Donate
In this episode of K9 Conservationists, Kayla speaks with Ursa Acree about keeping yourself safe around working dogs.
Science Highlight: None
Links Mentioned in the Episode:
Where to find Ursa: Website
You can support the K9 Conservationists Podcast by joining our Patreon at patreon.com/k9conservationists.
K9 Conservationists Website | Course Waitlist | Merch | Support Our Work | Facebook | Instagram | TikTok
Transcript (AI-Generated)
Kayla Fratt 00:00
Hey everyone, Kayla here coming in from the future. I just wanted to add a little bit of clarity to this episode. At some point in the episode I mentioned that niffler may need sedation going forward at the veterinarian. And I just wanted to clarify a little bit to that. I make a comment that makes it kind of sound like I’m averse to using drugs for managing my dog’s stress. And that’s not the case, I was specifically saying that I would rather not have to use sedation consistently with him. But I will absolutely reach for if and when necessary. And sedation is different from like a regular behavioral support medication, something more like Gabapentin or Trazadone. Again, versus like a full on sedation, which is actually kind of putting them to sleep in some cases and the behavior that he was exhibiting regarding me feeling that he may need sedation going forward for X rays was actually that he was really scared. When he was returned to me by the vet tech team, they said that he was great for the frontal X rays. And then when they tried to take the lateral X ray, so they’re actually laying him on his side. He was scared enough that he actually expressed his anal glands, which is something that is really not acceptable to me, as far as the level of distress and I’m a little disappointed and frustrated with my veterinary team that they chose to push through him being that scared. I would imagine that there were warning signs that he was that upset before he got that scared. And again, going forward, I’m going to probably be using sedation if there’s a chance that he may be that nervous again in a veterinary setting because that’s just not something that I feel comfortable having my dog experience again. You know, this is where we learn again about advocating for dogs and cooperative care and those sorts of things. Sarah Stremming in a somewhat recent Cog Dog episode talks about giving her vet team the guideline, I suppose, that if they need more than two people to do anything that they should just sedate the dogs. And I liked that idea a lot. I don’t know enough details of exactly what happened with Niffler to know if that would have fixed it. But anyway, I just wanted to give a little bit more clarity on that conversation. And that side note, you’ll know when you hear it and enjoy the rest of the episode. Thanks.
Kayla Fratt 02:37
Hello and welcome to the K9Conservationists podcast where, we are possibly 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. We train dogs to detect data for researchers, NGOs, and agencies. Today, I want to start by giving a shout out to our new-ish students Marie, who has been an absolute wealth of knowledge in our online group and I’ve been so impressed with her dedication and attention to detail while sharing so much valuable experience with the rest of the crew. If you’re interested in learning from Marie and the rest of the team on our membership group, you can join either via Patreon for as little as three bucks a month or you can join our course. Both of those can be found on our website. So today I’m so excited Ursa Acree is back on the show. Y’all know, she was my co-host back when this was Canine Conversations. Ursa you’re still at behavior vets, right? You want to tell us a little bit about what you’re up to these days?
Ursa Acree 03:37
I sure am. Yeah, I’ve been a behavior of it’s actually my three year anniversary just passed.
Kayla Fratt 03:44
Today, oh my gosh, today. Yeah, I was thinking it was yesterday. It’s today.
Ursa Acree 03:50
So I’m the director of Behavior Services. And I wear a lot of hats. I would say my, my primary functions are to support the team of behavior consultants, I also act as a behavior consultant occasionally. So I do see clients, and then sort of direct like the strategic goals for the department and projects and programs and that sort of thing. So it’s pretty great, I think, I mean, I’m working with probably one of the most skilled a team of trainers that I’ve ever met in my life, and I’m really privileged to work alongside them and learn from them every day, so it’s awesome, but I miss I missed the podcasts are really excited when you asked me to.
Kayla Fratt 04:32
Yeah, I was. Well, yeah, I was telling you before I hit record, I was kind of thinking of doing this as a solo episode because I haven’t done one for a while and like organizing and scheduling guests is the worst part of podcasting. And then I was like, wait, I can text Ursa and then I get to see her and we get to talk about this. I haven’t told her listeners what we’re going to talk to him about. Yeah. So I guess I’ll get them in on it. Well, they read they read the title. It’s just gonna be an hour of you and me catching up.
Ursa Acree 04:58
I think people would listen to that for better for worse. That’ll be alright, we can do that as a bonus episode later. That’d be great.
Kayla Fratt 05:07
So today, we’re kind of continuing our safety series. But instead of talking about our dog’s safety, we’re also going to be talking about your safety. So I’m planning on doing another episode based on what I learned or relearned during my wilderness first responder course. But today is really about these like staying safe. Given that we work with working dogs, we work with these fast moving, opinionated, pushy, high energy dogs, sometimes we’re getting them as a powerful adolescents or adults that have big feelings about things. And that’s what we love about them. But these dogs without when they come to us without skills, it can be really hard to keep our handlers safe. And I’ve got a couple of disclaimers written out here that I want to be really clear about that dogs that put their handlers at risk. Due to shoving their handlers biting, damaging equipment, these dogs need support and management and training to be a really field ready partner. And I’m not saying that dogs with like social concerns are not welcome in the conservation dog field, they absolutely are many of the best dogs, working dogs I’ve worked with are not the sort of dog that you would like march into a pre K with for a meet and greet. But there, these dogs do kind of need to be carefully managed and trained to help avoid incidents. And today I want to talk to us about how to do that. Again, knowing versus expertise. I can’t think of anyone better to talk to you about this. And there are like entire courses dedicated to defensive handling, and muzzle training and other resources like that. So this is like just the tip of the iceberg.
Ursa Acree 06:45
Seriously, yeah. Yeah. Think of me when you think of biting dogs.
Advertisement 06:51
And, and fluffy dogs with pointy ears and straight legs.
Ursa Acree 06:57
Yeah, okay, I’ll take that.
Advertisement 07:01
So if people are looking for a couple basic resources to start out with Ursa, if you’ve got any that you want to add, the two that I would really recommend to start out with are muzzle up project and aggressive dog.com. Those are both really good starting places. Do you have any you’d like to add?
Ursa Acree 07:14
I mean, I totally agree. I think those are really awesome resources. For specific, like those specific topics, I definitely think those are good to use.
Advertisement 07:24
Yeah. And then I guess the last disclaimer before I get into this is that I really, really don’t want anyone who’s listening to think that I’m scolding them if their dog like growls at the mailman, or resource guards or something. Because nobody’s perfect, and no dogs are perfect. But there are some extreme cases of lack of safety for handlers and interns with working with dogs that bite that really needs to be addressed. And we really want everyone to be safe out there. Again, this isn’t just about avoiding snake bites and avoiding tick borne diseases. Our safety involves being safer on the dogs that we work with as well. So Ursa, when I started talking to you about this, you know, I’m sure you had a moment where you’re like, Oh, God, this is a big topic, what are some of the like different ways or reasons that people might be injured by dogs, and maybe we can kind of start pulling on some of those threads as far as like how to avoid them. But yeah, certain categories.
