[00:00:00] Scotti: For puppy blues, I think that sleep, and pottying, and then biting, is the other thing that people get really upset about. If we pair slow movement with our hands, if we pair careful, exercises when it comes to collar, harness, grooming, if we present those as the dog moves towards them, reinforcement happens, they are continually having the opportunity to move towards our hands for opportunities. We can talk about agency and all those things, but really you’re looking for a puppy towards something, and then we’re going to reinforce it with a treat. The treat comes through the thing.

It’s like there’s a portal. There’s a portal. Food comes through this portal and feeds me, so eventually I get so bored of waiting for the food to get to me, I put my head through it to get to the food faster, and that’s the success and then we don’t have to bite. Biting really gets reduced when they have a clear communication that this is an opportunity, not a restriction for them that we’re doing to them. Instead, it’s like, “Hey, this is an opportunity if you want it. We could do this right now and I have, we can go for a walk, we can put our head through, we can do all these fun things.” but this is the opportunity starts through this portal, portal. So we want that.

[00:01:13] Allie: Welcome to Enrichment for the Real World, the podcast devoted to improving the quality of life of pets and their people through enrichment. We are your hosts, Allie Bender…

[00:01:31] Emily: …and I’m Emily Strong…

[00:01:33] Allie: …and we are here to challenge and expand your view of what enrichment is, what enrichment can be and what enrichment can do for you and the animals in your lives. Let’s get started.

Thank you for joining us for today’s episode of Enrichment for the Real World, and I want to thank you for rating, reviewing, and subscribing wherever you listen to podcasts.

The voice you heard at the beginning of today’s episode was Scotti Harvey. Scotti Harvey, KPA CTP, is the founder of WhyRunamuck Behavior and Training and co founder of Cardin Country School, where she has taught kindergarten. In addition, Scotti is a certified CSAT, FFT, and trained service dogs for Brigadoon Assistance Dogs.

Scotti specializes in canine neonatal development and learning. She is a breeder of Icelandic sheepdogs and Finnish lapphunds and has raised 15 litters over 15 years. Through her studies on puppy socialization, Scotti strives to mitigate behavioral issues through the careful implementation of strategic early life experiences.

By focusing on developing processing, coping, and communication skills, Scotti aims to foster courageous, inquisitive, and versatile learners. Y’all, we had the opportunity to work with Scotti when she attended one of our enrichment courses, and it’s been just absolutely amazing to see how her career is flourishing and how she’s becoming a leading voice in puppyhood in this industry.

I always say that we need more people in this profession who are raising really good puppies, and I know that means that I would eventually be out of a job, but I would be okay with that if we had really solid puppies growing into really solid adults and had fewer dogs who ended up having emotional and behavioral distress.

So thank you, Scotti, for everything that you do. In this episode, you’re going to hear Emily and Scotti talk about the importance of making hands safe and comforting, puppy raising across the developmental periods, clicker training communication skills, how to simplify life with a puppy, and how to survive the puppy blues.

Alright, here it is, today’s episode, Scotti Harvey, how to be a mindful puppy raiser.

[00:03:42] Emily: Tell us your name, pronouns, and pets.

[00:03:45] Scotti: I’m Scotti Harvey. I go by she, her, hers. I have three Icelandic sheepdogs. So that’s Lotsie and Shucks and Hoot. And then I have a Finnish lapphund a beautiful Bee. And then we’ve got a couple of barn cats, and a half dozen sheep at the moment.

And we’re paring things down, I’ve got chickens, because we’re getting ready to move. So the flock of sheep have moved to Emma’s, my daughter, Emma’s place for a while while we’re trying to clean everything up. But yeah it’s a small, that’s a tiny amount of animals for me at this point.

[00:04:23] Emily: That is exciting. I love sheep and also I haven’t been able to spend nearly enough time with them. I just think they’re the cutest and most fascinating creatures. So, I’m happy to hear that you still have some sheep. I might have to come visit them someday.

[00:04:37] Scotti: there’s nothing better than a lamb living in the house with your dogs.

baby lambs bouncing around on your couch and through your kitchen and eating, alfalfa off the ground while the dogs enjoy, the alfalfa with them is pretty darn adorable.

I have one Icelandic sheepdog who nursed one of the lambs.

[00:04:54] Emily: That’s the cutest thing in my whole life.

[00:04:57] Scotti: It was a little weird, but when you’re maternal, you’re maternal.

[00:05:00] Emily: That is the cutest thing ever. So tell us your story and how you got to where you are living with Icelandic sheepdogs and lambs bouncing around your house.

[00:05:08] Scotti: Yeah. I think like most of us that work with behavior things, we have a couple of, animals that encouraged or led us down that path, or maybe we were attracted to them because we were already that type of person. And I have to say that my sister was like 11 and she’d been asking for a horse for years and we finally moved.

She was going to get her horse. This is before we had Google. So, it was the LA times, in the classified ads, or maybe a local feed store or something like that. So we pulled off a little tag and went hunting in our neighborhood, not too far from our house. there was an adorable pinto and we climbed on and rode up the trail and know, before we got on, she was like he’s a little bit of a problem. You can’t wear a saddle. You can’t do this. You can’t do that. We got, a couple of hundred feet up the trail and he tossed us. And we got up, I was seven, almost eight years of age and started sobbing because I was so afraid that my sister wasn’t going to want the horse because we got dumped I was in love and I had to have that horse. we got back on, went back, acted like everything was fine and we moved on because it wasn’t the right horse for her anyway. She ended up with a beautiful Appaloosa that we had to drive two hours to get to. And it was great. But little seven year old was still heartbroken and didn’t, couldn’t go riding with her sister. So at almost my eighth birthday, a horse by the name of Imp came home. And as you can imagine with that name, are certainly stories that go with Imp.

And. the most impactful one was when the gal going off to college handed him off and we had to, of course he couldn’t trailer, couldn’t wear a saddle, all the things. she said, I think a large man owned this guy cause he can’t be around crops or sticks. Don’t pick anything up near him. okay. And the shoer doesn’t want me to give out his name and none of the other shoers will come near him. We were like, okay, I still love him. It’ll be fine. So the first time I had to call him, at the age of seven, almost eight, I dialed this guy and he cussed a blue streak at me and told me she was not supposed to give out his name. then he paused. When he arrived that first day, I didn’t know what I was doing. So I wasn’t even on flat ground. we lived on a hill and I had the horse a steep slope holding on to my, my guy. he rolls up his sleeve and says, I want you to take a look at this.

And he says, this scar, that’s your horse. And then he rolled his sleeve down and he rolled up the sleeve on the other arm and he pointed at his arm, he goes, that one, that’s your horse. And he said, I will not be putting shoes on your horse. I will trim him but I will not be, and I was like, okay, that’s fine.

I don’t mind. It’ll be fine. And the only people that he was okay with were short little girls. I was fine and I held him and he was a jewel for this guy and we never had any problems with that. But he did say to me at the time, I can’t put a twitch on him. And I didn’t know what a twitch was. I had to ask my dad who had spent time on my grandmother’s cattle ranch he told me what it was. And I was horrified, really grateful. I didn’t have to witness that. can you imagine my horse didn’t read that book that twitches are supposed to make it so you can do feet or look inside their mouth or whatever.

He said that’s doesn’t that’s not true Imp was like yeah, that doesn’t work That’s not a good way to do things. So I had him all the way up into college. he got me through my childhood and my adolescence and kept me, on the straight and narrow. then about a year later, our house burned down.

My sister and I rode the horses out to Southern California, in the hills. And after that, there was a lot of displaced animals. And a dog found us. and followed us around. And my mom had always been saying for several years, You can’t have a dog.

They’re dirty, so I would bring animals home. I go to friends houses and just hang out there, whatever, because, of course, I had to have a dog. This guy was following us around on the trails. Our horses were a couple blocks from where we were living since our house burned down.

So we’d have to walk back and forth and he’d follow us like a coyote or wolf. I mean, like he didn’t come close. never closer than like 30 feet, Just always on the outskirts, like a shadow. At night, he’d sleep outside our house curled up. He followed me to school every day because I walked to school. I was just positive that I could Figure this out. This dog was supposed to be mine, because my mom had said, if you want a dog, you’re going to have to pray for one. So I had been praying for a dog for a couple of years and God brought me a dog.

So I was out there, opening tuna hands and then leaving them out. And I’d sit down there, I’d put it like halfway between me and the dog and he would just, poor thing, he couldn’t, he couldn’t do it. But over time, over months, he and I became a thing. And it was maybe Christmas. And we had Frost, which you rarely get to see in California, but it happened to be a cold time. Frost, out on the lawn, and he’s curled up, and there’s Frost across the top of him, right? my mom, walking by, and kept saying, they advertised in the LA Times, trying to find the owners. They did every, my parents did not want to keep that dog. Or, my dad didn’t mind, but my mom was like, not happening.

