Letting the Dog Lead with Chrissy MessickDogs are speaking to us all the time - just not in the way we’re often used to communicating. Are you listening to their subtle ways of communicating?
In this episode, Emily and Libby sit down with Chrissy to talk all things training. Chrissy is a dog trainer, and recent rescuer from Summit Dog Rescue. She recently rescued a 3-year old friend named Ginger - she talks about her journey with Ginger, how to let the dog lead their process of adapting to the new family, and the myriad of ways dogs communicate. They talk a lot about how to facilitate the relationship between a new dog and children - how to explain body language and teach your child how to understand that language as well. You’ll want to listen to this episode if you’re worried about the transition from pandemic home-life to social life, and the ways that might impact your dog. This episode will be helpful for anyone adjusting to a new adoption! To learn more about Stop the 77, visit Stopthe77.com. Chrissy's website: http://www.theanimalnature.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thenatureofanimals/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thenatureofanimals/ Doggie Language by Lili Chin: https://www.doggielanguagebook.com/ Donate to Bhodi's medical care: https://www.summitdogrescue.org/donate.html Watch for updates on Boomer on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/summitdogrescue |
Episode Transcript
Emily 0:09
Welcome to pod to the rescue.
Libby 0:11
Rescuing the dog is just the first step. We're here to help with everything that comes next. Hello, everyone and welcome back to pod to the rescue. I'm Libby.
Emily 0:22
And I'm Emily.
Libby 0:23
And today we have an amazing interview with a local dog trainer and Summit dog rescue adopter, Chrissy Messick and but before we get into that, let's just give a quick update on what's going on in the world of rescue with Summit. So, last episode, we introduced Bodie, a lab who is in rescue right now. And Emily, what's going on with Bodie?
Emily 0:46
You know, we're still waiting for the orthopedic surgeon to come up with a final conclusion on his hips. Our veterinarian was hoping that we could do both hips at the same time. So he would just have to, you know, have one surgery. But she's talking to an orthopedic surgeon, he's definitely going to need he has bone on bone in the hip joints due to a shattered pelvis, which were thinking was either from a car accident or falling off of something large. Yeah, so and he also needs an additional Dental, but that's really the vets really believe that. And he can have like three or four or five solid years of a pain free life if we do these. So we were going to be starting a fundraiser for Bodie in the next week or two. And we really want to get those hips done. Yeah, for sure.
Libby 1:40
Yeah, I get that. Get that guy out of pain because he's such a sweetheart. I mean, he's gentle, and just really loving.
Emily 1:47
Yeah, it's kind of shocking, because so many dogs, when they're in pain, they can have some aggression. Just like we can, like absolutely not so nice when I'm in pain. But Bodie has been nothing but sweet and gentle. He has a real old soul with a huge heart. Gosh, well,
Libby 2:07
I hope that we can get both hips done at the same time and he is on the road to recovery soon. So if people want to help out with bodies, medical expenses, should they go to summit dog? rescue.org? Yes, I think that would be the best place or Facebook. Yeah, our Facebook we post we post a lot of stuff on Facebook. And then we also have a new dog coming into rescue this week who came into rescue this past week. Boomer
Emily 2:31
Boomer was at the eagle county shelter for two months. He I know he came in as a stray running with another dog who was a red healer. The healer got adopted and Boomer just stayed and no one adopted him. So they reached out to us and we got him over the weekend. He seems a little bit Shell Shocked. Shocked down. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of what Chris he talks about in this interview could be helpful for whoever adopts Boomer.
Libby 3:00
Totally, yes, you're so right. I went over and met him and he's just very timid. He doesn't want to look at you. He doesn't you know, it took him a really long time to even be comfortable eating treats that I tossed on the ground. But he did eventually warm up so he's gonna be really great dog but he is kind of in that like, overwhelmed total shutdown state. And he is we his the shelter thought that he was a healer mix, right? Yeah. What do you think about that?
Emily 3:33
I think he's some sort of healer, Border Collie, maybe healer retriever.
Libby 3:40
I'm thinking okay, tell me what you think about this healer, Aussie, Pierre?
Emily 3:45
Okay. I think you might actually win that bet.
Libby 3:48
Yeah, I would be really interested to see what I know those DNA tests aren't accurate, but I'm really interested. Because his ears he's got like those floppy ears that remind me of uh, so anyway, all right. Well, it'll be interesting to see how Boomer does. All right, so we have an interview today with Chrissy Messick who is a local dog trainer. And she is a Volunteer and Adopter for SDR. And she also works with the local humane society. What does she do for the Humane Society?
Emily 4:18
She has been a volunteer in their behavior modification program, Boulder humane, they are one of the best behavior programs in the country. And she's done really great work there. Yeah.
Libby 4:32
She's really a success story because she adopted her dog in March of 2020. Right as the pandemic was starting. We know just from experience that so many people have adopted adopted dogs during the pandemic. The New York Times says 12 point 6 million households took in pets between March and December of 2020. And we know from experience that some people are struggling with their fans pandemic puppies, right They're
Emily 5:01
deep into adolescence, which is a very difficult time for dogs as well as it is for humans. And the people are struggling and the dogs are struggling.
Libby 5:13
We're also kind of looking toward the future as things start to open up and we're trying to help people prepare to take their dogs out into the world again, definitely we're going to have a bunch of episodes on that. While some people are struggling with their pandemic puppies. And because the canines canine Yeah, Chrissy is really a big success story. She's her her dog, Ginger is doing wonderfully. Yep. And so we had a great conversation with her about bringing a dog home during the pandemic, and what that looked like their expectations versus reality.
Emily 5:55
March 4 2020, it was actually the pandemic had not yet started, we got an email from one of the folks in Arkansas, who sends us dogs on occasion, and she let us know about a little dog. She's about 30 pounds, and her name was Kira when she was there. She was living in a hoarding situation. And this rescuer was going to meet her and asked us if we would be interested in taking her into our rescue. And the way it works is that once a dog has been identified, and we say yes, then she would go into the vet there and I believe she was spayed in Arkansas. And then got all her bedding. And then she gets on a big van. It's about probably a 20 hour transport between stops. And you picked her up at transport Chrissy, didn't you?
Chrissy 6:49
Yes. And she got off the van and just had the little tail wag and the sweetest little face and and then we just Yeah, put her in the car and we went home and then she slept for a week.
Emily 7:06
Oh my gosh. And she had some sort of tick borne disease called or likea. Right.
Chrissy 7:12
Yeah, that's what it she came with.
Emily 7:15
Okay. And you had to keep her on doxycycline for 30 days and then have her retested several times.
Chrissy 7:21
We kept up the meds. And then I think she was tested again. And then that was it.
Emily 7:27
Okay, so now she's extremely healthy. She never had heartworm.
Chrissy 7:31
Right. And she was 30 pounds when she was there. And now she's 50 pounds.
Emily 7:38
Oh, wow. Okay, amazing. Oh, okay. Yeah. Holy moly. Okay. Yeah, she was a little underweight did we think she, she was four.
Chrissy 7:48
She is so she was Yeah, three when we got her and now she's four. It's been a year. She's been a lot of fun. She's so sweet. She bounces up and down like a little fox. And oh, it's like for me as a trainer. Like I just I'm like, Oh, you're so cute. And?
Emily 8:07
Well, she lucked out.
Libby 8:10
Absolutely.
I love what Chrissy had to say about allowing the dog to set the pace, and really show who she is, you know, her whole self and her preferences, and how she wants to spend her time and you know, what she enjoys and what she doesn't enjoy doing. And they can all learn something from that.
