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Why Humane Education Matters with Deb MatlockWe’re kicking off Season 4 with SDR’s education coordinator, Deb Matlock. Deb explains humane education’s focus as one that promotes empathy and compassion; whether it’s about dog training or environmental issues, this way of education indicates a focus on how we connect in a way that develops empathy and compassion.
Deb, Libby and Emily cover:
Learn more about Deb Matlock: https://wild-rhythms.com/ |
Episode Transcript
Libby 0:03
Welcome to pod to the rescue a podcast from summit dog rescue in Boulder, Colorado.
Emily 0:08
I'm Emily.
Libby 0:09
And I'm Libby. We're both Professional Dog Trainers with multiple certifications in dog training and behavior. Together we have more than two decades of experience in dog rescue. We want to share everything we've learned along the way with other folks involved in dog rescue, sheltering, fostering and adoption. And anyone who just loves dogs. Rescuing the dog is just the first step. We're here to help with everything that comes next.
Hello, listeners, and welcome back to pod to the rescue.
I'm Libby.
Emily 0:43
And I'm Emily.
And for our first episode of season four of the podcast, we decided to invite Deborah Matlock to talk to us. Deb is the Education Coordinator here at Summit dog rescue. And as you know, one of our main purposes with the podcast is to spread humane education amongst the rescue community. It was wonderful having Deb on and she's been helping us design our education program for probably the last six years. So we were really honored that she took the time out of her busy schedule to talk with us about why humane education is important for our rescue and how you can incorporate it into your rescue or your conversations with your community members. And we just think it's important and we hope you think it's important to
Libby 1:35
Deb Matlock lives in Colorado, USA and is committed to nurturing connections between people, animals, earth and spirit. She has spent 25 years working as an environmental and humane educator and naturalist. Deb offers nature connection practitioner training, workshops and retreats through her business wild rhythms.
Deb holds a Master of Arts and environmental education from Prescott College and is pursuing her doctoral degree in environmental studies at Antioch University in New England. Find out more about her work at Wild dash rhythms.com.
Emily 2:09
We hope you enjoy our conversation.
Libby 2:15
Deb Matlock, welcome back to pod to the rescue.
Deb 2:19
Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here and chat with y'all further. Yeah, absolutely.
Libby 2:25
So we wanted to have you back to open up season four of the podcast to talk about humane education for people in Animal Rescue, because that's such a big part of our mission here at the podcast, and at Summit dog rescue. But it's a tricky subject. And it's hard to do. And it's hard to navigate in our current environment where social media really rules, the conversation. And things get so sticky. And we just thought you were the perfect person to talk about humane education for people.
Deb 3:04
Well, thank you for that. And congratulations on the fourth season of the podcast. I excited about that too. But, you know, the topic of humane education is so near and dear to my heart, because I feel like education. And this is a bias flag get right away, it was one of the single most powerful things we can all do for ourselves, you know, whether it's about our dogs, or what we're doing with our food, or how we, you know, when we educate ourselves, and we really allow ourselves to open our minds and look critically, at what's presented, you know, we can become very empowered, we can become very knowledgeable, and we can make massive change. And this applies so perfectly with caring for our companion animals, you know, especially our dogs, where the training requirements in the world are different, you know, cats can can live in our homes, and they don't have to interface with the public the same way. Even horses don't have to interface with the public the same way that we have this this cultural expectation that dogs can do these things. They can walk in a park, they can go to a restaurant, they can, you know, there's this expectation of dogs that is sometimes unrealistic. But yet I think what we allow ourselves to say, I don't know everything, no matter how much I think I know, no matter how much experience I may have had, there's always more to learn. There's always more research being done. There's always more to learn. And then education, you know, humane education becomes this lifelong, beautiful journey into deepening our connection with our dogs. It's just it's like a never ending thing. I mean, I feel like I know for myself, you know, whenever my end time comes. I'm sure I'll know things then that I don't know today. And I'll look back on today and go oh my gosh, I wish I knew. So it's a lifelong journey, and it's a beautiful journey that can allow us to deepen our connection with our companion animals.
Libby 4:54
I love that lifelong learning is one of my core values as well. So I just I really relate to everything you said.
Emily 5:04
And not to jump ahead, but I was thinking we might as well, you know, talk about the elephant in the room, which is that there are so many people who want to learn, but the dog training world is such the wild west of misinformation. So I think there's so many very good, well intentioned, big hearted people rescuing dogs, bringing them into their home adopting them, and then they go and seek out information. But they don't, you know, necessarily get humane education. Can you speak to that a little bit about how in this kind of crazy world of the internet? How do you get the information that's like, the actual scientific standard of care? And why is that important?
Deb 5:49
Oh, I love that question. You know, by definition, humane education is about promoting and cultivating empathy and compassion. And so whether it's about dog training, or environmental issues, or whatever it is, we're talking about humane education, the word humane indicates a focus on, you know, how do we connect in a way that develops empathy and compassion. And so I think when we when you bring up this very valid point, which is just this rabbit hole, for lack of a much better metaphor, because rabbits have lovely holes, and you know, of, you know, you go watch one YouTube video that is by a science based positive, force free trainer, that is very rooted in humane, ethical, compassionate, empathetic training, and YouTube pops up some other random video that's by somebody else were some of those videos, I watched the first 30 seconds, and I'm feeling sick at my stomach, and I can't, you know, how does the person who's trying to do the right thing and wants to deepen their engagement with their dog and create a higher quality of life for their dog? How do they go through these these all these different discerning moments? Which is a great question. And I think that's where if we start at the base level of, of understanding that our dogs are beings with feelings and emotions and experiences, and they embody trauma, very similarly to how we do it. If we start there, and we say, okay, if I was dealing with a lot of trauma, would I respond well to X, Y, or Z? Probably not. You know, so going back and saying, Alright, that doesn't feel good. I'm just gonna push that aside, and then helping people figure out where to turn, you know, what are the resources for really good scientifically based training materials, you know, because that's the other thing too, the we have to run it through the filter of our compassion and empathy. Because science can support all kinds of things. But what is our end result? Is our end result, a happy, well balanced dog who trusts us? Or is it a dog who's so shut down? Because we've used a training method that has been fearful of us, we might still get a resulting behavior that we might think we want, but do we want that behavior from a shutdown terrified dog, or from a happy dog who is super excited to do this behavior? Because it, the bond is there and the respect is there. So I think weaving our way through the stuff is as being honest with ourselves, about what we do not know. You know, and I think that's where starting with, with humbleness, and then laying on top of that critical thinking, and then laying on top of that, that there, like you said, there's, this is an unregulated industry, so their voices are all out there, you know, but not being afraid to say to somebody, you know, what is your trading? Where do you get this idea? You know, how do you how do you get to where you are, you know, that doesn't answer all the questions about people getting to good quality dog training, but it can rule out a lot of people who, who are dog training, because they, quote, had a dog they loved when they were a kid, you know, or dog training the way that they were taught to train in the 70s or 80s. And haven't haven't decided to educate themselves. You know, one of the questions I have for dog trainers that I work with is what is your education? What is your commitment to continued education? What are you doing to keep yourself up on it? You know, and that's just the beginning place, but the critical thinking piece of it, and running it through that is this really humane? is doing this to my dog, honestly, humane is my dog running with glee and joyfulness for a training session or as my dog hiding? You know, we can ask some basic questions without, without having to go too far outside of our just, you know, inter social way of being, like, looking at our dogs, they'll tell us a lot. We don't even have to be experts to see that.
Emily 9:41
That's so interesting. And we now know through the research and the science that dogs have the emotional capacity of like a three to four year old human being. So if you sometimes I try to think of like if I was a three year old, how would I respond to this situation? And I tried to and we used to use the word like anthropomorphizing but actually, it makes sense. If they have the same brains and the same emotions and you know, the same responses to stimuli as us, then why wouldn't we try to empathize with them? Like you were saying compassion and empathy. So when I see a dog coming off transport or when we picked up, Leila, three weeks ago from the shelter, and she was shaking in the backseat, I was like, what would I as a young child, totally terrified need right now? Would it be to like go to a busy place? Or would it be to just have like, simple quiet? So you know, I really do try to check in with what would I have wanted at three years old, if I was in this terrified situation where I knew nothing.
Deb 10:45
Yeah, and you bring up I think, a really important point, which is the idea of anthropomorphizing which often gets a bad rap. And it can be dangerous, if we expect our dogs to behave as humans. If we don't understand why our dog might want to bark at the UPS delivery person, or, you know, have have, you know, trouble with where to mark, you know, the front curtain when the dog from the neighbor house comes running up to the window, if we don't understand the culture of dog, we're anthropomorphizing too far. But we also come from the other side of the spectrum, we can miss out on those deep connection points, which is exactly as you said, we have so much in common with each other to so much in common, you know, that I mean, I look at what the dogs that come into rescue what they've gone through, and I'm very clear, in my own mind that I don't think I could survive what a lot of these dogs are pulling off, the trauma would be too much, you know, but yet, you know, if we understand those things, we understand, like you said, the emotions and the fear and the stress and the grief and all the things that happen and like the the dog you were mentioning, Leila, you know, she was in a shelter with separation anxiety, if I'm thinking of the right dog, she's now in a car with a stranger, going someplace to God knows where in her mind, like her whole world was crashing down, even though she just got brought into a really, really awesome situation. You know, it's like, we can look at that and we can meet each other because we aren't that different, you know, where we get different is when we look at ourselves as different species cultures, different different kind of functioning in the world, you know, resource scouting makes a heck of a lot of sense. If I look at it through the eyes of a dog, you know, if you come over to my house for lunch, and you reach for my sandwich, I'm probably not going to reach out and get upset and bite at you. But I'll hit but, you know, if I had had food scarcity, I might be a little bit triggered by that. But as a human, I might do it differently. But it's not the roots of all these things are not different.
Libby 12:39
I love to remember, I think it's a Robert Sapolsky in his book behave, who says that humans are basically thinking animals, you know, we're still animals, we just happen to have a more developed prefrontal cortex.
Deb 12:56
Yeah, and with that developed prefrontal cortex, I like to say, comes a heck of a lot of responsibility. You know, we have to say, All right, yeah, we are animals, we need all the same things, food, shelter, water safety, we need all the same things. And with the slightly different way of orienting our brain, we need to educate ourselves about what the other animals need, like we don't have an excuse, you know, to take the lowest the best. The next, you know, our neighbor says, go to this dog trainer, and this dog trainer is doing all these horrible things. That's inexcusable, we need to do our homework we need to dig in. You can't just say, Oh, it sounded good on Facebook, you know, because we have exactly what you just said, we have a brain that can do a little bit more.
