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In this episode of K9 Conservationists, Kayla speaks with Kendra Carter about K9 field first aid.
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Where to find Kendra: Website | Facebook
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Transcript (AI-Generated)
Kayla Fratt 00:10
Hello, and welcome to the K9Conservationists podcast, where we are positively obsessed with conservation detection dogs. Join us every other Tuesday to talk about detection training, canine welfare, conservation biology and everything in between. I’m Kayla Fratt, one of the three co-founders of K9Conservationists, where we train dogs to detect data for researchers NGOs and agencies.
Kayla Fratt 00:29
Today’s student shout out goes to Emma. Emma has been part of the canine conservationist learning crew for ages alongside her lovely English Shepherd Jasper. You’ve heard from her on the podcast in the past. She did an episode talking about her very first season working on a wind farm alongside him, and kind of the lessons learned and what surprised him through what surprised her through that project. We unfortunately did not have Jasper on the show, and Emma is just she’s such an astute trainer who works really hard to meet her dog’s needs in training and in life, and is constantly adapting and thinking creatively about how to ensure that he loves the game and stays in it and continues to progress as as far along as they can go. And it’s just been really fun getting to know her over the years and watching them grow as a team. Emma and I think I know are are now just straight up friends as well, which is one of my favorite things about this program.
Kayla Fratt 01:18
Today, I have the joy of talking to Kendra Carter from Adventure Vet Meg about canine field first aid. So this might be our last episode in our safety series, or the safety series might just be the series that never ends, but we’re finally just going to talk about, you know, generic like trauma and stuff that can go wrong with our dogs. We’ve had all these, like, hyper specific episodes that are very useful. But now we’re going to zoom out a little bit. And so for those of you who don’t know of Kendra, after 15 years pursuing careers in human medicine, veterinary medicine and wildlife biology, Kendra began teaching wilderness medicine in 2016 discovering her passion for teaching. She’s then learned of her strong drive to advocate for animal wellness through Guardian education and founded adventure Vet Med. She now applies experience gained as a field biologist, dog handler, vet tech, wilderness EMT and professional wilderness medicine educator, to advocate and care for canine companions, their people and the flora and fauna of our world. So welcome to the podcast. Kendra, I’m so excited to have you here.
Kendra Carter 02:21
Thanks so much. I’m super psyched to be here.
Kayla Fratt 02:24
Yeah, so why don’t you start out, tell us a little bit about any dogs you share your life with, where you’re coming from, and a little bit about, you know, tell us your story of how you how you brought all of these things together, because your bio is, is a good teacher for all of that, but
Kendra Carter 02:38
It’s been kind of a winding road, but, you know, I’m a classic add. Or in terms of, you know, I’ve always been interested in all kinds of things, and want to do all the things so, but fortunately, that has led to this, to this awesomeness. And yeah, I so in terms of dogs, I don’t currently, sadly, have any dogs that I share my life with, other than the dogs that show up on my courses, and I get to work with them and their and their handlers and owners and whatnot, which is really joyful for me. That really is where I get a lot of my joy from, is client education and owner coaching and that sort of thing. But of course, the dogs bring me joy too. But yeah, I don’t have any dogs in my life. Currently, it just doesn’t fit with my lifestyle. Hasn’t worked out for for quite some time. You know, I stopped doing field work a handful of years ago, and my my work teaching wilderness medicine requires me to travel a lot, and that travel, you know, it just never really felt fair to a dog to be leaving them all the time and that sort of thing. And sadly, they won’t let us bring our dogs with us to our courses.
Kayla Fratt 03:47
So that’s a real bummer.
Kendra Carter 03:51
And I have strong feelings about about pretending that an animal is a support animal. So I don’t, I don’t do that. So, so anyway, I currently have a really amazing cat to fill that fuzzy, fuzzy place in my life. And, yeah, in terms of dogs, I really geek out on this stuff.
Kayla Fratt 04:10
Yeah, definitely. And so you, you’re, you’re traveling and doing adventure human first aid medicine as well right now. So you still work for Knolls, I’m guessing, tell us a little bit about what, what that career is like. And, yeah, where you’re at with that?
Kendra Carter 04:26
Oh, it’s, it’s, it’s fantastic, like everything it has its trade offs totally it is it isn’t it is the best job, one of the best jobs I’ve ever had. It’s, I really, really geek out on teaching. It turns out I didn’t know that until I stumbled onto this career. But yeah, I teach. I teach all the court Well, a lot of the course types for wilderness, for Noles, wilderness medicine. I teach the sport courses, the WFA or wilderness first aid courses, and then I teach the longer, 80 hour initial wilderness first responder certification. Conversations. And then I also teach occasionally, once a year, so I’ll teach one of their wilderness EMT programs as well. And then we teach, I teach research as well. And I teach the womps, the courses that are for medical professionals. That’s one of my favorite course type as well. So yeah, the canine curriculum really was just a natural development when I started teaching for Knowles wilderness medicine, and it was a pretty regular occurrence that I would get folks on course coming up to me on breaks and things and saying, you know, after hearing that I worked historically as a vet tech, people would come up to me and say, Hey, class like this, but that’s for animals, you know. And right, it came very clear to me very quickly that this was a need and that I really, really wanted to be the one to kind of get that going and to play an important part in how that curriculum goes.
Kayla Fratt 05:54
Yeah, yeah, no, I know. I’ve totally been that person in a lot of my woofer research courses, and you and I connected because I missed my research and I had to redo the whole 80 hour course, and we ran into each other at a lunch break. You weren’t my instructor, but you were coming down to hang out with our instructors. Knowles has always seemed to me, back when I was in in college, and I was first taking Knowles courses, and I took my first wilderness first responder through y’all, they’re one of those organizations that everyone I’ve met who works for them just has really good energy and really knows their stuff, and like, the culture seems really, really good. And, you know, I’m saying that to someone on the outside, so don’t, don’t, you don’t need to correct me if I’m wrong about that.
Kendra Carter 06:40
I don’t have to it really, is, it is? I mean, that’s why I was actually on your course, right? Because there’s this family of instructors. And you know, when we, when we’re in the same town as another instructor, we tend to, a lot of us will stop in say, hi, that sort of thing. So, yeah, it is a culture really, really nice, really nice organization to work with.
