#164 - When Management Turns into Micromanagement

Is your dog’s management plan starting to feel more like a full-time job than a support system? In this episode, Emily and Tiffany break down the critical differences between strategic management and exhausting micromanagement. Whether you’re a pet parent feeling trapped in a plan that requires constant perfection, or a behavior professional wondering if your recommendations are actually building capacity, this episode is full of frameworks and real-world examples to help you think more clearly about what supportive management actually looks like.

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

1️⃣  Management vs. Micromanagement — Management is thoughtful antecedent arrangement that reduces risk and supports learning, while giving pets and people more options. Micromanagement is restriction-focused control that replaces skill-building, exhausts everyone involved, and keeps both humans and animals in survival mode.

2️⃣  Sustainable Plans Are Built, Not Defaulted Into — If a plan requires constant vigilance and zero mistakes, it’s not sustainable. Plus, it’s probably not actually management. Great plans include built-in breaks, “good enough” day protocols, and layered fail-safes that don’t rely on perfection to stay intact.

3️⃣  Freedom Is Designed, Not Earned — When freedom feels impossible, it’s usually a signal that the plan hasn’t been designed to accommodate it rather than evidence that the animal is too far gone. This reframe opens the door to building plans that increase choice, control, and autonomy rather than restricting them.

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

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Emily: it was me who was micromanaging this dog. And the reason that it happened is because I didn't notice, I just kept adding one layer at a time and I didn't notice how restrictive.

The plan had become until I just take, took a step back and watched my client put on all of this dog's gear that was almost completely covering the dog. And I was like, no, this is not, this is not it. This is not what management should look like. This is not enriching for this dog or this person. And so we just completely shifted and it didn't look like. A less restrictive way to take walks. It looked like activities that gave both of them more safety, security choice, control and predictability without putting them in a situation where they had to be super restrictive. And then when we were from, from that place, we could then work on walks much more gradually and in a much more targeted way so that they could, we. Ease them into that routine rather than just throwing them in the deep end and crossing our fingers and hoping it worked, which it obviously was not working right. 

[00:01:18] 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...

[00:01:29] Emily: ...and I'm Emily Strong...

[00:01:30] 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.

[00:01:51] Emily: So if you have a dog who has a lot of behavioral special needs and your dog's life care plan is exhausting to you, and it feels like you have to live in Fort Knox and like, or I think of like the mission Impossible, where it's like they have to do the eyes scanner and they have to come in from the. Ceiling and they can't sweat all that. Like that kind of thing. If that's the life that you're living and, and it's exhausting to you and your dog's not loving it, something's gotta give.

So today we're gonna talk about when management stops being supportive and starts becoming micromanagement. And why that shift can stall progress for pets and burn out the humans who are trying to help them. And I wanna be clear that this isn't about pet guardians being lazy or not following the plan or being intentionally restrictive. It's almost always, I can't think of a time when I have seen, when I have personally worked with a client who.

Just really wanted to keep their dog in a straight jacket, right? Like that. That's just, I, that has never been the intention or the desire of anybody that I've worked with. So it's always, in my experience with the people that I have worked with, it has always been really good intentions trying to help their dog, trying to keep their dog alive and safe and keep everybody else safe and exist in the world.

It, it, they just feel trapped in a system of their own devising or the devising of their behavior, professional, whoever came up with the plan. And the system just requires constant perfection. Like, you can never make a mistake because if you make a mistake, everybody's screwed. Right. I feel so bad for people in that situation.

There's, this is a zero judgment episode. Aside from the fact that Ellen and I just talked about being judgy in the, the episode we recorded yesterday, in general, this is a non-judgmental, this podcast is a non-judgmental space, but I feel like. In this particular conversation, I wanna make it crystal clear that this is not about judging people who have found themselves in that position.

Because first of all, that doesn't help. Secondly, like we just, like I just said it, it's always coming from a place of good intentions and trying to meet needs. And thirdly, it is legitimately complicated and it is really, truly hard. So like, that's not. Like, I don't expect people to, to knock it out of the park without having had training in how to and how to do this.

Or like Tiffany Holmes here, just being really, really good at thinking at a systems level and observing outcomes and adjusting based on the outcomes and all of that. So, Tiffany. The reason that I have you here is because you're like the queen of this somehow. You just knocked it outta the park with the first dog that you've ever lived with like this.

But for most people it just doesn't come that that easily 'cause it's legitimately difficult. So by the end of this episode, you will understand the difference between strategic management and micromanagement. You will see why more control often leads to less progress, and you will have both permission and ideas to build plans that allow for that breathing room and ideally give you and your pet more freedom, not less freedom.