Libby 13:37
Yeah. Or taking the easy route. This looks easier. This seems easier. So this might be a good time when you just mentioned, you know, we have the same needs for food shelter, to talk about the five freedoms, because the five freedoms kind of they form the basis of international standards of care for captive animals. So, listeners, if you're not familiar, the five freedoms briefly are Freedom from Hunger and thirst, freedom from discomfort, freedom from pain, injury or disease, freedom from fear and distress and freedom to express normal behavior. And so when we're talking about welfare, and humane treatment of animals, this is kind of the underpinning.
Emily 14:33
Yep. It's like the standard floor that we should all start at and it's it started for farm animals. And then the five freedoms have been applied to zoo animals. But unfortunately, they're not yet being applied universally in specially our country to companion animals, which is amazing that the dog that we sleep with, is afforded less humane welfare standard then, you know, other animals?
Deb 15:03
Yeah. And as you read that, that list, Libby, how many of those freedoms on that list directly, you know, our counter to certain dog training methods, you know, and that's where, again, the education of all of us as the guardians, and the caretakers, and the ones making some, some pretty hefty decisions for the dogs we live with, you know, if a, if a training method goes against the basic freedom, one of those five freedoms, the standard for animal welfare, it should raise red flags in our mind, if it causes pain, if it causes discomfort and fear. What in the heck is that? Right? It goes against these freedoms, it goes against these animal welfare, precipice, you know, these principles of basic care and conduct. And then it goes against humane education, for sure. You know, because it's not, it doesn't, you know, in my mind, just scaring my dog into behavior isn't training my dog. I mean, I'll just put that out there for personally, that's how I look at it. If I have to freak frighten my dog to get something I want. Then I'm just getting what I want. I'm not training, I'm not connecting, I'm not honoring my dog as a living being with with his or her own agency who deserves those five freedoms, you know, freedoms that I also deserve. Right. And then that we all, you know, and I think that that's where up leveling this, this, the field of dog training and having these kinds of important conversations is key, because so many people, I mean, the way I look at it is I don't know if it's accurate statistic, but I read somewhere that less than 10% of companion dogs actually get formal training. So how, and again, I don't know if that's accurate. Still, it was probably 10 years ago that I read that, but but I do know, that's probably a small percent. A lot of people adopted dog or get a dog in one way or another. And that's the end of it. You know, so of those that are actually getting formal training, how many are getting training that adheres to these five freedoms, how many are getting training from from trainers that understand these principles and how they apply to dog training? You know, and that's where US educating ourselves as the consumers of dog training, whether we're rescue people or guardians, you know, we're consuming it. You know, I want to know what's in my food, and I want to know what's in my dog training. It's not different.
Emily 17:22
And you touched on something earlier that dog training is an unregulated field, I feel like that was something that was mind blowing for me. 10 years ago, when I discovered that like, I for sure thought this user Milan, had gone to school for canine behavior had a degree and or had some formal education. And it turns out that you don't need any formal education to be a dog trainer,
Deb 17:47
you know, and in this world of like, social media, and YouTube, which is really cool that we can all create, and share. There's a lot of beauty in that. I mean, a no question. I've loved that when I need to read reprogram my sprinkler system, I can go to YouTube and find some really nice person in their garage with the same sprinkler system, and they walk me through it, you know, it's really fantastic. And the downside of that is that anybody who thinks they know whether their intentions are good or not, you know, I think a lot of dog trainers who are doing what would would be considered very aversive, they don't all have negative intentions. A lot of them are deep dog lovers themselves, who just haven't done the kind of critical thinking homework kind of stuff we're talking about here. You know, a lot of I think I would say probably the bulk of people who seek dog training, are people who love their dogs and are trying to find a way of being copacetic and harmonious living together. And I've known some extremely well intentioned good hearted people who have paid really high dollar for really horrific dog training. They didn't mean to do something horrible to their dog, you know. So I think the unregulated part of the industry is yet another reason why each of us as consumers, whether we're individuals are rescues or teams of people, we have really got to dig deeply. We've got to dig beyond the convert the controversial conversations on Facebook, where you've got people screaming from all camps, throwing lots of little sentiments out there with very little fact, without, without the ability to say, how what do we have in common first, which is probably a love of dogs. Even in the most egregious situations, there's probably a common love of dogs. You know, I've seen really aversive trainers with TV shows who actually do a lot of really good rescue, and they donate a lot of money. And so there's a there's a common ground here. And so then we start from that place, and then we weave it through the filters of the five freedoms and the compassion and empathy. And the acknowledgement that we are all beings on this earth, human and dog like just trying to get through our days, all wanting to love and connect with each other. If we start there, you know, then we can open our minds and say, I don't have to be I don't have to be feel shamed that I did this one way a year ago because Now I can see there's a new way. I mean, I'm horrified to think of what I did in the 80s and early 90s, and the name of dog training, and I would have died for all my dogs. I love my dogs. But oh, yes, there was a time that I did my dog training at the fairgrounds with a choke chain. I was like 14 years old, you know, that was in probably ad, I don't even know what mid 80s And I cried after dog training class. But I didn't know that it was any other option. You know,
Emily 20:27
same here, I had an invisible fence. You know, in the 90s, my dogs had a choke collar on. It didn't think twice about it
Deb 20:35
either, because that was all dog training was. And the beauty of today is that we have so much more psychology and understanding of dogs, like you were talking about the dog emotion at three to four years, and we have so much more behavior training, and we have so much more information that now it becomes inexcusable not to educate ourselves and to not dig deeply. And to not demand the level of training for our dogs. That is, is of the current science and thinking and an ethical standard. I mean, to me, that's a sign to demand that.
Emily 21:07
Right? Like one thing they're doing now is, you know, training dogs through positive reinforcement to keep their heads inside an MRI machine. And they're doing scans of their brain. And like when they present them with different stimuli. I mean, the science is really cutting edge now to see like, how do they recognize the smell of their person? Like we're starting to understand through science, how dogs process emotions, and you know how they respond to stress by doing cortisol testing, like, if they're wearing shock collars versus not wearing shock collars. There's been increased levels of cortisol in their saliva, even when they're not actually being shocked. So they're just doing all these testings on dogs that 20 years ago. We didn't we didn't have the science for that. So we didn't know.
Deb 21:55
Yeah, and you made a really good point that they're getting dogs to agree to this through your science based humane force free, you know, positive reinforcement training. And so then these become for the right dogs, these become fun things to do. You know, I mean, I've seen dogs loving certain things that I don't know, that I've ever seen a dog love before, but it's because the bond is there, and the connection and the communication. And so, you know, we're we're moving, I think it's really exciting. We're moving into a place where we're culturally, you know, are we integrating dogs into our lives in a much more respectful way? That has just got so much more potential for us to understand each other better? You know, but it also takes each of us as individuals each rescue each each breeder, each everybody to say, All right, let me put aside what I think I know. And move forward. You know, and that's my own personal commitment to it's like, my goal in life is that every dog that comes into my life, I learned more, and that I always put aside what I think I know, I always assume that I can do what I'm doing better. You know, and and I hope that that mindset, I hope that I continue to do it better. I hope I continue to look back and go Oh, and 2023 I thought this was right. I can't believe I did that. I would never do that again. You know, I have I have a 12 year old Border Collie that when I first adopted her, she was one and a half and I was doing positive training. But I didn't understand threshold and I was overstimulating her all happy, positive, but oh my gosh, I was I was taking her to her trigger places too much. It makes me so sad. Now I think about that. And I look back and I've apologized to her. You know, I wouldn't make that mistake again. And 12 years ago, I thought that was what I was supposed to do to help her. So we have to keep a beginner's mind. Because of like what you just said, the training and the studies and all the stuff are moving now and really beautiful directions. We're all going to keep learning and we just have to keep ourselves tapped into that. And never dig our heels into that. I have the one way and this is the only way. You know.
Libby 23:58
And I would love to bring up a point here that I think it requires that we have when we're looking back on past mistakes we've made or when we didn't know better, I think we really need to have a lot of self compassion. And I'm wondering if you can talk about not only that self compassion, but extending that same compassion to others who aren't as far along in their journey as we are. And I see this so often on social media, like, like we've been talking about the science is, is really changed. I mean, it changes fast these days. And there's always someone who's going to know a little bit more than you are and there's going to be someone who knows a little bit less, but you might have been in that position just a month ago. So how can we extend that compassion to our former selves and to others who are in a different place in their journey?
Deb 24:58
I think that is probably The Golden Nugget question in this conversation of education. Because whenever we're in a position of education, whether we're offering a training class to many people, or we're talking one on one, you know, a volunteer talking with a potential adopter, we're in an education role. And I think the idea of compassion is so key for ourselves as well. You know, like, I've had to sit down and cry about things from 20 years ago with the choke chains on sensitive dogs, that I literally cringe. I just have to say, okay, but you've learned and you would never do that, if you had that same sweet dog again, today, everything about how you and she would interact would be different. You know, and the one thing that I think to give ourselves compassion in the past is to say, when we look back and say, Okay, I wouldn't do that again. You know, we do it in all our relationships, people do it with their partners, with their children with their plant house plants, you know, like, oh, I overwatered, that one, I've got another one. Now I'm gonna do it differently, you know, part of life as a human being is growing experientially, through what we've experienced and learned. And it's a rough road at times when we think about things like dog training, and I've heard people talking about parenting parenting styles that they look back and be like, Oh, my gosh, what happened, you know, what people did in the 70s. compared to today? Yeah, you know. So that is a good place. Just to say I think the the way that I know for myself, I have found is to say, I'm just going to keep learning. And just like I was saying a minute ago, never losing the idea that I'm, I'm always going to have more to learn is a part of the way that I can sort of move forward and just always do better for the next dog always do better for whoever I don't even know yet is going to come into my life. Probably through some a dog rescue, I'm guessing, but you know, whoever I don't know yet, right. And the same with the people we're working with. And I think this is super critical, especially with rescue and adoptive families, if people are coming to a rescue, to get their dog, these people are already making a very, very conscious choice. They're already saying, I love dogs, I love them so much that I'm choosing this path. You know, they may have a shock collar background, or a choke or prong collar background, and maybe all they've ever learned, I've met lots of people who love their dogs dearly. And that's what they're choosing. And it's really hard to watch. And you see the stress results, like like Emily was just talking about with the shock collars, and you see these dogs that are just, you know, but if we have people coming and asking questions, you know, it's all about saying, all right, you know, what we're all here together, because of the common love of dogs. Everybody here also needs a certain level of behavior. You know, like, we all have to find our ability to manage and you know, certain behavior issues are not manageable by certain people or in certain situations. You know, so part of it is trying to be respectful of that holistic picture. The other piece with this is knowing that we can't force anything on anybody. So the quickest way to shut down any kind of educational interaction, whether again, it's a group or a one on one, or whatever it is, is to go into that interaction with I know better than you and you're wrong. You know, I know personally, if you're gonna shut me down, it's come at me with that kind of attitude. And I'm going to be like, forget it. I don't care what you're saying, now. You know, like, you've just ticked me off, I'm on the defensive, you know, it's the quickest way to shut it down. So the one of the best ways to have that compassion is to a know that we're not experts, even if we're quote unquote, experts, you know, like, we still have more to learn because that's also to say, How can I meet the person where they are. A person shows up with a dog for a dog training class, and they've got a really robustly excitable dog who's quite large, and they've got a prong collar and the dog is still lunging all over the place. They're wanting to be able to have their dog walk on a leash without their arm getting yanked out of their socket. They're not bad because they put the prong collar on the dog. They're misinformed. And now they're showing up for an encounter to look for a better solution. So right there, you know, one way to be compassionate as well as this guy's got a lot of energy boy, I can imagine this is frustrating for you, I can imagine this can be stressful. If you're walking on ice and you have this you're worried about getting you know, knocked off your feet, you know, meeting them in all those places that are so common, and then saying, Okay, let's try something or if you're open for this, how about let's, let's put him back on the harness, take the take the prawn collar off, and let's just see what he'll respond to like what treats he might like or what toys. Let's just start getting curious together. So now you're creating a team approach with this person. Let's get curious together about looking for solutions. This is where if you're an expert person with a lot of background, you can say I have a lot of stuff in my back pocket we can try. So let's just start going through and just see what your dog really responds to and what you like, and let's find the thing that allows the two of you to come together. You know, right off the bat you're You're meeting them, you're honoring why they're at the end of their rope, well, maybe literally, if the leashes pulled out, they may literally be at the end. And also, I wouldn't want to walk a dog like that all the time either, like, I totally get it, I can meet him there. But then saying, there's a lot of options that can be kind to you and kind of your dog and that your dog might love.
