#139 - Plentiful Enrichment: Creating a Full Life

What does it really mean to give our pets an abundant life? Emily and Claire unpack common myths around enrichment and abundance, where well-intentioned positive reinforcement can slip into coercion, and where saying no can actually be part of a healthy, ethical relationship. From toy-bin epiphanies to dogs “earning their keep,” this episode dives into meeting needs, setting boundaries, and letting go of control without letting chaos reign.

If you’ve ever wondered whether you’re giving your pet too much (or not enough), this one’s for you.

TLDL (too long, didn’t listen): 3 Key Takeaways 
1️⃣ Abundance isn’t indulgence – Meeting needs and providing agency doesn’t mean your pet gets everything they want all the time. It’s about long-term well-being, not short-term gratification.

2️⃣ Positive reinforcement alone isn’t the whole story – Even when using rewards, we can unintentionally slip into coercion. True enrichment prioritizes wellbeing, autonomy, and emotional health, not just behavior outcomes.

3️⃣ Boundaries build better relationships – Saying “no” (ethically and clearly) helps both humans and animals thrive. Agency grows when skills grow and when everyone’s needs are respected.

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

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Claire: something that I have been playing with for a long time is my own interpretation of what abundance is, and I also let my dog, Olivia tell me what abundance is for her. For example, early on in my journey with Olivia, I remember a time where she went and. Was going into her toy bin and starting to grab toys out of it.

And I told her, stop, no, don't do that. I need to be the one to get the toys out of your bin for you. And I had a moment as I did that where I went, why do I care if she goes into her own toy bin full of toys that is there for her to access and openly play? Like why, why is that something that I need to have control over?

[00:00:48] Allie: Welcome to Enrichment for the Real World, the podcast devoted to improving the quality of life of pets and their people through enrichment. We are your hosts, Allie Bender...

[00:01:05] Emily: ...and I'm Emily Strong...

[00:01:07] Allie: ...and we are here to challenge and expand your view of what enrichment is, what enrichment can be and what enrichment can do for you and the animals in your lives. Let's get started.

Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Enrichment for the Real World, and I want to thank you for rating, reviewing, and subscribing wherever you listen to podcasts. 

[00:01:27] Emily: In this episode, you're gonna hear Claire and I talk about why Olivia was allowed to steal her toys. At the time I talked about Bootstraps and dogs earning their Keep. How Miley literally just now destroyed some of my books and proved the point that we're talking about and why Claire can't stare at ice cream. Alright, let's get into it.

tis the season for abundance. In the United States we have Thanksgiving as a holiday around this time and and that's a very American thing, but anywhere in the northern hemisphere this is a season of like harvest and having all the good things getting ready, like, like little squirrels ferreting away all of our abundant resources to get us through the long, dark winter.

So I apologize to my. Southern hemisphere of friends who are listening to this and are like, it's springtime for us, but we in the northern hemisphere are, are in the season of abundance. So, we wanted to talk today about the relationship between enrichment and abundance and how they're related. Because I think both enrichment and abundance are frequently misunderstood or misapplied in the same ways for the same reasons. And I think like the place to start with that is that all beings, all sentient beings are at their best when their needs are being met. When we have all of our needs, when we are physically, emotionally, and. Behaviorally as healthy as possible when we have that sense of security and resources when we are emotionally regulated, when we have the skills we need to successfully navigate our environment and interact with the beings in our environment and a way to protect ourself from harm and a way to protect our loved ones from harm, all of those things.

When all of those needs are met, that is when we are at our best. So that's the goal. That's the goal, is making sure that everyone's needs are met. Everyone has the skills that they need to successfully navigate their environment. Everybody has as much control as possible. Over their own outcomes. They have autonomy and everybody has a community that is filled with trusting relationships, relationships built on trust and predictability, and knowing what to expect from your community, right? So that's the goal. Obviously this world is an imperfect place and we're all struggle busting to reach that goal on the regular basis, but that's what we strive towards. we're not going to fall for the Nirvana fallacy and, and have this perfectionist thing of like, I don't live in Utopia Air. Go, what's the point? We are going to continue to strive to enrich ourselves and, and everybody in our care knowing that it's going to be an imperfect, messy process because this world is imperfect, messy and apparently on fire. And, and, that's, that's the time to really focus on this more, right? When, when everything is a dumpster fire, that's when it's important to really focus on, on taking care of ourselves and our community. So, let's talk about what this looks like. For the animals in our care because this is where a lot of confusion lies in terms of like, what decisions should I make?

What training decisions should I make? What, how should I think about food? How should I think about play? How should I think about cuddles? All of the things that, cause, so many internet arguments are really rooted in this ability to understand what enrichment and abundance actually look like.

