#179 - My Dog Is Burning Me Out

“I did not sign up for this.” 

It’s the one little sentence that flashes in your brain as you clean up another accident, watch your dog blow up over the sounds of a car door three blocks away, or spend yet another Friday night at home alone. 

It’s one little sentence that sends you, and pet parents all over the world, into the pit of guilt, despair, and shame. 

This week, Emily is joined by Valerie Bogie, Veterinary Social Worker, Pet Harmony team member, and overall empathetic badass. Valerie walks through what caregiver burden, burnout, and compassion fatigue actually are (versus normal stress), why "just push through it" makes things worse, and what to do instead.

If you’ve ever found yourself crying in the bathroom over your pet’s behavior, you’re not alone, and there is help out there. 

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

1️⃣ You’re not alone – New research found that among dog owners managing behavior challenges, 78% met criteria for elevated caregiver burden, 53% reported feeling alone, and 40% reported social isolation. 

2️⃣ Pushing through doesn’t build resilience, for you, or your pet – Life is a rollercoaster, and you need the release at the top, not just to keep climbing… forever.

3️⃣ "Name it to tame it" is a real thing – One small thing at a time will lead to large lasting changes.

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

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Does your dog guard socks, space, people, or leaves on the ground? Emily doesn't usually take clients... except for this. Starting August 26th, she's opening a limited number of working spots for a 6-week live group course on resource guarding, specifically the kind that goes way beyond the food bowl. Personalized plans included. Auditor spots available. Grab yours at PetHarmonyTraining.com/RG before

Transcript

[00:00:00] Valerie: So we can understand how our dog's brain works. And, oh, if their prefrontal cortex is offline, right, that is their thinking, learning, emotional regulation, problem-solving part. If that's offline, that's not gonna be a good time to train them or try to take them on a walk right now, right? So we can understand we have to adjust expectations based on our dog's stress l- level.

We can do the same thing for ourselves.

[00:00:28] Allie: Welcome to Enrichment for the Real World, the podcast devoted to improving the quality of life of pets and their people through enrichment. We are your hosts, Allie Bender...

[00:00:39] Emily: ...and I'm Emily Strong...

[00:00:40] 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.

[00:01:00] Emily: You just cleaned up yet another accident, or had to end your walk early, or watched your dog absolutely lose their marbles about something that just shouldn't be that big of a deal. And somewhere in that moment, a little thought came into your head that you just, like, couldn't stop it.

It was like some other being entered your brain and inserted this thought that you did not want, and the thought goes something like, " I did not sign up for this." And then immediately afterwards, you feel guilty that you had that thought. Today, we're talking about something that doesn't get said out loud enough.

What happens when loving your pet starts to feel like too much? This is not a niche experience. What I find extraordinary is that this is one of the most common experiences that clients tell us that they're feeling, and almost universally, they feel like they're the only ones. Everybody feels like they're alone in this, and it's one of the most common things we hear from clients.

Caregiver burden and burnout and compassion fatigue in pet ownership is under-named, under-validated, and extremely common. Like I said, pretty much all of our clients, and now after a decade of mentoring other behavior professionals, I feel confident saying pretty much all of ev- all of our clients, at least the, the type of behavior professionals who benefit from Pet Pro.

That may not be true for other niches in our field, but it's definitely true within the, the sphere that we operate in. People who have dogs or other species of pets who are behaviorally and/or medically challenged, who have special needs of some kind, are exhausted and feel alone. By the end of this episode, you will have language for what you're experiencing, and you will know that your wellbeing is not separate from your pet's care plan.

Your wellbeing is an inextricable part of that care plan. So let's dive into this. Pet guardianship is, in general, sold as, like, this joyful bonding experience. And, you know, everybody talks about the fact that dog is man's best friend, and there's all these, like, you know, social media posts of people living their best life with their pets.

And I'm, I am super guilty of that because I post on Instagram the things that delight me that I want to hang on to. And it's not about, for me, it's not about showing other people how great my life with my pets is. I use Instagram as free unlimited photo and video storage, and I might as well share it since I'm posting it anyway.

Otherwise, I, I, I've gotten rid of all my other social media, and the only reason that Instagram has remained is because it's free unlimited photo and video storage. But the, the thing about that is the, the memories that I wanna keep aren't the ones where I'm like, "Why are you Miley?" The things that I wanna keep are the ones where I'm like, "Oh my God, you're the cutest thing of my whole life."

Right? I don't keep the memories where I'm like, "Why did I get fish tanks? They require so much maintenance." I keep the moments where I'm like, "Will you look at how cute my little fishies are?" And the byproduct of that is that people only see the times when my pets are filling my cup. And so I, I want to assume the best about other people, and I think that that is true for a lot of people.

I don't think that most people who are posting about their pets are trying to make everybody else feel like they are winning at pet guardianship and everybody else is less than. I think most of us are sharing our joy. And the accidental byproduct of that is that everybody sees only our joy moments, and they're like, "Oh, I must be alone in really struggle busing with my pet.

I must be the only one who feels this way about my dog, cat, parrot, horse, pig, goat," whatever, right?

