Chrissy 0:00
Welcome back to the dogs over lives. And this is season three. I'm Chrissy Messick, and this is our summer working dog series, and this is where we're going to dive deep into the incredible world of dogs who dedicate their lives working alongside humans. So grab your favorite beverage or enjoy listening to this on the road, and let's explore the full spectrum of what it means to care for the dogs who care for all of us, and maybe learn something about ourselves along the way. Today, I'm talking with world renowned Jean Donaldson. Jane has been a driving force for competent and effective force free positive reinforcement training for over 30 years. She is a trailblazer in the world of dog training, and got her start in dog sports, which opened her eyes to better ways to teach and train dogs. She's written many books with a well known one being culture clash, and she started the Academy for dog trainers. I really wanted to discuss with her her specialty of working with sports dogs, and what she has seen when these types of dogs go into homes as pet dogs, and then behavior issues ensue. We discuss so many important topics, but when it comes to having a working dog or sporting dog as a pet, we talk about what she has seen and what are common issues and how to address them. I hope you enjoy this episode and find it eye opening. Be sure to share with anyone who has a pet dog that is a working, sporting or high energy dog. I'm sure they will. Thank you. Jane Donaldson, welcome to the podcast.
Jean 1:32
It's my pleasure to be here. Chrissy,
Chrissy 1:35
thank you so much for coming on. I'm excited for our conversation. I feel like we're gonna talk about a plethora of things, so it'll be good. So I know you because I went through the academy for dog trainers. Think I finished in 2022 the reason why I chose the program is because I had a lot of colleagues that went through it and, you know, gave good advice on, you know, whether I should do that or not, but I was just looking for something that was all encompassing, that covered many things, you know, from, obviously, to training, but the theory of training and training and how to, you know, break it down into easy steps for difficult situations, but also the pathology of it, and the history and the human counseling aspect, there's just so much to Doc training that you know, so much more than people think there is and so, so I took your I went through your program, and it was like going through a master's program, like I have my masters in kinesiology, but I felt like I went through a master's in dog training, behavior counseling and but it's what I wanted. Like, I wanted something that was very educational and kind and effective, and so I went through your program a year and a half. It's a two year program. I like your quick wit, sense of humor, and how you teach and educate. It's very just, you know, this, this, this, and and then I can just take what I need and make my own, you know, impact of how I work with dogs, too. But from what I learned with you, that's how we know each other.
Jean 3:17
It is, I mean, our we're in a very complex profession,
Chrissy 3:20
yeah, yeah. I don't know if you know this, but I, gosh, I had a heart attack in the middle of the program, so I but I still finished in a year and a half, you literally had a heart attack. I did. I had a scat, a spontaneous coronary arterial dissection. Oh, gosh, yeah, I had that and so. But what was nice about your program is that if I needed to get an extension, I could have done that. It allows us to be very flexible, so I was able to go through that still finish the program.
Jean 3:51
How are you now? I'm good, okay, yeah,
Chrissy 3:55
I'm good. I had that happen in 2021 Yeah, wow. So I'm doing well. But so can you tell us a little bit about yourself, like where you live, what you're currently doing, and the dogs in your life, and what prompted you to write your amazing books and create the Academy for dog trainers?
Jean 4:12
Okay, well, I currently live in the Bay Area. I grew up in Montreal, Canada, mostly a little bit New Hampshire, and then in 1999 moved to the Bay Area. Love it. Love Love the the weather. Here. My dog currently is a little Brian, who you can see the the podcast listeners won't see, but he's lying on a sofa behind me. He's 15. He was rescued in 2015 he's the best Bay ever. There are no better dogs. He's the best of all possible dogs for the as far as books in 1996 I wrote the first book, not expecting it to be published. I was very, sort of frustrated at that point. It was, as you know, dog training is not regulated, and it was even more of the why? Wild West 30 years ago, and, you know, just just, I got very, very upset about the lay of the land and the continued use by people of aversive stimuli and training, which is, you know, still going on, and was worse than anyway. So I sort of vomited out this book, kind of not expecting to be published, and ended up getting published, and then, since then, sort of did a couple of revisions, and that, that's sort of how it got started, how I ended up writing the academy was something which I sort of hatched over a long period of time. It occurred to me that trainers, you know, such as myself, we all had to kind of piece together our education, university courses and seminars and conferences, you know, and put it together, and then, you know, get some experience. And I had been doing dog sports, and so it felt like a bit of a mishmash. There was not a dedicated program specifically for pet dog training, behavior counseling, and I sort of dreamed that Boy, wouldn't it be nice to have that? And then eventually, sort of hatched it and then refined it over time. And that's, that's the story of the academy, yeah.
