Quirky Pets and How to Help Them with Jess & Scott from The Quirky Dog on Lets Talk to Animals

Anxious dogs. Reactive dogs. Dogs bearing behavioral scars from past trauma, abuse or rehoming. Sometimes these canine quirks are easy to resolve.

But sometimes our pets need more from us, their pet parents, to overcome quirks arising from selective breeding, high sensitivity, anxiety and other bumps in the road.

When is one intervention, such as dog training or western veterinary care, enough?
When is it time to look at other options such as holistic vet care or energy healing?
What is the role of pet parent intuition in creating your dog's support team?
How can animal communication be part of the solution for your quirky pet?

I talk with celebrated canine experts Jess & Scott from The Quirky Dog about all of these questions and so much more.

Find Jess & Scott at Canine Healing  
Tune in to The Quirky Dog 
Catch my episode on The Quirky Dog!
Enjoy Jess & Scott's "100 Quirky Tips"

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:12

Welcome to let's Talk to Animals. My name is Shannon Cutts. I'm an animal, intuitive and sensitive, aka an animal communicator and Reiki master practitioner for pets and their people and, most importantly, for our purposes. Today I am your friendly neighborhood hostess for the let's Talk to Animals podcast, demystifying, de-wooing all things, intuitive pet parenting and animal communication.

Speaker 1: 0:38

And, of course, a big part of intuitive pet parenting of really taking our species goggles off and taking a walk in our pets paws or wings or claws is building our pets care team and really taking a deep, heartfelt look into all of the different tools that our animals may need to adapt to life in our world, in our home and by living by our rules and adapting to our schedules and our ways of life. And a huge part of that, as for me as an interspecies, a multi-species pet parent, we have a red foot tortoise, a box turtle, a cockatiel parrot and a standard wire hair dox in our family. So a big part of that is learning about different resources, such as training and identifying where the quirks in each unique individual animals, personalities, where they're just beautiful, delights to be explored and treasured and appreciated and where maybe they need a little smoothing out or a little adjusting. Maybe we need to have a meeting of the mind, so to speak, or we need to add some tools to our pets toolkit. And so the moment I met Jess and Scott with the quirky dog and canine healing, I just knew they were my kind of people, because quirkiness is what we're all about as pet parents really experiencing our animals as individuals, really meeting them where they are, really recognizing that, just like us, they have full and complete lives that may include in experiences and relationships that happened before we met them.

Speaker 1: 2:30

This is the case for so many of us who've welcomed rescue to animals and to our families, and so I just loved the whole approach of recognizing the quirkiness and celebrating each individual, while also working to give them their best life with us and providing them with tools and strategies and resources that they can only get through us. So welcome, jess and Scott. I am so honored and delighted to have you with us here on. Let's Talk to Animals today.

Speaker 2: 3:04

Yes, thank you so much for having us on as guests.

Speaker 3: 3:07

Yeah, happy to be here.

Speaker 2: 3:08

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 3:08

Yeah, and so when you're listening to this, I actually popped over to the quirky dog podcast last week and we did a really fun episode, and so I will be including that link in the show notes as well, so you can visit Jess and Scott over in their neck of the podcastosphere and check out everything they're up to as well. And we'll talk a little bit more about all the resources you offer for pet parents a little bit later on, but for now, what I'd really love is for our listeners to get to know you. Yeah, so about your story and your passion for dogs.

Speaker 2: 3:46

Yeah, no, awesome, we're excited to share. So we both have been in the dog world along the same time. We just took very different trajectories. So why don't you go first and talk about transitioning from roofing to dogs, and then I'll do my brief story?

Speaker 3: 4:00

Well, I was during the 90s.

Speaker 3: 4:02

I was a roofing contractor and raising three young kids and a busy family and we had a English Mastiff as our house dog and I wanted to do more dog training and I wound up getting involved with protection dogs and police dogs, where I was putting a suit on and teaching the dogs to become more courageous and to bring out their best and teaching them how to bite, and that was a lot of fun for me.

Speaker 3: 4:35

And then I inevitably, as that kind of passion developed, I wanted to get a Belgian Malinois. So I got a, you know, like the police dog type dog and started training that and got involved and I was doing it was called Schutzen at that time which is a German protection sport, and then I was doing French Ring Sport, which is a lot more exciting, a lot more biting, a lot more control and so that just kind of that little bog. Once it gets you, it just started growing and growing. And so after doing that for a few years, I wanted to, and the roofing business had a seasonality to it, so there'd be times when it would be really quiet. So I thought, well, I'm going to start a little dog training business to fill in the dips in the roofing business. And also the main reason I did that was because the guy that I trained with all the time I hired him as a dog trainer and the two of us just trained each other's dogs every day.

Speaker 3: 5:39

Nice, so our dogs became really well trained and we had this little dog training business which was just there to fund my passion, kind of thing, you know. And after about I think, five years of running both businesses together I was able to close the roofing business and do the dog training full time. Originally I didn't think I was very concerned that I couldn't make a living as a dog trainer and be able to pay for the overhead that I had. So I was. I ran both businesses until I saw that it was self-supporting and it was able to do it. But that was kind of the beginning of this thing.

