#117 - Training an Aggressive Dog Safely: The Ins and Outs of Protected Contact

In this episode of Enrichment for the Real World, Allie Bender and Emily Strong chat about the use of protected contact including what it is (and no, it isn’t just putting up a gate or a fence), how to adjust your plan based on needs and progress, tips to avoid the temptation to rush, and advice to ensure that you’re not just relying on barriers to prevent a bite—but setting up everyone for success. 

Using a detailed case study of a dog named Archie, Allie and Emily share how his family used different types of protected contact to prioritize safety, maintain relationships, and build new skills without putting anyone at risk. 

⚠️ Important Note: This episode is here to educate and inform, not to replace personalized behavior support. Every individual animal is different, and there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. If your pet is showing signs of aggression, we strongly encourage teaming up with a qualified behavior professional who can give you the custom support your unique animal needs.

And pros? If aggression isn’t already in your skillset, don’t wing it based on this episode alone. Get a mentor, get the right training, and do it the right way—for everyone’s safety and well-being.

TLDL (Too Long, Didn’t Listen): 

1️⃣ Barriers Are Tools, Not Guarantees – Don’t assume a setup is safe just because there’s a barrier. Assess for this individual, in this context, with their current skills.
2️⃣ Slow is Smart – Move at the pace of the least comfortable team member (human or animal). Rushing doesn’t get you there faster—it just risks trust and safety.
3️⃣ Protected Contact Isn’t a Free Pass to Flooding – Barriers don’t eliminate stress. If the animal is still over threshold, protected contact alone won’t prevent problems.

Links & Resources from the Episode

🧾 For full episode transcripts: Arial | OpenDyslexic
🎧 #69 - How to Create an Efficient Enrichment Storage System – Because organized enrichment is more sustainable
🎧 #112 - Try It: Teach Your Dog "Find It" From Scratch – A foundational skill to support enrichment and agency
📚 Work Smarter, Not Harder: Visitors – Putting your pet away before the excitement happens can make a world of difference

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Emily: And I do wanna add that sometimes free contact isn't ever our goal. It's okay for some dogs to be really, really not, not cool with strangers. And our goal for them is just to be able to ignore strangers when they're out in the world or, seek safety, go to their relaxation station or their, their do a flight cue or whatever when people come into the house. And our goal is never free contact for those people. Dogs don't have to be BFFs with every human. They just don't, they don't have to be BFFs with every dog. Nobody has to be BFFs with everybody. That's not a realistic goal for humans. That should not be a, a goal for non-humans. 

[00:00:38] Allie: Welcome to Enrichment for the Real World, the podcast devoted to improving the quality of life of pets and their people through enrichment. We are your hosts, Allie Bender...

[00:00:55] Emily: ...and I'm Emily Strong...

[00:00:56] Allie: ...and we are here to challenge and expand your view of what enrichment is, what enrichment can be and what enrichment can do for you and the animals in your lives. Let's get started.

Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Enrichment for the Real World, and I want to thank you for rating, reviewing, and subscribing wherever you listen to podcasts.

In this episode, you're going to hear Emily and I talk about why we love kiddos who want to eat your face, when a 10 foot stone wall does not count as protected contact, one of Emily's favorite cases, which was a household with six kids and a dog who had a bite first ask questions later philosophy, and protected contact is not an excuse to put animals in high stress situation. Content warning, there is a very brief mention of behavioral euthanasia and a story that alludes to a history of animal abuse in this episode.

And as a disclaimer, the information in this episode is for educational and informational purposes only, and does not constitute professional behavior advice. Every animal is unique and what works for one may not work for another. If your pet struggles with aggression, we strongly recommend working with a qualified behavior professional who can provide individualized support. And if you're a professional who does not currently work with aggression, don't do so after just listening to this episode. Get a mentor. Do it right. All right, let's get into it.

So today y'all, we are talking about training an aggressive dog safely, the ins and outs of protected contact and am really excited about this topic uh, which I guess sounds weird, but I honestly love working with the kiddos that want to eat my face, like they're my favorite kiddos to work with. Not humans. Humans that want to eat my face are not my favorite. Non-human animals who wanna eat my face are my favorite, I have to clarify that. 

