#160 - The Skill No Protocol Can Replace

Look. If memorizing protocols was the secret to being a great trainer, we'd all just hand out flashcards and call it a day. But that's not how this works, and deep down, you already know that.

Emily (she/they) and Ellen (she/her) are getting into the skills that actually make a difference, but aren’t found in any course catalog. It's what kicks in when the plan stops working, the client is struggling, and the dog just found a pine cone. Think of this as the protocol for when the protocols stop working. 😂

Whether you're a pet parent trying to figure out why something worked yesterday but not today, or a pro who's tired of spending money to realize you weren’t taught what to do in real life, with real pets, and real people, we made this one for you. 

Join our Trades for Professionals Course, designed to help you make safe, sustainable decisions in your resource guarding cases, yes, even when life is lifey. Learn when trades are appropriate, how to modify them for real-world cases, and how to teach them to clients who don't live in a bubble of perfection. Because who does!?

Check out the Trades for Professionals Course here.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Ellen: we wanna take the way we approach things from that step by step if this, this, this, this, then this to start here and choose your own adventure.

If we go this way, if this happened, go this way. If this happened, go this way. If this happened, go this way so that you're branching out. And then we wanna shift from stick with it to what could make this better When we do that, start here, then this, then this, then this, then this, then this. We can get really coercive really fast.

With either ourselves, our clients, or the pets that we're working with, because this is what's next. So do it because this is all that is. Next. When we take that decision making approach, start here. If this, then this, if this, then this. We can put safety gaps in there to say, am I meeting my learners' needs at every step?

If this is not meeting my learners' needs, what's a different approach? What is something that I could change to get us a different result than what I am currently getting us?

[00:00:59] 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...

[00:01:16] Emily: ...and I'm Emily Strong...

[00:01:18] 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.

[00:01:38] Emily: One of the conversations that I feel like I have over and over again in Pep Pro is people having this anxiety about learning all of the protocols so that they know exactly what to do in every, for every behavior on Earth.

Like if I can just learn and memorize every a, a protocol for every behavior I encounter, then I will feel like I'm good at my job and, and I'll feel confident in my job. And I love having the opportunity to reframe that for people, because if you just focus on memorizing a protocol for every behavior, it inevitably sometimes is not going to work.

And when it doesn't work, we often default to wow, this dog must be really messed up. Or we dismiss it as quote unquote genetic. Like, oh, the protocol didn't work, so this dog just has genetics that are messing it up. And that's where the in inquiry inquiry ends. Or we blame the client. Why can't I just get the client to do the plan? This, this client is so frustrating. I think historically we've called that non-compliance, although our industry is shifting how we think about that.

So that's not as often any, that's not as off, that's not the phrase we use as often anymore, but we still have those feelings of why isn't the client doing the plan? Why can't I get my client to just do it? Or people blame themselves and they're like, oh, I'm just not good enough at this protocol. I, I need more courses.

I need to collect more protocols, whatever. And I just need to say that, that those mindsets are not a sign. No. Let me, I'm gonna actually change how I say this. The idea that having a protocol for every behavior issue and just being able to effortlessly execute them as they are. Is not a sign of professionalism or expertise that is certainty culture and we do not exist in a world of certainty. Ellen, just absolutely. I wish y'all could see her face. Wow, that was a visceral response.

I will download the video and send it to Chen so that she can put your reaction on social media.

[00:03:58] Ellen: There is nothing certain about anything anymore.

[00:04:01] Emily: Super. Not super not. We live in a highly uncertain world. Yeah, so. Ethical practice, and I would say the type of practice that makes you feel like you're actually good at your job, instead of feeling like you have to just memorize all the protocols and perfectly execute them is actually asking a different question.

And that question is, what about this plan isn't matching this context? So it's really about being able to look at the learners in front of you and look at the environment that they're operating in and being able to adapt your plan to better support them rather than just being better at, at shoehorning the plan into the situation by hook or by crook. Right.

[00:04:52] Ellen: Yeah. And before we get any farther, I wanna. To define for the purposes of this episode and kind of generally what we are talking about, what we mean when we say protocol, because like I have a medication protocol for my pets, which does not fall under the crux of what we are talking about here. So when we're talking about protocols, we're talking about, let's use resource guarding for an example.

So if I have a dog that resource guards bones, I have a protocol. If I have a dog that resources guard resource guards humans, I have a protocol. If I have a dog that resource guards spaces, I have a protocol. If I have a dog that resource guards their food bowl, I have a protocol. If I have a dog who resource guards any other resource, insert all of the plethora of resources there could be. I have a protocol for each specific one. Instead of saying, what does resource guardian look like in this context, what would get us closer to our ultimate goal? So it is a very. Typically presented cut and dry. You do this and this is the result, and if this is not the result, then you consumer have messed up. You or your dog are the problem. Did I, did I miss anything in our definition?

[00:06:06] Emily: No, I think that's beautifully articulated and, and the thing is, we at Pet Harmony have training plans for every single thing that you mentioned. And also that doesn't mean that we use those training plans every single time we see any one of those behaviors. So it's not that we are anti protocol and we're like, you shouldn't have training plans for all of these things.

That would be totally hypocritical. 'cause we also have training plans for every single one of those things. But we only use them when we have assessed that they are appropriate for the, the individuals that we're working with, the context in which they're operating and their, their bandwidth, their capacity.

And, and also we are very, very flexy with those plans. So how we might ask an individual client to implement any one of those training plans can look very different. We might assess that the training plan as it's written, doesn't actually work for the individual client and their dog and their environment.

And so we might adjust that plan upfront. And then obviously, like we've been talking about, continuously adjusting it as needed, but. The idea is that the, these, these plans and these protocols, they're kind of like roadmaps. They're not a reflection of what it actually looks like to be driving from point A to point B.

