#133 - How to Incorporate Kids Into Your Pet's Enrichment Plan

Parenting is already a full-time job, and when you add pets into the mix, things can feel overwhelming. But what if your kids could actually help make pet care easier and more fun? In this episode, Emily is joined by fellow Pet Harmony consultant (and mom of two) Corinne to talk about the why and how of including kids in your pet’s enrichment plan.

You’ll hear real-life stories, practical strategies, and a whole lot of grace for parents who are just trying to juggle it all. From meal prep and foraging games to safe interactions, training tasks, and even gamifying management plans, this conversation will leave you with simple, actionable ways to help your kids and pets thrive together.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Corinne: The first thing for me is like, just make sure it's an easy point of entry for kids.

Make sure that you're not asking too much, that we are watching them consent to doing this so that it doesn't feel like we're putting another. Like limit on something that they have to do. Because I feel like that is the, one of the, the best ways of getting their buy-in is that we're speaking simply and we're asking for easy wins so that it's more likely to happen again in the future.

[00:00:25] 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...

[00:00:42] Emily: ...and I'm Emily Strong...

[00:00:43] 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.

[00:01:03] Emily: In this episode, you're going to hear Corinne and I talk about why front-loading effort pays off later the curse of knowledge. Walter, the trash man. Leverage those unburdened minds and give yourself some grace. It's all hard. Nothing is perfect. Alright, let's get to it. 

One of the biggest problems with training is that. A lot of people tend to think that it's separate from everyday life and that it exists in this vacuum, which can make it really overwhelming, especially for pet parents who are also human parents trying to balance like all of the childcare that you have to do with all this additional animal care.

It's just a lot. It's a lot. And I, I don't even have kids and trying to balance. The household care with my job, with my volunteer stuff, with the animal care is a lot. I can't imagine adding kids to that mix. So incorporating kids into animal care and into the, the training process makes caring for both kids and pets easier, and it also makes it more efficient. And also it's really beneficial because it teaches kids. About empathetic and enrichment based animal care. So today, I, I yanked Corinne out of our team of, of trustee consultants and I was like, Corinne. You're gonna talk with me about this because like, this is your whole entire jam. This is your wheelhouse. You have children and you work with clients who have dogs and kids. And so, getting kids to participate in the animal care is like your superpower. So, you definitely need to be the one who's leading the fray in this conversation. So, so let's start off talking about the why. Why do we do this? Why do we incorporate kids into the animal care?

[00:03:04] Corinne: Being a caregiver is so hard, it's so taxing. It takes up so much of your mental capacity, your physical capacity, everything that's going on. And so I think that one of the hardest things, especially as a parent who's taking care of. Both the kids and the animals or as parents that are taking care of both of those is just to not feel overwhelmed by all of the to-dos that's there, and also not to feel so nervous about how things interact, because sometimes the animals can feel like they're. Acting out of ways that we didn't expect. And children for sure. Especially the younger children they don't have a lot of control on what their actions are or they're learning what that control should be and they're testing boundaries. And so I really think that the big deal for me is that we have safe ways for kids to interact with the animals and to be doing it on not even a daily basis.

But like in every single interaction basis that we are helping them learning ways to figure out how do we engage with our animals in a way that's good for the animals. And so like the phrase that I typically use with my kids is just like. How do we help them feel safe? So whether that's, them trying to hug a dog or sit on a dog or pull their ears or things that kids do because they're like, I have hands and I do things with hands.

These are all things that are expected of kids, but also not appropriate and they can't be done with animals. And so, when we are interacting with their kids, I'm really trying to figure out how do we help our animals feel safe? And so the language that I use is like. How do we, for my daughter, like how do we help Obi feel safe?

That's right. Instead of hugging him, we're gonna put our palms facing up. We're gonna let him come to us, we're going to read his body language. We're gonna do those things together because without having that understanding and like a, a foresight of like, what do we want it to look like? And it's really hard for us to even know, like, and feel comfy with what a safe interaction is.

[00:05:03] Emily: that's really like taking a proactive approach instead of a reactive approach. Because like you were saying, if you don't know ahead of time what you want those replacement behaviors to be, then you're just constantly playing whack-a-mole with like, don't do that. Don't do that, don't do that, don't do that. And not only is that more effort and. And more stressful, it's also less safe. So yeah, I love that you, that's how you frame it with your kids. So you're just always helping them to think of their interactions with their dog in those terms of how can I help ope feel safe? That just makes life easier for everybody.