So one of the reasons that I'm so excited to talk about this topic today is that when we're talking about. Training aggressive dogs safely. I've seen a lot of recommendations out there, and frankly, I see a lot of recommendations that I really disagree with, whether it's because it can be actually harmful for the human, it's not safe for the human, or usually it's because it doesn't provide the animal that we're working with agency, security, all of the things that we're looking for, we're putting the animal into unsafe and unen enriching situations. So I'm excited to talk about protected contact, which is my favorite way of training an aggressive dog safely. 

And let's actually for just a moment talk about the word aggressive because neither Emily nor I actually like the word aggressive, and also that is what the general population is using. And so we are meeting our human learners where they are at with that term. So let's define for a moment what we mean by that. We're talking about animals who choose fight over flight in periods of high stress. And now I wanna be very, very clear. These kiddos who are choosing fight over flight, it does not mean they are bad. It does not mean they are mean, it just means they have learned a particular set of behaviors works better for them than another particular set of behaviors at achieving their desired result. A lot of times we see this is coming because of stress, fear, anxiety, and I wanna again be super clear that this is not an intrinsic value or moral judgment of an animal.

[00:04:46] Emily: Yeah, I, I share so much of your feelings about this and, my, my start in science-based behavior was with predominantly animals who had big struggles, and typically those struggles included aggression. And then, you and I met at a sanctuary where the overwhelming majority of the population would choose fight over flight or freeze in, in periods of high stress. And so we worked with a lot of animals that had been labeled as aggressive like you, I share a soft spot for the kiddos who are labeled as aggressive, and I think that's because the outcomes are usually less awesome for them. A lot, a lot of people just sort of have a, a stance that if an animal is fearful or freezing, that like they could just love the animal and be patient with them and gentle with them, and the animal will come around.

And whether or not that's an accurate statement, that's, that's kind of a common belief about how you respond to those behaviors. But a lot of people believe for the aggressive kiddos that the best response is responding with aggression, confinement, suppression, restriction, and today is not the day to talk about behavioral euthanasia, but we all know that those kids are at the highest risk for behavioral euthanasia, and we don't necessarily disagree with those decisions in every case.

But it's, there's a lot of nuance that gets missed in the public conversation about the aggressive kiddos. So, I think it is really important to talk about the role of protected contact in helping these, our, our, our, our aggressive friends to, to have more freedom and a more enriching life while keeping everybody safe and establishing clear lines of communication and a good relationship and teaching them skills to help them better navigate their world.

[00:06:40] Allie: So we've defined what we mean by an aggressive animal. Let's now define what we mean by protected contact, and then we'll get into types of protected contact and all of the fun things. IDI am just realizing that I actually really love this ti, like I'm so excited about protected contact, who knew that I love it so much.

[00:07:02] Emily: I mean, I think, I think the reason that you're so excited about it is because we use it all the frigging time, but like we've never talked about it before, and I don't know why it took us, I mean, our book has been out for six years, five and a half years at this point, and we were like, you know what? We should talk about en enrichment in the context of aggression, of aggression. It's like our bread and butter, and yet it took us this long to figure out that we can actually talk about it.

[00:07:29] Allie: I, brains are wild is all we can say.

So when we're talking about protected contact, we are talking about there is some form of barrier between the animal and the human.

[00:07:43] Emily: Yeah. So there's actually several layers of, of protection. There's different types of using barriers for working with animals, and the one that we mostly do is no barriers at all, and that's called free contact.

So, if you're just living in your house with your pet, they can climb up on your lap and lick at your face whenever they want free contact. They, there's no restriction between the human and the non-human. The next phase up is the second most common thing that we experience in sharing our lives with, with non-human animals, and that is partial or semi protected contact, so, that's where there's some measure of protection. There's some level of a barrier, but they can still contact us on some level or some way. So, muzzles are an example of partial or semi protected contact. Leashes are partial or semi protected contact. So that's, those are really common types of barriers that we use. The animal can still reach you, they can still touch you, they can still jump on you, but they've got a muzzle on or the animal can reach you within a certain radius. If you're within the radius of their leash, they have free contact, but when you're outside that radius, they can't actually come into contact with you. So those are examples of partial or semi protected contact. 

