Making Your Dog Happy - Why it Matters and How Science Shows Us What to do

Welcome to another episode of the Fixing Separation Anxiety Podcast and this week I am absolutely

thrilled because I am interviewing the amazing Zazie Todd.

Now Zazie is the author of the best-selling book Wag the Science of Making Your Dog Happy.

If you haven't grabbed a copy of Wag yet you need to.

Zazie is also the person behind the fantastic companion animal psychology blog and what

Zazie does so well is she takes the science behind training not just dogs by the way but

cats as well and sometimes other animals and she makes it accessible.

Sometimes I think we forget just how much science there is to tell us what to do with

our dogs and Zazie is brilliant at making that information available and engaging for

everyone, for owners and for trainers.

And so in this episode I get to ask her all about her book and we dive into some of the

most common questions that people have about training their dogs.

We also talk about obviously how to make dogs happy and how we can make sure that we don't

do the opposite.

So dive in, you're going to love it.

Welcome to the Fixing Separation Anxiety Podcast where it's all about healing your dog, regaining

your freedom and getting your life back on track.

And now, here's your host Julie Maysmith.

So Zazie, let's start with the story behind your book.

Why did you write it and why now?

Well, I've actually been working on Wag the Science of Making Your Dog Happy for a rather

a long time and I guess originally it came out of my blog because at Companion Animal

Psychology I've been writing for over eight years now about what science tells us about

how to care for dogs and cats and dog training and animal behaviour issues.

But as I was writing I really became especially interested in what makes dogs and cats happy

and have good welfare and good wellbeing.

And I was really inspired by my own dogs Ghost and Bodger who I write about in Wag.

Ghost was a Siberian Husky, Alaskan Malamute Cross, who was absolutely lovely.

Enormous dog but absolutely lovely.

But when we adopted him he was afraid, like if we reached towards him he would flinch

away from our hands as if he thought we were going to hit him.

And soon after we'd adopted him, because he really loved other dogs, we thought he needed

a friend and we got Bodger, an Australian Shepherd, who was nuts.

And he needed really quite different things from Ghost.

So we had these two dogs and Bodger needed a lot of training.

He was fearful of many things.

He needed a lot of reassurance.

He didn't seem to have ever been walked on a leash before.

He would spin in circles if he was left to his own devices for too long.

And so I was really interested in what makes dogs happy.

And actually I had some particular posts that I wrote for my blog and after I'd written

a few of them I thought I should stop writing this series of posts, I want to turn this

into a book.

And so ultimately that has become Why the Science of Making Your Dog Happy and it includes

lots of science but it also includes lots of practical tips that people can use in everyday

life and it ends with a checklist for a happy dog where hopefully people can find things

that they're already doing right and also maybe find some things that they might like

to give a try and see if their dog likes it.

Oh absolutely and I'm going to come on to the checklist.

And the practical tips because as you say the book is filled with them.

And you talk about your dogs obviously in the book and you said that they were both

very different and had very different needs so did that mean that you might use rewards

based training with one but maybe with not another?

What do you mean by that?

Great question.

No we should always use reward based training with all of our dogs.

I guess what was different in terms of what they needed really was management.

Bodger needed a lot of management so that he didn't have to be in situations where he

was going to be afraid or scared and it wasn't always possible.

For example he was afraid of the owl and a barred owl used to come and hang out in our

backyard and Bodger would go absolutely nuts and many times I sat through the night with

him counter conditioning because obviously I couldn't turn down the volume on the owl

and we also did some desensitisation and counter conditioning outside of that.

So the kinds of things that they needed, the specific types of training that they needed

and the situations that Bodger especially maybe needed help with.

Going to the vet was another one.

I guess I was really good at going to the vet.

Bodger was not at all and one of the first times we took him in fact four people sat

on him to hold him down while the vet was able to look at his paw.

So that was really hard for him and getting him used to going to the vet was hard too.

But for any dog it should always be reward based training because we know that from various

pieces of research the use of aversive methods including yelling and including leash corrections

as people call them can have risks for dog welfare including fear, anxiety and aggression

and it is much much better to use reward based methods because they work.