Not just what I don't know. The internet says like what your, your great Aunt Nelly says, like, just your neighbor, your neighbor's opinions about what you should be doing for your dogs. That kind of stuff.

So Starting off I'm just gonna Call out, I'm gonna go right in. I'm gonna just immediately start calling out these ideas that we have to hoard all of the resources for ourselves so that we can control when our learners receive those resources so that we have total control over their lives, their reinforcement, their ability to meet their own needs. And that looks like that can look like some many, many different things. But I'm gonna specifically call out vanilla protocols. Like nothing in life is free. That philosophy and what the, the euphemism weight management, I am saying with big dramatic. Air quotes which really means depriving your learners of food until they're so desperate for food that they will do whatever you ask them for it. I'm just gonna, I, y'all might have noticed over the past few episodes I have lost any ability to filter or mask, and I'm just gonna call that pure unadulterated garbage. It is indefensible. We're not gonna do that. We all need to quit being control freaks and trying to like, make sure that our learners don't have any ability to access re reinforcement unless it comes through us. That just, that is not it. That's not it. But there is a much nicer and more constructive way to say that and, i'm gonna let Claire do it because Claire, Claire, you are, you are amazing at being so kind and supportive and, I'm too, when I'm working with clients and my students, I'm really good at compassion and, and supporting people. And also when I'm recording a podcast with a migraine and I'm just talking about concepts, I completely lose the capacity to be like, mothering, nurturing, supportive. So, i'm gonna let you take over and and talk about how the, I'm gonna let you talk about the nuances of like, everything that I just said is true and also take it away, Claire.

[00:08:33] Claire: thank you. You're putting me really in an episode where Reddit's gonna get like real mad at me or something about that. Okay. So when it comes to reinforcing our learners or setting up our environment in ways that are going to promote choices that we want to see there are almost endless ways to do that.

And one of what I would call the old school ways that has been pervasive is to withhold. Basic necessities, like you were saying, water, food needing to go out to use the bathroom, play, things like that. And even when I was not too long ago just becoming a trainer, I was an apprentice. I was learning from people.

There was, I took a class with Olivia who had some pretty severe anxiety issues at that point and that weren't being controlled appropriately yet at that point. And was told by my mentor at the time because she was overwhelmed and wouldn't do the tricks we were doing in class. They were tricks.

They weren't, necessary manner to her everyday life that I should just not feed her for two days. And then she would like the food that we had. And this was someone who, was intended to be a positive reinforcement, new age kind of traitor. And I remember that was a little bit of a light bulb moment for me of realizing how misconstrued the term positive reinforcement can be and how, this is almost going into a whole other podcast episode, so I'll wrangle myself.

But it, it, it was a moment of recognizing like, oh, the people, there are moments where people want to control to that level to get a dog to respond to something. And again, this was not a situation where we were having severe behavioral issues that needed these skills so that my dog could continue her life.

It was to get her to do a hurry around a cone quicker. So. When we were going over all of that type of stuff it did give me a little bit of an epiphany moment of how can we still utilize things like food and water and access to play in a way that is still ethical and allows us to create that environment of abundance with our animals in a way that works for everybody.

So, something that I have been playing with for a long time is my own interpretation of what abundance is, and I also let my dog, Olivia tell me what abundance is for her. For example, early on in my journey with Olivia, I remember a time where she went and. Was going into her toy bin and starting to grab toys out of it.

And I told her, stop, no, don't do that. I need to be the one to get the toys out of your bin for you. And I had a moment as I did that where I went, why do I care if she goes into her own toy bin full of toys that is there for her to access and openly play? Like why, why is that something that I need to have control over?

And I think I mentioned in a past episode, like the comforter story where we had this bag and she got in this, that was just out in the living room and she got into it and was like rolling around in it. And I had a moment of like, stop, you can't do that. And then it was like, well, why? What do I need to control about that situation?

What is, what is going to happen that's going to make that something I need to say yes or no to for her? So all of that to say. When we're looking at ethical ways to utilize food and things like that, there are a few different ways that we can do that.

One is, if I know where you're approaching dinnertime, I can use a portion of your food for dinnertime to integrate into your training. Or I can integrate treats and know that I might take a portion out of your meal to make up for those calories that I have just delivered to you. I've had people I've worked with whose dogs really loved water and they would use something like a spray bottle as a reward because the dog loved jumping and trying to catch the spray.

But what we didn't do is say, you can't have water before this, and the only water you're going to get is the spray that I give you. This was purely meant as a reward that did not have underlying requirements to it, other than if you do this behavior, you get this really fun thing that's happening. It was not, you get this, necessary life source if you're able to walk by my side for 10 steps without pulling on the leash. So there's a lot of ways that we can utilize that. Or if we know it's time, it's a time of day when our dog normally goes out on a walk and they have some energy to burn, great. I can totally utilize that excitement and that enthusiasm as a reward.

