#144 - Learning Over Threshold?

Ever try to teach your dog something new only to realize both of you are way too stressed to even remember your own names? Same. In this episode, Emily and our newest Pet Harmony team member, Veronica Garcia, dive into the “thinking and learning zone”. Learn what it looks like, why it matters, and why your dog suddenly forgets literally everything the minute stress walks into the room.

We talk about how bodies (yours and your pet’s) do weird things under stress, how foundational skills matter way more than they get credit for, and why sometimes the best thing you can do is skip the walk and grab a frozen lick mat. Veronica brings her vet-med and behavior background to the table with real-life examples, plus some “yep, been there” moments from her own pups.

If you’ve ever wondered why training feels so hard on “one of those days,” this episode will help you breathe, regroup, and get everyone back into the zone where learning actually sticks.

TLDL (too long, didn’t listen): 3 Key Takeaways 

1️⃣ Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should – Learning during high levels of stress can happen, but it’s usually not the learning we want. If your dog (or you) is already over threshold, the goal shifts from “teach the thing” to “get everyone back to thinking/learning.”

2️⃣ Body language beats guessing every time – Understanding what you observe in your pet, their ears, eyes, tail, muscle tension, matters way more than the story in your head. When you know your dog’s actual ladder of escalation, you can step in early instead of trying to clean up a full-blown meltdown.

3️⃣ Support the human to support the pet – Clients (and pet parents in general) learn best when they are in the thinking and learning zone, too. If you’re a professional, things like open-ended questions, mirroring, and normalizing “life got lifey” helps people feel safe, supported, and actually able to do the work.

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

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Veronica: So we like to tell clients it's okay to advocate for themselves. It's not something to be ashamed of. If you say, you know what? I just had a day at work and I am coming home and it's a disaster. I had a disaster day and now I need to walk my disaster dog, who I love very much, but I'm just not feeling it.

It's okay to say we're not gonna walk today because the more stressed you are as the human, the more that you are going to be stressed, training your dog, right? And likely, the longer that you're out, the more triggers your dog is gonna encounter, which is gonna make it harder for them to learn and for you to manage, and the whole thing just becomes a mess.

So we just tell them to avoid it. Like, cool, don't go for that walk. Maybe stick with some indoor enrichment. 

[00:00:52] 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...

[00:01:10] Emily: ...and I'm Emily Strong...

[00:01:11] 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.

[00:01:32] Emily: All right, pet parents, have you ever tried teaching a dog a new trick while they're stressed out? And, and by stress that includes just like, really distracted distraction is a type of stress. Or even if your dog is just a little too hungry, like it's almost meal time and you ask them to do something Regardless if it's stress, distraction, hunger the experiment totally fails. Right. Whatever you ask them to do. The dog's like, I can't even, sorry. Bye. Um, yeah. I mean, we've all been there and it's, it's not, it's, there's nothing wrong with your pet. The good news is your pet is be, is totally fine and is just existing in a body.

And all of us have our bodies include these like, physiological systems. And, and that's, and that's awesome to know that we are all connected in that way and we all share that common experience. And also sometimes physiology is just poop. It's just poop. There's no better word for it. It's just poop.

So today we're going to talk about the thinking and learning zone and why it matters for both pets and humans, because again, we all have the same physiological system going, and we're gonna talk about how to, to navigate that so that learning actually sticks.

And for this episode, I tapped our newest Pet Harmony member, Veronica Garcia. before we start, I need to tell you a little bit about Veronica. So, Veronica, like Tiffany and Claire started off in our mentorship program in Pet Pro. And I have been wanting to hire Veronica a very long time. And it just wasn't the right time.

It wasn't the right time. And then. I was outta commission. I didn't have my computer for almost a month. So I'm just working from my phone and I get this email from Ellen and she's like, we really need to hire a new person. It's the time I think I've got somebody in mind. But then in full caps, she says, but I need you to be cool about it.

And I was like, okay. Alright. So I'm gonna love this new hire. And then I, I rejoined the Pet Harmony team. I got my computer back and it was Veronica and I was so excited. So the reason I'm so excited is because Veronica's not just our student, she's an amazing highly experienced human being who's been working as a vet tech and a behavior person with Insight veterinary behavior, which insight is our ride or die. We also have Valerie from Insight on our team doing some stuff for Pet Pro. So super stoked to have Veronica here, but that's exactly why I wanted Veronica to join this episode because if there is anybody who has experience working with animals who are way too stressed, it is Veronica.

So, so Veronica, say hi. Introduce yourselves.

[00:04:41] Veronica: So, hi everybody. I'm Veronica. As Emily said, I was a Pet Pro member. Basically, you've done my introduction for me. I do work for Inside Animal Behavior as a veterinary nurse there, and I am starting to explore training and behavior consulting outside of that in addition to helping families of our behavior practice that are really seeking overall behavior care for their pets, but a lot of medication focused as well.

So I am happy to be part of the pet Harmony team and happy to be talking about this topic today.

[00:05:18] Emily: Yeah, I mean, it's a great, it's a great topic for you to cut your podcast teeth on because you know very well from your background and your experience that. The knowing how to work with your pet and yourself in the thinking and learning zone is so important because it reduces frustration and overwhelm. And when we try to train, when we're not in a place, and, and training and learning are, are synonymous.

So whether, whether or not you like the word training when it comes to yourself, like if that feels trivializing to you. Um, you can call it learning, but it's really hard to learn. Or teach or train effectively when we're all jacked up on Mountain Dew. So we're, our goal for this episode is that you will know how to identify when you, yourself, and your learners are in their thinking and learning zone, and you will be able to create that space for pets and their people and that you'll be able to make learning, dare I say fun, right?

Okay. So I wanna start off by acknowledging the, the yes ands and the buts that are happening in people's minds, because when we say things like learning doesn't happen efficiently in the thinking and learning zone, if your brain is anything like mine, you immediately start thinking about all the situations you've encountered, where that statement does not appear to be true.