Emily 8:41
Yes. And how long it takes for them to decompress. Yeah,
Libby 8:46
yeah. Yeah. decompression time. So important.
Emily 8:49
Yeah. Well, without further ado, let's run it. And if you enjoy our podcast and want to learn more, definitely hit subscribe. Wherever you listen to your podcasts, we really appreciate the support. We look forward to hearing your feedback.
Libby 9:06
So here we are with Chrissy Messick from the nature of animals. Hi, Chrissy. Hi, thank you so much for being on our podcast. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. So can you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do?
Chrissy 9:21
Sure. Well, I started my business about four years ago. And I work with clients privately, with dogs with behavior issues such as fear, aggression, anxiety, stress, and I also work with puppies and do a lot of just all the puppy stuff, as well as you know, basic manners. Pretty much anything related to dogs, but I mostly work with a lot of behavior issues, behavior modification.
Emily 9:57
And then last year, Chrissy I Um, we posted a dog at the time her name was Kira. We posted her on our Facebook page, looking for a foster and you and your family offered to foster her. She came, I believe last March.
Chrissy 10:16
Yeah, we we met her on the on the travel bus or on the travel bus. Yeah, march 23. We remember the day. All right.
Emily 10:26
So it's been a year. What was it about Kira? And what would but what about the timing made you offer to foster Kira?
Chrissy 10:36
Well, we had two boxers previously, who lived to the age of 13 and 11. And our last one passed away about I think a year before. Kira, aka ginger. Right, yeah. came into our lives. And so we had kind of been helping foster and help other dogs in between. But so we just decided, you know, you said you needed some help with a foster. And so we just said, Okay, we'll help. And if she's the one for us, we'll go ahead and keep her if not, we'll get her ready for the next family. And so we got her on March 23rd. And probably about a week later, you were like, we have people interested in her. And I was like, I don't know if we want to give her up. So we just my daughter and husband were the actually the ones that said we want to keep her in our family. So we decided to keep her as part of the family.
Emily 11:52
And that was mostly the beginning of the COVID. Lockdown, you know. So can you talk to your experience of rescuing a dog during the lockdown and kind of her unfolding process and how your family supported her needs during such a weird time in the history of our country and dog ownership?
Chrissy 12:20
Yeah, so we got her and yeah, that's when the COVID started. So the kids were, you know, at home learning. My husband and I were still we have our own businesses, obviously. And so we were still working with clients. You know, we were still leaving the house a little bit, not as much, definitely. But ginger was so when she came to us, she was so tired. She she wanted to sleep a lot. She had so you know, we literally, were just getting to know her. We didn't have any expectations. We were just kind of waiting to see who she was. And so we would just take her for, you know, like a 20 minute walk around the neighborhood, come home and then she would literally sleep all day.
Emily 13:11
A little backstory is ginger. She came from a hoarding situation in Northwest Arkansas, she the videos we got of her she was in a kennel with other dogs and never was allowed in the house.
Chrissy 13:28
And so yeah, she would literally sleep all day. Wow. And then we would get home and take her for another 20 minute walk. And then she would sleep all night. She didn't, she had no interest in being next to us. She just would go and lay down and just have her own little space. And as a trainer, you know, I know and I told her family just let her be kind of let her have her own space. When she wants to come over to us. She will. And so it was really hard for my 10 year old to let her ever own space. Yeah, cuz she wanted to love on her and hugger. But, you know, we could tell by gingers body language that she just wanted to have her own space. And so we let her have it. And I would say over over a period of like four to five months, she started coming over to us and just sitting next to us. Um, now she gets up on the couch and lays on our lap. She sleeps with us now whereas before she just stayed downstairs on the main floor and slept in her doggie bed. But now she comes up and sleeps with us. She sleeps with Kenzi my 10 year old sometimes. Now she asks for interaction all the time, whereas before she didn't want any of it. And you know, I was As far as we had to let her decompress, you know, like the the same goes three days to decompress three months or three weeks to get in a routine, and then three months to kind of see who they really are. And every dog is individual. And so for ginger, it probably took her three months to decompress, just to decompress. The routine part, I think was a bit quicker, you know, that was probably three weeks to a month. And then just now like we're really starting to see your personality. And it's been a year later. Wow.
Libby 15:38
Because this was a dog who had never lived in a house before. Is that right? Wow. And how old is she?
Chrissy 15:45
She's four now.
Emily 15:46
Wow, wow.
Libby 15:48
So how did this How did her decompression process line up with your expectations of what it is generally going to take a dock.
Chrissy 15:56
And that's where the interesting thing is, is like, from a PERT, like just a personal standpoint, if I wasn't wasn't a trainer. I'd be like, Okay, let's just give her a few days to get comfortable with us. And then lets, you know, like, this next week, let's take her to tell her farms and go walk for an hour. And then let's go travel everywhere. That kind of thing.
Libby 16:24
We take her to the brewery ticker, yeah, to the coffee shop,
Chrissy 16:28
to the brewery to like, take her everywhere. Because just as a person, we want to hang out with our dog and stuff. Um, but as a trainer, knowing what I know, like the way she was acting, she was so shut down. Even I didn't realize how shut down she was. She was. And so the expectations you know, as a person versus a trainer, or a human just like a pet owner versus a trainer. It took a lot longer, you know, than I thought it would versus you know, just being a pet owner.
Libby 17:06
So what are some of those signs of her being shut down? You know, I know that you we all know every dog is different. But what are some things that adopters can look for in body language or behavior that really point to okay, this is a dog who really needs some time and space.
Chrissy 17:23
Yeah, she. So I would look for signs of almost like helplessness. Almost like just not doing anything, like not responding to anything, you know, or I mean, it's it's a little different than learned helplessness, but not doing much like not responding to anything. Even in the interesting part is when we saw her with the videos and pictures with other dogs in the kennel. And then bringing her home. We were kind of we started to introduce her to other dogs, but she had no interest in other dogs. So she would just completely ignore him or just move away. So she didn't really do much. She just didn't respond to a whole lot of things. And even with training, like trying to do training, she would just sit there and look at me. You know? And so when when you're looking at dog who is shut down, they just don't respond to a whole much, you know, to a whole lot.
Emily 18:33
Yeah, a whole lot. What she interested in training and food, like if you gave her hot dogs in the beginning, did she seem interested in food food motivated? That seems to be one thing. A lot of new dogs. People are like they're not food motivated. And then a month later, you know, they start to learn to that they're comfortable enough to take treats.
Chrissy 18:56
That's yeah, definitely. Another thing is she i would say for the first week, she hardly ate anything. Oh, wow. And I had, like, we give our dogs raw food. So it's really good. And so she wouldn't even eat the raw food. So I tried kibble, she wouldn't eat the kibble. I tried treats, and she wouldn't even eat the treats. So that is definitely another sign that you know, as well as not responding to anything, not really eating much. So stress, that kind of thing. So I finally found a raw food that she would eat a little bit of, and it was the beef. And so it took her probably about a month before she started, like fully eating. And now she is like loves food.
Libby 19:50
Was there anything you did in particular to help her decompress to help her adjust?
Chrissy 19:55
Yeah, so like I said before, we just gave her her space. Mm hm. Mmm. And she actually wouldn't go to the bathroom in the backyard either. The only time she would go the bathroom is on our short little walks. So the things we did to help her decompress, was just give her space. Let her have that space. And we tried to find things that she loved to do. One thing that she loved to do was play fetch involve. So we did that a lot with her because she loved it. And she really opened up. She loves going in the yard and rolling on her back in the grass. So we did that with her. She walks I don't know if she was ever on a leash or anything, I have no idea. But walk she was curious about, but she was nervous too. So we started off with short little walks, like 15 minutes and really quiet areas around our neighborhood. And then we gradually have opened up her world a little bigger, and made the walks longer. So that's kind of what we've done. We haven't forced any dog interactions, we haven't really forced anything. We've just kind of let her have her space.
