Corinne Collier, CPDT-KA | Dog Behavior and Safety: A Guide for Growing Families

In this episode of The Mama Making Podcast, host Jessica Lamb chats with certified professional dog trainer Corinne Collier of Pet Harmony, about building safer, more harmonious homes with dogs and kids under one roof. Corinne shares her journey into dog training and breaks down the difference between behavior and obedience—plus why both matter when raising a family alongside pets.

They dive into practical tips for reading dog body language, setting boundaries, and teaching children how to safely interact with dogs. Whether you're navigating life with a new puppy, a growing toddler, or changing family dynamics, this conversation is full of real-world advice for creating a safe and happy household for everyone—fur included.

This episode is sponsored by Collabs Creative - a digital marketing company supporting makers, creatives, and small business owners with all things digital and design.

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Transcript

Jessica Lamb (00:57)
Hello everyone and welcome to the Mama Making Podcast. If you're new here, I'm your host Jessica. If you're not new, then welcome back. Today I am very excited to have Corinne Collier, On the podcast, Corinne is a certified professional dog trainer and behavior consultant, and we're going to be chatting all things animal safety today. Thanks for being here. I'm excited to have you.

Corinnne (she/her) (01:17)
Thanks for having me, this is great, I'm so excited.

Jessica Lamb (01:20)
Me too. So share a little bit more about you, who you are, where you're from, whatever you'd like to share.

Corinnne (she/her) (01:25)
Yeah, well, my name is Corinne. am originally from the South suburbs of Chicago and I live in Naperville, Illinois now. For those of you who don't know, that's one of the Western suburbs of Chicago. I started getting into education through my major. So I was a music education major in college and I went and I taught high school band for seven years and then I had my first son and then I went to elementary music and then I had my second son and then I...

was like, I'm very lonely. I'm just running from one place to the next and not communicating with any humans. But the thing that I love about education in general is that like how we are using our skills to communicate, to learn, grow together. And so, you know, a long time ago while I was still teaching high school band, I was balanceeering at the Humane Society and I'm like.

what is going on in these doggy brains? And so I started, I got my first pup, Opie. He is incredible. He's kind of saucy. He's got his own quirks. He's delightfully naughty is what I like to say. But this was before I had kids. And so I went from my Humane Society gig to start to learn a little bit more about training dogs all while I'm also teaching humans. And so I'm reading these books and I'm,

literally replacing the word dog with freshman over and over. I'm like, brains are brains and behavior is behavior. And this is so fascinating. So I went back to the Mane Society and I said, I think I need to be a dog trainer. I love this. I love seeing what's going on in their brains and like figuring out why they're making choices and how we're communicating. And so they hooked me up with Ali Bender, who is my boss in the company I work for, Pet Harmony.

And at that time Pet Harmony was just her and so her and her business partner Emily Had like a mentorship program for behavior and so I think a lot of people sometimes are confused between like Training versus behavior and what the difference is and really a dog trainer and a dog a behavior consultant or any an animal behavior consultant It really gets to the details of like training is teaching new skills, but when we think of behavior we're looking at

the wider picture and training is a part of it. So I went through their mentorship program, learned a little bit more about behavior and so I work specifically now with, I do behavior consultations where I work primarily with more than nuisance behaviors. So behaviors that are kind of affecting the quality of lives for the pets and the people in the family.

And so I was kind of doing that at the same time as teaching and then once I ended up leaving, you know, the education system just because of family things, I started doing this behavior consulting full time and, well, full time as full as it could be as a stay at home mom also. So that's how I kind of got into this and really when we think about behavior, behavior is...

just how things act on the environment. And that's like for humans, that's for dogs, that's for cats, that's for babies, that's for everything. And so it's really nice when we focus in it through like a behavior lens instead of just a training lens because we're also addressing like how everyone is coming into like the way that we live with our animals. That was kind of a roundabout way of talking about things.

Jessica Lamb (04:40)
No, that

was perfect. Yeah, but I think it's important to share like the animal brain has its own science that is very similar to ours and figuring out how to make things make sense. think we found each other because you are our trainer for our dog Rihanna who is dog reactive and

Corinnne (she/her) (04:42)
Very not linear, but...

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jessica Lamb (05:02)
is just like, like you said, a little spicy on our own. So, I think it's important to share that there is like a psychological component to things. It's not just like, sit, stay, lay in your bed, all of that stuff. Like there's so much to it. that I think is important to, to share.

Corinnne (she/her) (05:20)
Yeah, and there's so many times where if people do come to me where they're like, we just want to do some basic commands. It's like I almost smiled to myself because it's like nothing is basic, right? And so even with like, just want to teach my dog how to sit. I would not be doing my job correctly if I'm not asking, like, why? What's the function of it right now? Because it's

sit might be the option that we need or maybe sit's not the option. Maybe actually sit is causing some pain in your dog, which is then making them not want to sit. So you think they can't sit, but really there's something happening that's not allowing them to sit. you know, I want to help my dog like walk nicely on a leash. And it's like, it's not the fact that they can't orient to you. It's the fact that the stimuli in the environment are way too intense and their brain is not in a place to think and learn. And so even when we're just doing like,

quote unquote, basic training. It's not basic because it's so specific to the animal that we're looking at, the team, the outcome, what's the desired result? Is this the best means to end? And is this reasonable in this environment? And so even when I'm doing puppies, it's like, know that people in the realm of you get a puppy, you have to train your dog.

think like, sit, stay, down, come, and it's like, let's think more about the function of how this is gonna work in your life, and is that the best way to get your desired outcomes?