So even though each dog needed different things for both of them it was always reward based

methods.

Oh I love it, I love it.

Yeah and people who listen to my podcast know how passionate I am about training without

force or fear.

Now I want to come back on a couple of things.

Now obviously you mentioned four people bringing your dog down at the vet but that's not what

you, you quickly realise that's not the way.

So how do you, and I know you go over this in the book but for people who haven't read

the book yet, and I hope that's a yet for everybody listening, how do you get dogs to

like things that they don't like, like vets?

Ideally you're going to start with the puppy because it's much easier to teach these things

with puppies and it's one of the life skills that every puppy should learn is how to be

handled in the ways that they will be handled at the vet typically which in just including

looking in the mouth, of course that can help you clean their teeth too throughout their

lives and looking in the ears and having a stethoscope placed against them.

These are all things that you can practice with the puppy in a way that is a positive

experience for the puppy and helps to teach them to like those things.

But if you have an adult dog like Bodger we adopted at two and a half years, you've missed

that sensitive period for socialisation, there is still a lot that you can do and for us

unfortunately Ghost was often ill and often had to go to the vet but as far as Bodger

was concerned that was a learning opportunity because we asked if he could just come to

and he would sit in on consultations and he would get treats and nothing would happen

to him and we would take him to the vet at other times, our vet was fantastic and let

him just come and sit in the waiting room, have a few treats and then leave again.

So he got used to going and we also did a lot of work on body handling with him,

some of which I did before I joined the Academy for Dog Trainers and some of which I worked on

part of one of my assignments of being at the Academy which you will have done too

is teaching your dog to sit stay for a vet exam and for Bodger one part in particular

was incredibly hard and for me this was the most difficult assignment I did,

being able to open the dog's mouth and peel them, in this case with a piece of cheese,

Bodger wasn't having any of that and I was very lucky because Jean Donaldson was fantastic

and she wrote me a special plan just for Bodger to teach Bodger to have this.

I didn't know that, I love that.

So there's a different assignment that everyone else struggles with which is the retrieve.

Retrieve was easy, Bodger was great, we just went through the plan and it was all fine

but when it came to the vet exam that some people do in like 10 minutes,

it took me weeks and weeks and weeks with Bodger but we got there and it was so worth it to make

it easy for him to go to the vet and to have his teeth looked at and later in life even to be

peeled. So there's a lot that you can do and another thing you can do is realise that a lot

of vets have changed how they do things and in particular there's something called fear-free

which is something to look for because that means the vet will have taken a course and have thought

about ways in which to make the experience a lot less stressful to stop your pet dog or cat

from being stressed at the vet and that's incredibly helpful and a fantastic thing.

Yeah absolutely and I encourage all of my owners to go and look for a fear-free vet.

One of the things I worry about with dogs with separation anxiety is time alone. So alone in

crates, alone in strange rooms, it's hard on lots of dogs but especially on a dog who can't be

alone even in its own home so and then you know if that can't be managed I say let's just

medicate. My dog's just had an ultrasound and it's really hard to counter condition to an ultrasound

because it's you know most vets aren't going to let you go back there and practice ultrasounds

20 times before your dog has an emergency ultrasound. I was just like give her everything

you've got because we want to make sure that they don't have bad experiences while we teach them to

have good ones right. So I was going to ask you another question about yeah I'm just still on the

topic so again most people who work with me most people listen to this podcast will hear me talk

about desensitization. I talk about that all the time and I do talk about counter conditioning but

not so much. So for people who haven't read your book yet can you just explain what you mean by

counter conditioning because you've talked about it and you've used the name but let's just

confirm exactly what we mean. Great question and I think a lot of people are familiar with the idea

of classical conditioning because at some level they've heard of Pavlov and Pavlov's dogs so they

kind of vaguely know something about it. So what I mean when I talk about doing counter conditioning

with the dog is that I'm talking about ad hoc counter conditioning so when you can't prevent

something from happening that the dog is afraid of and this might be fireworks for a lot of dogs

because you can do work with dogs with fireworks you can't actually prevent fireworks from happening

in your neighborhood unfortunately so they're going to just happen sometimes. So it could be

with going to the vet it could be with any kind of things that the dog is afraid of and your aim

is to change the dog's emotional response to those things to a positive one instead of them

being afraid. So to talk about the practicalities of it so I mentioned the owl and counter conditioning

to the sound of the owl. In practice what this meant was that every time the barred owl hooted