They worked really hard to try and find his owners. So I’ll, I’ll use the appropriate seventies terminology has that. And so my mom comes in, it’s like maybe 1 or 2 AM and wakes me up and says, go get your damn dog. Cause she couldn’t stand seeing him out there anymore.

She felt so guilty. Cause he clearly had decided. that I was his family. And I had Jane Goodall my way there, and he was now mine. And so, people all along always said, You’re going to be a veterinarian, right? And I always said, “No, I’m not going to be a veterinarian. I’m going to be an animal psychologist.”

They were like, “Is that a thing?”

I said, “I think it should be.” 

I got into college. I studied psychology. I was able to write my own major. So, I was able to do what I called animal psychology. I just took any class I could that was geared more that direction. my senior year, I got married. I got pregnant five weeks later. Within the next seven years, I had four children. And a lot of Akita’s and other animals but that was not what I was doing anymore. I was in the mines with raising children and providing an education for them.

And that’s when we became involved with the school because I really felt early education was the most important piece. I really wanted to make sure that my kids had that opportunity because I had had a really good opportunity with a positive reinforcement based elementary school.

So I wanted that for my kids. fast forward to 2006. My last kid was in high school I was looking to import a sire for my Icelandic sheepdogs. I had this wonderful breed that was stinky smart, and I really wanted a really good sire for my girl. I was hunting and at that time, of course, you went through links on websites because we didn’t, we didn’t Just search, it was more like find one website and then I’d go down that rabbit hole and find whatever link that they had in the next country and then that, so all these different countries looking for the right Icelandic and lo and behold, I came across this website with this fan of multicolored clickers and it said Karen Pryor and I out loud to my Children said, Karen Pryor has a website. And it was called clicker training. com, right? I dove into that, right? And saw, oh my gosh, they have a, they have a course. They’re training, they’re animal trainers. And, and I looked a little deeper. Terry Ryan, there’s a, there’s a teacher in Sequim? That’s an hour and a half from my house. when I went to Terry’s website. She was advertising that Bob Bailey was coming and doing his final chicken camp. He was coming out of retirement to do this final series of chicken camps. my mind exploded,

And like going through here, sold out, sold out, sold out. I signed up for one of her regular dog training classes. My youngest daughter who was in high school and homeschooling, we grabbed our dogs And took a class and met the wonderful Elaine Dietrich. We love you, Elaine. I think Terry had some Japanese students visiting, because she came out onto the balcony, and watched all of us training out as I was walking out of that class that day, there was a photograph up on the wall of chicken camp.

And it said, Terry did chicken camps. And I was like, there’s a chicken camp? Terry does what? Sign me up. And so, I got Emma, who was in vet school, to go with me. We went to the one day chicken camp. Halfway through the chicken camp. We’re eating our lunches. And Bill her husband comes in. And he says, Terry, someone just dropped out of the first week. And I looked at Emma and she says, “Mom, you have a litter of puppies. They’re going to be three weeks old. This is your first litter, you’re not going to want to leave them.”

And I was like, ‘Gosh, this is insane. I can’t believe I’m sitting in this room and I have the opportunity.” So I excused myself to use the restroom. Walked back and I pulled out my credit card. I said, I’ll I’ll take one of those. And Bill said, Are you serious, Scotti? I said, I am totally serious. 30 minutes later, Bill comes in. Someone just dropped out of the second one. I think this was about the housing crash, you know, crash about that time. And so he came in, he goes, we’ve got another opening in the second week. And I looked at my daughter. She’s mom. Absolutely not. What are you going to do with that letter of puppies?

And I’m like, I don’t know. I’ll figure it out. So I excused myself. She’d forbidden me. And I went and I signed up, I gave Bill the credit card. I sat back down And there weren’t any other openings. Thank heavens that day. showed up for chicken camp. It was amazing. It was phenomenal. I learned everything I needed.

I wanted to understand and I understood. In fact, I understood so much and I’d watch these videos that I’d seen in class when I was in college. And I would cry and Bob would look at me like, are you insane? And I’d be thinking, you have no idea how impactful this is for me in my life right now to be able to like, I didn’t understand, like I’d been teleported into this other, space that was so important to me. And yeah, phenomenal and amazing. I was already signed up for the KPA thing with Terry and that was phenomenal. after chicken camp and being completely sleep deprived and somebody dropping out of week three while I was in week two. that was good because I ended up getting another week I luckily had a daughter in high school so she took care of the puppies during the day and I took care of them at night because I was completely sleepless and actually had my first arrhythmia on the last day of chicken camp because I was so tired and stressed but we survived and 15 litters, it’s more than 15 years now. all that education that I’ve been doing has been paired with my puppy raising, which has been really impactful for me to be able to, use them as a science experiment as I try things. I think Icelandics are so honest that they provide a really good platform for me for when people say stuff like, this is what you do.

And I go “Do ya?”. Like that doesn’t seem right. And I think I can do that better. it’s been a good opportunity for me. And then Terry, being very generous with her time and wisdom, encouraged me and allowed me to be there during her KPA workshops. I was very blessed to be, in the room with her during her international camps for a few years some of my puppies got to be the loner dogs for the international students and I met some wonderful people who are instructors now in KPA who went through the course I got to meet by being there during that very stressful time. I’d say that’s how I got here through just, I don’t know, right? Like opportunity that just presented I guess I just took the opportunity that was available when it was there.

[00:16:26] Emily: Your entire life story just feels like destiny, like from the beginning to the end of that story. Just enchanting. Okay. So I have to make a couple of comments that aren’t. Puppy related, first of all, everything about that was delightful. I think it’s fascinating that you homeschooled your children my mom homeschooled me through junior high and high school.

Like I went to public school in elementary school. My mom’s degree was in special education and she kind of assessed that her kids. all were being not served well by public school. And I think, there are pros and cons to every kind of path through, childhood education. I’m not for or against any of them, but what I have noticed when homeschooling is executed one of the benefits is that it gives us that kind of thinking outside the box mindset of like, but why do we have to do it that way?

And so I just had to connect those dots because you are reporting that that’s your approach and I’m like yes, that tracks because I’ll see you homeschooled your kids. Right. So like, there’s that, sort of outcome of having the ability to custom tailor and craft your own children’s educational experiences and really asking yourself, why do we do the things that we do?

And are they really necessary or is it just status quo? Is there a better way to do something?

[00:17:52] Scotti: identifying the goal of each of those exercises or that, what is the goal of that and how can you get to that in a more meaningful way and how can they retain whatever it was that goal? Is it just information you’re throwing at them to keep them busy or was there a meaningful, you know, how can you build that framework what you’re actually supposed to be getting out of an education. I think that that is, yeah, it is, it’s a big deal.

[00:18:16] Emily: It’s a big deal and it’s really delightful to see that connection that background and that really informs how you approach behavior and animal care in general.

[00:18:26] Scotti: Yeah, definitely. as I like to say, I don’t mind, hearing what the restrictions are, but I’m really going to be trying to figure out how to meet those restrictions in a completely non traditional way because I can’t help it. I can’t help but look at it from a different viewpoint. I can’t help it.

[00:18:42] Emily: I’m the same way. why does this rule exist? I’m only going to honor the rule if it makes sense. Otherwise, I’m just going to look, find ways to break the rule What are the restrictions and why?

if there’s a good reason for them, cool, we can work around them creatively. if there’s not a reason for them, or if there’s a bad reason for them I just had to connect those dots because it was delightful to me to hear that play out. I have been waiting so long for you to start sharing your puppy raising philosophy and techniques with the world.

I was giddy when I saw that you taught a KPA live course. And I was sad that I didn’t know that you were doing it until after registration passed. I love your approach and I got impatient.

So I was like, I’m just going to bring you on the podcast because I’m tired. I’m tired of waiting for you to write a book. I’m just saying that if you offered that KPA live class again, I would be there with bells on But in the meantime, can you give us a broad strokes picture of how you approach puppy raising?

[00:19:39] Scotti: I would love to have you in my class cause I know you’d ask really good questions that would hurt my brain a little bit.

[00:19:46] Emily: We would have so much fun.

[00:19:47] Scotti: We’d have enough fun for other people to join just to watch how much fun we were having. So I, do treat, in broad strokes, it is a puppy experiment, right? I have asked so many people to please come to me and tell me what the experiment I want to participate. I’ve got the puppies. Let’s do an experiment. let’s figure out what it is I’m testing. Like, what am I testing? Because I’m trying to build a better program every single time. I’m trying to problem solve whatever the puppies show up with. It’s okay, this is what I’ve got. oftentimes I see research and I, I look at the research, which is, there’s a hypothesis. They figure out what they get out of it. I love science because it’s not black and white. I love that they’re trying something and they find out something else instead.

