Canine Conversations for Beautiful Behavior and Healthy Interspecies Bonds

Here on Let's Talk to Animals, we are champions of animal communication any way it can happen. This week on the podcast, we explore a unique and vital facet of interspecies communication with Pete Campione, author of Canine Conversations and owner of Kindred Souls Canine Center.

In this episode, Pete and I explore topics like these (and so much more!):
🌟 Why the word "training" can be so misleading to dog parents
🌟 The one thing you should absolutely do before adopting a new dog
🌟 How Pete began to understand his gift and talent for working with dogs
🌟 The impact of breeding for select behavior or appearance on companion canine temperament, personality and behavior
🌟 The importance of matching energies to gaining a dog's trust
🌟 What enduring childhood trauma and abuse has contributed to Pete's special way with special needs dogs as well as pet and working dogs

About Pete: Pete's lifelong love affair with dogs began in boyhood. During his rocky growing up years, Pete developed a seeming sixth sense that helped him gentle and socialize dogs even in the most intimidating of situations. Today, he works with dog lovers around the world, sharing insights into how to perceive each dog's unique personality and needs for beautiful behavior and healthy interspecies family bonds. Reach out to Pete at https://www.ksk9.com and find his book Canine Conversations on Amazon.

Chapters

• 0:00 With special guest Pete Campione

Transcript

Shannon Cutts: 0:00

Welcome to let's Talk to Animals. My name is Shannon, I'm your friendly neighborhood hostess for the podcast that all species can enjoy together and, as you know, every episode is different. We've been highlighting a little bit pet reincarnation, pet anxiety, pet high sensitivity, and it seemed just a natural fit when I received an email from Pete Campione's press team and they mentioned his book, canine Conversations, and it only took me like two seconds to realize that Pete would be a perfect fit for our show because he has this deep empathic sensitivity with dogs in particular and, I suspect, with all animals. But he fosters these intuitive, deep, whole heart, kindred, soul, two-way conversations, and isn't that what we are all about here.

Shannon Cutts: 0:55

So I'm just going to give a very brief introduction to Pete, our guest of honor today, and he's got a canine companion and of course, if you hear any chirps, I've got my usual sidekick, miss Petal the cockatiel. We're very animal friendly here, so you just never know who's going to show up. I'll just give you a little background. I just finished his book, canine Conversations, and absolutely loved his heart-centered approach to species equality and I won't say any more about that, I will just let him tell you about it. I love the name of his center, kindred Souls.

Pete Campione: 1:34

Oddly, the name Kindred Souls sort of just flowed out. Many years ago I was living in Florida and I was apprenticing as a dog trainer. And I was living in Florida and I was apprenticing as a dog trainer and I was laying in bed and I was reading a magazine and there was a contest and they wanted me to write a paragraph and I had my dog, Jake, laying there and so I had to write a little paragraph about my relationship with him and it just came out of my mouth. You know, I said Jake, he's my kindred soul. And as soon as I heard the words I'm like kindred soul, kindred soul, that's a lyric, that's the name, that's going to be the name of my school and it stopped. It was perfect because, frankly, there's no other species on the planet that has this sort of intimate relationship with humans that dogs have maintained this long. So it just fit it just. You know, it just fit perfectly.

Shannon Cutts: 2:39

So interesting because I had a very similar experience when I was naming my previous business and I was just having a casual conversation with somebody and all of a sudden the name of the business just popped out and we just feel that heart click right. Yep, it's like we just got a little. Download it feels right.

Pete Campione: 2:58

It's an intuitive thing, you know. I mean, maybe that's how, that's how writers work, is they just? You know, something just comes and it sparks. Now because of that I just carry a pad around and when I think of something I just I write it down really quick so it resonates, and then I know I may not be able to use it now but I'll use it later. Now but I'll use it later. But Kindred Souls was so perfect because of all the dog training school names, it just nothing encompassed my philosophy and approach, the way the word Kindred Souls is because captures our relationships with canines. There is nothing like it in nature. So it just, you know, and, like I said, it's a shift with the philosophy, it was just perfect.

Shannon Cutts: 3:53

Well, it resonated with me as well. I do feel like my interspecies family is my heart family. They are my kindred souls and also I love what you share about carrying a pad and pen around with you. That is one of the foundations that I teach inside animal communication. Adventure is what I call noticing practice, and this all stems from one of my favorite poets, mary Oliver, describing how she liked to go out and wander in the fields and often she would find herself having to race home because a poem had downloaded or an idea for a poem had downloaded into her and she wanted to race home and capture it before it got tired of waiting and went on to somebody else who was more ready to receive it.

Shannon Cutts: 4:40

So having that present moment, focus to notice what's right in front of us and I suspect that is probably one of the keys to your success in training as well, because of course, there's so many different definitions of the word training and I'd like to start there. I don't have too many trainers on. Let's Talk to Animals. Your special focus really sings to my heart, especially with your trauma background and an obvious deep empathic streak, and so I'd love to start there. Of course, you've written a book called Canine Conversations, so in your approach to training, I'd love to hear you share more about what that word means to you and just how you approach it.

Pete Campione: 5:25

Well, oddly enough, I avoid the word training as much as possible, because to me it's not training, it's communicate, to me it's behaviorism, it's not training. Training is so lacking in personality and individuality. Training I associate with methodologists, people who have one size fits all, that's. You know, everybody do this, everybody do this, everybody do this, and that's not my approach. So I avoid. To me training is really effective communication. So I would rather just call it effective communication. If you're effectively communicating with the dog and you're communicating on a level where the dog understands you, you understand the dog, and you're working in synchronicity, it's, you know you work in tandem. Training sort of involves, you know it's to me very old style. You know training where there's, you know, the sergeant and the private. You know it's very military almost. To me this is more of an evolving relationship and evolving communication. So I don't espouse to any. I don't like labels. I, like you know the freedom of communication because in every situation it's going to be different. So training, you know sort of limits. Training is limiting, communication is universal.