Libby 21:20
Yeah, so it sounds like you're really just letting ginger lead the process. And you're letting her tell you what she's ready for what she needs, who she is.
Chrissy 21:32
Yes, definitely. And, you know, just being with her, um, you know, looking at kind of what she needs physically, mentally, emotionally, and just kind of her for her who she is. So physically getting her some exercise that safe and comfortable for her, which included the short walks and the just playing in the backyard. And then mentally, we did. So I started doing training with her, but it was so like simple, where, where I just made it really easy for her to be successful, and did it in a way that wasn't scary for her. And so, so really working on like, just really simple things, just really simple things, to get her comfortable with the process and had the girls do it too. And so now she's really like, she really loves her training and all that kind of stuff. And then emotionally learning about. And this is huge. Like, even though I'm a trainer, every pet owner should know dog's body language. So that's how dogs communicate how they're feeling. You know. So if, if, as a pet owner, you can look at your dog's body language and see how they're feeling you can respond in an appropriate way in what to do with them. That way, you're not like putting them into situations that they're not ready for your building trust that kind of situation. And then just being with them, you know, we would just be with her in the house. And like if she was sitting across the room on her bed, we would just sit, you know, on the couch and just be with her.
Libby 23:18
I love the conversation about understanding body language. How do you what is a good resource for the average adopter to learn about body language?
Chrissy 23:28
Well, funny, you should ask. There's a little book called doggy language by Lily Chin. And it's just like this very simple book that kids can read in love. And adults. It's very simple. It has pictures. And it's the best way just to look at to learn about dog body language in many situations. And it's really fun. I actually recommend this to all my clients that I work with. Oh, nice. Yeah. And so the kids and adults love it. But it's just a very easy way to understand dog body language and incorporate it into your life.
Emily 24:14
Dogs don't communicate with words they're nonverbal species. So I think that's important for us to understand. I didn't understand that for a long time. They're speaking to us all the time, but it's through body language. And so often, we don't know what what they're actually saying because we don't understand body language. But if we don't listen to the little subtle signs, like lip licks or yawns, which are stressed signs, we continue to pet or pick them up or put them in situations where they're not comfortable. That's when their behavior can escalate like any any of us if we're expressing a need for space, or understanding and it's not being met. That's When will start to feel frustrated and our behavior can get more agitated? So it's so important to understand those little subtle signs of like, I'm not comfortable right now. And respecting those wouldn't. Is that kind of what you're talking about those body language signs, and also just understanding how they're feeling?
Chrissy 25:17
Yeah, cuz if we, if we pay attention to those subtle signs, it's going to prevent a huge amount of behavior issues. You know, dogs if, if their subtle signs aren't acknowledged and listened to by the humans, that's when they escalate to the barking, the lunging the, you know, the growling, that kind of stuff. So if we can pay attention to those subtle signs, then we can avoid so much stress down the road for everyone.
Libby 25:49
Yeah, yeah. Well, and I think it also goes a long way to building trust between the dog and the people. You know, the dog understands that, okay, I'm going to be listened to I don't have to raise my voice. I don't have to escalate this. This person is looking out for my best interests. Yeah.
Chrissy 26:06
And with ginger, I mean, I could see the subtle signs, like if my 10 year old tried to like go give her attention, I could see the side eye or the head turn. And I'd be like, Kinsey, look at what she's doing. She doesn't want that. And cuz it's like, Oh, okay. And so, if we hadn't listened to that, she would have resorted to, like a snarl, or, you know, she would have escalated or behavior. And so now we're at the point where Kenzie can go over and give her a hug. And ginger loves it, you know, like, she's happy. She's not doing any of those displacement behaviors. So you can avoid a whole lot of heartache if you just pay attention to the body language. All the time. And that, like you said, building trust is so important.
Libby 26:58
Okay, so I want to pivot a little bit right now. Because we're talking about having kids and teaching kids how to interact with the dogs and something at Summit that we're always you know, we always want to know how parents are going to supervise these interactions. Can you talk a little bit about being a trainer, having younger kids and, and bringing a new dog into your house and what that looks like
Chrissy 27:23
they were they were never left alone together. I was always my head was always on a swivel. Right? I would always point something out, I'd say Kinzie look at what ginger is doing, like what she's telling you. And so I'd always kind of narrate gingers body language for a translator I love in Yeah, I would translate and Kinzie you know, after a few times, she started to really Oh, and have that awareness. You know, awareness is so huge. So they were never left alone, you know, and I really had to teach, especially the younger one. I have a 14 year old and a 10 year old but teach both of them. You know, like look at what she's doing. Now. She's likes that or she doesn't like that. And then I also so found ways for my 10 year old to interact with ginger and appropriate way. Okay, so I would have her feed ginger. I would have her Kinsey basically trained ginger to go up and down stairs. Oh, wow. Soccer, what she plays soccer with her and gingers much better than kunzea soccer. I taught Kinsey, I'm like, Okay, we're going to do a couple things. You can teach her how to sit, you can teach her how to handle target, you can teach her how to lay down. So I showed her ways to interact appropriately with her. I showed her. I taught her about how ginger is feeling, you know, said give ginger time she will eventually really want to come and hang out with you. And now she does. She comes in like lays on top of her and you know, they they cuddle together and you know ginger is happy about it. It's just a lot of repetition with the kids is just over and over. And then it clicks. Yeah. So that's kind of what I did.
Libby 29:19
Yeah. Well, and it sounds like it. You know, there was a lot of building that trust bank as well. In the beginning and that goes a long way.
Chrissy 29:30
Yeah, and it took in every dog is gonna be different. You know, some dogs it might be, you know, a month. And with ginger. It's taken probably about a year.
Emily 29:40
One website I like is stopped the 77 Have you ever looked at that or showed your children? I guess 77% of all dog bites on children are by the family dog. So stop the 70 seven.com and we can link to it in the show notes. It's a good Rate website designed just to teach kids in a really kid appropriate, fun way how to interact with dogs and how to read dog body language.
Libby 30:10
Oh, that's so great.
Emily 30:11
Yeah.
Libby 30:12
Okay, so we you're about a year in now of having ginger in your home. And as the world is starting to open up, is there anything that you're adding to her training plan? As you know, we kind of all go through another yet another big another big in our lives with our dogs.
Chrissy 30:33
Yeah, I would say so just along through this whole year process. We have like I said, we've made her walks longer taken her to areas that are little more busy. It's so funny because even though she came from a place where she was in a kennel with other dogs, she does not like dogs.
Libby 30:52
Oh, wow. Okay,
Chrissy 30:53
she is very dog reactive. And, and so we've been working really working on our loose leash walking and her responding differently when she sees other dogs. We have a neighbor dog that now she has played with for two minutes. Yay. That's great. So we're getting there with that. But that was a little shocker when they you know, said when well, we didn't really know how she would respond to dogs. So that's definitely been we've been working with that. We had to really work on getting your comfortable being in a car. So we we took short little car rides, made them very short. We went to like Starbucks and got a Peppa Chino, we've been making them really fun. And so we were able to drive to Lake Tahoe. Wow, yeah, which is a 14 hour drive. We split it into two days. And she did great with that. But we had to work our way up to that. We were very aware about leaving for short periods of time, the house, all of us, even the kids. So now you know that we've done that we've left for short periods of time and then longer and longer, longer. Now, you know, we know she's comfortable being home by herself. So I would say those were the big things is getting her comfortable with travel, getting you're comfortable with being home alone, getting her comfortable being out with more and more distractions.
