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Why is it that some dogs enter a new home and begin to develop reactivity, seemingly out of nowhere? This often comes as a surprise to their new families, who weren’t expecting to dive into a life with a reactive dog. In this episode, I bring in Tom Candy to help unpack what is going on in these scenarios. We discuss:
- What the general public doesn’t know about the animal sheltering world
- What contributes to a dog’s behavior changing in a new home
- How to actively prevent reactivity from developing in a newly adopted dog
- How to help a newly adopted dog transition to their home and lifestyle more successfully
- What to do if your newly adopted dog begins to show reactive behaviors
- And so much more
About Tom:
A passion for animal welfare, canine behaviour, and the development of others has been cornerstones of Tom’s (He/Him) career, which spans over 15 years in Shelter and Rescue with 10 focusing on training and behaviour. This experience and a drive to support even more shelter and rescue animals and staff, led to Tom starting Simplifying Shelter Behaviour, an educational organisation and podcast dedicated to bringing up to date, positive based training and behaviour tips and tricks to shelter and rescue staff and volunteers. Having started volunteering in rescue at the age of 15, Tom has been involved in a variety of aspects of rescue, including fundraising, home checking, transporting and general day-today operations, which pushed Tom to undertake a Bachelor of Science (Hons) degree in bioveterinary science and a Master of Science degree in Clinical Animal Behavior from the University of Lincoln in the United Kingdom.
Since graduating, Tom has been working at the UKs largest dog welfare organisation as a Training and Behaviour Advisor, eventually working across seven rehoming centres before being promoted to Senior Training and Behaviour Advisor, where he supported the Training and Behaviour teams across the southwest of the United Kingdom. Tom is currently a senior
Clinical Animal Behaviourist Development Officer, working to upskill staff to reach their potential. Tom is a Certified Clinical Animal Behaviourist with the Animal Behaviour and Training Council in the United Kingdom, and a Certified Canine Behavior Consultant and Certified Shelter Behavior Specialist with the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultant and a member of faculty and CBATI-KA with the Grisha Stewart Academy.
For Pet Parents
Need Help With Your Reactive Dog? 1:1 Coaching with Jessica
For Dog Professionals
Transcript
Jessica: [00:00:00] I am Jessica Wheatcraft, and this is Rethinking Reactivity, A podcast designed to educate, empower, and equip the modern handler of reactive dogs. Whether you have a reactive dog or you help people with their reactive dogs, you’re in the right place.
the first dog I adopted as an adult ended up having some behavior challenges that I wasn’t exactly planning on signing up for. She was reactive on leash and she was also selective with other dogs. I was only 19 and I had just moved to San Diego and I imagined a life with her that included spending our free time at the Dog Beach.
I didn’t anticipate needing to hire a professional trainer and implementing a whole training program just to make our lives easier. But in the end, we had a pretty great life together, and that experience is [00:01:00] actually what propelled me into becoming a dog trainer, which totally changed the trajectory of my career.
I don’t regret one second of it. It. But having lived through that experience, it’s easy for me to sympathize with clients who come to me with a similar story. They adopt a dog that didn’t appear to be reactive on leash, but within a short period of time, they are barking and lunging at everyone in the neighborhood.
How exactly does this happen? Why is it that some dogs have such drastic changes in their behavior that seemingly no one saw coming? I am not only referring to shelter or rescue dogs here because any dog who goes into a new home is experiencing a big change in their environment, and that can have a really big impact on their behavior.
To help us unpack this topic, I wanted to bring in Tom Candy. Tom lives in the UK and has spent his career working with shelter [00:02:00] dogs. His work includes preparing dogs for placement, in addition to supporting families who are starting to have trouble with their new dog by giving them training and support to help them keep the dog in their home successfully.
He’s seen countless dogs go from one environment to another and has a unique insight into newly adopted dogs who begin displaying leash reactivity and how to best help them. Aside from reactive dogs, shelter, and rescue dogs are near and dear to my heart, and I really loved this conversation with Tom, and I think you’re gonna enjoy it just as much as I did.
Let’s dive in. I.
Welcome to the show. I’m really glad that you’re here.
Tom: Thank you for having me. I’m excited to chat.
Jessica: You have such a robust background in animal sheltering and rescue, and you have done so much over your career, and I don’t know [00:03:00] that a lot of people know what that world is like if you don’t actually work in it or have experience in it.
And I know you’ve had a lot of different roles over the years, but I’m wondering if you could give listeners who aren’t familiar with this animal welfare world, what a day in the life is like, what are the things that you guys are dealing with?
Tom: Yeah, definitely. It’s a, it’s a great question because it’s so varied in its answer, uh, as, as it’s always the case, isn’t it, with these sort of things.
I predominantly work in, uh, kennel based rescues. So that’s, that’s kind of where most of my experience is. Obviously. Um, I have done some work with foster based rescues as well, which looks a bit different again. Mm-hmm. But, um, in terms of kind of being a trainer and behaviorist in a more kennel based rescue, it was kind of going in, in the morning.
You maybe had some, like more more behavior dogs or more training dogs that you were specifically working with. So we’d kind of get them out, get them, uh, sorted for the day, obviously feed them, sort their cannel [00:04:00] out. And then a lot of my role when I was working at a center was kind of supporting the staff with their dogs as well.
So making sure that any training plans that we had in place were doing what they were supposed to do. You know, achieving the change we wanted to see. So supporting the staff with implementing those, tweaking and changing any of that maybe weren’t working, or where more information had come out. And kind of building that, that picture of the dogs in our care. So through assessment and just interactions, trying to get the best idea of the dog’s personality, the dog’s individuality, so that we could, you know, tweak any training or behavior work that needed to be done, but also start thinking about how do we best match this dog to, uh, their new home.
Because obviously that’s arguably the most important part of rescue where that’s why we’re there is to help these dogs. Progress and move into a new home successfully. So it was kind of a lot of tubing and throw in, there’s obviously things like vet visits, so [00:05:00] particularly if there’s more tricky dogs that maybe struggled to see the vet, you’d support those as well.
And then obviously as well supporting adopters. So whether that’s people coming in to meet a dog and, and talking them through their training and behavior needs and doing those introductions or supporting owners with dogs that maybe they’ve had for a couple of weeks or a couple of months, where we are either starting to see behaviors creep up or if it’s an existing problem, making sure that, you know, the owners are comfortable and supportive so that we don’t get those dogs coming back to kennels either.
So it’s those kind of two key components is moving those dogs towards rehoming and then helping them stay successfully in that home as well. So obviously that looked very different day to day, depending on what appointments you had, what dogs were in. But yeah, busy, busy I think is always quite a good, a good definition of it.
Once I stopped working kind of day to day in a sense where I was in a much more regional role. So I was going to different re-homing centers and doing similar things, but focusing more on the staff [00:06:00] development side of things. So again, making sure that dogs where we maybe didn’t have a plan or things weren’t working we put the best plan in place to try and improve welfare, to try and move them towards rehab mobility and get success that way.
So yeah, it’s, uh, it’s been pretty good. I’ve spent a lot of time traveling around the UK and visiting different sites and, and things and that’s great because you have so much different environments, you know, even though it’s majority of the same organization that can all set up a significantly different, the environments are different which is obviously really challenging, but really fun as well.
Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. I’m curious because you’re using terms like kennel based and re-homing centers and of course I’m in, well, from, mostly from the US I’m gonna think we have German and us, but anyhow in terms of what my experience is in the US where we have county shelters, which are kennel based, right?
These are dogs that are [00:07:00] housed oftentimes, separately in kennels. And then we also have rescue groups where a lot of those dogs are in foster homes, but there are some rescue organizations that have a smaller type of facility, and the where they would get their dogs from would vary. Because the county shelters would, because they’re part of the government, then they would have to take in dogs that are strays.
Or if somebody couldn’t keep their animal anymore and they needed to give it up, those are the types of dogs that would be coming into the county shelters. And then a lot of times the rescue groups would actually take some of those dogs from those county shelters. And then we had Humane Societies, which were nonprofit, but they had their funding elsewhere.
And they also didn’t have to take in strays or perform, uh, yeah, some of those, uh, animal control kind of duties because it was separate. So I’m curious from the places that you were [00:08:00] working with, what does it fall under?
Tom: Yeah, it is a great question. The system in the UK is pretty similar, but I think that there’s differences just because the sheer difference in, in number of animals being supported.
So the largest rescue organization in the UK supports about maybe 15,000 dogs a year in terms of intake. Um, and then there’s obviously like a number of other large rescue organizations and then smaller ones. So, you know, the number of dogs needing help is, is so different to in the states and in other countries.
