E196: 제니퍼 서머필드 박사(Dr. Jennifer Summerfield) - 정상인가요 (아니면 아닌가요)?

5:34

best approach is going to be to address that. Because the way that we address normal behaviors that are just, um, annoying for the owner, you know, like things like, you know, jumping up on visitors because they're excited or pulling on the leash or things like that, um, our approach to those kinds of problems is, I would say, kind of fundamentally different in a lot of ways from how we approach dogs that have true, you know, pathological behavior problems, like, you know, dogs that have severe anxiety issues or dogs that have compulsive behavior disorders that are, these aren't training problems, right? You know, these are problems where there's something actually abnormal about the way the dog is, you know, perceiving their environment or interacting with their environment. And the way that we treat those issues is really different. So that's why I think it's kind of a useful starting point, I guess, when we look at behavior to, to think about, well, hey, do we think this is normal? Do we think it's not normal? And how does that influence where we go from here? Yeah, absolutely. So to kind of build on that a little bit, um, you know, I often think about some of the things that we want and even breed for, you know, behaviors like extreme focus, um, that can backfire maybe as canine OCD. Um, how often are behavioral issues really just extreme versions or even maladapted versions of behaviors we actually want? Yeah, I, I certainly think that they can be, you know, there are times where that can be an issue. I think, for example, a lot of the dogs, a lot of the breeds that we tend to see being overrepresented with things like, you know, let's say fear aggression towards strangers or leash reactivity or things like that are frequently breeds that historically have been bred as, you know, guard dogs or watchdogs or, you know, for, for that kind of, um, that tendency to react to, you know, new things in the environment or to react specifically to unfamiliar people, um, by kind of defaulting to an aggressive response, right? That's something that historically has been desirable in a lot of breeds. And now suddenly in, you know, 21st century human society, it's, it's a problem. Um, so yeah, I think things like that for sure can be an issue in the sport dog world. I know that that's, um, you know, something that gets talked about sometimes, right? In terms of, you know, when we breed dogs for things like agility, right? That's probably what I'm most familiar with, but I would guess it could probably be an issue in some of the like bike sports and things as well.

8:07

That there's kind of this trend in some ways towards breeding dogs that, you know, kind of operate at this higher level of arousal, maybe just as a default, you know, than maybe your average pet dog, because that makes them, you know, potentially faster and more competitive in the agility ring. But then the question we have to ask is, well, does that also make these dogs, you know, potentially hard to live with in a lot of cases and potentially, um, you know, not have a very easy time dealing with life outside of the competition ring? You know, if they're, they're constantly kind of more amped up maybe than they should be over some things. So, so yeah, I definitely think that both historically what dogs have been bred for. And what we're breeding them for nowadays, um, have the potential to get either exaggerated to the point where they become a problem, or sometimes just if the dog is put in a environment, like a living environment, that's not conducive to what they were bred for. Um, that can sometimes be a big issue as well, right? Like a lot of the, um, you know, the reactive dogs I see, right? I, you know, for example, I have, um, an Australian cattle dog patient. I can think of off the top of my head that I know we've had this discussion with his owner before that, you know, he's, he's pretty, um, he's quite reactive to things. He's actually not an unfriendly dog when you, when you actually get up to him and interact with him, he's pretty cool. But his default, you know, to, to people or cars or anything outside is a pretty intense, you know, reaction with lots of barking and lunging and scary blustery kind of behavior. And, you know, we've talked about how if he, you know, were an Australian cattle dog on a working cattle ranch in Australia, that would probably be a super desirable behavior, right? In a lot of ways, you know, cause that's, that's what they want these dogs to do. They want them to be alert to trespassers and they want them to drive off people who don't belong there. And, um, you know, that's part of what the breed has been good for historically, but this dog doesn't live on a cattle ranch in Australia. He lives in a suburban household in, you know, just outside of, uh, Cowlitzburg, Kentucky. And there it's not so desirable for him to do that. Um, so I think a lot of it does come down to what kinds of living environments dogs are in. And sometimes there's a mismatch between maybe what they were bred for and, and what their current life is like. And that can create some friction for sure.

10:30

To, um, to kind of explore that a little more, I know in the class you specifically kind of address whether things like fear and aggression are normal. Um, can you share a bit on that? Yeah, definitely. So when we talk about things like fear and aggression, um, I think that's a good example of how there is definitely a spectrum, right? Of, you know, it's not all or nothing. Right. So if we talk about fear first, right? Fear can certainly be normal, right? There's a reason that, um, animals have adapted or evolved over the years to, to have fear as a thing because it helps keep you safe, right? If you're a wild animal and you don't have a good solid fear response to things that are dangerous, um, you're not going to live very long. You know, so that's a really adaptive survival response. Um, certainly for wild animals, but even for domestic dogs to some extent, because there are still things sometimes that can be legitimately dangerous in a domestic dog's environment. So all, all living organisms to some extent, um, have an interest in being afraid of things that are legitimately threatening or dangerous. So for sure, you know, there's, there are times when fear is totally normal. We should be afraid of things that are dangerous. When it becomes a problem is when we have dogs who are consistently very afraid of things that, um, that they clearly shouldn't be afraid of, right? You know, that clearly are not dangerous, are not threatening. You know, if you're a pet dog who gets walked in your neighborhood every day, it shouldn't take you very long in theory, right? To figure out that, you know, the neighbor across the street walking out to get his mail is not a threat to you, right? You know, you should have seen that a lot of times. Nothing bad has ever happened in, in connection with that. It's clearly not truly threatening. And a normal dog, right? Quote unquote normal should take that in stride, right? You know, maybe the very first time they see neighbor Joe walking down to get his mail, they're like, oh, that's a little weird, you know, but then they, they quickly realize neighbor Joe's not scary and they go on with life, but not all dogs are like that, right? There are dogs that are going to freak out about neighbor Joe every single time they see him every day for, you know, as long as they live in the neighborhood. And that's not normal, right? That's a big waste of resources, right? If you're, if you're a wild animal, super abnormal to constantly be getting all worked up about things that, you know, in a way that doesn't confer any survival advantage for you.