Emily 32:27
So Chrissy for the issue with dogs, you didn't mention that you take her to dog parks or put her in daycare to socialize her. What would your thoughts be about? You know, why aren't you taking her to the dog park, a lot of people would think that would be the way to get her to be socialized with dogs.
Chrissy 32:44
Yeah, that would sort of coming from the trainer mind. When we're working with dogs and training them with behavior kind of modification type stuff, if I were to like put her in the dog park, to work through that, that would totally be too stressful for her. And one, she would either probably bite a dog, or she would just completely shut down. Which a lot of times people think oh, they're fine, they're not doing anything, but then actuality they're shut down, and they're not doing anything. How I'm getting her comfortable with dogs is keeping her under threshold. So I'm keeping her in an emotional state where she's relaxed and can still focus and engage with me. And we do that by doing it in an environment where it's controlled where like I have control of the environment. There's another dog we're practicing with. But a dog park or a place where there's just too many dogs it's too hard for her and she will have a really hard time you're
Libby 33:51
taking it really really slowly and again watching her signals to let you know she's gonna let you know where how she's doing if we know how to pay attention, you know, something I always tell fosters and adopters is that it's almost impossible to go too slow. But if you go too fast, it's such a hard mistake to undo in the future.
Chrissy 34:14
I always tell my clients slow is fast and fast is slow.
Emily 34:19
I like that. So if someone listening to this had adopted a dog last year, and now the world is starting to open up and they're like okay, I feel like my dog might be a little bit fearful of people and loud situations. You would not recommend going to a brew pub and thinking that was socialization you would recommend more going to a quiet park and just watching people from far away and watching the reactions that your dog is having. Keeping her calm, having her make positive associations with like the busyness so you would slowly have that dog begin to unfold into this faster paced world that I think we're coming towards,
Chrissy 35:01
we want to create positive. And so associations in a safe environment, keeping distance, you know, having a safe environment that's quiet and not a lot going on and just creating positive associations like happy talk or giving treats, you know, when all this stuff is happening. And then when you see, when you taking your dog to this environment, and they're excited to be there, then you can move to the next little bit harder step, keep taking those, you know, a little bit harder and harder each time, but you want to, you don't want to do that until they're happy in that situation in the first place.
Emily 35:37
I always tried to make the analogy that it's like playing the piano, or any really new complicated skill or ballet, like it takes so long, and so many little teeny tiny steps before you're playing at Carnegie Hall. And I think that we tend to just be like, Okay, I need to socialize my dog, it's been a year of shutdown, I'm gonna go to a brew pub, I'm gonna go to the farmers market. And that will help me with my dog. And so it's really those taking the most tiny little steps that are successful is going to help your dog it's very much how you were speaking about how when you brought her in, you went at her pace. And so we have to really go with the dogs pace. And that is what you're saying is the key to success.
Chrissy 36:22
Yeah. And then, once again, expectations, like, your expectation of wanting to go like hike on an off leash trail. Dog is like, No, I don't want to do that. So looking at your expectations, and then looking at the awareness of what the dog is able to do, and finding a middle ground and working from there. But it's so important to have that awareness that my dog, oh, my dog doesn't want to do that. And you don't have to feel bad that your dog doesn't want to go to the dog park. Like not all dogs want to go to the dog park or not all dogs want to play with every dog. Yeah, so, so don't feel bad. If your dog doesn't want to do that. You don't have to, like, your dog doesn't have to,
Libby 37:15
how would you help a client through say they really wanted that social dog and the dog they adopted as not? How would you help a client through that process of reconciling their expectations with the reality,
Chrissy 37:31
sometimes that can take a long time. And it's working with the human, it's really educating the human to help them understand. See, see what your dog is, through your body language, see what your dog is telling you right now that they have no interest in doing this. So it's really educating the human about, you know, dog body language and working with that. And then really seeing Okay, as from the human standpoint, this is what your dog is telling you right now we can try and work up to it, but it's going to take time. And here are things we can do in between. I'm trying to kind of help fulfill your needs that you want, at birth and what the dog needs and wants. Right? So really educating the human and then finding a middle ground and creating that awareness so that the humans like Oh, okay. And then. And then it's like, okay, this is what we have here. Alright, can you? Is this something that you can live with? And if not, you know, then we got to decide, you know, is this the right dog for you or that kind of thing?
Libby 38:51
Well, that that reminds me a lot of my dog Daisy because she's whenever I well, I wasn't I wasn't looking for a dog when she came into my life. But I was the kind of person who was like, I want to take my dog to Chautauqua and listeners who aren't in the boulder area that's like a really popular, it's like the most popular hiking spot in Boulder off leash dogs everywhere. But Daisy can't do that. That's She's not that kind of dog. That's not the environment that she wants to be in. So okay, so I can't go to Chautauqua. But we can go to Sahil ponds three times a week, and she loves that. And so it's kind of finding that happy medium have both of us get to do something that's happy and healthy for us.
Chrissy 39:34
Yeah, and Sawhill ponds for the listeners who don't know is Yeah, is a wonderful hiking area that's much quieter and all the dogs have to be on leash. And it's just much quieter, but it's still a wonderful hiking area. Yeah,
Libby 39:49
it's beautiful and Daisy loves it. And what I what I love about that place is that everybody who brings their dogs there understands and I feel like we all just like how Have this knowing glance at one another, we've asked one another whether, you know, dogs who don't like to greet.
Emily 40:09
Well, Chirag Patel says, See the dog in front of you, not the one you have in your mind. And I think that is, you know, sometimes we have to adjust what we, what we have in front of us to what we thought we were gonna get. And just come to that conclusion of like, this is what this dog is capable of. And this is what this dog is comfortable with.
Chrissy 40:30
And it's interesting, because, for me, as a trainer, like bringing in ginger into our house, I had no expectations. I was like, we have a blank slate, and we're gonna get what we're gonna get. But the interesting thing is, my husband had expectations.
Emily 40:46
Oh,
Chrissy 40:48
he was like, let's go to hike, and we're gonna go do all these things. And, and I was like, um, so I had to, you know, I had to kind of teach my family about expectations, you know. And it took them a little bit of time to kind of understand how ginger was feeling and their emotions. And it was just a lot of repetition, and then watching and just seeing things as well. So. So that was interesting.
Emily 41:20
Yeah. So Chrissy, it's interesting, because you're a mom, and I'm a mom. And I know, when my son was born, I had this vision of who he would be and what his interests were going to be, and fun things that we would do, we would share the same passions. And I learned really quickly that he was who he was. And he had, like, preset, passions and interests and personality. And in a lot of ways, you know, that's how dogs are. And so we have our expectations and our dreams for what this relationship with our dog is going to be. But, you know, they, they have their own set of genetics, and they have their life experiences, even if they're eight weeks old. So somehow we have to temper like what we want, with the actual being in front of us.
Chrissy 42:07
Yeah, they definitely have their own personalities, dogs tolerate so much. So we want to be aware that we're not forcing him to do something that they don't want to do you know what I mean? And so it's just letting them be who they are and working with their personalities.
Emily 42:25
Well, this has been really great. We loved having you on Chrissie, and we would love to have you back. I think absolutely. We could talk about this for hours and hours. So we would love if you would join us again.
Chrissy 42:38
Yeah, definitely. This is a lot of fun. It's always fun to talk about dog.
