think if we feel a bitdifferently, um, there's a great
, um marcel prowse quote whichis um kind of journey
discoveries about finding newlandscapes, but um having new

(01:12:33):
eyes or something like that.
Uh, and I think it's one of themost fundamental kind in human
psychology is perception, trulyis everything.
How we perceive somethingdrives our response, how we
perceive others, how we perceivethe behavior of others and,

(01:12:54):
importantly, how we perceiveourselves.
These conversations are greatbecause it's not a case of
saying do this, do that.
It's a case of let's thinkabout some great.
But because it's not okaysaying, do this, do that, it's
okay.
So let's think about some stuff.

Dr Edward (01:13:04):
Yeah, let's be curious.
Let's be curious and think andexplore and learn.
Thank you so much.
This has been a fascinatingconversation today.
And, andrew, where can peoplefind you?
Uh?

so dog center care on facebook.
Uh, and also my dog center careyoutube channel, where I get to
speak to a lot of amazingpeople and it'd be great to have
you as a guest.
Uh, a lot of the people I'vetalked about here sindor and uh
and uh, sarah and others they'reall on the youtube channel.
Uh and um uh, dogccorg.

(01:13:38):
Uh is my website if people wantto hear a bit more about me and
my stuff Beautiful.

Dr Edward (01:13:44):
Thank you so much.
We will press stop on therecording now and hopefully
we'll see you in the nextepisode.

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