Integrating Multi-Dog Households with Dr. Patricia McConnellWhether you’re fostering or adopting, bringing another dog into your home is an exciting time! Dr. Patricia McConnell is back to talk with Emily and Libby about integrating multi-dog households. They discuss the common myths we face when bringing a second (or third or fourth) dog home, why that sweet rescue pup who was described as “good with other dogs” in the shelter is now growling at your resident dog, best practices for introducing new dogs to one another, and some skills to cultivate as a multi-dog guardian.
To learn more about Dr. Patricia McConnell, visit her website: https://www.patriciamcconnell.com/about-patricia/ ASPCA webinar: https://www.aspcapro.org/webinar/20140129/multi-dog-households#video-player Parallel walking: https://youtu.be/sZVJyE-KLS0 Trauma, Decompression, and Going Slow with Patricia McConnell, PhD, CAAB Management with Mary Angilly CTC, CPDT-KA |
Episode Transcript
Libby 0:01
Welcome to pod to the rescue a podcast from summit dog rescue in Boulder, Colorado.
Emily 0:06
I'm Emily.
Libby 0:07
And I'm Libby.
Emily 0:08
We're both Professional Dog Trainers with multiple certifications in dog training and behavior. Together, we have more than two decades of experience in dog rescue.
Libby 0:18
We want to share everything we've learned along the way with other folks involved in dog rescue, sheltering, fostering and adoption. And anyone who just loves dogs.
Emily 0:27
Rescuing the dog is just the first step.
Libby 0:30
We're here to help with everything that comes next.
Hello, listeners, and welcome back. Today, we are so thrilled to bring you another interview with Dr. Patricia McConnell. We first interviewed her around this time last year. And if you haven't heard that one yet, definitely go back and listen, because we referenced that episode several times. That was about trauma, decompression and going slow when you're bringing a new rescue dog into your life.
Emily 1:00
And I feel like this conversation is kind of the part two of you know if last year, we were talking about going slow as far as all the human components. This year, we're talking with her more about going slow. As far as your dog introductions in the household goes.
Libby 1:20
Yeah, it's a super important conversation, you know, in rescue success with the resident dog can make or break a dog's placement. So it's important to understand how to set everyone up for success. Read queues, put management in place, you know, just do a little extra on the front end, to give everybody the biggest chance of succeeding,
Emily 1:43
we have placed more than 1000 Dogs since the beginning of our rescue. So we've seen pretty much every possible scenario of how dog meets can go. And I'd say almost once a week, we get emails of people wanting to surrender their dogs to us because of intra household dog aggression. So this is just such a big and important topic.
Libby 2:05
Absolutely. And you know, we're obviously just scratching the surface and an hour long conversation. But, you know, thinking of dog dog relationships, it's kind of like a marriage, it takes a little bit of work to keep things successful. And yeah, sometimes it's just not a good fit, but we can do the things that we know will help everyone succeed.
Emily 2:29
This was a great conversation I also loved when she spoke about the four to 10 day window where people are like, Oh, I think I made a mistake. And I think she needs to come up with a new rules. And she was the one who came up with the amazing rule of threes, three days, three weeks and three months for your dog to settle in. I do think we've seen very often that four to 10 day window, so people should know they're not alone. And if you hit bumps in the road, just take a deep breath and maybe reach out for some help.
Libby 3:03
Definitely a little support a little management that can go a long way in making a successful Dog Dog integration happen. So in this episode, we referenced several things. All of those are in the show notes. There's an awesome webinar that Dr. McConnell did with ASPCA. And also, definitely, we talked about management a lot. So check out our episode on management with Mary. Anjali, we'll put that link in the show notes. And we have a really fabulous video showing this parallel block that Dr. McConnell references and we'll put that in the show notes as well.
Emily 3:40
Great, and we're just so grateful to Dr. McConnell for coming back on and Libby is going to read you her bio if you don't know who she is.
Libby 3:50
Patricia McConnell needs no introduction for a lot of our listeners. But she has some amazing credentials and a fabulous career just a titan in the dog training world. So Patricia McConnell, PhD is a zoologist and certified applied animal behaviorist emeritus and has made a lifelong commitment to improving the relationship between people and animals. She is known worldwide as an expert on canine and feline behavior and dog training. And for her engaging and knowledgeable dog training books, DVDs and seminars. Patricia has seen clients for serious behavioral problems since 1988, and taught for 25 years at the University of Wisconsin Madison.
Emily 4:33
Amazing. Well, without further ado, here is our conversation with Patricia McConnell.
Libby 4:44
Hello, Dr. Patricia McConnell, welcome back to pod to the rescue.
Patricia 4:48
Hey, it's really fun to be here. Thank you for asking me.
Libby 4:51
We're so grateful that you took the time once again. So before we dive into the how of introducing new dogs and managing a multi dog house Hold, which we just thought that you are the perfect person to talk to about this. Often in rescue, we have people who would be willing to take Foster's, but they're a little worried about bringing in a new dog in their home, which already has one or two dogs who are. So can we discuss why it's important to learn and prepare before bringing home a second or third or fourth dog? You know, I think sometimes we have this general belief that dogs are dogs, they're social, they'll figure it out. They'll work it out. Just dogs? Yeah. Can you speak to this a little bit?
Patricia 5:43
Yeah, yeah. You know, um, oh, how long? Do we have like an hour for this? Work with that?
Libby 5:52
If that's as far as we get? That's awesome.
Patricia 5:54
I thought that would probably be okay. Because because there's so much and I mean, it's a great question that you asked, and there's so much in there. Look, I guess the first thing I want to say is that one of the things that I think really often helps people to keep in mind is that when you decide to get a to bring a new dog into your house, whatever the circumstances, you decided it right, you didn't like, have it happen to you, you know, UPS didn't show up and say, Here's your dog, oh, what you'd murder it, you know, you've thought it through, you know what's happening, you're expecting it. The dogs know nothing, right? They know nothing. So all of a sudden, somebody puts him in a car, all of a sudden, they go to a strange place, all of a sudden, there's totally dogs there all of a sudden, so. So we need you always need to think when you're bringing in a new dog in that. They're sort of in shock, you know, even the really rambunctious ones, often those are those, you know, those dogs that look like I'm fine, I find, I had a ton of clients who would say to me, Oh, he's just so overly friendly, you know, the dog would come into my office and jump on the table and start chewing up the computer and look my face all over and call down my mouth and, you know, bounce off the walls. And they were like, Oh, he's just so exuberant. And I was, I would say he's desperate. You know, he's actually desperate, you know, this isn't happiness. This is like panic, or forma. So the first thing to keep in mind is that God knows nothing. And so in order for the best chance of success, you know, the more you can think through sort of the I will, first of all, why, why are you doing it? I mean, you know, that that's the first question I would actually ask is not how, but why, why, you know, have you thought through? Why are you getting this dog, you know, fostering, I must just go with fostering because, you know, that's a situation which we know, so many needs to take his dog getting out of a shelter, wonderful, wonderful, gracious, kind, choices, somebody to take this dog. And so like, let's say, it's just, it's gonna be a foster, and you have two dogs already. So I'm one of one of the things that I think is really important is to set everything up for success as best as you can. And now I'm sort of sliding into how and I think I'm getting off your question a little bit. But I guess so let me get back to your question before we get into how because one of the other things to think about is that, you know, they're just dogs. Well, yeah, they are, they're, that's what they are. They're dogs, but they're individual. They're sent in individuals with, with different personalities, different experiences, different expectations, just about different everything, you know, except for their species, and maybe, or maybe not their breed. And they, you know, they, as I said before, they sort of they don't know what's going to happen to them, you know, and, and so we don't even quite know how they're going to behave when something completely unexpected happens.
Libby 9:19
So Dr. McConnell, just like humans have different personalities and different needs and desires. Dogs are the same, right?
Patricia 9:29
Yeah, right there. So especially if they're all one breed, and especially for Golden Retrievers. Exactly, you know, are out of Disney cartoons. So yeah, I mean, of course, they're not you know, they're sentient individuals with different experiences, different backgrounds, different breeding different everything. And so, you know, one of the things you need to think about when you're bringing a new dog in is who are you know, who are they, you know, how is how is dog one resident dog Have one, how do they feel about all other dogs? Is it different in the house than it is at the dog park or on a walk or on a walk with a friend or playing with my friends capital dog in another yard? You know, so, so the personality of the dog, the context of dog dog interactions, so many people will tell me oh, I've heard this 1000s Literally 1000s This dog just loves everybody. You know, except he loves everybody being like, like, other dogs outside, off leash in a park, but not in the living room. You know, I'm just an example. Actually, I, I have two work colleagues right now skip and Maggie. And I was looking for after Willie died, I was looking for another male to bring it and it was really important to me that Maggie adore this dog. And she met two dogs who when we had for three weeks, she was like, nope, nope, nope. But then then we got skip. And they met. out as is offered appropriate, they met outside. I was comfortable doing it both off leash based on what I knew. fenced area, perfectly safe area, Maggie had been a lot. She's very comfortable there but not on territory. And they met and they did this little sort of tentative little flirty thing. And then they started playing and running and running and running and running just like just like negative when she met Willie. So I was like, Oh, this is so good. But then I brought him home. And I knew Maggie perfectly well would be terrified of him in the house is a great big, huge male. And there aren't a lot of that many other dogs who come into the house. Anyway, so I kept them separate for weeks. I mean, I managed them really carefully. They're best friends, they adore each other. But because I knew Maggie because I knew her personality. And because I knew his as well as I could at that point, you know, I knew, you know, that informed how I would introduce them. And so the more you can know about dogs personalities, obviously you can't always you know, because the faster it comes from one context goes to another but the more you can know, the better. And if you don't know, my generic advice to just about everything is just be really cautious. Be really slow, be really careful. It's so hard to fix a mess. You know, you know, one mess can take you a year to fix or if ever and just prevention is worse is, you know better than the cure, basically.
Libby 12:48
Yeah. Yeah. So we're kind of jumping ahead a little bit in are the questions that we plan to ask. But I'm really interested in the concept of dogs behaving differently toward other dogs in different contexts. And we see that so much in rescue and sheltering you know, were in the shelter the dogs, fine loves other dogs, but we, you know, get them into a foster home, and they're totally different. Can you explain that a little bit? And oh, what's going on there?
Patricia 13:24
And I love that you bring that up. Because it's so important. You know, when I was seeing clients, I cannot tell you how many clients I saw who said who were really upset. They were either angry, or they were scared because the dog was absolutely for sure how strained or the dog was great with other dogs had to grow up. Right, the dog was x and then he came home with a noose. Why? And let let me let me just start talking about that specifically with a couple of examples of other species. So I wrote a Facebook post not too long ago, about about the fact that the person who shares my sheep said I could prevent my sheep from being aggressive each other after they were sure because they would like you know, like National Geographic like they would they would back up and slam into each other really hard. And there was one year where somebody was really gonna get hurt. I mean, it was really serious. So I wrote this post and talked about how my share said you could use perfume once they're shorn some of their standards gone you could use perfume we spray all of them with the same scent and it decreases the aggression so I did that it did. It did decrease the aggression, at least subjectively seem to made the bird smell like a whorehouse which was not that I've ever been in one year I got all this, this feedback and some of it was really pointed and that's a nice way of saying it. Looks like you don't know what you're talking about. I've had sheep for 40 years, and I've had 1000s of them. We have flocks of 500 here and 2000 there. I've never seen anything like that. So we're crazy. You're making that up? And it's like, I have 12 sheep. Right? And there's no RAM. And the people who are writing me have flocks of 500. Right? So, of course, they behave differently, you know, and but I should, in their defense, I should have said, you know, this very well might be context specific. But just so that's just one species, but the other example, it's just us, it's just us. are you behaving exactly like you do when you're with your girlfriends at their birthday party? Right now? Why not? You know, we all have differently in different contexts. We all do. And so of course, dogs act differently in different contexts. And so the big ones that I see are, and I'm sure you do, too, I'm curious if you have the same experiences. One is house training. It's just relentless. It's so I always tell people, if I've heard like, this dog is house trained, I'll say that dog has house trade in that house. So it's not house trade in this house. Um, you just don't know what's going to generalize. You know, you have no idea what's going to generalize. So house training is a big thing that doesn't necessarily generalize. The other. The other issue is, is a dog's responses either to unfamiliar people or unfamiliar dogs. So dogs who are by themselves can often in my experience, be more protective, defensive reactive. I'm not just going back to Maggie Maggie is a perfect example. Maggie was nothing like my Willie, who was that super reactive for a couple of years dog dog, aggressive dog. Maggie was never that bad. So I never worked as hard at it. So we'd be out walking somewhere, you know, she's on a leash, and another dog starts to walk by Maggie would just be like.
