Learned Helplessness and Learned Control with Kristina Spaulding

In this episode, Victoria and Kristina Spaulding discuss learned helplessness and learned control in dogs, exploring their neurobiology, impact of trauma, and implications for training and rescue. They explore science-based strategies to enhance canine resilience, and how drastically a dog’s wellbeing can change as a result.

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Transcript

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Victoria (00:08)
At the Dog Behavior Conference, Kristina Spaulding, my next guest, blew everybody's minds, as she always does when she speaks at the DBC. She is joining us today because she had a thousand questions and there was not time to get through all the questions. So I've taken some of the questions that I think are pertinent and will be good for this podcast, and then I'm going to be asking her. But if you didn't come to the DBC, still listen because you're going to get so much information.

Kristina Spaulding has written the most fantastic book. It is called Stress, the Stress Factor in Dogs. It is you know, get this book. If you want to learn about stress, if you want to learn how to unlock resilience and enhance well being, get this book. Kristina, thank you so much for joining me today.

Kristina (01:02)
Thank you for having me and thank you for your kind words about the book.

Victoria (01:06)
Well, it's it's a brilliant read, so much great information, a lot of fabulous studies. And what I just love with everything with you is that you distill the science into manageable man it's manageable for the non-scientists out there, to easy to understand, and you just make so much sense. So when you spoke at the DBC, you were speaking about learned helplessness and

and learned control. So that's what we're going to talk about today. first of all, for those people who didn't attend the DBC, what is learned helplessness? What is learned control?

Kristina (01:49)
So learned helplessness is a phenomenon that happens when an animal is placed in a position where their behavior doesn't matter. So basically, regardless of what they do, things are continuing to happen or not happen. And so the animal learns that it doesn't matter what they do, they don't have an impact on their environment. And they then

Tend to stop trying to influence their environment. And one of the things that is important about learned helplessness is that it is a generalization. So if we, this is the example I always use, you know, it if we want to stop the sun from rising, it doesn't matter what we do, it is going to rise anyway. That is objective helplessness. We literally do not have.

Any control over that situation. However, learned helplessness, or sometimes it's called the subjective helplessness, is when the animal takes a situation when they don't have control and they generalize it to a situation where they could have control and they still don't try to do

Victoria (03:06)
Now there was some difficult study carry on. Learned control.

Kristina (03:10)
Yes, okay. So

learned control is what happens when an animal does learn that their behavior matters. Or if we want to put it in learning terminology, we would say they learn that their behavior is contingent. What they do has an impact on the environment. And so sometimes this is called learned mastery, where they figure out that their behavior does matter and they can have.

influence on their own experiences. And so they will continue to try to engage with their environment in a way that has a better outcome for them. And so a very basic example of that might be, you know, a dog learning that they can communicate with the people in their family and that gets them what they

Victoria (04:04)
Could you give me an example of learned helplessness from a dog's point of view? Right. So yes, can't stop the sun from rising, right? But s I know that there were some pretty horrific studies done. Was it w were they in the 1970s, these studies? Or were slightly later? 1960s, okay. Right. And these studies were done. If you can, if you can explain what this study was.

Kristina (04:21)
they were in the nineteen sixties. Yeah, early nineteen sixties.

Yes. So what they did is they took dogs and they immobilized them and then they exposed them to a series of shocks. So they would play a tone to signal that the shock was coming, and then they would shock them. But because the dogs were immobilized, there was nothing that they could do to escape that shock.

And then they took those dogs and they put them in what was called a shuttle box where they played the tone and then the floor was electrified and they would get a shock from the floor unless they jumped over a low barrier to get to the other side where they could not be shocked. And what they found is that seven of the eight original dogs did not even attempt to escape.

And so that was the original study. I mean, they weren't actually, I mean, it's kind of interesting. They weren't trying to create learned helplessness. They actually thought that that previous experience with fear would facilitate learning when they finally had control. And so they were very surprised to see that the opposite happened. And then that triggered this whole, you know, series of decades-long studies where they very quickly changed.

rodents instead of dogs, but they did continue to do the research for a very long time.