And then there's the stuff that we're gonna talk about today, the stuff that Allie and I are really excited about because we use it a lot, but we don't talk about it a lot. And that is protected contact, and that's where there is a full barrier between the human and the non-human.

Now there are other even more intense types of barriers that we can work through, but we just don't see those very often in the companion animal community, usually those are used in zoos or like wildlife situations. So we're not gonna talk about those in, in this episode. 

But here's the thing that people really need to understand, because people get this wrong a lot, whether it's protected contact or partial protected contact depends entirely on the individual and the environment. You can't say that this X pen is intrinsically protected contact because if you're working with a dog who can climb or jump over it or bulldoze through it, break it down then it obviously, it is not a full barrier in that case with, for that animal in that context, that X pen is partial protected contact or semi protected contact.

You can't even say that a fence is full protected contact if you have dogs who can climb or jump fences. I had a client whose dog would climb the tree, walk out onto the branch and jump over the fence, and she didn't understand how her dog could scale, they had a 10 foot, like stone wall fence and she was like, I don't know how my dog is getting out. So we used a nanny cam and the dog was climbing the tree, walking out on the branch and jumping off. So a 10 foot stone wall still was only partial protected contact for that dog.

There was some measure of protection between that dog and anybody who was outside of the yard. But if the dog was motivated enough the dog could clear that barrier. So it was only a partial protection, it was only semi protected contact. So, we have to be very careful not to state that the object itself is protected contact.

We're looking at the situation, we're looking at the outcomes. Maybe y'all have heard that before. I don't know where you would've heard that. It's almost like we talk about how enrichment is not the objects or the activities, but the outcomes. Same thing with whether we're talking about free contact, partial contact, or protected contact.

It's about the, the individual on the situation in and of itself. So. Now that we have talked about the different layers of protection, the different layers of barriers or, or contact that we can have between humans and non-human in the companion animal community let's talk about why we love protected contact so much.

[00:11:53] Allie: Such a good point Emily, that once again it's about outcomes and we need to take a descriptive instead of a prescriptive approach to everything in life. Just everything, not just this. So the reason we love it so much is that protected contact usually gives animals the most freedom in a particular situation while still creating a safe environment for the humans involved. And the other really nice thing about it is that it can prevent clients from falling back on muscle memory that kind of gets in their way.

[00:12:30] Emily: So, for this episode, we're gonna be using one of my favorite clients as our, our kind of example, our story to explain what this looks like. So I'm gonna tell you a little bit about Archie. Archie was adopted by this really lovely family. There, it was a. They're just like superheroes. Like I don't, I don't know how else to explain them. They had six children, and two businesses, and they still just like had this lovely, warm, welcoming home. They had people over all the time, they had lots of cousins, and lots of friends, and employees would come to their house.

Their house was like the hangout spot. It was really great. And they decided to adopt this dog, Archie, who the shelter told them that Archie had, was a really, really difficult dog and he had been there for a long time because he legitimately was not safe. We can have so many podcast episodes on the decisions that shelters make to adopt out animals, but but in this case, this family had a large house with a lot of property that backed up to a mountain that was unfenced, they had the resources to actually meet Archie's needs. So, archie really, really lucked out. He, he won the lottery and this family was so committed to him, and committed to keeping him safe. But what they learned very, very early on is that Archie had a bite, first ask questions later policy, and he was terrified of their 10-year-old son.

We all think that their son must have looked like somebody who had done things to Archie, who had hurt Archie, because Archie did not respond that way to anybody else. It was specifically the 10-year-old that from the moment he met him, Archie showed quite a bit of terror. And and then their 4-year-old was obviously not safe around Archie because she was four, by definition, she's not safe around a dog who has a bite first, ask questions later policy. So they had worked with another trainer first, and to that trainer's credit, they were working very hard to make sure that everybody stayed safe, but the outcome of that was Archie led an incredibly restricted life.