Shannon Cutts: 7:07

And that's the challenge, right, that's the challenge we both face in our work is describing what we do and making it individual, while still allowing for some structure.

Pete Campione: 7:18

I avoided the word training in the name of the school. This was actually Kindred Souls Canine Center. It's not Kindred Souls Training Center, because training, when you're dealing with dogs who have disabilities, when you're dealing with special needs dogs, when you're dealing with individuals, the behavior comes first. So that's why the concept of a center is inclusion. You know it's more inclusive for everyone. You know it's not just okay, everybody sit, everybody lay down, everybody sit. No, it's way more inclusive of what do you need, what does this dog need, what does this family need to do to speak to this dog? It's again center involves the philosophy.

Shannon Cutts: 8:08

I love the idea of a center I use the word circle in a similar way, I think and just the idea of this species, equality and mutual respect and coming together and actually learning from and teaching one another by example and with the vulnerability of showing up, recognizing. I'm coming here asking for help, I don't know what I'm doing. That's a big deal, especially in today's culture.

Pete Campione: 8:33

It's odd because people come in and they say I don't know what I'm doing, which is odd to me because would you buy a car before you learn to drive? Would you buy a house before you looked at it? It's amazing to me that people will take on a living thing and know so little about it before they invite it into their home for what could be many, many years. Now your cockatiel can live 25 to 30 years. I actually used to do, while I was doing dogs, I was also doing parrot behavior and I have an Eleanor cockatoo sitting right next to me, so I did bird behavior. But it's a complete different mindset. The brain function is different, but again, it's just searching for that pathway to communication. You can have just as much communication with a turtle, but it has to be a turtle talk. You don't treat everything the same. You honor, you have to honor the individuality.

Shannon Cutts: 10:46

Yep, and we have two turtles in this family, so you are singing to my heart. So I've got a red-footed tortoise and I've got a three-toed eastern hybrid box turtle rescue.

Pete Campione: 10:57

Wow.

Shannon Cutts: 10:58

We have a standard wire-haired dachshund who has has yes, he's become a real teaching assistant for my animal communication students.

Pete Campione: 11:11

So that's I've been dachshund rescue for over 20 years.

Shannon Cutts: 11:15

Well, your very first story in your book was about a dachshund.

Pete Campione: 11:19

Yes, it's like okay, this is my guy yeah, I mean, I had a dog last night named Charlie, and Charlie's a rescue and one of the most brilliant little dachshunds I've ever seen and very, very bright little dogs. But, again, unique. And you know, even if you have five dachshunds in a room, they're all going to be unique entities. They're all going to be unique entities. This is the thing that I try and get my clients to understand about their dogs, because I get so many people who come in and go. Well, my last dog did this. Okay, doesn't matter, but I've had golden retrievers before. It did not go like this, doesn't matter, but I've had golden retrievers before. It didn't act like this, doesn't matter. This is a unique entity. This is why research on dogs is so difficult. We infect them. The second we touch them, our influence over them, changes who they are. That's why, when I deal with dogs, I have to see who's the family. Does the family affect who the dog is? The family creates the dog. The dog is a pack animal. The dog comes into this world with the instinct of who is the leader? What are the rules? How do I survive? And how they survive is by knowing the leader and knowing the rules, but they're going to be fluid in each dog. If I'm dealing with a blind dog, the rules are going to be different. If I'm dealing with a dog with PTSD, the rules are going to be different. So you know it's honoring the species.

Pete Campione: 13:10

I always tell people do you have brothers or sisters? Yes, are you like either one of your brother? And 80% of them say no. Then why would you judge this poor dog against your last five? I'm on right now my third Doberman and my sixth Australian Shepherd. Neither one are like any of their predecessors, and my latest Australian Shepherd is actually the genetic niece of my last Australian shepherd Nothing alike. My assistant has her brother, nothing alike. You honor the individual just as you do with people. They get the same response and they feel that when you communicate, that ease of communication comes from the acknowledgement of that special self that they are and they can feel that it's all energy. It's really all energy.

Shannon Cutts: 14:12

It's so interesting that you share that, of course. We've had five dachshunds in our family to date, and I can attest to the fact that they have been nothing alike. The last two have come from the same breed lines. We're talking moon and sun here. Could not be more different, and deep down inside of ourselves, we are all walking around as islands too, and many of us carry with us, whether we're aware of it or maybe open enough to share it or not, but we carry the trauma of not being recognized as such.

Shannon Cutts: 14:44

And so a lot of our behavior it feels like with our animals is an act of my heart is in the right place. But my head is stuck in the past. My head is saying but that pattern worked with this other situation over here.

Shannon Cutts: 15:00

We're not present, Just like you were sharing as we opened up with your pen and your notebook, being aware of what's coming through, what kind of intuitive guidance, what kind of ideas are coming through in the moment, and you mentioned in your book. So of course I hope you don't mind me sharing it, but you have a background in trauma.

Shannon Cutts: 15:15

Many, many people who are drawn to keep company with animals, and certainly many of my students and me as well. We come from somewhat of a trauma background, to varying degrees and in different ways it opens our hearts, but our heads don't know how to follow along. So our heart's in the right place, but we don't know what to do with this impulse that we have had to help someone else. And I would imagine that's where you come in.

Pete Campione: 15:44

Well it starts. I always say it starts with the heart and then goes to the head. Had to help someone else and I would imagine that's where you come in. Well it starts. I always say it starts with the heart and then goes to the head. Yeah, you know, especially when people acquire a dog, they start with their heart and then it goes up to the head and it's like oh wait, a minute. I didn't know that For me. I had no idea why I could do what I did until I had to coin Oprah an aha moment. There was a movie out many years ago called Buck, about the original horse whisperer, but you've seen it. Is that movie not brilliant?

Shannon Cutts: 16:19

So good Okay.

Pete Campione: 16:21

That was my story. That's when I finally realized why I could do what I did. I never understood it. I always had this confidence around animals and I could always hear things and I always just instinctively knew what to do. And until I saw that movie it was explained to me.

Pete Campione: 16:46

A lot of us who deal with animals are broken, are damaged, and it's almost as though the animals are our way out. They're almost okay, couldn't fix me, but I can fix them, I understand them. And this puts especially for me, it puts me in the position of okay, look, I look at a dog and it's like I got your back. Okay, now, I just got to get your parents to understand what you're saying. But I got it, I get it. And a lot of times they'll look at me and go oh, you know me. And there's just this connection and I've had it since I was a kid. But it was never clear. You develop as an abused kid. You develop heightened senses of awareness to surroundings. Your sensory is fight or flight. So you have to be aware of a situation like that, immediately assess, diagnose, figure out to avoid the abuse. So I never realized I was doing this and that's how quickly I was able to then figure out what was going on with an animal, because I hadn't been honing this skill to protect myself. Yeah, so it just channeled. And then when I saw the movie and I listened to Buck's story, I was like, oh well, then that's it. Now it makes sense. Yeah, it just became clear.

Pete Campione: 18:27

I mean, I remember as a kid my grandmother had a dog. My father would never let me have a dog. I was not allowed a dog. When I grew up in Brooklyn we were not no pets, no pets, and I was the loneliest kid on the block but, god forbid, I should have a pet. But anyway, my grandmother always had a dog. And I remember one particular incident. It was Easter, the whole family was there. Dog had grabbed a bone and was hiding under a table and growling and all the adults were like no, no, no, I'll do it, no, I'll do it, no, I'll do it. And I was like I'll, the dog's name was frisky, it was a springer spaniel and I knew the dog I'd spent. So I said I, I'll do it. And everybody was like, oh, no, no, no, you'll get bit, oh, no, you'll get bit. And I just ignored him. I went over, I went over. I took it out of his mouth. End of story. He knew me, I knew him and he knew I was not afraid. Our energy matched. Everybody in that room was afraid and working on a different head level. I was working on his level and it just managed. I had dogs.

Pete Campione: 19:35

When I finally got my first dog, I never understood and I wrote about that in the book Joshua, my first dog. I didn't understand. He was the best trained off-leash dog. I didn't know what I was doing. I was just talking to him, I was parenting, I was parenting, I said it, I followed through. We had. He understood.

Pete Campione: 20:00

You have to take the time to let them understand. So, like I said, it seemed instinctual to me. You know, and it's the same thing almost when I deal with an autistic child. I had an autistic child in my class and it was in the middle of class and the child was having a meltdown and the mother was beside herself and she said no, no, no, I have to get him out and I said wait, no, and I stopped and I said wait a minute and I went over to the child and I said look at me and I got him to focus and he looked at my eyes and within five minutes I had him looking at a coloring book.

Pete Campione: 20:44

It's. You have to make yourself open if somebody is going to let you in, so you've got to be open in order for them to be open. And it works with kids, it works with dogs, it works with people and I think I wear my heart on my sleeve and the dog can feel that. And it works with kids, it works with dogs, it works with people, and I think I wear my heart on my sleeve and the dog can feel that. It's like oh no, I'm not faking it, I'm real, I'm not.

Pete Campione: 21:14

And dogs what I love about dogs is their total honesty. They do not have the part of the brain that is abstract, so they can't have abstract thought and lying is abstract. That's why, when people tell me, well, I just took my dog for a walk and he's still hyperactive, I said he's being honest, the walk was not enough. He's not lying to you. They can't. So you know, and I believe, through their life with us and their history with us, dogs have evolved. I believe their brain function. That's the only research that I trust is physiological research.

Pete Campione: 21:54

Yes, and they have looked at the brains of dogs now and they are seeing parts of the brain that did not function before are functioning, and that's because they lived with us. They're evolving with us, so we have to allow for that. That's why what I did 10 years ago in my practice I'm not doing today. I evolve every day. Yes, you know, people will say to me well, you used to do this, well, that's yesterday, and different dog, different time.

Shannon Cutts: 22:25

You learn you grow, add skills to your toolkit. I always remind my animal communication students if any of you are listening to this episode that we must be honest with the animals because if we are not honest they can feel it and they will not trust us and they will not open up. They are capable of withholding and they are capable of protecting themselves and so, even if we're having an off day, when we're communicating it's important to be able to say I'm sorry, I'm just having a bad day, can you please just bear with me, or I'm sorry. I'm really nervous about having this communication conversation, this practice session with you, because I'm afraid I'm going to get it wrong. And just be honest about what we're feeling. Then the animal understands. If we're in physical proximity, I believe our pheromones change the chemical messengers that we're sending out change, Even if we're at a distance through the quantum field.

Shannon Cutts: 23:19

the sensory signature of honesty is it needs no translation.