So we do still have like the county based system, what we call like dog pounds. Um, and they’re run by the council, which is like a smaller part of the government. And the dogs come in there. Normally, like you said, they’re straying. They’ve been picked up by the dog warden who’s kind of responsible for stray dogs, and they tend to have seven days.
So that’s, that’s the law, is they can stay for seven days while they look for their owner. And then in law, [00:09:00] you know, they, they can, uh, legally be destroyed. What tends to happen though, like you said is we have rescues that go in and we will pick those dogs up and take them, um, either to foster homes or to a kennel based site if they’ve got that, to then move towards rehoming.
So we’ve done pretty good in the UK the last few years of, of kind of bringing the numbers of Euthanasias down, um, just, you know, specific lead due to space. But we still kind of have that two membrane system. It’s just dogs don’t tend to spend long in the pounds because, you know, they’re kind of moving through into the more rescue model.
As soon as those seven days are up pretty. Okay. And is that what you’re also referring to as the Rehoming Center, that this is a separate place that these dogs go from the pound to the Rehoming Center? Because you were describing how you would spend time with these dogs. You’re trying to prepare them for adoption, so certainly you’re not doing that within seven days.
Yeah, exactly. So, um, when they’re normally in the pounds, they kind of just have the, it obviously, it depends again, on the facility. A [00:10:00] lot of the time the pounds in the UK are actually just like normal boarding kennels that the council pay. So they’re not like a specific stray dog location. So that’s again, why there’s such a kind of drive to move these dogs pretty quickly after the seven days, because generally speaking, the councils aren’t paying as much as a.
As you know, um, people who are looking to board their dogs privately, they then tend to move either into like the foster based rescue, like we talked about, or um, a more kind of brick and mortar rescue. And then again, like you said they, you then get a little bit more time to start to get to know the dogs.
That’s obviously gonna vary like organization to organization. But you know, most, most places have like a seven day assessment period. And if any concerns are flagged, maybe the dog stays a little bit longer. And obviously if it’s nice and nice and easy, if, if those dogs exist they can move out, you know, pretty quick depending on the situation.
Okay,
Jessica: got it. It’s always interesting to hear how different countries operate their animal welfare things. [00:11:00] Okay. What do you wish that more people knew about your industry? Like if, in terms of your average pet parent, average family with a dog.
Tom: Yeah, it’s a really great question. Again, I think a big thing for me, like a big thing that I’m really passionate about is kind of understanding the process or the idea that maybe like not all of the dogs are broken or that kind of, um, typical thing of like saying, well, it’s a rescue dog versus a dog that is in a rescue.
It’s almost like they, they become a different, uh, type of animal as soon as they’re relinquished. And obviously we know that problematic behaviors like reactivity, like separation related problems, they are quite a big contributor to dogs coming into kennels. It’s something like 40% of dogs, um, and other animals coming in might have a problem behavior, but that obviously still leaves 60% of dogs who are coming in because the owners had to move and can’t find accommodation or, or the owners [00:12:00] died.
Or, you know, there’s, there’s other financial constraints that has led to that dog ending up in a rescue. So. We do have that, and I think the perception has changed. But definitely when I started in rescue, it was very much like, oh, you know, rescue’s all cross breeds. But it’s not like there is a big mixture and you can often find exactly what you’re looking for.
Another thing that I’m really keen on is that we should be moving towards this more kind of open adoption model where we’re not putting stringent restrictions in place.
But if, if naturally if you come in and you’ve got a cat, another dog and a child, it might take a little bit longer for a suitable dog to, to crop up in the system versus, you know, if you’re kind of a single adult and you’re pretty open, uh, to the type of dog you have. So just being open and really thinking as a family what do we want from a dog?
And having those discussions with the adoption staff or the rescue staff, because they’re gonna be best placed to kind of match you to that [00:13:00] dog. And like I said, if, if you, if really want a specific breed, that’s cool, but you might have to wait a bit. But being open to taking that advice from the advisor, uh, can really help.
I was speaking to somebody a few weeks ago and um, he said it’s very much like when you go to a realtor or an estate agent, you know, they kind of find out more about you. You look at a few houses, maybe they don’t work out, and then they kind of keep looking and find the best suit. And that’s one of the big advantages of rescue versus when you, you know, go and purchase a puppy and you maybe have kind of a snippet of information and you, you hand over the cash and then that’s your dog, isn’t it?
So that’s the big thing for me is this idea of adoption’s being restrictive and I think we should really be moving away from that.
Jessica: You brought up a couple of really good points there and one of ’em is that it might take longer to find that dog. Right. And I think that would go across the board, even if somebody was [00:14:00] not looking at adopting and they were looking at different breeders.
Even that takes a while. Most of the time a really good breeder might have a waiting list for a year or two or maybe doesn’t have a litter even planned for a very long time. So you might be waiting a long time regardless. And same if you are looking to adopt a dog that you might not find it the first day that you go down to the shelter.
So you, you might need to wait a bit, see if another one might come along. I like that you mentioned that, and you’re also mentioning the concept of open adoptions, which I don’t know that everybody that’s gonna listen to this podcast is really gonna know what that’s about in terms of. Super strict standards for adoption versus open adoptions.
And since the topic came up, uh, let’s go ahead and dive into that so that way it’s more clear to the listeners of what you mean by that.
Tom: Yeah, definitely. So, um, rescue traditionally, or, or certainly kind of a [00:15:00] few years ago, starting to move towards this kind of more like what we would say is like a closed adoption system.
So that’s where you kind of fill out your form and it is things like, do you have a six foot fence? Uh, you know, do you have children? Do you leave the dog for more than four hours? And you end up with all of these questions that actually as, as almost kind of interrogation and. They were quite set in stone.
So if you said, well, yeah, I work full time, then the rescue wouldn’t give you the dog. Oh, I’ve only got a three foot fence. You wouldn’t get a dog. And it was very prescriptive, very restrictive. And there are obviously reasons that existed. Like, you know, certain individuals, if we’ve got a dog who’s jumped out of the garden four times, maybe will want specifically to have a higher fence.
But we all know that isn’t true for every animal. What we’ve also noticed as an industry not only like is that a sensible approach, but the people that the number of people looking to get animals is reducing. That’s [00:16:00] true of rescues, that’s also true of breeders. You know, we, we are facing things like the, the financial crises across the, the world.
And we’re seeing acquisition of dogs going down anyway. So as an industry, we kind of needed to look and say, well. How many homes are we missing out on because they don’t have a six foot fence because there’s a child, because they work full time. And how does that actually help the welfare of animals?
Because, you know, when I adopted my dog from the organization that I was working for, I didn’t have a garden. I worked full time. And you know, I’ve obviously still got, um, my dog luckily, but I think she had a pretty, pretty great life before we, before we moved house. And why would we miss out on those opportunities to get dogs into loving, suitable homes?
So open adoption is more about looking at that whole picture, gathering information from the adopters and matching it to a suitable dog. So like we said, you know, if we’ve got [00:17:00] a 10 month old Malinois who’s been in four homes and has jumped the fence at every home, yes, maybe we might be a little bit stricter on, um
our restrictions. But if we’ve got a 2-year-old Labrador who’s pretty easygoing maybe four or five foot might be suitable. It’s really down to that kind of individual. But we’re trying to move away from these kind of blanket policies that put people off straight to start. Because if you know you haven’t got a six foot fence, then you’re not gonna apply in the first place.
But also focuses a little bit more on, well, what works well together, what’s gonna be the good suit? Another example of this I really remember is um, when I was working at a center, we had this couple come in, uh, kind of every week looking for a dog. And we never had anything suitable because it was an older couple and they wanted a young collie, they wanted like a less than 2-year-old collie because that’s what they’ve always had.
They’ve always had colie puppies. And, um, we sometimes forget that when you have a puppy, it’s [00:18:00] normally kind of 10. 10, 15 years before you get another one and you forget kind of all the struggles and the stress, and you forget that you’re now 10 years older and maybe you want a different pace of life.
But, you know, we kept trying to speak to these adopters and, and they were really, really keen on sticking with that and sticking with that. And then they came in a few weeks later and just said that, you know, we’re really struggling with, we really, really want a dog. We haven’t found one yet. And, um, we’d had like this small kind of German shepherd cross, so much smaller than us, kind of Standard Shepherd, uh, had come in a few days before it was about four years old, really chill, really mellow, but still like, wanting to go on walks, active really nice with other dogs.