I would give Bodger some really nice treats and it would often be cheese but it would sometimes

be pieces little pieces of oat cakes because he really loved oat cakes and sometimes it would

just be some kind of dog treat or tripe treat or something like that. So you immediately follow

the scary thing with something that's really nice for the dog and it's important to know that you do

this even if the dog goes off and barks makes a lot of fuss about the thing. Ideally you'd be in

a situation where there was never that level of intensity but if it's things that are happening

in everyday life that you can't control that might just happen. Give the treat anyway you're not

trying to change the dog's behavior you're trying to change their emotions and be very quick to give

it after the scary thing has happened and be very careful not to reach for it before the scary thing

happens. So if you can see the owl in the garden and you know it's going to hoot again don't it was

important for me not to go reaching for the cheese ahead of time I had to wait till it hooted and then

quickly get the cheese and give some. But you go into detail on how to do this in your book as well

so don't worry if people are kind of scrabbling writing down notes you can grab Sassy's book and

read more about it. So the book what I love about the book is you mentioned the tips there are the

tips and tricks there's hard science and there's a there's lovely real stories there's a really

nice balance and it makes the book a great read which I think is really important when you're

trying to communicate science we don't want to lose people so I love the way you've written the

book because it keeps any reader engaged it's just brilliantly done. Let's come back to our point

about science in dog training though why don't we just tell stories about our experience of dogs why

why do we should we even bother with science at all? Well thank you for your kind words and I think

it's really important that people do understand that about science and one of the things that

surprises a lot of dog owners at the moment is to know that there actually is a huge lot of

science being done about dogs and canine science has really exploded and there is so much that

we're learning that we didn't used to know about dogs and it comes from a whole range of different

methods although a lot of it is on questionnaires but some of it is from experimental work as well

and it's really adding to what we know about dogs and these are really important things because

I think people are very familiar with dogs even if you haven't grown up with dogs you've known

about the existence of dogs all your life so we tend to think that we know about them and there's

nothing new to learn and it's really important to realise that actually there are lots of developments

and lots of new things that we can learn about dogs and they're really practical and useful for

what we do with dogs and how we set up dogs everyday lives so it really can make a difference

and there's also so much information out there about dogs, I'm sure you're talking about this

all the time Julie, so many myths, so much information that is just not true and it's

really helpful to actually look at the scientific literature or read about it and know what matters,

what counts, what is the case, what does apply and then you can throw out all the things that

you've been told or heard which either don't make a difference or in some cases are even

potentially harmful. Yeah absolutely and I tell everybody first of all don't be frightened by

science but if it's not your thing just read Zazie's blog because you do a brilliant job

of taking the science and making it accessible for all of us, you do the work on the research

studies so that we don't have to so you know some of us, the geeks like me, we love spending our

time on Google Scholar but if you don't Zazie's blog is so wonderful in making science accessible

and it will really help you understand your dog more. I'm constantly sending my people to your

blog so I really love that you do that, you do a great thing for everybody with that blog.

Thank you. And I just was going to come back to something on science, so the thing about science

as well Zazie is that it doesn't mean that we're fixed in any point in time does it, I mean you

know if new science comes along and says well actually that thing you thought maybe five years

ago hey look we've got a ton of research now that says that's changed so one of the things I love

about science is it's constantly pushing me to challenge my view and my assumptions, is that

something you find as well? Yes it is always changing and the whole point of it is that

you do have to change your mind if the evidence changes and actually one of the examples I love

to give because it aligns with what most people feel or certainly have felt is to do with how we

think about dogs and emotions because it sounds kind of a bit crazy now to think back that

scientists used to say that animals don't experience emotions but that is what a lot of

scientists used to say and now they recognize that actually animals do experience emotions even if

