Handling dog-to-dog aggression in the home can feel like navigating through a minefield, but guess what? We've got just the right person to guide you - my friend and colleague Sarah Stremming, a Certified Dog Behavior Consultant with nearly two decades of experience under her belt. She's here to unravel the complexity of dog aggression, spotlighting common triggers like resource competition and dog incompatibility and the fascinating role of humans in these cases.
The Aggression in Dogs Conference
The Bitey End of the Dog Bonus Episodes
The Aggression in Dogs Master Course and Expert Webinar Bundle --- LIMITED TIME SPECIAL OFFER
ABOUT SARAH:
Sarah Stremming, the Cog Dog Coach is a Certified Dog Behavior Consultant (IAABC) with a bachelors of science degree in psychology from Colorado State University. She has been in the field of dog behavior and training for nearly two decades and has been competing in the sports of agility and obedience for even longer. Known for her popular podcast Cog Dog Radio, Sarah owns and operates The Cognitive Canine where she works complex behavior cases, runs a dynamic members platform, offers online courses and webinars, mentors colleagues, and speaks globally. Her passion is helping people and dogs live their best lives side by side. When she is not working you can find her deep in the woods of the Pacific Northwest behind two border collies and an Icelandic sheepdog.
https://thecognitivecanine.com/
Handling dog-to-dog aggression in the home can feel like navigating through a minefield, but guess what? We've got just the right person to guide you - my friend and colleague Sarah Stremming, a Certified Dog Behavior Consultant with nearly two decades of experience under her belt. She's here to unravel the complexity of dog aggression, spotlighting common triggers like resource competition and dog incompatibility and the fascinating role of humans in these cases.
The Aggression in Dogs Conference
The Bitey End of the Dog Bonus Episodes
The Aggression in Dogs Master Course and Expert Webinar Bundle --- LIMITED TIME SPECIAL OFFER
ABOUT SARAH:
Sarah Stremming, the Cog Dog Coach is a Certified Dog Behavior Consultant (IAABC) with a bachelors of science degree in psychology from Colorado State University. She has been in the field of dog behavior and training for nearly two decades and has been competing in the sports of agility and obedience for even longer. Known for her popular podcast Cog Dog Radio, Sarah owns and operates The Cognitive Canine where she works complex behavior cases, runs a dynamic members platform, offers online courses and webinars, mentors colleagues, and speaks globally. Her passion is helping people and dogs live their best lives side by side. When she is not working you can find her deep in the woods of the Pacific Northwest behind two border collies and an Icelandic sheepdog.
https://thecognitivecanine.com/
Having two or more dogs that don't get along under one roof can be one of the most difficult types of aggression cases to work with. The constant stress of managing the dogs and worrying about when the next fight might happen can really take their toll on even the best managed situations. Sarah, a streaming and amazing behavior consultant and fellow podcaster, joins me for this episode all about dog-to-dog aggression. Sarah, also known as the CogDog Coach, is a certified dog behavior consultant through the IWAC, with a Bachelor's of Science degree in Psychology from Colorado State University. She has been in the field of dog behavior and training for nearly two decades and has been competing in sports of agility and obedience for even longer. Known for her popular podcast CogDog Radio, sarah owns and operates the Cognitive Canine, where she works complex behavior cases, runs a dynamic members platform, offers online courses and webinars, mentors colleagues and speaks globally. Her passion is helping people and dogs live their best lives side by side. When she's not working, you can find her deep in the woods of the Pacific Northwest behind two border collies and an Icelandic sheepdog, and if you are enjoying the bitey end of the dog, you can support the podcast by going to aggressivedogcom with a variety of resources to learn more about helping dogs with aggression issues, including the upcoming Aggression in Dogs conference, which Sarah is going to be speaking at. That's happening from September 29th through October 1st 2023 in Chicago, illinois, with both in-person and online options. You can also learn more about the Aggression in Dogs Master course, which is the most comprehensive course available anywhere in the world for learning how to work with and help dogs with aggression issues.
Speaker 1:Hey guys, welcome back to the Bitey End of the Dog. I am so excited for this week because I have a fellow podcaster here, sarah Strumming, cockdog Radio. Let me tell you about Cockdog. I've been listening to that since 2016. I think you started it right, sarah. Yeah, way before I even started the Bitey End of the Dog. So it's kind of an honor for me to have Sarah here and we have kind of dual podcasts in the dog training space. This is going to be fun, so welcome to the show, sarah.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, Mike. I'm very excited to be here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we're going to be kind of having a conversation between two consultants and trainers that work a lot of Aggression cases. So I love kind of the format of this show because I don't get to usually do that. I love to, of course, hear from all of our guests, but I think we're going to have a lot of mutual things we can chat about. And we're going to be chatting about intra-household dog-dog aggression, so dogs that have issues with each other in the home. We can kind of talk about dog-dog aggression in general. But I think it'll be fun to kind of dive into the nuances that happen in intra-household dog-dog aggression. So let's jump right into why do dogs fight in the home or why do dogs have conflicts with each other in the home? What are your experiences there? What do you think are some of the most common reasons for it?
Speaker 2:Well, for one thing, I don't know about you, but I've never had a fight with a person that I lived with. I mean, it's just completely unnatural for anybody to have conflict with anybody they live with, right. So all sarcasm, obviously. So many reasons this happens, so many reasons For me. Commonly I see it happening due to just straight up incompatibility, sometimes with the dogs that we ask to live with each other.
Speaker 2:That's a big one in kind of my personal realm of I work with a lot of people who are dog sports competitors and if you've got a house of two or three labs or goldens and they're lovely, but you decide to like upgrade your sport experience and get something a little bit more intense, it's really common for that more intense dog to completely ruin your life and your household.
Speaker 2:So that can happen. But other reasons, really really commonly, just it's all about resources, right, really, really often it's about resources. Sometimes that biggest resource is the person. That can be a really huge cause for conflict. Again, really commonly in my work we'll have a dog that is extremely bonded and attached to one human in the household and another dog who's extremely bonded and attached to the other one, and they will kind of form this I think Karen overall calls it in her textbook actually Alliance Aggression is what she labels it and it's the dogs kind of draw an alliance with one person and they're like we got to get rid of this other guy, right, and things like that, as well as trying to keep multiple dogs of the same sex in the same household, and I mean we could go on and on for the causes.