I often, when I'm working on leash, walking with dogs, especially ones since I work in the city, I get a lot of dogs that are very overwhelmed by the environment around them and aren't super keen on the food that I have. Movement is a huge reinforcer and so we walk for a little bit, we work together on that, and then our reinforcer is we get to be totally goofy and run 10 feet and jump around and be silly, and that times out so well, especially when you're utilizing something that is at that time of day when you know that dog needs it anyway.

There are lots of ethical ways to add on to what you're already providing that just keep building that relationship and aren't, almost weaponizing things that the learners need to operate and to exist and to have a, a life of what's the word I'm looking for?

[00:14:23] Emily: To have an enriched life,

right? 

[00:14:25] Claire: exactly. To have their needs met.

[00:14:26] Emily: I'm gonna circle back to, 'cause you were like, well, I'm not gonna go on this tangent. It could be a whole other podcast episode. But I am gonna circle back to that and lean into it a little more because you said that it's people not understanding positive reinforcement. But I think it, the opposite is true, is that people. Are using positive reinforcement, they know exactly what it is. they, they're able to assess that they have added something to the environment to increase the behavior. And because they know what positive reinforcement is and they see it happening, and it's their only criteria for success, that's the problem, right? Because this is why I don't call myself a positive reinforcement trainer. This is why i, I have never called myself a positive reinforcement trainer because positive reinforcement in and of itself doesn't really comment on wellbeing enrichment. The learner experience the learner, having a say right all it. The only thing that positive reinforcement tells us is that when. We added the consequence to the environment, the behavior was strengthened. And I've said this in other episodes of this podcast, so I'll say it again. When you do prioritize meeting your learners' needs, listening to them, giving them agency and control over their outcomes, making sure that your interactions with them are overwhelmingly repetitive, then yes, almost always, if you were to look at the consequences of your interactions with your learner, the overwhelming majority of those consequences would be positive reinforcement. And also I think like, the focus on positive reinforcement as a training technique was introduced. What, like the seventies or the eighties as a way of like introducing people to this. Totally basic but completely new concept and several decades have passed and I think we need to evolve past that at this point. I think we need to stop having conversations about the, ABCs and be like, okay, yes. And there is so much more involved in really good enriching animal welfare and wellbeing, animal care, animal relationships, behavior, interactions with other, sentient beings that like, can we please move past the ABCs? Can we, can we please like think about other, other aspects of wellbeing? Right? And so like, I actually do think that that was a really good thing for you to bring up that people can use positive reinforcement and still be coercive and still deprive their learners. Of agency and care and wellbeing.

[00:17:26] Claire: Yeah, how, how often do we have situations, and this is not a dig at, at people who use this strategy because I totally understand where it comes from. It's a very like, logical, sequence. But the classic example is a dog who has what we lovingly call stranger danger, a discomfort around new people or people that aren't in their circle already.

And we give the stranger food to then coerce the dog into approaching us, assuming that, okay, well we're rewarding them with food that they want and they're taking the food. So this must be quote unquote positive reinforcement or we must be, doing, going down the right path when in reality, again, we're talking coercive.

So, this dog is so willing to, or so wants the, the food or the whatever the reward is that we have, that they'll push themselves to get it. But then we also frequently see the, grab the foods and then quickly jump back, chomp, chomp, chomp and repeat process. So, yeah, I think it's really. I think coercion happens a lot with very good intentions behind it.

And again, i I, this isn't a dig, especially because I think it is a very logical conclusion. I give the scary thing something that my learner wants and that will make the thing less scary. And there's just a lot more going on underneath that.

[00:18:49] Emily: To be clear, I'm not digging at any individual person because everybody's doing the best they can with the information and resources they have. I, I, I'm gonna borrow this phrase from our friend, colleague, and student Lauren Tap and say, I'm critiquing the discourse, not the people who are, who are in the discussion, right? It is beautiful. And that's exactly it. Everybody's doing the best they can with the information and resources that they have available to them at the time, so I'm not critiquing individuals. I am critiquing the defense of those practices because that it, it is a lot, is missing from the picture when your only focus is on positive reinforcement as your only criterion, right? And so that I think is a really good part of this discussion about. What a enrichment and abundance look like in animal care. But that said, i'm gonna bring in some nuance to this conversation. By saying that like, just because this, is our goal, and this is where we're trying to get to, doesn't mean that we shouldn't meet our learners where they're at. And give them skills through approximations, which means that sometimes we have to, instead of trying to get our human learners to go from absolute coercion to no coercion at all we can sort of like step down the coercive processes for those people by temporarily, using. Nif or a, a less severe version of weight management. Right at first to help our, learners gradually move towards our end goal, because it just doesn't work to expect any learner to go from where they're at all the way to perfection in one step. That's not how behavior works. Right. So I know I have stories of how I have done this with clients in the past, but I, want to hear your take on this. 

