Trauma, Decompression, and Going Slow with Dr. Patricia McConnellIn this episode, Libby and Emily are excited to sit down with Dr. Patricia McConnell - she’s kind of a big deal in the dog training world. The trio talk about the initial time of decompression for your rescue dog, the importance of the secure attachment base, and how we can show our dog safety and stability. Dr. McConnell discusses trauma: the nuts and bolts of it, how it manifests, and ways to build resiliency and offer choice and control when recovering from it. Do not miss this episode if you've rescued a dog - you might learn something about humans, too!
To learn more about Dr McConnell, or find links to her blog, books and bio: www.patriciamcconnell.com/ For more information on decompression in dogs: https://decompressforsuccess.com/nine-steps-to-success |
Episode Transcript
Emily 0:09
Welcome to pod to the rescue.
Libby 0:11
Rescuing the dog is just the first step. We're here to help with everything that comes next. Welcome back to pod to the rescue a podcast from summit dog rescue in Boulder, Colorado. I'm Libby.
Emily 0:24
And I'm Emily.
Libby 0:25
And we are so excited to share with you today an interview with Dr. Patricia McConnell.
Emily 0:31
Patricia McConnell is a rock star in the dog training behavior world. And we're just so thrilled that she took the time to speak with us.
Libby 0:41
Absolutely her book Love has no age limit has been a fabulous resource for us in rescue. It's it's something we share with our adopters and our fosters. And it really helps us communicate about that transition period between being rescued and settling into a dog's forever home.
Emily 1:00
It's been an invaluable resource and really changed the trajectory of Summit dog rescue when we discovered it.
Libby 1:07
Patricia McConnell, PhD certified applied animal behaviorist is an ecologist who has consulted with pet owners for over 30 years about serious behavioral problems. She taught the biology and philosophy of human animal relationships and the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of Wisconsin Madison for 25 years, and has spoken around the world about canine behavior and training. Dr. McConnell is the author of 11 books on training and behavioral problems, as well as the critically acclaimed books the other end of the leash translated into 14 languages for the love of a dog and tails of two species. Her newest book, The Education of will is a memoir focusing on healing from trauma in both people and dogs. Patricia and her husband live with their working Border Collies, skip, and Maggie, along with cats, Nellie and Polly, and a very spoiled flock of sheep. For more information, go to www dot Patricia mcconnell.com. Or visit her blog at www dot the other end of the leash.com and follow her on Facebook or on Instagram, and a brief content warning for listeners. In this interview, we briefly touch on topics of death and sexual violence.
So welcome, Dr. Patricia McConnell, thank you so much for coming on pod to the rescue. We're so excited to share with our listeners, so much of your experience, and body of work and knowledge.
Patricia 2:39
Oh, it's wonderful to be here. And I love pod to the rescue title. That's just too good.
Libby 2:46
Thank you
Patricia 2:47
got me, you know, as a writer, I'm like, That's a great title.
Emily 2:52
Thank you, we really thought about it a lot. And we realized there's a lot of podcasts out there for behavior and training, but not necessarily ones that really speak to the rescue community shelters, rescues, adopters and fosters. So. So that's where we saw the need, and we started it up.
Patricia 3:10
I'm just thrilled to be here.
Libby 3:13
Thank you so much. I think that maybe Emily mentioned to you when she emailed you that we ask all of our adopters to read Love has no age limit. And that has been just a wonderful way to talk with adopters about bringing a rescue dog home. And it's just a wonderful resource for rescues. So
Patricia 3:34
thank you so much. You know, my co author, Dr. Karen London, and I, we we just we were working with so many dogs who were such good dogs, but who'd been rescued who are from shelters and their, their new owners didn't know what to expect, you know, and there's just not that much out there. There's written about getting a dog who's not a puppy, you know, getting a dog who's had a life has had a home who's have lots of learning, training or learning right? And then comes into this new place and you're what do you do and both of us have been in that circumstance. Both of us have gotten like a 12 month old or a two year old daughter and literally gone like oh my
Emily 4:21
writing right?
Patricia 4:22
What have we done? And what do we do so we wrote it for ourselves as much as we did. And we've been thrilled at how well it's done. It's just and it just it warms our hearts that's that shelters and rescues are using it is that was our hope your Maggie Yeah, maybe she's downstairs so I can't really say much to her. She's She's the Barker will is for male as bark twice in his entire life. Got him a year ago. His bark twice the middle of the night. One wolf literally move One man, I'm about to have diarrhea and my crate in the other man, I didn't know what that I'm afraid of thunder.
Emily 5:06
Oh,
Patricia 5:07
that's him. I know.
Emily 5:10
Yeah, Patricia, if you were going to coach someone bringing home a new dog, let's say a 10 month old dog that they were picking up pretty, pretty quickly off of transport. And it was a dog that came from, let's say, one of the southern states with not a lot of history, what would your advice to them be for that first three days, first three weeks, your rule of threes,
Patricia 5:34
the rule of threes, three days, three months? Yes. If I had one word, it would all I would struggle, I would either say quiet. Or I would say patience. The I think the first thing it's incredibly important to do is to understand that you knew you were getting a dog, dog had no idea it was happening. And whatever's happened to it, it's probably been a lot, it's probably been overwhelmed. A lot of new sights, new smells, new sounds complete lack of knowledge about what's happening to him or her. And so dogs come in, in varying degrees of shock, basically, or exhaustion. And so I would say one of the most important things to do is give it a lot of time and space. Don't invite all your friends over don't take it. I've had people who took their dogs to a obedience class with 15 dogs in it the day after they got them. It's like, no, no, no, no, no, let the poor thing get his little paws on the ground. I mean, there's there's some really good research in human psychology that talks about three days or three nights. Actually, one example, being that people, it very often takes people three nights to be able to sleep well in a new environment. And that's exactly true with me, which was a problem when I was doing seminars on severe dog aggression. And I have to be on a stage for three, two or three days in a row with really dangerous dogs in front of 200 300 people. And I haven't slept in like two nights, right? So. So there's a lot of understanding that very new environments overwhelm individuals. True of humans, also true of dogs. So first thing I would say is quiet. A lot of quiet that so if the dog is comfortable in a crate, and you're, you know, you're you're sure that they're fine. I would spend a lot of time just hanging out in the same room with a dog, I would see how she does in a crate and sit close to the crate and just read, I would not have lots of visitors over I would not be I'd like to talk to those. But it would be chattery too much, you know, until you know the dog better. So. So I think that's the most important thing is to understand that dogs who come to you, even if they're wild and rambunctious I've had a lot of clients who said, Oh, he's just so happy because the dog was literally dancing on top of my desk. And I said, you know, they're just they so feisty. He's just so happy. And I said, I think he's frantic. I don't think he's you know, I don't think this is friendly. I think this is frantic. And so sort of no matter what the dog is doing, whether it's shut down and quiet and wants to curl up in a corner and not respond to you. Or it's dancing all over everywhere and biting on the leash and jumping up at your face. Just stay calm and cool. And let it chill out a little bit.
Emily 8:47
Yes. I love that advice. We see that all the time. We just got a dog in last weekend. And it seems frantic and fearful. And you know, we're like, really trying to slowly let him decompress before anybody meets him or there's any expectations put on him. So yeah, yeah, yeah,
Patricia 9:08
you. I am. You know, I learned more about that when I was writing my book on emotions for the love of the dog. And I was reading a lot about fear. And there was a great section in one of the books I was reading, written by a woman who was the kind of person who went to a cocktail party and couldn't shut up, you know, and she said, I am shy. I am truly shy. I'm an introvert. But no one knows that because the way I manifest my nervousness is I just talk, you know, like a fire hose. Right. And so, you know, I see dogs like that too. They just they just can't calm down. Yeah,
Emily 9:54
that's such a great analogy. I think so many people could relate to that feeling.
Patricia 9:59
Oh, Oh, yeah, I you know that motormouth where you're just, you're in your brain is going like, stop talking. yourself. Right, right. There,
Emily 10:10
we always tried to tell people like the smells are all different. And you know, every single thing is different, the water tastes different to them. So wait, let them get used to all the new smells and tastes and noises in the environment. And then there's also the concept of having a secure attachment base. And I would love for you to talk with about that a little bit more of like, why you're saying, like, sit with them, and have them kind of get to know that you're a safe person, before they have to interact with the world too much.
Patricia 10:40
Oh, that I love that you asked that question. Um, you know that that the original secure attachment based research came from child psychology, a lot, it was based on work that was done with non human primates, about the effect of either having a secure attachment base or not. And what we've learned from lots of research on human children and young primates of a variety of species is that the more a young developing social mammal, it's true with rats to the more it feels it has a lot I mean, the phrase secure attachment bases great, right? It has a safe place, it has something that can count on. And even if it's not alive, sometimes, right? But it has something it can go to, and be safe and secure. And I want to talk later about the critical aspect of, of, especially dogs who have come from some kind of rescue or shelter, needing to feel safe and protected, because that's such a huge part of trauma. So I'm so these these individuals who have that sense of I'm a social individual, and I'm attached to something I can count on. We know that those individuals have more resilience, we know that they explore more we know they're less afraid of loud, surprising noises. We know that they do we know they have less anxiety. I don't I wouldn't be surprised. But I can't think of a study that shows that I suspect there is one out there. But I can't think of one at the moment. But so. So your point is your question. And your point about the importance of a secure attachment base is really important. Because when your dog needs to decompress, and we can talk about that word, I love it that words are being used now. Yes. You mentioned that when you emailed me first about about talking and I love that you used it. Because I think we all understand sort of what it means almost viscerally. But So besides that, dogs need to feel like they have or have the potential of a secure attachment base. And I think I can't quote one. But I think you probably know, I think there's research from shelters that finds that it can, it could just be 20 minutes of interaction with the same person. Right? You know, every day, if they have a positive interaction with some person who sits in their kennel for 20 minutes or 30 minutes, they have attacked because we're so social, they've attached to that individual, and are probably most probably more likely to be more resilient, more comfortable and able to deal with change more.
