E465: 에이미 쿡 & 요세핀 린데스트룀(Amy Cook, PhD & Josefin Linderstrom) - "반려견 훈련에서 스킨십의 힘"

with our hands they're tactile beings right they don't have the verbal language right and so i i loved when we first started talking about it it's like you know the the natural language of the dog and she and i are very much both about what what is the natural language of the dog and how can people be better at it so i i know just mean that you have like you have pre-existing feelings about how we touch our dogs and what that kind of means to them i know that that that you even started this conversation with me i'm certain about it i have a lot of thoughts on it i have uh just there's so much that happens whether we're aware of it or not and whether we like whether we like it or not even just something like clipping on the leash we're gonna grab their collar a little bit maybe twist it we do something with our hands so like it's not just a touch in itself but also how do we grab them are we approaching them like like that you know a lot of dogs are gonna be not they'll talk it's okay you know it's not a big deal but it would be like we could do it just a little bit nicer maybe if we realized that it was in fact a thing that they cared about i have yet to meet a single person who just you know doesn't care at all that generally most people have empathy they like their dogs they want to be nice to them they want their dogs certainly to like their hands people i mean as humans we love petting dogs like who doesn't um and so being mindful of and just aware of how they read us how they how they experience our hands in general both when we handle them when we pet them when we approach them to do different things it's such a huge part of the relationship and who doesn't have an opinion about touch themselves like all of us we we know inherently that we have a way we'd like to be touched and you know even if we couldn't articulate it at a moment's notice i don't think there's a person listening to this that doesn't have a feeling about what kind of touch how much who does it um you know how the hands move and all of this and i you know it's maybe about time that we really expand the vocabulary and expand the analytical lens around your dogs have the same opinions but often we don't solicit their opinions often we are doing what we like we pet dogs how we like to pet them i mean not everyone but you know it's common and if you think about it in the framework of what a person would be like it stands to reason that a dog would have very similar opinions and so uh just being and i kind of want to put a a closer lens on how we can

do things that are in alignment with with what dogs like and then what we can do with that which i know we're going to get into more but that's kind of the framework from where we started so you you're talking a little bit about um you know different log different dogs like different things maybe a little bit in there and like so how much variation do we usually see you know dogs are domesticated critters you know part of that is letting us get to the point where we're touching them and handling them and all that fun stuff so how much variation do we see between you know individual dogs and how they feel and what they like in terms of touch i think it's why yeah yeah there's like there's there's like i think of it as like a scale and on one end we have the labrador puppy oh look we have a dog here who wants to be touched she's like touch me what a surprise mom you're animated she's like oh she she must be talking about me amy knows that phrase because it's on the phone like when we're on the phone go lie down but she's like i don't think i will you sound like you have a lot of energy and i'm sure it's for me um what would i say oh yeah like the scale right on one end is the labrador puppy and then on the other end is like an injured street dog that would let nobody touch them anywhere and then the rest of all dogs just fall somewhere in between i do find that generally most dogs are closer to the labrador puppy than the owners think like when we get into it and start asking more nuanced questions of the dog they're actually like you know i kind of would actually really like those shoulder scritches as long as you just don't do the other thing that i don't love i'm very much gonna opt in when you do the thing that i like and you just stop doing the thing that i have feel icky about or like maybe the dog has some pain and like the in somewhere and you can't know that and maybe or maybe they've been injured in the past and had pain and so now they're a little bit like they have a learned worry about it and so if they if they can go into the interaction and feel in control then a lot of a lot more dogs opt in and enjoy it and i think that like styles you know can really vary although i i don't think we're asking the question enough right because you know i want to say there are dogs who like this kind of petting more than this kind of petting or this style matches the way they kind of act you know um i i wasn't terribly thumpy on my sight hound i wasn't scruffily scritchy and thumpy with her body because she seemed

