#143 - Enriching Your Pet When You Feel Like You’re Drowning

Sometimes life hands you broken bones, cranky tendons, surprise vet trips, or a whole new set of limitations you definitely didn’t order. And meanwhile, your pet still needs… well, everything. In this episode, Emily and Allie talk about what happens when your needs and your pet’s needs feel impossibly misaligned. 

They dig into emotional detachment (yep, it happens), guilt vs. grief, the fallacies our brains weaponize against us, and the surprisingly creative ways you can support your pet without sacrificing yourself. This one’s for anyone who has ever whispered, “I’m doing my best, I swear,” while tossing kibble across the yard from a lawn chair.

TLDL (too long, didn’t listen):

1️⃣ You aren’t failing. Life is just happening. - Everyone hits moments when their needs and their pet’s needs don’t line up. It’s not a moral failing; it’s a normal part of being a human with a non-human roommate.

2️⃣Small, doable shifts beat “perfect” every time. - When circumstances get messy, creativity matters more than ideal routines. Adventure boxes, porch “find it” games, trusted helpers—tiny adjustments can carry you through big challenges.

3️⃣ You can’t problem-solve while beating yourself up. – Compassion leaves space for creativity. Remember to breathe.

For the full episode show notes, including the resources mentioned in this episode, go here.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Emily: everybody throughout their life at some point, and usually at multiple points, will experience a period in time when. Your needs and your pet needs seem completely at odds and we need to talk about it. It's something that we need to address because this is something that can really contribute to burnout. It can really contribute to like the degradation of your relationship with a pet. I know I personally have experienced that with both Bandini and Kaya because I can't meet their needs the way I want to for a variety of reasons.

I it almost like sometimes I get into this avoidance state of like, I can feel myself emotionally detaching from them because I can't meet their needs the way I used to. I can't meet the needs the way I would prefer to. They're still fine. They have a good quality of life. And also I don't have the relationship with them that I would prefer to have if circumstances were different.

And and I am somebody who does this for a living. I've done a lot of work with this with my therapist. I know what I need to do. I know the tools, I know the mindsets, and I still observe myself emotionally detaching. So like, if we don't talk about this and we don't normalize it, it it, it does contribute to burnout, to stress, to guilt, to like a degradation of the relationship.

And so we, we really like, our goal with, with this episode is to help people come up with strategies to creatively meet both your needs and your pet's needs without spiraling into guilt or burnout.

[00:01:40] 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...

[00:01:57] Emily: ...and I'm Emily Strong...

[00:01:59] 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.

[00:02:19] Emily: In this episode, ally and I talk about how my new nickname for Ally is Humpty Dumpty. How Ally was surprised by how many people showed up for her when she was Humpty Dumpty. How playing Whack-a-Mole with my health ended up being a bad strategy. Who knew? And also how big problems often need small solutions.

All right, let's get to it.

I have to tell you, Allie, I am unreasonably excited to be doing a podcast episode with you again.

[00:02:48] Allie: I, I guess I'm glad to hear that.

[00:02:50] Emily: It feels like it's been forever since we've done a podcast episode together. And don't get me wrong, like I also love that we're now like, including the rest of the team because it just feels more, it feels more us, right? But I've definitely missed recording with you and I can't think of a better topic to, to kick off our, our reunion episode then, what do you do when it feels like your pet's needs conflict with your own needs?

Because. I as, as people know by now, since you've already talked about it in a previous episode, a rock climbing accident and i've been lovingly calling, calling you Humpty Dumpty because you fell off a wall and broke into a lot of pieces

[00:03:34] Allie: Yeah.

[00:03:35] Emily: and so you legit had a very long period of time where legitimately your needs and osos needs were mutually incompatible.

[00:03:46] Allie: Yes. Yeah. When I'm forced to stay in a hospital can't take care of my dog.

[00:03:53] Emily: Yeah, it's, it's funny how that happens and also like you've been home for a couple of weeks now and still. You can't take care of Oso in the way that you did before you were Humpty Dumpty.

[00:04:03] Allie: Yes, 

[00:04:04] Emily: So this is like what we're gonna be focusing on today is that like, it legitimately, there are times when our needs are mutually incompatible with our pet's needs or when they seem like they are mutually incompatible.

And we need to normalize that, that tension of conflicting needs and talk about practical ways to manage those situations and how we get through it and how to actually discover that they may not be as mutually incompatible as we thought. So can we start off with you talking about what Osos Care has looked like since you broke all your bones? I. Ellen. If Ellen were here, she would be so appalled that I'm just like being super casual about this really traumatic event that happened to you.

[00:04:58] Allie: Oh, she is, she is loving, she's loving the dark humor of it. So, yeah, no, I, I, it's fine. I think the funny thing is I only broke, well, I guess technically three. I don't count the tail, but like a hairline fracture, fa who cares? I only technically broke two things, but,

[00:05:19] Emily: But they were big, bad breaks and the dislocation was a big, bad dislocation. It was real nasty.