12:55

And certainly for domestic dogs, that's not adaptive, right? That's not a behavior that's doing them any favors. So that's an example of how it can be abnormal, right? We see a lot of dogs who are just afraid of things that, that pretty clearly are not threatening, that never have been threatening. And it's like, they, there are a lot of dogs that just don't seem to have the ability to learn that, you know, the way a normal dog would. They don't adapt to things that are clearly not scary, or they do weird things like, you know, sometimes they have a startle response that's like super over the top, you know, for the magnitude of the stimulus that they're reacting to, or they generalize things really quickly, you know, like they have one scary experience somewhere. And then all of a sudden, like, oh, now they can't, you know, they can't go for a walk in this area ever again. And maybe they can't go for a walk in other areas that kind of remind them of this area because this one bad thing happened one time. So those are some of the ways that the fear response can be abnormal, right? So it comes back to that spectrum again, right? These are the dogs that are up at the far end of the bell curve. And when we talk about aggression, same kind of idea, right? Some aggressive behavior is perfectly normal. Some of what we call aggressive behavior is actually just communication signals, right? Between dogs, it is completely normal for dogs to communicate by growling, showing teeth, snarling, things like that. So in a lot of cases, if they're doing those types of behaviors in contexts that are appropriate, you know, and they're appropriately inhibited and all that, that's not really abnormal at all, even though as humans, we have a tendency to freak out a little bit over some of those communication signals, especially if they're directed towards us, right? And not other dogs. So yeah, those can be normal. And it's even normal to be, you know, out and out aggressive with maybe intent to harm in some situations, right? Like what if your dog gets rushed by another dog that's trying to hurt them, you know, when they're out on a walk, right? If they fight back in that scenario and maybe they bite the other dog and they injure the other dog, we wouldn't necessarily say that was abnormal, right? You know, because they're reacting to a legitimate threat. So it becomes abnormal. Same kind of discussion as what we were just talking about with fear. It becomes abnormal if it's over the top, you know, how there are some dogs who will react

15:17

to what seem like pretty minor stimuli with this kind of zero to 60 reaction where, especially with they don't give a lot of warning beforehand, they just go straight to like a pretty serious aggressive response. This is like the dog that let's say, you know, somebody nudges them on the couch and disturbs them when they're sleeping. And instead of like, you know, just hopping off the couch or maybe giving a little grumble, they turn around and bite, you know, hard enough to send somebody to the hospital, right? That's abnormal. That's an overreaction to the situation. So that's an example of a way that aggression can be abnormal. It can be abnormal sometimes in the same kind of way that fear is if we have dogs who are consistently reacting to things with aggression that really don't warrant that response. And you would think that the dog would learn that, hey, this is not a thing to react that way to, but they don't seem to. And of course, there's a lot of overlap here because an awful lot of aggressive behavior is driven by fear. You know, so a lot of it kind of comes down to the same thing. But yeah, I think those are very interesting topics to talk about. So we do spend a few lectures talking specifically about fear and aggression and how they're normal and how they're not normal depending on the situation in the class. I think a lot of time people, you know, they get a new puppy and they get super worried the first time something seems a little off. Maybe they bark at another dog or they jump backwards and seem afraid of the trash can at the end of the driveway. Especially with a young dog, how can we tell when something's just kind of overreaction? A one-off, normal, behavioral thing that, you know, there's going through a phase versus like a sign that something, no, there's something wrong with the dog. We should start thinking about this more seriously. Yeah, that's always something that most of us worry about with young dogs, right? This is an area where sometimes like a little knowledge is, you know, makes us super anxious. A lot of times the average pet owner doesn't give this a lot of thought, you know, and they're kind of blissfully not worried about the same kinds of things we're worried about. But certainly in the dog sports world or, you know, people who are a little more into dog behavior and we know this can be a problem. I think most of us are a little paranoid to some degree when we have young dogs about like, oh my gosh, you barked at something. He's going to be fear aggressive. It's terrible. You know, there's nothing I can do.