So we don't share with each other when pet guardianship is also exhausting, isolating, grief adjacent. There's not a cultural script for that. So pet parents, especially those who are, quote-unquote, "doing everything correct," Often suffer in silence because they feel like they shouldn't be struggling.

They feel like this should be a, a privilege. I mean, that's another thing is, like, a lot of... There are a lot of spaces on the internet that tell people that pet guardianship is a privilege. And that's not the, that's not the topic for this episode, but a byproduct of that rhetoric is if this is a privilege, it shouldn't be this hard, right?

And when caregiver burden and burnout and compassion fatigue go unnamed, those experiences just compound upon themselves and, and the guilt becomes exponential, and it adds weight to the exhaustion that's already there. And then that weight and that exhaustion m- causes people to disengage or make inconsistent decisions, or quietly give up on enrichment and training, not because they stopped caring, but because they ran out of capacity and they o- only see the ways in which they're failing, and they don't see the ways in which they're crushing it.

So Valerie, before we keep going in this episode, can you please define our terms for us? What do we mean when we say burnout? What do we mean when we say compassion fatigue? What do we mean when we say caregiver burden?

[00:06:53] Valerie: Absolutely. And I think even to zoom out a little bit further from that, when we just talk about stress. You know, the stress cycle for us as large mammals is very similar to the animals under our care. Um, And I think so many times when we say, "Oh, I'm so stressed," or, right, like stress gets this bad rap where stress is always bad, but there's actually eustress.

So there's the good stress like me being a little nervous to, to be uh, here today, but that helped me prepare and make me feel ready, right? So that little

bit of a discomfort, ki- of stress, that's eustress. That's what kind of helps with growth and pushing us forward. And then there's, yes, the distress.

That is the tough things, the things that are weighing us down, that are exhausting us. So when there's too much distress, that is what is leading us to the burnout, the compassion fatigue, the burden. And

noticing that burnout can happen in any capacity. It can happen in someone's lifestyle. It can also happen in any workplace.

It's not just caregiving. And that's really just that level of exhaustion, of just, you know, you're just, there's too much on your plate. You're just doing too much, and you can't... It's not sustainable. Um, When we think about compassion fatigue, that's where I think of the cost of caring. So that is in helping. That is, you know, whether you're caregiving for your pet, another human, a child, or a, you know, elderly, you know, a, a parent or something like that or if you're in a helping profession, which

I think, you know, our, our dog professionals, people that are in, you know, veterinary medicine, human medicine, all of those spaces can experience compassion fatigue.

You can actually c- have both of those at the same time, right? And then when we talk about our pet guardians, um, you can experience those as well. And a lot of the research names it as caregiver burden um, but I look at it all kind of in the same ecosystem, I

guess, right? 'Cause what are we talking about?

We're talking about the experience of the pet owner and the emotional exhaustion, the, you know, physical parts of this work um, the time that it takes, the financial responsibility, the sacrifices that you have to make both for your

own daily life your social needs, all of those things I think kind of play into this.

So, to me, it's just distress kind of coming at us from all those different places as a pet guardian.

[00:09:10] Emily: Yeah, and I will say that it, it can be really hard to gauge what your capacity is. Even let's set aside the fact that life is unpredictable and what's, what is easy for you at s- one period of l- your life is going to be completely untenable in a- another period of your life. Let's just set aside that and assume that the hypothetical person we're talking about just has a very consistent life, right?

It can really sneak up on you when the needs of the animal change or when you can't anticipate the additional burden of an additional pet. And that definitely happened to me with Bundini, the, the bunny that I didn't choose to have that I ended up Keeping, even though I wasn't looking to add a bunny to my life, it was one...

I mean, bunnies are so easy to care for. They are the easiest pet, and yet just adding that additional species into my house that needed different types of care and different types of food and lived in a different space in my house, it brought me to tears more than once because I just felt exhausted about having to, like, manage the expense, the emotional bandwidth, the time, the everything.

And u- and like as a behavior professional who has spent a lifetime working with multiple species, and at some points in my life have had dozens of animals in my house, and also taking care of them all with ease I felt shame about the fact that this like adding this easy creature to my home made it so much harder for me.

And I lucked out. The stars aligned. My little sister her guinea pig passed away, and she was heartbroken about it. And so her mom and I talked about my caregiver burden with Bundini and how I really wasn't in a good place to be taking care of this little guy. And she had had rabbits in the past before she had her guinea pig and loved rabbits.

And I trust her ability to read body language and respond appropriately. We've been... I've been in her, a part of her life since she was 11 years old, so we've had several years of like, getting to interact with animals together. And and so we, we kind of surprised her, like her mom and I planned for me to bring Bun- Bundini over, and it was such a, a beautiful solution because that, just h- having that one extra animal in the house was breaking me, and being able to like pass him on to somebody who actually wanted him and is...

He, he's the only pet now, and he's the love of her life. That it was... It just worked out so well, and I think that... I, like I'm bringing that up because I was lucky that the stars aligned in that way, and I'm a behavior professional. And that's what it took, luck for me to get out of this, get unstuck from the situation, right?