A really beautifully executed management plan provides more agency and gives more options rather than restricting and restricting and restricting. So. Let's start off with, I want, Tiffany, I would love it if you could tell us your journey with Sir Peter, because I think you are, like I said earlier, the, the queen of, or the, the monarch.

We'll, we'll say, we'll just be gender neutral here and say the monarch of, having an incredibly behaviorally complex dog who needs a lot of management, and also making the management doable for your household, and also maximizing Pete's choices in his agency, even though it is a very tightly managed household.

So tell, tell me your journey. Talk to me. Talk to me about like, how you got here and, and what y'all do.

[00:06:22] Tiffany: I just, I just wrote a blog that has like a little bit of this in there, but I guess if there was one thing I wish I had known, like when we first started on this journey is that there was gonna be a lot of trial and eval to like figure out. How it was going to work. Because yeah, there, there is a lot of effort involved and there have been times in our lives where my partner has said like, this is too much.

I can't step over another gate. And so we have to, we have to regroup because that's, that's valid. It is it, it is an interruption to daily life, like when you can't freely move about your house, because you have to know you have to know where everybody is.

So, yeah, I wish I had known that it would, it would just be a lot of trial and eval and figuring out, what was going to work, because what's important in my house is the order that things happen in as far as like when people appear and then when PD appears. So if we can get everything in place and then he can make his appearance, then it's all good. But it did, it did take some time to figure. To figure that out. But I guess as far as our household, our household set up, our management comes from everything. Like, we've got, window film and, and blinds and stuff like that to baby gate for doorways and. Some very colorful X pens with doors in them to segment off, like open spaces. And then if there are people in the house, then there's like double baby gates with blankets over them and like more visual barriers in the house. And sound masking layered in. On top of that. So it just depends, depends on what kind of day it is. Are, are memaw and people all coming over my PD for the first time actually just like saw his grand, his grandparents, the last time that they were here, I, I felt good enough to just close them in the living room and he had to go outside and I let him out and I was like, just remember you can't stare at him.

So they were very like. Sort of looking at him out of the corner of their eye. It It was very cute. And he looked at them and he barked and I'm like, yep, I see 'em. He turned around and he went outside. So, yeah, it is a lot of stepping over baby gates sometimes it do be like that sometimes.

[00:09:12] Emily: Right. Yeah. That, but you give a really beautiful. Example or demonstration. I'm not sure what word I'm looking for, but you, you beautifully demonstrate what it looks like to have a compartmentalized house that also maximizes PDs agency because of the way that he gets to utilize spaces and the way that he can move through them and also.

You give him lots of opportunities outside of the house while keeping everybody's safety in mind. So, thank you for explaining your setup. And I also love that you talked about the trial and eval component of it, of like you're gonna try something and go into it with the mindset that you are just trying it out.

Because if you're expecting this to be the right setup, right out of the gate, you're setting yourself up to be. Frustrated when it does, when it's not perfect. And a lot of people are like, well, I just tried it and it didn't work. This isn't possible. It's like, well, you tried one version of this, but like, we have to keep tweaking and trying until we figure out the kind of magic combination.

Right? So like you, you said a lot of really helpful and valuable things and now I would love you to talk about how your management doesn't actually, detrimentally impact. Pete's ability to have behavioral diversity, have a rich life filled with activities. How do you set him up so that he is content with, his, his outings and his activities in the house and his safe space and all of that? 

[00:10:48] Tiffany: So, just because I do have window film and blinds and stuff like that, there are spaces and times where he can stare out the window or

sniff out the window because he definitely enjoys doing that. So the window that's in my. Office, which none of you can see because we're on a podcast, but it, the, the, that blind is open because he does like to look out the window and he can see things from enough of a distance that if it is a dog or a person that, like, I can help him out.

He can retreat into a safe space. He can snuffle for a little while, he can shake it off,

and then I can either make the decision. I'm gonna close that or he can go back to sniffing out the window. The way that we set the, the baby gates up again depends on what's going on and who's in the house, but generally he's got access to either the entire op floor or at least two rooms, which have lots of different surfaces that he likes to either work on projects or, or snooze on. And then downstairs it's, it's, it's more like managing the people. So we have, we have that open X pen with a door on it that just blocks off the living room. Sometimes PDs the one in the living room. Sometimes the humans are the ones in the living room, and he gets the, the run of the house and then. We have a very, very small backyard that's mostly just a brick patio situation and then a dog toilet mulch area. And so we've created like a little, we call it sensory garden out there. I plant oat grass 'cause he likes to munch on that. Last year we put up a strip of AstroTurf. Everybody loves this.

