Nerding Out on Thresholds with Sarah Shapiro Ward

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Thresholds are a concept, not something concrete, so it can be difficult to have a consensus as to what they actually are. To make this even more confusing, there are many types of thresholds that a dog can cross. In this episode, Sarah and I do our best to break this topic down. 

We discuss:

• Sarah's framework for helping her clients understand the threshold of perception and the threshold for behavior
• How changes in the environment cause changes to thresholds
• How vocalizations are not always a helpful metric for a dog "going over" threshold
• The correlation between increased stress and lowered thresholds, and what to do with reactive dogs when they in various stages of stress
• How the intensity of a trigger influences a dog's threshold
• And so much more!

About Sarah:

Dr. Sarah Shapiro-Ward CPDT-KA, KPA-CTP has lived and worked as a professional dog trainer in two of Canada’s most densely populated downtown communities: Toronto and Vancouver. Sarah is best known for her viral trick training videos with her Cockapoo Percy, including tricks such as playing Jenga, Connect Four and Painting on Canvas. She also has a standard poodle, Eleanor, and a horse, Niamh.

Before becoming a dog trainer, Sarah completed her Ph.D. in Biochemistry in 2015. Though she has long since left the laboratory behind she still enjoys keeping up with the literature and applying her skills of critical analysis to dog training scenarios.

Sarah is a frequent guest on the live call-in radio show CBC BC Today, answering Vancouver’s dog behaviour questions. She has also been featured on Jimmy Fallon, The Daily Mail UK, NHK Japan, Good Morning America, The New York Post & others.

Besides training tricks, Sarah teaches group classes and private lessons for city dog owners across Vancouver. She can be found on Instagram and TikTok @prancingpoodles.

Read her blog post on thresholds here.