And so I think, like, we need to be very careful about the rhetoric that we use when we're talking about pet guardianship with each other and on the internet, and be very carefulble about... Carefulble is also apparently a word that I just made up. It's fine. I know how to speak. We need to be very careful about the rhetoric that we use, like forever home and the, you know, pet guard- guardianship being a privilege.

All of those things can contribute to somebody else's burnout, compassion fatigue, caregiver burden, all of that stuff. It's just, it's very hard to experience it and then on top of that, having other people chiming in with what they think is correct when it's super not helpful to you, right?

[00:12:58] Valerie: I appreciate your sharing that. I think that speaks volumes of the fact that, yes, even those that are equipped with skills to care for animals specifically still have their limits. And so, oh my gosh, of course any other pet guardian is going to experience that as well. And in your case, adding ad- an, an additional animal to the home that was a different species was part of that.

Um, And I think for some people it's adding an animal that is all by itself, but its needs could, you know, quantify those of, you know, an entire household of animals, right? Where just in

one single being, their physical, their emotional needs are just astronomical. And You, it is very lucky to be able to rehome an animal especially when that is a safe choice. Um, But I

have many conversations where that might not be the outcome. So I think it's always good to have that hope that there is that option out there. That yes, generally, like I am just overwhelmed. This is not a good love match for me and this animal in this

timeframe. And then also, you know, having that bit of realistic input from a professional to say like, "Is rehoming an option for this animal?"

Right? Is it more of a me thing, a them thing? It's the environment that I'm living in right now that is not conducive for this animal's needs and things like that too. So I think those are also really great parts of that conversation because yeah, I think people get really pressured into, I made this commitment, I have to keep this animal for the rest of its life, regardless of

how miserable both of us are that entire time.

I think the quality of life of the human caretaker and the animal need to be taken into consideration because

yes, we all love animals, but when we have this kind of bleed- bleeding heart situation, like I just had a support session with someone earlier today hasn't gotten on vacation in like three years.

The dog has extreme reactivity and aggression and separation anxiety,

so they can't leave their house for more than two hours, and no one can come over.

And she, this was her retirement dog of I retired, I have all this more, this time. This human has had, you know, I'm sure you hear it all the time too, this human has had 11 dogs

rescued different ages, breeds, all of the things, and never would we ever imagine that we're in this position where we wonder if we can keep going on or not.

[00:15:25] Emily: It's all complicated. It's all, like, there are so many variables, the humans, the animal, their environment, their capacity, their means, the, like... And when I say environment, I don't just mean their house. I mean the area that they live in, their neighbors, the city ordinances. I mean, there are so many moving parts that giving some kind of off-the-cuff platitude or, you know, advice or even worse, that rhetoric of, like, you committed to this, y- you are their forever home is not only not helpful, a lot of times it can be incredibly harmful.

And I, I will say that, like, I also have had clients like that whose dogs have both separation related behaviors and stranger-directed aggression and all those things. And I've had some really heartbreaking cases where the dog's behavior was made worse by trainers who had no business working with... I mean, I think, I'm just gonna say, had no business being in the field until they get a lot more education.

But, And so then like on top of it already being beyond their capacity, now it has been made even worse because they were pressured into keeping the dog and they tried to do the right thing and it backfired,

right? So like you don't know what somebody else is going through and what their experience with that animal is.

And I, I will... I'm gonna... I'll, I'll give another kind of salty story. Like when I ran Austin Parrot Society with my friends Jamie and Tracy I took in a ton of birds. I had 12 cages. I had six cages set aside for my own birds, and then I had six cages set aside for foster birds. And I had one bird that I had decided to keep for lots of reasons.

It's complicated. We don't need those details for me to tell the story. I decided to keep him, and then I started realizing over time that he really just wanted to be a solo bird. And I belonged to this like avicultural forum and I told people in that forum like, "I'm thinking about rehoming this guy because I'm, I'm kind of realizing that he really wants to be an only bird, and the other birds that I bring in are stressing him out."

And I got dumped on. There were so many people who were like, "He was there first," and like, "Your obligation is to him." And I'm like, " No, my obligation is to Austin Parrot Society." Do you know how many birds I am responsible for? Like, y- I cannot believe the amount of vitriol that I received because I dared to suggest that maybe this bird would be better in a single bird home.

And, and what was wild is that I was right, and okay, I don't... Y'all know that in this podcast I tell on myself and I talk about when I'm wrong as much as when I'm right, if not more. So this isn't about me defending myself. Like this story just hits home for me with, with what we're talking about because I did end up rehoming that bird wi- in a, in a single bird home where he was the only one, and he was a totally different animal.

He was so happy. He was so relaxed. His people have kept in touch with me. It's been 15 years now. And if I had given into the social pressure from other people in the avicultural community, I would still have him, I would still be taking care of him, and also he would be miserable and so would I

So in that situation, like, it doesn't matter that he came before the other foster birds in the home.