Speaker 3: 6:18

And you know, one thing led to another. I got involved in NoseWork. There was an organization that had just developed in Los Angeles. So I was kind of was able to get in with these people at the very beginning of the development of this organization and became one of their certified trainers. And then I moved, took that knowledge, moved to Massachusetts and started training dogs in NoseWork, which was a more fond recreational sport that any dog could do With the protection dog stuff. It's a very specific dog to do that, you know. And that's kind of how I wound up. Meeting Jess was through, I was invited to do a conference and speak on the NoseWork. She was at the same conference talking about trick, trick dog stuff and doing shows, canine entertainment. So that's where we first met, was it that thing? So that's kind of a general background on me and the dog. And you know that was just meeting Jess was what 15 years ago, and we were doing all this stuff for quite a while before we came together.

Speaker 2: 7:27

And I had been involved in the dogs around the same time. But I was much younger. So when I was little I didn't have any siblings my mom Brad border collies, so I was kind of like raised by dogs in a sense, and those were my siblings. I enjoyed yeah, I enjoyed that whole scene and I wanted to do something kind of, you know, more competitive recreational with dogs. And again, back in the early 90s instructors weren't as open as they are now to a kid, you know, like, like obedience and everything. They didn't want to deal with some little kid. So I got involved in Canine Disc, which was well known as Frisbee. Back then they didn't have an age limit, it was just pretty fun and really that kind of took off. I don't know how that all started to evolve, but by the time I was 15, I was the youngest person ever going to World Finals. It was like a whole big to do. So that was my foundation.

Speaker 2: 8:14

And then during college I went to the University of Michigan and during the summers I would do Canine Entertainment. So we traveled around and I did fairs and theme parks. I had the opportunity to be on the Oprah Winfrey Show and all of this stuff. And when I was at Michigan, I was actually in the business school, which is a pretty competitive business school to get into, and I got to tell you the first two months I'm like I don't want to do this, I don't want to live in New York or Chicago on a postage stamp, and I was like all I want to do is train dogs. So I became, I moved my major to a psychology degree and I did anal behavior stuff and I've been doing dog stuff ever since. And, like Scott mentioned, we had met at a conference in Wisconsin and he was speaking about nose work and I was speaking about Canine Entertainment and we both really just clicked and he had some ideas that he wanted to develop in New England and I came here just to help him professionally develop. And now we live in New England together. So that's kind of how we came to be and we do have an in person dog training business that we've been running for the entire time we've been together.

Speaker 2: 9:16

But about four or five years ago we expanded into the online realm because we wanted to serve more people and, you know, connect with people. That needed different services and different I wouldn't even call it methodologies, but this is a different viewpoint. We want to be able to reach more people, so we started our online business where we offer consults. We have a course called how to Calm your Canine, specifically for the more anxious cat. We do have a nose work course. Like Scott had mentioned, we offer a tricks course and then, in addition to that, we host the podcast, the Perky Dog Now and we're so grateful you came on. We're getting so much good feedback from that episode. Our audience loved it and it's just really been a way to send our message and touch people, not only, even in the US, but internationally now.

Speaker 2: 10:02

We hit over 200 episodes this past year and we're go, go, go and we've really enjoyed it. It's been another level of being able to, you know, kind of refine what we do and just serve people better, I'd say.

Speaker 1: 10:16

I love it and it's such a testament to the miracles and the magic that can happen when we follow our hearts.

Speaker 2: 10:26

Yeah, no, completely. And it's funny you mentioned the quirky stuff. You know, scott came up with it like we were just going through some ideas and some stuff and Scott was like what about the quirky dog? And the URL was available. And this guy, kevin McLoade, does some, like you know, backgrounding music. He had a song called the quirky dog which is our intro. It just all kind of came together very universally. It was kind of kismet the way it just came together quickly and we love it. Even on our intro we say the quirky couple ourselves. We feel like, yes, the animals are quirky, but the owners are quirky too and embrace your quirkiness Like so quirky yeah.

Speaker 1: 11:00

I feel like what we do in terms of our passion projects and our artwork is very complimentary and very similar in many ways Because, for instance, here's an example when I first started communicating with animals and learning it, I really felt like I was there for the animals. I wanted to be the animals voice, and so when my first teacher first introduced the concept of connecting with the humans, I was like oh, no out of here.

Speaker 1: 11:28

I'm here for the bats and it took me a while.

Speaker 1: 11:32

Luckily I too have that business and marketing background, but it took me a while to really integrate and create an approach where I really understood my role, when I'm stepping into an inner species, family's world and kind of being that objective observer and that on that intuitive level, kind of feeling out what's really going on here.

Speaker 1: 11:58

So I'm sure there's a lot of that in your work, but I love how you just your passion and your courage to say yes to what you really loved. And for those of you who are listening today and you're thinking, I have a real interest, every real passion, for dog training or for tricks or for I didn't realize it used to be called frisbee I'm very familiar with dog dancing and I just think it's amazing or for animal communication or whatever it may be. And of course our heads say, oh, that's not reasonable or that's not viable. And there's always a way to just start. There's always a way to just say I'm going to dip a toe in and you never know, one day you're going to wake up, maybe you're going to be like Jess and Scott and you are swimming in a big, beautiful ocean.

Speaker 2: 12:46

Yeah, no, I'm not even sure. It's just a hobby. It both started as a hobby for us and it's very fulfilling. Working with animals is very fulfilling.

Speaker 1: 12:54

It is extremely fulfilling and it's the best education that you'll ever get. Talk about psychology and action right. It's kind of like waiting tables in a way. It's something that maybe everybody should do.