That’s just really groovy to me. But it’s a science experiment. So I use my observations drive my behavior. Absolutely. I am definitely a think, plan, do, 99 percent of my time is in the think, I plan it out and then I do it. And then I have to adjust my expectations because whatever I thought really hard about and then tried produced a certain type of result that usually is good because I put so much thought into it ahead of time.

Like I broke my brain ahead of time, trying to figure out what piece. I want the puppy’s experience to be as crafted as possible because we have these high expectations for them. So I want to craft the experience to be as low stress as possible so that they can retain the information. if it’s possible for them to absorb that information, I want them to have the best possible chance of retaining the information that I intended for them to be taking away from it.

when the ewes are lambing, you know, we go out and we have, we have a herd wicks and Jacobs are the sheep that we’ve had. if you’re in the UK, you know what a herd wick is. If you’re over here, you know what a Jacob is, they’re good natural moms.

They deliver, they don’t have a lot of complications. they’re good. They’re hill breeds, they’re savvy, and if you’re going to interrupt their birthing, there could be consequences in that they might walk away from their lambs, They also don’t tend to have large litters, because they only have two usually, right? One or two. And when they have three, four, there’s a lot of them. That’s more than they’re used to, they’ll walk away. They’ll leave them behind. So, they’re not that type of breed. They’re a breed that tend to have, two. we’ve, been more likely to sneak up and peek on our ewes delivering and try not to interfere because they might actually stop delivering. we want them to go through the entire process. We want them to eat the placenta. We want them to take care of their babies and not interrupt any of the, important piece. now take that to look at dogs and you’ve got a mom and you have things like suggestions for ENS, early neurological stimulation.

Where you do all these things to the puppy and nobody really knows if it does anything or not. But it’s been just this thing that everybody does just in case it’s good for the puppy and Personally I think it’s the actual, that, that people are handling the puppies.

It has nothing to do with all the weird things they’re doing to them. I think it really is just the fact that there’s a tactile thing happening and that the difference between the limited studies that were done initially had to do with dogs who probably weren’t being touched every day. Well, Now we’re picking them up and touching them every day. What if we just did that? I don’t know. We’ll see. Someday there’ll be great, studies on that, but I haven’t seen any that I Think are worthy of doing too much thought into it. I just do a lot with my puppies and then I don’t have to worry about putting them on a cold washcloth. I don’t think that’s a logical thing to chill a puppy. I don’t see any reason for it moms are uncomfortable when you touch their puppies, when you pick up their puppies to do ENS or to weigh them. In general, at least my moms, which are good moms, are going to be like, you’re moving my puppy? So that to me is going to be associated with my smell.

So me touching the puppies is going to be associated with mom’s cortisol spiking they can smell mom and they can smell me. my first primary goal in that situation is to help the mom If I need to take weights, my mom needs to be 100 percent solid on the fact that I’m going to be removing her puppy, and she doesn’t need to have any concern about it. She should be able to sleep through it if she wants to, I noticed, in the beginning, when you pick up a puppy, they’d follow, lick the baby, and the baby would start to cry and wiggle. So now I’m taking weights while I’ve got this little, tiny, brand new baby, screaming and squirreling and wanting to get back to their mom. now I heat my hands between every single puppy so that they’re the right temperature. There’s no vocalizations. There’s no concern. Puppies are fine. Puppies are happy. Mom doesn’t care because I have paired touch, treat, touch, treat, touch the puppy, treat, scoop the puppy, treat, scoop the puppy up and weigh it. Give it back. Treat. mom’s just like, you do whatever you want with the puppy. I’m cool. I got this. You always bring the baby back. You always pay me for it. I’m a hundred percent comfortable with you touching my puppies. and I think that’s with that, that you can call it training, but really it’s just changing what I’m doing even if I just paid her for it, if the puppy cried or was uncomfortable because my hands were not the right temperature, Because my hands are not the same temperature as her warm tummy or the heating tray. Even if they wiggled, she would have the same response. So I need both of them to be cool with my, with my interaction with them. I think that that’s indicative of how I do things in my program. I think that’s a broad stroke. Look at the mom. What’s she comfortable with? What can I add to, that’s going to still be okay with her?

If she’s not going to be involved because she doesn’t like bird noises. We’re not going to be playing bird noises around the puppies unless she’s going for a walk, right? Because they can smell her. They can smell her and they’re going to associate if they could, you know, I want to make sure that she’s as cool as possible, and if she’s not, let’s say she’s a rescue, what is she cool with?

And let’s really work on those things, and then pair out the other things to do when she’s not present, or when you have another dog that is comfortable with those things present. That’s a, even that’s a, sounds very, very specific. It’s really, that is a broad stroke for me, like of how I, how I look at things. I like to use the environment to support the learner. I like to set the environment so that they can be successful. I want to see puppies practicing healthy, safe behaviors because I want them to be using them later. So if you have a, a whelping pen that doesn’t allow for circling around objects to avoid, what are we doing? Isn’t that the healthy, natural, normal behavior? So, that is definitely a really important thing for me. Yeah, and I want to facilitate all those, natural behaviors, the ones that we want to see more of. the fourth thing, which has to do with that, that I’m heavily focused on, are hands and how we as primates use them around our puppies, and how we can be more observant, and modify pairing of our hands to reinforcers, that if you’re picking up a puppy, there should be an association with something positive, either during, when it happens, when you move them, and then when you put ’em down again.

Because if you’re picking them up, even if you pick ’em up and give ’em a treat, if you’re now going to put them in a place they don’t want to be, that’s not gonna work for you in the long run. They will not wanna come towards you and you will see it. No, I’m not ready to go away yet. We want to make sure that the whole picture every single time in those early, that early window is so important for their ability to forgive us later it’s a relationship and building trust, and how they feel around other people starts with us.

So if we pick them up by the neck and move them from place to place by the neck, that’s just Not acceptable in my book. Every time I see it, I cringe, it makes me feel nauseous. I think of the damage they’re doing to their own relationship and their own smell attached to the puppy. I’ve seen fallout from it. not on mine, cause I’ve never done that, but I literally, I was at a, um, I took a litter to a dog seminar because they were seven weeks, I think it was, and it was timing was right, there was a bunch of people up at Terry’s for something. I can’t recall what. So I was going to use all these trainers as opportunities and people came out. They were so happy to help me move the puppies into the pen and all that stuff. I had knowledgeable trainers doing things to my puppies that my eyeballs were flipping in the back of my head because they were grabbing puppies and flipping them and holding them still. they thought they were teaching them to submit, and that that was the best way to not have an aggressive dog later. I can teach that, give me a minute, I’ll teach that to my puppy. before you do that. so that they don’t think that’s what you’re doing.

And then it will look just how you want it to look. But I don’t want you doing that to my puppy. I don’t want them associating random smells of humans with coming up and pinning them. So hands is a big part of the broad strokes.

[00:28:32] Emily: I love everything that you said. there’s so many threads I want to pull, but before I pull any of the more recent threads, I want to go back to the beginning because there’s something that you said that blew my mind and then actually made me question some kind of a belief that I’ve carried I have to tell a story first.

And this is a story that I love using to illustrate when I’m teaching people about critical thinking skills, it’s one of my favorite stories to tell about how our selection biases can influence our beliefs about what is possible. There was a video several years ago, going around Facebook and it was of this dog is watching a person put all these vegetables into a soup pot then he puts this little puppy into the soup pot, the dog stops, puts his paw on the person’s hand and pulls it out.

So the joke of the video is that the dog understands the concept of soup and, and it’s no, you can’t turn my puppy into soup. You can’t make puppy soup. So that was like, the premise of the video and it’s obviously a joking video. Nobody actually believed that this person was going to make puppy soup, But what was interesting is I posted that video to my Facebook page because I thought it was funny. And then this debate happened. the debate was fueled by this one person who Freshly had his master’s degree in one of the behavior sciences, and the discussion was, there’s no possible explanation for this behavior. the dog was trained to put his paw on the hand holding the puppy and pull it out of the pot. And I was like, there’s more than one possible explanations. I think that is an explanation, but that’s not the only explanation. what I thought was fascinating about this conversation is that all of the people who agreed with the guy with the master’s degree, that it could only possibly be training people who didn’t have a background with both sires and dams, they hadn’t ever worked with entire canine family units.

They had only ever worked in shelters as pet sitters or wherever, where they’ve only ever seen a mother with puppies. Or they just don’t have a lot of experience with puppies at all. from their perspective, this was a behavior that could only have been trained, it wasn’t a natural behavior.

Everybody who agreed with me that there could be more than one explanation had a background in puppy rearing with intact dog families. All of us were like y’all need to meet some sires because there are some sires who have very big opinions about what you can and cannot do with their puppies, and have very firm rooted beliefs that, the puppies need to stay in the whelping box with mom. I’ve worked with a mobile veterinarian where we would go into the home to do all the like, early puppy care, I’ve had dogs sires who had like, a time limit in their head like, I was allowed to hold their puppies and do things for two minutes, and then it was like this timer would ding in his head, and he would, like, very gently grab my hand and lead me back to the whelping box, and I’ve met sires who were very much You can weigh my puppy, but you absolutely cannot take a temperature of my puppy.