to be a dog who liked a certain thing but i'm not certain that that those impressions that we tend to have will always bear out because much of the time we are just petting dogs how we like to do it or what we're guessing about and not exactly asking as many questions as we could about what they would like and so i'm kind of excited to find out if some of our impressions bear out and and you know i would expect a wide variety of opinions but i don't know that we have pre known pre-assessed their opinions accurately um and you know a dog is the final expert on what they like best yeah there are teachers always don't listen to us don't listen to me listen to your dog keep telling people i don't know anything your dog knows everything about your own body you are the one who knows right um but you know until people can ask a finer question about how should my hands move you know um have you given a lot of thought to how fast your hands should move uh and and should in quotes should as far as according to what your dog likes best and then to expand that idea um there are a lot of things you can do with touch which maybe we'll get into and and you know the class isn't only about touch it's about all the ways we use our hands but there are so many um styles and ways and i don't know that that people go beyond what their hands naturally do but you know we can pet dogs to help them feel calmer or to have a loving affectionate bondy moment and we can pet dogs in ways that are more arousing and more fun and more about stimulation but that requires vocabulary that requires us actually exploring which things do that for for our given dog because it's just you know it's just our dog that we're asking or the dogs that we're petting that we're asking we're not making grand claims about dogdom right so so there's so much um communication that happens there that is so much their natural channel that to to not have it really deeply developed and deeply asked about feels like a kind of a big open field an open an open door for us to walk you know a wide open door for us to walk through especially since us humans are such handsy creatures like we're little monkeys we want to we interact with everything through our hands are like they are very sensitive instruments finely tuned sensors they pick up tons of information um and they also convey tons of information to those around us both through visual things and gestures and stuff but also through touch so yeah i mean you make a good point i mean i'm sorry melissa i know you you have like 10 000 more questions to ask us but as i've

famously said press the play button on my chest and you'll have we'll just take the whole hour but you make a good point that that our hands are listeners right we're we we are or should be receiving information from our hands um and i would love to implore more of us as dog owners guardians of whatever it is to think that way i i don't know if enough people if enough of us are really thinking about not just what we do with our hands but how we receive the information our dogs are telling us through through touch not just through our eyes so um so i i just want to highlight for that for us because i i think it's something we um i don't know a channel that might act be atrophied a little our hands are good at telling those things but are our minds used to receiving that information and doing something with it i don't know that we are i don't know if you relate to that melissa but i mean i certainly understand where you're going with that i'd like to go a little deeper on it if we can you know what what are some of the ways that our dogs communicate what their preferences you know kind of are around this stuff um especially those things that maybe people kind of miss because maybe they haven't been taught to pay attention to this stuff and then you know how can we as caring loving you know dog handlers owners um become more observant become more responsive you know actually get better at this stuff with our dogs i feel like there is like there there's so much variation in that as well um and there's never a lot of people worry about things like lip licks and yawns but those can happen while the dog is absolutely loving the thing that's happening and like the pets it could just means that it could just mean that they were a little bit excited and they're coming down from a high and they'll do a yawn on the way down because it it just that just happens to be what it looks like for that dog um and so it's a little bit dangerous to get caught up in very specific like signals it always has to be about the whole dog and what it's doing like what it is responding to but i will say when dogs have confidence that they're going to be heard they get very expressive salvia is very confident and i also have a five-year-old son who they have just kind of recently started to interact more with each other right because he's been little and she's been feral so it just hasn't been a thing right um they've both been feral it's been it's been an interesting couple of years but the the thing is that he's not very intuitive about it and he's five um but salvia will make it happen the way she likes

it she will she will do an interpretive dance where she twists her body a certain way nudges her hands so that it his hands is flings and lands right where she wants it and she'll do this thing where she picks up her back leg and gets him to kind of like like he has no choice basically but to do it the way that she likes it like there's no mistaking it and she'll do that to anybody but i'm very impressed that she manages to provide instructions to my five-year-old because i can't do that so like he doesn't listen to me but he'll listen to her um so if we again like listen to the dog or like if we do our best and they kind of feel the intention of like oh i think maybe it's there's a little bit more to it there are certain signs right like um quite often if they orient towards the hand that you are actively petting them with it's a sign that they want to change something that that hand is doing like that might be a good time to try something different or do a consent check or something but it's there's so much variation uh in how dogs communicate and what they have to say so it's really tricky to try to say like this yeah it can be tricky and and you know we'll we'll start it with a place of like you know what is your dog's pattern right because we don't want to just take any errant lip lick or any oh my god your dog yawned therefore definitely stop or they licked your hand definitely stop it but we can ask that question we can say hey dog i thought i saw a signal from you i'm going to interpret it this way here's your chance to tell me whether you liked that i that i did that or didn't we can add we can build the communications or not not build the system so much but build our understanding of the system that they use by responding to what we think they said right and that doesn't mean constant consent checks i think we've gotten i think we both think that we've gotten a little far um out in in in the the consent check world which we will definitely be exploring and unpacking in the in the class that we have coming up on this so i don't mean to imply that that would be the way we would do it but you know we could say um oh when you attend to my hand this way i'm thinking maybe you'd like me to move my hand to a different location that you like better how about i try that tell me what you think about that right there is that and then also patterns over time like um oh always when i stop you lick my hand but lick and nudge it in a way that i'm starting to interpret means you want me to try again rather than that you want me to stop because licking does sometimes mean please