Speaker 1:So yeah, definitely all the things you're talking about resonate with me, because I see a lot of the same things. I would say resources is definitely at the top of the list and it makes sense because especially more paving dogs into a smaller space or we're bringing in more dogs, and another common factor I see too is the younger dog having issues with the older dog or the newer dog to the home also, do you see kind of the same thing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. I think older dog, younger dog really really common for the younger dog to just kind of be obnoxious, for the older dog to say, can you stop being obnoxious? And for the younger dog to kind of say, who are you calling obnoxious? And then it kind of snowballs and as well as yes. Anytime you're introducing a new dog, there is risk for conflict developing, and I think an average pet owner just has no idea how high that risk actually is. And so we just we throw them all together and we hope for the best, and hoping for the best is just really often not the way to go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, definitely, and we should probably talk about first the strategies that people should be aware of when it comes to managing these conflicts, because that in itself can be super difficult. Right, because we live with the dogs 24 seven and so it's much different of kind of a much different case than dogs that maybe just have issues with people coming over to the home. This is a lot easier to manage those cases versus dogs that are living under the same roof. And then when you have multiple, multiple dog homes, it gets even more complicated. So what are some of your go-to strategies when you're working with clients that have you know their dogs are fighting? Let's say there is a history of fighting or injurious behaviors happening in the home. Sure, what are some of your go-to strategies for that?
Speaker 2:Well, I want to jump backwards just a tiny bit. You said resources are kind of the biggest thing that you see, and I think that that's completely true and that doesn't need to be the problem. And usually I think there's like little low lying conflict that then makes resources a problem because of two dogs. Like if you and I are sitting at a dinner table and we're having dinner and my phone is sitting on the table and you like reach for your drink, I'm not like snatching my phone because I think you're going to take it, because I don't think you're going to take it. But if I kind of think that you are, like if I kind of don't trust you and I kind of think you're a jerk that's going to steal my stuff, I am snatching the phone away. So it's. It does come back to that low lying relationship because if we do trust that you're not taking my stuff and that there's plenty of stuff for everybody, that's kind of where we need to begin. And then, of course, when we're having big real conflict, I like to talk about layers of management and layers of separation. So I might have a really severe case where we require two hard barriers all the time, and I talk about hard and soft barriers. So a hard barrier is going to be an actual physical barrier between the dogs. So that can be a gate, it can be a muzzle, it can be a door. Soft barriers are going to be something that could potentially be breached or something like a tether, where one dog is going to be able to pass by but the other dog's not going to be able to move. Soft barriers can also just be space, like we're outside and we're far apart. There's a lot of dogs that can't be together in a room, who can be together outside on a trail, so I would kind of call that a soft barrier. So I'm always going to implement hard barriers and soft barriers and when we first start our work we're going to have a lot of them. There's going to be a lot of barriers going on.
Speaker 2:I'm a huge fan of muzzle training. I'm a huge fan of tethers and gates. I went to a friend of mine that worked in the big cat department of a major zoo and I went and got to see behind the scenes and had so many epiphanies about how we can set up management for our clients, because they don't take anything for granted. They don't say to everybody. Now listen, if you don't close these gates, bad things are going to happen because people forget. So they just acknowledge that people are going to forget. And now we have color coded systems and signs that tell everybody what needs to happen, so that a lion doesn't get into the same area as a keeper, et cetera. So we can go as intense as we need to.
Speaker 2:However, I've had cases where I was like, how about we just put a baby gate right here, and when you're eating, the dogs are on either side of them, and it was like life changing. So I definitely had that. But then I've also had like and now we're wearing basket muzzles if we are outside together, which we're allowed to be, and then if we're inside together, there is a barrier between us and we are supervised. And there are so many different layers of management that we can implement, big ones being simply avoiding access to resources when dogs are near each other. That gets complicated when the resource is the human or the kitchen or a certain doorway, easier if it's like we need to have Kong time in crates. So there's so many different ways that we could manage right, but it's looking specifically at the case, specifically at what's going on and what this person can do and what they need to do, and then the first thing we've got to do is just triage the whole situation and put up whatever barriers need to be put up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I love how you kind of differentiate between soft and hard layers. I never heard that before, but that's actually a great distinction, because I think what happens is that some clients kind of rely on soft barriers and they forget about those things can be breached, or they're not quite as resistant to management failures as some of the other things that we put in place.
Speaker 1:So what about homes, though, where it becomes really difficult to put some of those things you were talking about in place, like when there's lots of kids running around or maybe you have a partner in the relationship that doesn't quite listen and I also love that you kind of mentioned the cues and the environment. We can have Actually shut this gate, or whatever it is that we can do to help sort of encourage success with these cases, but what do you do when you get into some of those issues where it's very difficult to actually manage because of the environment or the living dynamic?
Speaker 2:Sure. So those are going to be cases where, depending on how serious it is, if these dogs have had multiple fights, if dogs have gone to the veterinarian for these fights, if people have had to go to the doctor because of these fights, we have a real conversation about what's going to be possible for you and I like to lay all the options on the table. This specific problem of intra-housel dog aggression is probably the issue that brings up rehoming for me the most among all of them. With my clients, I had a recent case, I think a couple of years ago, where I laid it all out. I said here's all the problems. It was two females that were fighting. They were multiple that visits, big, big injuries really specifically triggered by an event, and it just snowballed from there and they did wind up placing one of the dogs with another family member and they can still see the dog, can still go on walks with the dog if they choose.
Speaker 2:And now this is just not an issue and basically because I laid it all out and I said this is the kind of management we're talking about and it felt like too big of a quality of life change for the entire family and so then a choice was made. I don't love that being the only option, but I do love putting it on the table for the clients to make a choice. So I'm not saying, well, this is what you have to do. I'm saying this is what's going to be necessary for the outcome that you're interested in. If that doesn't feel doable for you, then we need to talk about other outcomes that are going to be acceptable for you.
Speaker 1:That's a really great way to frame it as well and help the clients understand what they're facing. You mentioned quality of life as well. It has to be a quality of life for the animals as well as the humans that are in the home. I'd love to just jump right into that. I know we wanted to talk about let's talk about that the human side of it and the considerations. So we're talking about just how much management and safety needs to be in play, because we're living with these dogs 24-7 in some cases, and there's a lot of rabbit holes we can go down here, but what is probably the number one thing you see that is stressful for clients the experiences in your work with the human side of the equation in these cases.
Speaker 2:Well, honestly, if your dogs have had fights and you have witnessed them, that is traumatic for us to see and so when you're living at kind of a low level anxiety place as the person of at any moment, a dog fight could happen. That is a really not great place for anybody to have to live and I have so much respect for these poor clients who they can't even think rationally about it. They can't even think it's OK because there's a gate and one dog is just sleeping and the other dog is over here. Because they're constantly worried about it, because as far as they're concerned, there maybe weren't warning signs or there wasn't a lead up and it just sort of happened. I don't know about you, but the dogfights that I've seen or been involved in that involved my own dogs were so emotionally damaging that I would change anything to have that not happen again.
