#153 - Why Dogs React Suddenly: Trigger Stacking

Ever have one of those days where your dog absolutely loses their mind over something they handled fine yesterday, and you're left standing there like, “Cool, cool, cool, love this for us, what just happened?”

That wasn’t random. And no, your training didn’t “stop working.”

In this episode, we’re talking about trigger stacking (aka death by a thousand paper cuts). The stuff everyone sort of mentions, but usually only in the context of obvious triggers, like “too many dogs on a walk”, while completely ignoring the itchy ears, the bad sleep, the construction noise, the pain flare, the weird vibe from earlier in the day, and the fact that your dog has been holding it together with duct tape and good intentions.

We break down why “zero to 60” isn’t actually a thing, how health and everyday stress quietly hijack your plans, and why you can’t train your way out of a body that’s overwhelmed. And because enrichment is for pets, their people, and the professionals that support them, we’re getting into how this applies to you. Because if you’ve ever snapped at an email, cried over “nothing”, or felt personally victimized by a minor inconvenience… congrats, you’ve experienced trigger stacking too.

This episode isn’t about finding the one trigger to fix. It’s about zooming out, trading frustration for curiosity, and building plans that give all the nervous systems room to breathe.

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

1️⃣ The blow-up wasn’t random - Trigger stacking is what happens when small stressors quietly add up until coping collapses. It isn’t random; it is cumulative.

2️⃣ Behavior is information, not a failure - When your dog can’t cope, that’s data about unmet needs. Don’t panic that your training is “broken”.

3️⃣ Trigger stacking calls for curiosity, not control -  Zooming out leads to better decisions, less guilt, and more sustainable support.

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

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Allie: trigger stacking is often oversimplified. When I hear people talking about it, they're only talking about known triggers. for example you go on a walk with a leash reactive dog, they can handle the first three dogs that they see and then they explode at the fourth dog that they see.

We pay attention to trigger stacking with those behavioral triggers that we know and forget that there's a whole lot else going on inside this individual. Their health. How tired are they? Are they in pain? It could be that they saw a dog through the window four hours before your walk and you weren't home to know that. Just because we don't know at the moment that something is an issue doesn't mean that it's not an issue. And a lot of times we don't get to know what an issue is until we see that trigger stacking. 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...

[00:01:12] Emily: ...and I'm Emily Strong...

[00:01:13] 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.

[00:01:34] Emily: Know, Those weeks where your dog seems extra barky and you're thinking, we've worked on this, what happened? And then you realize like, oh, right, they're allergies are flaring, or it's construction week on your block, or maybe you don't recognize those things yet and welcome. We're here to blow your mind. Because all of those things are examples of something that we, in the animal training industry call trigger stacking or stress stacking. And this is basically where a lot of little stressors stack on top of each other. Yeah. The name is not particularly creative, it's just very descriptive. Until you just get to a point where you're suddenly in survival mode. And that happens to all sentient beings, not just humans.

And that's what's going on. If that happens to your dog where you're like, you could handle this literally yesterday, why can you not handle this today? Right. So today we're gonna, deep dive into trigger stacking and what it is, why it matters more than most people maybe realize, and how health stress and everyday life layer together to shape behavior. what looks like a quote unquote random outburst is almost never random. It's almost never unpredictable. It's almost never out of nowhere. It's usually a function of trigger stacking. And when we are able to understand that full picture of health environment, the different stressors that are, are, are adding to the experience, we can actually help our pets and ourselves feel better and navigate the world more successfully. all of that jazz. And by the end of the episode today we're hoping that you will really have a, a strong idea of what contributes to trigger stacking, how to spot the early signs, why it matters equally for pets and professionals and pet parents and how to build a plan that reduces overwhelm. Allie, I know you have no idea what trigger stacking light is like you've never experienced it, right?

[00:03:41] Allie: Never in my whole life. I'm not experiencing it right now

[00:03:46] Emily: No, definitely not.

[00:03:47] Allie: as my dog gives me like the most judgmental look over my shoulder.

[00:03:52] Emily: Y'all. I wish you could see Oso right now because if looks could kill Ally would be dead. She would be deceased. RIP Ally. Uh, You wanna tell me why, why? Osos staring daggers at you.

[00:04:04] Allie: So he wants my guess is he wants to be outside. As you know, these back stairs are hard for him. And so Alex, has to take him out the front and around the house to go into the backyard. I'm not cleared to handle Oso and so I can't. And so all I can do is open the back door and he's like, but I don't, I can't do stairs. And I'm like, what? But I can't handle you. So like, sorry buddy.

[00:04:32] Emily: We're at an impasse here.

[00:04:34] Allie: Our mobility requirements are diametrically opposed at this moment,

[00:04:38] Emily: That's a really good example of trigger stacking because the, it's just that for both of you, it's this little stressor of osos. Like, I have a need and I have a routine and. not happening and I don't know why it's not happening. And for you, you're like, I see that you have a need and I can't meet that need.

