Chrissy 0:00
Welcome to The Dogs of our lives. Podcast with me. Chrissy Messick, this is where traditional training transforms into true connection and understanding with our dogs. As a certified dog trainer, behavior consultant and interspecies communicator with a background in high level sports medicine, I bring a unique functional approach to understanding our dogs by integrating body, mind, heart and soul, join us for insights, stories and practical wisdom that will help you prevent problems before they start and build a deeper bond with your animal companion. Before we get into today's episode, let me ask you a question, how well do you actually know your dog? Why not take my quiz to find out? You can find the link in the show notes. Now let's dig in. Today. I'm talking with Alyssa Ralph, who's a clinical animal behaviorist from the UK. She has degrees in animal welfare, ethics and law, canine and feline nutrition and zoology, and I really enjoy talking with her, because we have a very similar approach in how we look at the whole animal and not just one part. And we also really work at supporting the humans as best as we can. And we're doing this from a place of kindness and compassion and looking at every detail, because that matters. And we talk about how nutrition plays a role in behavior and pain plays a role in behavior. Those are super important. And lastly, how we interact with our dogs on a daily basis. It becomes a lifestyle. It's not a it's not a training activity, per se. And then Dougal, her dog, has made such a big difference in her life. And at this time of this recording, he was just going to have surgery, but I just want to let you know that he's doing well and is recovering nicely. So I hope you enjoy this episode. Hello, Alyssa, and thanks for joining us. I'm excited to have you here.
Alyssa 1:44
Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to get into it and chat all things dogs, yes, and it's the end of your day over there, like you were saying. So I'mready for the gin.
Chrissy 1:55
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Chrissy 1:58
Okay, so we kind of know each other through, I don't know, like a master class course that we were taking, and that's how we got to know each other. I just really appreciate your approach to working with dogs and humans. It's more of a holistic approach, very similar to what I do. And so I thought it would just be interesting to chat. You know what that looks like for you, so people can get an understanding of what that approach looks like. Can you just tell us a little bit about yourself and where you live and what you're doing and the dogs in your life?
Alyssa 2:31
Absolutely. I
Alyssa 2:32
mean, first of all, it's great to have met you as well, because I just love being able to talk about this side of the dog industry, because it's not every day you find someone that resonates with what you do on that level, which is really great. But for me, I'm in the UK. In case you couldn't tell from the accent, I'm up in the northwest of England, so the really gray cloudy bits of England, there are sunnier bits, believe it or not, and we're in the cloudy gray bit. My official title is clinical animal behaviorist and nutritionist, but over the years, I've worked in and I'm very lucky in that I can choose who I work with a lot of the time. I specifically now work with those dogs that are aggressive, reactive, the barking, the London the biting ones that have bitten previously. You know, their owners might be in lawsuits and things like that. I really kind of take them by the hand and guide them through that process and how they can work through their own Gremlins that come up. I mean, the number of dog owners with dogs like that that end up with PTSD that then, you know, the thought of going outside the house with them just strikes fear and panic into their heart. So it's overcoming those mental issues, so that you can then help your dog through their own mental barriers until, you know, you're at the point where you can go and, you know, pop down to the cafe for a lunch together, or go and just have time at friends house without worrying about, can you trust them? Are they safe? Is everything going to be okay? So you just get a bit more peace in your life that that's what I'm about really. Yeah. And then in my own home, I have Dougal, who is a previously reactive and aggressive dog as well. We've just been chatting about him because he's he's up a bit of a creek without paddle at the minute, and we're desperately trying to get him back to shore. But Dougal is, is my family dog who kind of started me off on this on this route. He was a dog I got when I was what feels like a young baby now, which was 25 and you know, he's seen me through so much personal development and growth. It's unreal. Yeah, it's it's been a nice little journey with him, but that's what I do, in a nutshell.
Chrissy 4:27
Yeah, that's awesome. I know you, you were talking about up the creek without a paddle. Do you want to share just a little bit like what happened the last couple weeks ago? Yeah?
Alyssa 4:36
I mean, it was really poor timing. It was the day after my wedding that he he just suddenly couldn't move properly anymore. Every time he tried to move, he was yelling out in pain. He would do anything he could to not move. He would really lie down and be very reluctant to move. And we have a very good relationship. Normally. If I ask him to do something, he will do it. And he was just going. I really can't. It was difficult, because at that point, I was on honeymoon, so I was I'd left him in the care of my mum and dad, and they were just messaging me, going, something's really not right. And it was ending up being that we needed to get a referral to a neurologist. We couldn't do the referral without me being there to sign the paperwork, so it was waiting for me to come back off honeymoon, sign the paperwork, get that started, and then it was in and out of consults, trying to work out what was going on, and then having all of this imaging done. He was on strict rest. He's been on strict rest now for nearly two months. He's been medicated up the wazoo. He's like, walk into a room and he'll just be spaced out looking into the middle, middle distance, because he's just in so much pain. So we've, we've got surgery next week now, which cannot come soon enough, because he's got a herniated disc. So it's quite a badly herniated disc, so we're having surgery to hopefully correct that and sort him out. But it's been a bit of a journey with him. And it's, it's, a scary one. Anything spinal is obviously scary. And, you know, surgery has come such a long way that I'm I have a lot of faith in the team that we've got around him, but it's still scary. As a dog parent, you do get worried about stuff like that? Yeah,
Chrissy 6:13
definitely. And that's just like, a perfect example of, if your dog's not doing something that they normally would do, they're not being stubborn. They are trying to tell you that they don't feel very good
Alyssa 6:27
Exactly. And you know, he's a real Heinz 57 mixed breed of a dog, but he's got quite a lot of gold, Goldy, golden retriever traits and characteristics. I feel like they're one of the breeds that get labeled as stubborn all of the time, and yet, every single golden retriever I've ever worked with hasn't been stubborn for the sake of being stubborn. They have had something underlying that's making them go, I can't do this right now. And it might be emotional, it might be physical, but there's something going I don't feel comfortable with this. Thank you very much. I'm just going to stay here. Yeah, and that is exactly what he was doing. He was just saying to me, you know, it hurts, I'm I'm just gonna not and hope that it feels better in time. Yeah,
Chrissy 7:07
it's so, so interesting, because every dog is different in how they will show that some dogs like Doogie doogle, what did you say? His name was Dougal, yeah, will just not do the thing that you're asking or they might, like, if you're going to go touch them, they might do like, a little air snap. So they all show it differently. So it's just a matter of, like, why are you doing that? And just learning how to look deeper than than the behavior. But we'll get into that more of that,
Alyssa 7:41
absolutely. And I think it's, you know, he was a perfect example of how dos dogs can hide that pain as well, because we were seeing such severe symptoms at home. And then we took him into the neurology office to be examined, and he was walking around like nothing was wrong. And he was just going, Yeah, I'm fine. I don't know what all the fuss is about. And then as soon as we got home, he was back to being Oh no. It hurts too much. I can't possibly move. And it's amazing how the stress of the moment and being in somewhere that they're not comfortable with around people they don't know how that affects their body and their pain perception and what they will do to look like they're
Chrissy 8:18
Yes, you see that so many times where I'll, you know, I have clients where I'm like, I think, you know, there's something going on here. Once you take them in and the vet can't replicate anything, they can't find anything, and it's because the dog is so good at hiding it. And so that's why it's super important for the pet guardians to learn how to document stuff and learn how to have a journal of this is what's happening this time, or after walks, or get video of their gate. You know, all those kind of things that the pet guardians can do to be an integral part of the veterinary process.