[00:21:01] Claire: Yeah. I feel like this is very much still a work in progress for me of how to find that balance between, okay. I don't think that necessarily me and the client are on the same wavelength of thinking about this. What can I do to bridge that gap where we can meet in the middle somewhere, but that isn't still detrimental to like this dog's wellbeing or their agency or things like that.

And I think one of the easiest, easiest, and most, like one of my most commonly used examples is for people who say, well, I, my dog can get on the couch or the bed, or whatever, but I just want them to ask first. I don't want them to assume that they can run and jump up on the furniture, which is fair.

I understand that my dog kicks me off the furniture more frequently than, than I kick her off. But everybody has their preferences for how how their animals interact with furniture and things like that. So one of my go-to things is, okay, well if your dog is approaching the couch while you're sitting on it and you're there, can we pause and ask them for a sit before they hop up?

Or I'll say another really basic skill the dog knows. Can I get them to come and do a eye contact cue or can I get them to do a touch? And then I will invite them to come up. That is basically a say, please protocol. It's, you have to do this so that I will allow you to have access to the furniture.

But it is very rarely compromising any sort of wellbeing, requiring something of the dog that is causes like fear or anxiety or stress, and still gives the human learner some aspect of control over the situation. Getting towards the outcome that they want.

[00:22:41] Emily: Yeah. I love that because you're right, like technically that is a context in which we are controlling access to a resource, but the crucial difference is that you aren't depriving an animal, of their basic needs and then only giving it to them when they do what you want. So you're, you're shaping your client's behavior away from like total coercion to like let's get rid of the coercion about like just having their, basic needs met. And, but you can still have control over this specific part. And by the way, I don't think that that's, unreasonable at all. I'm not, even sure that, I'm not even. Convinced that like that needs to. Be shaped any further because we also have the right to set boundaries. and Say like, I really wanna have, control over whether or not you're in my space i, I do that. With copper. I love copper. And in general, our, our rule in the household is the old man gets what the old man wants. He's 16 and a half years. Old, so he rules the house by and large. However, when he comes and sits on the nest with me and hi, as he's gotten older, he sprawls more and he's gotten more, assertive, let's say, about pushing me out of the space so that he can get as much space as he wants. And normally I'm fine with us being in a dog pile like that. If he's like, I'm gonna push hard into you and stretch out as much as I can. I'm like, sure, I don't care. I, don't need to use the entire nest to get work done, but when it's hot and by hot I mean over 75 degrees because I get hot very easily. I cannot tolerate him pressing his body into my body. That i'm like, it is way too hot for you to be this close to me. So like when it's hot outside and copper comes and asks to, to come into the office, i'm like, no, bud. Sorry, not today. This is not, this is not happening. It's too hot. I don't wanna deal with your dog pile. But I give him something else to do in the living room. So I think that there's always going to be. Anytime you're sharing your life with another. Sentient being, There are always going to be moments where you're like, I'm setting this boundary. No. Right. And we can talk more later about what that looks like.

But I think I wanna not get off too off topic and circle back to the actual like, approximations that sometimes clients need. And my favorite example of this that I tell people, all I tell people in Pet Pro all the time is that I, when I was in Utah, I worked with some clients and I just, they were the kind of people that, like you immediately knew everything about their political views and their ideological views when you just look at their house and then when you walk into their house. They just their, they decorated their house, with their political ideology. Right? And their political ideology. Is pretty much the exact opposite of mine. And I was I knew going into this that this was going to be a challenge even before I walked into their house because the daughter who lived with the parents was the one who had hired me. And in her intake form, she had, just explicitly said, need help. Like finding a common ground with my parents of how we can resolve these behavior issues with our dog because we're we're just not in agreement about it. So I already knew going in that there was gonna have to be.

So we were gonna have to do some work to sort of like get everybody on the same page and drawing from the same pool of information. And then like, when I pulled up to the house, I was like, oh. And so like one of the things that. Was discussed was that the parents were just vehemently opposed to using food and training. Their techniques were very coercive and aversive. At best, they were using pressure release and that was the best. That they were doing with this dog. And so I asked them like, okay, so what is your what is your objection to using food? like talk to me about why this is a barrier for you. and they were like, cookie pusher, spoiling dogs, like that whole rhetoric. And I was like, okay. Yeah. I, I get that. Like if that were, somebody's reasoning for using food and training, I also would have a problem with. That because there you can do a lot of harm when you're just treating food as love. Right. So that makes total sense. And also the real reason we want animals to work for food is because we don't want them to be freeloaders. Like they need to sort of like pick themselves up by their bootstraps and learn how to be adult responsible, accountable, beings, just like any other adult of any other species and the wild, they wouldn't have, somebody bringing them their food in a silver bowl. So like, why is that considered good, good animal care and captivity? Right?