Emily 30:22
That's great. So it's empathy and compassion for all species involved, and then collaboration, so that you're getting to that, you know, solution together as a team.
Deb 30:33
Yeah, and I think collaboration I have had, in my own life, where I've had a dog trainers helped me and, you know, I've had so much thrown at me, that I'm all on board, I want to go there, but I walk away from an hour long session, and I feel overwhelmed. Like, there wasn't collaboration, it was them, like moving up and opening up the dump truck and dumping a whole bunch of information. So a part of us when we're in an education role, we have to say, how much is appropriate right now, and quite frankly, you know, a newly adoptive family working, they might need one little tip at that moment, you know, to go to what's the most important thing that's going on, right, then, you know, and give a good start there, you know, and then it's about a partnership, it's about building that with the dog, too. So it's a triad, you know, trainer, Guardian, dog, everybody giving feedback, including the dog, you know, the dog has to be looked at as an equal partner, and all of it. And then from there trying to move into a place of of, you know, what is going to be fun for everybody, because I actually think that even the most difficult behavior, things can be really fun to work with. If we find those common languages, you know,
Libby 31:52
this makes me think of consent, getting our dogs consent, when we embark on a training process is a relatively new idea in the dog training world. And it's something that, you know, I didn't know about 10 years ago, when I first started dog, training my own dog. And it makes me think of getting consent from our human learners. What are you willing to engage in right now? How much? Are you willing to learn? How open are you to what I'm saying?
Deb 32:35
Yeah, how much bandwidth do you have right now, you know, if somebody has a newly adopted dog and 22 year olds, and, you know, that person might need a different, you know, support approach than the person who is retired and has the dog is the center of that person's world, you know, and they have hours to spend, you know, and I think that, that, that's also where as an educator, we have to meet people, you know, it's going to, it's going to be counterproductive to go in to the person who's got no bandwidth in his life is just a little bit chaotic, to do anything more than say, Okay, we might start out with some basic management of the situation. Maybe we're just going to start there with how about a baby gate there? And how about a change, like a little routine shift? Okay, see you next week, you know, that might be all it can be in that moment is to say, All right, we need the dog to stop doing this in the kitchen. Okay, let's just block the kitchen off. We'll worry about training this through later, right now. You're losing, you're pulling your hair out, your kids are screaming your dog is getting really bad behaviors reinforced because the kids are throwing food at the dog. Let's just cut it off. You know. So the consent is also you know, it's Yeah, asking them and it's also us kind of as educators, you know, kind of intuiting into what's available in the situation. And I love that you brought up the dog consent. And I have a story I want to share with the same little border collie. I mentioned her name's Riley. Early on, when I had this two year old Border Collie and winter hit in Colorado, I was desperate for indoor things to do with a border collie who was two year old. And I found an indoor agility training course nearby. And it was an evening class. So I go cool. It's indoors. It's relatively out of the storm. We were going in it was not like nasty training or anything. But it was an intense environment. You know, I didn't love it. You know, I was trying to get her to have fun with it. And at one point, in the middle of running through the agility, she ran to the door of our parking lot, sat down and looked at me. And the trainer turned to me and said you need to get your dog back over here and get her back in the game. And I said actually, I'm going to get my stuff and I'm going to leave because my dog just told me she doesn't want to do this anymore. And I'm doing this for her. And he made some comments to me about how I was never going to have control of my dog. Well, okay, she's completely awesome and controlled. And she's, you know, old lady laying here right now as we're talking, you know, but I it was her consent. I realized in that moment, it's like she doesn't want to be here. It's not the right environment for her. We went on to do it agility in another place with a different trainer, and she loved it. So I think that's exactly it, you know, we have to also respect our dogs. And it may be the wrong time or the wrong place or the wrong vibe. This guy might have just been wigging her out. He wasn't mean, but she didn't want to get near him. You know, and I think that those are parts of the story of dog training. I'm so glad that you brought that up. Because that isn't always even in the most humane force free environments. That's not always part of the conversation is, you know, where's my dog's bandwidth and all of this?
Emily 35:38
So as a rescue or shelter, volunteer listening to this conversation, how would you say that this could, you know, enhance their current programs, like everybody in rescue right now, and the sheltering world is just absolutely maxed out. Like, honestly, we haven't released the podcast in a year, because we have been on like, overdrive, it's just between life and the rescue, the education piece kind of fell to the wayside. But we, we feel so strongly about it, that we revived it in the hopes that, you know, it's putting good into the universe in the world. But how can we get these like maxed out shelter workers, and volunteers, some, you know, something tangible to take away from this conversation that they can use to like, help educate their adopters and their fosters? But not maxed them out? Or be in a position where people are, you know, putting up walls and feeling judged?
Deb 36:39
By that is, that is a really great question. I think there's probably multiple answers to that, and I'm not sure I have all the right answers. You know, one thing that comes to mind is, you know, each rescue saying, Okay, what's our capacity for increasing our education output even a little bit? Because as we all know, you know, behavioral challenge, and a lot of the reasons dogs get surrendered, goes directly into lack of education on the people who were, who had adopted the dog in the first place. You know, not always, but a lot of times, you know, so it kind of behooves all of us in rescue to say, you know, what role can edgy play education play? How can we do a better job, and then what resources are available for us, so we don't have to recreate the wheel. You know, not every rescue needs to recreate every video for how to walk on leash or how to do this. I mean, there's, there is good stuff out there. And I think something that, you know, pod to the rescue does is provide that resource, and, you know, links to quality trainers on YouTube and things like that, that can help you so that the the wheel doesn't have to keep getting reinvented. I think the other thing is knowing that in rescue, if we look at it as every life counts, yes. And without education being part of it, a lot of times what happens, and I don't want to make this sound bad, but as you all know, a lot times what happens is dogs just getting funneled through and thrown into places that are not the right places for them. You know, I don't know if it's appropriate to say this, but this is a concern I have with the clear the shelter events that happen all over the country every year, you know, there are animals going into places without education. You know, what is the success rate going to be in that situation? So knowing that as a rescue if part of our endgame is actually successful adoptions? saying, Okay, how can we find the what's the lowest hanging fruit for our rescue right now to setup our adopters? You know, and is it linking them to certain resources? Is it giving them the pod to the rescue link? Or the, you know, is it simply putting in our adoption paperwork, here's some tools, you know, that's, that's one way to do it all the way to the other end, which is providing programming for them or, you know, finding those like some a dog rescue does, finding the dog trainers that are aligned on recommending, you know, actual recommending, you know, this person for this dog kind of things, you know, but I think if we overlook education, in the world of rescue, we're doing a disservice down the road, because we're not going to be solving the problem. You know, the problem is is multifaceted. You know, yeah, there's a spay and neuter end of it. And the the too many animals coming in without, and then there's the why aren't people able to or willing to make lifelong commitments to their dogs. And we can't change everybody. We can't change everybody who makes decisions that are difficult, that that are hard to stomach. We can't change the sad situations where somebody really loves their dog, and then they become ill and can't, you know, they have to go into care or whatever. But there's a lot of in the middle that can be changed by education. And so as rescue workers asking ourselves, you know, we have we have, you know, small, medium and large views. Right now, we have this dog in front of us that needs a place to go okay, that's one thing. Middle Ground large the long game is how do we get this problem to go away so that we aren't needed anymore? Are, and in my mind, really good human education is making itself obsolete. It's making itself not needed. It's changing the world in such a way that it won't be needed again, 2030 4050 years from now?
Libby 40:12
I'm sure hope we're not having these same conversations and 30 years.
Deb 40:16
Right. Yeah. You know, at that point, we'd have the conversation of WoW, wasn't it amazing that, you know, people really rose up and started to see their dogs as, as companions with similar experiences. And the cultural change happened, that would be a really great conversation to be having, you know, but it's gonna take each one of us individual, each rescue each every everybody's saying, I want to be part of that change, I want to move in that direction. That's how much I love dogs. I don't just want my dog to do a thing right now, as a shutdown stressed out dog. I want to be part of this bigger cultural paradigm shift that invites dogs into our lives in a respectful, compassionate way, as members of our community and our families.
Emily 41:01
Right? Yeah, it's happening more overseas than it's happening here. Like they just banned shock collars in England that are banned. And so many countries in Europe, Croatia, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, here, we, you know, have no regulations and no laws about how, what is acceptable in the way you treat your dog. As far as training goes, if it's in the name of training, you can do some pretty horrendous things.
Deb 41:32
You know, that's exactly where education is, it's got a role to play. Because if each individual person starts to learn a little bit more, and they say, wait a minute, I don't want to do a shock collar on my dog, I am not going to use a prawn collar, I am not going to do these egregious things that some of these horrible YouTube trainers are doing, you know, then the tide is going to get pushed by consumer demand as well. You know, we're already seeing things, we're already seeing bipartisan bills for animal welfare going through a Congress that is really divided, but you know what, they're not divided on in all cases, some of these issues, you can have Democrats and Republicans who will lay down their lives for their dogs, and there's some actual things happening. So I think that the, the potential is there, but it's going to take all of us at whatever scale we are, whether we're the one person in our backyard choosing a different training method, or we're a really big rescue, or we're a, you know, a national humane organization, or whatever it is, it takes these in conversations, which is why so much respect what pod to the rescue does, it's these conversations and planting the seeds. And it's just saying, cultural change happens with culture, all of us. It's not a top down thing.