[00:05:26] Allie: yeah. Yeah, so it's it's been really interesting to say the least. So, and one of the things is both his and my needs have drastically changed in the last, what were two and a half months um, since, since all of this has happened, so. I'll, I'll talk first. A hospital versus home. Because obviously when I was in the hospital, I physically could not be there to care for Oso, and we know that me being gone is a stressor for him.

Not necessarily like, I can go on a walk, I can go to the store, things like that. That's not a big deal. But the not coming home at night, that is where he says, but my mom's not here.

[00:06:18] Emily: The routine disruption is the part that's upsetting.

[00:06:21] Allie: The

routine disruption. Yes. And I am his confidant, he, he looks to me for soothing all of that sort of stuff, dad is the fun one.

I'm the nurturing one. So, so we have known for years that he. Sad when I leave and go on, you know, vacation with friends or conferences or, or where it is. If I go somewhere without Alex it's worse if both Alex and I are gone than he's even sadder. But he is like, all right, I guess dad's here it, so it's partially okay.

So, that was a part of it. I was not home for a month and that meant I had a sad dog for a month. And how do we make him less sad? One of the things that this experience has really taught me is that I have a lot more people in my life who love us and, and care for us than I realize at any given point.

It's, it's been honestly amazing to feel that sense of community and, and the coming together and is one of the, the things that I want to take away. From this of how can I provide that feeling to other people without them having to break all of their bones? So, anywho, we had a lot of people helping out with Oso and this is one of those situations where I'm so grateful for all of the behavior modification work that we had done previously with him.

He did have before being adopted by me and Alex. He did have a bite history, he did have stranger danger. We worked a lot for him to feel comfortable with people coming into the house. And we are now in a situation where, because Alex was in the hospital with me, people had to come in the house and also had to be okay with with that.

So, one, I'm just really grateful that we had already done all of that behavior modification work to get to the point where. He was okay with people coming over. So, my parents, Alex's parents, Mary Kay came over frequently to hang out with him.

I don't, I don't know. I didn't coordinate it to be honest with you. I just knew he was taken care of. So, so we had a, a lot of people that were able to, to come over and care for him. We knew that it wasn't,

it wasn't the ideal. Right. Like it wasn't going to be perfect. He was going to have feelings, all of that. And. For that situation. It was one of those, it's as good as it can get right now. Yes, it would've been awesome if somebody could have stayed in our home and h hung out with him the entire time.

And also that just wasn't feasible, possible, whatever. So the people who, who came over to, to help him, tried to stay as long as they could, they tried to, play games with him. I'm sure Mary Kay gave him so many treats and he, he did little hand targets and all of his tricks for her and all of that.

And also we just had to say, this is what it is. It's a short term situation, and he'll be fine at the end of this. So we had to let go of a lot of, of stuff for that being home. Um. Those of you who listen to our, our podcast know that Oso is a senior, he's 13 at the time that we're recording this. And he has been having mobility issues for a while now.

He's a big dog and his backend was never structurally sound. He was, he was not built right in the back there. Um, It's, it's always been a little funky. So one of the things that's happening is his, he's having a much harder time with his mobility. Whether that's because he wasn't getting the same level of treatment while I was in the hospital, or it's a natural, just like this would've happened.

Regardless, we have no idea, and I'm not going to blame myself or anybody for the decisions that we had to make when, when I was in the hospital. Being home though has been hard when I physically cannot help with his mobility. So we, and Emily, you, I haven't actually told you this yet on Tuesday, both Alex and I had doctor's appointments and I said that Oso just felt left out and that he should go to the doctor too that day.

And uh, Alex did not appreciate that joke at that moment. But he was having a really hard time on Tuesday, like trembling through the shoulders. Regurgitated water. Like couldn't get comfortable every time. Like he started to relax and the shoulder trembling started and would wake him up. Like he just couldn't get comfortable, couldn't sleep, anything like that.

And so, you know, we called the vet, they were like, monitor, we'll get him in tomorrow. 'Cause of course, this happened after we came home from our doctor's appointments and, and we can't get an appointment for that day for our vet 'cause it's like four o'clock. And they were like, but if it gets worse, you know, emer emergency vet.

And so we uh, Alex started prepping his dinner and we watched Oso sit up, think about standing and then just lie right back down. And we were like, Nope, that's it. Emergency vet. It is. And, and he refused dinner as well. So yeah. So after all of our doctor's appointments. We spent five hours at the Emergency Vet.