So they had rules in their head about what types of interactions I was allowed to do with their puppies. I love that story from a critical thinking perspective of being aware that the, specific selection biases of each population really influenced what they thought was explaining the behavior or what was possible to explain the behavior.

But now hearing you talk about how careful you are with making sure that the mom is really comfortable with you, handling puppies and taking puppies outta the whelping box. Now I’m wondering have I been too cavalier in my attitude towards the sire experience of what’s happening with the puppies?

Like is what I have experienced with the sire having a two minute timer in their head, or having rules about what I can and cannot do? Was that a sign that I could have done more work to make the sire more comfortable? And how do you handle that with sires? Are you also helping the sires become comfortable with how you handle?

Do you ever have experiences like that with your sires where they’re like, no, Scotti, you can’t do this with the puppy. Or do you not experience that, that you telling that story about how you like help mom be comfortable with teaching? I was like, Whoa, I need to completely rethink this whole thing about the story with the sire and the puppy in the soup pot.

Tell me, tell me what your thoughts are about that.

[00:33:06] Scotti: So I look at it as the behavior, right? I don’t speak dog, but I pay each of my dogs if they’re present for holding position when I’m interacting with a puppy. Those interactions are troubling. Icelandics have beautiful language, it’s, I can’t even explain, they’re so nuanced there’s so many subtleties in their language that sometimes other breeds don’t pick up on, but other Icelandics will. Tiny little muscles in the face and things like that. And I can say with my very first litter, the mom got out of the whelping box within hours and went and got the male Akita and brought him back. But the other two Icelandics were not allowed. The Australian Shepherd wasn’t allowed. But the male or female didn’t matter. But the male Akita, who I swear she had a thing for, always did. She went and got him, and he lay next to the box and she told him he had to stay there.

And then I don’t know whether she felt like he was protecting her and them, but that went on for days before anybody else was allowed anywhere near. I’ve always tried to create it so that the mom gets what she wants. So if she wants she gets privacy. If she wants to have her tribe around her, she gets her tribe because they’re all different.

And they all select, sometimes they like the males around them. Sometimes they like the females around them, and it depends on the, it doesn’t always depend on the litter. It’s usually the mom. Usually the mom likes certain things a certain way. One of my girls is, A resource guarder, she doesn’t want to share her food. She wouldn’t hurt another dog that came in and took it, but she’s going to be expressive about it as they approach. if somebody comes and takes it, they’re just going to take it. But she’s going to be making sure they know that she doesn’t want it taken. And she’s that way with her puppies as well. And it’s really funny because. They’ll, like, come and look. Baby B would get into the, Lotsie would say, No, you can’t come in. And B would crawl into the whelping box, because B was, like, four months old, and she heard them nursing, and wanted to nurse. Lotsie would be, like, You shouldn’t be in here. And be, like, I just want to be next to the puppies and the milk. The way Lotsie would handle it, with these really subtle behaviors B would step in and then sit next to the one that wants to, and, but all these cute little things happening. The healthiest way is to like, if I could have separated B, but B was four months old and so maternal. I like my maternal girls to stay maternal. So I don’t really want to interrupt too much when they’re growing up because they’re the ones that nurse the lambs or whatever else, cat or something. And they don’t think that was actually that stressed by it would have told me and I would have had to deal with it. She would have asked me because she would have taken a look at me. Not just the other dog. It’s that you need to help me because I have that kind of relationship with my moms.

It’s really important that I have that relationship because when they’re giving birth, I need to be able to be in the box with them. And I have told people before that, when you’re raising a breeding female, need to be so connected to them because you’re going to literally be having to possibly stick your fingers up inside them, to help deliver something, they need to be actually asking you for help in allowing it.

[00:36:06] Emily: I mean, I think it’s important for people to think about that because so often we’re just thinking about what has to get done and we’re not thinking about the animal’s experience with what we’re doing to them.

And so I think it is worth keeping in this conversation to say, when you are working with a breeding mom, you have to have a really good relationship with them because you do things to them that could be a really horrible experience if the relationship isn’t there. And if the trust isn’t there.

So I’m just, repeating back to you what you said to affirm that, yes, I do absolutely think this is a good part of the conversation to be having.

[00:36:44] Scotti: Yeah. And it is the hands, right? Because the hands are what we do things with. So, it’s building a really strong relationship around hands. So that they seek our hands, and that starts from birth. not forcing interactions. Trying to be as gentle and careful and thoughtful with our hands from the very beginning that we can.

[00:37:01] Emily: Yeah. So that actually leads me to one of the other threads I wanted to pull from what you said, which is that discussion of how important it is to make sure that our hands are reinforcing to the animals that we work with. And I think that a lot of times an animal can have a really good relationship with the person, but still be wary of hands or have a startle response to hands.

And I had that experience with one of my dogs, Copper, but actually with my feet. Even though Copper and I have a really good relationship, there was this two or three year period that for whatever reason, he kept choosing to sleep at the part of the bed where when I get out of bed, that’s where I placed my feet.

In the middle of the night, it’s dark, I can’t see, I’m just waking up because I have to go to the bathroom or I’m thirsty or whatever, and so repeatedly, I would accidentally put my feet on him or accidentally kick him, not, I noticed that he started flinching around my feet and I was like, Ooh, I don’t want him to have that response to me. it’s not intentional. I’m not intentionally trying to hurt or scare him, but this is a problem. so I had to start very intentionally and gradually petting him with my feet, first in a way that he didn’t find uncomfortable or startling, and then just gradually like making the movements bigger and everything to help him to become comfortable around my feet again. And now what’s funny is he will sometimes solicit petting from my feet. when he wants pets, he’ll like, you know, shove his head under my hand and push it up. sometimes he does that to my feet too.

Like he’ll lick my foot and then shove his head under it. I had a similar experience with my dog, but with my feet, not with my hands. So the question that I have for you related to that is, has there ever been a situation where.

You’re, handling the puppy, something that happens unintentionally startles or scares them, and so they have this temporary fear of hands, what is your approach to helping them get through that while still honoring mom’s timeline. what is your approach for balancing like mom’s need for how long the puppies gone or how you want to get engaged with the puppy versus the puppies need to do some repair work on their experience with your hands?

[00:39:07] Scotti: So I’m not going to worry about it when they’re under three weeks of age. I won’t know that it’s my hands. That’s one thing, and it won’t be until they’re say five weeks, that you’ll start to see a pairing of where they, because they have more motor skills, right? I had one puppy that I talk about a lot because it took me by surprise. Emma happened to be home and she was, was she a Karen Pryor grad at that point? I think she might’ve been, had already graduated from Karen Pryor at that point and a veterinarian around, puppies all the time, and she actually lived above a reproductive practice for several years. She put her hands down to pick up this puppy to put him away for me to put him in another pen, and he growled. Like serious growled and sat back and was like “uh huh not even happening.”

And she was like, this is a sociable breed. It’s not a breed that you would expect that kind of response. I don’t want to see that out of any puppy at that age, let alone, a breed like ours. And she’s like, you need to come over here. And then she reached again so I could see it. And I was like, Oh my gosh.

And he was under a chair. So I was able to pick up the chair, move the chair, grab a treat, feed him, pick him up, and move him and put him away and go, what just happened? It was really troubling. I did reach out to a couple of people I consider top level experts that understand aggression, understand detection dogs, and said, Oh my gosh, I have a Sue Sternberg puppy, like I have a scary looking puppy, and my mind was blown. And he was a puppy that at that age was not being deferential to any of the animals, the adult intact males and things like that, not that they all run and play together because I don’t do that. They’re puppies and they’re little so they have to be somewhat protected. But there are times when they are going to be, you know, in proximity or whether it’s through a fence, or sometimes they’re loose in a yard like at six weeks or whatever, but with one or two puppies and the dogs, big dogs can get far away.

I don’t force them to be together. Um, anyway, he wasn’t, he was standing so tall in his britches all the time. I absolutely, did a massive freak out for a day or two. Then I thought about Susan Friedman. Then I thought about what’s the behavior I want, this is 11 years ago now. And I picked up the puppy I went in the back and I trained his first clicker trained behavior was a belly up. It took me about 15 minutes, a couple of different sessions. him out to the kitchen and Emma walked by and he dropped him and she was like, what? And I said, okay, that’s amazing.

I don’t have any of it on video, which bums me out, but it wasn’t like I was walking around with my phone videotaping everything at that time. We just missed it. and of course I wasn’t videotaping the horrible part cause I was freaking out. So, gave the puppy some food. I kid you not, my male walks across, and he offered his belly to the male dog. And I was like, I am flabbergasted, but it makes sense. He didn’t have that in his repertoire. He didn’t have that response already as an option.