[00:05:41] Corinne: And it's an easier talking point because like today, Opie's sleeping on the bed. He's, well, he's snoozing on the bed, so he's like awake, not, and while goes to jump on the bed, so I have a five and a 2-year-old, and so the 5-year-old as Walt and he goes and jumps in the bed and I was like. Don't jump in the bed. That's what I, in my head, like, I'm like wanting to explode. And so instead I took a step and I was like, do you think Opie feels safe when you jump on the bed? And he didn't, I didn't need to have any more conversation. He just got off the bed and then was just done with it. Even though, like, what I really wanted to say is like, what are you doing? Why you see Opie here? Don't jump on the bed. Really. I had like, a jumping point for that conversation of just like, do you think Opie feels safe when you jump on the bed?

[00:06:25] Emily: That's amazing. 'cause it also helps you with self-regulation while you're parenting because like it is frustrating. Caregiving is frustrating sometimes because you're like, as humans we have finite reads. Sources, including emotional resources. And there are so many times when I am emoting about something and the rational being in my head which I call my stoic observer, is like, this isn't a productive way to respond. Like, why are you doing this? This is just gonna make it worse. But the, the one, the part of me that's driving the car, which I call my goblin toddler is like, but I'm so frustrated. Or like, why? And I've, I've even like said before, like out loud, like, oh, Miley, I know that your brain is still developing so you can't process this the way an adult could. But why this is so frustrating, like, why can't you process like an adult? You. It's amazing to have that safety tool that also like does us a solid and lets us bypass our perfectly valid emotions and just like fall back on a script almost that's like, okay, I don't have to think about how to respond to this. I can just ask that. Go-to question of like, how is this helping? Opie feels safe, right? And then it helps your kid. And then it also helps them to like have that sort of critical thinking moment of, oh, right, my actions have consequences for beings other than myself.

[00:07:58] Corinne: Right. And even if they're at a place where they don't, they literally cannot grasp the understanding. Yet it sets this foundation of like, this is what we come back to of like how we interact with the world of like. How, what, what is going on right now? What are you seeing? And how are we doing that? And I feel like the other thing that's helpful about it is that it's so easy to set, to be getting to get into this place.

Like, stop doing this, stop doing that. Stop. Just like with our animals and where it's like, don't jump on the counter, stop pulling. And it's, it's like, well, what do I do instead? And so it gives us a place for that conversation of like. Yes, in this situation, get off the bed, but if instead of hugging it's like, put your hands up and let him come to you instead of get off, stop laying on Opie, which my two and a half year old Archie loves using Opie as a pillow and thank him Opie is so amazing.

And so he's just so incredible. Like, he'll let it happen, but I'm not gonna let it happen. Right? And so instead of saying, stop using opiate as a pillow instead of, saying instead. Move your body off of a Opie and if you wanna scratch his belly, scratch his belly, oh, he didn't lift his leg, we're gonna stop petting him.

And so we always have that conversation based on body language and it's, it's nice because then we can have the safety and security conversation and we can also have our body language conversation. So once the kids are old enough to make choices, and even when they're maybe not old enough to make choices, they still have this practice of like.

What is the animal saying and whether or not we should be interacting? My kids are not perfect though. They are constantly making the choices I don't want them to make. And then, but it's just an easy way of us to, to come back to it and to be able to feel less frustrated that we're having that same conversation.

[00:09:44] Emily: I mean, nobody's perfect, right? Behavior is an imperfect enterprise. So, so yeah. The whole point of this is like anticipating imperfection, right? But I love what you were just talking about with these replacement behaviors. I think that probably comes naturally to you because of your.

Animal behavior training. And so like when we talk about replacement behaviors, what we're really talking about, the fancy term for replacement behaviors is differential reinforcement. And the specific type of differential reinforcement that matters in these contexts is a differential reinforcement for incompatible behaviors.

So there those are called DRIs. And when we don't have very specific. Incompatible behaviors to replace with the behavior that we don't love. Then. Yeah, the kids are just doing stuff that we don't love and it's inappropriate and unsafe. And then our knee jerk reaction is to just shut it down, which is called response blocking and response blocking.

Certainly like in a, in an emergency, it's a great strategy, right? Whatever you have to do to prevent disaster, you gotta do it. But if response blocking just becomes you're a regular, response to, to a learner's behavior, whether it's a human or a non-human that can really break down that relationship and it can cause a lot of frustration in the relationship.

