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In this episode of K9 Conservationists, Kayla speaks with Cate Roscoe about Expertise, Accessibility, and Gatekeeping.
What does DEI stand for? Can we define each term?
- Diversity – who is at the table
- Equity – diversity + inclusion = equity, what is needed to achieve equality
- Inclusion – who is involved/included
Links Mentioned in the Episode:
Why Diversity and Inclusion Are Good for Business
Where to find Cate: Website
You can support the K9 Conservationists Podcast by joining our Patreon at patreon.com/k9conservationists.
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Transcript (AI-Generated)
Cate Roscoe
Tue, Dec 20, 2022 8:31PM • 1:13:57
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
dog, field, folks, conservation, people, expertise, training, talking, find, gatekeeping, canine, hire, team, skills, person, organization, DEI, rubric, diversity, big
SPEAKERS
Cate Roscoe, Kayla Fratt
Kayla Fratt
Hello and welcome to the K9 Conservationists podcast, where we’re positively obsessed with conservation detection dogs join us every week to discuss detection, training, dog welfare, conservation, biology and everything in between. I’m Kayla Fratt, one of the cofounders of K9 Conservationists, where we train dogs to detect data for land managers, researchers, agencies and NGOs. Today, I’m super excited to be talking to Cate Roscoe about expertise, accessibility and gatekeeping, among a lot of other things. So, welcome to the podcast. Cate, why don’t you go ahead and say hi,
Cate Roscoe
Kayla, hi, everybody. Thanks for listening.
Kayla Fratt
Yeah, we’re excited to have you. So for those of you who don’t know who Cate is, Cate is originally studied math and worked in the traditionally male dominated fields of science and math. She then brought that lived experience. Oops, go ahead.
Cate Roscoe
I actuallyoriginally studied biology. I have a bachelor’s degree in marine biology and a master’s in biology. Yeah, and worked specifically with invasive species. So
Kayla Fratt
Oh, perfect. Yeah. So that’s what we’re doing. Yeah, I didn’t know that about you.
Cate Roscoe
Yeah. He I helped set up like the check stations and the invasive species prevention programs in like the Greater Yellowstone Area and Grand Teton area. Wow. So I did all that. In between stints as a math teacher.
Kayla Fratt
I had no idea. That’s so cool. Yeah, so yes,
Cate Roscoe
Traditionally, male dominated fields, for sure.
Kayla Fratt
Traditionally, male dominated, especially when you get into kind of the government work. I feel like in the NGO world, and conservation, there’s a lot more women but then like, when you kind of move over to government, it’s more male dominated. And I was just talking to everyone Gomez, who’s been on the show before, and he said that I think it was 75% of nonprofit workers are female. But God, what was it? I can’t remember quite what it was something like 75% of the workers are female, but 75% of the leaders are male, which is like, oh, no, like, x out knee. We do all the hard work. And then you know, we have male CEOs, which Yeah, does check out. That sounds like my lived experience. Um, so let’s say going back to Cate’s bio. In the classroom, she strives to center equity, diversity and relevance and seeks to decolonize education. Her activism began while growing up as a young queer woman in the early 90s. And the feminism course introduced her to the truth that no one is equal unless everyone is equal. Since then, Cate has developed a philosophy to combat oppression by forging unification through empathy. She understands that the white supremacist patriarchy is most effective tools have always been to divide. And if that and that if we push against our oppression from only one side, we’ll be pushing against each other and effectively holding up the very systems we want to dismantle. Cate’s DEI philosophy is that equal isn’t equal until it’s everything. That’s how equal works. In addition to her diverse careers in science, education, and outreach, Cate has been an elite and professional athlete and a coach of the team sport of Ultimate Frisbee, or ultimate. for over 20 years, she thrives in a team environment, combining her experience as an athlete, coach and educator to create other powerful team cultures, in classrooms on the field and with colleagues. This hard work for social justice NDI is best accomplished as a team and can advance develop the development of the team. Our deepest struggle and relational equity are formed when we enter into shared struggle, be that in a project creation, sport, or fight, Cate uses builds and strengthens these relationships in an interactive approach to DEI training. I’m super excited to get to this interview. So Cate, yeah, again, welcome to the podcast. Why don’t you let’s kind of start out a little bit with kind of what your experience is and how how, you know, the conservation detection dog world because there’s a reason that I asked you specifically of all the DEI folks out there in the universe to come on to the show.
Cate Roscoe
Yeah, well, as we talked about a little bit in my bio, like I actually have experience in conservation and in many of the fields, and even some of the field sites that conservation dogs have been deployed in. And specifically, I’ve also done the EI Training for conservation organization, and I’ve actually been on field projects with them and assisted even because my wife is a canine trainer and prior to that, she was also a game warden and Detective here in Washington and actually created their canine detection program within their conservation realm. You One of our dogs actually has a statue at the Seattle Zoo. So
Kayla Fratt
always forget about that. How cool?
Cate Roscoe
Yeah, me? Yeah,
Kayla Fratt
that’s incredible. One day, we all aspire to have shot statues of our dogs and fancy places. So let’s let’s kind of start with like, the very basics. What does DEI stand for? And, you know, then what are kind of the differences between all those words? Because I feel like when we sum it up in a three letter acronym, it all gets a little bit mushy?
Cate Roscoe
Absolutely, yeah. So the D is diversity. And that’s really about who’s at the table, it’s pretty easy nowadays, to actually have diversity, you can just, you know, have token people all across your board, and it looks like you’re diverse. We see that a lot of in like performative actions as well, too. And just in our world, like our world is diverse. So the diversity is who’s actually showing up to your table, then that the equity actually like to do that one last? Because it’s really more about like, how do we get that diversity and inclusion piece, it’s like, in order to have equal access, for example, we might actually need to use equity to get there. If we’re looking for a quality, like we didn’t start equal there, we’ve had these systems that have actually like, pushed folks in different directions and put up barriers and, you know, held them back for a long time. So for actually looking for equal, we might have to do some equity, which a good way to describe equity. Like in my classroom, for example, I point out if a kid gets cut, I’m going to give that kid a band aid. That does not, it’s not equal, not everyone gets a band aid, just the person that needs a band aid. But in doing that, then we get ourselves back to equal where everyone is not bleeding all of us.
Kayla Fratt
Yeah, we all get back to baseline of not bleeding.