Kayla Fratt 06:57
Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I know I’ve been relying on this, like piecemeal approach to Canine first aid, where it’s like, Okay, so I’ve got the wilderness first responder. I took an EMT course way back when I’m not current at all. Do not ask me to administer oxygen, but and then, you know, the bits and pieces that you can pull together of okay, so dogs can have this much Benadryl versus people and the things that change over and I’ve definitely been fortunate so far in the sorts of injuries that I’ve had, they’ve all been the sorts of things that are pretty easy to transfer over knowledge from one species to the other, but I know there’s a lot of gaps with that, so I’m really excited. I guess part of the reason we’re also connected is canon conservationist is going to be working with you to put on a course later on in 2024 so you know, if you, if you are interested in this, definitely check out. Our social media will be posting about that as it’s coming up, and you’ll be able to find information for when this is happening there. Or, you know, just check around. We’ll be, we’ll be posting about it. We are recording this episode so far in advance that I can’t tell you exactly where to look yet. So why don’t we start out with just an overview of, like, what is out there? You know, before you started adventure Vet Med, what were some of the options that you were able to point people to, and then, you know, what’s available now,
Kendra Carter 08:16
Yeah, that’s actually a great question, and surprisingly kind of complicated answer, partly because, you know, it isn’t an evolving process, it’s an evolution still. So I guess in a little I feel like a little bit of history and context is required, just a little bit, you know, back if you think that just this idea of specialized canine first aid, in terms of these kinds of field contexts, whether it’s like search and rescue dogs or conservation dogs, or even even honestly, like military dogs and law enforcement dogs, you know, having like specialized formal content for, for this stuff is actually pretty recent, so And particularly, think about, like, evidence based lessons learned, kind of approaches, which is kind of where I want to come from. And you know, like, for, are you familiar with K9TCCC?
Kayla Fratt 09:20
I’m not, actually not off the top of my head, at least.
Kendra Carter 09:23
K9TCCC is kind of what actually wasn’t even formed until 2014 formally, and it’s, it’s, it’s, kind of stems off of the human TCCC, which is just tactical combat and casualty care. So 2000 canine, tactical combat casualty care finally came along. So that’s how new, like some of this stuff really is. And, you know? And so then there’s also an organization I don’t know if you’re familiar with canine medic at all. Yes. Yes. So. Yeah, great, great program. Again, I think that she started that program in roughly 2014 or something like that. And then, you know, I kind of came along into the picture in 2016 and took a couple of years to launch in 2018 so this, this is a whole new thing. And when folks first started asking me about this, there quite literally, was nothing, yeah. I mean quite literally, I could only point people to just generic first aid classes, which are pretty poor, generally speaking, right? Like better thing, but they don’t have the context of the answer. Can’t always be run to your vet, yeah. So when I first started receiving those questions, you know, there really was nothing. And then over, over the years, it’s just evolved. And every year it’s different. And so at this point in time, I mean, there, there, there are more and more different players involved, a lot of wide variety of players and a wide range of formats and most of it does, unfortunately, still fall in that category of passive learning, rather than, like active, hands on sort of thing. And you probably know how I might feel about that,
Kayla Fratt 11:13
I guess. But Phyllis, and for anyone who hasn’t taken a NOLS course, and know what that might say about your teaching style yet, yeah,
Kendra Carter 11:20
So, you know, so wellness medicine that I teach you know, that Knowles really prides itself on, is this like experiential learning and hands on doing so, a lot of scenario based learning opportunities, you know, putting yourself into opportunities to actually practice something, and then also step back and reflect on how things go, how they better. Like this is, this is really, like, there’s science behind how we learn, and this, this actually, this is supported by that science. So you just, you just get much more retention with that sort of learning than from passive learning, right? Which is, there’s a whole, whole lot out there. Like a lot of the web based learning is pretty passive. There’s some better, more active web based learning opportunities out there these days, but mostly it’s pretty passive. So, yeah. So, yeah. So like I said, a lot of lot of players are getting involved in this, though, and some folks fall into the category, unfortunately, of like, there’s just a whole lot of just jumping on the bandwagon, like recognizing that there’s demand for this, and so a lot of folks are just kind of throwing stuff together and calling it canine wilderness first aid, or whatever they want to call it. And yeah, which is something that that myself and a couple others are really working, working hard against. I’m hoping, trying to set some standards, hopefully eventually takes time. It takes a lot of it’s really hard.
Kayla Fratt 12:46
Yeah, yeah. We’ve been having similar talks, just in general, in the conservation dog field of it’s it’s a lot harder than just teaching your dog to recognize an odor and then setting loose in the woods and helping people understand that is harder than you’d think. Yeah, and, I mean, one of the things I’m really excited about, you know, I’ve never actually taken a k9 first aid course field first aid course. Nothing. I’ve just done the human side. And then hoped that, you know, between building, being a wilderness first responder and knowing some of the things that are different, that that’s going to be as good enough. So I am so excited to come and do this course. I’m excited to see how it’s going to work with experiential learning, with the dogs as well. And one of the things I’m particularly excited about now that I’ve met you is that you were coming at this from, again, the wilderness perspective. And there’s nothing against a lot, but a lot of the first aid, the canine first aid courses that my friends and coworkers have taken have been put on more by, you know, maybe guys who are on like a SEAL Team alongside a canine, and it’s much more focused, and their expertise falls into specific sorts of combat injuries and specific considerations that Generally we don’t have, you know, there’s always the possibility that someone thinks you’re, you know your your Malinois a wolf, and shoots it or like it’s not impossible, but the the vast majority of what they’re likely to run into in the vast majority of what we’re running into those they don’t overlap perfectly. So it’s nice to know that there’s someone out there who has expertise that falls just much more squarely within the realm of what we’re working on.
Kendra Carter 14:26
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s what you know. Canine medic is really great for that kind of context that you’re talking about. And I’ve worked Joan Brenner, the founder of canine medic, we have worked collaboratively throughout our programs, and we’re that’s actually one of the things that she recognized early on in her program, that that that those two contexts really are very different. And so we’re working, you know, in the future, she’s hoping to kind of bring me on board a little more, to kind of bring her wilderness medicine side of. Kind of my back to life and give it a little more presence out there, because currently, other stuff has really taken off and been real successful, which is amazing, but yeah, that context is very different.