It mattered that it took time for me to get to know him, to unravel. Like, we had a lot to unpack. This guy had a lot of stuff going on, and we had to sort of unpack everything that was going on with him for me to be able to see that he wanted to be a single bird. It took a couple of years for me to be able to see that because there was so much other junk on top that we had to sort of get

you know, clean out. We had to do some house cleaning before I was able to hear him say, "I wanna be an only bird." And so yes, he had been with me longer, and yes, he was living in one of my " permanent my bird cages." And also, I made an assessment based on my lived experience with him and the number of people that were awful to me, not just giving me bad advice, but being incredibly judgmental and insulting.

I will never forget that feeling, and people do that to other people on the internet all the time, and in real life, and in real life, right? And, and I, I think that story is worth telling because I was right. All the people who thought they knew more and better and were dumping on me, they were wrong.

And th- so like yes, I have been wrong many times.

I have shared many times when I've been wrong on this podcast in the past, and that this was a situation where I was right because I knew more about that bird and the context than anybody on the internet did.

So that's my little salty story about like, just remember that you don't know as much about the animal and the situation as the person who's living with that animal, 

[00:20:38] Valerie: Absolutely. I say that same thing to vet and prep professionals all the time as well, right? If you're a veterinary professional, how many hours do you see that animal per year, right?

If they're coming in even for every six months, that's maybe two to three hours max versus every hour that that person is spending with that animal.

So right as the dog trainer or the animal professional or the vet professional, yes, you are the one with the expertise, the additional training

about the systems of that animal and all of those things and how you can help, but the one that knows the behavior, the triggers, the, the ins and outs of that animal 100%, just what you said.

No one knows that animal better, and that's why also too, no one else can tell you what to do as the pet owner, right?

You are the one that gets to decide, do I need a break? What other systems can I put in place to relieve this caregiver burden and burnout and compassion f- you know, just this additional distress that I'm under.

How can I relieve that? Because no one else knows you better than you, and no one else knows your pet better than you

[00:21:42] Emily: When I still worked with clients, I would tell them all the time, " I might be an expert in behavior, but you are an expert in your pet, and we're gonna be most effective when we combine our respective expertise." Because it is so important for people to, first of all, just be empowered, but also for people to be reminded that they are an expert in their pet.

They're just not an expert in behavior, and those are two different things,

right? Caregiver burden isn't weakness. It's not a character flaw. It's just what happens when the demands on your system consistently outpace your resources. It's not about the fact that you don't love your pet enough, or you're not good enough, or you're failing.

It's about loving your nervous system as much as you love animals, which I think a lot of us who are animal lovers don't love our nervous systems as much as we love our animals. And we need to learn that loving our nervous system empowers us to love animals instead of taking away or detracting from it.

I think a big part of this caregiver burden/burnout/compassion fatigue phenomenon is this, like, guilt spiral of like, "I should be doing more. Like, if I were doing more, it wouldn't be this hard, or my pet wouldn't be struggling as much."

So I would love it if you could unpack why that thought is both understandable and also deeply unhelpful.

[00:23:10] Valerie: Number one, our human brains have a negativity bias, so we're always looking for the next thing to go wrong as a survival technique. But we also then need to work a lot harder to praise ourselves and our animals when things are actually going better. So I think that's one of the hardest things that just wiring, right, how we are as just human beings, that is something we all are dealing with.

Whether you recognize it or name it or not, that is something that you know, kind of the shoulda, woulda, couldas or all of those things c- play into it. So from just a normal human existence that's there, and then when you have the responsibility of caring for another being, right, that just goes through the roof, right?

And I recently published research on the guilt that dog owners that have dogs with behavior challenges are experiencing. So this is a research study with Doctors Lori Kogan and Jen Curran McCullough at Colorado State University. We were able to get 565 participants that actively right now at this moment have a dog with behavior issues, and tell us all about it.

So we had some really great ... You know, there's a whole section on guilt measures for anxiety, depression. What do you wish people that other people would know about your experience having to care for these animals? And some of the statistics were just kind of mind-blowing, but it also makes sense in the exact same way that we, you know, have this data now to prove the experience that we hear so often, that I li- you know, that we live as pet guardians ourselves as, you know, dog professionals supporting other people, and also as a veterinary social worker where I am supporting many, many people going through this.

So 33% of them met criteria for probable anxiety, 20% for probable depression, 78% for elevated caregiver burden. 78, 78. And then circling back, you mentioned isolation earlier. 53% reported feeling alone, and 40% reported feeling socially isolated. And that is just in the beginning of the abstract, right?

So, we can put the, the link to that. It's a, a free published peer-reviewed study. And this is just paper one. Paper two we're working on is the qualitative questions we asked at the end. So we're doing all the fun coding and that kind of stuff. So there's just gonna be more data to, I think, validate this experience that people are having where you are, you are doing all of these things, and then there's always the, should I be doing more?

Could I be doing more? My answer to that is there's always something else. We could be doing more, but does that make sense and is that really realistic, right?