Cate Roscoe
Yeah, there’s also a really great image of it, there’s three little kids ones, you know, tall ones medium, when short, they’re standing at a fence trying to look into a baseball game. And the tall kid can already see over the fence and watch the game and the other two can’t. So equal would be if we give all three kids a box. Now the tall kid is standing, we, you know, belly button high over this fence, the medium kid can see over the fence and the short kid still can’t equity would be taking the box from the tall kid who does not need it, and putting it under the short kid. So they’re not equal. They’re each getting what they need to achieve equality. And then inclusion is what we’re going for right now, all three kids are included, and they can see the game. So inclusion is actually about like the involvement in the agency. So if we go back to diversity, and like who’s at your table, inclusions actually, who’s involved? And what kind of agency do they have? What kind of power are they listened to? Yeah, then a good way to kind of check yourself on that is, what’s your retention rate? Are you? Huh? It’s the involvement of the folks there and how safe they feel. And empowered.
Kayla Fratt
Okay, excellent. Yeah. Well, thank you. I think it’s always important to start out with our definitions. And then our next kind of, hopefully, I think our last, like, really basic question are, like, what are some of the benefits of focusing on these in a field? Like, why, as a conservation dog organization, should I not just say, I am just here to train the best dogs and I’m gonna hire, you know, whoever rises to the top of my application pool for that. And we’re just going to focus on you know, a meritocracy and nothing else like, Why? Why should I also be thinking about who’s at the table and what they bring,
Cate Roscoe
I would actually save for that very goal, right? If you’re actually looking for that best performance. And that’s where you actually want to put a DI lens on it. As you know, we mentioned in the science, spotlight, there’s a plethora of research showing that all kinds of fields, across medicine, business, education, public administration, and teams, that they all benefit from DEI and they get improved performance, they get better output, you’re actually going to get all that innovation in those ideas out. And what we don’t realize if we’re just looking at, say somebody’s CVS, I mean, first off, there’s our bias that’s gonna fall in there. Right? We’ve got a ton of research that shows if you put a identical application in, and the only thing you’ve changed is the name and you give it for example, a black sounding name versus something like John Smith. The callbacks go like three to one to the people with the white sounding names as opposed to the You know, the Sean’s of the world. So first off, we’ve got like our bias in there. But then the second thing is we’ve got this systemic inequities that have occurred. So a lot of folks, right, like, historically have maybe gotten that break, gotten that first in Job, whereas others have not. So it’s really hard to climb that ladder, if you’re not willing to just give someone new a try and see what they might bring to the table. And then one of the biggest reasons for me is, especially if you’re in any kind of an organization, you’re going to have a better team. We’ve seen that across the board. And if you’re really functioning, not just in your applications, but like, you know, and who you hire, but we’re talking like, on the ground, day to day, we are really living the AI in our organization, your team is going to be so much stronger, so much more productive, more innovative, and there’s tons of data to support this. But you know, also that coming from my philosophy, when we do meaningful work together, we’re going to build those real relationships, and it’s those relationships are going to translate into the productivity in the workplace. And yeah, and that agency, that’s where you’re gonna get that real American Dream.
Kayla Fratt
Yeah, exactly. Well, and I think, particularly in the conservation world, we kind of, by definition, our our, and a lot of cases going out and working with diverse communities. And if we’re all, you know, white, urban city dwellers, and then kind of showing up and do it, you know, like, there’s a whole term parachute conservation, where you just show up and don’t, don’t have any ties to a community and don’t necessarily understand the culture. And, you know, I grew up in really rarely rural northern Wisconsin, and we don’t have to go to Kenya to run into different cultures. You know, it’s sure, I live in a really diverse country, let alone world.
Cate Roscoe
Yeah, especially if you’re thinking conservation, too, it’s really kind of ripe for that sort of white savior complex, that we’re pushing our agendas. And, and that, you know, even if you’re going into a rural white community to that still can kind of fall into that, that Elise elitist Savior mentality as well, rather than working. And we’ve, again, seen this in the conservation field, where we have the best long term success is where they truly incorporate the community and their culture. And we, you know, we make it this holistic approach to conservation, that’s what’s lasting. That’s what changes, you know, changes the needle.
Kayla Fratt
Yeah. So knowing all of this, why, why don’t people do this? Like, why? What are some of the barriers that we run into when we’re trying to increase diversity? Or why do people still kind of put on the brakes and get worried about increasing accessibility?
Cate Roscoe
Well, they’re kind of taking questions. I mean, right. Right now, I think one of the first barriers in conservation is representation. Right? If you’re a young person, looking at what I want to be, when I grew up, we really only know what’s presented to ourselves. And, I mean, we’ll see this in, you know, all kids really like that list in elementary school of what I want to be when I grow up might seem really long, but if we really look at it, it’s it’s pretty basic list. You know, there’s things like I want to be a doctor, I want to be a bit, you know, go into the master ifI letter. Sure, right. And they don’t know things about, you know, even like, the breadth within say, graphic design, or within even biology, we might know we want to be a biologist, but and, you know, as I’ve grown, I keep meeting friends and looking at what they do. And I’m like, How did I not know about this? I really missed a boat there. I want that job. It looks really amazing. And yeah, particularly I have a friend that I swear sometimes I’m like, Is your job just to like, hang out on vacation? Like, how did I miss this? Anyway, so I mean, there’s there’s that part that in, particularly within the bipoc community, we really don’t have a lot of representation in conservation. So even once folks are getting out there and, and maybe exploring their options, say, working with animals or working in science, they might not see themselves out there in America, we can look kind of a little bit broader across the world and start seeing a little bit more racial diversity. But definitely in America, you know, it’s predominantly white, and also, even if they exist, there’s like, Who do we highlight? Right, who’s, who’s on the banner for conservation? That’s where that’s where people actually see Very similar, like in sports, right, like, which athletes are most represented is huge versus which athletes exist and are successful. And then every time out, why are people scared? I mean, we’re humans, we tend to resist change. And then we live and have been raised and just are covered and breathing and cannot escape this culture of scarcity. And this system was created very intentionally, right, we talked about that my bio divide and conquer has been unbelievably successful. And to the point where, even when we know these systems exclude and we don’t like them, we continue to pass that on and create new systems that do the same thing, and even double down on it. And that that scarcity mindset that we really need to resist. That’s what’s keeping us afraid. I mean, even when you start getting into the AI or like anti racist work, social justice, often that question comes up with like, what are you willing to give up to make this happen? Like, what privileges are you willing to give up? But I actually don’t think that’s the correct metric at all. I mean, yeah, it might look like giving something up. But