Alyssa 8:59
Exactly. Yeah, and it takes me right back to this. Wasn't even the dog that I was meant to be working on, but it was another dog in the household, of a dog that I was working with, and she had a very mildly off gate. So she was a little bit swagger hit when she walked. She had a little bit of a John Wayne tilt to her, and she was a little bit what we described as grumpy. She could be a little bit grumpy sometimes, but it never really escalated. We were just kind of on a walk, working on the other dog in the household at that time that I just said, You know what? It might be worth having an investigation just just to see what what goes on. Nothing really happened of it immediately, because it wasn't a big concern. It wasn't a priority. She wasn't telling us that it was a priority at that point, and it was only kind of then going down the line and looking at it as things started to get a little bit worse, that we were going, Okay, let maybe, let's move up the priority list. And she ended up being examined. The vets didn't really think there was anything wrong, but we pushed for imaging, and we had X rays done as a first port of call, and it came back, and she was a street dog. So she's an Eastern European street dog, um, that they brought in, I think she was about three or four when, when they imported her into the UK, and this x ray showed that a long time ago in her life. So thinking when she was a puppy, her femur had dislocated out the pelvis and then kind of reattached itself somehow, like further up the pelvis, and the pain she must have been in is unreal, but she didn't. She barely showed it, but then she went in for a hip replacement. She had it all done surgically, and now she was so much happier. She's more playful. And they didn't even think that there was a particular lack of playfulness. Before it was just, oh, this is just her. And since having the surgery done, suddenly she's like a young puppy again, and she's bouncing around, and she's having a great time with the other dog in the home, and they're bouncing all over each other. And for me, it just really highlights that, you know, a dog can have very few symptoms of something going on. We might look at them and go, Oh, it it's mild. It'll be fine, but we don't really know, unless we've done full investigations, how extensive that is for them and their perception of the pain. Because for her, those external symptoms were so minimal, but then once you fixed it, suddenly her personality, 180 it was beautiful.
Chrissy 11:16
Yeah, go, yeah. I think we have so many stories of this. I mean, I have a client right now where going to a certain house, you know, she would end up like terrified. By the night time came. It was always at night time, and then she started getting, you know, with fireworks and noises and that kind of thing. So I did a combination, I did a rating, and then I went in person and did a training session. I was like, she's definitely uncomfortable and in pain, and all the floors are either wood or it was all slippery floors. And so it would be like me having back pain, walking around on ice all day, and then by the end of the day, I am, like, in pain, so uncomfortable, so grumpy, and then any noise would that would cause me to, like, startle, would hurt. We're still working through this whole process, but I'm like, let's get some non slip rugs all over the floor help with the pain, and then you get these associations with the noises. And so it's like figuring out, like taking care of the pain and then changing the association with the noise again, and doing all these things. And so what may look like something can be something else. Can you just tell us a little bit about your professional journey? And you have like, three degrees or something, yeah, how you decided to go to specialize dogs with aggressive behaviors? It's
Alyssa 12:50
one of those where it's been a bit of a roundabout journey, and I've always ended up back where I started, in a really weird way, because when I first started out professionally, it was zoos that I was really interested in. Zoos were where my heart was, and I'd been part of what's called the Chester Zoo junior members club. It's where, like as young as seven or eight, you can go, and you can hang out with other people that love zoos, and you can see behind the scenes, and you get involved with other bits, and you do all of these, like workshops and some summer summer camps and things about why zoos matter and what they can get involved with. And that was really what I did growing up. So when I started going out into the professional world, I was like, zoos are where I want to be. So I started off with my undergraduate, my my Bachelor of Science degree, um, in zoology, and that was looking an awful lot at wild animal populations, ecology, bits of animal behavior in there, bits of neuroscience and psychology and all of that kind of thing. So it's really great foundation, but it was always for me about zoos. And at that point, I actually entered a competition for kind of national zoology in the under nineteens, and I did get a prize for it, which is quite nice looking back, but it was aggressive behavior in captive African hunting dogs, and that was just absolutely fascinating for me at the time. And it was looking at how kind of the pack structure and dynamics shifts the behaviors that they show each other. And it was looking at pack size, so whether you had a group of two dogs versus 11 dogs, what the sex makeup was, which ones were neutered, which ones weren't, those kind of things, and how it changed different behaviors within a pack, which is really fascinating anyway, because, I mean, this is totally getting off topic, but when you consider all of there's loads of kind of the way dog science has evolved. It's been quite turbulent over the last, like 50 years, but it started out by looking at walls in captivity, and then it came about, you know, 20 years after the fact that actually that's not an accurate reflection about natural, native wolf population behavior, because it was a captive pack. It wasn't a family group. It was an artificially selected pack. And that was what we had actually in all of the collections of African hunting dogs that I was looking at. They were artificially created packs. They weren't family groups. Mm. Yeah, so it was fascinating to then look at the aggressive behavior that was happening within each pack. It was far and above what you'd find in nature, right? And loads of things that can go into that, but having the artificial pack selection is definitely part of it. That's where I started, anyway. And then I kind of went through my dissertation for my undergraduate degree was then looking at stress related behaviors in captive elephants, and that kind of ticked me off on that course, and I went away, I did some zookeeping stuff. I then ended up being an animal welfare advisor in zoos, which, for me, at the time, was my dream job. That's all I'd ever wanted to do, was working on the veterinary team, talking about animal welfare day in, day out, how to make these animals lives better and healthier and happier. I loved it for a time, and then it became quite difficult for me, because you've got so many different stakeholders in a zoo. You've got all sorts of, you know, financial stakeholders, and the public is quite a big stakeholder. They work a little bit differently in the UK compared to the US. So pretty much all of our zoos over here are charities, so they're constantly fighting for more money, and they've got to be very careful about where they invest stuff. So animal welfare often wasn't a priority because it had to be the business. It had to be making it viable, making it able to keep ticking over. I just grew really quite tired of that quite quickly. I didn't feel like I was achieving my own personal mission, which is to improve the lives of the animals and the people around me. And it just felt like I was, you know, screaming into the void a lot of the time. So I kind of took a bit of a direction away from that, and I went, you know what, I can't do this anymore. I'm draining myself day in, day out, for, for no value, for, for what I want to live by. And so I took a bit of a shift in direction. I went into the assistance dog world, which, again, is charity based over here. I was like, you know, I can take my animal behavior and my animal welfare knowledge and apply it to a different sector, and we'll go for these dogs that are in working roles. They're helping people that need welfare being monitored and improved. And let's go down that route. And so I had a bit of a shift, and I worked with a few of the kind of headlining Assistance Dog charities over here. Again. It was fascinating for me, and it almost took me onto the next level of my behavior development and kind of how I worked around behavior, because it was a bit more hands on. In the zoo world, you've got to be hands off. That's the nature of it. So everything you do has to be around. Okay, how can we tweak well being without us going in and actually intervening with them? And if you have to do kind of animal training, you've got to be really careful about your resources, and do the keepers have the time and the wherewithal to actually put it into action? Assistance Dog stuff, it's all about the training. So it's so much hands on, and it's that direct intervention. And I was doing that, it was kind of in, in between them. It was a three year master's degree that I did, which was on international animal welfare ethics and law. And I kind of did, I started that when I was in the zoo, and then finished off when I was with the assistance dog charities. It was really starting to experiment with how all of that theory gets applied in practice, looking at how you have such a pure behaviorism view for a lot of behaviors, and you just kind of go, Okay, let's look at operant conditioning. Let's look at counter conditioning. And, you know, we can look at psychology, but it doesn't really span past that. And this is when I started going, hang on, I think we're missing a big, a bigger picture here, because we can do so much with training and behavior modification plans, but there are still so many dogs that aren't making progress, that aren't kind of achieving their potential, and I say that, not in a goals or an aim of the charity, kind of achieving their potential, but in themselves and being their true selves and as happy as they possibly can be. It really starts to take me down the health aspect, which, if you've ever worked in kind of these kind of charities, it's a little bit more regimented than that. It's kind of, you're either in the behavior role or you're in the health role. You don't really have an overlap. You can communicate absolutely but you don't really have anyone that sits in the middle. It made it quite difficult from my perspective, because I could see that there were some dogs out there that, you know, behaviorism approach wasn't working for the the health side of things wasn't really going anywhere, and that communication wasn't as good as it needed to be. So it was off the back of that that I actually set up my own private clinic after that, because we had a few, you know, dogs that were struggling with reactivity and aggression that we're almost just being left to deal with it. Yeah, and that sit right for me. And so I went, you know, I want to work with people that have these dogs that are being impacted by these dogs, that want to help these dogs, and I want to be that missing link for them and just go, Okay, this isn't working. That's not working. How do we bring it all together and tie it off with a nice little bow so that you can both live the life that you want together? The thing
Chrissy 19:45
I want to bring up is doing it in a way that looks at everything instead of just going down the straight behavior, you know, quadrant route of if that's not going to work, let's use aversive training. Let's punish them. Let's. You know, use a shot collar. Yet, let's use a prong collar. No, let's look at the reason why the dog is doing that and and so we have to look beyond the behavior. That's that's what this is all about. The holistic kind of approach is looking beyond the behavior into the emotional aspects, the you know, the health, you know, the medical, the nutrition, all that kind of stuff. So sorry to interrupt. Keep going.