Everybody loves the videos with PD scrubbing on the AstroTurf like he's a goat 'cause he likes to like rub his body against the fence. So we put the AstroTurf up there and he scrubs against it. And then I just got a bunch of like free stuff that he can either. Climb around on or sniff in. I've got like cinder blocks.

I plant plants inside of the cinder blocks. I got some bales of straw, which I thought would just be something he could sniff around or like get on top of. But he actually likes to dig at those, so he's shredded some of those up. Then I just have like, hires with some stuff inside that he can dig at.

So he's got, he's got outdoor space when, weather is appropriate. It's been really cold. And then other than that we, oh, there's also management in the backyard. So we have a tall. Fence that you can't see through, you can see through the gate. So I put, it's so ugly. I put this fake ivy on it to, to, to block it.

And then even then I ended up putting an X pen in front of, so my gate has a gate, but whatever.

Yeah.

Yep. And then there's like, uh, some shady areas. 'cause sometimes he just likes to chill outside and lay around either on the brick or in the, in the shade. And then other than that, the places that we go for walks are either gonna be a local dog park. Where he can be off leash that you rent by the hour, that's fenced and it's in the woods. So he gets some, some freedom of, of movement and a lot of choice there. And then all of our walks are gonna be on minimum, 10 feet of leash, 10 to 20 feet of leash. So he gets to kinda

as much as possible, pick, pick the routes and sniff around.

[00:14:43] Emily: Yeah, it's beautiful and PD lives a, a rich and full life and he is always got stuff going on and. I feel like every time. I see you on camera. PDs in the background, living his best life in some way. That could be snoozing in the sunlight on the bed. It could be that he's like munching on something. It could be that he is harassing you for pets, but like he's, he's living his best life.

He's a happy and content boy, and he is, he does not pose a threat to your community, your neighbors, your friends. So, so, yeah, I, I love your description of your life with PD because it's a beautiful contrast to micromanagement. And I wanna pause to, to, let's just define what we mean by management, because I realized we haven't done that yet.

But the, the function of management is to reduce risk and stress and prevent. Them from being able to rehearse, undesirable and or unsafe behaviors so that they're not getting more practice and better fluency at doing the things we don't want them to do. So that they're only getting to practice the things that we want them to do.

So they gain fluency at the desirable stuff, not the undesirable stuff. So that's why management exists and there's lots of ways to, to implement it. Management can look like a lot of different things, like Tiffany just beautifully demonstrated that Peter's management. Routine is multifaceted. It's not just window film and baby gates.

It's also where you take him, what time you take him, the, how you've set up your yard, right? But I think in general, we can think of management as. Antecedent arrangement or environmental arrangement. So you're creating an environment that supports them in learning the right things and supports sustainability for everybody involved.

That is gold standard of what management should look like, and I think you do that better than anybody I know, Tiffany, so this is why you were perfect for this episode, but micromanagement happens when. Instead of thinking about how to. Thoughtfully arrange the environment and the routine. We're focused on controlling and often suppressing every movement, every behavior that we're worried about.

Every choice is predecided for them. They don't get to make any choices 'cause we're afraid of them making the wrong ones. And then when that happens, every mistake feels catastrophic because everybody in our industry, probably, I'm assuming everybody in our industry knows the, the saying management fails, right?

Because management is implemented by humans and humans are make mistakes. Management is not bombproof. And when management fails. Tiffany's household. Your, your management setup is so thoughtfully laid out that when you have a little oopsie with management, it's not catastrophic. You have backup plans upon backup plans, you've got ways to mitigate that.

And I think that that's a really good demonstration of how beautiful management. Has layers so that to account for human error and when we're doing the micromanagement instead it's exhausting because the amount of control required to pull it off is not sustainable. And also when those mistakes happen, it feels catastrophic because it's not thoughtful, layered, antecedent arrangement. It's like it's focused on restriction, restriction, restriction, right? And that restriction is super stressful for both. The pets and the people, because nobody wants to live a highly restricted life.

That's not good for anybody's physical, behavioral, or emotional health. So on the pet end, it feels really bad to to live on lockdown and for the people, like I said a few minutes ago, it is exhausting to, huh. Run Fort Knox. It's exhausting to have that level of vigilance and control and restriction constantly in place.