And so, we, we wanted to give him a little more space and a little more freedom. So one of the things that they did for him was, we, we did a couple things. First of all, we had an X pen that went into a corner of the living room so we can make the, the space as big as possible because the X pen was two of the walls and the actual walls of the living room were the other two walls, so, it, it made a pretty big space for him. And Archie was a dog for whom an X pen was actually protected contact. He, he couldn't jump over. I, I think he may have had some skeletal issues because he just physically couldn't jump that high. And he was, he did not try to climb the X pen. So for his, hanging out in the living room, we did an a really big X pin that was like a, an enrichment area, but that was not where he lived. That was just where he would go when there was family time where they could spend time with him when everybody was gathered in the living room. 

What they did for his actual house was they had an a TV garage behind their actual car garage, and that was fenced separately. I can't remember if they built the fence for Archie or the fence was already there because the ATVs were to go out onto the mountains behind their house. So, they were able to set up the garage as Archie's living room and it, they had a sofa for him and they had all kinds of comfortable things. They had all, everything to meet his needs. He had a whole activity centered down there. 

And then the yard itself, they made enriching for him. And when the weather was agreeable, they would leave the garage door open so that he could choose between the indoor space, and the outdoor space, and he could be outside when the kids were outside, but there was still that fence between him and the kids.

So, it was a perfect, like I said, Archie won the lottery, most people could not do what they were able to do for this dog. But it was a perfect example of a protected contact set up, both in his main living area and in his playroom in the living room where, where he could be with the family without being in indirect contact with them.

So that's, that's the place to start with Archie's story is how they were able to set up their environment so that they could work with Archie through protected contact, and still meet his needs, and give him an enormous amount of freedom.

So with that as our sort of foundation for what protected contact can look like let's talk about how we do protected contact. How do we implement this in a client case? So, first of all, we need to assess which level of contact is appropriate for the animal in whatever contexts we're looking at for them, and we need to assess what type of barrier is going to make the most sense. 

And again, we're gonna take a descriptive approach to this. So we're going to take multiple things into consideration when we make this decision. So we're gonna look at the pet. How much of a barrier do we actually need between the PET and the client? Is this a, a semi protected situation or a full I almost said full contact, it's not, that's football. Or a protected contact situation. Is this an animal who needs protected contact all of the time? Most of the time. Only in very specific situations. So, what does the pet need and also what are the pet's needs in general? Like, what are we doing? What does this animal's enrichment plan look like? What do we need to give the animal access to be able to do, and how does that influence what level of contact we're going to give this animal. 

We also need to look at the client. What are the client's skill sets? What is their lifestyle? How many people are in the home? What are the ages of the people in the home? How much fear do the people have towards the dog? Are they too scared? Are they not scared enough? Are they, do they ignore the dog? Are they good at reading body language? We need to really pay attention to the client's reality because yes, ideally we would be able to teach our clients how to build a relationship, how to read body language, how to make good decisions, all of that is our goal for someday. And also that is not their current reality. So we're not going to plan for someday. We're going to plan for today. 

Next we need to look at the environment. What is going to make the most sense for the environment? So for Archie because they had a living room that had space that could facilitate that X pen that made the most sense, that would not make the most sense in my living room. I don't have the space for that in my living room, and also my living room isn't shaped that way, so I couldn't do an X pen square enrichment space in the living room in my house the way that they did for Archie, because that does not make sense in my environment. I also don't have an a TV garage with its own fence that's cordoned off from the rest of the backyard. Couldn't do that either. 

So we would have to look at what the environment looks like to figure out how to set up protected contact in a way that fits within the means of the client, and fits within the actual physical space, and is actually functional for protecting the humans, and non-human from each other.

And then we actually need to look at the context too. Is this an animal who always needs protected contact? Who needs it? Sometimes? Who needs it? Only in very specific situations. Is this a dog who only needs to be in protected contact when people come to the house? Or is this a dog who lives with a 4-year-old and has a bite first, ask questions later policy. And this dog always needs to be in protected contact from that 4-year-old. That 4-year-old can never come into free contact with this dog until she's significantly older and the dog has more skills and they both have, no, until they both have most more skills, I should say. And they have a, a really solid relationship. But until that time that they need to be always in protective contact, we're never going to have them free contact. 