Speaker 1: 13:05

I love that you focus on canine anxiety too, because that's something that my animal communication clients often reach out to me about. I actually did not realize that drinking water was a sign of potential canine anxiety. That's something that I see a lot, that many of my pet clients are actually kind of chronically dehydrated, and often that comes from the diet and from other factors. So I'd love it if you could talk just a little bit about kind of how you work with pet parents who suspect that their dogs are anxious and just kind of working your way backwards, because that is something that comes up a lot in animal communication as well and it feels like it's almost become an epidemic in the dog world of the anxiety and there are so many different ways to approach it. But I'd love to hear a little bit more about how you approach it, especially because you have the online course and that is something that a lot of our listeners are probably going to be really interested in.

Speaker 2: 14:09

Yeah, definitely. What would you say?

Speaker 3: 14:11

Well, I think that people initially don't realize that their dog has anxiety because the dog is being, maybe demanding of their attention and they're giving them the attention and when they're giving them the attention the dog is an anxious. The anxiety develops when you can't give them the attention and then the dog starts to get anxious and get stressed out. So a lot of times people will call me and say the dog is very demanding and they can't do anything because they need to walk the dog several times a day. If they sit, the dog will look at them and start barking and just really, it just seems like the dog is trying to communicate to them that it needs something. And they don't know what the dog needs, so they assume it's exercise or treats. You know they buy different toys, food, bones, they're walking the dog, they're jumping through hoops to try to help this dog feel more comfortable in its own skin and nothing seems to be working. And I think that it's counterintuitive, the way that it should be addressed. This is my philosophy, my perspective, because I use the analogy quite often.

Speaker 3: 15:21

If you met a guy and you went out on a date and he seemed like a nice guy, you really liked him and by the time you got home he had already sent flowers to your house. And the next morning when you wake up, you're being bombarded with gifts and phone calls and there's four messages. And why haven't you texted me yet? I text you this morning, are you OK? I thought I would have heard from you by now. Did you have a good time? Did you not have a good time last night? You'd think there's something wrong. You'd say this is a little bit creepy. And I think that sometimes dogs, when they're given this much attention, it repels them in a sense. They start feeling like this isn't natural, it isn't right to get so much attention from this person or anybody else. So we start creating a problem. But then it becomes a self-fulfilling thing where now the dog is demanding this attention that it's not. That doesn't even like in the first place. But you get into this cycle of doing it. That has to be broken.

Speaker 2: 16:21

And a lot of our clients would call it overexcidability, or. You know they need a lot of exercise and everything else. They don't necessarily come up with the word anxiety and we always describe it as the highly intelligent dogs are going to be the ones with anxiety. You know, the bulldog that's snoring on the couch, farting, he's probably not anxious, you know. God bless them. But like those dogs aren't the ones that are overthinkers. And it's similar with people too. You know, if we normally were very intelligent and all of a sudden we just are thinking, thought after thought after thought and we're feeling the void by doing something. So yes, if your dog's thirsty, that doesn't always mean they're anxious, but they also aren't comfortable in their own skin just lying at your feet.

Speaker 2: 17:05

So a lot of techniques that we use are kind of limiting movement. You know, we really encourage people to condition their dogs to crates, even if it's just to feed the dog their meals. It does not have to be. I know a lot of people see a crate like a jail cell and that concerns them, but it's nice for the dogs to have a safe space. We do this exercise called stepping on the leash, where it just limits options If they're nervous at the vet's office. They can't be darting back and forth on the leash If they're very reactive when the school bus gets out, they can't be running from the window to the door and everything else. And similar to Temple Grandin, if you're familiar with her, if any of your audience are familiar with her.

Speaker 2: 17:44

yeah, she had the squeeze machine right. So sometimes less is more, and we've seen that so often with the dogs and our clients are literally just like, just like completely blown out of their mind sometimes that something so simple, like, you know, just giving the dog a little bit less leash, or, you know, confining them by tethering them, or something they're calming down, because once they have fewer options, they just choose oh, I'll just be here and settle in my own skin, which is the goal that we have for, you know, ourselves and our dogs and everything else, and we're really big on promoting meditation through canine healing. And it's tough, you know. Scott and I both struggle. It's not fun all the time to put your phone on airplane mode and just sit for five minutes and deal with your own thoughts. But the more you do it, the better you get at it, and we've seen amazing effects that the dogs have just by being near us in that energy space as well. So those are a few of the things we do for anxiety.

Speaker 3: 18:41

Yeah, and you know it's interesting. You know Jess is talking about the dog being near us and how things improve Quite often if I mention this to a client where I say why don't you put a leash on the dog and have them, you know, at your feet? And they'll say I don't need to do that, the dog's always at my feet. The difference is it's the dog's choice when they choose to be at your feet. It's also their choice when they get up to run to the window to see what's going on. It's always the dog's choice. And I think the dogs quite often have too much freedom emotional, mental freedom and they don't want, they're not comfortable having so many choices available. They want someone to just implement some structure and let them know you don't need to be doing all that, just relax over here. So quite often, just putting a, if you see your dog roaming from room to room and if that's something that happens on a daily basis, at a certain time of day, say 435 o'clock, the dog starts roaming just simply put a leash on them and keep them with you and hang out on the couch and just stop them from doing that and then they will typically be calmer, just as one example, and sometimes it can get way worse before it gets better.