Pete Campione: 23:32

No, and I honestly believe also there is a certain empathy and a certain empathic process going on, because the dog can sense whether it's through smell or whether it's through energy, whether you are faking it or whether it's through energy, whether you are faking it or whether you're serious. And you can't do that with an animal, you don't. There's no faking it with them, because they're pure honesty. They're pure honesty. There is no. I love when people say my dog is being stubborn. Stubborn is a concept and stubborn is a learned behavior. It's not a DNA behavior, it's a learned behavior. Your dog can't be stubborn if you don't let it be stubborn. The thing is, to an extent you tap into nature, because nature does have a thread when it comes to canines, but then you have to break down into individuals and more and more and more until you know you're there Because, like I said, dogs have evolved. Dogs have come further in their brain function and in what they do. They are losing more and more of that old DNA and creating new DNA and we have to be conscious of that. If we bring them into our lives for 15 years and what's amazing to me is sometimes people will only talk to their dogs an hour a day, 15 minutes a day. They come home from work high.

Pete Campione: 25:03

I'm constantly talking to my dogs. It starts from day one and I guess that's also because of what I do. But my newest dog, louie, my Doberman, is only nine months. I'm constantly taking him out in front of my class and saying okay, louie doesn't know this, let me show you how to do this. And the next thing I know, I tell Louie what to do and he does it. And I'm like what the hell? Where did you get it? He just knows. And this is where that body language. See, dogs are nonverbal. So everything matters to a dog Visual, sensory, smell. They're nonverbal. There are no words in their head. We teach language and teaching language is an equation. Instruction, follow through-through, repetition, consistency equals behavior. So you have to follow that equation. You can't leave something out or the dog can't learn because they have no words. So they're memorizing as they go. That's their nature. Survivalism in a dog dictates memorize everything and, depending on the kind of dog you have, that's where you get into different brain function.

Shannon Cutts: 26:22

Well, because it feels like we've tinkered with their DNA, especially with certain purebred breed lines. We've changed their leg length, we've changed their genetic structure, we've emphasized certain traits, we de-emphasized others. Whether we know it or not, we seem fearless about tinkering with canine DNA, even if we don't understand what all the genes do. And then we wonder why this breed of dog doesn't behave like that breed of dog and why they can't seem to adapt to our expectations and our goals. We rewired them, in a sense.

Pete Campione: 26:57

We did. We not only rewired them, but then we rewired them and then kept rewiring and unfortunately, as function started to dissipate in dogs, we didn't adapt that function and redirect it. So I get people with who bring me huskies, and I've actually heard the phrase can't you train it not to be so active? All right, I'm like, are you kidding me? No, no, that's like saying can't you get the spots off of my Dalmatian or can't you make my dachshund shorter? You know, no, you need to know beforehand what you're getting. You know, I always tell people do you buy your car because it's red or do you buy the car because it's a good car and fits your needs? That's human arrogance.

Shannon Cutts: 27:58

And the other thing that really, really gets highlighted for me and I think, infuses the passion that I have for teaching animal communication, which is a sensory language. It's our birth language, it's our original language, it's the language that we possessed before we learned the words and the formulas, as you said, and the codes and the programs, for if you put a noun with a verb and an adjective and then another noun, that's called a sentence and at the end of it there's something called punctuation and that can change the emphasis of it. But before we learned any of that and the adults around us got so excited that we were learning it and encouraged us to forget about our birthright language. We all had this sensory language and it's really hooked into our fight or flight survival system, and so a lot of times it's a process of waking up, and for me the word empath translates to mean to feel as if we're literally to suffer with.

Shannon Cutts: 28:54

And when I look at my cockatiel or my red-footed tortoise, who's supposed to be in the jungles and grasslands of South America, or our dachshund, who's a wire-haired working dog breed mom won't listen to this podcast, so I can freely say what were you thinking, and I look at them and I look around at our artificial world, artificial lighting, our artificial seasons, our artificial schedules, our crazy little electronic pets that are competing for our attention, and I think, don't you feel the frustration and the confusion of an animal who has millennia of wiring? Before we were even a gleam in the eye of the primordial soup as Homo sapiens, the prototypes for all of our companion animals were already up and running and doing probably fairly well without us, and now we bring them into our artificial world and expect them to just get it. And it's like no, they really, really, really don't so much of the way that we live. Our DNA hasn't even caught up yet. Our DNA hasn't even caught up with our technology.

Shannon Cutts: 29:56

We get into stress and anxiety and PTSD and trauma because we feel like we can't cope with our world. Well then, how is our animal supposed to cope? Well?

Pete Campione: 30:05

we've taken a highly social, pack-oriented animal that's very much got a social structure like our own and then we bring them into our home and we don't allow them to be part of the social structure. And I think this is why people say to me your dogs listen. So it's because they're my family. They're always with me, they're always we move together. Even if it's just I'm going out to my training building, the dogs come with me. It's a pack, there's a dynamic and you have to honor that and a lot of dogs don't. It's kind of like if you played piano and you didn't practice. If you don't keep your communication with your dog consistent and constant, they're going to lose that concept of communication. First you teach it and you say, hey, look, we're talking here, we're going back and forth and once you have that, that's opened the door to limitless possibilities. But you have to keep it up, you have to maintain it and it. And it's funny because you, in doing that, certain dogs are more prone to communication than others. Your dachshunds, for example, are a highly independent breed and but that's DNA, because they are the only, the only ter and they're part of the terrier family. They are the only subgroup of dogs that was bred to work, hunt and kill independently. They do it on their own. Every other sporting dog works with someone, not them. They work on their own. So what does that mean to the human? Well, if I'm going to communicate to that dog, I have to tap into prey drive, I have to tap into what I have to allow that dog to be independent. You don't push a dachshund, you don't push you nudge. Dachshunds have to think it's their idea. So that's where schmoozing comes in and I love that. I love their personalities. To me that's character. I enjoy that. I enjoy a dog that looks at me and goes yeah, mate, you know I like that because it's back and forth. You know I like that because it's back and forth, it's communication and it's like we work it out. Yeah, ok, there's no rule for emotion, as much as there is parenting. I mean you don't get angry when you teach. You don't get angry when a dog makes a mistake. You fix it. You have to let them know you're supporting, not punishing, because they feel that there's a difference. Then they're able to take oh, you wanted this, not that, and it's less offensive, it's more likely to stick if they believe it. That's why, when I work with dogs who have severe fear issues, I let the dog make the decision. Are you ready for me yet? Are you ready to come out? Are you ready to do this?