'cause of course they had actual emergencies that they had to, to handle before us. And one of the hardest things

has been, Oso has been needing more help with it hind end. Thankfully we have the Help Him Up harness. We have been using it for, for quite a while at this point. He is used to it, he's trained for it, all of that good sort of stuff. And Alex has been ha having to the, the on Wednesday, the day after, just hold his hind end up as Osos, walking around the yard, looking for a place to pee and, and all of that.

I obviously can't do that. And so one of the things that, that has been hard is we've been having to change, not change schedules, but really. Dig deep into schedules to make sure that somebody who is physically able to help Oso is here, not just a warm body who can help him. So that's been that has been really, really hard of, of not being able to physically do it.

And y yes, there's like, guilt isn't the right word for it, but I don't have a better word. Grief, grief is a good word. Like, I feel grief, I feel helpless watching him struggle and I can't do it, do what he needs me to do for that. So yeah, it's, it's been a journey for many reasons since I've been home.

[00:13:24] Emily: Yeah. Thanks for sharing all of that because I think this is something that a lot of people need to hear that there will always be not, okay, let me rephrase that. It's not that there, you will always be in the state, but everybody throughout their life at some point, and usually at multiple points, will experience a period in time when.

Your needs and your pet needs seem completely at odds and we need to talk about it. It's something that we need to address because this is something that can really contribute to burnout. It can really contribute to like the degradation of your relationship with a pet. I know I personally have experienced that with both Bandini and Kaya because I can't meet their needs the way I want to for a variety of reasons.

I it almost like sometimes I get into this avoidance state of like, I can feel myself emotionally detaching from them because I can't meet their needs the way I used to. I can't meet the needs the way I would prefer to. They're still fine. They have a good quality of life. And also I don't have the relationship with them that I would prefer to have if circumstances were different.

And and I am somebody who does this for a living. I've done a lot of work with this with my therapist. I know what I need to do. I know the tools, I know the mindsets, and I still observe myself emotionally detaching. So like, if we don't talk about this and we don't normalize it, it it, it does contribute to burnout, to stress, to guilt, to like a degradation of the relationship.

And so we, we really like, our goal with, with this episode is to help people come up with strategies to creatively meet both your needs and your pet's needs without spiraling into guilt or burnout. And also. How to like breathe through the moments when you just recognize that things have to be a little less than, than perfect. Right. Or even a lot less than perfect.

And I think something that, I think there are two logical fallacies that, that really come to play a lot in these situations and being aware of them can be really, really helpful. The first is the Nirvana fallacy, where like, we, we bel it's like this it's very close to a, a dichotomous fallacy in that we think if, if I can't meet my animals' needs perfectly, if I'm doing it, if I'm not meeting my own standards, I'm an abject failure. So like the, this Nirvana fallacy is if it's not perfect. I'm a failure. It doesn't work. I'm not, I'm not doing it right. I'm, I'm being horrible pet guardian, et cetera.

The other one that I have experienced while you have been going through your thing is the fallacy of relative privation. In other words, we don't allow ourselves to process what we're processing and we, try to dismiss our own experience because it's not as bad as somebody else's experience. And so I've been I'll talk about this more later in this episode, but I have been struggling with meeting Miley's needs for very specific reasons. And I could, I could watch myself and hear myself saying like, suck it up buttercup.

Like, this is not nearly as big of a problem as Ally's problem. Like I almost like I was having these feelings of like, you don't have the right to struggle because your struggle is not as big as Ally's struggle. Right. And I see a lot of people do that of like, well, it's not that big of a deal. I'm just tired.

Like, why can't I just do more for my pet? If I could just get on a routine? If I could just, and it's like, no, no, no, no, no. When you say I'm just, or if I could just, or just when you start using that word, that is an example of the fallacy of relative privation because what you're saying is your situation is not as bad as what you feel is a valid level of of struggle to, to justify the, the unmet needs that are happening.

And like as soon as we learn to let that go and just accept that our reality is that we are struggling to meet needs, there's there's a conflict between our needs and pet's needs it, it becomes so much easier to deal with when we can let go of the nirvana fallacy and the fallacy of relative privation.

[00:18:07] Allie: And what's so funny about the fallacy of relative privation is I had those thoughts too, of, well, at least I'm not as bad as. Ex or something like that. You know, I, I had a friend who broke her wrist very shortly after I got home and I was like, oh man, that's, I can't even imagine breaking my wrist, like as I'm getting around in a wheelchair. Like, so yeah, like it affects everyone regardless of the situation. And I think knowing that too puts it into perspective of like, it's a little silly.

[00:18:46] Emily: It really is because there's always going to be a, like a scenario that's worse than yours. There's never in the world not going to be. S somebody who's got it worse than you do. And, and that is even true for the person. Like if we were to somehow like create a rubric to objectively assess what the worst situation actually looks like, that person who's having that experience, there are going to be other people who have that experience in another part of the world.