So that's all it was. But when I got skip it, she was like that with Willie. Right? I got skip. And skip is like, Hey, everybody, I'm happy to meet all of you. And Maggie. Like, I never I was never uncomfortable with other dogs. What are you talking about? Trisha? Like it skipped his walking to two feet ahead of me. I'm good. I'm fine. You know, that's just one tiny context, right? That's just one tiny context. So I've seen dogs who were nervous about unfamiliar people, when they were living alone in a house rather than a foster family. I've seen. And then the third category is, dogs within the household. You know, you get you get a situation where maybe the Foster has seven dogs, or they're coming from a shelter where there's, there's, you know, candle after candle after candle. And the dog doesn't maybe spend a lot of time on the dogs, but it's surrounded by other dogs. It's not alone. And then you send it to a place where there's where there's one other dog, not seven, just one. And they behave completely differently. So I'm going on too long about this is so important. It's just so important for people to understand that nobody can predict. Nobody can predict how a dog is going to behave in a context. It's never been in,
Emily 18:42
right? It's so much like us, if you think about it, like I'm generally a friendly person, but there are certain contexts where I would not be friendly, or, you know, if I was going to date, I would want to carefully choose the person I would date. I wouldn't just say we're both humans. move in with me, you know. So yeah, so we're Americans, you know, exactly we retrievers, right.
Patricia 19:10
Yeah. Great point.
Emily 19:11
Yeah.
Libby 19:12
So we, before we hit record, we mentioned your fabulous webinar that you gave for the ASPCA in 2014. And it answers a lot of these questions in or the next couple of questions I'm going to ask in depth. So we'll link that for our listeners in the show notes. But I do have a question that I want to get to, even if we don't have time to go really in depth with it. Okay. Given that we have so many variables and different contexts for dog dog interactions. Are there any best practices that we can land on when it comes to introducing dogs who we hope will live together?
Patricia 19:55
Oh, absolutely. You know, absolutely. And this is, the great thing about this. This is not really rocket science, you know, it's, it's the hardest part, I think, is learning to read a dog really well. So you know, what are the best practices is to be able to read dogs and to know when a dog goes still and stiff and closes its mouth, something intense is going on, and you need to pay attention, right? So that that's probably the part that takes the most skill. But the rest of it is discipline and patience, which granted discipline patience. Alright, you know, I'm certainly not my, you know, my best skill either assigned either. No, not you, Libby, I'm very sympathetic example, I actually just had friends introduced a new cat into their household, and I told them exactly how to do it, you know, do not just bring the new cat and put it in the house, they had all kinds of ways to sort of manage it carefully. Day two, they just put the new cat in the house. Looks like worked out great, actually. But they were very, very lucky that it did. So. Um, so best practice is, I would say, and again, I know, you don't want to be too specific. The best practice is, in general, slow going, and little pressure. So what does that mean? So that means so for example, how do you you know, what's the first date look like? You know, that's, that's a really important question. And I know, I think I talked about that a lot in the cemetery. That was a long time ago. What was that? But so that so for me, this practice is, for a lot of people, it's it's two dogs on a leash very far apart, right? They're maybe 1520 feet apart, and one is walking one way and the other is walking the other way. So they're walking like this. And they're walking like this. And then you switch, keeping a lot of distance in between the dogs so they can smell each other's urine. That's what I want. I want them to investigate each other's urine, because that's one of the first ways they get to know each other. You know, there's some really nice dog park research about how quickly dogs pee as soon as they get into the gate. And we don't know exactly why. But the best hypothesis is that they are providing information, you know, this is my Facebook page. There you are. I'm a female and I just ate some liver and, uh, you know, who knows what they're getting? Right. But they're getting something and it's important and it's so it's low stress. So the other dogs 15 feet away, dog, you know, dogs, let's just say it's, you know, I don't know Sam and Dixie, you know, so Dixie gets to smell Sam's your um, Sam gets to smell Dixie. A hard part then is everything else that happens next. Depends on what happens then. And that's where reading dogs is really important. And having somebody who's done this a lot if you possibly can is really important. So if everything looks if the dogs look loose bodied, open mouth, you know, wagtails really loose no stiffness, no close mouth. No glaring no staring or no looking away. You know, you also want to watch for really obsessive sniffing I think when dogs are some dogs are really nervous don't have you found that they just start just nothing like crazy. So you, you know you're looking for the absence of stiffness, you're looking for looseness you're looking for the absence and sort of some kind of like, you know, desperate compulsive kind of behavior, I'm looking for an open mouth, you're looking for maybe a play bow, you know, that would be lovely. You're looking at sort of casual looks really soft eyes. And if you get that then if you possibly can, I would let I would let dogs if possible off leash in a fenced area or somewhere where it's totally, totally safe. And that's just almost always a fenced area. If you don't know one of the dogs, right, you just don't know what's going to happen. So that's that's the beginning. You know, now what happens next, of course, depends you know, we could get into the weeds there and I don't want to go too far. But but that that uh, that example with Maggie and skip is actually good one because I skipped that first part. I felt confident I could do that. I knew Maggie so well. I knew a lot about this dog. And I was watching them like a hawk. Although of course I was like standing in a way sort of looking like that breathing. I was I was monitoring my breathing. I was being really careful to not like this big bug eyed aggressive look on my face.
And so I skipped that first step let them loose in this in this field. But I could also see Maggie was really intrigued but she was a little nervous, you know? So then I went back to that, like, okay, so skip is going to go on his crate, Maggie's gonna go in the living room, I'm gonna have gates up between all the doors so that he can never, like, surprise her or scare her, they're only going to see each other up the hill and the big fence pasture. So it takes them up the hill and the big fenced pasture and let them play up there. And then bring them down and manage the household really carefully. So again, that's just you know, what happens next, based on is based on what happened before? So
Libby 25:31
that's that. Yeah, that's so helpful. Um, and that kind of leads me to my next question, which is, if you have a successful, and I'm, maybe we should err, quote, successful initial meet and greet, because it really is hard to tell exactly what's going on. But let's, you know, a fight doesn't break out at the bare minimum. No blood.
Patricia 25:55
No, blood yeah.
Libby 25:57
So you know, all parties are comfortable moving forward. How predictive is that of long term success? In your experience?
Patricia 26:07
Yes, I'm gonna, I'm going to answer that. But I'm going to ask you that, because I think you give it what you do. You know, I think you have a lot to say about that. So my wish there was research. When he was there was research, my subjective observations are that it depends. I keep coming back to the bends. So I mean, I have certainly seen meet and greets, that seemed very smooth, you didn't see any sign of any tension. And then say, it was two dogs, you know, resident dog and a new dog. I've seen those goes really smoothly. And then three weeks later, or two months later, all of a sudden, you start to see a lot of tension between the dogs when dog starts getting really possessive of the objects in, you know, and then all of a sudden, there's fights going on. And I've seen that plenty of times, you know, but I've also seen plenty of times where dogs did really well, on the first you know, all went smoothly, everything was loose and relaxed, and everybody seemed friendly, and a memorable, no signs of distress in any way. And then people completely just throw caution to the wind and throw the dogs together. And they're done. And everything is great for the next 12 years. So so how predictive is it? I mean, if you want it to go well, right, I'm gonna guess another question is how predicted as a bad encounter?
Emily 27:41
So that's a good question.
Patricia 27:42
I have a thought about that. But I want to throw it back to you. Because I'm really you guys have a lot to say, What? What is your experience with this?
Emily 27:49
I was just thinking about that when you said that. And I think because we read it your feeling outnumbered book, probably six or seven years ago, we have had pretty good experience with if that first meet goes well, we really work with our fosters and adopters to then have that management and separation and working with individual dogs, we worked so hard to have them not just throw all caution to the wind. So I think that's why we've been pretty successful. I think it's one reason we wanted to talk about this was that, you know, every once in a while you do hit that bump in a road. So it's not like we're totally perfect, but just going from the first date being well, not assuming that the next step is like happily ever after. And taking those steps that you outlined in the book and making sure you do your training and your management and your comm work with them. And it's been pretty good for us.
Libby 28:47
I agree with that. And I would say that almost without exception, when we have problems. It is, you know, we get on the phone with the people and Okay, so explain what happened, how, you know, they got along at the meet and greet. And there is some kind of explanation about why they were doing so well together. And we thought that we you know, we just took up the baby gates because they were doing so well. And then XYZ happened. You know, like you said, you're they've rushed the process a little bit.
Patricia 29:23
Right. And discipline is not, not what our species is.
Libby 29:30
Right? It's understandable. It's understandable because, you know, we, we want to see the dogs succeeding and when things are going well, we want to keep it going well, and we think, you know, we're in a good place. And so I understand why people do it. It's just in my experience that that's usually a place where things go wrong.
Patricia 29:57
And you know, I'm really, you know, and we'll be Just like me are really biased, because who do we see? You know, people call and make an appointment to say like, I just got a new dog two months ago and everything is perfect. Great. People are out there, and they're just so helpful. It's like, I don't really have any questions, but I thought I'd drive all the way here
Libby 30:19
and spend 150 bucks to tell you, right.
Patricia 30:24
But, um, so yeah, so I mean, I probably saw more trouble, you know, than you guys did. But I totally, I just, I totally get how I love that you guys are so careful about managing things and sort of keeping general things in mind and not just, you know, throwing them together in a mosh pit. And, and I'm sure you also do a lot of really careful, thoughtful selection, right, which I'm sure you haven't talked about that, but I'll bet you do it. Which makes a huge difference. That was one of the things getting back to that back that question about what is if bad, quote, bad, problematic, let's say, first, initial, meet and greet mean. And one of the things I've learned, and I don't know how universal this is, but I've seen it with clients, I've seen it with my dogs, I saw it with Maggie with those two potentials that we brought in, is neither dog would look at each other. And I think that would clients dogs is like, so there was you know that you know who the salmon Rita whoever makes these dogs up. So Sam and Rita never growled, never went stiff, never went after each other, but never looked at each other. You know, never wouldn't look at each other. You know, there was one dog that was here, and Maggie would just never look at that dog for three weeks. That dogs not here and the dog was a perfectly friendly, there was nothing aggressive about this dog. She's still like him. And that mattered to me, you know, it might not matter to some people. So so in a way, you know, that line about? Oh, what writer wrote something about like, you know, all all have, so they're no good stories and happy families, you know, all family tragedies, you know, are different. But you know, All happy families are all the same. And so it was sort of nothing to write about. I think, I think it's a little trickier when the first meeting doesn't go smoothly, in a way. Because again, it could just be like, everybody looks fine, but nobody will look at each other. And that could resolve very nicely. You know, maybe somebody's a little nervous. Maybe somebody's uncomfortable, that's fine. Don't force them to look at each other. Like, that's fine. But if you know so, but that might turn into like, I just don't ever want to deal with this dog. And so you can get like, I'm not going to look at that dog on one hand. And on the other hand, you could you know, you can get like one dogs after another one. Right. So there's a big range in between. And that I think that's harder for people who aren't skilled to evaluate. And I think part it's actually harder for any of us to evaluate. Because I don't think it's necessarily a deal breaker, you know, Intel you've had some more time. Now, it might be that a potential foster family. I mean, they have every reason and right to say like deal breaker. I know what to do. You know, this may work out. But I don't know. And it may not I don't want to deal with this. This is hard. Bringing a new dog into your house is very disruptive and absolutely exhausting. I don't know anybody who was like, What was I thinking? Yeah, so I don't blame anybody for saying like, No, this is a deal breaker. But I don't know that it means it really would have been if they'd had another week or two. Mm hmm.
Emily 34:02
So that leads me to kind of your three days, three weeks and three months rule. How do you think that applies to the building of the relationship between the two dogs?