Like, could I take longer walks with my dogs? Could I spend more money on a different food? Could I... Right? Like, there's always more we could be doing, but that doesn't also mean that you have to or that you should or that that makes sense for your household or your environment, right? 'Cause again, circling back to, you know your, you and your dog and your, your pets best. So yeah. There's a lot that goes into the guilt side of things.

[00:26:21] Emily: and I wanna bring up a couple of things. For, for some context, folks, Valerie is now a, a member of Pet Harmony. When I interviewed her a while back, she wasn't yet. She's not on our, our website, so she's kinda like the fifth Beatle. But it's because she doesn't see clients through, through Pet Harmony, but she does work with us in Pet Pro, our, our mentorship program.

And what I've... I thought... I'm gonna tell a story about you, and then I'm gonna tie it back to something you said. Valerie posted in the Pet Pro forums, like, "I did it. I, I published this paper, and I'm so excited." And I was like, "That's amazing. How are you going to celebrate?" And Valerie responded, "More research."

Like, we've got a part two. And here's why I'm telling that story, because you said that at the beginning when your, of your response, you talked about the fact that we ha- have a negativity bias, and we're not good at reinforcing ourselves. And this is a thing that I think a lot of behavior professionals miss is that behavior professionals generally know that, a- at least the ones that I have interacted with, know that clients need to, you know, celebrate their wins and have a higher rate of reinforcement for themselves, but they forget to work with their client to figure out what actually serves as a reinforcer for them.

And so asking clients to celebrate their wins, what clients y- often hear when a behavior professional says that is, "I have to be warm and fuzzy and sparkles and unicorns and say, ' ' Good job, self. You did it. Here's a sparkly sticker.'" And a lot of people have a visceral reaction to that idea, and that is what they think of when they think of celebrating wins or reinforcing themselves.

They think of this kind of like saccharine, I think a lot of people would consider it childish. And listen, for some people, that genuinely works. It, me, I like... I am a Lisa Frank fan. I love the sparklies. I will absolutely reinforce myself by buying sparkly things, okay? Valerie's holding up all these sparklies that she has on her desk.

So, like, I'm not actually bashing that as an approach because for some people, that genuinely is glimmer stacking. That genuinely is a way to reinforce. But for people who don't like that, they think that that is what it means to reinforce themselves. And so I've had to work with clients a lot to figure out what looks like celebration to them.

And for some people, it's like, "Yeah, I nailed it." Like, we have to get, like, real dude bro about it. And and, like, some of my favorite clients are, like, that's how they celebrate. I've had some clients who, like, for them, the celebration is we, we turn their journey into, like, a checklist And they get to check off the, the stage that we just completed, so it's very low-key.

Their reinforcer is checking a box. It doesn't look like Lisa Frank sparkly unicorn stickers or like, "Yay me," or, you know, whatever, getting an ice cream cone. It looks like checking a checkbox. And for Valerie it was, "I get to do more of this," right? And I think that is so important because when client- when behavior professionals see that their clients need a higher rate of reinforcement and try to apply it, that is where things can kinda go sideways and we can really struggle to get our clients on board with reinforcing themselves because they think reinforcement is a science of trinkets, right?

They think that reinforcement is like trinket tokenism. Nope, nope, not tokenism. That's not the word. It's a totally different concept. Token token economics,

right? And that's not what reinforcement is. I mean, it can be, but that's not the definition of reinforcement, right? So I just had to bring that up because you yourself were such a good example of, like, when I asked you how you were celebrating your achievement, you were like, "Do more of it."

And I'm like, that's valid. That is a super valid reinforcement strategy for you. If the work itself is the thing that glimmer stacks, that brings you joy that fills your cup, then yes, keep doing it. Do more of it, right?

Absolutely. 

Do you have anything to add to that?

Okay, then I'll keep going So I think a lot of people feel like if they were truly committed to this pet, they would just push through. Like, it's that no pain, no gain mentality that our society loves so much.

And iron- no, not ironically, paradoxically, that pushing through the pain is often what deepens burnout, not resolving it.

And I think there's a kernel of truth in that, in that our goal for building resilience is that we can persist through incredible adversity. And also, so, like, that part is true. Like, we do want our, we do want ourselves and our learners to be resilient enough that we can persist through adversity. And also, adversity is a survival mechanism, not a lifestyle.

And so we're not trying to live our lives as if every day was adversity, was as if every day was survival. I mean, there are humans on this planet for whom that is true, and that's awful, and that should change. That's not how we all should be living our lives. So, yes, we do want to be resilient enough to persist through when we have to, and also persisting through our entire lives are, as a lifestyle is not our goal

[00:32:27] Valerie: yes. I keep imagining a rollercoaster, and you're trying, you're trying, we're going... It's this uphill battle, right? So you're on that part of the rollercoaster, and you just keep going up and up and up. And if you keep trying, and keep burning yourself out, and keep piling more e- expectations on yourself, it just keeps going up,

and you never actually have that release of the fun part, which is going down the big hill,

right?

And the big hill gets you back down to your equilibrium. Your, that big hill gets you, gives you that rush of, like, a ha, right, where you can kinda get back to your baseline, where you're feeling a little bit better. And so to me, that difference there is where's the self-care? Where is the pause? Where is the giving yourself the grace that you keep giving to your pets and not yourself?