And so we see that both the humans and the non humans in these who get caught up in these micromanagement scenarios end up being more inhibited in what they do. They, both the humans and the non humans lose behavioral diversity because their entire lives. Centers around this restriction. So we want to shift from that micromanagement to the type of management that you do, Tiffany, so that everybody involved can have more choice, control, predictability, autonomy.

We, when we wanna empower people to leverage management, to improve their welfare and wellbeing, rather than restrict it.

So I know I've, I've told this story on the podcast before, but I think it bears repeating in this context because it's so, so relevant to what we're talking about today. When I had first moved out to Salt Lake and I was still getting my bearings and figuring out the culture and figuring out what the heck I was doing there I had a client who had a dog that was just really struggling.

On walks really hypervigilant had, the distance at which stressors needed to be for this dog to be able to handle it was so unreasonable for this client. So the dog was just constantly over threshold and hypervigilant and really stressy. And um, we started with muzzle training. Just for safety. And then we worked on training the dog to wear a calming cap just to reduce the visual input. And that did help a little bit. We had him on, harness get up. That was like helped because the client was older.

He was like in his eighties and he had already had a prong collar and an eco on this dog when we started working together. So this dog had already been really restricted with aversive tools and those tools were not effective. We're not helping this 80-year-old man for a lot of reasons that we don't need to get into.

So, we, so I had him on this like kind of harness get up that we created that would make it easier for him to just not get pulled down by his dog. Oh, and we had like the thunder shirt too, I think. I can't remember right now. Sorry, friends, I'm migrating. So my brain is operating at like 20%, but the, the take home point, the details aren't as important as the take home point, which is after I just kept adding these layers to try to help the client walk his dog.

I looked at him putting on his dog's getup and it literally looked like Hannibal Lecter, like it looked like the dog was in a straight jacket with the mask. And I was like, this is not it. This is not what I believe. This is not what I do. And so I told him I was like. We need to rethink this because you should not have to put your dog in a straight jacket every time.

You just want to give him some exercise and do some social bonding. And in my defense, I had offered at the beginning to like look at alternatives to walking and the walks were really important to him. So we just revisited that and I was, and we talked about why the walks were important and worked on.

Creating a routine that didn't require walking, but still met all of the needs of both the man and his dog. So hearing why the walks were important to him was really helpful to me in terms of like coming up with viable alternatives, I wish I could remember what those alternatives were. This would be a much more helpful story if I could remember.

It had to do with like games in the backyard and scatter feeding and some other things. I just don't remember the details. 'cause this was almost a decade. It was a decade ago. It was a decade ago. but anyway, the point is that I, I was the one, it was me who was micromanaging this dog. And the reason that it happened is because I didn't notice, I just kept adding one layer at a time and I didn't notice how restrictive.

The plan had become until I just take, took a step back and watched my client put on all of this dog's gear that was almost completely covering the dog. And I was like, no, this is not, this is not it. This is not what management should look like. This is not enriching for this dog or this person. And so we just completely shifted and it didn't look like.

A less restrictive way to take walks. It looked like activities that gave both of them more safety, security choice, control and predictability without putting them in a situation where they had to be super restrictive. And then when we were from, from that place, we could then work on walks much more gradually and in a much more targeted way so that they could, we.

Ease them into that routine rather than just throwing them in the deep end and crossing our fingers and hoping it worked, which it obviously was not working right. So that's that's my example. I'm, I know I've told that story before, but that's my example of how I was a micromanager and I learned how to shift from micromanagement to management.

[00:24:32] Tiffany: PD has tooth resorption, so the roots of his teeth are being absorbed into his jaw, which makes Hische his teeth fragile.

So he's had two extractions because his teeth have broken. When he is out in the woods, he likes to dig, and when he digs, he likes to dig with his face. He likes to, like, he grab, grabs on the roots and pieces and like pull pulls with his teeth.

Well, I, I can't afford a, a tooth extraction every six months, so, so he wears a harness with a handle on it and I was micromanaging. I would just like, alright buddy, if you're, if you're grabbing at that, I'm going to hold on to the, to the handle. Of your harness and I'm gonna let you know, like, Hey, you gotta take a break.

And I, and I was just in the woods with him and I, I was more frequently pulling him away from things because, he was digging and he was having a good time and he was getting good exercise and he is like doing the terrier thing, but I can't have him breaking more teeth. Not only because of the extractions, but like, it, it's painful for him with which affects behavior.