stop i licked and dismiss we can ask these questions instead of applying a rubric of dogs do x when they when they think x um nobody is that nobody is that cut and dry no animal is that specific like there are there are certain like as for every general trend there are as many dogs who don't follow it as there are dogs who do follow it so right and and we have to you know we want people to be able to ask their dogs so so we want to bring lessons to them bring exercises to them that allow them to ask very accurate questions and get good information you know and a dog will um if we allow them put the body part that they want pet yeah available right they they will do that but we often aren't limiting ourselves that or listening to that and saying oh your butt is here i'll pet your butt it's i'll pet your butt and now i'll just let my hands wander to all the places i wanted to pet and the dog is like but i gave you my butt hang on and just has this really interesting video with her petting a goat that is like yeah the goat is like and also here please and then please pet that part and here's another part you know i treat it i've done it i do the same thing i do the same thing when i ask dogs that i do with horses goats bunny rabbits uh generally seems to i have most dogs who are squishy scratchy tactile animals seem to understand that line of communication so i tend to test it whenever i happen upon a new species generally works really well i have yet to meet a dog who doesn't respond to it at all they like if they don't want pets they don't want pets if they don't i don't if they don't know me they don't like me then you know but there's always something to learn from it yeah right and like we you know we're thinking that if we if we say oh you said very clearly you'd like me to pet this side of your body or this shoulder like you leaned it right on my hands and i'm stretching it and you know what happens if i don't then do the common human thing of take liberties to just now pet you all of the other places you didn't offer me what if i just said great i will pet you here where you said um and until you say something else until you're until you feel done with this until you tell me somehow that you feel done with the shoulder scratches right and and maybe you want butt scratches right and and you know aside from uh the shorter picture the the narrow picture of i want to understand how you tell me what you like about you know the kinds of scratches you want but also there's the the larger framework of i'm listening to you tell me things therefore are there other

things you want to tell me about how i use my hands are there other messages that you'd like to convey about the way my hands behave around your body that aren't just in how you want to be pet in a time of affection maybe you won't have opinions about how we pet in times of edge you know uh of recall and greeting and reunions maybe you have opinions about how i pet you when we're idle and on the couch maybe you have opinions about how i use my hands to put on your harness and to give you treats and to give you toys at the vet when you're nervous when you're nervous how do you like to be soothed do you want the same kind of petting when you're being soothed as you do when we're just laying around together um and so how we use our hands in communication goes beyond just how we pet but of course petting is it's just such a big part of our communication that that it's a big part of what we're looking at how much do you feel like you know kind of what a dog's personal preferences are when it comes to physical contact or influenced by you know their personal history you know do you think some dogs just kind of come out of the womb a certain way or is it like a learning experience learned experience i guess or what do we think here it's both i think it's it's and it's hard to tell i will say i have yet to i was talking with my husband about this earlier about how the dogs that we've owned together salvia is the third one two of those dogs weren't necessarily cuddly at the beginning we just made them they just had no choice it took a couple years but like salvia i would never rest next to me when she was younger but she does all the time now um and so because we're just stubborn we're just we're just touching we're handsy monkeys we enjoy it but also we're very respectful handsy monkeys in this household we're protective of of the value uh and safety of our hands and so we you know to make sure that that's a thing um but of course like i mentioned earlier if a dog has been injured and they have like memories in their body of flinching and tensing up that can be really difficult to shake right and so that's gonna influence maybe where like they don't know that if like maybe they have haven't had the experience yet of oh petting my butt would be fine now because i was injured a while ago but i'm still just gonna you know do the safer option and so if we don't ask then they're just gonna opt out entirely not because they don't want or need pets but because they have that concern or that memory or that worry