I, I have lot of ideological opposition to this idea of bootstraps. I think that is, it's missing a lot of nuance and, and you know, i, I just don't agree with it. we don't need to. Get into political conversation here. But the point is that I. Was using language that I knew client, my clients would resonate with. I was meeting them where they were at by speaking to their ideology and helping them understand why we're doing what we're doing based on their worldview. And I was not criticizing their discomfort right when I explained it to them, that way. Which is a nif Phil. The, way that I said it is a philosophy, right. But when I said it that way to them, they're, they just got these huge eyes and they were like, that makes so much sense. And like the dad looked down and he is like, you need to start earning your keep buddy. and I was like. Exactly. We want him to be gainfully employed. Right? Like, so there, so like i, so the, the thing that was important is recognizing the kernels of truth in my learners objections and the kernels of truth, even in their ideology because there are some things about that. Ideology that are valid, right.

So extracting those things and using them to help connect to the client, to the actual goal of like how to build behavioral health in their dog and how to improve their relationship and their communication with the dog. That was the, the language that I used to help them. and yes, that we started with a NIF protocol because. A NIF protocol was a, an improvement on just coercion and punishment and pressure release at best. So it was a, it was an approximation towards, the end goal and by the time I finished working with that family. W there was, there wasn't really any nil of part of it, because we, when we talked about the importance of routines and we talked about it i, the, the framing I used was discipline. like you need to have discipline And discipline involves having routines and keeping to those routines. And so, we were able. To get them to a point where they were meeting the dog's needs, keeping a routine. Everybody was on the same page. We were functioning as a well-oiled machine. It was a company where everybody had their roles. But the end result of that, regardless of how I talked about it, was that they were actually using it in an enrichment plan and giving their dog agency right.

[00:30:52] Claire: And I think a big part of that that we don't talk about a lot is the wellbeing of the dog and understanding how to communicate with the family they live with, right? Like we're increasing in, in a situation like you're mentioning specifically, we're increasing the learner's ability or the animal's ability to understand how to communicate those things versus not having that clear pathway of communication and then enduring the frustration or the punishment or whatever happens as a result of that, when the issue was clarity over everything else.

I think that is super important too.

[00:31:32] Emily: It really is because to get the clients to feel good about what they're doing so that they can have a good, solid, trusting relationship with good communication with their dog. And everybody's needs are being met without forcing them to change their, belief system. like that's super outside of my lane to try to convince somebody to agree with me politically or like ideologically. That's, that's, that is coercive, that's coercion, right. So I need, to give my human learners as much autonomy and respect as I give my non-human learners by just helping them find their own path up the mountain that, that sits right with them. Right. So there are situations like that and there are. Situations where I'm not gonna ever, tell somebody to not feed their animal for two days, but we can actually harness natural hunger cycles and say. If your, if your learner doesn't care about the food after a a meal, try training before a meal when they're naturally hungry, not because, you've starved them for two days, but because i'm hungry before my meal times they're hungry before they're like, let's, let's give them food when food is more valuable. Right?

And, but but you don't stop there. The next step is if they still don't care. Enough about the food before the meal, instead of being like, well, I just have to starve them more. The important work is to be like, what is it about this scenario that's not working for this learner? Is food not the right motivator?

Are they motivated by something else that we need to pay attention to and, and leverage? Are they too stressed to learn right now? Do we need to actually go back and do some foundations of like, before we try to ask our learner to learn something, let's get them into a place where they can learn.

Let's focus first on the stress response cycle. Are, are we asking them to learn in a highly distracting place where it's hard for them to focus? Okay, can we, like, let's, let's move to a different location. So like, there's so many different things that we need to be aware of. Is there pain involved? That's another one, right?

Is pain the reason that the learner is not responsive in this moment? So yes, we can, absolutely. Harness natural hunger cycles or other recurring needs to increase the, value of the reinforcers we have available to us. And also if that doesn't work, we, instead of being like, well, we need, just need to deprive them more, the goal is to figure out where exactly the dysfunction lies. Like what's the disconnect between what our learner wants, wants and needs versus what we're asking of them. Right.

[00:34:27] Claire: Yeah, I think those moments are a big cue for further investigation. There needs to be more in depth look at why isn't this working especially once we've obviously eliminated the, the biggest factors or the most common factors. And not just like you're saying, force, just push through it and continue to believe that it must all stem, stem from the same source.