I can remember my mom making me say I was sorry for something, and it was, I had to honestly say it because I never made, I never did anything mean to anybody. Ever.

It was the nicest person ever. And she wanted me to apologize for something. I think I was like seventh grade or something. And I’d really think about it, say I was sorry after that. It was easy for me to honestly say I was sorry for something, it’s just that it was hard the first time. for him, I think it was just, hard the first time. And then it was like, Oh, I have the skill. I can do this. This is easy. So that he’s 11 now and has had no issues. Like it was remarkable, when something like that happens, if you experience it with a puppy. It’s a massive big deal. I really was looking for what am I going to have to euthanize a puppy in a couple of weeks? Is this a real scary situation? And that didn’t happen. Thank heavens.

I have one that wasn’t one of my puppies, somebody else’s, but she lives with me now. I will just say that she was scruffed it was during an evaluation, it went on for a long time, as far as I’m concerned. It impacted our relationship greatly. It impacted how she felt about hands. It was massive. So, I did chin behavior to my lap with no hands. And that was one of our first really serious training s cenarios that we worked on so that she would come forward, and then my hands, and then I added my hands to the picture slowly, just moving whatever and then to the touch and now she’ll, all the time will come and daily, multiple times a day, she’ll come and put her head into my space and ask for my primate fingers to do what they do best, to rub and cuddle and do all the things that she can’t reach. that was just through training, right? It’s what’s the behavior I want? I want her to, her to present herself to me from my hands to touch her. I don’t want her to withstand my touch, I want her to seek my touch, so that starts with her approach. I think of it as. the dog moving towards you and leaning into you to get tactile. I have another one, but I think those are probably good enough.

[00:43:51] Emily: Everything that you’re telling me, there’s just layers of things I want to respond. So, first of all it blew my mind that you said you don’t worry about it in that neonatal period, and it sounds like in the transitional period either, right?

You don’t really start worrying about it until we’re just entering that kind of primary socialization period. Is that correct? That blew my mind because that does seem to, contradict the ENS theory, or hypothesis somewhat. But okay, so if the puppy startle, you’re not really sure it’s their hands because either their eyes aren’t open yet, or they’re not old enough to retain information or whatever. That part right there blew my mind.

[00:44:27] Scotti: Okay. Okay. I’m going to interrupt you. So you just said the puppies startle from my hands and I’m not going to do anything about it. I am not going to be actively setting up a dog to startle. So my hands should not be startling a puppy. They should only be doing things that, so if they did, yes, absolutely. If my hands promoted a startle reflex for whatever reason, I’m going to slow down. My hands should be absolutely a hundred percent moving in a way that is conducive. slow and thoughtful strokes if, or just touch, they don’t have to cut, cuddle is arousal. It is long, slow, slower than you can imagine, like molasses, slow, I mean, like beyond. and if you can exhale while you’re doing it. You’ll even do it slower. And that’s the relationship we want with our dogs because we want puppies to associate our touch with gentle, calm CERs.

That’s the,so the startle got me because it’slike, I would not, my puppies should already have such a good relationship with me at five weeks of age that they are seeking me because of where I put myself in a proximity so that they can turn towards me and I reinforce that. Multiple times a day so that I’m always right off their hip, just like their mom, if you’re gonna turn towards mom, I want that turn away from something that I’m a little bit hesitant about and they’re going to get reinforced with food, with cuddles, with touch, and it’s going to be soft touch so that my smell is always associated with reducing arousal.

[00:46:03] Emily: Okay. I think I misunderstood you then because when I had first asked about it, I was asking about what happens if your hands accidentally startle. a neonatal or, or transitional period puppy. That was the disconnect. That makes so much more sense. And I totally get it. Thank you for clarifying. Cause I would have walked away from this conversation with a totally different picture in my head.

[00:46:24] Scotti: No, I don’t mean that you can do anything you want until that age. I mean, You can’t from day one, you, you have to be thinking about what you’re doing with your hands every single time and that I absolutely don’t expect a startle. I want to have built up to whatever’s happening.

If they’re startling, I had better be behind them. They better be coming towards me, not presenting the thing that they’re startling from. I do not want that.

[00:46:44] Emily: I love that. So when, Your hands accidentally startle a neonatal puppy or a puppy in a transitional period. You’re still going to go through all of those steps to make them comfortable. But what you were saying about the difference between those younger developmental periods versus the puppies who are old enough to be out in the yard and they’re not really spending a lot of time in the whelping box anymore is that you’re focusing more on training skills, than the neonatals and the transitional period puppies, is that the distinction?

[00:47:16] Scotti: Yeah, I would say that there’s definitely more focus on skills as opposed to the I think that one of the major considerations is what we have their moms when they’re still nursing. So if something is, even a little uncomfortable, let’s say I’m weighing them or something, I’m going to be using my hands to take them back to their mom and then my hands will stay there for a second.

I try not to move quickly. I tried to leave my hands and I tried to take them once they’ve nursed and they’re relaxed and my hands are warm when I put them back, I put them back with their mom, even though they’re already done nursing, they’re going to go back to mom and my hands going to stay, even if it’s just for a second or two So that the, it’s not a drop, it’s not a, and then the yucky thing goes away.

It’s that there’s a gentle, I don’t want the hands. I may not be, we have to ask the puppy, right? But that’s my hope. That’s what I see is that the puppies seem to be really comfortable with, with my touch. That’s all I’ve got. So yeah, they don’t wiggle. They used to wiggle, right? And the first litter they wiggled. They don’t wiggle. They’re very, they, they look very relaxed with warm hands, soft hands, careful approximations. I seem to have really sociable puppies.

[00:48:25] Emily: Yeah, yeah. I mean, and that makes sense because that developmental period, in addition to the prenatal period and, genetics is really informing a puppy about the world they’re going to be living in. if they’re constantly, stressed and worried and squealing when they’re that age, that kind of sets them up to anticipate, the world being a stressful place.

The next thread I need to pull is that it absolutely blew my mind that you’re talking about clicker training, like communication, like a clicker training, a, an appeasement signal to give that puppy who was struggling with how to communicate discomfort a better way of, of communicating it. Most of my experience has been dogs who have a history of being punished for warning signals who just don’t communicate and they go straight to a bite. I’ve had Lots of success with teaching those dogs how to communicate again by listening to everything else that they say and giving them desired consequences for the other ways in which they communicate.

I’ve had lots of experience with dogs who want to play with other dogs, but they don’t have great social skills. And so we teach them how to recognize when another dog is asking them to move away. by cueing a trained move away when the other dog asks for it with body language. And eventually it just ends up being a cue transfer, it has never occurred to me to physically clicker train an appeasement signal to a dog who doesn’t know how to offer them. So this was like a little bit of proofing for me of my own skill sets, because I know that you can teach dogs how to communicate with their bodies.

It just never occurred to me that you can actually be like, Oh buddy, you don’t know how to say, please stop. Aside from growling, I can clicker train you another way to say, please stop. That’s

[00:50:13] Scotti: Well, and I didn’t I didn’t know. I just knew that I didn’t have that behavior. And what did I want that behavior to look like? And that was the behavior, that’s how I wanted it to look. I just did it with another puppy recently. It was a litter where this one puppy was acting inappropriately, just too hardcore, on the other dogs. I didn’t want to just separate a puppy out that is learning coping skills, learning how to play, learning how to interact with their dogs. I didn’t want to remove him from those opportunities at that age. Every day is so impactful, but I would give him time away from the others every day. It was very impactful, he took classes, I made sure he was local and he went to Ahimsa for classes after leaving my house, that way I could get feedback from the instructors. I could say, how’s he doing? And they’re like, yeah, nothing, we’re not seeing any problems.

It’s great, that’s something you need to know. it seemed to be really helpful for him as well. I think that makes sense, we teach children how to shake hands or give eye contact in school, how to sit in their seats,

And it’s not through coercion, at least not at our school. It’s through medallions. Thank you for taking your seat. So, um, yeah, I mean, I think that you can teach kids how to smile. If we can teach those skills. Then the feedback that they get when they smile, tends to build that

[00:51:30] Emily: Yes. I love it. I’m here for all of it. So a little bit of a topic shift. One of the many things I love about your approach is your emphasis on simplicity, which is important for a few reasons. First of all, because accessibility is a thing and the more gung ho we get about recommending more and more products, and props, and gadgets, protocols, the less accessible our approach becomes for people who don’t have access to a lot of resources or don’t have a lot of time or whatever. But also, a lot of times the simpler approach is also the more sustainable one. And I know that in the past when I’ve tried to use all the bells and whistles, I eventually just end up simplifying anyway because getting all the bells and whistles set up and doing that every day, it just becomes tedious, right? So, what are some of your favorite ways to help people to simplify their life with a puppy.