really, like, what do you have to gain? I think there’s so much more. And this has kind of been a thing for me over the last few years, right? Starting in 2020. I’ve just seen the pejorative us as a culture, really hesitant to let go of things that we know don’t work in order to free up our hands to pick up new ideas that are incredible, and much better. I mean, even the way that we’re, we’re doing this podcast now, or, like, that’s something that exploded through 2020, because folks started, you know, letting go of some old ways and realizing they had these new ways to learn and share information. Right, how many folks are able to accomplish more from this kind of hybrid work? Sure, we found that some things still need to be done in person. But there’s a lot of other things that are actually way better for most of us. If they’re done virtually, or, you know, I don’t need to be in the office to write that paper. And now I’ve saved, you know, an hour of commute time. So I mean, these are, there’s a lot of good in this change. But we’re often I mean, even right now everyone’s push is to get back to normal. And in a lot of ways, I don’t even understand that. I mean, work in an education system, like, right, as the pandemic hit before that. We were constantly trying to, you know, tear down rebuild, restructure this system that we knew didn’t work. So now I’m really confused, while the same people are like, oh, gosh, hurry up, let’s get back to this rat race. Let’s make sure we go back to exactly what we know, doesn’t work. But, you know, so I don’t have a full answer other than we’re human. So there’s always going to be that resistance. And then culturally, we’ve really, we’re really inundated with that scarcity mindset. And and just this pushback, and we’ve been told that you’re going to lose out if other people win. I just don’t think that’s true. Yeah, I mean, think about right, like anything, right? When was the last time you walked into a room, and some jerk had used up all the negativity, and there was just no more negativity to be had and everyone was positive. Hey, it doesn’t work that way. Right? Negativity begets big negativity. And we see that across the board, right? Positivity begets positivity. We even say like, it takes money to make money, right? And success begets success. And then I think I did this with the training with YouTube, like, even if you are saying like, what about growth mindset? What about failure, but getting success? Well, that’s only true for someone who can look at failure and see it as success as that movement towards right. So it’s still a success begets success. And I think that’s true for power as well. Right? Power begins in power. And it doesn’t if we continue to live in this world of power over others, right? That’s what we’ve all been raised in. That is the structure we understand that power has to be power over it has to come at the expense of others. But there’s this other thing, this other idea, and Martin Luther King Jr. made it actually he talked about it a lot this idea of power with and power too. And this shared structure. And I would say even in the American power structure, there’s evidence for shared power being more successful, right, or revolution was about you know, breaking free from a king, one person who had all this power. So they broke free and they created this new system where shirts steal a lot of weight. Guys, but it was a lot, relatively speaking a lot of white guys. Right? Exactly. It was a lot of people that had power and they had more power and success than that king ever had. You know, we still see that today, like in our structure. So, yeah. Yeah,
Kayla Fratt
I think two things came to mind for me as I was listening to you talk. And I think, you know, one of the things we see, and this particularly comes down to race and class, I think, but is barriers to dog ownership and dog expertise, as well as conservation. And I think one of the things that we struggle with in this field is we have to, you know, aspects that we want people to have experience in, and that’s understandable. But you know, I am in a lot of inclusivity, and dog training sorts of groups, and they talk about, you know, if you want to adopt a shelter, dog, a lot of times there are these questionnaires, asking if you have a backyard, and you have a six foot fence, and like what happens to the dog when you’re left alone, all of this sort of stuff, that is a lot of a lot of gatekeeping over pet ownership. And then you know, let alone if you rent even trying to find a pet friendly rental.
Cate Roscoe
It’s, I think you’re 100% there, right? That’s where we’re seeing some of those systemic barriers. That right, if and, sure, like animals need access to certain things, need responsible owners, they’re living creatures. But if you know, even if all those needs are met, like you were saying, one of those biggest things is, for example, being a renter, and being an apartment, can you own a dog and get that kind of experience? And, you know, how’s that that’s gonna trickle up along the way, we’re also going to see like some cultural differences, right? There’s a lot of cultures that aren’t as familiar and comfortable with pet ownership, and particularly large pet ownership. As you know, Western American culture is we’ve always lived in big open spaces, that’s kind of the historical foundation and exploited animals, even for our, our, you know, our needs, and our welfare and protection and whatnot. So that’s always been part of our culture. But I think folks don’t realize that that’s also a barrier, that we could reach out and start sharing that. So anyway, of a an animal as like a working companion to I mean, this is one goes across every barrier, there’s a lot of folks that just don’t realize what it’s capable to have dogs do. That’s actually one of my, my arguments to for more inclusion of, of listening to those other communities and those ideas, because we’re constantly finding new applications for detection canines. But we don’t know, we don’t know, like, what are some other ideas we haven’t even thought of?
And that’s right, yeah, it’ll get
Kayla Fratt
integrate others what totally, whenever I talk to someone who has never heard of conservation detection dogs before, and I just kind of explain what I do. At least half of the time I have that conversation, someone comes up with some totally off the wall. Well, like, well, could you have the dogs do this? And I’m like, Oh, my God, I what? I never, I can’t think of Of course, I can’t think of any of them off the top of my head now. But you know, it’s, it’s, yeah, there’s a lot of growth and availability, there. And then the other thing that I think this is, so we’re just talking about the structural things, I think, are a little bit more insidious, and they’re a little bit harder to deal with, in some ways. You know, like, I, you know, there’s not as much that like we can do, like, I feel like I can do as an individual to, you know, help more people with disabilities own high drive dog so that they have the experience or, you know, whatever. There are things we can do. And we should get into that. But then I think the other big thing that I have really seen in this field is a lot of kind of gatekeeping and framing it in this lens of expertise. And I think, you know, when we talked about this in the pre interview, I think, as always, there’s some kernel of truth and a lot of these fears. Or maybe not always, but a lot of times where it’s, you know, we’re a nascent field or a young field, we have a lot of issues with credibility within the larger world of science and not not, I shouldn’t say not a lot like a lot of issues, but there’s a lot of skepticism around dogs. And it’s one of those things where, because we’re a newer methodology or a less well known methodology, it doesn’t take too many bad stories of a poorly prepared dog handler team going out there and causing damage to an ecosystem or harming an animal or something like that. To really hurt In this field, and I think, you know, we can we can hold that truth and understand that. And then also, I think the next step that has not been taken as much as I would like in this field is then. Okay, great. So what do we do to mentor people and avoid that? Instead of just saying no, if you don’t have the perfect experience and the perfect amount of expertise, you are not welcome here?
Cate Roscoe
Sure. Well, you know, expertise is that idea that experts skill or knowledge in a particular field?