they're not necessarily the same ones as we experience and that's actually really important

because that's important for animals welfare and in particular what the ways that we think

about dog welfare and cat welfare traditionally have been focused on trying to prevent harm

and trying to prevent cruelty and to prevent negative experiences but now we know that animals

experience a whole range of emotions including positive ones and that means that we need to think

about providing positive experiences for pet dogs and for pet cats or any other animals that we

happen to have because that's actually an important part of their welfare so although I think everyone

who is a dog owner I'm sure they will think well they always felt as if their dog experiences things

and it you know so it sounds kind of weird to say that people didn't but it's actually been

transformational to realize just how important that is yeah yeah 100% and that and I love

the point you make about it isn't just cocooning them from the bad stuff we spend a lot of time

doing that and we should do but it's also making sure that they have access to the things that

make them make them happy I wrote a blog recently about fetch because I'm passionate you know that

if dogs love to play fetch we should let them play fetch safely yes so they don't put their

back out yes but we should let them do the things that they that let them be doggish and that comes

out so strongly in your book as well so it's a good reminder I think when you read the book that

it's not just about preventing nasty things it's about allowing dogs to be dogs and and that makes

us all happy when we see dogs being dogs doesn't it it does and I loved what you wrote about fetch

and some dogs love fetch and they absolutely should have opportunities to play fetch in a safe

space and some dogs love tug and so they should have opportunities to play tug instead or as well

and I think we need to think about what our own individual dogs like and love to do and try and

find ways to provide those opportunities and it's no good having arbitrary rules about what dogs

should and shouldn't do and it puzzles me when people don't want dogs to do these things because

they can be done safely and if your dog loves it they should have those chances as much as it's

possible for you to give them yes as a yes and you know I hear often and it can particularly in the

field I work in things like um I think my dog's got too many beds or you've got too many options

for where they sleep I'm like dogs do not have a lot of choice in their life trust me we choose

what they eat when they eat where they sleep where they live when they go out and I love what you say

about letting them choose the things that they want to do because we don't give them a lot of

choice they don't have too much choice that's for sure absolutely and you know as you say we we

decide everything for them even what they do eat and I think it can really help us as dog owners to

pay attention to what our dogs like or don't like and give them choices and see what they pick

because that enables us to then give them more of those things and you know one of the things we

talk about with enrichment and when you decide to provide enrichment for your dog it's quite

possible that you'll get some fabulous new toy that you think is fabulous and you'll give it

to your dog and they'll be like yeah what and not really interested and there might be several

things going on there I mean one of them might be that the dog is just not interested in that

particular kind of thing but some other kind of toy like a rope or a ball or whatever or something

to shred they're going to really enjoy shredding it or chewing on it or whatever so we need to know

what those kinds of things are um and it really makes a difference to dog's happiness I think

when we give them opportunities to do doggy things and opportunities to do normal dog

behaviors with toys or with whatever else is is it's suitable that we can provide for them

oh I so love it um and the the point about choice we also think need to think about choice in

training rewards don't we not just in the toys or the sleeping surfaces but in training rewards too

yeah so we're talking about reward-based training that means you need to have some kind of reward

to use as reinforcement it has to be something that your dog likes and in most circumstances

the best thing to use is going to be food so you can use play and you can use petting but

it's very quick to give a little piece of food and then to eat it so you can get a lot of training

done very quickly and all dogs love food and sometimes when people tell me their dog doesn't

I'm a bit worried in case their dog either needs to go to the vet or if the dog is actually in a

situation that's a bit scary for them and they're just a bit too stressed to eat but in most cases

dogs are going to love food my favorite go-to is little pieces of chicken but little pieces of

cheese work or turkey or roast beef I have known a dog spit out a piece of cheese because he didn't

like it but most dogs love it and you have to take account of what dogs actually like and there

is research that shows dogs are sensitive to the quality of the reward that we give them

so scientists did a study in which dogs were trained to run along the runway for different

rewards and they would signal what kind of reward they were going to get by using different colored

bowls and the rewards they compared were a piece of sausage to a piece of kibble well dogs ran

