Final Copy

The podcast is called "Your Idea Caused My Idea," and it focuses on learning and building off of each other's ideas in a world that is constantly changing. The host discusses their experiences in the veterinary and pet care world and emphasizes the importance of being open to feedback and adapting ideas as new information comes in. They also talk about the use of "we" and "us" in referring to themselves, explaining that it represents their belief in working together as a collective. The first episode of the podcast discusses the importance of clear messaging and setting boundaries when training pets, emphasizing the need for consistency and positive reinforcement. It is Thanksgiving weekend and I can't think of a better opportunity to get started. I wanted to give a big thanks to all of the lovelies who will be involved in this podcast and a big shout out to Adrienne who will be helping with the editing and sound. I guess we can begin with a name. Albeit I'll side with Shakespeare and think naming things can be irrelevant, but we decided to go with Your Idea Caused My Idea or Why I CMI for short, I'm just kidding. So Why Your Idea Caused My Idea. I feel like this really represents the world that I feel like I'm living in currently. You know with each passing month I feel like things are getting weirder and weirder and even more uncertain than I thought they could have before. So I think because everything is unprecedented and all of the stuff that we used to rely on has kind of decoupled from reality, I feel like I'm just kind of reaching for straws and trying to pick the brains of all the amazing people around me and taking their ideas and just trying to build off of those because I feel like we are learning together for the first time on so many different things. So not just the veterinary world, in the last few months I've actually been on the pet family side of that care and that has been ultra interesting and I'll definitely share my experiences with you guys when that opportunity presents itself. But yeah, Your Idea Caused My Idea is really just a statement from me that we have to find ourselves starting at the beginning over and over again. So all of those ideas that I used to have, they might not be as relevant anymore so we are just going to have to learn going through all of this chaos together and build on our ideas because I don't believe that ideas should ever be the end of something. Ideas are always evolving and they are not permanent and they are fluid. So I love taking ideas and setting them down as foundations and then to build and change them as needed with more information or better intel, etc. So Your Idea Caused My Idea will be not only that side of things but kind of on the human side of things in day to day and in the days of our lives and all of this crazy new way of living that we are all trying to figure out without taking on too many bruises because getting up over and over again after all of these hits is a challenge for sure. So I hope you guys don't mind saying Your Idea Caused My Idea for a title. We can change it later as things will hopefully change or maybe even get better. So yeah, I like this name and Adrian wasn't sure about it but I think after a few kind of rollovers he was like, you know what, it's kind of a weird name. I guess I should also say that I use we and us a lot and I know that can rub some people the wrong way but I've been doing it for as long as I remember and I think it's because one, my ENTJ personality type really feels like it has a duty to work for a collective so my decisions are often based on what I think is going to be best for the group or the collective around me and the second reason is kind of gross. I like to use we because of the millions if not the billions of microorganisms who make me who I am. So I never feel alone so I always represent myself as a we. I guess I can be a little bit nuanced or weird for some people but please don't dig into it too much. It's just how I feel comfortable expressing myself. So you can use whatever you want but I just wanted to quickly explain the we we we behind me me me and I think it's a beautiful thing. So if you want to use we, I don't think it's a bad thing, I think it's a beautiful thing because we are a collective. In this podcast, you're going to hear me talk a lot about stewardship, especially things like antibiotic stewardship and I always like to say sick ecosystems are going to be way more impactful, way more detrimental than a sick individual and we have to kind of keep that perspective in mind because we're all on this ship together, this planet ship. So please don't hit on me for saying or using we or us all the time. I also wanted to say I'll do my best to be helpful first and foremost. The motivation behind this podcast is not to only connect, reconnect with my pet families but also try to serve you guys in some way. So my intention will always be to be helpful, I will definitely get things wrong but I'm open to feedback and will pivot back and alter the things that I have to as we go. Like I said, we're going to go through so many firsts together so please be patient and kind with me. I will definitely be patient and kind with you so if you have anything that you would love for me to kind of tease apart or talk about on here, I would love to hear those things on the Facebook collective group. That would be a good place to put down anything that you would like me to cover. So I guess I'm trying to say that my ideas are not something that are untouchable, they are totally modifiable as more information comes in so please don't take anything I say as permanent. Our ideas and our actions behind those ideas will continue to evolve. Like I said, never the end, it's just the beginning people. So buckle up and get outside, please listen to this