Speaker 2:Versus, I've been, unfortunately, around plenty of dogfights that did not involve dogs of my own and I could utilize my strategies to break up this fight and make everything fine and move on with my life and go home and sleep. But when it's like my baby that's in there, it's so, so hard and I think we have to remember that dogs are people's family members and when you have two family members that are going to harm each other, it is really emotionally damaging and difficult. It is a really really hard situation for people to live in, and so, just acknowledging that upfront, I think so often people feel like they are failures, that they should have or could have done something different and now their dogs are going to hurt each other and it's just. It's one of the most emotionally fraught types of cases that I work on. I don't know if that tracks with your experience as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely. You bring up so many good points there and the emotional challenge of it and the anxiety really that can it can cause, because you don't know when the next ball is going to drop, so to speak. Exactly, and so that's why I see the same thing with many of my clients, in that they're just so nervous about it and that can impact things like management. It can impact their likelihood to actually do any of the things we suggest as trainers and consultants. They're like you know, I don't know.
Speaker 2:That sounds great Like on paper and the plan. They're literally scared so they can't do anything. It's true, yeah.
Speaker 1:Exactly and we have to empathize with that. We have to be especially as trainers and consultants. If we tell them, you know, hey, go do this or do this plan and have your dogs next to each other here they are stationed, or whatever. That can be very, very difficult and challenging for some clients because of their concern or their worry, and it is so much different when it's your own dogs, right, it's just.
Speaker 1:Even when I had foster dogs and then sometimes they would maybe scuffle with one of my dogs, it's tough, it's like you're really important, and even as a pro trainer, like we're both trainers, we're both equipped to know how to play dog fight and things like that. It's still different.
Speaker 2:It's really terrible and it's really so. I think it's just so important for us to acknowledge how emotionally difficult and draining this is for everybody involved Certainly the dogs, but often much more so for the people. I mean, I have clients sometimes who rearrange their entire life to make sure that these two dogs can still live in the same home. And now the dogs are fine because they like live on different floors and they've got basically their own condos and everything is cool. But this poor person kind of still lives with that low level anxiety, that low level stress of what if and what if somebody messes this up. And so that's where I think for me it is so important that if these dogs are going to stay in the same home, that simply implementing management is not good enough.
Speaker 2:And I love management, and if I can provide somebody with a simple management solution for a behavior problem, that's my favorite thing to do. That people love it. It feels solved to them. Management is not training, management is great. And these are cases where I have kind of two requirements we have to be able to keep everybody safe with management and we have to get to a place with Bmod that if that management fails, nobody's going to die and hopefully nobody's going to get seriously hurt either. So that's really really important to me that those goals are met in these cases.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, yes, and I completely echo everything you're saying there. I think management can be the solution. But often people criticize that like, oh, it's just management, it's just management. But that's actually sometimes a very viable solution that a lot of clients don't even know they can do. It could be as simple as feeding the dog separately, which is like a no brainer to us. But sometimes people don't think about that or they might have a sort of bias towards doing certain things in a certain way, like feeding the dogs together, feeding this one first and feeding that one second, and all these kind of belief systems. But sometimes it is just good. Management will solve the issue, and the other side of the coin, too, is ensuring going back to that good quality of life when we are suggesting management, because we can manage the heck out of things right, we can say all right, let's just stick your dog into, create separate areas of the house that they'll never fight again.
Speaker 2:But that's not good quality of life, of course, for the end of the day, we have to as practitioners welfare has to be the number one concern that we have. Therefore, management solutions that reduce welfare are not acceptable. So if we are now spending the majority of our day in a crate, in my opinion that's not acceptable, and so we have to think of different solutions. And that's again where we're talking about goals with clients and we're talking about acceptable outcomes to clients, and I don't know very many clients for whom that would be an acceptable outcome either.
Speaker 1:So those are all really really important points that you're making, sarah, and I think we should also kind of dive into what can we do to help clients with that anxiety component.
Speaker 1:Now, we're not talking about being therapists, but, for instance, one thing I do is, if the client is equipped with knowing how to break up a dogfight, for instance, we give them the tools and strategies to if something is to happen. Now you have the tools and strategies to actually get in there and break up this fight or deal with these conflicts where previously maybe it was just so nerve wracking or maybe worse, they've been bitten by their own dogs or they had a tough time separating their dogs. So that's one strategy I find that can be super helpful. And then even setting them up with things like fight kits I call them, but basically those tools spread around the house almost like fire extinguishers, so somebody that's had a fire or had a medical issue, and then you have the first aid kits or the fire extinguishers sort of laid out in easy access. I do find that that helps reduce some of the anxiety in the situation. So what are some of your strategies?
Speaker 2:Well, definitely, equipping them with ways to deal with the conflict if it happens is kind of my number one thing, like you said, and that comes back to just when you're feeling anxious about something, it's because you maybe feel like you don't have control over the outcomes, and so helping them to feel like they have more control over the outcomes is the way that I do that.
Speaker 2:So, absolutely, having them plant spray shield in different places around the house, or I sometimes have clients who just wear it around full on fight kits, like with a bite stick, et cetera, depending on the level of fighting that we've got going on in the house other strategies to help just kind of interrupt what could cause an issue.
Speaker 2:So one of the things will be the person is watching the dogs and maybe the dogs are having an interaction, maybe it's even through a barrier, but the person is feeling this anxiety rising up in their chest, right, and I don't want that to happen, right? So I want them to be empowered to stop this interaction if necessary. So that's where we train the dog some skills, and there is nothing that empowers my human clients more, I don't think, than when we train the dog some skills and then the person uses the skills in one of those moments where they're feeling a little bit out of control and then the skills work. So when your dog is maybe looking at the other dog with a side eye and they're stiffening up, but you call them to do a nose target and they do, that's life-changing, because now you feel like you do have some ability to affect your outcomes and then that will reduce your anxiety overall.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, I love that and it's just. I do think that once clients can figure out especially when they start reading their dogs Right, they can see the body language in no winter or interrupt way ahead of time, right before they might have been missing this, the micro signals or the little moments when the dogs are kind of talking to each other. But they didn't see that before. But we helped them kind of learn when to see that and how to interrupt, and I highly agree it's so empowering for them, it's a, it's highly reinforcing for them. We'd be like, hey, I solved this conflict before it actually exploded, right? So also on the side of the human side of the equation, I would love to get your thoughts on when people are disagreeing.