17:33

So I think a lot of it really comes down to kind of what you alluded to in your question is whether we have a pattern of behavior or whether we have like, hey, he did that weird thing that one time, you know, but it was no big deal. We know that it's not necessarily abnormal for puppies and adolescents to occasionally overreact to random things or to go through, you know, what we call fear periods sometimes where for maybe a couple of weeks they're just kind of weirdly suspicious of things and they startle more easily and they're skeptical of stuff that they didn't used to be skeptical of. So that's not necessarily a reason to panic. I would say I would tend to be concerned if you're seeing a consistent behavioral response like that that lasts more than like a couple of weeks, you know, where you're like, no, this is a trend at this point. You know, it doesn't seem to be getting better. And if anything, a lot of these issues that pop up early in life tend to get worse over time. So especially if you feel like that's the trend over multiple weeks, then I would say, yeah, we may have a problem here that we want to try to address sooner rather than later. But if you have a dog who's been pretty well adjusted and maybe they go through a week or two where they're kind of weird about some things, I wouldn't necessarily panic about that just yet because they may come out the other side and be totally fine again. Yeah. What are some of the, you know, early warning signs or, you know, in general, how do behavior problems kind of develop? What should we kind of be watching for? Yeah. So most dogs, and this isn't true 100% of the time, but it's true in an awful lot of cases, most dogs who are going to have serious behavior problems either have them to some extent from the time they're quite young. Like a lot of my clients will say, oh, we could tell from the time we brought him home at eight weeks that he wasn't quite normal, you know? So sometimes you can tell right away. And then sometimes you see them pop up right around social maturity. So that's kind of the other common story I get is like, oh, he seemed like he was fine until he got to be about 18 months old or two years old. And that's when he started barking and lunging at people or about 21st bit grandma or, you know, whatever. So those are, I would say those are the two most common sort of histories that I get on dogs. It's usually early in life. Much less common for us to see a dog that truly was pretty happy and well adjusted up until they were like six years old, you know, or eight years old and then randomly developed problems.

20:01

That's where we really think hard about medical issues playing a role there. So I would say most of the time you'll see it fairly early on with behavior issues, either from the time the dog's a puppy or you might not see it until they kind of hit social maturity age, but you'll see it then. And a lot of times the types of things that people notice, it depends on what the problem is, of course, but I would say the majority of issues I see are fear related one way or another. And some of the common things that people report to me are like puppies that were never particularly friendly. You know, like, you know, most puppies are pretty like obnoxious, you know, they just, you know, they want to run up to everybody and say hi, and they want to eat your shoestrings and they want to search in your purse and drag your stuff out and all that. Like, you know, it's annoying, but that's what normal puppies do, right? Like that's, that's what we want to see in puppies. And so a lot of times the type of history I get when I see behavior clients is that maybe their puppy really didn't do that kind of stuff. Sometimes people perceive those puppies as being really well behaved too, which is unfortunate. Sometimes they're like, yeah, he was such a good puppy. You know, he never bothered anybody. He never jumped on people, you know, like, oh, well, it was probably nice at the time, but that's kind of a red flag in retrospect that, you know, that's not really normal puppy behavior. Um, so yeah, I think that those are probably the biggest early warning signs that are subtle. I mean, obviously if your 12 week old puppy comes into the vet's office and make serious attempts to bite people, you know, that's not normal. Occasionally that happens and that's pretty scary. Um, and those I think are signs that most people could say, oh, well, that's probably not normal, but the more subtle signs, probably that's the biggest thing I hear is just puppies and young dogs that never were particularly friendly or interested in interacting with people or interested in interacting with the world, you know, which oftentimes people don't realize as a problem until it becomes clear a little bit later. Would you describe that as curiosity about the world around them? Like at a young age? Yeah. Yeah. I would say that normal puppies should be curious, you know, about the world. They should want to check stuff out. They should want to, you know, I always say like in the exam room, right? You know, the puppy, normal puppies should be trying to eat my shoestrings and they should

22:21

be trying to get into the garbage can to see what's in there. And they should be trying to play with the doorstop thing and pulling on that. And they should be chewing on my hands when I try to look at them. So that's all normal puppy stuff. You know, if I come in and I'm seeing a 10 week old puppy for the first time and all it does is sit beside its owner's chair and cower there, you know, a lot of times the owner perceives that as like, oh, he's very well behaved. Look, because he's not getting into anything and he's not causing problems. But we know that like that's a puppy that's not comfortable, right? Interacting with the world and interacting with strangers. And at 10 weeks, the puppy deals with that by just hanging out in one place. But at 18 months or two years old, it's likely the puppy may start to deal with that by barking and lunging at people or developing other types of more outward anxiety type behaviors. So those are some of the things that usually I try to counsel people to keep an eye out for. What are some of the more common behavior issues that kind of come up in pet and performance dogs? Yeah, I would say for me and the population of clients that I deal with is largely pet dogs. You know, I certainly do performance stuff with my own dogs and I have friends in those circles. But most the majority of the dogs I see as patients are pet dogs. And I would say probably the most common issues that I tend to get calls about are I see a lot of leash reactivity, right? Variations on dogs who bark and lunge at people and or other dogs. Very common on leash. I see a lot of dogs who are fear aggressive towards strangers, you know, like visitors in the house, particularly. That's really common. I see a fair amount of separation anxiety. That seems to be a relatively common issue. And especially we're anticipating there may be more of that coming as people go back to work after, you know, being quarantined and off work. And then I see some some owner directed aggression. I would say not as common as some of the other issues, but a fair amount. And then just a smattering of things like compulsive behavior disorders and things that are more rare. So that's kind of the breakdown that I've seen. You mentioned earlier the medical cause piece of things, right? So how often do those kind of common issues tend to have a medical cause versus being something that's, you know, purely behavioral? And I know you mentioned kind of the age thing as a major flag for how you can tell. Are there other things that kind of clue us in?