And then we also need to look at our goals. What are we trying to do for this animal? Are we just, is the, is the family happy? Just living with a dog in protected contact forever? Are they, are they fine with that or are we actually aiming for integration? Is that realistic? Is that what they want? So, we need to know what we're actually trying to do. Is this a situation where the dog is fine with the family, but they're not fine with visitors? Is this a situation where the dog is fine with most visitors, but there are some people in particular that the dog has it out for? Like we need to really figure out what our goal is and as, as part of the process of deciding what type of semi protected or protected contact we're going to be using.

[00:21:39] Allie: Okay. So after we have assessed what makes the most sense because is failing to plan, is planning to fail, then we can go into an seat and arrangement. 

One of the things that I hear so frequently when I talk to clients about protected contact, especially in terms of when visitors come over, when, when we're working with a kiddo who has stranger danger, one of the things they say is like, yeah, my dog's not going to be okay with that.

So what do I mean by that? For example, a lot of times when I'm working with a client on on a case with stranger danger, I'll ask, have you tried putting the dog in another room when a visitor comes, you know, a bedroom or something like that? And they're like, we have, but they bark the whole time. They scratch the door, they whine all of this.

The dog is clearly not happy to be in that space. When I dive in a little bit deeper, what we learn is that the dog hasn't ever been taught how to be in that space alone, or that that space can be really awesome at all. They're just put into a bedroom and the door's closed, and the dog's like excuse me, what the heck this is, this is silly. So one of the things that we need to do is make the space enriching. How can we make this the best space in the entire world where it's like a, like when you tell a teenager to go, a teenage human to go to their room, and they're like, yeah, that place is obviously better than here. And they're like, thrilled with it. We want them to absolutely love being in that space and to love being in that space alone. Now, this does get tricky when we have kiddos who have both separation anxiety and stranger danger, which is a super fun combo. We're not talking about those kids today, that's more complicated than, than what we're going to get into at this moment.

We want to teach them this space is awesome, it has awesome things. You're gonna love it, and teach them to love it. Part of that, in addition to teaching the animal. That, that space is awesome. And by space, I'm using Bedroom as an example because it's just an easy bedroom that I talk to clients about a lot. But that can be any behind a baby gate, behind a barrier. Like we get the same complaints from people saying that my dog is not okay behind a baby gate, and the answer is still the same. 

In addition to giving the animal skills, we have said this a million times, we'll say this a million times more, the humans are also learners and we need to give our human learner skills. So we need to make sure that the humans who are doing the setup have the tools to maintain that separation. That can be as simple as batch making a bunch of stuffed kongs so that you don't have to be scrambling to make a Kong, answer the door, put your dog away like it can be as simple as that. We had an episode about batching a while ago. Ellen will put it in the show notes because she will know where to find It. It will be in the show notes, y'all. So it can be as simple as batch making, that it can also be as simple as having your visitors text you when they're 10 minutes away so that you can put your dog away ahead of time. I can't tell you how many clients have told me that that in and of itself is a complete game changer for them, oh my gosh, it's so much easier to put my dog behind a barrier before there's somebody at my door. And I'm like, yes, and a seat, an arrangement for the win.

[00:25:18] Emily: When I was working with a, a neuros spicy client and they were trying really hard to do this well. And, but sequencing is hard for us with, some different neurotypes, some neurotypes, we really struggle with sequencing. And so, I was very sympathetic to their struggle and I was like, okay, so here's the order in which, and I wish I could remember the order in which they were trying to do it, but this was years ago and I have a terrible memory.

But whatever they were doing, the order of events was what was making it hard. And so, we, we had to be like, okay, here's the order of events that we should try to see if it makes it easier. And so I just had them do it in the order and lo and behold, the dog was totally fine with it when we did it in the correct order.

And so I had to tag teach that sequence. We had to practice it without the dog until they could get fluent at doing the sequence correctly, and then we tried it with the dog, and then they had friends come over and they did the sequence and they texted me and they were like, It was amazing. It was so easy. The dog was like really happy and all that. 