Ursa Acree 08:13
I would say. One, I mean is most certainly, and I would say the most common one that I deal with is, dogs being put in situations where they feel threatened. And so that could be for a variety of reasons. And I always like to clarify that just because the dog feels threatened doesn’t mean that there is an actual threat. It’s just a dog that way. And so I talk a lot with owners and handlers about like, just because your dog feels threatened doesn’t mean that you’re doing that intentionally, but your dog feels threatened. So like, it doesn’t really matter what our intentions are, it matters what the impact of our interactions are. So I would say, when we put it off in a situation where they’re like, this is uncomfortable or unpleasant, or I feel unsafe, I need to make the threat go away very quickly. And so the quickest way for me to do that is to make an aggressive display. And so I think that is probably the one that I encounter them the most often is, you know, a dog dog feels unsafe, and they’re trying to do something about it in the best way. And so it’s just like, as humans if we feel threatened, you know, if you’re walking down the street at night, and somebody comes up and gets in your face, if you don’t feel that you can run away, you might escalate to using defensive aggression against that person. And so again, it doesn’t really matter if we’re like, Oh, I’m not threatening the dog. It matters what the dog feels. I would say another time could be when the dog and now I know who I’m gonna say this, and I know that there’s gonna there’s a lot of discussion around like, arousal, right? Especially in the sports world in the working world, like managing arousal and and encouraging arousal when it’s appropriate. And you know, there’s – that could be its own series, right?
10:03
We did, we just did a two parter on arousal.
Ursa Acree 10:05
Perfect. Okay.
Kayla Fratt 10:07
And there’s still a 75 parts to do, I think, exactly.
Ursa Acree 10:11
And if I say something stupid, just wait. But I would say I don’t necessarily claim to be an expert on that topic. But what I can tell you is that when dogs get aroused plates can occur. And I tend to put that in a separate category from the dog is threatened and trying to neutralize the threat bites. So that could be you know, a working dog grabbing for a toy, or an IPO dog that is too excited, or it could be playing or puppies or whatever, where they’re playing with their mouth, or they’re interacting with their mouth, and they do it too hard. Right? Yeah. So it’s like an inappropriate use of that type of interaction. But at the end of the day, it can still result in a bite.
10:57
Right? Yeah, yeah. A dog missing a tug toy can hurt just as badly as a dog who doesn’t want you to touch their dog toy.
Ursa Acree 11:05
Yeah, but you know, my, my most salient example of this is actually with horses. I was trying to move my horse through a gate, and another horse was like putting his head over the fence. And my horse turned to bite that horse and got me instead. Oh, Kayla, I thought she took a chunk out of my arm.
Advertisement 11:28
You’re like, that’s no an apple!
Ursa Acree 11:30
Yeah, so like, and actually, that might, I was gonna say another category might be like a redirected bite, where, I guess that would have been more of a redirected bite than an arousal bite. But you know, when either the dog intends to bite another target and gets the handler or the owner instead. Or like, maybe they don’t intend to actually bite, but we stick our hands in there, and we get them in the wrong place, and we get bitten. So that’s sort of that other category where maybe the dog wasn’t intended by us, but we got ourselves in the way for whatever reason, and it ended up as buy or they redirected, because they couldn’t get the target.
Advertisement 12:12
Yeah, I’m kind of realizing I don’t think I’ve thought a ton about redirected bites very deeply for a while and kind of seems like a redirected bite is, is when you’ve got a situation that combines the around the arousal and the defensive, but it can’t be channeled maybe the way that the dog kind of in most cases, it seems to me like redirection comes from, there’s some sort of barrier or something maybe connecting you to the dog. I know when I was at the when I was at dumb friends League, the shelter that I used to work for, I had a very close call with a redirect, bite. The dog didn’t end up making contact with me because I kind of stiff armed it, which is something we’ll talk about later on. And I was walking the dog past a kennel, another dog reacted at that dog, the dog that I was handling, tried to react back at that dog, and then kind of turned towards me and was kind of lunging up towards me when I managed it out away from me. Yeah, yeah, it. I think if if the leash end of the kennel gate hadn’t been there, I don’t think that redirection would have happened.
Ursa Acree 13:20
Right, right. Yeah, I agree. I think that it could be argued that there it’s a combination of that, like, arousal. And maybe, I don’t know if defensive aggression is the right word for it. But like, yeah, it’s like, there was the there was sort of the intention to bite in the first place. But then the original target wasn’t there. So it escalated to like, Well, I’m just gonna buy whatever is closest to me. It’s like, when you stub your toe, and like you punch a pillow. All this energy has to go somewhere. Somebody has to take it. And so I’m going to animate objects. Yeah.
Advertisement 13:59
Yeah, I just had something that I was reaching out for something in my kitchen, and it fell onto my nose, and I thought I got a bloody nose. Like, there was nothing in the kitchen that I could hit without making myself hurt more. So read through it for a minute, but I really wanted to hit something for a minute there.
Ursa Acree 14:17
Yeah, I think I think that the concept of redirection is very relatable to humans like Yeah. I mean, I don’t know if that covers all of our bases, but I would say those are the big ones that most likely scenarios in which we get ourselves.
Advertisement 14:38
Do you want to help support this podcast and meet your learning goals as a conservation detection dog handler? Then sign up for our patreon for as little as $3 a month you get to support this podcast and earn the perks of asking our guests questions, and joining monthly get togethers online. At higher levels of support you get even more perks kind of the highest level this includes a private 30 minute coaching call with me or a video chat once a month to go over your training goals with your dog in detail. Depending on your level of support, patrons also get to access and book club and group coaching calls each month, you can see details on all of those tiers on our Patreon website, there’s really no better way to show your love from what we do while also furthering your own career in a flexible, self directed way. Since starting our Patreon, we’ve had the absolute joy of watching several of our members go from excited amateurs to paid professional handlers with their dogs, we couldn’t be more proud of them. And it’s such a joy to share knowledge with this amazing community, join us at patreon.com/k9conservationists
Advertisement 15:36
I think the defensive category can probably be subdivided in a million different ways where it’s like a dog could be in pain, a dog could be in the midst of a seizure and be terrified. You know, there’s all sorts of medical things that can be at play. The dog could be fearful of you the dog could be fearful of losing something that it currently has possession of. But like it’s that same kind of root. Yeah, defense, I think that’s a good umbrella term. It seems like Go ahead.