Jessica Lamb (06:49)
Yeah, absolutely. And I think, on this podcast, we talk a lot about like preparing for birth and pregnancy and family and motherhood. So I think it's really important. Like a lot of people are being, becoming parents for the first time and have a dog at home and don't know how to interact with baby and dog. or they have a busy house full of kids and have a dog. And I think most.

Corinnne (she/her) (07:06)
Mm-hmm.

Jessica Lamb (07:17)
moms find dogs to be a little overstimulating in those first few years. So I think there is a correlation between learning and experiencing motherhood and then also learning and experiencing your dog as your family grows. ⁓ And animal safety is very important to me.

Corinnne (she/her) (07:22)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Jessica Lamb (07:38)
I don't think I even mentioned it on the podcast, but I previously worked in humane education for a good chunk of time and in animal welfare. So I, um, joke that I used to work with all the bad dogs in, um, I worked with a pit bull type dog rescue and loved like the naughty dogs and learning about them and why they do what they do. And, um,

Corinnne (she/her) (07:51)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jessica Lamb (08:05)
was able to see firsthand how inappropriate interaction with dogs or animals of all kinds between children and the animal. I have seen how that kind of goes south if not addressed. So when my sister had her kids and when I had my kids, it was really important to me to maintain

appropriate boundaries with animals.

So I think it's important for people to take away some like tips and tools of how to integrate some animal safety, more specifically dog safety when it comes to their own family dogs, but then also dogs out in the wild in your neighborhood and how to appropriately approach and body language to look out for. So yeah.

Corinnne (she/her) (08:31)
You're

Yeah, and I think, you know, one of the things that I think what you're touching on, and if I'm rephrasing in the wrong way, please let me know, but when we think about bringing a new creature into the household with an already established environment, I think the biggest thing for us to understand is that we have the ability to have antecedent arrangement to make sure that it is successful for what we know about our animal, for what we

don't know, but we can manage for our animal and for our own expectations to know what we're hoping for or what to look for. And so when we think about behavior, if I can get nerdy for a second, like our first step is arranging the environment to have the outcomes that we desire to be most likely. And so, you know, as a trainer, I am a positive reinforcement trainer, fear free, I don't use aversives.

Jessica Lamb (09:32)
Yeah, of course.

Corinnne (she/her) (09:46)
But even before we have to like add a training exercise to teach a skill, the first thing we have to do is we have to look and see what is the environment and what is the ability to have for that dog to interact with the consequences of the environment. And so, you know, since we come in having information about our dog and like, what should that what do we think this dog is going to be doing? We have to look for look at the environment given what

consequences are available and make sure that we're arranging that to be the consequences that we want, which is safety for everybody, feeling of security for everybody, and having our needs met. And so, like specifically when I'm working with a family, you know, I love when I get the emails like, we're like four months pregnant and our dog doesn't have any issues, but you know, we have a baby coming.

We can never know what the things are going to be. And a lot of the times our statements are going to be like, it depends. I'm not sure what needs to happen. But what we can do is we can say, OK, well, let's start right now with setting expectations for what we know about our dog to see how they do when new things and new, you know, even like us being at home more frequently in that, you know, in that newborn bubble. What does that do to our dog if we're some we're a family where?

We're not home during the day and now we're home during the day and just that is gonna change behavior. And so like what I always do like a flat out and I, there's hardly ever something that I'm gonna say like I do with everyone because everything is gonna be different and dependent on what we see. But for almost all family kids things, I'm always gonna establish a safe place. So that dog knows that they are not gonna be touched in this place. Their resources will not be taken away in this place.

This place is a place that feels safe, where I get good things, and where I am never bothered. And so before we even know how they interact with other creatures in our home, I always set up that safe space, like we did with Rihanna, which Rihanna already had some safe spaces, but we really amped it up to be like, this is a place that nothing ever, you'll never be bothered here. And it has this reinforcement history of being a feeling of security and a place where you can relax.

and an escape if you need to. And so one of the things I always make sure that families have set up is a safe space for their animal, but then to make sure that everyone in the house, and that's also, it's tough when we talk about people who live outside of the house but are probably gonna be visiting more frequently, like our families, who may not have the same worries as us or even just value something differently than us, establishing with them, like, this is what I,

want to happen for my animal. My family is very important, but my animal is a part of my family and this is what we want to make sure happens. so having those conversations that like, nope, if Opie's laying in his bed, don't touch him. No, even if like, you know, you have a family member coming over and the three year old is like gonna go pet a dog who is fine being pet, even if they're fine being pet, if they're in their safe spot.

That is a non-negotiable for me because I don't want there to ever be a question in that animal's mind of whether or not they're going to have their needs met in this place where they think they should have their needs met for sure. And we always want to meet their needs across the board. But when we're out playing on the rug, that's a very different environment and a different set of consequences available. Like maybe we'll get pets, maybe we'll get playtime, maybe we'll be running around.

on a safe zone, it should always be, I will not be bothered. And the dogs, if they want to be petted, they will come and solicit your attention and we can give it to them. So it's not withholding that attention, but it's making sure that they have choice and control. And when we see that our animals have choice and control, they're more relaxed, they're able to, you know, deal with new stressors in an environment much better. And so that's why that's like the one thing that I would say.

in my training that is consistent across any client is that we're going to have a safe place established and these are the rules for the safe space.