of something um and so if i think a lot of it is learned but then of course there's going to be a difference between a dog who has been bred to work really closely with human who just is like you know they're not 70 water they're like 70 oxytocin it's like they're pure they're just swimming in it all the time compared to something like a labrador no matter how much you pet them they're just just like you just like you honestly though i will say i think that there are dogs that have you know we're discussing nature nurture a bit and you can never really separate them but like i i think that there are dogs who who are hyper expressed on the on the tactile channel like you know just to throw a dart at it like your vishla types maybe you know maybe your retriever types and types that maybe can like you know like it have some opinions but it isn't you know the reason they were put on the planet or made by us um and the thing is it's hard to know when you're looking at that like i can look at a visha and say probably you want lots of crawling into my skin and laying on my body and so do you golden but that's my my baseline assumption but i gotta ask you and there are just as many vishlets who are like look enough with the touching it's overstimulating i want to run around outside more right and so um the assumptions we've made about our dogs about what they're like from their breed type um or what we've assumed about the experience we've had with them or seen from them oh he never really likes touch this is my this is my she but this is my i don't know what but senji that she doesn't really like to be touched all that much um i want to re-ask that question it's like is that because the touch that this dog has had up until now has been unpleasing and they can they can do without it they're like i don't like that kind so therefore i don't want anything from you um if i changed how i did it would you change your opinion dog right and also do you have a sensory system that makes forms of petting that your monkey has tried overwhelming and therefore they're opting out because like i you know i a lot of us can understand neural overwhelm and sensory overwhelm and so i i just want to be able to ask the question anew and say hey maybe touch is your primary channel am i am i doing your primary channel the way you like or hey maybe touch isn't your primary but is it not your primary because we haven't really listened to what you've truly liked is everyone thumping you and you are not the thumpy dog or is everybody you know

butterfly touching you and you really want a good scritch um so nature nurture i think it does bend us towards certain answers but you know it's it it sets the stage but we really have to ask the fine questions for sure yeah and i do think or my experience has been that like the more independent breeds who aren't puddles of oxytocin uh the the livestock guardians and stuff they care more like they adhere to the social conventions of dog more so than people and so with us maybe we just patted them on the on top of the withers like that's where our hand lands because we are tall and they are right there and so the hand just lands on top of the withers and the dog is like well if you were another dog i would correct you right now but i'm not going to do that because you're my person and i love you very much so i'll just probably not ask for pets as much because i don't love it but like i'll i'll i'll take it you know right right whereas the labrador the labrador might not care probably not they'll just yeah i think that's interesting to think about and to think about you know breed tendencies as far as some of that is concerned and the way that that might you know if they can't find a way to communicate they might kind of just opt out of some things because they can't figure out how to tell you what they'd like better um so how can we foster that kind of you know two-way conversation rather than just you know have touch be a thing that just kind of happens with our dogs we see that all the time that dogs would just stop telling you what they want to tell you because they've tried telling you and in ways that are like i'm excuse me casting no aspersions on people ways that are subtle enough that we that isn't our channel of seeing the no or seeing the the request but dogs have historically tried to say a thing that we have missed and they stop saying it we see this all the time josephine and i do that once we start asking very interesting new questions that we get very interesting new answers and sometimes very strongly voiced dogs who are like oh oh oh the channel is open excellent i have many things i'd like to tell you um and it's wonderful to see dogs open up that way because it's not what we always picture what they're what they're trying to say to us um two-week communication you know is a thing that that gets a gets a lot of coverage right now it's it's a lot in playway it's a lot in our in our social approach to just if you and i have developed um it's in a lot of places but i think that uh what the exploration that we've given it has has led us to

is what i want to ask dogs right now i'm kind of just obsessed with it right now is this handshake protocol this two layer of communication where i get to say to you dog here is my hand i would like you and this is it's formalized it's not like a mid pet or something but we can establish hey here is my hand um i would like you to tell me what you'd like me to do with it and i've been able to do this with a number of dogs now and seen really interesting information come out like i can say here's a treat in my hand you can have any number of ways it could be delivered tell me which one you would like it's sort of like a reverse of the location specific marker where it's like i'm going to tell you how it's going to be delivered instead i can say here's my hand tell me what you'd like it to to perform and when the dogs get a sense of this they start going oh this is really interesting what if i tell you to do this with your hand what if i tell you to do this with your hand um it's been really neat to have a conversation just about hands that is not solely about i'm touching your body with it you know and and the the the field is really open what about um do you not like that i put my hand directly in your face when i give you things is that your opinion what do you feel about my hands when they're around your toys what do you feel about my hands when they're around your mouth when you have a toy what do you feel about my hands when they are performing actions right um this taking the dumbbell in obedience can i take it in such a way that you don't spit it out oh i can nice let me just do it that way so that we don't have to keep i can take it from underneath i can reach my hands in slowly just slowly enough that you can process everything that's happening instead of darting them towards your face i can do that if i can give you a way to tell me how this works and so sort of like it feels to me i don't think i always convey this well because it feels like maybe a half-baked thought or something but it feels like how reverse it feels like how clicker training felt um originally to me where it's like oh my gosh we're communicating this via this signaling system this is cool but it's the reverse hey dog click me when i get it right tell me what they're actually you know actually in control like they're actually telling us what to do it as a telling as opposed to making us click and treat they're making us do all kinds of stuff it's very fun right not just do they do surprise us they do surprise us all the time all the time