And we sort of said, right, just, just meet this dog. Just come and meet them. And, uh, they did and fell in love, took the dog home and, you know, I regularly still see that dog out walking with the, with that family and it’s such, so nice. But. Like I just mentioned, I think thinking about it [00:19:00] like that kind of realtor relationship, we want these dogs to go home and be successful, and we also want the owners to have the best experience they can.
So we need to remove those boundaries and work much more in partnership to achieve best adoptions. Now obviously that is really tricky in some of the kind of really large shelters, particularly in the states where, you know, the, the number of dogs is intense, but when we are looking for that kind of long lasting solution to this epidemic that we’ve got in the rescue world, uh, I definitely feel those are the steps that we kind of need to be moving towards.
Jessica: I agree. And I love how you shared that story because it goes to show how sometimes we need to be a little bit more open-minded to what we think we want. Um. But what might be actually best suited for us and our lifestyle. And also you had mentioned earlier about if people are going to go and look for their next family [00:20:00] member and they want to adopt to really listen to the people who have been working with these dogs, because you guys do know them pretty well.
And I think sometimes. It’s easy for somebody to see a dog online or if they happen to walk down the kennels and like spot one that they think like, yeah, this is, you know, the type of dog that I think I’m really going to want. But they, they don’t really know that much about that particular dog, but the people who are working with it every day do, so they do have a better idea of what would be better suited for them.
So I appreciate that you brought that up. Definitely. And it’s really interesting ’cause there has been some research done looking into kind of adoption or acquisition decision makings. The reason people pick the dogs, they, they want, and it’s really, really interesting because when you ask people, what do you look for for, from a dog?
Tom: Normally it’s color breed, very kind of, um, visual things that, that we kind of see and interact with. But when you ask people, what’s the [00:21:00] most important thing for you from your new dog? Behavior is, is the answer that comes up. Behavior trumps everything else. So when we ask, well, what are you looking for?
We get these very visual elements come through. But when we ask what’s important, it’s the behavior. And that’s the big advantage of really working with a shelter, is they give you as much information as they have. And that is important to note that often that the behavior that we see in kennels might be quite different to the behavior that we see in the home.
But a good rescue organization working in the right way should be trying to collect as much information as possible from the history, taking those observations of the dogs and, and feeding that in. And then hopefully give you at least a bit of a summary or again, that support to hopefully have that dog work really well for both the adopter and the dog.
Because both pieces of the puzzle are equally as important.
Jessica: Yes, they are. I wanna touch on that because that was [00:22:00] the, the thing that I wanted to get to of how this conversation is gonna lean towards talking about leash reactivity is I have a very common story that many clients come to me saying, and it often goes something like this.
I saw the dog at either the shelter or I saw it at an adoption event, and it was really quiet and I really liked this dog. And so then they decided to adopt it. And then within a few weeks, now this dog is barking and lunging at everybody. So they often live in more dense environments. These are usually clients that live in either apartment complexes or suburban homes where there’s, they’re gonna take their dog out and they’re, they’re gonna run into a fair amount of people and dogs.
And they are often kind of baffled by the behavior because they’re like, okay. Okay. But this is why I was initially drawn to this dog because they were [00:23:00] like this, and this is what I envisioned, and now I have something different. And now they don’t know what to do about it, which kudos to them. Right?
They’re seeking out help. So that’s awesome. So I’m really glad that I have these people that are crossing my path, but I wanted to dive into that a little bit more with you because I, there’s a lot of nuances that go along with this story that I don’t think a lot of people who aren’t dog professionals really understand.
And so that’s what I wanna dive into. What is some of the things that first come to your mind as you’re hearing me say that?
Tom: Yeah, definitely. Well, firstly, that it’s a very familiar story because that’s exactly what happened with me and my dog. Uh, so, uh, my dog was, uh, surprisingly, I suppose, but my dog was.
Chosen for me by a, a colleague. I basically bought a new house. I went to the Pet Professional Guilds conference in Florida. Uh, and the plan was when I come back, I’d like a dog. [00:24:00] So, um, a colleague had had picked a dog for me and then kind of matched all of the things that I’d asked for and was looking for, and she was great with other dogs.
And then after a few weeks we started to see some kind of lunging, barking, reactive type behaviors, uh, coming in. So, yeah, it’s definitely a very, uh, resonating story. There’s a couple of elements to think about straightaway. So the first one is. Kennels or rescue is a stressful place. The dog’s gone through a big change.
There’s lots of other dogs around. There’s lots of change in in people who’s coming in to look after you every day. There’s tons of noise. Dogs aren’t really getting a lot of sleep, and there’s all of these different elements that feed into it, which often means the behaviors that we see aren’t a true reflection of that dog’s personality.
Think about, you know, if you think about an airport, for example, when we go to a really busy airport, often we’re, we’re maybe a bit more quiet and subdued versus if we’re somewhere where, where, you know, we’re around a group of friends or, uh, [00:25:00] we’re in a really familiar place so we can kind of understand the, the level of, uh, intensity that that kennels bring.
And that means that sometimes when we then take those dogs out of kennels, we actually see a different side of them. The other situation is that when do then go into their new home again, it’s another huge change. And to start with maybe they’re a bit quiet, they’re kind of getting used to the situation and they maybe don’t feel very confident and we don’t see any kind of big, overt behaviors like the lunging and barking that we’re talking about.
As that dog starts to settle in over weeks or months, they start to feel a little bit more confident. They start to feel a little bit more sure in themself. And now the things that are maybe worrying them or, or they’re concerned by, rather than just kind of being withdrawn around, now they’re starting to think, right, okay.
I feel confident enough to tell that scary thing to go away. And that’s where we then start to see that behavior and. I’m sure you’ve talked about this before, but one of the big [00:26:00] difficulties that we have with um, reactivity behavior is itself reinforcing, it tends to do a pretty good job of achieving the goal that the dog wants, which normally is more distance.
And whether that’s the owner walking away because they’re, they’re worried about their dog or they’re embarrassed by their dog, or the scary thing moving away ’cause there’s a dog barking at them. It tends to be pretty great at achieving that goal and that’s where that learning history then kicks in and the dog, as soon as they then start to feel a bit worried, that confidence kicks in and they’re telling the scary things go away.
So it’s those kind of two big combinations of that change and settling in process and how the dog feels, but also that we don’t even necessarily have that great of a reflection in of the dog because of how stressful the situation might be for them when they’re in our care.
Jessica: Yeah, it’s a big environmental change like you describe, especially.
In the kennel itself because as you mentioned, you have a lot of different people that are [00:27:00] coming in and caring for this dog. And a lot of it is often brief encounters. So a lot, some of these dogs will bond to people that they see regularly, but some of them, depending on the type of kennel or shelter, may not really bond with anybody too closely because the staff might only be able to feed and clean and do some basic things and they don’t really have time for everything else.
And so, yeah, it’s a big difference from there to then go into a home where they really have this opportunity to develop a stronger relationship with the people that they are now living with. And just, I guess, a stronger attachment to their home as well. Just their immediate environment. ’cause it’s far more comfortable than the kennel.
So of course they would, uh, of course they would attach themselves to that.
Tom: Yeah, definitely. We something that you often hear talked about, uh, with. Regards to kind of dog settling in that home environment is the rule of three? Mm-hmm. I tend to think [00:28:00] of it a lot more as kind of the guidelines because it will be different to each individual dog, but the idea being those first kind of three days, the dog’s literally just getting used to the environment.
There’s not very much else in their mind. They’re just trying to kind of figure out what the routine is what the environment’s like, and at that time we want to just keep things nice and quiet. Do some you know, familiar walks or walks that are gonna become familiar and just allow the dog to explore the space and get used to the situation.
The kind of three weeks where maybe starting to open up the dog’s world a little bit more as they settle and we get to know their personality. But really we should still be focusing on kind of building that relationship, building that support network for the dog because they’ll have lost that previous one when they’ve come in to rescue.
So it’s really important that we build those relationships up. And then when we start moving into the three months part, this tends to be where we start to see that behavior maybe change a little bit, the dog settled in the environment, they’re comfortable with their kind of inner circle. And that’s when [00:29:00] we then might start to see some more kind of problematic behaviors crop up, either because they’re kind of testing testing things out, they’re testing the rules a little bit.
Um. Or because like we’ve just mentioned, they may be a bit more confident in the situation or, or they know where they feel good and where they don’t. Like I said, it’s more kind of a guideline because every dog’s gonna be different. We definitely see dogs who go into a home and you kind of just feel like they’ve, uh, been there forever.
And we might have some dogs that, you know, three months, they’re still in that kind of really early stage, and it’s gonna take another three or four months before they’ve even started to settle. Uh, it really just depends on the kind of background of that dog.