And so I love that for you, that comes naturally to be like, what do I want my kids to do instead? And I think that's the question that parents and caregivers can ask themselves. To help themselves identify what skills they want to teach their kids, right?

So, I think that's just a really, really beautiful way of approaching that. And also, I think we have to spell it out for people who maybe aren't as familiar with behavior because it, that that practice of asking what do I want this learner to do instead comes more naturally to you than it would to the average parent because you have that leg up of understanding differential reinforcers and response blocking and.

And their, their role in behavior change, 

[00:12:06] Corinne: I was just talking about this with one of my best friends the other day because. Because I now know so much about how behavior works and I learned that before having kids. It makes having kids and the decisions I have to make actually so much harder in some ways, so much easier in others. 'cause it makes, it can, can control my emotions.

'cause like, okay, this is how behavior works, this is, this is what happens. This is developmentally appropriate. If this, then this. That that helps me to ground myself, but what makes it harder and what I really wanna make sure that whoever's listening right now knows that like it may sound simplistic, that like, we just do this, just give them something else to do.

It is not that easy because now that you know that that's what you need, that takes that foresight and that proactive approach of like, you have to know what you want then, and you have to make decisions, and then you have to uphold those decisions and make sure that the consequences are. And that your approach is also consistent, which, what, that's what makes parenting so hard is that it's so easy to say no, it, it is not easy in that it doesn't help future behavior.

Because it's like, well, we've not taught them the consequence and like what to do instead, but it makes that moment stop, and so that's why I think, and I, I come from, uh. an instinct of yelling to make things stop and to get big, because it does stop things. And in that moment it makes it be done.

And then you can control whatever feelings you're having as the caretaker. But the hard thing is that that is not gonna teach future behavior. And so I wanna just make sure that we recognize that the things that we're suggesting and that we're talking about make it so much harder in some ways, because you have to then.

Have an idea of what you want, uphold that and be able to put, put yourself in a place that might be uncomfortable because when you're upholding a boundary with the child, it, it's, it's ouchie for them sometimes because they know they wanna pet that dog. And it's like, well, you don't, you, if you can't be safe with that dog, then you, you can't do that because that dog deserves to feel safe.

And I just, I just wanna double down that the things that we're suggesting. Take a lot of effort and it's not as easy as sometimes it can feel to just say no. But that's the same, that's the same thing if you're thinking about any sort of animal training, it's, it's the same thing.

Shutting down that moment can make that thing go away for that moment, but it's not teaching future consequences and thus it's not changing future behavior.

[00:14:39] Emily: there's two layers to that, and one is the. Like the, there's an emotional, it's almost like emotional investment because you have to do a lot, you have to front load a lot of work so that in the future things will be easier. And, and it does get easier, like when, when learners have those skills and you have that an and arrangement, that environmental arrangement in your setup then you like hit this beautiful flow where

it, it's just a lot less effort. I know I have heard many people say, why would I do that when it's so much more work? And my answer to that is always, well, it's so much more work now so that for the rest of their lives it's easier. So it's not that it's harder forever, it's that you're front loading the difficulty so that later it can be less difficult.

That's not to say that it's. Never difficult, but it's certainly less difficult. And so I think that's one aspect of it is that it's, it's like investing effort now. So that future effort is easier. But I think the other way that it can be harder is it's the curse of knowledge. And I just had this conversation with a colleague who also has a puppy who's almost the same age as Miley.

Like her puppy and Miley were born just a few days apart. So we've been buddies on our puppy journey. And she is doing search and rescue with her puppy. And the area that she lives. There's just not a lot of people who have much awareness or competency with the like behavior sciences. And we were talking about how like it's harder to raise a puppy when, you know what we know. Because you're more anxious about messing it up than people who don't know anything or know very little. Right. And so like there's this like, you know that ignorance, ignorance is bliss thing is really true because there are so many times where like she was telling me like she was out with some of the other search and rescue people and she's watching them. Like make extraordinary risks. Blissfully unaware of the ways in which they're potentially damaging their future relationship with their dogs or their dog's response, future responses to challenges, things like that. And they're having the time of their lives because they have no idea. The risks that they're taking with their dog.