And I feel terrible about that. And also I can't do anything about it. And those are maybe small stressors, but think of trigger stacking like death by a thousand paper cuts. It's like, yeah. If you just keep having small stressors over and over and over again, that is the stuff of nightmares and or Ben Stiller comedies, 

So, death by a thousand paper cuts. That's the theme of today. And I know y'all are gonna be shocked, but I have a story about Miley. So been sharing the, our journey with resource guarding with y'all on the podcast. We've been talking about it and some different facets of it. And as is the case most of the time, this behavior is multifactorial. And we got some new insight into what's going on with her because up until her first birthday she was great with fabric.

Like she would steal socks just to run around, shake them for a second or two, and then drop them. She would steal our kitchen towels off of the hangers, them, run around, drop them, whatever she liked to steal my training. Apron around, shake, drop it. She never chewed on or swallowed fabric. Before her first birthday, she rarely vomited. And when she did vomit, it was because she had gotten into something that she wasn't supposed to. And on, literally on her first birthday, the day that she turned 1-year-old, let her play with my training apron like I have, I don't know, dozens of times before. And that little bugger a hole in my training apron and ingested the fabric. And then we got home from the outing that we were on where she did that. And uh, she ate a hole in one of Chuck's socks. And I was like, why are you dog? Oh my God. But then, I also noticed other things, like she started scratching her ears she started scooting her butt and the guarding. copper got more intense in specific contexts, like mostly at night. at first I was like, well, yeah, we've already established that when she's tired the garden gets worse. But then it seems to happen in weird contexts. And then I smelled her ears and she had yeasty ears and I was like, I'm putting all these pieces together, the vomiting, the eating things that she shouldn't, the scooting her butt, the inflammatory ears. She might have a food sensitivity. So far we have learned that she should not have oats or wheat, so she's sensitive to at least oats and wheat. We are going to continue to explore this, but the, she is, experience is such a good example of trigger stacking because she had this underlying medical issue that I had not yet identified, and she just had lots of little discomforts in her body, itchy ears, itchy butt.

Probably her tummy didn't feel great, right? I assume that her esophagus was probably a little sore from vomiting and just not handle copper being around things that she cared about because she was just so. Stressed, like her body was miserable and she was just like, I need you to get away from my stuff.

Copper. And she's had several days now of no guarding incidents with copper because we've been slowly putting these pieces together of we, when she's sleepy, we let her go to bed. We don't make her stay up and share the spaces with copper. we make sure that she has abundant reinforcement for moving away from copper.

She's building skills and also now we're taking care of her medical issues. So she's a really good example of what we're talking about with trigger stacking and how it can contribute to behaviors that seem like they're unpredictable or out of nowhere or just happening because our dogs are being jerks or whatever.

Right.

[00:09:13] Allie: I think that's such a, a great example, especially because trigger stacking is often oversimplified. You know, A lot of times when I hear people talking about it, they're only talking about known triggers. So for example uh, you go on a walk with a leash reactive dog, they can handle the first three dogs that they see and then they explode at the fourth dog that they see.

And so a lot of times we, we pay attention to trigger stacking with those behavioral triggers that we know and forget that there's a whole lot else going on inside this individual. You know, their, Their health. How tired are they? Are they in pain? It could be that they saw a dog through the window four hours before your walk and you weren't home to know that.

So I think that's one of the things we need to keep in mind is that. Just because we don't know at the moment that something is an issue doesn't mean that it's not an issue. And a lot of times we don't get to know what an issue is until we see that trigger stacking. So, similar to food sensitivity with Miley, I've gone through a similar process with Oso I had started him on a grain-free diet because for reasons. When I first adopted him at some point in time I was like, I don't actually know that he needs a grain-free diet and let's be real grain-free diets for a 90 pound dog are expensive. So like, it'd be awesome if I could not do that. So I switched him to like a, like just a standard, grain full. Diet that sounds, it's, that sounds worse than it's

[00:10:55] Emily: I enjoy that grain 

[00:10:57] Allie: a grain full diet.

And I noticed very, very slight changes, like the luster of his coat changed a little bit, maybe a tiny bit more shedding, but nothing that was so bad that I was like, oh no, he's having a food sensitivity until we hit allergy season. And his environmental allergies were way worse than they had been previously in Illinois, they were terrible in Utah, but in Illinois they were absolutely terrible when we switched to the grain full diet.

And so we switched back to grain free and the allergies went back to what they normally were, and it was like, okay. So I didn't know that grain was as much of an issue as it was until we added another issue on top of it, and it was like, oh yeah, no, this is a thing.

[00:11:49] Emily: We are taught to just look at behaviors and I think an extension of that is an accidental extension of that is that auto epistemic logical fallacy suite, the suite of logical fallacies, where assume that because it's something that we are aware of, therefore it is the thing that is the explanation or it is the only explanation.

And so a little. humility and awareness of our limitations is in order because it's really important to remember that there may be other stressors happening that we may not recognize in this moment. We may not ever get to know some of those stressors, right? Because we don't get to know a non-humans thoughts, feelings, motivations, and intentions are.