But you look at that other person's experience and you're like, well, they're worse because I'm not familiar with how to cope with the garbage they're going through. Right? So like the, we have to be careful because like we still do need to be aware of our privilege and acknowledge it and be grateful for what we have.

And I'm not, the, the fallacy of relative privation is not negating any of that. But at the same time, if our feelings of guilt or dismissing our own experience because we feel like we don't have a right to our experience because somebody else has got it worse, if that is getting in the way of us.

Being able to handle our situation and being able to move through it, then it is not serving us well. That's not the same thing as being grateful for what we have. You can be grateful for what you have and also acknowledge that you're going through a really hard time.

[00:20:06] Allie: Yeah, and we just talked about that and the gratitude, but not the toxic kind episode.

[00:20:11] Emily: It's almost like we've got a recurring theme. It's weird. It's funny how that works. So, so yeah, I think where we can start with this is like, just stop, pause, check your assumptions. Like what rules do I have in my head that are preventing me from thinking creatively? And I would say step one of that is stop beating yourself up.

You can't be creative if you are abusing yourself. Those two things are mutually incompatible, right? So let go of the fallacy of relative privation. Let go of the nirvana fallacy and just explore the small changes that you might be able to make to meet both needs, right?

So I'm gonna now talk about my experience. The one that I was feeling I didn't have, that wasn't valid enough, that wasn't, wasn't bad enough to, to merit the, my experience. I was dismissing my own experience. So, I actually wrote a blog about this. If you've read that blog, and this is redundant, I apologize, but I neglected my feet for a very long time because I have so many chronic issues and.

I always feel like I'm playing whack-a-mole with like, what, what medical issue needs the most attention in the moment. And it's really frustrating because there, like, there's genetic basis for these issues, so they're always gonna be with me and I can definitely do a lot of things to, to mitigate them, but it's never going away.

And so, because that is my reality, I tend to ignore the, the rest of my body that's not the whack-a-mole du jour. And as a result of that, I didn't I didn't notice that my feet were getting worse until one day I got up from my desk and I couldn't walk to the bathroom because my feet hurt so bad.

I had, I was crawling to the bathroom. And as I'm crawling to the bathroom, I. This isn't normal, people should be able to walk to the bathroom. I think this is a problem. I should probably do something about this. So I went to the doctor and I diagnostics happen and conversations happened and I had bilateral plantar fasciitis and achilles tendonitis.

And my doctor, who is a delight, she pulls no punches. She's like, you have a connective tissue disorder. Why did you let it get this bad? I was like, okay. So I had to be off my feet. She basically made me stop doing all of the exercises I had been doing to, to move my body, and I had to move to chair yoga, but that also meant I wasn't allowed to take Miley on adventure walks.

Miley is a teenage baji, so you can imagine how well that went over with Miley. So I could afford to pay my pet sitter to take her out on adventure walks twice a week, and that was helpful. But I mostly the way that I met Miley's needs was I made more adventure boxes for her at home. I usually do it once a day, every other day.

And during this period when I had to stay off my feet, I was doing it twice a day. And also I would take her out on her long line, sit on the front porch. And play, find it with her and just toss the food as far as I could. So that she's running around the yard on our, on our long line sniffing and finding food and getting to run around and I'm just sitting there.

And that helped a lot. It got, it was, it was to the point that she could mostly handle life. And we have play date buddies. Our neighbors have two dogs that the are friends with our dogs. And we have some friends four blocks away that have two puppies that are Miley's age. And we play together with them.

And what was amazing is that everybody stepped up to help me and they started, driving to pick Miley and I up the neighbors that live a few blocks away, I told them like, I can't walk Miley over. I don't have a car because my partner and I share a car and he has a, a gnarly commute. So he's gone most of the day.

And being in this vulnerable position allowed the people in my life to step up for me. And so my, the, they would come pick me, Miley and me up for the play dates. And our neighbors across the street would like text me when they got home and would let their dogs out in the front yard and I could just bring Miley over and let her play.

And it was really nice because I felt like they were friendly acquaintances before this. And now I can really call them friends because of what they did for me while I couldn't walk. I went, I've been doing physical therapy, I've been doing exercises. So it after two months I was able to start walking around again.

Got permission to go back on adventure hikes with Miley. My feet are much, much better now than they were. And so it, it has gotten better and, and I have been able to return to mostly our old schedule. And it's gotten easier with Miley. She's less amped up because we've been able to like, do those things.

But I would not gone through, I don't know what would've happened to Miley's behavior if I hadn't found ways to adjust what I was doing. And if I hadn't had a community that, that stepped up and helped me. And I think the, the key point there is if I hadn't allowed people in my life who I didn't consider to be good enough friends to ask them for that.

I didn't feel comfortable asking them for that level of help because I didn't feel like, I felt like it would be imposing. But I allowed them to, to step in and help me. And it didn't just help Miley and me, it also ipro like, it, it increased our friendship and a sense of community and, and we're, we're all friends now and that's amazing.