Speaker 3: 19:50

If you have a dog that is very strong-willed and doesn't, they're going to fight just like a kid. That it's talked. I've heard it's called an extinction burst with children. If you have a child that is used to having a temper tantrum and getting what they want and now you decide, okay, I'm not going to give into this, well, it would make sense that the kid would kick it up 10 notches because it always worked before. The reason why it's got to work this time. So you need to hang in there and get to the other side of this thing.

Speaker 3: 20:22

And a lot of people it breaks their heart to see their perception is that the dog is very uncomfortable. So they don't want to make the dog uncomfortable in any way. But quite often, if you can just stick it out until and we know, like we've dealt with so many dogs that when we see these type of behavior, these type of behaviors happening, it doesn't affect me like it would if it were your dog and you're doing it for the first time, because I've seen dogs get over it so many times. I know this dog is going to be better in 20 minutes, for example. But if you didn't know that, you might think this isn't right. I'm doing something wrong. I can't continue doing this to my dog.

Speaker 3: 21:00

So when you give up, the dog wins again, and now they're even worse because they've learned. Yeah, you can try that leash crap. That isn't going to work on me because I'm going to get all squirrely and then you're going to take the leash off me. You know what I mean and that's how it can get. They just get, and when they win they get more uncomfortable because they know they're not supposed to be running the household. They want to be our dogs. They don't want to own us, they want us to be in charge of them. I mean, that's just the natural order, you know.

Speaker 2: 21:33

And just to draw those parallels to the human world slightly, you know, during COVID we all lost our minds because we lost our structure. So dogs like schedules, they like structure. You know, putting a leash on them just to keep them within a six foot radius for a half an hour a day isn't taking away their freedom. And just like us, we like to know that somebody's running the ship. Like, ideally, america has somebody you know in the driver's seat and we all feel good, ideally a family, you know the head of the family. We feel like, yeah, we should follow them. If we have a boss at work, you know, and the dogs look for that too. They need to know that someone's got my back. I don't have to be the one stepping up. They don't want to fill the void, much like children don't want to fill the void.

Speaker 3: 22:13

The country might not be a good example.

Speaker 2: 22:15

No, I was trying to come up with something human.

Speaker 3: 22:19

I'm not sure if I'm trying to ship or not.

Speaker 1: 22:21

I know, I know, and that is a whole other topic.

Speaker 1: 22:25

It is so interesting though because it does feel like you know.

Speaker 1: 22:28

It's kind of an unnatural way of life, and I often get fascinated if we rewind just a few hundred years and we look at how dogs and humans, horses and humans, cattle and humans, donkeys and humans, sheep and goats and humans all different kinds of animals and humans were really equal, co-contributing partners in a work-life relationship, and now we've kind of lost that need to partner with animals outside of the service dog world, and so it's kind of a little bit of an unnatural dynamic going on. If we're looking at dogs especially, as you mentioned, some of the higher energy, high intelligence, high drive dogs, we've tinkered with their DNA for sometimes up to centuries, and we have created some of the intensity that they're now experiencing, and we've taken away a lot of the outlets that they had for expressing themselves and those drives, and so we've got a situation where, when we invite an animal into our lives, we're inviting problems to be solved, we're inviting new experiences that we have to learn about and we're inviting ourselves back into student mode, where we have to have more questions than answers.

Speaker 2: 23:56

Yes and student out about yourself. Scott and I are the first people to say we've learned more from our dogs than anything else in the world. So, and sometimes people don't wanna learn those lessons, but quite frequently our clients are learning more about themselves than even about their dog. So sometimes that self-reflection is a blessing and a curse for owners to see, but it's an opportunity to grow and to learn from your dog. I think they come here to teach us.

Speaker 3: 24:23

I was gonna say. I think that a lot of these working breeds and there are many of them that people choose to have as companions because mainly because of what they look like. Sometimes it's because they can chase a ball, but most of the time it's just because of the aesthetics of the dog. And since they're never gonna be doing the job that they were bred to do, I think that the basic obedience training should become a job, where they have a job. They're bred to have a job. They can't be herding sheep, they can't be out flushing birds out of the bush and pointing and all this stuff, because the owners don't wanna do that. So the obedience becomes the job and the dogs are happier having this job of obedience. And I have to say to you the word stricter. But the more precise you can make the obedience, the more they enjoy the job. The looser the obedience, the more they don't respect the job.

Speaker 3: 25:29

So I always tell people it's better to have dogs that do a few things very well than 10 things without reliability. Like, get some things really dialed in, hold them accountable to it and then, as they get older and as the training progresses, you're just raising the criteria to make it more and more precise in what you're expecting and the dogs love it because they know what's expected, because you've trained them, they get to respond appropriately and it's a relationship that, again, because they're working dogs, they enjoy that working relationship and it doesn't, you know, when you get into the dogs that are bred to work but not work with man, that's another ball game completely. When you have, like beagles that just wanna run through the woods and tree a raccoon, it's gonna be a lot more work to get that relationship and get them to work like a herding breed or something like that. You know, and the working breeds are overachievers.

Speaker 2: 26:27

We can bring that back to the intelligence factor or whatever else. But just like a student at school who wants to get the A plus on the project, they don't just want a vague understanding of what the criteria is to get the A plus. They wanna know you do X, y, z and they wanna hit that mark. And we know we own mostly Border Collies and Malinois at this point and throughout the time we've been together that's the kind of dog we like. They wanna hit that mark. They wanna know exactly their criteria and become successful. So we try to set that up for them.