Alyssa 20:25
It's a great point because it's, it's so accurate. And, you know, especially around me locally. I mean, when you are a local behaviorist as well, like I work with clients all over the world now, so I don't just work locally. You obviously see what happens around you in the real world. And I've seen so many kind of in inverted commas, force free trainers that haven't got qualifications or that much experience or something, that are then churning out these dogs that they've determined can't be helped. And so that then they they go to the more kind of the shock collar, the prong collar, kind of school of thought, and they go there, and they get quick results. And I have no doubt we'll dig into what that actually means later on
Chrissy 21:03
in our conversation. I know, right,
Alyssa 21:06
but then they're saying, Oh, the force free community, let these dogs down. And that's what really bothers me, because I think I never give up on a dog at no point do I go I can't help you anymore, because there are some people that are the best placed people to help these dogs. No dog deserves to be given up on. No person deserves to have their dog given up on. If I can't help you through a behaviorism lens, what's missing here, and it always has to come down to for me, going, what am I missing? What I'm what do I not know? What's ticking away behind the scenes. It's not okay. Let's get slowly more severe in our training techniques, and we're telling our dogs off just for doing it wrong. It's okay. Why are you behaving like this in the first place? And you almost end up in this little cycle of but why are they doing it okay? But why okay? But why be that really annoying toddler of just always asking the why question until you end up in a cycle, and if you end up in a cycle, it's going, okay, there's something here that I'm missing that I don't know fully, and it should allow you to then just go, Okay, there's there's something here that I need to research, that I need to go away and ask some questions about, that maybe I've missed something in history, taking or asking about the owner's lifestyle and stuff like that. There's always a route in for compassion. Never should we feel like positive. Only training techniques have failed that we then have to go to, okay, I'm just gonna I'm gonna choke the dog, I'm gonna shock the dog, to just go, No, you can't do that anymore. Instead, it's going, Okay, I've missed something. Let's look it up and let's apply that and let's work it out together. It was around then that, I then decided, You know what, my two degrees so far haven't been enough. So let's do a third, because I'd kind of done the behavior side. I'd done the overall well being side. A big missing picture for me at that point was nutrition. I'd grown up with my mum, who'd been a human psychologist and a human nutritionist, and she worked really in that niche, and I I'd kind of experienced how powerful it could be through some of my own issues. And so I just went, you know what? Nutrition is such an overlooked thing. And when I did it, it wasn't a popular thing. It's become a lot more popular in the last year or so, which has good and bad sides. And it was just one of these where it was just, I think it's a missing piece. There was a course that got released. It's so hard to find good canine nutrition courses, and this one had just been released, I went, you know what? Let's just do it. So I did my postgraduate diploma in canine nutrition. And even then, it was quite foundational, and it didn't answer all of the questions that I had about it. So it was a lot of kind of after work, I'm gonna get this textbook at the library. I'm gonna buy this textbook, and I'm gonna read it to cover to cover, and go, Okay, what's missing here? And it really took me down route of how much nutrition can impact aggressive behavior in particular. And there's such a big link there that most schools of behavior, they don't cover. It really was a eureka moment for me of going, Oh, my God, all of these dogs that really struggled to get to a position where they can live a happy and healthy life. We didn't look at nutrition. We looked at everything else, but we didn't look at nutrition. It really helped me understand, actually how nutrition and the microbiome that can kind of go hand in hand with it, how that can impact the brain and hormones and neurotransmitters, and how that itself drives emotion and behavior. It was almost a bit of a gap fill for me. And just went, Oh, okay, this is really important stuff. And since then, you know, I've been applying it with cases and seen some beautiful transformations because of nutrition that, you know, I now ride and die by nutrition and behavior
Speaker 1 24:33
together. I Yeah, I agree, yeah. And
Alyssa 24:38
it's really interesting, because it's just, it's really given me insights that I look into my past and go, if only I'd known then what I know now, right, right? And I feel like again, it has taken me back full circle to go, let's go back into how welfare, how all aspects of well being impact aggressive behavior in captive dogs. It's slightly different counting dogs. Yeah, exactly. So that's kind of, that's kind of my professional journey in not so much a nutshell. It's been a bit of a lengthy journey. No,
Chrissy 25:10
it's interesting. Well, do you want to tell us a little bit about your childhood, growing up, and what you learned about values, beliefs, and how they kind of shaped your thoughts, feelings and attitudes towards animals, and if that's changed over the years, I know you mentioned your mom and how that really kind of shaped you, it's
Alyssa 25:27
been a bit of a weird one. So I've always loved animals, but I used to when I was little, I had a phobia of dogs. I couldn't go near them. I would have what I could only describe as panic attacks when I was younger, and I think it came from, you know, I'd been knocked over by lots of dogs before. I'd had dogs right up in my face that weren't very friendly dogs, and it just created this phobia where I couldn't go near them. And it was then my parents went, you know what, let's, let's do something that I do not advocate for in terms of training and emotional modification things, but they got as a family dog, which was flooding me.