Kayla Fratt 15:11
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s again, there’s just we have a lot less risk of gun gunshot wounds and shrapnel and those sorts of things. But we have a lot of other, a lot of other things to work, work on and be, be experts in. Yeah, um, so maybe, why don’t we kind of, again, what are some like, key skills that maybe someone should think about trying to learn as a conservation dog handler, or even someone who’s just out way out of the woods with their dogs quite frequently. What are some of the common injuries, the things that we should be thinking about?
Kendra Carter 15:48
Well, so many. There’s so many. There’s so much in there, so many. You know, even when I’m on course, I have a hard time editing so that I can fit the most in. So, you know, I when I think of key skills, like, I kind of do think of some areas of skills, so like, and some of some of this is amazing for for conservation dog handlers, because this dovetails really well with skills that you already have. Yeah, right. So, so, like, the first, the first and foremost thing I think about for folks who are out regularly with their dogs, whether professionally otherwise, is just some things that fall into observation skills, right and so. And the other thing I like to add to this, to the word skills, is actually the word habits, because you can have access to a lot of skills, and you can know about certain skills, but if they’re not built in as habits, and they don’t really serve you as well. So a lot of these are about habits as well, but but we in some of this is probably going to be stuff that some of your listeners, listeners are quite familiar with, but my hope is that that I can still today, maybe add a little nuance to some of it, but the first thing I think of with observation is just this idea of ongoing monitoring. And so, like, monitoring of your canine is constant, right? So you’ve got length and night, and we divide that up kind of into two different categories of monitoring. We’ve got, like, the near and far monitoring, right? So, so whenever your dog is is working, right? So, so monitoring the active canine, we actually teach an acronym for this. You know, I come from Noles. I can’t help it, but sometimes acronyms do help folks remember kind of details of things and the critical things that you want to be monitoring from a distance when your dog is working. And again, we’re thinking about preventing heat illness, right? We’re thinking about hydration. We’re thinking about just catching things early so that we can intervene early. So that’s why we monitor from a distance and constantly. But, but the acronym that that we use is after you, so A, F, T, E, R, and then just the letter U and and if you know, in probably many of of your listeners, and you yourself, probably monitor a lot of these things, but I think it’s nice to have a systematic check in your mind. I actually check all these things. Like, have I paid attention to all these things today? And so, A is appearance, alright? And so appearance of your dog, and that can include, like, attitude, posture, gait, all of these sorts of things. So, and this is my first opportunity to kind of remind us this idea of knowing your dog’s normal, like, we should normal, right? And I’m really glad that this has become a common theme, like, this is this idea is out there now it didn’t. So that’s that’s really exciting to me, but, but knowing your dog’s normal posture and gait is really important so you can catch things early, right? But, so, yeah, so after you so again, a is appearance, and then the F is just facial expression. So that’s you could you could nest that under appearance, but it’s a specific detail, right? So that facial expression can tell us a lot, like I think about, particularly when I think about heat status, right? And what’s their face look like? How tightly back? How tightly drawn are their flu Yeah,
Kayla Fratt 19:25
how far back down those like, molar pre molars, can you actually see how many corda seals are visible right now? Yeah.
Kendra Carter 19:32
And those like, how squinted are those eyes? Like, like, just facial expression actually gives us a lot of information, and you can see that from a distance depending on how far your working dog. I mean, the ranging dogs can can make this challenging, but that’s just the reality. So, yeah, so the other so the next is tea. So that’s just tongue. Again, another detail, right? Again, hydration, right? Like, what’s that tongue doing? Is it flopping off to the side? How pendulum? This is it? What’s the color of it? Is it real foamy? Do you see a bunch of white foam from a distance? Clues like, Okay, time to stop and do something. And then ears. Similarly, if they’re nice, ears, we’re looking at the color. Have you got unfurred parts of the ears showing or the position of the ears? Can give us some clues. I mean, again, like your dog’s normal comes in to play with this again, and then r is just respiratory status. So, like constantly, like monitoring and listening, like, what’s the quality of panting? Does it sound different than it did before? Does it seem more stressed than it did before? Or rapid, or shallow, or that sort of thing, then you is just urine, just like, remembering to keep an eye on, keeping attention, like, and maybe even paying attention if you notice your dog is peeing like, are they peeing for a normal amount of time? Or does it seem like they’re just kind of peeing a little bit and then moving along? You know? So these ways of, kind of monitoring urine quantity, as well as if they are urinating, that sort of thing, or just a lot of good information we can get from a distance in terms of the ongoing monitoring. Yeah,
Kayla Fratt 21:10
absolutely. And I know I’ve told this story before on the show, but when barley had some sort of tick borne paralysis that we think was Anaplasma or leakia. But the more I think about it, and the fact that he picked up up up up in the tropics, I wonder if it was just some other bacterial something. Anyway, it was a weird situation. The the symptoms just didn’t quite line up with what the blood tests were showing, but it cleared up with antibiotics. So it all turned out okay, but the very first thing I saw was we were on our way, actually, to my, my boyfriend’s birthday party, where we’re gonna walk there. And I had walked a little bit out of the hostel, and then realized that Danny wasn’t coming, and he had barley, or he had niffler, so we kind of both turned and barley, if you can, kind of imagine, like his front paws turned to look back over his shoulder, and his back paws didn’t and one of his back paws knuckled under and kind of twisted around the other leg, and that was the only side I saw for the next, like, 48 or 72 hours. But I was like, immediately, like, that’s weird. That’s not right. Like the tops of his toes were touching the dirt. I’ve never seen this dog do that before. Yeah. And within another couple days of that, he was almost fully paralyzed from the hips back. And you know, it’s not that necessarily, that first knuckle under got us into the ER or got us in somewhere. But had we been at work? Had we been somewhere really remote, that might have been enough and noticing that may have been enough to help us get somewhere where we were able to get help. You know, we were, we were an hour from San Salvador at the time, so we got to San Salvador. But I, you know, I call it, started calling that’s and getting us in, and getting us scheduled for blood work and everything. And it’s so subtle. Sometimes,
Kendra Carter 22:58
sometimes those real subtle cues, I mean, they really do again, like, that’s why this matters. Just like you said, in that wilderness context, you know, these, these catching these things really early, really allows you, it gives you the benefit of, like, being able to make up some time and space to actually get to care, right? Yeah. Because
Kayla Fratt 23:15
if we had been 18 hours from care, right, that might have been the moment where we decided, I don’t know if we would have evac at that point, but we would have started monitoring, and we would have maybe started getting ready to evac in a way that would have helped, yeah, versus waiting for the point that he’s fully paralyzed and now he’s carried out.