And well, you know, what, what’s
Cate Roscoe
the exclusive definition of that in the canine conservation field? First off, and, and there’s also kind of two components there, particularly in regards to your work and some of the things that we’re talking about as far as gatekeeping and access. There’s the actual dog skills, right? There’s the actual science skills, for example, for trying to build credit credibility, correctly designing our studies, and controlling our variables properly. So that we actually have a locked down solid study that demonstrates the capability of this methodology in this, you know, dog work. And then we also have teaching skills. And those things are not mutually exclusive. And they are also not given in conjunction. As a math teacher, that’s like, for me just one of like, the universal truth of why do I think I’m a very good? Student? Yes. Yeah. So why do I think that I’m actually a great math teacher, it’s because I’m not about the math, I don’t have a math degree, I could walk into that classroom. When I was first teaching math, I didn’t actually even have my math credential yet, I was still testing into it. You know, I plan on going a biology route. And I realized that ended up being my biggest gift to my students, because I could understand why they didn’t get it. Right. And often, I’ll walk into a class with the math teacher who’s a math person, and they don’t understand that, right? So you’re trying to solve an equation, though, oh, you just you know, subtract five, and you divide everything by four and the kids sitting there going? So is it always four? Like, we always divide everything by four? Okay. Right. So there’s that gap that, you know, you actually have to have. So we can have these great teaching skills, right? Like, why am I on this podcast, I don’t actually physically do canine conservation? Well, because I’ve got these other skills that can translate into talking about what what could come and how we might access and whatnot, how we might diversify, to get these benefits in Kenya and conservation. And even within those dock skills, and people’s technical skill, training and handling a canine and again, those are two separate expertise. Do you have expertise in training? canines? Do you have expertise in handling them? There are folks that are excellent handlers that actually aren’t necessarily that great yet at, you know, sailing, training a new behavior. Yeah. And, and vice versa. So, I mean, when we get into the expertise, it’s not standardized, and we can parse it out for days, and who’s actually the judge of it, but we also don’t know what we don’t know. Right, these other folks who are not included, they might have a different expertise, or, or level us up. And I have also just, you know, observing folks in this field now, for about 10 years, I have seen many quote unquote, experts that I would say do not have some, at least some of those fundamental skills in the work that they’re doing, particularly when they’re training, you know, other other people, and recognizing, you know, that different dogs have different needs. And, and because of their, I don’t know, longevity in the field, they’re just considered experts, but nowhere in there, had they bothered to continue their professional development, and adapt and add new science and skills and training techniques. And I, I’ve also seen the fall out there, and that, you know, and we’ve, you know, I’ve even seen folks whose, you know, quote, unquote, expertise were hailed and whatnot. And then with a little bit of digging, we discovered they were complete frauds, like none of their credentials, were legit. And, you know, these are those horror stories, but to the what’s the deal, this gatekeeping like, anytime I see gatekeeping for me, I mean, I live in this, you know, anti racist, social justice kind of world. So gatekeeping tends to be a red flag for me. And math right math is gatekeeping at its best in our academia. A lot of folks don’t know this, right? It was intentionally structured. So for all of you at home, who always felt like an idiot and math, that was on purpose, it was made to do that to you.
Kayla Fratt
Patreon book club is in full swing, we just finished up detector dogs and scent movement by Tom auster camp and are about to start canine ergonomics, the science of working dogs, to join our book club for three bucks a month, head on over to patreon.com/k9conservationists. We also offer monthly group coaching sessions for aspiring handlers, puppy raisers and pros, as well as a monthly rotation of free webinars, workshops and roundtables with experts. Again, three bucks a month, up to 25 bucks a month, kind of depending on what level of support you want to give and receive. Check that out at patreon.com/k9conservationists. I hope to see you join us there!
Cate Roscoe
So in Steven Hawkins biography, which you can, the movie version is great. And I really appreciated the movie version for it, because it made sure to explicitly present this part of his career when he was going off to college. Folks, you know, the culture was you do what is easy and good for you, and just stay in basic stuff. And he was really shunned and shamed for breaking that mold and trying to go after something that he didn’t understand. And that wasn’t easy for him. And obviously, look, what came of that. Right. Well. So you know, that structure, it was kind of in that moment, reading his biography that I realized, and he talked about it, that the way we were structuring mathematics was to create this arbitrary hierarchy, right, this arbitrary elitism of what expertise was, and it was designed to only favor a few intentionally. And we put that into the education system. So keep in mind, the purpose of each level of math was to call an increasing number of students to create this artificial hierarchy. And let’s make math super abstract, let’s do all this stuff to create that within our mathematicians. And I mean, just as a sidebar, the only thing we’ve changed in education now is to demand that all students are successful in that system. And they’re not. Right, it’s never gonna work. So and I see that as a metaphor for so many of these other places, right. And we keep trying to create these gatekeeping structures to build this artifice of hierarchy for this quote, unquote, expertise. And it’s usually not actually built around, folks, you know, their innovation, their skill, even their application, you know, these things that we actually think their proficiency prowess, none of that. Right, or they’re in their effort, they’re learning to push those boundaries. So, I mean, yeah.
Kayla Fratt
Gatekeeper redflag to me. Totally. Yeah, same. It’s definitely something and it’s something that I, I personally experienced when I was trying to get into this field, because I think like, a lot of our listeners, you know, the second I heard about conservation detection dogs, I was like, okay, yep, that’s what I want to do with my life. And I reached out to everyone I could find on Google, and a bunch of them never responded, a bunch of them said, Sorry, we don’t take dog trainers. And a bunch of them, you know, just had like, a polite, but canned response. I’m sorry, we’re not hiring right now. Which like, okay, that’s, that’s the most acceptable response, I suppose. But, yeah, and I find it really fascinating to see this. And we’ve got a couple episodes, that I’ll be recording after this one, kind of about this bizarre concept in this field, that we’re not dog trainers, and that training is a dirty word. Because one of the things that really, obviously, I’m biased, I come from a dark training background, but there’s so much we can learn from learning theory and applied behavior analysis and ecology and all of these fields that are like within dog training that like, I think I find it really interesting that a lot of the same people who lose their heads over expertise are also the same people who really poopoo training and some of these and some of some of the other things that I’ve heard in this field are that you can’t teach this, you, you know, you either have it or you don’t. It’s a sense it’s a connection with the dog on
Cate Roscoe
Wall fixed mindset. Yeah. Holy smokes. Yeah. So I mean, all these things I’m hearing, right, that’s building up and playing into that scarcity mindset, right. And this fixed mindset, which, you know, can and conservationism that science so that is in direct opposition to it. There’s a fixed mindset and and scarcity, they, I mean, peer review, peer review is how you, you know, check, you bias, check your statistics and you discover like where it is you actually have an uncontrolled variable that you didn’t recognize. I mean, that yeah, it’s kind of mind blowing, to think it really is not recognizing that.
Cate Roscoe
Yeah. And how are we going to, I mean, that next level for whatever your, you know, field is, it has to come from an innovation, it has to come from new ideas. So keeping the same folks around is never going to really push that issue.