And in the meantime, she's taking the least risk of everybody in the group and she is a mess. She's so, and she like, every time she makes a little mistake, she like texts me like, I need you to talk me down from a ledge because I feel like I just ruined my puppy. And I'm like, I. Promise you, you didn't ruin your puppy.

Like this is normal adolescence behavior's not perfect. No matter how good you are, things are gonna happen. You can't totally control the environment. Like all of that stuff that we all know. But when you're in it with a dog and you know the risks and you for a living, work with the dogs. For whom those risks did not pay off. It makes it harder to take those risks. Right. And so I think that's another thing that we need to acknowledge here, that that's true for humans too. Like that that's not just true for like your pets. Like when you as a parent understand the behavior sciences more and you understand how it can go wrong and you're trying to front load the difficulty so that later it'll be easier. It, you also can get really anxious about getting it wrong, and I just wanna say right now, like, you're okay. You won't be perfect 

at it. 

You will make mistakes. It'll be okay. Like we all make mistakes. It's an, it's an imperfect process,

[00:18:33] Corinne: Yeah, and the way that I find that I can start to enjoy a little bit more is that I. Acknowledge that I accept it, and then I try to use that to, to ground me for the choices that I'm making. And I think the good thing about having this mindset of like, let's be proactive about it. Let's set the foundation for what we want our children to be like with animals and that they're part of the plan.

Because I think sometimes, especially when I'm working with families where it's like our pop has behavior issues that may or may not be a part of like the chil, it might not be like. Pup to to, to child. It could be like, separation anxiety or something different where it has nothing to do with the actual relationship there.

I think that it's hard because we start to think like, we have all of this stuff we have to do, we have to make these choices, and I'm working on the training plan for this and I'm making sure that we're setting up this environment. And I think that when we start to include the children in that conversation and.

Do it from as early as they can start to understand that this is how we live. It is nice because we have a distribution of labor that we can have our kids helping us meet our pet's needs, so that even though like you do have a lot on your ma on your cognitive load, your kids can start to help you to put together like the plan of like, how do we support our animals?

And that it's not just me. I'm not the only one that's helping our animal feel safe. I'm not the only one that's setting up enrichment opportunities. I'm not the only one taking 'em on a walk. The, the whole family is contributing to that. And so like we're setting that foundation and so it's just one less thing that parents have to pay attention to or manage when we actually do get the kids, like looped in at the very earliest stage that like, this is how, this is how we live as a family.

[00:20:19] Emily: Yeah, that's beautiful. And, and by including them, I'm a big fan of including learners in their own learning journey for many reasons. But the other reason. Is that you're teaching them critical thinking skills. You're teaching them independence, you're giving them agency, you're giving them choice and control and predictability over their own learning experience.

And, and in doing all of that, you're not just modeling what compassionate care looks like, but you're also teaching them. How to offer compassionate care as well. So everything like when you do it this way, that extra effort upfront is, is worth it for so many reasons on the back end, like it's just it. It pays off in so many ways.

There are so many layers of benefits to. To doing this approach. So we've talked about why, the why of including your kids in your pet's care and in your pet's enrichment plan. Let's talk about the how now. What's your first number one go-to? How do you involve kids in animal care?

[00:21:24] Corinne: Well, I can't say that my number one go-to because every animal's gonna be different. So like, this is with the caveat or the asterisk, that this is an animal who doesn't have maybe resource guarding or doesn't have any relationship strain or anything with the, with the kids. But like my number one thing is that let's include the kids in their daily meal prep.

And so like for my kids, my dog is an absolute. Insert phrase if we don't do daily shreddable. And so for his meals, he gets all of his meals in shreddable hidden throughout the house. And that's, it used to not be a task for me. And then it started being like, oh God, I gotta do, like I, he doesn't know you outta a bowl now, so I gotta like do his food.

And then I was like, wait, the kids are like begging me to do this. Like, why am I not letting them do this with us? And so. My kids will help to stuff our paper towel tubes, our toilet paper tubes. They collect the recycling. They know there's an op recycling can. They make sure that like they get all those things together and they're putting the food in, which is also incredible for their own development.

We're talking like early stage of like fine motor skills and they're putting tiny little pieces of kibble inside of things and folding them up. And then I have them just hide 'em throughout the house. The other thing is that. Kids hide things in very strange places. And I am not good at hiding things 'cause I start to hide things in the same places every time.