Emily 13:34
That's great.
Libby 13:35
That's fascinating. So yeah, let's go back to that. The question of decompression, can you quickly define decompression for our listeners when it comes to bringing a new rescue dog into the home and why it's so important for rescue dog guardians?
Patricia 13:52
Yeah, I love that word. And I love it. It's being used now. It wasn't years ago, you know, when I was still seeing clients and writing. But I love it. Because even though it's interesting, I actually looked up the definition of decompression, it's not clear. It's actually not clear at all. Many of them except, as I said, I would argue most of us viscerally know what it means, you know, because we all have a sense of being compressed. You know, so I'm just gonna sort of talk about the actual word first, and then if I may elaborate on it, so we know what it feels like to be compressed. And one of the things I'm learning I'm I'm learning meditation, I've been doing it for years. I'm a novice, a newbie. I've been doing it for years, but I you know, I don't anyway, I just do a little every day and I do the best I can. But what I've learned from it, from the insight meditation that I'm doing is that so often say something's bothering you have Have a difficult emotion or you have a pain that your knee hurts. And what that tends to do is it becomes compressed together, somehow in your body or your mind or your soul. And that all sorts of tightens and tightens and tightens. And one of the things that I've learned about pain management, for example, from whole variety of sources related to the mind and mindfulness is to quote, give, give it give space around the pain. Give it space, Oh, what the heck does that mean? You know, when you first heard, we hear that it's like, wow, what do you mean? Right? You know, give it space, but you actually can't find that in your brain to do that. And so the reason I bring all that up, because it seems like a sidelight. But I think it really speaks to the issue, which is that when we get tense, we get compressed. Right? Right. I mean, what is tense mean? You know, physically, that's what tense means. And so when we talk about decompression, it's a kind of relaxation, it's a kind of lessening of overwhelming stimuli, where an individual is able to sort of take a deep breath, give itself some space, you know, mentally, psychologically, physically, acoustically, you know, visually, chemically, you know, just just a loosening. And I think that's what a lot of, you know, the great advice that you give people, it sounds like you do such a great job of just giving the dog's face and not overwhelming them. And letting that mind and body, just get some space, just take a breath, just relax, just stop the tension, release the tension and the compression. So that's what I get from that. What do you guys get from that?
Emily 16:57
Yeah, I mean, I feel like that is, so much of it is giving them just that time to breathe, and relax. And I think that kind of segues into our bigger question of trauma. And for you know, when I got into this 15 years ago, I felt like if a dog came here, it was the greatest day of their life, like, yeah, come home with me, I rescued you. You know, I had a young child. And it was like a party. It was the right I just rescued my dog party. And now, with huge thanks to your book and your work, I understand that there's so much trauma that these dogs have gone through before they actually step off the transport, and come home with me. And so I feel like the trauma piece is something that we don't all understand. So I would love if you could speak to that. And obviously, not all dogs have like a full spectrum of trauma, you know, that needs behavior medication, how do you tell the difference? And how could even adopters and rescuers assess dogs for their resilience from their trauma?
Patricia 18:00
Oh, so much to unpack here. Tomorrow, okay. But such such a great introduction, Emily to such an important issue. And so Okay, let's unpack some things here. So, first of all, I love that you bring up this issue of our perception of a dog's time of being rescued, versus their perception. So one of the most difficult things I think, for people to get and I know you get it, I know people in who have done a lot of rescue can't help but get it is that the rescue for many dogs, is the most traumatic thing that ever happened to them. So you know, you've worked with these dogs I've worked with hundreds of them grew up in a dark barn at the end of the chain. They've been there for four years, they've been having babies twice a year, somebody comes in twice a day, or maybe once a day and pours some dry food in the bowl. And then all of a sudden, there's all this noise. All these strange, unfamiliar people come in, terrorize them, by picking them up, put them in little terrorizing cages with them in a car, road noise, car noise movement, visual stuff, they're completely trapped. They've never had to deal with issue issue before. Then they get put in a kennel maybe somewhere, and then they gets taken to a foster home or to a home. That is the worst thing that's ever happened to them. We think we're rescuing them. And we are we are, but because they've had so little experience with the world. That is a profound trauma to many of them, right? There's just no way around it. And so we have got to recognize that we are traumatizing dogs, often when we rescue them. And that's not to say we shouldn't do it. Of course we should do it right. But we just need to know that. That's part and parcel of it. Is that true with all All dogs, as you mentioned, of course not. You know, there are those amazing dogs out there who, you know, they're 50 dogs in one room, right? And they can barely wade through the feces and you know, the dead dog bodies, and you come to get them and they're like, Oh, hi,
how are you? Oh, you know, so that needs to be acknowledged. And some of the examples I gave, of course, were extreme. And there are a lot of most dogs are not necessarily in that category. But nonetheless, you know, they were picked up on the road. And I don't know, you name the stance, right? Yeah. And then they were captured, and then they were in the kennel, and then they were transported and they're in a new kennel. And so there's still reason to be traumatized. Here's what I learned about trauma when I was working on my memoir, the education of will, what I learned about trauma, is it trauma is basically where psychologically, you get thrown off your balance point, you know, you get thrown out of what a physiologist call homeostasis. So homeostasis is a really, I love that concept. It's a really simple concept. It's basically the place for the measurement, or the quantity of something that can vary. Let's just say temperature, let's just use your internal body temperature. So homeostasis is 98.6, or whatever, right? And you can get pushed off of that, you can get overheat, you can get really hot, right, and then you could start getting overheated. And then you could start go into, you know, heat exhaustion, you are in trauma at that point, you have been pushed off of the comfort zone of heat. Same thing with cold that can happen. And you as you get hotter and hotter internally, you can get to the point where permanent physical changes are made. And you might be able to get back but you never you might never be able to get back to where you were. So with with psychological trauma, what what happens is something um, what's, what's a good word? Something violently not physically necessarily, but there's some violence, speaking metaphorically, yeah. event that pushes you off of some kind of feeling of stability. Or here's a great example, a car crash, I was almost in a horrible accident at 65 miles an hour a couple of days ago, I yeah, I was on a highway four lanes and I somebody just didn't see me it started to swerve into me. And I literally Slammed on my brakes, and then thought I'm gonna get killed from behind, right. And it freaked me out. I mean, it really freaked me out. I was fine. Everything was fine. I'm good. No, so I had that moment of like, right, you know, way off. And then it took me about 45 minutes really, to sort of get back to being relatively okay. Although one of the worst training sessions with my dogs they've ever had. And I'm like, huh, so people who have, for example, then traumatized such that they can't get back to homeostasis are generally and I'm speaking very loosely here, but are generally diagnosed with having post traumatic stress disorder, PTSD, because they can't get back, you know, they can't get back to where they were. And, and those, what happens is that kind of trauma, that's that serious, depending again, on who on who it happens to, because people are and dogs are highly variable, the exact same thing can happen to 10 people and two will get PTSD, you know, and never be better to will take six months to get better. And you know, six of them will be like, Yeah, I'm fine. You know what happened, right? So But if, with that kind of severe case, what happens is there are permanent changes made in the brain. So the hippocampus were sort of short term memories are stored, becomes actually smaller, which is one of the reasons why people who had PTSD often have more memory trouble. Below, this is me, literally. And the amygdala, which is that little almond shaped organ in the brain that's related to fight or flight, so to fear and anger which are highly related, right, that becomes larger. And I mean that you can see the structural changes, they actually change structurally. And so you know, and that's why people with PTSD, odd dogs, who have symptoms that are PTSD, like are often hyperreactive might have an nightmares are fearful sometimes and sometimes not.
Can you know some people and dogs have trouble with aggression? Because again, fear and anger are very closely related. So So, so that's Gosh, I don't know, a little bit about trauma. Yeah. So but you so what are the last parts of your question? If I remember correctly trying to get my memory to work? Well, here is, um, how do you how do you know? You know, how do you know? Well, I mean, one of the answers is, well, you don't know. Right? Oh, you know, we can't you know, people, people with PTSD part of the diagnosis requires that you're asked questions, you know, like, do you have flashbacks? Well, we can't ask dogs that, right. We can't ask dogs. If they have flashbacks, we know that dogs have dreams. And it looks very clear that some of those are nightmares. And we know that dogs can have enhanced startle responses. And we know that dogs can be hyper reactive, we know that dogs can also shut down, which is another sort of way of trying to cope. So. So um, I mean, that's the best we can do. What one of the one of the cautions I want to make, because I hear this a lot. And you might, too, is sort of from a range of things. People talk about PTSD a lot now. And I think they use it when it's not relevant. And people talk about being animals being traumatized. Some, not. I'm not quite as concerned about that term being used. But um, I've just talked to so many owners and groups who were talking about one individual dog, and and they say, I know, there are a lot of let me put it this way. There are a lot of stories we make up, you know, because that's, you know, that's who we are. We're storytellers. That's what we are as humans, right. And we want to understand the world. So we make up stories, to try and help us understand it. So one of the most common things I used to hear all the time was I know he was beaten by a man, because he's afraid of men. Right? Well, the fact of the matter is, there aren't that many mean men in the world. Right? Certainly, it's true that more men than women tend to be physically aggressive. It's absolutely true. However, most shy dogs, dogs who are unhappy or uncomfortable with unfamiliar people are far more afraid of men than they are than women. And we don't know why. But we have some good hypotheses, I'm sure you know exactly what I'm going to say. Men tend to move differently, they tend to move with more assertiveness, they have lower voices, they have bigger Jaws better to bite you with they have beards even for heaven's sakes. So that's my best guess. So. So I see that a lot. And I'll just basically say, Look, you know, he's a shy dog, for whatever reason, and you very often is because they just didn't meet a lot of unfamiliar people when they were young, during that critical, important period of development. And I also see dogs who people say, Oh, I know, she's been just horribly traumatized or has PTSD, because she won't come out of her crate. Well, maybe, you know, but maybe she's a really shy dog. And she's exhausted and needs to be integrated for a couple of days. So that's, that's a start and trying to answer those very, very good, very deep questions.