Jessica Lamb (13:47)
Yeah. And I think, I always used to be a huge advocate for crate training, having like one specific area that's theirs that no one's going in and out of. And that's where their things are that like they're happy stuff, but that's not for every dog. And for, yeah.

Corinnne (she/her) (14:03)
No, some dogs actually

really don't. Some dogs thrive in a crate where it's like, I see my boundaries. I know you won't go in here. It's fine. And other dogs are like, I'm trapped. And it's like, yeah, that's not a safe space for you then if you feel trapped.

Jessica Lamb (14:17)
Yeah,

and I think it obviously depends on the dog and their personality. Our dog that passed last year, Winston, loved his crate like that was his safe spot. He would lay in it all day if we let him and also appreciated once the baby came that he had. We call that his office like it was our home office. But like that was the dog space that the baby was not coming into. But Rihanna, our other dog.

Corinnne (she/her) (14:37)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jessica Lamb (14:46)
Winston was also people reactive, so never interacted with the baby anyway. But Rihanna was, we call her mom. We joke that she's like the mom dog, love to be around the family and knowing what's happening around the baby. So knowing what I know now, her safe space was not the office away from us. It was not the crate. It was being a little outside of where we were, but she could, she knew where everyone was at.

Corinnne (she/her) (14:50)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Hmm?

Jessica Lamb (15:13)
She was able to see outside a little bit. She had her treats and bones, which she never was able to have before when it was the two of them. So, I mean, she's a nine-year-old dog and we're just now learning that those places were not for her, where now she's like thriving, just having a pillow on the floor.

Corinnne (she/her) (15:19)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, and that's it. I have a couple clients where it's like we've established a safe space and just one that I had last weekend, was doing, we often do like a flight training queue where we have the dog move away from their triggers so that they know that they have choice and control of their interaction. And we typically do it to a target location, which is often the safe spot. And I noticed that the dog would always follow me and then would wait for me to put the treat down before they stepped onto the safe spot. And I was like.

does your dog ever lay on this? And she was like, only when we're doing a relaxation protocol. I was like, So this is a great place where it's like, she'll go to this spot, but not on her own. And this client is really talented and great at looking at body language and everything, but it's also those little tweaks where we're like, and I go back to the phrase, observe with our senses, not our stories, which is like.

What do we actually sense is happening here? What do we see that's happening here? Instead of like, what do we think is happening? It's like, we think, this is their safe spot because we have established it as a zone where they go, we give them good stuff there, we leave them alone. But if they're never choosing to go there, then that's telling us that's actually that our story is that this is their safe spot because we've tried for that. our actual senses and the things that we've experienced is like, they don't ever choose to go there without.

that teaching. So I think it's part of it. And also like when we are thinking about, and I think what you've done great Jessica with Rihanna is like we break out these labels of like sure Rihanna is the mama dog, right? And likes humans and people, but what you just mentioned is that like that means one thing, but that doesn't mean it's always like that. And so what you've been great about is trying to see like, okay,

Jessica Lamb (16:48)
Yeah.

Corinnne (she/her) (17:11)
She likes to be around people. That doesn't mean people can always pet her. Or like my dog likes to be in like this certain environment where there's like lots of dogs there. That doesn't mean that's gonna give us a desired outcome or that's the time to introduce them to a new dog or whatever the thing may be. And so I'm always trying to like along with safe space training with almost all of my, not with almost all.

all of my clients go through a heavy conversation about body language. And as you know, through our four sessions, every time we talk, we're gonna talk about body language over and over because that's the only thing we have as an indicator for how they're feeling and how we should intervene and if what's happening is actually what we think should be happening because it's so different. Rihanna can look out the window and see a car and maybe be fine.

see the pace bus and will not be fine, but see a school bus and maybe feel fine or whatever it might be. Or maybe on Tuesday she can see the pace bus, but on Wednesday she can't see the pace bus. So I always go back to that, like see with your eyes, not your ideas, or to be less ableist, like observe with your senses, not your stories.

Jessica Lamb (18:12)
Yeah.

Yeah,

and I think that was a huge learning curve for me, because I felt like I came from a background with a lot of knowledge on behavior and what I was viewing. But it's so hard to look at yourself in your own house and see, you almost need a third person to be like, well, did you see this or did you see that? And I'm like, wait, I didn't even think about that. Right. Yeah, so it was like, I know all these things instinctually.

Corinnne (she/her) (18:29)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Yes.

That's because of habituation. That is how behavior works. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Jessica Lamb (18:48)
because of the education and experience I had, but I didn't relay it to my own dogs. Right. But I think that's a great point to pivot and talk a little bit more about, you were mentioning like, maybe your dog loves people, but maybe that doesn't mean all the time. Or maybe your dog loves other dogs, but not in these scenarios. How can, because it's also variable, how can parents and families be

Corinnne (she/her) (18:54)
to your own self. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jessica Lamb (19:15)
more aware of safety when it comes to both their dogs and other dogs.