We don't know what their experiences there. If we wanna use an ecological term there, Which is their, like, experience how they experience the world. We don't get to know that. Which means that there may be some things that we never get to know. And I'm not saying, okay, I wanna be very careful about this, because what I'm not saying is shouldn't just rely on observation.

Let's just make stuff up and like, let's just, tell ourselves stories and base our behavior on that. That's, that is not it. That's not the take home point here. We can only base our decisions on the things that we can objectively observe, and also we should cultivate an awareness that there may be other things going on that we cannot yet observe. That's the balance that we need to strike between obs observation and stories about the internal experience of other individuals, right? But it's, the reason that's important is because when we miss those invisible contributors, we often end up frustrated either blaming ourselves or blaming the learner. We believe that behavior change isn't working, and so we may be tempted to try something else. And often when we're frustrated, the stuff that we wanna try is more coercive. It's more punitive, it's more aversive. we have a tendency as humans to take out our frustrations on our learners, and so cultivating this awareness that there's probably some invisible contributors that we don't know about, us to remain rooted in empathy, curiosity, and data collection. Because lot of times, the only reason we're able to those patterns and discover the invisible contributors. By tracking what's going on in the context in which they're happening, and we start to see those patterns between like the behaviors and the contexts. A really good example of that is Ellen has a longtime client who is an absolute delight, her dog, this poor dog has. Multiple anxiety disorders and multiple physical health diagnoses. And because they have been tracking this for, I don't know, like two years now, I think they've been working together two years. There is a very clear connection between when the dog's physical health issues get worse and when his anxieties get worse.

And I honestly like, I feel those feels deep down in my soul when I am in a lot of pain and I have to be in a public setting, my response to that is to become like. Almost manic. I have this like eustress coping mechanism where I'm like, everything's great and fine, and I'm just gonna talk your ear off and I'm gonna be like way overly obnoxiously friendly. And like that tendency is why I was so reticent to do things like go to conferences before I had diagnoses and actual treatments and had a better, like, better tools for managing my own body. And I often see that happen with dogs too. I think where it becomes more problematic is when the dogs have an opposite reaction where they get aggressive. But I think it is sad when there are dogs like me they handle pain by just getting really, really amped up. And people mistake that for impulse control issues or being happy and playful and like, because when people don't see it, they don't treat it right. it's unfortunate either way because people aren't seeing it and they're not treating it, or they're lashing out at this animal who's not, not doing well. So that's our goal is to shift away from that and become more effective and empathetic the learners in our care are trigger stacked.

[00:16:40] Allie: And for those of you who are nervous, Nellie out there and are suddenly concerned that there's a whole bunch of issues that your pet has that you are not aware of, it's okay. One, take a breath and two, remember that that observation piece is so important. If you are not seeing your pet, go from seemingly zero to 60.

You're probably fine or eh, good enough. At this moment in time when I tell my clients to be concerned is when they see those quote unquote zero to 60 behaviors. Because zero to 60 doesn't actually happen in bodies without some like real bad medical stuff happening. That is a possibility. And also like we're not even gonna get into it 'cause it's just so not common.

So let's just say for our purposes, zero to 60 doesn't happen. It means that they were already at 59 and that one little thing tipped them over to 60. So unless you're seeing that, it's okay. Breathe. If you are seeing seemingly zero to 60, that's when we should start doing some sleuth on here.

[00:17:58] Emily: And if you're not sure and you're concerned, you can always hire a behavior professional to help you sort it out. But I agree with Ally. It's we're talking about cases where, Reactivity, whether that's high excitement or high distress, happens seemingly quote unquote, out of nowhere or unpredictably.

Those are the the things that that we're referring to here. And I really love and cannot recommend highly enough. Dr. Valentine's article called, where is Your Pet Stress really coming from? That will be linked in the show notes. Um, She does just a really beautiful job of explaining this stuff that we're talking about here. and I think the reason this matters is because, stress is really complicated and confusing and the neuroscience of it is really complex and the way that we talk about it in pop culture often. Oversimplifies what's going on. But essentially like we have this kind of level, this even flow of being awake, which is a little bit stressed by being conscious and not fully asleep.