Emily 28:42
So maybe give give them way more time and less jumping to conclusions about what happened to them.
Patricia 28:49
See the dog, not the story. Ah, that's one of you. every once awhile, you hear something like that just sort of hits you just like, Oh, I'll never forget that. That's that's a great line. You know, another one is that I've never forgotten is we trained by regret. It's like, oh, god, me. You know what I the things I did 20 years ago that I wouldn't ever do now. You know, so yes. See the dog, not the story. What is the dog doing now? What do you what do you see as problematic to the dog? What do you see is problematic to you? What's the best thing to do from here on forward?
Emily 29:24
Love that advice?
Libby 29:26
You mentioned a dog who is maybe going in their crate and doesn't want to come out and could be could be tired? Could be decompressing could be afraid? How? How can a foster or adopter determine what's going on? Does this have anything to do with resilience in dogs if they are maybe just kind of riding the waves? Can you talk a little bit about that?
Patricia 29:53
Oh, absolutely. Let me first just talk a little bit about resilience. Because I think that's so important. We know that so first of all, let's just find more talking about it's, it's, it's basically like a band, like a rubber band that pulls you back to homeostasis, basically, it pulls you back to feeling stable and safe and protected. So something happens that throws you off kilter. And, and a resilient individual can sort of get back to their, their normal state of being right. And we know, there's so much good stuff coming up coming out about resilience now from, you know, there's a strong genetic component to it, but so much of the great stuff that's coming out about the importance of early development, and, you know, having variable environment at the right time at the right stage of development, and puppies, you know, thinking about, like, you know, Puppy culture, kind of books and videos that I did, you know, John galleons work that I think is great. Um, so. So resilience is both genetically determined, its early development has a massive effect on it, that those are the two biggest factors. And so again, you could have dogs who went through absolute hell on earth, but are really just fine. And if there was anything I would like breeders to be breeding for, because there will always be breeders, there always will be. It would be resilience. You know, honestly, if I was queen, I would and I had a dog show competition. It wouldn't be about top line, it wouldn't be about tail set. And it wouldn't be about cold color. It would be about resilience. It would be I mean, there would literally be tests that you have to be really careful, we're not abusive in any way. But there would literally be tests and you know, they have those in horses. I mean, they have, you know, with trail horses have to go through exercises where they show I can walk over a really scary looking long bridge, right. So they do that with other species. We need to be doing that with dogs and breed the dogs who are who are confident without being shirks, stable and resilient.
Emily 32:14
That's just so fascinating, because right now, we are really small rescue, but we have a five to seven year old lab Mastiff mix who came in with a shattered pelvis that healed on his own, but D stabilized his hips. So he has bone on bone pain, and both his hips were redoing his hips. And then he had massive teeth issues because he must have been kept in a crate. All the teeth are like broken down to the knobs. He is the sweetest, most resilient dog. And then we just got in a one year old Bernard doodle who's obviously a pandemic puppy, who has, you know, absolutely startled in the backyard when it's awesome screens up against the house. You know, it was like neophobia out of context. Right. No resiliency. And I was like, if you compare those two dogs, one from a breeder who came straight into a family and spent, you know, and then the other is this crazy life of trauma and right and these what
Patricia 33:15
fine. Yeah, you know, and, you know, I mean, I had my my rescue Cavalier was was the resilient one. She grew up incredibly abusive puppy mill. Yeah. You know, she went when she was pulled. There was green goo coming out of her ears. She, they were so infected, they had to pull 21 of her teeth. I mean, she was just, her entire head was just a goo of infection. He must have been in horrific pain. And from the word though, she was like, Hi. Ya know, I have to say, I do think there was a little part of her though. There was a little something deep inside her was a little shut down. I do. But still, she was amazing. Absolutely amazing. So, yeah, so I wish we were breeding for resilience. And I think I think they're good breeders now are working really hard on good developmental periods raising puppies. You know, I mean, I've seen some examples of people just doing some phenomenal things. You know, in my, my sport, sheep, dogs, sheepdog competitions. I see a lot of the people who are raising litters going way out of their way to raise super resilient dogs, which is just wonderful. Yeah. So how do you know you know, well, like I said, initially, you don't and tell slowly over time, you know, you get a sense of how how fast as a dog will cover, you know, if there's if you drop a plate, does the dog run out of the room and not come back or does the dog bolt for five feet and and come back to step in and explore what was the you know what happened. So you just have to use that patience and those great observational skills. And and keep in mind that these some of these changes are sort of you can see animals develop resilience actually you can, you can create resilience in people. And I think you can some with dogs too, by giving them a lot of time and patience. And, and getting back to something I mentioned earlier, which is creating a world in which they feel safe and protected. It is so important for you know, especially if you have an animal who has truly been traumatized, and is not recovered from it yet. Job one absolute job. One is to create an environment where an individual feels safe and protected.
Libby 35:59
Can you give some specific examples of what that might look like in a day to day life? Say a family home? A couple of teenagers? How do you create a an environment where the dog feels safe and protected?
Patricia 36:15
That would be a great book right there, wouldn't it? Great question, Libby. It's a really, really good question. And I was just thinking I could write a blog, that would be a great blog topic. I mean, that's a wonderful question. So here's some ideas. And obviously, it's gonna depend on the dog, right? You know, it, you know, what makes an individual feel safe and protected. One of the ways I feel safe and protected is to be in nature. You know, that's one of the ways I feel safe and protected. So, so to have one within job one is to, is to, is to observe your dog really carefully, you know, what is your dog want? You know, and here's an example. I've worked with so many people over the years who got a rescue dog, and who wanted to walk their dog in the neighborhood, because they're good, responsible owners, and a dog needs a walk, right? Not that dog, that dog does not need to walk around the neighborhood, it's terrified. It's afraid of the other dogs, it's afraid of people it hasn't met, it's overwhelmed, does not want to walk around the neighborhood, you know, and I'll ask them, Do you have a nice backyard where your dog can just potty and they're like, oh, yeah, I'm like, okay, there you go. Your dog is gonna go and you're, you're not going to force your dog. So that's one of the ways you can help a dog feel safe and protected by knowing what they want to do. And I don't mean spoiling them, you know, I don't mean like, just sort of feeding them cake on a couch or something. But you know, if your dog is like, I don't want to go on a neighborhood walk, or when we go to neighborhood walk, I bark uncontrollably and hysterically every time I see another dog. That there is no, not only is it nothing wrong, but I would argue that the best thing to do is go you know what, we're just gonna go potty in the backyard for a while, that's fine. And maybe on week three, we'll just sit on the front stoop, we'll just sit here, you and me and I'll feed your treats, you know, and it'll be good. And maybe I'll even read my book and, you know, be really happy when I see you lie down, you know, and your mouth opens. So you're not all tensed and your jaws tends to closed. And, you know, and then maybe we'll just, you know, two weeks later, we'll just take a little 10 Step, walk in the front yard and then go right back in the house, that would be fine, when that would be good. So, so the way you feel safe one, so so the way you make it feel safe or protected is you never force it into something that really is really going to scare it. I'm not a big fan of flooding, you know, where you just overwhelm an individual, it can work sometimes. But if it doesn't work, you've created a mess, right? I often don't feel like I have the ability to know if I could pull off flooding or not, you know,
Emily 39:13
says a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no, no, I if Patricia McConnell couldn't pull it off. Probably nobody can. So
Patricia 39:23
I don't know that's true. But I certainly don't have the confidence to do it that although I've seen it work a couple of times is because life happened, you know, it just sort of, you know, happens. So, so what you don't force your dog into situations, it's clearly making it nervous, so it can start to trust you. And that means say somebody you know, a big guy with a hat and a big beard comes running up to your dog going like I love dogs. That's a Chesapeake Bay Retriever. I love just the bay retrievers. I've had three of them, and you're gonna get in front of your dog. You're gonna have taught your dog if you Have time, maybe you don't. But if you've had time, you've taught your dog to sit and stay behind you, that's a lovely thing to do wish I got evident time, that's fine, don't worry about, you're just going to stand in front of that dog, you're going to protect that dog from that man, if you have to, you're going to go, let's go and you're going to turn around and walk away, you're going to protect him. So you're going to passively create situations in which he's not overwhelmed or scared, you're going to actively manage the world. So three teenage boys don't end up playing basketball, you know, in the house, right beside his crate or something. So you're going to do all of those things, you're going to create a safe space for him, where nobody can come and bother him, you know, where it really is, your bedroom, you know, where it really is a place you can go where you feel safe. And like, nothing is going to hurt you and nothing's going to bother you. Other way you can give dogs a sense of feeling safe and protected, is to teach them teach them in certain context, about how they can control their environment. Because individuals who've been traumatized what one of the things they desperately need is to feel like they are in control because they've lost it. You know, I mean, that's what happens is your life goes out of control. You know, um, you know, the hardest things for me personally, was, um, there were two things. One, there was a guy that fell from five stories and died at my feet. Well, once that happens, it's like, why wouldn't Why would this guy not, you know, why would that not happen? Again? Right? You know, how could you ever predict that? How could you ever expect that right? You know, and the other thing that happened the same year, which I actually don't talk about in the book, because the editors were so freaked out by it, was that I was in a funhouse. I'm making air quotes, by the way for brain power. That was Yeah, I was in a funhouse, when it was dark places where the witch comes out, you know, things and, and there were some young men who had learned, I think that that was a great way to steal things. So me and my girlfriend were grabbed in the pitch dark, our pants were torn off, and we were digitally raped. And then they took our purses, and then they ran away. So again, it was pitch dark. I mean, by the way, I should say, if, if anybody heard that is feeling a little, like, you know, you get that feeling inside your body. We all know what it's like, you know, you're feeling that way. Just sort of take a breath, you know, go somewhere, do what you need to take care of yourself. Okay.