Victoria (06:01)
So what did they see in the dog's neuro neurobiology? Like what what was happening? Why did the dogs not choose to jump over to escape the shot? Why? What's going on?

Kristina (06:16)
So

yeah, so this is a little bit tricky to explain, especially without a diagram, but I will do my best to walk everyone through it. Is the first thing that happens is that when an animal experiences something aversive like a shock, the amygdala is activated. And the so what's happening is

The animal perceives that shock that actually activates a part of the brain called the midbrain, or to be more specific, the dorsal raphi nucleus. And that then activates the amygdala, which is responsible for fear. And then there is another part of the brain called the periaqueductal gray, and people don't need to worry about remembering all these names. but that seems to activate that passive amygdala.

response. And so this is something that just naturally happens when an animal is exposed to something aversive is they it creates fear and passivity. And it's not until control enters the picture that you start to see something different.

Victoria (07:38)
When we see and a lot of these questions that that we have are people asking so if a dog that I get a dog from a puppy mill situation, it's a breeding dog and it's been in the puppy mill for the last three years and it's basically been confined in a cage. Or it's like for example, some of these ridgeland beagles that have you know, have been

Kristina (08:05)
Yes.

Victoria (08:08)
rescued from the horrific Ridgeland Farms biomedical research facility and are now trying to make it on the outside, right? they what what does it these people are asking like what does it do? Are these is it is it going to be easy or hard for these dogs to be able to acclimate to life half having had

Kristina (08:20)
Yeah.

Victoria (08:38)
So much where everything has been taken away from them. There is no agency at all. There's no choice. They can't control anything. They're just stuck in a Y cage for their whole lives.

Kristina (08:48)
Right. So I can speak in broad terms and then I can speak a little bit about the Beagles. so typically when you've experienced major stress and trauma, especially during development, it very often is a long hard road to being able to overcome that or to, you know, get to the point where you can thrive in life and

Victoria (08:55)
Yes.

Kristina (09:17)
individuals never get there.

Having said that, it varies a lot. So some individuals are more resilient than others. And we don't always know who's gonna be the most resilient until we see what happens after they are out of that situation. I don't know. So the thing about the Beagles that I wonder a little bit, because these dogs were bred to be in medical research facilities.

They may be a little bit more resilient. There may have been some like inadvertent selection for animals that do better in that context. So there may be a genetic component that comes into play there that possibly some of these guys are a little bit more resilient because if they were struggling too much, they may have started displaying behaviors that would have made it harder for them.

To be research subjects, basically. So I I don't know. I mean, it's it's it'll be interesting to see how things go. But in general, that early stress is very difficult to overcome. Although it doesn't mean that there's nothing we can do. There's certainly a lot of things that we can do. And one of them is addressing this potential learned helplessness component.

Victoria (10:32)
Mm-hmm.

Okay. Well thank you for that because I think, you know, because Ridland has v very much been in the news and you're thinking about, you know, what what's gonna happen to these fifteen hundred beagles that are now they're trying to they're in different rescue facilities and now some of them are are in homes and others it's gonna take a while and

Kristina (10:59)
Yes.

Victoria (11:10)
It it's it's interesting what you say because I sp I was speaking to Patricia McConnell about this and she's very familiar with the Richmond Farms and she was saying that and when she went in there, when she actually she was asked to go and to help with some behavioral cases a long time ago and went in and was just d disgusted by what she saw. she saw a lot of dogs just spinning, spinning, spinning, a lot of dogs at the back of cages and not being able to move. and

Kristina (11:14)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Victoria (11:40)
you know, in a way was talking about, well, like, how can they be good research subjects because, you know, the science is is not gonna be good on dogs that are exhibiting these kinds of behaviors. so but

When you get dogs that have had trauma, traumatic experiences from puppyhood, have been or are breeding dogs from these kind of facilities as well as puppy mills, because I don't think Region Farms really is any different from a puppy mill. but what is the prognosis for want of a better word when these dogs come out? Like how do you

Kristina (12:11)
Yeah.

Victoria (12:23)
How do you start exposing a dog? Yes, some of these dogs are quite resilient. And I think I've been really shocked and quite surprised at how some of these dogs do really well pretty fast in homes. But some are f are go are forever finding it difficult and challenging.