[00:34:50] Emily: Yeah, and I think one, this is a really good opportunity to go back and, and listen to or re-listen if you've already listened to it. If our episode, are you self-sabotaging where we talk about, dichotomous thinking? Because I do think that we as humans do tend to get into this like black and white either or thinking with this. Like either I give my animal total autonomy and abundance and I don't have the ability to like, have reasonable expectations of them and set boundaries and, all of that. Or, um, I need my animal to have discipline. I need to control everything. I can't let them make choices because they'll make the wrong choices. So like, I have an animal who needs me to, to be the arbiter of all resources. Right? It's, it's not either or. Like, there are, there are so many, it's a whole spectrum of like what this can look like.

And what we often talk about in Pet Pro is that we ha we, can have more agency when we have more skills, right? And so part of the thing is, right now. Your animal may not have the skills to make good choices and so you have to restrict their agency in this moment. But once you help them build skills, they will be able to have more agency. And literally this just happened. Claire saw me, y'all didn't hear me 'cause Claire was talking. I like suddenly just ran off camera, like, I just pieced out, like left my desk abruptly. And the reason for that is that I. thought. That Miley was ready for me to have some books. Not behind my little chicken wire fence. They're the books that I use in reference most often. So I put them on a different shelf and I was like, Miley hasn't really shown a lot of interest in books, so I think I can get away with this. And lo and behold, Miley found the books and was chewing on them. And so I was like, ah. I had to like immediately just like bounce outta the podcast and go

like pick up all the books off the shelf, pick up the books that she'd started to chew off of the floor and put them high up. And I'm gonna have to figure out another place to have those be like readily available. Right. So the key there is that I'm not looking at it as a character flaw on her part. I'm not interested in punishing her for doing that. I don't need to control access to resources in like a dominance type of, way. Like that's not the mindset. I'm realizing that she.

has an adolescent puppy brain. She still needs to chew a lot, and I put objects that are good size for her to chew within her reach when we don't have any parameters. I've never taught her how to interact or not interact with books before. They've just been behind a, a chicken wire fence, so she's, she doesn't have any skills. Around like how to, how to engage with books. By which, I want her to totally ignore my books, right? So I'm

not punishing her for this. I'm just removing them from her environment. I have removed an option. She no

longer has

the agency to interact with those books, but she has lots of other agency and other things that she can do in my room that she's allowed to do that will be meet her needs in a way that doesn't violate my needs. Right? So

that's part of this is that it's not the, the mindset has to shift when we're thinking about enrichment and abundance. Is that like, when they make a mistake, it's not about punishment. It's about what, what are the unmet needs here and how, what skills do we need to build? What changes do we need to make in the environment?

What boundaries do I need to set right?

[00:38:55] Claire: Yeah. And I think what comes to mind for me with Olivia is she is a dog who I've learned through trial and eval benefits. Since she's leash reactive, she does benefit when we are walking, if a trigger presents itself, she does better if she can look at it for a second or two and identify, ah, there's the noise that I was hearing that was alarming to me, or there's the thing that makes me nervous.

But what I've also found is if I stand there and just let her look, she is going to continue to rile herself up and escalate until she goes over threshold and she has a big explosion. So I have learned the balance of giving her a moment to go, yep, that is the thing that you don't love seeing. And then continuing on with rewards being for moving away if she does explode because I'm not paying attention, or we just escalate really quickly.

I also don't punish that I simply. Redirect. We move on. And I reinforce her for the deescalation that she's able to do after the fact. Because if I am by an ice cream truck and I keep staring at the ice cream truck, I guarantee you the longer I look at that ice cream truck, it is going to get me closer to getting ice cream that I very much do not need.

But if I have someone with me who helps redirect and says, Hey, let's keep moving, that's gonna actually be much more successful in avoiding the, the ice cream that I want so badly.

[00:40:16] Emily: Yeah. I love, that. that's a really good example of, like helping your learners make better choices for themselves because I think that is a common misconception that enrichment is about like spoiling them or abundance necessarily means that they get whatever they want, whenever they want it, however much they want. It. This idea of like spoiling them or coddling them or catering to them is a, a fundamental misunderstanding of enrichment. Because meeting needs also means giving them skills to make good life choices, right? Meeting needs also means making choices for them when they can't make good choices, like your example, with Olivia. Meeting needs means. Taking, prioritizing long-term benefit over short-term gratification. Right? so like that.

all, if we're thinking of it in those terms, like you can have an enriching and abundant life that still incorporates sometimes like teaching your learner how to ask for things and also teaching them that sometimes the answer is gonna be no or not now.