Chrissy 6:09
And that's the whole reason why I went through the academy so I didn't have to do the mishmash, great, right? It's great for that. And the book you're talking about is the culture clash, right? That's right, yeah, yeah, that's a great book. I have it on my desk right now. So can you give us a professional timeline of your work and some highlights or favorite moments for you? And I just think this, this is such an important aspect, because you've been in this, this industry, for so long, and it'll give our audience an idea of what you've seen and and the important work that you've done with dogs and their humans.
Jean 6:44
I do have a number of sort of highlights, um, I hope I don't know if they'll be at all interesting to people, but so I when I was a kid, I trained a dog, I in obedience. My first dog, I showed her a little bit in obedience, but I didn't get serious about it until 1986 when I got my first border club. So that was a highlight. Just a spectacular dog, really, you know, outclassed my training in so many ways. Another pilot was in 1989 starting up a fly ball club. We had a competitive fly ball club. And also, you know, we also had classes for people to do it for fun. And that was fun for use. Those were kind of a lot of adventures, you know, going to tournaments and stuff that was kind of fun. Had a whippet in for Borden train in, I guess it was around 1990 the early 90s, had it for six months for an obedience title. And it started sort of a lifelong love of Whippets and Italian greyhounds and sight hounds in general. Just, I love sight hounds, you know, just that she was like the best of all possible dogs next to Brian or Buffy or my Border Collies. And, you know. And I think they, sort of, they get kind of this bad rap of being sort of not easy to train. She was a just joy to train. She was just a pleasure to train. Another highlight was in 1990 the first time I saw Ian Dunbar. And at that point, I had been teetering on, well, am I gonna stay in college and just, you know, keep, keep, you know, stay in academia. Am I gonna, you know, go into animal welfare was one of the things I was thinking about. Maybe I'll, you know, be in music. Maybe, you know, I was sort of like, what am I gonna do, you know, and I'd been doing tons of dog sports, and I had been, you know, taking some money for hire as a trainer, but not really seriously in pets. And that was sort of a turning point when I saw him, and he, you know, a few of the things he said just got just imprinted into my mind. And I ended up going permanently and full time into pet dog training, helping out people with their companion dogs. That was a big turning point. I remember also in the mid 90s, as I was doing cases, when I finally figured out how to fix food and object guarding. At that time, I don't know you are maybe too young to remember that, but it used to be called, sort of some version of dominance aggression, where the dog was trying to exert dominance over us, and that's why he was doing this. And it just looked to me like, when they did it, like they were just sort of running software, you know, this, this kind of archaic, useless software to defend scarce resources that you see in everything from lions to hyenas and to sort of characterize it as a personality issue, just seemed to me to be a non starter. Okay, so then, what do you do about it? You know, it didn't sort of offer a path to modification. So by reframing it as guarding of resources, it then sort of said, well, you know, this is what the dogs do. Can it be fixed? And can we teach the dog that it's not we're not a threat to resources? And, lo and behold, it can absolutely be done. And actually, it turns out to be one of the easiest things to modify. That was sort of a real light bulb moment for me to see that, you know, some of these things that we thought were character traits are, in fact, just behavior. You know, it's just stuff. Dog. Do. And sometimes this stuff is easy to modify. Sometimes it's harder, but it doesn't help us to say the dog is dominant or stupid or aroused, or, you know, these kind of things that we pin on dogs. Another highlight was when I first started doing straight up this is going to be probably anathema to some people, but straight up counter conditioning. So counter conditioning without desensitization, for stuff like reactive dogs, dogs who are sort of going off on leash and just counter conditioning them straight up, which looks to the, you know, sort of the naked eye, it looks like you're quote, unquote, rewarding rotten behavior. But, but look, if you do it and you do it right, the behavior goes down. So it kind of flies in the face of Orthodox skinnerian operant conditioning theory. And that was kind of a fun thing to sort of, you know, take that in and think, Okay, what does this tell us? You know about how it works and how brains work. Another thing which was really interesting for anybody who's listening, who's in animal sheltering. So when I was in a student in 1987 I did a year as an adoption counselor at the Montreal SPCA, and at that time, they had the worst per capita overpopulation problem in North America. So dogs and cats, you know, on a I think it was 50,000 a year that were being euthanized, and so on a bad day, we might euthanize 50 or more young, healthy, sound dogs. And don't even get me started on cats. And you know, it's just something that we lived with. It's very much the trenches. I didn't know any differently. And then when I got to the San Francisco SPCA, in 1999 we were doing sort of all kinds of experimental behavior modification, and they very well resourced shelter that also had gotten their population locally under really good control. So there was not a ton of euthanasia for space. You know, there certainly was some issue with some of the fighting breeds, but among just sort of other dogs and cats, they were in a very, you know, good position. And I remember there was a week where, for there was a combination, I think, behavior and health dogs that had to be euthanized. Is something on the order of a dozen dogs were euthanized in a week, and they brought in grief counselors, because the volunteers and staff were so traumatized. And the stark difference between euthanizing 50 or 100 animals a day who were young and healthy and just for space, you know, in a carbon monoxide chamber, versus, you know, carefully, you know, curated euthanasia, it just lets you know that people can become very hardened to situation if they're really there, or they can, you know, really become bonded to animals. And so it really was a lesson for me in the geographic differences out there on this continent among shelters and the situations that they have. Now you fast forward to now. We're in 2025 you know, Montreal SPCA is now. You know, they've done he made huge strides. It's a very progressive shelter. They've got an amazing people there, and they they've made a big dent in in the issues that they had. And so it is the case with a lot of shelters in the US. So just seeing the lay of the land. Change over time has been kind of heartening.