Right. Like my brain, I just have an internal devil's advocate run, just constantly running. So if you're like me and you're like, well, but I can think of all these times that I was under extreme stress and I learned stuff, or my dog learned stuff. Yes, that is true. Your experie is valid. But we learn different things when we are stressed.

So when we're in these like high stress states, our brain is better at paying attention to survival stuff and not as good at the future planning and the skill building. So it's not that you can't learn in that state, it's that you're learning things that may not serve you well in the future or may not even serve you well in the present.

Right. And that's also true for dogs. And yes, it is possible to teach animals in a high state of stress. And, and you can be successful at it. And I will tell you that the sanctuary where Allie and I met there were over 400 dogs in the dog department at any given time. It was an incredibly high stress area with most of those dogs.

They had complicated behavior issues and there was nowhere we could take them on the sanctuary property that would get them into the thinking and learning zone. When we first started working with them, there was nowhere we could go. There was no space where thinking and learning was possible. And so we learned how to use counter conditioning to get a dog from extremely high arousal, like fight, flight or freeze mode down to thinking and learning zone.

So then we could do teaching and we had to learn how to teach skills in this suboptimal a situation where everybody's way too stressed out. So yes, it is possible. I have done it. I, we spent years, Allie and I, and, and the other two folks on our behavior team spent years perfecting the craft of training in high stress situations.

Also, I will tell you that there was a lot of, of undesirable outcomes from having to train that way, including the animals learned every time a new situation happened that was maybe uncomfortable. They didn't just learn how to process it. They had to freak out first and then process. So the, the high stress response became a part of the learning process.

And when I saw that, I immediately remembered every animal in my past, especially horses that get called skittish or dramatic or, unpredictable because they, they always have to go through a big emotion before they can get down and process. They have to have that spike. And I immediately felt bad every time in my past that I or my friends and colleagues had blamed the learner for doing exactly what our training methods taught them to do.

So, so that's one of the things, it's, it's even when it does work, there's some kind of junk left over that we really don't wanna have to deal with if we don't have to. Right. If our goal is emotional regulation, we can reach a, a training goal without ever reaching the emotional regulation goal by training in that heightened state all the time.

So that, that is why this matters. I think that's one of the biggest reasons why this matters, is that pets may learn under stress. Often they don't learn what we want and they, they pick up some other kind of superstitious behaviors along the way that does not serve them well and takes longer to unteach later on.

So there's just a lot of junk that happens along the way that's just not. It's inefficient to learn that way and to teach that way. And when we're talking about like the human experience of working with an animal and how exhausting and stressful and embarrassing that can be, uh, efficiency is really, really important.

So, let's, let's talk about how we would prefer to work if we have the ability to do it. Let's talk about how we should do it. So what does this look like? Veronica? Talk us through what we're looking for, what the thinking and learning zone looks like and what we're looking for in an ideal learning situation.

[00:11:38] Veronica: Right. Well first of all, you made a lot of good points with you can learn right? When you're under stress, and especially clients that come to see us at the behavior practice, that's probably what they've been doing because that's all they know how to do, right? And. It's not anybody's fault that these are the skills they have at that current point in time.

But yeah, it's hard. And then you wonder why either things aren't working or we have to train some of those bad behaviors out. It leads to a lot of client burnout with training. So by the time they get to us as a behaviorist and we recommend behavior modification or training as part of the plan, we get a little bit, eh, I don't know if I want to, 'cause I've already either wasted a lot of time and or money, just a lot of emotional investment in there.

So that's why it matters. And we go through this when we have orientation, when clients first come to us, how important it is to understand body language. And I know we talk a lot about that in the mentorship program and at Pet Harmony, we're big on that anyway, that is what is gonna be helpful in understanding where that thinking and learning zone is.

And it's not something to be, I tell clients this all the time, it's not something to be ashamed of if they don't know. How would you know if no one ever taught you this? Right? I, and there's a lot of us, and I used to be that person, right? We all started somewhere. So we've all had dogs for however many years of our lives, and we think we know our dogs and we probably do, but there's nuance.

And unless you're taught specifically how to read these things, you're probably not gonna know. And that's okay. We are here to teach you those things. When we're talking about body language, we're talking about things that we can see with our eyes. So you're looking at the dog's, ears, the dog's mouth, the dog's body tension, the dog's tail.

We're forgetting the stories that we're telling ourselves about how we think they feel. We're just looking objectively at what they are saying with their body. And things can go up a ladder of escalation where they get more and more stressed and they can also come back down. So we're looking for those areas at the bottom part of that ladder of escalation, where they're calm.

You see some nice relaxed ears. They are alert, they're engaged, they aren't sleeping, but they're not hypervigilant. Always looking around to what's going on in the environment. That is when they're most amenable to learning. And I share with clients that this is the thinking and learning zone.

That's the place we wanna be. If we are outside of that zone, it's gonna be so hard to teach new information. And like you said, to get that to stick. It shouldn't be that big of a battle when you're in that green zone. So that's what we're aiming for.

[00:14:36] Emily: Yeah. Yeah. And I think a question that a lot of people ask when we talk about this, both pet parents and professionals alike, ask this question like, well, if we're only working with them when they're calm, how will they learn stress, resilience? How will they learn how to handle the situation when it is legitimately stressful?

And that is such a beautiful question, and the answer is. We do work up to stressful situations, but you have to think of it like grade school. Like you're not gonna throw a kindergartner into a high school exam. Right? We have to teach them in a position where they can learn. And then it's about proofing, generalizing those skills in like, gradually more and more intense situations.

And in the episode where I interviewed Tim Lewis, we had this great conversation where he was talking about it as training the amygdala. Like you train, you do like this amygdala training, so you're training the animal how to do things when they're under this extreme stress. And I asked him, is it that they're learning how to do this under extreme stress or is it that they're just less stressed because they have the skills to know how to handle this situation?

And he was like. That's a great question. And we don't know. We actually don't know yet. We have, that has not been researched yet. So I think that my take home point from that conversation was, if you are always keeping an eye towards teaching your animal to perform these skills in a calm way, and you're gradually introducing these stressors, but your, your focus, your criterion for success is that your pet can stay calm in these increasing situations.