But Walter and Archie will put them in places I would never have even thought. So it's very good foraging for Opie. And so that's my number one easiest thing for us is that we include it in our daily meal prep because we're, I'm already gonna be prepping for meals. They're already gonna be doing things around us.

They wanna be a part of it. And also they're very good at doing. Strange things that I did not expect.

[00:23:10] Emily: I love that you're just harnessing their creativity to, to do things. And for us, because we're, we have just so much co. Like, we have so many tasks that are just like high cognitive load and in the meantime, like kids are relatively unburdened 'cause they don't have to do things like work jobs and, and plan errands and housekeeping and, and meal prep and all of that.

So they just have all this like free cognitive space to like apply to these things that we just don't have the room for.

Right. 

[00:23:42] Corinne: And I think for them, it is fun for them. Yeah. It is just like, I like to, they like to play, of course, but I like to encourage when, when it's appropriate, like. Play that helps to like serve like their developmental stages, and so I feel like this is like fun play. They're gonna be, it's like a sensory thing, but also like, Hey, I don't have the stuff that, that food Now you guys can go do that and you are having a great time and I don't have to do it.

That's great. And bonus, my kid loves trash. I don't, he, he is a trash man, and so Opi shreds it, and then Walter uses it later for his trash pickup. So it's wonderful for me.

[00:24:25] Emily: So I love all of that and it's beautiful and of course. I'm gonna add my favorite thing in the world. Scent work, like I talk about all the time, I am high-key, obsessed with it. But this is another thing that's really easy to get kids to help with that keeps both the kids and the dogs busy.

And that is the find it game. I like it because it's a very, very simple game. You say find it Utah Treats. So I, the way that I teach children to do it, because the only way that you can really mess up a find it game. Is if you throw the food and then say, find it afterwards. And so the way that I teach kid find it is I will hold a bowl of treats first, and I'll have the kids say, find it.

And then I'll hand them a treat to toss and they say, find it. And I hand them a treat and then they toss it. So I'm inserting myself into making a whole behavior chain 

right. And then after we've done that a few times, then I'll hand the bowl to the kid and I'll be like, okay, now you say find it, grab a treat.

So then I kind of tag teach it where it's find it, grab a treat, toss. And then after they do that a few times, I just stop talking and I let them do it. And in my experience, if you start teaching them the rules that way. They rarely mess it up After that, if you just let them start throwing food and then you have to sort of like go backwards and try to correct the order of events, you have to use a lot more repetition to get them into the habit of doing it in the correct order.

But if you start them off in the correct order, it usually sticks. 

[00:26:00] Corinne: But also let's not. It. Throwing things on the floor is so fun and dogs, they level a good scatter. So like sometimes it's just like throw, just take a handful and throw. I just, just do it. Just take, just go. Just do it. And they love it. They're having so much fun and the dog's like, okay, this is great.

[00:26:20] Emily: Yeah, 

that's a good point. They don't even have to do the find it game right for everybody to benefit 

from it. The only reason I care about order is usually I'm also having the parents use find it functionally for very specific things. So for that, in those contexts, the queue does matter.

[00:26:36] Corinne: I mean, like a rainy day thing. You are tired, everyone's tired. Just have them throw those things.

[00:26:42] Emily: Right. If it, if it's just about enriching the children and the dogs, who cares about the, the order of events. If kids are chucking food and the dogs have to use their nose to find the food, it's a win. Right. So I love that. And yeah, I have to put that in there because I've had so many clients who are overwhelmed parents, and I'm like, let me introduce you to the Find it game where the kids and the dogs can wear each other out.

Yeah. Yeah. 

What's your next 

one? 

[00:27:11] Corinne: Some more things. This is for a dog who doesn't get over aroused or like likes playtime. I think one of the hard things as a parent who has an animal that needs to have physical exercise is like finding time for that. And even if you aren't a parent, finding time for that is, is still a lot.

A human parent finding time for that is still a lot. And so like dogs don't need walks, dogs need exercise. Dogs need to move their bodies. That doesn't need to be around the block. I know what it's like to push the Titanic while you're trying to hold a dog who's trying to sniff the tree and leave his own information, and so they can just, they can be a part of playtime.

So going outside, right now it's summer and for us in, in the area that we're in, we are playing with a water table every single day. So if the dog likes playing with water table, we can play with the water outside. We got the hose if it's in the winter, snow play running around in the yard. All of those things.