We are, our bodies are experiencing some stress, but there's like a homeostasis to it. It's like the status quo is, we're good. And then if, if our feathers get ruffled, if something happens to the status quo where there's a little bit more alertness, it takes a little bit of time for us to get back down to that homeostasis, back down to the status quo. But if something else happens while we're still in the process of getting down, it shoots it higher and it shoots it higher. And then we just hit a point where can't cope anymore. And that's. When we switch from the thinking and learning zone to the fight, flight, and freeze zone. And again, that is an oversimplification. it is more complex than that. We really highly recommend reading the stress factor in Dogs by Dr. Christina Spalding. She does a beautiful job of explaining it much more clearly and in depth than what I just did. But the idea is that the more stressors we have to handle, the less capable we are of handling them well. It's like spinning plates, right? you can maybe keep one spinning plate in the air. Two, when you get to three, unless you do this, unless you're a professional plate spinner three maybe starts to get a little bit extra. If you have to start doing more than that at the same time, that's when you start dropping plates, right? And so far we've been talking about dogs, but I just wanna reiterate which should be obvious by the fact that Allie and I have both talked about our own trigger stacking that this happens to humans too. I will say as somebody who's spent a lifetime in animal welfare industries, professionals underestimate their own trigger stacking constantly. We are so conditioned to prioritize the wellbeing of the animals that we work with. And in more recent years, we've started caring more about the clients than and their experience. We've started learning as an industry that turns out the humans who take care of the pets are kind of a big deal and they matter too. but we're only just starting to uh, really start focusing on fact that we matter too and we have to treat ourselves with the same. Kind of care and paying pay attention to those same stressors the same way that we do with our clients and their pets. our job is essentially a paper cut factory.

Like just so many little tiny stressors about what we do. We have an overbooked week, we have a chaotic inbox, we have little boundary slips. Clients maybe violating our boundaries a little bit, us violating our own boundaries. I've never done that. I'm just speaking hypothetically. I'm not speaking from personal experience as somebody who like regularly bulldozed my own boundaries. certainly not me. Didn't happen. Client who's distressed about something, somebody on the internet criticizing a te technique that we use. Just all those things. The unreliability of income, all of those things just chip away at your resilience and your ability to cope. And they are all stressors that stack and stack.

And then suddenly you, you're in survival mode and you're wondering why tasks feel harder than usual and why things that usually bring you delight now are bringing you dread or anger. me, I had to learn that if I got a new client booking and it made me mad, I was like, oh, I should probably examine this because I love my job and I love working with clients.

So if I'm mad that somebody has booked a consultation with me. I probably need to examine what's going on in my life. I might need to like, take care of some of those paper cuts. 

[00:23:01] Allie: One of the things that, that can help us see all of those different, or not help us see, help us think about all of those different factors that could go into trigger stacking for our pets. Things like the environment their physical health, unmet needs, all of that sort of stuff is to start by looking at our own. You could do something informal, like mental scroll throughout the week of like, or even the day. I think it's easier to start with the day than it is to start with the week, but know that stress hormones last in the body for more than just that 24 hours depending on the stress hormone, blah, blah, blah. There are several stress hormones and they have different half lives. Uh, And no, I don't know what they are. Not the half lives that I'm gonna stop this sentence. I don't remember what the half lives are.

[00:23:51] Emily: that's a good idea. Yeah.

[00:23:52] Allie: We're veering into territories that are not mine to teach, so, any who starting with your day of like, how did you sleep today? How how is your body feeling are One of the things that has actually been really helpful for me in my like recovery journey is I have had to answer pain scale questions so frequently that, that is now how my brain operates for those of you who are lucky enough to not have had to use it yet is on a scale of one to 10, how much pain are you at in with one being incredibly little, 10 being the worst pain that you've ever felt in your life.

And so, I've had to answer that question so many times that my brain is just like, ah, this is a this and this is a that and, and so on and so forth. So I will say that having to regularly scan your body is is a good tool. It's almost like practice makes as close to perfect as a sentient being can never get.

I also really like the HALT method which is a therapy tool. Halt being an acronym, for hungry. Angry, lonely, tired. So if you have a moment like what Emily was saying of like, why do I have a feeling about this when this is normally like a good thing that I like then you can ask yourself, well, am I hungry?

Am I angry? Am I lonely? Am I tired? That is a really good tool. So a lot of times just using those tools for yourself throughout the day can then help you generalize to your pets like, okay, maybe they're hungry or angry or lonely or tired or in pain or whatever it is. But I find that starting that process with myself has led me to be much more in tune with all of the options that are available for pets and I think about it much more readily than I did prior to using those tools for myself.

[00:25:58] Emily: It's embarrassing how we are really just little biological machines and it's like you. having a hard time right now 'cause you're out of fuel. You need to add fuel in and you're like, no, am a unicorn and my problems are so much more complex than that and how dare you trivi trivialize my experience.

And then somebody's like, shut up and put this food in your face. And then you're like, oh, about that? I do feel better. Like, it's embarrassing how like we're just little, we're sentient beings living inside of these little meat sacks that have basic needs and you have to meet your basic needs. I'll be like, feeling really sad right now, and I'm like, when was the last time I had sunshine on my skin? And they'll be like, oh, yesterday morning. And then I go outside with my leaf for a little adventure walk and I'm like, everything's great. Just needed some vitamin D. So yeah, just embrace the fact that we're just little. Biological robots who need maintenance just like every other machine, and uh, and just learn how to take care of your body as just a baseline. I am certainly not saying that basic care is everything that you need or it's all that you need. Because Allie and I have been very open about our own journeys with chronic health and, and neuro spiciness and all of the stuff. It's absolutely, it absolutely can be more complicated than take care of your basic needs, but you should start with taking care of the basic needs and then figure out what's left over from there. Right.