Patricia 34:13
The one I made up with absolutely no science behind it. You know, I talked about it all the time. It really does seem so in a very sloppy way
Emily 34:24
It does Oh, it really does. We hear it all the time. We tell people like just it's only been five days. Just you know, keep going at this pace or even slow it down. And inevitably, we have had people like balk, like one weekend be like, I don't think I can do this. And with our support, like three weeks in, they're like, Oh, it's getting better. And then three months. They're like, oh, did I ever actually say that I wanted to return the stock because it's going so great. Yeah,
Patricia 34:51
yeah. Yeah. It's I'm I'm gratified that you've had the same experience. I mean, it's just all based on observations. And the observation is that First of all, as I mentioned earlier, as it talks are in shock, right? So you know how many I mean, oh, I had so many clients who picked the dog who was quiet at the shelter. All the other dogs is barking and Roscoe was sitting in the back and that barking it's like, oh, no, Roscoe is a beagle who's after on day four, you know, so So you just don't know who a dog is. until they've been there for three days, at least for at least at least at least for three days. Because they're just, they're just stunned. You know, they're just in shock. So, so what I my experience with clients, and my own two, I will be the first to say I've had, I've actually had to call friends of mine and going like, Okay, I'm, it's happening to me, I've just written about it. And it's happening to me, what am I doing? Oh, no. So somewhere around day four, sometimes sometimes day five, you start seeing a different dog. And there's almost always some behavioral problem. Almost always, they didn't expect, they chewed on the remote control. They peed in the kitchen, when they been house trained perfectly, you know, they grow that somebody you know, they just like stuff that you just like, I did not see that coming. And it's so easy to panic. And I think that's when people need the most support. I mean, it's what I need the most important, and I've been there for my friends, more professional behavior as dogs, trainers who've all been through the same thing. So it sounds to me like the two of you. I just credit you, because it sounds like you do such a good job being there for people when they most need it.
Libby 36:45
Thank you.
Patricia 36:47
Yeah, I mean, thumbs up, because it's very hard for a lot of places to do that. I mean, it just is, you know, it's an incredible amount of time and effort. It's really hard for a lot of shelters and humane societies to do it. Some of them do. Some of them want to but can't, you know, they don't have the staff. They don't have volunteers, they don't have the expertise they want to. But anyway, if one if adopters can be told, you know, warned, there's like, there's this thing that happens somewhere around day four to 10, in which you go, or I just made a big mistake, what did I do? And that that happens to almost everybody, including Dr. Everybody. And so one, let them know it'll happen, and then give them what you do. And yay, for you credit for you give them the resources to get help, because people need help. I mean, I needed help my Professional dog training trends and needed help. We're just there for each other. So So let them know, please, and this is one of things I ran into with clients is they wouldn't they still wouldn't call, even with people as gracious and careful and thoughtful as you they still wouldn't call, you know, and then they call me at month eight. And say, I think we have to rehome this dog or do we not in the neighborhood or you know, anyway?
Emily 38:18
Well, that was one of the goals with the podcast is we have noticed that we've had to like cut back how many dogs we can take, because we're trying so hard to be supportive. And there's, you know, a balance between, you know, there's too many dogs to get the support that we give. So kudos to those people who take way more dogs than we do. And I know now that we've been doing this for a year, kind of thanks to you that there's underserved shelters and small rescues that have this podcast, and then send it to people like okay, you're introducing a dog listen to this phone with Dr. McConnell, or you're having some aggression, listen to Michael Shikashio. So it's been. So it's been part of our goal is to spread what we do to a larger audience. Yeah,
Patricia 39:01
yay, yay for you this part of why I'm doing it, too, because it's so important. And, you know, my heart just I don't know how some people do it. My heart just goes out to people who are just overwhelmed with dogs who enter the and then become overwhelmed themselves. You know, I could have there was a point when I was literally overwhelmed with clients, and I was booked three months in advance. And so I'd see somebody I needed to see them next week. And I, you know, it was it was horribly stressful because stock is going to go down in two weeks, you know, if you can't and so you just keep working harder and harder and harder on weekends and at night and it's just not sustainable. You know, I hired other people.
Emily 39:44
Yeah, yeah, but the need is great.
Patricia 39:47
But let me let me ask you a question because I think this is so important for other people in your situation and rescues and shelters who ended up foster situations. What, what do you find people listen to the most You know what way of talking to people and reaching out to people that you found most effective? Like, you can read this book, you can read this pamphlet, you can watch this video you can call us. Do you have a sense of what works best to give people more resources when they need them?
Emily 40:20
Libby, what do you think?
Libby 40:21
Well, it seems like answering texts at 9pm is usually the thing that gets people to listen to what I've been saying.
Patricia 40:33
You know,
Libby 40:33
but you know, I, I think that. Gosh, this is that's, oh, that's a tough question. Because the way you know, the way I learn is totally different from the way I think other people learn. And I think that oftentimes, when we come up on difficult situations and rescue, whether it is between resident dog and foster dog, or any behavior, wrinkle, shall we call it? You know, people just, more often than not, I feel people want to be heard and understood. And they need a little personal intercommunication. of who I know how hard this is, I know how stressful it is. And you know, what, we've, I've been there before we've seen it, here's how we deal with it. And here's what we do. And here's what we have found to be successful. And I think that that little piece of making sure that someone is heard when they're expressing a concern is really key.
Patricia 41:45
Oh, that yay for you. I mean, that's my experience with clients. That was that was so important that they had somebody to talk to who actually really listened to them and took them seriously. Because so many people don't their neighbors don't their grandmother doesn't, you know, the their uncle says, you just need to get tougher on that dog, you know, where's the collar? And why are you not dominant? Why are you not doing this? You still know what you're doing? And oh, it's a dog. And you know, and so these wonderful, wonderful people who are providing, you know, this potential phenomenal home for the second beautiful animal are just often paddling all by themselves. And so I think the more people in your situation can brainstorm about how to have them feel listened, you know, I mean, you know, maybe something is an I don't know, it's, it's work. I mean, I love that you're answering texts at nine o'clock. Bless, you,
Libby 42:43
I'm working on it, I'm working on it,
Patricia 42:45
and maybe the answer to the text is like, Oh, I hear you, I would love to talk about this tomorrow at 10. You know, or, or, you know, maybe when the dog goes back with them, or home with them. It's, we, you know, we have we have an open mic session. And we are available between 10 and 12. You know, every you know, every Monday, Wednesday, Friday or something, you know, and anytime you want to call them, please call and if for some reason you can't call them, you know, we'll schedule something else. But But I think you hit the nail on the head that feeling heard. And not alone is just, it's it's such an important part of, of people's well being in any situation. And people who really love dogs, getting a new dog getting creating a family member for the next 12 to 16 years, possibly. It's huge. It's just huge. It's absolutely huge. I mean, imagine if you had to marry somebody after it? Well, it'd be like one of those shows on TV.
Emily 43:59
Yeah.
Patricia 44:03
But, um, you know, I mean, just Yeah, yeah. It's, it's a huge thing. So yay, for you for letting people feel heard. And like, they're not alone. You know? And, yeah.
Libby 44:16
So someone who is struggling with a dog integrating a dog into their home, and, you know, they they do need this support that we're offering, and they're stressed, and they don't know if it's gonna work. How long would you advise people to give it and is there a point when, you know, we can definitively say, this isn't going to work out?
Patricia 44:42
Yeah. Yeah, that's such a good question. And that point varies completely from family to family, you know, but they need to be asked that question. I mean, I think it's great to ask people that question and so say they call you and say yes, separations. It vets, as we all know, very often treatable and a big pain in the ass to treat. I mean, there's no way around it. So say that August separation anxiety and you know, people come to me, for example, they'd had the dog for nine months, and it has separation anxiety, and it's just ruining their life. I mean, you know, really can be on a day to day basis, it's just really messing up their life. They're exhausted, they're frustrated. So I will get together with them, I would get together with them, and then sort of, do the usual interview, go through what looks like the best practice for them for that dog for that family. And then say, how, how long do you have? You know, what would it be like to work on this for another six weeks? Do you have six weeks? Do you have six weeks of energy, and I will tell you that I had no small number of clients who by the time time they came to me, they were done. They were done. They were just by the time they got in my door. They were done. Sometimes they didn't make the appointment until they were done. Sometimes they were done two weeks before they got in, you know, they. And so I think one of our jobs as people in that kind of situation, is if you can, if it's if you read people well enough. And I think it's critical in this in this business to be able to do this, that if you read people well enough, and you start getting the sense like they're just done is you need to give them permission. Or you need to ask them say, you know, I don't know what's in your head, I can't imagine but I gotta tell you listen to you. Just feels like you're done. You know? Yeah, done. And I've had people just burst into tears, just burst into tears sobbing. Yeah, yeah. Okay, that you're not do, you're not stuck, there are things you know. So one, figuring that they're not done out is critical, or if they are helping them with that, because so many people who came to me felt so guilty, just overwhelmed with guilt, and it was all their fault. And they haven't tried hard enough, when they were, you know, I had so many clients who had a one year old baby and a dog was terrified of little kids, just terrified of them. And it was not gonna get fixed until the game was five, you know, and they just felt like, you know, I'm betraying this individual. So people need help with that. But, so, but I will ask people, you know, here's what I suggest. I, I would like to see what's happening after three weeks. So, so Can Can you go three weeks, you know, one of the generic things I would tell people, is a lot of people only wanted to see me once, which is always challenging. So I, what I would suggest to them is here, the things I would try, please, please get back to me, you know, I'll help you any way I can without an appointment about how it's going. But if you're feeling desperate, but you can't give up on the dog yet. I mean, that's I saw so many people who were so ambivalent, they were so torn, they were in so much pain, I love this dog like life itself, and I can't live like this. So I would, I would suggest, I would say, Okay, here's some things to try. Here's some resources for help, here's a support system for you. And then don't decide anything today don't decide anything tomorrow, your goal is going to be to work on this day by day, Intel a month from now, set a date, say I'm going to work on this as hard as I can, I'm going to do everything I can for a month. And if I can't fix it, then I'm done. And it gives seem to give them a lot of respite, to have a date on it to be like, Okay, I can try this for this long. Because so often people feel just trapped, like, trapped in this for the rest of my life. And there's no way out.
Emily 49:07
Right, right.
Libby 49:09
And I think we have to recognize how difficult it can be to live in a situation where you have to crate and rotate all day every day and the dogs just aren't getting along. And we you know, we have had dogs being fostered in those types of situations or adopted into a situation where, you know, Okay, try it for a couple more weeks, a couple more weeks, and it's not getting better and it looks like okay, this might be the long term answer. And that's, that's not for everybody. I would say it's not for most people,
Patricia 49:45
right like that. You mean, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's it's can be really stressful. I have had clients I have a friend who had for extremely large dogs. We could have killed each other to microsecond, had two males who were going to do that. I talked with him at length, I said, I'm really worried because one forgetting one door, you know, you've got a possible death on your hands. That was years and years and years and years ago, those dogs are long gone, there was never an incident, because they never forgot to shut the door, you know, or the gate or whatever. But that's really hard for most of us, you know, same way to Adam, a little absent minded sometimes. And especially families, you know, you get one person who could do it, but what about, what about her? What about him? What about the three kids you know, and that's when things get really complicated. When you've got a family, you've got a bunch of kids and friends, and you know, that gets really, really hard to manage. So that's a huge part to me. One, what family should this dog go to? You know, and how how much consistency is, is critical, you know, if somebody forgets to shut a door, and you know, somebody gets a little grumpy or something big deal, somebody forgets to shut the door, and a dog's gonna die. You know, that's different. You know, that's different. You know, we all we all take risks when we get in the car, you know, we all take risks with COVID is, you know, a certain extent, I mean, some of us a lot less than others. But nonetheless, if you're just not sitting in your house for the last two years, and having left or taking risks, we decided to take those risks, because there was too low enough than worth it. So again, so
Libby 51:43
yeah, like you said earlier, our dogs can't decide to take the risk, you know, the dog who is on the receiving end of aggression can can't decide to take that risk.
Patricia 51:53
Right, right.
Emily 51:55
So if somebody's thinking about bringing in a new adopted dog or a foster dog, what skills would you think that their dog should have before they bring in the dog?