Libby 42:45
And if people want to find out more about your dog training business, where should they go to find you?
Chrissy 42:51
My website is www.the animalnature.com So it's the backwards of my name of my of my business name,
Libby 43:03
theanimalnature.com Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Chrissy.
Chrissy 43:07
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Libby 43:13
Thanks for tuning in. If you liked this episode, don't forget to rate and review. It helps other folks like you find the show. To find out more about our programming and adoptable rescue dogs. You can visit summit dog rescue.org thanks to Mike pesci for the original music and to Alex Lee Ammons and for the love media for graphics production and editing. See you soon on pod to the rescue.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Welcome to pod to the rescue.
Libby 0:11
Rescuing the dog is just the first step. We're here to help with everything that comes next. Hello, everyone and welcome back to pod to the rescue. I'm Libby.
Emily 0:22
And I'm Emily.
Libby 0:23
And today we have an amazing interview with a local dog trainer and Summit dog rescue adopter, Chrissy Messick and but before we get into that, let's just give a quick update on what's going on in the world of rescue with Summit. So, last episode, we introduced Bodie, a lab who is in rescue right now. And Emily, what's going on with Bodie?
Emily 0:46
You know, we're still waiting for the orthopedic surgeon to come up with a final conclusion on his hips. Our veterinarian was hoping that we could do both hips at the same time. So he would just have to, you know, have one surgery. But she's talking to an orthopedic surgeon, he's definitely going to need he has bone on bone in the hip joints due to a shattered pelvis, which were thinking was either from a car accident or falling off of something large. Yeah, so and he also needs an additional Dental, but that's really the vets really believe that. And he can have like three or four or five solid years of a pain free life if we do these. So we were going to be starting a fundraiser for Bodie in the next week or two. And we really want to get those hips done. Yeah, for sure.
Libby 1:40
Yeah, I get that. Get that guy out of pain because he's such a sweetheart. I mean, he's gentle, and just really loving.
Emily 1:47
Yeah, it's kind of shocking, because so many dogs, when they're in pain, they can have some aggression. Just like we can, like absolutely not so nice when I'm in pain. But Bodie has been nothing but sweet and gentle. He has a real old soul with a huge heart. Gosh, well,
Libby 2:07
I hope that we can get both hips done at the same time and he is on the road to recovery soon. So if people want to help out with bodies, medical expenses, should they go to summit dog? rescue.org? Yes, I think that would be the best place or Facebook. Yeah, our Facebook we post we post a lot of stuff on Facebook. And then we also have a new dog coming into rescue this week who came into rescue this past week. Boomer
Emily 2:31
Boomer was at the eagle county shelter for two months. He I know he came in as a stray running with another dog who was a red healer. The healer got adopted and Boomer just stayed and no one adopted him. So they reached out to us and we got him over the weekend. He seems a little bit Shell Shocked. Shocked down. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of what Chris he talks about in this interview could be helpful for whoever adopts Boomer.
Libby 3:00
Totally, yes, you're so right. I went over and met him and he's just very timid. He doesn't want to look at you. He doesn't you know, it took him a really long time to even be comfortable eating treats that I tossed on the ground. But he did eventually warm up so he's gonna be really great dog but he is kind of in that like, overwhelmed total shutdown state. And he is we his the shelter thought that he was a healer mix, right? Yeah. What do you think about that?
Emily 3:33
I think he's some sort of healer, Border Collie, maybe healer retriever.
Libby 3:40
I'm thinking okay, tell me what you think about this healer, Aussie, Pierre?
Emily 3:45
Okay. I think you might actually win that bet.
Libby 3:48
Yeah, I would be really interested to see what I know those DNA tests aren't accurate, but I'm really interested. Because his ears he's got like those floppy ears that remind me of uh, so anyway, all right. Well, it'll be interesting to see how Boomer does. All right, so we have an interview today with Chrissy Messick who is a local dog trainer. And she is a Volunteer and Adopter for SDR. And she also works with the local humane society. What does she do for the Humane Society?
Emily 4:18
She has been a volunteer in their behavior modification program, Boulder humane, they are one of the best behavior programs in the country. And she's done really great work there. Yeah.
Libby 4:32
She's really a success story because she adopted her dog in March of 2020. Right as the pandemic was starting. We know just from experience that so many people have adopted adopted dogs during the pandemic. The New York Times says 12 point 6 million households took in pets between March and December of 2020. And we know from experience that some people are struggling with their fans pandemic puppies, right They're
Emily 5:01
deep into adolescence, which is a very difficult time for dogs as well as it is for humans. And the people are struggling and the dogs are struggling.
Libby 5:13
We're also kind of looking toward the future as things start to open up and we're trying to help people prepare to take their dogs out into the world again, definitely we're going to have a bunch of episodes on that. While some people are struggling with their pandemic puppies. And because the canines canine Yeah, Chrissy is really a big success story. She's her her dog, Ginger is doing wonderfully. Yep. And so we had a great conversation with her about bringing a dog home during the pandemic, and what that looked like their expectations versus reality.
Emily 5:55
March 4 2020, it was actually the pandemic had not yet started, we got an email from one of the folks in Arkansas, who sends us dogs on occasion, and she let us know about a little dog. She's about 30 pounds, and her name was Kira when she was there. She was living in a hoarding situation. And this rescuer was going to meet her and asked us if we would be interested in taking her into our rescue. And the way it works is that once a dog has been identified, and we say yes, then she would go into the vet there and I believe she was spayed in Arkansas. And then got all her bedding. And then she gets on a big van. It's about probably a 20 hour transport between stops. And you picked her up at transport Chrissy, didn't you?
Chrissy 6:49
Yes. And she got off the van and just had the little tail wag and the sweetest little face and and then we just Yeah, put her in the car and we went home and then she slept for a week.
Emily 7:06
Oh my gosh. And she had some sort of tick borne disease called or likea. Right.
Chrissy 7:12
Yeah, that's what it she came with.
Emily 7:15
Okay. And you had to keep her on doxycycline for 30 days and then have her retested several times.
Chrissy 7:21
We kept up the meds. And then I think she was tested again. And then that was it.
Emily 7:27
Okay, so now she's extremely healthy. She never had heartworm.
Chrissy 7:31
Right. And she was 30 pounds when she was there. And now she's 50 pounds.
Emily 7:38
Oh, wow. Okay, amazing. Oh, okay. Yeah. Holy moly. Okay. Yeah, she was a little underweight did we think she, she was four.
Chrissy 7:48
She is so she was Yeah, three when we got her and now she's four. It's been a year. She's been a lot of fun. She's so sweet. She bounces up and down like a little fox. And oh, it's like for me as a trainer. Like I just I'm like, Oh, you're so cute. And?
Emily 8:07
Well, she lucked out.
Libby 8:10
Absolutely.
I love what Chrissy had to say about allowing the dog to set the pace, and really show who she is, you know, her whole self and her preferences, and how she wants to spend her time and you know, what she enjoys and what she doesn't enjoy doing. And they can all learn something from that.
Emily 8:41
Yes. And how long it takes for them to decompress. Yeah,
Libby 8:46
yeah. Yeah. decompression time. So important.
Emily 8:49
Yeah. Well, without further ado, let's run it. And if you enjoy our podcast and want to learn more, definitely hit subscribe. Wherever you listen to your podcasts, we really appreciate the support. We look forward to hearing your feedback.
Libby 9:06
So here we are with Chrissy Messick from the nature of animals. Hi, Chrissy. Hi, thank you so much for being on our podcast. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. So can you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do?