Corinnne (she/her) (19:21)
Yeah, so when we're talking about parents looking at external family, so when you're out on a walk or at a park or any of those things, even if a dog is with a family that has kids, you cannot assume that that dog should be approached. Even if a dog is running around and romping and having a good time, we cannot assume that that dog can be approached. Now, that dog might be totally fine,

But when we are outside of the house and we see a dog that we're like, kids love dogs. My kids love dogs, they're obsessed with dogs. The biggest thing I have to do is I have to educate my kids on how we approach that. And so there's so many ways to word it to your kids. There's so many different books. There's one book called May I Pet Your Dog. I can't think of the author right now, it's a red book. Or another book.

called My Pal Opal, which is a nice one to talk about body language that we can use to have those conversations. Like, well, if you see a dog and you want to pet them, what should we do? And so the first step is always to teach our kids to check in with their adults first. Because even if the dog was super friendly and even if your kid is incredibly independent, like my four-year-old, he...

He is confident with dogs. He speaks back to me. I almost come to tears multiple times a week as he's articulating to me the body language of a dog. He's so confident and he can make a good choice for a dog, whether it can be approached or not, as good as he can, but he always still has to check in with me first. And so we kind of have it in our family. Our rule is if you see a dog,

get closer to mom. And so once we see a dog get closer to mom and we just bring it up, look at that dog. And then what I always do, because I have the knowledge of it, and this is probably not something that all pet parents can do yet, but I do recommend to learn about this is to articulate the body language we're seeing on that dog. So I was like, look at that dog. It's bumbling around. Its body is so goofy. His tail is wagging side to side and his ears are so floppy.

That must be a dog that's feeling pretty happy, but also pretty excited. I bet you if you went up to it, that dog will probably be jumping all over you. And so just to give the expectation that we're looking at body language first, or if I see a dog that maybe is showing signs to me if they don't want to be touched, says, I see that dog. They're walking really fast, but their head's kind of down and their ears are pulled back. I'm thinking that dog might want to be focused on its walk right now.

Or did you see when we passed that dog how it looked away? I always bring up these things if I see We're in a place where like maybe we can interact with the dog.

And so honestly, for us and our family, we're not, we love dogs. We are not saying hi to a lot of dogs.

because I just know that that dog probably doesn't really, most dogs when they're out in the park, they don't wanna see humans. They wanna go sniff and see what these squirrels are saying. And so oftentimes we're not saying hi, we're just admiring from afar and having fun talking about the dogs. And then when we are interacting, it's always kids stay still, palms facing up, and I'm wanting.

watching and monitoring that the dog's body language is loosey goosey and it never has any hesitations or isn't even, you know, bumbly and overexcited because all of those things are warning signs to me that the dog doesn't really want this or if it does really want it, it might want it too badly. And so that's our policy.

Jessica Lamb (22:43)
Yeah, we're kind of similar too. Like I said, maybe I go overboard, but we're very selective about which dogs we're interacting with. And I think for me, that comes from obviously seeing things go south a little unexpectedly. But also, I know as someone who had a reactive dog for a very long time, a person reactive dog for a very long time, how much

Corinnne (she/her) (22:50)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jessica Lamb (23:06)
confidence it takes as a pet parent to say, no, my dog is not friendly or yeah, or no, you cannot. Yeah. Right. So yeah, I think relying on the pet parent to say whether the dog is friendly or not, obviously always ask. But what I have done is like you said, I'm, I'm marking a dog a mile away. I'm like, okay, what does this look like? Is the, is the pet parent engaged? Like, do they know what's going on?

Corinnne (she/her) (23:10)
It takes too much. Everyone wants to be kind. It's like, ugh, yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Jessica Lamb (23:34)
And then if it comes to us as an opportunity to maybe interact with this dog, my son is like to the side behind me almost and I'm assessing the situation. And in the event the pet parent is like, Hey, do you want to pet her? will pet. I will let the dog sniff me and pet the dog first, just to make sure nothing happens. Um, but I feel like I try to put every barrier I can, um, granted.

Corinnne (she/her) (23:44)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jessica Lamb (24:03)
Bodie's only two and a half. loves other dogs, but it's almost at the point where like, if we see a dog, he'll mention it, but then like moves on from it. And I don't know if that's just his personality or he's like, we have never encouraged him to like, let's go pet this dog or yeah.

Corinnne (she/her) (24:10)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. No, and

I really don't think it's necessary. If you're in a place where it's like, really, we don't have a dog and I really want my kid to experience dogs, the solution is not to go to a park and find a dog to pet. The solution is maybe we go and visit a Humane Society where we can look at the dogs, but that also can be way stimulating for a kid. Maybe we find a family friend that we can have like a very like routine like.

scripted interaction with them with management things in place and like things that we can control. But I just, you know, I'm a huge dog lover. I am not. I by myself might pet more dogs, but even when I by myself, I hardly see dogs. What I'll do is I'll like walk by like, what a cute dog. like wondering if they're going to say, you want to pet them? But I very rarely even ask, can I pet your dog? Because

Jessica Lamb (25:05)
Yeah.

Corinnne (she/her) (25:10)
in those environments, that dog is probably not there to do that. And I want that dog to have choice and control and to feel like they are not being subject to just like the kindness of their of their human. And I love that you brought that up that it is so difficult for a person to say no, you can't pet my dog because they don't want to be seen as mean. And so I've had some clients that I was like, have like, we have to make a sentence for you. Because it's okay.