Patricia 52:06
Oh, that is a really good question. Well, I'm gonna turn it around a tiny bit, if you'll forgive me, okay. And go back to something I said earlier is what skills should the human have? Hmm. So, you know, I'm back on my soapbox about reading dogs, you know, because it's just not rocket science. It's really simple. Once you learn to do it, and once you learn, you need to do it. You know, we're just we're not good observers about many things. Because there's so much happening, right, you know, in the world around us. And once people learn to actually attend to dogs and go, like, oh, he turned his head away, like, oh, we close his mouth. He's like, Oh, he's waiting for the shoulders back. They want this is really fun for them. Their relationship with their dog is so enhanced. But that so that's the first thing that's the first skill I would want is I would want to do everything I can and I know my, my certified applied animal beavers friends, we are all on the same page. I've never hurt. Every time anybody ever says what is the one thing you want? You wish the public knew more? Almost every single one of us has always answered the same thing. It's like reading dogs reading dogs, we, because they're talking to us all the time. They just can't use English. So so that's the I think that's most important. I think that's job one. And then And then oh, you're gonna hate this, but and then it depends. I mean, it depends. I mean, what, what, what I would say is you need to is is guardians need to figure out what is really important to them. And their lifestyle and this and their dog, including the dog safety when your dogs happiness, that that they really need and then they need to master it. So whatever signals people use, and need, they should they should sharpen up before that other dog comes. So you know, I mean, everybody's different. I live in the country. My dogs are off leash almost all the time. I need phenomenal recall. I need dogs to stop on a dime when I tell them to. I need leave it. I don't need phenomenal leash manners. I mean, my dogs are perfectly okay on leash, but are they perfect on leash? No, because that's not critical. You know? What's critical is that when I say when I say stop, you got to stop. Absolutely. If I call you to come, you've got a comment. If I say leave it, it's because there's a porcupine in front of you. So so people need to decide what are they what do they need to be happy? What is their dog need to be happy and safe? And then master that because we're all sloppy? We're all human. I mean, my dog It'll be way sloppier. I mean, they're not ever so not perfect, believe me. But the things I mentioned, they're pretty damn good about. Partly because I worked on so cheap. I have dogs who have to lie down when I tell them to when they're 400 yards away chasing, you know, prey. So I need that. And so it that the fact that I compete and work at that keeps me sharper at doing that. And it's really easy if you know you have a family dog had it for x number of years, it always has that behavior problems feel easy for the dog for everybody to get all sloppy. So it'd be really good to master sort of sharpen up the cues that you use in need. Before that dog cubs and I that's what so what I think is most what's important. What What about you guys,
Emily 55:48
that makes sense, because I live in suburbia. So I have the total opposite need, which is my My girl is pyrenees. And so when I get a foster, I need to you know, I don't always have to take them out together. But if I have a fearful Foster, which my last Foster was fearful, he needed to go out with Piper, to have that kind of sense of security. And because she's, you know, a pyrenees, and she gets a little frustrated when she sees a dog if she can't meet it. I need her to walk past a dog and leave it and not have any engagement because I don't want to teach the foster dog that there's like agitation around seeing a dog. So yeah, and
Patricia 56:28
even just teach it you know, emotionally, you know, just a total contagion.
Emily 56:32
Yes, exactly. Yeah. So, yeah, so we work on that every single day, every walk. And it's been two years. And we're like 97% there. Yeah, but it's not great. And, you know, it's, it's not perfect, but that is so it's like interesting to like, identify your environment, I guess this comes back to context is everything. So what do you need? In your environment for your foster dogs experience to be?
Patricia 56:58
Yeah, yeah. And where that fits? Do you tell? Do you tell potential fosters? Do you suggest that they work on anything specifically?
Libby 57:06
Well, we always we, we really focus on management a lot. And I think the biggest thing we focus on is manners around dinnertime and high value treats and toys and managing that situation. So that you know, so that you don't have a pushy dog pushing into the new foster while they're eating or something like that. So sometimes that's purely a management strategy. And sometimes it is a little training of like, No, we don't jump up when I'm holding a cookie in my hand.
Patricia 57:45
That's, that's really smart. I mean, that's really wise, because so many problems are over prized possessions, you know, and food. I mean, that's really, really smart. The other thing that you made me think of when you were talking was a whole issue of arousal. You know, I mean, we all know, you know, I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out. I mean, it's just, it's the cause of so many problems and so much aggression. And so, you know, being able to tell the dog to settle down. You don't have to lie down right there, you just have to, like, just chill out, you know, chill out, settle down. I, if I was clean, I would teach every single new dog owner to teach their dog to settle down. And, you know, some people would never need it, you know, they, you know, have a 10 year old Labrador. Like sleep appetite. But, um, but I just I see, arousal, you know, given what I did, and how much aggression I saw, which was 80% of what I did. So much, it was based on dogs who couldn't handle around them, you know. So, so if there was some generic thing, I would also teach them so I love your point about being mannerly around food and your high value things, you know, being mannerly, you know, you don't get to be a jerk to view right now, and I can add each other on as we know, but anyway, but um, but I think being able to tell dogs to just settle down is like a new way, a great way to keep that arrival, damp, arousal down.
Emily 59:23
I do agree with you the arousal around doors, I noticed in your book you talked about and we have seen that so many times both in the rescue and with clients of door greetings, just tipping everybody over. So yeah, arousal is definitely one of those things that understanding it and working with it can really help not have a really friendly dog tip over into aggression, out of arousal.
Patricia 59:50
Interesting that dogs get so incredibly aroused when visitors come. You know, it's just talking about context, you know, you This is gonna be something about the way our houses are, I don't know, I'm getting off onto a tangent. Ecologically, sort of just philosophically interesting in a way, you know why? Why do dogs go so crazy?
Emily 1:00:19
All right, right. I've always thought of it as almost like a Jack in the Box. There's nothing out in nature really, where someone just appears out of a hole, like a space in the wall, the wall opens and someone walks in. And they have to make really quick decisions, like, Who is this person? What's gonna happen next, there's no predictability about it.
Patricia 1:00:40
Very good. That's really a great perspective. And, you know, use what you may be think of is, think of the classically, like classical conditioning with a doorbell or knock, you know, the bell, you know, the Pavlovian bell. There wasn't a bell, as it turns out in that story, but the bell, you know, it's like, I think, you know, and actually, you know, when I work with people whose dogs need to be better mannered, when visitors come to the door, I have the ring, I have knock or ring the doorbell at the door that visitors usually come through, over and over and over and over without a visitor. So you can take away some of that conditioned Association.
Emily 1:01:17
Right? That makes sense? Yeah. So, um, we have a question about what the humans perspective, like, what skills should the human have, we feel like over the last decade, there's been a shift where like, you know, pack leader got completely thrown out, because of dominance training. But there's got to be maybe some sort of like, role for the human to take, you know, I don't know if the word control will be right. But to set things up, like, how do you set things up? So you're like, in charge, or in the one who makes the decisions? And
Patricia 1:01:53
I hear your struggle.
Emily 1:01:55
Yeah.
Patricia 1:01:56
So so first of all, I guess the most important relevant thing I could say to that is, what I think dogs need is a sense of security. I think we all need a sense of security. But but you know, think of it from the perspective of dogs. They don't speak English, we are alien creatures, they're living on a alien planet. Basically, you've been moved to a country where nobody looks like you, nobody speaks your language. Nobody even knows you're speaking most of the time, right? They're always telling us like all kinds of things right, and nobody's listening. So, so it must be really easy to be insecure. Right. And I think, I think it's a testament to the variability of the canine genome that they do as well as they do. You know, it's just sort of phenomenal. Um, but, but I think, you know, getting back to that, that leader, that word, you know, just even the word leader is so fraught, now, I think dogs need a sense of security. And the way they get that is being with people who are comfortable in their own skin. That's the best way I can say it. I, I bet anything that you both, both of, you know, people who everybody wants to stand beside, who dogs just go to, and just want to be with them. I know, I'm not one of those people, by the way. I mean, dogs do come to me now. That's because I've learned over decades and decades and decades. And so most of the time, dogs do want to hang out with me, but not because I'm inherently like that at all. But I know people who are just inherently like that. And those are the people. They they're not neurotic. Like I can be they're not you know, they're not full of eggs. They're not like, oh, I should do that. I shouldn't do that. They're not always and this I'll get in trouble for this. But I'm going to say they're not always fussing over their dog, especially with a high pitched voice. They're just there. They're just fair. They're just comfortable. There's just like, here. Here we are. I know what to do. I'm good with that. If I say the wrong thing. Oh, well, it's okay.
Libby 1:04:27
The kind of person that we look to when something's going wrong. Of Oh, what do we do?
Patricia 1:04:36
Exactly, exactly. Um, and man, I hate to bring this up. But I keep thinking about Zelinsky Oh, my God, sorry. Sorry to bring that in to this conversation. You know, it's this is the world we're living in now. So you're this comic actor who seem to be sort of flailing around. Long in this circumstance, all of a sudden became the person everybody looks to. But, you know, there are people who just like that all the time I met a friend of mine, Peg Anderson, she's a phenomenal she dog handler trailer. She's been in the internationals. I mean, she's really, really good. And she's of all the people I know, she is the most comfortable with herself, as anybody I've know. And dogs just blossom with her, because she's just comfortable. So I, you know, I think, I think that makes a huge difference. When when you're the person who basically says, this, I love you, dog, I love you like life itself. And I make the rules. Because I'm the one with the fingers. The one with a credit card to buy dog food, I'm the one who can open the door, you know, and I need, I need you to understand that there are social parameters that you need to follow. And I think that can be done. And I know it can be done. I've seen it done a million times. And I try very hard to do it myself. To be benevolent, and compassionate. But also clear, and I think one of the things it's hard for dogs I mentioned that sort of high pitched busting, you know, I am I am a huge as you well know, a huge supporter of positive reinforcement, I use it 99.98% of the time, but not 100%. Because I don't know how I don't think it's possible. I mean, if I say Maggie, when she just did something silly. I just added something, I just added something into the mix to decrease the behavior we know how to find right. You know, the P word. But so but you know, being comfortable with that being comfortable with like, it really is my house, you know, um, I think there's a book called fierce compassion that I'm reading right now it's about fierce self compassion, actually, it's about how people women especially need to learn to be most both tenderly compassionate, and fiercely compassionate. So fierce compassion is when you have to protect your child or, or your dog, you know, or set boundaries. And our dogs need boundaries set just like children do. Because I've seen dogs just spin totally out of control, just and they just seem desperate, just like kids who I used to work with troubled adolescents. And some of these kids were just spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning, they just needed somebody kindly and benevolent to say, Stop. Just stop. You don't get to stop. And they're like, so relieved. You know, they'll fight and fight and fight and fight, but they're solely. So this, this very complicated, complex, controversial issue of leadership, I think is really more about benevolent confidence, and compassion and understanding that everybody needs boundaries. And because we are, because we are the humans, and they're the dogs, we need to set a lot of those boundaries.
Emily 1:08:22
That makes sense. Yeah. I absolutely love that answer. Actually, I'm just kind of mulling it all over. It's beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. Like the clear communication, the compassion, and really setting some boundaries that are kind and useful.
Patricia 1:08:40
And, you know, part of that is also something that I don't see people doing enough lately. Is, is forgiveness is is one forgiving dogs, you know, people have been not forgiving dogs for not being perfect for eons. Right. So that's cool. But what I saw so much when I was last couple years I was seeing clients is I saw people who were so hard on themselves for not being perfect. You know, like, I have four kids and I got a dog that I thought was going to be 25 pounds, and he's 85 pounds, and the kids are one and three and five and six, and my mother's sick and I'm working full time. And last night, you know, the dog went into the table and knocked all of the dinner off the table and I actually raised my voice and yelled, it's like, oh you're a human. I just I think people need to be able to forgive themselves for not being perfect and and being positive 100 100 100 100 plus percent of the time, because we're human and dogs are very, you know, they could forgive us. You know, I mean, I don't know what happens in a dog's mind in terms of that. But most dogs are pretty damn resilient. You know, and if we, if we're inconsistent one time, we're like, Oh, I forgot to do this, or, you know, I was supposed to do that. Or, you know, if we're not perfect traders, which we're never going to be, then we need to forgive ourselves for that. Yeah.
Libby 1:10:14
That's so powerful. And it's such good advice to pass along. Well, we've been talking for over an hour, should we leave it here?
Emily 1:10:31
What a concept.
Libby 1:10:34
It's hard. It's hard.
Emily 1:10:36
It is hard. Yeah, I was just thinking about I think it was the other end of the leash was a huge reality shift for me where I read from you that, you know, we're primates, and they're canids. And so it really is hard. And so I think we have to really be understanding of like, this is kind of a complicated thing. Yeah, to all of a sudden be the primate trying to understand the Canaanites and then bring in a new one. But with just a little bit of planning and prep and learning the body language. It can go a lot more smoothly.
Patricia 1:11:09
Yeah, yeah, I couldn't agree more. Again, it's, you know, it's not rocket science, and it's really fun.
Libby 1:11:18
Awesome. Well, Dr. McConnell, thank you so much for taking the time for this awesome conversation today. It's always a pleasure to talk to you and yeah, we're just so grateful for your time.
Patricia 1:11:28
Well, thank you for asking me and keep up the great work, you guys. You're doing really, really important work.