Whether your animal is actually stressed, but skilled or skilled enough to not be stressed, almost doesn't matter because either way, what we have, what we want is an animal who can skillfully handle stressful situations. And you know what, that, that come up in their life that are unavoidable.

Right. And that's true for us too, but we'll, we'll talk about the humans a little bit later. Okay. So, so talk about situations in which you've, you've had some real world experience with this Veronica.

[00:17:04] Veronica: Just as a pet parent, before I knew what I know now, I took my dog Preston to a basic obedience class. It's a group obedience class with a I'm using quotations, positive reinforcement training facility. And it was a small group of maybe six other dogs. And while he was already pretty good at basic manners, Sid come, that sort of thing, we got to that class.

And his fear of the other dogs caused him to forget anything about what he knew and. Again, this is back when I didn't know any better. I was just calm but frustrated. I didn't understand. I'm like, he knows how to come when called. He knows how to walk at my sign, but instead he chose to just freeze and pancake in that class and looking back, I just feel horrible for him that I, we went through that experience together and I didn't know, but have to take it with some grace.

Right? We do the best we can with the information we have at the time, but that's a perfect example of, yeah, he can learn, but just not in that environment. We weren't learning anything there. He was like, please get me out of here. I'm not comfortable.

[00:18:22] Emily: yeah. I mean, That's hard because a group classes I think are, are. Have a special kind of pressure because not only have you paid for them, but like you're there with a bunch of other people with their pets. And so you feel like you're like maybe a little bit of performance anxiety and you feel the pressure to like please the teacher and follow the instructions.

And so I think I've even found myself in situations where when I've taken a, like a foster dog to a, a group class, I have pushed my dog farther than I would in other contexts because there's like that pressure. And so like you, you did a beautiful job of saying you give yourself grace and you did the best with the information you had at the time.

And also. I think group classes are a place where even when people have better information, they still feel pressured to push their dogs farther than they would. So I think one thing that would be helpful in group classes is for the, the teachers of group classes to upfront give people permission to remove their dog from a situation or opt out of an activity if the dog is a little too stressed.

And, and I would even say like guiding their students to say, okay your dog is taking food a little bit frantically right now, so that tells me your dog's a little more stressed than we would like them to be. So what happens if we move them behind a barrier or move them farther away from the other dogs or work on something easier?

Right. So if the, I think if, if group class teachers were better at modeling that like paying attention to the ladder of escalation and, giving their clients permission to do that stuff and normalizing it. I think that would be helpful a lot. And I know there are group class teachers who do that, who, who are like that.

But it would be awesome if that was more kind of common industry practice, right?

[00:20:19] Veronica: I agree. I'd love to see more of them starting off with, it's okay to advocate for your dog. Like there's no shame in that. It doesn't mean that you're behind. Everyone has good days, bad days, medium days. Right. And maybe it's, it's just one of those days. Yeah.

[00:20:33] Emily: yeah, exactly. I had an a, not, not the same experience, but I had a recent experience where I accidentally pushed Miley too far for a different reason. And that is that Miley, I, I talked about this in a recent episode with Allie Miley recently went through her big girl heat cycle and the breeders warned me.

That, it can, hormones are hard, right? And I know a lot of adult biji, so I know what their, their behavioral tendencies are. And nevertheless, when Miley went through heat and overnight became kind of resource guardy towards other dogs and became reactive, not eustress distress, conflict seeking reactive towards larger dogs it hit me harder than I expected and I had to do some work on myself.

I was like, let her go through her experience. She's a teenager. Like, stop having these expectations for her to be perfect. We all, you know this Emily, you know that puppies are more pro-social and as they age, they become less social. That hormones are hard. You know, All of these things.

Give Miley the space to be an imperfect beast because that's, we are, we are all imperfect beasts, right? So I had to go through that. I had to process my emotions. But the, the thing about this is that because I have no experience with Miley being reactive, I didn't yet know her full ladder of escalation.

And what is tricky is that her very first arousal signal is a full mohawk, and that's eustress or distress. So that is her first response. Even if she's just a little bit, like, if she looks outside and she sees a person walk by whoop, she gets, and she's very pro-social towards people. It's not, and, and in play.

She has full, full mohawk the whole time. We call 'em her racing stripes because. She like gets, she like sees another dog, she gets her full mohawk and then she's like gets wiggly and starts playing. 

So if that's her fir the first rung on her ladder of escalation for eustress or distress and it looks pretty dramatic.

And I don't know the rest of her ladder of escalation, what that set me up for was we were out on a trail. I was taking her on an adventure walk. Someone walked by with a Norwegian L Hound, which is significantly bigger than a baji, and she got a racing stripes on. And I was like, oh yeah, like cool.

She's, she's fine with this dog. And then the dog got closer and she went, she got tense, like all of the sudden all of her muscles sense up. And she was like, and she kinda like pulled it to the end of the leash, like lunging at this dog. And I was like, oh. And so, like, I, I called her, I, I gave her her her kind of emergency recall cue, which usually means cheese or high value snacks of some kind.

And she just couldn't hear it. And I was like, oh my God. Like, oh my God. Like she's way over threshold. Like I should have gotten her out of this situation way sooner. But I didn't recognize it because I haven't practiced that yet. And I think that's important for people to hear because I do this for a living.

I have a reputation at being very good at helping clients navigate their pet's maladaptive behaviors. And I hard failed with my own dog because I had not yet done the work of identifying her ladder of escalation. So like there's no amount of knowledge and skill that lets you cut those corners. You have to do that work that you were talking about of identifying body language and identifying what body language signals indicate the next rung up on that ladder of escalation.

And if you haven't done that work yet, you're not going to be successful, even if you have years of experience doing this really well. Right. So like my mess, mess up with Miley is a really good lesson that like. That you have to do that work regardless of who you are or how, how much experience you have or how much, you have to do that work to, to really support your animal well.

And now I know that Miley needs some, to learn some additional skills. She needs to learn the flight cue. She needs to learn how to do engage, disengage her, like check-ins in higher stress circumstances. She can do it really well when she's less aroused. Right. But now I know we need to generalize that. So we, I know that we have some skills to work on with her.