Because otherwise, you're just gonna be on that rollercoaster heading up towards the sky forever without any reprieve back down to some semblance of normalcy that isn't that

daily adversity that you were talking about.

[00:33:35] Emily: talk about that with Christina Spalding in her episode, which will be linked in the show notes. I know I've said it before, I'll say it again a million times, I cannot recommend highly enough her book, The Stress Factor in Dogs. She does such a good job of explaining how physiology works and how it impacts behavior, and the many, many ways that chronic toxic stress harms us, and why it's so important to complete that stress response cycle.

And also, again, Emily Nagoski, Emily and Amelia Nagoski's book Burnout is another one, 10 out of 10 recommend, about how we as humans complete our stress response cycle, and how we take care of ourselves. So those two books and two interviews I think are really relevant to what we're talking about here And for behavior professionals, I think it's important to cultivate an awareness that the clients that you work with who might seem unmotivated or inconsistent may be actually experiencing caregiver burnout.

Nope, sorry. Caregiver burden, burnout, compassion fatigue, any combination thereof. Also adherence fatigue, which we're not talking about as much in this episode, but we have talked about in the podcast in the past. And learning how to recognize those things instead of assuming that they're just unmotivated, or they're inconsistent, or even worse, the, the term that makes my skin crawl is non-compliant.

Let's stop talking about compliance, friends. We believe in agency. We believe in working with our, collaborating with our clients. So, being able to recognize that what looks like non-compliance or being unmotivated or being inconsistent is probably actually a sign of burnout, caregiver burden, adherence fatigue, or, and/or compassion fatigue, any combination thereof

[00:35:41] Valerie: i, think, and then the, the additional layer of all of that is as the pet professional, right, how are you adjusting to meet that individual's needs the stress that they're under, and then also their learning needs? 'Cause I think a lot of times when I also hear that cringe word of noncompliance, I really in my heart of hearts feel like noncompliance is a communication issue

between the pet professional and the pet guardian, where the pet guardian isn't saying, "I actually need more videos," or, "I need bullet points," or, "Actually, this is how I learn.

And also, we're moving, and someone's getting married, and someone lost their job, and this pet has physical and you know, behavioral challenges, so I'm just underwater," right? So I

think a a lot of what we're talking about, obviously, is focusing on the fact that, yes, caregiving for a pet that has physical or emotional needs that are more or higher or elevated is hard.

And then I think, yeah, you just add on a- all of those other factors of life. So yeah, I love that you're just tying that in there as far as, hey, as the pet professional, have that awareness of these things

and see how you can support them. 'Cause it is a

collaboration. It's not you know, I'm telling you this, and you must do it.

It's how, how are we making a plan that works for you, for your family, for your environment, for your pet, all of those things.

[00:37:04] Emily: I feel like one of the pieces of advice that I give most frequently in PetPro when talking with our mentees about their cases is explain less, ask more. Because a lot of times people think that the solution to a client not do s- doing something is to just explain it better. And if I can just explain it better to this client, they'll actually do it, and that's not it at all.

You need to ask them questions about their perceptions, their barriers, their pain points, their fears. What does something look like? What do they think something is going to look like? What are they hoping to accomplish? And when you stop explaining and start asking questions, you get to see the caregiver burden, the burnout, the compassion fatigue, the adherence fatigue.

You get to see what their actual lived experience is. You get to see what it looks like. You get to see what their true barriers are, and you don't get to see that if you're too busy explaining. You only get to see that if you ask them questions. So, 

and and I will say that, like, I am not... I don't feel even a little bit judgmental towards anybody in this profession who tries to explain things to clients as a, as a way of getting out of it.

The reason it's one of the most common things that I tell people in PetPro is because nobody teaches that skill. How would you know how to do this if you have never been taught the skill? I- that's an unrealistic expectation. I don't expect it of, of people in our profession. And also it does take time and practice from the space from people understanding the concept to being able to do it well.

On average, in my experience, mentoring people is about two years. It takes two years of mentorship and practice and feedback and... to really get good at it. And, and two years is an average, friends. I'm not saying if you just practice for two years you'll, that's like, you'll reach the end. But my, my point is that, like- As professionals, the, I think that is one of the most important skills that we are not taught anywhere that I'm aware of, aside from Pet Pro, and also it takes time and practice.

So don't burn yourself out trying to have expectations for yourself that are unrealistic and trying to support your clients who are burnt out because they have unrealistic expectations of themselves, right? So don't, don't buy into the cycle, but be aware that that could be the gap between where you're trying to get your clients to go and where they're actually going, right?

So how can you apply this? Start by just naming it. You don't have to try to fix it, just name it.