Speaker 3: 26:56

But I will say- yeah, go ahead, go ahead. I will say this, though that the the least intelligent dog if you I'm not sure how to put it, but the very average dog of intelligence, or have way plenty of intelligence to learn basic obedience and do everything their owners want them to do. You know so, the dogs that you know, the board of collies and some of these other breeds that have exceptional IQ. You just need to hold them more accountable, because they're out thinking you half the time. That's how their intelligence works against us.

Speaker 1: 27:34

It's probably more than half the time, well, and it's interesting because what you're providing is what pet parents really want. We all want it in different ways. I mean, I have pursued opportunities to interact in a training setting with my cockatiel because it gives us something to do together. You know, it always boggles my mind when I look at the statistics. In a former career I was a pet blogger and a pet freelance copywriter and I worked in the pet niche and I would look at the statistics for how much money we spend on pet Halloween costumes or pet treats or pet toys.

Speaker 1: 28:16

And I don't know about most folks listening today, but Art Oxen has a huge basket full of pet toys that he almost never goes to, because, just like I want to have experiences with him, he wants to have experiences with me.

Speaker 1: 28:36

And so, even though training can feel a little daunting because, let's be honest, our fighter flight system, it likes the structure of what we know, it likes the comfort of what we know, and so we're always going to be asking it hey, you're going to need to stretch a little bit and try something new but ultimately we're actually providing an interaction that's very meaningful for both the human and the animal through the training scenario. And I can totally relate because, as someone who's naturally kind of high anxiety, I go to the store and I see 20 brands of yogurt. That's just too many choices for me. Three brands would be just fine. You know, one brand would probably be just fine with my level of skill in the kitchen. But also, I tend to be somebody that when I get interested in something, I really want to get interested in it, I really want to immerse myself in it. And why would it be any different for our canine companions, especially when you're, like, literally bred for it?

Speaker 2: 29:37

You bring out the intention kind of of, you know, just being together, and we say that all the time. Just put down your phone, be in the moment with your dog. That's what they want. You know it's just like your kid. You can play with them for two hours, but if you're scrolling through TikTok while you're playing your game, it's not as impactful as the five minutes where you're on the floor. So we are very big on give it your all. Whether you're training or you're just sitting quietly, be in the moment with the dog. And the dog really feels that intention and I think it's good for both parties.

Speaker 1: 30:10

It's absolutely nourishing for both parties, especially because I feel like we can sense each other's energy, we know when we're focused, and five or 10 minutes of really high quality time, that is heart to heart and you feel that and you don't need a tremendous amount to just feel seen and heard and held and known and safe and loved and accepted, versus that two hours you mentioned. But they're not really there. What are the messages you take away? And now you've got two hours of it. They're not really paying attention to me, they're not really involved in what I'm doing, they're not really seeing me. They're not really hearing me. I don't really feel safe. They seem anxious, which can happen a lot when we're scrolling on our phone. Well, if they're anxious, maybe there's something for me to be anxious about. And it kind of goes the other way from what we're intending. So it's not always about quantity. It feels like in our era of super size and enough is never enough. It's like, yeah, but five or 10 minutes of focused, quality time that can move mountains.

Speaker 2: 31:20

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 31:21

Well, I mean our dogs, I think certainly my dogs. That has been their lives. I mean. Well, my dog had surgery on his legs, he had the TPLO surgery. So he has spent the past three months pretty much in a crate whenever no one can be there to watch him, and when he's out of the crate he's on a leash.

Speaker 3: 31:39

So I go to work, he has to be in his crate. He's in the crate all day. Fortunately he was conditioned to be in a crate so that part of it wasn't a big problem for him. But there's a lack of attention between him and I and Jess and him and he's just isolated a lot. And when I get home he comes out of the crate and we will go for a little walk on leash for maybe 10 minutes. We'll sit outside together, I'll have a cigar. He'll be on his pet cot next to my chair if the weather is okay, and we spend some time together and he's fine with that.

Speaker 3: 32:13

He's not an anxious dog, he's not unstable, he's comfortable. And it's partly because of the way he was raised, because a lot of these dogs that have that type of surgery that have never been in a crate because they didn't like it when they were young. Now they just have to be heavily medicated for the entire time to keep them calm so that that leg can heal, which is, you know, I. Just we don't want our dogs to be on that kind of medication all the time. You know, if it's that's-.

Speaker 2: 32:40

But it definitely is quality over quantity. And this specific dog he would go to work with Scott every day Like he's got he's got he's got wingman. We joke about how sales are down because Jimmy can't go well, but you know he's used to being very active, he's used to getting in the front seat. They go through Duncan, they get munchkins together. So his you know one-on-one time with Scott has changed so much. But Scott's very intentional when it's time to have Jimmy time. At the end of the day it's Jimmy time. So it does matter and the dogs do sense if you're genuinely there or you're pretending to be there. You know Definitely.

Speaker 3: 33:13

You know I want to say getting back to that with the anxiety and a lot of my clients that's the kind of thing where the dog will come up and nudge the person's hand while the person is on a computer and they'll just pet the dog while they're working on the computer. They're not giving the dog any attention. I don't think they even realize what they're doing. What they're doing is trying to stop the dog from annoying them by touching them. So that's the kind of attention that is creating this anxiety.