and so i've i've kind of made this this protocol you'll see it in class where um i we're behind physics so i'm behind a physical barrier and you get to tell me now with this physical barrier up how i can interact with your body how i can interact with your food and so i really like finding new ways to ask new questions of dogs that give them even more versions of power and there's a lot they can tell us beyond the yes no like i do or i don't want what you did there's a lot more they can tell us than uh touch me here or touch me there these feel very binary or touch me faster touch me slow but what if it's also about um you know a compound question can we ask a compound question can we say uh i've opened the door to you telling me stuff now please tell me stuff right that's how conversations work so i might be getting in the weeds i realize people won't know what i mean until they see it but we are trying to devise ways to to make sure dogs have a deep and rich say in the way our hands behave around them the way our hands move the the way it feels to be under our hands and to have our hands do a lot of listening and to have us do a lot of listening based on on this tactile stuff um i i don't know if that went weedsy but but that's where my mind goes when you say two-way communication no i don't think it went too easy i think it was interesting to think about um you know just kind of what that looks like or what that might feel like in practice um when we're talking about this stuff you know how far can we go can touch be salient enough to use as an actual reinforcement like what does that look like what do we have to do is my answer this is my favorite thing to talk about ever so now amy's not going to say anything more for the um but like the obvious times when it like because it depends of course not for 100 of every dog ever um but certainly for almost all dogs in some situations with some behaviors almost all dogs rush to the hallway when you walk through the door when you get home to greet you and usually then they want to be touched right um the greeting ritual is a big deal for dogs and it's supposed to in quotation mark usually typically there's touch involved in that not getting touch makes them very frustrated and almost frantic panicky makes them bounce off the walls jump up and like touch me right um which is not super fun or nice but certainly that is a lot of motivation it's a huge infinite almost motivation it would seem right if it's enough motivation for them to expend that sort of energy just for you to put your hands on them right that's a ton of motivation

of course we we can in in my opinion should uh use it for things like recall things particularly particularly uh behaviors that involve some kind of reuniting makes a lot of sense to bring that greeting ritual into things like retrieves recalls a down state things that include a little bit of a separation salvia i know i got a little excited you don't also have to get excited um but like it's such a it's a very um it can be a bit of a path to get there and it puts more demands on you as the person as the handshaver to be mindful of how you use your hands uh i mentioned earlier you need to like we're like in in my house we protect the value of our hands we're very mindful so that we don't accidentally um like we poison them it's a strong word i think you have to do a lot to actually for real poison your hands right they're a domesticated animal they're usually okay but if you want to use your toys as reinforcement you know there's it comes with certain conditions um if you want to use food as reinforcement it comes with certain conditions right you need to be mindful so that you don't confuse the dog or frustrate them a bunch when you use those things and the same is true for pets um since i start like yeah i want to say since i started using pets more for reinforcement um i have only seen good things come of it and i love it for my clients um and they love it too of course because as a species we are we're handsy handsy monkeys i mean i think you've also impressed you know that that it's not about a dog should just receive a pet as the reinforcement for any random thing you've asked it to do and therefore it's not like a sit pet pet and expect that to be the reinforcement now yeah it's not i pet you heal i pet you that's what you get you know i dole out my reinforcement as i see fit and you kind of take it it's the it's the the fresher and the you know the the i think more valid ecologically valid take on it which is that this is a naturally social moment this behavior i've asked of you is a has a strong social component recall has a strong social component we are reuniting uh as the point you made to me earlier just at the end of a down stay having a social component of re of re re reunion let's say reunite reunition re re reuniting reunion yeah i couldn't come up with it um and it helps it helps because dogs are they get worried when you leave them and they're relieved when you come back so let's just acknowledge and lean into that a little bit yeah and you know doing a sit for you there's less of a