Right? Like in my example with Copper, he knows how to ask me if he can come into the office and hang out with me, and he knows what, yes, Betty, come on in, looks like, and he also knows what, no, not today looks like Miley knows how to ask me when she wants to go on a walk, and she knows what, like, yeah, let me just get your gear on. Looks like, and also like, I can't walk today, baby. I'm sorry. Let's do something else instead. she knows what that looks like too, right. So, I think one of the things.

that past me used to say that present me hard, disagrees with is that you, when I was a baby behavior consultant, I was really focused on getting clients to stop telling their dogs no. And now as a much more seasoned behavior consultant I'm realizing like, no can be a really good cue, a

conversational cue to say, I heard you ask. And also right now is not the time. My objection to people saying no to their learners was just this constant response blocking of like, no, you can't do that. You can't do that, you can't do that. You can't do that. And not telling their learners what they can do instead. So again, like as we often say, in pet harmony under education over states, I was dogmatic about the, no, when that's not actually true.

The kernel of truth in that is. You don't wanna create a life for your learners where you're constantly response blocking them and not giving them opportunities for agency or reinforcement. But no, can be a helpful cue if it's not aversive, and it's very clear and the learner knows what it means, right? So like no Miley, you cannot have six CET chews today, but I can give you coffee with sticks and you love chewing on those, and that's gonna be healthier for you than trying to have six CET chews in one day. Right?

[00:43:28] Claire: Yeah. I think one thing this might be off topic and it might get cut, but I'm saying it anyway. One thing I caught myself doing a lot when I was working with Olivia out of just habit was when she would start to do something I didn't want her to do. A lot of times it was like going in and, and sniffing something really gross that I was worried about her interacting with or whatever.

I would go Uhuh and it was just totally like a human habit response and it either didn't work or she would kind of like startle and look at me. And what I ended up doing was just turning it into my positive interrupter. Because it allowed me to naturally have the response that I have on gut reaction.

And then she learned, oh, I reorient mom and I get food when she does that. And so it just turned, I just found a way to turn something that I realized was like probably slightly aversive to her, and also just not really helpful into something that actually got her attention back with me and, and helped her keep rolling.

The other thing I was gonna mention that when we talk about making good choices and guiding our learners in the right direction, what I have been using a lot to explain what we're working towards with clients, especially when we're working with behavior issues in the beginning phases, a lot of people get worried about the level of, control that we're, we're asking them to do and the management and the environment and all of those things to structure a successful behavior mod.

And so I get a lot of that question of like, oh, well, are we gonna have to do that forever? We always gonna have to tell them. And the explanation I usually give is, with most things that we do, there are, there are situations where the answer is, unfortunately, yes, we may have to do this level of management for safety or what have you.

But there is also a progression that I like to explain as the first step is we're holding their hand and we're showing how to do it. That didn't, that was words that didn't happen. The first step is we are going to hold their hand and show them how to do it. So it's a new skill we're gonna guide them through and reward them for doing it.

The second phase, I equate to having like a middle schooler, and I'll say something like, we're gonna remind them what the good choice in this moment would be. We might not have to show them how to do it, but we go, ah, this would be one of those moments where it might be better to move away or to look at me or. What have you.

And then the third step is self application. Can we, they're now an adult, right? Quote unquote, can we encourage them to start to make those choices of their own volition. And we still reward and reinforce from time to time. 'cause that gets into the whole like intermittent reinforcement type of conversation. But they're learning how to make those good choices on their own. And I think ultimately that's what a lot of people are looking for. I think they just don't necessarily realize that because they're just used to instructing and controlling the situation where I love to point out, wouldn't it be really nice if you didn't have to tell your learner to do that, your animal to do that?

They just knew that that was one of the good choices they could make. And I use that a lot with people who tend to have really strict guidelines for their dogs or even can get a little micromanaging of everything their dogs are doing. I always like to bring it from an aspect of wouldn't it'd be great if you didn't have to tell them to do that. If they knew that was one of the good options that they could. Good choices they can make in that moment.

[00:46:49] Emily: Yeah, exactly. It's actually less work and it's easier and it's less stressful to give your learners agency because then they have the capacity to to provide a lot of their own care so that, the onus isn't on you to constantly be doing that. And I think that's like i, one of the, I agree with you. that That's one of the biggest selling points for people is like, you could continue to correct. This behavior for the rest of your dog's life or you could just teach them how to make good life choices. So you don't have to do it ever again. Right. Like maintenance is a thing. but Like the, the, the constantly having to, it's like the cognitive load of constantly having to pay attention to it and make decisions about it, that's the part that's exhausting, not, just occasionally practicing it to maintain the skill. Right. So, yeah, I, I love that and I think that's a really beautiful way to, to frame it to your clients.