Speaker 1:So you know you have two dogs disagreeing about something, but then you have the clients in disagreement. I find this especially true with relationships that you know. Let's say, somebody let you have a couple. They've been together a couple years, but they've had their dogs for like five or six years, so they've had their dogs longer than they've actually had their relationship, and then they move in together and the dogs are fighting. So there's obviously sometimes favoritism sometimes or disagreement about what to do. So how do you navigate those conversations when you run into it?
Speaker 2:really tough one and really common because that's a really common cause for conflict between adult dogs is when two adult humans with adult dogs move in together and now you know they're trying to have this little happy family and the dogs are like wait, we had it good without these yahos. It's a really, really tricky one to navigate and so where I Try to come at it because I am certainly not a marriage counselor and sometimes I feel like we need one to come on in and also be in this case, but that's not a service that I have set up yet so I tend to try to get everybody just on the same page with the desired outcomes. And if we agree on the desired outcomes, then we can put in strategies towards those outcomes. It is really challenging when Somebody has very strong feelings about well, this dog is a problem and my dog isn't, and so again we have to come to common ground.
Speaker 2:One of the things that I do in these cases, which is part of the behavior mod strategy, but it helps the people is I insist on the people kind of swapping dogs for certain activities. So like if partner one has sparky and partner two has fluffy, partner one is going to take fluffy on the evening walk and vice versa, and they're going to take each other's dog to nosework class and they're going to take each other's dog to do some other enriching activities. This is part of my behavior, mod, but it also helps the person to bond with this other dog and so they don't just see this other dog as the enemy and the problem. And, truly, if we can't get to this desired outcome being the same for both people, that is kind of no longer in my hands, mike, like that is in the marriage counselor's hands.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, really excellent solutions in some cases and also strategies. Not taking sides is really important, as the as a trainer Consultant or for any trainers listening in is very important not to actually take any side.
Speaker 2:Because sometimes we want to. Sometimes, in fact I would say most of the time the trainer has a better relationship with one of the owners than the other one. I would say that's pretty much true across the board. Probably it's the person who called you in the first place, it's the person who was interested in hiring you and it's really, really important that you make sure everybody feels very heard and that you point out good qualities of both dogs, etc. Like, yeah, all those little tricky Social things that we need to be very, very careful about, we need to be thinking about.
Speaker 1:Yes, definitely, and I love the common goal strategy too, because if you have that common endpoint or sort of an endpoint in mind, we can navigate the nuances of getting there. But it's important that we are, we all agree on, like this is what we want for the outcome. It's those little parts in between we often have to adjust for in between sessions or during sessions that as we work towards that goal right.
Speaker 2:Yes, I mean it's. I Do think that dealing with intra-household aggression is one of the most complex things that we deal with, for a variety of reasons, but not the least of which being the fact that you will be dealing with some complex human relationships most of the time.
Speaker 1:All right, we're gonna jump into the next topic of the behavior change strategies we use in these cases, but first I'm gonna take a little break for a word from our sponsors and we'll be right back. Hey guys, thanks for tuning in and I hope you are enjoying this episode. I have a very special offer that I'm announcing just before the aggression and dogs conference this year. You've heard me talk about the aggression and dogs master course on this podcast and for a limited time, to celebrate the fourth annual Aggression and Dogs conference, I'm going to be launching a bundle offer that includes the course and all 19 webinars available on aggressivecom. Yes, that's all of the webinars. The webinars alone would typically cost more than $580 to purchase together, but I'm including them for free in this special bundle deal with the aggression and dogs master course. Just some of the topics for the webinars include how to break up a dog fight, assessing canine posture and movement, the genetics of aggression, dog to cat aggression, dog to child, directed aggression and Treat and retreat with some of the most respected behavior pros in our field, including Suzanne Clothier, grisha Stewart, Dr Amy Cook, dr Christina Spalding, laura Monaco-Tarelli, jen Shriak, trish McMillan and Dr Jessica Heckman, just to name a few. You're gonna receive all 19 webinars, the master course, live group, mentor sessions with me and access to the private Facebook group a value of over $2,700 all for just the price of the master course, which is $495 is. Only gonna be 50 bundles available in this offer and I'm gonna drop a link to the bundle in the show notes for this episode. The offer is going to expire on October 8th 2023 that's October 8th 2023, which is just one week after the conference, though the bundle typically sells out quickly, so please take advantage. If you are interested, head on over to the show notes for this episode in the podcast platform you are listening to and click on the aggression and dogs master course an expert webinar bundle link. I also want to take a moment to support Sinthor Pangal, who's gonna be speaking at the aggression and dogs conference this year.
Speaker 1:Sinthor shared the story of an organization doing truly amazing work to help animals. Charlie's animal rescue center, care, or care for short, is an animal shelter providing timely medical aid to injured and ill animals of the streets in Bangalore City. They aim to provide life-saving veterinary care on par with private veterinary setups to all animals, irrespective of their ownership status. Care has a rescue helpline, animal ambulance services and a fully equipped veterinary trauma care unit. Care strives to provide dignity to animals who are old, blind, paraplegic and suffering from chronic diseases, and allow them to live out their lives at the shelter in a safe and peaceful environment, cares home to many dogs, cats, rabbits, ducks, hens, pigs, skinny pigs, birds and even terrapins. No animal left behind is their main model. Apart from rescue and shelter services, care also provides adoption services, humane education in schools, animal cruelty prevention and control and volunteering opportunities.
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Speaker 1:All right, I'm back with none other than Sarah Strumming from CogDog Radio and a number of other things as well, and we are talking about intra-household dog-dog aggression and we're going to jump into the strategies we use in these cases, the behavior change strategies and what works, because typically a lot of the trainers and consultants listening in might use a differential reinforcement strategy or a counter conditioning strategy, but I want to dive deeper into those details and what else you might use. So let's talk about what you use first and kind of like, maybe start with what you typically use and then we can jump into some of the more advanced stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the first thing, like we talked about, I'm going to do, is I'm always going to set up a management strategy that keeps everybody safe. Oftentimes that strategy is going to have a lot of hard barriers involved. One of my goals is always to be that the dogs kind of still exist in the same house or space. If we actually do put them on basically different planets or on different floors, or they're even in different buildings on the same property, we are not going to have as much success getting back to a more integrated space. So I like those hard barriers, but I like them to still be very much aware that the other one exists and then from there, the first things I'm going to do are actually not going to look a whole lot like training at all. It's going to be two different things.