In the real world. A map is like, this is what the layout typically looks like, and also when you're actually driving, it's not necessarily going to look exactly like that.

[00:07:44] Ellen: Yeah, the, for me, I'm a visual person. I love a good graphic. I'm gonna probably make Chen some videos of what I'm about to say, and this is my reminder for future me to do this.

When we're talking about the protocols that are treated like guarantees. When you do this, this will happen. When you do this, this will happen. When you do this, this will happen. That would be the language.

So if we were to have a graphic of it, it is going to be a singular, straight line, this, then this, then this, then this, then this final, we're done. There are no other options. What I prefer is to think about what could be a process. And I think what we do at Harmony is much more akin to a process where we have do this and then if this happens, do this.

And if this happens, do this. And if this happens, do this. And then from that very one starting point, you have this giant branching tree of all the things that could happen. And sometimes we loop back to an earlier point and there's a lot of movement in it, and it looks very messy if you were to graph it out.

But when you just follow the, if this, then this, if this, then this. Then you find that you aren't falling into the, well if it didn't work, it's your fault. You're falling into, oh, it didn't work. Interesting. What do we do so that we get back to a place where we're moving closer to our goals.

[00:09:07] Emily: Yeah, In my brain, it looks like a flow chart. And for clients, I call those contingency plans actually for students too. I call them contingency plans. And one of the things that I'll ask a student when they're like, do I feel ready to take on this case? Is I, I'm like, do you, do you know what questions you need to ask?

Do you know what information you need to gather? Actually, that was kind of backwards. Do you know what information you need to gather and what questions you need to ask to get that information? And then based on that information, do you know what your contingency plans look like so that you can sort of like follow the flow chart in a way that actually makes the most sense for your client?

And I think that is a really undervalued skill because it's not usually that straightforward. And so having the ability to have that kind of mental flow chart, and it doesn't have to look like a flow chart for you.

I don't, I don't, I don't care how your brain organizes that information. I'm, I'm leaving all the space for your brain to, to do exactly what your brain does. But if you don't have that ability to say, I anticipate that at this junction, we're not going to just see one straightforward path. We're gonna see multiple permutations of how a learner might respond to this.

And I anticipate those permutations, and I know how to respond to those permutations. That is where that confidence and, and skillfulness comes from. I wanna, I I, I feel like having just said that I need to acknowledge a few nuances that are really important.

First is that it is not a bad thing to want that certainty. It is a totally reasonable thing. Certainty is appealing because it reduces decision fatigue. And we are in a high cognitive load profession. And so it isn't normal, I would even say healthy to be looking for ways to reduce that cognitive load. And it feels safer in high risk cases if you just have a plan, like, I'm gonna stick to this, like in resource guarding, right?

I've got my plan, I just need to stick to it. It can feel like, uh, when you're hiking, you stay on the trail. You don't, you don't veer off the trail, right? So it, it gives us a sense of safety and it does make you feel more confident when you've got this plan and you execute, execute it and it. It goes off without a hitch.

That feels amazing, right? So there's no shame in craving that certainty that we get from this sort of prescriptive protocol first approach. That's, that's a totally understandable human thing. The second nuance that I want to bring bring to, to the surface to talk about this is that there are contexts in which you can be super, super successful taking a prescriptive approach.

And I have had good faith conversations with two of my friend colleagues in which they came to me and they were like, I don't understand your whole thing about descriptive. Like, I don't experience that. And so like, it doesn't, it feels to me like you're, you're making a big deal about something that's not actually a problem.

And we had a good faith conversation about that and I asked them more questions about what they do. The first one. Is a service dog trainer. She works at a facility and they only take dogs that have been specifically bred to be service dogs. And so they do have a prescription for how they take these dogs through this program.

And for the most part it works beautifully. And also she was actually taking a descriptive approach in certain contexts. When a dog was struggling with something, she would actually pause and split approximations to make it easier for that dog. If a dog was more distractible, she would, again, split approximations, just start in lower distraction.

So she was taking a de descriptive approach. She just wasn't recognizing it because it was in these small contexts rather than in the, the. Overarching trajectory of the training. But yes, obviously if you are doing service dog training and every dog has to learn the same skills to do the same job and they were bred to do this job, so, and they not just bred to, but they passed a temperament test to assess that they actually did get the memo that they were bred to be service dogs.

I would expect that a prescription would be a lot more successful in that context. The second context was a friend of mine. Who is a sports dog trainer. She is very well known for doing competitions, and she's very, very good at them. And she also sees dogs with, you know, reactivity and dog, dog issues and, and stuff like that.

She, it's not that she only does sports training, but when we talked about why a prescriptive approach has worked for her, we, and after asking her a bunch of questions, we realized that her clients come to her because she's a sports dog trainer. Her ideal client avatar are people who are really, really, really into training.

They really love clicker training. They are super on board with doing the, all the, the sports that she teaches and she excels at, and they acquire dogs who are going to be those competition dogs. They're, they are getting dogs to specifically do those sports with them. And so she has, uh, her selection bias is a very specific population of people who want to do the training and dogs who are capable of doing that training.

And because they are still complex, sentient living beings, they do sometimes have big feelings that have to be processed. And also they are overall behaviorally healthy animals who can respond well to the type of training that she offers to address those behaviors. And also, when I asked her questions about reactivity, the majority of the reactivity she sees it turns out is actually eustress reactivity where these dogs just get so amped up.

Which we don't see as many of the eustress reactivity kids, right? So again, like my service dog training friend, she is someone who has a very specific population, both of dogs and people, and therefore they, they are drawn to her because they want, and they thrive in the prescription that she has to offer.