faster to get the piece of sausage compared to the piece of kibble yeah and I think that's great

and that's so relevant to us as dog owners because we need dogs to come when called and this tells

us that they're very sensitive to what we give them and we need to use better rewards if the

rewards we're giving are not working but the other thing is that there are individual differences

and scientists have also looked at whether dogs prefer to get the same favorite reward over and

over and over again or if they like to have a variety of good rewards and it seems to depend

on the dog but over time it does seem like some some level of variety is preferred so you need

really good treats but you also need to change them up from time to time and you were making a

serious point which I then laughed over because I was thinking of something else at the time so I

want to go back to the serious point but also want to tell you why I was laughing you make a really

serious point that if we're particularly when we're doing training around fear base when we're

trying to change how a dog feels we're doing that type of training if the dog isn't willing to take

a treat from us then it might be a really good sign that that was just too much because you know

dogs just like us don't tend to eat when they're really nervous or edgy so you made a really good

point there which I then proceeded to laugh over the reason I was laughing though is because I

was thinking of what Jean Donaldson would say to us in the academy about food motivation

because we often hear that some dogs are just quote not food motivated at all well every dog

eats every dog does eat there aren't any dogs that day after day after day after day will not eat

it's just that it's on us isn't it to find out what motivates that dog from a food perspective

what's stopping the dog from wanting food in training is it the treats is it the context

whatever but it's on us basically if our dogs aren't food motivated in training what's going

on and we need to diagnose that having said that as the owner of a lab cross I do know that some

dogs will work for a piece do anything for a piece of kibble I've got one of those dogs

but most dogs if we work on it we can probably find something that that will they will find

rewarding right that's right and a lot of people really would like their dog to work for pieces of

kibble and some dogs absolutely will but most dogs won't because they get kibble at mealtimes anyway

and it's not anything particularly special to them and so if you're actually asking the dog

to do something then often you need something better than a piece of kibble and it's up to

you to find out what that is for your particular dog some dogs it is harder to find treats for

than others so ghost for example was really quite finicky and very fussy he liked cheese though he

would do things for cheese and salami so you just had to have the right thing to get him interested

yep yeah I've got one of those dogs who looks at me and goes I'm not getting out of bed for that I

need at least ten thousand dollars to turn up for whatever you've got in store for me today whereas

the other dog one piece of kibble didn't do anything that brings me on to a really good

point actually so one of the reasons that I train not just my lab because he's so motivated by food

I train him with kibble because I can but I also do that because it helps to give him his dinner

in training because he does he will eat whatever is put in front of me and just put on weight

readily so people do have that concern don't they about weight and reward-based training but we don't

need to worry about it we can mitigate it can't we absolutely so it is valid to be concerned about

that because being overweight or obese can be very serious for dogs just like it can be very serious

for people's health and so just briefly to mention that one of the studies that I mention in the book

was about the effects of being overweight and obese on the dog's lifespan and that's something

that really shocked me when I was writing about it because I think we can all agree that dogs

don't live long enough as it is but on average for dogs that are overweight or obese they don't live

as long it does make a difference to their lifespan it depends a bit on the breed um for some of the

dogs in the study it was a difference of I think five or six months and for another breed that was

a bit longer lived it was two and a half years so it can be a really shocking difference so it

is important to keep an eye on your dog's weight and to speak to your vet if you're not sure about

whether your dog is the right weight or if they're overweight or need to lose some weight

but having said that of course if you're feeding rewards in training it's very easy to take a few

calories out of what you're feeding them at mealtime so that you're not giving them too

many calories and I think it's quite reassuring to know that there was some research that looked at

different ways of giving dogs treats and the effects that tended to have on the dog's weight

and this study found that really giving treats in training was not correlated with dogs being

overweight and obese at all and that maybe is because people know they're giving those treats

and so they adjust for them at mealtimes but what was associated with dogs being overweight or obese

was what the authors called hygge treats from the word hygge which is to do with being cozy

and comfortable and so on so these would be treats that you give your dog in nice moments with your

dog like when you're cuddled up on the settee and you're eating a snack so you give a bit of that

snack to the dog too because you want to have a nice time together that is associated with dogs

