Hello and welcome to the Animal Training Academy Making Ripples podcast show, the show where we share the stories of the ripple-making extraordinaires with behavior nerd superpowers who make up the Animal Training Academy membership. I'm your host and one of the happiness engineers at Animal Training Academy, Shelley Wood from Drop Your Jaws Dog Training in Cape Girardeau, Missouri in the United States. We're absolutely thrilled and grateful to have you here with us today.
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Within the membership, you can get access to twice-monthly live web classes, the back catalog of previous web class replays, plus a huge library of videos and projects to help you problem-solve your training challenges. And we're a sociable bunch with an exclusive private Facebook group and forums area. It's like a Netflix social media platform for animal behavior geeks. Today we are excited to welcome Emma Cook to the show.
Emma Cook is a qualified dog trainer and fear-free certified dog groomer in Adelaide, South Australia, where she operates the Funky Foxhound, a dog grooming business specializing in services for dogs who struggle with grooming-related behavioral issues.
Her grooming and training techniques utilize a holistic approach, including positive reinforcement training, cooperative care, confidence-building exercises, and collaboration with other pet professionals to ensure the best outcome for each individual dog. Her emphasis is on the autonomy of her canine clients, encouraging them to make their own choices and to have control over their own grooming sessions, therefore building a relationship based on safety and trust between dog and owner.
Emma is a volunteer aspiring instructor at Canine Behavioral School, is a member of Pet Professional Guild, Australia, has her Certificate IV in Animal Training and Behavior through Applied Vocational Training, and has completed a Canine Enrichment Technician qualification through Diagnostics.
Emma considers herself a quote, baby trainer, but is a passionate learner who is dedicated to grabbing every educational opportunity with both hands to ensure she can provide the most up-to -date scientifically sound services to her clients. She lives by the quote, when you know better, you do better. Emma shares her home with her wonderful and thankfully very tolerant partner, as well as their three brilliant dogs, Kaya, Arrow, and Vander, and a beautiful family of rescued parrots and pigeons.
Emma, welcome, thank you for joining us today. Thank you so much for having me, Shelly. I am so excited to be here. This is going to be awesome. I think it's going to be awesome too. Unless, and I hope I am not, but unless I am forgetting somebody, I think you are the first person that we have had on the show who has had such a focus on grooming in their professional work. I know we have had some folks who have done some grooming before, but I don't know about to the extent that you have.
And so, I just, I'm so interested and excited about the work that you're doing and the ripples that you're spreading through that work. And so, I'm really looking forward to learn more about you and from you here today. So, tell us about you. Why don't you start us out by telling us a little bit about your story and how you started working with the animals and some of the work that you're doing with them today?
I sort of, to really understand where I've come from and how I've ended up doing things as I do, I feel like it's really necessary to start at the very beginning. A bit cliche, but it makes the story a little bit long. However, to understand where my passion comes from, I think it's really important. So, I'm going to discuss a couple of things that might be a little bit upsetting to listen to for some. So, I just want to let people know that before I go into it. So, I grew up in the country.
We had a lot of different pets. We had dogs and cats and birds and sheep and chickens and geese at one point that loved to chase us around the backyard. And my mum, beautiful woman, absolutely adored my mum with all of my heart. But she was a very hardworking woman. She was away most of the time. And she was just trying so hard to provide for us. And unfortunately, my father figure, who was at home the majority of the time, was quite a cruel man. And he made life very difficult for everybody.
So, I grew up surrounded by all these wonderful, wonderful animals who essentially became my support system. And they became my comfort and my friends because it was an extremely lonely existence. And I felt a mutual connection with them in that we were sharing the same experience. So, not only was my father figure not very nice to us kids, but he treated the animals really poorly. Which was, it was really disturbing to see. But it really evolved the way that I looked at them.
So, we were on the same page. I don't necessarily believe the animals realised that. But for me, I looked at them and I saw and understood what I was going through. And I looked at us together as sort of supporting one another. So, I loved my cats and my dogs. And when I needed to get away, I would be out there and we would play. And I would do little bits of training and stuff with them. And just found so much comfort in their being there.
But yeah, I think the main thing was the fact that they were the only, well not people, but the only others in the world that knew what was going on. And they sort of had the same experience. And so, I grew up feeling very protective of them. And feeling very connected. And wishing beyond anything else that I could get them out of that situation. It didn't bother me so much about myself. But it really was upsetting to know that I couldn't make their lives better.
So, I learnt a lot about what not to do. I grew up in this environment where I was just going, this is horrendous. I can't believe people would treat animals like this. All I ever wanted to do was not be like that. So, as a result of some of those experiences, I did develop complex PTSD. And I really struggled with anxiety as a teenager. Major anxiety. Couldn't leave the house for much other than school. I was terrified of the world. Not just social anxiety, but everything scared me.
Things that just didn't make sense to other people. And I think that really shaped me for what I do now. Because for a lot of people, they look at a dog that's scared of grooming and they go, well, every other dog copes with grooming, so why can't you? And so, I can see it from, okay, the clippers might not be scary to other dogs. But for whatever reason, something in your life has happened or something in your brain suggests that this is scary and that's a completely valid feeling.
So, I mean, I'm grateful in that. I've learnt so much. It would have been nicer ways of learning it. But it was amazing to make that connection. So, I got my first dog when I was 17. My parents had split up and I was living with my mum. And so, she was the first dog that I raised by myself and that's Kaya. And I really wanted to do the right thing by her, but I had no idea what I was doing.
So, I did try to use a lot of treats and that kind of thing and tried to connect with her and wanted her to, you know, have fun and all of that kind of thing. But I still used a lot of punishment because I didn't know what I was doing. I had no clue. And I just, oh, this dog, she's just the best. She has been through me, with me through all of this transition and the trust that we've built over the years has just been awesome.
But she was kind of the first attempt and, you know, it wasn't perfect, but God love her. So, then I sort of started looking for a job with animals when I was 18. And I remember sitting in our careers class in school and looking through the careers book that tells you every career that ever existed and what you could do and going, well, I want to do something with animals. And there was just like, I had this thing in my mind. I loved animal behaviour. I loved training animals.
I loved thinking about what was going on in their heads. So, I kind of was like, I want to be an animal behaviouralist, which I did not know wasn't a thing at the time. So, I'm looking through this book and I can't, it's like, I'll be a vet, be a vet nurse. That was about all, or be a farmer. There was no grooming, there was no training in this book. And being in a small country town, it's not like there was a bunch of businesses I could go and ask. So, I really had no idea.
And then I sort of found out about an animal behaviour course that I could do at uni and I was like, oh, that sounds amazing. So, I wanted to do that, but I was still so anxious and very much stuck in my house at this point. So, I managed to land a job washing dogs in a grooming salon, which I'd never imagined doing. I grew up with staffies and short coated big dogs, not little fluffies. I just kind of was like, oh, okay, I'll give this a try.
I didn't really expect to like it, but I fell in love with it. And it was amazing to experience this totally different world. However, even though I didn't know much at the time, I was still shocked at how the animals were being handled. And I kind of was like, okay, this is cool. This is an interesting career, but I don't like how it's being done. So, I moved to Adelaide to do my study at uni.
I only lasted a year at uni, dropped out because I was later diagnosed with ADHD and realised why I don't do good at uni. So, I worked at a couple different salons in Adelaide, did some washing and then started doing a traineeship type situation and started grooming. And time and time again, the same thing, I worked in about four different salons, loved the work, hated the way the dogs were handled.
The dogs were always in such a high state of stress, lots of dogs running around the salon together that weren't necessarily enjoying it. And so, I stuck around at a few different salons for a while and then I went, I want to do something different. And that's when I opened my own business. I did not ever expect to be a business owner. That was not something I imagined would be in my experience, but here we are. That kind of happened because I knew I wasn't gonna be able to do it any other way.
I had to go out on my own. So, when I first opened, I was like, okay, I want to do quote unquote reward -based grooming. So, using lots of rewards. And so, I ended up being invited to like a dog event one day where I met Petra Edwards, who is a fantastic animal behaviorist dog trainer in Adelaide. And she actually came up to me and she said, oh, have you ever heard of fear-free grooming? Have you looked into that? And I was like, what? No idea. So, I looked into that. Thank you, Petra.
You're an absolute legend. And I actually completed the fear-free course. I was the first Australian groomer to complete it. And so, that started as my basis of fear-free grooming. I started practicing that, but I just felt so alone. There was just nobody else doing it. And everywhere I went, every time I spoke to other groomers about it, it was just kind of like, I felt a little bit woo. It was controversial and I was wrong. It's never gonna work. So, I felt really disheartened.
I was working so much during seven days a week just trying to help all of these dogs, but didn't really have the skills that I needed. The fear-free course was great, but it was not as comprehensive as I needed. And I just got really burnt out. And so, I got to the point, I didn't want to groom anymore. I was over it. I didn't have the skills to make it better. And I didn't know where to find them. So, I joined Sleuth Hounds, which is a nosework group in Adelaide.
I joined this for Arrow, my very nervous boy. And that was the best thing I've ever done, I think. So, I met this amazing woman named Aga, who has become a very, very good friend of mine now. And out of the blue, we weren't friends on Facebook or anything, but she messages me one day. I posted a video of me doing an injection on Arrow, just using food to distract him. And she messages me and points to her for bravery.
She just kind of goes, hey, I don't want to be rude or anything, and I hope this doesn't come across badly, but have you heard of cooperative care? And I was like, oh, you know, I've kind of seen it online, don't really know much about it. And so, she encouraged me to seek out more information about that. So, that was amazing. And that was really what planted the seed in my head. I don't know if I'm getting these two events around the wrong way, but they are very close together.
I then went to a seminar run by Sleuth Hounds with Peter Clark, and she changed my life in so many ways. She was so personable and so humble and delightful to listen to and so inspiring. And she started talking a lot about choice and control and the way that it affects a dog's mental health and their confidence. And she gave a few pointers that just, I just sat there like, how have I never thought of this? It seems so obvious, but I'd never thought of it.
And so, I met all of these dog trainers at the seminar and, oh my God, I was just like, well, okay, I know what I want to do. Everything just fell back into place. I was suddenly motivated again. I immediately signed up to do my dog training qualification. I just started seeking information everywhere. Peter Clark changed my whole world, and she knows that I think she's incredible. I'm going to say it again, incredible woman. So, yeah, I started sort of seeking all that stuff out.
Anka then turned around and encouraged me to join Canine Behavioural School. So, I started learning from there. I started attending some other conferences. I went and saw Mike Shikashio and Moira Hetchenleitner, a couple of other sort of Barbara Hodel. I went and saw her, a couple of other different things to start picking up all this info. And then I finished off my Cert IV, and now I work in a salon that is pretty much based entirely about helping these animals with behavioural issues.
So, I'm still on my path to that because I have a lot of clients who I took on before that was my focus, and I'm not going to, like, force them to go elsewhere. But every new client that I take on now has a strong behaviour focus. I'm either taking on puppies who have parents who are willing to work through cooperative services, or they are wanting to work with behavioural issues. Some puppies who come to me at 12, 14, 16 weeks are already showing signs of behavioural issues.
And so, we start their whole grooming journey from a cooperative point of view. And it's just, yeah, it's really amazing. It fills my cup so much. I'm watching these dogs' lives transform, and their attitude towards grooming is just incredible. It's just an awesome, awesome thing. So, very, very happy with where I'm heading, but still a long way to go to where I want to be. Oh my gosh, so much there. Was so much wonderful stuff there. But also, thank you very much.
Before we start talking about all of the wonderful stuff, I just want to express gratitude and say thank you very much for being vulnerable and open and sharing a little bit about your personal backstory and how those unfortunate circumstances helped facilitate the creation of some empathy and other things in you that are still shaping you today to make the world a better place. So, thank you for sharing about that and being open about it with us.
Then, let's talk about some of your grooming and some of the work that you're doing with your business a little bit more. I think this is so exciting that you're working almost exclusively with people who want to do cooperative care with their dogs, correct? Yeah, there's a combination of people who want to do cooperative care and also people who are seeking a stress-free grooming experience. So, it might not necessarily be every dog is cooperative care, but it's minimal restraint.
It's giving them as much choice and autonomy and power in the salon as possible. So, for clients who can't commit to cooperative care for financial reasons, for timing and emotional availability or distance, I've got some people who travel an hour and a half to see me. So, obviously, coming once a week is difficult for them.
So, for dogs that can't necessarily have that cooperative, like 100% cooperative care experience, I will work towards allowing them to hop on and off the table themselves when they would like and never ever dragging a dog into the salon or anything like that.
It's something that seems so obvious, but when I started implementing, actually, ensuring the dogs come in on their own choice, it just changed the attitude of a lot of the coming in, using lots of reinforcement, using play, using enrichment in the salon, all of that kind of thing to make their experiences more enjoyable.
So, for people, I'm guessing that most of the listeners to the show have an idea of these terms, cooperative care and fear-free, but for people who maybe don't, there may be some folks who don't, can you kind of break that down a little bit and give us maybe a little bit of a definition or an example of something that would be cooperative care versus something that would be a little bit more fear-free or just reducing fear and stress?
So, cooperative care is the understanding between the groomer or the client and the dog that they are essentially consenting to what is being done. So, they are taught to give you a signal that they're comfortable with something happening and then you do the thing.
So, say with Arrow, my boy, he will do a chin rest and that means, okay, I'm comfortable with what you're doing, so I might do an ear clean, I'll tell him I'm going to touch his ears, touch his ear, if he lifts his head up at any time, I will stop. So, that's a mutual understanding, but it does take more time to teach because you've got to create a language essentially and you've really, for it to be proper cooperative care, the dog has to understand it entirely.
Whereas fear-free slash like low stress, you are looking for minimal restraint, allowing the dog lots of breaks if they start to get a little bit worried, using lots of reinforcement. They might not necessarily understand exactly what is going to happen, but you are trying to keep that stress level down. If they get too worried, you make a different appointment, you move them on.
So, with cooperative, I will always have the table down so the dog can step away at any time because we have that level of communication that on table means, okay, we're going to do stuff and off table means, okay, I'm going to leave you alone or have a play or whatever. Whereas low stress, fear-free is they will be on the table, I'll have the table up to a comfortable height for me.
I usually don't use any level of restraint, however, if they're a dog who might have a tendency to want to jump off the table, whether stress or because they hear a noise outside and get excited, I will have a grooming loop that is loose so they can continue to move around the table, but it just gives that added safety.
I will still give them breaks if they express that they need it, but it's not that constant on and off because we don't have that level of training in place to be able to do that. It sounds like one reason you might go the more reduced stress way, the fear-free or most reduced stress way, I don't know that I'm using, am I using the language right? Would you say fear-free reduced stress is the same sort of umbrella? Yeah, pretty much.
Okay. So, one reason you might go that way you said was because of resources. It takes a lot more time and therefore a lot more money also for folks, I'm sure, to work on cooperative care rather than fear-free, but are there other reasons that you might go that route too? Are there times that you might go back and forth some?
Usually once I'm committed to cooperative care with a dog, I stick with cooperative care because it's such a trust-building exercise that if you go backwards with it, then you undo a lot of things. And a lot of the dogs that I'm in cooperative care with are a high bite risk or they have major anxiety around grooming. There's very few dogs I'm doing cooperative care with who are happy about grooming naturally. So, they're dogs I don't want to push them.
If there's a situation in a cooperative care, like what's the word, in a cooperative care client that they need something done urgently, then there's a few options there. Usually, I will refer to the local veterinary behavioural services where they will apply some sedation and get it done. Otherwise, we may try, you know, they might go to the vet, get meds, we'll try those on board here. And that can be a way to get things done that are really urgently needed.
For dogs that it's low stress handling, if there is a really urgent thing that needs to be done, say there's a nail curling around into their pad or something like that, it's not something, you don't want to put a dog under anaesthetic to have one nail cut. So, there is the approach of get it done and then reduce the trauma of the incident by having a lot of fun afterwards.
So, I might have the owner quickly restrain the dog, quickly cut the nail, and then we have a party, we have the treats, we have the toys, we have everything. Because that one sort of scary second, the longer effects of that scary moment can be reduced.
So, yeah, it really depends on the emotional capacity of the dog and what level of risk they are, how anxious they are, that kind of thing as to when I might step away from a cooperative like idea to going to a fear-free, stress-free type situation. Yeah, that all makes total sense. Thank you. Another quick question here before we move on to the other questions. I feel like you've said so much in the first piece.
I feel like we could spend the episode just talking about all of the things that you started talking about there. But we want to get on to the other questions as well. But I'm going to ask one more thing here before we do. So, it sounds like you get a lot of clientele who their dogs have had negative experiences at the groomer maybe, or they've just been always scared of the groomer for some reason, or there are puppies who are already showing some behavioral issues.
I'm curious, do you get anybody who's just interested in cooperative care who just has a young puppy who they're wanting to get them started off on the right paw with cooperative care? Do you ever have that kind of luck or not yet? Saying a lot of things is one of my greatest strengths, just so you know. So, really, as of yet, I've had adult dogs come to me whose caregivers have learned about the cooperative side of things.
But I've not been doing tons of advertising for the cooperative side of things. As I mentioned in my bio, I still very much feel like a baby trainer, and I definitely have some big concerns about like, oh my god, am I not going to do it right? So, I get myself worried about that kind of thing. It's something I'm very eager to do in the future. I've had a few puppies who are puppies that my clients, whose previous dogs have passed away, they get a new puppy.
So, I'll introduce them to this idea at the start. Essentially, if they're eager to do that kind of thing, brilliant. Otherwise, I might ask them to go to another salon so that I can continue doing this behavioral type stuff. And I have had some massive success with some of the puppies that I've worked with cooperatively when they've come. I've got three legatos that come in together, beautiful dogs.
And I think I've had the puppy in for her fourth session now, and she's really starting to get the hang of it. She's happy to be on the table. She's accepting the clippers. She's accepting the scissors. She's absolutely having a great time, wants to get up on the table and shove her sisters off. She's brilliant. So, it's so much fun when you get a puppy doing it because it's hard work working with these dogs who have a lot of trauma or have a lot of fear around grooming.
It's very refreshing when you have a dog who's just like, heck yeah, this is great. I love this. So, it does happen and I'm hoping that's something I can build my business towards more in the future. Yeah, I think it's just that's amazing that you have the opportunity to do that sometimes.
And I think it's also amazing that here these dogs that you're working with are dogs who have a negative history around grooming already or at least negative feelings about grooming already for one reason or another, whether it's their behavioral history or their, like you said, their brain or their genetics or whatever is contributing to it.
But it's amazing that you're able to get those dogs with such extreme kind of big feelings about, I guess that's pretty redundant, extreme big feelings about grooming, you're able to get them to participate in their own care or to reduce their stress, you know, which is really cool. How much easier is it to just start that way for most dogs, you know, like all of that could be avoided for dogs.
So, I think it's just amazing the work that you're doing and the the potential ripples it has for the future too. You know, I hope to see so much more of this in the grooming industry. So, thank you for all that you're doing in this field. Thank you. Thank you. And yeah, I think a lot of it comes down to education. People don't realize this is an option and so it's not something they seek out.
They might see some videos about on the internet with an elephant in the zoo or something or occasionally, you know, there's starting to be some dog videos circulating now, which is awesome. People just don't realize it's actually a thing that can be done and so they're not going to seek it out. So, I'm hoping over time, as I have more time to take more clients on, that I can start educating more people and getting people who are interested to actually try it out. I'm so glad you said that.
I thought of that earlier and then I completely forgot about it. But yeah, education is such a huge component of this for the general public and I would think, I mean, I've never done anything related to grooming at all, but I'm just going to go out on a limb here and guess that the type of work that you're doing is not necessarily standard practice and taught to groomers as they're learning the skill or the trade. Am I right there?
Yeah, no, it's not something many groomers know about or it's in the too hard basket. It's like I mentioned earlier, it's considered a bit groom, like, oh, you know, just rub some essential oils on them and you'll be right. It's still very controversial in the grooming world. It's too hard. Groomers don't believe that people A, want it and B, will pay for it. And it also takes a whole new skill set because grooming, when you're educated on grooming, the education available is not about behavior.
I've worked in salons where I've been told to alpha role dogs who were scared or being aggressive or, you know, playing up, quote unquote. I've been told that dogs were trying to dominate me. I've seen people get bitten quite severely because they were just ignoring what the dogs were saying. There's just such a lack of behavior knowledge in the grooming world. And I think it should come hand in hand.
It needs to be, if you're going to work with these dogs so intimately, like you were doing, you're touching every part of their body and you're restraining them and you're taking away their autonomy, essentially. It's terrifying. And yeah, it's easy enough for dogs who will just go into a state of learned helplessness. Those are the dogs that are quote unquote good dogs in the grooming world. They stand there and they don't do anything and they shut down.
Dogs do just naturally think that it's great. They don't care. They're just like, okay, I'll hang out with you, whatever you do. But the majority of dogs who tolerate it are doing that. They're tolerating it. It's learned helplessness. It's okay. It'll be over and done with in a second. But the dogs who don't tolerate it and who start to bite or become very fidgety are the problem dogs. They become the dogs that are dangerous and they get banned from grooming salons.
They're aggressive and do not touch this dog because they will bite you. It's really disappointing because I've had so many of these dogs come to me after they've been labeled with these different names and behaviors. They come to me and they're just scared or they're in pain. Pain is another massive one. People do not identify pain enough. If you're already in pain, you're going to be worried about being groomed and then you're potentially going to hurt when you're being groomed.
If a dog's got problems with their knees, then their legs are going to hurt. Another thing that people don't realize is that if the problems are with the back knees, it's often the front legs that are the problem for grooming because they weight bear more on their front to avoid pain in the back. Therefore, they're probably quite tense in their shoulders. You might see more issues with the front feet.
Even little things like a chronic ear infection, yes, the dog might be sensitive around their head, but the dog also feels awful. They're not going to want to be touched. Again, some dogs will have two massive ear infections and skinny shoes and everything and not be faced by anything. That comes down to personality. It comes down to genetics. One dog who might be perfectly fine with all of these issues and totally easy to groom, there might be another dog who has one issue.
For them, that's a really big deal. Therefore, it makes everything difficult. I do wish there was more of a push for behavior knowledge and understanding of the whole dog when grooming and not just making them look pretty. There's a lot of focus on welfare as well in grooming, don't get me wrong. It's a lot of making sure the dogs aren't matted, making sure the nails are maintained and the groomers care. This is what gets me. Groomers don't groom because they hate dogs. They love dogs.
I don't hate other groomers. I know that they're doing the best they can with the knowledge they have, but there is this very strong mindset in the grooming industry that the way that I'm doing things is impossible or it's too hard because you have to learn this whole different world. People who've been in the industry for 40 years, A, don't want to do that, and B, don't think I know what I'm talking about because I've only been in the industry for 10 years.
I'm just hoping I can lead by example a little bit. Even if it's just one person here and there that decides to try it, I guess the other hard part is it's not an instant result. When you bully a dog into submission or you punish them until they stop being difficult, it's a very instant result. It feels good. It doesn't feel good to hurt the dog, but it gets those endorphins because, see, the dog has settled down. I've done the right thing because the dog can be groomed now.
It justifies being rough with the dogs or alpha rolling the dogs or whatever because it worked from an outwards perspective, but it's just got no respect or care for what's going on in the mental health of that dog and how that experience is going to affect them. They might stop for now, but they're going to go home and go, oh my God, that was terrifying. Then next time they're going to be more difficult. They might bite.
Then next minute they're banned from grooming salons and their parents have no idea what happened because one minute their dog was fine and the next minute they weren't. All it can take is for the dog to be feeling off that day. You can have a dog who's perfectly fine in the grooming salon most of the time and they've got an upset belly that day. They can be in pain and discomfort. The groom is frustrated because they're misbehaving. Then they're punished or forced into doing things.
Then that can totally traumatize a dog. I feel like trauma is a very controversial word because when people see trauma and think of trauma, they think of war and they think of car accidents and severe abuse and that kind of thing, but trauma can come from really little things as well. I think the most important thing to remember with grooming is their entire autonomy is taken away. Their ability to have control over themselves is taken away. That's terrifying.
I think one of the best things that Peter Clarke said at her seminar, this made the penny drop for me massively. I think everyone needs to think of this. We were sitting in a hall and the doors were closed because it was bloody cold. It was the middle of winter, but they weren't locked. You could go to the toilet at any time. You could go have a cigarette. You could go and get something to eat. She said, what happens if I now go and lock all of those doors with no explanation?
At first, you might be like, okay, whatever, but as it goes longer, you're just going to start worrying. You're going to go, okay, what's going on here? What if I really need the bathroom? I can't get out. Oh God, I'm really desperate for something to eat. We as humans have a level of trust and understanding about that locked door and that it might reopen, but a dog doesn't necessarily have that.
That autonomy and that control over the environment is so important and it's disturbing when you have that taken away. People just expect that to be the normal for dogs. For a lot of dogs, they just accept that. They're just kind of like, this is my world and this is how things go, but for other dogs, they don't. It's very traumatizing for them when that is taken away. By providing them with that control, it can totally undo the way that they see the world and change their outlook on it.
Thanks for coming to my TED Talk on autonomy and control. Thank you for giving your TED Talk on autonomy and control. It's a very important one and one that needs to be heard, so thank you for doing that. Thank you for, like you said, leading by example. I really appreciate what you said about groomers don't get into this because they don't like dogs. They love dogs. They get into this work because they want to be with them and to contribute positively to their welfare.
I think that the things that create these problems are more systemic and cultural and broader than the individuals. I think that's important to remember and I'm glad that you pointed that out. Thank you for leading by example. I'm excited about the ripples that you're spreading, but we are going to move on to the next question. Like I said, I could talk about the beginning stuff the whole time with you, but for the sake of time, we will move on. This could be a 10-hour podcast.
Could you share with us now about a recent training challenge, or I said I was going to get rid of that word recent, didn't I? Was that you I told that to? Maybe, I'm not sure. Yes. Could you share with us now about a training challenge that you experienced, including how you worked through it and some things you learned from the process? Sure. I'm going to share a story about Harvey, who's a little labradoodle.
I was meant to look this morning about how long I've been grooming Harvey for, but record keeping is not my strength. I'm going to guess I've been working with Harvey for probably about five years now, four years maybe. He has been in my salon as I've been transitioning through all of these different techniques and trialing out different things. He has definitely been so, he really has helped me see that what I'm doing is working. Harvey is quite a small dog.
He doesn't have any pain-related issues as far as I know, but he is a major resource guarder at home. He is very sensitive and can become aggressive with no particularly identifiable trigger. His mum is absolutely incredible and has done so much for this little dude, but definitely was in the deep end with him and not knowing what to do. So was I when he first came in. He would show aggression during grooming with a warning. When I say aggression, I mean biting me.
He was really hard to read because I think all of his signals, his ability to communicate had been ignored for so long that he just went straight to bite. So the warning I had that he was going to bite me is that he would suddenly freeze and look sideways at me and then bite in all of about a second. It was not much time to react. Luckily, grooming these types of dogs has given me very good reflexes over time. So I just couldn't pinpoint a trigger.
A lot of dogs, it'll be when I touch a certain part their body or I use a certain tool or something. But with Harvey, it was really random. Now I look back and I think he probably was just in such a state of stress that then eventually he would hit a threshold and just go, well, you're going to get out of here. And the only way I can make you go away is to bite you. So I was trying to use positive reinforcement with him. I was using a lot of food, but struggled to get him to eat.
He's such a funny little dog. Really is so unique in so many ways. So he would eat from me, but I would have to offer him about five different types of treat first. And then he would take the highest value one. And this isn't a dog that's going, oh, I'm not going to eat because I'm stressed. He goes, all right, what else have you got? It's really, really funny to observe. So now, even if I offer the thing I know he loves most first, he won't take it. He will see what else I've got on offer.
And so I actually offer him a few boring treats first and then offer him the good stuff so that I'm not wasting my time with all of this, making the exciting food boring. So yeah, I tried using what I knew at the time. So I was using treats, but I was still using restraint and still trying to get him done in a session. And for the most part, he would do pretty well, but then he would just explode. And once he had exploded, he was not coming back from that.
And I just couldn't see the escalation of behavior because he would just bottle it all up and not signal anything and then just go, oh my God, I can't believe you're still doing this, go away from me. So as I started to learn more about choice and control, I stopped using any restraint with him at all. I lowered the table to the ground and I started taking a cooperative approach. Now again, shout out to his mom.
I think she drives like 40 minutes for each session, 30, 40 minutes and comes in weekly, fortnightly. We're starting to spread it out a bit more now. But the first time I put the table on the ground and just sat on the table, he wouldn't go near the table. I think it took me either three or four weeks to actually get him to get on the table, which told me a lot. Clearly this table had been poisoned and was a dangerous place in his mind.
And so he, no matter how excited he was about food I had, he was not going on that table. And then slowly I started getting front paws up on the table. And then one day he just said, I think I can put my back paws up here. Oh my God, party. I was so excited when he did that. And I'm like, look at the stats, how amazing this is. So that was just the beginning of some changes there. He also, I discovered that the way that I deliver food to him makes a big difference.
Now, in some cases you might think of that as, you know, food in an enrichment toy or food tossed to the dog or things like that. Now Harvey likes my hand to be a particular shape when I offer the food to him. So if I hand it to him straight on my hand, he takes, he won't take it. If I twist my hand around backwards and offer it backwards to him, he will take it. Once he started taking food, he's fine. But when I first start offering him food, he would only take it this way.
Don't know what's going on in this dog's head. Would love to have a chat to him and just figure out what all of these behaviours are about. But yeah, once he's taken one or two backwards, he'll take the rest forward. So we worked a lot on his comfort of eating in the making sure he actually wanted to eat and wasn't just kind of forcing himself to do it. At this point, his guardians realised that getting medication on board was a good idea.
Medication has been a hard one for me because I definitely had that internalised concern about it. You know that, oh no, medication is bad. I didn't necessarily think it was bad, but I felt a bit like a failure if I had to talk to a client about medication. Like I should be able to fix this. Which is stupid. I'm on anxiety medication and it changed my life. Come on. But for some reason, it just felt wrong. And I really regret that now. But his mum also was very hesitant.
She was worried about the side effects and she was worried about what would happen. And then I think there'd been a few severe resource guarding issues at home that made her go, okay, no, we actually need to really do something about this. So they got on board with the three behaviours and he got a medication plan put in place. We completely stopped grooming during this period while they stabilised a good medication regime.
And then I think it was about six, eight weeks, he came back in and wow, having the medication on board combined with the new consent based approach just changed everything for him. Just in general in life, he's so much happier. He now drags his mum into the grooming salon. Oh my God. He just can't wait to come and hang out with me. And it is so beautiful. But tail wagging and he's lopping up on me and he's just so excited. He eats consistently.
And now he can actually do a whole 45 minute session on the table. He will sometimes step off the table. I always encourage the dogs to step away from the table. And he will come straight back and he can continue to engage with me. He used to be very easily distracted. So he would hear something outside and he would take off and then take five minutes to re-engage. Now he would just stay on the table with me.
He will even do things like present his bum to me for trimming, which is huge because his bum and his bits were both major issue spots for him and his tail. So the fact that just the other day I had him in and he just turned around and was like, have you seen my butt? Can you give that a trim for me? That was just incredible. We're still working on feet. Feet is the biggest, hardest one for him. So I'm really hoping we can start doing either scratch board training or nail trimming eventually.
However, the other day I actually managed to trim one of his entire feet really beautifully. He was just so on the ball. He's even accepting brushing now, which brushing again, we expect our dogs to put up with it. But for a dog who's very sensitive, brushing is actually really unpleasant. And I get that. I hated having my hair brushed as a kid and I would fight to make it stop. And so I really understand why a lot of dogs hate it. They don't understand why it needs to be done.
And he was definitely one of those dogs. So now that he's actually accepting some brushing, we did about five minutes of brushing the other day and he was like, cool. And he, I just don't see any of that. He never freezes. He never wail eyes at me. He never sort of twitches his lip anymore. He totally understands, well, I'm a bit uncomfortable right now. I'm just going to leave. And we also have a five minute fetch session at the end of the end of the groom, because he just loves that so much.
I was a bit worried that might turn into him not wanting to continue the group because he wanted to do that instead. But no, he seems to understand, like I stay on the table for about 45 minutes, then we do our fetch and mum comes and gets me. So it's a nice way to build those positive feelings around everything that's just happened afterwards. So he really taught me so much about how exceptionally important autonomy is for these particular dogs.
He just did not cope, no matter how positive I tried to make it, it wasn't positive to him. So long as I had total control over the situation and he couldn't move away the moment that he started having that. And yes, meds helped, but the transition started without the medication. And now he's just, he's brilliant. He's so much fun. And I reckon there will be a stage where we can actually do the full groom in one session. I don't, I don't push for that.
And again, you might've already figured out by now, but my grooms are not about making the dog look like a show dog or look amazing. It's all about comfort. And so we're getting to the point now where he's not going out with, you know, bits of hair hanging off him everywhere and all of those kind of things. He actually looks pretty groomed and his mom just is so grateful. You can see the bond between them has improved so much as well. It's just been an awesome journey with him.
What a powerful transformation story. And I'm sure his mom is so grateful and gosh, I'm like you said, it's changed our relationship. I'm sure it's just kind of changed their, their whole life together. So awesome. Thank you for, thank you for helping them in that way. And for sharing that story with us, could you share with us now about another, cause I'm sure this one would fit this as well.
The one that you just shared, but could you share with us about another training situation that you're proud of and or one that you have found reinforcing? Absolutely. And to add onto that also, I also think that the amazing thing with cooperative training and that kind of thing is it really helps the dog, the dog's guardians to see their dog in a different light. And when they start to look at their dog in that light, it's just a whole different sort of scenario, which is just awesome.
So yeah, another sort of training situation as I've shared in the ATA community as well with my beautiful boy, Arrow. So Arrow is an Australian Kelpin. He's five years old. I adopted him at five months old. He'd had a couple of different homes before I adopted him because he was not an easy puppy to live with. He was very vocal, very sensitive, very smart, exceptionally smart. And I think smart dogs are sometimes the hardest to live with because they just figure everything out.
And if you reinforce Arrow for one thing, once, oh my God, he's going to do it forever. At one point, cause he's very scared of new things, he had bumped into the clothes horse in the lounge room and was frightened by the clothes horse. So I went over and did a little bit of like positive conditioned emotional response with the clothes horse. And you know, I gave food around the clothes horse and that kind of thing.
Next minute, every time he wanted something to eat, he was pushing the clothes horse around the lounge room because he thought that might earn him some reinforcement. So it worked. He wasn't scared of the clothes horse anymore, but he'd also thought that that was a really great idea. So he's an exceptionally challenging dog and I love him so much for that because he's made me so creative and taught me more than I could ever imagine. But he is extremely body sensitive.
So if you touch two ears at once, he will yelp. If you touch two of his lips at once, he will yelp. If he gets his foot caught in something, it's like he's dying. He's a bit of a drama llama in the nicest way possible. He just has big feelings about the world. And another thing that he really hates is being fussed over. I don't really know how to categorise this, but if I approach him casually and I'm just petting him, everything's fine.
If I approach him and look like I have the intent to do something like inspect a spot on his coat, he gets very stressed out and he will grumble and walk away. So I tried to do what I knew of desensitisation and positive reinforcement training where I would, you know, give him a treat and then look at the thing, give him a treat and then look at the thing. But it just wasn't working. He was just getting more stressed and I just couldn't understand what to do with this dog.
I was like, this dog is just so weird. And what I think is extremely relevant to note and what I've realised now as a connection is Arrow's got skin issues. So he's allergic to grasses and mould mites and a couple of other things. We've had all the testing done. He gets ear infections. He has a little bit of an issue with either a back leg or a hip. We're not 100% sure what it is at the moment. We're working with the physio on that. But he has some bodily discomfort.
So often you see these behavioural issues with dogs who have skin issues, ear issues and then pain, underlying pain. They're already feeling a bit itch and so their bodies are more sensitive and I realise that now. I didn't so much realise at the start. So, you know, the vet would come to do his injections and I would have to unload him with treats and try and make it as nice as possible. But he was just getting more and more scared.
He would hide under the bed because we have a vet that comes to us who is amazing. So he would hide under the bed to try and get away. I just couldn't really get it because my other dogs, you know, give lots of food, they're happy, whatever. I just couldn't get into his head. And then he had an ear infection, his first ear infection and I was given ear cleaning drops and I put them on a cotton ball and then tried to squeeze them down so it wasn't as unpleasant for him.
And then every time I walked past him for two days, he would cower and run away from me. And all I'd done is clean his ears. But for him, that was massive and that was an intrusion on his comfort and trust. And I was just like, oh my gosh, what am I going to do with this dog? I have no idea. And that's when Anka messaged me about cooperative care. So I started training cooperative care with Arrow. He was the first dog I ever did cooperative care for and I was sold.
Like could not have been a better advertisement for the process because suddenly he went from this dog that was absolutely traumatized and terrified by any sort of care and husbandry to throwing himself onto the grooming table when he saw me prepare a needle. He has allergy injections and when I say like, you want your spiffy ears, that means we're going to go do something down in the shed. So it might be ear cleaning, which is spiffy ears.
But that's sort of his cue of we're going to go do some husbandry. He springs off his bed and he races through the house and he races to the shed and he loves it. It's so amazing. We did his allergy injection last night and he didn't even make a peep. He consented the entire time using his chin rest. We also did nail trimming and ear cleaning all in one session, which once upon a time, any of those things would have taken him out for a week, but we can do it all.
And then he's like, heck yeah, that was amazing. Let's go play fetch. He's just totally changed. He loves seeing the vet now. He thinks that's brilliant. He's had ear samples taken by the vet, which they've had to get right deep into his ears, which was sore because he had ear infections, but he let them do it. He was just like, yeah, cool. You can do that. Just an incredible, incredible transformation. And the other thing he always hated was baths.
And baths, I think everyone goes, oh, you know, my dog loves water. Why doesn't he love a bath? And it's like, well, they have no control over that. They're stuck in this one small space. And when a dog goes into the ocean or, you know, into the river or chases the hose, they're choosing to do that. But in the bath, they have no way of escaping. And it's something they're forced to do very early on. They don't understand what's happening.
And for a dog that's as sensitive as Arrow, a bath was just so traumatizing for him. And because of his skin issues, he gets quite smelly. He needs medicated baths. So we had to start working on that. And so it just started with me teaching him to hop in and out of the bathtub. And then we would do little bits of water in the bathtub and just slowly working up to him understanding you can leave at any time.
And now when I try to give any of my dogs a bath, I have to shove him out of the bath because he loves baths so much. All I have to do is say, do you want a bath? And he flies through the house and leaps in the bathtub. And it's just so amazing. You know, you can tell he doesn't particularly like actually having the bath because he's able to communicate his way in and out of that. He's happy to have it done. And the towel as well.
He hated the towel because it was restraining and it was all over his body. And he would growl at me and get very upset when I tried to towel him off. Whereas now, towel is no worries. I could hold it up and he will sort of like move into it as he's sort of consent for having that done. And he loves the towel. And then he gets out and he zooms around and he's just so happy about it all.
So it just feels amazing to have been able to reduce his stress because it was impacting every moment of his life because he would think every time I was coming near him, I was going to do something to him. Could be as little as, oh, you know, he had a little sore on his foot the other day. And if I tried to look at that without cooperative care, it wouldn't have happened. He gets very scared. Whereas we asked his cooperative behavior, I was able to inspect it.
I was able to touch it and pull the hair away and he's just like, I can do that. That's fine. So being able to ensure that he has a positive experience with that and also shout out to his amazing vet, Dr. Gregory Wright from Adelaide Home Vet, who didn't have any experience with cooperative care either. And basically he rocked up and I was like, this is how we're doing things from now on. It's just like, all right, you know what you're doing.
So he's been so supportive and actually letting me do these things with Arrow and he's seen the transformation himself and how much it helps. He allows me to do a lot of the injections and stuff myself because he's more comfortable with that than the vet doing it. And he's been so supportive of the fear -free cooperative approach, even though it wasn't really something he'd seen before or experienced. It's just been so eye opening.
It's really made me respect the autonomy of these animals and to see everything from a different light. And I am so grateful this dog came into my life. I never intended to adopt a dog at that time. And I think he just somehow fell into the right place at the right time and has been my greatest teacher and just amazing. Such a cool experience to see.
We've gotten to see some of that work in the Animal Training Academy community, some of the work that you've done with Arrow, and it is amazing to see. And you mentioned that it really reduced his stress or how stressed he used to be about handling and that type of thing and how this really reduces stress. And it made me think, much like when you were talking about Harvey and his human, that I would guess it probably reduced some stress for you too.
It's very hard when we're living with our animals and they are avoiding us for one reason or another, or we know they're upset or stressed. That causes stress for us too when we know we need to get certain things, whether it's grooming or vet care, done for them. So I would imagine that that reduced stress for you as well, which is a wonderful thing. Absolutely. Thank you so much for everything that you have shared with us so far.
In just a minute here, I'm going to ask you to tell people how they can get a hold of you. But before that, and before we kind of start to wrap up in that way, is there anything that you wanted to share that you have not yet had the opportunity to share before we wrap up here? I just want to emphasize that cooperative care for grooming and stress-free grooming is possible. And if you're a groomer listening to this, please look into it. Honestly, you've got to put the work in to start with.
But nobody, like I said before, nobody comes into this industry because they hate animals. And nothing is worse than coming to work every day and half the dogs don't want to see you. And it's like, I'm sorry that you hate me, but we have to do this thing. The amazing thing with cooperative and stress-free grooming is the dogs can't wait to see you. And that's the best.
It's just so amazing to have all of these dogs who just think you're the bee's knees and you get to help them out and keep them comfortable and bond with them without any stress. And I just think every ounce of work that I've had to put into it and all of the learning that I've had to do and will continue to do is worth every cent to see these beautiful dogs just bursting with joy. They're standing at the salon door crying to come in because they just can't wait to get stuck into it.
And I couldn't ask for a better gift. Nothing makes me happier than seeing these dogs love to come into the salon and it brings tears to my eyes when I achieve steps with these dogs that I never thought I would achieve. And knowing that I've achieved that with their consent and using their own choice and control over the situation rather than using coercion and using punishment, there's nothing more fulfilling. It's just amazing.
So seriously, if you are interested, fear-free grooming is one way of looking into it. There's also the Holistic Grooming Academy. They offer amazing courses and there's some incredible groomers doing amazing work in this field. We are out there and it is possible, but I've got to put the work in for the dogs and learning behavior. But B, you have to really put the work into learning to communicate with your clients so they understand what you're doing.
That's probably been the biggest challenge for me is really, really emphasizing to their clients how it works and keeping them on board. So yeah, seriously look into it. Such a valuable thing. And if somebody wanted to reach out to you, how could they do that? Yep. So I've got my website, www.thefunkyfoxhound.com. It's still in progress. It'll probably be in progress for a while because me and computer things, not the greatest of friends.
I also have Facebook at the Funky Fox Hound and Instagram at the Funky Fox Hound. Again, I'm not ultra active. I kind of intend on trying to post more and share more, but social media is just not my strength. I like working with dogs. All the other stuff is hard. So you're welcome to send me a message on Facebook or Instagram, chuck me an email, whatever. I will always try to reply. Not the best replier, but I love to chat as you can tell.
I love to get to know other people and would be so eager to talk to other people who are interested in this side of things. So yeah, please feel free to contact me at any of those places. It would make me very happy to hear from other people. Thank you for all of that, Emma. And thank you so much, so much gratitude for you for sharing some of your personal experience and some of your professional experience with us today and for all the ripples that you spread.
So from myself on behalf of everybody listening, on behalf of Miha over here, I don't know if you can hear her. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you so much for having me. Honestly, makes my year to be able to do this and to be able to sort of be able to spread this incredible message to people. And I hope that it makes a difference and get some more people interested in this field. So thank you so, so much, everybody. We do, of course, appreciate all of you tuning in as well.
And if you have enjoyed this episode and are interested in carrying on the conversation about working with the animals in our lives in the most positive, most fun, and most choice -rich ways, then as mentioned at the start of this episode, the Animal Training Academy community is waiting for you. Head on over to www.atamember.com and click on the membership button in the main menu to learn more about what members are describing as the Netflix social media platform for behavior geeks.
That's it for this episode, though. Thank you so much for listening. You'll hear from us again soon.