And a lot of times too, like, when people, in my experience with the clients that I've worked with, when people are trying to do some kind of coercive approach. It's because they, don't know that an animal is capable of more than that because they've been told their whole lives that, animals have this particular capacity. That's not true. I can't tell you how many clients I had with cats who were skeptical that we could do anything with cats because they had always, they just believed because they had always been told that cats are aloof and they don't care about you and they're not food motivated and they're not interested in. Learning. Like they don't wanna please you the way a dog does. And showing them what is possible in these little tiny ways of like, you can, we can in, in a few minutes. We can teach your cat to respond to their name. And they'd be like, no. And I'd be like, yeah, let's, let's do that. And like when you can show them, like, if that's possible? Are you willing to go?

on this journey with me to see what else is possible in terms of what your animal is capable of and what decisions they're capable of making on their own when we give them those skills? Right. So if, if a learner, and this is the point, of enrichment, right? Is Giving the learner. As much autonomy as possible so that they can take care of themselves and thrive in their own environment as much as possible so that we get to just have companionship with them and we don't have to worry about micromanaging every aspect of their life, right? That's, that's the goal.

[00:49:28] Claire: That's the thing I think it always comes back to is I, almost every single family or person that I have worked with has gotten their pet because they wanted an aspect of companionship. There may have been some other motives there, like they might've needed a working dog for this situation, or they might have wanted their dog to be, have safety in the house and guard near the door and, and have some of that ability.

But ultimately they want that connection and that relationship. And so I think it all comes back to. How do we meet both sides and clarify that communication so that they can continue to build that relationship and everybody's, everybody's needs are met. That's, that's always the goal.

[00:50:19] Emily: Yeah, yeah. I think that's beautiful. that's another, um, area where people can tend to fall for some critical thinking errors of like, well, I suck at this. so This is just not my style or my approach. And it's like, well, of course. You, you're not fluent at these skills yet because you've never had the opportunity to practice them before. So don't be too hard on yourself, like you can do this. It's just a matter of learning how, and I think a lot of people expect it to actually require a lot more skill or competency than it actually does. And I think like we, the quote unquote positive reinforcement click or training, whatever we wanna call this, I think we're partially responsible for that belief system because when you look at all these like really highly skilled clicker trainers and who are doing like extraordinary amazing, impressive things with animals, it takes a lot of skill.

It takes a lot of, of effort to learn how to be that good and to teach such complex skills to animals and to get them to that level. Of, of fluency. That is super impressive and it's amazing. And also it's far, far beyond what most people want to do or even are capable of doing in terms of their time and bandwidth, not in terms of. Abilities. Right?

And so I think we're partially to blame for that that belief system or that mindset But I can't tell you how many clients I've worked with who un unprompted from me. The feedback that they. Gave me was, I thought it was gonna be so hard that I was gonna have to learn how to do all this stuff. And it has blown my mind how these simple things that you've taught, me have been so impactful, right? And so like, yes, you may not know how to do, this right now. that does not, you don't need to internalize that and think of that as like who you are as a person. It does require some, some learning some things and, and gaining some skills. And also the skills that you have to learn to do this effectively aren't. As nearly as complicated as the fancy schmancy training stuff. And most people, like most of our clients, can acquire those skills pretty quickly because we're not asking them to be expert trainers. We're just asking them to build an enriching environment and and lifestyle for themselves and the animals and their care, which is much simpler and easier to do than the fancy schmancy training stuff, right?

All right, so I don't even know how to recap this episode because we had a, a lovely conversation, but it also was meandering. So I guess to recap, I will say our goal in enrichment based training is to provide. A life of abundance for all of the learners involved. And abundance doesn't look like the learner gets whatever they want, whenever they want, however much they want. Because we are focused on long-term wellbeing over short-term gratification. And in general, that does not look like controlling all of the resources and micromanaging what your pet does. But we can shape behavior through approximations, which may mean that we have moments of n NIF type things in order to get us where we're going. We can, we can leverage old out of date practices to get people from even older out, more out of date practices to, where we want them to be, where they, where we know they can be. And it's not perfect. It's messy. It's nonlinear. And we're always learning. We're doing all doing the best we can with the information resources, and capacity We have at the time and so it, it looks messy.

I literally, in this podcast, Miley chewed up a couple of my books and I learned in real time, what I needed to adjust to not allow her to destroy my, my favorite, most used books, right? So we, making mistakes is part of the process, and we learn how to think about those mistakes in terms of what do we need to change about the environment? What skills do we need to build? What are the unmet needs? Instead of thinking of it as dominance, punishment, or character flaws. And I guess the last recap is. Make sure to do this for yourself too. Like abundance means making sure that you also have a say that you also have agency, that you also have the means to meet your needs. You should not have to sacrifice your own wellbeing and service of somebody else's Self care is community care, in summary.

[00:55:27] Allie: I hope you enjoy today's episode and if there's someone in your life who also needs to hear this, be sure to text it to them right now. If you're a pet parent looking for more tips on enrichment, behavior modification, and finding harmony with your pet, you can find us on Facebook and Instagram at Pet Harmony training. If you're a behavior or training professional dedicated to enrichment for yourself, your clients, and their pets, check us out on TikTok and Instagram at Pet Harmony Pro.

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

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