podcast when you're out doing something. I would love to be your companion on a nature walk, I love doing those every day. But yeah, definitely clean the house, I don't know, do some dishes, put on some earbuds and yeah, let's tackle some crazy shit together. I'm going to start with a topic that is near and dear to so many pet families. In fact, I inquired to my AI bot, what is the number one thing pet families love to discuss? Many of you know I'm a big fan of using an AI bot, especially with all the space junk on the internet. It's really difficult to find any good quality information, it's probably out there but it's just diluted out with so much garbage, I'm not even searching something on Google can be really relentless and tiring and then you're kind of stuck there for a lot longer than you wanted to be without getting some good information. Okay, my lovely pet families out there, I want to discuss pet behavior and training because I feel like if we do not get off onto a good start or off on the right foot with training our dogs, we can be stuck with lifelong or long-term doggy behavioral issues that will work against us. So, I'm a big, big, big, big fan of setting boundaries and really what I mean by boundaries is clear messaging. We have to understand what that means inside out or we're not going to get anywhere with a doggy training. If we are giving our cats and dogs, horses, birds, you know, all these domestic animals that we can definitely train mixed messaging, we're going to become frustrated, our training sessions are going to be long-winded and we're not really advancing the human-animal bond because our pets are getting frustrated too. So, what I mean by clear messaging is say what you mean and mean what you say and when you can, say it only once. I've definitely seen pet families, you know, asking for the same sit over and over and over again. I am 100% guilty as charged for that one but I have to remind myself to ask once and then when I don't get the response that I'm looking for, actually walk away and that is a clear message in and of itself. You've heard me talk about this multiple times that when it comes to puppies or maybe a new pet that you're just starting to feel each other out, it is so important that we are not giving them attention when they are behaving badly. I always joke, puppies are like celebrities. Good attention and bad attention, it doesn't matter. All of it. All of it is good for business and they'll take it. So, when you are feeling upset or you're at your wit's end and you feel like you have to scream, I do it as well. Don't judge yourself. We all have times when we just can't handle it anymore and we want to stomp our feet, jump up and down or yell at the top of our legs. Those are times that we shouldn't be with our companion pets and we probably need to go for a nature walk, in my opinion, because training when you're upset or training when you're frustrated or even training when you're kind of down and out or even just tired will not work. It's incredible how receptive our animals, our companion animals are and they're going to use every nerve and sinew that you have left against you. So, abort medicine, definitely go for a nature walk or take a little break. Breaks are wonderful people. And then come back to the training in a way that you're going to be respectful, you're not going to raise your voice, you're only going to ask for something once and then be willing to walk away when you don't get what you want. I always tell young pet families, so people with new dogs and puppies especially, if you just focused 100% of your training on promoting the good habits that your pet just voluntarily shows you throughout the day, for example, when your puppy is played out and lays down in the middle of the living room and just clonks out, if you can come in and give high praise on that moment, and I'm talking high praise like, yay, like hopping, squealing, see, Benito just looked out, you know, just something that's really quite squealy and loud and a big smile on your face, and if you come and pet them for maybe three to five seconds and then go back to what you were doing, that in and of itself will set you up for success in my opinion. This has worked exceptionally well for me with pet families that I've trained as well. So, yeah, if you have nothing, no time to train and you're just, you know, exhausted, try to focus on the positives. You're going to find that if you're able to catch those fits, so say you're kind of standing around washing the dishes, your dog's in the kitchen next to you trying to get your attention, tried some whining, you ignored it, well done, pat yourself on the back, and then, you know, they're kind of like, well, that didn't work, try something else, we'll go get a toy, bring it, you know, why not, you still ignore them, and then they might take a sit out of desperation, they're just trying all the tricks in their trick box, and you notice that and you say, whoa, way to go, so I now have a new dog member in our life, Benito Bonito, for the record, but for the first, I would say, two to three weeks while we were training, I never even used his name, and now, to this day, now that we've gotten through a lot of the training, I actually only use his name for high praise, so he loves to hear his name, and he kind of melts when we go Benito Bonito, and I make that face every single time I have to say that name, it works, it's quite effective, so I guess the takeaways that I'm trying to get across here is focus on the good, ignore the bad, and try to only use your pet's name when they are doing something good, it's kind of funny, it makes me chuckle when I'm at the dog park, or, you know, walking down the street, and I hear a pet owner just losing it on their dog, yelling, you know, come here, or pulling on their