Kristina (12:47)
Yeah, and I I mean this is like a you know would be an amazing opportunity to to do some research, right? I I don't mean the bad kind of research that they were doing at Ridgeland Farms, but I mean we have this population of animals that's coming from the same environment and looking at, you know, what percentage of them is able to go into homes and do really, really well and what percentage is like very, very, very profoundly impacted and then who's in between. And my suspicion is

That all these beagles that we're seeing on social media and TV, that a lot of those are the ones that are more resilient. Those are the ones that are being adopted quickly that aren't as badly impacted. And also, I think we're not gonna know. You know, it's gonna it's gonna be a while before we're gonna have a sense of what all of the impacts are. But any animal that's been traumatized, and we don't always know if they've been through trauma. Sometimes we don't know their.

Victoria (13:33)
Mm.

Kristina (13:47)
History. But one of the biggest things you can do honestly is to give them space, time and space to be themselves and try and figure things out on their own, which I don't mean like leave them hanging and don't offer them any support. But I think we have to be very, very careful that we are not pressuring them into situations that they are not ready for. And so

That might be something as seemingly subtle as giving them time to approach a scary object on their own, as opposed to trying to coax them to it. And coaxing doesn't seem like it's, you know, a very bad thing. And I don't want to put a judgment on it because this is a natural thing that people do, but it can create.

Additional stress for the animal if they're not ready. And I think that can sometimes actually delay the process. So giving them as much choice as possible over their environment, setting up small, tiny little challenges that they can succeed at so that they can start to build some confidence. those two things I think can make a huge difference. And I should also mention helper dogs.

We don't have a ton of research on this, but we have some research and we have plenty of anecdotal data that if they have a dog, if they're if they're comfortable with dogs, which I would think a lot of the Ridgland Beagles would be, but I don't know that for a fact. if you can pair them with an outgoing dog, that can help. And they don't necessarily have to be living with the dog, but if they have a dog friend.

Victoria (15:21)
Yes.

Kristina (15:43)
that they can go do things with that seems to be pretty beneficial in a lot of cases.

Victoria (15:52)
Right, okay, so here's a question from one of our attendees. Would it be fair to say that a lot of coercive training methods and training that uses punishment can put a dog into a state of learned helplessness?

Kristina (16:12)
Yeah, so this is an interesting question because we, you know, there are a lot of issues with using aversive training methods. And and they're not all so like that goes beyond just whether or not the animal is going to develop learned helplessness, right? So there's, you know, increasing stress through aversives, potential damage to the relationship, suppressing behavior.

Instead of actually addressing the emotion motive emotional motivation between behind the behavior. But in terms of learned helplessness,

It's I it is not inevitable that an animal that is being trained with aversives will develop learned helplessness because the key thing for learned helplessness is lack of control. So if someone is using aversives and they're not a very skilled trainer, they're not very good at their timing, and they're just sort of randomly applying aversives, then that can lead to learned helplessness. But if they're

If they're very good at their timing and the animal learns, if I do this, then that aversive thing doesn't happen. And it's clear, then it and again, I'm not saying it's fine, but in terms of learned helplessness, it probably would not produce learned helplessness. It has to be a situation that the animal cannot escape.

Victoria (17:45)
So I always remember Karen Pryor and telling me that this a certain high-profile trainer had excellent timing. Excellent timing with punishment. Not praising the fact that this was the way that this particular trainer trained an animal, but that the timing

was excellent and so that punishment was extremely effective.

And that what you're saying?

Kristina (18:26)
I think it's there's a lot more going on. So punishment can be very t effective at certain things if the timing is good and the magnitude of the application of the positive punishment is exactly correct. And and so this is what I think is very, very difficult to get.

Right, because you could have good timing. But if you're if you're not applying a strong enough punisher, then the animal can become habituated to it. And so you have to escalate and escalate and escalate. And that's obviously a problem. But if you go too far, then you're doing too much. And that's then you're getting into potential trauma and all of these other side effects that we don't want. So

It's very difficult to know like what is that exact perfect sort of Goldilocks level where you're gonna basically what you're aiming for is stopping the behavior the first time. That's what you that's what should happen. But it's really easy to over or undershoot that. And then it's either not effective or it causes all these other negative side effects that we don't want to see.