But, but yeah, it's just, it's, you can't skip that really important work. It's really

necessary. and to your point, things change, right? Things change over time. So just because you do it once. Like I've observed my dog this one or few times doesn't mean that that might change as they age. Or if you've just rescued a dog that's a puppy or adult, like everybody's at a different learning stage depending on their life, and things will become different over time.

[00:25:53] Veronica: Preston, as he is gotten older, his ladder of escalation, deescalation are changing wildly at this point. So it's something to just always keep at the back of your mind that it, it's not always set in stone, it's fluid. And over time it's gonna fluctuate and that's normal. And there will be those times like you had where you're like, oh crap, I miss that.

And we were surprised also. That's okay. Now we know we've got some skills to onboard. Let's go ahead and do that. It's not the end of the world.

[00:26:22] Emily: Yes, exactly. Yeah, it is. Okay. We make mistakes. We learn from them and we do better moving forward. And you're absolutely right, like enrichment is a cyclical process as long as the animal is alive. We have to keep doing that process of like the enrichment framework of like, what are the unmet needs?

What are our goals? How are we gonna reach those goals? How do we know that we've actually reached the goal or we're moving towards the goal? Right? And that shifts over time. Copper has fewer rungs in his ladder now that he's 16 and a half, almost 17. He just escalates much more quickly. And it is legitimate.

Like he's legitimately totally relaxed. Like he'll even be asleep, which is the least stressed you could be. And then there's just very, there's just fewer rungs on his ladder as he's gotten older. So, I've had to learn to, to see when he's just starting to climb because he'll, he'll go zero to 60 a little bit in his old age.

He's, become a crotchety old man. 

[00:27:25] Veronica: Preston 

does the same thing. Yeah.

Especially if we're getting food ready. He is 12 going on 13, but he is a little dog, a little small breed terrier thing. And he can be relaxed like sleeping in his dog bed. And as soon as I start getting meals ready, he is like 60 and he starts working uncontrollably, which he never ever used to do until like the past year or two.

And he is just bananas over what's about to happen. And that's what he used to be the case. So.

[00:27:55] Emily: yeah. It what? I feel like that's a thing. I don't know if I ever knew or if I forgot. 'cause it's been a long time since I was a vet. Tech. Do we know, like why as dogs age they just get way more amped up around food?

[00:28:14] Veronica: For him, I sus, I suspect that it's a little bit to do with his vision as well, because he's following me around the house a little bit more and he, he just can't see that well, he's got some lenticular sclerosis and I can see that when he's outside in the yard. So when I'm getting his food ready, to me, it seems like he's trying to keep track of where I am, so he knows where to go when the time comes and I'm putting the food down.

So I think that's part of it, because if I gate him off somewhere else while I prepare the food, he's much more calm. He's not like right next to me. He's like in his matted place, like just waiting. He's a little bit less excited if I do that.

Anecdotal information there.

[00:28:58] Emily: Yeah, I'm, I'm just curious about it. 'cause I've, I've seen that in a lot of senior and geriatric dogs that they just become very persistent about food. And copper definitely is like that too. Like, he's very insistent that we share our food with him. He, he'll go to the kitchen and he'll like, ask for food, like nudge at the fridge and like, buddy, you already ate.

So I was just curious if, if we know why that is, but it's okay. But it is good to know that like if you have an older dog, you may wanna pay attention to food as a potential stressor. Not to not use food and training. We just did an episode on how to make food less exciting. But that if you're trying to keep your dog in thinking and learning zone and the food that you're using.

Is working against you in that regard. You may need to do some work around, like, some foundational work around can my dog be in the thinking and learning zone in the presence of food? So that's part of it. Yeah. And this isn't just about pets, pet parents, clients and professionals. We also, like I said at the beginning, have the very similar physiological systems as non-humans, especially dogs and cats, the, the pets in their home.

And and so it's the same for us. It's really hard for us to do our best skill building type of learning when we are also too stressed. Right. So. Let's talk about how we help support our clients and ourselves when, when we are in that situation as well. How do you support clients when you see that they also, like their pet, are not in the thinking and learning zone?

[00:30:47] Veronica: Well, we see a lot of clients, especially that are having a hard time on walks. Whether it's pulling on leash or lunging or barking, it runs the gamut, right? It's the things that happen when you walk your dog outside, whether it's in the suburbs or in the city, and everyone has this belief that that's where the physical exercise takes place, and it must be done.

Now, granted, there is something to that if you're living in a small space or there is no other way, and, and you have to go outside for that walk for elimination, sure. But if that's just the, if, if going out for a walk is the only thing that you're doing for like enrichment, then there are other ways that we can achieve that inside.

So we like to tell clients it's okay to advocate for themselves. It's not something to be ashamed of. If you say, you know what? I just had a day at work and I am coming home and it's a disaster. I had a disaster day and now I need to walk my disaster dog, who I love very much, but I'm just not feeling it.

It's okay to say we're not gonna walk today because the more stressed you are as the human, the more that you are going to be stressed, training your dog, right? And likely, the longer that you're out, the more triggers your dog is gonna encounter, which is gonna make it harder for them to learn and for you to manage, and the whole thing just becomes a mess.

So we just tell them to avoid it. Like, cool, don't go for that walk. Maybe stick with some indoor enrichment. If you have a Kong or a puzzle, some long-term calming project that they can work on, kudos If you've prepared this in advance, if you have super low bandwidth, so you don't even need to take a lot of time to put it together and have that be a way where your dog can either forge some treats around the house, do some shredding, do some licking, anything that gives them some mental enrichment while also getting some of that physical activity out too.

[00:32:50] Emily: Yeah. Yeah, that's a really good point that what you can do instead is find a different way to meet your pet's needs. And if you don't have the skills for that, you don't have an idea on how to do that that's what your behavior professional is for.

You can reach out to them and be like, I can't do these walks. They're so stressful. What are some other ways that I can provide mental and physical exercise for my dog? And we have talked about this a lot in the podcast, so you've got free resources. I'm sure other podcasts also have ideas. So you, you can use free resources if you don't have a behavior professional yet.