Speaker 2:One is that I call shared enjoyment activities, so you could call it whatever you want to call it, but I call it shared enjoyment, which is basically the dogs are going to do stuff they like and they're going to do the things they like with the other one nearby, so they know the other one is there. They can see it if that's possible. I've definitely had cases where just the smell and sound of the other dog was like pushing it, and so we needed to have a visual barrier. Shared enjoyment can be they're both having a puzzle toy, they're both even having their dinner or having. They often are having a resource. This is important because I have so many barriers and so much management in place that nobody's going to get near anybody's stuff. You're just both having your stuff and you're nearby, you're near each other. So shared enjoyment can also be going out and having a walk. If we have two handlers, so if one person can handle one dog and another person can handle the other, that can get tricky. If the dogs have a strong alliance to one of the people, I'll sometimes have them swapped so that they are with their step parent or whatever. That also gets tricky if one of the dogs has like big environmental type of reactivity. I don't want one dog seeing the other dog aggressing, even if they're aggressing at not them. So this is where detailed history is really important. We make sure that we understand all of the issues, because there's almost never just one issue, and so shared enjoyment can look a lot like that. It can look like both dogs are on long lines and harnesses. They have separate handlers and there's in a field snuffling around just being near each other. It can look like they're both enjoying a licking mat across the room from each other and they're both tethered and there's a barrier in between them. So we've got those two hard barriers. So that's shared enjoyment.
Speaker 2:The other thing I do is I implement low risk times. So when you go into these cases, you're usually seeing that anytime that these dogs are with each other or near each other it is high risk and they know that, just like the people know that, so they know ooh, when I'm near Sparky, like I got to watch my back, like stuff could go wrong. Here I want to implement super low, key, low risk times for these dogs to be near each other. Sometimes that looks like the family's going to gather and they're going to watch a movie. So we have Sparky over here on a leash on a bed next to one human and we have Fluffy over in the other end of the room, also on a leash, on a bed next to the other person. Depending on the risk we're talking about, I could have an X pen down the middle of the room. I could have muzzles on these dogs, but we are all hanging out and nothing is happening.
Speaker 2:Another one that I really love that again, you know there are safety implications that you need to think about is one thing that I've done, because I've done, I've.
Speaker 2:We haven't talked about it and I, you know, don't want this podcast to be like my trauma history, but I've definitely lived to this scenario. And so having the two dogs that don't care for each other in crates, in adjacent crates, in my car, when I'm just running errands, so nothing is happening, you can't get to each other, and this is not exciting and you're just near each other, is another version of low risk time. So I implement the shared enjoyment and the low risk times when I start to just see everything feeling a little bit safer and I talk to the clients and I'm like listen, you're going to start to feel better. Barriers still have to exist. You're going to start to feel better. But when they start to feel better, that's when I know that we can push harder and we can work a little bit more on our B mod. Those are the first kind of things that I do, and then I dive into skill training. Do you want to jump in on any of that stuff before I go there?
Speaker 1:I have a million questions. Of course, I love everything you're talking about because it sounds very, very similar to what I would like to do, or what I do in terms of relationship building, as well as we get to those points. So if we were going to kind of determine what's happening, would you say it's desensitization when we're just simply getting the dogs in a shared space or shared enjoyment. I see you there, you're there and we're just kind of hanging out, but we're desensitizing to what previously would have been a difficult moment for us. Would you agree there? Or would you say there's?
Speaker 2:something else going on. I would agree, especially with low risk times, that what we're doing is we're actively attempting to desensitize the dogs to the presence of the other dog With shared enjoyment. I think you might argue that there's an element of counter conditioning going on. I think a lot of my B mod will also have elements of counter conditioning going on. I tend not to do what people consider like classical counter conditioning and not even classical. It is classical counter conditioning Like classical counter conditioning procedures in which Sparky walks in and I feed Fluffy a bunch of food and Sparky walks out and I stop. I tend not to do stuff like that, but there are elements of counter conditioning, I think, at play as well.
Speaker 1:Is there a particular reason you don't jump to that particular classical counter conditioning, the classic classical counter conditioning strategy in your cases, or have you moved away from that over the years?
Speaker 2:I find that counter conditioning is most effective for me in my practice as a tag-along effect to the other things that I'm doing, as opposed to the whole plan itself. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:Absolutely, Absolutely. How do you navigate when you've got to decide okay, we're going to get these dogs into sort of a low risk situation? Do you want to make sure that they're not still giving each other the evil eye or they're still not tension occurring between the two dogs? How do you differentiate that for the owners or how do you help them understand when it's low risk and when it could be potentially high risk for a low risk situation?
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely. A really key part of desensitization is always going to be starting at a level where we are not upset. It's starting at a level where we are okay and then we're building up. I'm going to ask the clients I always ask them how do you think this would go? If they are like no, this does not sound possible, then that is my first clue that we need to start simpler and easier.
Speaker 2:Sometimes I will even start with just one dog is doing what I'm going to call low risk time. It's lying down on a bed attached to this person. Because they might not even be used to being managed that much, it in and of itself might be stressful I actually introduce the scenario to both of them separately, without the other dog there, then start to bring them both in on the scenario. That often works. Sometimes I will put an X pen down the middle and sometimes I'll hang sheets on the X pen, and so we have a visual barrier as well. If we have a long hallway that we can do low risk times one at one end and the other at the other end we'll do it like that. I'm just going to look at what's available to me, see what's going to work and implement what's going to work. Sometimes shared enjoyment is easier because the dogs have something else to think about. Then we might start there. I might have the dogs again. We're all watching TV, we're just hanging out, but both the dogs are working on Licky Matz on their own bed. They're doing something else. They don't have to worry as much about the other dog. I'm always testing. I'm always quick to throw in the towel if I don't think things are going well.
Speaker 2:Of course, client education as far as if you see this, if you see this, if you see this, I'm going to stop. It's so, so important. I think often we're like if you see this, don't keep going. It's also really important for them to know exactly what it's supposed to look like. I will send them a very boring 20 minute video of exactly what it's supposed to look like. It should be super boring so that they can see oh okay, this is literally nothing. It's literally. They're just laying down, because your client might think that they're supposed to be looking at each other or this is worthless, or they might think that staring at each other is fine, as long as nobody's growling or barking. Being very, very clear about what's expected, what's good. What's not is really really important for those times.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's nothing more important than actually just watching paint dry, oh God.
Speaker 2:I know.
Speaker 1:For a client just to see nothing happening is actually such a wonderful thing for them, because they're not seeing the fights and the conflicts. Additional strategies for that? Relationship building too you also. So you mentioned walks on leash together or activities like that. But what about with even less protected contact in scenarios where there's been no history of conflicts at all? Let's say, two dogs that run around in a field or go play together in a particular location they never had any history of conflicts there, there's no resources and it's open space without any restrictions on movement. Do you encourage that as well, or are you more careful with those moments?