[00:52:24] Scotti: One thing, what’s most important is variety. So it doesn’t need to be cool, it needs to be different. a box with holes in it can be different if it’s a different box with different holes in it. then you have a different, experience moving your furniture around there’s nothing that makes my dogs happier than when they come into a room and all the furniture’s been moved. just move furniture around every day. It’s fabulous. My children loved it to come home and have the furniture in a new room. They just got so excited. The first thing you need to do is to assess the opportunities that you have available to you. Everyone’s different. Some people have friends or neighbors that have commercial spaces that maybe they can’t access those spaces during the day, but maybe they could after hours or before hours.

I had three dancers. Some are still dancing. So I would do that because there’s not a lot of puppies running around at a dance studio. if it was going to be a problem, all I had to do was say, Can I come early? Can I come after? Do you mind X? And then once the puppy was comfortable in the empty environment, then we could add the sound of children bouncing on the floor at a dance studio, which is really a whole different thing. first it’s the smell. Or the sound before the visual, but really breaking those apart is just time expensive. And it’s valuable because you’re building safe repertoires. We want the puppies behaving in a way that they can, we’re looking to replicate behavior for the future. It’s not about every experience. It’s about how are they behaving in the experience because that’s the behavior we want to build on. We want comfortable, safe behaviors that include well being behaviors, sniffing, and so if we can come into a space and either have the puppy off leash or on a long line, that’s going to be beneficial, especially if we don’t have to redirect.

So the less we have to limit them on their leashes, the experience for them for exploration, especially for behind them and allow them to move forward. So simplifying is choosing where we’re going to be in the situation, choosing opportunities where they have the ability to move. So a nursery is great because there’s usually aisles or, plants and things.

And as there’s fewer things that they can get into trouble with. Walmart or Home Depot is fabulous, except that there’s a lot of things you have to redirect the puppy around or restrict them from getting into. So it’s not that you’re not going to do that, but that should be the.

That’s your level up, right? You’ve already got the other stuff going. Well, You’re going to level up at Home Depot, We know how to do a default down in public, and we’ve walked in one door and out the other door at Home Depot. We’ve practiced just getting from the car to the doors, opening and closing. And now we’re going to go in and sit on the lawn furniture and do a default down and get some treats. the goal is a calm and relaxed dog in those environments to the point of them being able to take a nap.

If you can hang out somewhere until they take a nap, that’s golden, you’re done. if you’ve got 10 spaces that you can go comfortably with the puppy, great. I would prefer you go to three to five and get really good at those. And then start adding in the others.

if one of those is your vet, great. If one of those is your, your training facility where you’re taking a puppy, great. If one of those is your in laws, great, But don’t just assume those places are good for a puppy. put the time in and the work in ahead of time. And I recommend people go early uh, without their puppy. Or if you can have someone in the car to sit with your puppy and you can walk through and take a look at the space, What are the things I have to be concerned about at this time on this day or whatever and then come through not everybody can do that. But if you can, I think it’s best to have a mental image of where you’re going with your puppy before you come in with your puppy. but all things in approximation build on success. Don’t build on failure, Set them up to be successful and then grow that. And then reinforce quieter behaviors, reinforce. Sniffing, reinforce, laying down, reinforce a stand. It doesn’t have to be a sit and then you have access to something.

that’s our idea. we think they’re showing impulse control by sitting first. humans don’t like dogs to jump on them, but it’s such a normal behavior for dogs. a sit is something that uses a lot of energy and puppies really aren’t.

We ask that of them all the time. it’s not a great recipe. They’re physically not designed for it. To be doing it all the time. Save sit for thigh days is what I like to say. So, you can train a sit, you can use a sit just don’t use that as your default behavior for everything else in the world. it shouldn’t be the thing that they have to do to get access to stuff.

[00:57:04] Emily: I agree. And I think there’s a larger and increasingly larger, I would even say, component of the, the animal training and animal welfare world. That’s really kind of rethinking what we mean by basic manners training and why those behaviors are necessary. So to go back to the beginning of our conversation, we’re like, but why though?

Why is SIT one of the things that we think is the behavior that every dog needs to know? What is the goal? Like you said at the beginning, we’re really goal oriented and like what are, what need are we trying to meet? What problem are we trying to solve? And how is SIT actually meeting that need or solving that problem?

And usually the question is, or the answer is, it isn’t. So we need to come up with what do we actually want them to do instead of sitting? Because sitting. is just something we’ve all been told to teach a dog. But when you actually come down to it, there’s really not a lot of compelling reasons that it has to be a sit and that nothing else will meet the goal or solve the problem.

So I’m with you on that. And also there are a lot of us who are with you on that, Scotti. There’s more and more of us who are really going back to the drawing board and being like, but why though? why are these the things that we have to teach our dogs? I love that you’re saying that, use the environment that’s available to the people and the animals. That is such a beautiful way to simplify because regardless of where you live, regardless of what resources you have access to, you always have an environment. And so you can find ways to utilize that environment that works really well for you and your dog.

[00:58:37] Scotti: So, there are a lot of things in our home that we can use to meet those goal behaviors. If we want puppies that are comfortable with unsure footing, it’s easy to take a cookie sheet and tip it upside down, and then put a blanket over the top of it. It doesn’t have to be worrisome in any way. Or a yoga mat, just has to give a little bit. allowing puppies to make noisy things happen, knocking things over. allowing them to have access to things that make noise. So that they can make noise themselves. Is I think a really good way to help them, Navigate sound sensitivities, it doesn’t have to be really loud at first you can start with noisy things and then build up as they become confident I find things like the solo cups.

I save them from parties, solo cups are great with puppies because when they’re really little five, six weeks old or whatever, they just power through them. They just walk right through them and knock them around. In doing that, they are building the touch thing to knocking things down and moving, they like it because something’s moved, I can recycle it or whatever. I try not to buy things. And I also try not to take things from buy nothing that a child might want. When they post something like, I have got a swimming pool, but it’s got a hole in it. Does anybody want it? I’ll be like, I’ll take it. I’ll just put something else in it, I’ll use it. I’ll tip it upside down and the puppies can crawl across the top of it. So that again is a gungy thing.

Feed bags make great for those like tactile and, or unusual footing things. And some puppies might be really uncomfortable or, or find that unsettling. So you can cover them with a blanket. You can use less in them at first and then fill them fuller. I use a lot of recycling in those for me because that way they’re really lightweight. So if they get knocked around, they won’t hurt a puppy. If another puppy grabs it and drags it across the room and it hits a puppy on the way or something, it’s not going to be a problem. I just crack them open and recycle what’s in them and, dispose of the bag. But there’s plenty of things uh, pots and pans, and even things that you can hang from the ceiling. Anything can just about anything can be hung from the ceiling. So changing that up, having, being aware of the fact that their eyesight needs to be stimulated at multiple levels to be come less conflicted about things above them that we should be, not just what on the ground level, that’s just one level.

Like we need to be looking at counter heights, we need to vary those things, and then also from the ceiling. those are all simple, inexpensive things you can do. You can tie an umbrella from your light fixture. You can put a ladder in the middle of the room and tie stuff from it. Oh, and then,

one more cheap and easy thing that’s really good to know is that people spend a lot of money on dog treats and a lot of dog treats have a lot of stuff in them that we don’t really want our puppies to have. So some of the easiest, cheapest things you can do is have boiled potato on hand, or potatoes so that you can boil, they’ll keep on the counter for a while, boil them, put a couple of tablespoons of yogurt in them, or cottage cheese, or sour cream or whatever you have and use that as a reinforcer in a tube. I can use an old toothpaste tube, just clean it out and then use duct tape at the end. That’s what I do. It makes a really nice tiny hole and squeeze them out for the, you know, make a multiple use out of your toothpaste tube. you know, and it’s easy. And very cheap. I do a lot with eggs because eggs are, it can be, I know eggs are expensive, but a whole egg making, you can make a lot of reinforcers by just cooking it like a pancake and then cutting it, or adding a little flour to get to be a little bouncier and then just cooking it like a pancake if you want.

I, I do big vats of them and do all kinds of stuff, but simple crack an egg, whisk it, toss it on a pan, and you’ve got your day’s worth of treats for your dog. And it’s just a single protein.

[01:02:13] Emily: Yeah. I love all of those ideas. Thank you so much for helping us brainstorm ways to make things more simple for people who have puppies or even grown dogs in their lives. Next I want to talk about puppy blues. It’s so common and isolating, especially for behavior professionals, I’ve had so many friends and colleagues get a puppy and then be like, I feel ashamed because I feel like I can’t handle a puppy, and should I be in this profession if I can’t handle my own puppy. I hear that from so many colleagues. There’s nothing wrong with you. This is just a normal part of having a puppy. what is your advice for navigating puppy blues?