So it was a really good experience to go through that and see what you were talking about Ali, with like, letting your community show up for you. Right.

[00:26:27] Allie: Yeah, I, I was going to say like that that's such a strong parallel in our experiences, and I think the way you worded it was perfect of letting people help. It's, it's. I think both you and I struggle with asking for help for ourselves, especially for ourselves, and that's a skill that I know I'm still working on.

I've I've grown a lot with that skill in the last two and a half months, I will say that. But one of the things that I found was it was so much easier to ask for help for Oso than it was for myself and the, and everybody. Y'all, my dog is legitimately cool and great, like I know everybody says that, but like he truly is, and everybody who meets him loves him so much.

[00:27:24] Emily: He's, oh, so perfect.

[00:27:26] Allie: He's also perfect and also handsome. And so honestly like when I had to ask people to come over for him because I wasn't able to, to get get him outside, we have three stairs going down to to the back door. And there was a time where I could not walk up and downstairs while I was home, and so I couldn't let him outside.

So if Alex had a, a full, eight hour day, then Oso would not have been able to to go out. And so when I had to start asking people like, Hey, can you come over round one to let oso out? People were really excited about it. And that helped me feel like I wasn't imposing too, but it, it also made me realize like.

People do like to help. Like if they're available, then, then, and you can make it work and you can figure it out, then it's okay. Like it's okay to ask for that.

[00:28:26] Emily: It is. And I'll tell you, I had made your fomo that the rest of the team was able to like go to your house and go to the hospital and like show up for you in tangible ways. And all I could do from Seattle was just like, ship you things. I was like, I was like, I wanna help more. It's not fair.

[00:28:43] Allie: Your notes were amazing though. I have all of them.

[00:28:46] Emily: I'm glad that you enjoyed them. I I delighted in creating those little notes for each of your gifts. Yeah. So I think that's the thing is we are so afraid of imposing on people, but the reality is like, I think most humans. Want to help. They want to be in community. They want to show up, they want to feel like they are doing good, especially when you're in crisis like you were Ali.

Like people want to step up in a crisis and if you're having a hard time believing that, I have a book for you to read, the book is called A Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solnit. The subtitle is The Communities That Arise in Disaster. And Rebecca for this book did a lot of research in how when crisis happens popular fiction likes to depict us as all like turning into monsters that all like, each man for himself type of mentality.

But that's not actually how human behavior has, like in reality, that's not how humans actually behave. That actually in times of crisis, people are at their best. They show up, communities get banned together. And she has a lot of like really beautiful examples of that in that book. So just saying if you're having a hard time believing that, and I, that is valid because literally, like the world is on fire right now.

So I get like, cynicism is a, is a reasonable response to our current situation. And also allie's. Experience is a good example of how that's, that's not how we actually behave in crisis. So I think that's step one is like, let people help you. But let's get back to the, the creativity thing because there are a lot of things like tiny changes that you and I both made to our schedules to adapt.

And I think those are, are really good things to think about because a lot of times we undervalue the small tweaks and those small tweaks are the things that can get us through the really hard times.

So example for me, I was like, okay, I can't take Miley on an adventure walk. What does she get out of adventure? Walks running around like a little chaos goblin and sniffing things, following scent trails. Doing that, how can I allow her to run around like a chaos goblin and sniff things and follow scent trails when I can't walk with her? Well, the obvious example would be let her out in the yard and do that. But then I was like, oh, I can't do that in the backyard because we have this deck that leads down to the yard, so I can't, I can't navigate those stairs.

And the front yard Miley can get out. It's not a real fence. So then I was like, okay, well if that's the problem, how do I solve that problem? And I was like, ding. Long line. Right? , That's how I figured out what Miley needed and how to meet those needs in a different way and what my barriers were and then what I needed to do to overcome that barrier. And that's how I came up with sit on the porch with a long line tossed treats in opposite side to the yard all over the place. So she's gotta run around and find food. Ally, what about you? What are some small changes that you made?

[00:32:05] Allie: Hmm. Uh, so some of the small changes just had to do with the logistics of how to do things. So, one of the things that that happened while I was in the hospital was Osos Nails got longer. Nobody was doing them. I didn't ask anybody to do them. Alex did occasionally, and also he was working and in the hospital with me and, and had other things to do besides OSA's nails.

so came home. OSA's nails were longer 'cause I was the one who does them. And and I was like, okay, well. How do we do his scratch board? When I can't do it the way that I normally do it. I normally sit on the ground with him and that's how we do the scratch board. I couldn't sit on the ground, so I was like, okay, how do we do this then?

the first time. Alex held the board. I did the uh, the clicking and treating for it. And that was fine. But the problem really with that is it's like, okay, we both have to be available for it. And a lot of times I would just do his nails when I had a few minutes in between meetings or, just needed a break from something throughout the workday.