Libby 1:11:38
Thanks for tuning in. If you liked this episode, don't forget to rate and review. It helps other folks like you find the show. Thanks to Mike pesci for the original music and James Eid have be heard for production. For show notes and transcripts visit podtothe rescue.com. Let us know what you think about this episode on social media. We're at pod to the rescue on Facebook and Instagram and we love connecting with listeners. We'll catch you next time on pod to the rescue. Oh, and tell your dog we said hi
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Welcome to pod to the rescue a podcast from summit dog rescue in Boulder, Colorado.
Emily 0:06
I'm Emily.
Libby 0:07
And I'm Libby.
Emily 0:08
We're both Professional Dog Trainers with multiple certifications in dog training and behavior. Together, we have more than two decades of experience in dog rescue.
Libby 0:18
We want to share everything we've learned along the way with other folks involved in dog rescue, sheltering, fostering and adoption. And anyone who just loves dogs.
Emily 0:27
Rescuing the dog is just the first step.
Libby 0:30
We're here to help with everything that comes next.
Hello, listeners, and welcome back. Today, we are so thrilled to bring you another interview with Dr. Patricia McConnell. We first interviewed her around this time last year. And if you haven't heard that one yet, definitely go back and listen, because we referenced that episode several times. That was about trauma, decompression and going slow when you're bringing a new rescue dog into your life.
Emily 1:00
And I feel like this conversation is kind of the part two of you know if last year, we were talking about going slow as far as all the human components. This year, we're talking with her more about going slow. As far as your dog introductions in the household goes.
Libby 1:20
Yeah, it's a super important conversation, you know, in rescue success with the resident dog can make or break a dog's placement. So it's important to understand how to set everyone up for success. Read queues, put management in place, you know, just do a little extra on the front end, to give everybody the biggest chance of succeeding,
Emily 1:43
we have placed more than 1000 Dogs since the beginning of our rescue. So we've seen pretty much every possible scenario of how dog meets can go. And I'd say almost once a week, we get emails of people wanting to surrender their dogs to us because of intra household dog aggression. So this is just such a big and important topic.
Libby 2:05
Absolutely. And you know, we're obviously just scratching the surface and an hour long conversation. But, you know, thinking of dog dog relationships, it's kind of like a marriage, it takes a little bit of work to keep things successful. And yeah, sometimes it's just not a good fit, but we can do the things that we know will help everyone succeed.
Emily 2:29
This was a great conversation I also loved when she spoke about the four to 10 day window where people are like, Oh, I think I made a mistake. And I think she needs to come up with a new rules. And she was the one who came up with the amazing rule of threes, three days, three weeks and three months for your dog to settle in. I do think we've seen very often that four to 10 day window, so people should know they're not alone. And if you hit bumps in the road, just take a deep breath and maybe reach out for some help.
Libby 3:03
Definitely a little support a little management that can go a long way in making a successful Dog Dog integration happen. So in this episode, we referenced several things. All of those are in the show notes. There's an awesome webinar that Dr. McConnell did with ASPCA. And also, definitely, we talked about management a lot. So check out our episode on management with Mary. Anjali, we'll put that link in the show notes. And we have a really fabulous video showing this parallel block that Dr. McConnell references and we'll put that in the show notes as well.
Emily 3:40
Great, and we're just so grateful to Dr. McConnell for coming back on and Libby is going to read you her bio if you don't know who she is.
Libby 3:50
Patricia McConnell needs no introduction for a lot of our listeners. But she has some amazing credentials and a fabulous career just a titan in the dog training world. So Patricia McConnell, PhD is a zoologist and certified applied animal behaviorist emeritus and has made a lifelong commitment to improving the relationship between people and animals. She is known worldwide as an expert on canine and feline behavior and dog training. And for her engaging and knowledgeable dog training books, DVDs and seminars. Patricia has seen clients for serious behavioral problems since 1988, and taught for 25 years at the University of Wisconsin Madison.
Emily 4:33
Amazing. Well, without further ado, here is our conversation with Patricia McConnell.
Libby 4:44
Hello, Dr. Patricia McConnell, welcome back to pod to the rescue.
Patricia 4:48
Hey, it's really fun to be here. Thank you for asking me.
Libby 4:51
We're so grateful that you took the time once again. So before we dive into the how of introducing new dogs and managing a multi dog house Hold, which we just thought that you are the perfect person to talk to about this. Often in rescue, we have people who would be willing to take Foster's, but they're a little worried about bringing in a new dog in their home, which already has one or two dogs who are. So can we discuss why it's important to learn and prepare before bringing home a second or third or fourth dog? You know, I think sometimes we have this general belief that dogs are dogs, they're social, they'll figure it out. They'll work it out. Just dogs? Yeah. Can you speak to this a little bit?
Patricia 5:43
Yeah, yeah. You know, um, oh, how long? Do we have like an hour for this? Work with that?
Libby 5:52
If that's as far as we get? That's awesome.
Patricia 5:54
I thought that would probably be okay. Because because there's so much and I mean, it's a great question that you asked, and there's so much in there. Look, I guess the first thing I want to say is that one of the things that I think really often helps people to keep in mind is that when you decide to get a to bring a new dog into your house, whatever the circumstances, you decided it right, you didn't like, have it happen to you, you know, UPS didn't show up and say, Here's your dog, oh, what you'd murder it, you know, you've thought it through, you know what's happening, you're expecting it. The dogs know nothing, right? They know nothing. So all of a sudden, somebody puts him in a car, all of a sudden, they go to a strange place, all of a sudden, there's totally dogs there all of a sudden, so. So we need you always need to think when you're bringing in a new dog in that. They're sort of in shock, you know, even the really rambunctious ones, often those are those, you know, those dogs that look like I'm fine, I find, I had a ton of clients who would say to me, Oh, he's just so overly friendly, you know, the dog would come into my office and jump on the table and start chewing up the computer and look my face all over and call down my mouth and, you know, bounce off the walls. And they were like, Oh, he's just so exuberant. And I was, I would say he's desperate. You know, he's actually desperate, you know, this isn't happiness. This is like panic, or forma. So the first thing to keep in mind is that God knows nothing. And so in order for the best chance of success, you know, the more you can think through sort of the I will, first of all, why, why are you doing it? I mean, you know, that that's the first question I would actually ask is not how, but why, why, you know, have you thought through? Why are you getting this dog, you know, fostering, I must just go with fostering because, you know, that's a situation which we know, so many needs to take his dog getting out of a shelter, wonderful, wonderful, gracious, kind, choices, somebody to take this dog. And so like, let's say, it's just, it's gonna be a foster, and you have two dogs already. So I'm one of one of the things that I think is really important is to set everything up for success as best as you can. And now I'm sort of sliding into how and I think I'm getting off your question a little bit. But I guess so let me get back to your question before we get into how because one of the other things to think about is that, you know, they're just dogs. Well, yeah, they are, they're, that's what they are. They're dogs, but they're individual. They're sent in individuals with, with different personalities, different experiences, different expectations, just about different everything, you know, except for their species, and maybe, or maybe not their breed. And they, you know, they, as I said before, they sort of they don't know what's going to happen to them, you know, and, and so we don't even quite know how they're going to behave when something completely unexpected happens.
Libby 9:19
So Dr. McConnell, just like humans have different personalities and different needs and desires. Dogs are the same, right?
Patricia 9:29
Yeah, right there. So especially if they're all one breed, and especially for Golden Retrievers. Exactly, you know, are out of Disney cartoons. So yeah, I mean, of course, they're not you know, they're sentient individuals with different experiences, different backgrounds, different breeding different everything. And so, you know, one of the things you need to think about when you're bringing a new dog in is who are you know, who are they, you know, how is how is dog one resident dog Have one, how do they feel about all other dogs? Is it different in the house than it is at the dog park or on a walk or on a walk with a friend or playing with my friends capital dog in another yard? You know, so, so the personality of the dog, the context of dog dog interactions, so many people will tell me oh, I've heard this 1000s Literally 1000s This dog just loves everybody. You know, except he loves everybody being like, like, other dogs outside, off leash in a park, but not in the living room. You know, I'm just an example. Actually, I, I have two work colleagues right now skip and Maggie. And I was looking for after Willie died, I was looking for another male to bring it and it was really important to me that Maggie adore this dog. And she met two dogs who when we had for three weeks, she was like, nope, nope, nope. But then then we got skip. And they met. out as is offered appropriate, they met outside. I was comfortable doing it both off leash based on what I knew. fenced area, perfectly safe area, Maggie had been a lot. She's very comfortable there but not on territory. And they met and they did this little sort of tentative little flirty thing. And then they started playing and running and running and running and running just like just like negative when she met Willie. So I was like, Oh, this is so good. But then I brought him home. And I knew Maggie perfectly well would be terrified of him in the house is a great big, huge male. And there aren't a lot of that many other dogs who come into the house. Anyway, so I kept them separate for weeks. I mean, I managed them really carefully. They're best friends, they adore each other. But because I knew Maggie because I knew her personality. And because I knew his as well as I could at that point, you know, I knew, you know, that informed how I would introduce them. And so the more you can know about dogs personalities, obviously you can't always you know, because the faster it comes from one context goes to another but the more you can know, the better. And if you don't know, my generic advice to just about everything is just be really cautious. Be really slow, be really careful. It's so hard to fix a mess. You know, you know, one mess can take you a year to fix or if ever and just prevention is worse is, you know better than the cure, basically.
Libby 12:48
Yeah. Yeah. So we're kind of jumping ahead a little bit in are the questions that we plan to ask. But I'm really interested in the concept of dogs behaving differently toward other dogs in different contexts. And we see that so much in rescue and sheltering you know, were in the shelter the dogs, fine loves other dogs, but we, you know, get them into a foster home, and they're totally different. Can you explain that a little bit? And oh, what's going on there?
Patricia 13:24
And I love that you bring that up. Because it's so important. You know, when I was seeing clients, I cannot tell you how many clients I saw who said who were really upset. They were either angry, or they were scared because the dog was absolutely for sure how strained or the dog was great with other dogs had to grow up. Right, the dog was x and then he came home with a noose. Why? And let let me let me just start talking about that specifically with a couple of examples of other species. So I wrote a Facebook post not too long ago, about about the fact that the person who shares my sheep said I could prevent my sheep from being aggressive each other after they were sure because they would like you know, like National Geographic like they would they would back up and slam into each other really hard. And there was one year where somebody was really gonna get hurt. I mean, it was really serious. So I wrote this post and talked about how my share said you could use perfume once they're shorn some of their standards gone you could use perfume we spray all of them with the same scent and it decreases the aggression so I did that it did. It did decrease the aggression, at least subjectively seem to made the bird smell like a whorehouse which was not that I've ever been in one year I got all this, this feedback and some of it was really pointed and that's a nice way of saying it. Looks like you don't know what you're talking about. I've had sheep for 40 years, and I've had 1000s of them. We have flocks of 500 here and 2000 there. I've never seen anything like that. So we're crazy. You're making that up? And it's like, I have 12 sheep. Right? And there's no RAM. And the people who are writing me have flocks of 500. Right? So, of course, they behave differently, you know, and but I should, in their defense, I should have said, you know, this very well might be context specific. But just so that's just one species, but the other example, it's just us, it's just us. are you behaving exactly like you do when you're with your girlfriends at their birthday party? Right now? Why not? You know, we all have differently in different contexts. We all do. And so of course, dogs act differently in different contexts. And so the big ones that I see are, and I'm sure you do, too, I'm curious if you have the same experiences. One is house training. It's just relentless. It's so I always tell people, if I've heard like, this dog is house trained, I'll say that dog has house trade in that house. So it's not house trade in this house. Um, you just don't know what's going to generalize. You know, you have no idea what's going to generalize. So house training is a big thing that doesn't necessarily generalize. The other. The other issue is, is a dog's responses either to unfamiliar people or unfamiliar dogs. So dogs who are by themselves can often in my experience, be more protective, defensive reactive. I'm not just going back to Maggie Maggie is a perfect example. Maggie was nothing like my Willie, who was that super reactive for a couple of years dog dog, aggressive dog. Maggie was never that bad. So I never worked as hard at it. So we'd be out walking somewhere, you know, she's on a leash, and another dog starts to walk by Maggie would just be like.