Chrissy 13:23
I mean, just hearing everything that you've done it just, you know, I'm grateful for what you have done for dogs and animals and our humans, and you've seen a lot of difficult stuff too, but you've been such a driving force for looking at dogs and cats and animals as beings, and treating them as beings versus a robot that should just do what you say they should do. You know, one of the first driving forces behind doing this force free, you know, positive reinforcement approach. So I'm very grateful for that. It takes a lot of, I don't know, resiliency for you, you know, for someone to be able to do what you've done,
Jean 14:06
yeah, it's a difficult profession. I mean, as we were talking just before we sort of started the official podcast, you know what you do is, it's, it's difficult. You know, being on the front lines and dealing with people with threats in the modern age. You know, our clients have lives and jobs and stressors and financial problems, but they still cherish their animals. You know, they love their dogs and cats, but sometimes the bandwidth that they need, you know, so part of the thing that we have to juggle is, you know, we want to make the best possible lives for dogs. As you said, we, especially those of us who self select in training and behavior, we value dogs hugely. You know, they matter. Their interests matter, and then juggling that with people who also value the dogs, but they haven't self selected to be dog trainers and. Their availability and their their you know. You know that for them, it isn't sort of a chore to have to do the training, you know, whereas for us, something that we would do for pleasure in our spare time. And so trying to, you know, get all that to work is one of the things that that's kind of the puzzle of our profession, right,
Chrissy 15:17
right? Definitely. So I'm currently doing our working dog summer series. But before we get into that, I want to talk to you about a couple personal things, if that's okay with you, of course. So how has this work changed you personally over the years, and what have you learned about yourself and your dogs?
Jean 15:34
That's a great question and a tough one. I sort of mulled. One thing I know that has happened over time is that I've become more obsessed with pedagogy, how best to teach humans. So if I need a trainer to have these skills and this knowledge and this ability to then curate that for owners, how do I best achieve that? Part of that is also who should be a dog trainer. I know it sounds sort of harsh to say that, but not everybody is cut out for this. In the mid 2000s I got heavily into this thing called saber metrics, which is, it's just a way of crunching statistics in baseball. So saber is the Society for American baseball research. And they're basically, sort of the the nerdy types who look into deep numbers and ask questions like, you know, so you know, this statistic or this player, is it any good? Is it useful? And how do we measure that? What is the right question to ask? And how do we answer that question? And I took that, I thought, boy, you know, I would love to be able to kind of do the the talent prospecting of dog trainers like, you know, find the people who are really well suited to this, and then pack into them the best possible education and then help them after they graduate, you know, with supervised practice, and help them to fledge the nest and go out there and do the good work, and that's how to impact the quality of life of the most families and the most dogs. Now, it's something that I far from happening. It's not, you know, I'm maybe 5% up that mountain of even beginning to answer that question, but it's a question I think it's worth, worth asking, because I have seen out there in the world, people who sometimes I'm not sure that they're in the right profession. Should they be doing this, you know, and you know. And other times I think, Boy, you know, just meet somebody. And I sort of think my hunch is, boy, would they ever make a good behavior counselor? Or boy, they, you know, should be in dog training, you know, and they may or may not want to, you know. So, so that's something that I sort of obsess a fair amount. Another thing that's kind of interesting and sort of personal, the whole breed thing, I don't know about you, but sort of these breeds, I love, these breeds, I'm agnostic, and these breeds make me a little bit crazy. And most of my training life, I was, as most people, most trainers are sort of anti Chow, you know, sort of Chows and their ilk were sort of like, oh man, these are just not trainers dogs. They're hard headed, or, you know, 100 different adjectives. And then I got one, you know, by just, you know, just this weird, perfect storm of events. I ended up with a chow in 2000 Buffy, yeah, who just, you know, just it seared into my mind, and I went from being, you know, anti Chow, to now I am Chow crazy. I love them in my spare time, I volunteer to help them. I give my income to, so you know, to chow charities. Funny thing how you can do 180 degree turn. And it makes me sort of think, never say, never you know, when you think they are never gonna like or dislike X, you can really change your mind about stuff, you know. And the other thing is that you know people out there who've, who've got, who certain breeds make them crazier they love them, to not be judgmental about that, you know, the heart wants what it wants, you know, and it's just our great privilege that there are so many flavors of dog out there that, you know, we can have almost anything under the sun,
Chrissy 19:17
right, right? Definitely, yeah, for me, working with so many different kinds of breeds and mutts and whatever I learned to appreciate each breed's different characteristics. A lot of people ask me, Well, what's your favorite breed to work with? And it sounds like a political cop out, but I'm like, truly, like, I enjoy these aspects of these different breeds, you know, from German shepherds to cattle dogs to mutts to Bulldogs, like they all have their funny little quirks that I just love. So, yeah, I think a huge part is being open minded and just continuously being open minded and curious, yeah,
Jean 19:56
appreciating that they're individuals, and appreciating the quirks and. The differences and then how that all happened. It's so fascinating. We're very lucky to have in our lives so many dogs. Yeah,
Chrissy 20:10
yeah, definitely. And so with these personal changes, I'm I'm guessing the impact that they've had on you, does it? Has it changed how you approach working with dogs or teaching other trainers to work with dogs?