Speaker 3: 33:41

You know it'd be better if the dog knew I'm going to get mom time or dad time when they're done with their work. We're going to go out and do stuff together. I don't need to bother them right now, rather than constantly nudging, trying to get attention but never really getting good quality attention. You know, that's kind of what seems to be the nucleus of this. I'm not talking about genetic anxiety, but more manmade anxiety, because some of it is genetic and deep and you know it's like that. They talk about the epigenetics, where some of them are really prone to it and some of these border collies we have are very prone towards being complete wrecks. They can be anxious and unstable, but knowing that when we get them as a puppy that they're not raised, so that that can be expressed. We're making sure that the dog does not exhibit fear.

Speaker 2: 34:31

You know extreme fear OCD, all that kind of stuff. You know all these things.

Speaker 3: 34:34

We're making sure we're trying to create the most well-rounded dog we can out of a dog we know may slant towards instability. So we're trying to balance them out from the beginning.

Speaker 1: 34:45

So I'm curious because there are so many contributing factors and I, by the way, I love that you brought up Dr Temple Grandin. She is one of my heroes, she's one of my just the people that I look up to most in the world, and I actually got a chance to see her speak a few months ago when she passed the QC.

Speaker 1: 35:02

It's a little quirky, oh, so quirky, oh. So my mom came with me and brought one of the books that we have and she handed it to Dr Grandin and decided she was going to tell Dr Grandin that this was her first book. What my mom really meant was this is the first book that we got of yours. But what came out was look what we have, we have your first book. And Dr Grandin looked at it and immediately she was like no, I wrote that book in whatever year it was, and that was my fourth book. Like it was just funny and interesting and I just loved how she sees animals in the way that animals see themselves thinking in pictures.

Speaker 1: 35:47

I really feel like reading her work was one of my first introductions to animal communication and kind of on that note, I feel like there's so many different ways we could go with the conversation.

Speaker 1: 35:57

But given that this podcast is about animal communication and intuitive pet parenting, I'm curious about when because you're working with humans and their animals and you've had experience with your own animals and, probably just along the way, being exposed to so many different types of therapies and modalities when do you feel like there is a case to be made or a time to suggest to that pet parent. Maybe we do need to bring in some other helps. You may be working with animals that have had past trauma or abuse. You may be working with animals that unfortunately haven't had that beautiful upbringing that you just described, where you know what the dog's tendency is right from puppyhood and you can modulate for that along the way. So what are some of the other things that you might suggest, just from your toolkit or from your experience to folks that are listening today that have dogs that they've come to them with stuff, like we all pick up stuff along the way? When would you perhaps guide someone to consider some other resources just to get their dog to baseline?

Speaker 2: 37:14

Yeah, one thing that I'd say that we would start with is we always recommend that you have a Western vet. There's huge value in Western medicine. We just we get blood work done on our dogs and our dogs are vaccinated at a young age and we do all the Western things that we can. We love the fact that an X-ray or an ultrasound can give us clues into something Surgery we just did on my dog Western medicine.

Speaker 3: 37:36

He wouldn't have ever walked in yet and we not had these needs done.

Speaker 2: 37:39

And he had full tears. We had no option. He was three-legged dog. One leg was dangling and then the other leg was dangling. So we love Western medicine but we can't devalue Eastern medicine, at least from our experiences of it. So we always recommend that if you're having digestive issues or allergies is a big one. A lot of dogs have allergies and, just like humans, allergies can be autoimmune. It doesn't necessarily mean that it's because you own a specific breed. It could be related to diet or stress or XYZ. So we often are just poking people in the direction of if you connect with an Eastern veterinarian somewhere near you, check that out.

Speaker 3: 38:19

We were just I was at the Eastern vet that we have yesterday with my dog and he did acupuncture and chiropractic and all these type of things. I you know. And here's the interesting thing is you know for me, because I've never been a big woo-woo type of a person.

Speaker 2: 38:37

We're de-woo-woo-fying things.

Speaker 3: 38:39

That was in the yard.

Speaker 2: 38:40

That is what we're all about here.

Speaker 3: 38:43

But we did. When Jess's dog was an inoperable tumor and he was, the Western vet told her that the dog did not have long to go and we weren't going to do put him through chemo. He was an older dog. We weren't going to put him through all that and we wound up getting into different holistic modalities like tapping different things, like that EFT I think that you spoke about that.

Speaker 2: 39:12

I know that you've probably talked about that in your podcast before the acupuncture. Scott had known about that personally. You know from his own human therapy and everything. But we did a lot of EFT on him. There's a Tactic pressure.

Speaker 2: 39:26

There's acupressure. There's a guy out here he does Tom Tam tapping. He has a hammer and he taps on dolls. We got plastic dog dolls and we tapped on them. We just did a seminar out in New York this fall. We brought like 12 dolls and we gave everybody hammers and we're like come on, we're doing acupressure and all this stuff and we're not sure you know how much it helped, but I think the intention with these types of things is so important.

Speaker 3: 39:52

Well, I think it helps the humans for sure, if it helps theand if the humans are calmer, the dogs are going to be calmer, and if they're calmer and whatever is going on within their body is going to move slower. So I think, you know, in Sarge's case, you know he lived much longer than we thought he would and the quality of his life over the last several months that he had was very good. You know, it was really only the last maybe seven to 10 days that it was got a little rough for him. So I doand the other thing is when you're going toand I got involved when my mom had cancer. That's when I got involved with Tom Tam.