Emily 42:47
And then the thing to always keep in mind, I think what I'm learning from you, and what I've learned from other amazing mentors I've had is to just not bang people over the head with your new information, because that is the absolute way to lose ears. So just gently explain a little bit, and see if they're into learning. In a gentle way, you know,
Deb 43:09
learner Relevancy is one of the most important parts of education. And that's where we, as educators, we have to put our agendas aside, and I'll be the first to say it, you know, I don't do education without an agenda. You know, I work in environmental and humane education, and I have a lot of agendas for why that's the career path I've chosen. You know, it hasn't been very lucrative, it's, you know, it's like, there's a lot of other agendas for that. But we have to know our agendas, so that we can put our agendas off to the side. And we can meet the people who are coming to us and asking, and then saying, what are they open to? What is their bandwidth? And how do then I make this relevant for them. Because without learner relevancy, we think about all of us, all of us listening, you know, where in our lives have we had to sit in the class, you know, whether it was through geometry and eighth grade, or whatever it was where we kind of felt ourselves shutting down, because we couldn't identify the relevancy. You know, and I look at my own path, and oh, my gosh, if I don't see relevancy, I'll I'll just zone out. I'll make a grocery list during a webinar if I don't think it's valuable to me, you know, so we have to really meet people, where is it relevant to them? And then what are they? What are they open to right now, you know, if somebody is, is a lifelong aversive dog trainer, and they are really interested in moving into a force free world, there might need to be some baby steps there because they're talking about a personal paradigm shift. And we don't want to overwhelm them with how much it's going to be different than what they already have a comfort level with. And I've seen positive trainers lose people by that by doing that. I've seen it happen in workshops where I was just kind of like in the back going, oh, gosh, they need to stop. We need to break this as too much. They're not stopping Oh my gosh. People go to the break and then they don't come back. You know, so we as educators, we've got to be in that space.
Emily 44:59
We run a little scenario with you quickly before we run out of time, Libby was talking about a friend who came up to her and asked how Daisy knew that Libby was the alpha. So Libby, can you speak to that conversation?
Libby 45:13
Yeah, so a very dear friend. Um, we were we went for a walk with Daisy one day. So you know, to catch up with each other. And, and this is a very compassionate, conscious person. And she just in conversation said, so. So what do you do? To make Desi know that you're the alpha? And I was a little like, Oh, what do I do right now, this is such an opportunity to educate my friend. And and I kind of, you know, oh, well, here's what we do to train, you know, this is, this is what we do. But it didn't address. And I feel like I missed an opportunity almost to educate. Could you speak to that a little bit?
Deb 46:00
Yeah, that's a great question. You know, because right off the bat, here's the entrance, right? Your friend knows enough about dogs and dog training, that, that she knows that the Alpha conversation was definitely part of it for a while. You know, that's, you know, we hear it all the time. But it's actually in my experience anyway, not necessarily the layperson conversation point. So you're already having somebody if they're already coming in talking about alpha, they've already have a level of interest that has led them to find that. And also, it's still out there in the world today. So that's where you can like, Oh, it's a great question. You know, it's interesting, because there's, there's some dog trainers that are still in that alpha mindset. But what's really cool to me is to think about how, you know, one thing I've done with with easy you could say is, you know, I've looked at us as partners, you know, and and I am the human in the equation, I understand the human world, I understand the laws, you know, I do have to have final say when the minute says, you know leashes required here, it's my job to put a leash on my dog, it's my job to help her understand how to be on a leash in a way that's appropriate. But what's really cool is, is like we kind of looked at it more as a collaboration as a team. And yeah, I do have to sort of, quote unquote, lead certain situations. You know, like, yeah, we have to make those choices I have one of my dogs has to have your pre meds and where a basket muscles go to the vet. Okay, I'm making that choice, I have to lead that situation. I also had to get him to where he sees the basket muzzle when he starts to wag his tail, you know, because he's like, Oh, I get to have treats, you know. So it's like, you know, that's where I think in those moments, you know, the mistake we can make, and I've made it in my life is to jump right on the Alpha misinformation, shut the person down. She's asking a great question. She's seeing a bond and a flow between you and Daisy. She's admiring that she's asking how is this working for you. So that's where you probably didn't really miss an opportunity, because you probably shared with her so much about your experience and the way that you and Daisy have bonded and the way that your training process has gone. That she's probably going oh, and it's not really about you dominating and being alpha and making sure she's submissive, and all these buzzwords that were so they were the thing that was the quote, unquote, cutting edge, what, 2025 years ago, right? You know, and then you could also say, depending on how it feels, you can wrap back around and just say, you know, and it's interesting, because, yeah, I used to think that alpha was the way to do it, too. And what I've kind of learned is, it's more about a collaborative collaborative partnership. And it's more about a two way communication, which is super cool that we've kind of moved from that. You know, and then if she's really open, you could say, and the guy that kind of put the Alpha thing in there has already reneged on that, you know, you can even share some of that stuff, which is also great. He learned from his own work. It's like, that's where the process of it is. And that's where I think, if we don't just go, oh, my gosh, that person said, alpha will obviously the, and say, Yeah, okay. You know, could we replace that with? I'm the human, sometimes I have to make the decision. You know, yes, you have to take your fear free meds to go to the vet. You know, okay. I have to I have to get you appropriately a safe for the veterinary office, I'm in the human world. I'm not trying to dominate you or control you. I'm trying to get you veterinary care. And I have to do this. You know, and I think that that's one of the places I've seen a lot of mistakes get made in the dog training world is because it's so polarized, you know, and I guarantee your friend was touched by what you said, probably even changed a little bit by it. Even if her semantics maybe are still off, right. The bigger question in my mind is Would she approached her dog or the next dog she's working with in a slightly different way? You know, to where her idea isn't to be in you know, dominating her dog. Yeah. Even if she decides to keep the Alpha word forever. As the you know, if she's behaving as if really, you know, so that's the other piece of it, can we can we look at what we can contribute to that conversation of, okay, this person is going to look at this slightly differently going forward. Maybe the person is still going to leave a prawn collar on their dog for a while. But maybe they're also going to take a treat bag. And that's a good step. That's it, you know, yeah, we'd all love to get that prong collar off a dog. But maybe that first step is that they're using the treat bag and the treats and the prom car becomes less significant. And then when they're comfortable, they can actually remove it altogether. You know, those are the baby steps that I think sometimes with education moving towards a more humane, compassionate way of being for all species. You know, sometimes we have to say, what's the baby step here?
Libby 50:48
So one last question. Before we let you go, Deb, a little bit earlier, you mentioned dogs as a part of our community. And I would love to finish off our conversation just with a little more about that. You know, when I'm walking Daisy in our neighborhood, even when she's in our backyard, she's not just my dog, she's a member of our wider community. How does this conversation apply to that notion that our dogs aren't just our own? They are members of a wider community?
Deb 51:29
What a beautiful question. Well, I love that, you know, I think there's a couple ways to look at that, you know, one is, is that our dogs regardless are going to be interfacing in some way. You know, I one of my dogs is very reactive, and very human and dog reactive, and his world is pretty, you know, he doesn't, we don't go to dog parks, we don't go to crowded, but he still interacts, he still has to walk down the street and see other people, he still goes to the vet, he still has, you know, it's, you know, unless we're living as a hermit, you know, there will be a certain level of interaction. And so I think that to whatever degree, we can help our dogs to be comfortable with that. And I think that's the big difference is not not about making our dogs do it the way we think they should. But instead saying, Alright, here you are, as my dog here, here are the things that that make you you, The Good, the Bad, the Ugly, what can I do to help you be as much a part of the community in a way that's as easy for you as possible? You know, and a lot of people will take their dogs walking in off hours or into places where it's, you know, they're, you know, there's a lot of work arounds, right, or they have a dog that they can work with and weigh in, they can get to where they can go right through the park, and the dog is comfortable with it. Some dogs are never bothered by that, you know, but it's about it's about letting ourselves see our dogs as individuals, and then saying, and you know, what part of the community interface is appropriate, you know, not every dog is going to want to go to a brew pub and hang out all night. Even the most well behaved socialized dogs might be more comfortable at home on their bed than four hours hanging out there buddy getting drunk. I mean, I've definitely seen dogs who were behaving fine, but not having fun. You know? So it's like, where, where do where do we want those interfaces to be so that our dogs can be comfortable, respected members of the community. You know, and then I think the other piece of it is as, as humans, what's appropriate to expect? You know, I don't personally think that it's appropriate to expect that every dog is going to be happy, you know, going into a brew pub, or going into a crowded dog park, or, you know, I think we also need to check ourselves and say, these are not robots. So to be a community, and work together as a community, we have to know each other and understand, you know, humans do it all the time, you know, this group of people needs this in our community, or this group of people needs more protection, or this group is being silenced and their voices is not in or not brought to the table. We're always trying to adjust. How do we as a community, honor and respect our similarities and our differences? You know, this is the conversation of diversity, equity and inclusion that's going on, you know, globally, with humanity right now. We need to have that same conversation with dogs in our community, you know, how do we incorporate them in a way that's respectful to them? How do we include their voices in a way that is honoring of them, and not just only what we expect that they should be? And how do we say that? Yeah, our community is humans and other beings. Therefore, it can't just only be human centered, but it takes us educating ourselves about what is it like to be a dog? Because we're not dogs? None of us in this lifetime are going to know 100%. But we sure can commit ourselves to the education of what is their experience? What are their needs? What is their culture? What is their paradigm? You know, why does their behavior make sense? And how can I help them unlearn that behavior and replace it with something else that works a little better in the human community? How can I how can I do all that in a way that says I respect you as part of my family and my community I don't expect you to fit in. I have an obligation to help you fit in. And I'm going to do my due diligence to educate myself so that I can do the best I can for you. And it takes us decentering our humaneness and being humble in the face of the fact that we are never going to be dogs. And we just need to accept that we are not ever going to be the expert on being dogs. They are at being dogs because they're dogs.
Emily 55:29
Oh my gosh, can I clap? That was amazing. I see a TED Talk. Right. Agree. Agreed? Oh, my gosh. Well, that is why Deb Matlock is our education coordinator. And we are so honored to have known her and had her on our journey.
Deb 55:45
Yeah, I just love I love everything that summit dog rescue does. And this rest of this, this pod to the rescue. And it's conversations are, I think the most important thing to start the education conversation. I mean, just be having this kind of open conversation is the door. It's the door that says, All right, we're all learning. And we all have something to teach every single one of us. Whether we're an adopter, or a rescuer, or a trainer, or humane educator, it doesn't matter. You know, and the dogs need all of us to rise up and be in those spaces with them. So really appreciate this conversation.