Kayla Fratt
And I think fundamentally, one of the things that I come back to a lot is there is so much need in conservation, and there are people busting down our doors who want to help. And I think, there there is a room to have diversity in expertise and methodologies as well, you know, I think it was at the Australasian conservation dog conference, I think it was during Nick ratters. Talk about volunteer conservation dog handlers. And he kind of had this example of like, in, in some of these cases, if you bring a dog out to a weed pulling day, and that dog, you know, like, I’ve got someone on Patreon, and I know she listens, and she’s great. And she’s, she’s gonna appreciate me calling her out on this, she’s got a 12 year old have a nice mix. And she’s working on training him to go and find some invasive plants. And if he goes out to a weed pulling die, and he finds two plants, and misses 10, but he finds two plants that people were going to miss, he’s brought something to the table, and she has brought something to the table. And I think there’s so much room to think creatively about how to use conservation dogs, that, you know, I maybe that’s where we start. And that’s what we think about instead of being like, okay, yes, there are some projects that are incredibly sensitive, and incredibly difficult and incredibly technical. And like, No, I don’t think we should encourage some brand new baby fish trainer to go and jump into something like that, you know, I’m thinking of like WD foresees project with the with the soloists. I don’t actually know how to pronounce the antelopes name out loud. But like, this is a species that hasn’t been seen in the wild for however long, you know, like, that’s not, that’s not a project that an amateur or a first timer should take on. And I think we can acknowledge that while also then saying, okay, great, but we’ve got all these people with expertise and desire, and the conservation has so many needs, we can we can figure out how to bring these things together. And so much better. Yeah. And
Cate Roscoe
expertise, still, expertise still exist, right, like the bigger concept of, you know, gaining that expert knowledge and that proficiency that still exists, but how do you get there? Right. And that’s kind of what we’re talking about with this accessibility piece of letting folks in and training them up? No, but you know, for any kind of project, you wouldn’t just on leash the newbie on this higher level stuff. And that detailed work. Absolutely. But how does anyone get to that point? Now, to be honest, in our field, a lot of folks who are experts right now, and at that top, when they started new, it’s a new in a field when they started, they were the newbie just going out there, right? And so how come they’re gatekeeping other people doing that? Right? As a conceptual thing that seems wrong, although there’s also the argument to be made that they learned from their own mistakes, and it wasn’t a good idea. But, you know, both things are true, but let’s talk accessibility. Right. How do we let new folks in and start giving them those skills? And, and absolutely, look holistically. I mean, think about clicker training, which is, you know, just so fundamental to the work that y’all do. That was somebody’s crazy idea at a zoo. And if it wasn’t for other folks looking at these other expertise, and saying, what, you know, how am I be able to try this and use this? We wouldn’t be where we are today. We won’t have dogs do.
Kayla Fratt
Absolutely. I mean, and I think like honestly, that’s one of the things I admire the most about your life, your your life. Your wife, Lauren, is how good she is at bringing in so many and she is so curious, and she is absolutely one of those people that I think does do a really good job of she brings in so many different lenses and it’s so sharp and there’s so many people like that in this field. But unfortunately, I think some of the louder voices are the ones that are, you know, speaking from a place of fear if I’m trying You know, if we’re being really generous, because I think, you know, and that’s the other thing, like anyone who is coming at it from this place of gatekeeping. Our they’re, they’re, they’re presenting a behavior that we would call gatekeeping. You know, if I put my dog trainer hat on, it’s like, Okay, what’s the root of that behavior? The root of that behavior is probably fear. And, like, I think we can acknowledge that and say, Okay, great. Yeah, of course, like, we can all agree that our same goals here reflect, you know, surround the ethics and welfare of our dogs and the science that we want to get done. And there’s one way to do it.
Cate Roscoe
Yes, 100%. And, in fact, we won’t know that we’re expertise, without those other ways of knowing and being and trying those other things. My day one activity for my lower level math classes, you’re given a team, a sheet of newspapers and paper clips and tape, a pair of scissors, the scissors have to come back to me build the tallest tower, your team can. And I’m really intentional with that wording. And it’s really fun to keep pushing the kids when they’re like, Yeah, we built the tallest tower, we’re done. I’m like your team can, when we debrief it, it becomes clear to them that the only way for them to succeed, the only way for them to know that they had the tallest tower their team could build in the time allowed was to continue to build taller towers until they ran out of time, or their materials had catastrophic failure, and they could not eat their last record. Right, you have to do it by failure. So you got to keep pushing that to find out if you’re actually there yet. I think you know, that applies here.
Kayla Fratt
Yeah, absolutely. And I think one of you know, one of the things that we can kind of pivot to as far as Okay, great, what do we do? And I know, this is something that, you know, I’m really passionate about is okay, great. How do we mentor and welcome new people into this field? And, again, I think there’s like one of the things that I have found fundamentally most frustrating with is that a lot of the same people who are really worried about lack of expertise from new people coming into the field, don’t necessarily have solutions for education and mentorship, or potentially they do but they’re really intermittent, or they’re crazy, expensive.
Cate Roscoe
And, yeah, and there’s a huge barrier there, right, like, you’re gonna move to do this unpaid internship in an expensive town. You know, like, take Missoula, for example, how you’re gonna go and do an unpaid internship, and afford to live in Missoula. I mean, how are you going to afford to live in Missoula when you paid? I mean,
Kayla Fratt
there’s a reason neither of us currently lives in Missoula.
Cate Roscoe
Or like, you know, Jackson, Wyoming, or several of these places that are, you know, really big Mecca as organizations with a lot of conservation work going on like?
Kayla Fratt
Yeah, when I was first looking at breaking into the field, you know, I think the only course that I could really find was with Louise Wilson over at conservation canine consultancies, that’s in the UK. And the course, I’m sure is an excellent value for the expertise and the education and the mentorship that she provides. However, I was going to have to fly to the UK for it. And that was literally the only course I could find. You know that that was a nonstarter?
Cate Roscoe
Yeah, well, we in any field, right? Like, look at the way we have universities, for example, we have a plethora of options for folks, specifically to like, reduce barriers and whatnot. And you can go, you know, to your junior college route, you can do universities, you can do a mix and match, you can find that university that’s right for you. We even have long online programs. And again, we’re going back to, hey, let’s take some good things that we maybe should have learned from 2020. You know, along with human resources, your most valuable let’s go with, like, we have technological tools to increase access at these lower levels. And so well, no, nothing will ever replace hands on time with a dog and mentorship and field experience. And folks, you know, who are hiring, you need to actually create real standardization like a rubric. What are we actually looking for, in these new hires? What, what what foundations do we need to see that we can work with? Right and, and we’ve seen a variety there. We’ve got folks who actually would prefer their new hires with maybe a little bit less experience, say with dog training, because they, as an organization, have a very structured program for how they want the dogs trained and whatnot, and they find it easier to build up from the bottom with that, right. They don’t have to unteach anything. And then you’ve got other programs that are The you know, the polar opposite, they want you to come in with your expertise and training and whatnot and, and guide them and develop their program. So, you know, that can vary by organization. But the point is that org has to have their vision and their understanding and their Rudra rubric to really screen and to think about what is the structure within our organization, to, you know, to borrow an analogy from sports, right? To invest in the bottom of our roster, so that we have a full team of starters, right? How do we eventually get people to all be the experts? Because probably, we’re not going to lateral hire in too many people. That’ll happen occasionally. But
Kayla Fratt
yeah, but it’s but yeah, this is such a small field, lateral lateral hires are just not.