leash, and the dog is terrified and thinking, no way, I don't want to come here, and using their name over and over again, so I'm not a big fan of using the word no, although I do use it in a very different way, so when I was training Benito, I used no no no no no no no, which I actually stole from my dad, because that's how he trained his cat, but I had to come up with a new word to guide him that wasn't already the word that I used for my other dog, who we also still have now, Esmo Juno, she's spectacular, she is just the love of my life, she is my best friend, but her no command is not for doggie, so when we first got her, and she would go into places, sniff around, and I kind of wanted to guide her direction, I would use not for doggie, and she would be like, okay, I guess I can't do that, and she would bumble around to the next thing, I wouldn't say anything, she's like, oh, this seems like a safe bet, she went somewhere I didn't want her, not for doggie, so you can use these other words or phrases to kind of really represent what you're trying to do, and that's ultimately guide them, I do have friends and pet families who train their pets in a way that they are super sophisticated, extremely skilled, and very controlled, so think about police dogs, that type of training, that's kind of not what I'm talking about, because I'm such a big fan of animals, and companion animals, and really utilizing them to enrich our lives, and in return, that 100% means we need to enrich their lives, so I pitch over and over again that it's not about what our pets, for most of our pet families, what our pets have to offer us, it's about what we have to offer them, so it's a huge responsibility to take care of these guys, and I definitely don't take it lightly, you've heard me definitely complain about pet families that are maybe too big, where I feel like there's just not enough capacity, or time, investment available for the different members of that pet family, because you want to make sure you're not just inviting a whole bunch of companion animals into your house to sit around, and lay on the couch all day, in my opinion, that's not going to be a really incredible life, I want our pets to have a life really worth living, and that means I want our pet families to be living a life worth living, I want to live a life worth living, so I'm constantly trying to engage in my environment, and take my pets with me to do that, so you might have already noticed, I travel a ton with my pets, including my cat, so this didn't just come out of nowhere, obviously this was something that we conditioned for over many years, many months, many days, to get them comfortable with having so many daily adventures, but now I feel like I'm on that side of the training camp, where I have guided my dogs the best I can, away from what I don't want the problem, stuff that I want them to stay away from, but I also really wanted to encourage their self-esteem, and in doing that, for them to really express themselves, I really, really, really love when you get to meet your pets, and get to know them in a way that is so special, because when they are in a safe environment, and when they have the opportunity to grow, and try new things, and express themselves in the process, you get to witness all of that beautiful stuff, so police dog training, very different, where, you know, that has to be methodical, and there's no room for error, so the training is quite strict, that's one way of training our pets, I don't necessarily apply that to my training, because it's not the goal that I'm looking for, I really want my companion animals, and friends, and family members, you know, to really be who they are, they are one of a kind, in so many ways, and I feel like it's a shame when we don't let them express themselves, because I really want everybody to feel safe, and feel good in their own skin, and that applies to our pets, imagine that, okay, so back to training and socialization, training is great when you're able to just find a couple of basic terms, or phrases, or vocabulary that is going to help guide your pets, so something for notes, stay away from that, and something high praise, my best friend, and she uses yes, and I stole that from her, so Benito, he knows that no, no, no, no, no, and yes, so those are the two ways that I went with him, I can't remember what the positive one was for Juno, but like I said, it was not for doggy, to guide her away from stuff, and oh, I know, it was well done, I think is what I did for Juno, so Benito also knows both positive, and Juno obviously knows the yes, but when I'm telling Benito he can't do something, and Juno's clearly not doing it, it wasn't fair to use the no command that I used for Juno, so I hope that makes sense, I can definitely tease that apart a little bit more if needed, but yeah, so really important that we send clear, clear, clear, clear messaging, it's so important that our pets are understanding what we're asking of them, because when they don't, everybody's just going to be frustrated, and it's going to bruise the human animal bond, and potentially make things more difficult in the future, so we need to get this right, right out of the start gate. Understanding body language, this one's super cool, and when I first started talking about consent training five or so years ago, people thought I was insane, and I don't blame them, I do sound like an insane person all of the time, that being said, fast forward, there are so many conversations around this topic now, it has different names, but the short and sweet of it is, when we ask something from our pets, so when we come in with a clear message, we're looking at their body response, so obviously they're not going to consent verbally, but we're looking for body language that would help support consent, so when