So both both of those things were situations in which there was virtually it was like a life lesson. You have no control. Right? Yeah, absolutely. Like out of the blue out of the dark. And so you know, when part of why gardening is so good for me, is because I can have this fantasy that I'm controlling things, right, I can have leads I can make like this, I can plant what I want. And so the more we can help dogs feel like they have some control. And so that's I love tricks. For example, I love here's an example of something I did for Willie, I taught him to do a play bow. My favorite favorite thing to teach it on even beyond Almost, almost. Well, comm is my favorite color. Yeah, but um, because then you can have more freedom if it works all the time. But I taught Willie when he was getting tense to do a playback. Well play bows are one way dogs release tension. Right, right. And, you know, and not psychologically, but physically, you know, and we all do that you wake up, you've been asleep, and you stretch, you know, stretch, right? So play, that was a great way to stretch out the body. And so I taught him when he likes, you know, the dogs, you could see him start to get tense, I just say take a bow. He started doing it on his own. He started doing it on his own, he get nervous. And I could just see it's like, oh, it's play that way, like, what's going on? You know? So he had control in the sense that he could recognize something that was starting to bother him and he could do something about it. You know, and so teaching all kinds of tricks, teaching dogs, you know, all the new training, sort of asking a dog like for example. shamrock Patel's bucket. Right. Oh, isn't it great? Yeah. I love it. And you don't even need a bucket. I just I just wrote a blog about this recently. Because I was using a very similar technique with Maggie because I need to teach I needed to teach her that to let me use a Dremel on her nails. Um, And so what I learned, so I had a, I had a bucket of treats right down on the ground. And I would give her it, I would basically that was her telling me, if I'm looking at the bucket, and I'm comfortable, you know, if I move if I look at my paw or you know, you pick up a pie, you know, when I look at my car, I turn my head away. That means I'm not comfortable. So she's telling me, I'm good. I'm ready for you to do this. And I just, you know, good medical practitioners do that with us all the time. Right? You know, are you You know, like, a good dentist is like, are you okay? You know, can I keep going? Right? The ones who can't, we don't like right here horrible. Oh, the ones who are like, doing all right. Right? We love them, right? Because they're giving us autonomy. They're giving us agency. So so the more you can do that, with a dog who has been traumatized, the more they're going to feel safe and secure. Because they, they have a certain amount of control over their life. And let's face it, dogs have very little control over their lives, we've taken most of it away, we don't even let them pee or poop, right? Until we decide they can. Right. So that's, that's remarkable loss of agency. And so anytime you can give your dog the ability to say like, No, I'm not really ready, they're going to feel more safe and secure,
Emily 46:25
amazing advice. And going back to that idea of walking your dog, it's understanding body language and making sure the dog is comfortable in the environment and has some buy in going slow. Really, I guess the theme of this would be go slow. And, you know making because in reality, the dog is on hopefully a harness and leash and you are taking it out. Like it has no choice, right? In the typical scenario. So it's like, kind of trying to read into, are they okay with this walk? And, and let's go so and bring them into nature as opposed to noises and sounds, you know, or immediately.
Patricia 47:04
Oh, and I love Emily, I love that you mentioned about sound. I just wonder if we're just exhausting our dogs often, you know, I've gotten to water colleagues. And after dinner, we often watch TV. And there's a lot of noise that comes on, you know, so you're watching, you know, whatever. Some of them are very noisy, you know, or even a sports event. Right, you know, can get really noisy and I look at I look at dogs especially skip the four year old, who's an empath and who was just super sensitive. And you know, and I look at him, I think should I just even put you in another room? Are you exhausted by all this? Think our dogs are tired? Firing? Yeah, you know, I think our lives are tired. Us too. Actually. I think many of us are very tired by our own life just because of the way life has gone. And the last year has been like ridiculous. Challenging and, you know, incredibly hard for for many, many people. Um, so yeah, so I think noise is a big issue. You know, scent is an issue. Noise is an issue, visual stimuli is an issue. I think those are all really important.
Libby 48:23
This reminds me so much of my dog Daisy, who's a blue healer, so she's already kind of wired to be a little up. And her behavior changed drastically when we moved from a condo to a farm. And it was just we were no longer sharing walls with other barking dogs. We weren't walking out the door to other dogs cars going by busy environment. And we she did have more opportunity to have a choice of whether she wants to just go out, go out in the big backyard today or go for a walk. So yeah,
Patricia 49:03
yeah. And it's, um, I'm interested that Daisy is a healer because I was just actually thinking of a client I had who worked at a shelter, who adopted this lovely healer and she lived in an apartment in a noisy building. And the dog was just a mess. I mean, the dog was just, it was just a lot of trouble. It was just a lot of behavioral problems, and some of them really serious and she couldn't move and she ended up making, I think, a perfect decision. I was so proud of her because it was very hard for her to do. She felt she was abandoning her dog. You know, and I you know, I adopted you. I'm a responsible dog owner. If I give you a way, I'm failing you. I'm betraying you. And I was like, No, you have done the best work you could you have figured out what this dog needs, right? No, you have created a window of opportunity for this stuff. Without you, it wouldn't have gotten it, you know, maybe it would have gone to a home with three young kids under the age of seven and not, you know, things wouldn't have gone really well. And so that dog ended up living in the country, and literally became a different dog, I mean, literally became a different dog. And so that's I guess that's one of the things I like to say to people who have rescued or adopted an older dog is if you have a pit in your stomach, and deep inside, it's telling you that this is the wrong dog for you. Then, one way to say to reframe it is that you are the wrong family for this dog. And what you can do is, again, be the window of opportunity, you can be the one who figured out okay, I got the dog out of the shelter, it's not in a kennel surrounded by 40 Other barking dogs. Now it's in a home, now we know more about it. Now we know what this dog needs. I can't provide that, and it's breaking my heart. But because I love this dog, my responsibility as responsible dog owner is to get it in the environment in which it will flourish. Greater love has no dog owner. And I know it's really hard to do that. I've done it. It's heartbreaking. And it's also like the best thing you could possibly do when you find the right place.
Emily 51:29
That is such good advice. And we recently have that in our rescue. One of our adopters had an unfortunate situation, and she had to move into the city and she was devastated. She'd had this doc for seven years. But luckily it found a home on 40 acres and it's hiking everyday. She's probably going to regret it for the rest of her life. But she did the right thing for dog
Patricia 51:51
She did.
Libby 51:51
So do we have time for one more quick question. If there were like,
Patricia 51:55
Have I given a quick answer to anything? Me that's doing all this one pocket like
Libby 52:04
I'm treasuring every moment. So much. So obviously, we love the book. Love has no age limit. If you were to write a new addition, is there any advice you would include that is not there currently?
Patricia 52:16
Oh, I love that question. I love that question. And the answer is yes. Although it's not advice. It's using the word decompression. Because I'm just such a fan of it. Because I think and maybe I'm wrong. But I just I think people get that, you know, I think there's something about the Word decompress decompression, that just makes so much sense to people. And so yeah, I would include that word that, you know, when Karen and I are talking about how important it is for dogs to get their paws on the ground. And they have quiet and calm. Just that whole concept of they're overwhelmed. And they need to decompress. You know, that's that I would I would put that in there in a minute.
Libby 53:00
And before we let you go, if our listeners want to find out more about you, your books, your work your blog posts, where can they go?
Patricia 53:08
Oh, thanks for asking Libby, people can go to just just my website, which is my name go to Patricia mcconnell.com. And the two things I want to point out, obviously, there are some books or booklets that that you can order through that. But I think one of the resources a lot of people don't know about is the Learning Center. It's It's a compilation of lots and lots of articles and blog posts and videos about a whole range of behavioral issues or relationship issues. It's all free and it's all there.
Emily 53:42
Well, thank you so much for coming on our podcast. You have no idea how honored we are to have you here.
Libby 53:48
And this is a wonderful conversation. Wonder
Patricia 53:51
I'm honored to talk to anybody who does rescue my my hat goes off to you. My heart goes with you. I know it can be incredibly difficult work. And you've obviously been doing it for quite a while which says a lot. Yeah. Yeah. So so it's an honor to talk to anybody who's you know, trying to find forever homes for dogs.