Jessica Lamb (25:14)
Right.

Right, yeah.

Corinnne (she/her) (25:39)
to say no, but I also understand that feels icky because you don't want to feel like your dog is mean or bad. It's not that. It's just like, you know what? No. And so I often will do silly things. Like if you are a pet parent that you don't want your dog, you don't have the scenario where like you want them to be petted or you know they don't want it. Or also it's like you're just, you're focused on something else. I'm like, we're having a bad hair day or just something to kind of move along.

Jessica Lamb (25:46)
Yeah.

Corinnne (she/her) (26:05)
But yeah, you make a really good point that a lot of people will choose their discomfort of telling another person no for fear of being labeled rude over that dog's desire to engage with that situation. And that is just so not fair for the dog. That dog should have choice.

Jessica Lamb (26:21)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And

I mean, you never know what kind of situation you're coming into. Maybe they just got this dog or right. And maybe it's like you said, like some scenarios, they're great. Other scenarios, they're not. And so I have found in...

Corinnne (she/her) (26:34)
And they don't know, yeah, they're friendly with me.

Jessica Lamb (26:45)
being in the reactive dog community, that it is a lot easier for people to answer the question honestly, when you say is your dog friendly? Because like for me, I very quickly learned like, don't pet my dog. I like my dog wore a vest and people still tried to pet him that said don't pet me. But, so yeah, yeah, it's like bright yellow. Like there's no chance you can miss it. Anyway, I

Corinnne (she/her) (26:55)
Mm-hmm.

Mm. Yeah. You're like trying hard for antecedent arrangement. Mm-hmm.

Jessica Lamb (27:13)
would always say if people were coming and paying attention to whatever was happening, I would very quickly say he's not friendly. And people would be like, okay, because once if you're coming up to say, can I pet your dog? You're already there. Yes. Whereas if I'm walking up and it's a dog that we're like, or there were crossing paths and they don't seem to be recoiling their dog. I'll

Corinnne (she/her) (27:21)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

close enough to yeah yeah yeah

Jessica Lamb (27:39)
always say, is your dog friendly? And that way they can very quick, don't have to think about it as much to say very quickly, yes or no. We're still doing like, I'm petting it first, the kids behind me, like all the, all the barriers I've put in, but I have found it a lot easier for people to say yes or no versus like, can I pet your dog? And then they're like, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right.

Corinnne (she/her) (27:44)
Mm-hmm. Mm.

Yeah.

there's a hesitation. Okay, no, no, no, we'll just say hi. Yeah,

yeah. I mean, I just think it's, don't want to be like the mean person, but like if you're out with your kids and you see dogs, unless there's, unless there's a real desire from the owner to like, you know, engage with you, just talk about the dog. Just say, what a cute dog. I love the way that its ears flap.

I love the way that its fur is blowing in the wind. I love how fast those little tiny feet move. And so I think that's a better way to have a positive association for our children to learn that dogs are communicating through their body language than just the experience of petting the dog. Because even with a well-trained dog, you have to have so much practice of introducing your dog to someone with

for that dog not to be bonkers. My dog is a, my dog was great with other people. He's great on like out on a walk and to meet people. But like if he meets people, he's still like so rude. He's like up in their face. yeah. Like he like gets in like, they like, if they know then okay. But like most people don't know that's going to happen like that. So I don't really let my dog say hi because he's just too much. But if I wasn't the person that I am and know how.

Jessica Lamb (28:56)
Mm-hmm.

Corinnne (she/her) (29:22)
things can be turned so quickly. I might not have the same thing.

Jessica Lamb (29:24)
Yeah.

Can you talk a little bit more about body language that people can start to look out for, when they're seeing a dog walking, like they're driving, they see a dog, what kind of things can you start to look out for that people can keep in mind?

Corinnne (she/her) (29:40)
So for me, I'm always looking for movement. so the more, well, we look at the type of movement. so movement that is quick, efficient, darting with some stiffness in it, those are all red flag movements of like, this dog is uncomfortable. And that could even be like, say my dog is at like a forest preserve and he's sniffing around, he's sniffing, he's from one place, the next is the next place.

those are all red flags for him to be learning right now because his brain is so engaged in whatever it is. And in that moment for him, he's super happy. But in other contexts, I've seen dogs who they're out in a public place and they're moving very, very quickly and their head's starting left and the right and looking around. That's all telling me this dog is very close to threshold. This dog is very stressed out.

Even if it's good stress, it's not a place where you want to introduce a new scenario where it could possibly turn. So whenever I see quick, efficient, darting, fast or tight movements, those are all not good signs. Signs that usually show like affiliation or like friendliness are when the tail is wagging loosely and curved and the whole butt is going with it. When they're running, they're bumbling and like they're bouncing a little bit. They're not doing straight lines.

Those are all really like this dog is in a place where it's happy. Usually it's feeling good Whether when you see the dog's tails ever like go up towards the higher side of things and the high and tight Even if it's wagging, that's not a good tail wag. That's a tail wag. That's very attentive Maybe in a good way maybe in a bad way But it's usually that higher stress if we see that tail tucked most people know like yeah dog with a tail tuck

Of course, that's a shy dog or that dog is feeling fearful or something. But what a lot of people misconstrue is that when that tail is tucked and wagging, people think like, this dog is nervous, but it wants to see me. It's wagging its tail. And that's a no, no, no. That dog does not want to see you right now. It's usually like tail tucked, really wagging. You keep approaching and that dog like turns and shows its belly. and he wants a belly rub. It's like, no.