Kendra Carter 23:35
Yeah? You got it absolutely, yeah.
Kayla Fratt 23:37
Okay. Oh, cool, yeah. Von, yeah. I’m a big acronym person. Love, love, love the acronyms. I wouldn’t be able to do anything without sample. Like, I’m constantly like, Yeah, I can’t, I can’t do anything without without reminders. So, yeah, are there any other, you know, I think we’ve hit on a lot of these throughout the safety series, as far as heat, you know, ticks, yeah, snakes. We’ve talked about foxtails and like, the actual, the real emergency that they can cause, even though they don’t look necessarily all that scary. What else, maybe, again, maybe kind of on the trauma side, like, what are some common injuries, or other things that are kind of commonly problems for us out in the field.
Kendra Carter 24:23
Oh, I mean, the things, yeah, you have hit your you’ve hit a lot of really good, good, great, important topics on your on your podcast, and had great guests. I just want
Kayla Fratt 24:34
to really over and over, it’s awesome. Totally wasn’t
Kendra Carter 24:39
press like I really, you know, I just never know what I’m gonna find out there when folks have guests, or when folks have, you know, write articles, whatever, and it’s really, really good stuff. So just good, good work putting that stuff out there. But, you know, I think, like, it’s hard people kind of folks tend, and this is the same in human medicine, like folks want to, kind of. Tunnel in and focus on the really, like sexy, scary, like crazy stuff,
Kayla Fratt 25:04
the sucking chest wounds and sucking
Kendra Carter 25:06
chest wounds and the second elbows, right, and all the stuff, like the form backwards, and, like, all of the scary stuff, which is really scary stuff, and totally again, like, I think, like in our course, we really do. We really do focus a lot on, like, on real basics, and these skills of observation, skills of assessment, and skills of decision making and that sort of thing and and most of the time, I mean, one thing that you either do or don’t find comfort in, like, you know, decision making and like, what to do when things go really wrong. Like, so let’s just, like, talk about, like, the sucking chest wound for as an example, right? That’s a really bad day, right? And at the same time your decision making, the details of the how, might be difficult, depending on how much preparation you’ve done, but, but the the whether or not to stay or go decisions really easy, right? Like, you’re like, I can’t, I know that I can’t this. Like, I am not magic, yeah,
Kayla Fratt 26:11
this is not, this is not as, yeah, stay in play.
Kendra Carter 26:15
That makes that kind of in a way, like, the harder the day is, the easier the decision making can be sometimes and but the trickier stuff is, well, let me just go back to to that sucking chest wound. So it’s kind of like sticking to basic principles like understanding, like, okay, airway, breathing, circulation, right? It’s the same thing ABCs. It’s the same thing with dogs as it is with people. If you’ve got that for those who aren’t familiar with the term sucking chest wound you’ve got, you’ve got a well, let’s just, let’s just, let’s just take it back to and just talk about an open chest wound, right? So a stick went into a chest and came back out, and now you have a hole, or there’s a fight or an animal attack, can actually be a common cause of this for dogs, I actually think you just had some recent experience with an animal attack or one of your So, so that can be a common cause of an open chest wound, right? And so there are some like, stop and fix treatments that we that we like to hit on in terms of trauma, right, and that we cover, right? And so and, and fortunately, a lot of that is the same as with people, the same concepts, right? So, yeah, right. So the thing to do for a human open chest is to cover it, right? We know that that extra mouth there doesn’t do us any good. Yeah,
Kayla Fratt 27:37
you’re not actually getting extra breathing through, through the extra opening that reaches the lung, like, no cover it.
Kendra Carter 27:44
So, so, you know, again, this is where, like, your human training does help you with these, like, kind of scary, immediate life threat things, right? Yeah. And
Kayla Fratt 27:52
there’s details, yeah, like, you know, blood and tissue and bones and those sorts of things. Like, yeah, they’re scary. And part of the reason they’re scary is hopefully, in most of our careers, we won’t run into them very often. So you know, how many times have I put on an occlusive dressing? Maybe three times. Because I do it in a couple of my research and I’ve done it in both of my full courses. And you know, if I ever have to do it in real life, it’s, you know, I’m glad I’ve done it three times, but it’s not going to be something that I’m practicing. We’re not ER docs, right? That see this sort of stuff all the time,
Kendra Carter 28:26
right, right? And so that’s where I try to, like, you know, when folks do want to get into all the like, Well, what do I do if there’s a head injury, and what do I do if this, and what do I do if that? And it’s like, well, let’s stick to the basics, and then some general principles, and then really, they’ll spend more of our time focusing on who the basics of observation, prevention, decision making, that sort of thing. Decision Making. You don’t need to know all of that. You don’t need to be a doctor to make good decisions there, right? There’s, there are other things that support good decision making. Part of it is being able to do a good physical assessment and,
Kayla Fratt 29:06
well, that’s the thing I think I love most about, like, Knowles courses, and we’re just turning into a NOLS ad. Well, oh, well, what do you do? Genuine good work. Like, I wouldn’t be still here taking NOLS courses 10 years later, if I didn’t like what I was getting out of them, but the focus on these principles and on, you know, okay, so maybe you don’t know exactly how to tape this joint, or how to, you know, get a dressing onto, oh, gosh, that’s really close to a tendon. Like, exactly how do i bandage that on a dog leg. You don’t have to memorize all of that. If you’re just, if you’re just doing this as again, like maybe if you were an ER doc, it is good to know, oh, there’s the butterfly technique or something. I don’t know, to deal with something, but if you’re aware of the concepts and. What’s important and how to keep good, do a good history, do a good head to toe, like, figure out, what are the what are those stop and fixes. Like, that’s all we can really do, yeah,
Kendra Carter 30:11
yeah. And that’s, and that’s, that’s why, you know, and I clearly am a believer in that, in this method of teaching medicine. And that’s, that’s, that’s why that’s what I want to bring to Canine wilderness medicine, right? What I it’s what it’s what we bring to this is this voice, and I should make it clear too, that, like, since we are talking about Noles, so much like Knowles is completely independent from Adventure Vet Med, they’re completely separate entities, I just happen to teach for both. And, yeah, I developed AVM because I believe that I can apply the same kind of learning principles and the same kind of decision making and like dealing with difficult things when you have limited resources, the same way, even. And, but that said, there are a lot of specific canine considerations, right? Which is how we get a two day course out of this. And, in fact, I think I might have mentioned to you know, in my dream world that class is five days long. Oh, at least, yeah. I just don’t think I can convince people to actually spend five days doing this stuff. But, but really, like,
Kayla Fratt 31:19
I think it might be like a once a year sort of thing, but I would do five days. And I’m sure there’s a couple people bouncing up and down in their cars right now, they would, too,
Kendra Carter 31:31
get working on, I’ll get working on that then, because they really, you know, we get a lot in in the two days. But, but again, it is, it is because, you know, what we’re doing in this class isn’t just learning a bunch of, like, rote, yeah, there
Kayla Fratt 31:45
might be a lot of it’s not. And now here we learn how to bandage the elbow. No,
Kendra Carter 31:50
it’s, you know, we’re going to learn some skills, and then we’re going to practice some skills, but then we’re going to, like, put ourselves into some situations where we have a lot to think about and a lot of information to try to gather. And then layered in with that is like, Oh, we’re not dealing with a human. We’re dealing with a dog. And, like all the different these that do complicate that thing, right? Like different kinesiology, I mean, quadrupeds have very different issues and bipeds and very different ways of managing injuries. They have different theologies than we have. You know, it’s, it’s just, it’s, it’s awesome in that way, but it is a lot to weave in. Yeah,
Kayla Fratt 32:27
I know. I mean, abdominal pain is a problem in humans too, because it’s, you know, it’s just so hard, like, I once ended up in the ER because I thought that I was experiencing period cramps, that and a UTI at the same time. It turns out my UTI had turned into a kidney infection. Yeah? And, you know, like, that was my own body that I was watching, and I was just like, annoying, bad timing. I’ve got an appointment at Planned Parenthood to get the UTI taken care of, no problem. And then I ended up in the ER, because I was like, I’m going to faint, yeah, something was quite wrong. So abdominal stuff is hard enough when it’s your own body and you can feel everything, or when you can talk about it with another person. But I know every time I’m in a human first aid class and they start talking about the that medical side of like I’m thinking of opqrst, which I I’m intending to record a woofer episode before this one. So people may be a little bit more familiar with these acronyms, but that’s onset. Oh, let’s see. Let’s see if I can do it. Oh, it’s a task. Onset, what provokes or palliates, LP, Q, the quality of the pain. R is whether or not the pain radiates. S, what is s? Now she’s just looking at now she’s in teacher mode. S is severity. Severity,
Kendra Carter 33:43
right? So that’s the annoying, like, Yeah, sort of pain scale, or, yeah. And
Kayla Fratt 33:48
then T is time, like, what time since it started? Which I was like, Okay, I guess onset is, like, how, how it’s progressed over that time? If, anyway, those every time I learn about opqrst, I’m like, This is great. How do I do this with my dog? I can’t ask my dog whether or not this pain is radiating. I can’t ask them how it progressed. You know. Again, that probably just goes back to observation, you know, you you could have an idea of how severe it is based on how your dog is reacting and knowing what your how your dog reacts to things. If you got a dog who is extremely stoic, or a dog that’s a little bit more of a diva, you need to know what their baseline is too, because that’ll be different anyway. Now I’m just trying to teach your class what you’re
Kendra Carter 34:37
going to be looking to tell them class you’re going to be the one that’s like the Segway queen,
Kayla Fratt 34:41
yes, right? Yeah, I am big Hermione Granger energy in class. It’s true. I mean, that
Kendra Carter 34:51
is one of the things we actually spend a fair amount of time. We actually do teach sample. You know, we don’t teach opqrst per se, but we do, just like you said. About learning all the ins and outs of the ways that your dog communicates different things and understanding what cues mean certain things. And so you know, similarly, when we do a physical assessment, and you might remember that the principle and physical assessment, or a principle, is this idea that like looking, asking, looking, listening, asking and feeling, and you can do that with a dog, but the way you ask a dog, for instance, might be like, let’s say we’ve got a musculoskeletal problem or something with a limb, right? Like, what are some ways we ask where it hurts or how it hurts, like, right? We might do some gentle manipulation or some palpation, and we pay attention to their response, which is all about body language, facial expression, sound, you know, voice vocalizations, that sort of thing. So we just have to twist our we have to intentionally, ahead of time, think about and twist our way of thinking into, can we interview and how can we actually get this information from, from our dogs? So, yeah,
Kayla Fratt 36:06
yeah, exactly. I know, you know, getting good at, like, not just looking at the lit, you know, the toes that you’re palpating, but looking at their face and seeing, Oh, did his ear Twitch with that one? Is that real? Let me, let me do the others. And then go back to that toe. Does his ear Twitch again or not. You know, sometimes it’s sometimes an ear Twitch is just in your Twitch, and sometimes it’s not, yeah,
Kendra Carter 36:26
yeah. Well, and then so the more, the more time you spend practicing with your dog and doing regular assessments too. You learn, you gain a sense of trust in yourself and your reaction, right? So, or in your assessment of that, right? So, I also work as a, not super often, but I, but I work as a small animal massage therapist. When I first was learning that skill, you do have to, you know, you do pay attention to, like, little twitches and little things. And it takes a while to learn how to trust your own observation, yeah, you know. So you can kind of think like, oh, do they really? Did they really just twitch? There was that Twitch really related to what I just did and, and I’ll tell you that part of developing that is, is about developing a relationship with that animal as well. Yeah. So, yeah. So continually practicing with with your dog goes a long way to that
Kayla Fratt 37:15
what’s the same with and you know, you, as an expert in this, will have so much more of a developed eye than someone like me who maybe I can do it with my two dogs, but not, you know, you hand me a third dog, and it’s going to take a lot longer to ramp up. And it’s the same as watching a dog working odor or something like that. You know, when I was first learning how to follow my dogs and work with my dogs in the field, I remember seeing data sheets that had you were supposed to estimate the distance at which you saw your first change of behavior before sourcing the odor. And I was watching these other handlers, namely Amy hurt. Amy heard at working dogs for conservation, calling, you know, or, you know, noting it down. And I was just like, I saw nothing, like, I have no idea or, and then I started seeing it everywhere, like, then I couldn’t tell the difference between interest or a dog that was bracketing and, you know, or just changing direction on a quarter to actually, like, turning and following odor upwind. And now I can see that a lot better with my own dogs. And, you know, a huge part of why we promote doing these big like post field checkups, where you know you’re checking for ticks, you’re checking for stickers, you’re giving the dog a little bit of a stretch and a massage is so that you can practice with knowing your eye. Like, yeah, practice knowing your eye. That’s not the way that you all know what I mean. And knowing you know, like, I know that barley is, you know, partly, partially, because I know which leg he had, his ace, his, you know, his tplo on. But I know that if I, if I do like a full flex and compress, or compress, extend and compress whatever. This is my second podcast recording of the day. I’m not, we’re not firing on all cylinders, flex and extend. That’s what it is on that leg. I’m more, you know, it’ll be a little bit stiffer, especially after a full day. And that’s not necessarily a cause for alarm. I know what a normal level of stiffness is for him.