Jessica: I would agree with that. Yeah, the, the 3, 3, 3 rule is pretty calm.
I think most people in the dog world or rescue world are familiar with that. And I would agree that it can greatly vary depending on the dog, because there’s some dogs that. Go into a home and within five [00:30:00] days they already bit somebody. So then, you know, that’s a huge red flag. And you know, the families are really upset about that.
And they aren’t sure if this is do I need to give this dog more time to settle in or does this mean that we’re not the right match? And I know that is a situation that I have had to walk some people through and it’s not easy because they. Aren’t sure if they want to have a dog who displays those types of behaviors, and that’s totally fair.
But then at the same time, there’s a lot of things that they really like about the dogs. So they are hoping that perhaps if the dog had more time to settle in, that perhaps those behaviors would go away or get better with time. And that is always, I think, the tricky thing with any animal going from one environment to another.
And I’m not even only referring to dogs that are coming from like a shelter or rescue, even if it’s just a private rehome. Like, you know, you found somebody on [00:31:00] Craigslist, I don’t know. What do you guys have in the UK about like a three ads? Like what, where do people put three ads on? Yeah,
Tom: we, we’ve got like a, what’s it called?
Dogs for Homes, I think it’s called. It’s like a, okay, yeah.
Jessica: Yeah. Anyways. I don’t know if I really wanna talk a lot about Craigslist, but um, also like Facebook marketplace or something. Yeah. I’m also just referring to somebody who’s moving. They needed to rehome their dog, so it was a private rehome.
So it’s really, anytime an animal has to change environments, sometimes you might see a really big change in their behavior simply just because of the environmental change, because that environment can be so impactful on them. . So I, I agree that the 3, 3, 3 is not always, we can’t always go with that because there could be many reasons why something could take longer to really see who this dog is.
And I will say, maybe we could talk a little bit about what are some things where if somebody was. Going to be more likely to see changes in a dog’s [00:32:00] behavior where this dog is gonna come out of its shell more so to speak, versus maybe a dog where you might not see as many changes in my experience, a lot of times I tend to see with the dogs that are more reserved or more fearful, those are the types of dogs because they tend to withdraw when they’re feeling nervous.
They often appear very quiet and they often appear. Like, you know, they don’t, they don’t even bark at first. Um, sometimes they don’t even bark for weeks when they first enter a home. So people are thinking that they have a dog who’s really quiet, um, and really well behaved when in fact the dog is just still inhibiting its behavior.
So I think there’s a little bit of like the overall personality or temperament of the dog that you might be more likely to see some changes or this type of dog might take longer to settle in. And I think some of that is those more fearful dogs and or dogs who have experienced more trauma or even ones that have more medical issues.
You know, you [00:33:00] sometimes have dogs who got hit by a car and they had major surgeries and they then were recovering and then they found their way into maybe a rescue group or a temporary home, and then they finally got into their final home. And I often see some more. I don’t wanna say drastic, but bigger changes from how the dog was when they first went into the home versus where they are now.
I tend to see it with those. And then I’ll also throw adolescents in there. That’ll be like my third little thing that I’ll throw in there. Uh, the age of the dog. You can’t adopt a six month old dog and then expect it to act that way, uh, forever. It’s, it’s gonna mature, it’s gonna go through things. So there’s a big difference between a six month old compared to a dog that’s three or four.
A lot of times you have a pretty good idea, um, when the dog is older of some of the behaviors that are in that dog’s, you know, behavioral repertoire.
Tom: Yeah, definitely. I, I think you’re right. And I think I would agree with you. You know, the other thing that we tend to see though is where we’ve got those [00:34:00] dogs who maybe are kind of coming across as more reserved or more worried.
Mm-hmm. You know, we do tend to see or feel more empathy towards them. I think it’s easier for people to kind of understand and like you said, who, who wants to live in a house where, um. You know, the dog is showing aggressive behaviors towards you. It is not a nice situation to be in. It’s also not a situation that we want the dog to be in.
’cause the flip side of that is they’re showing that behavior for a reason normally because they want more space. And you know that that mismatch is, isn’t working well for either people, is it?
But it does highlight as well, like if any kind of. Concerns or you notice anything about the dog that’s different to what you expect outside of, you know, it is the first few days and maybe they’re a bit quiet and shy. You know, if that kind of persists or you are worried, it is so useful to speak to, uh, a trainer or a behaviorist or somebody from the rescue as soon as possible because it’s easier to put plans in place while the relationship is still good, you’re still [00:35:00] getting to know each other versus having a breakdown.
Either way. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I I love that you mentioned that ’cause I did wanna talk more about what could people do when they are first bringing their dog home to set them up for more success. I know you mentioned take them on some predictable walks, like let them see the environment. I think most of us dog professionals would agree that.
Jessica: If you’re gonna adopt a dog on Friday, maybe you don’t wanna have like a raging party at your house on Saturday. Uh, that just be overwhelming for a, a dog. But there could be people out there that might think, oh, sh shoot, I already even thought about that one. I guess you wouldn’t want to do that.
And I will just put a little, little caveat to that since I have also seen the flip side of where people did not have anybody come over to their house for several weeks. And then when they finally had somebody come over, their [00:36:00] dog had such a strong reaction to it, and that totally took them by surprise.
They’re like, whoa, I did not expect my dog to respond that way towards guests. And I think, you know, there could be many reasons for that. But outta fairness to the dog’s perspective, they’re like, well, this has been our routine for weeks now. And now suddenly there’s a new person in the home.
I, I certainly wasn’t expecting that. And so I think that we needed. Give people more of like this middle ground mm-hmm. The dog should be doing its general lifestyle that the people had in mind for it. Right. Okay. If you were planning on taking the dog for a walk, take it for walks.
If you have people that come over regularly, neighbors and so forth, have them come over. But I think we could do this in a way that’s not overwhelming the dog, but then also not isolating the dog either. So what do you usually tell people?
Tom: Yeah, I think that’s a really good point. We do want to get dogs into the routine as appropriately, quickly as possible.
That’s my caveat, I think, because also we wanna make sure that people are [00:37:00] enjoying their dog, right? Like, most people don’t go and adopt a dog because they, you know, just want to sit on the sofa and never leave the house with them. Um, so we wanna make sure that the routine works well for everybody. And I think there’s kind of two key components that I think about.
The first one is, is really understanding that. And that can take a bit of time because we’re kind of learning the nuances of their behavior. Um, but having that kind of general understanding of body language and what to look for if the dog starts to feel a bit overwhelmed, can really help you out.
And then second thing is having a really nice, safe space in the house for the dog. That’s their space. It’s got a nice comfy bed in. It’s got all the stuff that they need. Maybe some toys, maybe some elements. That the dog can take themself off to. And the rule is that’s their space.
And we don’t go into it. If we need to take the dog out for whatever reason, we call ’em out. And, and it gives that dog an element of control of the space they’ve got. And then, like we said, maybe if, if people do come round and the dog’s feeling [00:38:00] overwhelmed, they’ve got that relationship and that space to move to.
So I do think that’s a really important element. The other thing to think about then is how do we create like a positive bank account? And um, I know tons of people talk about this, but this idea that. Everything that we do with our dog is, is kind of a contribution in the same way that when we put money into our bank account, so if we create a lot of positive experiences, so if we plan to have visitors round, maybe we have one or two, we get them in, sat on the sofa and settled, maybe the dog’s in a different room to start with, and then we can bring the dog out in a way that’s nice and calm, nice and relaxed.
The dog can kind of explore at their own pace and maybe we’ve got some nice yummy treats or some good positive experiences that the dog can have. And we’re just adding and adding to that bank account, seeing for our walks. We said earlier maybe we start with quieter walks and then we gradually build them up at a point with the drug coping.
And what that means is if we have any negative experiences, if we have withdrawals that we need to make, we’ve got [00:39:00] plenty of money in our account that we’re not going into our overdraft or we’re not having to kind of. Uh, get a loan or anything from the bank because that’s where we then start to see those relationships break down.
So thinking about, yes, I would like to, um, you know, do a certain experience. The classic example, uh, for me, it being British is, you know, I want to take my dog to the pub on a Sunday. I want to do a nice walk and have, have a Sunday dinner and, and a drink. Well, maybe to start with, we pick a sunny day and we can go on a shorter walk and we can sit outside the pub.
That’s harder to do in the UK ’cause it’s cold and normal. Or maybe we don’t go on a Sunday to start with, we go on a Thursday where there’s not gonna be hours as many people in the pub. So. We don’t necessarily completely stop what we’re doing or what we want to do with the dog, but we maybe just tweak it to start with and, and collect that information about how is the dog gonna cope in this situation.