Say, " Ugh, I'm experiencing caregiver burnout." That is a complete sentence. It is a meaningful first step, and a lot of times just naming it and de-stigmatizing it helps you to feel better, like, to, to stop fighting your experience and, and just embrace your experience and accept it. So that's the first step is just practice right now, this week, just practice naming what you're experiencing

[00:40:28] Valerie: That's actually coined by Dr. Dan Siegel. He's the

one that coined name it to tame it. I love that all the time, and I think, too, it's, it's a good reminder to check in with yourself. And whether you like saying that out loud, saying it in your own head, there's research behind writing things down and how that can be helpful, an actual pen-to-paper situation. But yeah, really that, that name it to tame it, I think, is such a huge component of getting curious about why you're feeling this way because that's how you're gonna start your healing journey

[00:41:02] Emily: And I mean, it just helps your relationship with your pet if you're not fighting how you're feeling about them and you're just letting yourselves feel the feelings.

It doesn't just de-stigmatize your experience, it also de-stigmatizes their behavior, their struggles, right? You're like, "Oh, this is a situation where my pet needs a lot of care, and that care is taking its toll on me."

That is... That sounds reasonable, right? It doesn't sound monstrous or like you're the only person in the world, or like you're an abject failure.

That just sounds reasonable. That sounds like, yeah, okay,

we're in a totally normal situation, right?

[00:41:46] Valerie: Yep. And if you like data and wanna take an actual survey that can, and a questionnaire that helps you understand are you experiencing caregiver burden or not, there's resources for that. There's the ZBI that I know I've talked about. Dr. Valantine talked about it on one of her recent podcast episodes as well about caregiver burden. Um, And then there's also the newer uh, CCBAT, which is specifically for dog so canine caregiver burden assessment tool, and they're coming out with a feline one. But anyone can take the ZBI. And I recently wrote a PetHarmony blog post talking specifically about this, so that's really also got some great kinda guidance as far as how are you building your support team?

Because if you're working with a veterinary professional or a, a dog professional that is not supportive of you and just keeps giving you more homework or tells you it's all your fault that might not be a very good relationship to have. So you have the agency to seek out other support. So making sure that the support system you're building around your pet is also in your best interest as their

caretaker. And reducing isolation, right? We talked a lot about the guilt, the isolation. People aren't talking about this as, as much as they should be and because it is hard. And I think sometimes too, we're embarrassed because we feel like we should be able to just solve all of our pet's issues and things like that.

So there's just so many layers that go into it. But also just recognizing that there are spaces, like support groups that I lead, that are for pet owners that have pets with behavior challenges. Because I currently for... So it's a free 90-minute once a m- once a month support group for pet owners with pets with behavior challenges.

There's over 630 people registered for that group

Thankfully, they all don't come every single meeting. That'd be too much, right? Thank goodness. But what I will say is I, I probably have anywhere from eight to 16 people every single month. There's some returners, there's some new faces, but people don't un- unsubscribe 'cause every month I say, "Okay, here's what this month's offerings are."

If they didn't find it supportive, they would unsubscribe, right?

We know that. So the fact that they know that they have this in their back pocket, that there is a place that they can go and feel heard and seen, I think can be really impactful. So I think seeking out those options for yourself, if you're s- listening to this, you're like, "Oh, I didn't realize how, how stressed out I really am because of my pet's needs," I

think that's a also really great place to start, is building the support around your pet, making sure that's good and supporting yourself with whatever community makes sense for you.

Because as you were talking about, Emily, too, sometimes there's people in our real life that don't get it, and they pass judgment, and they try to give a, "Oh, this worked with my s- this dog that I had," right? And they're giving this unsolicited advice that's not always helpful, and sometimes it can be really nice to be with other people that understand your, your situation without even having to over-explain it 'cause they get it.

And

that can be really nice as well.

[00:45:00] Emily: Thank you for giving a shout-out to your own support group, 'cause we send people to it all the time.

So what are some small shifts that you can make after you've named it and tamed it? First, lower the bar without abandoning the goal. So in, in the behavior world, we call this splitting approximations, where it's not that you are lowering your standards or giving up on your goal. You're just breaking the journey towards that goal into smaller, more realistic pieces, so it's easier for you to get to that next step without giving up entirely on your goal.

That said, sometimes, I would say often, as we work with clients, and they learn more, and their relationship with their animal improves, they themselves decide that they have a different goal than when we started out, and we absolutely support them in shifting goals to something that ends up being more realistic and more supportive.

But you don't have to do that. We've also had clients who have been able to reach their original goal by just breaking it up into smaller, more realistic pieces. So break it up into smaller, more realistic pieces, and in the course of your journey, you may also end up changing your goal, and that's also great.

Good, good either way. Next, identify one place that the guilt spiral shows up, and practice noticing it without acting on it. So what that looks like is when I was... One of the times that I was in tears about Bundini, I was like, "Oh, you know what? I am doing the thing that I talk to clients about all the time.

I'm putting way too much pressure on myself, and I'm feeling gui- I'm guilt-tripping myself because I'm a behavior professional, and because, in the past, my capacity has been much greater than it is now. And so I am guilting myself into feeling like I shouldn't feel like this is hard." The voice in my head was saying, " In your 20s and 30s, you took care of dozens of animals at any given time, and it was easy for you.