Chrissy 26:02
You're like, I'm just gonna stay in my room for the rest of my life. Thank you. I
Alyssa 26:06
mean, that happened for a long time. It took several years for me to actually bond with her, and for my emotional feelings around dogs to shift. Eventually they started too. So we got Maisie, who was the dog, when I was seven, and I think I only really started to bond with her when I hit 11, so it took a while. And you know, this tiny, little eight week old puppy that they brought home would just be really interested in sniffing and licking your feet and running off with socks. And yeah, I'd see her and run, run a mile. And I couldn't be in the same room with her because I was just terrified, which is, it makes me laugh now looking back, but
Chrissy 26:43
it was real for you. Yeah, yeah. And
Alyssa 26:45
I think, you know, that decision that my parents made was pivotal, and I genuinely don't think I'd be in the job that I am without having her in the family, because, you know, she also taught me so much. She was a part of our family. When dominance theory was a really big thing. We had this big issue with her, where she'd she'd love being outside, and she'd dig herself little holes, and she'd lie in these little holes, and it was always really difficult to bring her back in at night time, and she would be quite growly and quite aggressive. And it's only in hindsight now that I can look back and go, You know what? She wasn't trying to enforce her status on us. She wasn't trying to be the boss. She was in quite a lot of pain. She had bilateral hip dysplasia that went unmanaged for years. It's really saddening for me, I think, to look back on that and go, Oh, the signals that we missed.
Chrissy 27:39
I know you just don't know, though, until you know exactly.
Alyssa 27:44
And it's, it's one of those where I really have to try and live by what I preach and go, you know you have to be gentle on yourself. You only know what you know. At the time. It was the perpetuated thing that dominance theory was the only thing that was that dogs were always vying to be leader of the pack, and they had to go through doors first, and you could never, like, eat your dinner, but, like, after the dog, the dog had to always come last in everything you did. And it was such a big perpetuated myth back then. Yeah, it was, it was just bizarre to look back on, but I think that was a big pivotal moment for me. And then, you know, I had quite a difficult kind of social time as a teenager. So looking back, I can, you know, I'm working towards an autism diagnosis at the moment, and looking back, it answers an awful lot of those questions that I had and the feelings that I was having at that time. It was really then going into therapy, that also was quite a pivotal point for me, because it was then going, Hey, these are all the ways that you're feeling. Let's look at wider aspects as to how, you know, at that point, it was a lot of really negative feelings, a lot of anxiety, a lot of self hatred, those kind of things that therapy was really powerful for. And it was going through a lot of the models in human side of therapy that have really gone into my toolkit now as a human, dog professional, because it it really lets you live that experience and go, Oh, this is how you feel when you're in that moment. Like this is how awful it can be, how it cuts you off from the world, and how it filters into all of these different things that you're trying to do. You know, I still remember my therapist from back then, which is like 15 to 20 years ago, um, kind of handing me worksheets and talking me through these exercises, and I've now recreated some of those worksheets. Yeah, that's cool. This is such a wow moment that it just suddenly everything makes sense. So I think that was also a big part of how it started shifting my views, and it was by having these kind of negative thoughts. It doesn't mean you're broken, it just means that something isn't fitting in, right? And it's again, it's okay. Let's ask the questions. Let's look wider. What isn't fitting in, right? It was then my mum, who kind of got involved then, and you're just like, well, nutrition is a big part of this. Started looking at diet. She. A specialist in emotional eating and the psychology behind eating behavior and how the two go hand in hand. At the time, I was a huge emotional eater. I would eat sugar and chocolate just day in day out to cope with those big things, and it was actually by finding alternative approaches to that that still gave me that option to emotionally eat. But picking the right things that could actually really help the longer term feelings of just contentedness and taking me out of those spirals was really helpful. So I think that was a big part, I think another part of being difficult teenager stage. It was having that Chester Zoo junior members club around because they were people that were interested in what I was interested in, that that got it, that didn't really fit in at school. We were all kind of the outcasts that all came together. And they were the people that you could just talk about animals with every second of every day, and they never get sick of it. It was like going home. It was absolutely beautiful. And it was like I mentioned before. We had all of these workshops then about how we can help, like the animals around us, to feel better. And there was this really kind of impactful one that I still remember now. That was Dr Sonja Hill, who's one of kind of the animal welfare scientists in zoos, still to this day, that does loads of great stuff. She's wrote some of the seminal zoo welfare papers, and she came in and she chatted to us about this German zoo, I think it was Germany, but she'd gone in and she'd consulted on gorilla welfare, and she was talking about how the gorillas were showing all these like detrimental behaviors, and they were like, plucking hair out with their arms. They were making themselves throw up and then re eating it again. And they would often just kind of sit and stare at the wall. And it wasn't a natural repertoire of behavior. And she talked to us about how she went in and she kind of looked at their overall well being and how to promote more natural behaviors and how to change their environment so it felt more normal and comforting for them and allowed them to have more healthy coping mechanisms than what's called these abnormal repetitive behaviors, or stereotypical behaviors, of hair plucking and the regurgitation and re ingestion, she then kind of shared the results of what happened and the difference it made after a year. And these gorillas, you know, they weren't completely fixed, but they had such a better repertoire of behavior, like they were doing these stereotypies, far less frequently and far less intensely. And she had photos of them, and you could see the difference in them. And it was, it was so impactful for me, and I went away from that, and this is what I want to do. I want to go and I want to help things and animals feel better. I want to help them be their better selves. That was a really big moment. That was when I was about 15, and it's, it's crazy for me to think how far, far come since then as well, but how impactful that was. I think all of that, it was all kind of gearing towards the same thing, which was recognizing the impact of stress, how my own personal stress, how stress on others, how stress on other animals, drives behavior, and that stress can come from any aspect of well being. So that's the physical, the emotional, the nutritional, behavioral, the mental, it all comes together to provide these different outlets from it. And it's recognizing actually how that stress manifests is really important, and how can we reduce that stress that actually also sometimes stress isn't bad. Sometimes stress can be good if it's applied in the right way, right? There's a lot of different kind of strings that navigated through my childhood that I think have all kind of pulled together at this point to go, oh, this is important. This is important. This is important. And now we're hearing this big nice knot of beauty, of really going all of this is really important. Now tie it together and make it make it work. Yeah, it's been a journey.
Chrissy 33:48
Yeah. So it sounds like the puppy that you had in your home was a huge influence on you, personally and professionally, and then just a lot of other things that you've gone through in your life have really just shaped kind of how you approach work and life.
Alyssa 34:04
I think that's it. And, you know, I'm not religious or any way, but I am a little bit spiritual, and I do believe that everything happens for a reason, and I can really see how, pretty much, everything that's happened through my childhood, through my development, has really shaped who I am today. It's made me a big believer in, you know, no struggle is a struggle for struggles sake. It's, it's there to help you grow, and it's there to help you learn so that you become better moving forwards. And it's, it's a life lesson. I think that I'm most grateful for that one, because it means anything that does happen that negatively impacts you, it gives you almost the inner strength to get through it and become that better person for it. Yeah.
Chrissy 34:45
And, I mean, you could look at it two different ways, a struggle. You can either, what am I going to gain from this? What am I going to get from this? Or you could just give up. I mean, I don't, I don't want to give up and say, Woe is me. Like, how can I work through. This. So yeah, you have to definitely have that mindset of, how can I work through this? What, what can I learn from this, even though it sucks at the time. But yeah, yeah, exactly.