Pete Campione: 33:25

I got a kiss last night from a dog who made me cry, from a Malinois who was shut down. I had said to the owner, I said, before that dog leaves here, that dog is going to wag its tail and that dog's going to give me a kiss. Sure enough, last night the dog graduated and I'm going to cry now and the dog wagged its tail and gave me the kiss and I swear on my mother. I heard the words thank you. Of course you did. I heard the words thank you. I get it, and it could be me, I don't know, but that's what I hear.

Pete Campione: 34:03

The story in my book about Martin. Martin was the reason for the book, because here was this German shepherd who spent his life in a concentration camp and after all the work I did, just for no reason jumped in my lap, knocked my glasses off, showered me with kisses and all I kept hearing was thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. You know, the owner was in tears. She said that dog has never done that before and that to me was a proactive communication from the dog.

Pete Campione: 34:37

There was signs will say dogs only do things to get something. That dog got nothing from me. That dog was thanking me. There was nothing. That dog got out of that situation and that's where this whole concept of what I do comes in, because I do believe that their part of the brain that feels is growing. That was proactive communication. That dog wasn't begging for a treat, that dog was saying thank you. That dog came to me. So you know it's and I just find it fascinating. I find it absolutely fascinating. I mean, I am so lucky and blessed to do what I love.

Shannon Cutts: 35:21

Sure, yeah, I feel the same way and I do feel blessed that most of the human animals who cross my path and maybe you can resonate with this as well despite some of the frustrating experiences, the majority of human animals who cross my path crave a deeper, closer connection and often crave permission to open up, to feel more, to stop and be more, rather than this doing, doing, doing that.

Shannon Cutts: 35:54

Our culture seems to encourage this domestication, as Don Miguel Ruiz, one of my mentors, talks about, where we're just achieving more and consuming more. It's like, no, I want to be with my dog because I feel better when we're together, but it's like then, making space for it, making time for it and recognizing what does my dog need in order for it to be a positive experience for both of us. And a lot of times that comes back to recognizing that we don't really understand our wiring. There's a huge part of the new animal communication adventure program that I'm developing that actually talks about the neurobiology, of what makes two-way interspecies communication possible. In other words, what do all these bells and whistles do? And I don't know if you find that in your dog communication program, if you find that as well.

Pete Campione: 36:42

Interspecies communication possible, in other words, what?

Shannon Cutts: 36:43

do all these bells and whistles do? And I don't know if you find that in your dog communication program. If you find that as well, that humans who come in maybe, who are locked down or emotionally distant or traumatized themselves or judging themselves or they've have been judged by someone else, why can't you just control your animal? What's wrong with you that you can't train this dog? And they come in and maybe through experiencing the work that you do and seeing a different model of how humans and dogs can cohabitate together, maybe they start to open up as well.

Shannon Cutts: 37:09

I think there was a part in your book where you talk about experiencing and this is a huge part of my work and it's a passion project for me. I call it soul agreements, but I loved how you shared that you had met a dog that you just felt like was an old soul, like their natural teacher. So some of these dogs, maybe they come through and they have trauma and the job is to drag their human to come and meet you so that they can start to open up. Does that resonate at all? Because I find that sometimes with my students.

Pete Campione: 37:41

When I take a dog from an owner and the dog say that the owner is having trouble communicating and getting the dog to follow the instruction or to follow their teaching, I take the dog and the dog listens to me on the first time and the owner looks at me and I it's not magic. I said I was clearly communicated. I said, look, and this is where I try to empower the students and empower the dog families to understand, don't you see, if your dog will do it with me, think of how much it wants to do it with you. But you're not communicating and getting into the dog's heart and soul. So they believe you. The dog believes me. It doesn't believe you. Yet and this is where I have to juggle and say look, the dog needs more from you. He's saying that you give him more.

Pete Campione: 38:46

When a dog does something for me, I'm showing you the possibility of what it can do for you. That's a good thing. People are always like, oh well, sure, you're the trainer, he got no. But I'm showing you that this is what your dog can do for you. And I've had many people come to me and say I am so, so much happier around my dog now that my dog listens and of course, that always brings on the waterworks for me, because I always look at an arc. I look at how a dog comes in and how a dog leaves, and I've had dogs literally hiding under chairs the first week and at the end they're walking out, wagging their tail and jumping on everybody and that's like full circle.

Pete Campione: 39:36

But the process is getting the people to understand. The dog will tell you what they need. If you listen, the dog tells you I need this. The dog tells you if you're doing something right, you have to listen. That's part of my job. I've always been able to hear what they need. You know getting people to look at what they're doing. They're telling you if you're doing it right. The dog will never lie. If you're giving them enough, they're going to give it back to you. If you're not giving them enough, they can't give it back to you. It's got to be equal. It's like playing tennis you hit the ball to them, they hit it right back.

Shannon Cutts: 40:17

And it's got to be reassuring for your students, for your human students, to have somebody in their life who can help them simplify what has become probably, in their head, a very complicated problem.

Pete Campione: 40:35

And what I find is the relief of and the rewards of that communication, because then they're able to enjoy the dog before they communicate. It's this disconnect and this adversarial, almost adversarial quality to their relationship. And then when somebody leaves and said it's such a pleasure to bring my, I can bring my dog places, now he can go with me. I said, well, that's. I always open up by telling people the first night of a class your dogs are a member of your family and should be able to go anywhere with you that you're invited. Your dog should be able to go and my job is to get your dog in a position to go with you. And that way you're creating that whole path, because they are social beings, they're just like us, without the words. Without the words.

Shannon Cutts: 41:34

Couldn't have said it better. And I love both. I love the synergy between the work that I do and the work that you do, because I feel like so many of our animals, definitely our dogs, our cats, our parrots, our turtles. Even we put them in the position of having to learn and memorize as many human words and their approximate meanings as they can to try to communicate with us, because we're not meeting them at least halfway by reconnecting with our sensory language. Curious, do?

Pete Campione: 42:07

you feel that intuitiveness is instinctual or learned, or a combination of both. It's both.

Shannon Cutts: 42:17

It comes hardwired. I call it the iOS, the intuitive operating system. It's hardwired into our fight or flight. It's like a traffic light system.

Shannon Cutts: 42:26

We've all had vibes, aha moments, hunches, gut instincts do that, don't do that, don't buy that car, do adopt this dog, whatever it is. It's like an instinct. It's just something that we know, and the way I describe that wiring is it's something that you know, that you know. You don't know how you know it. You didn't know it a moment ago. Now you can't unknow it, and nothing your left brain mind says can talk you out of knowing what you know. That's intuition.

Shannon Cutts: 42:53

However, just like any other pattern, just like you, so neatly lined out for us, if we don't use it, first of all, we don't recognize what it is and we'll never develop any real interest in developing a relationship with it and we won't trust it. And then that's why, for many of us, it only arises in deep trauma or crisis situations. And it's like well, something just told me that this child was trapped under a car and I went over and I lifted it somehow. And it's like well, something just told me that this child was trapped under a car and I went over and I lifted it somehow and it's like but that seems so random because we don't ever see the smaller, everyday, intuitive, instinctual, sensory just being able to stand in a room and feel somebody's eyes staring at you even though they're behind you. Something told us, and when we turn around, we're right. What was that? And getting curious, noticing, wondering, getting curious, keeping notes, so that becomes that structured process of recoding it back into our everyday way of life.

Pete Campione: 43:53

But do you agree that it's also a muscle that needs to be flexed and work Absolutely. You know, because I did a lot of people who just talk to their dogs. When they want the dog to do something or when they really, really want the dog to listen, then they take the time. The rest of the time the dog is just there.

Shannon Cutts: 44:13

Yeah, it's like a phone. These have become our new pet. Those of you who are listening to the audio. I just held up my smartphone. I forget, because I'm chatting with Pete here on video. But yeah, we've just packed our lives so full. As human animals, we behave as if we're not connected to the whole and we really don't belong here. We almost behave like an invasive species when in reality we are still connected. And you touched on this. Animals, especially dogs, have evolved further and further away from their function as our partners in work, in life, and not so many years ago, landholders were bringing their livestock into their homes with them in the winter to share warmth, to keep them alive, because they were so valuable. Now, if we want to keep company with animals most of us the only way to really do that is to get a pet.

Pete Campione: 45:01

So by Australian shepherds. People see them and they see how well behaved they are and they're highly, highly empathic dogs. These are dogs that work at a distance. Their brains are extremely developed to high level problem solving. Are they good pets? No, they're not dogs to sit around the house all day. Yeah, I didn't have my job, I would not have dobermans and australian shepherds. They are working breeds who is the wire?

Shannon Cutts: 45:34

haired dachshund actually the wire here sitting on the couch right now I know, but but the sense of humor.

Pete Campione: 45:40

I'm sorry, I know. I just find it absolutely hilarious, because when you tell a doxin to do something, the first thing they do is look around to see if anybody else can do it. It's like, oh, you're talking to me, you want me to do that? Wait a minute. Okay, I guess I have to do it. No one else is here. I love that. I find that character.

Shannon Cutts: 46:01

It's hilarious.

Pete Campione: 46:02

It's just like who they are. It's not good or bad, it's just. You know. It's no different than who I am as a person, it's just part of us.

Shannon Cutts: 46:14

One of my mentors used to describe it as we all just come from different pots of energy.

Pete Campione: 46:19

Exactly, exactly, exactly.

Shannon Cutts: 46:21

So when we were chatting before I hit record, you were mentioning that you have actually had experiences, have sought out experiences, in addition to your obvious innate ability to communicate telepathically with dogs and other species. I have a.

Pete Campione: 46:38

Eleanora cockatoo. She's a rescue. I've had her since she was 13 and we got her 20 years ago, so she's probably 35. Her name is Daphne and she's being very quiet right now.

Shannon Cutts: 46:54

Yeah, so is my little one.

Pete Campione: 46:56

They must be connected Again to not honor an approach when dealing with a parrot as opposed to a dog is a different brain function. Parrots are still not domesticated, so you cannot just assume that and that's again human arrogance. We bring them into our home and we expect them to just be what we want them to be.