Speaker 2:I would say it depends on the case, but typically, if there is not a history of problems, like the dogs go on off leash hikes with each other all the time and the problems are all isolated to the house, I won't implement more management on the off leash hikes. I will say, okay, cool, then keep doing that because that's obviously working for you. I think that the best prediction of future behavior is past behavior, right? So if the past behavior of them out on these walks is good or even sociable, maybe they even interact on these walks. I don't want to stop that. I don't want to make that not happen.
Speaker 2:I have had situations where the stuff in the house was escalating and then something did happen out on a walk that they didn't expect to have happen due to the fact that things were really escalating quickly in the home. So if I have any concerns about that, I really like a basket muzzle for these situations. So maybe they are still allowed to be free, because I mean, everybody knows that I'm pretty big into off-leash exercise. If these dogs are actually getting off-leash exercise, I don't want to put them on a leash. I don't want to take that access from them. So maybe I put them both in basket muzzles to make everybody feel better, but we're still out and we're still off-leash. It's going to be very case by case. I don't just have a rule of I know you've never had a problem out on walks, but I'm going to assume that you will, and so we are going to manage and manage and manage.
Speaker 1:Lots on pack here and I love how this whole episode is kind of turning into almost like a class on how to work with the intro house of dog aggression, because we've covered the safety and management, we've covered sort of understanding why dogs fight, covered a little bit of the human element and how to navigate that and the behavior change strategy process here. So let's dive deeper actually into the behavior change strategy. So we talked about let's get these dogs back together, whether it's desensitization, whether there's elements of classical conditioning or counter conditioning, but let's dive deeper. What do you kind of do next Once you start? You've got these moments of hanging out together right. So shared enjoyment, as you would mention, and then low risk situations. What are your next steps? Like, let's say, it's particular contexts in which we've determined that the dogs are most likely to have a conflict in. So it's over a restart when one's near one of the guardians and the other dog approaches and it's a resource guarding issue. So what are your next steps?
Speaker 2:typically, I teach a lot of skills, and this really is true across the board. Certainly, the skills that the client and the dog might show up with are going to vary, but the skills that they leave me with I want to be pretty much on par, like I want everybody to have learned a lot of the same stuff from me. So the skills that I think are very, very important are going to be two different cues One that allows you to send the dog somewhere else and another that allows you to bring the dog closer to you. So I'd like to be able to send the dog away and I'd like to be able to call the dog to me. So often the send away is going to be to a crate, but sometimes it's to just kind of the dog's X-pen area, like maybe we've set up two different X-pen areas for these dogs to live in and they know how to run into theirs on cue. Sometimes it's to a station and I'll have catabores or climbs or dog beds or pillows or other types of targets that I've trained the dog to go to. I do a lot of station type training for all of the dogs that might be involved when the dogs are really good at being on a station and then following what I would call stationary cues. So sit down, stand nose, target maybe, spin, maybe give a paw, so all of these kind of easy, easy in quotations skills for the dogs to do for kind of a really dense reinforcement ratio. Just kind of one to one. Sit cookie down, cookie, stand cookie. When the dogs can do that and they can do that on an individual station and they like that game, I'm now going to do that parallel. So one dog's going to be doing it, the other dog's going to be doing something else. On the other side of a barrier, if I have two handlers, they're both doing the same thing. I might only use leashes. If I feel like there needs to be two barriers, I will use leashes plus an X pen down the middle. Sometimes distance works just fine for us. Sometimes I will use a leash plus a tether If an X pen is not going to work. Sometimes these big open floor plans like you need to use tethers more, and so then I'm going to be doing that with the two different handlers. If I don't have two handlers, one dog is going to be on their bed with a topple or a licky mat or whatever, and then the other dog's going to be worked.
Speaker 2:There's kind of a theory that one dog, seeing you affect another dog's behavior, is beneficial. I don't know if there's any truth to it at all, but I do know that, living with all herding type breeds, they tend to, like me, like to control stuff, but they're cool, not controlling it as long as somebody else is. So, for instance, if I have like kind of a chaotic moment, like the dogs are coming in from outside and they're all kind of loud and chaotic, one of my border collies thinks that's totally not authorized and he would like to control that with his teeth. But I can ask him to go to a different area. I can ask him to go to his crate. He will, I can feed him for that and then I can bring the chaos down and within like a few repetitions of this he's like oh, this is the time when I go to the crate so that she makes them stop. So just kind of showing them I can do stuff with this dog. This dog listens to me. I have no idea if the dog on the other side is actually perceiving that or not, but it's a nice idea.
Speaker 2:So lots and lots and lots of skill training. I do find that sometimes, as trainers, we don't teach people as many skills as we maybe could because we're, like they don't want to be dog trainers, like this stuff is hard. We might get a little bit too like, caught up on the mechanics. Don't get caught up on the mechanics. Let them be as sloppy as they need to be and have them be training and training and training. It's going to improve their connection with the dog, their relationship with the dog. It's going to improve the dog's relationship to them. It's going to improve the entire scenario if we have a lot of usable skills. So a lot of the training that I'm doing is just skills upon skills upon skills, and then I bring the other dog into the scenario.
Speaker 1:Yes, everything you're saying is resonating with me because I think, especially the stationing I mean stationing behaviors it's kind of almost a mandatory thing and a vast majority of my intra household cases, especially when there's resources involved you have to have some incompatible alternative behavior to cue.
Speaker 1:When you're in those moments and really that is exactly what you're talking about Like with your herders, you know having some sense of control in the environment can be very important to them. And then if they see somebody else and I think you're onto something, though actually I agree with that that I think when dogs see us taking the lead on a situation, they are like thank you for doing that. Now I don't have to do it, and I think it actually removes some of the anxiety for some dogs because there's consistent expectations and consistent outcomes in many of those contexts. So sort of a little deeper dive question now is we're often using reinforcement, of course. So we're teaching the dog go to station, we're going to reinforce you for that behavior, for instance, so we use food or whatever it is.
Speaker 1:Well, let's say we're using food. But one big question I guess, even with trainers, is like you have dogs competing over resources, let's say the owners. One of the resources foods are resource and suddenly you're introducing resources into the context in which we're trying to work with the dogs in, and that can get complicated, right. We're like oh, I don't know. I get nervous because if, what if I drop a hot dog, or can you talk us around that, like, what do you do to make sure we mitigate that and also reduce the tension around resources in those moments?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so number one. That's why I'm going to have those barriers up. If I'm working with these dogs with food, they can't reach each other. If I drop a treat, they're not both able to go for it at the same time. Also, that's another skill If you are on a station and I drop food off of the station, it's not yours. So that's another skill that we teach, that I like to teach, and I do it deliberately without the other dog involved so that that kind of fear of the other dogs going to eat my stuff doesn't come in.