But if you're really struggling with this, like that's, that's the, the point of our job is to support you through the challenges that you're experiencing with your pets. So, that's, that's a big part of it. And I think like one of the things that we as professionals can do is just like we talked about with the group classes, like front load, the normalization of self care, right?

Like, just be like, so you start off your working relationship with your clients being like, it is okay if you are too stressed out or too tired to process this new information to follow the training plan that I've given you. The reason that our management strategy exists is so that you have the, the space and the grace to be a human and take care of your needs.

And then when you're ready and able. You can do the thing, right? And so I think if we just start off our relationship telling clients it's okay to tell me no it will go a lot better for everybody. And our clients will be less stressed overall. And we'll be less stressed too, because I know, I very know like Pet pro, like all I do all day every day is support other behavior professionals.

I know like part of it, the part of the reason that. Professionals push their clients is because they are feeling pressured to give their clients results. And so it's like client, you have to do the thing that I've told you to do so that I can prove to you that I'm valuable and I know what I'm talking about and I'm good at my job.

And it's like, yes, if, yes, the best way to prove to your client that you're valuable and you know what you're talking about and you're good at your job, is to support them and alleviate their pain points and help them navigate the emotional complexity of having this animal with multiple challenges.

Right. So, so yeah, it's, it, it is really important to pay attention to all of that. When you have done the work of identifying your own ladder of escalation and deescalation.

Did you have any discoveries along the way of like, oh, it turns out that this thing that I do is a signal that I'm getting more stressed out.

[00:35:35] Veronica: I know I'm getting more stressed out when I can't focus. When I start, I'm generally good at multitasking, but I know that if I start getting a little stir crazy in my brain and it's just in a 10 million different directions, that's not normally me in a way that I can't sustain it. So that's a good first sign of, okay, I need to take a deep breath.

And I usually reach for my crisis kit. I do some breath work, I do some grounding exercises, and just being able to acknowledge that is a big step for me because I wasn't always able to do that. So the fact that I can even know how to calm myself down is pretty huge, pretty proud of that. And then after that, it depends on how I proceed.

I often find that going for a walk is very relaxing for me. So for me it's a little bit opposite. I, yes, my dogs have reactivity and issues with other dogs on walks, but my daily life is set up that we go to places where I'm very unlikely to encounter other dogs. So me actually going for that walk helps me.

It helps get me out of that, that funk a little bit if I'm stressed from other things going on in my, in my day. But I do normally share with clients when I start working with 'em that I love that transparency. So while I'm there to advocate for them, they need their own oxygen mask before they can put it on their dog.

Right? So I tell 'em that if we are going through our training plans and if they, something changes and there's stuff that's come up with the family or with life that you didn't expect and we're getting behind. I just had this happen with a client where they were all about all the homework things we discussed, but by our third session, life got lifey and things changed and they got behind on homework.

And because we sent that precedent in the beginning of it's okay to tell me that they did. They said, we're overwhelmed. We're behind on our homework. I said, that's awesome. It's not awesome, but it's awesome that you're sharing that with me so we can pivot, narrow down where the really sticking points are, and let's just make it even more simple and focus on one thing at a time, and we're gonna make so much more progress that way they'll feel so much less overwhelmed that way.

Everybody wins.

[00:37:55] Emily: I love that example because you are modeling how to, complete your own stress response cycle while helping your client to do the same. So it's like we're all decompressing at the same time. And, and by helping 'em to do that, you help yourself too. We say this all the time, like, self-care is client care, self-care is community care.

But I think that can be pithy and hard to sort of like connect the dots to real life. But that is a really good example of how self-care is client care, 

right? 

Because you are taking care of yourself and you're, and you're doing that with your client. Everybody's benefiting from that, right? And I think for me, and I think you, you mentioned this as well, and I'm gonna just expound on what you said.

Learning that self-regulation, learning about not just how to complete my stress response cycle, but also. What my ladder of escalation looks like has definitely been an iterative process because the more that I've worked on it, the more refined it has gotten. And I used to say the first rung on my ladder of escalation was that I would feel this sort of like.

Burning sensation in my solar plexus. I, and when I say I used to say this, I mean, like a couple of years ago, like, I used to genuinely think that that was the first rung that I, my first sort of sign of stress was this kind of burning sensation in my solar plexus. Then I have realized over the past couple of years that that's not actually true, that I have been able to identify other rungs before that.

And so I've gotten even better at, at catching myself earlier on in that escalation process. And what's fascinating is that the actual first rung on my ladder of escalation is that my sensory processing sensitivities get amped up and I become more sensitive to sensory input in my environment, which increases my startle response.

So the first behavior that I can observe in myself that tells me that I am a little bit dysregulated is, is when I start having like a startle responses to unreasonable things. And this just happened, like we went to the Olympic Peninsula. We were out there for nine days, I think. And it was lovely. It was a lovely trip.

It's my favorite place in the world. It was delightful. We had so much fun with Miley, but when I got, we, when we got back from that trip, I noticed that I was having these big startle responses to little things. And I didn't feel stressed. I didn't feel that stressed, but I was like, you know what? I am a little bit stressed because.

Even if I'm traveling to my favorite place on earth, travel disrupts my routine.

The planning and execution of travel is draining, even if it's fun, it might be eustress, but it's still stress. Miley went into heat while we were in the Olympic Peninsula and she came back and she, like the first thing she did when she walked back in the door was roll up on copper and be like, you better leave my people alone.

These are my people now. And like, got really agro with him about like, existing in our space, right? So like there were these little stressors, but I didn't, I didn't clock that I was stressed until I observed my startle responses being outta whack. Then, then I was like, oh, I actually need to do some work, some decompression work before I escalate so that I don't.

So that I don't escalate. It's that simple, right? We don't want to escalate because we're not, we can't show up for ourselves and for other people when we're in this sustained state of, of stress. So that was like a really big aha moment for me that, like I say this all the time to clients that like, just start with whatever ladder of escalation you can currently identify, and over time you'll know your, your pets better, and you'll be able to refine that ladder.