Libby 54:19
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. To find out more about our programming and adoptable rescue dogs. You can visit summit dog rescue.org thanks to Mike pesci for the original music and to Alex Lee Ammons and for the love media for graphics production and editing. See you soon on pod to the rescue.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Welcome to pod to the rescue.
Libby 0:11
Rescuing the dog is just the first step. We're here to help with everything that comes next. Welcome back to pod to the rescue a podcast from summit dog rescue in Boulder, Colorado. I'm Libby.
Emily 0:24
And I'm Emily.
Libby 0:25
And we are so excited to share with you today an interview with Dr. Patricia McConnell.
Emily 0:31
Patricia McConnell is a rock star in the dog training behavior world. And we're just so thrilled that she took the time to speak with us.
Libby 0:41
Absolutely her book Love has no age limit has been a fabulous resource for us in rescue. It's it's something we share with our adopters and our fosters. And it really helps us communicate about that transition period between being rescued and settling into a dog's forever home.
Emily 1:00
It's been an invaluable resource and really changed the trajectory of Summit dog rescue when we discovered it.
Libby 1:07
Patricia McConnell, PhD certified applied animal behaviorist is an ecologist who has consulted with pet owners for over 30 years about serious behavioral problems. She taught the biology and philosophy of human animal relationships and the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of Wisconsin Madison for 25 years, and has spoken around the world about canine behavior and training. Dr. McConnell is the author of 11 books on training and behavioral problems, as well as the critically acclaimed books the other end of the leash translated into 14 languages for the love of a dog and tails of two species. Her newest book, The Education of will is a memoir focusing on healing from trauma in both people and dogs. Patricia and her husband live with their working Border Collies, skip, and Maggie, along with cats, Nellie and Polly, and a very spoiled flock of sheep. For more information, go to www dot Patricia mcconnell.com. Or visit her blog at www dot the other end of the leash.com and follow her on Facebook or on Instagram, and a brief content warning for listeners. In this interview, we briefly touch on topics of death and sexual violence.
So welcome, Dr. Patricia McConnell, thank you so much for coming on pod to the rescue. We're so excited to share with our listeners, so much of your experience, and body of work and knowledge.
Patricia 2:39
Oh, it's wonderful to be here. And I love pod to the rescue title. That's just too good.
Libby 2:46
Thank you
Patricia 2:47
got me, you know, as a writer, I'm like, That's a great title.
Emily 2:52
Thank you, we really thought about it a lot. And we realized there's a lot of podcasts out there for behavior and training, but not necessarily ones that really speak to the rescue community shelters, rescues, adopters and fosters. So. So that's where we saw the need, and we started it up.
Patricia 3:10
I'm just thrilled to be here.
Libby 3:13
Thank you so much. I think that maybe Emily mentioned to you when she emailed you that we ask all of our adopters to read Love has no age limit. And that has been just a wonderful way to talk with adopters about bringing a rescue dog home. And it's just a wonderful resource for rescues. So
Patricia 3:34
thank you so much. You know, my co author, Dr. Karen London, and I, we we just we were working with so many dogs who were such good dogs, but who'd been rescued who are from shelters and their, their new owners didn't know what to expect, you know, and there's just not that much out there. There's written about getting a dog who's not a puppy, you know, getting a dog who's had a life has had a home who's have lots of learning, training or learning right? And then comes into this new place and you're what do you do and both of us have been in that circumstance. Both of us have gotten like a 12 month old or a two year old daughter and literally gone like oh my
Emily 4:21
writing right?
Patricia 4:22
What have we done? And what do we do so we wrote it for ourselves as much as we did. And we've been thrilled at how well it's done. It's just and it just it warms our hearts that's that shelters and rescues are using it is that was our hope your Maggie Yeah, maybe she's downstairs so I can't really say much to her. She's She's the Barker will is for male as bark twice in his entire life. Got him a year ago. His bark twice the middle of the night. One wolf literally move One man, I'm about to have diarrhea and my crate in the other man, I didn't know what that I'm afraid of thunder.
Emily 5:06
Oh,
Patricia 5:07
that's him. I know.
Emily 5:10
Yeah, Patricia, if you were going to coach someone bringing home a new dog, let's say a 10 month old dog that they were picking up pretty, pretty quickly off of transport. And it was a dog that came from, let's say, one of the southern states with not a lot of history, what would your advice to them be for that first three days, first three weeks, your rule of threes,
Patricia 5:34
the rule of threes, three days, three months? Yes. If I had one word, it would all I would struggle, I would either say quiet. Or I would say patience. The I think the first thing it's incredibly important to do is to understand that you knew you were getting a dog, dog had no idea it was happening. And whatever's happened to it, it's probably been a lot, it's probably been overwhelmed. A lot of new sights, new smells, new sounds complete lack of knowledge about what's happening to him or her. And so dogs come in, in varying degrees of shock, basically, or exhaustion. And so I would say one of the most important things to do is give it a lot of time and space. Don't invite all your friends over don't take it. I've had people who took their dogs to a obedience class with 15 dogs in it the day after they got them. It's like, no, no, no, no, no, let the poor thing get his little paws on the ground. I mean, there's there's some really good research in human psychology that talks about three days or three nights. Actually, one example, being that people, it very often takes people three nights to be able to sleep well in a new environment. And that's exactly true with me, which was a problem when I was doing seminars on severe dog aggression. And I have to be on a stage for three, two or three days in a row with really dangerous dogs in front of 200 300 people. And I haven't slept in like two nights, right? So. So there's a lot of understanding that very new environments overwhelm individuals. True of humans, also true of dogs. So first thing I would say is quiet. A lot of quiet that so if the dog is comfortable in a crate, and you're, you know, you're you're sure that they're fine. I would spend a lot of time just hanging out in the same room with a dog, I would see how she does in a crate and sit close to the crate and just read, I would not have lots of visitors over I would not be I'd like to talk to those. But it would be chattery too much, you know, until you know the dog better. So. So I think that's the most important thing is to understand that dogs who come to you, even if they're wild and rambunctious I've had a lot of clients who said, Oh, he's just so happy because the dog was literally dancing on top of my desk. And I said, you know, they're just they so feisty. He's just so happy. And I said, I think he's frantic. I don't think he's you know, I don't think this is friendly. I think this is frantic. And so sort of no matter what the dog is doing, whether it's shut down and quiet and wants to curl up in a corner and not respond to you. Or it's dancing all over everywhere and biting on the leash and jumping up at your face. Just stay calm and cool. And let it chill out a little bit.
Emily 8:47
Yes. I love that advice. We see that all the time. We just got a dog in last weekend. And it seems frantic and fearful. And you know, we're like, really trying to slowly let him decompress before anybody meets him or there's any expectations put on him. So yeah, yeah, yeah,
Patricia 9:08
you. I am. You know, I learned more about that when I was writing my book on emotions for the love of the dog. And I was reading a lot about fear. And there was a great section in one of the books I was reading, written by a woman who was the kind of person who went to a cocktail party and couldn't shut up, you know, and she said, I am shy. I am truly shy. I'm an introvert. But no one knows that because the way I manifest my nervousness is I just talk, you know, like a fire hose. Right. And so, you know, I see dogs like that too. They just they just can't calm down. Yeah,
Emily 9:54
that's such a great analogy. I think so many people could relate to that feeling.
Patricia 9:59
Oh, Oh, yeah, I you know that motormouth where you're just, you're in your brain is going like, stop talking. yourself. Right, right. There,
Emily 10:10
we always tried to tell people like the smells are all different. And you know, every single thing is different, the water tastes different to them. So wait, let them get used to all the new smells and tastes and noises in the environment. And then there's also the concept of having a secure attachment base. And I would love for you to talk with about that a little bit more of like, why you're saying, like, sit with them, and have them kind of get to know that you're a safe person, before they have to interact with the world too much.
Patricia 10:40
Oh, that I love that you asked that question. Um, you know that that the original secure attachment based research came from child psychology, a lot, it was based on work that was done with non human primates, about the effect of either having a secure attachment base or not. And what we've learned from lots of research on human children and young primates of a variety of species is that the more a young developing social mammal, it's true with rats to the more it feels it has a lot I mean, the phrase secure attachment bases great, right? It has a safe place, it has something that can count on. And even if it's not alive, sometimes, right? But it has something it can go to, and be safe and secure. And I want to talk later about the critical aspect of, of, especially dogs who have come from some kind of rescue or shelter, needing to feel safe and protected, because that's such a huge part of trauma. So I'm so these these individuals who have that sense of I'm a social individual, and I'm attached to something I can count on. We know that those individuals have more resilience, we know that they explore more we know they're less afraid of loud, surprising noises. We know that they do we know they have less anxiety. I don't I wouldn't be surprised. But I can't think of a study that shows that I suspect there is one out there. But I can't think of one at the moment. But so. So your point is your question. And your point about the importance of a secure attachment base is really important. Because when your dog needs to decompress, and we can talk about that word, I love it that words are being used now. Yes. You mentioned that when you emailed me first about about talking and I love that you used it. Because I think we all understand sort of what it means almost viscerally. But So besides that, dogs need to feel like they have or have the potential of a secure attachment base. And I think I can't quote one. But I think you probably know, I think there's research from shelters that finds that it can, it could just be 20 minutes of interaction with the same person. Right? You know, every day, if they have a positive interaction with some person who sits in their kennel for 20 minutes or 30 minutes, they have attacked because we're so social, they've attached to that individual, and are probably most probably more likely to be more resilient, more comfortable and able to deal with change more.