So yes, of course she's not going to need as much of a descriptive approach. She can use the same protocols over and over and over again because of her client base. So I think it's really important to discuss those contexts because I know that there are people out there who are like, I don't understand why this matters.

And, and it's important to say your feelings are valid. There are reasons that sometimes this is less important, but it's important to know about it nevertheless, so that when a case doesn't go the way. You expect it to, you have the ability to pivot even if you don't need to pivot very often, even if it's rare for you.

I would say it's not rare at all for us. It's welcome to Tuesday for us. That's our client base. 

[00:16:40] Ellen: Yeah. When I'm working with my mentees and our team, I've seen this very normal developmental curve where people learn about being prescriptive and descriptive, and then they fall into the, this is how I start my cases. And then they start to see that how I start my cases is the same for every client, or is broadly the same for every client management, body language, self-regulation, creating a thinking, learning zone.

And then they start to say, oh no, I'm being prescriptive. The thing is we're looking at outcomes when we're talking about prescription and description. We all know the rules of the road. God, I hope we all know the rules of the road. You know that if you were to get on a highway or an interstate in the United States, it's probably gonna be around 60 miles an hour.

We see the signs and. That's fine to assume until you learn otherwise. So you go out assuming this is how I'm going to drive, these are the normal rules, these are the context under which they're correct. You get out there and it's stop and go traffic. You're not gonna be going 60, you are going to change based on where you are. You may not have to change. The question is whether or not the conditions request you to change and if you do it or not. So if you're worried, like, uh, yeah, I do tend to start my clients the same way.

I do tend to have everybody do knows work. I do tend to do X, Y, Z thing one. It. What comes after is what's important. It's okay to start a lot of your clients with the same thing because you're collecting the information to know where you're deviating. And the second part is there are some things that are really good money that they are going to work.

So I want a lot of my clients' dogs using their nose. Using their nose can look like nine or 10 different options. And that's where that description comes in. We're gonna use our nose if we don't want to. We have bigger problems, and how I do that is going to change.

[00:18:31] Emily: The driving is a beautiful analogy because if you think about it, getting out of your driveway and getting out of your neighborhood looks the same every time. It's not the initial session that is the most difficult one. And I think it's interesting that a lot of the professionals that we have interacted with feel like the first session is the big.

Deal. I mean, and in some ways it is because this is where you need to gather information, establish rapport, make sure that your clients are, are getting the foundational skills that they need. I don't mean that the initial sessions aren't important, but I, I think that a lot of people think of the initial sessions as the one where like you either make or break the case based on how you start it, and your driving analogy is so perfect because, you know, backing out of your driveway and getting out of your neighborhood typically looks the same every time.

It's once you get onto the highway that things really become variable. And I think that's actually a good analogy for how cases work, because more often than not, how we start a case is going to look very similar because most, the overwhelming majority of clients need the same foundational skills and they need the same relationship building with you.

We need to do the same information gathering. So I think that's, that analogy just pleases me greatly. It's giving me the warm fuzzies. I love myself. A good analogy.

The thing about, you know, these protocol first mindsets, mindsets or practices is that they can't, like, like we've discussed, they can sometimes be very effective, but the hidden cost of them is that they can become moral judgements if they don't go right.

That's where we tend to spiral. Like, oh, I'm terrible at this job. I should quit. Or, oh, my client is being so difficult. What is wrong with them? I wanna strangle them. Or, oh, this dog has some quote unquote, like, genetic issues. This dog just genetically can't be better than they are. And, and so like the, the sort of implicit.

Belief that comes from that, that protocol first approach is if it didn't work, someone failed. And that's not actually true at all. It if it didn't work, that means that the protocol is not supporting the learners involved in the environment that they're in. It's not the protocol that's flawless and everyone implementing it that is failing.

It's that the protocol is failing the learners. So a more ethical and, and really a more supportive for yourself and everybody else. Way to frame this is behavior is a study of one. Everybody's an individual. Families are not controlled environments. Protocols cannot be context proof and, and, and just perfect in all situations.

And, everything is complicated. The interrelation of the learners and their environment and you as a, as a part of their environment is so complex that we are going to see a wide variability in what it looks like to move through a case, even if it's the same behavior, same situation. I've had so many cases that upfront look like the exact same thing, and they end up taking wildly different paths.

So I think that's a, an important thing to remember is that we're not, we're not trying to get everybody to meet the standard of a protocol. The protocol should be meeting the needs of everybody. It's the other way around.

[00:22:06] Ellen: and how we do that is to use our observation skills. So you are destined, I'm gonna use really intense language here. You are destined to fail if you are not leveraging and building your observation skills. Because when you watch really beautiful training, it is subtle. It is not snazzy. It is hundreds if not thousands of little computations about if I'm adjust my shoulders this way, then this is likely what is going to happen.

If I threw the treat this way, this is what is likely going to happen. And so we need to look at what is reality and say, what can I adjust? Off of where we currently are that is going to get me different than what we currently have. And your different may not be what you want, but it may be closer to what you want than what you had.

And I think for professionals, we've had cases, if you looked at the intake form or looked at the client report, you would be like, you don't have a lot of variability in what you're seeing. And then when you get in there as a professional, it helps us to say, okay, first pass. Very similar, right? What was different between these things?

Pull out your, what was it? Highlight magazine from the doctor's office where you look to spot the difference. Do that with your cases. And if you're a pet parent, do that with your scenarios that you and your pet find yourself in. What was different about these two things? Why did it maybe work over here?

And why did it maybe not work over here? Because there are gonna be subtle differences. No two, no two times will ever be the same. That's just not the way life works. We have cells that die constantly, so your pet is a different pet than they were before. Something has changed. You are different than you were before. Your, your consultant is different than they were before, and so knowing why these changes happen will help set you up to be better at predicting what could happen in the future.