Cate Roscoe
Not Yeah, they’re looking to relocate for some other reason. Right? And yeah, then. So now, how do we get some of these fundamental educational components out there? There’s the folks that are going to go to most of those courses already have a fair amount of economic privilege and some other privileges and abilities to get into trouble and to do all that. But what about everybody else? You know, regular folk really? And, and, you know, it’s simple things like, we think, Well, maybe they need to have had a pet before. Okay, even if we’re going with that. Great, that’s still, you know, that’s a pretty basic thing that hypothetically anybody could do, it’s not something that, you know, they needed to pay a lot of money and have a mentor and go to special program to be a pet. And so why can’t we use things like webinars to get some of that foundational understanding? And, and have folks interact that way? Like I said, we have the technology for that nowadays. And you know, it’s not exclusive. It’s not like this crazy new idea, to be honest. Like, Pat Nolan, for example, has an online course for training retriever pups. Yeah, he’s that he’s absolutely the top echelons in that expertise. And here he is, deploying foundational understanding, in a way that folks can access without traveling all over the world. They can do it from wherever they’re at. And the cost isn’t a tremendous barrier there.
Kayla Fratt
Yeah, my sister is taking med school, like she took med school online for a year during the pandemic, like if you can do med school online, like, you know, I think and I think that’s a great analogy, like, obviously, she’s not going to like, go become a doctor without ever having touched a scalpel, and like practice stitches. But also, you don’t practice stitches for the first time on a real person in the AOR. You know, like, Jan was sent home with these really cool, like fake arms to practice stitches on and you know, whatever. I don’t, I don’t, I don’t go to med school, for obvious reasons. But
Cate Roscoe
also all the classrooms stuff, right? There’s so much classroom stuff that isn’t even hands on that we do. And, and, you know, practicing at home with your own pet or with a friend, right, Lauren does this wonderful workshop, you know, back home, things are in person. For for young girls, there’s a really cool program that happens here in our area for young girls that are interested in science. And they get to go to different workshop classes. And Lauren does one on clicker training and and how that whole thing works. And, you know, if any of you have ever been to a really high quality clicker workshop, I’m sure you have had to use a clicker to direct another person to do what you want them to do. Right? Or you could learn on chickens, right? I mean, there’s, there’s what, what resources do you have? Let’s find a way to leverage that for access, and to get that foundational content out to you. And then yeah, at some point, we’ll you know, you’ll have that foundation, and you’ll get in front of someone else who’s going to be your mentor or get that first foot in the door at a job. But
yeah, well, yeah, that
Kayla Fratt
doesn’t necessarily make sense is the place to start. Well, I know like as an analogy for another thing that I’m really interested in that was also very fraught and gatekeeping is dog breeding. So I’ve got niffler He’s two years old, I would like to make more nibblers hopefully, if you know, pending all the health tests and blah, blah, blah, Don’t come at me. But you know, everyone says, Oh, you want to get into dog routing, great. Find a mentor, and I said, Okay, is there a database? Are there programs? You know, no, there aren’t and there are some really good but again, expensive online classes and workshops and those sorts of things. But what I have been told I need to find is someone specific to my breed and specific to what I’m hoping to produce. I Out of this out of my, my breeding program and whatever and it’s like, okay, well, as far as I can tell, there’s nobody breeding. Border Collies specifically for detection work or, you know, there’s a couple of breeders who have like a litter every two or three years or something. But, you know, the one that I and I’ve kind of been forcing her slowly into becoming my mentor, she’s in Florida, like, it’s not like I can go and like help raise puppies with her. So, okay, great. Let’s get creative. And you know, I’m starting with lurking in Facebook groups and talking to people and asking questions and interacting with my breeder who read niffler. And, you know, piecing together and then hopefully, by the time that niffler is three, or four or five, and we’re actually thinking about his first litters. I’ve got enough together, but it’s, it’s infuriating to me to see people just be like, Oh, you want to get into XYZ? Great. Find a mentor. And then you’re like, Okay, is there a matchmaking service for this? Because if not, I don’t really that’s not helpful.
Cate Roscoe
One, and again, I see it is, look how much it’d be gained from you diversifying what you’re looking at, too. If, if we’re really talking about the foundations of,
you know, purpose bred dogs.
Cate Roscoe
A lot of that foundation stuff, but to me seems universal? Totally. I mean, this is not my expertise, obviously, don’t breed purpose bred dogs. But the concept of purpose breeding itself, let’s start there, if you build up from that, right, you center, what are you trying to do, rather than what is the breed of the dog, if you start there and build out, then eventually you will get to that periphery where now I need to become an expert in this breed of dog and their genetics. But you’ve got to compare, you’ve got to pair that rather, with the foundations and the purpose and expertise of purpose breeding dogs. And you could go get that.
Kayla Fratt
Yeah, and even before that replace dogs, you know, like, even before you get into purpose bred, it’s okay, what a genetics, what’s the difference between a genotype and a phenotype, like, we can go way down to the bottom, and I think it’s important to try to get as much of that done as well, for you. Yeah, then you get into the performance bred, and then you can get into your breed. And
Cate Roscoe
we’re also talking epigenetics, and from what I’ve seen, you know, Lauren follows a lot of purpose breeders, and really has gleaned a lot of understanding in terms of selecting candidates to become working dogs. From what she’s learned, studying purpose breeding of dogs. And something that’s been really obvious to me, you’re just kind of looking over the shoulder to is how much is really actually about that puppies first, you know, nine months of life, rather than the genetics even before that, like that’s just your, your foundation. So, again, now, is it purpose breeding dogs? Or is it you know, understanding foundation? Yeah, purpose raising puppies. Exactly. Which comes? Yeah, that understanding that actual foundation of training? Oh, geez, we’re dog trainers again.