Ursa Acree 16:08
Yeah. Or like, we could also call it like the dog is using as a conflict resolution method. I would say, seizure might maybe not like, I don’t know, I don’t really know enough about seizure disorders to say like, I senses maybe that the dog doesn’t really know what’s going on when that happens. But but these other ones where it’s like the dog is sort of making a choice to resolve the conflict with that behavior. Absolutely, we could split them into little subcategories. And you know, it’s all based on the dog’s learning history and the context.
Advertisement 16:44
Yeah, yeah. Gosh, this is gonna be such a big episode.
Ursa Acree 16:52
Now that it’s going to be part one today.
Kayla Fratt 16:54
Probably. And I think maybe one of the other things that we should kind of do is pull back a little bit and think about, like, why does it matter? If it’s just you and your dog? And there’s a bite? Or what, like, Why do dog bites matter? I guess because I think there there can be a perception in the working dog world that like, oh, well, if the dog does its job, and it’s not sending me to the hospital, then what’s the big deal? And I you know, I don’t necessarily hear that explicitly. Yeah, that is that certain, even, like, but yeah, I feel like, I feel like there’s a little bit of that subtext in a couple corners.
Ursa Acree 17:41
Well, so it’s funny that you say that, because I have, I have many examples of this. But one in particular, that, that really, that always kind of lives rent free in my head. And it’s a client that I very close to, and she has a an aggressive dog, a people aggressive dog. Sorry, I It’s dog that displays aggression towards people, right? And we’re not sure for handing with you. And so he is not trusting of your own strangers, right? He bites people that he doesn’t. That’s. And we spent a long, long, long time together working on a process for introducing him to new people when it was necessary. And she had her dog sitter, who knew the dog as a puppy, come in for several sessions to work with us on this to be like the new person. And I remember him saying many times, oh, it’s fine. I don’t care if I get bitten. I don’t care if I get bitten. It’s not a big deal. And it was sort of kind of like a macho, I think like, Oh, totally, no matter how you didn’t. And so what I told him was like, this isn’t about you. Right? Yeah. Whether or not you care if you get bitten, it is my job not to put this dog in a position where he feels like he needs to fight. Right? Yes. Uh huh. Like whether or not you care or are insured or need to go to the hospital afterwards, or, or have, you know, a Kevlar glove on, it doesn’t matter is our goal is not to put a dog in a position where they feel the need to bite. Right. And so that rings particularly true for that first category of like, the conflict resolution bite, I don’t want to put a dog in a situation where they feel that’s how they have to deal with something. Yeah, or arousal is certainly a little bit different. Because, you know, I would say that most situations that I could think of as examples of arousal, the dog isn’t necessarily doing it because they’re feeling threatened or because there’s some some aversive situation at play. It’s just sort of they’re like, over the top right. Yeah. So you know, someone could argue that like in those scenarios, well, you know, I’m not doing anything bad to the dog. I’m not putting the dog in a bad situation. But I still think at the end of the day, like, if we’re, you know, these dogs aren’t live In a bubble, right? The stocks, the existing out in the field are only existing in someone’s home. They’re existing in the community at large. And if we’re not supporting them in making good choices in one context, then that is certainly likely to bleed over into any other context. And I know we could talk all day about like the worst case scenario. But I don’t think we even have to go that far. Because again, like we have, our animals have to go see the vet, and presumably they’re maybe being taken on walks, or presumably, we’re traveling with them, and we’re having to do rest stops. And like, there are going to be scenarios in which you could be exposing other people to the risk of your dog biting them. And so for that reason, I think, like, it’s never just the handler, it’s never just yeah, I’m texts, like dogs exist in the world as part of our community.
Advertisement 20:54
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And, again, like, I really want to be clear that this doesn’t mean that a dog with a bite history a dog who’s sketchy with strangers, or whatever, can’t be a working dog. And I’m not saying like, Oh, my God, this dog is like, weird in one way. So like, has to be, you know, sent to a sanctuary, which, you know, we all know that those don’t necessarily really exist, or really solve problems, or like euthanize it, or like, you know, it’s, that’s not what we’re saying at all. And I really want to be like, 100% clear that nobody takes that home. But like, yeah, dog bites can be really serious, you know, it’s infection, it’s damage to your, you know, joints in your hands in your fingers, like, your gear, even, you know, I’ve had sleeves ripped by dogs, and that can be really expensive, depending on the gear that you’re wearing out in the woods. And then also legal liability if you’re working with like interns, or volunteers for the public. And, for me, this also comes back to a lot of the similar stuff, when we talk about like wildlife interactions for our working dogs is our dogs are so privileged in the work that they do, they get to go to places that dogs are not allowed, right, um, routinely. And we as professionals need to be preparing our dogs adequately for that job. And that includes the fact that they’re going to need to be around boat operators, or hotel staff, or volunteers or interns or our orienteer. Or, you know, almost always there’s someone out there with us.
Ursa Acree 22:18
Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m saying, like, we’re gonna get, we’re never going to have a perfect scenario where the dog is never exposed to, you know, potential risk, I guess, for lack of a better term.
Kayla Fratt 22:32
Yeah. And your dog’s gonna have to go to the bat. I mean, unless you’re, unless you are a veterinarian, which I don’t know of anyone in the conservation art world, who’s also a veterinarian. If you exist, congratulations, you’ve really figured out how to make how to make this meal more affordable. I don’t know how you’re paying off your vet bills or your your student loans.
Ursa Acree 22:57
Yeah, but I think overall, it’s just better for the dog and better for, you know, again, the community at large when we address these problems, you know, in terms of like, supporting the dog to make choices that don’t involve fighting, and I agree that I mean, my life has been spent supporting people whose dogs, you know, make bad, bad deeds that were making inappropriate –
Advertisement 23:23
Undesirable choices
Ursa Acree 23:24
And desirable behavior choices. And I have never met, I don’t think I’ve ever met a bad dog. You know, like, and I’ve seen some of the worst of the worst behavior. It’s just they’re dealing with the the world with the tools, the behavioral tools that they have. And so our responsibility to teach them to use the right ones.
Advertisement 23:45
Yeah, yeah. So I think now this is, the nice thing is we have a really lovely framework within the dog behavior world for this sort of thing. And one of the things actually, so I just realized, I think, I may have been talking over our listeners heads some in the past, because one of our longtime listeners the other day asked me what splitting was. And I think I have been overestimating the level of dog behavior and dog training expertise that some of our listeners have.
Ursa Acree 24:13
All the time. I just assume everyone knows everything.
Advertisement 24:16
Yes, yeah, it is really, I think this is, yeah, it’s got to be in some sort of like part of imposter syndrome or something where you’re like, if I know it must be because everybody else knows it. So it must be obvious. So therefore, it’s not special.
Ursa Acree 24:27
Actually, my thought process, yes.