24:45

Yeah, I would say it's actually not super common to see behavior issues that turn out to be like purely medical. You know, occasionally you see it and that's always kind of cool. I would say that the more common scenario is that we have behavior problems that maybe are being made worse, you know, by an underlying medical issue that, you know, if we can treat that, that at least helps us. It's pretty rare to have a case where we treat a medical problem and it totally fixes all the behaviors that the dog was having, sadly. Although you never know, it can. So as far as red flags that tend to make us really think about medical stuff, probably the biggest ones for me would be late age of onset, like we talked about, because we know that's just super uncommon, right? Like behavior issues almost always are either present from the time the dog was very young or they start around adolescence or social maturity. That's the really common pattern. So just super, super uncommon for a middle-aged or older dog to have a new onset behavior issue without an obvious environmental change, right? Like it's one thing if it's like, well, my dog's eight years old and now we had a baby, you know, and now the dog's having problems. Like, well, I mean, it could be medical, but certainly there's, you know, there may be some reasons for that. But if there's no obvious environmental change, nothing that you can really point to, it's like, oh, my eight-year-old dog just randomly started biting us. And, you know, he's never done that before. Like those are the types of cases where we really look hard for a medical issue. I would also say the other thing is that if the dog has any other symptoms that make us think that something may be going on there, like if it's a dog that, you know, oh, by the way, has some chronic vomiting or diarrhea issues, you know, or, oh, by the way, they have, you know, chronic skin problems or ear infections or something like that, or, you know, or they have a gait abnormality that makes us think maybe they have an orthopedic problem or arthritis or something. Because we know that a lot of behavior problems will be worse if the dog is painful or uncomfortable. So that's kind of what a lot of it boils down to because some of the things that make dogs painful and uncomfortable are pretty obvious, but some of them are not. And it's hard because our dogs can't tell us, you know, so sometimes we're looking for kind of subtle signs. So anything like that about the dog's history that the people tell me that kind of perks my ears up

27:09

and makes me say, well, it sounds like maybe there's something medical going on with your dog as well. If they're also having behavior issues, it's often worth exploring that because it may not totally fix the behavior problem, but it oftentimes will at least get us some improvement, you know, make it easier to work with the dog if we can get the medical side of things under control. So let's say a dog is exhibiting a behavioral issue, you know, something. What are kind of the options on the table for treatment? Yeah. So in terms of kind of the broad picture, right, because obviously the specifics are going to depend on the case, you know, certainly we think, as you mentioned, about whether we could have any underlying medical issues going on there that we should be worried about. And if so, make sure we go down that road. We look at management options often as kind of a first-line thing, right? So how, if it's a dog that's biting people, for example, first thing we need to do is come up with a plan to keep everybody safe while we're working on our game plan. You know, so maybe that means we manage the dog differently around visitors right now. Maybe the dog goes in the spare bedroom when visitors come over and that's where he stays. If the dog's biting people in the owner's bed at night, maybe that means the dog doesn't sleep in the bed anymore, at least not right now. So we look at that. Then we often look at either training or behavior modification, which are, there's some overlap, right? They're kind of the same thing, but kind of not. But we look at basically either teaching the dog, you know, some kind of alternative behavior for the situations that are causing a problem, or we're working on, like, changing the dog's emotional response to the types of situations that are currently making them get upset. And then we talk also about medication. In a lot of cases, especially where we have actual abnormal behavior issues as opposed to training problems, tends to be where we look at meds as being potentially part of our treatment plan. I want to talk a little more in depth about a couple of those. So first up, can you just talk a little more about the role of management and kind of what that might do for some of these dogs? Yeah. So I think sometimes management is kind of underappreciated. You know, it's kind of, it's not the flashy part, right? If, you know, if you have a dog that bites visitors, right? What everybody wants is like, well, I want my dog.

29:37

Like, what they kind of have in mind is like, well, I want to teach the dog to just be able to, like, happily be around the visitors and not have to worry about it. And they kind of have this mental image of, like, the visitors are here and the dog's loose and everybody's just coexisting peacefully. And sometimes we can achieve that with a training or behavior modification plan. Sometimes that may not be a realistic goal and we need to adjust our expectations, which is fine. But often what has to happen first before we do anything else is this dog needs to not be around visitors, right? While we're working on this problem or they only need to be around visitors under carefully controlled conditions when we're actively working on the problem. And the rest of the time, they need to just not be around visitors. So for a dog like that, a lot of our plan is going to be, hey, this dog needs to be in another room before people come in, right? And then depending on what the situation is, maybe it just needs to stay there until after they're gone, you know, and that's management. And in some cases, management ends up being the whole plan, which is fine. A lot of that comes down to what the owners want. And often when I'm seeing behavior cases, I kind of put that to them as a choice, too. Like, we get a management plan in place and I say, okay, so currently we have a plan that's keeping everybody safe. You know, it's not flashy, right? But it's managing the situation. The advantage is it's often easy, right? A lot of the management stuff we do is very simple. It doesn't take a lot of time or effort. And it solves the problem in the sense that, you know, now the dog's not biting people or whatever. So some owners decide, you know what, we're pretty happy with the management plan and we're kind of busy and we're not dog trainers and we don't necessarily want to spend, you know, multiple hours a week, like working on an in-depth training plan to address this. So maybe we just want to keep the dog in the spare bedroom when people come over from now on. And that's totally fine, right? So management sometimes can be the whole plan and I'm happy with it if they're happy with it, right? It all comes down to what the owner wants. So there definitely are cases where that ends up being kind of the cornerstone of what we do. But even if it is a case where we're going to be incorporating a fair amount of training or behavior modification, we still need management for all the times that we're not actively working with the dog.