Victoria (19:53)
So when you give a correction, let's say, is there a permissible correction to give? And I know this is hard, and a non permissible, as in, is it okay to use your voice for sound? I used to use sound aversion all the time. I used to like, you know, make big noises and I look back on that and go, that was highly aversive.

Even though I didn't count myself as an aversive trainer, that was aversive. So I recognized that pretty early on and stopped that and started to do more vocal corrections. And then that could be for certain dogs quite aversive. And so so so if we are to say, well, first of all, let

The question, and I know it's slightly off topic, but the question is I think positive trainers are often ridiculed for never saying no to dogs, right? For and which is silly because most of us, you know, we do create boundaries, right? but so what is allowed

Kristina (21:10)
Right.

Well, I I mean I I'm not the you know, the judge here about what isn't is not allowed, but I think yeah, i i well it's where's the line, right? And I don't I I mean, I I ultimately I suppose the answer is I don't know exactly where the line is, but I can I can provide some boundaries about where I set my lines, right? So for me, I'm not gonna use physical punishment.

Victoria (21:18)
Damn.

No. But you see what I mean? You're yeah, I hope you kind of yeah, understand what I'm trying to say. Where is the line?

Kristina (21:48)
So whether that's like directly coming from me or some kind of tool that I'm using or you know, application of a shock, those are not tools that I use. And there's two, three, two or three reasons, depending on how you categorize it. So one is that I don't think that the research supports that. And I am not just talking about the research on electric collar training in dogs, because those studies are limited and

You know, like all other studies, they have their pros and cons. But if you look at research in other aspects of behavior, if you look at research on punishment in like rodents and punishment in humans, it's the we have, I think, really strong evidence that for all these reasons we've, you know, that get talked about all the time, that positive punishment.

the the benefits of it don't seem to generally outweigh the downsides, the side effects. I as a scientist, I want to be open minded and

Be willing to employ the methods that are going to be the most effective for the animal. And I have never come across a situation where I have felt like the most humane next step is to use positive punishment because of again the side effects. So the emotional suppression and the the negative emotions and the fear that that can generate. And the third reason is I just have an ethical line.

Victoria (23:13)
Right.

Kristina (23:30)
Where I won't do it, right? So it although theoretically would I change my mind if I felt there was really, really strong evidence that it would have a benefit to the animal in the long run, I I would certainly be open to it, but I haven't seen that evid like nothing in my experience as a trainer for over 25 years or looking at the research has convinced me that that's the case.

So that I I feel like that's pretty clear cut. In terms of verbal corrections or ver, you know, whatever we want to call it. I've so I've had these conversations with my students about no. And I I had a conversation with like a handyman that comes to our house that has been doing work for my family for a very long time. And I don't know how it starts.

But we had a conversation about using no and he has dogs. And I was like, Well, I don't. This is many years ago. I'm like, well, I don't use no. And he he was generally so confused because he's like, I don't how do they know what they're allowed to do and not allowed to do if you don't tell them? And I was sort of saying all the talking points in that conversation and everything. But after the conversation ended, I really thought about it. I'm like, you know.

I use no with my dogs all the time. But I don't feel like I'm applying it as an aversive, right? It's not like I'm saying no and trying to startle them or scare them into stopping. It's I do feel like it's more used as communication. And that made me think about it. I'm like, well, I don't, like, I didn't intentionally teach them.

what no means, but they do seem to understand. And so then we get into a conversation about well, what like when is it communication and when does it become positive punishment?

Certainly my dogs didn't seem to be distraught by me saying no. And I mean, are like, have I ever yelled at my dogs? Yes. You know, like I'm a human, like things happen, or you're scared for them and you yell, you know, I mean, I've yelled at my kid. that's not how I intentionally do things, but it happens. So

Victoria (25:47)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. I don't

think there's any parent. Even if you choose to parent, like and you're not gonna, you know, which most I I would hope most parents do now. But but there's definitely some times when you've gone you know, you've had a you've had a shout. I mean, I don't think any parent can say that they haven't.