Alyssa 35:10
I think, I think it's, it's really important, and it's, it's one of those that I gotta say, teach, teach to my clients quite a lot of the time, because especially when you've got a more aggressive dog, you tend to see your dog's triggers, and you start having the emotional response as well, because you've almost got a learning response of going, what if I see a dog? My dog's going to lose his mind. Then it's going to be really horrible and embarrassing for me, and I'm just going to feel awful. So then even putting your dog out of the mix, you just go, there's another dog, I feel awful. And it's, it's really about going, actually, it's not a difficulty. It's it's a chance for you to learn and grow. And there are no challenges in life. There are just learning opportunities. Yeah. And so it's changing that narrative in your head of just going, Oh, that's great. There's another dog over there. How can I put in, put into action what I've learned so far to help us navigate successfully. And also, what does this mean I still need to learn. You know, I had this reflected back at me by a client just a couple days ago, and it was the most beautiful moment, because when someone can turn to you and just go, You know what? We had so many triggers on this training walk that a year ago I would have absolutely had a meltdown. I could not have coped with it. It would have taken me action. Taken me action, taken me out of action for weeks. I would have had to be in sick for work because of the emotional response it would have given me. And then for them to come back to me and just go, you know what we saw, like six dogs and 10 people on that walk, and every single one of them we managed to navigate, and I just went, you know what? It's a learning opportunity. How are we going to better this from last time, and she came back, and she was over the moon, and she'd done such a great job, and she was really proud of herself. And for me, that's that moment of just going, hallelujah. Like, look at how positive you are about this now, and look at how far you've come, like, not just how far your dog has come, but how far you've come in navigating those difficulties. That's just magical.
Chrissy 37:00
Yeah, and it's really, when you're working in the on the emotional level, it takes time. It's not a quick fix, you know, it's not a quick fix. And it's so funny because I do the same thing, like, we're working with a client and they're so used to seeing a dog and like, oh gosh, we gotta go the other way, or we gotta move away, or whatever. I said, No, no, this is, like, a great opportunity to practice our skills. And, you know, I get all excited. I'm like, Oh no, look, look, we get a practice, and they're like, Oh yeah, teaching them how to practice in a safe way, like you're not just throwing them in there and making sure they have the skills and, you know, looking at this is the opportunity to practice and have fun with your dog. Yeah,
Alyssa 37:46
it's such a powerful part of the coaching program process, because, you know what, what we do as dog trainers and dog behaviorists, you know, we're not just working directly with the dog. We are coaching the people to work with their own dog. It's that process of moving from the unconsciously incompetent, so the not knowing that you don't know, and not knowing what you don't know, to really starting to move through those four stages, until you're unconsciously competent, and you're making all of those quick judgments without even realizing it, and you're going, Okay, how far away is the trigger? What direction is it moving in? How intense is it? Where do we need to be? And all of those questions just happening like that in your head, and you just take the course of action without even having to think it through. And it's really helping the people to go through that process until they can do that. And once they hit it, suddenly their confidence shoots up, and they suddenly go, wait. I can control this. I can control how my dog is feeling in this environment. By manipulating the environment, you know, I have the power to support them through this, and support myself through this. And that's the real confident shift that, I think, is really when the magic starts to happen. That's when they suddenly shoot off with their progress, and they just go, haha, we're hitting goal after goal after goal, yeah, until they get to that point, it's a little bit of a walk through people of going, Okay, we've got to do this, and we've got to do this, and we've got to we've got to absorb this. But once they hit it, it just gets so much easier. Yeah, you said
Chrissy 39:07
there were four stages. And I Where did I hear that? Unconsciously competent, and I just literally heard that the other day. I was listening to somebody, and where is that from?
Alyssa 39:18
I cannot remember where it's from at all. But it's all about the shift that you make as a coach as well, from going from directional coaching to non directional coaching. And it's so you start off as the unconsciously uncompetent, so not knowing what you don't know, to the consciously incompetent to knowing that you don't know, right? Which is all kind of where you do directional coaching. So you're really kind of going this. This is how we can do this, and this is where this comes into play, and this is something that you can go away and think about, and then they start to shift into the consciously competent so they know what to do, but they still have to think about it, right? That's where you can start moving into non directive coaching, which is where you start more asking. Questions and just going, so how do you think that that trigger is acting right now? How do you think that's impacting your dog? How do you think you could change what you're doing to better support your dog in this moment? And it's after repetition at that level that they then start to make that shift into unconscious competence, which is where they do it as second nature, where they don't have to think about it. And they just go, Yeah, let's do this.
Chrissy 40:21
Yeah. It becomes easy, yeah, not easy. I should say simple.
Alyssa 40:26
Yeah, exactly. It feels like you could do it in your sleep, yeah? And it's, it's that process that we take clients through, that, I think, is, you know, that's probably one of the most important things I've learned about being in this role as a professional, and that's the big thing that I teach. You know, when I'm teaching other trainers or other behavior consultants, that's something that I always stick in the mix, because it's something that really influences how you work with people and how you can really guide them on that journey until they become self proficient. And that's where they can suddenly, you know, they can problem solve by themselves then. And that's what you really want to get. You want to get to someone that knows how their dog is feeling and what they can do about it in that moment, so that you know if their dog has another issue that pops up eight years down the line, they have the skills to deal with it. They don't need to reach back out, they don't need to work with anyone else. They know what to do, yeah, gives them that power back, and so they really live as freely as they want to.
Chrissy 41:24
Yeah, they learn how to generalize what they've learned with one thing to another thing. And it's practicing that, okay, this is what I do. Yeah, think
Alyssa 41:33
it all comes down to a better understanding of their dog, and it's understanding how their dogs are feeling, what might be going on for the dogs, and what they can do to support their dogs through that and mix that problem. If they get that sense of understanding that they're sorted, they know that you don't need to teach them how to understand every dog out there. They just need to understand their dog. Once they have that, that's, you know, that's the beautiful moment where you can just go my work here is done. You know what you're doing? Go off into the best life together. Yeah,
Chrissy 42:05
the one thing that's one of my favorite things is when they start to see, like they're out with their dog, and they start to comment on other dogs that they see. They're like, Oh, that dog over there is blah, blah, blah, blah. It's just, it's nice to see that awareness popping up in other, you know, contexts and situations. So that's always fun. Yeah, I often get
Alyssa 42:30
comments from people that just go, you've absolutely ruined me because and I see so many dogs that have hip problems, and I see so many dogs that are just overwhelmed, and before, I never noticed it, and now we can't unsee it.
Chrissy 42:43
I know it's Yes, exactly. So we share many of the same values when it comes to addressing behaviors and the underlying issue that's causing it. You've already talked a little bit about this, but can can you tell us kind of how you integrate nutrition and movement and emotional well, being in into the dogs and humans that you're working with.