So. So my husband was like, why don't you just put his muzzle on him? He's, he's muzzle trained. He can wear a muzzle. The muzzle that he has is like a hard plastic with holes in it. And I'm like, yeah, yeah. I'm. Let's do that. And so, we'll go out now and some, some days, especially because it's the ground has been frozen, he's less likely to do the bity thing when everything's like frozen. But I just keep an eye on him and I keep. The muzzle with me and if he's gotta put his party hat on because it's time to chomp on things. And that's what he does. And he's just on his way. He can sniff, he can dig, he can still jam his head down, down into things and do that thing where he like sticks his nose instead of holes and goes like, like he could still do

that just fine. Yeah. And like be a dirt man. But he's not gonna break his teeth.

[00:26:36] Emily: Yeah, that's beautiful. It's a beautiful use of a muzzle in a non-restrictive way. Like the muzzle increases Pete's options, his choices, his freedom, rather than decreasing it. And I think that is a beautiful. Illustration of the key distinction between management and micromanagement, because management is usually temporary, or at least in its most restrictive form.

It's temporary. It's not always temporary PDs, a good example of non temporary management strategies that he'll need for his whole life, but I think you probably have to, you have less. Management now than you probably did when you were first figuring him out. Yeah. For those of you who can't see, Tiffany is nodding yes.

[00:27:25] Tiffany: Yes. yes.

And part of the reason that that Nathan and I were like talking this over is because I was saying I can see. He's getting frustrated. He is getting frustrated that I have to 

keep like, like redirect and helping him take a break. But if he's got his muzzle on, I don't, I don't have to do that.

He

can just go and, 

[00:27:46] Emily: live his best PD life. Yeah. Yeah. So ma management is either temporary or the, the level of management that we have to do at the beginning is temporary and we can loosen it up as skills happen. But the, regardless, the key point is that management provides appropriate environmental arrangement.

To support safety and learning as we're building those skills. Whereas micromanagement is permanent containment and restriction that replaces learning. So instead of. Antecedent arrangement or environmental arrangement to support the learning process so that the learner needs less of that environmental arrangement in the future.

Micromanagement looks like just putting that animal on permanent lockdown. We're not worried about training them, we're just restricting them. That backfires so much because for both the human and the non-human involved, it teaches avoidance rather than skill building. It reinforces and. I would say amplifies that fear of making a mistake.

The fear that someday your management is gonna fail and everything's gonna go sideways, and it keeps everyone in survival mode instead of what we want in enrichment is not just improving welfare, like safety and reducing discomfort and harm and all of that, but also increasing wellbeing.

Allowing individuals to thrive and be their best selves, and you can't thrive and be your best self when you are in micromanagement mode, whether you're the one being managed or whether you're the one doing the management. It is so restrictive. It doesn't allow for anybody in that scenario to thrive.

And I think part of. The, the reason that they're so different is that learning requires both predictability and flexibility. So the really super restriction mi micromanagement stuff might be predictable, but it's not flexible. It doesn't give them choices, it doesn't give them opportunities to explore.

It doesn't give them the opportunities for behavioral diversity. It doesn't give them opportunities for choice. And also learning requires recovery time from stress. And if you are constantly either micromanaging or being micromanaged, you can never complete your stress response cycle because you are just living in a state of chronic stress because it is.

Stressful to live with that level of control, whether you're the person exerting the control or receiving that control. Right.

[00:30:38] Tiffany: just like any other enrichment strategy, you still have to be aware of outcomes. So one of the only reasons PD can go and lay in the backyard. Is because we've implemented management in a way, like the, the purpose wasn't to, I, I was never thinking, I want him to never work or I, I, I want him to never have like a feeling or, that I ne I that I think there's a time where he's never going to have big feelings.

Like he's gonna bark, he's gonna have feelings, but where am I going with this? Like the, the outcome of like him. Having some be pretty good behavioral diversity and having skills like he can go outside and if he hears the dogs next door, the, he's gonna show up at the back door now.

Whereas, maybe at previous points in his life, he would've gone straight to the fence and, and really kind of screamed about it and, and wouldn't have been able to snap out of that or, or come away from that.

So we've built, all of these. Skills. So in my mind it wasn't like the outcome is he's, he's never gonna do these things or have these reactions. What I was looking for is, can he settle? And now I, now that I know more, it's also like, am I seeing signs of deescalation kind of earlier or sooner do I see him shake off? Do I see him disengage? Because then that gives me a second to kinda like, okay, he's barking at the window and he took a pause. Do I need to say anything to him or do I think maybe he's just gonna turn around and when he does, I can throw some food into the hall for him?