Kristina (26:02)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Right, exactly. so I I don't know. I don't know where the line i is, right? You know, are you screaming at your dog to terrify them and and scare them and intimidate them? Well, sure. Like I'd say that's not okay. If you're just saying no, don't do that, and then they stop, I think that's okay. But what about the gray or like maybe it's a sharper no? I I don't I don't know.

Victoria (26:44)
Yeah.

So we have in so I've taken to maybe because I'm living in the south and I love this. No ma'am. No ma'am, no sir. That's how that's that's where it that's where the boundary comes in and I say that no no ma'am, no sir. And and the dog looks dogs look at me. Okay, gotcha.

Kristina (26:54)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Victoria (27:07)
That's why I would say to my kid, Mm mm, no, ma'am, you're not doing that. And then okay, got it. And and in in that kind of way, the dogs aren't scared, they're not terrified. They're not they they just go, got it. Okay.

Kristina (27:24)
Right.

Yeah.

Victoria (27:26)
So for people who say that no is not, you know, you should never say no to a dog. I I mean I I I get why some people might not want to. If they use no all the time, then it maybe loses something. But I think there's ways that you can communicate with your dog to get them to stop doing something that doesn't cause them to fear you or be intimidated or cause them any kind of pain.

Kristina (27:49)
Yes.

Yes.

Victoria (27:51)
okay, that was that was a lot with that. But I I I I really wanted to get your take on this because there's always so much discussion around it. And so whenever I think of that, I was like be like, what does Kristina Spaulding say? Because you can bring in the science and you can, you know, you just have a very, very clear way of putting things. So thank you so much for answer answering that question. Okay.

Kristina (27:54)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Victoria (28:17)
There's gosh, there's so many. what do choices look like in a pet dog scenario? What do choices how should we Yeah, I'll start that that's one question, there's another one right underneath it. Okay.

Kristina (28:28)
Yeah, so

Okay.

So I I think it can look like all kinds of things. And and some of the really common things are letting them choose what direction they want to go on a walk. And that is a great thing to do. It's not always realistic. you know, like maybe you don't have, you know, they want to go into someone's yard. And that's not the the appropriate thing to do or the legal thing to do. But I think there's that then there's cooperative care is another one that, you know, where choice

plays a really big role. And I think petting and physical interactions, you know, paying attention to what our how our animals are responding to us and trying to learn and interpret their body language to figure out do do they seem to like this or do they not. And then things like I have this conversation with my husband fairly frequently.

You know, things like do they want to be with you or do they want to be alone? Right. So it's very difficult for me when my dog doesn't want to sleep in bed with me at night. And I have to work really hard to say, you know, fine, if he doesn't want to come up here, he's not going to come up here. What my husband will sometimes do is pick him up and carry him up. And I'm like, no, you can't do that. Although it's it's a little tricky because he's 13 and

He's arthritic. And so sometimes I actually think he does want to come upstairs, but he doesn't because he's in pain. So it's all, you know, it's trying to pay attention to those little things and honoring their choices where we can, right? So again, not all situations, you know, Darwin doesn't always want to be picked up, but when I know that he's been in pain recently, I am going to carry him up the stairs. I I feel

It gets to a certain point where I will do that. Like sometimes again, and there's this gray zone. or you know, vet care, right? Like sometimes they don't want us to do the thing and it's an emergency and and we're doing the thing. But there are a lot of areas where we can provide choice. And I think just looking around at your own life and figuring out.

Trying to pay attention to how your household is set up and the decisions you make and how much you direct your dog and be aware of like, is this a situation where maybe I could just let this go? Whatever it is that they're doing, you know, that they're taking 10 minutes to sniff the mailbox posts. And like again, with Darwin, he's not only is he old, but he's also a beagle mix. And so

We don't go very far on a lot of our walks. So we usually take two walks. We do the walk for Darwin and then we go out a second time where we're moving much more quickly so that we can actually feel like we're getting some exercise.

Victoria (31:28)
Mm. Right. Right.

Yeah,

right. I always like I called it sharing the walk. and and I, you know, obviously I don't have dogs anymore because you know, my my girl passed away four months ago now. but yeah, I mean we definitely have right, you this is your part of the walk. Now I'm this is my part of the walk. and sometimes we would just do her walk. That's it. This is I'm I'm ready to. And sometimes yeah, I also needed exercise, so

Kristina (31:44)
Yeah.