Speaker 3: 40:30

I was seeking out other modalities, because all they want to do is when you have cancer is just poison your system relentlessly trying to heal you. And so I went to Tom Tam and there were a lot of people there that had cancer and he was doinghad the dolls and he was going around and he doesn't charge anybody, he's just like if you want to come, do it. And that's how I was exposed to him and I was a little cynical but I was open. I just like you know, let me say this I was guarded, I went there. I was guarded but I wanted to learn more about it.

Speaker 3: 41:05

But when you don't have options in western medicine, you know it's nice, toit's easier to open doors to other holistic things and try some things, and I think that just doing something makes you not feel so helpless. Your loved one is probablyis going to pass. Nobody likes that. You don't want to deal with the loss. You want them to be comfortable. Of course it's nice to turn the whole thing around and have your dog or your loved one live forever. We know that's not going to happen.

Speaker 1: 41:39

That would be wonderful.

Speaker 3: 41:41

Yeah, but it's just nice if you can feel as though you're doing something to make them more comfortable. And you know, with the cancer treatments, if you're in a, it's really a tough call. It's only the human that has it can make that decision for themselves. Because, you know, I say as a healthy person oh, I wouldn't want to put myself through that. But if I all of a sudden was diagnosed with something, I don't think Jess would want to let me go if the doctor said well, we have these options and we think maybe we can make some head figure. You know, but with dogs they don't have the option of making a choice. So if people want to keep them alive at any cost, they're going to put them through a lot with the Western medicine to try and keep them going, you know, and sometimes it's too long and we would just prefer the dogs be, you know, with us and just as comfortable as possible.

Speaker 2: 42:29

You know, and it's not that there's anything wrong with hospitalizing the dog or something else, but if they're on their last leg and they're elderly anyway, we definitely want them to be within our energy and have that time with them and everything else. And I think the bottom line is just to be open, right. Like Scott does EFT with people who had a reactive dog. Like you know, they have trouble, they have their own PTSD because something happened on the street and, yeah, you feel silly sitting there doing this with your dog trainer, but if you take a breath and you feel better after, who the heck cares? You know, just be open and think Exactly.

Speaker 3: 43:03

I was going to say you know it's not about the money and not doing these, choosing not to do specific treatments because we just spent 13 grand on this dog's legs. I mean he better live another five years at least, just to get our money out of the surgeries you know Right.

Speaker 3: 43:18

But if he was 13 or 14 and had cancer, I wouldn't want to put him through that for the last year and a half of his life here, where we're just going to be treating him with things that are going to make him sick, lose weight, and then try to get him back, you know, healthy again. I wouldn't do that to him.

Speaker 1: 43:35

It really feels again like a question of quality versus quantity and starting to tune in within what feels right versus the thought process. And what I was going to share is I don't even know, probably 20 years ago, I was introduced to Don Miguel Ruez and the four agreements and later on in the journey he introduced a fifth agreement. And if you're not familiar, the fifth agreement is be skeptical, but learn to listen. And I really feel like that's kind of where our heart tends to lead us and that's the part where we start to wake up to these other decision-making abilities that we have. And it's not all about the Western, the rational, the logical, the analytical, the white papers, the research studies, the clinical trials, et cetera, et cetera. It's also about feeling our way forward and activating that empathy channel and recognizing it's not a yes, but it's not a no, which means there might be something here for me and there's this love that I feel for this other being and for myself, hopefully, and if it helps, let me at least experience it and I feel like that love bond, the love bond that we have with our animals, what makes us brave and pushes us into areas including the what you just referenced, scott, which is sometimes we choose the comfort of our beloved pet over our own comfort and the idea of having them with us forever.

Speaker 1: 45:05

And I talk to pet parents every day that are going through their final transition with their animals or they are grieving a pet that's passed into spirit. That takes some brave because we all sign up for the love part. We all sign up for the togetherness part. We all sign up for the great memories part. None of us want to sign up for the loss and the grief part. Just skip that. Don't add that to my order. Walking through that and seeing how brave we can be to make really tough decisions because we love someone so much. For many of my pet parent clients I'm the only one they can talk to about pet grief. They wouldn't tell anyone else in their world that they're working with an animal communicator or doing any of the alternative therapies that we discuss and or some of the unique, quirky ways that you introduce pet parents to things that can help their dogs.

Speaker 2: 45:59

I'm so glad you brought that up with you because I was going to encourage your audience to expand your network. Now, like, have an animal communicator, whether it be Shannon or someone else you can rely on to be a sounding board in these types of times. I have multiple Eastern vets. Years ago our Pomeranian was in heart failure. She didn't tolerate vet medicine. I mean, that is the medicine for heart failure, you know, and I'm calling my Eastern vet. There's nothing I can do, oh my gosh. And he's like take a chill pill, like it's going to be okay, like we'll do everything we can, you know. So expand your network so your community can support you in times that are, you know, trivulous and they're very difficult, and not even just the final stages, but sometimes the decisions you make matter. So make sure you have that network in place as soon as possible. People care what everybody else thinks Exactly.

Speaker 3: 46:52

I would say, instead of buying a big, giant basket full of toys, invest in these contacts and develop a relationship with an Eastern vet and people that have other you know, because that's what for our dogs we have like a team. It sounds ridiculous.

Speaker 1: 47:08

Yes, no it's.

Speaker 3: 47:10

We have like this we have a wellness team and Jess has cultivated this team over the past several years.