[01:02:52] Scotti: I think that there’s a couple really important things for puppy blues, and the first one is sleep. I think that every human is just nicer to their pets and their children if they get some sleep, even if it’s not the full night’s sleep. If they can get a large chunk at one time, and there’s a couple ways that you can do that to make it easier for yourself.

Puppies do grow up, they are not going to be puppies forever. When you bring a child home from the hospital, you are locked into sleepless nights for years, but with a puppy, it’s not going to be years. And going into it with that mindset, I’m not going to be sleeping regularly. I’m going to be cranky. I’m going to be tired. I should have plenty of food on hand because I’m not going to eat well. You should have resources ready, because you’re going to want healthy food, but you just don’t want to make it. You’re just tired. So having things pre frozen, or delivered, or friends willing to bring you food just to help you survive the first few weeks.

And I think I’ve been the most successful raising my litters. Because it’s, you, eight weeks of eight, 10 weeks of sleepless nights, and you’re trying to function, raise multiple animals and children, if I can get a weekend off, or a night off, every once in a while, it really helps if you can sleep.

If you can buddy up, if you can have somebody, willing to take the puppy for a night or come to your house, they can stay at your house if they’re worried about what your puppy’s going to do to their place. it’s not just taking a break, it’s taking a break and sleeping. If they can get sleep, they make better decisions and they like their puppy better. sleep is really, really important, and I suggest people set themselves up instead of thinking that have to do all these things to the puppy to make sure the puppy’s crate trained and blah, blah, blah, and potty trained and blah, blah, blah. The relationship is the most important thing. So either, you build a bed in their pen, and sleep with them, and then migrate yourself out. They’re in with you, whether it’s in a crate in your bed or whatever, and you migrate them out.

I actually think it’s easier to have them where you, I think you’re going to have them a lot of the time, like their pen, and set up a bed in it, and then move yourself to the outside of the, for the first night or two, because it’s a huge adjustment for them. So trying to help them be successful actually gets you more sleep. If they can get access to you, they will fall asleep because they’re exhausted. I always suggest a potty pad because Because sleep is so important and I don’t want them developing habits of having accidents. I like a tray with natural shavings and I tend to use grass, hay on top of shavings so that deals with the ammonia, but it also gives them a surface that if they eat it, it’s not a big deal.

They can chew on it. I would think it through a little bit of grass hay if they need it, if they need a little something for their tummies and they’re likely to use it. It’s compostable. so it’s not bad for the environment. As they get older, if you need a tray, maybe they’re incontinent, maybe they’re get sick from time to time.

Maybe you’ve got a smoke warning and you’re not allowed to take your dogs out of the house because it’s bad for them, or I don’t know. There’s so many things nowadays that we get where you’re thinking, Oh my gosh, what do I do about the dog? if they are accustomed to being able to use the potty tray, then you can whip that thing out when you need it. I’ll even do it with puppies. When I’m in hotels, I’ll travel with a little bit of used shavings toss down a potty pad, put a pile of the shavings on top and they will use that. cause that would have been a really long night in the hotel wondering if my, Ten week old puppy needed to go out every 20 minutes when it cried, so I think that’s a way to help with puppy blues if you can meet the potty training need you don’t feel guilty if they’re using their tray. It’s not an accident We have bathrooms our birds can go to the bathroom in the house, our cats can go to the bathroom in the house, the only animal that’s not allowed to go to bathroom in the house is a dog.

So have a little compassion for a small puppy in a new environment, give them a litter tray. It’ll all work out. then you can use those soiled shavings outside where you want the dog to go potty later. That makes it easy for the transition.

For puppy blues, I think that sleep and pottying and then biting is the other thing that people get really upset about. If we pair slow movement with our hands, if we pair careful, exercises when it comes to collar, harness, grooming, if we present those as the dog moves towards them, reinforcement happens, they are continually having the opportunity to move towards our hands for opportunities. We can talk about agency and all those things, but really you’re looking for a puppy towards something, and then we’re going to reinforce it with a treat The treat comes through the thing. It’s like there’s a portal. There’s a portal. Food comes through this portal and feeds me, so eventually I get so bored of waiting for the food to get to me, I put my head through it to get to the food faster, The success and then we don’t have to bite. biting really gets reduced when they have a clear communication that this is an opportunity, not a restriction for them that we’re doing to them instead, it’s like, Hey, this is an opportunity if you want it. We could do this right now and I have, we can go for a walk, we can put our head through, we can do all these fun things, but this is the opportunity starts through this portal, portal. So we want that.

[01:07:57] Emily: love that so much. The reframing hands is magic portals. So I think It’s interesting because the Puppy Blues felt to me like this really complicated issue that’s hard to navigate and you’re like, it’s the basics, like food, sleep, connection, potty, and I’m like, yes, of course it is.

[01:08:20] Scotti: We got to meet our Needs we’re grumpy. Get real grumpy and cranky and it’s like, why did I do this? You see these outbursts on Facebook and I’m thinking, drop them off over here, man. I’m really good at sleepless.

[01:08:31] Emily: So here’s the thing. when we have children, like human children, in general, it’s culturally acceptable and normalized for moms to drop their kids off somewhere and get a break. And yet it doesn’t really occur to a lot of people to do that with their Non human infants, like get a break from the non human infants too, because make no mistake, you have an infant. everybody needs breaks from that.

[01:08:58] Scotti: When you bring home a baby, it’s illegal to leave them alone, but it’s not illegal to go to the market without your puppy or get coffee. It’s not illegal to take a nap, whether you have a child or a puppy, but it may not be easy. But so If we can set the puppy up for success I mean, we all know when we work with behavior staff, not every puppy is going to take a nap because they’re stressed or something’s going on and we need to facilitate that. Well, 45 minutes of sniffing and a good sniffy area and you are highly likely to have a dog take a break. Even a young puppy is highly likely to take a break at that point. Maybe that we can’t fall asleep right away. That’s a different issue for us stressed people. But at least we can take a break. you can walk outside your house without your dog, which is really important. That self care thing is really important. And I absolutely agree. If you can buddy up, find somebody who has a puppy or an adult dog that does well with puppies life would be way easier. I’ve never had that. And I haven’t had grandparents nearby raising my children. So I’ve had to do that on my own. Although I do have a lovely sister in law who has, has, she watched my children a couple of times.

[01:10:12] Emily: I think I can’t talk because it’s been probably 18 years since I’ve had a clutch of parrots or a litter of puppies or kittens in my house and maybe 18, no, that’s not true. 2009. how long ago was that? 2009. It was like 15 years. It’s been 15 years since I’ve had a clutch of parrots or a litter of kittens or a litter of puppies in my home.

So I don’t know how I could, I would handle it now. when our dogs eventually pass away, which, I would like them to live forever, but they won’t I’ve already decided I would like to get a puppy from a really good breeder because I’ve never had that experience before. And I would like to have that experience, but I don’t know how I’m going to handle it because it’s been a very long time since I did it.

But for my entire high school and twenties, I did a lot of parrot raising entire clutches of baby parrots. I did a lot of fostering of whole litters. When I was a kid, we bred boxers, we had litters of boxers, we had cats who had kittens, I don’t remember it being particularly stressful for me, but I think that’s because I just had sort of a like, get in your, y’all, we’re all doing this, you know, like, I think that’s probably why, but I, I’m, I even hesitate to say this. on the podcast because you know what’s going to happen is I’m going to eventually get a puppy and I’m going to have like the worst puppy blues of anybody.

[01:11:36] Scotti: But see,

I don’t think you will. Cause I think you’ll give yourself permission raise your puppy however you want to raise your puppy. You won’t have this mindset that, Oh, it’s not working this particular way. So I’m doing something wrong as opposed to saying, Oh heck you’re sleeping in the bed tonight. Cause I’m, I’m going to bed. Either I’m coming down on the floor or you’re coming up because I’m sleeping now.

[01:11:57] Emily: Oh, I already told my partner for the first few weeks that we have a puppy You’re going to have to get used to me sleeping in my office because I have this nest in my office that’s just a few inches off the ground. I can get a fresh patch, put it next to the nest and puppy and I are sleeping in the nest until puppy’s old enough to sleep through the night I want the puppy to be able to just walk off the nest, pee on the fresh patch and leave me out of it.

[01:12:18] Scotti: Making it easy for yourself to be successful, right? So it is, it’s like this, this marriage of how do I make it easier for the puppy? Do I have to just move every piece of furniture out of the room? maybe depending on the furniture you have, maybe you do, right? Or can I just move all my furniture into the middle and then put it, little fence around it and then I climb in there and the puppy runs around? Maybe, you do what you can so that the puppy can be successful. when the puppy’s successful, we’re happier people. Because they’re making less noise, they’re causing fewer problems, so I’m too tired to take the puppy to do whatever I need them to with the puppy. But in doing that when I’m exhausted, I then have a puppy who’s now going to sleep in a more satiated way. Because the puppy was ready to move on to something else other than just my house. Otherwise, they’re gonna eat my house because I’ve kept them here long enough that they need more stimulation, more interesting things, which usually has to do with odor.