Jean 20:24
Yeah, I think, I think I'm less judgmental than I was when I was younger. Yes, I think one of the things that makes dog trainer dog trainers crazy is people getting the wrong dog for their family. And I know we're going to be talking about working dogs and how sometimes people will run into trouble with them, and I understand, I simultaneously empathize with trainers having to solve the problem of people getting a dog that might be too much for them, or not the fit, or not exactly what they hoped. Simultaneously feeling for the trainers, and then also for the families who were, you know, if you think about it, kind of misled by the poor information out there, arming people so that they can be smart shoppers and get the right dog for them. They're kind of let down by everything from breed standard, you know, mumbo jumbo, the sort of obfuscating language in there. And then often, they'll find their way to, you know, a trainer who's not competent, or who makes things worse, or who is harsh with the dog. And by the time they find their way to the good trainer, the client is worn out, and all that is just it, just, I wish it were better. And, you know, we're all fighting and working to make things better, but it's very slow haul.
Chrissy 21:42
Yeah, and I think a huge part of the human counseling part is just the supported awareness for the human, like, support them where they are at and help guide them to, like, a middle ground where the dog is happy and the human is happy. And it's just, it's really about that supported awareness and expectations and just talking through a
Jean 22:05
lot of that, right? It's very much like mediation, right, right?
Chrissy 22:10
So, as we've been talking about, you've been involved in many aspects of working with dogs and humans, and so let's talk about the dog sports. How has the training and relational aspect evolved over the years. As you have seen it,
Jean 22:23
I don't currently do dog sports, but I did. I used to be dog sport obsessed, so in the late 80s and early 90s, I did obedience, tracking, fly ball. I did those seriously. And then I dabbled a little bit in agility. You know, like many people do, sort of just for fun, I dabbled a tiny bit in air sending sort of search and rescue style, scent work. And then it came from me. It personally. It became much like I was climbing the same mountain over and over again. You know, perfecting, you know, these exercises and trying to win and get scores and trophies and plaques and and eventually it became time to migrate entirely to helping pet dogs. Now, one thing that I think it was helpful doing sports was it does, it teaches you to train to a standard. You get a really good grasp of how to, you know, get good stimulus control. And then the other thing is, because you're in that, you sort of see that the dogs who I was primarily working, I mean, I did a number of breeds and title titles, but my two dogs that were my own dogs were two Border Collies who are drivey, drivey Crazy, crazy work, work, work type breeds. And they were, you know, very, very sort of happy, relaxed, you know, it's because they were doing these tasks, and because I put like, 30 minutes of Frisbee on them in the morning and so on, and I got a pretty good appreciation. And then later on, with the pet dog work of how important it is for these dogs to burn energy and to burn the work juice that they have. And so that got, got seared into me pretty early on.
Chrissy 24:03
Yeah, yeah. And I just want to clarify for people, and that doesn't mean necessarily, running your dog for 30 minutes. That involves, like, the brain stuff too, like, you're, you're exercising them, but it's, it's, they're using their brain. They're not just running for 30 minutes, right?