The way that I think about it is, yes, when these dogs first go home, when their environment changes. When they’ve got that [00:40:00] new owner and they need to build a bit of a relationship, we do wanna wrap them up in cotton wool, but it’s then how do we start to peel those layers of cotton wool away so that it happens in a nice way that suits everybody and not just a, as you said we’re, we’ve protected you from visitors and now there’s tons of people around, and again, this needs to be individual to you, the dog.
I was just thinking your story about people going home and having a party on day one. The organization that I, work with, we used to not adopt dogs during the Christmas period. It was just like a rule. Uh, once it was Christmas, no dogs went home. You had like two weeks where dogs didn’t go anywhere.
And over the last few years we’ve really kind of adapted that and changed it because again, like we were talking about earlier, if you’ve got a couple or a younger couple or an older couple who were just having Christmas at home, just the two of them why does that matter? Yes. If, if somebody says, right, okay, I’ve got a, you know, a house is full of 16 people with three children, and my [00:41:00] cousins bring in their dog.
Maybe we’ll wait a couple of days before that dog goes home. But if it’s not really any different to any other day why would we put that barrier in place? So again, thinking about that individual dog as much as we can, but also how do we set the situation at full success. It’s always better to maybe take some slower steps, but move in the right direction rather than put the dog into a situation where they don’t cope and we either see behavior that we weren’t expecting or we don’t like, or the dog creates that learning history that next time they’re really not keen to, to approach that situation.
So if you’ve just adopted the dog, obviously it depends on the age of the dog, but you’ve got a good couple of years with this dog, hopefully maybe 10, 15 years with this dog living with you. So taking that kind of time at the front actually isn’t that big a, a kind of contribution over the lifetime of that dog, but it could potentially make a huge difference to the relationship that you have moving through.
Jessica: Yeah, that’s a great point. [00:42:00] Great point. I wanna go back to a couple things that you said, because I wanna get into a few specifics that I think would be really helpful for the listeners. So you mentioned giving the dog a safe place, and I love that idea because it does give the dog that choice, especially if they know that when I’m in this space, nobody messes with me.
And if I, you know, have a little chewy and I take it in here, I know that somebody’s not gonna try to come up and, you know, try to play around with me or try to take it from me so they know this is, this is my place. What part of the home would you suggest this be in? And then when we talk about like a safe place, are we thinking, is this a crate, is this a pen, is this a corner?
Like what are some specifics? F
Tom: Yeah, definitely. So part of the home is, is always a tricky one to answer because our homes are always so varied, but we want an area that isn’t like a main fur affair where there’s lots of people kind of passing. So often, um, what people will say is like, oh yeah, we’ve got this great space [00:43:00] under the stairs.
And that can be like a nice space for some dogs, right? But then the dog’s got people walking kind of above them with crashing noises. Maybe it’s to the kitchen. So you’ve got people kind of going in to make, uh, very British cups of tea or, um, uh, you know, going to get snacks or whatever. So maybe a space that you are still rounding.
’cause we also don’t want the dog to feel like I, I kind of wanna be with my people, but I’m a bit overwhelmed, so I don’t want to go to my safe space. So maybe like a quieter, a corner of the living room or maybe like a kitchen area if you’ve got a space where you are around, but the, you’re not having to constantly walk past the door, go or past them.
It definitely can be a crate if that, uh, is appropriate. Again, we’re kind of thinking about the size of dog and how much space that’s gonna take up, obviously as well, thinking about what experience they’ve had previously. A pen can work really nicely too, particularly if it’s maybe a younger dog. And we’re also a little bit worried about what they might get up to when we’re not, uh, [00:44:00] when we’re not paying attention or we’re not keeping an eye.
But it could also just be a space that’s kind of, theirs. So a nice comfy bed like we were talking about. That’s kind of out of the way. I think your, your, um, your suggestion of a corner is really nice because then again, the dog’s kind of got that 180 view of what’s going on and they know kind of nothing’s gonna come from behind them.
Slightly outta the way, but still involved, uh, and not gonna have a lot of stuff happening is probably the best place, particularly if we want to create that, that space that the dog can take themself off to if they’re feeling a bit overwhelmed. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, I tend to suggest really similar things, and it really does depend on how the dog feels about confinement.
Jessica: If it was, if it was a crate, ’cause there’s some people who put crates up and their dogs love ’em. Their dogs run into the crate voluntarily. They want to stay in there, they choose to stay in there. And of course the doors open. We’re not saying closing, closing the dog in.
So that’s one element of it. But then there’s other dogs who don’t wanna go anywhere near a crate. [00:45:00] So I think there does have to be a little bit of some experimentation in regards to that. And I also wonder if we could touch on. The dog’s interactions with people and or new dogs. Because I love how you said, okay, let’s slow this down.
Let’s make sure that it’s positive. Let’s not throw them all the way into something. I wanna talk maybe a little bit more about some more obvious signs of body language that we could share with people, because certainly we could put some videos and different things in the show notes so people can have some resources for dog body language.
’cause there’s so many great ones out there, but. Maybe we can go back and forth a little bit about some of the body language stuff, um, throwing some things out. So I think for me, if I had to explain something to somebody in terms of whether or not the dog was enjoying the interaction or not enjoying the interaction, whether it was with a person or with another dog, [00:46:00] is whether they choose to approach and stay in that space or whether they choose to move away.
To me, just the most obvious thing to look at is the dog actually choosing to come up to you and maybe stay with you for a little bit. Or is this a, a dog who is just avoiding you and not, not closing the gap on their own where you are going to that dog? That is one of the things that if we’re just looking at it from either approaching or avoiding, I think that’s a pretty obvious one.
Tom: I think what’s great about that as well, um, as well as the simplicity is it kind of highlights what we were saying in terms of gradually doing things.
So a gradual introduction to a person might not mean they pop over for one minute and then they leave again. It might be that they come over for dinner but when they’re interacting with the dog, they’re just doing it for a few seconds and then they’re stopping and seeing what the dog wants to do.
So we often we’ll hear that referred to as like a consent test. So I’m gonna kind of [00:47:00] call you over to me. If you come over, I’m maybe stroke key for a couple of seconds and I’m just gonna stop. And if the dog wanders off, well, like he said, we kind of know that they’re done with that interaction. If they stay and they’re like, Hey, uh, more of that, please, then we know we can kind of continue stroking.
So when we talk about breaking things down, it doesn’t even have to be. You know, how do we approach the situation overall? It can be those small pieces. So I do think the approach avoidance thing is super useful. One like thing that when I speak to adopters about things as well is how we use food.
So food can be a really, really useful resource for us. It’s a really positive thing for lots of dogs. Hopefully it can create that positive bank account that we were talking about, but if we’re moving into a situation that we’re not sure how the dog’s gonna respond, or we may be, are seeing a little bit of avoidance and backing off, we want food to come from the person that the dog knows best.
So the owner in, in most cases. Um, because like you just [00:48:00] said, sometimes what can happen is if, if. The new person, the scary person has food, the dog can be like, oh, I’m a bit worried about you, but I, but I really want that cheese. I’d really, really like that cheese, but I’m a bit worried about you. And that sometimes ends up the dog being in a situation that they don’t really want to be in.
And then once the cheese goes away that all of a sudden they’re like, oh poo. I’ve ended up here and I don’t want to be. So the food coming from the owner can be another really great way as well of kind of moving the dog outta that situation and then see what they do. Because if they eat the piece of cheese and then they go back over to see the other dog or going interact with the person again, like that’s another nice sign that maybe they’re, they’re quite happy and comfortable in that situation.
And if they come away and then they stay with the owner again, you kind of know that, alright, maybe it’s time to move off or do something different for a little while.
Jessica: Yeah. I’m glad that you brought that one up. ’cause that’s a great one. Especially when you gave a suggestion of, you know, have treats out to make sure that it’s more positive for the dog.
But you are right. It’s a really good caveat [00:49:00] to bring up because we often put dogs in situations that they don’t really necessarily wanna be in because they, like you said, they want the food, but they don’t necessarily wanna be that close to the person. I would say along the same lines is sometimes what what I’ll do is if I’m thinking of an additional step, let’s say.
The dog is showing a lot of comfortability with that particular guest. Then I might hand the guest some treats, but then have them throw it to the dog or toss it behind the dog so that way they aren’t feeding the dog directly. Because that’s the other piece. I think, again, when people are thinking of interacting with dogs, the number one thing that I always see is they think if the dog takes a treat from my hand, then they’re comfortable with me.