Advertisement 24:30
So okay, so the good news is we have this great thing called the humane hierarchy.
Ursa Acree 24:36
We should have like an impostor syndrome, like support group, except none of us would feel like we deserve to be there.
Advertisement 24:44
No, everyone would be like, I couldn’t run this. We actually were talking about having a spin off Patreon support group for everyone’s spouses and romantic partners because we just had a conversation in our Patreon about how to coach your romantic partner through setting your high for you, so that you can work blind without needing to, like, you know, like just by the person that you’ve lived with doing. And everyone was sharing tips about how to coach their significant other through through that appropriately. It’s very useful, but we do, we think we might need to just have a spousal support group as well. But okay, so we’ve got this great thing called the humane hierarchy, which is a really useful framework, I think, for thinking about, you know, it’s often framed as a way to keep our dogs happy, and to like, ethically move to training and bla bla bla bla bla. But I think it’s also a really good way to think about okay, so we need to figure out how to keep a dog bite from occurring. Absolutely, we can kind of go through it the same way. So even if you’re not into like, the Fuzzy Wuzzy, make sure the dog is always happy all the time, which I don’t know why you’re listening to us that that’s not how you feel. But it’s also a really useful framework for that. So like when we when we think about our human Harkey, what is that like first step there are?
Ursa Acree 25:58
So with the humane hierarchy, we’re always always always going to start by looking at the dogs, essentially, like physical circumstances, right? And so what that means is like, are their basic needs met? Are there any health concerns? You know, any chronic conditions, any past conditions that could be still affecting the dog? Is there any need for any type of medication, whether it’s, you know, behavioral, or otherwise. And so we always make sure that all of those things are being looked at and met. Because if not, you can’t train away have physiological, there’s no amount of training that will change, you know, joint pain, there’s no amount of training, acid reflux, there’s no amount of training that will change an old injury that hurts. So that’s always we’re gonna go for first. And something that’s really interesting that I run into, all the time, in working with behavior cases, is so many dogs are walking around with undiagnosed pain, like, crazy number of dogs are walking around with ease, and maybe not pain, but like discomfort. Yeah, just a lot of the time as a result of the habits were a result of how they live their lifestyle. And either lack of exercise or the type of exercise that they do. They have like physiological imbalances. So they use one side more than the other. We see that so often. And there, it’s so complex, like we could do episode, just pain alone. And I’m not the best qualified person to talk about this. I benefit greatly from the knowledge of the veterinarians that I work with. And so I’m speaking as a lay person that works very closely with experts in this field. But one of the things that I always, always, always look for, and Dr. Murray Bartley and I did a talk on this last year. And it was about how dog trainers can assess, not assess and diagnose but like help clients see if there was a sign that their dog might be in pain in this, get them to a veterinarian to pursue diagnosis. And so I don’t I don’t want to belabor it. I don’t I know that it’s not like, we know what we’re talking about today. But I do always like to call it out. Because even people who don’t think who are like, there’s no possible way my dog could be uncomfortable, there’s no possible way that can be seen, I have had people who would have carved it into their grave, there’s no way my dog is in pain and get a diagnosis. So it is a can be very silent and a visit to your GP vet is not going to find it totally has the it’s not that that’s fault, it’s that the dog is going in for a 15 minute visit, they may or may not be able to be physically examined. They are probably masking their adrenaline high, they may not feel pain in that moment. But if there’s any suspicion that there’s like an imbalance in how the dog sits, stands, lays down or transitions into any of those positions or goes up and down stairs or anything about the way that they run. Going to a specialist for diagnosis is the best thing to do. Because the GP has a really hard time catching that stuff. Again, no fault of their own. It’s just not the ideal scenario. So yeah, I will step back down from my soapbox. It’s just so important, because if it’s not caught, and I’m not saying that like every dog is walking around in a 10 out of 10 pain scale, like oh, no,
Advertisement 29:17
No, of course, but I think both of my dogs have like when I’m doing their fitness stuff, I can see that one side is a little weaker than the other like oh, man that that like back right knee might need a little bit extra strengthening a little bit extra support. Maybe we should talk to Dr. Eide about that, you know, and, and they’re fit working dogs and even niffler he’s three years old. He’s still got stuff that I can see in his movement that sometimes he’s a little stiff. He’s a little sore. He, you know, he runs hard. He sprained his wrist the other week, you know?
Ursa Acree 29:49
No, over time imbalances get worse, right? So like if his right side is weaker than his left side and he favors the right side, with repetition that’s going to become more and more and more pronounced.
Kayla Fratt 30:02
I think our working dogs are even better at masking it. And they’re so strong and they’re so in shape that it’s harder to see because they’ve
Ursa Acree 30:11
They’re motivated! I mean, Barley would jump to a wood chipper to go after a tennis ball. Yeah, yeah,
Advertisement 30:19
I mean, yeah, he was like hobbling, hobbling around with a torn CCL trying to get us to try and make that, and I almost didn’t take him in for for that second opinion, because the first vet didn’t see the tear. And I almost didn’t take him in for the second opinion until Sarah strumming was like, you know, I really I that looked that looked weird to me that gait video, like, I think you gotta get it checked out. And I’m so glad I did, because it was torn, and he did need surgery. And that’s, that’s a serious injury. That’s not just like a little, you know, not to, I don’t know, not that we need to rank things. But I want to actually sort of like on that same level of, you know, health and wellness. Also, I think for our working dogs, a huge part of that is their behavioral wellness, and making sure they’re getting appropriate outlets and appropriate exercise. And I think that’s where a lot of times we see these dogs struggling more in quote unquote, normal homes, then we get them into a working dog situation. And a lot of behavior problems do ultimately improve when they get out in into these jobs. But not always. And it’s not like a magic panacea. But it is, it is an important place to start. Because if you’ve got a dog who has like snatchy, with toys, and therefore puts your fingernails and cuticles and fingertips at risk. You know, part of that is skipping ahead a little bit, we’ll talk about training, so that they understand how to interact appropriately with you and your hands and toys, but also a huge part of that is making sure that their needs are met and that they don’t feel deprived and desperate regarding toys and Toy Play. And that is that is a fundamental thing for these dogs.
Ursa Acree 32:00
Yeah, yeah, for sure. And when I say needs are met, that’s a great point. And that doesn’t just mean like food, water and shelter. Right? Yeah, that means to me physical enrichment, mental enrichment, or the ability to engage in species typical behaviors. So like our dogs, getting to be dogs. You know, those are all those are all considerations to, you know, meet a dog’s basic needs, so that they can be the most set up to be successful and behaviors that we’re asking them to do, which is essentially to act like a human in a world that they don’t understand.
Advertisement 32:36
Yeah, yeah. Nobody understands when they say please, no, thank you.