[00:24:07] Emily: Yeah. Even if you are in the same place, practicing the same skills, same time of day, there are so many differences, like the natural fluctuations in neurochemistry and hormones that just happen as a part of life, right? All of the distant antecedents, all the events that happened that day that led up to this moment are going to be by definition different because unless you are caught in a Groundhogs Day loop, nope. Even Groundhogs Day, he did different things every day. That's not even a good example. 

[00:24:39] Ellen: A good try.

[00:24:40] Emily: Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's, it is, everything is different even if most of the big contextual things are the same. So I think, and, and having just, you just said something that's really beautiful, which is notice what's different.

And also sometimes we don't get to notice what's different. Because if it's something internal, like the natural shifts in your hormones, in neurochemistry, we don't get to see that. But we can see that our learner's response is different, and we can ask ourselves what's different about the response, right?

So let's talk about what it actually looks like instead of this, what a D descriptive approach looks like, instead of a prescriptive approach. So first of all, we define the skill. We are very clear about what it is that we're hoping to accomplish. And there have been many, many times when my first definition I think is going to be sufficient.

And then as I work with my learners, I'm like, oh, that's really good information. I need to add some details to my definition because this technically meets the definition. But I can see now that I actually care about some things that I hadn't previously articulated, even for myself. So defining the skill can be an iterative process.

You can start off with a a definition, and then as you work, you realize, Hmm, there's some additional things that I care about that I didn't initially name out loud. So defining that skill and then doing a descriptive assessment of the actual antecedents behaviors and consequences that are happening in real time right in front of you.

Try your hardest to remove the stories that you're telling us yourself about why the learner is doing what they're doing and what that means in terms of who they are as a learner. That can be really hard, I know. It takes a lot of practice. I'm still not perfect at it, and I've been practicing e every day of my life for the past 17 years.

But but we can do our best to, to try to just look at the behavior that's happening in front of us and the antecedent and the consequence of that behavior instead of, um, letting those stories sneak in.

And then paying attention to what has changed. If we become really good at articulating what our goals are and observing what's actually happening it enables us to notice changes that are happening so we can see if our learners are moving towards that goal, if they're in the process of acquiring this skill, or if maybe they're moving away from the goal that things are getting the, going the opposite direction that we wanted.

Or if they're stagnating, if, if they're not changing. Right. If, if. The same thing is happening. It's good to assess why is this not having an impact on this learner's behavior? And then we can assess why was this effective in this context over here, but not so much in this context over here. What's different about these contexts and what do I need to change about my approach so that I can be as impactful in this context as I was in that one over there? 

[00:27:57] Ellen: So when we're going through this process, what we're looking to do is to take us from that very linear this, then this, then this, then this, then this without any breaks or pauses to completion, into making that beautiful flow chart, that tree, whatever, whatever works in your brain. So we may start at the same point.

We may say dog's nose working may be the starting point for me. And if the dog has a history of eating gravel, I'm probably not gonna do find it outside. Like that just doesn't seem like a great idea. There are ways we can make that safe. And also we don't need to be building all those skills. So I might do more formal nose work.

I might do. Shreds inside that are hidden around the house, I might do something else because I know if this dog is outside, we are at higher risk for eating, or heaven forbid, guarding things like wood chips or leaves or who knows what else they could find. So we wanna take our I, the way we approach things from that step by step if this, this, this, this, then this to start here and choose your own adventure.

If we go this way, if this happened, go this way. If this happened, go this way. If this happened, go this way so that you're branching out. And then we wanna shift from stick with it to what could make this better When we do that, start here, then this, then this, then this, then this, then this. We can get really coercive really fast.

With either ourselves, our clients, or the pets that we're working with, because this is what's next. So do it because this is all that is. Next. When we take that decision making approach, start here. If this, then this, if this, then this. We can put safety gaps in there to say, am I meeting my learners' needs at every step?

If this is not meeting my learners' needs, what's a different approach? What is something that I could change to get us a different result than what I am currently getting us?

[00:30:02] Emily: Yeah. And I think that's just a, a really beautiful mindset shift from compliance with the plan to showing up for our learners and supporting them and realizing that if the client's not doing it, then it's probably not doable. It's almost like we just had an episode about that on the podcast recently, um, and what it looks like to adjust the strategy to meet your client's needs instead of being like, why isn't my client doing this?

It's so frustrating. And you brought up resource guarding earlier, and I think that's just a good example because. Re guarding plans can get so overwrought so quickly, and like, especially if you're thinking about it in this prescriptive, I do counter conditioning and desensitization approach. Like it can just become really, really, burdensome very quickly.

And it's important to remember that guarding like any other set of behaviors is highly context sensitive. And it's not just about the behavior existing in a vacuum, it's about the context in which the guarding is happening. Does the dog feel safe in the situation? Are they guarding because they don't trust that their resources are going to still be there later when they need them?

Is it about control? Are they guarding because they have very strict rules in their head about allotment of resources and that really matters to their little brains. We've definitely worked with several of those kiddos.

[00:31:38] Ellen: Them's the rules.

[00:31:39] Emily: Them's the rules. 

[00:31:40] Ellen: We follow the rules.

I love a rule follower.

[00:31:44] Emily: I love a rule follower. And

also, 

[00:31:46] Ellen: Just tell me the rules please.

[00:31:48] Emily: I, I love a rule follower and also I love them for us as behavior professionals because a lot of times I think people assume that guarding necessarily is a product of anxiety or something like that, and sometimes no.

Sometimes this is just an animal who has really strong opinions and. We need to honor that and be like, okay, how can, how can we come up with house rules that meet everybody's needs and make everybody happy and work for everybody's brains? Because I am profoundly sympathetic to having rules in my head that f from from Schitt's Creek where David Rose is, is going, that is incorrect.