31:53

So the big role of it is to keep everybody safe and to keep the dog from just rehearsing that behavior that we don't want, you know, at times when we're not prepared to like be actively working on it. And it's really important. I tell people that all the time that, you know, if you're working with your dog actively on this problem for, you know, 10 minutes a day, right? Which a lot of training plans, you can get a lot done in 10 minutes a day if you're consistent. So that 10 minutes is important. But if your dog is just running amok and doing the thing that we don't want for the other 23 hours and 50 minutes of every 24 hour period, you're not going to get any headway, right? With your plan. So that's where management comes in. That's the other 23 hours and 50 minutes. Yeah. It's really such a shame that it's not seen as, you know, as you said, not the flashy answer, right? Because so often it solves the problem immediately and it's easy. Very great things. I have a surprising number of clients who are like, oh, you know, we just never really thought about that. I'm like, well, you know, and they're like, well, now we feel kind of silly that we've had you come here and we've paid you money for you to tell us to just put the dog in the other room. But that's kind of a great idea. I'm like, well, that's what I'm here for. So there's nothing wrong with that if everybody involved is happy with it. So to kind of go to the next piece of that, right, when you're talking about kind of the broad overview, you mentioned medication. So how do you decide if or when a dog might really benefit from getting meds on board? Yeah. So I tend to be pretty, I like medication in a lot of cases. I tend to be fairly quick to use it if I think it's a case that potentially would benefit from it. So my answer to that would be pretty much any case I see where I feel like there is a component of some kind of abnormal or pathologic behavior, meaning it's not just a clear cut training problem. Right. So if I have a dog that comes and the owner says, yeah, he's really obnoxious and he jumps on visitors because he's so friendly. We're not going to talk about medication with that dog unless there's something super weird about their arousal level or something. But that's, you know, if it's your average dog that just jumps on people like, no, meds really aren't on the table for that because that's not a it's not what they're for.

34:11

But for, you know, dogs I see that have like significant leash reactivity issues that we think are driven by fear for separation anxiety dogs, for fear aggressive dogs who bite visitors, you know, for most of the dogs that I see for behavior issues, not all of them, but the majority, I would say. We talk about meds as an option on that very first visit. And I tend to be pretty, you know, in favor of incorporating them, all things being equal. I certainly have owners who are kind of reluctant about that, and that's totally fine, too. You know, if the owner is not comfortable and they don't really want to right off the bat, then we can absolutely try the rest of the plan for a month or so, see what we get. If we feel like we're having trouble making headway, we can circle back around and talk about meds. So, you know, totally fine. But if the owner is like, you know, whatever, whatever you think we'll do, then I'm like, let's try some meds along with everything else because there's not much downside to it. By and large, the meds we use to help us treat behavior problems are very safe. There's very little, you know, very little downside to trying them. The worst that could happen is you might get some kind of side effect that you don't really like, you know, and that's not super common. You know, most of the time we can avoid a lot of that by being careful about what we choose and conservative about our starting doses. But, you know, if we happen to get some kind of side effect we don't like, we just stop it, right? Or we change our dose. It's not the end of the world. And I've seen so many dogs that have benefited so much from medication as part of the plan. Not the whole plan, right? But as part of our game plan that I tend to be, you know, pretty open to starting them from day one with dogs that it's like, okay, this dog has a problem that we think could really could benefit from meds. So let's talk about it. I don't think there's a lot to be gained by having a dog that clearly has, you know, some pathological anxiety issues or, you know, fear issues or aggression issues. And saying, well, you know, let's, we really want to exhaust all of our options and we really want to make these people work with it for six months on this plan before we'll think about maybe doing meds. You know, which unfortunately I think is a common approach. So that, that's not me.

36:27

I see a lot of people who, you know, I think that can be really frustrating for everybody involved, you know, to make them kind of bang their heads against the wall for six months or however long working on a plan that's just not going to make any headway, you know, until we're able to actually get the dog's brain chemistry where it needs to be. So I tend to, to err in favor of saying, Hey, if, if the owner's up for it and we think this dog has an actual pathological problem, let's start some meds on board right away with our plan. And then if we need to make changes, we can, if the dog doesn't tolerate it, we can make changes. That's no big deal. I never want dogs to have like side effects that we don't want. And normally it's very doable to avoid that or to, to just stop meds if we have a problem. But, but yeah, so I think they're pretty great. And I use them in a lot of cases and I don't think there's much downside to using them. So that's kind of my position on meds. I know you typically kind of group meds into two categories, daily and situational. Can you just talk a little bit about the differences and when you might use what? Yeah. So yeah, I would agree that there are kind of two broad categories of medications that we will sometimes use for behavior issues. So with daily meds, as the name implies, right, these are meds that you're going to give every day, regardless of what's going on. So, you know, if your dog has separation anxiety or something, and we're talking about a daily med, it's not something that you're only going to give like on the days that you leave. Like it's got to be given every day because it's going to be in the dog system all the time at kind of a steady state, kind of always working in the background. So those tend to be meds like, we use a lot of SSRIs for that in dogs. So meds like Prozac, sometimes things like Zoloft or Paxil or some of those lesser known meds as well. So those we tend to use for problems that are either happening pretty darn frequently or problems that are kind of constant, you know, like a dog that has generalized anxiety. Or, you know, issues that are coming up like multiple times every week to the point where it's like, yeah, this would probably be good to just have something on board all the time. Or things that are unpredictable, right? Things that we may not know when they're going to come up. So sometimes things like thunderstorms and issues like that where we may not always know when the dog is going to need something on board. So it's best if there's something that's just kind of working all the time.