Libby 56:19
Thank you so much, Dan Matlock. Thanks for tuning in. If you liked this episode, don't forget to rate and review and helps other folks like you find the show. Thanks to Mike pesci for the original music and James eat of be heard for production. For show notes and transcripts visit pod to the rescue.com. Let us know what you think about this episode on social media or at pod to the rescue on Facebook and Instagram. And we love connecting with listeners. We'll catch you next time on pod to the rescue. Oh, and tell your dog we said hi
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Welcome to pod to the rescue a podcast from summit dog rescue in Boulder, Colorado.
Emily 0:08
I'm Emily.
Libby 0:09
And I'm Libby. We're both Professional Dog Trainers with multiple certifications in dog training and behavior. Together we have more than two decades of experience in dog rescue. We want to share everything we've learned along the way with other folks involved in dog rescue, sheltering, fostering and adoption. And anyone who just loves dogs. Rescuing the dog is just the first step. We're here to help with everything that comes next.
Hello, listeners, and welcome back to pod to the rescue.
I'm Libby.
Emily 0:43
And I'm Emily.
And for our first episode of season four of the podcast, we decided to invite Deborah Matlock to talk to us. Deb is the Education Coordinator here at Summit dog rescue. And as you know, one of our main purposes with the podcast is to spread humane education amongst the rescue community. It was wonderful having Deb on and she's been helping us design our education program for probably the last six years. So we were really honored that she took the time out of her busy schedule to talk with us about why humane education is important for our rescue and how you can incorporate it into your rescue or your conversations with your community members. And we just think it's important and we hope you think it's important to
Libby 1:35
Deb Matlock lives in Colorado, USA and is committed to nurturing connections between people, animals, earth and spirit. She has spent 25 years working as an environmental and humane educator and naturalist. Deb offers nature connection practitioner training, workshops and retreats through her business wild rhythms.
Deb holds a Master of Arts and environmental education from Prescott College and is pursuing her doctoral degree in environmental studies at Antioch University in New England. Find out more about her work at Wild dash rhythms.com.
Emily 2:09
We hope you enjoy our conversation.
Libby 2:15
Deb Matlock, welcome back to pod to the rescue.
Deb 2:19
Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here and chat with y'all further. Yeah, absolutely.
Libby 2:25
So we wanted to have you back to open up season four of the podcast to talk about humane education for people in Animal Rescue, because that's such a big part of our mission here at the podcast, and at Summit dog rescue. But it's a tricky subject. And it's hard to do. And it's hard to navigate in our current environment where social media really rules, the conversation. And things get so sticky. And we just thought you were the perfect person to talk about humane education for people.
Deb 3:04
Well, thank you for that. And congratulations on the fourth season of the podcast. I excited about that too. But, you know, the topic of humane education is so near and dear to my heart, because I feel like education. And this is a bias flag get right away, it was one of the single most powerful things we can all do for ourselves, you know, whether it's about our dogs, or what we're doing with our food, or how we, you know, when we educate ourselves, and we really allow ourselves to open our minds and look critically, at what's presented, you know, we can become very empowered, we can become very knowledgeable, and we can make massive change. And this applies so perfectly with caring for our companion animals, you know, especially our dogs, where the training requirements in the world are different, you know, cats can can live in our homes, and they don't have to interface with the public the same way. Even horses don't have to interface with the public the same way that we have this this cultural expectation that dogs can do these things. They can walk in a park, they can go to a restaurant, they can, you know, there's this expectation of dogs that is sometimes unrealistic. But yet I think what we allow ourselves to say, I don't know everything, no matter how much I think I know, no matter how much experience I may have had, there's always more to learn. There's always more research being done. There's always more to learn. And then education, you know, humane education becomes this lifelong, beautiful journey into deepening our connection with our dogs. It's just it's like a never ending thing. I mean, I feel like I know for myself, you know, whenever my end time comes. I'm sure I'll know things then that I don't know today. And I'll look back on today and go oh my gosh, I wish I knew. So it's a lifelong journey, and it's a beautiful journey that can allow us to deepen our connection with our companion animals.
Libby 4:54
I love that lifelong learning is one of my core values as well. So I just I really relate to everything you said.
Emily 5:04
And not to jump ahead, but I was thinking we might as well, you know, talk about the elephant in the room, which is that there are so many people who want to learn, but the dog training world is such the wild west of misinformation. So I think there's so many very good, well intentioned, big hearted people rescuing dogs, bringing them into their home adopting them, and then they go and seek out information. But they don't, you know, necessarily get humane education. Can you speak to that a little bit about how in this kind of crazy world of the internet? How do you get the information that's like, the actual scientific standard of care? And why is that important?
Deb 5:49
Oh, I love that question. You know, by definition, humane education is about promoting and cultivating empathy and compassion. And so whether it's about dog training, or environmental issues, or whatever it is, we're talking about humane education, the word humane indicates a focus on, you know, how do we connect in a way that develops empathy and compassion. And so I think when we when you bring up this very valid point, which is just this rabbit hole, for lack of a much better metaphor, because rabbits have lovely holes, and you know, of, you know, you go watch one YouTube video that is by a science based positive, force free trainer, that is very rooted in humane, ethical, compassionate, empathetic training, and YouTube pops up some other random video that's by somebody else were some of those videos, I watched the first 30 seconds, and I'm feeling sick at my stomach, and I can't, you know, how does the person who's trying to do the right thing and wants to deepen their engagement with their dog and create a higher quality of life for their dog? How do they go through these these all these different discerning moments? Which is a great question. And I think that's where if we start at the base level of, of understanding that our dogs are beings with feelings and emotions and experiences, and they embody trauma, very similarly to how we do it. If we start there, and we say, okay, if I was dealing with a lot of trauma, would I respond well to X, Y, or Z? Probably not. You know, so going back and saying, Alright, that doesn't feel good. I'm just gonna push that aside, and then helping people figure out where to turn, you know, what are the resources for really good scientifically based training materials, you know, because that's the other thing too, the we have to run it through the filter of our compassion and empathy. Because science can support all kinds of things. But what is our end result? Is our end result, a happy, well balanced dog who trusts us? Or is it a dog who's so shut down? Because we've used a training method that has been fearful of us, we might still get a resulting behavior that we might think we want, but do we want that behavior from a shutdown terrified dog, or from a happy dog who is super excited to do this behavior? Because it, the bond is there and the respect is there. So I think weaving our way through the stuff is as being honest with ourselves, about what we do not know. You know, and I think that's where starting with, with humbleness, and then laying on top of that critical thinking, and then laying on top of that, that there, like you said, there's, this is an unregulated industry, so their voices are all out there, you know, but not being afraid to say to somebody, you know, what is your trading? Where do you get this idea? You know, how do you how do you get to where you are, you know, that doesn't answer all the questions about people getting to good quality dog training, but it can rule out a lot of people who, who are dog training, because they, quote, had a dog they loved when they were a kid, you know, or dog training the way that they were taught to train in the 70s or 80s. And haven't haven't decided to educate themselves. You know, one of the questions I have for dog trainers that I work with is what is your education? What is your commitment to continued education? What are you doing to keep yourself up on it? You know, and that's just the beginning place, but the critical thinking piece of it, and running it through that is this really humane? is doing this to my dog, honestly, humane is my dog running with glee and joyfulness for a training session or as my dog hiding? You know, we can ask some basic questions without, without having to go too far outside of our just, you know, inter social way of being, like, looking at our dogs, they'll tell us a lot. We don't even have to be experts to see that.
Emily 9:41
That's so interesting. And we now know through the research and the science that dogs have the emotional capacity of like a three to four year old human being. So if you sometimes I try to think of like if I was a three year old, how would I respond to this situation? And I tried to and we used to use the word like anthropomorphizing but actually, it makes sense. If they have the same brains and the same emotions and you know, the same responses to stimuli as us, then why wouldn't we try to empathize with them? Like you were saying compassion and empathy. So when I see a dog coming off transport or when we picked up, Leila, three weeks ago from the shelter, and she was shaking in the backseat, I was like, what would I as a young child, totally terrified need right now? Would it be to like go to a busy place? Or would it be to just have like, simple quiet? So you know, I really do try to check in with what would I have wanted at three years old, if I was in this terrified situation where I knew nothing.
Deb 10:45
Yeah, and you bring up I think, a really important point, which is the idea of anthropomorphizing which often gets a bad rap. And it can be dangerous, if we expect our dogs to behave as humans. If we don't understand why our dog might want to bark at the UPS delivery person, or, you know, have have, you know, trouble with where to mark, you know, the front curtain when the dog from the neighbor house comes running up to the window, if we don't understand the culture of dog, we're anthropomorphizing too far. But we also come from the other side of the spectrum, we can miss out on those deep connection points, which is exactly as you said, we have so much in common with each other to so much in common, you know, that I mean, I look at what the dogs that come into rescue what they've gone through, and I'm very clear, in my own mind that I don't think I could survive what a lot of these dogs are pulling off, the trauma would be too much, you know, but yet, you know, if we understand those things, we understand, like you said, the emotions and the fear and the stress and the grief and all the things that happen and like the the dog you were mentioning, Leila, you know, she was in a shelter with separation anxiety, if I'm thinking of the right dog, she's now in a car with a stranger, going someplace to God knows where in her mind, like her whole world was crashing down, even though she just got brought into a really, really awesome situation. You know, it's like, we can look at that and we can meet each other because we aren't that different, you know, where we get different is when we look at ourselves as different species cultures, different different kind of functioning in the world, you know, resource scouting makes a heck of a lot of sense. If I look at it through the eyes of a dog, you know, if you come over to my house for lunch, and you reach for my sandwich, I'm probably not going to reach out and get upset and bite at you. But I'll hit but, you know, if I had had food scarcity, I might be a little bit triggered by that. But as a human, I might do it differently. But it's not the roots of all these things are not different.
Libby 12:39
I love to remember, I think it's a Robert Sapolsky in his book behave, who says that humans are basically thinking animals, you know, we're still animals, we just happen to have a more developed prefrontal cortex.
Deb 12:56
Yeah, and with that developed prefrontal cortex, I like to say, comes a heck of a lot of responsibility. You know, we have to say, All right, yeah, we are animals, we need all the same things, food, shelter, water safety, we need all the same things. And with the slightly different way of orienting our brain, we need to educate ourselves about what the other animals need, like we don't have an excuse, you know, to take the lowest the best. The next, you know, our neighbor says, go to this dog trainer, and this dog trainer is doing all these horrible things. That's inexcusable, we need to do our homework we need to dig in. You can't just say, Oh, it sounded good on Facebook, you know, because we have exactly what you just said, we have a brain that can do a little bit more.
Libby 13:37
Yeah. Or taking the easy route. This looks easier. This seems easier. So this might be a good time when you just mentioned, you know, we have the same needs for food shelter, to talk about the five freedoms, because the five freedoms kind of they form the basis of international standards of care for captive animals. So, listeners, if you're not familiar, the five freedoms briefly are Freedom from Hunger and thirst, freedom from discomfort, freedom from pain, injury or disease, freedom from fear and distress and freedom to express normal behavior. And so when we're talking about welfare, and humane treatment of animals, this is kind of the underpinning.