So. I, it's just we've gained so many skills together. I don't know if any of that made sense.

[00:32:48] Emily: I mean, It made a ton of sense, and I think you're really speaking to a common concern that people have, which when we talk about providing animals with more agency and more behavioral diversity and more choices, a lot of people like their, their immediate response to that is, well, my dog can't handle any freedom yet, and.

What we tell people who, who say that to us is, well, that often means that the plan hasn't been built to accommodate freedom. So it's not that your dog can't handle freedom, it's that your plan doesn't allow your dog to safely engage in choice control. Autonomy. Right? So let's, let's help you with that.

And I think that is a really common, y'all know me and how much I love my critical thinking skills. But that is a really common logical fallacy that I have talked about several times on the podcast before. Well, it's a group of logical fallacies called the auto epistemic logical fallacies, which is essentially your ability to assess the limitations of your own knowledge.

And so I think a lot of people might say that my dog can't handle any freedom yet, and what they mean by that is I don't know how my dog could handle more freedom. Right now, I don't, I can't, I cannot imagine what a better strategy would look like. I. That's not just true for pet parents. We hear that from PET Pros all the time.

I can't tell you how many times I've seen on social media or people speaking at conferences, they're like, all I'm saying is if I didn't have my dogs on the prong collar and the eco, I wouldn't have been able to stop that fight. Things like that, like defending restriction because it's the only way they know how to keep animals or people safe.

And my response to that is always. Learn from somebody who can teach you. How to not need that level of restriction to get better outcomes. Not even the same outcomes, but use less restriction to get better outcomes than what you're currently doing, which is keeping your pets on lockdown and constantly keeping an eye on them.

And every time they start to show any sign that they're gonna have a an issue, you lock it down. Right? I can help you with that if you're willing to learn. So that's, that's true. Like, that is, that's just reality. That's so common. And, and also it's not anything to be ashamed. I, I would say not. And also because it's so common.

It's nothing to be ashamed of. It's just a part of being a human. Not being able to recognize your limitations is a very human thing. But also it's justified because. Almost all of us, anybody who has a pet has experienced the, the shaming and the beratement and the unsolicited advice that that comes from other people in animal welfare, other people who have pets.

Heck, even people who don't have pets, like your friends or family that think they're experts, even though they've never had a dog in their lives, right? So there's a good reason that people are afraid to ask for help. And also the only way you are going to get out of this. Self-imposed prison is by reaching out and asking for help because yes, you are correct.

You have tried everything that you know how to do and you don't know how to live a less restrictive but more effective life. And that's why we exist to help with that. So let's talk about what pet parents can ask themselves to assess whether they are in management mode or micromanagement mode. I think the three questions that are really helpful for people to ask themselves is, are.

Or r who knows, grammar's, whatever. All right, so the first is what am I managing out of safety versus fear? In other words, is my management strategy looking at actual safety concerns. Or is it a reaction to my own fear? A mantra that I say in Pet Pro all the time is we make decisions based on evidence, not on fear.

Because so many of our decisions are me being made based on fear rather than on evidence. So that's the first set question. The second question is, where could my pet make one safe choice today? You don't have to go from total lockdown to like the PD level expert management, but what is one thing that you can do right now to give your pet some choice and control?

And then the third question is, where could I rest without something falling apart? What is one thing that you can do to give yourself some space to let go of the reins and take a break and just. Be yourself, live your life. Complete your own stress response cycle. So I think if you can ask yourself those three questions as a pet parent, you're gonna get really far, even on your own.

Without professional beha behavior professionals helping you out for pet pros, I think it's helpful to design your plan incorporating. A few different, like things that you should be thinking about as you're designing a plan that those weren't great words, that was not a super hot sentence, but y'all know what I mean.

Right? Like you can mix and match the words that just came outta my mouth to like, figure out what I was saying, right? All right, so here's are the things that he, oh my God, Ellen, what is wrong with me today?

[00:38:19] Tiffany: This podcast is just a masterclass in perimenopause. Join us this week as we suffer with words.

[00:38:27] Emily: join us this week as two perimenopausal women struggle with words. Uh, Okay. Where was I with this? Where was I going? Oh my God. Okay, so design plans that include first built in breaks for the humans and the non-humans. How can we build a plan that gives them the time and the space to be apart from each other, to just chill, to hang out, to complete their stress response cycle so that they have the stamina to keep going and stay in it?