So that's all it was. But when I got skip it, she was like that with Willie. Right? I got skip. And skip is like, Hey, everybody, I'm happy to meet all of you. And Maggie. Like, I never I was never uncomfortable with other dogs. What are you talking about? Trisha? Like it skipped his walking to two feet ahead of me. I'm good. I'm fine. You know, that's just one tiny context, right? That's just one tiny context. So I've seen dogs who were nervous about unfamiliar people, when they were living alone in a house rather than a foster family. I've seen. And then the third category is, dogs within the household. You know, you get you get a situation where maybe the Foster has seven dogs, or they're coming from a shelter where there's, there's, you know, candle after candle after candle. And the dog doesn't maybe spend a lot of time on the dogs, but it's surrounded by other dogs. It's not alone. And then you send it to a place where there's where there's one other dog, not seven, just one. And they behave completely differently. So I'm going on too long about this is so important. It's just so important for people to understand that nobody can predict. Nobody can predict how a dog is going to behave in a context. It's never been in,
Emily 18:42
right? It's so much like us, if you think about it, like I'm generally a friendly person, but there are certain contexts where I would not be friendly, or, you know, if I was going to date, I would want to carefully choose the person I would date. I wouldn't just say we're both humans. move in with me, you know. So yeah, so we're Americans, you know, exactly we retrievers, right.
Patricia 19:10
Yeah. Great point.
Emily 19:11
Yeah.
Libby 19:12
So we, before we hit record, we mentioned your fabulous webinar that you gave for the ASPCA in 2014. And it answers a lot of these questions in or the next couple of questions I'm going to ask in depth. So we'll link that for our listeners in the show notes. But I do have a question that I want to get to, even if we don't have time to go really in depth with it. Okay. Given that we have so many variables and different contexts for dog dog interactions. Are there any best practices that we can land on when it comes to introducing dogs who we hope will live together?
Patricia 19:55
Oh, absolutely. You know, absolutely. And this is, the great thing about this. This is not really rocket science, you know, it's, it's the hardest part, I think, is learning to read a dog really well. So you know, what are the best practices is to be able to read dogs and to know when a dog goes still and stiff and closes its mouth, something intense is going on, and you need to pay attention, right? So that that's probably the part that takes the most skill. But the rest of it is discipline and patience, which granted discipline patience. Alright, you know, I'm certainly not my, you know, my best skill either assigned either. No, not you, Libby, I'm very sympathetic example, I actually just had friends introduced a new cat into their household, and I told them exactly how to do it, you know, do not just bring the new cat and put it in the house, they had all kinds of ways to sort of manage it carefully. Day two, they just put the new cat in the house. Looks like worked out great, actually. But they were very, very lucky that it did. So. Um, so best practice is, I would say, and again, I know, you don't want to be too specific. The best practice is, in general, slow going, and little pressure. So what does that mean? So that means so for example, how do you you know, what's the first date look like? You know, that's, that's a really important question. And I know, I think I talked about that a lot in the cemetery. That was a long time ago. What was that? But so that so for me, this practice is, for a lot of people, it's it's two dogs on a leash very far apart, right? They're maybe 1520 feet apart, and one is walking one way and the other is walking the other way. So they're walking like this. And they're walking like this. And then you switch, keeping a lot of distance in between the dogs so they can smell each other's urine. That's what I want. I want them to investigate each other's urine, because that's one of the first ways they get to know each other. You know, there's some really nice dog park research about how quickly dogs pee as soon as they get into the gate. And we don't know exactly why. But the best hypothesis is that they are providing information, you know, this is my Facebook page. There you are. I'm a female and I just ate some liver and, uh, you know, who knows what they're getting? Right. But they're getting something and it's important and it's so it's low stress. So the other dogs 15 feet away, dog, you know, dogs, let's just say it's, you know, I don't know Sam and Dixie, you know, so Dixie gets to smell Sam's your um, Sam gets to smell Dixie. A hard part then is everything else that happens next. Depends on what happens then. And that's where reading dogs is really important. And having somebody who's done this a lot if you possibly can is really important. So if everything looks if the dogs look loose bodied, open mouth, you know, wagtails really loose no stiffness, no close mouth. No glaring no staring or no looking away. You know, you also want to watch for really obsessive sniffing I think when dogs are some dogs are really nervous don't have you found that they just start just nothing like crazy. So you, you know you're looking for the absence of stiffness, you're looking for looseness you're looking for the absence and sort of some kind of like, you know, desperate compulsive kind of behavior, I'm looking for an open mouth, you're looking for maybe a play bow, you know, that would be lovely. You're looking at sort of casual looks really soft eyes. And if you get that then if you possibly can, I would let I would let dogs if possible off leash in a fenced area or somewhere where it's totally, totally safe. And that's just almost always a fenced area. If you don't know one of the dogs, right, you just don't know what's going to happen. So that's that's the beginning. You know, now what happens next, of course, depends you know, we could get into the weeds there and I don't want to go too far. But but that that uh, that example with Maggie and skip is actually good one because I skipped that first part. I felt confident I could do that. I knew Maggie so well. I knew a lot about this dog. And I was watching them like a hawk. Although of course I was like standing in a way sort of looking like that breathing. I was I was monitoring my breathing. I was being really careful to not like this big bug eyed aggressive look on my face.
And so I skipped that first step let them loose in this in this field. But I could also see Maggie was really intrigued but she was a little nervous, you know? So then I went back to that, like, okay, so skip is going to go on his crate, Maggie's gonna go in the living room, I'm gonna have gates up between all the doors so that he can never, like, surprise her or scare her, they're only going to see each other up the hill and the big fence pasture. So it takes them up the hill and the big fenced pasture and let them play up there. And then bring them down and manage the household really carefully. So again, that's just you know, what happens next, based on is based on what happened before? So
Libby 25:31
that's that. Yeah, that's so helpful. Um, and that kind of leads me to my next question, which is, if you have a successful, and I'm, maybe we should err, quote, successful initial meet and greet, because it really is hard to tell exactly what's going on. But let's, you know, a fight doesn't break out at the bare minimum. No blood.
Patricia 25:55
No, blood yeah.
Libby 25:57
So you know, all parties are comfortable moving forward. How predictive is that of long term success? In your experience?
Patricia 26:07
Yes, I'm gonna, I'm going to answer that. But I'm going to ask you that, because I think you give it what you do. You know, I think you have a lot to say about that. So my wish there was research. When he was there was research, my subjective observations are that it depends. I keep coming back to the bends. So I mean, I have certainly seen meet and greets, that seemed very smooth, you didn't see any sign of any tension. And then say, it was two dogs, you know, resident dog and a new dog. I've seen those goes really smoothly. And then three weeks later, or two months later, all of a sudden, you start to see a lot of tension between the dogs when dog starts getting really possessive of the objects in, you know, and then all of a sudden, there's fights going on. And I've seen that plenty of times, you know, but I've also seen plenty of times where dogs did really well, on the first you know, all went smoothly, everything was loose and relaxed, and everybody seemed friendly, and a memorable, no signs of distress in any way. And then people completely just throw caution to the wind and throw the dogs together. And they're done. And everything is great for the next 12 years. So so how predictive is it? I mean, if you want it to go well, right, I'm gonna guess another question is how predicted as a bad encounter?
Emily 27:41
So that's a good question.
Patricia 27:42
I have a thought about that. But I want to throw it back to you. Because I'm really you guys have a lot to say, What? What is your experience with this?
Emily 27:49
I was just thinking about that when you said that. And I think because we read it your feeling outnumbered book, probably six or seven years ago, we have had pretty good experience with if that first meet goes well, we really work with our fosters and adopters to then have that management and separation and working with individual dogs, we worked so hard to have them not just throw all caution to the wind. So I think that's why we've been pretty successful. I think it's one reason we wanted to talk about this was that, you know, every once in a while you do hit that bump in a road. So it's not like we're totally perfect, but just going from the first date being well, not assuming that the next step is like happily ever after. And taking those steps that you outlined in the book and making sure you do your training and your management and your comm work with them. And it's been pretty good for us.
Libby 28:47
I agree with that. And I would say that almost without exception, when we have problems. It is, you know, we get on the phone with the people and Okay, so explain what happened, how, you know, they got along at the meet and greet. And there is some kind of explanation about why they were doing so well together. And we thought that we you know, we just took up the baby gates because they were doing so well. And then XYZ happened. You know, like you said, you're they've rushed the process a little bit.
Patricia 29:23
Right. And discipline is not, not what our species is.
Libby 29:30
Right? It's understandable. It's understandable because, you know, we, we want to see the dogs succeeding and when things are going well, we want to keep it going well, and we think, you know, we're in a good place. And so I understand why people do it. It's just in my experience that that's usually a place where things go wrong.
Patricia 29:57
And you know, I'm really, you know, and we'll be Just like me are really biased, because who do we see? You know, people call and make an appointment to say like, I just got a new dog two months ago and everything is perfect. Great. People are out there, and they're just so helpful. It's like, I don't really have any questions, but I thought I'd drive all the way here
Libby 30:19
and spend 150 bucks to tell you, right.
Patricia 30:24
But, um, so yeah, so I mean, I probably saw more trouble, you know, than you guys did. But I totally, I just, I totally get how I love that you guys are so careful about managing things and sort of keeping general things in mind and not just, you know, throwing them together in a mosh pit. And, and I'm sure you also do a lot of really careful, thoughtful selection, right, which I'm sure you haven't talked about that, but I'll bet you do it. Which makes a huge difference. That was one of the things getting back to that back that question about what is if bad, quote, bad, problematic, let's say, first, initial, meet and greet mean. And one of the things I've learned, and I don't know how universal this is, but I've seen it with clients, I've seen it with my dogs, I saw it with Maggie with those two potentials that we brought in, is neither dog would look at each other. And I think that would clients dogs is like, so there was you know that you know who the salmon Rita whoever makes these dogs up. So Sam and Rita never growled, never went stiff, never went after each other, but never looked at each other. You know, never wouldn't look at each other. You know, there was one dog that was here, and Maggie would just never look at that dog for three weeks. That dogs not here and the dog was a perfectly friendly, there was nothing aggressive about this dog. She's still like him. And that mattered to me, you know, it might not matter to some people. So so in a way, you know, that line about? Oh, what writer wrote something about like, you know, all all have, so they're no good stories and happy families, you know, all family tragedies, you know, are different. But you know, All happy families are all the same. And so it was sort of nothing to write about. I think, I think it's a little trickier when the first meeting doesn't go smoothly, in a way. Because again, it could just be like, everybody looks fine, but nobody will look at each other. And that could resolve very nicely. You know, maybe somebody's a little nervous. Maybe somebody's uncomfortable, that's fine. Don't force them to look at each other. Like, that's fine. But if you know so, but that might turn into like, I just don't ever want to deal with this dog. And so you can get like, I'm not going to look at that dog on one hand. And on the other hand, you could you know, you can get like one dogs after another one. Right. So there's a big range in between. And that I think that's harder for people who aren't skilled to evaluate. And I think part it's actually harder for any of us to evaluate. Because I don't think it's necessarily a deal breaker, you know, Intel you've had some more time. Now, it might be that a potential foster family. I mean, they have every reason and right to say like deal breaker. I know what to do. You know, this may work out. But I don't know. And it may not I don't want to deal with this. This is hard. Bringing a new dog into your house is very disruptive and absolutely exhausting. I don't know anybody who was like, What was I thinking? Yeah, so I don't blame anybody for saying like, No, this is a deal breaker. But I don't know that it means it really would have been if they'd had another week or two. Mm hmm.
Emily 34:02
So that leads me to kind of your three days, three weeks and three months rule. How do you think that applies to the building of the relationship between the two dogs?
Patricia 34:13
The one I made up with absolutely no science behind it. You know, I talked about it all the time. It really does seem so in a very sloppy way
Emily 34:24
It does Oh, it really does. We hear it all the time. We tell people like just it's only been five days. Just you know, keep going at this pace or even slow it down. And inevitably, we have had people like balk, like one weekend be like, I don't think I can do this. And with our support, like three weeks in, they're like, Oh, it's getting better. And then three months. They're like, oh, did I ever actually say that I wanted to return the stock because it's going so great. Yeah,
Patricia 34:51
yeah. Yeah. It's I'm I'm gratified that you've had the same experience. I mean, it's just all based on observations. And the observation is that First of all, as I mentioned earlier, as it talks are in shock, right? So you know how many I mean, oh, I had so many clients who picked the dog who was quiet at the shelter. All the other dogs is barking and Roscoe was sitting in the back and that barking it's like, oh, no, Roscoe is a beagle who's after on day four, you know, so So you just don't know who a dog is. until they've been there for three days, at least for at least at least at least for three days. Because they're just, they're just stunned. You know, they're just in shock. So, so what I my experience with clients, and my own two, I will be the first to say I've had, I've actually had to call friends of mine and going like, Okay, I'm, it's happening to me, I've just written about it. And it's happening to me, what am I doing? Oh, no. So somewhere around day four, sometimes sometimes day five, you start seeing a different dog. And there's almost always some behavioral problem. Almost always, they didn't expect, they chewed on the remote control. They peed in the kitchen, when they been house trained perfectly, you know, they grow that somebody you know, they just like stuff that you just like, I did not see that coming. And it's so easy to panic. And I think that's when people need the most support. I mean, it's what I need the most important, and I've been there for my friends, more professional behavior as dogs, trainers who've all been through the same thing. So it sounds to me like the two of you. I just credit you, because it sounds like you do such a good job being there for people when they most need it.