Emily 14:33
Yep. It's like the standard floor that we should all start at and it's it started for farm animals. And then the five freedoms have been applied to zoo animals. But unfortunately, they're not yet being applied universally in specially our country to companion animals, which is amazing that the dog that we sleep with, is afforded less humane welfare standard then, you know, other animals?
Deb 15:03
Yeah. And as you read that, that list, Libby, how many of those freedoms on that list directly, you know, our counter to certain dog training methods, you know, and that's where, again, the education of all of us as the guardians, and the caretakers, and the ones making some, some pretty hefty decisions for the dogs we live with, you know, if a, if a training method goes against the basic freedom, one of those five freedoms, the standard for animal welfare, it should raise red flags in our mind, if it causes pain, if it causes discomfort and fear. What in the heck is that? Right? It goes against these freedoms, it goes against these animal welfare, precipice, you know, these principles of basic care and conduct. And then it goes against humane education, for sure. You know, because it's not, it doesn't, you know, in my mind, just scaring my dog into behavior isn't training my dog. I mean, I'll just put that out there for personally, that's how I look at it. If I have to freak frighten my dog to get something I want. Then I'm just getting what I want. I'm not training, I'm not connecting, I'm not honoring my dog as a living being with with his or her own agency who deserves those five freedoms, you know, freedoms that I also deserve. Right. And then that we all, you know, and I think that that's where up leveling this, this, the field of dog training and having these kinds of important conversations is key, because so many people, I mean, the way I look at it is I don't know if it's accurate statistic, but I read somewhere that less than 10% of companion dogs actually get formal training. So how, and again, I don't know if that's accurate. Still, it was probably 10 years ago that I read that, but but I do know, that's probably a small percent. A lot of people adopted dog or get a dog in one way or another. And that's the end of it. You know, so of those that are actually getting formal training, how many are getting training that adheres to these five freedoms, how many are getting training from from trainers that understand these principles and how they apply to dog training? You know, and that's where US educating ourselves as the consumers of dog training, whether we're rescue people or guardians, you know, we're consuming it. You know, I want to know what's in my food, and I want to know what's in my dog training. It's not different.
Emily 17:22
And you touched on something earlier that dog training is an unregulated field, I feel like that was something that was mind blowing for me. 10 years ago, when I discovered that like, I for sure thought this user Milan, had gone to school for canine behavior had a degree and or had some formal education. And it turns out that you don't need any formal education to be a dog trainer,
Deb 17:47
you know, and in this world of like, social media, and YouTube, which is really cool that we can all create, and share. There's a lot of beauty in that. I mean, a no question. I've loved that when I need to read reprogram my sprinkler system, I can go to YouTube and find some really nice person in their garage with the same sprinkler system, and they walk me through it, you know, it's really fantastic. And the downside of that is that anybody who thinks they know whether their intentions are good or not, you know, I think a lot of dog trainers who are doing what would would be considered very aversive, they don't all have negative intentions. A lot of them are deep dog lovers themselves, who just haven't done the kind of critical thinking homework kind of stuff we're talking about here. You know, a lot of I think I would say probably the bulk of people who seek dog training, are people who love their dogs and are trying to find a way of being copacetic and harmonious living together. And I've known some extremely well intentioned good hearted people who have paid really high dollar for really horrific dog training. They didn't mean to do something horrible to their dog, you know. So I think the unregulated part of the industry is yet another reason why each of us as consumers, whether we're individuals are rescues or teams of people, we have really got to dig deeply. We've got to dig beyond the convert the controversial conversations on Facebook, where you've got people screaming from all camps, throwing lots of little sentiments out there with very little fact, without, without the ability to say, how what do we have in common first, which is probably a love of dogs. Even in the most egregious situations, there's probably a common love of dogs. You know, I've seen really aversive trainers with TV shows who actually do a lot of really good rescue, and they donate a lot of money. And so there's a there's a common ground here. And so then we start from that place, and then we weave it through the filters of the five freedoms and the compassion and empathy. And the acknowledgement that we are all beings on this earth, human and dog like just trying to get through our days, all wanting to love and connect with each other. If we start there, you know, then we can open our minds and say, I don't have to be I don't have to be feel shamed that I did this one way a year ago because Now I can see there's a new way. I mean, I'm horrified to think of what I did in the 80s and early 90s, and the name of dog training, and I would have died for all my dogs. I love my dogs. But oh, yes, there was a time that I did my dog training at the fairgrounds with a choke chain. I was like 14 years old, you know, that was in probably ad, I don't even know what mid 80s And I cried after dog training class. But I didn't know that it was any other option. You know,
Emily 20:27
same here, I had an invisible fence. You know, in the 90s, my dogs had a choke collar on. It didn't think twice about it
Deb 20:35
either, because that was all dog training was. And the beauty of today is that we have so much more psychology and understanding of dogs, like you were talking about the dog emotion at three to four years, and we have so much more behavior training, and we have so much more information that now it becomes inexcusable not to educate ourselves and to not dig deeply. And to not demand the level of training for our dogs. That is, is of the current science and thinking and an ethical standard. I mean, to me, that's a sign to demand that.
Emily 21:07
Right? Like one thing they're doing now is, you know, training dogs through positive reinforcement to keep their heads inside an MRI machine. And they're doing scans of their brain. And like when they present them with different stimuli. I mean, the science is really cutting edge now to see like, how do they recognize the smell of their person? Like we're starting to understand through science, how dogs process emotions, and you know how they respond to stress by doing cortisol testing, like, if they're wearing shock collars versus not wearing shock collars. There's been increased levels of cortisol in their saliva, even when they're not actually being shocked. So they're just doing all these testings on dogs that 20 years ago. We didn't we didn't have the science for that. So we didn't know.
Deb 21:55
Yeah, and you made a really good point that they're getting dogs to agree to this through your science based humane force free, you know, positive reinforcement training. And so then these become for the right dogs, these become fun things to do. You know, I mean, I've seen dogs loving certain things that I don't know, that I've ever seen a dog love before, but it's because the bond is there, and the connection and the communication. And so, you know, we're we're moving, I think it's really exciting. We're moving into a place where we're culturally, you know, are we integrating dogs into our lives in a much more respectful way? That has just got so much more potential for us to understand each other better? You know, but it also takes each of us as individuals each rescue each each breeder, each everybody to say, All right, let me put aside what I think I know. And move forward. You know, and that's my own personal commitment to it's like, my goal in life is that every dog that comes into my life, I learned more, and that I always put aside what I think I know, I always assume that I can do what I'm doing better. You know, and and I hope that that mindset, I hope that I continue to do it better. I hope I continue to look back and go Oh, and 2023 I thought this was right. I can't believe I did that. I would never do that again. You know, I have I have a 12 year old Border Collie that when I first adopted her, she was one and a half and I was doing positive training. But I didn't understand threshold and I was overstimulating her all happy, positive, but oh my gosh, I was I was taking her to her trigger places too much. It makes me so sad. Now I think about that. And I look back and I've apologized to her. You know, I wouldn't make that mistake again. And 12 years ago, I thought that was what I was supposed to do to help her. So we have to keep a beginner's mind. Because of like what you just said, the training and the studies and all the stuff are moving now and really beautiful directions. We're all going to keep learning and we just have to keep ourselves tapped into that. And never dig our heels into that. I have the one way and this is the only way. You know.
Libby 23:58
And I would love to bring up a point here that I think it requires that we have when we're looking back on past mistakes we've made or when we didn't know better, I think we really need to have a lot of self compassion. And I'm wondering if you can talk about not only that self compassion, but extending that same compassion to others who aren't as far along in their journey as we are. And I see this so often on social media, like, like we've been talking about the science is, is really changed. I mean, it changes fast these days. And there's always someone who's going to know a little bit more than you are and there's going to be someone who knows a little bit less, but you might have been in that position just a month ago. So how can we extend that compassion to our former selves and to others who are in a different place in their journey?
Deb 24:58
I think that is probably The Golden Nugget question in this conversation of education. Because whenever we're in a position of education, whether we're offering a training class to many people, or we're talking one on one, you know, a volunteer talking with a potential adopter, we're in an education role. And I think the idea of compassion is so key for ourselves as well. You know, like, I've had to sit down and cry about things from 20 years ago with the choke chains on sensitive dogs, that I literally cringe. I just have to say, okay, but you've learned and you would never do that, if you had that same sweet dog again, today, everything about how you and she would interact would be different. You know, and the one thing that I think to give ourselves compassion in the past is to say, when we look back and say, Okay, I wouldn't do that again. You know, we do it in all our relationships, people do it with their partners, with their children with their plant house plants, you know, like, oh, I overwatered, that one, I've got another one. Now I'm gonna do it differently, you know, part of life as a human being is growing experientially, through what we've experienced and learned. And it's a rough road at times when we think about things like dog training, and I've heard people talking about parenting parenting styles that they look back and be like, Oh, my gosh, what happened, you know, what people did in the 70s. compared to today? Yeah, you know. So that is a good place. Just to say I think the the way that I know for myself, I have found is to say, I'm just going to keep learning. And just like I was saying a minute ago, never losing the idea that I'm, I'm always going to have more to learn is a part of the way that I can sort of move forward and just always do better for the next dog always do better for whoever I don't even know yet is going to come into my life. Probably through some a dog rescue, I'm guessing, but you know, whoever I don't know yet, right. And the same with the people we're working with. And I think this is super critical, especially with rescue and adoptive families, if people are coming to a rescue, to get their dog, these people are already making a very, very conscious choice. They're already saying, I love dogs, I love them so much that I'm choosing this path. You know, they may have a shock collar background, or a choke or prong collar background, and maybe all they've ever learned, I've met lots of people who love their dogs dearly. And that's what they're choosing. And it's really hard to watch. And you see the stress results, like like Emily was just talking about with the shock collars, and you see these dogs that are just, you know, but if we have people coming and asking questions, you know, it's all about saying, all right, you know, what we're all here together, because of the common love of dogs. Everybody here also needs a certain level of behavior. You know, like, we all have to find our ability to manage and you know, certain behavior issues are not manageable by certain people or in certain situations. You know, so part of it is trying to be respectful of that holistic picture. The other piece with this is knowing that we can't force anything on anybody. So the quickest way to shut down any kind of educational interaction, whether again, it's a group or a one on one, or whatever it is, is to go into that interaction with I know better than you and you're wrong. You know, I know personally, if you're gonna shut me down, it's come at me with that kind of attitude. And I'm going to be like, forget it. I don't care what you're saying, now. You know, like, you've just ticked me off, I'm on the defensive, you know, it's the quickest way to shut it down. So the one of the best ways to have that compassion is to a know that we're not experts, even if we're quote unquote, experts, you know, like, we still have more to learn because that's also to say, How can I meet the person where they are. A person shows up with a dog for a dog training class, and they've got a really robustly excitable dog who's quite large, and they've got a prong collar and the dog is still lunging all over the place. They're wanting to be able to have their dog walk on a leash without their arm getting yanked out of their socket. They're not bad because they put the prong collar on the dog. They're misinformed. And now they're showing up for an encounter to look for a better solution. So right there, you know, one way to be compassionate as well as this guy's got a lot of energy boy, I can imagine this is frustrating for you, I can imagine this can be stressful. If you're walking on ice and you have this you're worried about getting you know, knocked off your feet, you know, meeting them in all those places that are so common, and then saying, Okay, let's try something or if you're open for this, how about let's, let's put him back on the harness, take the take the prawn collar off, and let's just see what he'll respond to like what treats he might like or what toys. Let's just start getting curious together. So now you're creating a team approach with this person. Let's get curious together about looking for solutions. This is where if you're an expert person with a lot of background, you can say I have a lot of stuff in my back pocket we can try. So let's just start going through and just see what your dog really responds to and what you like, and let's find the thing that allows the two of you to come together. You know, right off the bat you're You're meeting them, you're honoring why they're at the end of their rope, well, maybe literally, if the leashes pulled out, they may literally be at the end. And also, I wouldn't want to walk a dog like that all the time either, like, I totally get it, I can meet him there. But then saying, there's a lot of options that can be kind to you and kind of your dog and that your dog might love.