[00:39:00] Tiffany: Let me just say pros. If you've never lived with a pet who requires a a lot of your bandwidth, that one is so important. Like helping people have breaks and time to themselves to do things that make them who they are.

[00:39:22] Emily: Brie was not ever a danger to humans. She never showed any kind of agonistic behavior towards humans. She was very, very dangerous to other dogs. And she was also very scared of humans. And her fear would manifest as reactivity, not as cowering or hiding, or running away. So she was not, I'm not comparing her to PD because it was not the same.

Same things at all. And I know the exhaustion of having an animal with a bite history and how that's just an added layer of difficulty. But even with Bri just being dangerous to dogs and other critters and just being very reactive to humans, she was my heart dog. I will always love her. I I will always miss her.

And also I had to structure. Break time. And, and it was, it was so necessary and it was really helpful I think, for both of us. I think she also needed time to just go hang out in her room. Do a long-term calming project, be a potato for a while. 'cause whenever I would come back she'd be like, oh, hi, good to see you.

She wasn't like, where have you been?

And she also wasn't like I am mad at you. Like, you, like don't talk to me because you abandoned me. Right? Like, she had a very nice, like, oh cool, you're back. Which is the sweet spot, right? But I, but yeah, I agree with you, Tiffany. Those breaks are critical when you live with a dog who has behavioral special needs.

I would also say physical special needs because also having been a caregiver of,

of animals with high support needs is exhausting as well. Okay. The next thing to incorporate into your plans are good enough days when the people are struggle busing.

I don't know, like for instance, Tiffany and I just having a hard time with words and migrating. Just for an example when you as a human can't be super caregiver what do, do your good enough days look like? And I think that is something that also, like a lot of times when we're building a plan, we're thinking about like, well, what steps do we need to to reach the goal?

And we're not necessarily thinking about. How do we help our clients adjust this plan when they don't have the time bandwidth, physical capability, emotional capability, whatever is going on with them, whatever constraints they're operating under. So making sure that you have like your plan and then the like half-assing plan, like on the days that you need to half-ass it.

What does it look like, right?

[00:42:06] Tiffany: Yeah, mks blog, uh uh, set it and forget It is really good for that.

[00:42:11] Emily: Yeah, we'll include that blog in the show notes as well. And then I think the third thing that our plans need to include are fail safes that don't require constant vigilance. So Tiffany, can you talk about. The, some of the fail safes that you have in your management plan so that you aren't constantly, I mean, I know you are vigilant with pd.

I'm not saying that you're not, but, what, what fail safes have you put in place so that you're not constantly, so that you don't have to micromanage, I guess is what I'm asking.

[00:42:41] Tiffany: If, if, I, if I want to like not have to like attend to him, it's gonna be a gate and a project. If I, if I want to do that. And I also want to be able to see somebody in my house. It's gonna be a gate, a project, and. Layering in some kind of sounds music. If it's like I need to be able to do that for an extended period of time, then it's gonna be, we're gonna have prep work, so it'll be, we're gonna go do an activity that I know he's gonna like, just want to snooze and rest after. And then the following day is gonna be the like day where I don't, I don't have to where I can set it and forget it.

[00:43:34] Emily: that is so important. Thinking about getting your dog or whatever species you're working with giving them activities to make them snoozy. I don't mean make force them to be snoozy, but get them to a place where they are snoozy. During the time where management is most likely to fail, which is usually in periods of transition or people coming over or routine disruptions.

If you can meet your dog's needs or whatever pet you're working with, meet their needs so that they're at a point where they're snoozy when that. Weak spot in the management plan happens. Even if the physical management, the barriers fail in some way, the animal usually doesn't care enough to do anything about it, and like that's, that is so big.

When I was first, because, I, Brie was a. A feral dog for the first year of her life. And she survived by, by hunting and eating rabbits and birds. And I brought her into a house with six birds. At the time I had six birds and a rabbit. And so I had a management plan in place. The bird room had not just a door, but an airlock, like an X pen that went around the door.

We were practicing skills, we were making good progress. And also I had. Family over to visit one time. And I knew that people were hard for Brie. And so I had done exactly that. I had gotten her worn out, met all her needs. So she was really snoozy when they came over. And she was after we did our little introduction routine with my family and, and the, she did the ritual and she felt good about it and she went to lay down and nap.

They went in to see the birds and they left both the door and the airlock open. And Brie's response to that was to pick up her head and look in the in the bird room and then be like, cool, I don't care. And she just laid back down again. If Brie had been super wired when they did that, she would have run into the bird room.