And so I was like, I really wanna be able to do this myself. I was like, okay, well what if I'm in my wheelchair, I can bend down and, and touch the floor, and I just hold the, the scratch board on my feet. He shouldn't be able to like, reach body parts of mine that he shouldn't reach by doing that.

And I'll just do it in this kind of awkward way. And Oso was like. It looks close enough to the real thing that, sure, I'll do this. And then we progressed to, you know, I could do that, on the couch. And finally like I, I was able to sit on the ground and do it the, the way we normally do it. But that was one of the things I was like, okay, we really need to figure out how to be able to do this. 'Cause we need to, get those nails shorter.

One of the other things for him, because, we have multiple options for working on his mobility it became painfully obvious to me that I do all of my training with him, either sitting on the ground or standing, not sitting in a chair. And and so there were things where it's like, okay.

We're gonna have to potentially reteach this so that I can give the cue sitting in a chair. I ended up not doing that just because I progressed quickly enough that I, I could then do it standing to undo it. Somewhat my normal way for him. But yeah, for me it was a lot of, ooh, I did not proof this behavior that we normally do um, which is fine. I just had to navigate it.

[00:34:53] Emily: Yeah, I think that's a really good example of how, like it doesn't have to be some big aha moment. Like it doesn't have to be this, like, I think people are looking for like big, sexy solutions and it can be like really subtle and mundane. So like, let's, let's talk about some examples from clients.

We've had clients who would get home at the end of the day. They have long work days. Their dog is really high energy, stoked to see them. They are too tired to like engage with their dog. And so we're like, that's valid, and also expecting yourself to just do it, just muster the energy is really unrealistic.

So what if on the weekends you batch create a week's worth of li mats? So when you come home, all you have to do is go to your freezer, grab a frozen li mat, plop it down for your dog next to you. Your dog gets to snug with you while working on their li mat. Problem solved, right? It's not sexy, it's a really mundane solution, but it changed everything for those clients who experienced that, right?

Or we have clients, we frequently have clients tell us that they struggled to remember to bring treats on walks. And also the food is a really important part of their dog's experience on walks for a variety of reasons, things that we're training or doing scent work or whatever. And so, one of the like simple solutions that we have to help them like follow through with that without having to like, expect themselves to just do better at remembering is like, put your treat pouch next to the leash.

Like hang the treat pouch on the hook with the leash so that they're just already there together, ready to go. You just preload it at the end of a walk, hang it on the hook with the leash, it's ready to go on your next walk.

We have clients frequently who struggle with sleeping through the night because their dog wakes up. Their dog is restless. Almost always, I would, I feel comfortable saying the overwhelming majority of the time, we just take a exercise that they're already doing foraging or play or walking or training, and we bump that up to right before bedtime and we get that that helps the dog become more physically and mentally tired so that they sleep through the night.

Right? So there are so many kind of mundane, tiny shifts that we can make that make those seemingly conflicting needs go away. It just resolves them. And the bonuses, all of those things that we've been talking about, our ally's solutions, my solutions, the solutions for clients, they're all kind of a feed birds, feed mini birds with one scone approach because it's like meeting multiple needs for multiple individuals by making one simple change.

And I think that's I think that is why it, they get overlooked. It's the simplicity and the smallness of them. That's why people overlook those types of things as solutions. 'cause it's like, well, it doesn't feel like the problem feels huge and so you assume that. So the solution also needs to be huge.

And it's like the problem is huge. And also there's this very tiny, mundane, boring, little solution that's going to make the huge problem so much better. Right.

[00:38:15] Allie: I, I've heard so many times from clients that they feel like they're cheating, where, you know, it's like, okay, how do we get physical exercise for this dog? When you come home from work and you're just exhausted and, and can't, you can sit on the couch and watch TV and Chuck treats down the hallway and your dog is running after them and sniffing, and forging and doing all the things and.

You're lying on the couch watching tv, which is what you would've been doing anyway. And I've heard so many clients say that they feel like they're cheating with those types of solutions. I don't know what it is about our society that we just, we really wanna make things difficult when we don't have to.

[00:38:53] Emily: It's like when you have too much privilege and your life is too easy, you need to find ways to make it.

[00:39:00] Allie: Right, right.

[00:39:03] Emily: I don't wanna make the assumption that that's true for everybody. I'm not casting a blanket statement. I was, I was joking because it's sometimes true, but it's not always true. So yeah, I'm not, I'm not minimizing anybody's struggles. I just think it's funny that we see that I, I, I typically see that more often than I think I expect to, right.