Emily 30:22
That's great. So it's empathy and compassion for all species involved, and then collaboration, so that you're getting to that, you know, solution together as a team.
Deb 30:33
Yeah, and I think collaboration I have had, in my own life, where I've had a dog trainers helped me and, you know, I've had so much thrown at me, that I'm all on board, I want to go there, but I walk away from an hour long session, and I feel overwhelmed. Like, there wasn't collaboration, it was them, like moving up and opening up the dump truck and dumping a whole bunch of information. So a part of us when we're in an education role, we have to say, how much is appropriate right now, and quite frankly, you know, a newly adoptive family working, they might need one little tip at that moment, you know, to go to what's the most important thing that's going on, right, then, you know, and give a good start there, you know, and then it's about a partnership, it's about building that with the dog, too. So it's a triad, you know, trainer, Guardian, dog, everybody giving feedback, including the dog, you know, the dog has to be looked at as an equal partner, and all of it. And then from there trying to move into a place of of, you know, what is going to be fun for everybody, because I actually think that even the most difficult behavior, things can be really fun to work with. If we find those common languages, you know,
Libby 31:52
this makes me think of consent, getting our dogs consent, when we embark on a training process is a relatively new idea in the dog training world. And it's something that, you know, I didn't know about 10 years ago, when I first started dog, training my own dog. And it makes me think of getting consent from our human learners. What are you willing to engage in right now? How much? Are you willing to learn? How open are you to what I'm saying?
Deb 32:35
Yeah, how much bandwidth do you have right now, you know, if somebody has a newly adopted dog and 22 year olds, and, you know, that person might need a different, you know, support approach than the person who is retired and has the dog is the center of that person's world, you know, and they have hours to spend, you know, and I think that, that, that's also where as an educator, we have to meet people, you know, it's going to, it's going to be counterproductive to go in to the person who's got no bandwidth in his life is just a little bit chaotic, to do anything more than say, Okay, we might start out with some basic management of the situation. Maybe we're just going to start there with how about a baby gate there? And how about a change, like a little routine shift? Okay, see you next week, you know, that might be all it can be in that moment is to say, All right, we need the dog to stop doing this in the kitchen. Okay, let's just block the kitchen off. We'll worry about training this through later, right now. You're losing, you're pulling your hair out, your kids are screaming your dog is getting really bad behaviors reinforced because the kids are throwing food at the dog. Let's just cut it off. You know. So the consent is also you know, it's Yeah, asking them and it's also us kind of as educators, you know, kind of intuiting into what's available in the situation. And I love that you brought up the dog consent. And I have a story I want to share with the same little border collie. I mentioned her name's Riley. Early on, when I had this two year old Border Collie and winter hit in Colorado, I was desperate for indoor things to do with a border collie who was two year old. And I found an indoor agility training course nearby. And it was an evening class. So I go cool. It's indoors. It's relatively out of the storm. We were going in it was not like nasty training or anything. But it was an intense environment. You know, I didn't love it. You know, I was trying to get her to have fun with it. And at one point, in the middle of running through the agility, she ran to the door of our parking lot, sat down and looked at me. And the trainer turned to me and said you need to get your dog back over here and get her back in the game. And I said actually, I'm going to get my stuff and I'm going to leave because my dog just told me she doesn't want to do this anymore. And I'm doing this for her. And he made some comments to me about how I was never going to have control of my dog. Well, okay, she's completely awesome and controlled. And she's, you know, old lady laying here right now as we're talking, you know, but I it was her consent. I realized in that moment, it's like she doesn't want to be here. It's not the right environment for her. We went on to do it agility in another place with a different trainer, and she loved it. So I think that's exactly it, you know, we have to also respect our dogs. And it may be the wrong time or the wrong place or the wrong vibe. This guy might have just been wigging her out. He wasn't mean, but she didn't want to get near him. You know, and I think that those are parts of the story of dog training. I'm so glad that you brought that up. Because that isn't always even in the most humane force free environments. That's not always part of the conversation is, you know, where's my dog's bandwidth and all of this?
Emily 35:38
So as a rescue or shelter, volunteer listening to this conversation, how would you say that this could, you know, enhance their current programs, like everybody in rescue right now, and the sheltering world is just absolutely maxed out. Like, honestly, we haven't released the podcast in a year, because we have been on like, overdrive, it's just between life and the rescue, the education piece kind of fell to the wayside. But we, we feel so strongly about it, that we revived it in the hopes that, you know, it's putting good into the universe in the world. But how can we get these like maxed out shelter workers, and volunteers, some, you know, something tangible to take away from this conversation that they can use to like, help educate their adopters and their fosters? But not maxed them out? Or be in a position where people are, you know, putting up walls and feeling judged?
Deb 36:39
By that is, that is a really great question. I think there's probably multiple answers to that, and I'm not sure I have all the right answers. You know, one thing that comes to mind is, you know, each rescue saying, Okay, what's our capacity for increasing our education output even a little bit? Because as we all know, you know, behavioral challenge, and a lot of the reasons dogs get surrendered, goes directly into lack of education on the people who were, who had adopted the dog in the first place. You know, not always, but a lot of times, you know, so it kind of behooves all of us in rescue to say, you know, what role can edgy play education play? How can we do a better job, and then what resources are available for us, so we don't have to recreate the wheel. You know, not every rescue needs to recreate every video for how to walk on leash or how to do this. I mean, there's, there is good stuff out there. And I think something that, you know, pod to the rescue does is provide that resource, and, you know, links to quality trainers on YouTube and things like that, that can help you so that the the wheel doesn't have to keep getting reinvented. I think the other thing is knowing that in rescue, if we look at it as every life counts, yes. And without education being part of it, a lot of times what happens, and I don't want to make this sound bad, but as you all know, a lot times what happens is dogs just getting funneled through and thrown into places that are not the right places for them. You know, I don't know if it's appropriate to say this, but this is a concern I have with the clear the shelter events that happen all over the country every year, you know, there are animals going into places without education. You know, what is the success rate going to be in that situation? So knowing that as a rescue if part of our endgame is actually successful adoptions? saying, Okay, how can we find the what's the lowest hanging fruit for our rescue right now to setup our adopters? You know, and is it linking them to certain resources? Is it giving them the pod to the rescue link? Or the, you know, is it simply putting in our adoption paperwork, here's some tools, you know, that's, that's one way to do it all the way to the other end, which is providing programming for them or, you know, finding those like some a dog rescue does, finding the dog trainers that are aligned on recommending, you know, actual recommending, you know, this person for this dog kind of things, you know, but I think if we overlook education, in the world of rescue, we're doing a disservice down the road, because we're not going to be solving the problem. You know, the problem is is multifaceted. You know, yeah, there's a spay and neuter end of it. And the the too many animals coming in without, and then there's the why aren't people able to or willing to make lifelong commitments to their dogs. And we can't change everybody. We can't change everybody who makes decisions that are difficult, that that are hard to stomach. We can't change the sad situations where somebody really loves their dog, and then they become ill and can't, you know, they have to go into care or whatever. But there's a lot of in the middle that can be changed by education. And so as rescue workers asking ourselves, you know, we have we have, you know, small, medium and large views. Right now, we have this dog in front of us that needs a place to go okay, that's one thing. Middle Ground large the long game is how do we get this problem to go away so that we aren't needed anymore? Are, and in my mind, really good human education is making itself obsolete. It's making itself not needed. It's changing the world in such a way that it won't be needed again, 2030 4050 years from now?
Libby 40:12
I'm sure hope we're not having these same conversations and 30 years.
Deb 40:16
Right. Yeah. You know, at that point, we'd have the conversation of WoW, wasn't it amazing that, you know, people really rose up and started to see their dogs as, as companions with similar experiences. And the cultural change happened, that would be a really great conversation to be having, you know, but it's gonna take each one of us individual, each rescue each every everybody's saying, I want to be part of that change, I want to move in that direction. That's how much I love dogs. I don't just want my dog to do a thing right now, as a shutdown stressed out dog. I want to be part of this bigger cultural paradigm shift that invites dogs into our lives in a respectful, compassionate way, as members of our community and our families.
Emily 41:01
Right? Yeah, it's happening more overseas than it's happening here. Like they just banned shock collars in England that are banned. And so many countries in Europe, Croatia, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, here, we, you know, have no regulations and no laws about how, what is acceptable in the way you treat your dog. As far as training goes, if it's in the name of training, you can do some pretty horrendous things.
Deb 41:32
You know, that's exactly where education is, it's got a role to play. Because if each individual person starts to learn a little bit more, and they say, wait a minute, I don't want to do a shock collar on my dog, I am not going to use a prawn collar, I am not going to do these egregious things that some of these horrible YouTube trainers are doing, you know, then the tide is going to get pushed by consumer demand as well. You know, we're already seeing things, we're already seeing bipartisan bills for animal welfare going through a Congress that is really divided, but you know what, they're not divided on in all cases, some of these issues, you can have Democrats and Republicans who will lay down their lives for their dogs, and there's some actual things happening. So I think that the, the potential is there, but it's going to take all of us at whatever scale we are, whether we're the one person in our backyard choosing a different training method, or we're a really big rescue, or we're a, you know, a national humane organization, or whatever it is, it takes these in conversations, which is why so much respect what pod to the rescue does, it's these conversations and planting the seeds. And it's just saying, cultural change happens with culture, all of us. It's not a top down thing.