a pet is coming towards you, for example, that is good, I would say yeah, you have the okay to continue on, the opposite of that is going to be if your pet is moving away from you, you're going to have to abort mission, take a break, reconsider the training aspects, and start again, because you really want the consent, the consent is going to help your pet become self-assured, self-esteem is so important, just as it is in our kids, and our friends, and our family members, it's going to apply to our dogs especially, our horses too, so that sense of self-esteem, I can express myself, I can be where I want to be, and do what I want to do, will help facilitate training, so you're always kind of looking for that sweet spot, where you're not pushing too hard to cross that threshold, where you're making your pet uncomfortable in the training process, so I really love to dance delicately on that threshold, where I'm making sure that I have the permission to proceed with the next step of training, this applies for things like nail trims, I'm going to say, oh my gosh, like there are so many battles going on every day, all over the world, I mean, this is a global problem, cutting our dogs and cats nails, holy crap, it is not easy, but that speaks to our training more than anything else, so it is possible to get consent from our pets to have their nails trimmed, but we have to start at the basics, so I'm a big fan of consent or cooperative training, and that kind of ties back into the very clear messaging, yelling at your dogs is not going to work, you know, hitting your dogs is not going to work, and unfortunately, that's really just representational of us, the trainer, losing control, and it's easy to lose control these days in the world at large, things are quite pressurized, and then when we're stuck in a situation, when we really want a certain response from our pets, and they're not delivering, we can boil over, but like I said, that's the time when we just need to take a break, because training your dog while you're mad will never work, never, never, never, never work, so just put the tombstone there, you know, like you just, there's no point, so I hope the takeaway from this is clear messaging, try to look for that consent training, focus on the positives, just come in on high praise when your dog is doing a sit, a lay down, leaving you alone when you're working in the office, take a 10 second break from whatever you're doing, and go into your dog, high praise, way to go, belly rub, you know, shake down, whatever is, they're going to be their ultimate skin treat, so when I say skin treat, I mean it's something from you, it's praise, it's a clap, it's a pet, it's not going to be a treat, I get a lot of shade for not using treats for training, I think there's a time and place for everything, so of course, treats are going to be super beneficial for training in situations where they apply, but because I like challenges, I try to start at the end, so with the most desired outcome, and then reverse engineer that, I don't carry treats with me all the time, I have tons of friends who do, and oh my gosh, thank you for that, they've saved my butt so many times, but yeah, I don't really use the treats when training, and the reason for that is I am on the go with my pets all the time, so I really need them to watch and understand me, and kind of already make their conclusions about what is going to happen next, especially with more than one pet, it's not always easy to give that clear messaging, or ask for what you want, so this is more high level, where I hopefully have a good emotional connection with my pets, so that they are receptive to my needs in that moment, and I have to say over the last week, which has been, oh my gosh, such an insane week for me, Ruby got really sick, I had two people visiting, Juno had a lump removed, it was just terrible timing for everything, I saw so much in emotional intelligence come from Benito Bonito, and that just was such a relief, because in my time of need, he was kind of aware, and he kind of knew what to do for a couple of reasons, one, the training that we had already worked on, and two, he had Juno to set a really good example, so thankfully I have a dog that has been with us for over five years now, that I was able to really utilize in training the new dog, who is eight months old, so you want to use the tools that you have, so treats can definitely be a plus or a perk, and then having another dog kind of guide the way, we had a pet family that we saw last week, where she's a large breed dog, really severe anxiety, loves to, you know, be outside and around other dogs, but terrified of going into a vehicle, and we talked to this doggy's mom about, if Luna loves other dogs, like recruit other dogs and show her other dogs getting into a vehicle, so she'll just follow their lead, and I always joke, monkey see, monkey do, and it is so true, and that also ties back to the message of clear messaging, because they see what you do too, so if you're asking them to do something that you're unwilling to kind of follow up with, they notice our dogs 100 percent, and our cats do, because I'm pretty sure they're smarter than dogs at this point, but our dogs understand when you are unfair, and they will hold it against you, so don't think you can get away with anything, I know I've had partners in the past who don't believe that dogs are like these sentient creatures, that they have personality types, or that they can understand and resolve complex problems, and I disagree, I think there's so much sentience around us, and intelligence is everywhere, so I believe intelligence is defined by a level of complexity, and anyone who's going to tell me that a dog or cat isn't complex, come over to my house, I have some pretty complex characters here, and I think