That belly rub is not that's not a belly rub he's asking for. He's trying to make himself tiny and say, I am just a little doggy don't touch me. But oftentimes those are those signs that the dog is uncomfortable. And we just see a belly in the air and a tight tail wag and it's like, you must be nervous, but you probably want my pets because you're showing it. And those are actually not true indicators of that. And so tightness, inefficient or efficient movement.

you know, high tail stiffness, ears up, those are all things that tell us that this dog is escalated. Loose, bumbly, soft eyes, like almond-shaped eyes. The ears are floppy, the tail is wagging, but it's not like a consistent back and forth wag. It's usually like back forth, maybe a little bit around, maybe the butt is going with it. Those are usually the good signs. And so...

Just starting at that basic level of like, what's the movement look like? There's a website that's really, really great called ispeakdog.org. And it has so many great pictures for families to look at dogs together. And it goes through the differences in the faces. There are so many more nuanced things to talk about that just would take much more time and specific examples. But that's where I would start.

And as far as like in the house things for us to look at is like if the dogs laying down and we come by them and they do a little lick lip or they look to the side and give us a side eye. Those are all signs of like, I see you but like what are we doing here? And so those are things that you can start to notice like if you have like a younger baby that like the dog has never really been.

in the environment before and you notice that like the baby starts moving kind of towards it and the dog starts lick-lipping. That's a sign that we need to make sure, hopefully there should already be a physical barrier there, but we need to make sure that we are moving that baby away from the dog to let the dog know like, I see you, you're uncomfortable, let's move away. So in the house I'm looking for the subtle signs of a side eye, they call it a whale eye, when you just see the whites of the eye I'm looking for lick-lips.

A yawn is, people are like, you're so tired, like, no, the dog's so stressed. So the dog was sleeping and then sees you, kind of lick lips and then yawns. That's probably like, I'm a little uncomfortable right now. And so those are some signs I'm looking for in the house. But like I had mentioned before, when a dog is resting, we need to give it its space, right? And if we are not able to,

have like a designated space that's like is blocked off, then we need to make sure that like that baby is in probably another room because if we're not 100 % supervising it and if we don't know what's gonna happen, we need to have a physical barrier there because for everyone's safety.

Jessica Lamb (34:34)
Yeah, I'm really big on allowing your dog the time to figure it out when your baby is little. Like everyone's still learning, but I think trying to remember to keep up those barriers and keep safety in mind is huge.

Corinnne (she/her) (34:40)
Mm-hmm.

Yes, number one,

physical management because all of your training in the world, like you still need a physical backup because you don't know exactly what's going to happen.

Jessica Lamb (35:02)
Yeah, I see these pictures on Instagram and Facebook of people putting their babies on their dogs. And I'm like, my god. For all things holy, please don't do that.

Corinnne (she/her) (35:11)
Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it Yeah, and it's like

you are seeing these dogs like oftentimes when you see those pictures Those are the picture do not do that to your to your dog or your baby Those are the those are the things that bad that's times when bad things happen But in almost all of those pictures I see a dog that's like what the heck am I doing? Why am I here right now and

At the very least, it's annoying for them. At the very most, they're suppressing the way that they feel. if we do it too frequently, they're like, you're not listening to me. I told you I don't like this. And then we see the bigger, scarier things happen. Yeah. Please don't put your baby on your dog or by your dog. Now, if you are all hanging out and your dog comes up with the baby, get that picture, OK? Get that picture.

Jessica Lamb (35:47)
Yeah, yeah, just because they're tolerating it doesn't mean that they always will.

Corinnne (she/her) (36:01)
But do not ever place your baby near your dog, especially not when your dog is relaxing because we want your dog to know that, you don't have to worry. If you're relaxing, we're gonna leave you alone no matter where you are. It's the hardest thing. I understand, because if a dog's so cute, like Opie's laying on the couch, like, I just wanna pet you. And I'll go over and I'll pet him because I'm dumb human. And I'll pet him and he'll look at me like, why are you touching me? I'm like, okay, sorry, fine.

Jessica Lamb (36:15)
It is hard, yeah.

Corinnne (she/her) (36:29)
and had to walk away.

Jessica Lamb (36:30)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It's a, it's a bit of a learning curve, I think, to look at things differently, but I feel like it will be better for the homeostasis of the home to start to pay attention a little bit more to like body cues, how things are kind of operating in the house. I mean, my situation is very different. had two very reactive dogs. had a

Corinnne (she/her) (36:54)
Yeah.

Jessica Lamb (36:55)
dog reactive dog and who's Rihanna and then a people reactive dog. Our measures were extreme when bringing our baby home because it's the only way that I could do it to feel comfortable bringing my baby home. So it's going to look different for everyone, but I think starting before you even have your baby to start to notice.

Corinnne (she/her) (37:02)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jessica Lamb (37:19)
rooms that may maybe seem like it could be the dog room or the dog like kind of hangs out or designated spaces ahead of time I think can be helpful. And then, I I don't want parents to feel like on edge waiting for something to happen, but I think being cautious isn't a terrible idea.

Corinnne (she/her) (37:23)
Mm-hmm.