So yeah, if you take a minute to just assess your, the assumptions that you're making, and then figure out what the actual pain point is. Then see if you can come up with a solution, even if it's small, even if it's not at all sexy. It's a super boring solution. Like meal prep or reorganizing where you keep your, your walking equipment or adjusting your schedule. Like that stuff can be huge. Like me sitting on the porch, putting Miley on a long line, super boring solution, it made the difference for us getting through those two months when I had to stay off my feet.

Right. And I think another component of this is like, again, I mean, we kind of talked about this at the beginning, but I think it bears repeating. You're not failing and the solution isn't that you just have to try harder or do better. You are experiencing a legitimate barrier. And so like acknowledge that, take it seriously and.

And face the barrier, address the barrier instead of trying to dismiss it or pretend it's not important or it doesn't exist. Right. That's not working for you. I, I, I don't love quoting Oprah, but I'm, I, I, like, I wanna quote Oprah here and say, how's that working for you? Like, how's that working out for you?

So, so yeah. And I think for professionals, we are part of the problem sometimes because we can also trivialize our clients' struggles and be like, why is this so hard for them? Why can't they just do this? Like, it's not hard. Follow the instructions again. I just wrote a blog where I outed myself saying that, so I'm, you know, like been there, done that, got that t-shirt, not judging you, but like that is a problem when you're not taking your client's pain points seriously and you're just trying to insist that they follow the plan.

You are losing opportunities to really connect with your client and figure out what their actual pain point is and help them solve that pain point. And if you do that and people feel seen and you legitimately solve a problem for them, they will be much more likely to continue working with you, to communicate with you, to collaborate with you.

So the, like, it's a missed opportunity when you're just trying to insist that your client does the thing instead of figuring out why they're not doing the thing and helping them overcome that barrier.

[00:41:54] Allie: Absolutely. And I know that in this episode, you and I are using fairly cut and dried examples of like, we physically can't do the thing, and that makes sense. But more often than not, what I see. Working with clients is that it's a rule they have in their head is the issue. It's not necessarily that they physically can't do a thing.

Sometimes it is. Absolutely. You know, we, we work a lot with people where we have to modify what we're doing based on, on what they're physically able to do. But a lot of times it's just a silly rule that, that they have in their head. 'cause we all have silly rules in our head.

And one of my favorite examples of this was I had a client who did not have a fence in backyard. They lived in a town home. And this happens so frequently in this area in the spring where it's, it's the first few nice days and I suddenly get an influx of emails from my clients where they're like, my dog will. And I'm like, I. Yeah, I don't wanna come inside either. I can't, I can't blame them. It's finally nice after like six months of winter.

And so that's what was happening with this dog Bagel, was his name. Yeah, he's, he was very cute and uh, he was having a hard time. They had to walk him, he was lying down on the walks, all of that sort of stuff. And I was like, it really sounds like he just wants to hang out outside for a little bit.

And and so I said, well, we have the back patio. Can he hang out on the back patio? And his mom said well, I, I can't just stand there that long. And, and I said, could we put a folding chair out there? They didn't have any furniture out there. And so I said, can we put up a folding chair? And she was like, oh, yeah. We can. And so she put up a folding chair and bagel could just, bask in the sun and that solved the problem. But yeah, a lot of times it's just very, very simple things like that where we're, we're turning mole hills into mountains. And regardless of the size of the issue or whether we think it should be an issue, it is, and we have to address it.

[00:44:06] Emily: And like I, I don't know this for a fact, but I bet you that being required to sit outside in that chair while her dog enjoyed the sunshine, encouraged her to meet some of her own needs like relaxing reading. Playing a game, like something on her healthy mind platter. So like her dog probably also helped her to meet her own needs.

And also I wanna say that sometimes those silly rules in people's heads come from very not silly sources, like tremendous social pressure from family and friends, neighbors or real, very real trauma that they've experienced in the past. And so, like, we also have to, to treat those. Silly rules in their head with a lot of deep respect and care and compassion because we don't know when it's just like, oh yeah, why do I think this?

Versus like, I can't do this because childhood trauma, we don't know when somebody's rules in their head comes from something really, really serious to them, or when it's just something that they haven't put a lot of thought into. So we owe it to our clients to treat it seriously regardless.

And I think that's a, a big thing that happens a lot is I, I know I've gotten several clients who had worked with previous trainers who had shamed them or tried to force them to do something and they, not only did they not feel listened to, but they felt re-traumatized because the trainer was running roughshod over their trauma responses.

And so. I, I just think we need to be aware that like whether or not the silly rule is for a silly reason, we, we need to take it seriously and just partner with them to help them come up with better solutions for them that actually works to meet everybody's needs as much as possible. But again, remembering that we are not gonna fall for the Nirvana fallacy either.

And sometimes things are just suboptimal. Like, yep, Osos life was not ideal. And what Ali's life in the hospital with multiple broken bones and a really bad dislocation also suboptimal. So like, why, why does Oso deserve a better experience than Allie? Right? Every, we all, we're all in this together, we're all going through suboptimal experiences together, and that's okay.