And I was like, my heart was glowing because I was like, you are trying to do the right thing, and you were struggling and you thought that this was not a good approach for you, when really it was just the sequence of events that wasn't working for you. And so we just had to help you change the sequence and practice the sequence to, to be able to have success with this strategy.

So I think that happens a lot, is people try protected contact and they're like, well, it doesn't work. And it's like, well, the way that you tried it didn't work, let's try it differently. Let's, let's do something different and see what happens. 

So next, after the clients have the skills, and the tools to maintain good separation, and we are doing protected contact, well, the next thing we need to do is create opportunities for safe interaction across the barrier, because there's not a whole lot of point in the protected contact if there's, they're gonna be like violating the barrier, right?

So for example with the Archie, when we first set up the X pen, our little 4-year-old friend was still trying to like, touch Archie, sticking her little fingers through the X pen. It's like, well, that's not it. So we had to create visual barriers on parts of the X pen so that she couldn't physically stick her fingers through, and then other parts, we had to create space where he could see. it worked better for both of them because Archie did better when there was a space where he could hide from the, the people in the household or not have to see them, but then he had the option to look if he wanted to, but then also it just worked better for the 4-year-old 'cause she couldn't stick her fingers in the X pen holes trying to touch Archie. And then we also worked on using some kind of Family Paws techniques for teaching her to keep her fingers out of the X pen. So it was also skill building, but we definitely had to use that barrier as part of our solution so that she couldn't make any mistakes that would be really detrimental to both her and Archie.

So, we have to teach people how to work through a barrier i, with a dog, because a lot of people don't know. We're so used to being able to touch them, and physically manipulate them, and get them to, to do what we want, so we are so used to being able to do that, that when you get a dog on the other side of a barrier, a lot of people are flummoxed as to how they're going to interact safely with their dog.

But one of the simplest things that you can do is find it because we used to do this all the time at the sanctuary when we had dogs that were so over the top reactive that we couldn't do any training with them to start, the way we would start was just, we'd walk by the fence, toss some treats over the fence, the first few times the dog would be so mad that they wouldn't notice the food, but then after we'd pass, they'd be like, oh, how does chicken get here? And then after a few repetitions they would eventually be like, oh, the chicken's coming from you, oh, you throw chicken? Okay, well maybe now like we could talk like what you got from me.

And obviously that is suboptimal, if an animal does not have an ability to escape it's still technically flooding, but in, in those situations where we didn't have any other choices, that's how we started out and we still eventually got the dogs to where we needed them to go. So they eventually, we weren't flooding them anymore, they were, they were willing participants. 

But the point of that story is that if you have nothing else to do with this dog, and your clients have no other skills, and you are gonna have to teach them those skills, the very, very easiest thing that you can have them do is just walk by the barrier, and chuck treats over the, the, the barrier. That's an example of a safe interaction across the barrier. 

So for the 10-year-old that Archie was so afraid of and the 4-year-old, we would just have them toss treats over, we practiced reading body language, moving closer or farther away based on Archie's body language.

Then we started doing 101 things to do with a box to get them to, to build a relationship between Archie and the kids. And the way that I did that was by teaching the 16-year-old 101 things to do with a box, and then the 16-year-old taught the 10-year-old under my supervision, so I didn't want Archie to have to learn a new game with the person that he was terrified of.

So that's why I started with the 16-year-old. 'cause he had a good relationship with the 16-year-old. So, we started with the 16-year-old so Archie could learn the rules of the game. And then I had the 16-year-old teach the 10-year-old so Archie could be a part of this group where they're collaboratively working together.

And then the 10-year-old taught the 4-year-old. So we, that was a thing that we did to get Archie's brain going, to build a relationship, to establish communication, to teach training mechanics to the kids at the level at which they needed them. Like they don't need to be rockstar trainers, but they do need to be clear communicators, and it was beautiful. It worked beautifully. We did target training with the adults, the adult children, and the two parents so that the, so Archie could be safely moved in and out and so that he could, they could do some of start some cooperative care stuff with him. We would have them close the garage door, go into Archie's yard, set up the nose work field, leave the yard, open the garage door and let him out. And then they would just give him all of the cues that we would normally do in a nose work field from outside the fence. So he got to play the nose work game. Our aim throwing treats into the, the hides where he found the, the original treats was not great, but you know what? He still learned at the game and everybody still had fun. So we did a lot of things through barriers with Archie so that they could, we could reach all of their goals. and it was beautiful. It did take some skill building. We had to teach skills, but we got there and it was awesome.