Jean 24:21
Yeah, yeah, you do want, you want to, you know, in the exercise and enrichment, which I know we're going to get into a big way, you need to align it with the function of that breed. So if you're going to get a working breed, if you're going to get yourself a Malinois, that dog really wants to do tug, you know, it's, you know, we installed that in them. And so to then say, well, you know, tug, we can't do tug, you know. Or, you know, Border Collies, if you don't have animals to herd, you want to do something like fetch, something that plays into what they were bred to do. And so it really. We, you know, every now and then, I know, if you remember, a few years ago there was some click bait stuff we're saying, you know, we, you know, fetch is bad for dogs, you know, it makes them this. It makes them that, without any supporting evidence, they just, somebody just sort of came up with that. And of course, it was nutty, and of course it's been sort of discredited. But every now and then, stuff like that bubbles up, and it makes me crazy, because it not only demonstrates sort of a poor understanding of how behavior works, sort of in the hydraulic sense of it, it also sets up some of these dogs, if people buy into that for a lifetime of misery or being medicated or being labeled, as, you know, somehow neurotic or hyper aroused. And it's all just a collision between what the dog is bred to do and not giving them any outlet for that. We really want to think in terms of outlet for what the dog's programming is telling them to do. So it's really important that we don't conflate things like happy excitement and wanting to play tug or wanting to play fetch and doing that with imprecise, sort of nutty, you know, stress related terms, like over arousal or so on. It's one thing for a dog to be anxious, afraid or worried, and it's quite another for dog to be happily anticipating something or excited or having a good time. And I think somehow along the way, there are certain trainers, for whatever reason, put these things to say, well, it's all one thing. No, it's not. It really is not. So I think it's really important that people are going to get these kinds of dogs that, like you say, they exercise the minds as well as the bodies of these dogs in ways that are breed appropriate,
Speaker 1 26:40
right? Right, exactly. And so on that note.
Chrissy 26:45
So let's get into the specialty of training and teaching. Teaching others how to train pet dogs is what your specialty is. And so, more specifically, many people bring working dogs, high energy dogs, or sports dogs into their home as pets, and then suddenly they're dealing with, you know, quote, unquote, behavior problems. And so I know you've worked a lot of these cases, and so have I as well. But can you talk about how you approach this type of situation without using like, aversive types of training or teaching, and what have you found to be a common issue in these types of cases? That's a
Jean 27:21
great question. One of the things that can really help, and I'm sure this is something that you do every day, is to buy some empathy for the dog. Sometimes these owners are being driven crazy because there's things like activity level stuff, there's some hurting stuff. Maybe the dog is nipping at things. Dog is obsessed with objects or what have you. And the people just, you know, think the dog is nutty or something. And it can help to sort of build empathy, to really explain to these people that we humans bred this dog to be this way. So we kind of saddled them with their genetics, and then we are now pronouncing that we do not like it. So in other we bred them to be like this, and then we say we don't want them to be like this. It's kind of a dirty trick to do that to a dog. And sometimes, if we can help the owner empathize a little bit, they'll then buy into some of the stuff that we're going to want them to do. And some of it might be, you know, energy or time intensive for the owner. They've got to do this stuff, otherwise the dog will be a bit bit crazy. So some of the problems, like I said, you know, activity level stuff, so the dog is is more busy than they would like. Herding dogs might be bit nippy. Some of the working breeds who were bred to defend people or property, they may be difficult to socialize so and the breed standard may have been some amorphous language, but then they end up with a dog who doesn't like strangers, doesn't like the neighbor is, you know, barking and stuff out the window, etc. And then, of course, with some of the more sensitive breeds, you can get all the gamut of fear type problems. So the dog might have compulsive disorders, you might be anxious, you might be sound sensitive, all these sorts of things. And that can be very tough to address, but it does crop up in some of these more finely tuned breeds.
Chrissy 29:03
So when you say sensitive breeds, do you want to clarify kind of what breeds tend to
Jean 29:07
having? Herding dogs? Yeah, you know, I meant there are certainly other, plenty of other dogs that might be sensitive herding dogs. My guess is that they were bred. You know, if you think about something like a Border Collie, they're bred to be in mid predatory stock, you know, quarter of a mile away. And in traditional herding, the shepherd can flatten them with a harsh voice. In mid predatory stock a quarter of a mile away, you need a pretty sensitive dog to be able to sort of do that, you know, be able to kind of crush them with that aversive. Not saying that is good to use aversives, but it's something that is done. If you go to herding dog trials, that's what you're going to see a lot of. And so they are sensitive. They're also, you know, sort of sensitive to movement. They're easily made afraid. You know. And so what you end up with is they develop fears. And some of them might be sound sensitive, I think some of the working dogs too. So not all of them, but stuff like, you know, giant Schnauzers, some of the livestock guarding dogs, those difficult to socialize dogs. They can be a little bit we in the very old days, we used to call them sharp. So these, you know, sort of, very, very they notice small changes in the environment. They notice things, and they react to things. They were bred to do that, you know, they're not lumpy, you know, they're not, sort of, you know, you know, cumberspaniel lying on the rug, not moving when the, you know, when the person comes in. So they, you know. So that can be an issue, because not everybody likes living with that, even though it looks good on paper to have a dog who's going to defend you and is going to be sensitive and easy to train. And they are, they're they're fun to train, they're easy to motivate. But you know, in pet dog homes sometimes, you know, we've got to help people to keep them stimulated.