being overweight and obese and it's maybe because that's not planned in the same way that training

is planned and so people probably aren't taking account of that when it comes to the dog's meal

times yeah it's such a good point we're just not as aware of it as when we've got that pot of

training treats in front of us and we're focused on a task in hand now that's really helpful

yeah because you're just having a nice moment with your dog and it has to be said dogs are

incredibly good at asking for food when they're eating yeah oh yeah well you've written as well

about how over the years that's exactly what we've selected dogs for right those eyes

and they do when we talked about myths earlier on and we both have a passion for busting myths

me about separation anxiety you about separation anxiety and training in general so

can you share a couple of myths that you would really like to bust right now

yeah and you're really great at this you do some wonderful myth busting about separation anxiety

in your book and there is one myth in particular that really gets to me and it is this idea that

is perpetuated by some dog trainers in the media and on tv and it's the idea that you should be

able to take food away from your dog and that you should do this and for one thing i don't really

understand why you're the one who gives food to your dog it doesn't make sense to to then snatch

it back from them like if someone gave me a bar of chocolate and then came and snatched it away

from me i would be pretty mad at them but i hear about a specific i won't call it a training

exercise but it's a procedure where it's not oh my goodness my dog's eating something it shouldn't i

should try and you know get that dark chocolate away from it it's a procedure that people use

they give the dog food and then they deliberately take the food away right yeah they deliberately

take the food away and because they think it's going to teach the dog something and i think if

you go back not even too far in time you will find that people used to know that this was a risky

thing and you should leave dogs alone when they're eating because if you go and disturb their food

you're actually risking a dog bite and that's why i hate this myth so much because it's actually

putting people at risk of a dog bite which is bad for the dog it's bad for the owner it's just

horrible all around and the thing is we also know from research that's been done that taking the

dog's food away while they're eating is associated with increased resource guarding behavior and that

would be when the dog growls or snarls or snaps or freezes or even tries to bite when you take

things away so it's gonna increase that kind of behavior in the dog potentially and nobody wants

that if you want your dog to give up food because there could be a safety issue like if you're out

on a walk and they maybe are going to pick something up it might not be safe for them to

eat it you need to teach them a drop it or leave it so you can stop them from before they've picked

it up but people need to know this is something you have to train you can't just expect your dog

to give you something that you're going to snatch away from them it is potentially dangerous and you

could be risking a bite and if you have a dog that is resource guarding i would strongly recommend

hiring a rewards-based trainer to work on it because there is that potential for a bite it's

much better to have someone who is going to be helping you through that in a safe way yep

absolutely if we walk around taking food off dogs deliberately and every time they're nicely settled

in what's that going to teach dogs that every time you come near my food goes i don't like it

when you come near me whereas we want the opposite we want them to know that when we come closer when

they're eating yeah you know what's no big deal in fact it actually might be a good outcome and

that's what a rewards-based trainer can teach you if your dog is struggling with resource guarding

that's right and it's also something that a lot of people do with puppies

is to actually teach them that if you approach them while you're eating you're going to add

something even more tasty to the bowl so that they're not going to be worried about people

coming close to their food bowl and that's probably especially important if you have

children in the house if there might be moments when you're not supervising that closely you

don't want a child approaching a dog food bowl to suddenly be at risk of a bite because that

would be absolutely horrible and we know that young children are especially at risk of dog bites

so it's really really important to teach your dog that you're approaching the food bowl means good

things and to teach them and leave it and then drop it and you see we all do this don't we it

becomes habit forming we all as trainers who work with dogs who you know can be upset we get into

this habit of oh it's subconscious now isn't it you don't take something off that's really valuable

without at least doing a little bit of a trade it just becomes a habit even with a dog who has no

problems because you just you don't want it to become a problem we all go around uh yeah give

me a bully stick because it's getting to the end bit and i don't want you to swallow it but here's

an amazing bit of chicken yay yeah and and it makes life much easier doesn't it but it's it's

good for the dog because it it's something they don't have to worry about and we don't want to

give our dogs things to worry about oh i love that i love the way you said that um so that was