And I don't know that her, the, the skill level that she had at that time would have prevented her from chasing or even grabbing my birds. So that is a really good point that you brought up, is like the fail safe sometimes is a behavioral strategy that you plan on before you know that your management strategy is going to be more at risk of failure.

Beautiful Tiffany. A little shrug. Tiffany's like, I don't like to acknowledge when I do a good job or when I'm brilliant, so I just shrug it off.

I just shrug off my genius. It's fine.

Yeah, take it off.

Okay. Back, back to back on target. So instead of thinking of it like, oh my gosh, I have to overhaul everything. Think about it as making changes and approximations make small little shifts. What is one. Management free window that you can give yourself per day. What is one space that you can design for independence?

Can you create a room where your pet has lots of options and lots of things to do? Or can you create a sensory garden like Tiffany did? What is one rule that you can intentionally soften during times when you need it or your pet needs it right?

[00:46:44] Tiffany: Or like what is, what is like one outcome you can rely on? So if I get PD out in the woods and he gets to dig a hole and he is like really working on his core, doing like PD fit. The next day he is gonna want to, to nap. That is, that is reliable because I've seen it happen hundreds of times.

So some, so sometimes that's really what I'm relying on, is knowing the outcome of certain strategies.

[00:47:20] Emily: Yeah. Yeah. When I am on top of things. I do that before podcast episodes with Miley, where I will let her run out in the yard, be a chaos goblin. Our yard is just already a sensory garden. We didn't have to do a whole lot to make it that, just because of how it was already designed when we got here.

There are so many activities for our dogs to do in the backyard that that's a set it and forget it like for years. Like it's just permanently set it and forget it. But let her romp around. Throw some food out there in the grass for her to do some scatter fainting. Bring her in, give her a, a chewy.

So by the time I'm actually hitting record and we're, we're recording a podcast, she's passed out on the Nest. Y'all know, anybody who's been listening to the podcast in the past year knows that I don't always do that. And it shows because Miley shows up in the episode. But. But that's a good example of where like Miley is.

There's, she's great, she's super physically and behaviorally sound and emotionally sound. But also she's an adolescent and so I, I still have to do antecedent arrangement and a kind of a kind of management so that I can get through a recording without her just being extra turning from Mag Gwaii into a gremlin.

So, so yeah I wanna just say it once again 'cause I think people need to hear it multiple times. If you're exhausted. That's just good information. It's not a failure, you're not a terrible person. It's just good information that there is an opportunity for you to revisit your strategies to make them better for you, easier and more sustainable, more enjoyable, and for your pet as well.

And I think, for, for Pet Pros, I would say this is the difference between compliance-based training plans, where you're like, how can I get my client to do the thing that I told them to do? Versus capacity building plans where you're like, how can I build a plan that is sustainable for my client and supports their needs and their pet's needs?

And that's a massive mindset shift that we. Work on with almost everyone who comes into Pet Pro. I can't remember anybody off the top of my head who didn't go on that journey. I'm not saying that nobody did, I, I could be wrong, but I feel like that's just a really common thing that happens in our industry.

So to recap, management should make life bigger, not smaller. It should give you and your pets more options, not fewer options. And if the plan requires perfection, it's not sustainable. And it's probably not even management. It's probably micromanagement.

All right, we did it.

Look at us. Go. We really just. Crushed that,

but not crushing it in like a, we really succeeded at it. We crushed it. Like we just sat on it, like we forgot it was in the chair, like a cake and we just sat on it. 

[00:50:15] Tiffany: Me and my single brain cell bouncing on the side, my do. 

[00:50:19] Allie: I hope you enjoy today's episode and if there's someone in your life who also needs to hear this, be sure to text it to them right now. If you're a pet parent looking for more tips on enrichment, behavior modification, and finding harmony with your pet, you can find us on Facebook and Instagram at Pet Harmony training. If you're a behavior or training professional dedicated to enrichment for yourself, your clients, and their pets, check us out on TikTok and Instagram at Pet Harmony Pro.

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

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

[00:51:11] Emily: Okay. I'm gonna, I'm gonna tell myself here, I've told this story on the podcast before, though.

Do I wanna tell the same story over again, or do I wanna come up with a new example?

I don't know.

What's my brain telling me? Yeah. It's generous to assume that my brain is telling me anything right now. My brain is just screaming right now.

I'm gonna, I don't have, I'll tell you what, the migraine's not letting me think about other stories, so I'm just gonna retell the, A story I've already told because it's easier.

I remember it. I don't have to think about it.