Our physical exercise, all of those things can be done in one area that if you have a fence is, is secluded or like you can like set up boundaries where you can have a little bit more freedom and they can play with each other again, tiring each other out. And it. For, for me, I find that that's the easiest thing for like that afternoon time where it's like he needs to go for a walk.

And we always have used to go, you always used to go for a walk, but that's really time crunched right now. And so, that's a nice alternative when you feel like that's too much to, to go for a walk and get everyone together.

[00:28:40] Emily: I mean, when I was a kid. We would take the dogs off leash and go romping around in the woods and we had the best time and they were just our little ride or die dogs. They would come along with me and my best friends and they were just part of the group. They were part of the fun. I never remember teaching them a recall.

They just always came everywhere with us when we would go out and play in the woods and they just learned. That, like, that's what you do. We all go out together and we, they were just always very chill, very good dogs. And I think it's because we were just always wearing each other out, right? Like they just didn't, they learned 

from our routines that we didn't like have any formal training with them and we just did a lot of stuff with them.

And so they just were easy, they were easy dogs, right? So yeah, I'm a big fan of that. And then of course having just said that about my childhood with, with dogs, I also do work a lot, or no, I don't anymore. I used to have clients. I used to see clients. Now I, I don't have my own clients anymore, but I did work a lot with people whose dogs did need.

Training sessions, we couldn't get away with just train as you go training. And one of the easiest ways to get that done consistently was to get the kids to do the training sessions once kids were old enough. But I think people would be surprised. How young old enough is. So for really simple stuff like a pure delayed conditioning session or something like that, or something easy like targeting you can get kids as young as four.

To do that training. And then of course the older they get the more complex types of training they can do. But I did not find it harder. I found it easier, in fact, to teach the kids how to train the dogs because kids have more time and more cognitive space than parents do, and it's fun for them.

Whereas for a lot of parents, it's a chore. It's just one more thing on their to-do list. And so I'm a big fan of roping kids into the training process when they're old enough and when they have the desire. I'm not gonna force the kid to do training if they're not interested. But I am a big fan, fan of that as, as one of the ways we can in include kids in a a dog's enrichment

[00:31:06] Corinne: They want to, they love to, and also, it's teaching them incredible things. We're talking about body language, talking about how. Do you notice someone else like another thing and react to the other thing? But I've gotta shout out one of my clients right now. She, okay, so this dog, it is just a lover.

You just love her. She has some big feelings with other dogs, and so we're practicing a flight cue, and so they've got a now 5-year-old, but at the time when I first started a 4-year-old who came to our second session. And she was first of all walking around with Lily Chen's book being so cute. She was drawing in her notebook all of these different pictures based on Lily Chen's book.

It wa I was like, oh my gosh. She stands there and she would talk so much that she's got, she has to hold my hand and and wait for to talk because she wants to ask so many questions about body language. I. I'm obsessed. I love them so much. And so in that, I think it was like a third session we're getting going with like the flight training and going back and forth and the daughter's there and I was like, and the parents did it and they did a good job.

But parents, the flight training is a specific set of tasks and you have to make sure that you're doing, things in order. And so one of the hard things about fight training is saying the cue and then turning your body because our brains put it together. And so I was like, Hey I don't wanna say her name, but I was like, Hey kid, do you wanna try?

And so she did it and she did it. Seriously, first time beautiful. No notes. She said the word perfectly. She moved away. Second time the dog stopped and she was like, Hey, Sadie, come on, come on, come on. And didn't pull the leash. She, we had the leash on. We were practicing with the leash. Never got tangled in the leash.

The leash was all nice and. Slack with a little smile in it. Sadie, come on, come on, come on. And Sadie trot, trot, trott. And the good girl Sadie gave her the treat and I was just, it was so amazing. And she was four turning five, and she did flight training better than most adults that I teach. And it was, and it it just amazing.

This last session that I had, the parents were like. We couldn't, we couldn't bring her with this time because we knew she'd just be holding your hand the whole time waiting to talk. And so she'll come to, I, I meet again in a couple days. She'll come to that one, but she had to take a break because she was just so excited to, to be a part of the training.

[00:33:28] Emily: I'm telling you, leverage those unburdened minds. It's worth it. It's worth it. 

[00:33:36] Corinne: But yeah, you can use it in that, you can use it as training tasks. If you're doing a relaxation protocol, go ring the doorbell, go knock on the door or go walk over there. And so they can be some of those tasks and distractions to help the pup learn how to, how to scaffold what they're trying to do.