Chrissy 31:00
Yeah, and I have found with a lot of the German shepherds or cattle dogs or those kind of dogs, they're super sensitive, and it's almost like the human has to be aware of that sensitivity. And that's what I appreciate about your training approach, is baby steps, step by step, and if you do it that way, you can see how sensitive they are. And those kind of dogs need, they don't need a heavy hand. They need a like a more supportive, understanding person to help them work through each of those steps and levels to increase their threshold to these sensitivities.
Jean 31:40
Yes, very much. It's, it always makes my eyes bug out when I see people put forward the idea that, you know, these dogs need a heavier hand. Wow, I would, I would say I would go the other way that you know they're, they're so easily crushed that you want to be especially careful to not make them fearful. You know, if they have an activity level problem or a manners problem or what have you sort of we call nuisance behaviors. To use fear and pain on these dogs, you are very often trading a nuisance behavior for fear, which is the hardest thing to solve and also is ruinous in terms of quality of life for that dog. Can you imagine being afraid of, you know, who you're living with? It's just, you know, it just boggles the mind. But, you know, you sort of see these ideas still promulgated.
Chrissy 32:33
Yeah. So I think a huge important thing that you pointed out with having working dogs or sporting dogs as pets is they need outlets to, like you said, engage their mind and body, you know, so that these other quote, unquote, bad behaviors, we can prevent them as much as we can.
Jean 32:53
We absolutely can. I I've seen it again and again and again. If they have outlets, and if their life is structured, this is the time when we go crazy and we play fetch games. This is the time when we do this. This is the time we do that they will sort of, you know, quote, unquote, turn off at the times when things are not going on. If their lives are unpredictable and under stimulated, then you end up with these dogs who are sort of, you know, hard to live with. They're bouncing off the walls. Yeah,
Chrissy 33:21
yeah, definitely. So when it comes to working dogs or sporting dogs in their respective jobs, I would like to just talk about a couple points, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. But if a dog isn't, quote, unquote, performing though, the way human thinks they should, I think an important, important aspect is to be curious and ask why you know what's going on, instead of using excessive force or punishment or getting angry. And I think two important questions to ask is, are they in pain or discomfort, or are they worried or upset? And how often have you seen this?
Jean 33:59
I you know, I could not agree more Chrissy, that you know when dogs are underperforming in their sport, so we've got a dog who's bred to do something, and they're not doing it very well. We do want to become very curious. And as the research continues to come down, it's more and more suggesting that pain and gi stuff, so nausea and gi problems are both underdiagnosed and that they're implicated in behavior problems. There are numerous studies, you know, and sometimes it's just a single case, but sometimes it's more systematic, where if the GI problem is addressed and solved, suddenly stuff like a fear or anxiety or even sound sensitivity improves, which just, boy, does that ever make me wonder about how often that's going on and how often it is not diagnosed. And the other thing is, you know, if the dog is afraid, so if he's upset, so he's got bigger fish to fry, so you're trying to get him to do some task, and he's afraid so. If you think about your own job performance, how well you'd be working if you were afraid, if there was something outside your house that somebody's threatening to come in your house with a gun or something that's making you genuinely afraid, you're not going to be wanting to type on your computer. I mean, just you've got bigger fish to fry. And so the idea that dogs who might be anxious or afraid or worried about something that somehow we're going to fix that using force pain and fear. Could there be anything more sad than thinking we're going to fix fear by coming down on somebody? It's just it's Orwellian, what we do to dogs.