And, and it was a moment where I was like, oh, that's true for me too. Like, that's true for us too. Like our own ladders. We also refine our understanding of ourselves as well. It's not just refining understanding of our dogs, right? Or our pets of any species. So, so that's a big deal and it's hard when you're.

You are really motivated and you're go, go, go, and you wanna do things. It's hard when your clients are like trying to do all the things. It can be hard to reign it in, but how do you do that? Talk to me about how you help yourself and your clients prevent themselves from becoming dysregulated. What does that look like for you?

[00:42:54] Veronica: For me, I do a lot of open-ended questions and really just get to where their pain point is at that moment in time, because even if that, I won't ask directly if you've done your homework or how this is going, but. I'll try to get a feel for what their current pain point still is or what the new one is, and that'll give me an indication of how much they've worked on in the past and what they want to work on in the future, and take it from there.

So it happens a little bit organically. I don't have a systematic way of asking questions and holding people accountable that we didn't do our homework or anything. But you can tell based on the level of frustration they might have over a certain topic. And then if they don't, if the frustration is the same from whatever it was maybe last time we talked or last session, we should dig into that.

What is the barrier that's preventing us from doing whatever the homework was? Is it the frequency? Is it the time of day? Like just let's start getting into those talking points to figure out what's really the root of the issue here that we can't get this homework assignment done.

[00:44:04] Emily: Beautiful. Yeah, I feel like that is a recurring theme in our navigating client conversations. Applied office hour. Let me, so let me back up and explain what I mean by that. So in Pet Pro, we have these applied office hours, which are not just, we have regular office hours where people ask questions and we talk about things.

But then the applied office hours are where we like practice real world skills and people can like take. Something practical away from it. And one of my applied office hours is navigating client conversations. And we do this role playing where I'll play the clients and let people practice the having these conversations with their clients.

And I feel like you hit on one of the recurring themes that we talk about in those office hours. People are like, I'm really struggling to get my client to follow through or get my client to tell me when there's something wrong or get my client to communicate what's going on. And what you just said is the recurring theme from those office hours is like, have you asked them enough questions to identify what their actual pain point is?

Because you can't solve the problem if you don't know what the problem is. 

Right. 

And so, yeah, what you just said is beautiful because that is, that is the core of. Everything of being able to support our clients is being able to identify their actual pain points, which sometimes the clients themselves can't articulate until you get in there with them and start having those conversations.

[00:45:35] Veronica: a hundred percent. Sometimes they may not even know what it is, but the more you ask those open-ended questions than just have a conversation, maybe it'll come out, especially if you repeat back to them. So what I'm hearing is, and what you're saying is it doesn't help, I mean it, it helps make them feel validated, but it also confirms that your understanding was correct.

There was not a different interpretation of what was said. So we're all on the same page and we have the same goals and are on a good plan.

[00:46:04] Emily: Yes, exactly. That technique is called mirroring, by the way. Where you repeat back to your client what they said to you to make sure that they feel heard and that you heard them correctly and that you didn't miss anything. So yes, mirroring is a really important component of the, that kind of client communication skillset that is so necessary for us to really, truly support our clients and help them stay in the thinking and learning zone as well, so they're not just existing in the state of chronic stress while working with us.

So one of the things I wanna highlight from what we've been talking about is like, I feel like a recurring theme in, in everything we've been discussing today is that part of the ability to keep everyone in the thinking and learning zone is understanding what foundational skills are and when we need them, when we need those foundational skills.

Because like, for example, if, if you're finding out that like, one of the issues that your client is, is struggling with is that they're trying to get their dog in the thinking and learning zone, but they're using food, and food is, is increasing the dog's arousal.

People might think the foundational skills are priming the clicker or look at me or hand targeting or sit, and none of those things are relevant. The actual foundational skill is can your dog work around food while still in the thinking and learning zone? So we need to go start way back. We've started way too far forward in the plan.

We need to go all the way back to the basics and just work on can you be cool like fonzi around food, my friend. 

Right?

[00:47:57] Veronica: And I think a lot of the times we as be behavior professionals, and also the clients, they wanna go straight to the fun stuff. And what we think is going to be that one skill or that one technique that's going to fix the issue. But it's usually not that simple. And there's usually something further back in those foundational skills that we need to start with.

And doing something like a treat preference test is, it's something I recommend a lot. If you don't know what your dog's preferences are and what is best for different situations and for different levels of stress, for thresholds, we're gonna need to start there before we talk about walks outside or whatever the issue is.

[00:48:41] Emily: yeah, yeah. I I talked through how I teach loose leash walking in one of our pet pro sessions, and I was delighted by how many people in that session were mind blown because I was like, I, well, I start loose leash walking. By not walking. I don't actually start walking the dog on a leash outside the house until like week two because we're working on all these foundational skills first.

Like, can you wear a leash without getting all jacked up on Mountain Dew? Can we, can we just like habituate you to the leash so that the leash does not become a signal for your stress to spike? Can you hang out with me and do scent work? Like can you do find it? Do you know how to do that with me? Okay, now can I hold your leash while we do find it in the house And we just built, we just keep building skills like that.

We just scaffold the skills. And by the way, I don't do that with every dog. I didn't like, there are so many dogs that you don't need to do that. But we were, in this context, we were specifically talking about these large breed dogs that are really high energy, that pull really hard and can like drag an adult human down the street.

Like how you do that. And I was like, well, I don't start with walking because starting with walking is too far advanced. You're, you're starting your learner in a place where they're already way over threshold and they don't have the skills yet to come back down from threshold. So like if in, if you want to do successful loose leash walking with a large breed, incredibly high intensity hard pulling dog, you, there are so many skills that you have to work on.

And again, your criterion is that you don't move on to the next skill. You don't scaffold the next step until they can do the current skill in their thinking and learning zone. 

And so we were just talking about what that scaffolding process looks like with those dogs. And and like it was delightful to see how many people were mind blown by that.