Chrissy 9:21
Sure. Well, I started my business about four years ago. And I work with clients privately, with dogs with behavior issues such as fear, aggression, anxiety, stress, and I also work with puppies and do a lot of just all the puppy stuff, as well as you know, basic manners. Pretty much anything related to dogs, but I mostly work with a lot of behavior issues, behavior modification.
Emily 9:57
And then last year, Chrissy I Um, we posted a dog at the time her name was Kira. We posted her on our Facebook page, looking for a foster and you and your family offered to foster her. She came, I believe last March.
Chrissy 10:16
Yeah, we we met her on the on the travel bus or on the travel bus. Yeah, march 23. We remember the day. All right.
Emily 10:26
So it's been a year. What was it about Kira? And what would but what about the timing made you offer to foster Kira?
Chrissy 10:36
Well, we had two boxers previously, who lived to the age of 13 and 11. And our last one passed away about I think a year before. Kira, aka ginger. Right, yeah. came into our lives. And so we had kind of been helping foster and help other dogs in between. But so we just decided, you know, you said you needed some help with a foster. And so we just said, Okay, we'll help. And if she's the one for us, we'll go ahead and keep her if not, we'll get her ready for the next family. And so we got her on March 23rd. And probably about a week later, you were like, we have people interested in her. And I was like, I don't know if we want to give her up. So we just my daughter and husband were the actually the ones that said we want to keep her in our family. So we decided to keep her as part of the family.
Emily 11:52
And that was mostly the beginning of the COVID. Lockdown, you know. So can you talk to your experience of rescuing a dog during the lockdown and kind of her unfolding process and how your family supported her needs during such a weird time in the history of our country and dog ownership?
Chrissy 12:20
Yeah, so we got her and yeah, that's when the COVID started. So the kids were, you know, at home learning. My husband and I were still we have our own businesses, obviously. And so we were still working with clients. You know, we were still leaving the house a little bit, not as much, definitely. But ginger was so when she came to us, she was so tired. She she wanted to sleep a lot. She had so you know, we literally, were just getting to know her. We didn't have any expectations. We were just kind of waiting to see who she was. And so we would just take her for, you know, like a 20 minute walk around the neighborhood, come home and then she would literally sleep all day.
Emily 13:11
A little backstory is ginger. She came from a hoarding situation in Northwest Arkansas, she the videos we got of her she was in a kennel with other dogs and never was allowed in the house.
Chrissy 13:28
And so yeah, she would literally sleep all day. Wow. And then we would get home and take her for another 20 minute walk. And then she would sleep all night. She didn't, she had no interest in being next to us. She just would go and lay down and just have her own little space. And as a trainer, you know, I know and I told her family just let her be kind of let her have her own space. When she wants to come over to us. She will. And so it was really hard for my 10 year old to let her ever own space. Yeah, cuz she wanted to love on her and hugger. But, you know, we could tell by gingers body language that she just wanted to have her own space. And so we let her have it. And I would say over over a period of like four to five months, she started coming over to us and just sitting next to us. Um, now she gets up on the couch and lays on our lap. She sleeps with us now whereas before she just stayed downstairs on the main floor and slept in her doggie bed. But now she comes up and sleeps with us. She sleeps with Kenzi my 10 year old sometimes. Now she asks for interaction all the time, whereas before she didn't want any of it. And you know, I was As far as we had to let her decompress, you know, like the the same goes three days to decompress three months or three weeks to get in a routine, and then three months to kind of see who they really are. And every dog is individual. And so for ginger, it probably took her three months to decompress, just to decompress. The routine part, I think was a bit quicker, you know, that was probably three weeks to a month. And then just now like we're really starting to see your personality. And it's been a year later. Wow.
Libby 15:38
Because this was a dog who had never lived in a house before. Is that right? Wow. And how old is she?
Chrissy 15:45
She's four now.
Emily 15:46
Wow, wow.
Libby 15:48
So how did this How did her decompression process line up with your expectations of what it is generally going to take a dock.
Chrissy 15:56
And that's where the interesting thing is, is like, from a PERT, like just a personal standpoint, if I wasn't wasn't a trainer. I'd be like, Okay, let's just give her a few days to get comfortable with us. And then lets, you know, like, this next week, let's take her to tell her farms and go walk for an hour. And then let's go travel everywhere. That kind of thing.
Libby 16:24
We take her to the brewery ticker, yeah, to the coffee shop,
Chrissy 16:28
to the brewery to like, take her everywhere. Because just as a person, we want to hang out with our dog and stuff. Um, but as a trainer, knowing what I know, like the way she was acting, she was so shut down. Even I didn't realize how shut down she was. She was. And so the expectations you know, as a person versus a trainer, or a human just like a pet owner versus a trainer. It took a lot longer, you know, than I thought it would versus you know, just being a pet owner.
Libby 17:06
So what are some of those signs of her being shut down? You know, I know that you we all know every dog is different. But what are some things that adopters can look for in body language or behavior that really point to okay, this is a dog who really needs some time and space.
Chrissy 17:23
Yeah, she. So I would look for signs of almost like helplessness. Almost like just not doing anything, like not responding to anything, you know, or I mean, it's it's a little different than learned helplessness, but not doing much like not responding to anything. Even in the interesting part is when we saw her with the videos and pictures with other dogs in the kennel. And then bringing her home. We were kind of we started to introduce her to other dogs, but she had no interest in other dogs. So she would just completely ignore him or just move away. So she didn't really do much. She just didn't respond to a whole lot of things. And even with training, like trying to do training, she would just sit there and look at me. You know? And so when when you're looking at dog who is shut down, they just don't respond to a whole much, you know, to a whole lot.
Emily 18:33
Yeah, a whole lot. What she interested in training and food, like if you gave her hot dogs in the beginning, did she seem interested in food food motivated? That seems to be one thing. A lot of new dogs. People are like they're not food motivated. And then a month later, you know, they start to learn to that they're comfortable enough to take treats.
Chrissy 18:56
That's yeah, definitely. Another thing is she i would say for the first week, she hardly ate anything. Oh, wow. And I had, like, we give our dogs raw food. So it's really good. And so she wouldn't even eat the raw food. So I tried kibble, she wouldn't eat the kibble. I tried treats, and she wouldn't even eat the treats. So that is definitely another sign that you know, as well as not responding to anything, not really eating much. So stress, that kind of thing. So I finally found a raw food that she would eat a little bit of, and it was the beef. And so it took her probably about a month before she started, like fully eating. And now she is like loves food.
Libby 19:50
Was there anything you did in particular to help her decompress to help her adjust?
Chrissy 19:55
Yeah, so like I said before, we just gave her her space. Mm hm. Mmm. And she actually wouldn't go to the bathroom in the backyard either. The only time she would go the bathroom is on our short little walks. So the things we did to help her decompress, was just give her space. Let her have that space. And we tried to find things that she loved to do. One thing that she loved to do was play fetch involve. So we did that a lot with her because she loved it. And she really opened up. She loves going in the yard and rolling on her back in the grass. So we did that with her. She walks I don't know if she was ever on a leash or anything, I have no idea. But walk she was curious about, but she was nervous too. So we started off with short little walks, like 15 minutes and really quiet areas around our neighborhood. And then we gradually have opened up her world a little bigger, and made the walks longer. So that's kind of what we've done. We haven't forced any dog interactions, we haven't really forced anything. We've just kind of let her have her space.
Libby 21:20
Yeah, so it sounds like you're really just letting ginger lead the process. And you're letting her tell you what she's ready for what she needs, who she is.