[00:32:24] Allie: Once we have opportunities for safe interaction across that protective contact barrier, the next step is to stair step down to partial contact before going free contact. This is a mistake that we see a lot of people make. Humans in general just try to go too fast. When we're training stuff, we get really excited and we try to push those little boundaries. This is not a place to do that. Don't push boundaries when you're working with an aggressive dog, or cat, or bird, or anybody. Just don't do it. So what does this look like? 

Partial contact I, and I'm gonna go back to my example of a stranger danger dog that, that we have in a bedroom. So the next step could be we have a baby gait that maybe the dog could or could not get through the baby gait, we don't necessarily know if it's protected contact or just partial contact, but we could have the animal interacting through a baby gate instead of being completely behind a separate door. 

A lot of times I end up doing partial contact with these kind of really flimsy barriers where it's like, yeah, they could absolutely push through, and also they have enough skills at this point, like what Emily was just talking about, skill building first. They have enough skills at this point that we really don't think that's going to happen. 

We also see it per partial contact in the form of now they're on now they're wearing a muzzle. Again, they have the skill to enjoy wearing their muzzle for a period of time, but they're now wearing a muzzle, and are not behind a baby gate, or a barrier. Or perhaps they're on leash and the, they might be able to move closer to that person on their leash. So we have a lot of options between completely no contact, full separation, and just like free for all.

There are a lot of options in between and we need to train for those options in between as well. So. That's our next step is we're going to go down to partial contact and we're not going to move to free contact until all parties involved, that might just be the dog, and one human, but usually it's a lot more than just one dog and the human, even in a stranger danger case, it's usually like the, the pet parents, and the dog walker, you know, there's, there's a lot of people involved in this potentially. Until all parties are fully skilled and completely calm, confident, and comfortable around each other, I tell my clients that we are going to move at the pace of the least comfortable individual. In the beginning, that's usually the non-human animal, and at some point in time it's going to be a human, and so we are going to move at the pace of the least comfortable individual, and we are not doing free contact until every single individual, regardless of species feels okay with that.

[00:35:33] Emily: And I do wanna add that sometimes free contact isn't ever our goal. It's okay for some dogs to be really, really not, not cool with strangers. And our goal for them is just to be able to ignore strangers when they're out in the world, or seek safety, go to their relaxation station, or their, their do a flight cue or whatever when people come into the house. And our goal is never free contact for those people. Dogs don't have to be BFFs with every human. They just don't, they don't have to be BFFs with every dog. Nobody has to be BFFs with everybody. That's not a realistic goal for humans, that should not be a, a goal for non-humans. So when we're talking about. We specifically mean when free contact is the goal. That's how we do it. 

All right, let's talk about some tips and, and common mistakes that people make when they're doing this, because one of the things that we talked about is if we're gonna have this episode, we need to have disclaimers up the wazo because we don't want people listening to a podcast, and then going out and trying things, and being like, well, pet Harmony told me to do it, and I got my face eaten off. And it's like, well, we didn't tell you to do it, we told you how we do it. 

But so things to be careful of double and triple check safety. If you think you closed the gate, if you think you latched it, if you think you have the muzzle on correctly, try it again and then test it again, and then check it one more time.

Just make extra, extra sure that everybody is safe before proceeding. Another thing is, like we talked about earlier, i, unless you absolutely have to and you have no other choice, don't put the dog in a high stress situation, and expect the barrier to keep everybody safe. That is flooding. We mentioned that earlier at the sanctuary, there are sometimes we had no choice but to flood those dogs because of the limitations of the size of their yard, and how many dogs there were, and how stressed the dogs were, and we had very few avenues for doing a least intrusive, less aversive method. But it is flooding. Be aware that if you are causing extreme stress to an animal behind a barrier, you are still flooding them. So, the barrier should be a safety net, not the only thing that's keeping the dog from trying to attack. 