Kayla Fratt
Yeah, yeah, we’re back to that. We’re back to that. That funny word that everyone hates, for what? Except for? Well, no, not everyone. There’s just a couple of voices. So
Cate Roscoe
encourage folks, I really, I mean, it came on this because I really want to encourage folks to resist that scarcity mindset and to look for ways that they can participate in supporting accessibility to folks because of what they personally and this field has to gain from more folks being in this, you know, just more folks in general, and then also from getting the diversity of folks, if we have different perspectives in here, we’re gonna think differently, we’re going to get that more holistic success, we’re going to be able to innovate, we’ll see our blind spots. You know, just like I think it’s also really good to consult and to look at folks with other expertise and say, Okay, how can that level up what I’m trying to do? Right, like yeah, we can look at teaching foundations we can look at what you know, veterinarian, medicine does and, and what zoological trainings do all this stuff, right? We have to look at all those fields, just like we want to look outside in terms of science and technology, and how can we better innervate our studies about these dogs or our conservation work and oh, gosh, we also really need to understand how to be a part of the communities that we’re working with to be successful. But that is, I mean, we’re talking accessibility left, right and center there. Right, that we have to increase accessibility. And we also have to look for it for ourselves. We’ve, we’ve got to actually do that outreach, if we really want to be top of our game. And it’s really easy to instead just create this artifice of expertise and sit on top of it and your throne. And protect, protect, protect. And, and, you know, maybe check yourself maybe look in deeper, like, what are you really trying to accomplish? What are you really trying to protect? What is the actual threat there? Right, like, there’s definitely a difference between fear and danger. Yeah, it’s important to check in with that.
Kayla Fratt
Yeah. And I think, you know, the only like, I always get nervous about recording episodes like this, because I don’t want to piss anyone off. And even the same people that I’m thinking of, as I’m making some of these comments are also people I respect really deeply and would absolutely jump at the jump at the opportunity to take workshops from learn from, you know, and I think I’m thinking of, I can’t remember who said it, and probably a couple different people have said it, this idea of, you know, I criticize America, because I love it, and because I want to see it improve, or, you know, whatever. And like I want to push and question this field, because I’m so passionate about it. And I’m so excited to see where it’s going. And, you know, for me, like, that’s part of what we’re doing with this podcast. And that’s why I don’t just interview conservation dog practitioners on this show. It’s why we bring in search and rescue trainers. It’s why we bring in breeders, it’s why we bring in, you know, conservation scientists who have never handled the dog in their life. And I think we could go a lot broader with this show. If I had time and wanted to make it a daily show. You know, 10 years from now, we’ll probably continue going bigger and bigger. But I also suffer from this like, oh, my gosh, why am I talking to a search and rescue dog trainer when I still haven’t had, you know, trainer XYZ or conservation dog person ABC on the show yet? You know, it’s, we’re working on it?
Cate Roscoe
Well, I think one of my best assets has, I think one of my best assets has been my ridiculously broad CV, right, like, in all the different fields that I go to even my willingness to speak to you about that, like, you know, I had a little bit of hesitancy at first. And then when I really sat with it, I realized, like, what am I talking about? Like, I, I know, biology, I know, conservation? Uh, you know, I know, dogs no education. And, you know, I have expertise in di work. Like, what? And what about that doesn’t translate here. And for me, why is it that I have the skill set I have? It’s because I’ve been in all these crazy different fields and been diverse and looked in all these different places. And I’ve never not come out better for going somewhere totally new. And I’m trying something completely different in there, though. It will. This is what we’re going to do today. You know?
Kayla Fratt
I can’t tell you I’m talking about
Cate Roscoe
time. No, it’s never the wrong time to do things better. Uh huh. You can just try something new. If it’s not working. Where are you still doing it? Yeah.
Kayla Fratt
Well, I know like, I’ve talked about this before on the show, but like I it is mind boggling to me how much my dog handling improved when I took like, a year’s intensive salsa and Bachata classes like partner? Wow. Yeah. You know, it’s just like, like, you know, and I think it’s just it’s synergy and like figuring out how to see those connections and recognizing them, because I think we all have them, we all have these diverse interests that we can bring in. And even, you know, foster that within ourselves, which I think brings me to my last question for you. So what are some of like, the concrete steps that me other people in the field our listeners could be thinking about to kind of increase accessibility? And I think ideally, I’d like to think bigger than just, you know, a land acknowledgement at the beginning of your fundraiser or putting a pronoun pin up at your next tabling event. Like, how do we how do we think bigger about this? How do we get more creative with how to bring more people in? And
Cate Roscoe
absolutely, I mean, so for me kind of an obvious way that an organization could go above a say like a land acknowledgement is let’s actually, you know, really acknowledge the people whose lands we’re on by including them in our organization. hire them, right, have them on the board, consult with them, really like go into community, Let them guide you center that person. And again, like I said, just hire them. And you know, another Third thing an organization can do is to start seeing diversity as a qualification, right? Like, there’s so much data to support the benefit of having fully inclusive diversity within your organization. So with that in mind, but you know, a person could look at diversity, and you know, say that’s racial gender ability, maybe hire trans folks, you could actually consider those sorts of things a qualification that other candidates don’t have, right, and then go ahead and take that chance on that person that maybe has a little bit less experience in your field. Because of course they do, right, they weren’t given the same advantages in the same access to your field as other folks, right? They, particularly the white men might be, so you could start considering in your rubric, that diversity might be something that matters to you. And that might even become a larger priority. If you’re starting to think about, like within your organization, we need to branch out to different cultures, we need to maybe just in general, we’re really looking to innovate. So knowing that having really different perspectives coming together is going to be the best way to ensure that you’re really innovating and doing things differently. It’s about identifying those barriers that folks have, and, and the ways that we participate in the mechanisms of those systems that we dislike, right, those exclusionary systems. So it, it can happen in so many ways. Perhaps in your hiring department, you have a first person who intakes all the applications, and then kind of splits up parts of it, like, for example, takes names and gender off of it, and asks a group of folks to review and score the applications based on a rubric that you’ve built. And then you can have a separate group, look at it, say, with the educational institutions names removed, right, so that you’re still seeing, okay, this person has this level of education, but we don’t know where from those kinds of things, where, where might your biases exist, and then try to create ways to kind of blind yourself to those and, you know, screen your applicants, score them, then come back together, put those applications together. And you know, honestly, I’d also encourage folks to maybe even take some time to do some data mining there. And you might find where your organizational bias in hiring existed, if you’re looking at it, blind, and then also looking at it not blind, right, you have a, you have a control variable there that you can look at, and see. Because you might find out that like, in fact, your organization does not care about when which institutions they went to. So that’s one step we can take away. Or you might find that, in fact, like far more than gender, what mattered was the reputation of the graduate institution. So that’s definitely something you want to take out then. Right. And, and, you know, and compare that to the folks who have hired and you