That is incorrect. That is how my brain works too. I'm like, no, that is incorrect. And so when I see a dog who also is having that moment of that is incorrect, I'm like, I feel you, friend. I feel those feels deep down in my bones. I don't ever want to try to train you out of that mindset. Let's just figure out how we can set up the environment in a way that feels correct for everybody's brains, 

[00:32:57] Ellen: Tangent appears We're getting our deck done. It is taking a very long time. Griffey typically had some rules in his head Downstairs deck is morning deck, upstairs deck is afternoon deck, and he is very upset that we don't have our morning deck anymore.

And 

this. Been like two months and we still have these rules. This morning he kept going to the, out the downstairs door and being like, let me outside. And I was like, do you wanna go outside? And then he'd turn and look at the door and he now knows upstairs, outside versus downstairs, outside. And I said, no, we have to go upstairs.

And he comes over to the doorway of the kitchen. And then I said, we have to go upstairs outside. And he goes to the downstairs door and is like, open. And I, we did this like three times and then finally I said, Griffey. And he comes and looks at me in the kitchen and I go, this is not a negotiation. If you wanna go outside, we have to go upstairs, outside. And then he takes off and runs upstairs. Fine. And then we went upstairs, outside.' Cause we have rules. 

[00:33:53] Emily: I love that so much. I think that's a really good example of how sometimes we can't follow the rules in a learner's head temporarily or forever. And, and so sometimes it is rough pumpkins and we have to be like, I'm sorry, I know you think this is incorrect, but this is the only option right now.

But there are, we can minimize those experiences and make sure that we're meeting their needs in other ways, but more often than not. You are able to follow the rules, or I should say, honor the rules in Griffey's head. And so that when you have those moments where you're like, I legit can't, bro, because the deck doesn't exist right now, it's not, it's not devastating to his overall welfare and wellbeing or to your relationship with him because it is a, an atypical situation.

So beautiful. I love that story. Thank you for sharing. Back to guarding. I think there are some other, aspects of guarding that people don't necessarily consider or think about. One of which is predictability, that sometimes guarding is because they, they can't predict when a resource is going to be theirs.

And so they're like, I better get this one now while I can because I have no idea when. My resource is happening. So in that context, we would focus on predictability. I, I'm experiencing with Miley firsthand that sometimes guarding is about unmet needs. That she gets crankier about allotment of resources when she's hormonal and she's tired.

We're also learning that it is also about predictability for her because she never guards from copper when it's just me. Because we have, I have a very predictable routine of how I share food with copper and Miley when we're alone. But when Chuck is there, we notice the pattern that Miley only guards when Chuck is there, because Chuck gives copper food when he's present, and I give Miley food.

That predictability is gone. If she's wait, is he getting the same amount as me? Because when, when it's just me feeding both dogs, she can watch copper getting food. She knows that there's an equal distribution of resources, right? But she is so concerned when watching Chuck give copper food and then making sure that I give food too.

So when Copper approaches me, this is a construct. I told you I'm, I'm not perfect after 17 years of practice,

[00:36:22] Ellen: You get to be a pet parent 

[00:36:24] Emily: but I'm a pet parent and this is what I observe. And, and I, and I feel like this is a, a highly probable description of what's going through her head. One of the reasons I think that she guards when, and I am saying this because she only does it when, when Chuck is home, is that if copper approaches me for food, she's like, no, you already got your share from Chuck, so you need to stay away from my food.

So that lack of predictability is a part of it. And also her, she's more likely to guard when she's tired and when she's hormonal. So like there are also other contributing factors. But, but for her it is, it does seem like the longer that we're working on this and navigating it, it does seem that predictability is a facet of it that we had not previously.

It took a while for us to pick up on the pattern that she only guards when Chuck is, is in the room. And then another aspect of it is relationship has guarding happened the other way for us, copper was guarding from Miley until we developed their relationship. So there's also a certain level of trust.

Do, uh, do I trust you not to steal my stuff that that has to happen too. 

[00:37:39] Ellen: I'll leave my wallet around my partner. I'm not leaving my wallet in the cart at the store.

[00:37:46] Emily: Yeah. Yeah. When Allie and I worked at the Sanctuary I, and we would teach people about resource guarding, I would use a very similar example, like when I lived in Austin, I would either have my purse with me or I would put it in my locked trunk. I would never leave it out. And when I was at the sanctuary, I would leave my purse in my unlocked car all the time because I was like, nobody's gonna steal my purse here.

Right. Yeah, it trust is also a facet of that. So when we are using a protocol first approach, we are at risk of ignoring or undervaluing all of these contexts that are profoundly impactful to guarding. So I'm glad you brought up guarding, because that is a, a really good example of why descriptive approaches matter.

Right. 

[00:38:35] Ellen: my dogs increase. Both of them have increase in their guarding when their stomachs hurt, and my answer is not let me let your stomach hurt and then I'm gonna teach you to share with one another. My answer is, let's figure out how to get your stomach to not hurt. And then you already know how to share with one another.

We're picking on, I'm picking on Resource Guardian, but when I was first getting into the field, I think Resource Guardian was one of those areas where I got a lot of protocols thrown towards me of the do this, do this, do this fixed, do this, do this, do this fixed, do this, do this, do this fixed. And when you are trying to learn so much, when you are constantly downloading data, it is very normal to say, I don't wanna download anymore.

Thank you. I'm just gonna take this, do this, do this, do this, do this. Just in the last couple of weeks, I had a client that was on a huge upward swing. This is a medically complicated dog, a behaviorally complicated dog. This is one of the most impressive pet parents I have ever worked with. She might be listening to this, I hope she knows that I'm talking about her.