So why can't you have a fifth pet in your house right now, you lazy monster?" Right? And then I was like, "Wait a minute. No, no, no, no, no. That's not real. I know that it's not real." The... I am feeling guilt because a fifth pet in my house is beyond my current capacity. Next, ask what does my dog or other species, whatever pet you're working with, what do they actually need from me today given what I actually have today?

What is within my power and my current resources to do to meet my pet's needs? And we have lots of blog posts, we've talked about it many times on the podcast about simple enrichment solutions that can meet needs without a g- being too hard. We have an entire chapter in our book, Canine Enrichment for the Real World, on our own journey with providing enrichment with...

Ally and I both have chronic illnesses, and how we adapt. So a lot of times it is simpler than what people thinks, think it is. If you can chuck some treats down the hallway and let your dog chase those treats, you're getting physical exercise, mental exercise, scent work, and social bonding while you're laying on the sofa.

And I'd like to remind everybody that the fact that you feel bad about y- you know, whatever you feel bad about in terms of your, your caregiving abilities, means that you do care. Which is not a small thing. The, the mo- the thing that I want most from people is that they actually care about the, the learners that they are responsible for.

I started to say the learners in their care, but that sounded... I think I said care too many times. But, like, it's so important that you care about y- your pet. These, these little creatures are reliant on us, and the fact that you care about that is half the battle. So the fact that you're here and listening and trying to understand, that matters.

That's a huge win. That's a good thing. You are not failing your pet if you care enough to grapple with this

okay. And for professionals, same. If you care about the fact that your clients are struggling and you're struggling to help them and support them, again, you care. Oh my gosh, I wish more behavior professionals cared as much as you care. You're already crushing it by caring. Remember that this is a framework that you can bring to your clients.

When you can help your clients to normalize their experiences with caregiver burden, burnout, compassion fatigue, and adherence fatigue, that is the best thing that you can do for your client, and everything else is gravy

[00:49:56] Valerie: Yes. And I think in the same way you were suggesting for our pet professionals to ask more and expla- you know, explain less or don't keep trying to explain if that, that might not be the, the actual issue in these situations. I think another kind of level that we can talk about i- in meeting their needs is also drawing those parallels between, you know, we're looking at the body language of our dog and where are their stress levels and all of these things, right?

So we can understand how our dog's brain works. And, oh, if their prefrontal cortex is offline, right, that is their thinking, learning, emotional regulation, problem-solving part. If that's offline, that's not gonna be a good time to train them or try to take them on a walk right now, right? So we can understand we have to adjust expectations based on our dog's stress l- level.

We can do the same thing for ourselves. So I actually, for some of my clients, will create kind of like a training menu template where it's taking your stress levels and where you're at into consideration with your dog's as well. So in the same way, and then you default to whoever's the lowest. So if your dog has had a hard couple days and you're like, "They, you know, their trigger's stacked, there's too much going on," they need a calming activity.

Even though you really would love to take that long walk, you recognize the needs of the dog, and we defer to that. Vice versa, dog's doing great and they're, you know, they're showing you that they're having a, a pretty good day, but you have not, and you are laying on the couch and you are not doing well.

Guess what? We defer to you, and we default to that, and we do throw treats down the hallway from the couch. And neither one is good or bad. They are meeting needs of both individuals, right? It's a partnership that we have with our pets. I think also things like that, and again, we're, you know, we talk about, like, the self-care menu and the Healthy Mind

Planner. Those are all things that you curate while you are in a good head space, while you do

have your thinking cap on and all parts of your brain are working well, so that in those more high-stakes, stressed, burned-out situations, you can go back to that. Because making decisions is even harder when you are stressed out.

It's also harder to say no when you're super stressed out. So from the pet professional's, you know, again, you have to ask the right questions. 'Cause in the session, they might, "Oh, yes, that sounds great. Yes, I'll do that." And then we have the issues where, oh, things kinda went, went off book or went off

plan. And again, it just might be, yeah, they really are just so stressed out, and they don't know how to tell you. So I think asking those, those right questions and how do we create a system and reminders to them that they can meet their d- their needs and their dog's needs at the same time.

[00:52:34] Emily: So to recap, caregiver burden, burnout, compassion fatigue, adherence fatigue, they're all real. It's not a personal failing. It's a function of supporting a living, sentient being who has special needs, physical, behavioral, or both. And your wellbeing is genuinely a part of the plan because you have to meet your own needs.

You have to be pouring from a full cup. You have to put on your o- oxygen mask first. All of the analogies that exist in our world the... You have to take care of yourself so that you can take care of the sentient beings who rely on you. And a question to reflect on is: where in your life with your pet are you pushing through instead of pausing?

What would it look like to give yourself just a little more grace this week? Next week, we're turning towards pet professionals because this field has its own version of burnout, and it's time we talked about it directly. And again, if you'd like to delve into this topic more deeply, you can go back and listen to our conversation with Dr.

Amelia Nagoski, Dr. Kelly Ballantyne, Valerie Bogie, Christina Spalding. All four of those episodes dive into specific aspects of this topic, and th- those episodes will give you language for a lot of what we talked about today

[00:54:00] 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.