Alyssa 43:05
Yeah, so it depends on how I'm working with the dog. So if I'm gonna kind of go through the example of if I'm working one on one with a dog and their owner, because it just allows for that deeper dive. And funnily enough, it starts off with a deep dive where we sit down, and, you know, at that point, I've combed through this dog's medical history, got a questionnaire that they fill out, and we we then go through for a good two to three hours about this dog's history, about this owner's history with this dog, how they fit together, what life looks like. We're really starting to understand this dog's state of being, and it's their state of thinking, their state of health, their state of diet, all of those things. We're really starting to understand them by understanding them. I mean, we're kind of trying to pinpoint what is the most likely reason for them having the behavior problem that we're there to talk about. So for example, a dog is aggressive to other dogs in particular. So we start off then by looking at the general, overall well being. And we go, okay, let's have a look at physical health. Let's look at diet health, let's look at emotional health, let's look at behavioral history. We're basically pulling together the evidence for each of those pillars. So this is a model called the Five Pillars of well being, and we're looking at each of those five and we're going, Okay, here's some evidence for you know, if, if I've seen a video of them moving, and they've got a slightly odd gate, it'll be okay. There's some evidence there for physical disturbance, if we're looking and you know, they're a particular party dog, or they've got a really girly tummy, or they've got loose poos. That's evidence for nutritional impact. If they have separation anxiety that's mixed in with this. If they really struggle with their owner walking away and leaving them with another owner, then we've got some emotional disturbances going in how they deal with novelty that would point towards emotionality. If they've got a strong behavioral history of this is that just the behavior isn't coming into play. What have they obtained from doing this behavior and then looking at men? The well being as well, and how optimistic they are, and how they deal with certain challenges to their well being. And we start looking at all of these different points to work out where we need to start, and the place with the most evidence is where we need to start. And we work through it in I like say it's a bit like a road map, where we start off on the motorway, and then we go down, and we start looking at kind of the big main road. So over here is the A roads, and then we'll start going off onto some country roads, until we start going off onto dust dust tracks. You know, ideally, we'll fix the issue by the time we get to the A roads. Sometimes we need to do all the work and get to the dust tracks, but it starts taking us down this way, and it means that we get the most impact more quickly. It all interlinks because of this well being model, because if we think about, say, aggressive behavior, and what it is, it is typically a signal that the dog wants someone or something to move away. It's what's called a distance gaining behavior. And so we then need to go down the circle of why? Why do they want that dog to move away, that person to move away, that box to move away. What's going on, what's in their mind? To say, this is a threat to me. Why are they entering that stress response? To go, No, you're you need to leave now we really then start to piece together this overall jigsaw puzzle, because that's what this is. We start looking at how all of this fits together. And so say, for example, this dog has a load of evidence that there is something nutritional at play. We then need to start figuring out how nutrition is at play and what we can do to shift that so that they can enjoy better digestive health. And in some cases, like, say, this is where the roadmap comes in handy. In some cases, that's the motorway. We get to the end of the end of the motorway, and our journey is done. We're there. We don't need to do anything else. And there was this one black Labrador that I worked with who was a gorgeous girl, but really struggled with other people. And she was okay with people out and about if she had enough distance, but people coming into the home was an absolute big no. She would follow them around, yell at them. She might snarl at them if they sat down, she'd keep barking at them for about 45 minutes to an hour, until she tired herself out to the point that she just couldn't do it anymore. But then if the person started moving, that stress would take back over again, and she'd just lose her marbles all over again. We did all of this work up with her, and we said, You know what? There's the most evidence here for nutritional issues, because she's having loose stools several times a day. She's quite a farty girl. She's got a gurgly tummy.
Chrissy 47:26
I like how you say farty.
Alyssa 47:29
She's a party girl. And occasionally she would vomit as well. So we had quite a lot of signs in there for gastrointestinal disturbance. It was something that I then worked with the vet team with. So this is something that I do quite a lot, is just link in with the vet team, and then we can really have that combined approach. We firstly just ran fecal parasitology and bacteriology to rule out ongoing infection, and that all came back negative. So that was great. And then we started actually looking, okay, what is the diet and what's triggering these runny stools? So first of all, great place to start, if you've ruled out infection, is to start looking at dietary intolerances and sensitivities. So that's where we started. And we started ruling out some really big intolerances, or common intolerances that were in her diet. So we did that just really quickly. We didn't go down the full elimination diet route, because that can be a bit of a headache for a lot of people. So we just cut out some main triggers for two weeks and reflected and she started doing really well. So we went, Okay, let's keep her on a fish based diet. That's working really well. We also know there's evidence out there, quite a lot of evidence actually out there, to suggest that omega three fatty acids, so really kind of quite dense in oily fish, can massively reduce impulsivity and reduce aggression. So we did a fish based diet, because it was a safe food for her and it would give us that added Omega three benefit. So we dropped that in. And then this is actually a case that's a few years old, and it's before I got as experienced in the microbiome as I am now, but we dropped in a multi strain probiotic. So we didn't do microbiome testing. We just dropped in a multi strain. We didn't do any of the work for a bit, because we just wanted to see how, how much of an impact that would have. And so we left four weeks just on that protocol. We didn't do any behavior interventions at all, because I wanted to see really clearly what nutrition was going to do, right? I mean, the end of the four weeks, and she was doing great. She had visitors over that she was still a little bit suspicious of. She'd follow them around, but she'd do one or two barks and then quiet down. So it was nowhere near the 45 minutes that it was we went, Okay, let's just give it another four weeks. Let's see what happens the end of that four weeks, they were having workmen in and she would just go, yeah, right. And she just went to bed and slept. It was, it was, it was remarkable. And they were going, you know what? We're really, really happy. And there was something else that they'd always wanted to do that they couldn't do, which was go to the pub. So take her to the pub, go have a pint, go have a Sunday lunch with her by their side. And they really struggled. They could just about do it if they went to a pub garden. Sleep. Outside bit where it wasn't as enclosed, but inside where it was bit closer together, a bit more snug. They really struggled with it. So the big challenge at the end of that point was just say okay, to see if we really are done, or if we've still got work to do here, try and take her to a pub and see what happens. They came back and they went. She was good as gold. She walked in there. She was nice and relaxed. They they learnt at that point all about body language and how to read her and how she was feeling like she was really relaxed. She came in, she lay down on her settlement, and she just went to sleep. And we had the waitress coming over, and she would just lift up her head and just look up at her ears, nice and forward, but really relaxed body language, and then just go back and rest after the waitress said, Yeah, I can't stress enough, we've done no behavior work at
Chrissy 50:46
all. I know, I know it's so important to to look at all those things, but, but the key is, is like, you need the professionals to know how to do this and what to look for and work as a team. Yeah, I feel like that's what quote, unquote, dog trainers should be shifting to. Is looking at, you know, not just behavior, the quadrants, the positive, the negative, you know, looking at the well being.
Alyssa 51:16
It's such a big part of it as well, because well being is such a wide encompassing field. You know, there's an awful lot to welfare, but I think as well, that's somewhere I'd like the dog training industry to go towards is one of more collaboration. And I think at this point, there are so many egos at play, and a lot of people going, Oh, I'm good enough to fix this just by myself. I can do this just me. And we see it across all of the pet industries. It's not just dog training. What I'd really love for people to recognize is actually we are stronger as a team, and it's why I love so much. You know, working with a vet team, because I'm not a vet, I do not have that experience or that knowledge. So I love working closely with a vet where I can go, You know what? I've noticed this. This feels a bit off to me. What do you think? And then, if they agree, they can go, Okay, now let's look into it, and then they can take them off on that Avenue, and we come back, we collaborate, we talk together to make sure that the client is getting a coherent plan of action, that they're not being led down to completely competing paths, but we're still getting that joined expertise of going, here's what I know, here's what you know. Let's make this really powerful for the client and their dogs, that they get the best transition in the shortest possible time, right? And it's when I find people that also agree with that, that are really up for collaboration. That's when we see the most magic happen. That's when you know this client can turn around in matter of weeks sometimes. And it's, it's really powerful when you start building that. It's what we kind of term over here, a multi disciplinary team, and we used to have them all the time in human health care, but they're quite rare now, and I think it's because of the funding. It's quite expensive to do it in human health care, but they work really well because, for example, if I'm working with a dog that has nutritional issues, and it turns out they've also got, say, pancreatitis in there? Yes, I can help out with the nutritional management of pancreatitis, but I still have a lot of shortfall in the veterinary management of that disease, right? And so it's great that I can just go to the vets and just go, Hey, this is what I'd like to suggest. Does this follow in with what you're planning on on suggesting, and how can we make this work so it's coherent? It's about being able to be humble and just go, you know what this? This is something I don't know. You do know it? Let's work together.