[00:37:38] Allie: In addition to that, using bike gloves to handle an animal who doesn't want to be handled is also flooding. Just FYI. 

[00:37:47] Emily: Yeah, so all of that, that includes like partial protected contact, doesn't just include muzzles and leashes. It also includes things like s she, garbs, ard, gar, arm guards, gloves. We have used all of that equipment when we've worked with some of some of the dogs in our care in the past, when we have deemed those tools or of protection to be of prudence.

And also we don't use them as an excuse to flood a dog because like they're, we're not trying to get, we're not trying to protect ourselves from being bitten. We're trying to protect the dog from feeling like they need to bite, and that equipment is just there as a backup plan. So, all of the, all of these things, all of the partial and, and full protected contact stuff that we're talking about is just a safety net. It should not be the only thing that's keeping the dog from trying to attack you. 

So if a dog can't handle the situation, we need to do complete separation, not protected contact, and work backwards from there. And we don't have the ability to go into more depth in what that means in this episode, that's why we do this for a living. Because it takes a lot of knowledge and experience to be able to navigate those situations. And like Allie said earlier we all, humans have a tendency to move too far, too fast. We have a little bit of success, and then we think we're done, and then we have a really bad experience, and everybody gets discouraged and we have to start, it's not starting back at square one, it's starting back at negative one because now everybody feels demoralized and tired. And then we have to start all over again. So, like Allie said, go at the pace of the least comfortable individual in the process. 

If you have not had any education about working with aggressive dogs, if you're listening to this episode and you're like, oh my God, that sounds awesome, I'm gonna do that. Please don't. It, Pet Harmony is not telling you to go out and work with aggressive dogs now just because we're, we've made this episode. Please get a mentor to teach you how to do it well. And then you can see work aggression cases.

[00:39:45] Allie: For real because protected contact is not necessarily going to stop you from being bitten. The only time that I have been bitten working on a client case, I have to make all of those qualifiers to make that statement true. The only time I've been bitten on a client case was a dog who we thought the crate was fully closed, and the dog was in a crate in the, in another room on the opposite side of the house, and she busted out of her crate, got, got her little nose through the door that was mostly closed, but partially opened, ran out and bit me. So yes, safety is a thing. 

All right, y'all. So today we talked about protected contact. We love it. We use it all the time. It's fantastic. We talked about free contact, partial or semi protected, and just regular old protected contact. Not full contact because that's football, but there should be a better word for protected contact that's full contact.

We love it because it typically gives animals the most freedom while keeping everybody safe, and also prevents humans from falling back on muscle memory that gets in the way of the training. The way that we can implement this is to first create our plan, assess what type of contact makes the most sense for the pet, for the human and the environment, and the context for the goal.

We're then going to teach that animal to feel comfortable and happy in that space and in that situation, and give the humans the skills to be able to make that sustainable as well. From there, we can then create opportunities for safe interaction across the barrier. And finally, stair step down to partial contact and maybe even free contact if that is our goal, but moving slowly 'cause humans move too fast. Just, in general, humans move too fast. 

I hope you enjoy today's episode and if there's someone in your life who also needs to hear this, be sure to text it to them right now. If you're a pet parent looking for more tips on enrichment, behavior modification, and finding harmony with your pet, you can find us on Facebook and Instagram at Pet Harmony training. If you're a behavior or training professional dedicated to enrichment for yourself, your clients, and their pets, check us out on TikTok and Instagram at Pet Harmony Pro.

As always, links to everything we discussed in this episode are in the show notes. Thank you to Ellen Yoakum for editing this episode and making us sound good. Our intro music is from Penguin Music on Pixa Bay. Please rate, review, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. That helps more pet lovers and professionals find us so they can bring enrichment into their world too.

Thank you for listening, and here's to harmony. 

Here's a little bonus enrichment tip to thank you for listening to this episode. When you need to confine an animal in a space, make that space as enriching as possible. Use activities that you already know that your pet enjoys rather than trying to teach them a new game in a new context. Better yet, see if you can check a box on all 14 enrichment categories in that space.