[00:33:54] Emily: Yeah, I love that, that it's not, that them participating in the training doesn't always have to mean that they're the ones doing the training. Sometimes it means that they can assist you.

[00:34:04] Corinne: And you know what we love? We love A DRI. We

[00:34:07] Emily: Yeah, we do. It gives them a way to interact with the dog that is beneficial for everybody involved. 

I love that. Love that. Yeah, and, and you can even incorporate younger kids. 'cause like you can have a two year-old or a 3-year-old knock on a door or walk down the hall. Like, so even if they are too young to do the training themselves, they can still be pretty good assistance depending on the task that you're working on.

[00:34:34] Corinne: And they can help to make like our management plan as well. So like we can have that conversation for like. Where, where should the pup go when someone comes to the door So they can lead them to their safe space? They can, we can talk about like, where should we put a baby gate and use that conversation as a way of like making that plan ourselves.

Where it's like, now we don't have to tell the kids, no, no, no. Leave that there. We have to put that there. Or leave. Leave the baby gate there. Don't, don't, don't open it. Leave that shut. We've already talked like. Where should we put this? Oh, that's a good idea. We should put it there. Because that's where they feel safe.

And then this is where they can't access that window or that front door or whatever that is. And so it helps them to understand the purpose behind the choices that we're making. But even like, it's like, tell 'em like, Hey, stand be, be a tree when the dog comes up to you, or whatever it is we can give them.

We can have them be a part of the conversation when we're trying to even just make a management plan or figure out like, what do we wanna do in this environment to help you know, everyone be successful.

[00:35:34] Emily: Yeah, and i've, I've actually borrowed from, it might have been Family Paws or maybe it was Tag Teach, but I think I learned this from living with kids and dogs that when I've had clients where they had multiple children and the children would get each other worked up, or the children would be distracting each other. So they were having a very hard time implementing them.

Management because the kids, the dynamic between the children was making it harder. We would just gamify the management plan and we would make like a chore wheel or a points chart for like check the baby gate before you walk out the door, make sure the baby gate's closed. Or like every time the jump dog, the dog jumps on you and you be a tree instead of reacting, you get a point.

And we would have these like star charts that the kids could earn stars for like prizes and. So often the feedback I would get from parents was, I didn't think that that would actually work, but it's totally changed how our kids interact with each other in these contexts that used to be really, really stressful.

And so I think like that's the thing that we forget is that games are fun. They're a very fun way to learn. They're an effective way to learn. And so you can gamify your management plan and to get the kids to participate in it and make sure that everything's. The management plan is, is is happening, it's working.

[00:36:59] Corinne: All right, so some hot tips for you guys because I know that we've given you a lot of stuff, some little things that kind of keep in the back of your mind when you're trying to make something that works for your life, your plan, your household, your pets, your kids. The first thing for me is like, just make sure it's an easy point of entry for kids.

Make sure that you're not asking too much, that we are watching them consent to doing this so that it doesn't feel like we're putting another. Like limit on something that they have to do. Because I feel like that is the, one of the, the best ways of getting their buy-in is that we're speaking simply and we're asking for easy wins so that it's more likely to happen again in the future.

[00:37:37] Emily: Yeah, so a good example of that is when I start teaching very, very young children, like two to three year. Years old body language. I start very simply with a red light, green light thing where it's like this body language signal means move away from the dog. This body language signal means you can touch the dog, right?

And we're not going for sophistication, we're going for the basics. And so we start with two and three year olds of I identifying red light, green light. And then as they get older. We can be more complex about body language, we can teach them more detail. But if we try to teach a level of complexity that a six or a 7-year-old could grasp to a 2-year-old, that's gonna be really hard and frustrating and everybody's gonna hate it.

Right. So like that's a good example of how we, what we mean by easy point of entry. What about you? What's an example of easy point of entry that you do for kids? I. 

[00:38:31] Corinne: Well, mine is just, how do we keep the sentence simple? And that's, I go back to the is your. Does, does he feel safe? How do we help them feel safe? And so I feel like that's an easy point of entry because safety and security is something that kids already know for themselves of when they feel, even if they can't articulate it, they know if they feel safe or if they don't feel safe.