[00:27:32] Allie: Right. Because if you don't have those basic needs met, no matter what skills you have you can't perform those skills. If you're trying to do this, if you're like, okay, I know how to handle, I don't know a weird email that you get. Let's say you're like, I know how to handle weird emails.

I know how to have crucial conversations. But if you're hungry, it doesn't matter that you have those skills. Like, those skills do not override physiology. And that is true for our pets too. That's really the crux of what we talk about with enrichment is you can't be your best self if your needs are not met.

[00:28:11] Emily: Yeah, if I had just focused on training with Miley's resource guarding, I would've been doing a lot of work with not a lot of outcome. Because you can't train away a dog being tired. You can't train away a dog having a food sensitivity. Right. You can't train away hormones, A hormonal adolescent puppy, like you can't. The training is not always the answer. It's not the only answer. It's not the end all be all, because there are other contributing factors that we need to be taking into account. And that's really, like you said the point of enrichment is let's look at the whole picture and address the whole individual and really the whole picture.

Just the whole picture because multiple individuals are in the picture and they're all influencing each other and they're all impacting each other's needs. Right. So, that's the whole point of this. Okay. I lost where we are in this. Oh. So, so I think that addresses like the really common myth that happens and I don't know, I'm not sure that this myth comes from anywhere.

Maybe it does, but I think this is just like the pressure that we put on ourselves of this belief that like. If I practice this already, if I know this, I should be able to do it any time. And we do that with our dogs too. If my dog knows this, they should be able to do it at any time. And that is wherever that myth comes from of like, just because I know how to do this, or my pet knows how to do this, therefore they should be able to do it at any time, under any circumstances. That really sets us up to feel frustrated, disappointed, feel bad about ourselves, feel that our pets are flawed, feel that we're flawed, that we're defective in some way. We're not defective. We are just sentient beings living in meat sacks. And we have needs. And if our tank is empty, we have to fill the tank, right? If we got into a little fender bender, we have to fix the bumper. That's just the reality of being alive. 

[00:30:10] Allie: Back to your point, Emily, of especially those of us who are pet parents and those of us who are pet professionals I'm just gonna like blanket we are caregivers to a fault usually. And because we're caregivers, we're so focused on providing care for other individuals, and we forget ourselves. We deprioritize our own needs and think that we're a lot better at taking care of ourselves than we really are. I see this so, so frequently in our profession, and it's actually funny because, in Pet Pro, our mentorship program.

We have a lot of resources on self-care, on the like pet professional element of the enrichment framework that we teach because the, our enrichment framework is that you need to meet the needs of the pets, the pet parents. Okay. The clients and the pet professional. We have a ton of resources and it always makes me giggle, I guess is the right term for this, when almost always somebody comes into the program.

I'm the one who talks to them before they come into the program, so I know what they have told me that they're stressed, they're, that they're worried about burnout, about overwhelm, all of this sort of stuff. And then we're like, cool. Here are resources on how to take care of yourself. And they're like, no.

[00:31:38] Emily: So true though. They're, I got this. And like your primary concern that you listed in your intake form.

[00:31:44] Allie: like, without doubt, that is almost always what happens.

[00:31:47] Emily: Yep.

[00:31:48] Allie: it's so, so funny because inevitably at some point in time while they're in the program, something happens where there's this like, big stressor and we're like, so, how about those self-care resources? And they go back to those resources and are like, oh yeah, you were right about that.

And it just it makes me giggle every time. Like, the human learning journey is so predictable sometimes. And I love I love this. A testimonial from one of our pet pro mentees, Katie, and I'm gonna read it because like while I summarized what happens, I think hearing it in her words of she was like, no, but that's like for real, what happened is so impactful.

And so Katie said, I'm so grateful to be part of this pet pro community, especially during a time when I was for a few days seriously questioning my ability to tolerate a career in this field. It's a blessing to have the guidance of such compassionate season mentors and to experience comradery with other supportive mentees.

Like many other mentees, I've historically been a continuing ed collector, but this is the first program to emphasize staying healthy enough to continue this work. Crisis kits, healthy mind platters, completing stress response cycles. If I'm honest, I went yeah, I'll be fine during those modules, and quickly moved on to meatier material. But now I see y'all were right, so I'm going back to give that material the weight it deserves.

[00:33:24] Emily: I, yeah she gave us that testimonial, it like hit me in the fields and also made me laugh and also like, I get it because I've been there. I remember telling our mutual friend Hailey, who is going to be on the podcast later this year. I remember telling her way back when we worked at the sanctuary, like, yeah, I used to be bad about like compassion fatigue and burnout, but I've been in this profession for so long that I've figured out how to take care of that and I don't experience it anymore. And I think about the, that comment that I said to her on the rag, because I'm just like, oh, past me, you poor, sweet child. Like, it is just, it's an ongoing, iterative process of learning how to take care of yourself and developing that self-awareness and developing those coping skills. And I still mess up sometimes.