Right? So to recap. Conflicting needs are normal. We need to normalize them. We need to not trivialize our own experiences. Just accept them. Creativity and small adjustments can make them manageable or can actually just be a full solution so that everybody's needs can be met. We're going to pause and identify our assumptions.

We're going to identify what the barrier is. Come up with creative solutions for the barrier, and oftentimes that means asking for help from our community. Even people that you may not think you can ask 'cause you're not good enough friends, ask them anyway. All right. I've already mentioned that I wrote a blog about similar topic.

We've had multiple podcast episodes, on similar themes. All of those will be in the show notes. Recommend that you check them out because I think they're gonna help flush out these concepts. And of course, we're always here if you wanna work with us. That's like literally what we do for a living.

So we're happy to help you if you need help. Any final thoughts, Alison J Bender.

[00:47:48] Allie: I do have a thought. It's forming.

Standby.

[00:47:52] Emily: Mix those flower snakes together. You got this.

[00:47:54] Allie: It's happening. I got it. It's here. It's here. It's not eloquent, but it's here. Really my final thought is I want to highlight something that you said of, of, we're going through this suboptimal thing together. That mindset shift of, it's not just me who is going through this. It is all of us who. Are going through this, that has helped a lot to let go of the pressure to let go of the guilt, to say like, it's okay that that I can't do that because, we are figuring it out.

So, that has been really helpful and, and I think so often, especially when it feels like our, our needs are diametrically opposed to our pet's needs. It's it, we turn it into like an us versus them situation, and it's like, nope, we're, we're all experiencing the same thing, just different sides of the same thing and let's figure it out.

[00:48:57] Emily: Yeah. I feel like I, I keep harping on this and I'm, I, but it's just so true. Like, I could keep quoting Cassidy Jones from whenever she was on the podcast back in the day. Community is going to be the thing that saves us right. Lean in, and I'm gonna out myself the very quick sidebar. I believe that I teach it, I practice it. And still a few days ago, Ellen was like, for somebody who's so pro community, I've never met anybody who silos information like you do. And I was like, say more. What do you mean? And she's like, well, you, you find these resources and you come up with these solutions and you don't share them with everybody.

You just do it. And I'm like, oh my God, you're right. Like I didn't even realize 'cause I'm just like in work mode. And when I'm in work mode, I, I problem solve. And then I chunk and then I've talked about my task amnesia in the past. Like as soon as I solve a problem and the task is done, I immediately forget it ever existed to begin with.

And Ellen helps me to realize that me not pausing and marking that as a solution that worked for me that will probably also work for other people was a way that I was not practicing what I believe and what I preach. Of like, cultivating community. So since she told me that I have been much better about being like, I found this resource. Look at this thing y'all. Here's a handout.

So it, so I, the reason I'm saying that, which seems totally unrelated is because building community is an iterative process. Just like any other skill. You're not gonna immediately be excellent at it just because you recognize its value. We just have to keep practicing what it's, what it looks like to be in community and help our community and also allow our community to help us.

It is not easy, it does not happen overnight. It is, it is constant work. Just like you have to brush your teeth every day. You have to move your body every day. Building community is, takes practice and persistence.

Okay. Well now I don't know how to end the episode. Dammit. Why are you apologizing? I was the one who just like went on that like random side sidebar.

[00:51:05] Allie: So, moral of the story. Be kind to yourself. Treat yourself with grace. Get creative and lean on the people who are much more willing to help you than you think you they are.

 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. 

[00:52:11] Emily: All right. Now let's just hope that the zoom, God smiled down on me and recorded these audio files separately because if I send Ellen a single file again, she might murder me.

[00:52:23] Allie: Yeah. And she, you live near her, like it's not Yeah, it's not hard.

[00:52:28] Emily: It's not

[00:52:29] Allie: I, she'd have to leave the house though, and so like, she would have to weigh, is it worth it to murder Emily? I,

[00:52:36] Emily: Leaving the house, right? Right. She could send a skilled assassin.

[00:52:41] Allie: could.

[00:52:42] Emily: Yeah. I don't know. Ellen has a lot of like, surprise skills that you like, don't know about until all of a sudden she's got, she's showing that she's got these skills, so she might actually know how to hire a skilled assassin.

[00:52:56] Allie: I, you know what? If anybody could figure it out, it would be her.

[00:52:59] Emily: That's true. That's true. All right, well this is in the recording so she can hear all of this. We

[00:53:05] Allie: So, Ellen, please don't kill us.

[00:53:08] Emily: Don't murder me if this comes out as a single audio file. I really did test it and tried to do the thing, so I'm just saying if it didn't work, it's Zoom hates me. All right, here we go. Let's find out.