And her dog was on a huge upswing and then had a very rapid, it wasn't even a curve down, it was like a complete drop for his progress on his behavior challenges. And for him, my first gut was, oh my gosh, you can't, again, we were doing so well. Do we just do it more? And I shook my head a little bit.

My internal brain shook it out and was like, no, we don't do the same thing again. We know what the result is going to be under the current conditions. How do we change the conditions? What, what is different than two weeks ago? Because something is different than two weeks ago. We don't have different outcomes under the same conditions.

We've already established that. It was uncomfortable having to do the troubleshooting. It was uncomfortable having to say, I don't think he's gonna be successful if we just do the same thing again. We have to do something different. But it is not ethical by my ethics and my values to put my client in that position, even if it's uncomfortable for me.

And one of the things that I have invested in, and I think many per everybody, everybody would benefit from investing in, is being able to have hard conversations without judgment and without being mean. Like it's really easy to talk about the reality without judgment when you have practiced it. So for this client, it was very uncomfortable when she had a complete, I don't know if I wanna call it a regression.

Because we know, we have a very strong hypothesis as to what happened. And it's medical. So this is medical seems, but we were able to have a conversation. We were able to get into that troubleshooting place. We were able to reflect what was different between these two days. We were able to go through the checklist of what this dog has shown us in the past and say, are you seeing this symptom?

Are you seeing this symptom? Are you seeing this symptom? And then hone in and say, based on this and past history, this is where I think you should go to get us back on the right track.

[00:41:42] Emily: Yeah. Yeah. That's so important. I'm, I'm really grateful to you for bringing that up because I think another thing that I hear a lot of behavior professionals. Saying in Pet Pro is, or I, not, not saying overtly, but the, the subtext of their, of what they're telling me is that I feel like I'm not good at my job because these situations make me uncomfortable or, or fearful or whatever.

And it, and that's not true at all. That's not true at all. I, I, I know that there are some people out there who don't feel uneasy when things don't go as planned, but I, that has not ever been my lived experience. When things don't go as planned for me, I'm also like, oh God, all I can think about is caregiver burden and adherence, fatigue.

And the fact that it didn't go well means we have to pivot once again. And I'm afraid that my clients are gonna get tired of pivoting. But I will also say that the feedback that I, a piece of feedback that I frequently got from my clients when I was still working with clients directly was you had a way to move forward every time something didn't go wrong.

And that has never been my experience with previous trainers. Every time something didn't work, you had a way to adjust. And so I think at least my ICA, the clients that I worked with. Really appreciate your ability. They don't view it as failure or you just sort of like stabbing in the dark. They appreciate that when something doesn't go well, instead of blaming the dog or blaming you, the client or blaming yourself and or being like, oh, okay, bye.

Like ghosting the client, which I was high key alarmed at. How many people have told me that when things didn't go well, their trainer just ghosted them. They just clients appreciate the people who are willing to be like, okay, that's good information. Let's pivot. So it's not, it is normal to feel discomfort and that's okay.

And also most of the time, at least with my IICA, my selection bias of the clients that I've worked with that it's not, they feel grateful, not frustrated by that. And I think that's so important because. I suspect that the reason that trainers are so likely, or behavior professionals of all kinds are so likely to blame either the dog, the client, or themselves, is because of that discomfort,

[00:44:22] Ellen: it's a defense mechanism and defense mechanisms are valid, and I do not wanna rip those from people without giving them an alternative. And for me, letting go of that defense mechanism was aligning with my ethics and values. My defense mechanism was causing harm to my 

clients and to their pets.

[00:44:43] Emily: Yeah. Your feelings are valid, but your premise is flawed, right? It's okay to to feel defensive, and also there are ways that you can do that, that you can handle that situation, that are going to give you an outcome that you would prefer. So it's not about how dare you feel defensive, it's about is that, is the way that you are acting on your defensive feelings, producing outcomes that you want.

And most of the time, nah. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna be baby spicy here because No, I'm probably gonna end up being big spicy, but I'm saying I, my intention is to go into this baby spicy and we'll see, we'll see how much salsa happens at the end of this

[00:45:20] Ellen: Intention to over impact.

[00:45:22] Emily: intention over a pack. We'll, we'll find out.

We'll find out what happens. I, the reason I feel so strongly about this is because the sanctuary that Allie and I worked with had a lot of dogs, not a few, a lot of dogs that came from a well-known positive reinforcement trainer who had all these, had a bunch of protocols for how to deal with. These behavior issues.

And what nobody saw on the outside was that when her protocols didn't work, she would ship these dogs off to the sanctuary. And so we worked with a lot of these dogs, and I'm just gonna say it, we were successful with a lot of the dogs in the ways that her protocols were not because we were willing to pivot and, and adjust what we were doing based on what the learner was telling us and the constraints of the environment.

And and I'm not saying that to brag, that is not the point of this. I'm gonna give a lot of credit to our, our behavior team lead who really supported us through that troubleshooting process. My point isn't to brag, my point is that. I think that is so harmful because so many in the, in people in the industry look up to these big name trainers and they're like, well, you are able to have a 100% success rate with your protocol.

So I just need to be as good at your protocol as you are. And that it feels so disingenuous when I was on the backend getting the dogs that ha the, for those protocols didn't serve them and they ended up in a sanctuary because of it. Uh, that, yeah, salsa, just lots of salsa about that. And, and also I think it's really harmful to say like, well, the, it didn't work for this dog because this dog is an X, y, Z breed.