Ursa Acree 32:40
Definitely, yeah, um, but the level after that is antecedent arrangement. And then it’s essentially, like arranging the environment so that the behaviors that we don’t like aren’t, don’t get triggered. Right. And the sort of colloquial term or the casual term for that is management. And so, I actually think, I don’t think that dog trainers under under emphasized management, I think that pet owners and maybe non dog professionals, underestimate the power of management. Yeah, that it’s sometimes seen as like, oh, well, that’s lazy. You know, like, oh, put the trash can in the cabinet. So the dog doesn’t get into it. And it’s like, yeah,
Kayla Fratt 33:26
Yes, absolutely, please.
Ursa Acree 33:29
Instead of why wouldn’t we do that instead of taking like a year to try to train the dog to not get in the trash can when we’re not at home? Or whatever?
Advertisement 33:37
Yeah, I mean, yeah, Barley is 10 years old. And I still create him every time I leave the house, because otherwise he makes he makes or whatever. She just ate like, yeah, he just ate like, $200 worth of muscle powder supplement. Last time I made this mistake. Oh, God, very expensive. Very. So he’s just trying to get huge.
Advertisement 34:05
Yeah, yeah. I mean, and I think, you know, like, I want to talk about like some management options. And we’ve done management episodes in the past as well. And there’s tons of great information out there. But, you know, yeah, if your dog can’t safely and happily do meet and greets, or be walked by volunteers, or be managed by an intern or a foster family, or whatever it is, then don’t put the dog in that situation. It is not helpful as a learning experience for volunteers or interns to be bitten. Nobody in this field needs to be bitten. That’s not a rite of passage, like you and I have both worked with dangerous, you know, dangerous dogs for most of our careers. And I mean, it’s been years since I last had a bite and I’ve never had a serious bite and I’ve never been happy that I have one happen.
Ursa Acree 34:50
Absolutely not. I’ve had I’ve been in the field 23 years now. And I’ve had either three or four bites, and one of them was from a pet Big, which was that I worked at? Yeah, we should count that.
Kayla Fratt 35:05
yeah, I’ve had more cat bites than dog bites. Actually,
Ursa Acree 35:09
I haven’t any cat bites in my career. I had a cat bite off the clock, I guess so to speak. But
Kayla Fratt 35:17
Yeah, sorry. Yeah, I’m like, I don’t know if I’ve had any bites on the clock. They’ve all been other situations. And most of them were when I was in college, like that long ago in my training career anyway,
Ursa Acree 35:28
Right, I mean, I think I’ve three bites from client dogs. And I think the latest one was over 13 years ago. So I, for me, it’s as a point of pride that I, because, again, it’s my job not to put the dog in a place where it wants to bite me like, yeah, number one job is.
Kayla Fratt 35:32
And if your dog can’t handle important handling procedures, like if your dog is if your organizational setup is such that the dog needs to be handled by volunteers or fosters or interns or whatever, then that dog needs to learn how to tolerate the handling and safety equipment necessary and that safety equipment needs to be provided. So there’s a little segue into like, what, what can that safety equipment potentially look like?
Ursa Acree 36:13
I truly don’t think that there’s any excuse for a professional or dog professional to put a dog in a situation, at least one that we, I mean, all dogs can buy, right? Any dog with teeth can bite. And so I always want to think about like, what safety measures do I need in place. And that might be this dog has shown to be incredibly pro social affiliative deals with conflict by of waiting it or whatever, like, essentially, like I can be 100 or I can be 99% confident that this dog is not going to escalate to biting. And I still might say like, Okay, so what’s the what person are we dealing with? Are they going to potentially this dog in a situation where this might be the 1% of the time that this dog totally biting. And so it’s my responsibility as a professional to make sure that I consider all of the factors that may lead to the dog, escalating to a fight and mitigate as many of those as I possibly can. Right. And again, we can go on about worst case scenarios all day. God, I had a 200 pound concorso break through three kinds of restraint to try to bite me.
Advertisement 37:24
Was that while I was living at your house.
Ursa Acree 37:27
Might have been might have been.
Kayla Fratt 37:28
I feel like I talked to you really shortly after that.
Ursa Acree 37:31
It was terrifying. Yeah.
Kayla Fratt 37:33
Holy crap, yeah.
Ursa Acree 37:34
That’s a few kinds of restraint. And then we ended up going to three after that. So.
Kayla Fratt 37:40
That like that was the final point here is that if you’ve got a dog that might bite and might bite seriously, we want back up we’re talking, you know, a muzzle and a crate, a crate and a baby gate, a door and a tether or tie back.
Ursa Acree 37:57
A muzzle and a door. Yeah, agree. We in our practice at Behavior Vets, two layers of safety is minimum mandatory, mandatory. We do not live with dogs with a bite history without two layers of safety. Because if somebody drops a leash, or buckled snaps or gate gets knocked over or nothing gets pulled off, what do you have then?
Advertisement 38:22
And muzzles take quite a bit of training. We’ve also done episodes on muzzling and it’s a it takes a lot of work, and it can be challenging to get a dog to comfortably wear a muzzle for a significant amount of time. Yeah, fitting muscles can be tricky, and most muscles can be removed and dogs can often still cause damage to their muscles. And they are a really, really, really important tool like, but I think it’s important to say like, if you feel like muscles are too hard for what you’re able to do with this dog, or it’s not quite worth it for the risk in this situation. I hear you neither of my dogs are consistently muscle trained. Yeah, however, that means that we have other we have other tools that we may need, if we may use if need be, and you know, that might be for niffler that’s sedation and Alicia in. He just had a bad a bad X ray experience. He’s normally a sweet little baby at the bat but he had a tough time getting his sprain x rayed and now he’s he’s going to be sedated going forward for X rays, you know, no general exams, but you know, chemical chemicals are also an option and also a tool for management. Not for day to day I’m not going to sedate my dog just willy nilly, but
Ursa Acree 39:38
Yeah, actually, Lenore had. Lenore is my dog. I mean you’ve met her but for those listening who haven’t. Lenor’s my dog who is a two year old, Belgian Tervuren, Shiloh Shepherd cross. And as part of so she’s part of a genetic study in genetic diversity in dog breeds. And as part of To study, she needed to get an echocardiogram, which is just like, sound right? And I actually, my husband took her because I was out of town. And I was a little anxious because she is sensitive with strangers. And she’s weighs 80 pounds. So when she barks, it sounds very threatening and looks really threatening, even though she has not shown an inclination that she wants to escalate to biting, but I have not put her in a situation where she was a little anxious about it. And, you know, Andy reported back that they did end up having to put a sleeve muzzle on her like a soft fabric muzzle, which bummed me out because I haven’t done in pencil training with her. And that she was pretty stressed. And I was like, Cool. Next time, we have to do something like that, we’re gonna use some medication.