And so that's my ba like keeping a simple sentence where you're not then like, doing what I'm doing right now and just continuing to explain all of the things so that they can just. Understand what is the, what is the actual message right now? What's the actual focus that we're supposed to do? Next hat. Tip. Teach kids about safe spaces by leaving their dogs alone in their, and that is an easy point of entry as well, that safe spaces are their safe space, which means we don't touch them. We don't go in there. It is not a clubhouse. It is so hard. My children still wanna climb in, even though we talk about this all the time.

But safe spaces are safe spaces because the dogs have complete respite from the rest of the world in their safe spaces, 

period. 

[00:39:39] Emily: And we just had an episode on Safe Spaces, so you can listen to that episode for more details about how to create that space for your dog, should you so desire. All right, what's your next hot tip? Hot 

tip. 

[00:39:51] Corinne: Hot tip number three for sensory seeking Kids who wanna throw themselves onto dogs like my Walter boy, get them like a massive dog size plushy. And just have them throw themselves on it instead. So like, my, my wants to just, he just wanted to just coddle up with ope and like of course, look at Ope, don't you?

Yeah, I do too. Okay. But he had a really hard time like with that, when we said before like, it's hard that when I say stop, what does that mean? And so we got this massive thing from our Buy nothing group. Like he now, he now sleeps with it. It's the biggest dog you can even imagine. And he just then, like if I was like, if you wanna cuddle with Opie, cuddle with Big Dog and the, of course the name is Big Dog because why make it more complicated?

Easy point of entry. So, that was always our thing. If you wanna cuddle with Opie, you have to cuddle with Big Dog. And so, for the kids who like, feel like they need a little bit more of that sensory stimulation, you can't just tell them, no, you can't. Do those things because that's not meeting their need.

And so that's a, a thing you can try with that.

[00:41:02] Emily: Let's be real. I'm 46 years old and I still need. A replacement thing to cuddle because Miley is so freaking cute. And while she is a cuddly puppy, there are many times in the day when she doesn't wanna cuddle, cuddle because she's playing, she's investigating, she's just drawing her chewies or whatever, and she'll be so cute.

And I wanna squeeze her. And I know it's not time to squeeze her. So I have a body pillow for that. And I'll just squeeze my body pillow and I'll be like, you're the cutest thing ever. Oh my God.

And I'm 46 and I need that. So like. I, I feel you. 5-year-old Walt. Like I get it. It is legitimately hard not to squeeze the cute animals.

I know, I know. I feel those feels deep 

down in my soul. Yeah. 

[00:41:46] Corinne: And then just my last hot tip is that when you are going for a walk with your animal, one of the ways that we can start to encourage our kids to see that animals also have choice and control and get to have fun times as well. You can let them like point out, OPI wants to go right here, Opie's gonna turn here.

It's a great teaching tool for letting kids know that like dogs can choose their own adventure. Dogs can have their own fun.

[00:42:13] Emily: A lot of people go out on walks and even when they in intend it to be an adventure walk. They, and, and when I say they, sometimes it's me are thinking about what else they have to do when they get home and how long it's taking. And they start to feel rushed and start to ignore the dog on the dog's adventure walk and get tunnel visioned. And again, it helps to have an unburdened mind there. And if you are teaching the, the small human. What to look for in a dog who has agency on their adventure walk. It can help you to shift your own focus and to get, be in the moment with your dog.

[00:42:54] Corinne: And finally, hot tip number five, give yourself grace. It's hard to be in charge of people. It's hard to try to figure out what is the right choice? What am I doing? How is this affecting the future? But you, you're doing great. You're doing fine. You've got your heart in the right place, and. Anything that you do isn't necessarily going to totally change the future for anything else.

[00:43:19] Emily: Beautiful. Thanks, Corinne. All right, so to recap, it is a good idea to include kids in enrichment because it is a distribution of labor. It makes things easier for everybody. It gives kids important skills, keeps everybody safe. Ways that you can do that include having your kids do daily meal prep and set up foraging, play, find it with your dog or other types of nose work include the dog and kids playtime. Have kids participate in training or assist in training and gamify management plans so that kids are upholding the management plan. Thanks Corinne, for joining me in discussing how to include kids in your dog's care and enrichment 

[00:44:04] Allie: 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. 

[00:44:56] Emily: Here's a little bonus enrichment tip to thank you for listening to this episode. If you give your kids an afternoon snack that is safe for your dog to eat too, like yogurt or applesauce, let your kids give the dog the empty container to lick when they're done. Bonus points for hiding it so the dog has to use their nose to find it.