Libby 36:45
Thank you.
Patricia 36:47
Yeah, I mean, thumbs up, because it's very hard for a lot of places to do that. I mean, it just is, you know, it's an incredible amount of time and effort. It's really hard for a lot of shelters and humane societies to do it. Some of them do. Some of them want to but can't, you know, they don't have the staff. They don't have volunteers, they don't have the expertise they want to. But anyway, if one if adopters can be told, you know, warned, there's like, there's this thing that happens somewhere around day four to 10, in which you go, or I just made a big mistake, what did I do? And that that happens to almost everybody, including Dr. Everybody. And so one, let them know it'll happen, and then give them what you do. And yay, for you credit for you give them the resources to get help, because people need help. I mean, I needed help my Professional dog training trends and needed help. We're just there for each other. So So let them know, please, and this is one of things I ran into with clients is they wouldn't they still wouldn't call, even with people as gracious and careful and thoughtful as you they still wouldn't call, you know, and then they call me at month eight. And say, I think we have to rehome this dog or do we not in the neighborhood or you know, anyway?
Emily 38:18
Well, that was one of the goals with the podcast is we have noticed that we've had to like cut back how many dogs we can take, because we're trying so hard to be supportive. And there's, you know, a balance between, you know, there's too many dogs to get the support that we give. So kudos to those people who take way more dogs than we do. And I know now that we've been doing this for a year, kind of thanks to you that there's underserved shelters and small rescues that have this podcast, and then send it to people like okay, you're introducing a dog listen to this phone with Dr. McConnell, or you're having some aggression, listen to Michael Shikashio. So it's been. So it's been part of our goal is to spread what we do to a larger audience. Yeah,
Patricia 39:01
yay, yay for you this part of why I'm doing it, too, because it's so important. And, you know, my heart just I don't know how some people do it. My heart just goes out to people who are just overwhelmed with dogs who enter the and then become overwhelmed themselves. You know, I could have there was a point when I was literally overwhelmed with clients, and I was booked three months in advance. And so I'd see somebody I needed to see them next week. And I, you know, it was it was horribly stressful because stock is going to go down in two weeks, you know, if you can't and so you just keep working harder and harder and harder on weekends and at night and it's just not sustainable. You know, I hired other people.
Emily 39:44
Yeah, yeah, but the need is great.
Patricia 39:47
But let me let me ask you a question because I think this is so important for other people in your situation and rescues and shelters who ended up foster situations. What, what do you find people listen to the most You know what way of talking to people and reaching out to people that you found most effective? Like, you can read this book, you can read this pamphlet, you can watch this video you can call us. Do you have a sense of what works best to give people more resources when they need them?
Emily 40:20
Libby, what do you think?
Libby 40:21
Well, it seems like answering texts at 9pm is usually the thing that gets people to listen to what I've been saying.
Patricia 40:33
You know,
Libby 40:33
but you know, I, I think that. Gosh, this is that's, oh, that's a tough question. Because the way you know, the way I learn is totally different from the way I think other people learn. And I think that oftentimes, when we come up on difficult situations and rescue, whether it is between resident dog and foster dog, or any behavior, wrinkle, shall we call it? You know, people just, more often than not, I feel people want to be heard and understood. And they need a little personal intercommunication. of who I know how hard this is, I know how stressful it is. And you know, what, we've, I've been there before we've seen it, here's how we deal with it. And here's what we do. And here's what we have found to be successful. And I think that that little piece of making sure that someone is heard when they're expressing a concern is really key.
Patricia 41:45
Oh, that yay for you. I mean, that's my experience with clients. That was that was so important that they had somebody to talk to who actually really listened to them and took them seriously. Because so many people don't their neighbors don't their grandmother doesn't, you know, the their uncle says, you just need to get tougher on that dog, you know, where's the collar? And why are you not dominant? Why are you not doing this? You still know what you're doing? And oh, it's a dog. And you know, and so these wonderful, wonderful people who are providing, you know, this potential phenomenal home for the second beautiful animal are just often paddling all by themselves. And so I think the more people in your situation can brainstorm about how to have them feel listened, you know, I mean, you know, maybe something is an I don't know, it's, it's work. I mean, I love that you're answering texts at nine o'clock. Bless, you,
Libby 42:43
I'm working on it, I'm working on it,
Patricia 42:45
and maybe the answer to the text is like, Oh, I hear you, I would love to talk about this tomorrow at 10. You know, or, or, you know, maybe when the dog goes back with them, or home with them. It's, we, you know, we have we have an open mic session. And we are available between 10 and 12. You know, every you know, every Monday, Wednesday, Friday or something, you know, and anytime you want to call them, please call and if for some reason you can't call them, you know, we'll schedule something else. But But I think you hit the nail on the head that feeling heard. And not alone is just, it's it's such an important part of, of people's well being in any situation. And people who really love dogs, getting a new dog getting creating a family member for the next 12 to 16 years, possibly. It's huge. It's just huge. It's absolutely huge. I mean, imagine if you had to marry somebody after it? Well, it'd be like one of those shows on TV.
Emily 43:59
Yeah.
Patricia 44:03
But, um, you know, I mean, just Yeah, yeah. It's, it's a huge thing. So yay, for you for letting people feel heard. And like, they're not alone. You know? And, yeah.
Libby 44:16
So someone who is struggling with a dog integrating a dog into their home, and, you know, they they do need this support that we're offering, and they're stressed, and they don't know if it's gonna work. How long would you advise people to give it and is there a point when, you know, we can definitively say, this isn't going to work out?
Patricia 44:42
Yeah. Yeah, that's such a good question. And that point varies completely from family to family, you know, but they need to be asked that question. I mean, I think it's great to ask people that question and so say they call you and say yes, separations. It vets, as we all know, very often treatable and a big pain in the ass to treat. I mean, there's no way around it. So say that August separation anxiety and you know, people come to me, for example, they'd had the dog for nine months, and it has separation anxiety, and it's just ruining their life. I mean, you know, really can be on a day to day basis, it's just really messing up their life. They're exhausted, they're frustrated. So I will get together with them, I would get together with them, and then sort of, do the usual interview, go through what looks like the best practice for them for that dog for that family. And then say, how, how long do you have? You know, what would it be like to work on this for another six weeks? Do you have six weeks? Do you have six weeks of energy, and I will tell you that I had no small number of clients who by the time time they came to me, they were done. They were done. They were just by the time they got in my door. They were done. Sometimes they didn't make the appointment until they were done. Sometimes they were done two weeks before they got in, you know, they. And so I think one of our jobs as people in that kind of situation, is if you can, if it's if you read people well enough. And I think it's critical in this in this business to be able to do this, that if you read people well enough, and you start getting the sense like they're just done is you need to give them permission. Or you need to ask them say, you know, I don't know what's in your head, I can't imagine but I gotta tell you listen to you. Just feels like you're done. You know? Yeah, done. And I've had people just burst into tears, just burst into tears sobbing. Yeah, yeah. Okay, that you're not do, you're not stuck, there are things you know. So one, figuring that they're not done out is critical, or if they are helping them with that, because so many people who came to me felt so guilty, just overwhelmed with guilt, and it was all their fault. And they haven't tried hard enough, when they were, you know, I had so many clients who had a one year old baby and a dog was terrified of little kids, just terrified of them. And it was not gonna get fixed until the game was five, you know, and they just felt like, you know, I'm betraying this individual. So people need help with that. But, so, but I will ask people, you know, here's what I suggest. I, I would like to see what's happening after three weeks. So, so Can Can you go three weeks, you know, one of the generic things I would tell people, is a lot of people only wanted to see me once, which is always challenging. So I, what I would suggest to them is here, the things I would try, please, please get back to me, you know, I'll help you any way I can without an appointment about how it's going. But if you're feeling desperate, but you can't give up on the dog yet. I mean, that's I saw so many people who were so ambivalent, they were so torn, they were in so much pain, I love this dog like life itself, and I can't live like this. So I would, I would suggest, I would say, Okay, here's some things to try. Here's some resources for help, here's a support system for you. And then don't decide anything today don't decide anything tomorrow, your goal is going to be to work on this day by day, Intel a month from now, set a date, say I'm going to work on this as hard as I can, I'm going to do everything I can for a month. And if I can't fix it, then I'm done. And it gives seem to give them a lot of respite, to have a date on it to be like, Okay, I can try this for this long. Because so often people feel just trapped, like, trapped in this for the rest of my life. And there's no way out.
Emily 49:07
Right, right.
Libby 49:09
And I think we have to recognize how difficult it can be to live in a situation where you have to crate and rotate all day every day and the dogs just aren't getting along. And we you know, we have had dogs being fostered in those types of situations or adopted into a situation where, you know, Okay, try it for a couple more weeks, a couple more weeks, and it's not getting better and it looks like okay, this might be the long term answer. And that's, that's not for everybody. I would say it's not for most people,
Patricia 49:45
right like that. You mean, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's it's can be really stressful. I have had clients I have a friend who had for extremely large dogs. We could have killed each other to microsecond, had two males who were going to do that. I talked with him at length, I said, I'm really worried because one forgetting one door, you know, you've got a possible death on your hands. That was years and years and years and years ago, those dogs are long gone, there was never an incident, because they never forgot to shut the door, you know, or the gate or whatever. But that's really hard for most of us, you know, same way to Adam, a little absent minded sometimes. And especially families, you know, you get one person who could do it, but what about, what about her? What about him? What about the three kids you know, and that's when things get really complicated. When you've got a family, you've got a bunch of kids and friends, and you know, that gets really, really hard to manage. So that's a huge part to me. One, what family should this dog go to? You know, and how how much consistency is, is critical, you know, if somebody forgets to shut a door, and you know, somebody gets a little grumpy or something big deal, somebody forgets to shut the door, and a dog's gonna die. You know, that's different. You know, that's different. You know, we all we all take risks when we get in the car, you know, we all take risks with COVID is, you know, a certain extent, I mean, some of us a lot less than others. But nonetheless, if you're just not sitting in your house for the last two years, and having left or taking risks, we decided to take those risks, because there was too low enough than worth it. So again, so
Libby 51:43
yeah, like you said earlier, our dogs can't decide to take the risk, you know, the dog who is on the receiving end of aggression can can't decide to take that risk.
Patricia 51:53
Right, right.
Emily 51:55
So if somebody's thinking about bringing in a new adopted dog or a foster dog, what skills would you think that their dog should have before they bring in the dog?