Right.

Victoria (32:08)
It couldn't just be about the sniffies. All right. I'm gonna take a quick break and we'll come back with more questions for Kristina.

I'm back with Kristina Spaulding and she's answering a lot of the questions about learned helplessness and learned control that delegates had from the dog behavior conference. And in that then it kind of takes us off on tangents and this has been really awesome so far. So thank you so much. this is I don't know whether this is quite a question, and whether

Any studies have been done on this, but this attendee asked, Is there any research on learned helplessness or maybe more case studies in learned helplessness on spade and neutered dogs via versus ones that are intact? And can the age that animals are spade and neutered have effects on learned helplessness?

Kristina (33:06)
I'm not aware of any work on that. I I wouldn't anticipate that it would have a huge effect. although, you know, hormones are gonna impact everything. But yeah, I I'm not aware. You you know, they they do do studies on rodents that have been sterilized in one way or another, but I don't know that they've looked at that specific question. I

Victoria (33:09)
Mm.

Okay, and ha

is there anything amongst the sexes? Male versus female and learn helplessness. Do males have more than females.

Kristina (33:41)
So

it it's more of the impact of control that there's been a little bit of work done. And this is all very new. And so I I don't really think we have a clear picture yet, but there's some evidence that adding control may not have quite the same effect in females as it does in males. But

Again, we don't have a lot of research there. So I really think we need more work to figure out is there really a difference? If there's a difference, where are those differences and then what's driving them? It's it's unclear. but overall I think the big picture is very, very similar. Some of the specifics may vary. but most of the research

on rodents has been in males historically, and it's only recently that people are looking at

Victoria (34:47)
Why was it just in males? Was it because they didn't have cycles?

Kristina (34:53)
Theoretically. I mean, that is what I mean, I do think that is a valid reason. I also suspect that if we had had more women in science for longer, that maybe someone would have thought about the problems with that sooner than they did. so yeah.

Victoria (34:53)
Yeah. Right?

Very diplomatically put, Kristina. Very d very diplomatic. Ooh. Drives me nuts. okay. Now let's say so some of the questions here are talking about dogs that are showing aggressive behaviour.

Kristina (35:17)
He

Yeah.

Victoria (35:32)
How can you and and I'm and and I don't know for the for for what they don't ask the is this dog fearful? Is this how can you introduce more choice for those dogs?

That's a very broad question.

Kristina (35:51)
Yeah.

Right. Yeah. So what you're kind of getting at is it probably depends on the exact situation and what's happening. But I think so I would look at a couple of things. So if we think that the fear is or sorry, the aggression is fear motivated. And I'm gonna say the biting, growling behavior, whatever it is, is fear motivated, then one thing you might do is can you give the dog other options like can we create a situation where they can simply move away?

And increased space. And again, sometimes you can't, right? Like you live in a city and your dog is frightened of strangers or people, or sorry, strangers or other dogs, and I mean you can't always move away, right? where I live, it's much more sort of rural, and usually we can find that space, but so that's one thing is is can you give them a viable alternative to

Barking, growling, biting, etcetera.

If not, or in addition to that, I would look at increasing choice in other areas of their life that are not necessarily related to growling and biting behaviors, because sometimes we can't give them a lot of choice in those situations for safety reasons. But then we need to try and make up for that choice in other contexts, which would include, you know.

the kinds of things that we were talking about, choosing the direction on walk, consent, cooperative care, you know, where are they sleeping? Like even things like I've noticed that by adding dog beds to my house, my dogs choose to sleep in different places than they did before there were dog beds in those rooms. They want to have a comfortable spot. Like we have to create choices that are viable.

So, you know, if we had a room in our house that I really liked and there was nowhere to sit, I might not spend as much time there. And so things like that and body language, I just I think body language is huge because to me, body language is a really important component of increasing agency and choice in dogs, because if you can read what they're

thinking or feeling or make educated guesses, more accurate, educated guesses about what they might be thinking or feeling, we can do a better job of giving them appropriate choices because we have a a better sense of maybe what they need.