can also look at, I think, in regards to what we’re talking about to have your organization really structure, like their onboarding procedure, and that rubric for, what they want employees to come with, and what their response will be to these different skill sets. So that’s in terms of like a hiring, kind of personnel sort of way we can go about things within an organization, I, of course, would recommend that folks do ongoing, extensive, like D AI training with a professional. And these professionals can give you things that you can do as a team. For example, in my work, one of the things I always want to get a team doing is a podcast, study, book study, something like that. They get to choose the medium that they interact with. And then I have actually like curriculum and guided study, so they get to interact as a team and have these conversations. But you know, often these hard conversations and really like start skilling up that way, and the growth that a team would have by engaging in meaningful work. That is probably even outside of their expertise. You Know the field they’re in, is going to translate. And it’ll change their lens of how they look at their work. Right? Once we put on a new lens, you can’t take it off, but you got to actually, like, get that lens on first. So finding ways to do that, and I encourage it to happen at an organizational level, it’s far more impactful form meaningful, it’s, you know, it’s less performative if we’re talking about making this a part of what we do, and our team. And I think that, that the team will reap great benefits from that, in how they work together. And all the ways, you know, we don’t even think of as deep, we’re saying, like, let’s get productivity, let’s be very business minded, I think those things will all benefit. And there’s a lot of evidence to back that up. And then, like, culturally, you know, let’s look at these accessibility barriers, let’s talk to each other, what was your barriers, let’s do outreach. And, and let’s just be willing to try new ideas, and see what comes of them. Right, if we have those strong rubrics in place about what our organization wants, in their new hire, and we’ve got an onboarding process, and then here’s our ongoing training and our scaffolding and, and how we interact together, then we can like allow for new ideas to happen outside of our orgs in terms of that foundational training, and in terms of, you know, we can we can try something, we could take a little bit of a risk on this person, right, maybe we can see they have this other skill that we kind of like, that we think is going to innovate, but we’re maybe concerned about this other piece, well, that won’t matter if you’ve got a true and strong, you know, screening approach and structures in place for after they’re hired. So you can even take those risks and find that that new diamond in the rough that and become you know, that lighthouse organization, that’s pioneering the field. So I mean, these are some other different ways, and they know something that stuck with me to listening to you just before you ask that question about like your salsa classes and whatnot. Really, like experimenting, maybe allowing other folks to come in and, and share these different ideas about like, how do we get some of these skills that we need? That’s often a question like, let’s sit around as a group, and the more diverse your group is, the better this is gonna work out. But let’s actually think about what are some different ways that we’re going to get these skills experiences that we’ve had, because no one is going to come with all of the skills they need, at the top level, and every one of us is going to have to continue to grow and innovate constantly, right? We need professional development. So you know, like, getting skills for say, having hard conversations at work or feedback, where can we go to start looking for those things, folks in supervisory positions? Okay, what kind of training? What kinds of things could they do that would then translate and help be a better supervisor, which is going to help the whole structure within an org? And even like you were saying those physical skills, I mean, think about athletes, for example, we do like ladder drills for right we do ladder drills, these Footwork Drills, I will tell you that is not the actual footwork, no one’s shuffle. Nobody’s doing it the shuffle except for their touchdown dance. Why are we doing that? And you know, let’s, let’s stay with football. The number of elite professional football players, we’re talking like, We are the cream of the crop within the NFL. These big huge guys are in ballet classes. Right? And Pilates. Why are they doing that? Because it’s building this other component of the skill sets that they can then apply across the board. And gosh, imagine the bravery of that first NFL player that was like, I think I should try a ballet class. Yeah,
Kayla Fratt
right. Well, I know like, I think that’s that’s such a good point. And I was thinking the same thing. Like I know he’d Smith, I can’t remember which episode of I think this was. James Davis’s podcast, said that they’ve had a lot of really good luck with new hires who have horse experience. And they’re, you know it like, okay, maybe you don’t, you’ve never had a dog, but maybe you had the privilege of being around horses. And I think horses are like, they’re a really interesting one, socioeconomically because, like I grew up in a part of the country where a ton of people who didn’t have any money had horses. And, you know, in other
Cate Roscoe
parts of the country, it’s the other extreme, right? Absolutely. Yeah.
Kayla Fratt
My horseback riding lessons. Were all very fancy pantsy like expensive dressage things that you know, we’re not anywhere But I think there’s so much cool stuff in there about, you know, like dancing and horseback riding. And you know, I’m sure, like, first, you know, ultimate or something like also comes into play with gosh, I mean, sometimes I wish I could throw my Frisbee with greater accuracy, just to award my dog more safely. So many different things that come in there. Okay, we need to wrap it up here. We’re trying to keep it up an hour. I’m terrible at it. But,
Cate Roscoe
you know, we’ll get the edit out. Yeah, the thing, the last thing I was gonna say, within all that is, as an org, you know, as supervisors, and think about putting people in these positions who have this skill set, that can actually look and say, what is the actual problem? Right? Well, my kids are building those newspaper towers, and they won’t stand up. I’m getting them to find what’s their actual weak, weak spot, right? Where’s your actual problem? Because maybe that person is missing that physical timing on the clicker. Maybe that’s the actual problem. It’s not that they can’t, you know, train the dog to do the skill, or they don’t understand the timing. Maybe they need help with that physical, you know, mechanism, and vice versa. Right, figuring out what’s causing the actual problem. And then you seek out training and skill based learning around that, to level that person up and get them where you need them to be. So
Kayla Fratt
yeah, yeah, there’s yeah, there’s so much good stuff. So just, you know, think creatively. Yeah. So Cate, Is there anywhere that you would like to be found on the internet anywhere, any resources you want to point people to before you head out?
Cate Roscoe
Oh, goodness, let’s see, as a predominantly a teacher during the school year, I don’t actually have the huge brand. But the consulting group that I work with, so you can find me through them is eight to eight flow out in Tacoma was Lawrence Garrett. So that’s usually where I contract through. I guess folks can also find me on Facebook, because I’m an old lady. And I’m sure in the show notes, we can maybe. Yeah, if folks want to actually talk to me about doing further work with them. But yeah, mostly, I’m out here doing small ball working in the big system, from within. I think in the next year or so you might see me out doing more consulting work, though. Oh, that’s exciting. Back to you if folks are looking for my services. Yeah, but yeah, that Rosco at Yahoo is probably the best way are looking to get a hold of me or through the eight to eight flow. So
Kayla Fratt
Okay, well, yeah, we’ll have all those links in the show notes. And if anyone’s interested in learning more, ask him some questions or hiring you for some contract work. I think. We’ve, we’ve opened a lot of good conversations and questions here. And I hope everyone at home is feeling inspired to actually maybe stay inside and think about how to be more inclusive, more inclusive as a canine conservationist in whatever way suits your passions and skill set. Again, I think a big central conversation point here was kind of creativity and synergy. As always, you can find your shownotes your transcripts, your T shirts, your mugs, your training logs, all that good stuff over at K9conservationists.org and you can join Patreon at patreon.com/k9conservationists. We’ll talk to you again next week.