Advertisement 40:49
Yeah, yeah, exactly. That was yeah, that was my takeaway from Niffy’s X rays. It’s like, okay.
Ursa Acree 40:53
She does really well, like niffler, she does really well at the GP vet, like she can go in, and she loves her vet and the techs, and she’ll get shots and do an exam and whatever. But it was just this particular where they had to kind of restrain her and roll her on her side. And yeah,
Advertisement 41:07
it was the side for Niffy that he got really freaked out, he got the first image, okay, but getting put on his side was not something he was okay with yet. And we haven’t done that sort of cooperative care training, which is, that’s our segue, the next step would be thinking about training, so that the dog can be comfortable and can focus on their job, which is I think, another thing that is really important for us in this field is that our dogs need to be able to work. And if they’re so stressed by the environment, that they might bite someone, or they’re so aroused by the situation that they might bite you in accessing the toys, or in you trying to access the toys or something like that. A dog’s not in a good headspace to work. Basically, period, I’m sure there are some exceptions to that. But, you know,
Ursa Acree 41:53
It’s funny because I there was a note that you put in and it was it was something to the effect of like, there’s there can be a an attitude that like, we don’t want to overturn because we don’t want the dog to lose its wildness. Right. Yeah. Oh, funny to me. Because one thing we’re talking about a domesticated animal. Least wild animal on the planet. Like the least, literally the least,
Advertisement 42:23
I’m really trying to think of a counterexample because that’s how my brain works. And I cannot
Ursa Acree 42:28
Right, they’re the most domesticated animal we have. Yeah, yeah. Prove me wrong. Someone prove me wrong. And I don’t mean that. Like, I’m not being I’m not being glib. Like, they I can’t think of one.
Advertisement 42:40
No, yeah, I mean, I know, like, cows are also very, very domestic. But they’re also farm animals. Like they’re not indoors.
Ursa Acree 42:47
They aren’t trained to perform tasks for us. And they aren’t. I mean, some do jobs. But like, they’re pretty simple jobs. Like they’re not trained to perform complex tasks for us on the reg. Right. So you’re not wild. Like we don’t need wildness, we need domestication for them to do their jobs. And I think people are trying to say is they don’t want the dog to lose its motivation or its ability to make decisions, right. But we need to be able to help the dog make those decisions in the right way. And it’s so funny to me, because like, if you talk to someone who does IPO, or if you talk to someone who has, like, who works with like military, police dogs, highly, highly trained dogs, they don’t want the dog going rogue, right? They don’t want a dog, it’s like, Whoo, I’m just gonna do my own thing. And like, and those dogs are also performing tasks where they need to make independent decisions.
Advertisement 43:44
And I think some have – go ahead.
Ursa Acree 43:47
I was just gonna say like, that’s not a characteristic that is desirable in a dog that’s doing a job.
Advertisement 43:53
Yeah, I want them to be collaborative coworkers with me. And I think sometimes some of this comes from actually a bit of a backlash to the way that military working dogs can be managed. So intensively like we’ve also got an episode about you know, like your control and management might be too much. I can’t remember what the episode is, like, overdoing, we’re not advocating for overdoing this, my dogs get to run around off leash and Hellions every single day
Ursa Acree 44:21
I am the least micromanaging dog, parent in the world.
Advertisement 44:26
So I think some of this comes as like a backlash to that. And also, I think a lot of this comes from if the only way you know how to change behavior is via suppression. Then, of course, you might be worried about overtraining because your training tactics are leading to suppression which can lead to a dog, no longer being interested in or confident with their work. But if you’re training well through, it doesn’t even have to be fully force free. It doesn’t even have to be fully positive reinforcement, but if you’re training well through, you know, Lee as intrusive minimally aversive, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you should not be accidentally suppressing be like you shouldn’t be accidentally suppressing behaviors that way.
Ursa Acree 45:08
Absolutely, absolutely. No, I think that’s a great point, I think the lens through which you view behavior change, absolutely is going to affect like how you think about what the outcome might be on your dog, dog being able to do its job. So yeah, if you train in a way that makes your dog afraid to make choices, then they’re going to be afraid to make choices. And that’s performance. If you train in a way that supports the dog in making the right choices and sets them up to make correct choices and does not put them in scenarios where they are forced to practice the wrong choice, then that’s going to have a completely different, you know, outcome, you’re going to look at it very differently in terms of the effect it will have on your dog’s performance.
Advertisement 45:50
Yeah, so and I made a little bit because I think behavior modification, so for the dogs that are biting defensively, there’s a little bit of a, that’s a whole separate part two, probably. But as far as you know, like more basic, you know, again, thinking through our humane hierarchy, more just positive reinforcement, we’re not going into like Differential Reinforcement of Incompatible behavior, sort of soft, deep breath, at the end of that one. You know, at a minimum, that might mean that our dogs should probably know cooperative and safe toy play skills, which probably means having a bit of a marker system, so your dog knows the difference between when you’re gonna throw a toy, and when you’re going to offer it for tug. That’s the reason why dogs know the difference between those two words is because otherwise barley will biting. And he won’t mean it and it won’t be bad, but I don’t need my cuticles getting split up and once a week. And then I, you know, should probably no, drop it and leave it just, you know, at a minimum. So it’s like, we’re not talking yet about defensive bites, but just, you know, managing arousal, these dogs have big feelings about their toys, and they’re powerful, and they’re athletic. You know, they need to know some of these basic skills. And I would probably bring that out, too. They need to know how to stamps have their harness put on, they need to be able to be leashed, they need to maybe have a collar give if they’re a dog that is a little bit more on that defensive side and teaching them how to target their collar into someone’s hands so that they can be leashed up, you know, thinking about how to manage that well, so that they’re safe, and you’re safe.
Ursa Acree 47:22
All of these things are our gateways for our dogs to feel more comfortable and more predictable about what is expected of them and what’s going to happen to them. And it just improves communication. And one of the things that I always like to think about is, like, us aren’t threats for me, right? It’s not like drop the toy, or else or the harness on or else, right? It’s like, Hey, this is what I would like for you to do. Right? It’s an invitation. This is why I like you right now. And now. Obviously, if I ask for behavior, I want to get it. And so if I’m asking it, I’m not getting it. It’s like, okay, there is a misunderstanding. Like there’s some disconnect here, between what I expect when I say this, and what my dog expects, when I say it. And so if I need more fluency that’s on me again, like I am trying to teach the dog to behave, you know, to meet human expectations. Yeah, like, there’s no to my knowledge. Now, I’m not an apologist, but to my knowledge, there’s no like natural, whatever that means dog behavior. That’s like, you know, stand here while I put this thing around your neck.
Advertisement 48:41
Yeah, I can’t think of any examples of coyotes doing that.
