March 2026 PPG Advocacy Panel: Guardians & Professionals Working Together to Help Pets

Afternoon and welcome to today's pet professional guild advocacy panel. I'm your moderator Don Hanson. I serve on the PPG board of directors and his chair of the advocacy. Advocacy task force. I had to do a reset there. I own green acres canals shop and force repets in Bangor main, where my goal is to help people and their pets live in harmony. The advocacy discussion panels were established to further PPG's guiding principles by educating our members, other pet care professionals and anyone with a pet as a family member. You may attend live via Facebook live or zoom and recordings of the panel will be posted as a podcast after the event. Questions may be submitted via comments on Facebook or as a chat within the zoom session. And we will try to address all questions, but time restraints may restrict us from doing so. So today's question and before I have the panels introduce themselves. Today's question for the panel is guardians and professionals working together to make a kind of world for pets. It is a follow up to our January and February panels asking how can pet parents make a kind of world and how can that professionals help create a kind of world. So we're kind of combining them both together. So I'm going to let our panelists introduce themselves and I'm going to start with Kim Silver. And then we'll go down to Tasha, Abwood and Jennifer Van Wulkenberg and then our very own Rebecca King, who also works for us behind the scenes all the time. So Kim, tell us about yourself. Good morning. I'm Kim Silver. I am also a member of the advocacy task forces of volunteer. And I'm a professional canine behavior consultant and trainer accredited through PPA B and a KPA certified trainer and I have a behavior consulting enrichment and training business in Tucson, Arizona. Hi, I'm Tasha. I run what's mischief over in the UK. I'm also a member of the advocacy task force and lots of PPG events and committees. Though I am Jennifer Van Wulkenberg, I am the PPG Feline Division chair. I have my certification and Feline training and behavior from the animal behavior institute. And I own and operate my consulting business natural healthy cats and Los Angeles, California with my kitty checks, who is this one on my cat wall. And I'm Rebecca King, the operations director here at the pet professional guild and the all around information gather and question answer for all things PPG. Excellent. Well, the first question I have for you guys today is out of everything we have talked about in the past two panels, which do you believe both pet parents and pet care professionals should prioritize first? What is the most important thing? Out of all of the things we've been talking about. And I'll start first or Kim, you volunteered. So go ahead. OK. It's a tricky word I'm going to use because everybody defines it differently. But I think that we should always start from a place of welfare, welfare for the pet, but also welfare for the person. And I know that there was discussion about, you know, listening, right, listening to the people in past advocacy panels when we had this discussion about guardians that we should be listening. And listening to the needs of the people and how their pets behavior is influencing their life and their welfare, I think is important. Well, fair goes beyond shelter and food and clean water. It is, you know, looking at your dogs daily life, their exercise, their ability to engage in activities that their species is meant to do. And I say dog because I'm a dog trainer, but this is for horses and and cats and all sorts of animals that if we don't like. I have a parrot, for example, and I've met people with parrots where their cage is completely empty. There's nothing in that space for the parrot to engage in their environment. And we tend to get things like over vocalizations and feather plucking and lots of behavior problems and birds who don't have any environmental enrichment. So making sure that we're looking at whatever species we have and what are they designed to do, but, you know, they're not designed to be our pets. Right. They were all designed to do something else originally. So I think it's important that we look at that first because that influences everything else that we're going to do with and for that pet and that family of the guardians of the pets. Go ahead, Jennifer. Yeah, so I love everything that Kim said that is so relevant, so important. And adding on to that, to me, the concept of taking a breath, taking a moment from the human side and really slowing down and looking at everything and maybe shifting your perspective and thinking a little bit differently. I know I work in the cat universe. I go in cat circles and I know cats have the these myths surrounding them that they're easy that they don't require anything that people can just get a cat they take care of themselves. Yeah, you need to feed them and vaccinate them and that's about it. And obviously, that couldn't be further from the truth or warm social carrying meeting. As many resources and enrichment as our dogs or horses or birds or other companion animals, of course. So I think as humans, it's important to not get to caught up in the myths in the fiction in, you know, tell what television and movies tell us that's fun. That's fun entertainment. But it's not facts. So slowing down, taking a breath and really evaluating and thinking, okay, what is not working? What are the issues I'm encountering and how can I come at them from a welfare perspective? What do I need to provide? What am I missing here? That would be my first taking a moment, especially before you decide to get an animal would even be the best time to do that to really think, okay, well, am I just getting these kittens because I'm lonely because it's COVID because I work from home and my house is quiet. Can I really provide everything I need to make sure these kittens have, you know, fulfilled happy life with me. I'm going to go next is that really resonates with something that I was going to say and I want to take this start by taking a step back