Speaker 2:And I do find that in these situations where resources are free flowing and the dogs overall wellness needs are very much met which we haven't talked about that. But that's my cornerstone of really everything that I do is making sure that these dogs are really fulfilled in every other way I see an overall relaxation and reduction of the resource guarding. That is happening. So all of my personal dogs I would call resource guarders to some extent, especially my border collies. I would say my Icelandic sheepdog is the least guardie of the dogs that I've ever had, but my border collies are all resource guarders on some level and they all can eat a kibble scatter in the grass next to each other. They can all lay down and chew a kong in the same room. I'm not worried about there being a fight. I'm not worried about it because none of them are worried about it. They have their thing. Nobody's gonna come take their thing, and this is a very normal situation for them. So when I'm using food in the skill training scenarios, everybody has food. I'm not expecting you to be there just watching me train this dog. You're either being fed intermittently by maybe a food robot like a man is winder, or you're also being trained by somebody else, or you're eating something, working on a licky mat or something like that. So everybody has something.
Speaker 2:When I do start to introduce the Kind of more advanced mutual stations exercise, one dog is on a station. We've got a barrier between the other ones on a station. It's a really advanced level where I will train one for a little bit, tell them to wait, cross the barrier, train the other one for a little bit, tell them to wait, cross the barrier. I go there when they trust the scenario so much that they know their turn is coming and they're not freaking out about it. So I'm watching them and I'm watching how snatchy are they with the food? How do their skills laps when I drop a tree and the other dog is over there, like if I've taught you when you're on a station and I drop a treat on the floor.
Speaker 2:It's not for you If you lose that skill when this other dog is here. I know that we're not ready to push this to any harder level for you. So I'm watching the fluency in all of my skills To tell me when I can make things harder. And that, for me, is where the skill training is so, so valuable. Because if I know that without that other dog you can cleanly transition from sit down to stand Easily, but now I have the other dog and I tell you down and you can't, and you offer me stand instead, you've lost some fluency in the skills. That tells me the level of stress you're experiencing with this other dog. I don't even need to look for tense body language because you're probably not even giving it to me. I have this Really nice, easy way to know that we're not ready to make things harder for you.
Speaker 1:This is such a good conversation because we're peeling back layers as we go. I love this, and we're talking about so many different aspects that we need to pay attention to, like the overall kind of holistic view of the dog and Making sure their wellness and needs are met, as well as operant behaviors with a stationing, teaching, sending them to a station or coming to us. We're looking at classical counter conditioning. We're looking at desensitization, looking at relationship repair. So this is beautiful like we're getting peeling back layer. So let's peel it back a little further here and get into some of the nuances of classical counter conditioning. With regards to let's, let's use an example to use a dog that has a history of guarding their owner from the other dogs and they don't want the other dog approaching when they're sitting next to their owner on the couch or laying on the owner's lap.
Speaker 1:And that's what is the antecedent that triggers the response of I'm gonna leap off the couch to attack the other dog. So we could go with the operant queuing like okay, you go to your station. Let's make this particular context of what it's couch time or Netflix time in the evening. We're just gonna make it very predictable. I'm always gonna queue you to go to your station in your station. So Peaceful coexistence. We have expectations. We've removed the anxiety. They have expected behaviors, alternative or incompatible behaviors we've installed.
Speaker 1:Do carry in with some of your sort of more sticky cases. Let's make sure the order of events is really good here. So if dog a the dog next to us Sees dog be entering the space, do you go with the timing of okay, you saw dog be entering the space. That's gonna predict something good for you. So you end up reinforcing the station behavior, but you also make a contingent on the other dog enters the space. That's when you also get the food or the treat. So that way it becomes. You're sort of addressing any kind of guarding, because now you're you're working on classical counter conditioning, but you're making sure the order of events is really done cleanly, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2:Hmm, well, maybe this is when I tell you that I don't address that particular issue that way, if I were going to, it would be important for me. Well, let me, let me back up a little bit. If I were going to address that particular issue, because I'm not gonna be able to address that particular issue, that particular issue is such a common issue, right? Dog is like no, I have mom on the couch and you don't get to be involved, right? Such a common issue. If I were going to try to approach that with a classic counter conditioning approach in which I was using a contrived reinforcer like food, yes, I would keep my order of operations extremely clean, but I wouldn't. Do you want me to talk about why?
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, let's unpack this.
Speaker 2:So if the dog is already in possession of the resource, which they are, if they're on the couch with me Then the most power that I have in that scenario is to either continue to allow access to the resource or to deny access to the resource, rather than trying to affect behavior with a contrived resource the thing that you weren't even thinking about in the first place like a piece of hot dog. I'm gonna be more effective if I look at what the actual function is, which is maintaining access to the resource that I already have access to. So that's the actual function. That's what the dog is trying to get at when it aggresses towards its housemate when it comes over to the couch. Right, so I teach them that they will be denied access to the couch if that's how they act. Now can I create an aggressive outburst? Yes, that's where If you're actually going to attack somebody, you're not allowed on the couch. I mean, I have big rules about that. If you're actually gonna attack somebody, you're just not allowed on the couch. And if that is a quality of life issue for the owner, then we have couch time for Kujo. Okay, so then couch time can happen for Kujo when nobody else is around, but other than that, kujo doesn't get to have the couch. That's my easy, simple solution to that. I have not found it to be successful and maybe you have and I'd love to hear about it To address that specific problem, especially if the dog has access to the couch if you're talking about, the dog is just stationed in the room and I bring another dog into the room and I feed you and then the dog leaves. That's a different thing than what I'm picturing. I love to use whatever the original function is, whatever the actual functional reinforcer is, whenever possible, and I think this is an easy place to do so. So I've had a lot of success in teaching the dog essentially that your access to this resource, which is me and the couch, leaves if you do XYZ and your access to it stays if you do a, b or C. I've been very successful with that and that's why I don't then try to counter condition that I have dogs like they might.
Speaker 2:My particular dog, felix, would like it if only he and I existed in the entire world. So that would be. His preference would be that he and I lived in a cabin in the woods by ourselves and nothing. No one else ever ever showed up. But he has lived with a large number of dogs at some points and smaller number of dogs at other points, but he's never been the only dog.
Speaker 2:And if he's lying with me in my recliner which is like his favorite thing, he has choices and he knows he does his choices.