So then the very first thing they do is feed the dog and then touch it immediately afterwards. Right. It’s like we see it every time and I’m just like, oh my gosh. That is the last thing that the dog wants right now. ’cause obviously it’s like probably still chewing the tree and then the person is immediately touching them.[00:50:00]
And of course then the dogs are thinking that they can’t trust people with food, which that’s always a big thing that I tend to see a lot when people say oh, my dog is food motivated. I tend to look at what sort of relationship that dog has had with food, with people, or food coming from people, because a lot of times it’s been where the dog has felt tricked in some way where they wanted the food, but then as soon as they ate it, something happened to them that they didn’t like.
So I think that’s a good one. I’m really glad that you brought that up. Um, and to kind of circumvent that, that’s also why if I feel like the dog might enjoy, you know, having some treats from the person, I recommend tossing them first. Because if you toss it behind the dog and then the dog decides to approach again, then it still gives you some information.
And I think the last thing that I, I will say though, on the approach is that there are dogs who want to approach because they just wanna get information about a person. They just wanna be able to sniff them or kind of see a little bit of who they’re about.
But it also doesn’t mean they want to be touched. So I [00:51:00] think the other tip that I would give would be when a dog approaches, you don’t touch them right away. Mm-hmm. Like, give the dog a few seconds to be in your space and then maybe even invite them to come a little bit closer to you if you were going to want to pet them.
Or maybe show them your hands first. As, another thing that I tend to do is like just drop both hands down and kind of invite the dog to like, Hey, do you wanna connect with my hands over here? Rather than the dog is really busy sniffing my shoe and I’m gonna surprise the dog by then just like touching its back.
It doesn’t mean you can’t look at the dog, doesn’t mean you can’t talk to the dog, you know, that sort of just normal, normal behavior that humans do. And I think that sometimes when people hear this advice of you should kind of ignore a dog when you first meet it.
I know I’m, I know I’m laughing at this and I probably shouldn’t, but have you seen people and trainers, by the way? I will see. We’ll say that where when they’re first meeting a dog, they like cross their arms and they avert eye and they turn their back on the [00:52:00] dog. And I’m like, you’re, you’re, and the dog’s just like, what are you doing?
Tom: Right, weirdo? Yes. You right, you’re now, you’re a weirdo. So now the dog is suspicious of the person. It’s like, well, what’s wrong with you? Because it’s not normal or typical behavior that that dog has come to expect from humans. So I think we need to have a little bit of a, a bit more of an in-between of, if you’re not sure how that dog feels about approaching you.
Jessica: Give it a little bit to sniff and just be in your space. Don’t try to touch it right away. That’s really important. And then inviting the dog to connect with you. And I usually do that by offering my hands and putting both hands down. Because then it gives that dog a point to connect with, which I also tend to find works really well for avoiding jumping with, with those dogs that are more exuberant because they are trying to just connect with you.
And if you can just preemptively give them something to connect with, um, it tends to decrease a lot of the jumping. Okay. We went off. Oh, sorry. I was gonna say what? Well, I was just got more
Tom: tangent for your tangent. [00:53:00] Yes, please. So, uh, just quickly, I think the toss in treats thing is such a great point.
Like it’s such a fantastic way that we can reinforce, um, dogs and, and build positive relationships, but it also is a skill that we maybe need to teach. So it can be like, quite a nice thing to do when you do first bring that dog home is do some treat tossing games with them. So they get used to the idea of catching food, but also they have that nice positive experience with you as well.
So I think that’s, um, a really good thing as well. ’cause otherwise what tends to happen is like you throw a piece of cheese and it just hits the dog on the face and then, you know, it’s not ideal. The second thing you said about the dog trying to gather information, one of my like all time favorite tips, whether you’re like a trainer or behaviorist or an owner if you do have people like come round, you know, take the coats off them and rather than like hang them up on the door just pop them somewhere else in the room.
So if the dog like wants to gather information through smell, they can approach the coats and things and then [00:54:00] you have less conflict of them, like you said, trying to approach and then the people trying to reach out and everything kind of happening that way. So. That’s like one of my favorite tips that, um, it was Sarah Heath who’s a veterinary behaviorist in the uk.
I first heard talking about that and I was like, oh my God, that’s genius. That and quite often if you ever see me working with shelter dogs, I’ve, I’ve nearly always got a hat on and then I kind of like just drop the hat somewhere and walk off. Uh, and then I’ve got a really funny story of him and I did that with, uh, a dog in Egypt and then he just stole my hat and then we spent half an hour trying to get my hat back, which is quite funny.
That is funny. And I was with non dog people. I was on a driving holiday and we went to this shelter and they were like, what are you doing? ’cause I was obviously trying to like, swap for treats or encourage the dog back over to me whilst he was like running around with my heart. So that was quite funny.
That is really funny. And then I’ve also got, um, a really, a really funny story that kind of highlights what you were talking about. How sometimes it can [00:55:00] be really odd. And I remember when I was locuming, so I was working across a few different, rescue centers and I went to one and they were like, oh, we’ve got this dog who’s like not really keen on men.
Can we like practice his introductions with you? So I was like, yeah, cool. Of course. So they took me to this field and they were like, okay, we’re gonna bring, bring this dog in. It was a dalmatian, I can’t remember what his name was, unfortunately, but it’s this really beautiful liver dalmatian. And then they said, okay, what, what we’ll need to do is just you walk around the field and you’re not, you can’t look at him, you can’t touch him.
And he’ll just kind of be behind you. And I’m pretty confident with dogs. There’s not many dogs that actively kind of worry me and, um. I remember like walking around this field and just like being able to feel the dog, like sniff my back and I was like, oh my God, this is so uncomfortable.
And we finished the session and I was like, yeah, okay, we’re never doing that. We changed, we changed how the session went, so it was part of introductions. We used some free work from Sarah Fisher. So we set up kind some kind of some different stations for the dog to explore and [00:56:00] sniff.
And to start with, the handlers were dropping food for the dog and then gradually we moved to me dropping food for the dog and the dog could look at me and I could look at the dog and then the dog had that choice again of going off to do something else. So that’s another key element to think about is what else is in the environment for the dog to do to kind of encourage them to move away.
But we changed that up. And then that the dog had been in care for quite, quite a while, a couple of months definitely. And then he moved to a different site and got rehome in like two weeks. Sometimes if, if we’re thinking from the shelter lens, we also don’t necessarily think about like the experience for the adopter.
So like, come in, walk around this field and don’t look at the dog for the first three times. It’s quite a hard, it’s quite hard to sell a dog. And the listeners might be a bit surprised that I’ve kind of just used, used that word like, sell the dog. But essentially that that’s what we’re doing in a way that we, we wanna work for both the dog and the owner.
So we always need to kind of have this two-pronged approach of what’s gonna support welfare and [00:57:00] support behavior, but ultimately get this dog into a home successfully. ’cause we need both pieces of that puzzle.
Jessica: Exactly. I’m really glad that you brought that up, especially the part of what else is going on in the environment.
Mm-hmm. Because I, oh, I’m such a huge proponent of like having really sensory rich environments. Mm-hmm. Especially if a dog is fearful or anxious or has displayed any sort of aggression towards people or dogs, is that having more things in the environment is so useful because it gives them something else to focus on besides the thing that they might be worried about.
So I’m glad that you brought that up. And one thing that did pop in my mind when you were sharing the. Take your coat off for the, uh, for the guest, which is brilliant. So I’m definitely putting that in my toolbox. I’m just thinking of like all of my big community in San Diego who don’t wear jackets everywhere.
So I would say maybe shoes, shoes could also, could also work shoes or hats. Uh, for those folks who are,
Tom: I’ve got a video somewhere of me meeting a dog and you just see my shoe, [00:58:00] like, I like drop my shoe and walk away. And if you’ve got absolutely no context, it must be the most random video ever. ’cause I’m just like walking around with one shoe on for like five minutes.
But yeah, it is such a good point. Um, just thinking about like what works or even if, you know, having. Some small hand towels by front door and just saying to the person as they come in, Hey, just, just rub your hands on these, and they might think you’re a bit odd, but that might fix your visitor problem because, uh, no deal will come and see you anymore.
Jessica: Right. You’re gonna weed out the people who are like really there for you and people who are, you know, maybe not. Yeah, that’s a good point. So, let’s talk a little bit about if somebody first brings a dog into their home, and maybe if they aren’t even displaying leash reactivity at this point, what could be some things aside from keeping the walks more consistent the first few days that could potentially guard against it, or at least if it was gonna pop [00:59:00] up later, at least it would be less intense because they’ve already been doing some of this work ahead of time.