But I was like, yes, that's, that is where. The the learning needs to happen. Those foundational skills that we often take for granted and overlook are where the animals are getting too stressed and where the people are getting too stressed. So by the time you start what you think is step one of your plan, both of your learners are already way too aroused,

[00:51:13] Veronica: Right. And I think we get that when we have a lot of our clients coming to our behavior practice. So they've done training almost like that, where that's where the focus has been. And everybody's over threshold. The dog is the human is, and that's why it's so, it's such a big ask. For us to say, we're gonna restart training and we're gonna go through foundations, and everybody's like, how is this helping?

Like we're taking so many steps backwards and it's difficult for them to understand that process, but it's because those foundation behaviors were missed the 

first time. Hey, it's not okay, but it's okay. Not everyone knows that not all trainers are the same. They're not all teaching it that way and everyone wants to get to the end as fast as they can, but that's what can lead to some of that struggle in getting there because we didn't do the work on, on the front end of making sure the environment was setting us up for success.

[00:52:10] Emily: so identifying that your clients are stressed by the fact that they have to go back to the basics. How do you support them through that stress and help them to understand why going back to the basics matters so that they can complete their stress response cycle and be less distressed about having to go what they, what they feel like is going backwards?

Like what is your technique to walk them through that?

[00:52:35] Veronica: I think a lot of it is education. I think it's all in understanding how organisms and frankly their dogs specifically learn, and also the different factors that are contributing to their behavior so that they realize that behavior is complex. It's not just one or two reasons that their dogs are behaving a certain way.

There's lots of different factors involved. Understanding just the concept of thresholds, 'cause a lot of people don't know that. It's like body language. You don't know unless someone has explained it to you. And the whole concept of trigger stacking, which continues to blow people's minds, and I love blowing people's minds with trigger stacking.

But all of those things, I think, I don't know if it's any one or two things rather, that the whole perspective, it's usually a mindset shift that happens when all of this information is shared that, oh, this is why we start here now because we're going up in this progression. So I don't know if it's one or two specific things more than just that overall approach.

[00:53:38] Emily: Yeah. I think that's beautiful. And also I. I know that people, there are people out there who are probably thinking like, my clients don't care about that much. Exposition. Like I, I, I, when I talk my client's ear off, they just, their eyes glaze over. And I think an important sort of like educational tool that we as be behavior professionals should acquire that serves us well is learning how to teach all those things through a show don't tell method.

So like, you don't have to do all of the exposition if that's not what serves your client. And definitely like, one of the reasons we, we hammer so hard on taking a descriptive rather than a prescriptive approach and like observing your outcomes and adjusting based on those outcomes is because there are some people, I am a y person, there are other y people who are like.

If you show them what to do, they want the exposition, right? So like identifying when your client wants you to info dump on them is, is also a skill. But there are so many situations where you don't have to do a lot of exposition. You can tell, like, the way that I do it with clients is like, today we're going to work on body language.

So that next session we can create a ladder of escalation so that in the next session we can start observing what things in your dog's environment are actually stressors. So that's the, the, the limit of the exposition I give them. It's.

Like, what, one or two sentences and then I'm like, let's practice this to, to see what that looks like, right? And so we can do this little practice session in the moment of like, okay, so you pulled out your toy or your dog's toy. What changes did you see in your dog's body? Right? And I'm like, oh, okay.

So what does that tell us about that toy? Oh, the toy is not interesting to this dog. The dog turned the head away and started like wandering around. Okay, that's beautiful. Good. Okay, now let's take out this piece of food. What changes do you see are in your dog's body? So you don't have to info dump on your clients if that's not how they want to learn in order to do the thing that Veronica just said.

Education does not just look like info dumping on your clients unless that's what they want, but you can reduce their stress by showing them. How these basics have value and giving them these immediate aha moments of like, oh yeah, I didn't think body language was that important, but it turns out, and we did this little exercise and it blew my mind.

Right? So I think that's such a important thing for behavior professionals to realize, because I often see these, like conversations happening be between professionals about like, well, you have to educate your clients. And then other people are like, no, just jump in and do the thing. And I'm like, y'all aren't actually.

Arguing. I know you think you're arguing, but like you're both achieving the same thing. You're just achieving it in different way. Well, you both potentially are achieving the same thing in different ways, but you'd have to observe your client's response to know whether or not you're actually achieving your goal, whether you're doing a show or a tell.

Right. So that's, that's my little Ted talk about what it actually looks like to educate people and the different ways that you can achieve that. So part of that is also creating an environment that supports your learners. We talked about this a little bit with the group class of like how there are opportunities to set the stage for, for the doc in class to succeed and normalizing what it looks like to sort of like step away from what the group is doing to better support your own doc.

Um, but what are some examples of how you sort of set up your environment for, to support Preston in in the learning process and, and in staying in the thinking and learning zone while Preston is learning?

[00:58:10] Veronica: So for him, if I am working at home, if we're training at home. I know that he and his sister Sprite, they're both reactive to dogs walking by the the house. So at the front of the house there's windows you can see outside. I like the windows open. They usually don't have a problem if we are doing something that keeps them really occupied.

But just to make my life easier and to make their life easier, I almost never will do a training session with 'em near the windows at the front of the house because it's just easy to avoid. Right? I have a choice, and sure, I could close the blinds if I wanted to, but I know that if we're doing training in that part of the house and there's a dog that happens to walk by, there's a very good chance I'm gonna lose 'em, and I also have to work harder to maintain their attention.

Or do something to get them away from the area. And sometimes, honestly, most times I'm just not having it. So we just don't practice in that area of the house because that's gonna set us up for success. I'm trying to keep them in that thinking and learning zone without being affected by the external environment.

That is something within my control. And granted, there are lots of times when things are not in my control, but when it is, I'm going to take advantage of that to make everybody's life easier.

[00:59:39] Emily: Yeah. Yeah. That's beautiful. And I think that is a really good example of how you can manage the environment. Management can be single serving. It doesn't have to always look like window film and baby gates. It can look like I'm managing this situation by practicing it in a low stress space. Right. So that like, if we're thinking about management as like.