Chrissy 21:32
Yes, definitely. And, you know, just being with her, um, you know, looking at kind of what she needs physically, mentally, emotionally, and just kind of her for her who she is. So physically getting her some exercise that safe and comfortable for her, which included the short walks and the just playing in the backyard. And then mentally, we did. So I started doing training with her, but it was so like simple, where, where I just made it really easy for her to be successful, and did it in a way that wasn't scary for her. And so, so really working on like, just really simple things, just really simple things, to get her comfortable with the process and had the girls do it too. And so now she's really like, she really loves her training and all that kind of stuff. And then emotionally learning about. And this is huge. Like, even though I'm a trainer, every pet owner should know dog's body language. So that's how dogs communicate how they're feeling. You know. So if, if, as a pet owner, you can look at your dog's body language and see how they're feeling you can respond in an appropriate way in what to do with them. That way, you're not like putting them into situations that they're not ready for your building trust that kind of situation. And then just being with them, you know, we would just be with her in the house. And like if she was sitting across the room on her bed, we would just sit, you know, on the couch and just be with her.
Libby 23:18
I love the conversation about understanding body language. How do you what is a good resource for the average adopter to learn about body language?
Chrissy 23:28
Well, funny, you should ask. There's a little book called doggy language by Lily Chin. And it's just like this very simple book that kids can read in love. And adults. It's very simple. It has pictures. And it's the best way just to look at to learn about dog body language in many situations. And it's really fun. I actually recommend this to all my clients that I work with. Oh, nice. Yeah. And so the kids and adults love it. But it's just a very easy way to understand dog body language and incorporate it into your life.
Emily 24:14
Dogs don't communicate with words they're nonverbal species. So I think that's important for us to understand. I didn't understand that for a long time. They're speaking to us all the time, but it's through body language. And so often, we don't know what what they're actually saying because we don't understand body language. But if we don't listen to the little subtle signs, like lip licks or yawns, which are stressed signs, we continue to pet or pick them up or put them in situations where they're not comfortable. That's when their behavior can escalate like any any of us if we're expressing a need for space, or understanding and it's not being met. That's When will start to feel frustrated and our behavior can get more agitated? So it's so important to understand those little subtle signs of like, I'm not comfortable right now. And respecting those wouldn't. Is that kind of what you're talking about those body language signs, and also just understanding how they're feeling?
Chrissy 25:17
Yeah, cuz if we, if we pay attention to those subtle signs, it's going to prevent a huge amount of behavior issues. You know, dogs if, if their subtle signs aren't acknowledged and listened to by the humans, that's when they escalate to the barking, the lunging the, you know, the growling, that kind of stuff. So if we can pay attention to those subtle signs, then we can avoid so much stress down the road for everyone.
Libby 25:49
Yeah, yeah. Well, and I think it also goes a long way to building trust between the dog and the people. You know, the dog understands that, okay, I'm going to be listened to I don't have to raise my voice. I don't have to escalate this. This person is looking out for my best interests. Yeah.
Chrissy 26:06
And with ginger, I mean, I could see the subtle signs, like if my 10 year old tried to like go give her attention, I could see the side eye or the head turn. And I'd be like, Kinsey, look at what she's doing. She doesn't want that. And cuz it's like, Oh, okay. And so, if we hadn't listened to that, she would have resorted to, like a snarl, or, you know, she would have escalated or behavior. And so now we're at the point where Kenzie can go over and give her a hug. And ginger loves it, you know, like, she's happy. She's not doing any of those displacement behaviors. So you can avoid a whole lot of heartache if you just pay attention to the body language. All the time. And that, like you said, building trust is so important.
Libby 26:58
Okay, so I want to pivot a little bit right now. Because we're talking about having kids and teaching kids how to interact with the dogs and something at Summit that we're always you know, we always want to know how parents are going to supervise these interactions. Can you talk a little bit about being a trainer, having younger kids and, and bringing a new dog into your house and what that looks like
Chrissy 27:23
they were they were never left alone together. I was always my head was always on a swivel. Right? I would always point something out, I'd say Kinzie look at what ginger is doing, like what she's telling you. And so I'd always kind of narrate gingers body language for a translator I love in Yeah, I would translate and Kinzie you know, after a few times, she started to really Oh, and have that awareness. You know, awareness is so huge. So they were never left alone, you know, and I really had to teach, especially the younger one. I have a 14 year old and a 10 year old but teach both of them. You know, like look at what she's doing. Now. She's likes that or she doesn't like that. And then I also so found ways for my 10 year old to interact with ginger and appropriate way. Okay, so I would have her feed ginger. I would have her Kinsey basically trained ginger to go up and down stairs. Oh, wow. Soccer, what she plays soccer with her and gingers much better than kunzea soccer. I taught Kinsey, I'm like, Okay, we're going to do a couple things. You can teach her how to sit, you can teach her how to handle target, you can teach her how to lay down. So I showed her ways to interact appropriately with her. I showed her. I taught her about how ginger is feeling, you know, said give ginger time she will eventually really want to come and hang out with you. And now she does. She comes in like lays on top of her and you know, they they cuddle together and you know ginger is happy about it. It's just a lot of repetition with the kids is just over and over. And then it clicks. Yeah. So that's kind of what I did.
Libby 29:19
Yeah. Well, and it sounds like it. You know, there was a lot of building that trust bank as well. In the beginning and that goes a long way.
Chrissy 29:30
Yeah, and it took in every dog is gonna be different. You know, some dogs it might be, you know, a month. And with ginger. It's taken probably about a year.
Emily 29:40
One website I like is stopped the 77 Have you ever looked at that or showed your children? I guess 77% of all dog bites on children are by the family dog. So stop the 70 seven.com and we can link to it in the show notes. It's a good Rate website designed just to teach kids in a really kid appropriate, fun way how to interact with dogs and how to read dog body language.
Libby 30:10
Oh, that's so great.
Emily 30:11
Yeah.
Libby 30:12
Okay, so we you're about a year in now of having ginger in your home. And as the world is starting to open up, is there anything that you're adding to her training plan? As you know, we kind of all go through another yet another big another big in our lives with our dogs.
Chrissy 30:33
Yeah, I would say so just along through this whole year process. We have like I said, we've made her walks longer taken her to areas that are little more busy. It's so funny because even though she came from a place where she was in a kennel with other dogs, she does not like dogs.
Libby 30:52
Oh, wow. Okay,
Chrissy 30:53
she is very dog reactive. And, and so we've been working really working on our loose leash walking and her responding differently when she sees other dogs. We have a neighbor dog that now she has played with for two minutes. Yay. That's great. So we're getting there with that. But that was a little shocker when they you know, said when well, we didn't really know how she would respond to dogs. So that's definitely been we've been working with that. We had to really work on getting your comfortable being in a car. So we we took short little car rides, made them very short. We went to like Starbucks and got a Peppa Chino, we've been making them really fun. And so we were able to drive to Lake Tahoe. Wow, yeah, which is a 14 hour drive. We split it into two days. And she did great with that. But we had to work our way up to that. We were very aware about leaving for short periods of time, the house, all of us, even the kids. So now you know that we've done that we've left for short periods of time and then longer and longer, longer. Now, you know, we know she's comfortable being home by herself. So I would say those were the big things is getting her comfortable with travel, getting you're comfortable with being home alone, getting her comfortable being out with more and more distractions.
Emily 32:27
So Chrissy for the issue with dogs, you didn't mention that you take her to dog parks or put her in daycare to socialize her. What would your thoughts be about? You know, why aren't you taking her to the dog park, a lot of people would think that would be the way to get her to be socialized with dogs.