Kendra Carter 39:14
Love it. Yeah, it’s
Kayla Fratt 39:16
just, it’s but it’s all figuring out how to get that practice and and being cognizant of it and being patient with yourself that it might take some time.
Kendra Carter 39:26
Yeah, definitely, absolutely, Yep, yeah.
Kayla Fratt 39:32
So okay, I think we’ve kind of hit all the questions I had written down. What, um, what else do you like people to what else would you like people to be aware of or think about as they’re thinking about, you know, keeping their maybe particularly not just keeping their dogs safe in the field, because most of our safety stuff has been prevention so far. But you know, okay, so something has happened. What? What are what else do we need to be thinking about?
Kendra Carter 39:57
Um, oh, it’s so. So much we can have, like, a whole, well, that
Kayla Fratt 40:02
was maybe the messiest question I’ve ever asked in this podcast.
Kendra Carter 40:07
Yeah. I mean, I think that’s again, like just trying to just zoom out and think principal, principle based class here, I think, like, a couple things to think about. Again, I did mention, like, I did mention, like decision making before, and that having having some ways to really support good decision making is really important. And then, along with that kind of related is just this idea of like treatment and like when to treat and not to treat. So there’s just, I think, a couple things I’d like to leave folks with, especially just food for thought, are like developing prudence around treatment is actually a really important skill. You know, even humans want to always just do something, and sometimes doing something is not the best idea or not the best course of action, right? And so that’s just something to keep in mind. And over time and with trainings, and the more you develop as a First Aider, as a canine First Aider, you’ll get better and better at that, and you’ll develop prudence. But that’s that’s an important skill that folks need to have, is, you know, knowing when to treat versus when it’s just better to just get on the road and prioritize that time, because sometimes that time’s more important than anything that you can do, definitely
Kayla Fratt 41:23
would imagine I’ve got we just purchased for our upcoming field work in Alaska. I now have a little rechargeable shaver and a skin stapler in our truck first aid kit. Does that mean that I’m going to be shaving barley down and stapling him up for every single little cut. Ideally, no, ideally, we never, ever have to use those things at all. But yeah, there, there are specific things I can think of, maybe one or two wounds my dogs have had over my entire career with them, where, if I had had those things in the truck, I might have used them.
Kendra Carter 41:59
Yeah, we recommend the stapler, you know, because those are come, those actually come in some of the prefabricated first aid kits. Now, for some of I think it’s adventure medic or no, what is the name of the the kits, adventure med kits, they’ve got, like a prefabricated, which I have funny feelings about prefabricated. I love that. Dr spew, had the whole session on, like, how to build your own kit? Well, that
Kayla Fratt 42:21
was, it was, it was Dr Spoo. That got me. I was like, Okay, I’ve never thought about a skin settler, but Okay, now we’ve got one. Yeah, so, and I
Kendra Carter 42:27
think that that’s great, because you intentionally, like, thought, Oh, here’s why I might use this. So they think, like, the danger is those just being thrown in kits, people are just using them. Or they think that they’ve got it there, and they can use it for anything, and it can actually be real dangerous, right? But, yeah, they are definitely, you know. So I think about, like, you know, dog skin is different than ours, and, like, we can have the whole, like flapper, like all the whole, like, the deglovings, right? So if you’ve got a large section of skin, particularly on the body, that’s a really good use for a stapler, if you’ve got to get that dog out of the field, right? But, yeah, so, so, yeah. So that’s part, part of this idea of having prudence, right? Is like, just having a really good idea of, like, what your what your actual medical level of training is, and your understanding and confidence, also in those skills, is really important. I mean, there’s so much, there’s just so much I could, I could say about this. You can imagine, well,
Kayla Fratt 43:20
yeah, and everyone should just come and hang out with us in Bend in September, and we’ll do this. And I’m sure we’ll do it again, because now I live three hours from you, and now you’ve been on the podcast. Now you have to be my friend. You know, I think this is not, genuinely, not intended to be like a commercial for this. I think it’s genuinely really important. And maybe as we’re wrapping up, we can just kind of revisit some of those main principles that we’ve been talking about, where it’s, you know, being aware of your dog, knowing what’s normal for them. I know my vet when barley tore his CCl, we were talking about, you know, the wonder of symmetry and being able to look at both sides, if you don’t necessarily have video or a good recollection of what used to be normal use the other side. Yeah, yeah. So what are some of the other Yeah, like, main principles, main takeaways that people should be thinking about and practicing maybe, maybe any ways that people can be practicing their eye and running through these things as they wait eagerly to come join us in bed in September.