Ursa Acree 48:44
Or only walk two feet from me in a straight line and do not deviate. Right, like, so we’re asking our dogs to do things that are very atypical to their natural their normal behaviors, we see simple behaviors. And, and so anytime we implement good training, where we teach them, like if A then B. And this works out great for you, and it works out great for me. And if there’s clarity around it, and there’s consistency around it, we’re improving our communication, and we’re improving our dog’s quality of life, because they get that predictability, consistency and a way to communicate with us and a way to understand our communications. And so again, like, it’s not just about control, like obviously, there are situations where we want need control, and I know that people value control to varying degrees. I only value control in a few situations. So like for me, it’s not about controlling my dog all the time. But I understand that some people want more control. For me, I don’t think it’s as much about that as it is about like improving your work like improving your life with your dog. But when you have a working dog improving your workflow with your dog, right, yeah, you get them to do what you need them to do when you need them to do it. Because there is a difference between like you know, Asking the dog to wait to grab the toy, and then going ahead and giving it to them and moving on with your day, and an untrained dog who grabbed your arm and then you’re bleeding. And then you have to go get your kit and then you have to patch yourself up. And then you have to put the dog away and like, so at the end of the day, like from so many different angles, including like logistics and workflow, it makes sense to have a dog who knows how to do these things fluently.
Advertisement 50:22
Yeah, well, and I don’t want my dog to be feeling conflicted about the reinforcer that I’m giving for them doing their job. And if you don’t have a clear system for getting that toy back, and for playing safely with them, and occasionally the dog misses and bites you and then you Yelp or you lose your temper, or whatever it is, and like I have been there dog bites hurt, you do things you don’t necessarily plan on when dogs bite you that can that can create all sorts of icky feelings for your dog. And I’ve definitely worked with dogs who started showing problems earlier and earlier and earlier in the search chain. Because the final reinforcement exchange of getting that ball back from the dog was so unpleasant for the dog, even though we weren’t, you know, we’re not choking them out. Right. Um, but it’s, it creates a lot of problems if you don’t think really hard about this. And again, especially because as a field, we go for the dogs that are going to have that particular sort of problem. Yep. And at some point, you got to get the ball back. It’s not like we can just let them carry the ball home from the park at the end of fetch. And then finally maybe sneak it back after the dog has fallen asleep. 16 hours later, you know, we need I have experimented with you know, sometimes you can get creative for the dog might be able to search with the toy in their mouth or something like that. I’ve done that before. But not always good. Yeah, not always a good option. So the last point, I want to go through with you and then I think I’m gonna I’m gonna stay on until a couple stories once you go cuz I know you’ve got a hard stop coming up pretty soon here. Well, we’ll figure out we got to get you back on more often. Yeah, but um, so the last thing I wanted to talk about, rather than kind of diving into that behavior change rabbit hole is talking about communication with your team and other people who may be touching the dog. Oh, yeah. So like I just had niffler, two days ago now got shipped off to Wyoming to work on a wind farm. So I had to hand him off at seven in the morning to a pair of tall men in a white truck. Yeah, it was like the reverse kidnapping thing, where instead of like them being like, Hey, you want to come see a puppy. I was like, Hey, here’s my puppy. he’s three years old, but he’s still my puppy. Baby. Yeah. And he’s still you know, he kind of walked out. And he he likes all these people and kind of shifted his weight back and we’re gonna look Whoa, what are what are these tall guys doing? And do you really want me to get in the car with them? You know? So I, we had a brief conversation between myself and those are the two drivers of like, okay, you know, I know you guys are pros, like it is your job to do dog transport. But like, here’s how if he doesn’t want to come out of the kennel, when you go to let him out for his next potty break. Here’s how I’d like you to manage that. And like, do you want to put him in and take them out once with me here just to make sure he had no problems. They let me know he was lovely when he got there. But you know, anyway, like, we have to do this, even with our really really sweet, lovely dogs, both of my dogs I feel totally comfortable bringing in as demo dogs.
Ursa Acree 53:29
One hundred percent. Yeah. i Nothing makes me happier than seeing someone advocate for their dog. And especially when my clients do it, because I know it can be hard for pet pet parents pet owners to to do that, because sometimes they don’t understand what’s necessary. And sometimes it just feels bad. It feels like you’re being rude or whatever. But I see people advocate for their dog, because the way the dogs advocate for themselves is through their behavior. And sometimes that means growling and snapping and biting. And if we can advocate for them before they get to that point, that is a huge win. And it builds trust. So the dog goes, Okay, my person took care of that for me. And I don’t want too much like, that’s not necessarily the only thing that you need to do. But it is a huge part of supporting your dog behaviorally is advocating for their needs in any given situation. And if that means don’t touch them, or invite them over to be touched, and then touch them in a specific way, or stand here or whatever. You know, the way it comes up the most for me is when I’m working with clients with people sensitive dogs. And we’re at the point in our training where we’re going to introduce a new human. And so I do a lot of coaching, especially if I’m going to like turn them loose to practice when I’m not there. I talk with him a lot about how to talk to the people that are going to be around because you have to be so specific. You can’t say ignore the dog because that means what does that mean? What does that mean? This that mean, pretend they don’t even exist, they’re invisible. Does that mean just don’t look at them? Does that mean Just don’t touch them? Like, you can’t use these vague concepts? Like ignore the dog or throw it a tree? Yeah. You have to say like, please stand here. And look at that spot on the floor. And hold. Yeah, I’m not even kidding.
Advertisement 55:19
Yeah, no, I’m yeah, I’m not loud. I’m just like, You’re so much better at this than I am. This is why you have your job. And I have mine.
Ursa Acree 55:27
I just tried to be, you know, to coach them to understand, like, you are going to make assumptions when you talk to someone that they understand what you mean. And they don’t never assume that you. Because I have literally even coached people to like, stand there, put your hand out, you know, whatever. Like, if we’re doing a hand target, maybe put your hand out, look, look at that spot on the wall, put your hand out. And they’ll still like the dog purchase, and they turn and they reach for you. Yeah. I think like being specific, not just saying what not to do, but being really, really, really specific what with what they should be doing around the dog being very conservative. So again, like, I don’t know, maybe I’m being overdramatic, because all I work with is dogs with severe behavior issues. But, you know, you can adjust this to the situation, but being conservative. So if you’re like, Well, my dog can tolerate, you know, A, B, and C, but not D, then don’t tell people to go to C, because they’ll on their own. Tell them to go to bat. Yeah. Like, people are always going to assume that they can take liberties, and especially dog people, and I mean, I am, and I love dog people. But dog, people tend to think I can get away with things because I love dogs, and I’m around dogs all the time.
Advertisement 56:45
And we think we can read them, we think we can figure it out before it gets bad. And sometimes we can and sometimes we can’t.