Like I said, like I, I frequently am like, why do I feel sad? Oh, 'cause sunlight. Why do I feel cranky? Oh, 'cause hunger, right? Like it still happens. I'm better at it now than I used to be, but it's an ongoing journey and I. I will say that I've also learned how to mentor other people about this because when we first launched PET Pro, I was really, I not insisted, I think that's too strong a word, but I expected my mentees to spend the time doing that work before they got into the rest of the course.

And I have learned that you can't force people to realize how relevant and important something is. Just by, by having them spend the time doing the exercise they need to go through that discovery process for themselves and then circle back and be like, so weren't there some things at the beginning of the curriculum about. About taking care of yourself. You're like, yes. Do you wanna focus on that now? Are you ready? You ready to do that? So I have a different approach now than I did. I let people discover that for themselves. but it's beautiful. It's so, like Katie just perfectly articulated what is such a common experience, not just in pet pro, but just in general with humans.

I think that Katie really did a beautiful job articulating how hard it is for us to recognize our own trigger stacking and to pause to take care of ourself and complete our stress response cycle. 

[00:35:45] Allie: let's tie this back to pets and recognizing our pets trigger stacking. Like I mentioned, for me, it's been really helpful to pay attention to all of the factors that. Influence my stress so that I can readily see it more easily. That was redundant in Oso and in my client's pets. But at the end of the day, you do you, if it's easier for you to focus on pets first and then apply it to yourself?

You do you, so we talked about how might you recognize this in yourself. Let's talk about how you might re recognize this in your pets. And like I said, my general rule is if you see an animal's behavior go from seemingly zero to 60, that's a trigger stacking situation. Zero to 60 for our purposes doesn't happen.

It means that they were already at 59 and just that little tiny thing pushed them over to 60. So things to think about for this. We mentioned health is a huge part of this and y'all. We are just starting as humans to recognize that even when somebody is seemingly quote unquote healthy, that doesn't mean they don't have health things that are happening.

Like if you were to look, I'll use myself as an example. I look quote unquote healthy and also suffer from an invisible illness. So like just looking at an individual is not enough. We have to dive deep into this whole health thing and recognize that bodies are like super complex and it's amazing that they don't have more problems than they do.

So like, let's assume that there's like a problem happening at some point in time. So health. Environment is another thing Emily talked about for her, being in a kind of sensory overload environment produces a certain behavior and there are going to be certain environments that produce

particular behaviors in your pets. So I know for example, that if Oso is in a new location and not even like new, if it's like we're not home and we're inside a building 'cause he has no issue with being outside in a new location, that's exciting. But if we're not home and inside a building that's a little bit of a stressor, like it's a little bit harder for him to do the things that he normally does.

We see a little bit more stress signals, all of that sort of stuff. So environment is going to be a thing.

Along with that, I think one of the reasons why different environments can be hard is because they may not know how to apply the skills that they have in those environments. So when Oso is at home, he has several safe spaces. He has a very. Well rehearsed skill of if I am stressed, I can go into one of my safe spaces, depending on where the stressor is, depending on where my humans are.

Like, he definitely has like a matrix in his head of where to go when he is stressed, what to do when he is stressed. I've seen him choose several variations of the same thing depending on the situation. He doesn't have that ability when he's somewhere else. It might be like, here's the one dog bed that Grandma put out for him, which is very nice of her to put out for him.

And also, I don't expect grandma to, to buy multiple dog beds for him, for her house that we sometimes visit with him. Like that would be ridiculous of me to expect. So he is like, I don't know where to go here though if I am stressed. So again. Even though they might have skills, those skills are often very dependent on the environment in which they're happening.

[00:39:43] Emily: Yeah, and I think another part of that is. Remembering that we don't always get to know what about the environment is stressful. One of my favorite, examples of this, and I know I've talked about it before on the podcast I would be shocked if I haven't, but one of the easiest behavior consults I ever did was getting called in for a blue and gold Macau who was screaming like clockwork in the middle of the afternoon. behavior seemed to be coming out of nowhere. They didn't understand why this bird was doing it. It would go on for like an hour. It was really stressful and disruptive for everybody they just couldn't figure out why their bird kept just screaming in the middle of the afternoon. And I went to their house and I observed the bird.

I stood next to the bird and. Watched and I noticed that sun was coming in from the windows next to the bird cage the sunlight was reflecting off of the mirror that was hanging above their sofa. And I was like, Hey, can we take down that mirror and see what happens? They took down the mirror and the bird immediately stopped screaming, and it was like he was telling y'all, it is really stressful to have the sun shining like a laser beam right into my eyes for a full hour every afternoon.

I hate it and make it stop. And I don't blame them for not putting those puzzle pieces together because they're not behavior professionals. They haven't been trained to think in terms of antecedent behavior consequence. Right. But I. That is a really good example of a behavior that seemed to be out of nowhere that was actually a stress response to an unknown environmental factor, right?