Chrissy 53:27
No, that's amazing. Well, can you give our audience? You kind of done that a little bit already, but some practical skills or things to look for in regard to behavior, if a dog is, you know, struggling with a nutrition issue or a movement issue that, like, might be a red flag for you, instead of, like, my dog is, you know, being stubborn or whatever. And you talked about it a little bit with nutrition stuff, such as loose stool vomiting. But can you give us any some other ideas?
Alyssa 53:59
Yeah, I think that there's so many. And because, like, say, welfare is such a wide ranging field, it's important to try and split it up into those segments. And you know, you don't need to remember the five pillars, for example, but at least try and think of physical health, digestive health and emotional health. And if you can remember those three, that'll get you pretty far. And so when it comes to physical health. It's thinking about musculoskeletal primarily, and so it's it's looking at how they're walking. Is there anything that seems off balance? So do they have swagger hips when they move? Is their slowest pace a trot? Do they really struggle to walk at just a ploddy rate? Or are they always running everywhere when they run? Do they Bonnie bunny hop with their two back feet? Do they not actually have that nice kind of separation of the two hind legs right when they walk? Does the head dip up and down? Is that kind of an issue? Because that's often related to some lameness, and it can be some joint pain that's going on. Is it when you touch them that they become more aggressive, or when you. Handle them, groom them, that they become a little bit more lashy, outy, or might try and nip you. And all of those are real big issues that, for me, would go, Okay, there's something musculoskeletal going on. Resource guarding is a big flag for musculoskeletal. For me, this is sensitivity. You know, a great paper came out in 2018 that showed such a strong correlation between dogs with noise sensitivities. So think dogs that really struggle around, like fireworks, big bangs, vehicles going past, and dogs that had musculoskeletal discomfort. So those, for me, would be huge red flags gastrointestinal like you mentioned, we've kind of already touched on so this is the digestive health pillar, and this is anything, you know, vomiting, if they've got loose poos. Like, loose poos aren't normal, and for some reason, they've become normalized for, oh, they've just got a runny poo. It shouldn't leave a mark on the pavement behind it, or they're on the grass behind it. It should be firm a little bit, you know, you can dent it with your fingertips through a poo bag. Please. Let's be hygienic. Mid tone brown, if it's consistently leaving a mark, if it's consistently curry textured, if it's a different color, if it's yellow, if it's got black in it, if it's got red in it, if it's got undigested food in it, that's not normal. So then start to consider, okay, what's going on for my dog here. And then thinking about things like, do they have flatulence, wind, gas, however you want to term it, then you can actually get a lot of information from the type of the bar. How smelly is it? How wild is it it? Can all tell you any great stuff about their digestive health. And then thinking about, you know, is it a gurgly tummy? Are they consistently looking at their bum, is there kind of a lot of stretching going on so that after eating, they'll be doing that downward dog stretch and trying to stretch out their belly a lot? Is it that they go hyper after eating? So for half an hour to an hour after eating, does their behavior become more volatile? That's another sign that there's digestive issues at play. Or are they fussy with food? Being fussy with food is often a symptom of something else going on. It's it's actually quite rarely, because they are holding out for something better. And, you know, I see so many people go, Oh, my dog's fussy with food. And it turns out, you know, there's a pain issue. It's not because they're waiting for a different food, or they're waiting for you to add cheese into their food. It's so often because it hurts to eat. So that's another thing to look at, and then the behavior signs to look for. You know, they're the reasons you'll probably be looking for a dog trainer in the first place. So if you notice that they're a bit barky, a bit bitey, a bit lungy, maybe they're more nervous, maybe they try and hide behind you. Maybe they can't be left alone. They're destroying things in the home, anything that is upsetting your life is probably a behavioral issue, something that should go into this. And then if you're noticing these trends, I'd really encourage people to let themselves be the annoying toddler, let themselves just go. Why my dog's being aggressive. Why to get more space from that person over there? Why because they're feeling worried? Why because they think that person might hurt them emotionally or physical, physically, and then why because they have a sore bit that hurts when it's touched? Or, for example, let's go with the fussy with food. For example, my dog's being fussy with food. Why is it because it hurts to eat? Or is it because they're looking for something else, and then, once you've got that, but why does it hurt to eat? Is it because they've got digestive inflammation? Why do they have that inflammation? Is it because they have a mild intolerance? You know, it's, it's just having these loops of why? Until you get stuck, and if you get stuck, because obviously this, you know this, is relying on quite a lot of knowledge to be able to go through this. If you get stuck, that's your time to reach out for help, or it's your time to hit the books and research. Obviously, you've got different benefits to each if you reach out for help, you're probably going to have to pay for it. But it will be quick. It will get you results quickly, or at least more quickly than if you did it by yourself. And it will get you better, longer lasting results. But if you did it for yourself, it's going to be much more affordable. You'll just have to be prepared to put in the time and make sure that you're okay with it taking longer, because it will take longer. But if you can work out how to go through those why cycles, you're going to find an answer, and that's when you can start to really make the truly impactful change that's going to shift how your dog is and make them have a happier and healthier life. Yeah, one
Chrissy 59:27
of the things I love about it is I love, like detective shows, like, you know, NCIS and all these, like mystery shows, because I love it. And that's what I love about, you know, working with dogs and and I am like the annoying toddler, you know? Why? Why? Why? And the poor veterinarians and but I think it's important to trust your gut too. Something's just not right. And I mean, I've had clients say My dog has two broken teeth, and I didn't even know they can. They hide things so well. And. Might just be showing something very subtle, but then you kind of do your little detective work and you find something huge. Don't give up. You know, if you know there's something wrong, don't give up. Keep looking and asking why. So I think that's really great.