Emily 13:34
That's great.
Libby 13:35
That's fascinating. So yeah, let's go back to that. The question of decompression, can you quickly define decompression for our listeners when it comes to bringing a new rescue dog into the home and why it's so important for rescue dog guardians?
Patricia 13:52
Yeah, I love that word. And I love it. It's being used now. It wasn't years ago, you know, when I was still seeing clients and writing. But I love it. Because even though it's interesting, I actually looked up the definition of decompression, it's not clear. It's actually not clear at all. Many of them except, as I said, I would argue most of us viscerally know what it means, you know, because we all have a sense of being compressed. You know, so I'm just gonna sort of talk about the actual word first, and then if I may elaborate on it, so we know what it feels like to be compressed. And one of the things I'm learning I'm I'm learning meditation, I've been doing it for years. I'm a novice, a newbie. I've been doing it for years, but I you know, I don't anyway, I just do a little every day and I do the best I can. But what I've learned from it, from the insight meditation that I'm doing is that so often say something's bothering you have Have a difficult emotion or you have a pain that your knee hurts. And what that tends to do is it becomes compressed together, somehow in your body or your mind or your soul. And that all sorts of tightens and tightens and tightens. And one of the things that I've learned about pain management, for example, from whole variety of sources related to the mind and mindfulness is to quote, give, give it give space around the pain. Give it space, Oh, what the heck does that mean? You know, when you first heard, we hear that it's like, wow, what do you mean? Right? You know, give it space, but you actually can't find that in your brain to do that. And so the reason I bring all that up, because it seems like a sidelight. But I think it really speaks to the issue, which is that when we get tense, we get compressed. Right? Right. I mean, what is tense mean? You know, physically, that's what tense means. And so when we talk about decompression, it's a kind of relaxation, it's a kind of lessening of overwhelming stimuli, where an individual is able to sort of take a deep breath, give itself some space, you know, mentally, psychologically, physically, acoustically, you know, visually, chemically, you know, just just a loosening. And I think that's what a lot of, you know, the great advice that you give people, it sounds like you do such a great job of just giving the dog's face and not overwhelming them. And letting that mind and body, just get some space, just take a breath, just relax, just stop the tension, release the tension and the compression. So that's what I get from that. What do you guys get from that?
Emily 16:57
Yeah, I mean, I feel like that is, so much of it is giving them just that time to breathe, and relax. And I think that kind of segues into our bigger question of trauma. And for you know, when I got into this 15 years ago, I felt like if a dog came here, it was the greatest day of their life, like, yeah, come home with me, I rescued you. You know, I had a young child. And it was like a party. It was the right I just rescued my dog party. And now, with huge thanks to your book and your work, I understand that there's so much trauma that these dogs have gone through before they actually step off the transport, and come home with me. And so I feel like the trauma piece is something that we don't all understand. So I would love if you could speak to that. And obviously, not all dogs have like a full spectrum of trauma, you know, that needs behavior medication, how do you tell the difference? And how could even adopters and rescuers assess dogs for their resilience from their trauma?
Patricia 18:00
Oh, so much to unpack here. Tomorrow, okay. But such such a great introduction, Emily to such an important issue. And so Okay, let's unpack some things here. So, first of all, I love that you bring up this issue of our perception of a dog's time of being rescued, versus their perception. So one of the most difficult things I think, for people to get and I know you get it, I know people in who have done a lot of rescue can't help but get it is that the rescue for many dogs, is the most traumatic thing that ever happened to them. So you know, you've worked with these dogs I've worked with hundreds of them grew up in a dark barn at the end of the chain. They've been there for four years, they've been having babies twice a year, somebody comes in twice a day, or maybe once a day and pours some dry food in the bowl. And then all of a sudden, there's all this noise. All these strange, unfamiliar people come in, terrorize them, by picking them up, put them in little terrorizing cages with them in a car, road noise, car noise movement, visual stuff, they're completely trapped. They've never had to deal with issue issue before. Then they get put in a kennel maybe somewhere, and then they gets taken to a foster home or to a home. That is the worst thing that's ever happened to them. We think we're rescuing them. And we are we are, but because they've had so little experience with the world. That is a profound trauma to many of them, right? There's just no way around it. And so we have got to recognize that we are traumatizing dogs, often when we rescue them. And that's not to say we shouldn't do it. Of course we should do it right. But we just need to know that. That's part and parcel of it. Is that true with all All dogs, as you mentioned, of course not. You know, there are those amazing dogs out there who, you know, they're 50 dogs in one room, right? And they can barely wade through the feces and you know, the dead dog bodies, and you come to get them and they're like, Oh, hi,
how are you? Oh, you know, so that needs to be acknowledged. And some of the examples I gave, of course, were extreme. And there are a lot of most dogs are not necessarily in that category. But nonetheless, you know, they were picked up on the road. And I don't know, you name the stance, right? Yeah. And then they were captured, and then they were in the kennel, and then they were transported and they're in a new kennel. And so there's still reason to be traumatized. Here's what I learned about trauma when I was working on my memoir, the education of will, what I learned about trauma, is it trauma is basically where psychologically, you get thrown off your balance point, you know, you get thrown out of what a physiologist call homeostasis. So homeostasis is a really, I love that concept. It's a really simple concept. It's basically the place for the measurement, or the quantity of something that can vary. Let's just say temperature, let's just use your internal body temperature. So homeostasis is 98.6, or whatever, right? And you can get pushed off of that, you can get overheat, you can get really hot, right, and then you could start getting overheated. And then you could start go into, you know, heat exhaustion, you are in trauma at that point, you have been pushed off of the comfort zone of heat. Same thing with cold that can happen. And you as you get hotter and hotter internally, you can get to the point where permanent physical changes are made. And you might be able to get back but you never you might never be able to get back to where you were. So with with psychological trauma, what what happens is something um, what's, what's a good word? Something violently not physically necessarily, but there's some violence, speaking metaphorically, yeah. event that pushes you off of some kind of feeling of stability. Or here's a great example, a car crash, I was almost in a horrible accident at 65 miles an hour a couple of days ago, I yeah, I was on a highway four lanes and I somebody just didn't see me it started to swerve into me. And I literally Slammed on my brakes, and then thought I'm gonna get killed from behind, right. And it freaked me out. I mean, it really freaked me out. I was fine. Everything was fine. I'm good. No, so I had that moment of like, right, you know, way off. And then it took me about 45 minutes really, to sort of get back to being relatively okay. Although one of the worst training sessions with my dogs they've ever had. And I'm like, huh, so people who have, for example, then traumatized such that they can't get back to homeostasis are generally and I'm speaking very loosely here, but are generally diagnosed with having post traumatic stress disorder, PTSD, because they can't get back, you know, they can't get back to where they were. And, and those, what happens is that kind of trauma, that's that serious, depending again, on who on who it happens to, because people are and dogs are highly variable, the exact same thing can happen to 10 people and two will get PTSD, you know, and never be better to will take six months to get better. And you know, six of them will be like, Yeah, I'm fine. You know what happened, right? So But if, with that kind of severe case, what happens is there are permanent changes made in the brain. So the hippocampus were sort of short term memories are stored, becomes actually smaller, which is one of the reasons why people who had PTSD often have more memory trouble. Below, this is me, literally. And the amygdala, which is that little almond shaped organ in the brain that's related to fight or flight, so to fear and anger which are highly related, right, that becomes larger. And I mean that you can see the structural changes, they actually change structurally. And so you know, and that's why people with PTSD, odd dogs, who have symptoms that are PTSD, like are often hyperreactive might have an nightmares are fearful sometimes and sometimes not.
Can you know some people and dogs have trouble with aggression? Because again, fear and anger are very closely related. So So, so that's Gosh, I don't know, a little bit about trauma. Yeah. So but you so what are the last parts of your question? If I remember correctly trying to get my memory to work? Well, here is, um, how do you how do you know? You know, how do you know? Well, I mean, one of the answers is, well, you don't know. Right? Oh, you know, we can't you know, people, people with PTSD part of the diagnosis requires that you're asked questions, you know, like, do you have flashbacks? Well, we can't ask dogs that, right. We can't ask dogs. If they have flashbacks, we know that dogs have dreams. And it looks very clear that some of those are nightmares. And we know that dogs can have enhanced startle responses. And we know that dogs can be hyper reactive, we know that dogs can also shut down, which is another sort of way of trying to cope. So. So um, I mean, that's the best we can do. What one of the one of the cautions I want to make, because I hear this a lot. And you might, too, is sort of from a range of things. People talk about PTSD a lot now. And I think they use it when it's not relevant. And people talk about being animals being traumatized. Some, not. I'm not quite as concerned about that term being used. But um, I've just talked to so many owners and groups who were talking about one individual dog, and and they say, I know, there are a lot of let me put it this way. There are a lot of stories we make up, you know, because that's, you know, that's who we are. We're storytellers. That's what we are as humans, right. And we want to understand the world. So we make up stories, to try and help us understand it. So one of the most common things I used to hear all the time was I know he was beaten by a man, because he's afraid of men. Right? Well, the fact of the matter is, there aren't that many mean men in the world. Right? Certainly, it's true that more men than women tend to be physically aggressive. It's absolutely true. However, most shy dogs, dogs who are unhappy or uncomfortable with unfamiliar people are far more afraid of men than they are than women. And we don't know why. But we have some good hypotheses, I'm sure you know exactly what I'm going to say. Men tend to move differently, they tend to move with more assertiveness, they have lower voices, they have bigger Jaws better to bite you with they have beards even for heaven's sakes. So that's my best guess. So. So I see that a lot. And I'll just basically say, Look, you know, he's a shy dog, for whatever reason, and you very often is because they just didn't meet a lot of unfamiliar people when they were young, during that critical, important period of development. And I also see dogs who people say, Oh, I know, she's been just horribly traumatized or has PTSD, because she won't come out of her crate. Well, maybe, you know, but maybe she's a really shy dog. And she's exhausted and needs to be integrated for a couple of days. So that's, that's a start and trying to answer those very, very good, very deep questions.