Ursa Acree 56:51
And especially when it’s just people that like dogs, right?
Advertisement 56:55
I feel like the lowercase dog people are the real. Like, you get over it. Because like, I know, I get over. Like there was a point at which when I was working at dumb friends League, again, the shelter was the behavior consultants were, I remember my boyfriend at the time being like a customs like you don’t really like dogs. And I was like, Nah, I just don’t like I’ve now crossed over to like I by default, assume all dogs want to bite me, which was maybe a little bit unhealthy. I think I got to a point where I was like a little actually, like kind of freaked out by dogs.
Advertisement 57:26
But yeah, anyway. And I think you know, with this, like, if your dog can’t tolerate a shadow or in the field, or needs to be ignored by your orienteer, for the first hour of the first search or whatever it is like, that’s fine. You can set that up in your, in your training in your practice, I know people that I really care for and respect in this field and dogs that I I know personally, I know dogs that I personally would not touch and cannot touch because they’re excellent working dogs, but part of their management and safety plan means that even though I’ve met that dog five times, I do not touch that dog.
Ursa Acree 58:00
Yeah. Well, and again, it’s advocating for what the dog needs, and you know, get again
Kayla Fratt 58:05
And communicating that to your team and and to keep and, again, I love what you said earlier about, like, it’s not about whether or not you’re scared of being bitten. It’s about what’s good for the dog, and what’s good for the project and your dog. I guess like your dog needs to be trained and managed to be able to do safely do their job for whatever is necessary for that given job. And whatever that circle of trust and work context means for that given project. And that might mean that some dogs are not the right fit for some projects, or some projects on the right fit for some dogs. And if you need your dog to be cared for by interns or foster volunteers, then that dog and those interns need to be trained on how to interact with each other. And we do this all the time in the sheltering world like.
Ursa Acree 58:49
And what I tell people is, you should always have a plan A and a plan B. Right? So how do you want things to go? And how are you going to set it up so that they go that way? And how are you going to set it up? They don’t work out? Right? So like you should have your ideal plan. And again, for work, like if it’s my client, and I’m working with their dog who’s the strangers, it’s like, okay, if a stranger is coming over what’s going to be our plan if we want to use it as a training opportunity, right? So what is that going to look like? And how are we going to set the dog up to be successful? Or if you don’t feel like training or the dog is off, or the person brings a friend and you didn’t expect it and it’s too much or whatever, like, if for some reason we can’t do planning what’s gonna be Plan B, what does that look like? And it’s gonna say Plan B is that we’re not going to put the dog in that situation.
Ursa Acree 59:41
It’s okay to say Plan B is that we’re not going to do it like we’re just not going to do. We’re going to try again next time. Right? And, and most of the dogs that I work with, that are triggered by you know, people, new people, whatever, would probably rather not be put in that situation. In that situation because we want them to change. But like if the dog had a choice, they might say, like, you know what I would rather be in my crate with peanut butter Kong. And I know that’s like for in a working dog context, what that might mean is like, as much as you, the handler might want to have somebody shadow you, or might want to have somebody pet your dog or whatever data, is that the best thing for the dog in the job?
Advertisement 1:00:24
Yeah, I’d like we’re professionals. So you’re going out there and representing your self, your dog, your company, your industry? You know, we got to, we’ve got to take this really, really seriously. And I think like one of the things I wanted to point out, as well as that in not all, but a lot of shelters and rescues, and, you know, veterinary contexts and whatever. When this is done, well, your rates of error can be very, very low, even when you’re working with a lot of volunteers, or that tax or whatever, in chaotic environments with lots and lots and lots of stress and unknown dogs like this is not impossible.
Ursa Acree 1:01:00
No, absolutely not. Absolutely not. It just takes careful planning and management, right. I would say, thoughtful and strategic reasoning of criteria, right. So thing that I always tell my clients is, if you have a voice in your head that says what, let’s see what happens if we do this, don’t do it. Don’t do it. Don’t do it. Yes. What happened?
Kayla Fratt 1:01:25
Don’t do it yet!
Ursa Acree 1:01:27
Let’s see what happens is code for I don’t know how my dog is gonna handle this, right? That’s just a caution to the wind, don’t throw caution to the wind, keep it in your pocket. But yeah, I think that having a plan sticking to it, and careful, thoughtful, increasing of criteria. And, and savvy management, absolutely. And like, you’ll notice as your dog at over time, your dog should get better, right, because they’re learning that the situation is predictable. And they’re learning what to expect in their learning that the outcome isn’t going to be bad, and they’re not going to have to fend for themselves in you know, protecting themselves or whatever.
Kayla Fratt 1:02:03
And I think just like any other safety incident that happens, whether again, it’s a snake bite, or a twisted ankle, or you know, anything like that, if there is a slip up in there, there will be in some of these situations, again, like if you’re getting a dog off, you know, off of transport from a rescue that you thought is a good working dog candidate. And and you know, like day one, something happens, like, we’re not, I’d like that happens. It’s okay. But just like any other safety issue, or any other safety slip up, then you know, you need to be thinking hard about what could I have done to prevent this? What can we do in the future to make sure this doesn’t happen? How do I support myself and the dog? To learn from this?
Ursa Acree 1:02:43
Make it count. Make it count. So if we mess up, like the value in that is okay, we can learn from this. We can learn from this and do better next time. And if we don’t, then we’re just out there making mistakes for no reason. Right?
Kayla Fratt 1:02:59
Yeah, no, definitely. Okay, I know you’ve got to go. So thank you so much for coming on. This was great, total whirlwind of an episode, but remind us where people can learn more about you and where you work. If, if anyone really needs help with one of these, one of these weirdo dogs.
Ursa Acree 1:03:14
We love weirdo dogs, they’re the best. So behavior vets.com is the best way to find us. And we are a practice that is comprised of veterinary behaviors and behavior consultants that work together to help, really I mean, we see the vast majority of dogs but we help any species. So we’ve had, we have a good number of cats. We work with horses, exotics, birds, like you name it. For the most part, if it’s an animal that interacts with a human, we can find a way to help so behavior vets.com And we have so much content too, webinars –
Kayla Fratt 1:03:51
So many resources!
Ursa Acree 1:03:52
so many resources. And if for some reason we are not the right people to help you. We will try to find the ones that are so.
Kayla Fratt 1:03:59
Yeah, totally. Yeah, really fun.
Ursa Acree 1:04:02
Thank you, Kayla.
Kayla Fratt 1:04:03
Oh my god. Yeah, thank you so much and forever and at home. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you learned a lot and you’re feeling inspired to get outside and be a canine conservationist in whatever way suits your passions and skill set. You can find our show notes donate to k9conservationists join our Patreon or course all over at k9conservationists.org. Until next time!