[01:13:14] Emily: I’m realizing now that probably part of why I’ve never really experienced puppy blues or kitten blues or parrot blues is because I’ve always had a menagerie. so I always had other animals in the house to entertain the babies, the job didn’t ever solely fall on me.

the labor was kind of shared across all of the species who lived in the house. as we’re talking and I’m thinking about it, I have no doubt that that played a part in why I’ve never really had that experience because I had a network, I had a village to raise the babies with me,

[01:13:46] Scotti: It’s way harder to raise a single puppy because you know, once you have generational things happening, the young adolescents do so, they’re wonderful. They play with the puppy appropriately, you know, if they’re good ones, if they’re appropriate for it, they’re fabulous, having those adolescents and they love it.

The adolescent loves the new puppy, which is wonderful. And whether, or a cat, you know, if you have a cat that likes dogs, then that’s always a good thing. If you don’t, that’s always a problem. Harass the cat with the new puppy.

but I agree, I’m lucky because we’re on property. I can take the dogs out.

I can take a puppy out and wander and do different things like that and look at farm animals or whatever. But once it’s in their data bank, it’s time to move on and give them some more because they’re puppies and their brains are, ready. the school here has been great because. So much of our, that’s an, that’s my opportunity. So I can the school children in the, in the school environments in each individual classroom. I can break it down and, use that as a separate opportunity. And any noises that might be associated with school stuff.

There’s so many different things. In the parking lot, I can sit outside a parking lot and just watch cars come and go. I mean, that in itself is an outing, right? Go find a parking area and a good safe place to just hang out and just watch cars come and go.

[01:15:01] Emily: There’s a lot of, cheap and free ways to expand your dog’s world or your puppy’s world. there’s a lot of ways to expand the world of the animals in your care So at the end of every interview, I’d like to ask everybody the same set of questions. the first one is what are our observable goals and actionable items that people can take away from this discussion?

[01:15:21] Scotti: I would say to always be thoughtful about your hands with your dogs, 100 percent of the time. we are primates. And we touch things. We go into a store, we touch things. we touch way too much when it comes to dogs, Oftentimes, our touch is what we get out of the relationship. So we want to be really careful that we don’t poison that, because that’s where we find connection with the dog. So making sure that we pair that together. And are cautious and careful about how we touch a dog. And recognize when they are saying, not right now. I think that’s an actionable item.

[01:15:51] Emily: Yes, I love that actionable item. I have started offering what I’m calling Transpecies meditation sessions for people who are animal people, but they’re not clients of ours. because so many people I am in community with love their pets and have no idea what their pets are saying to them.

I’m using some principles of meditation. I’m using some principles from Lori Stevens movement work. I’m using some principles from just like good body language skills to create this meditative space for people to touch their animals and an intentional way. And it has been so fun.

To watch people develop these skills of understanding the impact of their touch on their pet and be able to start a dialogue with their pet about what feels good to them, what the pet wants, what the pet doesn’t. I’m really using it as a stealthy vehicle to teach people body language who aren’t interested in learning body language.

But they’re totally interested in the idea of having a meditation session with their pet. I am so with you on this being aware, like awareness of hands and what your hands are doing, because I’m having so much fun seeing this play out in real life. It is the most delightful thing.

[01:17:00] Scotti: I bet they get a ton out of that too. I mean, like, yeah. And then it’s nice to, I’m sure the dogs relax or the pets relax, right. Because they’re, they’re changing how they’re being touched.

[01:17:09] Emily: And it’s not just dogs. I have some people that I’m working with who do this with their cats. I have one who’s doing it with her macaw. I have one who’s doing it with her horse. So we’re working across species, but what’s fun to see is that the animals are starting to learn.

Yeah. That this is happening and they’re starting to shift their body to be like, actually, I want you to rest your hand here. This is where I want it. they’ll lean in for more pressure and move away for lighter pressure. So the animals are learning to tell the human or they’re just self directing touch, it’s so much fun.

I am 100 percent with you on developing an awareness of. How our primate hands are impacting our non human companions. What is one thing you wish people knew about either this topic, your profession or enrichment?

[01:17:54] Scotti: Reinforce healthy behaviors that they are, especially if it’s healthy across species, so not only healthy for dog to dog, but dog to human, you can easily reinforce that and see that appear more often, which makes the quality of life for everyone involved improved.

[01:18:11] Emily: What is one thing you’d love to see improved in your field?

[01:18:14] Scotti: I would like to see a more cognitively aware response to the idea of it’s just a puppy they’ll get over it, especially when it’s dismissive of the puppy’s comfort. So whatever you’re doing, whether it’s crate training, whether it’s riding in a car, whatever, whatever it is, it’s fine.

They’ll get used to it they’ll get over it. Or it’s just a puppy when it’s used that way. Now, if you use the public, it’s just a puppy. Okay. I’ll go with you on that one, but that it’s just a puppy. I would like people to put more thought behind that and think about, okay, how could I, if that’s how you’re feeling, how could you train that or, or offer something different for that puppy? Because there’s always an easier way. Where you can set the puppy up to be successful so they don’t have to go through whatever it is you think they just need to suck it up for. That’s just, not okay.

[01:19:06] Emily: No, no. Asking how something can be improved implies that it needs improvement, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with assessing that there are things that can be improved in the world, in our profession, in ourselves, right? Improvement is a good thing. It’s not a negative thing. What do you love about what you do?

[01:19:24] Scotti: I love when a puppy chooses to come towards me. I love when they seek me. And when they press into me. It makes me feel especially if, I’ve been training something like I’ve offered a training session and then they come and they’re just these tiny little guys, but they select me over this huge environment I think that is that relationship, that bonding that happens through recognizing. What their needs are and trying to meet their needs. And then they, they trust me, which I think is incredible.

[01:19:55] Emily: It never gets old, right? It never gets old when an animal is, literally putting themselves into your hands. It’s such a heartwarming moment for sure. What are you currently working on? If people want to work more with you or learn from you, where can they find you?

[01:20:11] Scotti: Talking about the why, so I’m Why Run Amok? Cause that’s how I think about things. So. I am currently, I’m just about to take a job with Brigadoon Service Dogs and they’re in the Bellingham area they’re really working on identifying ways to improve the quality of the experience for a service dog beginning to end.

there’s an interesting thing with service dogs, especially service dogs that are going in and out of state prison programs, which is what they do. They’re going to be born in one home, then they’re going to go into a foster home, a raiser’s home or whatever. They might go in and out of, a lot of different situations prior to getting placed, right? That’s a lot of transitions. And I’m hoping that I can identify and improve ways of making those transitions easier for the dogs. just to improve their success rate, but to improve their quality of life. Because they deserve to be as happy as any dog. how can we problem solve and set that up in a way that those puppies can be super successful. So that’s my newest project. And so when this airs, I’ll have been there for a while. And, you know, the book. See if the book ever gets written.

[01:21:20] Emily: If you need me to be your accountability buddy and finishing the book. I am happy to, whatever you need, body double, sounding board. I just want you to write the book. I want you to get it done.

[01:21:30] Scotti: yeah, I really enjoyed doing the course. I’ve been working on the book for years. It’s hard because so much of what I want to say has to do with storytelling. I think people want a format, or a protocol they can follow.

And I don’t think that behavior is like that. So it’s makes it trickier to say, Oh, and in this situation well, you know, what about my situation? So I think that is a little bit hard for me to melt that down into something that is digestible and actionable. I don’t want people to have confusion about the message that I’m putting out there. So I want to make sure that I do that well enough. that it is simple, that it’s easy, simple and actionable.

[01:22:07] Emily: Yes, I know what a challenge that is. Believe me. So yes, my impatience. about having your book in a tangible form that I can read and give to other people is not a reflection on my respect for what a daunting job you have in front of you.

Scotti, thank you so much for joining me. It has been such a pleasure and I’m really excited to take your course again in the future and read your book.

[01:22:31] Scotti: thank you. It always is a treat to talk about puppies. thank you for having me.

[01:22:35] Allie: I love that Scotti is constantly questioning why we have to do what we do and making decisions based on what the dogs tell her. It’s such a descriptive approach to puppy raising and I am here for it. Next week, we will be talking about five tips for successful puppy raising.

Thank you for listening. You can find us at petharmonytraining.com and @petharmonytraining on Facebook and Instagram, and also @petharmonypro on Instagram for those of you who are behavioral professionals. As always links to everything we discussed in this episode are in the show notes and a reminder to please rate, review and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts a special thank you to Ellen Yoakum for editing this episode, our intro music is from Penguin Music on Pixabay.

Thank you for listening and happy training.