You

know, we, mean, here's the thing is that you can never know the internal thoughts of any other creature besides yourself. And I think the most dangerous statement that if you're thinking this frequently should be a flag for you to review what's happening is, it's fine. If you think that sentence, it's fine. I think that, and if it's happening all the time, or even just once or twice, I think you need to review what,

Why do you have to say that in your mind right now? know, it's probably fine. And if you think that in your mind, I think that should be a, pause. How can we allow this situation to be protected? How can we help the environment to produce the outcome that we want? Whether that's a physical barrier or us removing the baby from the area or...

Jessica Lamb (38:11)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Corinnne (she/her) (38:30)
I mean, any number of things. There's no way to say exactly what a parent should do because there are so many options for what's right. When I was getting ready to have waltz, I mean, I was a dog trainer at the time, but I wasn't a parent at the time. So I'm reading all this stuff about what to do with dogs. And there's all these cards, like, the dog is never allowed in the baby's room. Or like, never place the baby on the dog. I hear all those things.

I believe never place the baby on a dog is a rule you can always follow, but there are some things that's like, who knows, is the dog allowed in the baby's room? Not unattended, but how does your dog act in that room? Are they more relaxed if there's a place there while you're nursing the baby that they can be? Or if you're nursing the baby, are they all up on you and you can't do anything? Then that's not a successful place for your dog. There are so many, it depends situations.

Jessica Lamb (39:24)
Yeah, so case

by case.

Corinnne (she/her) (39:26)
It's so case by case. Yeah. I would say the only hard fast things are like, you have a safe spot and we let the dog be and we never approach the dog and force them to be in a situation where they don't want to maybe, or we don't know if they want to be in.

Jessica Lamb (39:28)
Yeah, so I think.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think, like starting to notice some of these things about your dog prior to having a baby or prior to bringing home another dog or whatever it is, I think starting to notice those things can be extremely helpful in the long run to be like, okay, this isn't what I thought it was going to be, but here's maybe some adjustments that we can make because it is so case by case. think knowing what it all kind of looks like so that you can make those changes and pivots would be helpful.

Corinnne (she/her) (40:06)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and I mean, think bigger than anything is just having a plan, not just like, we'll see. That's of the other kind of trigger phrases for me is if I hear like, it's probably fine or we'll see. It's like, is there something else we can do beforehand to plan this out? And so like for what it looked like for me to bring my baby, for me and my husband to bring my baby home, that is totally different than maybe another family because it...

Everyone is individual, right? And so I think having the conversation beforehand of what he wanted to look like, setting up that experience for everyone, like for us, I knew that if when we got home and if whoever was here watching OPI while we were in the hospital was still here, that it would be too chaotic. And so we made sure that the people that were watching OPI were gone. then I came in for, and this is just the way that I did it. Every way might be different, but

Jessica Lamb (40:38)
Yeah.

Corinnne (she/her) (41:02)
I came in first and let Opie get his wiggles out with me because if I came in with the baby right away, he's going to be jumping on me because he's like, what's going on? So I came in first so I could get his pets in. I can help him deescalate. I can give him some love and attention. I went back outside. Tony came in, he gave his pets. He was still kind of riled up.

And then after Opie has calmed down, then we brought him with the baby and we had it always like, we never sniff the head, the head, you know, we had him sniff the toes first and we kept the baby up higher in his car seat. And we're watching body language. And for me, every time Opie went to check out the baby, then I would reward him for moving away from the baby. So I had some treats and this is different for every, every person, but I know that my priority was that he

Jessica Lamb (41:42)
Hmm.

Corinnne (she/her) (41:49)
His interest in the baby wouldn't overpower his ability to move away from something that's new and interesting. And so I wanted him to, if you check out the baby, better things happen when you move away. Because if you check out the baby and then you get excited, then you get more excited, then you get more excited. Now we're all in the face and we don't want that. mean, OP doesn't have some behavioral issues. And so ours look different than other people's.

Jessica Lamb (41:54)
Mmm.

Corinnne (she/her) (42:13)
But like for me, I wanted to make sure that like one of the first things that is I was ready to train a session where like you sniff the baby, we move away, good things happen away. Go sniff the baby, move away, good things happen away. And then what started happening is that he'd like look at the baby and then he'd move away. like, yeah, that's what I want you to do. Because I, I, at that point, like we don't, you have no idea how you're going to interact with this thing. And, but I do know that moving away and getting treats and being reinforced for that will create more.

Jessica Lamb (42:30)
Yeah.

Corinnne (she/her) (42:42)
of an option for us to have you move away from the thing that's exciting. So that's what we did for ours, but I mean, like, it is so dependent on everyone's, know, there are some families that we set up for words, like, it looks totally different where there's lots of baby gates involved. But no matter what, it's where we have to deescalate first, we have to get their brain on board before we introduce anything new there. And so like setting up the environment for them to be successful. So when I had my second one,

Jessica Lamb (42:46)
Yeah.

Corinnne (she/her) (43:09)
We had a very similar thing happen, but I kind of had an understanding of what OPI was going to do with babies. But I wanted to make sure that whoever was watching Walt, that they were out of the house. And again, we came in, we helped them deescalate. And we went from there and it was similar, but obviously with now Walt, like we wanted to make sure that that was a part of it as well. So there are so many things to consider. And the biggest thing is that people just need to have a conversation and

plan out what it's going to look like instead of just, we'll see, or it'll be fine. Not a good way.