Tom: Definitely. That’s another great point. I think for me, there’s a few things that kind of just form great. Foundations for everything. And for me that’s kind of predictability, a bit of autonomy, um, and, and choice as well. So those kind of three elements and safety being that third one. So thinking about how do we kind of create those things on walks.
So predictability, we talked a little bit about anyway, you know, picking route that are gonna be fairly regular to start with, to kind of get the dog used to it. But when we think about safety, it’s building that relationship up again. And we’ve talked about how we maybe do that in the house when the dog first comes in, but what does that look like on a walk?
And I think that’s a really great question to ask yourself when you first pick a dog up is like, well, what does a good walk look like? For me, it’s a dog who is off doing their own thing. They’re sniffing, they’re engaging, but they’re also checking back in with us. [01:00:00] So, you know, uh, every few steps it seems like quite a lot, but you know, every, uh, certain distance on the pavement or whatever, they’re just looking back to us.
And if they do, just speak to them. Just be like, hi, you’re right. Good dog. Well done. Ideally, maybe a couple of treats every now and then as well to reinforce that behavior and build that relationship again. But that just means that when we have a bit more of a connection and a bit more of a, a relationship, a, the dog might come to us when they, they need us.
So there’s a great great bit of research on, I can’t remember who it’s by now, but, um, owners who are described as warm by the experimenters. So they come into the room and they speak to these parameters. Um, owners that were described as warm. The dogs are a lot more likely to come and seek reassurance from them.
So we want to be that for our dog out and about. We want to be that kind of moving safety net. We talked about a safe space in the house, but we also want to be a safe space out and about. So if they start to feel worried, they can come to us for support. As part of that as well, if we’ve got that [01:01:00] check in.
And for me, I really like just using the dog’s name as well because I think owners like to have something to do. So I do use things like Leslie McDevits, look at that. And um, I’m part of Grisha Student Academy, so I do use like behavior adjustment training as well if people heard of that. The idea of kind of just standing away and letting the dog learn.
But owners like to have something to do too. So if we’ve got a dog who’s got a really good name response, that is the foundation of a reactivity plan without all the nuance, like, like we’ve said. But, um, if the dog can look at something and be a bit worried, but you can call the dog and then move away.
And that dog wants distance. We’ve created that distance for the dog. So we’ve created that safety, we’ve got that predictably, and we’re also giving the dog choice. So what I would always say is let the dog look and see things for a couple of seconds, and then just call the dog away and move away and reward the dog for doing that.
And then wait, start to wait and see if they’re actively making that choice. It’s much better to have a dog that’s like, Hey, did you see that dog? Hey, did you see that [01:02:00] squirrel? When you first start out? And then we can kind of weed that down rather than, like you said, have a dog that ends up staring or not being sure about a situation and then not getting any feedback from us.
And then they feel, and again, this is a little bit anthropomorphizing, but then they feel like, well, I need to do something then. ’cause I’m not sure in this situation. So that’s, that’s what I would think. What, what does a good walk look like for you? And just try and get that on every walk, not just the ones where you are worried about what’s in the environment.
Jessica: Yeah, I’m glad that you brought that up. Yeah. What does a good walk look like? Because that question Wow. I mean, depending on who answers it, uh, you know, gonna be quite different because some people, a many people still think that a good walk with a dog means that they have to walk at your side the whole time and you have to give them permission to go sniff things or to even go to the bathroom.
You know that that’s what a good walk is, um, and that the dog doesn’t look at [01:03:00] anything, show any interest in anything at all. And that is what still a lot of people think what a good walk is. Now, I’m not saying that teaching your dog positively to walk next to you and ignore things isn’t a valuable skill.
I teach that all the time to my reactive dog clients. But when we think of dogs as a species and what they do when they’re out and about in the world, they are really drawn by their nose. They want to explore. And take things in in that way and have that threedom to move and to notice things in the environment and so forth.
So I do think it has to be, yeah, a little bit of that middle ground of how do we support the dog, how do we also have something that works for the person? Um, you know, having, having a little bit of that middle ground. And I also really like how you brought up the idea of just starting to add in some simple training things, whether it is the call away.
’cause I agree, it’s super helpful behavior if your dog gets stuck or you need to call them away from something. Like wouldn’t it be so great if you’ve already been [01:04:00] practicing that? So I love, I love that. I’ll add a little bit to that before I talk about the other behavior. But I will say one of the things that I like as a little tip for people is when you call your dog to you to move a few steps before you deliver the treat.
Because a lot of times when you’re trying to call your dog away from something, you need more distance from the thing. And sometimes we get stuck with, you call the dog to you, but you’re standing still and you deliver the tree, and then you’re still right in front of the thing that you didn’t really wanna be in front of.
So
Tom: well, you get like that ping pong.
Jessica: Oh, that too. I was
Tom: like, well, I’ve looked at you and now I’m looking at the dog again.
Jessica: Yeah. So I do a lot of like calling, moving and feeding. Moving and feeding that is, does have to be taught though because the dog doesn’t understand like, oh wait, I have to follow you a little bit to get the treats.
So you do wanna start with like a little bit of movement first. And then a lot of times I build it into even crossing the street, teaching the dog. Like, Hey, if we need to cross the street for some reason, um, I might deliver this food reward in the middle of this whole process of crossing rather than even just a few feet off the [01:05:00] sidewalk.
So it’s something that you can certainly build, but I find that that is and I have an important little nuance there in terms of what could make Callaways more effective. Um, but I also really liked that you were. Reference Leslie McDevits. Look at that, which is for listeners who don’t know, you know, teaching the dog to look at something, um, and then eventually orient back in your direction.
But I really like that if a dog is new to the environment they can look at things, right? It’s all new to them. So I would actually want them to notice things. And there’s nothing wrong with if your dog notices something and then you are going to mark and feed that behavior. Or if you’re not familiar with marking and feeding, if you’re just gonna deliver a treat, when your dog notices or prays like, oh yeah, but that’s the neighbor over there, and then feeding a treat and then moving on.
I think a lot of that can guard against leash or activity popping up because not only are you, you’re interrupting the behavior a little bit, right? If the dog is noticing something, there’s a little bit of an interruption there by talking to the dog, delivering a treat to the dog [01:06:00] and of course if the dog is feeling pretty good about what you’re offering them then it also builds in some positive associations as well. And that’s so much of a good foundation if a dog is going to be displaying any sort of leash activity, if they have this history of being able to respond to you at different points through the walk, be able to eat at different points through the walk, you’re already like way ahead of the game.
Um, compared to dogs who have been then fixating on things in their environment for several weeks, if not several months, and then now we’re trying to jump in at a later point. Um, it’s a little bit harder to undo.
Tom: Yeah, definitely. I agree with all of that. That is, that’s it, isn’t it? Like without, without, uh, reducing all of your podcast to two lines.
If, if we are able to teach the dog a different response in the situation and change how they feel about it, that essentially is how we, we resolve reactivity. Mm-hmm. So starting. As our foundation rather than waiting for problems to crop up is [01:07:00] always gonna be helpful. And I think the other thing I was thinking of when, when you were just discussing that is like tossing treats.
People often don’t think that actually eating a treat slowly, like, you know, like holding a treat between your fingers and letting the dog nibble it, that’s a skill too. It’s not a skill that we want to use in every situation, but if we find ourself in a particularly narrow path or difficult area teaching the dog that they can just nibble out a treat while scary things pass is, is another kind of good.
Get out of jail card. And we’ve also gotta think, ’cause you’re saying about people who maybe think, you know, the dogs need to kind of walk to heal all the time or, or whatever that looks like. We’ve also gotta think about things from dog shoes because humans have done a really great job of creating a society that.
Is difficult for dogs because if we look at how dogs naturally interact, it’s very rare that they’re gonna walk on like a two meter pet sidewalk pavement towards each other, head on and just pass [01:08:00] each other with no interaction. But that’s how most of our kind of cities and, and, and towns and landscapes are set up.
When we watch dogs in the Wild, it’s like a lot more kind of natural circling and that slow movement and that information gathering. And that’s why, you know, letting them have a little bit more lead, letting them kind of sniff and investigate and, and kind of meander a bit on the walk whilst not pulling you.
I think we would both agree that we’re not saying being dragged down the street is appropriate. Yeah. But letting them have that little bit more threedom allows them to have a little bit more natural behavior in, in a world which is, is very human focused.
Jessica: Yeah, I agree. It is interesting when you think about the world, how we perceive it, and then perhaps how a dog might perceive it.
I know we can’t ask the dog how, how they perceive the world, but if you watch a dog off leash in one environment and see where they would choose to move compared to if you were to put them on leash and you were [01:09:00] asking them to stay closer to you, a lot of times those two things are very different. Um, and so yeah, we inadvertently create a lot of these scenarios just.