Emily 28:42
So maybe give give them way more time and less jumping to conclusions about what happened to them.
Patricia 28:49
See the dog, not the story. Ah, that's one of you. every once awhile, you hear something like that just sort of hits you just like, Oh, I'll never forget that. That's that's a great line. You know, another one is that I've never forgotten is we trained by regret. It's like, oh, god, me. You know what I the things I did 20 years ago that I wouldn't ever do now. You know, so yes. See the dog, not the story. What is the dog doing now? What do you what do you see as problematic to the dog? What do you see is problematic to you? What's the best thing to do from here on forward?
Emily 29:24
Love that advice?
Libby 29:26
You mentioned a dog who is maybe going in their crate and doesn't want to come out and could be could be tired? Could be decompressing could be afraid? How? How can a foster or adopter determine what's going on? Does this have anything to do with resilience in dogs if they are maybe just kind of riding the waves? Can you talk a little bit about that?
Patricia 29:53
Oh, absolutely. Let me first just talk a little bit about resilience. Because I think that's so important. We know that so first of all, let's just find more talking about it's, it's, it's basically like a band, like a rubber band that pulls you back to homeostasis, basically, it pulls you back to feeling stable and safe and protected. So something happens that throws you off kilter. And, and a resilient individual can sort of get back to their, their normal state of being right. And we know, there's so much good stuff coming up coming out about resilience now from, you know, there's a strong genetic component to it, but so much of the great stuff that's coming out about the importance of early development, and, you know, having variable environment at the right time at the right stage of development, and puppies, you know, thinking about, like, you know, Puppy culture, kind of books and videos that I did, you know, John galleons work that I think is great. Um, so. So resilience is both genetically determined, its early development has a massive effect on it, that those are the two biggest factors. And so again, you could have dogs who went through absolute hell on earth, but are really just fine. And if there was anything I would like breeders to be breeding for, because there will always be breeders, there always will be. It would be resilience. You know, honestly, if I was queen, I would and I had a dog show competition. It wouldn't be about top line, it wouldn't be about tail set. And it wouldn't be about cold color. It would be about resilience. It would be I mean, there would literally be tests that you have to be really careful, we're not abusive in any way. But there would literally be tests and you know, they have those in horses. I mean, they have, you know, with trail horses have to go through exercises where they show I can walk over a really scary looking long bridge, right. So they do that with other species. We need to be doing that with dogs and breed the dogs who are who are confident without being shirks, stable and resilient.
Emily 32:14
That's just so fascinating, because right now, we are really small rescue, but we have a five to seven year old lab Mastiff mix who came in with a shattered pelvis that healed on his own, but D stabilized his hips. So he has bone on bone pain, and both his hips were redoing his hips. And then he had massive teeth issues because he must have been kept in a crate. All the teeth are like broken down to the knobs. He is the sweetest, most resilient dog. And then we just got in a one year old Bernard doodle who's obviously a pandemic puppy, who has, you know, absolutely startled in the backyard when it's awesome screens up against the house. You know, it was like neophobia out of context. Right. No resiliency. And I was like, if you compare those two dogs, one from a breeder who came straight into a family and spent, you know, and then the other is this crazy life of trauma and right and these what
Patricia 33:15
fine. Yeah, you know, and, you know, I mean, I had my my rescue Cavalier was was the resilient one. She grew up incredibly abusive puppy mill. Yeah. You know, she went when she was pulled. There was green goo coming out of her ears. She, they were so infected, they had to pull 21 of her teeth. I mean, she was just, her entire head was just a goo of infection. He must have been in horrific pain. And from the word though, she was like, Hi. Ya know, I have to say, I do think there was a little part of her though. There was a little something deep inside her was a little shut down. I do. But still, she was amazing. Absolutely amazing. So, yeah, so I wish we were breeding for resilience. And I think I think they're good breeders now are working really hard on good developmental periods raising puppies. You know, I mean, I've seen some examples of people just doing some phenomenal things. You know, in my, my sport, sheep, dogs, sheepdog competitions. I see a lot of the people who are raising litters going way out of their way to raise super resilient dogs, which is just wonderful. Yeah. So how do you know you know, well, like I said, initially, you don't and tell slowly over time, you know, you get a sense of how how fast as a dog will cover, you know, if there's if you drop a plate, does the dog run out of the room and not come back or does the dog bolt for five feet and and come back to step in and explore what was the you know what happened. So you just have to use that patience and those great observational skills. And and keep in mind that these some of these changes are sort of you can see animals develop resilience actually you can, you can create resilience in people. And I think you can some with dogs too, by giving them a lot of time and patience. And, and getting back to something I mentioned earlier, which is creating a world in which they feel safe and protected. It is so important for you know, especially if you have an animal who has truly been traumatized, and is not recovered from it yet. Job one absolute job. One is to create an environment where an individual feels safe and protected.
Libby 35:59
Can you give some specific examples of what that might look like in a day to day life? Say a family home? A couple of teenagers? How do you create a an environment where the dog feels safe and protected?
Patricia 36:15
That would be a great book right there, wouldn't it? Great question, Libby. It's a really, really good question. And I was just thinking I could write a blog, that would be a great blog topic. I mean, that's a wonderful question. So here's some ideas. And obviously, it's gonna depend on the dog, right? You know, it, you know, what makes an individual feel safe and protected. One of the ways I feel safe and protected is to be in nature. You know, that's one of the ways I feel safe and protected. So, so to have one within job one is to, is to, is to observe your dog really carefully, you know, what is your dog want? You know, and here's an example. I've worked with so many people over the years who got a rescue dog, and who wanted to walk their dog in the neighborhood, because they're good, responsible owners, and a dog needs a walk, right? Not that dog, that dog does not need to walk around the neighborhood, it's terrified. It's afraid of the other dogs, it's afraid of people it hasn't met, it's overwhelmed, does not want to walk around the neighborhood, you know, and I'll ask them, Do you have a nice backyard where your dog can just potty and they're like, oh, yeah, I'm like, okay, there you go. Your dog is gonna go and you're, you're not going to force your dog. So that's one of the ways you can help a dog feel safe and protected by knowing what they want to do. And I don't mean spoiling them, you know, I don't mean like, just sort of feeding them cake on a couch or something. But you know, if your dog is like, I don't want to go on a neighborhood walk, or when we go to neighborhood walk, I bark uncontrollably and hysterically every time I see another dog. That there is no, not only is it nothing wrong, but I would argue that the best thing to do is go you know what, we're just gonna go potty in the backyard for a while, that's fine. And maybe on week three, we'll just sit on the front stoop, we'll just sit here, you and me and I'll feed your treats, you know, and it'll be good. And maybe I'll even read my book and, you know, be really happy when I see you lie down, you know, and your mouth opens. So you're not all tensed and your jaws tends to closed. And, you know, and then maybe we'll just, you know, two weeks later, we'll just take a little 10 Step, walk in the front yard and then go right back in the house, that would be fine, when that would be good. So, so the way you feel safe one, so so the way you make it feel safe or protected is you never force it into something that really is really going to scare it. I'm not a big fan of flooding, you know, where you just overwhelm an individual, it can work sometimes. But if it doesn't work, you've created a mess, right? I often don't feel like I have the ability to know if I could pull off flooding or not, you know,
Emily 39:13
says a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no, no, I if Patricia McConnell couldn't pull it off. Probably nobody can. So
Patricia 39:23
I don't know that's true. But I certainly don't have the confidence to do it that although I've seen it work a couple of times is because life happened, you know, it just sort of, you know, happens. So, so what you don't force your dog into situations, it's clearly making it nervous, so it can start to trust you. And that means say somebody you know, a big guy with a hat and a big beard comes running up to your dog going like I love dogs. That's a Chesapeake Bay Retriever. I love just the bay retrievers. I've had three of them, and you're gonna get in front of your dog. You're gonna have taught your dog if you Have time, maybe you don't. But if you've had time, you've taught your dog to sit and stay behind you, that's a lovely thing to do wish I got evident time, that's fine, don't worry about, you're just going to stand in front of that dog, you're going to protect that dog from that man, if you have to, you're going to go, let's go and you're going to turn around and walk away, you're going to protect him. So you're going to passively create situations in which he's not overwhelmed or scared, you're going to actively manage the world. So three teenage boys don't end up playing basketball, you know, in the house, right beside his crate or something. So you're going to do all of those things, you're going to create a safe space for him, where nobody can come and bother him, you know, where it really is, your bedroom, you know, where it really is a place you can go where you feel safe. And like, nothing is going to hurt you and nothing's going to bother you. Other way you can give dogs a sense of feeling safe and protected, is to teach them teach them in certain context, about how they can control their environment. Because individuals who've been traumatized what one of the things they desperately need is to feel like they are in control because they've lost it. You know, I mean, that's what happens is your life goes out of control. You know, um, you know, the hardest things for me personally, was, um, there were two things. One, there was a guy that fell from five stories and died at my feet. Well, once that happens, it's like, why wouldn't Why would this guy not, you know, why would that not happen? Again? Right? You know, how could you ever predict that? How could you ever expect that right? You know, and the other thing that happened the same year, which I actually don't talk about in the book, because the editors were so freaked out by it, was that I was in a funhouse. I'm making air quotes, by the way for brain power. That was Yeah, I was in a funhouse, when it was dark places where the witch comes out, you know, things and, and there were some young men who had learned, I think that that was a great way to steal things. So me and my girlfriend were grabbed in the pitch dark, our pants were torn off, and we were digitally raped. And then they took our purses, and then they ran away. So again, it was pitch dark. I mean, by the way, I should say, if, if anybody heard that is feeling a little, like, you know, you get that feeling inside your body. We all know what it's like, you know, you're feeling that way. Just sort of take a breath, you know, go somewhere, do what you need to take care of yourself. Okay.