one let's do another myth that you want to bust i think the next one i will pick is one that actually

many people know that you should not use shot collars to train your dog but there are still

people out there who think that this is an appropriate method to treat behavior problems

and the research shows there are risks to animal welfare from using shot collars and studies of

using shot collars comparing that to positive reinforcement for teaching recall they are both

effective and positive reinforcement is just as effective as using a shot collar but there are

kind of side effects to using the shot collar because it seems to make the dogs more stressed

and show signs of stressed behaviors so it's actually a really good idea never to use shot

collars i would actually like to see them banned personally um then yep yep it would be great if

they were banned in canada they are banned in some countries especially european countries

and the best way to train a dog is to use reward-based methods because it does work and

it doesn't have the risks of using shock or other aversive methods which include the risks of

a worse relationship with the owner and i think everybody wants a good relationship with their

dog so i feel very sad when people tell me that someone has told them to use an aversive method

whether it's a shot collar or something else because they want a good relationship with their

owner and it's bad advice if they're told to use those kind of methods because it's going to affect

their relationship potentially and the risk is that the dog may become afraid of them in some

circumstances and they will want that and there's a lot of um dressing up weasley words kind of

obfuscating actually what's going on isn't there on the back of the packet on the listing or what

trainers will say to people about what's really going on you'll hear things like oh but it was

just a buzz but um well you and i both know that there's something more going on can you explain

though why a shot collar would work for recall and the conditions in which it would work

i kind of don't like to really get into that because it's basically the most important thing

to know is that it's not the best approach to use but one of the things that um some trainers will

do is apply the shock until the dog starts to come back to you and the shock is despite what some

some people say it is an unpleasant stimulus that's the only reason that's my point it only

works if it works because it's not nice for the dog and the dog doesn't like it and because it's

not nice for the dog that means it risks making them fearful or anxious or scared and it risks

them associating it with something that's not the collar so they might associate it with you

or in other circumstances if you're using the shock to control behavior when other people

or other animals are around they might associate the shock with those people or those animals so

you potentially are going to have a dog that becomes aggressive and it's really nobody wants

that at all so it's it's just not worth trying to use one and the other thing is um when people

have actually done research there was a study from france about people's use of shock collars

and the people who were using them didn't even seem to be getting very good results from them

so it's really just much better use reward-based methods use food to train your dog yeah and and

and the reason i asked you that is because i get really frustrated by messages like it oh it's just

it's just a little bit of communication you know it's just telling the dog well no actually there's

way more going on so yeah dump the shock collar it isn't training and i don't care if this is

controversial to me it's abuse it's not a training technique choice it's abuse anyway um and for dogs

who are petrified of being home alone i it crushes me to hear that they've been fitted with a bark

collar to stop the panicking bark that results from the fear of being left home alone so everybody

put the shock collar in the bin it's not your fault that you bought it you've been given bad

advice time to get rid of it your dog will do better and it'll be better for everybody all round

um so yes okay you can say i get passionate about that one for dogs at home with a bark collar on

um so let me talk to you about the fact that actually i'm just going to pause here

okay yeah so we've talked a lot about dogs but you've mentioned early on when you thought about

writing wag you were really into the science of making cats happy too so what's going on on the

cat front for you zazie that's right i have exciting news because i'm working on a book

the science of making your cat happy which uh will be similar in many ways to wag so it will

have science in it it will have stories about my own cats in it it will be full of practical tips

again but it will help people understand their cat better and what their cat needs and i think

it's really important because a study published quite recently found that the biggest welfare

concern for cats is behavior issues due to a poor home environment which is really that people don't

understand what cats need so hopefully will help people to understand their cat better provide what

their cats need and have a better relationship with their cat this might be an impossible question

and i'm totally putting you on the spot do you think we are gosh i'm starting to make you

generalize now i know that's always hard are we doing a better job of making dogs happy than cats

happy or there's no difference i think some of the issues are different because people are less

likely to use aversive methods with training cats but then people don't generally tend to train cats

very much and for example it's really hard for many people to take their cat to the vet because

they are not used to going in a cat carrier they hate going in the cat carrier basically they only