Victoria (38:42)
Right. Okay, thank you for that. That's I think certainly a lot of greener trainers tend to look at the situation or what we call the the problem behavior.

In situation and focus on that. With the reactivity zones approach and now our shelter zones approach, we take a much wider view in how can we yes help the animal navigate the challenges that they have in that particular environment, but how can we zoom out and how can we manage create

Comfort in and celebrate and applaud comfort and bring that to the environments that dogs find challenging. So that does create other opportunities in the dog's world, in the dog's life, that can truly help them when they are in certain situations. Do you find that?

There are still a lot of trainers that are just focusing on stopping because when they when when they go into homes and they they have clients, the client basically wants to stop the jumping, wants to stop the barking, wants to stop. Do you find that a lot of trainers, especially new trainers starting out, will will tend to go and, you know, teach the dog to go to Matt or or teach the dog to sit to greet instead, rather than kind of zooming out and seeing the bigger why?

Kristina (40:27)
I think so. It's it's a little hard for me to say because a lot of the people who find their way to me are people who have been in the field for a while. So I don't work with brand new trainers quite as often as I worked with more experienced trainers. Not that they I mean, new trainers can still come to me and find a lot of benefit, but I think I get a lot of people who are like, I've taken all the other stuff and like now I want something like much deeper. But what I can tell you is that between now

And when I started teaching a lot of this material, like maybe 2020, 2021, I've noticed that people are much more likely to be looking at the bigger picture. So I I'm I I mean, I'm pretty confident that newer trainers still tend to focus, have much more of a focus on the behavior itself.

But I do feel like I have seen that shift in just the last five years or so. That because it used to be new trainers and experienced trainers all had that same focus. And now at the very least, what I have seen is that I think the experienced trainers are really moving away from that. A lot of them are. And I and that comes back too to providing increasing choice because if we can give the dogs skills that they can implement independently.

Victoria (41:35)
Yes. Yep.

Kristina (41:55)
that can increase choice too, because now they're they literally have a choice between am I going to bark and lunge or am I going to sniff this thing over here? When if they don't have the skill to regulate their emotions and control their, you know, impulsive behavior, they effectively don't have a choice. Even if we're technically giving them one, they may not have a body that is able to open up the calmer choice to them.

Victoria (42:25)
Mm-hmm.

Kristina (42:25)
And if we work on things like emotional regulation and confidence and problem solving skills, then new

pro new I don't new behaviors open up to those dogs. I don't know how else to put it.

Victoria (42:42)
Mm. They're just they're just

because because one one of the things that you've you've said a lot, you write in your book, it's about dogs that become stuck. Dogs that are having challenges, they become stuck. And that's always resonated with me because I think it's it's sometimes as a human being you can just feel stuck. You're stuck in a rut, right? That's what we call it. and and dogs can also have that too. So how do we get dogs that are stuck to become unstuck?

Kristina (42:59)
Yeah. Right. Exactly. Yeah.

Well, yeah, and that is a lot of the things that I'm talking about, right? Is giving them these skills. And I'll give some concrete examples I think that's a lot easier. So if we're working with a dog that is barking and lunging on leash when it sees other dogs or whatever the trigger is, that often seems to be a very stuck or routine behavior that it's difficult for them to get out of. And so

If we use a more passive approach like counter conditioning, that is very passive because all that's happening is that the trigger appears and then the dog is being fed. So all they have to do is like chew and swallow. And let's be honest, most of them don't chew. So you know, so all they have to do is swallow, right? You're putting food in their mouth and they're swallowing it. And I'm not against counter conditioning, but it's

As I talked about in my talk, it's probably not an ideal approach in isolation. And so if you can add something more active where the dog is being more of a participant in the training exercise, that is something that seems to be more effective at changing the behavior. So that might be like having them look at you. And I don't even know that looking at

Us is the key factor. I think doing something active that is not barking and lunging is the key factor. So, because I know that there can be a lot of arguments about, you know, whether we should use look at that or something similar and all of these different sort of terms and protocols. And I don't know how much it matters. I think what matters is we're we're building a new behavior.