to before people even get the pet. I think we need to find a way to communicate to potential at parents that before they jump into this and make an impulse decision. I don't care what kind of pet it is talk to some qualified individuals about what that means so they understand the animals welfare needs because I think there's still so much ignorance on that topic. I just don't get it no matter and there's myths about every companion animal out there that are total nonsense but really take a step way back and before you jump out and get that pet for the kids or pet for yourself really do a lot of research because I think that could save a lot of problems. I would have to say on the behavioral side of my business, probably at least 50% of the problems no matter what the problem was occurred because of an impulse decision by the human to get this pet no matter what it was. And if we could have prevented that we could have prevented a lot of heartache on both sides sorry to jump in there, but it seemed to connect gosh or Rebecca either one of you you're next. I can go to a few don't. I was going to say what really hit in Kim's statement was welfare for the people as well because we're all advocates for the animals welfare but playing with what you just said don I think that that is really important that the people need to understand is getting a pet good for them in their scenario. We had a client when I worked in Mississippi and she'd always been a cat owner and she went to the local shelter and said she wanted to get a dog. Well they gave her this dog that while. she was adorable and had a very cute personality. She was like part with it, part blue healer, and she was not necessarily ideal for a part, or a first-time dog owner, especially one that had two cats in the home, because all the dog wanted to do was chase the cats. Yeah. So qualified pet professional would have fit in there nicely as well, because that's the dog that the shelter recommended to her. How about you Tasha? Yeah. No, I'm totally agree. I think also something that more people in the industry could do is be more forgiving and more supportive for the guardians who say, "You know what, I can't do this." Like, this is too hard. The shaman and the alienation of people who like, they desperately need that help. Like, "No, no, we can keep doing it. We'll just behave in modification plan." Like, if someone is saying, "I cannot do this," the shaman has to stop and like, post about, "You want to return a child and that kind of thing," and it's like, it's the kindest thing that that person can do, because they're going to offer a home to somebody who wants that animal and is able to provide that animal with their needs being met. So what's kind of, is it someone struggling with an animal that they're resenting, or is it kind of to let that animal go to somebody who's going to give them everything that they need in their life? I think that one is just so important, and I have mediated between some of my clients and shelters who, shelters and rescues who do this well, they shame them, and they make up a million and one excuses why they can't bring the animal back. Some of them have been, "Well, we can take it back, but it's going to be at least six months before we have a foster home to put it in." And that's not what those people need to hear. If they have reached the point where it's just not working anymore, I really want to see shelters, rescues, and breeders say, "Okay, yeah, we can accommodate you within 24 hours." I really think that's what needs to happen. How about the rest of you guys? Do you see that often? Or. Absolutely, and I just wanted to add on something that always stays with me as best I can is I'm a, I mean, I have it all over my website and everything. It's very important to me. Force-free, shock-free for dogs, little less for cats, providing choices, positive reinforcement. Well, we do, it's so important that we do this and provide this for our companion animals when we're in behavior consulting. We need to do it for our human clients as well. So we need to think of it that way. So I agree so much shame and I mean, it's like punishment, right? It's like for cat people, it's like squirting the client with the water bottle. No, bad. You know, we all know that that's terrible or tugging on the leader or shop collars, prom collars, all the different things that we do for our other companion animals, right? What we have spent so much time and energy trying to say this doesn't work, this isn't, this is problematic for all these reasons. We need to do it for our human, human clients as well in human ways. You know what I think the shame in making them feel guilty is even worse than spraying them with a water bottle because that's something that's going to stay with them for a long time. At least when we're talking about people, can you head your hand up? Yeah, something that Jennifer said made me think about, you know, she's mostly referencing the the guardian and professional relationship, but there's also a supportive component that we as professionals can have with family members and friends of our clients because I experience my client sometimes wanting to be kinder to their pets, wanting to be humane in behavior change plans, which is why they're hiring me. And then they are telling their friends and family about their work with the dog and the friends and family are saying, why don't you just put an e-caller on that dog and you know that problem will be solved in one day. And you know, I have clients coming to me crying because they have like a family member that keeps pestering them like, why are you wasting your time with all of this kind training? And it's really emotionally very taxing for the client to try to have to navigate that. I do a lot of counseling with my clients on how to handle their family and friend relationships when it comes to their dog. And I've even had my own personal experience where, you know, I've just kind of keep it to myself and not share because I just don't want a risk that somebody's going to offer an unsolicited opinion, right? It can be tough. Well, and it can be tough mediating between people too because that's something I think at least most of us have no training or experience in. And that kind of puts us in a difficult place. But, and I may have, I'm sure I've said this in other panels somewhere along the way, but I've had more than one client who's come to me and said, I'm afraid to go home if my partner is in there because of what the dog might do to me. I mean, living in fear is, and I would include, you know, if you've got a pet who's living in fear of another pet, that's not a tenable situation either, but that's really scary. That goes to that welfare for everyone, right? Yeah. Yeah, you know, I'm not a good example of this, but, you know, I'm a person who lives alone who has a dog with a separation problem. And that's, you know, a very, very challenging position to be in, you know, or someone who's living with a dog who has aggression towards them. You know, I've made the decision that I've kept my dog. I didn't return the dog, but I certainly wouldn't, you know, shame anybody who would be in my same position, who would choose to return their dog because sometimes that is definitely what's in the best interest of the person and the dog, whether it's separation issue or an aggression issue, or any issue that somebody just doesn't have the spoons to deal with. They don't have the time, they don't have all the resources, right, that come with solving some of these more complex problems and support, support is important. So how many of us here have lived with a cat with what we would call significant behavioral issues? Okay, how many of us would choose to knowingly bring another pet into our home in that same situation? Yeah, Jennifer's kind of good. Yeah, maybe, but so it's my anxiety and fear more than aggression. So yeah, I mean, I've had two dogs and we, one of them was very early in my career and all the advice I got was, you know, this is the new dog, your other dogs, other three dogs are all going to end up dead. Just hit rid of it now. Best advice I ever got and they were really that one and I'm glad they were because otherwise the other one we worked through, but I know that we were able to work through it because we live where we work. And so I was there 24/7 with all of the dogs and it went for a number of years before we got things to where there could be, but you know, most clients today aren't equipped to deal with that. They've got less time than I had before when I was in the corporate world, you know, two people working. I think they've got even less time in patients than I had back then. So yeah. And I think some people also just need to be told that it's okay that what they're doing is yeah, is good. I mean, I literally just wrapped up with a client who long story short ended up having to move back in with their parents who had, you know, two dogs, three cats and they had two cats and was, you know, how do I incorporate them into the household and I was sort of like, maybe we don't, maybe we don't, maybe they had their own like living space in the house. It was like, maybe you just keep your kiddies there, they keep their family over here and she said to me, well, but is that okay? I said, well, what do you want to do? And she said, yeah, that sounds like what I want to do. And I said, then yes, that's okay. Everybody's safe. We'll make sure your kiddies are provided for. You know, this is a situation that was unexpected from an illness. Yes, you were doing the best that that you can. And coming to me, especially, is thank you. you know, that was another step that you didn't necessarily have to take that you did. So, so would it's leading with empathy, I guess, is where I'm going with that. I think that's important. I also think, and I'm thinking for those of us that are professionals, I think one of the things that we could do is get across to parents is be honest and say, we cannot fix everything. And you know, I see some professionals advertising that would imply the opposite of that. And I don't think that's helpful at all, but how do you guys feel about that? I agree with that meeting them where they are and being transparent with our observations about what their capabilities are based on what they've shared with us, right? And what are, you know, best and worst prognosis would be based on different variables, right? Just kind of laying it all out for them and letting the choices be theirs, because I think sometimes some professionals come in and say, you're going to do this, you're going to do this, you're going to do this. And then magic happens and the problem is solved. And there's no prescription, there's no recipe, right? For these issues, they're also very nuanced. And a lot of it does fall into how much the owners can do. I just wrapped up a case where inner household aggression, right? Very difficult situation that a lot of people deal with. And lots of fits and starts, I mean, one of the dogs had to have orthopedic surgery, you know, the dogs went on medication and changed medication and all these things happened over the course of a pretty extended period of time. And then the woman found out she was pregnant. And that just threw a whole other, you know, wrench into the plan and a pushed up timeline, right, for things to work out. And in the end, they ended up really homing one of the dogs with a family member. And that was great. I mean, for me, it was like, oh, that's the best outcome that could have happened from this situation because it just saved them so much stress at a time when they're having the most important events in their life happen, right, the birth of their first child. And I hurt for them, right, that they were going through all of this stress with the dogs during this time. So I was honest with them the whole way through, like, this is, this is dangerous, right, with having a baby come along. And we've, we've got a, you know, really put our, our, our thinking caps on about how we can make this as safe as possible. And they were phenomenal people. They did everything that was asked of them to do. And in the end, they finally said, I think this is what's best, you know, so we have to support them by being truthful and transparent. And I think like what somebody said, we have to give them options too. It's not this, just do this, this, and this. It says, well, we could try this. That's what it's going to take. We could try that. And we also need to be willing to give them what I would call a worst case scenario. And, you know, so that they know what they're, what they're dealing with. And, and then let them make the decide, let them make the decision, provide them with any extra data we can to help them there. And then whatever decision they make, support them the best we can. I call that the alphabet plan. You've got plan A, plan B, plan C, then plan D. But eventually, even with the alphabet, you run out of letters. I like that way of explaining that. Yeah. Yeah. And there's, you know, 26 letters in the alphabet. So we can go down lots of paths, right? And, and like this family, I just mentioned, they were throwing a lot of curve balls, right? And so the plan had to adjust, you know, it's with this big giant alphabet plan. And in the end, the answer was, you know, something that wasn't initially considered, they thought, well, we would never do that. And then they did it. And they feel good about it. Yeah. I think it's also important to show that we are human and that even we struggle with the pets that we have in our lives. I think back to my own pet, my current pet. And my husband and I nearly didn't survive his puppyhood because he was just a tear. He was the literal Velociraptor that you see in the memes. And Nicky was like, I won't judge you if you're not, if you, if you can't have this puppy in your home. And now that he's nearly six, he's much more pleasant and we survived and everything's fine. But he was a tear. And when I tell my clients that and explain to them, it's hard having like a puppy just because I also work in the dog world. They go, oh, okay. The puppy and I think anytime we can use examples with our own interactions and life with certain pets, it helps reinforce that. I mean, the first puppy that my wife and I got together is the reason we got this business because we had to learn so much. I mean, he was a health disaster. He was a behavioral disaster. Every quirky thing that you could think of, we dealt with with with with Gus. And you know, we we loved him desperately. But boy, did he require us to learn a lot, including to have a have a lot of patients. I mean, it's, he's like I said, he's the reason I do what I do today. But it helps us empathize with our clients, we're having similar issues. I mean, some puppies are great and the next puppy we had, it went to them more perfect. But when she got three is when we had disasters happen. But you know, it's yeah. And I think sharing those stories can be very, very helpful. Yeah, because I think a lot of people feel judged. They're nervous. They're they're hiring this professional to help them. But oh my god, I've done everything wrong. And I don't know what I'm doing. And this is a disaster. And my cat is so unhappy because of me and all of this stuff that yeah, I taught and interesting that you said that done because this is hell opinion. And she's the reason that I got into cat training. Okay. She it changed my whole world once I realized that this was doable and all these things that this bond that we could forge. And she had a wealth of behavior problems because as my husband says, I only take the I foster, I keep all of them the cats that nobody wants to get them nice and friendly and then give them to other people. And then I'm like, no, they're mine forever. So I talked about her a lot with clients who say, you know, I'm, you know, my cats a little overweight and they're sort of ashamed at it. And I'm like, being there done that 100% no problem. We can help you with that. Or if you're, you know, if that's not on your docket, we're good. If your vet says you're fine, you're fine. So I think that's great. Yes, giving personal examples so that you've humanized yourself a little bit and come down from your ivory tower of professional dumb and kind of meet them where they're at again. You said something to that I think we should add to the discussion here and that's interacting with other pet care professionals because when I first got this profession, top of my mind was worried about being shamed by other professionals doing it longer than I have. You know, as you guys get into the business, did you have any concerns like that? I'm still there. I have had the imposter syndrome of being doing this for six years. Yes, definitely. I listen to what everybody says and I, you know, especially cats, I think, is a little bit of a smaller circle, maybe than dogs or horses. But I'm like, oh my god, what can I add to this world that already has these amazing people in it? So absolutely. So go ahead, whoever said something. Go ahead, Don. It wasn't that. I was just going to branch off on something Jennifer said that, you know, the cat world is smaller. Yet if you read the latest statistics, cat ownership is growing dramatically faster than dogs right now. And there's less of a professional to support those people. Let's talk about that for a moment. It's a little off topic, but I think it also kind of fits in because, yeah, that's, are you seeing more problems now than you did initially or? I mean, I think the biggest problem in my mind is that people don't know that cat behaviorists and trainers exist. They know it for dogs. They have some understanding of it for horses. I don't think they know about it very much for birds or other companion animals. And certainly for cats have this myth, they can't be trained, they do whatever they want. They don't care about you. They're the ones that run the house, not the human, all of those kinds of comics that we see in their funny. And I think also because they're smaller, certainly than horses, smaller than most dogs. There's also the idea that, you know, we can do what we need with them because they can't hurt us in the way that, you know, a bigger breed dog could really hurt us. And so if we want to trim their nails, we can just hold them. We can just wrap them up in a towel and force them and trim their nails. And who cares if they're crying, they're fine because we know they're fine. And so there's this idea that we can, we can enact this power over them. And I just kind of keep trying to tell as many people who will listen, if you are having a problem with your cat, you do not need to live with it. It is not something that is just ingrained. Go find a professional see what you can do and improve your relationship with your animal. But I think, yeah, most, most, I think cats are the number one owned companion animal in the, in the world. If not in the country, more than dogs. I think you're correct on the world. I know, no, that's the state in the US now. And yeah, you kid on something there. Cats have less agency than dogs to we've made great steps in giving dogs more agency, but cats are kind of aren't there yet. So what can we do about that? I'm going to interject just because I have a t-shirt that I wear to training sessions and it says it's the dog's house. I just pay the bills. And I think anybody in this profession, you could fill in, you could remove dog and put in whatever species you work with. And you just pay the bills because that's what we do. We, we bend our lives to supporting our pets as best we can. So I think that's, you know, trying to understand that species for cats, they need mental enrichment just as much as other species do and most people don't realize that. Yeah, just getting through those, those myths. I think this is important. Well, in part of it is that cats have not been studied nearly as much as dogs. And I mean, let's face it, dogs. I feel fortunate to have gotten into this profession when I did because I think what we have learned about dogs cognitively and emotionally in the past 30 years has been amazing. I mean, the science is really there and cats have just haven't risen to that level yet for whatever reason, which is unfortunate. And I wish we had someone from the horse world here too, because I'm curious what it's like there. I know there's lots of people in the horse world who think they know everything about horses. But, you know, I don't know any of you guys have any other thoughts. Tasha. So I've got rats as well. And again, I think it's the same problem with cats that people seem to think that rats hamsters, gerbors, you can just put them in a small cage. And it's fine. And sadly, we lost one of my rats at the weekend. And so we've been absolutely devastated. And if you look online, all of the information is, we must get another rat because you rats are all going to start dying off and like they cannot be without a cage mate. And the techniques for introducing a new rat into the system is absolutely horrific. Like so we wouldn't do that anyway, because we can see that our rats are grieving like they're missing, you know, pocket and it's important like we recognize that. There are so many people who treat rodents so badly or think that you can just chuck them in the cage with a wheel and it's absolutely fine or to even like scruff and punish rats for biting. So if a rat's biting is obviously for a reason and rats go through adolescence as well. And one of ours, he was awful for adolescence. And now he's great. I think there's enough education around small animals as well. And then he's, you know, how we can support them. I would agree with that. I mean, you know, they are the enrichment they have. I remember, you know, lots of my friends when I was a kid had amsters or gerbils or guinea pigs or something like that. And you look at the environment they were kept in. And it's like, yeah, even fish. I have a hard time going in any place and seeing an aquarium with fish in and just seeing how how small it is and what little space they have. And you know what where. How is this right from an animal welfare perspective? Interestingly, I was just thinking of that when you mentioned fish, I think something that can really help. Because seeing is believing educate people is basic training. I know I've been told a million times that you can't teach cats tricks. I taught how opinion of sit high five was very easy. And I know Laura Cassidy, who is part of the PPG who's an amazing trainer has taught fish tricks. So that's a little mind blowing for people right that you can and snakes and ducks. She's worked with a whole bunch of different species as well. And I think that can help that if you can even just see just the idea that a fish can be trained to come up to the surface and get a treat or swim through a hoop or whatever you're asking them to do are same with snakes and and whatnot. That that can click a piece in somebody's brain of well, they're probably smarter than them we think. And they and that smarter component means that they have a greater capacity for suffering and that their needs need to be met so that we aren't keeping them suffering fish make me crazy. My son who's now 15 when he was 10, won something at school and they gave me a plastic cup filled with goldfish to goldfish. And I'm losing my mind. What do I do with these fish? I don't know anything about fish guys and I know that you know it really really bothered me. So then we got in aquarium and I did the best I could to these poor goldfish, but I'm like, can we and I wrote the school like please do not provide lot living animals as prizes. Yeah. I think I think about like Emily Kassel who I've met through PPG and her training her pocket pets, her bunnies do agility. She's trained her fish to play soccer. I mean, she's done all kinds of fun things. So these little these little guys and rats are really smart too. I mean, they're using them for bomb detection, the pocket rat, the pouch rats or whatever they are. So all of these animals. I think we don't realize that they have sentience as much as they do and that would be a good driver for us is to just get the general population on board with us that these animals have brains. We just need to allow them to use them. And I think using training for enrichment rather than control if we can make that emphasis. I think because first of all it gets us involved with them and we can see more of their potential and on empathize better with them by doing that. And if we can turn that turn around the whole emphasis on training. I don't care what species that it's about enrichment and interaction and building a life together rather than having absolute and total control. I mean, boy, what a wonderful world that that would be. And I saw something this is going a little off track again that don goes down by neutrals, but there was something on Facebook about some guy who trained an octopus to play the piano. And it became the highlight of the octopus's day when he saw the guy bringing the piano over. I mean, and talk about an animal that I think is way more sentient than than we ever thought and is very, very different than us. I mean, I think octopi are amazing. And so a lot that we don't know and or don't respect in the natural world outside of just even our companion animals. I totally agree training for enrichment. I tried to teach all of my clients just basic clicker training with their cats because to me it's communication. You're really just teaching a language who cares whatever you do, do whatever you want. It's just for fun. But yeah, you're building that relationship and trust and communication. When PPG used to have our force-free competitions, I'm sure Don, you remember that. There was a video that was submitted with a person who trained their pig to attack the stuffed dog and they get the wolf is what they used. And so I always think about this pig that's head-ranging the stuffed dog because it was getting the wolf. I mean most people don't even think about pigs being trained. Well, yeah. And again, another species that is way more intelligent than I think we give them credit for. And I'm, I'm, I'm glad you brought up the pocket pets because again, as the world seems to be in some ways downsizing on pets as I see cats overtaking dogs, I think we're going to see more of them too. And then we have the same welfare concerns about them. And again, if we know 2x about dogs compared to 1x about cats, we probably know, you know, a tenth of an x about some of these pocket pets. And I also just want to bring up because I completely agree that we have underestimated intelligence in the natural world. But I also want to say that you don't, even if you are lower on the intelligence bracket, it doesn't mean that you're, it's okay that you suffer. Even lower intelligent species have the capacity for suffering. And if we can alleviate that, and I don't know what those species are, I don't know bugs, I always try to say bugs in my, in my house or what not as much as possible. But I just wanted to point out that yeah, even if you're, even if you're down here and your cognition isn't, isn't great, we're still, I mean, I feel like we're still required to do the best that we can to make sure that you're not suffering, especially if you're a companion animal. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, I think we, we rate intelligence to, to highly compared to emotional response. But you know, if we look at the brain, the part that handles emotions is much more primitive than the cognitive part. And so it's been there a lot longer. And that's really where, where suffering happens. And so yeah, I think you are exactly right, Jennifer. I would agree 100 per, 100% with that. And we really have to be, be thinking about that all of the time. So what else can we do, both as professionals and, and pet parents, to help the world, get a better handle on this? What are some things we can do? One of the passion projects I'm interested in trying to start up this year is going into schools, especially elementary schools, and just doing a very basic, I'm Kat's presentation on body language. When a cat's ears are back, they're telling, they don't speak, but it's the same as one of your friends saying, stop touching me. It's the same thing. Or if they're, you know, if your friends doing this, that means stop touching me. Stop touching me. You don't have to wait for the cat to bite and his scratch at you. They're already telling you before even we get there. I'm uncomfortable with what you're doing. And then it's our responsibility to listen and respond and say, okay, I'm going to stop petting. I'm going to walk away whatever it is. I think that's a great effort and would love to hear how that goes. I've often thought that we could eliminate or at least greatly reduce dog bites if we had formal classes in elementary school on canine behavior and canine body language and how to teach kids to interact safely with dogs. Some of my training staff who have kids have done an excellent job and with their children. And I can tell you, some of their children at six years old were better off at reading dogs than 60% of the adults I see. I was just about to say I think adults could use that same program. Well, no, I agree. Yeah, it's, but I mean, I think the place to start on all of these things, especially welfare is really with with great school kids. I mean, if we want to change the world, that's one of the best places to start. I think it's difficult to convince others how much value there is in making that a part of a child's education. Maybe because they didn't receive that education as a child. So as adults, as referenced, a lot of adults could use this education. And I know in my work with adults that when I go to teach body language, I sometimes see this kind of glassed over look, you know, they're like, when are we going to get to the training? You know, and it's hard to convince people that this is a critical component to your training program working well for you is that you understand, you know, what your dog is communicating. I think that's something we all struggle with is convincing our students that some of this other stuff is important. I'd be curious. And that's with dogs or cats. How do you get them to understand that it is important? Out outcomes. My passion with cats is cooperative care. Because again, I think with cats maybe more than bigger stronger animals like big dogs or horses, we can't. We really could hold them down and give them injections. My coracat, who's