Chrissy 35:37
It's shocking to me how many cases I've had where I mean malamutes or Huskies, or any working breed or just other pet dogs in general, general, like they'll be having resource guarding issue, or they'll be having some sort of anxiety or noise phobia. And I the first thing I do is I look for any medical stuff. I look at their posture, I look at their gait. I ask about their poop, what their poop looks like, what their eating habits are, if they're roached, you know, if their back is roached, if they have any troubles eating, anything like that. Because, like you said, tooth issues can cause noise phobias. I dental pain, where we've addressed that, and suddenly the behavior goes away. We haven't even done any training,
Jean 36:27
right? It used to be that, you know, sort of as a last resort, we do a vet referral. More and more It's becoming, you know, if something's not really obvious and simple, especially if we've got fear, anxiety, something going on, we want to do a very thorough vet check, not just like, yeah, no, he's been to the vet and he had them, you know, a cursory wellness exam. We want to dig. You want to dig for stuff like dental pain. That's why, because I've become, like, obsessed with tooth brushing in dogs, and getting dogs to enjoy toothbrushing, because not only how it can extend their lives and their quality of life and cardiac problems, all that stuff. But that, you know, can you imagine living with dental pain every day of your life, you know, if you had, like, you know, serious periodontal disease? So, yeah, I think more and more we're getting, you know, dogs to get good, thorough vet checks for everything from gi to orthopedics to dental earlier on. The other thing is that sometimes I think when dogs are itchy, they've got skin stuff or allergy stuff going on. It's just this is kind of a miserable way to be. And think of how irritable you would be if, you know, you had allergies terribly flaring up or a
Chrissy 37:33
toothache, yeah? And they're very good at hiding this kind of stuff. Yeah,
Jean 37:38
they're more stoic than we are. They've got programming to not, you know, show weakness,
Chrissy 37:44
right, right? So teaching dogs and then having relationships with dogs without using, you know, pain, fear or punishment or intimidation just helps make us be better dog guardians and just takes our relationship to the next level, and it requires us as humans to increase our level of awareness, empathy and critical thinking skills, which, like I said, makes the relationship just better. So what are your thoughts on this? And have you seen this change over the years?
Jean 38:13
Yeah, I do think that things are getting better. They're better than they used to be, used to be, way back, but using positive reinforcement to train was kind of a fringe thing. Now it's not only sort of more mainstream, but plenty of smart consumers out there are actively seeking it. Most of the trainers I know are there full and they're, you know, they we need more good trainers. Has a shortage of good, competent positive reinforcement trainer. So I think over time, we'll continue to sort of, you know, be the principal force in the market, especially if we can get the job done, you know. So it's really important that competence is there, so things are getting better. The curious question is, sort of the passion, so the people who are clinging on to using aversives. So there are people out there, even in sort of 2025 when the information is just saturated out there, both in the pure scientific research and in applied settings, where 1000s of us are getting our jobs done every day on all case types without using aversives. What is making the people who are clinging to the use of aversives? It's curious phenomenon. What's making them do that, what makes them want to use aversives when they don't have to? So the time for education is passed. I mean, the information is out there. And so now, I think what we needed this is now a job for psychologists, for sociologists, for people who look into this kind of thing, to unpack what's going on with these people, it's really interesting how feverishly they defend what they're doing and, you know, and hang out in their own echo chambers about it, and seem sort of to not be at all sort of, you know, they're not at all curious about, whoa, there's all these people out there getting the job done without. Aversives, but I'm going to use aversives. What's going on there psychologically?
Chrissy 40:03
Yeah, I think that's such an important question, because I know in my own journey, I had to just growing up, you know, in a childhood that was very aversive, that's all I knew. And so I had to look at my own level of awareness and think there has to be a better way to to to interact with another human or dog, and so I had to step up my level and of awareness, and I had to educate myself, and I had to go through my own process of of learning how to relate in a different way. So I, in
Jean 40:37
your case, you kind of broke the cycle, right? Yeah,
Chrissy 40:40
right. So I think that's exactly what you're talking about. Is people having to go through their own, you know, change their level of awareness.
Jean 40:48
Yeah, yeah. It's, you know, and I'm not sure, I'm not sure how to do it. I sort of feel like, you know, the information about how to not use aversives is out there, but they're that they're not motivated to do so, or they think it can't be done, or they prefer to do it, you know, I just it's over my pay grade. Like, why are they doing it
Speaker 1 41:08
right? Right?
Chrissy 41:10
So you've been in the industry for so long and have done so much. Do you feel like you have been misunderstood by anything you have said or done? Or is that, is there anything that you would like to clarify?
Jean 41:21
That's a good question. I think sometimes I think that maybe because I've in my life, I have written forcefully about all caps, that maybe people think maybe I'm more sure of everything that I then, then it then I really am. There are for sure things, I am sure, but I'm pretty sure that you don't need to use a verses in training. I, you know, something I've seen. I think I've got pretty good idea how to approach certain behavior issues. You know, standard operating procedures. Here's, you know, well, vetted ways to fix this or that, but there's plenty. I wish I knew you like a for instance, I know about you, Chris, but don't you want to know what we should be feeding? I've been in dogs a long time, and you know, we've, I've been through so many times, so now we have the answer. This is what we should feed. Way back, if you were a sports dog parent, you were abusive. If you weren't feeding Eukanuba, okay, that you had to feed, they had, that was the food you had to feed. Then fast forward a little bit. And then we all, we all had to feed raw everybody had to feed Rae. And if you didn't, you're, it's terrible. Then fast forward a little bit more than it's okay. You just have to feed grain free. And then, okay. Then it was like, No, you have to avoid legumes. Okay. Then it was now, lately, it's like, we have to feed fresh food. And I would give anything to know what I should be feeding. So I, you know, I feverishly follow all this stuff. And I, you know, try to pay attention to some of the what looks like, you know, evidence based blogs and stuff. But oh, my God, it's dizzying. I wish I knew what to feed my dog.