they're super intelligent, so hopefully you're not stuck with some pretty serious inbreeding, because we've had to train some dogs that were pretty inbred, and they can be really dumb, so try not to purchase pets, because you just don't want to motivate backyard breeders, or breeders who don't know what they're doing, to select the gene population of the future, so sometimes when we are purchasing pets, we can inadvertently go that direction, especially I was just talking about this a couple of days ago, about the polydactyl cats, you know, they were such a trend a few years ago, and it was such a sad trend, because I would always consider, you know, if there's a mutation that we can see on the outside, so a phenotypic mutation, what on earth is going on the inside that we can't see, because I would highly doubt that there was just one mutation in that body, or in that embryotic process, so food for thought, when we are looking for new companions, I think there are a lot of options out there, but there's probably some things that we would want to stay away from, and inbreeding is way up there, please, let's take care of our future populations, and this is the stewardship stuff that I love to talk about, and kind of tease apart, and we'll definitely discuss more on these podcasts. Okay, so we talked about understanding body language, hopefully looking for something that looks like consent, training techniques, I always want to recommend that we go in calm, positive, and if you're having a bad day, abort mission, if you feel like you're really irritable, and you have to yell at your dog, or you want to smack your dog, abort mission, you need to do some work on yourself, leave your pet alone, and work on you, go for a nature walk, I swear, that's my go-to. Okay, behavioral issues, what are behavioral issues, I guess kind of like how I use those positive and negative guiding phrases for my dogs, that's really to guide behavioral issues, you want to create this environment and space around your dog so that they don't have to be reactive, I would always have to debate with about how he would play with Juno when we first got her, because he would always look for a reaction, he would try to get her to bark, or get her to, you know, be confused, hiding her toys, like trying to get some sort of reaction, the hiding of the toys is great, mental stimulation, don't get me wrong, there's a time and place for everything, but I don't want us to encourage a behavior that we don't want our dog or cat to do every day for the next 20 years, so roughhousing, playing inside, barking inside, you know, going through the garbage, getting on the countertop, you know, maybe you have boundaries in your house, so you have an office space where you don't want your pets to be in, bedroom you don't want your pets to be in, second floor you don't want your pets to be in, these are the things that are really important to be consistent on, so when it comes to our training techniques, being really consistent is also going to be key, and the challenges, even if you just ignore them and focus on the positives, like I said, you will make a lot of headway with just those basics. When it comes to socialization and what I call experiences and just thriving in general, this is more of that high level where your dogs are experiencing your day-to-day with you. I'm lucky and so fortunate and incredibly privileged to be able to spend most of my days with my pets, so we go on adventure after adventure, and it's such a beautiful companionship, but the enrichment for my pets and the mental and physical stimulation for them is really up there, and I have made that a focus over the years. It wasn't easy at the beginning, especially when you're working, you know, 70-80 hours a week. Why did we do that? I don't know why people do that, so if you're doing that, please stop. It is just not sustainable at all, so protect yourself. Please don't work like a mad person because it is bonkers, and I wouldn't do it again if I had the choice, so now that I'm older and wiser, I'm just going to put that out there. Please don't work insane hours a week because you're not living your life. You're not able to thrive in your environment, and you want to engage in your environment. This is the whole point of living, in my opinion, so that socialization or those daily adventures are really going to just focus on interactions, interactions with different environments, different floor substrates, you know, different personality types. That could be wild animals. That could be, and I'm talking about like squirrels and birds. I'm not talking about bears or anything like that. Please, for people who are really out there with their adventure pets, never, ever, ever, ever, ever let your dog off leash, and always protect yourself from wildlife. Don't feed the wildlife ever. I will actually probably get a big stick and hit someone if I hear that you are feeding any wildlife, but yeah, back to socialization experiences. As many interactions as you can create for your pet, the more enriched living they're going to have, and I will be a very happy vet. I do have quite a few pet families that have already nailed this, so I have lots of examples in my example bag of other families and things that they have done, and I will definitely share those in future podcasts. Okay, so I think I'm going to wrap up our first podcast episode, so thank you so much for tuning in, and please let me know if there are any topics that you would like me to cover on our next podcast, but I'll be sharing kind of what happened to me that week and the takeaways that apply to our pet families as we go. I hope this will serve you guys. I look forward to hearing from you. Have a wonderful rest of your week, and stay active, and I sure appreciate you guys. Take care out there. Bye-bye.