Kendra Carter 44:24
I think it’s never too soon for folks to start practicing the after you acronym. You can just, you should be just doing this every few minutes, honestly, but getting eyes and evaluating these things. So I think that’s a great thing to just start like hammering in, making sure you’re hitting all those important details. And, yeah, I mean the idea of, you know, in order to know what’s normal for your dog, you do need to establish that relationship. You know that gaining consent, if folks aren’t already comfortable, or if their dogs their hard time gaining consent from their dogs to do physical assessments, start working on that. And. Now, because the critics of all this is that you that your dog is comfortable and familiar with the idea of you doing a full physical assessment when the time comes, that it’s really necessary. And so I love the idea that you include this post field full assessment thing that’s actually something we recommend to you. Like, basically, we suggest that folks at the end of every day, like, at bedtime is a good time to do it, right? But every day doing a full daily wellness assessment, and that includes measuring vital signs. So at minimum, just like, like getting that, like, that trend of what their normal heart rate and respiratory rate are when they’re at rest. So these are all good things to get and to start practicing and getting into the habit of and, yeah, there’s just, there’s just so much. But having a relationship, the other thing I wanted to just mention real quick is principle wise, like, and you’ve already alluded to this, but boy, having the relationship with a with a with a smart, collaborative vet who understands your context is possibly, like, it’s one of the most Crux moves for all Yeah, it really is like you need that support. And I’ll say that it’s possibly also one of the most difficult things to make happen. Yeah, it’s
Kayla Fratt 46:16
hard to have control over it. Yeah, it’s
Kendra Carter 46:20
very hard to find and to commute and to form that relationship and to find folks who it’s interesting. I one of our newest doctors to join our curriculum advisory team. We were having this conversation one day about how, you know, and she’s working really hard, as hard as she can with her peers to try to change this, right? But, but veterinarians and vet staff, even vet techs and things, have this general, really deep fear and distrust of enabling or empowering owners with skills, yeah, decision making. And it’s just, it’s been like that forever, and it’s just really hard to shift. And there’s good reason for it. There are a lot of, you know, a lot of really terrible, horrifying examples of well meaning owners doing terrible things to their dogs, right? That the medical the veterinary professionals have to kind of fix, and it’s terrible. Oh, my God. There’s a lot of reason for this, but we’re working to try to change this. But so this is just a support idea that, like you might not get that right away, and so you need to be willing to do the legwork of shopping and of getting really concise and good with your how you can explain, like, what it is you need from them and why, and being able to explain your context, why it is that you need this extra kind of independence out there, and why you need some guidance as to what to do when you’re out there. If This Then That this is where I kind of actually tell folks, you know, if you’re familiar with idea of like in NOLS courses, they say don’t ask a lot of what if questions. Or if you are asking what if questions, you should stop and ask yourself, you know, yeah, do these need to happen? And I think that, like in when you’re preparing with a vet and working with a vet for a particular for a particular trip, or particular terrain, or something like this certain project, I actually think it’s a good time to get your what if questions on, yeah, totally Yes. And but thoughtful ones, right? Like, things tried to think through yourself. But, like, but you do need to have a vet who’s willing to listen to these questions and give you some some advice, and then also to empower you with with the ability to do something about it, like, whether it’s sending you with epinephrine, or whether it’s giving you pain medicine or that sort of thing. So that’s a that’s a huge one that folks should start working on if they have a dog already. That needs to be That’s horrible.
Kayla Fratt 48:45
Yeah, we’ve been joking a little bit lately that we think Dr Leslie IDE, from the total canine, who’s been on the show before, is single handedly keeping about half of the conservation dogs in the field right now. Because it just feels like everyone I talked to is like, Oh yeah, we’re currently in with her. We just got imaging done, and at her best, and it turns out we’ve got an injury, and, yeah, and she has been so huge, like, I sent her a little list of some of the meds that I was thinking about bringing with us up to Alaska, and asking her, a, would you, would you fulfill these on chewy if I asked for them? And B, is there anything else that you would be thinking about. And she’s not, you know, she’s an agility sports person, so it’s the out there sort of stuff isn’t necessarily her area of expertise, but she is, you know, we’ve got a really good, patient relationship with her, and she’s been really good about troubleshooting and working through stuff with us. I’ve just loved so if you need somewhere to go, maybe try reaching out to her. She does work remotely as well. And I know I’ve had kind of some funny experiences. I’ve had both ends of the spectrum. Barley. Had a dental done while I was home in Wisconsin in December, and just to get the blood test done for him, you know, the pre op blood test. You know, they shaved about a six by six. Six inch square off of his his beautiful neck rough and did a jugular blood draw just to do the pre op stuff. And I was like, Oh, why? And it’s fine. They got it done and it was cheap, and that’s fine in that situation. And then on the other end of the spectrum, I’ve told this story before, but I went into a vet in Costa Rica and asked them for a couple things for upcoming field work in Guatemala. And they were like, What do you need this for? I was like, I’m worried we might get bitten by a snake and be 18 hours from care. And they’re like, Oh, well, do you want antivenom?
Kendra Carter 50:35
Jeez.
Kayla Fratt 50:37
I was like, Oh, I mean, yeah, if that’s on the table, and it was 150 to and $50 for I bought, I bought all of the anti venom they had on the shelves.
Kendra Carter 50:48
Well, we’ll talk about that on our course.
Kayla Fratt 50:51
Yeah, and they did. They walked us through how to work with it, and, like, the species it was appropriate for. And like, I’m not suggesting that people should fly down the coaster again. Find this
Kendra Carter 50:59
But generally, like, generally speaking, I look forward to talking to you more about that, truly, maybe on our course. Because, generally, like, we actually don’t recommend that folks bother trying to carry that because the administration of that is so much more complicated than just having it with you. Totally Yeah, and usually it does have pretty strict temperature controls in order for it to even be good and that sort of thing. So just for the listeners out there, that’s a, that’s a that’s a that’s a put a bookmark on it.
Kayla Fratt 51:24
Yeah, definitely just, it’s funny that, like, the I was absolutely not expecting that to even be on the table, and then they’re like, well, we could just, just do this, and we could teach you how to do it. And like,
Kendra Carter 51:38
there is a wide range, like, you say, I mean, there are some vets who, and I’m not saying that this person had that going on, but there are also, I mean, on the other end of the expect the spectrum really is, like, they don’t really care, and so they’re just going to, like, give you whatever, without giving you any like, meaningful, like, support with it, and that sort of thing. So that’s something to be cautious, to really want someone who’s really, truly interacting and and engaging in the uniqueness of your context, and yeah. There’s, there’s, there’s so many, so many key things that I could give I feel like all of it’s key, but it’s really hard, hard to pick kind of, but, but just some general, general themes. I think those are, those are kind of, kind of big ones. And I think you wanted to know about, like, you know, stay or go consideration. Yeah, that’s that’s just, again, it’s a hard one. And I think, like, there’s, again, having good support behind your decision making ahead of time is one of the best ways to make that decision. So whether it’s a reference, which there aren’t really very many references right now that you can carry with you, we’re working on one but, but, but maybe your reference is just a cheat sheet of, like, write some notes that your vet has given you about what to do if something happens, or what decisions to make with certain problems, that sort of thing. But really, you know, it’s, it’s, like I said, those big things, it’s kind of obvious that you should go, it’s, it’s, it’s the littler things that can be tricky. Yeah.