So both both of those things were situations in which there was virtually it was like a life lesson. You have no control. Right? Yeah, absolutely. Like out of the blue out of the dark. And so you know, when part of why gardening is so good for me, is because I can have this fantasy that I'm controlling things, right, I can have leads I can make like this, I can plant what I want. And so the more we can help dogs feel like they have some control. And so that's I love tricks. For example, I love here's an example of something I did for Willie, I taught him to do a play bow. My favorite favorite thing to teach it on even beyond Almost, almost. Well, comm is my favorite color. Yeah, but um, because then you can have more freedom if it works all the time. But I taught Willie when he was getting tense to do a playback. Well play bows are one way dogs release tension. Right, right. And, you know, and not psychologically, but physically, you know, and we all do that you wake up, you've been asleep, and you stretch, you know, stretch, right? So play, that was a great way to stretch out the body. And so I taught him when he likes, you know, the dogs, you could see him start to get tense, I just say take a bow. He started doing it on his own. He started doing it on his own, he get nervous. And I could just see it's like, oh, it's play that way, like, what's going on? You know? So he had control in the sense that he could recognize something that was starting to bother him and he could do something about it. You know, and so teaching all kinds of tricks, teaching dogs, you know, all the new training, sort of asking a dog like for example. shamrock Patel's bucket. Right. Oh, isn't it great? Yeah. I love it. And you don't even need a bucket. I just I just wrote a blog about this recently. Because I was using a very similar technique with Maggie because I need to teach I needed to teach her that to let me use a Dremel on her nails. Um, And so what I learned, so I had a, I had a bucket of treats right down on the ground. And I would give her it, I would basically that was her telling me, if I'm looking at the bucket, and I'm comfortable, you know, if I move if I look at my paw or you know, you pick up a pie, you know, when I look at my car, I turn my head away. That means I'm not comfortable. So she's telling me, I'm good. I'm ready for you to do this. And I just, you know, good medical practitioners do that with us all the time. Right? You know, are you You know, like, a good dentist is like, are you okay? You know, can I keep going? Right? The ones who can't, we don't like right here horrible. Oh, the ones who are like, doing all right. Right? We love them, right? Because they're giving us autonomy. They're giving us agency. So so the more you can do that, with a dog who has been traumatized, the more they're going to feel safe and secure. Because they, they have a certain amount of control over their life. And let's face it, dogs have very little control over their lives, we've taken most of it away, we don't even let them pee or poop, right? Until we decide they can. Right. So that's, that's remarkable loss of agency. And so anytime you can give your dog the ability to say like, No, I'm not really ready, they're going to feel more safe and secure,
Emily 46:25
amazing advice. And going back to that idea of walking your dog, it's understanding body language and making sure the dog is comfortable in the environment and has some buy in going slow. Really, I guess the theme of this would be go slow. And, you know making because in reality, the dog is on hopefully a harness and leash and you are taking it out. Like it has no choice, right? In the typical scenario. So it's like, kind of trying to read into, are they okay with this walk? And, and let's go so and bring them into nature as opposed to noises and sounds, you know, or immediately.
Patricia 47:04
Oh, and I love Emily, I love that you mentioned about sound. I just wonder if we're just exhausting our dogs often, you know, I've gotten to water colleagues. And after dinner, we often watch TV. And there's a lot of noise that comes on, you know, so you're watching, you know, whatever. Some of them are very noisy, you know, or even a sports event. Right, you know, can get really noisy and I look at I look at dogs especially skip the four year old, who's an empath and who was just super sensitive. And you know, and I look at him, I think should I just even put you in another room? Are you exhausted by all this? Think our dogs are tired? Firing? Yeah, you know, I think our lives are tired. Us too. Actually. I think many of us are very tired by our own life just because of the way life has gone. And the last year has been like ridiculous. Challenging and, you know, incredibly hard for for many, many people. Um, so yeah, so I think noise is a big issue. You know, scent is an issue. Noise is an issue, visual stimuli is an issue. I think those are all really important.
Libby 48:23
This reminds me so much of my dog Daisy, who's a blue healer, so she's already kind of wired to be a little up. And her behavior changed drastically when we moved from a condo to a farm. And it was just we were no longer sharing walls with other barking dogs. We weren't walking out the door to other dogs cars going by busy environment. And we she did have more opportunity to have a choice of whether she wants to just go out, go out in the big backyard today or go for a walk. So yeah,
Patricia 49:03
yeah. And it's, um, I'm interested that Daisy is a healer because I was just actually thinking of a client I had who worked at a shelter, who adopted this lovely healer and she lived in an apartment in a noisy building. And the dog was just a mess. I mean, the dog was just, it was just a lot of trouble. It was just a lot of behavioral problems, and some of them really serious and she couldn't move and she ended up making, I think, a perfect decision. I was so proud of her because it was very hard for her to do. She felt she was abandoning her dog. You know, and I you know, I adopted you. I'm a responsible dog owner. If I give you a way, I'm failing you. I'm betraying you. And I was like, No, you have done the best work you could you have figured out what this dog needs, right? No, you have created a window of opportunity for this stuff. Without you, it wouldn't have gotten it, you know, maybe it would have gone to a home with three young kids under the age of seven and not, you know, things wouldn't have gone really well. And so that dog ended up living in the country, and literally became a different dog, I mean, literally became a different dog. And so that's I guess that's one of the things I like to say to people who have rescued or adopted an older dog is if you have a pit in your stomach, and deep inside, it's telling you that this is the wrong dog for you. Then, one way to say to reframe it is that you are the wrong family for this dog. And what you can do is, again, be the window of opportunity, you can be the one who figured out okay, I got the dog out of the shelter, it's not in a kennel surrounded by 40 Other barking dogs. Now it's in a home, now we know more about it. Now we know what this dog needs. I can't provide that, and it's breaking my heart. But because I love this dog, my responsibility as responsible dog owner is to get it in the environment in which it will flourish. Greater love has no dog owner. And I know it's really hard to do that. I've done it. It's heartbreaking. And it's also like the best thing you could possibly do when you find the right place.
Emily 51:29
That is such good advice. And we recently have that in our rescue. One of our adopters had an unfortunate situation, and she had to move into the city and she was devastated. She'd had this doc for seven years. But luckily it found a home on 40 acres and it's hiking everyday. She's probably going to regret it for the rest of her life. But she did the right thing for dog
Patricia 51:51
She did.
Libby 51:51
So do we have time for one more quick question. If there were like,
Patricia 51:55
Have I given a quick answer to anything? Me that's doing all this one pocket like
Libby 52:04
I'm treasuring every moment. So much. So obviously, we love the book. Love has no age limit. If you were to write a new addition, is there any advice you would include that is not there currently?
Patricia 52:16
Oh, I love that question. I love that question. And the answer is yes. Although it's not advice. It's using the word decompression. Because I'm just such a fan of it. Because I think and maybe I'm wrong. But I just I think people get that, you know, I think there's something about the Word decompress decompression, that just makes so much sense to people. And so yeah, I would include that word that, you know, when Karen and I are talking about how important it is for dogs to get their paws on the ground. And they have quiet and calm. Just that whole concept of they're overwhelmed. And they need to decompress. You know, that's that I would I would put that in there in a minute.
Libby 53:00
And before we let you go, if our listeners want to find out more about you, your books, your work your blog posts, where can they go?
Patricia 53:08
Oh, thanks for asking Libby, people can go to just just my website, which is my name go to Patricia mcconnell.com. And the two things I want to point out, obviously, there are some books or booklets that that you can order through that. But I think one of the resources a lot of people don't know about is the Learning Center. It's It's a compilation of lots and lots of articles and blog posts and videos about a whole range of behavioral issues or relationship issues. It's all free and it's all there.
Emily 53:42
Well, thank you so much for coming on our podcast. You have no idea how honored we are to have you here.
Libby 53:48
And this is a wonderful conversation. Wonder
Patricia 53:51
I'm honored to talk to anybody who does rescue my my hat goes off to you. My heart goes with you. I know it can be incredibly difficult work. And you've obviously been doing it for quite a while which says a lot. Yeah. Yeah. So so it's an honor to talk to anybody who's you know, trying to find forever homes for dogs.
Libby 54:19
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. To find out more about our programming and adoptable rescue dogs. You can visit summit dog rescue.org thanks to Mike pesci for the original music and to Alex Lee Ammons and for the love media for graphics production and editing. See you soon on pod to the rescue.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai