Welcome to the Yappy Hour, powered by Yappily, the podcast for dog lovers who want to better understand and connect with their canine companions. I'm your host, Nathan Dunleavy, and today we are diving into a phase that often catches. Dog guardians by surprise adolescents. Joining me is Daniel Shaw, clinical animal behaviourist educator and founder of Animal Behaviour Kent. He's also the host of the incredible A BK conference, which I'll be attending this summer. Daniel specialises in understanding and supporting dogs through their developmental stages, and he's here to help us navigate the emotional ups and downs of teenage dogs without losing our sanity. If your young, young dog is testing boundaries, forgetting their training, or suddenly acting like a different dog altogether, this episode is for you. So grab a cup of tea, settle in, and let's get started.

Welcome back to The Yappy Hour, powered by Yappy. I'm your host, Nathan Dunleavy, and I'm so excited to bring you another episode of The Yappy Hour Today. Joining me this evening is Mr. Daniel Shaw. Hi Daniel. Welcome to the Yappy Hour. Hello. How are you doing?

Yeah, I'm good. Thank you. It is great to be here.

Good.

very exciting. Amazing podcast. You've had some amazing guests on, so,

We,

yeah,

have, and now you've joined that caliber of amazing guests, so I'm excited to chat to you tonight. So Daniel I know that many of our listeners are either going through adolescents with their dog or they're still kind of recovering and getting over it. What first drew you to specializing in this particular stage of development?

Well, I think,

I.

I wouldn't say I specialize as such in terms of adolescents, but I

Sure.

working with adolescent dogs because I think

Yeah.

a special and amazing time. I think it's such a time where, you know, you do see caregivers starting to kind of pull their hair out when they hit the adolescence time because especially if you've got a dog from a puppy and you know, you've been doing all this work, you've been going out with your trainer, you've got all these amazing things set up and your, you know, you get, and I've had this as well, you know, having my first dog from a puppy, you're kind of thinking, wow, I'm, I'm a total pro here. And then adolescence comes along and just throws everything out of whack and it's, it's, it's like, and you think I've trained all these things and then suddenly the dog doesn't seem to respond to any of these things anymore. And so it's, it's fascinating and I think I. As humans, we are very quick to kind of jump to blaming and jumping to kind of putting that on the individual when they, you know, when our adolescent dog stops responding to all the cues we've taught 'em, and stops being so easy going to manage and suddenly is a bit more of a handful. We are very easy,

Yeah.

easy for us as humans to kind of say, you know, they're being disobedient, they're playing up, you know, they're just, you know, they know what to do, but they just don't want to do it. All those things you commonly hear about adolescent dogs. And, you know, what fascinates me is actually into the, the biology of adolescents. What's going on in

Mm.

of an adolescent dogs? What sort of changes are we seeing there that's making these things, all this kind of world that they're living in, suddenly seem a little bit different to them. Than it was

Yeah.

we start diving into it, we see all these things changing in terms of the dog's perception, in terms of the way the dog's valuing re resources, in terms of the dog's

Mm.

as well. And I think we all see that, and adolescent's judgment is sometimes not what we might consider the best. So it's, it's a

Yeah.

topic and I, and I love, do I do love working with adolescent cases? Yeah.

Brilliant. Thank you for that. So, um, what do you think, or why do you think, should I say, adolescence is often one of the most challenging phases for dog guardians?

Yeah. So I think a little bit in terms of what I touched on in the sense that you, you, you know, you, you are doing so well and then that suddenly falls off the edge. And I think

It's like they suddenly just stop listening, don't they? They're like,

yeah.

selective hearing.

Yeah. And it's, it's, it is so difficult and I think, so I think that frustration from the caregiver

Hmm.

is a big thing. And I think when we actually look into that and when we kind of dive into kind of what's going on in adolescence, we can kind of start to understand what might be going on for that dog. And I think that's a, a, a key element to overcoming some of those difficulties. So I think understanding, for example, that when a dog hits that adolescent stage, some of those emotional regions of their brain, what we call the limbic system that's involved in helping a dog process reinforces in the environment, things that feel great, things that feel

Mm.

that they want to get away on conflict related Behaviour, all those emotional elements, those kind of beautiful emotional elements of your dog's life will be kind of hypercharged ready to go as an adult dog's brain would be. But the difference that, that, that they have to the kind of adult dog brain. Is the frontal part of their brain, that region of the brain that's involved in kind of helping us inhibit some of those responses, helping us make better judgments. So, you know, if for example, an adult dog maybe finds a puppy a little bit irritating, maybe they're able to think, okay, you know, this is a little bit irritating, but I'm not gonna respond to that 'cause I recognize that's a puppy. Or if an adult dog recognizes that there's something they want to go and chase, they're able, that inhibitive and in sort of inhibit inhibition structure within their frontal cortex is able to kind of say, yep, but I know if I don't chase that, then there's gonna be some good outcomes for me later on. All that inhibition hardware that they've got in the front of part of their brain is still very much developing in the adolescent dog. Adolescent dog. So we

Yeah.

between

Mm

kind of frontal and limbic structure that limbic firing in all cylinders. S causing that dog to experience emotions in full and really kind of in, in, in a really strong way, but not being

Mm.

actually have that infrastructure in place to be able to kind of help the dog regulate some of those, uh, emotional expressions.

Yeah, it's absolutely fascinating. And when I was sort of doing dog training and you get to that sort of eight or nine month mark with some dogs and I used to just say to the caregivers that the dog's not intending to be that way. And because the caregivers would be like, oh, you know, they're just not listening or they're stubborn and, but it would, they just got all this stuff going on, this brain fog and I just used to just express that the dog's really not meaning to do be that way. Like they're just going through obviously something and just trying to make them understand 'cause they, the dog, the caregivers don't always understand what's going on.

Yeah, and I think what's really interesting about that is because, you know, with, if we look at our typical adolescent dog, you know, a dog built for survival or an animal that is good at survival isn't typically what you'd associate with an adolescent dog. They're doing things, you know, they're putting themselves in dangerous situations all the time. We have to be really hot on our management, often for adolescent dogs. So it's kind of interesting to think about from an evolutionary perspective, why. Is this change so important in the adolescent dog, so important to evolution that this

Mm.

stayed on? It's not something that's just kind of been selected away because you'd think, you know, if we've got a dog that's suddenly taking a ton of risks, then that's on an evolutionary level, not gonna be very adaptive. And we're gonna kind of see that trait of start to, to be cold over, over the generations. So it's interesting

Yeah.

occurs and it kind of tells us that obviously there's something there about that that means that, that is

Mm.

for the dog's development. That's really important for the dog to then be able to be a healthy, well adjusted adult. And know, to be honest, especially in terms of dogs as there's very limited research on adolescents, even in humans. We can't be sure why this adolescence period occurs. But you know, kind of, people often talk about this idea that. Actually having that change in physiology that makes us, takes more risks, makes us become a little bit more independent, is actually important for the survival of us as a species and for the, our kind of, ability to adapt and live successfully in the world longer term because we need to take some of those

Hmm.

to be able to learn and learn to become a little bit more independent potentially as well. Have the opportunity to reproduce being another potential reason for adolescents

Yeah.

also just, yeah, becoming a more independent, well adjusted adult. And I think that's one thing I talk about with caregivers that I work with a lot is actually, yeah, it is gonna be difficult and they might not listen to things you say and it might feel like they're being stubborn and they've got it in for you and all those kind of things that you probably kind of even hear when we're talking about human adolescence. But

Yes.