In the way that our cities are set up and the fact that we have sidewalks and then right from the sidewalk, we often have a road where there’s cars. So for safety reasons, we walk on the sidewalk. But from the dog’s perspective, they’re going out in the world and they’re like, well, there’s like 50 feet to the right of us.
Why are we gotta walk right by this scary person? Like, you know, like, I wonder if they like just, the dogs just think we’re nuts. But like, we do it because like, this is, these are the human rules. This is societies, this is what we like, this is how it works. Um, but the dogs don’t know that. All they know is they’re on a leash, so they’ve gotta follow us where we’re going and we are like always walking in the line of fire, of everything.
And so they don’t understand that. They don’t understand the concept of streets with cars and, you know, all that sort of stuff. Not saying that no dogs do. ’cause there’s certainly a lot of, uh, street dogs, uh, free living populations of dogs who know exactly [01:10:00] what streets are and cars and so forth and how to avoid them.
But I would say the vast majority of pet dogs wouldn’t know. To not run into a street if a car was coming. So they just don’t have that same sort of awareness or knowledge about what that is. But I, I do wonder if they sometimes see all of this available space to them and then wonder why the human always walks within three feet, you know, of wherever they are.
I just think that they must be so confused.
Tom: I think that in itself is like such another important part of bringing a new dog home is, is thinking about, well actually what does the world look like for that dog? I remember watching it’s me or the dog on TV like 10 years ago.
And, um, the presenter getting, the owner to like lay on the floor because they had a reactive chihuahua and they were like, look, look how big everything is when you are a tiny chihuahua. And uh, I always think about that and remember that. But also, you know, you mentioned, well, we’ve got street dogs who maybe are a bit more confident on the road, but then we bring them into the house and now there’s this weird big [01:11:00] machine that eats clothes and spins around a lot or, or this TV with moving pictures and, and sounds coming on.
Or even if we’re walking down the street and the dog’s used to that, then all of a sudden there’s this really big truck that also eats, uh, garbage cans or rubbish bins, you know? It’s a pretty weird world. Yeah. So even thinking about things like we’ve talked about, like having people coming over, like going on certain walks, but also like.
Do we need to hoover on day one of the dog being there? You know, like what elements are maybe a bit strange for a dog? It’s almost like thinking about, I’ve never, never thought of it this way before. So this might come out a bit strange, but we’ll see. You know, if an alien turned up on your door and was like, right, I want to learn about humans.
How would you approach that for somebody like, or, or somebody who’s completely lost their memory and they’ve got no experiences, we are not gonna be like, right, okay, what we’re gonna do is go straight to Yankee Stadium and watch the baseball or whatever. With 50,000 [01:12:00] people, we’re probably just gonna build things up gradually and, and that’s the approach really, that we want to think about.
’cause like we said earlier, even if you’ve got a more confident dog, taking things slow probably isn’t gonna have that much of a negative effect. But if you’ve got one that flips the other side, you know, you’re potentially gonna have a big impact. If we rush things
Jessica: exactly. Is there anything about leash reactivity and newly adopted dogs that we haven’t covered?
Tom: I think we’ve covered the main parts. I definitely think that questions to ask. If you have a newly adopted dog and you’re starting to see these sort of behaviors are, what was the situation? So you said earlier, you know, that dog that you’ve had for three days and now they’ve bitten well, is there a really clear thing that happens that you feel pretty confident avoiding for, for now then, you know, that’s quite a good sign.
But if we’re struggling to kind of identify what or why the dog’s reacting or it’s a situation that we can’t really change. So, you know, you live in an [01:13:00] apartment building and as soon as you come out of the door, the dog’s reacting at, at things straight away. Um, that’s a really good time to then get somebody involved.
As soon as possible. But if we can identify things, then maybe just start to kind of peel those layers away again. So like we said, the dog didn’t cope in this situation, so what is a lesser version of that we can then build back up to you if you see the behavior happening regularly, again, just get back in touch with the rescue or speak to a trainer.
Because the earlier we put plans in place, the higher chance of success that we’ve got. And I think the other thing that we haven’t really talked about, and again, this is a bit of a strange one from a rescue professional, but sometimes the environment isn’t right for the dog or the, the match isn’t right.
Yeah. And that’s okay too. So like, like you said we’d like to talk to you about it and then kind of see if there are things that we can change or adjust to make it work. But we are not gonna get this right every time we’ve talked about how difficult the environment is. We’ve [01:14:00] talked about how challenging matching can be and sometimes.
You just give us a lot more information about what that dog can and can’t cope with, so that next time they have a better chance and it’s okay to be in that situation. It’s not what we want. But like I said, we’d rather the dog have a long, happy life. And we also want you to get what you want out of having a dog.
And those two combinations are what is rescue for me. Like on an individual level, I want the dogs to be as happy and thriving as possible, but I also want the owners because when their friends say, how is it to adopt a rescue dog? And they say, awful, that affects us. And you know, that dog passes away, if they then go and buy a puppy because of their experience of nothing against buying puppies, by the way, but, um, if they get a puppy because of their experience with rescue, that’s another home that we’ve lost out on.
So it’s really important that we do think about a adopter and dog as the whole picture. [01:15:00]
Jessica: I really love that you brought that up. I don’t know why that was not in my notes, I like, yeah, it is. It’s so important. And you’re right, it’s really difficult to always know how a dog is going to adjust in any one environment and sometimes.
That could be good because you’re like, wow, I didn’t think that the dog would do as well, but look at them they’re just doing fantastic. And I have a long background in more rescue stuff, a little bit of shelter stuff, so a little bit different from you. But I have seen many, many dogs go from, you know, foster homes into their adoptive homes.
And sometimes these were dogs where I was like, eh, we’re not really sure. Right. You’re kind of like, uh, kind of crossing your fingers and hoping it’s gonna go well and things just go fabulous. And then there’s other times where it, it catches you completely by surprise where you thought everything else seemed like this was going to be a good match and it wasn’t.
And it is okay to determine that, that it isn’t a good match. And, you know, reach [01:16:00] back out to the rescue group because like you said, if they. Do want to make sure that that dog lives a really happy life and they wanna make sure that they prepare you with the dog so that you guys can live a happy life together.
Then they will want to work with you to make sure that you are going to get that dog that is going to be better suited for you. And. I mean, I know we’re talking so much about rescues, but I just, I just wanna throw it in there too, because I have a lot of friends who have gotten their dogs from breeders and sometimes they’ll get a dog from a breeder having known, you know, the whole lineage of the, of dogs that they are getting from.
And they get this dog as a puppy, um, spend some time in their home and is also not a fit. Um, and so they. Will sometimes send the dog back to the breeder and maybe get a different dog from the breeder or something. So it just happens sometimes.
And I am really glad that you brought that up because I think sometimes people think if I get this dog, it means [01:17:00] that I, I have to commit to it forever. But if both of you guys are just unhappy, it doesn’t make sense to not talk to somebody about it, not explore some different options. Because I’ve seen some dogs who have gotten rehomed and everybody’s way happier because the dog is in a, is in a home and they really vibe with their person.
And then that’s what life with dogs I think should be
Tom: Definitely. We said it kind of, uh, much earlier on, I think as well. But we’ve also gotta think about why the dog is doing that behavior. And there’s always a reason why there’s always something in the environment. There’s always a situation that, that, that dog doesn’t feel comfortable with.
And that’s why we see these sorts of behaviors. Well, that’s not a good thing either, so, so sometimes a strange way to think of it, isn’t it? But sometimes actually keeping that dog in that situation is worse for welfare than them. Them coming back to rescue and being rematched. Obviously there’s a lot of nuance and like you said, the best thing to do is at least at start that [01:18:00] conversation.
’cause it might be something super obvious that can be, um, fixed or worked on and you could have a great life with that dog. Or it might be that, hey, you’ve just told us information that we weren’t previously aware of. Um, that doesn’t really seem to kind of fit like the conversations we’ve had before. So maybe there is a different home for that dog that’s gonna be better suited.
Jessica: Yeah. Well, this was terrific, Tom. I really appreciate you coming on, um, sharing so much about just your knowledge of helping dogs find their ways into home successfully. And I’m really glad that we had this opportunity to talk because I know that I have so many clients who were in the situation of adopting dogs, and then needing to do some work with ’em.
And, um, it’s just a story that so many people have. And so I think this will resonate with with a lot of people. So thank you. I appreciate it.
Tom: Well, thank you for having me. I really enjoyed it.
Jessica: Me too.
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