Alyssa 1:00:13
I think that's a beautiful way to surmise it as well. Is trusting your gut instinct. I've listened to quite a few episodes of your podcast now Chrissy is great, the one with Mark beckoff about the science of intuition as well, about how do we actually use intuition in our work? It's really powerful, and it's something that you know science is slowly catching up with. I don't know how soon it will properly catch up, if it will ever catch up, but there is definitely this overlap of science and intuition. And exactly like you just said, if you feel like something isn't right with your dog, the chances are something isn't right with your dog. You know you should never feel like you're annoying your vet, or irritating your professional or kind of making a mountain out of a mole hill, because if you feel like something is wrong, that dog is your responsibility. They are your family member, and you will not sleep at night unless you really look into it. So a good professional will never mind, or they'll actually enjoy it actively. If you go, Okay, but why okay? But why just let yourself go down that until you've answered your questions and you feel better about it and you understand what's going on for your dog, because that relationship is something that no professional will replicate. And it's yes, I can walk in and be like, You know what? I know a lot about dog behavior and dog nutrition and dog well being, but I don't know a lot about your particular dog and your relationship. And so if you think something is wrong, you hold the authority there. If you say something is wrong, I will believe you. Most professionals out there would agree,
Chrissy 1:01:43
yeah, no, I love it. I love it. And that as a professional, like, if someone's coming to me and saying something's not right, it's still not better. That makes me better as a professional, yeah,
Alyssa 1:01:55
I think that's that's exactly what it should be. And again, it's kind of similar in line to what I was saying about the collaboration in the industry, something else I like to see is a lot less blame, and I see an awful lot of pet professionals blaming each other when stuff doesn't go right, or blaming the guardian for the dog when stuff doesn't go right, or blaming the dog. And I think we need to move into this space of more compassion, understanding that we don't live in a laboratory. You know, we we live in a real life world where mistakes happen, accidents happen. We have so much else at play, like, for example, if I give someone a treatment plan and they haven't been able to implement 90% of it, it's not about blaming them for not doing it, celebrating the 10% they have done and then understanding what's been the blocker for that,
Chrissy 1:02:42
exactly I was going to say, and understanding why, why isn't this happening? And because you're working with a human too, that's
Alyssa 1:02:49
exactly it. And I think that's also something that gets missed out a lot is, you know, we are all trying our best. The very fact that we are noticing something is wrong with our dogs and we're looking into it says to me that everyone is trying their best as a professional, in the case they are trying their best, we cannot physically know everything. Even in our areas of expertise, we still cannot possibly know everything that there is to know. And so it's being able to reach out to other professionals and go, Hey, I've been thinking about this, but I'm not too sure. What do you think it happens a lot where I work with clients that have been through 10s of trainers before and not seen results, and I will never sit there and blame the past trainers for not getting results. It's about being able to recognize, you know what? There are steps along the way that probably have just been missing, that someone has tried their best with and just not being able to do and I think that's something that if we could all extend to each other and have that empathy for each other, and just give each other the good grace to go, you know what? Sometimes life happens, I think it would be such a better place, and we'd help more dogs because of it as well. So, yeah, I'd really like to see that move away from blame and that move into more compassion and empathy. Yeah,
Chrissy 1:04:08
I think we've intermittently throughout the our our discussion, talked about the direction that we want to see dog training go. So we've covered that many different times in in our chat. So is there any any negative wisdom that you want to share with our already our audience, or anything that's weighing on your mind? I think
Alyssa 1:04:28
the big one for me at the moment is never dismiss them. And we kind of touched on this already as well, but it's never dismiss something just because it's deemed to be normal. For example, I see a lot of taxes, sub dashings that are reactive, inevitably, you have to go down the IVDD route with taxis because they are so prone to having these issues with their backs and having discomfort along their backs. I've run into so many people that just go, oh, well, that's normal for a taxi. It won't be causing this behavior. Or I run into, you know, Frenchies that have sensitive tummies, and they go, but that's. Normal for this breed, or German Shepherds for being protective or more prone to aggression that they need a firmer hand. No, just because we think it's normal for a dog breed, a dog predisposition doesn't mean that it's okay, and we can still do stuff to help them feel better. So for example, for the taxes with the back pain, it's investigating it, making sure it's well treated, if there is pain there, making sure it's well managed. For the Frenchies with the sensitive tummies, it's still going in and looking at, okay, how do we impact this? You know, the microbiome is incredibly powerful for that. We've also got how diet changes can support that, even stress levels, how that can support that, and then looking at the GSDs, the German shepherds, and going, Okay, why do they feel the need to be a bit more barky, to be a bit more possessive? What's going on on a deeper level, even if you think something is normal for your own dog. So if you come to me and say, your dog's always had loose poo, but the barking has only started in the last six months, having had always lose poo. Might be normal for that dog, but it doesn't mean it's okay. So look deeper. Never accept that it's just normal as an answer. Go deeper. Yeah. And I think another thing that I'd like to share as well, which is off the back of a client I saw today, actually, is you never, ever have to do this alone. Don't let it isolate you, because when you have an aggressive dog or a dog with these kind of behavioral problems, it makes you feel like you're cut off from the world, like you are the bane of society, that everyone around you is judging you, that they're thinking you're not a good dog mum, and therefore you can't go out the house. Don't let it beat you like that, because you don't have to be like that. You don't have to do it alone. There are so many other people out there that are going through it, that once you find them, you will feel so much better about it, and it's okay if that's your priority, because if you are letting it isolate you and you are feeling really down about if you are feeling panicky every time you think about going out with your dog, there is no way right now that you are going to be okay at supporting your dog through that behavior change. You've got to put your own oxygen mask on first. So do that help yourself feel better and then support your dog.
Chrissy 1:07:13
Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. With all the German Shepherds I've worked with, they've always needed a lighter hand and more empathy. They've always had some sort of medical issue. They've always had some sort of other issue that is causing them to show these behaviors. And the people have tried, you know, the more aversive stuff, because they just didn't know what to do. And so they get to me, and it's like, well, let's look at these other things, and then, you know, they're like, Oh no, and it's like, it's okay, you know, we'll just kind of move forward and go with that. But the dogs don't need a heavier hand. They need more support.
Alyssa 1:07:52
That's exactly it. That's perfectly said, Because I agree. I think all of the shepherds I've worked with have been more sensitive and less resilient, and they've needed that extra support of just going, Hey, look, it's okay. You can feel safe here, and like you say, once you've addressed the other issues at play. I mean, the number of German Shepherds we see with hip issues is through the roof. And if you can recognize that, support them through that, help them feel better, you won't need the heavier hand. It's it's a big old myth. I put it in the same box as you need to be your dog's boss in terms of dog myths that are out there. Um, no dog ever needs a heavier hand, like, like you said, Chrissy, so perfectly. They just need extra support. Okay,
Chrissy 1:08:33
so you have many projects and things going on that you have your podcast, and do you want to share any of those? And where can people reach you if they want to talk with you or get in touch with you? Yeah. So
Alyssa 1:08:46
the podcast is launching in january 2025, which is going to be me in conversation with my mum. So it's really pulling it full circle and going, we're talking all about aggressive dogs, and we're looking at the dog psychology elements. We're looking at the human psychology elements and overall well being how that filters through our first season. It's all ready to go. We're just doing the final bits of editing, and it's so exciting. It's going to be really great. So keep an eye out for that. That's going to be called the barky dog podcast, which will be available on Apple podcasts and Spotify. In line with that, we are also building a tribe of aggressive dog owners. So this is called barky dog squad. It is still in its infancy, but it is growing. This is a membership for owners of aggressive and reactive dogs, where you can come you can feel heard, you can feel supported. You've got this core pathway of the five step recovery program to getting over reactivity. So loads of webinars, tutorials, worksheets with me, with some guest experts that are coming in, and you get that emotional support as well. So we have, like, weekly group therapy sessions. We have loads of extra materials on mental health and supporting yourself through that process. And equally, you can find us on Facebook in the group reactive dog support and advice group, where we do, you know, we've got monthly Q and A's. We do master classes, we drop it, drop content in there, and we give you emotional support too. So at no point, regardless of budget, do you have to feel alone. You've got support out there. It's just up to you to reach out and grab it awesome. And then if you did want to reach out, then you've got all of the usuals. So you've got email. You can email us at info, at holistic pet services. That's holistic spelled H, O, L, i, s, t, I C, Pet services.co.uk
Alyssa 1:10:27
or our website is www.holisticpetservices.co.uk and all of our social media is at holistic pets UK, awesome.
Chrissy 1:10:34
Well, thank you so much for being on it was awesome to talk with you and have some like minded colleagues going in the same direction.
Alyssa 1:10:44
It's always amazing to find people with the same kind of approach to it, because I feel like it's getting rarer and rarer these days. The rise of social media seems to be cropping up the quick win dog trainers with the shop collars, with the prong collars all over the shop, and it feels harder to find those like minded people that are coming at it from place of empathy and compassion. So thank you so much for facilitating conversations and really encouraging this awesome
Chrissy 1:11:13
thank you, and we'll talk soon, I'm sure. Thank you for joining us today. I hope you discovered a valuable nugget you can implement right away with your dog. If you enjoyed the episode, please follow rate and share with fellow dog lovers who might benefit. Don't forget to take our How well do you know your dog quiz? You'll find the link in the show notes until next week. Happy tales you.