case for that being a a necessarily social interaction you just had i'm not saying that we couldn't find our way through it but but it's it's so clear that so many things we ask of them um have a strong social uh bias to them and not having the physical channel the touch channel be a big part of the reinforcement picture is like it's just leaving a bunch of power on the table and a bunch of kind of like it it sense making on the table right this makes sense as the way i would connect to you over this behavior rather than oh oh here's a cookie right so um you know that i i think the you make a good point about that some behaviors are lean very strongly into into petting as reinforcement and and like every reinforcer if you're not really kind of looking at how you do it it may indeed not be reinforcing yeah the way you did it yeah yeah right we all know that yeah and and i mean how many i don't know you know i give cookies with the intent to reinforce things that end up not reinforcing that thing that also definitely happens i mean it can happen right um but the oxy that we get from it i i would love for us to eventually get to this oxytocin have from this if that's you know oh my god time for it if we have time for it in the in the in the questioning melissa because we'd love to get yeah yeah i mean um i mean i was intending to kind of go from here to like what benefits are there to using touch in building a relationship with our dogs so that seems like a natural bridge so go for it talk to me about it perfect we found stuff i really want just i know that you've got like a way of explaining this but we found some really neat stuff about what starting sessions starting um anything you're about to do with your dog you're about to train you're about to go out in your walk you're about to do something with your dog um starting it with a a touch moment a moment of bonding and connection through touch has these wide-ranging effects that like we did like a a crazy rabbit hole dive of of papers and i by we i'm speaking of the royal we by we i mean josephine um read and summarized for me and pointed me toward the the key things to read um but it's really neat what she found so i really i i would love for you to talk about some of the oxytocin effects that were found i mean the the main one that kind of blew me away a little bit or surprised me uh for sure like we know oxytocin as this bonding hormone and that's you know it's it feels good maybe the opposite of stress right we think of it like oxytocin here and cortisol here but it also helps

communication it helps us actually understand each other like they've shown that when you raise oxytocin in humans we are better at decoding dog barks and understand the meaning behind them and we don't get as annoyed isn't that crazy that's crazy bonkers like can i just get i just pet my dog and become nicer and more empathetic like what a magic pill for any relationship right but like that was studied it was studied people interpret their dog communications yeah they gave them a nose spray with oxytocin they gave give they took a bunch of men a bunch of dudes gave them a nose spray with oxytocin in it and then all of a sudden like they played dog bark recordings and the first time they heard the recordings they were like oh that's annoying and they didn't understand it very well and then they gave them the little nose spray and then they understood it better and they were less annoyed like it it's not that it gave them telepathic powers or anything right it just gave them access to the part of the brain that does social stuff and empathy um and it works this in a very similar i can't say they're worse the same way for dogs i don't know how it works but like it does the same thing um when we give we as if i do it i don't give oxytocin those i just pet them but like when when they do that um there's tons of studies on this stuff where they just give they take a bunch of dogs they give half of them an oxytocin nose spray they give the other half a saline nose spray and then they see if they are now suddenly the oxytocin dogs what superpowers magical stuff that they gain from it and it's all kinds of stuff like it's uh being able to settle faster when that's not a nose spray one that was a petting one though but like being able to settle when the owner sits down yeah being able to settle when the owner sits down um being better at understanding pointing like following where going where you point even if it means they lose like if they get if listening to you means i get less food i'm gonna do it anyway because i care what you think now and i want to be aligned with you and i want to synchronize and do things together and stuff and collaborate so it does that like it has the reverse effect so it makes both of us better at understanding each other and more trying to do what the other one wants for free like imagine not having that in a training session why wouldn't like that's crazy we're leaving that on the table no absolutely not leaving it just fresh on the table where you can increase a dog understanding what you want of them