Chrissy 42:50
I know it's like, the best thing you can do is just like, follow the latest science and then be like, okay, because science changes,
Jean 42:58
right? That's right, yeah, we did. They do learn. And so we just, you know, you know. And sometimes it's not even based on some of this is based on fashion, you know. And, and I'm like, You, I just follow along and, you know, we do the best with the information that we
Speaker 1 43:11
have. Yeah.
Chrissy 43:14
So do you have any special cases or stories that you would like to share that you think our audience would find interesting or interesting.
Jean 43:21
My favorite one, of course, is Buffy. My, my chow chow baby. Who was she was the suspected she was, like, escaped from a flea market, sort of, in San Francisco. So she was picked up by San Francisco Animal Care and Control as a stray. So it's a tiny puppy they estimated, like five or six weeks ago, like very small puppy, but she was wandering the streets of San Francisco, and they picked her up, and they brought her to San Francisco animal care control. They didn't do underage, so they shipped her over to the SPCA. They did all that, you know, because, just for a bunch of reasons that are not worth going into, you know, for legal reasons, they do all these little behavior evaluations, these temperament tests on them. She flunked them all the tests, so they kicked her to behavior. And it was like, okay, she's a foster. Somebody has to foster this puppy. And I was like, Chow I don't want a chow puppy. You know, I'm not, you know, I was sort of like the last, you know, resort, and nobody else wanted her. She said, Okay, I'll take it for two weeks. I've phoned my husband and said, you know, and we had recently, you know, a few months early, we had lost, like, my heart dog, and I was like, destroyed. And I, you know, I phoned him and said, you know, you know, can we take this Chow puppy in as a foster? And he said, You sure? You know, you're ready for this thing. And I said, Yeah. And I said, are you gonna get all bonded? I thought, ciao, I'm gonna bond to this thing anyway. So I failed spectacular became like after, you know, fixed all the little behavior problems and trained up, and she was ready to be adopted. So I was like, personally doing home visits to all the prospective homes. And it was like, Goldilocks and PBS, like this one, they don't have the air conditioning is not the right setting. And this one's not this and this one, and it finally occurred to me, this dog's not going i. Anywhere, you know. So I ended up with the chow and it was like the best thing that ever happened to me, but, but it's something that completely came out of left field. You just You never know what you're gonna fall in love with.
Chrissy 45:13
Yeah, and Buffy, it was on going through all the modules she's on, like every page of
Jean 45:20
the most photographed dog in the history of mankind, and I became, like, just the most ridiculous, like, Chow fanatic, just to this day.
Chrissy 45:28
Oh, I love it. So what are you most passionate about right now? In the dog training world,
Jean 45:33
I would say keeping competent trainers from burning out. There's a shortage of people who are both non aversive and competent. So these are two things that are modular. You can be non aversive but have no idea what you're doing, and you can be, actually, you know, pretty good trainer, but you're, you know, you're scaring the crap out of dogs. So the the trainers who have both sort of, you know, the golden things, they they can train without aversives, and they're competent, there's a shortage, and so keeping them in the field, we can't afford to lose these people to workload or compassion fatigue. And so it's so important that trainers take good care of themselves, that they have fun, that they, you know, stay in the game.
Speaker 1 46:19
Yeah, I agree. That's important right now.
Jean 46:22
It's hard right now. It is. It is. There's just not enough good trainers to go around.
Chrissy 46:26
So do you have anything else you would like to share with our audience? Since we are hearing the end,
Jean 46:31
I just gonna plug chat. I mean, they might be tired of me saying but I plug Chows one more time. Like, if you're not sure what dog to get and go, go to the shelter, adopt the shower, the chow mix, you won't regret
Chrissy 46:43
it okay. And then if people want to reach you, to connect with you, or talk to you about anything, what's the best way that they can do that?
Jean 46:51
The Academy site is the Academy for Academy for dog trainers.com. We're also on Facebook and Instagram. You can find us and just reach out with any questions that they have. We've got a couple of short courses, we've got a fun course, and we've got, of course, our big professional program. Okay,
Chrissy 47:08
perfect. Well, thank you so much for being on and thanks to Brian for supporting you.
Jean 47:15
Thank you for everything that you do, Chrissy and make sure you take good care of yourself, because you're one of the people we need to protect.
Chrissy 47:21
I hope you enjoyed this episode, and I hope you are enjoying the special The Dogs of our lives, summer working dog series. I'd be so grateful if you could share with other dog and animal lovers so I can continue to spread the good word about kind, ethical dog guardianship on many different levels. You.