Patricia 52:06
Oh, that is a really good question. Well, I'm gonna turn it around a tiny bit, if you'll forgive me, okay. And go back to something I said earlier is what skills should the human have? Hmm. So, you know, I'm back on my soapbox about reading dogs, you know, because it's just not rocket science. It's really simple. Once you learn to do it, and once you learn, you need to do it. You know, we're just we're not good observers about many things. Because there's so much happening, right, you know, in the world around us. And once people learn to actually attend to dogs and go, like, oh, he turned his head away, like, oh, we close his mouth. He's like, Oh, he's waiting for the shoulders back. They want this is really fun for them. Their relationship with their dog is so enhanced. But that so that's the first thing that's the first skill I would want is I would want to do everything I can and I know my, my certified applied animal beavers friends, we are all on the same page. I've never hurt. Every time anybody ever says what is the one thing you want? You wish the public knew more? Almost every single one of us has always answered the same thing. It's like reading dogs reading dogs, we, because they're talking to us all the time. They just can't use English. So so that's the I think that's most important. I think that's job one. And then And then oh, you're gonna hate this, but and then it depends. I mean, it depends. I mean, what, what, what I would say is you need to is is guardians need to figure out what is really important to them. And their lifestyle and this and their dog, including the dog safety when your dogs happiness, that that they really need and then they need to master it. So whatever signals people use, and need, they should they should sharpen up before that other dog comes. So you know, I mean, everybody's different. I live in the country. My dogs are off leash almost all the time. I need phenomenal recall. I need dogs to stop on a dime when I tell them to. I need leave it. I don't need phenomenal leash manners. I mean, my dogs are perfectly okay on leash, but are they perfect on leash? No, because that's not critical. You know? What's critical is that when I say when I say stop, you got to stop. Absolutely. If I call you to come, you've got a comment. If I say leave it, it's because there's a porcupine in front of you. So so people need to decide what are they what do they need to be happy? What is their dog need to be happy and safe? And then master that because we're all sloppy? We're all human. I mean, my dog It'll be way sloppier. I mean, they're not ever so not perfect, believe me. But the things I mentioned, they're pretty damn good about. Partly because I worked on so cheap. I have dogs who have to lie down when I tell them to when they're 400 yards away chasing, you know, prey. So I need that. And so it that the fact that I compete and work at that keeps me sharper at doing that. And it's really easy if you know you have a family dog had it for x number of years, it always has that behavior problems feel easy for the dog for everybody to get all sloppy. So it'd be really good to master sort of sharpen up the cues that you use in need. Before that dog cubs and I that's what so what I think is most what's important. What What about you guys,
Emily 55:48
that makes sense, because I live in suburbia. So I have the total opposite need, which is my My girl is pyrenees. And so when I get a foster, I need to you know, I don't always have to take them out together. But if I have a fearful Foster, which my last Foster was fearful, he needed to go out with Piper, to have that kind of sense of security. And because she's, you know, a pyrenees, and she gets a little frustrated when she sees a dog if she can't meet it. I need her to walk past a dog and leave it and not have any engagement because I don't want to teach the foster dog that there's like agitation around seeing a dog. So yeah, and
Patricia 56:28
even just teach it you know, emotionally, you know, just a total contagion.
Emily 56:32
Yes, exactly. Yeah. So, yeah, so we work on that every single day, every walk. And it's been two years. And we're like 97% there. Yeah, but it's not great. And, you know, it's, it's not perfect, but that is so it's like interesting to like, identify your environment, I guess this comes back to context is everything. So what do you need? In your environment for your foster dogs experience to be?
Patricia 56:58
Yeah, yeah. And where that fits? Do you tell? Do you tell potential fosters? Do you suggest that they work on anything specifically?
Libby 57:06
Well, we always we, we really focus on management a lot. And I think the biggest thing we focus on is manners around dinnertime and high value treats and toys and managing that situation. So that you know, so that you don't have a pushy dog pushing into the new foster while they're eating or something like that. So sometimes that's purely a management strategy. And sometimes it is a little training of like, No, we don't jump up when I'm holding a cookie in my hand.
Patricia 57:45
That's, that's really smart. I mean, that's really wise, because so many problems are over prized possessions, you know, and food. I mean, that's really, really smart. The other thing that you made me think of when you were talking was a whole issue of arousal. You know, I mean, we all know, you know, I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out. I mean, it's just, it's the cause of so many problems and so much aggression. And so, you know, being able to tell the dog to settle down. You don't have to lie down right there, you just have to, like, just chill out, you know, chill out, settle down. I, if I was clean, I would teach every single new dog owner to teach their dog to settle down. And, you know, some people would never need it, you know, they, you know, have a 10 year old Labrador. Like sleep appetite. But, um, but I just I see, arousal, you know, given what I did, and how much aggression I saw, which was 80% of what I did. So much, it was based on dogs who couldn't handle around them, you know. So, so if there was some generic thing, I would also teach them so I love your point about being mannerly around food and your high value things, you know, being mannerly, you know, you don't get to be a jerk to view right now, and I can add each other on as we know, but anyway, but um, but I think being able to tell dogs to just settle down is like a new way, a great way to keep that arrival, damp, arousal down.
Emily 59:23
I do agree with you the arousal around doors, I noticed in your book you talked about and we have seen that so many times both in the rescue and with clients of door greetings, just tipping everybody over. So yeah, arousal is definitely one of those things that understanding it and working with it can really help not have a really friendly dog tip over into aggression, out of arousal.
Patricia 59:50
Interesting that dogs get so incredibly aroused when visitors come. You know, it's just talking about context, you know, you This is gonna be something about the way our houses are, I don't know, I'm getting off onto a tangent. Ecologically, sort of just philosophically interesting in a way, you know why? Why do dogs go so crazy?
Emily 1:00:19
All right, right. I've always thought of it as almost like a Jack in the Box. There's nothing out in nature really, where someone just appears out of a hole, like a space in the wall, the wall opens and someone walks in. And they have to make really quick decisions, like, Who is this person? What's gonna happen next, there's no predictability about it.
Patricia 1:00:40
Very good. That's really a great perspective. And, you know, use what you may be think of is, think of the classically, like classical conditioning with a doorbell or knock, you know, the bell, you know, the Pavlovian bell. There wasn't a bell, as it turns out in that story, but the bell, you know, it's like, I think, you know, and actually, you know, when I work with people whose dogs need to be better mannered, when visitors come to the door, I have the ring, I have knock or ring the doorbell at the door that visitors usually come through, over and over and over and over without a visitor. So you can take away some of that conditioned Association.
Emily 1:01:17
Right? That makes sense? Yeah. So, um, we have a question about what the humans perspective, like, what skills should the human have, we feel like over the last decade, there's been a shift where like, you know, pack leader got completely thrown out, because of dominance training. But there's got to be maybe some sort of like, role for the human to take, you know, I don't know if the word control will be right. But to set things up, like, how do you set things up? So you're like, in charge, or in the one who makes the decisions? And
Patricia 1:01:53
I hear your struggle.
Emily 1:01:55
Yeah.
Patricia 1:01:56
So so first of all, I guess the most important relevant thing I could say to that is, what I think dogs need is a sense of security. I think we all need a sense of security. But but you know, think of it from the perspective of dogs. They don't speak English, we are alien creatures, they're living on a alien planet. Basically, you've been moved to a country where nobody looks like you, nobody speaks your language. Nobody even knows you're speaking most of the time, right? They're always telling us like all kinds of things right, and nobody's listening. So, so it must be really easy to be insecure. Right. And I think, I think it's a testament to the variability of the canine genome that they do as well as they do. You know, it's just sort of phenomenal. Um, but, but I think, you know, getting back to that, that leader, that word, you know, just even the word leader is so fraught, now, I think dogs need a sense of security. And the way they get that is being with people who are comfortable in their own skin. That's the best way I can say it. I, I bet anything that you both, both of, you know, people who everybody wants to stand beside, who dogs just go to, and just want to be with them. I know, I'm not one of those people, by the way. I mean, dogs do come to me now. That's because I've learned over decades and decades and decades. And so most of the time, dogs do want to hang out with me, but not because I'm inherently like that at all. But I know people who are just inherently like that. And those are the people. They they're not neurotic. Like I can be they're not you know, they're not full of eggs. They're not like, oh, I should do that. I shouldn't do that. They're not always and this I'll get in trouble for this. But I'm going to say they're not always fussing over their dog, especially with a high pitched voice. They're just there. They're just fair. They're just comfortable. There's just like, here. Here we are. I know what to do. I'm good with that. If I say the wrong thing. Oh, well, it's okay.
Libby 1:04:27
The kind of person that we look to when something's going wrong. Of Oh, what do we do?
Patricia 1:04:36
Exactly, exactly. Um, and man, I hate to bring this up. But I keep thinking about Zelinsky Oh, my God, sorry. Sorry to bring that in to this conversation. You know, it's this is the world we're living in now. So you're this comic actor who seem to be sort of flailing around. Long in this circumstance, all of a sudden became the person everybody looks to. But, you know, there are people who just like that all the time I met a friend of mine, Peg Anderson, she's a phenomenal she dog handler trailer. She's been in the internationals. I mean, she's really, really good. And she's of all the people I know, she is the most comfortable with herself, as anybody I've know. And dogs just blossom with her, because she's just comfortable. So I, you know, I think, I think that makes a huge difference. When when you're the person who basically says, this, I love you, dog, I love you like life itself. And I make the rules. Because I'm the one with the fingers. The one with a credit card to buy dog food, I'm the one who can open the door, you know, and I need, I need you to understand that there are social parameters that you need to follow. And I think that can be done. And I know it can be done. I've seen it done a million times. And I try very hard to do it myself. To be benevolent, and compassionate. But also clear, and I think one of the things it's hard for dogs I mentioned that sort of high pitched busting, you know, I am I am a huge as you well know, a huge supporter of positive reinforcement, I use it 99.98% of the time, but not 100%. Because I don't know how I don't think it's possible. I mean, if I say Maggie, when she just did something silly. I just added something, I just added something into the mix to decrease the behavior we know how to find right. You know, the P word. But so but you know, being comfortable with that being comfortable with like, it really is my house, you know, um, I think there's a book called fierce compassion that I'm reading right now it's about fierce self compassion, actually, it's about how people women especially need to learn to be most both tenderly compassionate, and fiercely compassionate. So fierce compassion is when you have to protect your child or, or your dog, you know, or set boundaries. And our dogs need boundaries set just like children do. Because I've seen dogs just spin totally out of control, just and they just seem desperate, just like kids who I used to work with troubled adolescents. And some of these kids were just spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning, they just needed somebody kindly and benevolent to say, Stop. Just stop. You don't get to stop. And they're like, so relieved. You know, they'll fight and fight and fight and fight, but they're solely. So this, this very complicated, complex, controversial issue of leadership, I think is really more about benevolent confidence, and compassion and understanding that everybody needs boundaries. And because we are, because we are the humans, and they're the dogs, we need to set a lot of those boundaries.
Emily 1:08:22
That makes sense. Yeah. I absolutely love that answer. Actually, I'm just kind of mulling it all over. It's beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. Like the clear communication, the compassion, and really setting some boundaries that are kind and useful.
Patricia 1:08:40
And, you know, part of that is also something that I don't see people doing enough lately. Is, is forgiveness is is one forgiving dogs, you know, people have been not forgiving dogs for not being perfect for eons. Right. So that's cool. But what I saw so much when I was last couple years I was seeing clients is I saw people who were so hard on themselves for not being perfect. You know, like, I have four kids and I got a dog that I thought was going to be 25 pounds, and he's 85 pounds, and the kids are one and three and five and six, and my mother's sick and I'm working full time. And last night, you know, the dog went into the table and knocked all of the dinner off the table and I actually raised my voice and yelled, it's like, oh you're a human. I just I think people need to be able to forgive themselves for not being perfect and and being positive 100 100 100 100 plus percent of the time, because we're human and dogs are very, you know, they could forgive us. You know, I mean, I don't know what happens in a dog's mind in terms of that. But most dogs are pretty damn resilient. You know, and if we, if we're inconsistent one time, we're like, Oh, I forgot to do this, or, you know, I was supposed to do that. Or, you know, if we're not perfect traders, which we're never going to be, then we need to forgive ourselves for that. Yeah.
Libby 1:10:14
That's so powerful. And it's such good advice to pass along. Well, we've been talking for over an hour, should we leave it here?
Emily 1:10:31
What a concept.
Libby 1:10:34
It's hard. It's hard.
Emily 1:10:36
It is hard. Yeah, I was just thinking about I think it was the other end of the leash was a huge reality shift for me where I read from you that, you know, we're primates, and they're canids. And so it really is hard. And so I think we have to really be understanding of like, this is kind of a complicated thing. Yeah, to all of a sudden be the primate trying to understand the Canaanites and then bring in a new one. But with just a little bit of planning and prep and learning the body language. It can go a lot more smoothly.
Patricia 1:11:09
Yeah, yeah, I couldn't agree more. Again, it's, you know, it's not rocket science, and it's really fun.
Libby 1:11:18
Awesome. Well, Dr. McConnell, thank you so much for taking the time for this awesome conversation today. It's always a pleasure to talk to you and yeah, we're just so grateful for your time.
Patricia 1:11:28
Well, thank you for asking me and keep up the great work, you guys. You're doing really, really important work.
Libby 1:11:38
Thanks for tuning in. If you liked this episode, don't forget to rate and review. It helps other folks like you find the show. Thanks to Mike pesci for the original music and James Eid have be heard for production. For show notes and transcripts visit podtothe rescue.com. Let us know what you think about this episode on social media. We're at pod to the rescue on Facebook and Instagram and we love connecting with listeners. We'll catch you next time on pod to the rescue. Oh, and tell your dog we said hi
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