So that's another thing that I have a lot of salsa about. Like, well, we tried this protocol and it didn't work, but yeah, it's a German Shepherd, so they're just anxious and reactive. It's like, no, this dog has unmet needs. We need to find a way to support this dog. Just because this protocol isn't working doesn't mean that this dog doesn't deserve support. And we do that with our clients too. This client is just stubborn. This client is unmotivated, this client is scattered. And to be fair, there are some clients that need so much more support than what we can give them and what's in our lane to give. And so we legitimately aren't able to help those people.

And I mean, that is true. We need to acknowledge that. And also I see that happening way more often than it's actually probably true, and it's not, again, I'm not blaming the behavior professionals because we are only doing what we've been taught, but I think it's, it is liberating to know that you don't have to approach it that way.

That there is an alternative to playing the blame game.

[00:48:02] Ellen: Because blame squanderers, curiosity, and you need cur. In order to be able to dig in and figure out what are the pros and cons of different strategies, what are we willing to take a risk on and what are we not willing to take a risk on? What is going to be ethical in terms of what I ask my client's pet and my client to do?

What is going to meet both of their needs? What is going to set us up in the long term versus when is it a time for like, when am I stopping a hemorrhage versus when am I healing a wound? And so you need to be able to be curious. If you are all up in your fields and your feelings are valid and your premise is faulty, you are not gonna be able to show up for your client.

The way I was able to show up for mine, it wasn't woe is me, here we are again. It was, no, something changed without question. Something changed. I don't need to feel bad about the fact that I can't control everything. I need to snap out of it in this moment and say, let's figure it out and then I'll go deal with my feelings later.

It wasn't a, the way I deal with my feelings, it is also figuring out the problems. I get a two for one. But it was, let's figure out what was different. And the thing that, so when this client first came to me, she had been through the ringer already. She had worked with people, she had already, quote unquote solved the problem.

And then the dog regressed because I told you this is a medically complicated dog, so this is not her. This is like her 18th rodeo at this point. And she kept asking me, what is different about what you do versus what I've done before? And the only thing I could answer is. I honestly can't tell you how it's different because I don't know what you actually did before.

You can give me what people told you they did with you. You can give me the titles of the things that people said, and also that does not actually tell me what you've done. And so I can tell you what I'm going to do. I can tell you my intentions. I can tell you some of the prongs that I can guess are going to be in our, in our horizon together.

But I don't know because my plan is a hypothesis. It is not truth. I come from a science and research background, and so it's a question every time. It's, it's never, this is what's gonna happen. And if we are solidly rooted in ethics and science and the interlock of those two, our plans are never gonna be more than a hypothesis because we have to test the foundation.

[00:50:36] Emily: Yes, and what that means is that we don't have a hundred percent successful outcome either, and I don't want any of this to sound like we're claiming that. We've been able to help every single client who has ever come to us. So I think an important part of this is knowing that you can adjust the plan to support the client and their pet and the environment that they have as best as you can.

And also developing an awareness that sometimes there are factors outside of your control that are going to prevent you from being successful. And, and so I, I don't wanna make the same mistake of implying that we are always, we always, we, we use this descriptive approach, so we never fail. That's, that's not it either, right?

Um, but I think the big shift that I see a lot in our students is that when they don't have a successful outcome, they don't feel as much like a failure. They're able to objectively assess what didn't work, and they're like, oh. That's good information for the future. I mean, and we can all be bummed about that, right?

I have clients that I'm still bummed that I wasn't able to help them. It's not, again, your feelings are valid. Like it's not that doing, taking this approach doesn't makes you impervious to feeling sad about a case that doesn't go the way you wanted it to go. It's that you can feel sad and also not play the blame game.

You can feel sad and really identify why the outcomes were, what they were, what was lacking, and then just move on.

[00:52:14] Ellen: I'm gonna amend what you said because, uh, there are so many clients that I wish I could have done more for. There are so many clients that I know wish could have done more. There are so many scenarios where the outcome wasn't what we had originally hoped. And for me, that isn't failure. Part of taking a descriptive approach is being able for me to reframe and say, we did in fact work through a lot of those if only contingencies.

We were able to think about all of these. Well, if I only did this, if I only did this, if I only, uh, help my client fix their timing. If I only help my client find the right vet, if I only help my client, I implement the right management. We've gone through that checklist. And a second part of that is making sure that I have surrounded myself with mentors, that at the end I can always say I did the best I could, given the environment and the systems that me and my client were working in.

Because, because we're working that's a whole other, that's a whole other tangent. I'm gonna pass that one. And come back in, in the second part in Pet Pro in particular, um, we talk about the ones where we wish we could have done more because it's really important for people to see that. Like, no, I don't get the outcome I want all of the time.

And that's also okay because the outcome I wanted may have not actually been the best outcome for everybody involved.

[00:53:48] Emily: Beautiful. Yeah. Thank you for amending my statement because you are correct that when I used the word failure, I wasn't thinking that we failed. What I was thinking was we have had outcomes that were not what we wanted. That a lot of times people consider failure. That, that people have a, a tendency to feel like I failed and I'm, the, the point that I was trying to make is we also have outcomes like that.

But you're absolutely right. We don't think of them as failure. We think of them as we, good information. We learned things from those situations. And also we have a, a very clear recognition that some things lie beyond our control. And there are lots of, if only scenarios in life that it's like, okay, but we don't live in that world so we can't have those outcomes. So yeah, that was a really important, important amendment and I appreciate you for articulating that. 

[00:54:49] Ellen: I've recently had a client that had to make a, a hard decision. It was the right decision. It was a hard decision nonetheless. And I was in that moment of like, man. It was the right decision. And I wish I could have done more to support them and not necessarily in order to get behavior change, not necessarily in order to have a different outcome, but like, I wish I could have done more for that human because it was a hard decision and I was telling Nathan about it.