That can also help them move through and work through, you know, this response that they're having to this trigger. I have another, so another example, which totally different context, is I trained my dog Finn to back up using a a foot target. So he would move, you know, back up until his rear feet were on a target. And I'm a really lazer, lazy trainer, and I just can't really be bothered with.

Victoria (45:36)
Yeah.

Kristina (45:37)
All of the little details. And so I taught him this over and over and over again in the same exact location, in the same context. And then I was like, okay, well, now we need to get rid of the board. And I couldn't get rid of the board. Like I like I wanted to put it on a verbal cue, but as soon as the board went down, he was backing up because the board itself had become the cue. And so totally different context, right? It's like really an unimportant behavior in the big picture.

But I couldn't, I, you know, I could I could cue him to sit, but if the board was there, he was backing up. It just didn't, and I was getting extremely frustrated, and he was getting extremely frustrated. And it was around the same time that I was l learning a lot about habit and the research on habit and how there's this very strong connection that can develop between the environment and the behavior, independent of reinforcement. And so

One of the things that you can do to change habitual behavior is to change the context. So I brought the board upstairs into a different room, and it was like 30 seconds to a minute, and I got him doing it on cue. Like it was, I mean, it was crazy. I couldn't believe how dramatic it was. And so we can apply that to things like dogs that you know get extremely intense and excited around the door. Well, change the door. Like

Teach the behavior at a different door because now the context is different. So those are a couple of ways and then bringing the arousal levels down. That's another big one.

Victoria (47:14)
Absolutely.

okay. So we're near to the end of this podcast and thank you for just for all of your wisdom and putting things so clearly. You are working and have been working for a while on something very exciting.

What is it?

Kristina (47:35)
so along with Irit Bloom, who is a colleague and a dear friend of mine, we have created a program that we call Carefree Companion, which is a mentorship and certification program for animal behavior professionals. And this is for advanced or experienced, maybe advanced, but experienced animal behavior professionals. We really wanted to create something, there's a lot of options, you know, like.

Victoria (47:40)
Mm-hmm.

Kristina (48:02)
Victoria Stilwell Academy for people who are entering the profession, we wanted something that more experienced people could use to take them to the next level. And so Carefree Companion is focused around building stronger client relationships and helping them navigate these complex behavior cases more effectively. So, how can we work with our clients to help them support these?

behavior challenges in their dogs. And so it's still very focused on science, but there's also this coaching and and mentorship component to it. And so that that is a new program and that's starting our next cohort is starting up in September.

Victoria (48:51)
Very interesting. When can people start registering and where would they go?

Kristina (48:55)
They can go to carefreecompanion.com and we are going to be opening up registration in June. So probably by the time this podcast is out, it will be open. You do have to apply. It's not a terribly long application process, but because it is meant for people who do have more experience, we want to make sure they have sort of the basics down so that they're not confused in the program.

Victoria (49:06)
By the time

Great. Thank you so much. And I encourage everybody who wants to expand their knowledge to do that. Kristina, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for speaking at the DBC. We truly learn so much from you and always do. And again, anybody, everybody, stress the stress factor in dogs, get it. Get it. It's a really important read. thank you.

Kristina (49:51)
Thank you for so much you do. I'll say that again. Thank you so much for everything that you do. you're making a great impact in the

Victoria (49:54)
Mm-hmm.

Thanks very much. Well, everybody, I hope that you got out a lot out of this podcast. Wow. Kristina is just so well, I love again is she just makes the science relatable and puts it so very succinctly and very clear. And we can never know enough. So that's why I think advanced with our students, I mean they come out of VSA, they're

Heads are full of so much. It's a lot to take in because it is an intense course. and while we do cover quite a lot of advanced things, the the best kind of training I always believe as a trainer is out in the field when you're actually doing the job. So that is why we always say it's really important to start taking more advanced courses. And

Kristina (50:45)
Mm-hmm.

Victoria (50:57)
Go out there because you know, stay curious, love learning, continue learning to be the best dog trainer, behavior consultant you can be. And so taking courses like Christina's and Arit's is is is just going to make you a better trainer and more understanding of people and of the dogs that you serve. So it's a win-win. Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today.

You all take care and I'll see you again on another podcast.