Pete Campione: 47:20

No, it doesn't work that way, but I've dealt with a lot. There are certain dogs I've had where I didn't understand something that was going on and I would call someone like you and I would say all right, what the hell is going on in this one's head? I will never forget my first experience, and it was with. I had mentioned Lydia Hibby, and it was her and she was reading my dog Jake, and all of a sudden she said to me well, the first thing he's saying is he wants more cantaloupe. What is that? And I turned white. Who says to anybody with a dog that your dog wants more cantaloupe? Honest thing in the world to say. But sure enough, the week before I had left a half a cantaloupe on a coffee table, didn't finish eating it, Jake grabbed it, ate it and now he was telling her he wants more. So there was no way. That came out of nowhere. No way, Absolutely no way.

Shannon Cutts: 48:27

And I love that because that's the exact thing that I tell my students is, when we're practicing and we're taking notes, because usually it's in real time, we don't want to miss anything. So we have this discipline of taking notes about what the animal is sharing and I say be sure to write down the thing that you think is too weird or couldn't possibly be true, or the the thing that isn't like all the rest, because chances are that's the good stuff yeah, and the other thing, the other thing she followed that with is she said he's tired of being mistaken for a girl and I had brought him.

Pete Campione: 49:02

Every time I had brought him out, he was beautiful, so naturally beautiful dogs. Oh, isn't she beautiful? And if I heard it once a day, I heard it 10 times a day. And sure enough, she comes around, she says he can't stand that, he's tired of being called a girl. And I'm like, okay, I'm hooked. Now I'm hooked. But again, I've always thought it was like the example I gave you before with the dog with the bone. I could just look at his eyes and say, no, he's not going to bother me, he's not going to, he's not going to hurt me. And he didn't. And I it's, I it's. It's very funny. People say aren't you afraid of getting bit? No, they tell me, they'll tell me if they, if they're too afraid for me to come in, they'll tell me. Otherwise, I I've had dogs that have bitten eight people and they've curled up in my lap. Yeah, doesn't negate the fact that they've bitten eight people, but they didn't bite me and it's just something, it's a feeling and I don't question it, I just accept it. That's good.

Shannon Cutts: 50:04

That's good. Once upon a time, sensory language is the only way we had to get our needs met. It was the only way that we had to survive before we learned, whatever our birth language was, whatever our original spoken verbal language was. And I find this so fascinating because, yes, you have this innate ability and very key, you're very aware of it and you trust it. That's really important. However, it also speaks to the fact that this is what I share with my students. I say we're never too advanced to learn something new. We always want to come with that empty cup and that present moment awareness to learn something new. We always want to come with that empty cup and that present moment awareness to learn something new. We're also never too broken to have something to share and something to teach. I often share with my pet parent clients.

Shannon Cutts: 50:47

I say who else is on your dog's or your cat's or your bird's well-pet team? We need a team. Typically, we need a variety of experts that we can turn to. It's not to say that we're on the phone or on Zoom with them every week, but just because I'm an animal communicator doesn't mean that I am not going to ask one of my colleagues to talk with my animals. It's not unlike therapy in that way.

Shannon Cutts: 51:15

Sometimes I'm too close to a situation or we're mirroring each other because we have similar stuff trauma or buttons that we're working through and so it's beautiful to have that humility that you just expressed to say well, I'm an expert, this comes very naturally, and yet I feel like in this situation I could really use an objective input, I could really use some support, and that's something else where I feel like having these group classes, whether it's dog communication or it's animal communication in general or it's something else. So often when an animal guardian or a pet parent comes to us, they come feeling depleted, isolated, sometimes embarrassed, frustrated, humiliated, judged, and it's like they don't know that what they're going through is normal if they don't know what you or I now know and have learned, so it's like it's okay.

Pete Campione: 52:08

Yeah, there's trauma.

Shannon Cutts: 52:08

Yeah, there's issues, but we can work on that. It's okay. I'm glad you're here.

Pete Campione: 52:14

But don't you feel that it's part of your job, as I do mine, to build their confidence, because your confidence that's leading the dog. The dog knows when you're in charge, when you're you mean it, when you're honest, when you're confident. And if somebody comes to me and lacks the confidence, I keep telling them relax, have fun with it, enjoy the dog.

Pete Campione: 52:41

Build your confidence in working with the dog. The dog will tell you and I get, I have so much trouble sometimes just getting people to smile. Sure, I mean, I get in trouble a lot because I'm from Brooklyn and I have no filter and I can't tell you how many times someone I'm trying to I said would you please have fun with this dog? You look like you have to poop and you know they look at me horrified because I've said that. But it's the truth. Get this grimace off your face.

Shannon Cutts: 53:12

They hired you for a reason. They need to hear it.

Pete Campione: 53:16

Get that grimace off your face and the dog will respond. You think the dog doesn't understand your facial cues. The dog is looking for acceptance. The dog wants to know did I do it, did I not do it? And you're a blank slate. You can't do that. And building the owner's confidence, which is what you do also then translate to more effective communication.

Shannon Cutts: 53:40

Absolutely, and there are a variety of tools, just like you shared. I'm always adding to my toolkit. I don't do everything exactly the same as I did three years ago. It's so interesting you share that because I have an analogy from a few weeks ago.

Shannon Cutts: 53:54

This isn't a dog story, but it's a horse story, and one of my pet parent clients had just brought a new horse into the family and was having some trauma what seemed to be trauma-based behavior issues and was feeling like she wasn't safe, and one of her questions for the horse was do you trust me to be a good leader? And whether it's just no filter, naturally, or it's just recognizing I am serving as the animal's advocate, maybe the only voice they'll ever have.