I know I sound like a broken record, but if we're thinking of it prescriptively, like I've got baby gates, I've got window film, I'm all good. We might be missing opportunities to create that supportive environment in a one-off situation, like what you were talking about with the training. So thinking of management more fluidly than that and being like, what do we need to manage in this moment to reach our specific goal is a huge part of that.

And like the other example from Miley's recent adventure Walk where we encountered the Norwegian L Count was when I realized that okay, Miley is now reactive to larger dogs and, and we have not yet worked on the skills for her to navigate that. The temporary management solution that I had was just walking on some of the.

Smaller, less traveled trails so that we just weren't exposing her to as many dogs. We didn't have to end the walk, we just had to move off the, the, the beaten path, for lack of a better term. So that was just another example of like, how can we pivot in the moment to better support the dog with whatever situation they're currently experiencing, right?

[01:01:24] Veronica: And you're still teaching, like there's still learning happening. That's just one of those small micro baby steps in the right direction because that's what you have available to you at the time. It doesn't mean that we've gone backwards in our training or our progress. It just means this is where we're at right now.

This is what the situation lends itself to, and we move on from there.

[01:01:46] Emily: Yeah, exactly. Both of us learned a lot from that experience and we, and, and what was really fascinating is that. I got to see how she responds when she's really stressed at another dog where like the high value food was not interesting to her. She could not respond to her. Recall cue. I got to see how she responded when I tried other things.

So like I did a little, kind of like tickle motion down her spine, and that's what got her to look at me. And as soon as I could get her to put her eyes on me, I could be like, let's go. Let's go, let's go and use my, that's my like, hurry up cue that I, I usually use it when we're crossing the street because she did not understand that the street was not a place that she could snuffle around.

And I'm like, cars are coming. Let's do this. So I get, I taught her that let's go key, which means like we need to hoof it. We can't, this is not a place to sniff. So I was able to utilize that skill. But now I know if she's really, really stressed and she's not responding to verbal cues or food, I can do the, the, the spine tickle thing.

And that is enough of a tactile cue to get her to look at me and then I can cue her to, to move away. That is a really good thing to know while she and I are working on building flight queue as a skillset that she can utilize. Right. So I have my emergency backup plan, which I did not know before we had that experience.

So you're absolutely right. It's not a failure when you have those experiences with your pets. It's just more information. Right?

[01:03:26] Veronica: I love that.

[01:03:28] Emily: Yeah. Okay. Final thought before we wrap things up? I think. The, an unintended common theme of the past few episodes has been mindfulness and like part of this practice of, of staying in the thinking and learning zone and helping your pet stay in the thinking and learning zone is about slowing down. Pause, reflect, ask, are your basic needs met? Are your pet's basic needs met? Is your dog cranky because they're thirsty because it's a hot day and you've been out for a long time? Are you cranky because you're thirsty? Are you cranky because you're hungry? Are you cranky because you feet hurt? Right? So like, part of that thinking and learning zone again, is self care.

So pause and reflect on what is happening in the moment in your body, in your pet's body and space, right? Ensure that basic needs are being met and then. Think through, like, what do I need to do to get out of this situation as smoothly as possible with the least amount of conflict and drama and how, what do I learn from this and how do I adjust moving forward, right?

So that mindfulness practice is so important for keeping everybody in the thinking and learning zone, or when we get outta that zone and we get too stressed completing our stress response cycles as soon as possible. Right?

[01:05:04] Veronica: I think that's so, so important. And while I'm not as good as you, it sounds like, and knowing my body's rungs on the ladder of escalation, deescalation, I still got some way to go, some growth there, but we're making progress in that area. I can tell for sure. For example, when I come home after grocery shopping and I have all of these bags of groceries and I'm putting them down and the dogs are all over me being like, what do you have?

And I'll let them sniff the bags, but I know that I am hangry. If I'm starting to get real annoyed at, they're sniffing around and they're smaller dogs, if I'm trying not to trip over them. As I'm unloading the groceries and stuff, I have been able to tell. I'm like, I need to eat. And that's also an aside because Veronica can't live without her food.

But I'm like, I really need a snack before I just, I get real annoyed. So I have learned that if I come home from grocery shopping, I'm grabbing frozen lick mats and I'm setting the dogs up somewhere else while I grab a snack and unload the groceries and everybody's happy. But it takes some exploring to really ask yourself, why am I feeling this way and doing what's, what's best for you?

So I don't think we can ever get away from that as professionals or pet parents even. Everybody needs to take care of themselves before they can take care of, of their pets or anybody else.

[01:06:33] Emily: Yeah. Yeah. And I will say that I might be a little farther down the road than you are now, but it has definitely been an ongoing process and it will continue to be right. I think knowing yourself as a lifelong. Process. And like you said, it, it's, it's ongoing. And the more that we know ourselves, the, the better we can take care of ourselves and the better we can take care of ourselves, the better we can take care of the learners in our care.

Right. So, so that's that's a good place to, to wrap up, I think. So to recap, the thinking and learning zone is essential for pets, humans, and, and clients. Clients are humans too, but pets, pet parents, pet, pet professionals, all of us. And we can only do that really important sort of skill building and future planning work when we're all ready for it, when we're, when we've taken care of ourselves, when we've set up an environment that facilitates learning and, and communication and interaction.

And there's. So many components of this, but I'll try to recap, the highlights. Never underestimate the foundations. Identify which foundations need to be worked on. If you're a behavior professional, help your clients connect those dots as well so that it doesn't feel discouraging, like they're having to take backwards steps, but they understand the value of what you're doing and observe when your pet, your client, or yourself is maybe struggle busting a little bit, is maybe a little too high on their ladder of escalation.

And then get curious about what the pain points are so that you can get back down to date baseline, and everybody can, can get back to that. Th Nope, that's not a word. Th not a word. So that everybody can get back to that thinking and learning zone.

[01:08:25] 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. So it's also a less efficient process when we're trying to work with our, our learners way, way over. Stressful. No. Oh my God. What is wrong with me today? I do know how to use words. Words are something that I'm typically okay at doing.

[01:09:33] Veronica: You have the best words everybody says though.

[01:09:36] Emily: best works. Um, okay, I got this, I could do this.