Jessica Lamb (43:39)
Yeah. Yeah. And I think,

because everyone is going to do it differently, I would say ask around like the, the pet parents that you trust. I would, I would ask what they did when they brought home their kids to, to see what sounds right for you. I know I was very overwhelmed trying to figure out how I was going to do it. And I wound up sending our dogs away and we were home. I want to say we were home for a week.

Corinnne (she/her) (44:02)
Yeah.

Jessica Lamb (44:06)
just by ourselves so that we could because we were so routine with everything.

Corinnne (she/her) (44:08)
Mm-hmm.

Jessica Lamb (44:11)
we, sent the dogs away for either a week or two weeks so that we could get our routine down with the baby and what everything would look like. So that because we were so systemized with the dogs that we would have our routine and be able to figure out like who's able to be with the dogs and do what at what times while the baby was there. And we just operated as.

Corinnne (she/her) (44:29)
Mm-hmm.

Jessica Lamb (44:33)
normal when the dogs got back. Like they just happened to be there now that the schedule has changed, which is what we needed to do to make it work. But if I had the tools to do it differently, I probably would have. ⁓ yeah, true.

Corinnne (she/her) (44:37)
Mm-hmm.

But there's no right answer, you know?

And so it's so tough to know even what would be the right answer because who knows, a thousand different stories. But what I think is important that you're talking about is like when we talk about enrichment in Pet Harmony, we're talking about meeting needs and that's your animal's needs and it's also your needs because it's like two dogs who both have reactive issues and then a baby's coming in.

Jessica Lamb (44:54)
Right.

Yeah, right. ⁓

Corinnne (she/her) (45:13)
and you're sleep deprived and you just gave birth, we need to set it up for everyone to be as successful as possible.

Jessica Lamb (45:17)
Yeah.

Yeah, and I'm a huge advocate for dog gates. have still, we have one dog who doesn't really need them.

but yeah, I'm all about dog gates. have a gate on like every doorway just because it's yeah. Just because I felt like safer knowing who was in what room at what time, like we very much, we live in a townhouse and very much segmented the house when we first had.

Corinnne (she/her) (45:32)
Baby gates for the win. Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Jessica Lamb (45:45)
the baby and I was like, Oh, we'll just do this for when he's a newborn and new and the dogs are figuring it out. But then I mean, he's two and a half and we still have them. And it's just, I feel like it's a very clear barrier to everyone in the home as to like, who's in what room, where who's allowed in that room. I dunno. I feel like it just made

Corinnne (she/her) (46:08)
What do you

have, like what should you be focusing on? How does your attention need, it's a visual cue for you for like what should we be thinking about? Yeah, baby gates, I'm a huge fan of baby gates. It's not cheating because it's like, who knows what the, I mean it's all, again it's so different for every family but like what skills does your dog have? What bandwidth do you have to be focusing on it? But like with dogs and babies, like.

Jessica Lamb (46:12)
Yeah.

Corinnne (she/her) (46:34)
You need to have 100 % supervision and that's kind of impossible. So use the baby gate to help be the supervision of a division.

Jessica Lamb (46:38)
Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, is there anything else that you think is super important for people to know or keep an eye out for when it comes to safety with your family and dog?

Corinnne (she/her) (46:52)
would just say, let's not assume anything, make sure even though you have a history with your dog, behavior happens because of the environment. And when the environment changes, behavior can change. And even though something may not be perceived as a big change from the human side of things, it might be a massive change for the dog side of things. Even like if you already have kids and you're bringing another one in, it's a

different environment so we can expect there to be different behaviors. If you're ever worried about what you're seeing, do not hesitate to talk to your vet. So like if you have a dog and you're starting to see signs of discomfort or fear or increased reactivity, the first thing we always do is we check with the vet to make sure that like things are all good there. But I think that getting someone on your team, even if you don't know if you need someone on your team, like when you're first starting a family,

I would say like that's a time when it's good to bring a consultant in and when you are trying to pair up with a consultant, finding someone who is going to be thinking about what are your end goals, what are the ways that we get there, and what are everyone's needs. Yeah, think that covers it. Just don't assume that your dog is anything, right? We need to make sure that we are.

protecting them and giving them choice and control when possible and using barriers when 100 % supervision is not possible.

Jessica Lamb (48:17)
Yeah. Yeah. And I think, like we talked about it before, you're your dog's advocate as much as you are your family's advocate. I think creating systems that help you feel most efficient at being safe and maintain safety in general, I think you can't go totally wrong. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for being on where can people find you?

Corinnne (she/her) (48:23)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

No, yeah.

So you can find me on PetHarmonyTraining.com. You can see all of our consultants there. We've got multiple consultants, two in-person consultants in Chicago, two in-person consultants in the western suburbs Chicago, but all five of the consultants do online sessions as well. And one of our consultants...

as well as she does in home and online. She has an additional certification in family pause. And so she had kids as well, but she has additional certification for kind of like extra thought about that. So we're all on PetHarmonyTraining.com.

Jessica Lamb (49:18)
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being on Wealth of Knowledge. Obviously, there's a lot of different things we could talk about, but this is great. Thank you. Of course.

Corinnne (she/her) (49:25)
Yeah, thanks for having me Jessica super fun