Going through that is so important for the dog to be able to become a well adjusted adult. Become an independent adult

Mm.

need to rely on their caregiver the whole time. And actually

Yeah,

doing that and kind of getting through that stage is gonna pay off.

definitely. Thank you so much, Daniel. So we're gonna be moving on to our first section, which is all about what happens during adolescence. So I find it absolutely fascinating. So I'm enjoying speaking to you about it. So please may give us a quick overview. I think you've, you've touched on it a little bit, but what's actually happening in the dog's, brain and body, children, adolescents, please.

Yeah. So, as you said, I've touched on a little bit there in terms of we get that disparity between the emotional systems of the brain starting to really mature. But that frontal region of the brain not being so mature. So we haven't got that inhibitive infrastructure there to help regulate some of those emotional systems. And we know that

Mm,

region of the brain, for example, is really key to things like extinction learning and extinction learning. Just for anyone that isn't familiar with that term is,

thank you.

a, a new type, a type of learning. And I think this is a, a interesting thing about extinction. We often don't think of it as a type of learning, but actually is a type of learning. It's learning

Yeah.

mean something anymore. So for example, if a dog has gone to the park and gone to somewhere on their walk, wherever and seen something scary another dog has approached them, chased them, made them feel really scared as a, as a puppy or as as an adolescent. Then there may be some learning that occurs that the dog thinks, oh, this is a scary place. I'm gonna be avoidant of this place. Now if, if that dog then goes back there as a puppy, then they're quite likely to be able to engage in some extinction learning if the, say, if the circumstances are set up correctly. And sometimes it can be a bit more complicated than this, but I'm just simplifying things a little bit for the sake of our

That's good.

they can

Yeah.

to the park, have a good time there, and then we might get some extinction learning taking place in that the dog learns that. Oh, actually, yeah, when I go to the park most of the time, there isn't that bad. It isn't associated with those bad outcomes. So that's actually an a, a type of new learning. It's not unlearning that the park was a bad place, it's learning that actually it is a safe place and that thing doesn't occur anymore.

Yeah.

Adolescents because that frontal part of their brain isn't fully developed. Struggle more with that because extinction learning requires, um, signals to go from the frontal part of the brain to a region of the brain called the amygdala, which is a

Yes. Mm-hmm.

this applies in, in positive context as well. So it might be that, you know, you've got a dog that starts counter surfing at adolescents and we say, do you know what? We're gonna be really hot on this. We are gonna not let anything on the counter. And then, you know, three months later, dog is still there checking the counter every day. Again, adolescents do struggle with extinction learning. So that sort of thing is gonna be harder during that stage. So that's one big change that occurs that we see that, that, that change in kind of that brain development and that, and that can change the way that the dog learns as well, being a little bit more prone to making those initial connections and a little bit less prone to kind of overwriting that in, in the form of extinction learning when we are trying to teach the dog that a particular stimulus such as your counter and a particular reward, such as being a nice snack on the counter, are no longer associated.

Brilliant. Thank you so much. So, and this is quite interesting, this next question because it's quite fascinating in some respects. So some dogs seem to completely sell through this stage, this phase. They're like, ah, we're done. But then there's others that just seem to fall apart. Is there any reason that some do really well with adolescents, but some like literally just fall to pieces?

I mean, that's the, that's the question, isn't it? Uh, I think it's really, really hard to know. There's, there's no particularly, again in dogs, there's no of research or science that tells us why one dog might be more prone to really struggling with that phase or not. I mean, I think

Hmm.

thing that we can point to just from our experience is that, you know, it may be that one dog has a bad experience during adolescence that goes wrong for them. But, you know, even within that, you can have two dogs that have exactly the same experience during adolescence. It might be a new person coming into the home, something like that. could have dogs that come in with kind of, pretty much the same, same learning history. Pretty much right? And one, one comes in, one, a person comes into the home, one dog freaks out, a person comes into the home, one dog doesn't freak out. And, it's, it's so hard to say kind of what, what makes that difference? And, and we're starting to learn more about things like gene environment interactions and the kind of amazing field of epigenetics that really kind of looks into that. And that starts to point us towards some potential answers for that. So, for example, there are genetic polymorphisms, so kind of just differences in animals', genes that if a dog X has those polymorphisms and has particular set of circumstances during development are more at risk of developing, behavioural disorders longer term or individuals are this coming from researching sort of rats and humans rather than dogs specifically? So we know that, you know, if you get that wrong combination of genes then goes in, then that animal goes in the wrong environment where perhaps they are. It's often unpredictable, um, potentially kind of where there's a lot of fear elicited during those early stages environments that might then combined with that genetic predisposition to then put an animal at higher risk of developing those Behavioural dis dis difficulties longer term.

Mm

and. That sort of thing could be a plain dog. So it could be that, you know, you've got a dog that's got that genetic predisposition, maybe doesn't get the right

mm.

from their mom, maybe doesn't have the right experience in terms of breeding, maybe doesn't get the right start as a puppy or something like that. That

Yeah.

means that dog, when we hit that adolescent stage, we start actually seeing that present. And I think that's one of the difficult things because you know, if you've got a dog that doesn't get that right input as a puppy, sometimes they're still absolutely fine. Or you know, kind of from, from our perspective, seem to do really well as puppies. But then those issues actually start to present later when the dogs

Yeah.

to mature a little bit. And we realize, and those kind of effects on the dog's physiology really start to take effect and present in terms of the dog's Behaviour. And we see that dog starting to really struggle to cope.

Yeah. Brilliant. Thank you. Is there an average timeline for puberty or adolescents, or does it vary massively between different breeds?

Oh, so yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that in terms of puberty and adolescence, because those are a couple of separate things. So,

okay.

timeline wise, we can actually think about the timeline for puberty as being something that tends to come before adolescence. So the kinda,

Mm.

way to think of the difference between puberty and adolescence is puberty being kind of what's happening, changes in kind of the body from the head down, um, or not even just the head down, but actually more kind of in some of those hormonal, maturing, uh, maturation. So things like testosterone, starting to flow more in male dogs, estrogen and

Mm

starting to flow more in female dogs. So the dog becoming sexually mature.

Mm.

we might start seeing a female dog going into season. We start, might steal a male dog, starting to take more of an interest in humping and more of an interest in the females that he may encounter out on his walks and things like that. So. Those are the, those are the sorts of changes that we would typically get with puberty or the dog reaching that puberty phase. Then adolescence is more of those changes in terms of the brain. So those things that we started to talk about. Now, typically, puberty will start to occur around six to eight months in most dogs on

Okay.

I'm not sure the last time I checked there wasn't a huge amount of research on differences between breed.

Right.

There may be more that has come out, but I think, you know, my understanding is there isn't a huge amount of science on that. A lot of

Mm

do report, especially people that you know, have one breed and a lot of experience with a particular breed that, you know, they, their breed may be a little bit later or a little bit earlier with both puberty or adolescence.

mm.

But there's, there's not enough science as far as I'm aware to say for sure on that, that, you know, that's not to say that there isn't differences, it's just to say that we don't officially kind of have that data to, to kind of tell us a lot about those differences. So, um, yeah, puberty kind of around that six months mark and then adolescence tends to be between, somewhere between really around eight and 24 months is the best estimate from a a, a paper that came out a couple of years ago. And when I say between, that doesn't mean that the dog hits, starts adolescent at eight months and then finishes at 24 months. It can be

No.

a kind of a period between that. So it could be that the dog goes into the adolescence phase around eight months and then sort of finishes adolescence around, you know, 14, 16 months. It could be that they start a lot later. You know, that that starts. really starts taking effect around 18 months and finishes off around 24 months. So kind of

Yeah.

adolescence period is, can vary. And yeah, again, that may be something that is related to breed. A lot of people, for example, talk about larger breeds having a bit of a delayed Potentially.

he took, yeah, he took them. I was gonna say the size of the breed. I thought that impacted it a bit.

Yeah. So I mean, it certainly could well do, I mean, I, I think it, it, my personal kind of guess is that I think it possibly does just from what I've

Yeah,

say for sure because we haven't got enough data. So that, I think that's certainly an interesting one to kind of keep an eye on as, as, as things go forward.

definitely. There was a question of what to just tag in here. Something I picked up on the other day. So second fear cycle, eight to nine months, roughly. Is this the same as adolescents or are they two separate things?

So, yeah, that's a really good question as well. And I think the, as best as I can tell the answer is we don't know whether that's the same

Right.

or two separate things. I

Okay.

and I think it depends who you talked to, because some people that I've heard have talked about it as quite a distinct thing from second adolescent or from adolescent, sorry, the second fear cycle. My interpretation just based off what we know about adolescents and the fact that there's not really evidence of kind of a, a second fear cycle in other animals was not, you know, we've got a lot of data on adolescents as mammals as a whole, got so much data on fear cycles and like a fear, a later fear cycle, particularly occurring in mammals as a whole. So my, my theory is, yeah, it probably is some, something related to adolescences and, and it is probably kind of some of those changes and, and I think. It is probably related to some of those changes that we get during adolescence and as, what I'm trying to say, I suppose is the changes that we get through adolescence aren't a load of things that switch on at the beginning of adolescence and a load of things that switch off at the end of adolescence. They're things like, for example, that change in extinction learning, that change in reward processing, that change in associative learning. And, and all these changes coming along at once. Sort of coming along at different times, sorry. And interacting at different times. So if you can think during that adolescent period, say we're getting that change in extinction learning going up, and then we've got another change of, you know, a few weeks later going up. And if you can think, that actually means we're getting a load of kind of different interaction points throughout that adolescent period. then

Hmm.

to really kind of give us a, a way of seeing it a little bit differently of, of. Actually through adolescences, like the animals dealing with these cocktail of changes on almost like a

Yeah.

week basis, that means actually from one week to another, the way the dog is perceiving the world and learning about the world and responding to the world could be very different as that adolescence sort of progresses. So I

Hmm.

quite possibly that second fear period is something to do with that. And, and, and even if we think about risk taking during adolescence, you know, that might be something that ties into what people describe as a second period fear period as well. Because we know adolescents take more risks, which means they're more likely to put themselves in circumstances where they then feel scared because they've run up to someone that they thought was a good idea to run up to. And then they've got there and they realize there's a really scary looking person that they've now decided to, you know, there's too many people, too many dogs, too many things going on, and they're like, ah, crap. Whereas

Yeah.

you know, had they been in that scenario, may have been fearful. probably wouldn't have got into that scenario in the first place. So all sorts of

Yeah.

could be going on there. I think, you know, the, the, there's so many changes that are going on. I, I would tend to think kind of just saying a second fear period in a way is almost a

Yeah,

of all the kind of cocktail of changes that we get during that adolescence period.

yeah. Brilliant. Thank you so much. So we are gonna be moving on to our next section, which is all about the common challenges that pet guardians can worry that what they worry about. Um, so challenges and worries. What are some of the most common Behaviours that tend to pop up during adolescence? Daniel?

So I think one thing that I certainly see a lot, and again this is just based on my experience working as a

That's, that's cool. Yeah.

kind of any, any, anything that we know from the data. But,

Yeah.

um, I see a lot of dogs that seem to struggle with frustration during adolescence and you know, that can be things like frustration out on walks or suddenly becoming, you know, barking at other dogs because we're seeing these kind of explosive Behaviours, I think is sometimes the best

Mm,

them. You know, you're taking the dog out and then suddenly they've seen someone and then we're just getting but blah bark and then we sometimes we get some redirected Behaviour towards the leash and then we get running about and we just get like this kind of, sort of explosion of sort of Behaviour. And I think often that can be that frustration response. And just to kind of define that a little bit, what I mean by frustration, I. Is the experience. When an animal wants to do something, they want to access something in their environment, but they are interrupted from doing so. So for example, in that example, seeing another dog that they want to interact with, but not being able to because they're on leash and therefore

Yeah.

And I think

Yeah.

many scenarios like that where adolescents really struggle and whether it's, you know, people coming into the home and, and, and sometimes it's even things like, you know, people coming into the home and they're a little bit fearful, they're a little bit nervous in that situation, but they also wanna meet

Mm.

So we get that conflicts there that can sometimes bring in that frustration. I see that a lot in adolescent dogs of kind of being like, there's a new person that's really, really exciting. But I'm a little bit too scared to go and say hi to them, so I'm not sure what to do, so I'm just gonna maybe just start barking at them. So I think we see, we see that sort of thing a lot. And I think helping

Yeah.

dog, adolescent dogs ways to manage some of that frustration, find ways to regulate some of that frustration can be really, really valuable.

Mm. They can often get timed like frustrated greeters. So they can seem really like aggressive, but they're more so, like you say, they frustrated 'cause they just wanna get to that dog and say hello.

Yeah, no, I think that's great. Tam. Yeah, kind of like it is, it can look, it can look, uh, you know, quite particularly on some of the larger breeds with kind of the deeper barks or the, I tend to find I'm more easily, got an issue that I'm very easily started by. Kind of like the little breeds with the light. The high-pitched yappy noise always make me jump when they bark unexpectedly still. But, um, the larger breeds, I think, you know, for some people particularly kind of can look quite threatening when they start reacting like that. And actually when, when you dive into it, actually it's, it's not that the, the dog is, you know, behaving, you know, showing what might be described as aggressive Behaviour, which is a very broad label and a very sort of. Difficult label to define in itself, but it's just

Yeah.

Behaviour 'cause they kind of want to greet them, but they're also not quite sure how to do it and what to do.

Yeah. Brilliant. My next question's got the word reactive in it. And I'm not a massive fan of the word reactive, like aggressive 'cause there's so many sort of connotations or reasons that it could be that way. But for a dog that who previously maybe loved other dogs, but then suddenly became reactive and inverted comm or, or wary, why might that be?

Yeah. So I think, again, during adolescence, I mean, so during any age that that's something that can happen, right? That's something that, that can be a bad experience. It could be that the dog starting to experience some pain, and that's made them more concerned

Yeah.

with other dogs because suddenly they're feeling a little bit more vulnerable. So therefore they're, they're, they're trying to prevent other dogs from, from interacting with them. So there's all sorts of reasons that a dog at any age could start being more reactive to other dogs. Suddenly, if we think about it in adolescence in particular. I think a couple of, you know, a couple of things that we can be aware of is dogs start to change a little bit during adolescence. And one thing we can sometimes see in adolescent animals is kind of more of a, sort of a, a what's sometimes called a hostile attribution bias. So a bias towards thinking the Behaviour of others is hostile towards them. and that can of course mean, you know, if you're going round thinking everyone is, is coming after you and, and, and looking for a fight with you, then you are, you are gonna be more defensive naturally. And we know

Yeah.

are more defensive, if a dog is behaving more standoffish, then that can make the other dog then start thinking, why is he looking a bit, he's looking a bit funny, so I'm not gonna, you know, or maybe I, I'm, I should start barking at him. So I think, you know, sometimes. That might be something that could play into that adolescents picture that just makes dogs a little bit more standoffish, which then maybe makes another, you know, the opposing dog that they might see out and about, more standoffish. And that

Mm

to this kind of cycle of kind of miscommunication when actually both dogs might be quite happy to play with each other in better circumstances. So, I mean, I think that's kind of one thing to watch out for. Um, I, I think sometimes

mm.

Can increase as well during adolescence. So, because again, we've not got that frontal circuitry in place. So when we are, you know, when we are as adults being irritated, whether you're a dog or a human your frontal circuitry kind of is, is, is built in place to help you kind of not react to that if that's the right thing to do. Whereas an adolescent might struggle more with those irritations and might struggle to deal with them better. So it's something like a puppy or a dog that's a bit pushy with them, whereas maybe a normal dog would be, have a bit more patience, be able to kind of give some softer social signals like maybe moving away from them, trying to ignore them a little bit. That might signal to the other dog. You are being a bit much, an adolescent might just suddenly turn around and be like, I'm gonna bite you or I'm gonna gonna start barking at you, or, or whatever. Um, because

Yeah.

is not as high in ad in an adolescent generally. As it would

Mm.

adult dog. I, I,

Yeah.

that's another thing that I think's worth watching out for, and I think particularly again, if you are, if you are setting up social scenarios with your adolescent dog, then that's really important to be aware of because we need to know that actually if your adolescent dog, you know, if, if we start seeing that play, particularly from the other dog, maybe getting a little bit much or getting a little bit pushy, then we need to be aware that actually, and that our adolescent dog might struggle with that more than they would've done even a couple of weeks ago when they were, you know, in that puppy stage. So being really,

Mm.

and really cautious of that is important because then of course if we do have a bad interaction, the dog does then turn around and snap at that other dog, and then that leads to something worse. Then we've of course got the rest of that adolescent circuitry that we've spoken about in place. Ready for the dog to learn very, very quickly that other dogs or this dog or interacting with dogs in this set of circumstances down this park or whatever it might be, is not good. And you know, we've got fear and that could take place. So really, really being mindful of, you know, always with dogs. I would, I would say kind of setting up for success with interactions, but especially during that adolescence period, remembering that there could be changes in their kind of social tolerance. And things can go wrong more easily than they might go wrong at other stages of life. So I think, yeah, being extra mindful of just kind of making sure we're, we're kind of managing our dog and preventing those sorts of things from occurring will again pay off longer time.

Brilliant. Thank you. So our final question for this section is how can guardians tell the difference between developmental Behaviour and something more serious?

So that's a really interesting question. So I suppose I, I, in terms of kind of developmental Behaviour, is there any anything you're kind of thinking of there? Is there any particular examples of developmental Behaviour that that come to mind?

Uh, oh gosh. I dunno really. I guess just learning new, new things like maybe sort of getting used to being home alone, sort of if, you know, obviously a lot of dogs struggle with that. Yes. Along, along, along those being a bit more resilient and sort of like, you know, learning to be at home on their own and, you know, things like that. Maybe.

Yeah. Yeah. So I, I suppose, yeah, like things like not struggling a little bit more with, being home alone or, or, or kind of maybe wanting to kind of jump up a, a little bit more or kind of some of those things that we spoke about that might link to some of those frustration things might tie in more to

Yeah. Yeah,

think it's,

yeah.

very difficult. I suppose one of the reasons it's kind of hard to, to kind of think about this, I suppose what I'm, what what's difficult is, is actually disentangling that, and I think that's probably an important thing in itself is, is, you know, if we've got a dog that's starting to, to show, you know, fearful Behaviour at adolescence, that is a Behaviour that could occur at any point in that dog's life.

Yeah. Yeah.

necessarily something we would call developmental Behaviour, but of course if it's happening during adolescence, it's still. In gonna be incredibly important to understand that adolescence period in the dog, because that's gonna change how we might approach that Behaviour. So for example, when I'm working with adolescent dogs that are struggling with fearfulness, we tend to have a pretty low we, we scale back, I suppose is a good way of describing kind of the Behaviour plans that we might put in place. We don't do a lot of, for example you know, what's known as sort of desensitization or counterconditioning training with adolescent dogs. And essentially the training that we might do with an older dog because, 'cause there's a greater chance of it going wrong. Their, their

Yeah.

means that it's harder for them to, to, for that kind of information to be taken on board by that dog. So what we tend to

Mm.

on is actually during that period, maintaining a. Where the

Yeah.

making sure we're not going backwards, making sure the dog doesn't kind of regress in terms of their fearfulness, um, around something.

Yeah.

Making sure that, you know, their kind of emotional wellbeing is good and making sure that they're having a, you know, a good, happy existence as an adolescent, but actually

Yeah.

too much without Behaviour modification. Because if we start doing too much work during that adolescence period, it might

Mm-hmm.

you know, we are taking a greater risk in terms of things going wrong. We are not gonna get as much value for our, for effort or money. Um, in terms of the, the investment we're putting in. Because the

Yeah.

well designed for that kind of learning during adolescence and it, it's, I generally think it's better off actually waiting for the dog to mature a little bit, just focusing on their emotional wellbeing, making sure they enjoy that adolescence during that adolescent period. And then

Mm-hmm.

kind, kind of focusing more on the training side of tackling that when the dog reaches maturity. Um, rather than doing

Yeah.

on that during adolescence.

Yeah. I'm trying to pinpoint like, 'cause my dogs, one of my dogs suffers with separation anxiety and I'm trying to pinpoint whether that was roughly around like the adolescence period or not, because it was in COVID as well. My husband was furloughed and he sort of blames that a little bit as well. The fact that he was home all the time. And I was trying to work out whether he was sort of like around adolescent's age, but his also is, um, linked to pain 'cause he's got chronic back pain. So he's like, he's got essay, but then he sort of resource guards and his reactive, so, so much going on. Bless him. Um, I was just trying to work out if that was around about an adolescent age. It sort of came on. So developmental Behaviour, what, like, I know I put this question in, but what would you, what would you say developmental Behaviour actually is then?

So I mean, I, I are you thinking of, I suppose what you thinking when you, when we talk about developmental Behaviour, there's Behaviour during development that might be important for the dog's kind of development longer term in terms of their kind of social and emotional development. We know, for example, play

Hmm.

really important for social and emotional

Yes.

longer term.

Yeah,

and being able to explore new environments and develop that proprioceptive system. So the system that helps us kind of navigate the environment that we're on. Literally navigate the environment, not in terms of thinking how do I get to the local shops, but in terms of thinking, how do I get on onto the sofa and off the sofa, you know, that kind of thing.

Yeah.

So, I mean, that's a really important one in terms of thinking about about development. I mean, you know, if we get, if we go kind of even earlier, you know, things like starting to open your eyes, starting to, to, to, uh, cry for your parent, that kind of thing, I suppose would be

Mm.

in developmental Behaviour.

Yeah.

puppy

Yeah,

again, another big developmental Behaviour, helping us learn about that social environment as well. Helping us learn about

yeah,

the, the kind of physical environment that the puppy's in.

Yeah.

I, I

I guess,

typically think of that sort of thing.

I guess like, yeah, 'cause you've got those different stages in Puppyhood as well, haven't you? That initial fear, so obviously a habitation as well, and socialization is so much different sort of processes they're going through at such a young age as well.

Yeah, I mean there's, there's so,

It's mad.

isn't there? And I mean, that's the,

Yeah.

thing about kind of. Our physiology as mammals is, is, is incredible, I think in, in the sense that we are not complete when we are born. You know, are just kind of given a set of instructions of this is how to finish off developing and, you know, go for it. And, and, and, uh, I think a lot to do is, a lot of of it is to do with our obviously our size and, and kind of because of, obviously if we were adults and, and being carried by our parents, then that that's not really gonna work on a, on a kind of practical perspective, um, as well. But I'm thinking, yeah, there's some interesting, interesting kind of, sort of looking at, if we look at it across species and the, and the way they you know, different, different species approach kind of development is, is incredible. I mean, if you compare it to like. Even, you know, horses and giraffes that will just kind of be born and just be wandering about on their own, is so

Yeah.

as like humans and dogs that are just pretty useless

Mm.

born, unfortunately.

Yeah, the word resilience is kind of ba batting around for me as well. And that built, that's on our, that's my next section about resilience. Actually. I was just, that was a word that was sort of coming through, so brilliant. Leading us nicely onto what helps, so building resilience and connection. So what should we, what should we prioritize during the adolescent phase and what actually helps our dogs cope, Daniel?

So I think one thing that we can do during the adolescent phase and ideally really before the adolescent phase from when we first get our dogs, is think about that connection. I think that's a

Mm,

kind of link there, resilience and connection, because I think

definitely.

that relationship. Between the caregiver and the dog is so important for resilience and emotional wellbeing Longer term we know that dogs are incredible in the sense that they, the way they form relationships with their human caregivers is mimics on both ends of our physiology. On our physiology. And in terms of the dog's physiology mimics the

Yeah.

relationships that we see between human infants and their

Mm-hmm.

you know, what you'd see whether between a child and their mom, their dad, or caregiver. And that attachment relationship has a few special features. So it has what's known as the secure base effect. So if the infant is around their caregiver, they are, their caregiver acts as a secure base and gives them more confidence to explore that environment. Distress upon separation as well. So if the caregiver is, if the infant is separated from the caregiver, often there'll be signs of distress. And I think that's a, an an important one also, when we're talking about things like separation anxiety, because actually some distress and discomfort on upon separation is a normal and healthy thing. we need to do as, as, as well, both obviously behaviourists or caregivers, is actually make sure we help our dog realize that and understand that this is not the end of the world kind of

Yeah.

thing that you can, that, you know, it's,

Hmm.

not, it's not your favorite thing in the world, but it is something you can adapt to and cope with.

Yeah.

we've got these kind of features of an attachment relationship, these amazing features that, that that that connection is so valuable. And, and actually we also know the, that dogs and humans that have stronger attachment relationships actually. Tend to show more responsivity. The dose dogs tend to show more responsivity to their caregivers during that adolescent phase. So if you've got that kind of strong attachment relationship with your dog, actually one benefit of that is your dog probably will still show a little bit of a dip in responsiveness when it hit, when they hit adolescence. But that dipping responsiveness might be mitigated a little bit by that stronger

Mm

relationship. So I think attachment buildings a really, really key thing there, and I think there's a lot that we can think about it comes to

Yeah.

building. I think one absolute key fundamental when we're thinking about attachment building is being sensitive. To the dog's needs and being

Mm.

to any signs of distress, being sensitive to signs of enjoyment and happiness and joy as well actually being when your dog is enjoying themselves, trying to share that experience with them and saying, oh, that's great. You know, and just, you know, like the good times as well, but also when, when something bad happens, not trying to ignore it. And there's so much kind of bad advice that are out there about kind of ignoring your dog when they're, when they're fearful or ignoring your dog when they're stressed. And actually that's really counterintuitive because, you know, if we are scared as humans, if someone comforts us, you know, if, if your friend, your parent when you're young, you know, comforts you and, and says, oh, it's okay. When you are scared of something that doesn't reinforce you, that doesn't make you think, oh, I'm gonna be scared tomorrow night. 'cause that was great, I got a load of attention from that. This is not how it works when, when we're talking about an emotion. And it's absolutely the same with dogs. If our dogs are scared of something and, and, and, you know, feeling fearful, actually responding to that and offering some reassurance is a really good thing. And then helping them move on from it as well, helping them then kind of turn around and like maybe look to that next activity, do something else. And there's some, you know, really good work out there people looking at attachment and kind of looking at how we can really kind of facilitate that strong human dog relationship between dogs and their caregivers. So I think yeah, definitely, definitely thinking about that sensitivity that, that caregiver sensitivity is a really, really good place to start. I think also being a

Yeah,

good things for the dog is another, really another really important element of building that attachment relationship. So, you know, intro, setting up fun stuff for your dog, showing them Sarah Fisher does amazing work with um, ACE Free work.

she does.

a good opportunity for building that attachment relationship because you can go around and you can go around these different stations and you can engage with 'em and your dog and you say, oh, what are you doing? Oh, is that a fun one? Yeah, that's great. What did you think of this one? Didn't like this one so much. We won't set up this one next time. I'm not gonna try and explain it in a huge amount of detail because I won't do an amazing job. But I, I'd say definitely anyone that's kind of looking for something to, to work on that attachment relationship with their dog, ACE Free Work is another amazing, uh, a tool for your toolbox in that regard

Yes, it often gets mentioned on this podcast ACE Free Work and Sarah, and we've got, we've actually got her coming on soon. She's a very busy lady. So a little reveal for our listeners. She is coming on soon.

her up then.

Yeah, yeah. But like, she's so busy and I've struggled to tie her down to a date. Bless her. 'cause she's got obviously, so she's just so busy and she's amazed at what she does. But yeah, literally, I think on pretty much every episode, Sarah and Ace free work gets mentioned, so I love that. I can't wait to have her on and to speak to her more about it all. Brilliant. So, are there ways to support our dogs through emotional surges and off days in inverted commas, Daniel?

Yeah, so I think, you know, again, searches, I suppose that's kind of links back to what we were talking about in terms of that emotional, that limbic system in the brain kind of causing some of those emotional responses to be a little bit more exaggerated perhaps than we would typically see when the dog was a puppy. And I think,

Hmm.

you know, things like emotions and the physiological changes that come with them, there is a little bit of recovery time from that.

Yeah.

amount of time necessarily, and is what you do with the dog as well? The kinda the quality of the, the time spent after that, uh, sort of maybe strongly felt emotion and typically I'm thinking of maybe a more of a negative emotion here. But actually

Hmm.

apply to positive emotions as well because if a dog has been out playing with their friends and having lots of fun and being very excited in a very high arousal situation, that can also take a bit of recovery time from, I think we all kind of know sometimes if we take our dog out and they've been playing around for ages, they can sometimes seem almost a bit too hyped. Coming outta that situation, you're

Yeah.

you've been playing for ages. Why aren't you just sleeping? And some dogs will just sleep. And actually that's an issue in itself if you've overti a dog and they've just kind of gone to sleep, because that means that then we've got a dog that, that, you know, might have, we might have used up a bit much of their kind of emotional tolerance and we've tied them out so much that they might really struggle to

Mm

longer term as well. But

mm

sorry I'm jumping around a little bit, but

No, I don't apologize. It's absolutely fine.

I think

Yeah.

emotional searches, there's a few things in terms of kind of a small or, or a high arousal emotion, whether that be good or bad. There's a few things in terms of helping our dog recover. I think the first thing is time. Generally, you know, it's maybe a couple of hours for some of those hormones and, and, um, hormonal responses to kind of rebalance and for the

mm.

kind of achieve homeostasis again, where they're all their physiology kind of gets to that kind of nice balance. So that's usually gonna be a couple of hours for things like cortisol levels to go down, cortisol being the

Hmm.

involved in stress, whether that be a good

Yes.

or a bad stressor.

Yeah.

and, and also an activity that helps that dog come down. And, and that can look different for different dogs. Some dogs

Hmm.

to grab something and choose something, and that seems to actually really, really help them kind of regulate themselves. Again, some dogs like to

Yeah.

Some dogs like things like your lick mats, like,

yeah.

different surfaces that they can access, paste and stuff off. Kongs, frozen stuff,

Mm-hmm.

thing.

Mm-hmm.

do like that dissecting side of it, like a chew that they can take apart and dissect and really crunch on. So it depends on the dog and I think that's where, you know, learning about your individual dogs is really Im dog is really important. So you can start to gather that information in terms of actually what helps my dog, what helps this dog from a more high arousal environment. Whether that be something as like playing with friends where we got very excited or something like the dog got spooked by something and we need a little bit of a break from that. Some dogs will go

Yeah.

will be able to have a snooze after something like that. Some dogs will struggle more to snooze after something like that. Having a sleep definitely does help rebalance some of that physiology, but actually getting into that sleep state is something we might need to kind of help our dogs with a little bit. Definitely

Yeah.

available is good though. I think making sure, you know, we give the dog some options in terms of, you know, what they want to do. Maybe seeing if they want to chew, maybe seeing if they want something to lick on, maybe seeing if they want to kind of onto something and have a little gentle game of tug with something, you know, not a full on game of tug. Generally I wouldn't go for, in this sort of situation, for the most part. there may be exceptions. I don't, I haven't worked with every dog. But

yeah.

of a, sort of a low key game of tug with a bit of biter, of snappy kind of, you know, if you do, you know what I mean? Like the, I could do the little

Yeah,

know, yeah. We kind just low key tug. It's, yeah.

yeah. I get you. Brilliant. So what role does connection and co-regulation play in helping our dogs feel safe and understood? Daniel?

So, yeah, I think. Connection is, is super important. I think that kind of links back to the kind of what we were talking about in a little bit, about in, in some of that attachment side of things. And obviously if we've

Mm-hmm.

relationship, then that's gonna make it a lot easier for that dog to feel safe because they know they, they're, they're of brains are set up to learn that if they've got this predictable, sensitive caregiver, then that is a signal for safety for them. And then

Yeah.

the other one you said was co-regulation. I think that's actually. A really important way that we can sometimes see this go to the next level because I think one aspect of co-regulation is, is we, we see this some kind of physiological level. We know that if we're engaging with our dogs, particularly kind of tactile engagement, we start to see things like oxytocin, this kind of hormone involved in social bonding starting to to be released. We also start to see, um, endogenous opioids released in our brain. So these are these kind of newer chemicals that are involved in helping us feel safe and happy. so we

mm.

to see all these things happening and both the dog and the human end typically as well. And

Mm

we also, another interesting feature of attachment is something called joint attention. what that means is if, for example, you, you've, you know, you've look at a parent that's got an attachment relationship with their infant. If the infant looks at something, the parent will tend to, to look towards that. And equally, if the At something, the infant will tend to look towards that. So their attentional systems start to link up. We start to see the

hmm.

lot of interest in what the parent is looking at, the parent sharing a lot of interest in what the infant is looking at. And actually that's a really valuable feature. And I think dogs, there is some evidence for this. I think one way in the sense that the, the human will look at something and then the dog will follow that attention. And, this is really, really interesting in the sense that. Again, we can use this to start helping the dog regulate themselves because we can use our attentional system to start encouraging the dog to follow us, follow our attention, and engage in something that is gonna help them regulate. You know, it

Hmm mm.

setting up a li map, is that something we can do? You know, can we take it to the next level again by not just setting it up in the kitchen. There you go. Li map off you go crack on with it. But actually sitting there and kind of adding a little bit to it. Oh, have you done? Should we add a bit more to it? Yeah. Oh great. Should we do a bit more here? Okay. Do you wanna do something else now? Should we look at this activity? So actually kind of sharing and being a part of those activities with your dog can be really valuable. I'll just have a caveat as I've given that particular example. If you've got a dog that guards resources, don't do that. But the most part, you know, something where we can share that kind of activity can be really, really valuable.

Perfect. Brilliant. Right. We're gonna be moving on to our final section before we start wrapping up. Literally, we've sailed for, it's been, my mind is buzzing. Um, full of so much useful info. It's been brilliant. So the human experience, guilt, frustration, and fear. What, why is this phase so tough emotionally for guardians, Daniel?

Yeah. So I mean, that's, that's a really good question. I think, you know, I'm obviously coming at it from my perspective as a behaviourist, so I

That's cool.

am, am an expert in terms of human sort of

Oh, no, it's okay.

and, and wellbeing. But I, I think just in terms of, in terms of what I see, I think, there's a lot of, there's a couple of things actually. I think there's a lot of expectations that we place on ourselves as, you know, dog caregivers in terms of, you know, we'll adopt a dog, we'll do all this work, you know, we can put in a lot of work, and then I. If we start seeing that going downhill and going off track a little bit, then that can feel, that can, you know, it can feel like you failed in some way and, and, and, you know, it can feel like you're doing something wrong. It can be obviously really frustrating because suddenly we've done all this work, we've put all this effort in and the expect, you know, the, the sort of reinforcer that we were expecting as a human of the dog kind of being able to cope in this environment and behave in a way that we might want them to as humans isn't happening.

Mm.

And I think that's where sometimes help helping people make that shift in thinking is really important to say actually. Well, you know, I think we have to understand that the dog's an individual they're having their own individual emotional experience. And just because we've done all that work and just because we've tried to teach them all those things, that doesn't change the fact. something's going on for them, that's making 'em feel a bit differently about stuff now.

Mm.

that's not a reflection on, on you a caregiver, but it's just a reflection of that dog's emotional experience. And I think it's, it's weird the dog industry, because I think we are, are almost taught to sort of oversimplify yet also overcomplicate our dog's experience, which is weird in the sense that we are kind of overcomplicating in the sense of thinking. They have an understanding of all these cues perfectly and they have an understanding of how to disobey us and upset us by disobeying us, which is not necessarily the case. Dogs don't, we don't think they do have a good enough theory of mind to know that if they don't follow the cue that we want them to follow, then that's gonna annoy us. really have the theory of mind to do that. But they certainly do have an emotional experience that's more complicated than their life revolving around, you know, 10 or so cues. So. You know, they, they have the kind of their, their emotion, their limbic system is very, very similar to ours. It's only kind of some of those cognitive systems that are a little bit different, where they're not gonna understand some of the things like what other people are thinking. Some of those more complex sort of human language and conversations that we, we might have. So it's, it is, it's difficult being a dog, I think from that sense, because, you know, the expectations people have are, are difficult. And also society's expectations on what a dog should do and how a dog should behave

Yeah.

huge in the way they impact people. You know, taking a dog to a family function, taking a dog out to the park, taking to cafes, you know, if your dog's not behaving. How so? How, you know, we think society will want our dog to behave. I think sometimes there is a lot of, you know, guilt and shame and, you know, I'm

Yeah.

You know, I'm not as good as other dog owners in, in getting my dog to, you know, behave and training my dog. So I think, I think there's just a lot that comes in there and it, it can be quite a, you know, a difficult time for, for a caregiver in that way.

It's funny you say that 'cause we're a multi dog household here, so we've got seven dogs. So we are the crazy dog men here, but there're only seven little ones. So it's not like as if they're two German. She seven German Shepherds. But when you say, it just made me think, 'cause my husband always worries about having people around. He'd rather go to their house. But what he doesn't like, like realizes that they are all dog people as well and they don't care. Like he doesn't, you know, our dogs are not perfect by any means, and he just worries about obviously like what people think, you know, because they're a bit unroll or whatever. And it's always the way when I'm meant I'm meant to be a dog trainer, but their dog people and they don't care. So you, you shouldn't, you shouldn't worry. Should you?

Yeah, I think that's the thing is people generally don't care as much as you, as you they do. And I think, you know, it

Yeah.

us that, that hold ourselves to these kind of high standards. And it's, it,

Yeah.

you know, it's difficult to kind of sometimes move away from that. My mindset, even when you've got the information, like for example, you know, we've just talked about all of this, but at the same time. I could go in public and if a dog's behaving bad, you know, badly in sort of inverted commas and doing something they're not supposed to be, I could be feeling a bit self-conscious because, you know, the, the, it, it is just, it's so programmed into us.

Yeah.

and, you know,

Yeah.

When I'm talking about kind of badly it might be, you know, trying to steal something or something like that, that maybe we haven't taught the dog not to do. You know,

Yeah.

nec, what I wouldn't do put a dog that's gonna be really distressed going into a public situation in public, because of course that's not gonna be good for their kind of wellbeing or, or the wellbeing of those around the dog either. But I think, you know, if it's something that that's just might be frowned upon as maybe a little bit naughty, like, you know, trying to steal stuff or maybe jumping up at people where they're not supposed to do. You know, hopefully we can manage it anyway. Hopefully, even if we haven't yet trained the dog not to do that, we can manage them and prevent them from doing that sort of thing. But I think, you know,

Yeah.

it's most, most people aren't as bothered about it as, as you might think they are, particularly if you were going to a dog park or something like that. But it

Yeah.

I know.

How, yeah. Um, how can we manage our own expectations and not fall into the trap of thinking that our dog is broken and inverted, commas or naughty in inverted commerce?

Yeah. I think again, it's sort of, it, it comes down to just understanding that. The really, I think things like the, the term naughty is, is is a difficult one because don't understand our rules and our expectations enough to be naughty knowingly anyway. If they're doing something that

Now.

naughty, it's just because they think that's a good thing for them to do from their, based off their learning history, based off their genetics, based on what they find reinforcing and rewarding. They just think it's a good thing to do. They just think jumping up on the counter and stealing some butter is a great idea. They don't know that's naughty. They just think there's food there. I'll get it. You know, like there's

They're opportunists, aren't they? So.

is a Yeah, there opportunity. Exactly. So. I think kind of moving away from that, that mindset is keen to sort of understanding that, you know, that they, I do think understanding that they're not cognitive in that sense. They're not, you know, advanced thinkers in that sense of understanding our human rules and understanding our human expectations. They're very advanced in many ways, and that in, in their social processing and their ability to be able to interact with us and be able to love us and be able to share as part of our social lives incredibly, incredibly advanced. But in terms of actually cognitive stuff and just knowing like the rules of stuff, they don't, they don't get rules.

No. And the thing is they are animals and animals are like unpredictable. So, you know, and anything, you can't, just, anything could happen basically.

mean, well that's the Really, isn't it?

yeah. Yeah, that's true. How would you, what would you say to someone that's currently feeling like they've lost connection that they once had with their dog, Daniel?

Yeah, and that sounds really tough. And I, I think, again, if that's something that they're experiencing through adolescence, I think, you know, sometimes the relat, the nature of that relationship does change. I think I've seen a lot of dogs that do become a lot less cuddly, for example, during adolescence. And, you know, that, that I think can be something that some people struggle with because suddenly they've gone from having this lovely, cuddly puppy to this dog that's, you know, feels like, doesn't wanna know them, doesn't mean the dog doesn't necessarily wanna know you. It just means that maybe they are, you know, a little bit more independent, maybe some of those reinforcer values and has changed. And sometimes tactile touch isn't so, so important or so valuable for them anymore. Or maybe it's just because their kind of reward system has changed a little bit. So there's other things in the environment that are distracting them. That means that that kind of touch and engagement isn't something they're prioritizing as much. And. I know quite often sometimes when dogs hit social maturity, they start being a bit more tactile again. But equally, you know, some dogs may just continue being a little bit less tactile from maturity, and sometimes the nature of that social relationship does change. And that's, you know, that's not necessarily a bad thing at all. We are coming at it as humans and dogs are coming at it as dogs, and I know that sounds obvious, but as primates, have a different way of showing love than dogs do. If you look at dogs engaging with others, sometimes we get a headrest, sometimes we get kind of a bit of body touching. We don't get things like the big hugs and the picking up like that we do as humans, whereas we love a good hug and that sort of thing. So we also need to recognize that kind of, that species differences in the sense that dogs, you know, if a, if a, if a dog. It has two pores around you, it probably means they're gonna hump you. It doesn't necessarily, doesn't mean that they want to give you a hug of the time, right? Dogs don't really do hugging, so I think we, we also have to just recognize they've got a different patterns of engagement. They've got a different way of showing that love. And sometimes it might not even be with a lot of tactile touch at all. Sometimes it might just be being in your presence. You know, some of the livestock guarding breeds just love often just sort of being like in the corner of a room, just part of the situation, just near you, but not

Mm.

of on top of you, which is probably quite good for livestock guarding breeds because otherwise you'd just be sort of immobilized the whole time as well. Um, so yeah, I think just, just different, you know, it is different species, even different breeds within dogs have different ways of expressing their emotions. And I think just trying to, trying to be aware of that.

Brilliant. Daniel, thank you so much. This episode has been absolutely jam packed. So we're gonna spend the next couple of minutes just wrapping up with some final thoughts and questions. Daniel, if there's one thing that every guardian should keep in mind during adolescence, what would it be?

I think it would be to sort of accept that your expectations might be thrown off kilter a little bit and just try and

Yeah,

as you can, because actually that's an

yeah.

and that's gonna help your

Yeah.

a well-rounded, socially mature adult.

Yeah, it's only temporary as well. So

Yeah.

we teach you a lot of lessons. Daniel, thank you so much. How can people connect with you, learn more about your work and get involved with a, b, K? Because actually, before you answer that, I was one question I did wanna ask because I like finding out a little bit about people's journeys. So, and I've, I didn't ask you this at the start, but I'm relatively new into the industry, like seven years and all these amazings of people I speak to have been in the industry for quite a while. But what you mentioned offline before we came on that you did some dog walking to for about a year to get some hands-on experience, but what led you, how did you get into like the, the role you're doing now with a, b, K and stuff,

Yeah, so it's, it's been an interesting, um, kind of journey. I, I started off with some issues with my own dog. Um, and that's,

right? That's, that's, that's everyone, isn't it? Everyone I speak to is issues same as me.

And and there obviously getting kind of the Behavioural support going down that route. And then, yeah, I sort of changed my career path a little bit. I was going to do a degree in English. I switched that to do a degree in psychology, and then I did a master's degree in neuroscience. And yeah, at the same time I also started working with dogs. I started off working as a dog walker to get that kind of, more of that hands-on experience for I think just over a year. And then kind of

Mm-hmm.

on the Behaviour and training side of it. And, um, yeah, I think I set up a b, K in, in 2019, 2020.

Wow.

and yeah, we, so we started doing Behaviour consultations, that kind of thing for I think the past. Yeah, five. Ish, five plus years now. So we've had a, I've had a BK I've did a bit of work for another company before then, but

Yeah.

terms of the, and, and the, yeah. Past years we've started going, expanding more a little bit into, I do, we do quite a lot of online education and educational stuff. I do

Mm.

of expert work for legal cases, so it's kind of really expanded, um, which has been, yeah, an interesting journey for sure.

So, let, we're gonna touch on the conference 'cause I'm gonna get my amazing ladies at Yappily to get this episode out before the A BK conference, which is in July. So, um, we're in June at the moment on the 12th of June. So we've got some time. So just quickly tell us about the A BK conference. I got massive FOMO last year, so as soon as the tickets went on sale for this year, I was on it like Sonic. So please tell the listeners our listeners is I think ticket sales is still open about the A BK conference.

open. So we are, we are keeping them open till about three days before the conference.

Amazing. Yeah.

are gonna close them. I think both virtual and person will close about three days before. So it's our annual Behaviour conference. It's actually the last one we are doing for a few years as well.

What,

yeah,

no way.

it is,

Because you moved, you moved it, didn't you? You moved it to a different time of the year. Yeah,

Yeah, I was gonna, we're gonna do it as a, as a summer conference going forward as well.

yeah, yeah.

but we're gonna, we are gonna, I think probably do it bi-annually going forward, so at least so it might be that we take a, a, a couple of, a couple of years off after this year just because it's

Yes.

amount of work is insane. But it's, it's so exciting. We've got an amazing lineup of people for this year.

Yeah.

got it's, it's a two day event in Ashford in the uk. We've got online and in per and virtual options available. So you can either come and join us in person or you can join via live stream and sort of enjoy

Yeah,

of your home, which is always good as well. Especially for

yeah,

many of us surprisingly have dogs, so that can always be a useful option if pet sitters are an issue. So. Got I think 10 or possibly even 12 when I counted now because we've got a couple of people doing a double talk. I think we actually have 12 speakers. Some amazing people like Dr. Kathy Murphy, Bobby Bury, Victoria Stillwell, Trish McMillan, Suzanne, Claudia, Andrew Hale. So just a incredible line of people

Line up.

talking about, um, resilience in dogs. So it's gonna be,

Yeah.

couple of days. We've got some fun stuff going on for the in-person as well. We've got a couple of extra seminars if you

I.

in person so you can bolt on a couple of

Yes.

really get some

Yeah.

in. There's a cocktail

Yeah.

night, which will be a lot of fun as well, if you like a cocktail or a cocktail and a dinner.

I, I definitely do.

lots of fun stuff happening.

Yeah. We're mindful of the date as well. Daniel.

Ah, yeah, so it's the 12th and 13th of July.

Yeah, I got my tickets last year. As soon as I were on sale, I was at the airport. Actually, I'm about to go on holiday, but I was like, right, gotta sort my parties out, get my Hightower and tickets sorted. And Daniel, just quickly, you've just launched your own podcast, so please tell our listeners quickly about that.

So we've just launched the Brain and Behaviour podcast. It's

Love it.

people, generally for dog professionals or people with a sort of a very keen interest in dogs, um, or animal Behaviour generally. We're doing a few episodes, not just dog focused as well.

Oh.

it's all about kind of learning about dog brain, animal brains and Behaviour and kind of all the, everything in between in terms of understanding how Behaviour happens, where it comes from, how it links the animal's,

Mm,

how it links the evolutionary history. And we talk some amazing guests in, in kind of different scientific fields, but also some from

I do.

the training field with more coming from more kind of a, perspective as well on sort of a hands-on. So yeah,

Yeah.

of really, really exciting stuff happening with that as well.

That's so, so you've got so much going on. You've, I've listened to two episodes already that have come out and have absolutely loved it. So, Daniel, how can people connect with you, please? Um, tell us how they can, um, learn more about you and a BK.

Yeah. So, we've got the A BK Facebook page, animal Behaviour Kent. Um, it might be changing soon as we're doing a bit of a relaunch over the next couple of months. But if

Wow.

Behaviour, Kent, you'll, you'll find all of our stuff still. But we'll also have kind of a bit of a new kind of side to our, our business coming out soon. So,

oh wow.

name going on and, and, and it's sort of two things going on, that will be why, as we're kind of starting to separate A, B, K, and the online education side of it a little bit

Yeah. Brilliant. Daniel, thank you so much for joining me on the Yappy Hour, powered by Yapper. You are a fountain of knowledge. I could listen to you all day. We definitely have to get you back on the future 'cause I know you've got some other interests like neuroscience and things like that. So I'd love to have you back on in the future. But thank you so much for joining me today on the happy hour.

No problem at all. It's been fantastic talking to you, and yeah, I look forward to seeing you in a couple of weeks as well.

I'll see you then. Thank you.

Thanks. I.

That was such an insightful and reassuring chat with Daniel Shaw. Here are some key takeaways from today's episode. Number one, adolescence is normal and a necessary stage. It's not regression, it's rewiring. Number two, emotional wobbles are to be expected. Your dog isn't broken. They're just quiring. Number three, connection and co-regulation are everything. Your calm, consistent support matters more than perfection. Number four. You are not alone and you are not failing. So many guardians go through this. It's all part of the journey. Daniel, thank you for giving us all permission to breathe. Slow down and trust the process. If you'd like to learn more. Head to animal Behaviour kent.co uk or check out the upcoming A BK conference. And if you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a fellow guardian navigating the teenage phase. This has been the yappy hour, and I'll see you next time.