Speaker 3: 47:16

She can get vets on Instagram or direct phone call just about that. Nobody else says that, nobody, they're not going to do that for any other client, but Jess has nurtured her way into this person's heart so that if Jess calls, they're like, oh, I got to call Jess. Like they come home from their run, they've got, they're done with their day's work, they're calling Jess on the phone to answer a question. And we have a lot of people like that. We have rehab people and we're going the extra mile for them too.

Speaker 3: 47:49

It's not a one-sided thing. Exactly, you're not going to get from people just by demanding. They don't need that. But we're. We try to be just as giving and helpful in any way we can as dog trainers and dog professionals to these different, because a lot of these people have trouble with dogs and behavioral issues the vet, the rehab person they need to work with a dog that is being aggressive. So we're there for them whenever they need us. But it's so great to have a team that is there for us when we, when we're feeling insecure about our dog and the decisions that what do we do about this? And they can talk us through these things, you know.

Speaker 1: 48:24

Yes, yes, yes. This is. You're just singing to my soul. This is a great place to wrap up today's conversation, because this is something that I speak with every single one of my pet parent clients about, with my animal communication students.

Speaker 1: 48:39

The modern pet parent needs a team. We're creating interspecies, families with these multi-level, complex, intelligent and unique beings who have deep needs, just like we do. And it takes a village when I say pet parents and I. You know I kind of struggled with using that term for a while and then I realized that, at its root, a parent is somebody that sees past the temporary whether it's the waves on the surface, whether it's a behavior disturbance or a health issue or two family members that don't get along, or a past history of trauma or whatever it is that's causing these temporary waves and sees into the heart of the full potential of that being and it's willing to go the extra mile and stay the course to help that other being actualized to realize their full potential, to be all that they can be.

Speaker 1: 49:34

That, to me, is my definition of a parent. That's a standard we should. We should in the mirror for as well, like how well am I even parenting myself? How am I even holding space for me to be all that I can be, so I want to let everyone know how they can reach out to you especially. You have these beautiful online courses as well, and you offer online consultations. I am absolutely delighted to have you and my Rolodex because, like you I am, I've got my my resources for myself and for the folks that I work with my students and my parent clients and I'm so delighted to add you to my Rolodex.

Speaker 2: 50:13

I do want to say about the team too. Don't just it doesn't have to be a board certified team Following your lingo and your audience, it's your intuition. Follow your intuition of who feels good. You know what I mean. So people saw, yet we have higher ups that have big credentials and people would be impressed. But you also have to connect on a heart level and a soul level with your team. So be conscious that it feels right. You're not just trying to say, oh, this guy's the best in the business, so I need him, you know. Be very conscious that you feel this heart connection with these people, because our team, we're friends with our team and we're adding you to our team too, shannon, we're excited. So the way I would say to get to us, all of our online courses are on our website, caninehealingcom and that's canine spelled out, not you know, the letter K and the new one.

Speaker 1: 51:04

And I'll put it in the show notes too.

Speaker 2: 51:05

but yeah, so you can get access to our online courses right there. The consult is right there as well. If you need us personally, feel free to email us, studio at thecorkydogcom. We're happy to field questions. If you happen to live in New England and you're in Shannon's community and you want to work with us in person, that's the best way to reach us as well. And then for the podcast, it's the corkydogcom. The latest episode up is Shannon's episode.

Speaker 2: 51:28

Of course, we haven't gotten uploading this Wednesday's episode yet because I'm a bit behind and again, our audience and our community was just really excited about that. Even people who would use other animal communicators were messaging me saying, oh, I really like term, so glad you had her on and everything else. So those two websites are the best way to reach us and we're very open as far as you know, people contacting us personally and everything else. We're really in it to help people as much as possible. We just want to make you guys feel as in harmony as you can with your dogs at home, because I know a lot of people are struggling out there and it's stressful. When the dogs are stressed, you're stressed, and when you're stressed, the dogs are stressed. So we're trying to lower everyone's stress level.

Speaker 1: 52:09

Yeah, that's the feedback loop. We would like to eliminate or at least lower the volume on. So, jess Scott, thank you again so very, very much. You've got a busy, packed schedule and life. I'm so grateful that you were able to make the time to be on let's Talk to Animals and share your story and share all your resources, and I look forward to keeping in touch with all of your adventures as well For you listeners.

Speaker 1: 52:37

Thank you again for spending a little bit of your valuable and precious time with us here at let's Talk to Animals. I want to encourage you to reach out to Jess and Scott if you have any questions. You have dog training needs, if you have an anxious dog and you need some tips and you need some advice. You also have your 100 quirky tips, which is really fun, so I will link to that as well.

Speaker 1: 52:59

If you are listening to this episode today and you have a friend or a family member and you're thinking to yourself man, they really could use today's episode, please do you feel free to share and leave us a review, leave us a like, leave us a subscribe. It helps our little podcast Work its way up the algorithmic ladder, if you will, and hopefully we can reach a few more people that way and offer the gift of animal communication and building intuitive pet parent care teams to everyone who needs it. So, jess and Scott, thank you again for being a part of let's Talk to Animals. Thank you, dear listeners. We would not do it without you. I can promise you that.

Speaker 2: 53:40

Hi, thank you all for dogs and their owners. We appreciate it Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 53:47

Thank you.

Speaker 2: 53:47

Take care.

Speaker 1: 53:49

And so we will see you back in two weeks for a fresh new episode. So for now, I'm sending you all my love.