Speaker 2:You can stay here snuggled on me or you can leave, and if another dog comes in, I mean I can see it on his face, mike, he's not happy that the other dog came in, but he can snuggle his little face in and not think about it. Or he can snarl a growl and if he snars a grouse he's told to go somewhere else. And because he has that skill and he understands how to go somewhere else, when I tell him to, he can respond and he gets to maintain access to that resource by making those choices. So I think I might not be making any friends here with this in the dog training community the way that I'm talking but that's what has worked really well for me in that specific issue is teaching them that they get to maintain access to this resource if and they will lose access to it if, which only works if everything is plentiful and the dog's needs are met and the dog lives in abundance, because if the dog lives in a crate, 90% of the time it's going to be a problem.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, lots of very good points there. I think it's a wonderful strategy, everything you're mentioning there, because it makes it very clear for the dog and the dog still has the choices right. We're still. The dog has full agency on what wants to do. And then particular context I think for me it depends on the client. To you know, I don't that particular strategy of you. Know, when the other dog enters the space, good things happen for you. Also, classical conditioning using food or counter conditioning using food works with some clients. It depends because the food itself also must be and it typically is another resource that they would guard.
Speaker 1:Or some treats. So I find it works best in those cases because they're still getting access to something of value in that moment, even though their motivation might be that I need to stick to my owner. But I also do find some residual like. Okay, my owner is also the producer of treats, so there's some sort of like Connection there, for lack of a better word. What I do find, though, also super helpful is the environmental cues. So, like, the other dog entering the space at a particular time or in a particular location Can become a queue for the dog that's next to you on the couch to be like hey, there's the other dog, what do I do now? So looking up or engaging or getting some interaction with the owner, or even a step further.
Speaker 1:Some of the cases I've done is making it so that dog be now knows what to do. So dog is the problem dog that we're working on, but dog be can be taught skills that, hey, I see dog a with a resource. Now I'm going to go check in with my owner or go station. Obviously, that's very contextual to particular locations. It's not. It's not an easy thing to generalize by any means, but I do find that can be super helpful, like I just went into the living room and Dog has a bone, let me get out of there, let me go find my own or station, as long as they you know again, we need the right client and recognize and notice those things happening, I can be very powerful because it really mitigates conflict, because it allows you not to have to micromanage all the time, but again, very kind of smaller subset of clients that are in its, usually trainers that I'm working with on that particular scenario.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, so I would love to, for the last few minutes here, gonna jump into prognosis. So, like difficult case, because one of the most common questions I get is what to do with difficult cases, or when it's the things aren't resolving, or how do we know when to make that decision we need to be home, or this is not going to work out, in which cases maybe are really easy. So what are your thoughts on that, like overall? Like what do you? What do you measure, as far as you know? Is it the bite, histories and other factors? What do you look at when you're kind of thinking about outcomes?
Speaker 2:Usually for me it is going to come down to a quality of life concern for the people or the dogs, or both. Honestly, it's usually both. If somebody's having a quality of life concern, it's probably everybody. The most common scenarios in which there's going to be a re-home is when the management, especially the initial management, feels impossible to these people. And that's okay, and for me, I don't ever tell anybody that re-homing is the best option for them. I just put it on the table and it's something that I just gently set it on the table and I see what their reaction is. And if they seem relieved that I put that on the table, then we're going to go a little bit further.
Speaker 1:And I'll ask them.
Speaker 2:I was like, does that sound like maybe a relieving option to you? Or I might have another client who that feels like the worst thing that could possibly happen and so we're not going to go there, and they would rather have three hard barriers between these dogs the rest of their lives than have one of them go live somewhere else. Then fine, then I'm going to help you do that. Definitely, seriousness of the injuries is a big deal. So I had one case in which I felt re-homing was the really only viable option because of the extent of the injuries on one of the dogs, and the owner literally just divided her house and had one dog live in that part of the house for the rest of its life and had the other one live in the other part, and she felt like she could do that for the rest of their lives, and so that's what she did.
Speaker 2:I think most people probably couldn't. She lived by herself and didn't have any children or a spouse that were going to mess this up, and it was really important to her, so that's what she did. I think that that's impossible for most people to do, and in that case I mean the dog was just being ripped to shreds every day and it got worse every time it happened as it does. So sometimes I will make kind of a strong case for re-homing if I feel like it is the most ethical option for the dog that is being attacked. Otherwise it's so. So up to the person. It's so up to them, and it's my job to make sure they know what all of their options are and then, if they feel like re-homing is the best option for them, I've had situations where they re-homed when I was like I probably could have lived with that situation, but they decided they couldn't and that's OK.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, I think the most important point you brought up there too is quality of life. We kind of opened the show with that and we're kind of closing the show with that's really the most important factor for all involved, because if we don't have that then there's really no point moving forward, because it's we're not thinking of the animals or the humans in those cases. So really excellent, this is a great discussion. Where are people who can find you? So I mentioned Cogdog Radio. So if you guys haven't subscribed to Sarah's podcast, please do so. How many episodes do you have now? Like well over 100.
Speaker 2:We're reaching 300. Yeah, we'll hit 300 this year. Yeah.
Speaker 1:That is impressive. That's really impressive being a fellow podcast right now. Just how much work that takes. So hats off to you. Really, that's amazing. So where else can people find you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so certainly. The podcast is Cogdog Radio. My website is sarastrummingcom, so that's where everything that I do is located. I offer online courses that are self-study webinars. I have a membership where folks have access to the webinars and the courses, and a community where we all talk about training, and then I offer private coaching as well for these behavior problems that we've been talking about. And then social media it's the cognitive canine on Facebook and it's cognitive underscore canine on Instagram, and my name is Sarah Stremming on TikTok.
Speaker 1:Wonderful and as usual guys. I will be linking to all of that in the show notes and Sarah will be speaking at the aggression in dogs conference this year happening in Chicago September 29th to October 1st. Do you want to talk real quick about what you're going to be speaking on?
Speaker 2:Well, intra-housel aggression is what I'm going to be talking about, and I'm going to be looking at it really specifically through a very applied lens. So I'm going to show you guys some actual dogs and actual cases.
Speaker 1:Love it, love it. We love our case studies. So, sarah, thank you so much. It was wonderful chatting with you and a fellow podcaster and I'm looking forward to seeing you soon.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much, mike, it was wonderful.
Speaker 1:It was so wonderful having an opportunity to chat with Sarah and to hear how she effectively restores harmony in homes where there are those dog to dog conflicts. Don't forget, sarah will be speaking at the aggression in dogs conference this year on the very topic of intra-housel dog to dog aggression. You can find out more about the conference and register by going to aggressivedogcom or by checking the show notes for this episode. We also have the Help for Dogs with Aggression bonus episodes that you can subscribe to. These are solo shows where I walk you through how to work with a variety of types of aggression, such as resource guarding, dog to dog aggression, territorial aggression, fear-based aggression and much, much more. You can find a link to subscribe in the show notes or by hitting the subscribe button if you're listening in on Apple Podcasts. Thanks for listening and stay well, my friends.