ever go in there with it when they go to the vet which they don't like so you know it's it's it

becomes a really difficult thing and i certainly in the past have had times when as soon as a cat

carrier came out well my cat disappeared and went under the bed and was incredibly hard to get hold

of and had their claws out when i was trying to put them in and that was a long time ago and since

i thought of teaching cats to actually like their cat carrier it makes a big difference so one thing

is that i think people can do more to train their cats whereas people already realize that they need

to train their dog most of the time training a cat to go in their carrier makes such a difference

taking them to the vet it really really helps um uh yeah so i think there are different issues

many cats are indoors or especially in north america they might be indoors only and i think

that has different kinds of ramifications for how we should be treating cats because it means

they can't go out and do interesting things we have to provide all of the interesting things

in their environment and although some people take cats out for walks not all cats want to

and not everybody wants to train their cat to walk on the leash anyway so it's not always an option

so that's another thing cats are kind of if they have a bad welfare situation they're trapped in

that situation in their house and it's not really going to get resolved unless someone learns a bit

more about cats or someone teaches them a bit more about cats so yeah there are there are different

issues i think really and while people are waiting for the book to come out the book on cats purr i

love it um you write about cats extensively on your blog as well so it's not just about dogs

so if you're listening and you've got a cat companion animal psychology there's a reason

it's called that right um and it's like you don't just combine it dogs and cats either do you so um

yeah occasionally i write about rabbits or guinea pigs it is mainly about dogs and cats to be honest

but i do sometimes write about other animals and certainly i'm reading the research on other

animals so if i see interesting things i will write about it well look out for that book then

no pressure um so the one of the wonderful things about the book i love the format i love the

advice but making it practical so it's stuff people can do um you give them pointers you

give them checklists um and so the cat book i'm assuming will have a similar format to that

because yes works yeah and it really works it's really helpful to give people concrete actions

um and this is putting you on the spot again but if when people read the book read read the book

everybody and go get the book if you only make if people only made one change as a result of reading

wag what would that be use food to train their dog if they're not doing that already because

it makes such difference to use positive reinforcement something that the dog enjoys

you may have to experiment to find which kinds of food are best but if people are at the moment

using aversive methods it's really important to stop doing that because of the harm that it risks

no one wants to harm their dog it's just that unfortunately there is a lot of bad advice out

there and so people are misled on many things but if you use positive reinforcement use food

to train your dog it can make a big difference oh i so agree with you i i truly believe that no

one gets up in the morning and says i want to do bad things to my dog today they want to get create

a certain outcome they follow the advice that they're given so um you know if we can encourage

people that they can get the same outcomes i'll move that in that's my dog's being happy because

it's walked down but i think we can show people can't we that you can can get the same outcomes

but you can do it without being horrible and hurting your dog and there's so much so much more

fun as well reward-based training i mean who doesn't love the face of a dog who's like yeah

give me the treat give me the treat it's fun i know i love that look so much it's just so nice

to see and it makes your heart melt yes it certainly does um zazie it's just been wonderful

um speaking with you today so if people want more information first of all tell us where they can

get your book wag is available in all good bookstores as they say but i also have a link

on my website to all kinds of different stores so if you want to find your local indie or your local

canadian indie that's delivering books at the moment or go to amazon or barnes and noble or

indigo chapters or black wells in the uk all of those places are carrying it and it should hopefully

be quite easy to get hold of now now that the pandemic has moved on a bit and you can find me

anytime on my website companionanimalpsychology.com fantastic that's what i was going to ask you about

as well and you publish blogs roughly usually about weekly isn't it in fact it's every week

isn't it yeah uh every wednesday sometimes on a sunday too yeah so two things buy zazie's book

follow the blog and you will you will not regret it zazie thank you so much for joining us today

we should do this again it's great chatting to you thank you so much it's been really fun talking to

you and we can't wait to for we can't wait for purr to come out yeah we'll definitely have to

talk when purr comes out all right take care zazie you too bye

thanks for listening to the fixing separation anxiety podcast with julie mason

for more information visit the website at www.subthresholdtraining.com

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