And he goes, you provided behavioral hospice. That's what you were able to do for them. And I was like, wow. Yeah, you're right. Sometimes that's what we are doing. And it's hard because we don't go into it knowing that we're, sometimes we do, but we don't know that we're going in with that behavioral hospice.

We're just going into it and seeing where we land. And the outcome happens to be that behavioral hospice.

[00:55:36] Emily: Wow. I love that phrase, behavioral hospice, stealing that, 

[00:55:39] Ellen: When Nathan said that, I was like, that's powerful.

[00:55:42] Emily: that is powerful. Yeah. So knowing that we operate in a messy, imperfect world and sometimes we are not going to be able to, get the outcomes that we had hoped for, or sometimes we're just not able to be. The person who gets the client there.

[00:56:01] Ellen: When I'm looking at this as a hypothesis, and I have my predictions, my predictions are very high, that some aspect of this is going to turn out a way that I expect, and this can be very small.

Like if I put a treat on the ground, I expect a dog will eat it and move in a very particular way. When we see that that's not the case, the things that I, I look to are what assumptions did I make? And so if I have a prediction that if a person puts a treat. Six inches from their toes and the dog eats it and they might take a step back depending on the size of the dog and look up at their person and the dog just hangs their head at the ground.

An assumption might have been that their neck was stable, we might have some neck pain that I didn't know about. And now I do. I'm gonna look at the skills the learner didn't actually have yet. So did I make an assumption on either my client's end or my client's pet's end that said, I think this is what's gonna happen given what I think I know about you two.

And also, it wasn't that this wasn't the right prediction, it was that I was wrong about what skills do you two currently have developed as a unit? I'm gonna look at contextual variables that weren't trained yet. So if I have for example, a dog. That is resource guarding and we've done a lot of stuff in the house and then they find a pine cone outside and suddenly we've never worked on anything, ever.

It wasn't that it didn't work, it's that I sort didn't know that pine cones were also going to be a problem. And we may need to work through pine cones specifically. And then I'm gonna be looking at are there any competing needs that weren't addressed? So if the kiddo that I just talked about that had the fell off the, the cliff of progress, that's, that could be a thing.

The cliff of progress. For him, we had started to see some, some symptoms that. Last time we saw them, clued us into there was some underlying pain. And so for him it wasn't, yeah, let's just keep practicing him being home alone when that's clearly not working. It was, let's get you into your rehab vet to go do the things that alleviated pain before, and then let's see where we are in terms of his ability to progress through some stuff.

What is important is that I see that it's not working and my answer isn't, do it more, just keep going. 'cause clearly the last three times it didn't work, but the fourth time, the fourth time is gonna be the magic time that everything is changed. I'm not raising criteria based on whims. We're raising criteria based on what we're actually seeing accomplished in the unit, in the context, and then we're trusting the process.

I have enough history to say this is a rough guideline, and I have enough mentorship to say, even if I don't have enough history, my mentors have enough history to say, let's try this, but it's not do this and here's your outcome. It's do this and then assess, do this, and then see what happens.

[00:58:59] Emily: All of this hopefully will help behavior professionals listening to understand that confidence is not certainty. Confidence is the ability to adjust to you go in a highly uncertain world. It's, it's knowing how to respond. I started to say when certainty breaks, but I don't think certainty ever exists long enough to break. So I'm just gonna say it's confidence is knowing how to not rely on certainty.

[00:59:31] Ellen: I think confidence is knowing certainty doesn't exist and feeling exhilarated by it.

[00:59:37] Emily: I feel liberated by it. Because that means that I don't have to live up to a protocol. I can just work with the learners in my care and just roll with whatever happens. That is so much more freeing than having to like follow this rigid structured thing that may not actually be fun, be reinforcing.

[01:00:03] Ellen: I think the key takeaways are protocols or the things that promise if this, do this, do this, do this outcome. What we're looking for is to create a plan that is hypothesis and test. Try this. If this happened, do this. If this happened, do this. If this happened, do this, and then circle back and reassess and readdress and do it again.

If we were to take language from the enrichment framework, and if you are a parent, I know how much comfort comes from knowing what to do, and knowing what to do doesn't require certainty in your environment. Part of building my client's plans is making sure that they're, when I'm working with clients, one of the biggest questions I get is, okay, but what if my dog sees a dog on a walk? What if my dog here's a knock on the door? It's not, don't assume that that's never gonna happen. Here's what I want you to do. When life is uncertain, very, um. It gives you some predictability and control and confidence in a way to move with your pet.

And for pet professionals, same thing. Know how to do can jive with your client and it is very hard and it takes a lot of skill and it is a thing that you will be working on for the rest of your life. And as you learn new information, you have different ifs to try, but part of that is exciting and exhilarating and thrilling and liberating.

[01:01:25] 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. 

[01:02:17] Emily: Chad, what are you doing? What is happening?

[01:02:20] Ellen: Is she throwing? 

[01:02:21] Emily: I'm thinking No, she found, I, I have a planter that has the uh, those oh my gosh, why can't I like aquarium gravel or lack of a better word at the bottom 'cause I'm about to transplant one of my succulents and she was like nuzzling into

[01:02:38] Ellen: Don't eat rocks. Do not eat rocks. 

[01:02:40] Emily: It seemed just pure like sensory stimulation for her. 'cause she wasn't eating them, but she's just like sticking her face in and moving them around her face around and I'm like, Miley, 

[01:02:49] Ellen: Yeah. I just don't trust your dog.

[01:02:51] Emily: I appreciate that you're providing yourself with sensory enrichment.

And also please don't, let's find another way for you to, to do that because you're making a big mess.

[01:03:01] Ellen: Uh, this does not meet my needs. 

[01:03:02] Emily: Let's find an enrichment activity that meets both of our needs.

That That ain't it? Yeah. All right. What were we talking about? I forgot.