and you can increase your understanding of what your dog is telling you and you both can increase your kind of tolerance around some social misfires or you know really wanting to collaborate all of that if we if from some oxytocin being raised and we know that we can start off a session by doing some oxytocin promoting behaviors like petting and socially connecting i don't know why we wouldn't i mean i really want to say that that is the way we should be starting anything we're about to do with our dog any walk we're about to have any training we're about to do anything we're about to do that requires us to be more empathetic a little more sensitive to what's going on uh just more tolerant and just understanding each other better i mean there's no stronger case to be made and we know that it's promoted through time on the topic of greeting rituals they also checked there's the the oxytocin high lasts a lot longer if you pet them properly when you greet them so that's another like a very good reason to just drop everything you have when you get home and just i love you too just right and i'm so glad i missed you too know what properly is right when you yeah maybe not actually squeeze them like a hug but right no but like but you make a good point about that the research says petting them petting them properly meaning petting them in the way that does the most promotion of oxytocin means petting them in the way that is satisfying to you you like it we are i'm doing what you like you're doing what i like it's it's not just i pet you and you get oxytocin it is about the sort of the sensitive responding and the the knowing what your partner really likes best and so even more motivation to to to know what that is to to do it when it's available and to and to seek it out at least seek the connection first um before embarking on anything new so that you know it's it's the we would do it we would we would put away our daily thought before we would start a training session we would make sure we were present we would like put aside you know our multitasking in our heads and say i need to think about what i'm doing well in that setting of the stage also think about i want to make sure our our communication channels are open socially and that my hands feel safe to you and that we both remind each other that we love each other and then you get these side benefits of i will read you better you'll read me better and neither of us will be as frustrated with each other like it's a beautiful thing yeah so if you guys could take all of this that you've kind of learned through studying this

stuff and looking at this stuff and really change you know one thing about how people think and touch their dogs what would you want them to understand just one thing man you can give me two or maybe three go for it see what you got i know what i got we're dare i say it we're supposed to be touching each other we like it and they generally like it if you don't like it usually that's not a permanent innate state of like it's not necessarily part of their character it's worth investigating if they often opt out um because and it's worth it because there's so much to gain from investigating this a little bit yeah that's great um and i would say that what i would like people to take away is that you have a contract you have to write an agreement you have to reach you are responsible for using your hands in ways that are respectful and that are liked by your dog and understood by your dog and that your dog has some say in that you need to put as much thought into that as you do in your other training mechanics and your other enrichment contracts you write you have a sense that you must fulfill you know the rest of your dog's life i think your hands um need to be something you put thought into that you use carefully and correctly in the relationship that you have with that dog in specific and you two write this contract together okay so we're talking about this because um you know i think amy mentioned it in passing but you're offering a three-week class specifically on this stuff get in touch the social approach to hands and communication do you guys want to talk just for just a minute like about the class specifically like what's going to be covered who might want to sign up who could really benefit from this what are we going to do in this class it's been tough all of this stuff basically i mean asking better questions or not more nuanced questions get extracting information from the dog gonna be petting dogs like who doesn't want to take a class where the homework is to pet your dog i get this homework to clients all the time i've never had any complaints about it they all love it um but um so it's gonna be that but it's also gonna be other things that we do with our hands uh communication the handshake we want you to be able to be able to ask these questions and and interpret your answers we're not going to get to you know every answer there could possibly be in three weeks but getting used to the idea that your hands can communicate a variety of things there are ways to pet that are stimulating ways to pet that are that are bond promoting or

relaxing um and to ensure that you have some vocabulary in both sides and a way to understand your dog's yeses and nos that are that are your dog's yeses and nos not just dogdoms writ large yes and no which might not apply to you and then maybe how to take some feedback how to how to have your hands be sensitive sensitive uh sensitive around your dog's body and around your dog's behaviors and so that your dog can understand your consistency around it we want to teach you how to take feedback and and feel what you should do next you know with our with our coaching so it's it's uh it's been tough to winnow out what you know what not to do you know what you can just do in three weeks right and so we can't get into an entire reinforcement protocol for retrieves we don't have the time this time around unfortunately but we can get you sensitive to the feedback your dog is giving you we can give you some options of things to try we can ask your dog what they do and don't like um and get sort of get getting used to that the communicating in that way and see what people kind of bring to us and and and i think i i'm super excited about it i cannot wait for it to start absolutely fantastic well thank you both so much for coming on the podcast to talk about all this stuff thank you for having us absolutely my pleasure and thank you to all of our listeners and our viewers for tuning in we'll be back next week this time with you re bloom to talk about demand barking what it is and what we can do about it if you haven't already subscribe to the podcast either on itunes the podcast app of your choice or over on youtube to make sure you never miss another episode today's show is brought to you by the fenzy dog sports academy special thanks to nise fenzy for supporting this podcast music provided royalty free by bensound.com the track featured here is called buddy audio and video editing provided by chris lang thanks again for tuning in and happy training