Emily 42:47
And then the thing to always keep in mind, I think what I'm learning from you, and what I've learned from other amazing mentors I've had is to just not bang people over the head with your new information, because that is the absolute way to lose ears. So just gently explain a little bit, and see if they're into learning. In a gentle way, you know,
Deb 43:09
learner Relevancy is one of the most important parts of education. And that's where we, as educators, we have to put our agendas aside, and I'll be the first to say it, you know, I don't do education without an agenda. You know, I work in environmental and humane education, and I have a lot of agendas for why that's the career path I've chosen. You know, it hasn't been very lucrative, it's, you know, it's like, there's a lot of other agendas for that. But we have to know our agendas, so that we can put our agendas off to the side. And we can meet the people who are coming to us and asking, and then saying, what are they open to? What is their bandwidth? And how do then I make this relevant for them. Because without learner relevancy, we think about all of us, all of us listening, you know, where in our lives have we had to sit in the class, you know, whether it was through geometry and eighth grade, or whatever it was where we kind of felt ourselves shutting down, because we couldn't identify the relevancy. You know, and I look at my own path, and oh, my gosh, if I don't see relevancy, I'll I'll just zone out. I'll make a grocery list during a webinar if I don't think it's valuable to me, you know, so we have to really meet people, where is it relevant to them? And then what are they? What are they open to right now, you know, if somebody is, is a lifelong aversive dog trainer, and they are really interested in moving into a force free world, there might need to be some baby steps there because they're talking about a personal paradigm shift. And we don't want to overwhelm them with how much it's going to be different than what they already have a comfort level with. And I've seen positive trainers lose people by that by doing that. I've seen it happen in workshops where I was just kind of like in the back going, oh, gosh, they need to stop. We need to break this as too much. They're not stopping Oh my gosh. People go to the break and then they don't come back. You know, so we as educators, we've got to be in that space.
Emily 44:59
We run a little scenario with you quickly before we run out of time, Libby was talking about a friend who came up to her and asked how Daisy knew that Libby was the alpha. So Libby, can you speak to that conversation?
Libby 45:13
Yeah, so a very dear friend. Um, we were we went for a walk with Daisy one day. So you know, to catch up with each other. And, and this is a very compassionate, conscious person. And she just in conversation said, so. So what do you do? To make Desi know that you're the alpha? And I was a little like, Oh, what do I do right now, this is such an opportunity to educate my friend. And and I kind of, you know, oh, well, here's what we do to train, you know, this is, this is what we do. But it didn't address. And I feel like I missed an opportunity almost to educate. Could you speak to that a little bit?
Deb 46:00
Yeah, that's a great question. You know, because right off the bat, here's the entrance, right? Your friend knows enough about dogs and dog training, that, that she knows that the Alpha conversation was definitely part of it for a while. You know, that's, you know, we hear it all the time. But it's actually in my experience anyway, not necessarily the layperson conversation point. So you're already having somebody if they're already coming in talking about alpha, they've already have a level of interest that has led them to find that. And also, it's still out there in the world today. So that's where you can like, Oh, it's a great question. You know, it's interesting, because there's, there's some dog trainers that are still in that alpha mindset. But what's really cool to me is to think about how, you know, one thing I've done with with easy you could say is, you know, I've looked at us as partners, you know, and and I am the human in the equation, I understand the human world, I understand the laws, you know, I do have to have final say when the minute says, you know leashes required here, it's my job to put a leash on my dog, it's my job to help her understand how to be on a leash in a way that's appropriate. But what's really cool is, is like we kind of looked at it more as a collaboration as a team. And yeah, I do have to sort of, quote unquote, lead certain situations. You know, like, yeah, we have to make those choices I have one of my dogs has to have your pre meds and where a basket muscles go to the vet. Okay, I'm making that choice, I have to lead that situation. I also had to get him to where he sees the basket muzzle when he starts to wag his tail, you know, because he's like, Oh, I get to have treats, you know. So it's like, you know, that's where I think in those moments, you know, the mistake we can make, and I've made it in my life is to jump right on the Alpha misinformation, shut the person down. She's asking a great question. She's seeing a bond and a flow between you and Daisy. She's admiring that she's asking how is this working for you. So that's where you probably didn't really miss an opportunity, because you probably shared with her so much about your experience and the way that you and Daisy have bonded and the way that your training process has gone. That she's probably going oh, and it's not really about you dominating and being alpha and making sure she's submissive, and all these buzzwords that were so they were the thing that was the quote, unquote, cutting edge, what, 2025 years ago, right? You know, and then you could also say, depending on how it feels, you can wrap back around and just say, you know, and it's interesting, because, yeah, I used to think that alpha was the way to do it, too. And what I've kind of learned is, it's more about a collaborative collaborative partnership. And it's more about a two way communication, which is super cool that we've kind of moved from that. You know, and then if she's really open, you could say, and the guy that kind of put the Alpha thing in there has already reneged on that, you know, you can even share some of that stuff, which is also great. He learned from his own work. It's like, that's where the process of it is. And that's where I think, if we don't just go, oh, my gosh, that person said, alpha will obviously the, and say, Yeah, okay. You know, could we replace that with? I'm the human, sometimes I have to make the decision. You know, yes, you have to take your fear free meds to go to the vet. You know, okay. I have to I have to get you appropriately a safe for the veterinary office, I'm in the human world. I'm not trying to dominate you or control you. I'm trying to get you veterinary care. And I have to do this. You know, and I think that that's one of the places I've seen a lot of mistakes get made in the dog training world is because it's so polarized, you know, and I guarantee your friend was touched by what you said, probably even changed a little bit by it. Even if her semantics maybe are still off, right. The bigger question in my mind is Would she approached her dog or the next dog she's working with in a slightly different way? You know, to where her idea isn't to be in you know, dominating her dog. Yeah. Even if she decides to keep the Alpha word forever. As the you know, if she's behaving as if really, you know, so that's the other piece of it, can we can we look at what we can contribute to that conversation of, okay, this person is going to look at this slightly differently going forward. Maybe the person is still going to leave a prawn collar on their dog for a while. But maybe they're also going to take a treat bag. And that's a good step. That's it, you know, yeah, we'd all love to get that prong collar off a dog. But maybe that first step is that they're using the treat bag and the treats and the prom car becomes less significant. And then when they're comfortable, they can actually remove it altogether. You know, those are the baby steps that I think sometimes with education moving towards a more humane, compassionate way of being for all species. You know, sometimes we have to say, what's the baby step here?
Libby 50:48
So one last question. Before we let you go, Deb, a little bit earlier, you mentioned dogs as a part of our community. And I would love to finish off our conversation just with a little more about that. You know, when I'm walking Daisy in our neighborhood, even when she's in our backyard, she's not just my dog, she's a member of our wider community. How does this conversation apply to that notion that our dogs aren't just our own? They are members of a wider community?
Deb 51:29
What a beautiful question. Well, I love that, you know, I think there's a couple ways to look at that, you know, one is, is that our dogs regardless are going to be interfacing in some way. You know, I one of my dogs is very reactive, and very human and dog reactive, and his world is pretty, you know, he doesn't, we don't go to dog parks, we don't go to crowded, but he still interacts, he still has to walk down the street and see other people, he still goes to the vet, he still has, you know, it's, you know, unless we're living as a hermit, you know, there will be a certain level of interaction. And so I think that to whatever degree, we can help our dogs to be comfortable with that. And I think that's the big difference is not not about making our dogs do it the way we think they should. But instead saying, Alright, here you are, as my dog here, here are the things that that make you you, The Good, the Bad, the Ugly, what can I do to help you be as much a part of the community in a way that's as easy for you as possible? You know, and a lot of people will take their dogs walking in off hours or into places where it's, you know, they're, you know, there's a lot of work arounds, right, or they have a dog that they can work with and weigh in, they can get to where they can go right through the park, and the dog is comfortable with it. Some dogs are never bothered by that, you know, but it's about it's about letting ourselves see our dogs as individuals, and then saying, and you know, what part of the community interface is appropriate, you know, not every dog is going to want to go to a brew pub and hang out all night. Even the most well behaved socialized dogs might be more comfortable at home on their bed than four hours hanging out there buddy getting drunk. I mean, I've definitely seen dogs who were behaving fine, but not having fun. You know? So it's like, where, where do where do we want those interfaces to be so that our dogs can be comfortable, respected members of the community. You know, and then I think the other piece of it is as, as humans, what's appropriate to expect? You know, I don't personally think that it's appropriate to expect that every dog is going to be happy, you know, going into a brew pub, or going into a crowded dog park, or, you know, I think we also need to check ourselves and say, these are not robots. So to be a community, and work together as a community, we have to know each other and understand, you know, humans do it all the time, you know, this group of people needs this in our community, or this group of people needs more protection, or this group is being silenced and their voices is not in or not brought to the table. We're always trying to adjust. How do we as a community, honor and respect our similarities and our differences? You know, this is the conversation of diversity, equity and inclusion that's going on, you know, globally, with humanity right now. We need to have that same conversation with dogs in our community, you know, how do we incorporate them in a way that's respectful to them? How do we include their voices in a way that is honoring of them, and not just only what we expect that they should be? And how do we say that? Yeah, our community is humans and other beings. Therefore, it can't just only be human centered, but it takes us educating ourselves about what is it like to be a dog? Because we're not dogs? None of us in this lifetime are going to know 100%. But we sure can commit ourselves to the education of what is their experience? What are their needs? What is their culture? What is their paradigm? You know, why does their behavior make sense? And how can I help them unlearn that behavior and replace it with something else that works a little better in the human community? How can I how can I do all that in a way that says I respect you as part of my family and my community I don't expect you to fit in. I have an obligation to help you fit in. And I'm going to do my due diligence to educate myself so that I can do the best I can for you. And it takes us decentering our humaneness and being humble in the face of the fact that we are never going to be dogs. And we just need to accept that we are not ever going to be the expert on being dogs. They are at being dogs because they're dogs.
Emily 55:29
Oh my gosh, can I clap? That was amazing. I see a TED Talk. Right. Agree. Agreed? Oh, my gosh. Well, that is why Deb Matlock is our education coordinator. And we are so honored to have known her and had her on our journey.
Deb 55:45
Yeah, I just love I love everything that summit dog rescue does. And this rest of this, this pod to the rescue. And it's conversations are, I think the most important thing to start the education conversation. I mean, just be having this kind of open conversation is the door. It's the door that says, All right, we're all learning. And we all have something to teach every single one of us. Whether we're an adopter, or a rescuer, or a trainer, or humane educator, it doesn't matter. You know, and the dogs need all of us to rise up and be in those spaces with them. So really appreciate this conversation.
Libby 56:19
Thank you so much, Dan Matlock. Thanks for tuning in. If you liked this episode, don't forget to rate and review and helps other folks like you find the show. Thanks to Mike pesci for the original music and James eat of be heard for production. For show notes and transcripts visit pod to the rescue.com. Let us know what you think about this episode on social media or at pod to the rescue on Facebook and Instagram. And we love connecting with listeners. We'll catch you next time on pod to the rescue. Oh, and tell your dog we said hi
Transcribed by https://otter.ai