So just remember that we don't always get to know in the moment. We may discover it later, we may not discover it later, but I think Skinner had a really good saying that is, is worth hanging onto, which is the rat is never wrong. What he meant by that was. Behavior never comes out of nowhere. Behavior never happens for no reason. There's always a reason that behavior is happening, and there we need to believe their experience even if we don't understand their experience. remember that maybe I like the alliteration of the rat is never wrong, but maybe we can reframe that to say the dog is never wrong and learn to listen to them even when we don't understand what it is that they're reacting to. I think another thing that's really helpful is to just normalize it, that like trigger stacking doesn't mean you messed up.

It doesn't mean your dog is defective. It doesn't mean you're defective. It's just the reality of being a sentient, being in a. Chaotic, imperfect world, right? Trigger stacking is going to happen of how good of a pet parent you are, regardless of how much you're crushing it at life, it's gonna happen. So, it doesn't signify a failure on your part. doesn't signify a character for flaw in you or your dog. It just signifies some unmet needs that need to be addressed. And we just need to meet those needs, take care of ourselves, our pets, complete our stress response cycle. Move on with life. 

[00:43:05] Allie: So here's some practical ways to do that. One is adding decompression instead of another rep of training. And I wanna be really clear that we need to take a descriptive approach to decompression. Just because an activity has the word decompression in it, doesn't mean it reduces stress. I'm looking at you decompression walks. Sometimes they aren't.

[00:43:33] Emily: I'm looking at you conditioned relaxation.

[00:43:36] Allie: All

[00:43:37] Emily: actually never seen a conditioned relaxation strategy that resulted in actual relaxation, not resignation. So just because it has the word relaxation is it, and it doesn't mean that it's happening.

[00:43:51] Allie: Yes, that's true. I should expand the definition from decompression to also relaxation. A hundred percent. So again, descriptive approach. Y'all, you know how we do. I think of this kind of like for those of you who do any like strength training for your own bodies where you can't just like lift weight seven days a week.

Your muscles are like, bro, please stop with this. You have to take a rest day in order to for your muscles to heal and to be a better version. Same thing is true with your training. So instead of all the time training with your pets, sometimes we're just gonna have a relaxation day. We're just gonna chill.

We're just gonna hang out and we're going to enjoy ourselves. I. Along with that, giving more opportunities for your pet to have choice and control. One of the biggest things I wanna say about this as we're talking about trigger stacking, is providing choice and control around triggers.

So we mentioned in the very beginning that Osso is staring daggers at me. He is still doing it by the way. He like takes a moment to stop every now and then like he just comes back to this. He's staring daggers because he wants to go outside. He has trouble going down the stairs, and so he gets to decide if he goes down the stairs or not. We don't we don't use treats to lure him down the stairs because I don't want him to make a decision for food, which he loves and hurt his body because of that.

He gets to decide. I'm asking to go outside. I'm not going down the stairs. Er go, you need to take me around the front, assuming dad's home. So choice and control, especially around triggers, whether that's physical triggers, physical medical triggers, like I mentioned with oso, or that's behavioral triggers.

That's one of the reasons that we are so adamant about teaching flight training for kiddos who have like reactivity, stranger danger. Honestly like. Almost all the things it's helpful for of like, if you don't wanna be here, then don't be here and let's give you the skills to not be here.

Going along with adding decompression instead of another rep of training, building in recovery buffers after a big day. This is something that I am doing with Osos mobility work since that's primarily what we're focused on as far as his enrichment plan is concerned of. I know after we do like a strength training day for him, which for him is usually a game of tug.

He's gonna be a little bit sore the next day. We should have a rest day the next day. I shouldn't push him and do like some proprioception work or cavalletti or anything like that. Next day after strength training is we rest. If you're looking at like the more behavioral side Oso loves when we have guests. Actually, he became desensitized when I was in the hospital because we had so many people coming into the house. That one of the first days I was home, Corinne came over and he just like, looked up from the couch and was like, sup. And,

[00:47:09] Emily: Oh, it's you again.

[00:47:11] Allie: but yeah, and like after like a couple minutes was like, I guess I'll say hi to you. And like that is like, so not him. He's like, he was the kiddo who was like, way too excited. Like he had the stranger danger. Then we went to, pendulum swung too far, and then we were way too excited about people.

And then there were so many people coming into our house while I was in the hospital to take care of him. That he just completely desensitized was like, eh, whatever. People come over, 

[00:47:39] Emily: yeah this is my life now.

[00:47:41] Allie: this is my life. People come over and hang out with me and feed me tomatoes. But when we had people stay at our house. Oso loved it in that like he was all up in their business all the time. He was like, you're here. You need your sensual oso kisses. We need to snuggle. I need to sleep in your bed with you, like all of this. And so it was like, okay, he clearly is enjoying having this, these other humans in the house.

But he wouldn't sleep well. Like, it's like that little toddler who's so excited about like Christmas for example, and then would just crash the next day. Like he would sleep the entire next day after somebody left.

So, Oso thankfully would build in his own recovery buffer days. But for those animals who are not as well equipped at doing that for themselves or are in an environment where it's harder for them to do that for themselves, it's very easy for oso to do that in our home.