Shannon Cutts: 54:22

And I said to her, to be quite honest with you, no, he doesn't, because you don't trust yourself. If you trusted yourself, you wouldn't have asked that question. And he's saying I know you can be a good leader, but I don't trust you yet. But just like you know, I've got it in me to be a pretty incredible show partner. I know you have it in you to be a really good leader and just the fact that you asked that question shows me that you know it too. You are not there yet and so a lot of times it's building that confidence is. I love it when one of my clients says I knew my animal was going to say that. When one of my clients says I knew my animal was going to say that, or I know that he's telling me something or she's telling me something, but I just can't figure out what it is. It's not totally dormant anymore, this sensory language, but they don't know what they're experiencing and that can be something really wonderful to watch somebody.

Pete Campione: 55:18

The reason sometimes that we have an advantage is because we don't have a history with the dog or with the animal, whereas the animal already has history with the owner. So the animal is like well, I know they're not going to make, I know they don't mean it, I know that they're taking us at face value, they're taking us as a new. You know, I always look at it as I'm having a new conversation with your dog right now. So this is the first time we're meeting. So that dog has no reason not to take me seriously. And it's the same with you that you're walking in with no baggage. A lot of these people that come to us already have the baggage there and they have to let that baggage go and look, this is the, and to me that's the beauty of dogs. Dogs are so highly adaptive that you can change and they'll change with you.

Shannon Cutts: 56:13

You just have to have the confidence that you change, they'll change and the change typically is so positive that it's like the energy is already trying to flow in that direction.

Pete Campione: 56:24

Yes.

Shannon Cutts: 56:25

So it's like the change. We're not asking the change in a negative direction, we're asking them to evolve. That's why, for me, I call animal communication the best self-development program I've ever found, because we just don't get taught about all of the other stuff that you and I are talking about today. We don't recognize that we're so much more capable, that we have so many more tools in our toolkit. Nobody's ever pointed them out or taught us to use them, and by the time we get to adulthood we lack the time and the bandwidth most of us to go searching on our own. So when an animal comes into our life, it's like, okay, now I got to drop everything and I got to make an appointment to go see this person, or I got to have a session, because now life is really out of control. As one of my mentors said, let's slow down to speed up, let's just slow down. Let's slow the pace down.

Shannon Cutts: 57:13

Very good, yes, slow down, take stuff off the to-do list and we'll just focus on the priorities and guess what? Everything else, those smaller things that become big things. They just smooth themselves out because we've taken care of the big issue, which really boils down to what is our relationship like with ourself and with the ones that we love, and if we prioritize that, a lot of the other stuff just works itself out.

Pete Campione: 57:37

a lot of the other stuff just works itself out. Well, I've always found that, my own experience in fact. I tell people I say, look, you pay me, but the dog is my client and I advocate for my client. My client comes first and it's almost. You know, I bring my own history into it because I never had that, I never had anybody at my back. So it's like damn, if I'm not going to have that dog's back, no matter what. And you know, and I tell people sometimes I said the only thing standing between that dog being well-behaved is you and I have to meet halfway and we'll get to the dog, but the dog will. People just don't listen. They don't, they don't listen, the dog. And it's funny. I use parenting a lot.

Shannon Cutts: 58:30

Yeah, I'll tell, especially mothers especially moms.

Pete Campione: 58:34

I'll say wait a minute, you can't tell what this dog needs. You know when your baby is crying, whether that means he's hungry or he pooped his pants. You know when they need snacks. You know when they need to go out, you know, you know this mother's it. Well, you have the tools, use them, take out the words and use them. But everybody has these skills.

Shannon Cutts: 59:00

That's brilliant and on that note, we have come to the conclusion.

Shannon Cutts: 59:04

I feel like you and I are kindred souls ourselves and we can talk about this stuff all day long, but I do not want to leave today's episode without giving you a chance to share how people can reach out to you Now. I know you have in-person classes and you've got your book, but lots of people listen to this from all over the world, so please share with everyone listening any way in which they can reach you, maybe receive support for what they're going through with their dogs and any parting words of encouragement for our listening community.

Pete Campione: 59:38

As far as reaching out to me, I would encourage everybody first to read the book, because the book is going to open your eyes to the possibilities. Then you reach out to me and I'll help you get there. But what I try and tell people is I go, I have nothing up my sleeves. It's not magic, there is no whispering, there is no special powers. There's instinctual, there's feeling. We all have it. We just have to tap into it. I try to let everybody know. It is not magic, it is nature. Okay, just get in touch with that, get quiet, listen, but anybody can do it, it's just. And the other thing I don't, I don't skirt people on. Yes, it does involve work. You do have to do the work, and I'm not saying it's always easy, but it can be done, yes, and once you get the core of it can be done. Grab on to that and run with it.

Shannon Cutts: 1:00:44

Fantastic and it does get easier, it gets more intuitive, it gets more natural. So your website is and I will put this in the show notes as well, but it's KSK9, and that's the number nine dot com, and your book is Canine Conversations. Our guest today, pete Campione, from Brooklyn, now located in New Jersey and so honored and delighted that you are able to join us today. This episode is going to be such a blessing to our listening audience and I so appreciate who you are and the work that you were able to join us today. This episode is going to be such a blessing to our listening audience and I so appreciate who you are and the work that you do in the world.

Shannon Cutts: 1:01:25

For those of you who have found let's Talk to Animals podcast for the first time, we do episodes every other week. You can find us over at animallovelanguagescom backslash podcast. If you've enjoyed today's episode, please do take the time to leave five stars or leave a short review, or reach out to me, shannon, at animallovelanguagescom, and let me know if you have questions about what we talked about today. Please do let me know. These episodes are shaped by your needs and your curiosity and I love to hear from you by your needs and your curiosity, and I love to hear from you. So, pete and I are sending you our gratitude for spending a little bit of your time with us today, and I look forward to welcoming you back in two weeks for a fresh new episode. Okay, all my love. Bye for now.