Kayla Fratt 53:01
I mean, again, thinking back to that, that example of barley, like, knuckling under, I Yeah. I can’t honestly say I would have gone like, I don’t think you should necessarily with like, one little subtle data point like that. And it turned out that it would have been wise to go, yeah,
Kendra Carter 53:19
yeah. And the general thing I like to give folks is like, like, number one, like, can I manage this? Right? So you may not have all the answers. You may not know exactly what’s going on, but, but can I manage this, or do I do you have a spidey sense about whether or not you can manage it? There’s a lot of room for for, I don’t want to say making mistakes, but like, You’re not always going to know. And so you do have room for like, like, like you were saying, like, I might not have actually made that decision to leave, and that’s okay. He was, we don’t, we don’t. We’re all doing the best we can, I guess is what I’m trying to say,
Kayla Fratt 53:59
yeah, yeah. And, you know, I just had a friend have a personal tragedy with their dog, where they were monitoring they were aware. They were literally on the phone with their vet deciding whether or not to come in later that day, when the dog went into severe distress and died on the way to the ER vet. And it’s like, and it turned out to be something that just even if the she had gotten in a half hour earlier, the odds were maybe a little bit better, but still really low. And like that sort of stuff happens, and like that is going to eat you up for a long time, and there’s just not really anything we can do about it. We do stuff with our dogs that put them at risk, and this, actually, that wasn’t even something in this that wasn’t a factor in this particular case, but it’s top of mind lately. And in even if you do bubble wrap your dog and keep them inside for the rest of their lives, they will die eventually from something. And you know, we can do the best we can to keep them happy and healthy and alive and doing what. Love and what we love for as long as possible, and then give them a nice golden parachute for as long as possible. But it’s also not, it’s not a risk free life that we are choosing, no, definitely,
Kendra Carter 55:11
definitely not. And yeah, that is that. That was the other point that I was gonna gonna make, was just this idea that you know, many times if something, if you truly do have a bad outcome, like that, like that outcome was going to happen regardless of of what your intervention might have been or not. Yeah. I mean, that is something to sometimes. Sometimes you have to keep in mind it doesn’t really comfort us from from the loss or from the trauma of that, but, but it’s, it’s, yeah, it’s, it is part of it.
Kayla Fratt 55:39
So yeah, we do what we can.
Kendra Carter 55:42
Yeah.
Kayla Fratt 55:43
What a cheerful note to end on. And maybe, do you have any, any cool stories you want to share from, like, have you ever had a an experience that you want to share about all of this training coming through and away with a happy ending? And then we can wrap it up there.
Kendra Carter 55:59
You’re putting me on the spot! Oh, man, I hmm, I have to think about that a little bit. I mean, I think, like, you know, it’s not a real world example story, but, but I have seen some really fun scenario stories, if that makes any sense, if I can share one of those, if that makes any sense, that’s helpful. Yes, absolutely. So we do often have we do a lot of scenarios on this course, and you know, folks are real stiff initially, and kind of like because it’s pretty awkward, we are asking folks to basically play with stuffed animals and to pretend some things with each other. And I have seen folks go from that kind of awkwardness and really not knowing what, what in the heck to do with any given scenario, to then, like at the end of the course, we sometimes do a more exciting, complex scenario. And it’s just it’s super fun to watch how people become very confident and empowered. And actually, even with stuffed animals, I can see this, it’s really, it’s really, it’s just really inspiring, yeah, oh, that’s neat. Folks, actually, you know, go from kind of a sense of overwhelm again, even with just a stuffed animal like you can feel overwhelmed and don’t not know what to do, and then they’re moving through kind of very systematic. And I don’t know it’s not a very meaningful tidbit to leave you with, but it’s, it’s, it’s something that I really get great joy in. You know, I don’t have a dog currently, but like I said, my greatest joy is empowering owners with knowledge and skills that allowed them to to better serve their dogs like they want to and and I get to see that on these courses, and it’s, it’s really, really, really fun.
Kayla Fratt 57:54
Oh yeah, that’s awesome. Well, Kendra, where can people find you? Do you have a website? You have social media? Where can people find out more about this, and even if they can’t attend to the course that we’re putting on, maybe get on the list for anything else that might be.
Kendra Carter 58:06
Yeah, the best way to reach out to me directly is canine wild [email protected] that’s that’s the easiest way to get in touch with me and inquire about courses and whatnot. But if you want to, I don’t currently have my own independent website. I am a co operator of juniper flats Outdoor Education Center in Central Oregon, and we run knolls courses and AVM courses and LNT courses and a variety of outdoor focused courses out here. And we do have a website for that. So that’s jflatsoutdoors.com.
Kayla Fratt 58:42
Okay, excellent. We’ll make sure that’s all in the show notes so that, yeah, people, people can learn more and come visit if they’re in Oregon at any point. And yeah, thank you for what you’re doing too. It’s like, genuinely, it’s part of the reason I haven’t taken these courses yet is because I just haven’t really found one that I felt like I both really trusted the chops of the instructor, and it felt super duper applicable. And I’m sure they’re out there. I don’t know of all of them, so if you’re if you run something like that that we’re not aware of, I’m not I’m not saying I don’t trust you, but yeah, again, most of the ones I’ve found so far just they’re really focused for their their military style, and I’m sure I would get a lot out of them, but there’s still a lot of crossover limitations.
Kendra Carter 59:28
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s, it’s not, it’s not easy to find. Yeah. So
Kayla Fratt 59:33
Well, Kendra, thank you so much for making the time. I know it was, it was a challenge to get us both on today, and I am like, 12 hours from leaving for Alaska. Wow, yeah, but that’s okay, and you’re very busy. But again, thank you so much for taking the time to share all of this with our students, and I’m excited to get to see you again in person in six months, whenever that is.
Kendra Carter 59:55
Yeah, something like that. Yeah. Super fun. And yeah, thank. So much for having me really, really appreciate it.
Kayla Fratt 1:00:01
Yeah, definitely. And for everyone at home, I hope that you enjoyed this episode. You learned a lot and you’re feeling inspired to get out and be a canine conservationist in whatever way suits your passions and skill set. You can find show notes to this episode with useful links and a transcript of the episode at k9conservationists.org We also have mugs and T shirts and stickers and all that great stuff also at k9conservationists.org or you can join our course or Patreon, so you can also find us on social media. I don’t know you know how to find us, and we’ll be back in your earbuds in two weeks. Bye!