We have a very quiet household most of the time. So if that's not true for you, make sure you build in those recovery buffer days when you know that a lot of stuff is going to be going on, A lot of stress is happening, whether that's good stress or bad stress. We should have said at the top of this episode that good stress eustress also impacts trigger stacking like.

The, like stress hormones or stress hormones. There's like a caveat there that makes that not true if you're like a neurobiologist and also like

[00:49:13] Emily: For the purposes of this discussion, stress. Stress is stress.

[00:49:17] Allie: stress is stress. Yes. So like I, I used a good stress example for oso. He loves it. And also has to sleep the entire next day after somebody is done visiting us. And finally, make sure to reassess your own cup too, especially because they are so, so good at recognizing our stress and whether that's because they can smell our stress hormones, which they definitely can.

There's been however many studies on that. Or it's because they're seeing the difference in our routines, or they're seeing the difference in our body language or hearing the difference in our tone of voice, whatever it is. Like there are a lot of ways that our pets can pick up on our own stress.

And for a lot of our clients, we do see that is a factor in their pet's trigger stacking, that when they're human is stressed, their pet is also more stressed. So for those of you who are, who have a hard time with filling your own cup, meeting your own needs, if you need to think about it as this is helpful for my pet, until you start getting that like reinforcement history of doing things for yourself, think of it that way.

[00:50:28] Emily: Yeah, and I'm gonna also take that in the other direction, which is, taking care of a stressed animal is stressful for us. so be aware of the impact helping your pet to complete their stress response cycle having on your own stress levels a act accordingly. And I, that's definitely been true for me with Miley. I've had to build in a lot more recovery time for myself from a. that I do all the time, like mundane tasks, require more recovery from me because Miley navigate the stressful time in her life is stressful for me as well. Right? So there is also that component of it, you influence each other.

It doesn't just go in one direction. And it's important to be aware of that because again, if we're looking at it through an enrichment lens, we're looking at the whole big picture and all of the unmet needs and how all of those unmet needs are impacting each other. Right. And our goal is for everybody be able to flourish, to reduce harm, increase welfare and wellbeing for all involved parties. Right. Do you want me to, yeah, I'll say the next part 'cause, yeah. Okay. And for pet pros, identify your personal paper cuts. What are the things in your environment and in your schedule and your day-to-day routine that are contributing to your trigger stacking and build buffers into your own schedule? This is another thing that we work on a lot in PET Pro, is we're like, you need more buffers in your schedule. And people are like, but I have to work this much. And we're like, but why though? And we have to get down to the bottom of why they feel like they have to work so much. We have to solve that problem because if you don't have time to build buffers into your schedule, then you are going to constantly be chronically stressed.

And that is a surefire way to burn yourself out, set yourself up for future health problems. It often leads to people leaving the industry. So, figure out how to build buffers into your schedule, or if you need help with that, I don't know, find some kind of mentorship program somewhere, to help you with that.

Find a mentor. I don't know where you'll find one of those, but that seems like a good idea. and then also a community is really helpful because it helps to have somebody outside of your brain say, Hey, you're stacking right now. I think we've talked about this a lot. I can tell Allie. you're flushing red my darling, what's happening? And Allie gets to tell me less frequently now than she used to. Babe, you're spiraling. So, it's nice to have the accountability of someone else the, a trusted, supportive member of your community, be able to help you see when you're trigger stacking, because it can be hard recognize it in ourselves. And so we need, we benefit from, I should say we don't always need, but we benefit from having somebody else be like, would you like to take a little break and complete your stress response cycle? 'Cause you need to.

[00:53:33] Allie: So to recap, trigger stacking is everywhere and it is multifactorial. So there are things like health environmental stressors, daily life stressors, all the things are fair game to, to be stressful and to impact trigger stacking. And this phenomenon matters way more than we think it does. For those of you who wanna try a thing out in relation to trigger stacking pet parents, go ahead and zoom out and list the top three things draining your pet's cup this week for Oso, it's that I can't take him out the front.

Number one.

[00:54:12] Emily: Number one stressor for oso right now.

[00:54:15] Allie: I can't take him out the front. Number two, sometimes Alex and I both sit on the couch and that means there's not enough room for oso and there's probably like a real number three in there. Like pain or stuff like that. That's what number one is. Regardless for professionals, ask someone you trust, what paper cuts am I missing in my own schedule?

Like Emily just said, we are usually much better at seeing things in other people than we are ourselves. If you found this helpful, next week's episode is going to give you even more ways to support your pet's wellbeing in everyday life. And be sure to check out Dr. Valentine's article, grab our free resources and for professionals.

If you want a community that actually honors your nervous system, check out Pet Pro.

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

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

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

[00:55:59] Emily: Block, or you've had three nights in a row of terrible sweep sweep.

[00:56:05] Allie: I hate when I sweep terribly.

[00:56:07] Emily: I also hate when I sweep terribly terrible sleep, is what I was trying to say. I just beefed it. It's fine.