Chrissy 32:44
Yeah, that would sort of coming from the trainer mind. When we're working with dogs and training them with behavior kind of modification type stuff, if I were to like put her in the dog park, to work through that, that would totally be too stressful for her. And one, she would either probably bite a dog, or she would just completely shut down. Which a lot of times people think oh, they're fine, they're not doing anything, but then actuality they're shut down, and they're not doing anything. How I'm getting her comfortable with dogs is keeping her under threshold. So I'm keeping her in an emotional state where she's relaxed and can still focus and engage with me. And we do that by doing it in an environment where it's controlled where like I have control of the environment. There's another dog we're practicing with. But a dog park or a place where there's just too many dogs it's too hard for her and she will have a really hard time you're
Libby 33:51
taking it really really slowly and again watching her signals to let you know she's gonna let you know where how she's doing if we know how to pay attention, you know, something I always tell fosters and adopters is that it's almost impossible to go too slow. But if you go too fast, it's such a hard mistake to undo in the future.
Chrissy 34:14
I always tell my clients slow is fast and fast is slow.
Emily 34:19
I like that. So if someone listening to this had adopted a dog last year, and now the world is starting to open up and they're like okay, I feel like my dog might be a little bit fearful of people and loud situations. You would not recommend going to a brew pub and thinking that was socialization you would recommend more going to a quiet park and just watching people from far away and watching the reactions that your dog is having. Keeping her calm, having her make positive associations with like the busyness so you would slowly have that dog begin to unfold into this faster paced world that I think we're coming towards,
Chrissy 35:01
we want to create positive. And so associations in a safe environment, keeping distance, you know, having a safe environment that's quiet and not a lot going on and just creating positive associations like happy talk or giving treats, you know, when all this stuff is happening. And then when you see, when you taking your dog to this environment, and they're excited to be there, then you can move to the next little bit harder step, keep taking those, you know, a little bit harder and harder each time, but you want to, you don't want to do that until they're happy in that situation in the first place.
Emily 35:37
I always tried to make the analogy that it's like playing the piano, or any really new complicated skill or ballet, like it takes so long, and so many little teeny tiny steps before you're playing at Carnegie Hall. And I think that we tend to just be like, Okay, I need to socialize my dog, it's been a year of shutdown, I'm gonna go to a brew pub, I'm gonna go to the farmers market. And that will help me with my dog. And so it's really those taking the most tiny little steps that are successful is going to help your dog it's very much how you were speaking about how when you brought her in, you went at her pace. And so we have to really go with the dogs pace. And that is what you're saying is the key to success.
Chrissy 36:22
Yeah. And then, once again, expectations, like, your expectation of wanting to go like hike on an off leash trail. Dog is like, No, I don't want to do that. So looking at your expectations, and then looking at the awareness of what the dog is able to do, and finding a middle ground and working from there. But it's so important to have that awareness that my dog, oh, my dog doesn't want to do that. And you don't have to feel bad that your dog doesn't want to go to the dog park. Like not all dogs want to go to the dog park or not all dogs want to play with every dog. Yeah, so, so don't feel bad. If your dog doesn't want to do that. You don't have to, like, your dog doesn't have to,
Libby 37:15
how would you help a client through say they really wanted that social dog and the dog they adopted as not? How would you help a client through that process of reconciling their expectations with the reality,
Chrissy 37:31
sometimes that can take a long time. And it's working with the human, it's really educating the human to help them understand. See, see what your dog is, through your body language, see what your dog is telling you right now that they have no interest in doing this. So it's really educating the human about, you know, dog body language and working with that. And then really seeing Okay, as from the human standpoint, this is what your dog is telling you right now we can try and work up to it, but it's going to take time. And here are things we can do in between. I'm trying to kind of help fulfill your needs that you want, at birth and what the dog needs and wants. Right? So really educating the human and then finding a middle ground and creating that awareness so that the humans like Oh, okay. And then. And then it's like, okay, this is what we have here. Alright, can you? Is this something that you can live with? And if not, you know, then we got to decide, you know, is this the right dog for you or that kind of thing?
Libby 38:51
Well, that that reminds me a lot of my dog Daisy because she's whenever I well, I wasn't I wasn't looking for a dog when she came into my life. But I was the kind of person who was like, I want to take my dog to Chautauqua and listeners who aren't in the boulder area that's like a really popular, it's like the most popular hiking spot in Boulder off leash dogs everywhere. But Daisy can't do that. That's She's not that kind of dog. That's not the environment that she wants to be in. So okay, so I can't go to Chautauqua. But we can go to Sahil ponds three times a week, and she loves that. And so it's kind of finding that happy medium have both of us get to do something that's happy and healthy for us.
Chrissy 39:34
Yeah, and Sawhill ponds for the listeners who don't know is Yeah, is a wonderful hiking area that's much quieter and all the dogs have to be on leash. And it's just much quieter, but it's still a wonderful hiking area. Yeah,
Libby 39:49
it's beautiful and Daisy loves it. And what I what I love about that place is that everybody who brings their dogs there understands and I feel like we all just like how Have this knowing glance at one another, we've asked one another whether, you know, dogs who don't like to greet.
Emily 40:09
Well, Chirag Patel says, See the dog in front of you, not the one you have in your mind. And I think that is, you know, sometimes we have to adjust what we, what we have in front of us to what we thought we were gonna get. And just come to that conclusion of like, this is what this dog is capable of. And this is what this dog is comfortable with.
Chrissy 40:30
And it's interesting, because, for me, as a trainer, like bringing in ginger into our house, I had no expectations. I was like, we have a blank slate, and we're gonna get what we're gonna get. But the interesting thing is, my husband had expectations.
Emily 40:46
Oh,
Chrissy 40:48
he was like, let's go to hike, and we're gonna go do all these things. And, and I was like, um, so I had to, you know, I had to kind of teach my family about expectations, you know. And it took them a little bit of time to kind of understand how ginger was feeling and their emotions. And it was just a lot of repetition, and then watching and just seeing things as well. So. So that was interesting.
Emily 41:20
Yeah. So Chrissy, it's interesting, because you're a mom, and I'm a mom. And I know, when my son was born, I had this vision of who he would be and what his interests were going to be, and fun things that we would do, we would share the same passions. And I learned really quickly that he was who he was. And he had, like, preset, passions and interests and personality. And in a lot of ways, you know, that's how dogs are. And so we have our expectations and our dreams for what this relationship with our dog is going to be. But, you know, they, they have their own set of genetics, and they have their life experiences, even if they're eight weeks old. So somehow we have to temper like what we want, with the actual being in front of us.
Chrissy 42:07
Yeah, they definitely have their own personalities, dogs tolerate so much. So we want to be aware that we're not forcing him to do something that they don't want to do you know what I mean? And so it's just letting them be who they are and working with their personalities.
Emily 42:25
Well, this has been really great. We loved having you on Chrissie, and we would love to have you back. I think absolutely. We could talk about this for hours and hours. So we would love if you would join us again.
Chrissy 42:38
Yeah, definitely. This is a lot of fun. It's always fun to talk about dog.
Libby 42:45
And if people want to find out more about your dog training business, where should they go to find you?
Chrissy 42:51
My website is www.the animalnature.com So it's the backwards of my name of my of my business name,
Libby 43:03
theanimalnature.com Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Chrissy.
Chrissy 43:07
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Libby 43:13
Thanks for tuning in. If you liked this episode, don't forget to rate and review. It helps other folks like you find the show. To find out more about our programming and adoptable rescue dogs. You can visit summit dog rescue.org thanks to Mike pesci for the original music and to Alex Lee Ammons and for the love media for graphics production and editing. See you soon on pod to the rescue.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai