Speaker 1: You were listening to Petlifradio dot com.
Speaker 2: And good morning or good afternoons, all whatever in the
case may be. As I'm here in I mean we
here in California. I hate to make you guys in
the eastfield jealous. Hopefully maybe it's getting better for you.
But it was eighty two or eighty three degrees yesterday
and they're expecting another scorcher today.
Speaker 3: It was absolutely beautiful. And I'm back from my trip.
Speaker 2: I was attending the Global Pet Expo this is now
going back a week and a half ago in Orlando, Florida,
and had a chance to meet up with some of
our other hosts here on pet Life Radio. Michelle Fern
was there with Best Pets for Pets, Megan Blake was
Super Smiley Adventure. Jody Miller has a show that's called
Bark and Sweat. I grow this around. But Jamie Mikedalads
has a new show called Pets Mean Business. That'll be
a good roe so tune in for Pets Mean Business
and also a new show coming up Jill Rappaport talking
about shelter Pets and Rescue. Something right up my alley
as well. And after the trade show, I had a
chance to go straight Ferlando, try to find a flight
that does that straight to Park City, Utah, and spent
a few days on the amazing slopes in Park City.
It was absolutely gorgeous, total spring scam. And there are
people out there skiing and snowboarding in shorts and no
shirts guys of course, and it was very warm and
very gorgeous. And then had to come back to reality
at my hospital and had a good week and interesting.
Last Sunday, we got an email from a listener and
basically it is a question for a doctor.
Speaker 3: He wanted to know how to get a hold of
doctor Jeff.
Speaker 2: He goes by just JB and so JB had a
really interesting question. They have a dog and they were
in the process of adding another poppy to the mix
and wanted to know some tips or suggestions how the
best way.
Speaker 3: To go about it.
Speaker 2: And what's interesting is, first of that's great question, JB.
Thanks for calling in. We need you to call back
in and give your email or your your address information.
We want to send you out a pro sense pet
product as well as a Kong toy as hosts of
our show, because without our host won't we won't be
here to talk to you every week to hopefully give
you some good advice, to be a sounding board. You
can call in and ask me questions. In fact, let's
get to that real fast. If you want to get
a hold of me, please do so. It's painless.
Speaker 3: Ask JB.
Speaker 2: He just he sent me. I got an alert on
my phone. I got to back to him in like
two minutes. So that's how easy it is. Eight seven
seven three eight five eight eight A two. Just pick
up your phone once again. It's holl free eight seven
seven three eight five eight eight A two and just
ask me anything, dogs and cats. I'll probably give you
an answer this instant. Anything else, I may be able
to give an answer. If not, I'm going to get
an answer for you. I will talk to my respective
colleagues and we will go from there and we'll kind
of make sure we want to help you, give you
information to help you sift through all the data that's
out there. An unbelievable amount of data is out there.
Why because of the Internet. We call it the World
Wide Web.
Speaker 3: And though the.
Speaker 2: Internet is a great source of information, unfortunately it's a
huge source of misinformation. And I wouldn't always say misinformation
like the information is wrong.
Speaker 3: But a lot of times you go on the Internet and.
Speaker 2: It directs you to spaces, to places as far as
the diagnosis, as far as the treatment that are sort
of out there on the fringes number one or or
what the internet likes to do is kind of what
they do in school. When you're in a teaching hospital
in veterinary school, you are getting some pretty bizarre cases.
And I mentioned this before many time, And the reality is,
the truth matter is that when you're in practice, when
you take your pet to your local veterinarian, chances are
the problem at hand is not one of those on
the fringe. Chances are, it's the more typical problem that
we see every single day. So A, we're not going
to panic, and B we're going to be a lot
more practical in our approach to the case because we
are going to treat first and rule out first the
much more common issues. Then we are going to the
more esoteric, rare instances on these diseases that you might
might see once an entire practice career. If I can
mention diseases that I know a lot of these people,
these veterinarians are looking for that you probably have been
heard of and I may have heard of only in textbook,
and things that you just don't see, or if you
do see.
Speaker 3: It's extremely rare.
Speaker 2: So purpose of our show is to help you sort
of go through all the possibilities. Let's get the more
common things listed first. Let's rule out the more common things.
So call and ask me questions, and at best, at
best I can just maybe modify an approach that you're
better and maybe taking maybe not, maybe you're going to
veterinarian like I am and likes to be, you know,
look at the problem, look at the more likely solutions,
and just take it. Step out of time, one step.
Let's rule in the more common or rule out the
more common. If it's not that, let's go to the
next one. Not that, let's go to the next one.
Let's get you an answer, but in a practical approach,
one that's not going to rob you, one that's not
going to break your bank. And that's just a better
approach to medicine. So anyway, so JB asked this question,
and the question was they are getting a new dog,
a new puppy, and they are concerned knowing and judging
from the behavior of the resident dog, that how to
best make this introduction positive. And by the way, the
information that we're going to talk about right now is
no different than introducing new people into the house, introducing
a new baby into the house. I get this all
the time, and the mechanics are the same. And there
is a new baby, whether it's a new puppy, a
new key, a new person, a new boyfriend, girlfriend, you know,
right now there's a relationship that's been established between the
resident dog and everybody else. So what we need to
do is sort of plan an approach, plan an attack,
and make some sense out of it and make it
practical for your pet and for you. And most of
the often we are doing things wrong the natural inclination.
Speaker 3: I'm going to leave you this. We have a caller
on the line.
Speaker 2: I want to get to that caller and we can
put this on a hold for a second. But most
people think about and their approach before you reason this
out with.
Speaker 3: Me we're going to do in just a second is wrong.
Speaker 2: So that's the funny part from my perspective, is that
natural first step, knee jerk reflex is wrong. So I'm
going to leave that in your minds while you're thinking
about what is what we're talking about here, and we
are going to go to the caller.
Speaker 3: Hello, caller, you're on the line with doctor Jeff. Hello, Hello,
can you hear me?
Speaker 4: My name is Jane. Yes, I can hear you.
Speaker 3: Can you absolutely?
Speaker 4: I have a shifting mouths old black lab Oh. She's beautiful,
but she's scared. Okay, she's real scared of people. And
I've realized black people anything black like. I had her
in the yard this morning and there's ducks, and the
white ducks came up and she was fine, and a
black duck came up and she went nuts. How can
I calm the dog down and not have her be
so scared of you know, sometimes she'll walk and sometimes
she won't. She's scared of other people. Now, there are
some dogs she likes to play with. When she has
her tail between her legs, does.
Speaker 3: That mean usually when the chill tune leg they are frightened.
Speaker 2: I don't think a labrador would be a fear bier,
but it's something to watch for.
Speaker 3: Now, let me ask you a question.
Speaker 2: Fifteen months old, have you had her since she's a
little puppy or did you a doct My.
Speaker 4: Daughter has Yes, my daughter's had her for a year
and now she just gave her to me.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: So usually when there is a fear, especially a fear
that doesn't quite make sense, there had to have been
at some point in her little fifteen month old life
and experience that scared her. And what so interesting, let
me give you add something to that. Sometimes it doesn't
even make sense, but I'll explain why. Let's say, for example,
something happened that hurt her or frightened her, and when
she looked up, and she looked up from this incidents,
whatever it was, there was a black person nearby, an
African American. Okay, so what happened the association this person
had nothing to do with it, But the association is there.
So it doesn't always mean that an African American or
someone of dark skin actually came up to her and
beat her. It means that something happened. She may have
done something as simple as slipping off of a curb
in the rain, and then right next to her, coming
walking towards her, was an African American or someone of color.
Right now, she's afraid, so first we have to get that.
Speaker 3: So go ahead.
Speaker 4: She's afraid of other things, though not just blacks. But
I'm noted at my house. She's really afraid of blacks.
How do we get her to be afraid of you know,
just walking around? Yeah, we thought maybe she was a fighter,
you know dog that was you know how they train
dogs down in Florida. They have a fight, But I
don't know a bait dog.
Speaker 3: Yes, but totally possible. Totally possible.
Speaker 2: So the basic approach to these behavior problems are something
with two things. We actually call it. We want to desensitize,
first of all, and we want to counter condition.
Speaker 3: What does that mean.
Speaker 2: That means that right now there is a stimulus that
is frightening her. We need to start minimizing the stimulus
by in a sense pardon the pun, color coding it
to the point where she's getting it in lesser doses.
And then we're going to countercondition her to actually like it.
Speaker 3: So we're going to take something. So let me give
you a perfect example.
Speaker 2: We got to And by the way, when we are
talking about behavior modification, there are a number of approaches.
One that has fallen way out of favor. One day particular,
non certified behavior non veterinarian has been promoting in his
show on National Geographic that's about the best I can say.
That's called flooding. We do not flooding. Flooding Is this
all right? I'll give you a perfect example of what
flooding is. You take a person who has a fear
of flying, okay, and I mean a real fear. I
mean a fear that their blood pressure goes up. They
will literally, you know what, in their pants. They are
frightened to death and fighting with the following. A pilot
who's got a little piper cup or a little Cessna
two seater takes this guy up, straps him in the seat,
and goes into the Grand Canyon and starts flying literally
right at the walls, right at the mountain side.
Speaker 4: And then.
Speaker 2: He pulls up, and then he turns, and he shrills
and goes through all of this stuff, and meanwhile this
poor guy in the other seat is literally losing it.
Speaker 3: And then find a lance.
Speaker 2: The planning has said yes, say yes, say I didn't die.
Speaker 3: You're seeing it. Be afraid.
Speaker 2: That doesn't work. The studies have shown that the damage,
the emotional damage, the physical damage way way out weighs
the fact that the initial fear. So what we need
to do is take a whole different new approach, which
is desensitization and counter conditioning.
Speaker 3: In essence, what we're.
Speaker 2: Going to do is take this beautiful dog of yours
and we are going to identify some of the triggers.
We are going to soften those triggers, and not only
just soften them, but we are going to associate them
with something that as a labrador, And I am a
labrador guy, and I have two right now, dozens and
forty years I only I mean I have other dogs too,
but it's always been labs as well. I know labradors
are pretty food motivated. My labradors will eat anything that's
not bolted down or doesn't eat them first. So typically
you can use food to your advantage when you're dealing
with a lab So what you're going to do now,
you're going to take this watered down version of whatever
it is and you are.
Speaker 3: Going to turn into something good. So let me give
you an example.
Speaker 2: Let's say the dark skin is something that is frightening her.
Speaker 3: Why, we have no idea.
Speaker 2: So we are going to start identifying friends of yours,
whether they're Cuban. You said you're down in Florida, right, Okay,
so Cuban or South American, Central American, whether they are Indian,
just people of darker skin than you.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, and you.
Speaker 2: Are going to withhold her favorite treat. Let's say, just
for example, it's a piece of hot dog, just an example.
So for the next several weeks, she doesn't get any
more piece of hot dog from you. However, Okay, you
are going to think about people you work with, people
you're friends with, people your friends are friends with, and
you're going to start having these people of slightly darker.
Speaker 3: Skin and you're going to create it.
Speaker 2: First it's going to be the very light brown skin,
and then it's going to go to darker brown skin.
Then it could have going to me after my Sunday
sitting in the sun yesterday because I'm pretty.
Speaker 3: Tan right now.
Speaker 2: And then you continue to get darker and darker and
small doses. But every time what's her name by the way, ConA,
And you're gonna have give those treats and you're gonna
make it fun.
Speaker 3: And ConA is gonna come.
Speaker 2: And she's gonna see that bag of hot dogs and
she's actually gonna come to them to get her treats.
Speaker 4: Okay, Well, you know this morning I had a funny
thing in the night. She we went to sleep early,
so I woke up in the night and I thought,
you know, maybe she has to go to the bathroom,
and brought her outdoors and the sprinklers were on, and
she loved it. She played in the sprinklers today. I
brought her outside. Yeah, And then the neighbor came over
with her black dogs. And the neighbor is very, very
gentle with dogs, and we got her to finally nuzzle
up to the black dogs and we gave her jerky
and she loved it. And so then she told her
she was a good.
Speaker 2: Dog, right, And that's that right, absolutely right, and never see.
Speaker 4: Them and do the same thing with people feel white
or whatever that she's afraid of.
Speaker 2: And what you're gonna do is you're gonna you're gonna
use a terminology that I like. You can use anything
you want, but ConA, let's go find a friend. Let's
go find a friend. And so now here's what's gonna happen.
The term find a friend or whatever you decide to use,
and these people and the treats start all going together.
She's gonna get food reward, great labrador food. Motivated, She's
gonna find a friend. She's gonna learn that whatever she
was afraid of, she will no longer be afraid of.
Speaker 3: And not only would she not be afraid, but she's
gonna look forward to it.
Speaker 2: She's gonna be walking with you, and she's gonna see
someone who's a little darker than yours.
Speaker 3: She's gonna run up to them, and you're gonna hoping
she's gonna get her treat.
Speaker 4: So or any people. I mean, I just know for me, yeah,
she's afraid of anybody, but here at my house black
people especially.
Speaker 3: Okay, So that's what anybody we need to just do.
Speaker 2: And you have to ask, and you know, I always
when you're dealing with behavior modification, you have to ask
your friends, your neighbors for participations. Guys, this is going
to be so crazy, but you know what I'm working on, Kona.
When you come over, it right at my front door.
Speaker 4: A piece of Almost all my neighbors are have dogs,
so that's pretty much not an issue. They understand, and
I've told them so in the ducks too. The first
she actually at my daughter's, she used to chase the seagulls. Well,
here I had her in the yard and she was
not the least, but she didn't try to get away.
She was on a change, she said, And watch the
ducks because I told her she was a good dog
and gave her a treat.
Speaker 3: Now exactly normal.
Speaker 4: It takes them right.
Speaker 3: What you have to do. And again, first of all,
another thing to remember.
Speaker 2: A labrador, just like the Australian shepherds and the and
the border colleagues, are natural herders. They do the agility,
they are so good at it. That's what they do.
Labradors are hunters. They're hunting dogs. That's why they're used much,
of course, so you got to just keep that in mind.
But I will tell you, since the ducks can't actively
participate in our desensitization counter conditioning game, you have to
be therefore, so when you see the lakona a duck,
oh my god, good girl, sit good, Yeah, give her
the treat. Oh my god, you're such a good girl.
So the whole idea is dogs learn from positive reinforcement.
They most hopefully many at least, are very treat motivated
and you can use those things to your advantage. And
nothing about treats, I mean just you know, a lot
of people don't like using treats and training. I'm not
one of them, but I will say this, very very
small amounts dogs do not appreciate or understand volume. They
appreciate the I'm talking tiny bit. Not only that, Not
only that that the smaller amount you give them.
Speaker 3: The more they're going to want more.
Speaker 2: I mean I am, I am an ice cream nut.
I mean back in the day, I would sit down
with a pint hagadas and I'd polish that thing off
in ten minutes. Now I couldn't get to the second pint.
But if I only had a little teeny spoonful each bite,
I'm going to want to keep going. So the whole
idea is give them small amounts and let them appreciate It.
Always coupled, always, whenever you give a treat, it's always
coupled with oh, you're such a good girl, cone, you're
so good petting her, Because pretty soon, pretty soon that
petting and good girl is going to replace the treat.
She's going to get the same satisfaction. We call it
operant conditioning. Whether it's a clicker, whether it's a good girl,
whether whatever it is, the association would be that she
will derive the same pleasure of the good girl girl
pat on the head, hugging kiss that she would.
Speaker 3: Yeah, hat she got in the treat itself.
Speaker 4: And the same thing getting her off my sofa. I've
only nested to get her off one right, and I
put her her bed down and I told her to
get on it, and she did so I gave her
a little treat.
Speaker 2: Absolutely absolutely, all right, thank you very much. Yeah, good
luck with con And then make sure staying a line
and good at the office. Give us a call in fact,
then you send a picture along to Mark over at
pet Life Radio. And also make sure we get your
addressed with Sitting Out a really great contoy and a
pro sense product for Kona, our producer answers to the phone.
Just give him all your info, Okay, he'll.
Speaker 4: Tell you all right, a right bye bye.
Speaker 2: So that's a great question, guys. And and just also all
you know to understand that we are really moving towards
operant conditioning, counter conditionings, a desensitization.
Speaker 3: You know, the art of behavior.
Speaker 2: Has become a discipline courret now in modern veterinary medicine.
There are actually many doctors out there, friends and colleagues
of mine, that have opted to do a three or
four year residency after veterinary school, after many of them
because it's a newer thing, working in the field for
several years as general practitioners to become board certified veterinary behaviorists.
And if you talk to any of our behavior people,
listen to Arden more here and oh behave you will
hear that the tech tchniques that are being used today
are way different than the ones of thirty years ago,
and we have to respect that. We have to make
our changes, we have to learn and now that we
can actually test dogs and cats and animals in general,
they're psyche if you will, their cortisol levels, their stress levels,
the firing of the nerves, and their brain, we know
how to approach their behavior issues and what we can
do successfully to modify their behaviors. Most of the behaviors
that we see in animals are natural, instinctive behaviors. So
this poor ConA probably had some experience that really frightened her.
And she's not dumb, so she's saying, Wow, I am
not going to let that happen to me again. So
therefore she starts this behavior and now we need to soften,
we need to modify the behavior. So it's very important
to understand where these behaviors come from, what stimulated?
Speaker 3: Was there anything unusual?
Speaker 2: As a matter of fact, if you do have a
behavior problem and you end up going to board certified
behaviorist or a behaviorist, a veterary behaviorst or just a
behaviorist in general, someone who really understands the principles of behavior,
your first.
Speaker 3: Visit is going to be a long one.
Speaker 2: Why because you're going to be filling out a history
that it's it's going to be pages long. Because there's
nothing there's no stone that cannot be unturned. We have
to go and explore all the possibilities, all the experiences
that this.
Speaker 3: Dog has had or pet has had.
Speaker 2: All of the changes that may have taken place, because
we don't know often or easily what that factor was,
and we have to determine it because that's what we
have to work on. And I can tell you a
story after a story about how things have been done
years ago and how things are being done now, and
it's a huge difference, so real quickly, boy, this time
goes so fast. It's already at that point we have
to kind of say goodbye. But I really want to
get to finish up with that question about how to
introduce a new baby, a new puppy, a new friend
into a home with a resident dog to avoid resentment.
And I told you that most of us, most of
us instinctively do the wrong thing. So I'm really curious
to know. And this is how we're going to leave you.
I'm going to leave you thinking for the week, and
you're going to call me next week at eight seven
seven three eight five eight a A two. You're going
to join in on a conversation here at Drjeff at
Petlife Radio dot com. Or you're going to come in
just if you log on, if you go to pet
life radio dot com, click on the astabets with Doctor
Jeff tab and you scroll down and you will see
something that says, join in on the conversation. What That's
what I want you to do. I want you to
start typing away and join in on a conversation. What
I want to know is this. I want to know
what you think or when you've been faced with this situation,
what you've done to help remedy the situation. What have
you done to help ease the tension in your resident
dog pre introduction to the new entity coming to the house,
be at another.
Speaker 3: Puppy, beat a kitty, beat a baby, beat a friend.
Speaker 2: So you're gonna let us know, and then we're going
to talk about what most likely you're doing wrong, or
maybe you're gonna surprise me, maybe you're gonna get it.
But it's very important to know that most of us,
naturally are doing the wrong thing, and we'll talk about
that next week. Once again, I want to thank our sponsors,
pro Sense Pet Products. I want to think Jane for
calling Contoy, so ConA is gonna get lucky. ConA is
going to get a contoy and a pro Sense product.
And we will be here next week nine am Pacific time,
noon Eastern time, and you can always get a hold
of me here at doctor Jeff Dr Jeff petlife radio
dot com during the week. If you're shy, embarrassed and
you want to send me an email, we'll get back
to you and we'll read your email on here.
Speaker 3: See you next week.
Speaker 5: Let's talk Beets every week on demand only on petlife
radio dot Com.
Speaker 3: The views and opinions expressed on this program are those
of the hosts and guests and are not necessarily those
of this station, its management, or other hosts or advertisers
on the Petlife Radio network.