38:52

So we do use those pretty frequently. They usually have relatively subtle effects on behavior. So I usually tell people don't expect like a night and day, you know, the goal is not like, oh, we started the dog on Prozac and now he's cured. He doesn't do the thing anymore. And it's great. That rarely happens. Usually it's more a question of like, hey, you know, when he does react to something, it's like not quite as intense. Right. Or it takes just a little bit more to get him upset. Or it's just a little bit easier for him to calm down, you know, for me to get him redirected. That's the kind of effect we're looking for. And most of those meds are really well tolerated. We tend to have really minimal side effects for the most part. And if we do have a dog that has side effects more than what we think is reasonable, then, you know, we just stop it and try something different. So totally fine. Our situational meds are things like, you know, meds like Valium or Xanax fall into that category, like anti-anxiety meds that are short-acting for just a few hours. Things like Trazodone, things like Gabapentin that sometimes we use at high doses for anxiety. So lots of different meds that fall under that umbrella. But basically, they're shorter-acting meds that last anywhere from a few hours to several hours in most cases. And they're things that we can use just as needed. So if we have a separation anxiety dog, for example, we can have meds that the owner just gives about an hour before they leave the house. So that by the time they leave, they're working and they're only working for a few hours, you know, while they're gone. And then the rest of the time, that med isn't on board. So they're nice because they're flexible, right? It's nice to have something you can just use when you need it. And these meds can have more dramatic effects, right? These, like for something like separation anxiety, often we get our biggest effect from our short-acting situational meds that the owner is giving before they leave. And we do often see things like sedation with meds like this. But the plus side is oftentimes that's not the worst thing in the world, right? If it's something that we're giving because there's a thunderstorm or we're giving it because the owner is gone and they don't want the dog to be trying to escape from the crate. Oftentimes a little sedation is not the worst thing in the world. And maybe it's actually kind of desirable sometimes for a few hours. That's not, you know, the only thing we're trying to achieve. Obviously, we're not just trying to make the dog sleepy.

41:15

We want them to be less anxious. But we do see that as a side effect with a lot of those meds. But they're nice because they're flexible. You can just use them when you need them. Or with some of them, you can actually use them every day if you want to. You have to dose them usually either every 8 to 12 hours, something like that, to get relatively steady states throughout the day. And even then, you're probably still going to get some, you know, some ups and downs with the effect because they're just not as long-acting. But you can also use them that way. So a lot of flexibility there. And we can combine them if we need to. So there's just a lot of different options that we have to tailor it to the individual dog, which is nice. So I think, and you'll have to correct me if I misheard, but I think you mentioned separation anxiety kind of in both categories. Do you sometimes use both, right? Yes. Yep, yep, totally. So yeah, and separation anxiety is a good example of a problem where we often use both. So the reason that sometimes we might use combinations of meds is that oftentimes we can get a better effect by using, you know, two or three different things that all work in different ways and adding them together. Or, you know, so we can get better efficacy without side effects versus just taking one medication and trying to, like, crank the dose way high up to get the effect we want. You know, because with most medications, there's a limit, right, to how much effectiveness you're going to get by just continuing to go up on the dose. And you start to get more side effects. So rather than like, oh, we're just using this one med, but we're going to use a whole lot of it. It's often better all around to say, hey, what if we use two or three different meds that work in different ways that are kind of approaching it from different angles? And then we can use kind of moderate doses of all of them so that we're not having side effect issues, but we're also getting the effect that we want. So, yeah, for things like separation anxiety that's severe, for a lot of those dogs, we really want all the help we can get. And what I tell owners a lot of times about that is, you know, even if each thing, like even, you know, we put this dog on Prozac, and it's not going to fix its separation anxiety by itself if it's severe, you know, but maybe it takes it down 10%, right? Well, that's 10%, you know, and then if we have another med, we put the dog on before the owner leaves, maybe that doesn't fix it by itself. Either, but maybe it takes it down 40%, right? By, you know, that med by itself.