this one, she was diabetic. So I gave her injections twice a day. She had like 17 other health problems. And she was always on this medicine or that medicine. So she had to take pills or liquid medicines all the time. And we came up with a protocol very quickly for her to cooperate. And it's just as simple as we put a towel down when she's on the towel. That means yes, go ahead, give me the injection from my claws, do the thing. If she walks off the towel, she said I'm done. And I say that to people and they say, well, what if she never comes back to the towel and they say, well, you're building trust. And the more that you give them choices, the more they say yes. In my non-studied, non-scientific, anecdotal experience. So I think showing people, because people stress out, you know, I'm holding my cat. How do I hold the jaw to get the medicine in? And I'm like, well, maybe you don't need to do it that way. Maybe it'll be easier on them, but then it's easier on you as well. Because then you're in your out, it's easy. Nobody's upset. Everybody got to treat everybody's good. Take that stress level down. So I think results can help. Well, I mean, if you, you know, referencing to the the zoo world, and no matter where we are on whether that's appropriate or not, you know, they have to get cooperative care from lions, entiers, and bears, oh my. And you know, they can do some amazing things with training to get those animals to cooperate. And if we can do that with, why can't we do that with fluffy, you know? I tell this story all the time, sorry to interrupt, but I have seen a cooperative care blood draw with a crocodile, sorry, um, at our L.A. Zoo. And obviously you can't, crocodiles can do a lot of damage to you. So you're never going to be able to hold them down like you could with your dog. But he was good. They had this protocol. He got his snack, whatever it was. It was easy in out, no problem. And so I tell that story. I'm like, you can do this with crocodiles. You think it's, it's probably easier to do it with your pet animal. So absolutely. So let me ask this. One of the things we talked about was people have unrealistic expectations. And sometimes them being perpetuated by the professionals or whoever is selling someone the pet. But one of the unrealistic expectations that I do you guys see that whether it's a cat or a dog in training people expect a miracle much too quickly. That fair too. Okay. So how can we deal with that? I always use human analogies because I think it helps people relate to their animal. A common one I use is you want to lose a little bit of weight or you want to exercise more or you want to change some habits. For yourself, how many times have you tried to do something like that and how to successful outcome? Compare the times where you had a successful outcome and you didn't have a successful outcome. What did that look like for you? When you have a good plan, when you stick to it, when you're committed, when you're smart about it, the input into the plan, you need to educate yourself. All of those components that go into it, you're likely to have a better outcome than when you're kind of just winging it and going, "Well, I hope it happens." I want it to happen. I'm going to show up, but I might not do all the work all that great, but maybe it'll still happen. And people tend to relate to that. But I also think that it's important to remind them or educate them if they are not in this way of thinking that animals are not robots. They're not computers. They're sentient beings with emotions. And they are getting environmental inputs all the time. And so those environmental inputs are going to impact their behavior. So it's our job to make sure that as much as we can in training is try to control that environment for them in such a way that it sets them up to be successful with whatever way we're trying to work with them and achieve a good outcome. It can be hard to set the expectations. And sometimes you feel like, at least for me, I feel like I do it in the beginning and the clients on board. And then somewhere along the way, working with them, I see they're falling off with the expectations. They want to hurry things along. And as Jennifer said earlier, you just cut slow down, take a breath, evaluate where we are, evaluate what we're doing. And I always try to point out the wins that they've had so far. This has happened. And this has happened. And this change has happened. So we have made progress. You're getting really stuck on end goal. Right. So this is the progress we've made up to this point. Right. We have to live in the moment. Right. And then when we get a few moments ahead of us down the line, we'll look back at today and go, oh, wow. I was really frustrated that day that we weren't there yet, but look at now where we are. So really, you know, slowing things down and. You know, slicing things thinly for them in the moment, because if you try to do that, you know, big picture, how to slice things thinly. A lot of people don't grasp that. They do get caught up in end goal and outcomes. There's that positive reinforcement piece, Kim, where yeah, praise. Look at these things that you're able to do now that you were not able to do a month ago or what, what not. Yeah, breaking it down into little pieces and then celebrating those pieces and being like, this is a big deal and you're awesome. I always try to go ahead Rebecca. I wasn't saying I always try to stress to my clients that if they're having a bad day or if their dog seems to be in a bad mood that day, that's not the time to try training. Because just think about it. I say much like Kim, I use analogies where I'm like, when you were a student, you didn't want to learn every day you were in school. And so it's important to say, okay, today's not the day to push this, this lesson. I think that one's so big and I really try to get them to understand that they have to look at their own stress level and the animal stress level. And based on that, they can determine if they're going to be an effective teacher that day. And if their pet is going to be an effective learner and unless they're both one's ready to learn and one's ready to teach. And I mean really emotionally ready, you're wasting your time. And you just have to take those, those, those wins when you get them and be ready to say, okay, let's just go do something fun instead. And getting them to do it. But I know I have to try, no, you don't necessarily have to do it. I mean, if we're trying to solve a behavioral problem, it's a little more serious. But if it's just getting Sparky to sit, who cares if it takes us 10 days or 10 months in the grand scheme of things, we really shouldn't get all uptight about that. And I think we should at some point compile a document of all of the human analogies we can use because I find them really useful. I often use them with house training and I'll ask someone if they have a child or if they don't have a child, I'll say suggest ask your mom how long it took to potty train you. And then when you get this dog house train, you're going to be amazed at how much quicker they were a house train than you were ever potty trained. I use the human analogies there too because I think I go think about it when you really have to go to the bathroom, how rewarding is it when you finally get to go. Yes, that's the one that the people don't get and I pointed up the reason we want to minimize accidents is every time they go inside the house, they get a huge reward for it. People go, huh, what? I said, imagine you're driving down the interstate. We got long stretches on the interstate here where there's no bathrooms. You've just had three big goals and every restaurant you get at is closed when you finally get to one open, do you feel rewarded? Oh, well, yeah, okay, yeah. But I think that's somewhat sometimes the easiest way to to get people to understand some of this, I think we need to wrap things up. I'm going to go around with everybody one more time if you've got one thing you want to add today about what you think that maybe we haven't covered is really, really important. And I'll let you choose who wants to go first just go. I'll go thank you. Yeah, I guess the only thing I would like to mention is that there are two really great blog posts that have been written by some of our members that are going to be linked in the comments or the notes for this. So one is through barks and the other is through pets and their people. The one in pets and their people is how can guardians help create a kinder world for pets. And the one in barks is what professionals can do to create a kinder world for pets. So the both are very, very good. And I just recommend if people want to learn a little bit more to go to those two articles. I just put links to those in the zoom chat. Pam, if you're listening and I'm sure you are, if you can put those in the Facebook chat, that would be good as well. And we're going to have an article coming from today's talk as well that people can find useful and Pam just said done. So we know we she got that in Facebook. Rebecca, what would you like to add as a closing comment? I think that's a bit of a pathetic to either your pets or your your fellow humans. I think that an and rather than an or. Well, some days are better than others for the dishes. Yeah, definitely. I think utilize your communities well, so I quite often get guardians to put posters on doors and that for barking and like training protocols and then like my every driver. She's like really regular and she's so nice. She talks to my dogs through the door because I don't care. But like my neighbors don't care. So it's fine. And she's like, hi, how are you? I'm just dropping off parcel. Sometimes like pulling these people in the early calm and then see like what people see is negative like my dogs are barking and it's too much. Just pull the community and just like you know what my dog barks can you just give me a little bit extra time patients to get to the door or to do what I need to do or you know say to neighbors like I'm just in training at moment. I think it would be a little bit more patient because the more that these people to clean being kinder is creating much kind of world for everybody in the environment for that animal. Excellent points. Jennifer. So the thing that I say a lot to my clients and my friends and family is you have to remember you have to put your oxygen mask on first before you can help anybody else. And if you're passed out, you're not doing any good. So take care of yourself first kindness to yourself and then kindness will spread out amongst your companion animals and your family. excellent examples. I'm just going to throw one in there and get on the patient's bandwagon too because I think that's really, really important. And anybody who ever knew me before I was in this profession or even in the early days of this profession would never have suggested in any way that Don was a patient person. It would have been the exact opposite and I have learned patients and the value of it and it makes me feel better too. And I think the other thing I can add when we do better by our pets, that's positively reinforcing to us too, or at least it should be. So on that note, listeners, thank you for listening to today's panel. Panelists, thank you for being here. We appreciate you giving up your valuable time for this. listeners, there will be a follow-up article. Now at our next panel on April 15th at 12 p.m. Eastern Daylight Savings Time, we will be hosting authors and PPG board members, Nikki Tudge and Louise Stapleton for Pell. Louise, if I put your last name, I apologize. And we're going to be discussing their latest book Beyond Belly Rubs, the Compassionate at Guardian. I've read this book, I've recently written a review on it. And if we can get this book in wide circulation, I think it's going to help with a lot of the things we've talked about today because it addresses a lot of these issues. So I listeners, I hope you tune in next month to that panel because I think that's going to give you some more solutions. And on that note, everyone have a great day. It is almost spring, even though it was only 15 degrees this morning and main. But we will see you in April. Thank you. You. Bye bye.