43:41

And then maybe we add another med and it does another 40%. And now the next thing you know, with all three of them together, maybe we've got 90% improvement now in our anxiety. So that's kind of a good way to think about it. You know, so even if each of them singly don't feel like they're doing that much, we're looking for kind of the additive effect of all of them. And for some of these dogs, we really need all the help we can get. Yeah. Before we move on, I just, I was thinking about kind of the situational piece. And I wanted to say that it's useful to always ask, right? Like if there's something where somebody is listening and they're like, huh, that sounds like something that sounds familiar. It never hurts to ask you that. Because I found my German Shepherd that passed earlier this year, she would stream anxiety at the vet, right? Just at the vet. It wasn't another problem. Nobody thought to suggest to me that I put her on a comfort pack. I went to a different vet. Yeah. They use comfort packs as like a regular thing that they mentioned. I asked for one at my regular vet and they were like, oh, yeah, we totally have those. We can totally do it. Never occurred to anybody. They just never really thought to. Yeah. Yeah, totally. And I think some of that comes from, it really depends on the client. And depending on what you're, you know, what percentage of your clients are sort of open to meds and what percentage are not, you know, you, it's easy in general practice to kind of let that fall by the wayside a bit if you encounter a lot of people who are like not interested. So they may just not think, you know, to say, hey, would you want this? So, yeah, there's never anything wrong with saying like, hey, my dog gets super anxious about this particular scenario. And vet visits are a great example, right, of something we often use situational meds for. Because the dog may be fine the rest of the time. They just get super upset about vet visits. So you can give meds before you come to the vet and everybody's happier. So, yeah, it never hurts to ask and just say, hey, my dog gets really upset about this. And I would totally be interested in meds if that's a thing that we could do. So, you know, start the conversation. Doesn't hurt to ask. Yeah. And it's real hard to do a stomach palpitation. Is that what you call it? Like where you're checking and if the dog can lock themselves up as tight as they possibly can. Yeah. You can't feel anything in there if they're super tense. You're like, well, they have really strong abs. That's all I've got. Yeah.

45:58

So kind of on that same note, if somebody is listening to this and they're thinking, you know, professional help may be a good idea. Can you talk about their options and, you know, where they could go to look for a professional or what they should look for in a professional? Yeah. Yeah. So I do think if your dog has any kind of really significant behavior problem, you really can't beat having somebody work with you like one-on-one, you know, to help you put together a specific plan for your dog and then kind of guide you through the implementation of it. Because that's hard, right? Like it's easy sort of in theory to be like, oh, yeah, that's the kind of stuff we should do. But it's often hard to translate that into like, okay, but what do I specifically do for my dog and my situation? So that's where a professional can be super helpful. So there are definitely a lot of different types of, you know, certifications and degrees and things out there. The first thing to be aware of, which probably, you know, I'm assuming the majority of the people listening probably know this, but maybe not, right? That the field of dog training is almost entirely unregulated from a legal standpoint. So literally anyone who feels the urge can hang out a shingle and say, hey, I'm a dog trainer. Hey, I'm a behavior expert. Hey, I'm a behaviorist. Right? These are not legally protected terms for the most part. So it's very much buyer beware, right? Like you might be working with somebody super awesome who has lots of education and experience. Or you might be working with some guy who saw a couple episodes of The Dog Whisperer and was like, I can totally do that. And, you know, there he is. And now he says he's a dog trainer. So or anything in between. Right? So I do think that it's a good idea to know what kinds of certifications and degrees are out there because that can give you a good starting point. It's not the end all be all of finding somebody to work with. But at least if you're like, I have no idea where to start, that's a good place to start. So there are veterinary behaviorists, which are a great choice if you have one in your area. They're kind of few and far between. But, you know, these are veterinarians who, after they finished vet school, have done an additional three-year residency specifically in behavior stuff and passed a board exam and done a research study that was published and all that kind of stuff. So it's quite rigorous. They are basically the equivalents of psychiatrists in our field. You know, same kind of training program and board exam and that kind of stuff.

48:24

So it's kind of like a veterinary psychiatrist. So those are great if you have one in your area. There are certified applied animal behaviorists who have graduate degrees in animal behavior. So they're not veterinarians, but they're kind of coming at it from, you know, from the applied animal behavior standpoint. So they have a degree in that. And certainly they're very well versed in the science and very well educated as well. You also can look for the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants or the IABC is a good resource, right? They have a certification that's pretty rigorous, actually, you know, that requires you to pass an exam and submit several case studies and things that's pretty involved. So that's a pretty, I would feel pretty solid, you know, about working with anybody who's certified through them. The Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers, so CPDT, certifies both dog trainers and behavior consultants. And they have, you know, they require a certain number of hours of experience and passing an exam and that kind of stuff. So that's something. So, yeah, those are all, I think, good starting points, you know, to look for somebody. And all of those organizations have websites that you can go to and search, you know, based on where you live and see if there's anybody in your area. So I think that at least gives you a good place to start. What I will say about, you know, certifications and degrees and all that is I do think it's not the end all be all, right? Because just like in any profession, you can find people who have the certification, but maybe, you know, they're either not that great for whatever reason. Just like, you know, you can have a plumber come in who's great or you can have a plumber come in and maybe they're not very good. You know, I mean, these things happen. Every profession has people who are good at it and not so great at it. So it's not a guarantee. And it's also possible that you might find somebody who has looks great on paper, but maybe they're just not a great fit for you. You know, like maybe you don't click personality wise and that matters, too, because you're going to be working pretty closely together. So it's very possible that you might also find somebody who's great, you know, who doesn't happen to have any like professional certifications or degrees, but maybe they really know their stuff and maybe they're awesome. So that could happen. And it's just sort of harder to find those people because I don't really have a specific way to tell you how to recognize them.

50:46

But I also think when you're looking for somebody to work with, besides the certifications and degrees and knowledge, you know, look for somebody who can explain things to you in a way that makes sense. Look for somebody who is nice to you and your dog, right? Those things are important. You know, look for somebody that you feel comfortable working with and asking questions to, because a lot of it comes down to that as well. It's a very, you know, person to person kind of endeavor, you know, when you're working on a behavior problem. So if it's somebody that you just don't click really well with, even if they're super, you know, intelligent and they have the knowledge and their personality is just not the best fit for your personality, you know, it may be worth looking for somebody else because it's got to it's got to be a good fit. Kind of like finding a therapist or a doctor, you know, or anybody else that you're doing a lot of one on one with. Yeah. I mentioned earlier, your class is on the calendar. It's happening in December. So it's going on right now. I know it's sort of a atypical, I was tempted to say abnormal, class format for FDSA. Can you just share a little bit on how it's set up and how it works? Yeah. So it is a little bit different because for one thing, we're not really, you know, this is not a skills class, right, which is different from the majority of FDSA classes. We're not teaching dogs anything in particular in this class. And we're not what we're also not doing is diagnosing anybody's dogs with anything or putting together specific treatment plans for specific problems, largely because that's not legal for me to do as a veterinarian. We have a little bit the laws that govern what we can do are a little bit different from the laws that, you know, govern trainers and behavior consultants who are not vets. So it gets a little bit sticky, you know, with how most state practice acts are written. So technically speaking, I am not legally allowed to give like specific treatment advice for a dog that I've not met in person. So that's not really what the point of the class is. What it is is kind of a concept class. So we go through and we talk a lot about we kind of have a different aspect of it that we look at each week. Like week one is kind of all about normal versus abnormal. And, you know, how do we decide that? What kinds of things do we look at? Week two is all about the medical stuff that can influence behavior. And then, you know, weeks later on are about, you know, behavior modification.

53:12

We have a week about medication, a week about kind of prognostic stuff and outlook and outcomes. And I think we have a week where we talk about specific, like we go through and talk about a lot of specific behavior problems too. So the goal of the class is just to kind of get people thinking and give you information and help you figure out how you might apply that to your dogs. So I do welcome people to ask questions or talk about their specific dogs. But it's kind of like we're talking about concepts and information and you're kind of using your dog as a lens to understand that, if that makes sense, more than like, okay, here's a plan for your dog. And so the format is a little bit different. Since we don't really have like videos and things that people are working on, we have, it's just a silver and bronze level class. So bronze is bronze, like always you observe. But if you're a silver student, then you make yourself a homework thread, like kind of what the golden students would do normally. And I have little written homework assignments each week. So kind of, you know, things to make you think about the material and asking you about, you know, hey, can you apply this to a dog that you've owned? Can you apply this to a dog that you have known before? You know, and tell me about that. So kind of little written assignments to get people thinking about how this information applies in real life. So you make your homework thread and, you know, we treat it much like a homework thread for gold students and other classes. It just doesn't have like videos and things. And then, of course, we have the discussion, like always. So it worked really well the last time we ran this class. And it's been very lively so far this session as well. We're only about a week into it, but seems to be things are hopping. So that's good. Yes. Yeah. One last question for you, the same one I ask everybody kind of at the end here. What's something that you've learned recently or that you've maybe been reminded of when it comes to dog training? Yeah, I think this year, honestly, it's been such a strange year, you know, for the reasons we talked about because of COVID and all that. And then also now because I have, you know, poor Clint with his nasal tumor and his cone and that whole situation. And I think probably what I've been reminded of this year more than anything is how it is to just live with dogs that are basically just being pets right now. I mean, they're always pets, you know, obviously, first and foremost, you know, no matter what else they're doing.

55:36

But so much of the time we are doing a lot of, you know, we're going to seminars and we're going to trials and we're doing a lot of training. And we haven't done very much of that this year for all those reasons that we talked about. So we're doing a lot more of just, you know, hanging out on the couch and going for like little hikes and things, just kind of letting them just having pet dogs. And there is something that's nice about that. You know, like I miss doing the competition stuff and I hope that, you know, the pandemic things will maybe look a little better sometime in the next few months and all that. And maybe we'll be able to get back to doing some of that because I definitely miss it. And I know the dogs miss it. But it has been interesting to sort of live with them just as pet dogs more than anything else right now. That's pretty much all we're doing. And it's a different kind of thing. You know, there's no pressure, you know, because we're just kind of all that stuff's on pause right now. So we're just kind of snuggling on the couch and doing fun pet stuff. And, you know, there's a lot to be said for that too. So it's been a, maybe that's a silver lining this year, but that's been a nice reminder. Yeah, I like that. And it's a good thing to kind of think about too, right? Like under it all, you live with your dog more than you compete with your dog. Yep, for sure. For sure. Yep. So yeah, it's good to, you know, we're all enjoying that even if we miss the other stuff. You know, we, they're very good at snuggling on the couch. So they're multi-talented, multi-talented dogs. All right. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Jen. No problem. I have enjoyed it as always. Ditto. And thank you to our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week. Don't miss it. If you haven't already, subscribe to our podcast in iTunes or the podcast app of your choice to have our next episode automatically downloaded to your phone as soon as it becomes available. Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzie Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzie for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty free by bensound.com. The track featured here is called Body. Audio editing provided by Chris Lang. Thanks again for tuning in and happy training. Music Music by Chris Lang. Music by Chris Lang. Thank you.