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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In this episode, we're excited to introduce Keisha Rolfe from Behavior Antics, a passionate and versatile dog trainer and all-around behavior nerd with a wealth of expertise and a heart for understanding each individual animal in her care. As a bit of an everything trainer, Keisha describes herself as having an empathetic affinity for all things anxiety and values the importance of moderating expectations to each animal's unique situation.
In addition to one-on-one training, Keisha is enthusiastic about cooperative care. Did someone say nail trims? And has recently expanded her expertise into competitive dog activities such as agility, tricks, and confirmation showing. Keisha is always eager to learn and share resources, combining knowledge and empathy. She loves creating educational online content and enjoys multiple collaborations with another Animal Training Academy member, Jose from TrainMePlease.
Outside of her professional life, Keisha's journey of personal growth as a trainer has been shaped by valuable lessons from her own animals, including her pet parrots, cat, and two Finnish lap hounds, highlighting her differences in training approach the second time around. Welcome, Keisha. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you so much for having me. You're welcome. Did I pronounce the breed of your dogs correctly? Yes, I'm pretty sure you did. We're close enough anyways.
We'll know who it is. Okay, wonderful, wonderful. Well, thank you very much for joining me again. I'm super excited to just dive in and start chatting and get to know you a little bit better. And I was hoping that you could start us off by sharing with us a little bit about your story and how you got involved with working with animals when you first became interested in training and maybe share some of the stories about what you're doing now too. Yeah, sure can.
Well, of course, I grew up around many different animals and love them all. Like many dog trainers do. I lived in a regional area, so I always had lots of different pets and I was always around farms a lot. So I was really lucky there. But in addition to loving animals, I was also always really obsessed with wanting to know what, how, why. So that really decided my love of science.
And then once I grew up a bit more, I moved away to go to university from my regional town in Melbourne, where I studied animal and veterinary biosciences and made it in zoology. And this is where my love of science and animal behavior really started to flourish. I just love to learn and understanding things. So it was just really exciting for me. Of course, animal behavior was my favorite subject. And it was taught by the lovely ornithologist, Dr. Richard Zann, who sadly is no longer with us.
But I was really inspired by his love for birds, their behavior and cognition. And he was the kind of person who would deliberately park further away than he ever needed to for work and would take note of all of the different birds he's heard and saw on his way into work every day. And that enthusiasm just really stuck with me and I just loved it so much.
So after university, I was really lucky to take on some further study with a diploma of animal technology, where I met a wonderful dog training mentor called Jenny Wilcox. And from there, I spent many, many, many Saturdays working with her, which I was so grateful to be able to do. And I think I did that for about eight years, which is a very long time. And it was wonderful.
And then eventually I felt like I kind of grew up and moved away, unfortunately, and finally started my own dog training business, Behavior Antics. And yeah, so that's kind of where I am now. And I'm really enjoying doing that where I kind of mostly I do one-on-one training with clients. I do a lot of anxiety and fear -based reactivity work with those people, which I really love. I feel I'm quite a soft, empathetic person myself.
So not only do I have a good affinity with helping anxious dogs, but also anxious people. So I often have a lot of people who just feel like they didn't fit very well with, you know, more traditional trainers that are really, you know, maybe in your face about, you know, let's fix it with this or an obedience problem. And, you know, they just also needed a more gentle approach to help them feel more empowered with working with their dogs as well.
So yeah, I really enjoy helping both the people and the dogs as well. And then I spent a lot of time doing that. And in addition to the training part, I also really love working on online content when I can find the time. It's still quite new for me and I really enjoy doing that when I can. I've done a couple of collaborations with Jose from Train Me Please, who's another Animal Training Academy member. And that's really fun. I can talk about those a bit more if you like.
And yeah, other than that, I've also been progressing my own dog training because we always also want to work with our own dogs, which I know it can be really hard to do. So in the last couple of years, I've really started to get more into some competitive stuff with them, such as agility and trick training and confirmation showing, which all pose their own kind of unique training challenges. So I've been loving being able to push my own training with my dogs a bit further.
Thank you for sharing all of that with us. I really love how you started out by giving a couple shout outs to your mentors to Dr. Richard Zahn. Did I get his last name right? Yeah. Yeah. And he was a mentor when you were in school for zoology. Is that right? Yeah. So at my university degree, where I did a Bachelor of Animal and Veterinary Biosciences with zoology as the major, he was the teacher who took the behavior subject, which was just really great. So yeah, I'm grateful.
It sounds like he was a really interesting man. I loved what you shared about how he would bark far away and walk and listen and note all the different birds, notice all the different birds that he heard or saw. Very cool. Definitely an influence on your life along with Jenny. And it's always great to hear people shout out their mentors like that. So thank you for that.
And a couple of the other things that you talked about, I'd like to talk a little bit more about, you mentioned with the behavior antics work that you do, you do a lot of one-on-one work with people focusing on anxiety and fear-based reactivity. And then you also talked a little bit about the anxious people. And so could you share a little bit more about that?
Do you find that people, I think you were saying a lot of times people come to you who are a little bit nervous, maybe, or not nervous, but a little bit anxious and need a gentler approach. Do you think that they've gone maybe to other trainers first, who is it something to do with their methodology with the dogs, or is it just their approach with the people that you think makes you a better fit for them? If that question makes sense. Yeah. I mean, it's really hard to know which way it goes.
I certainly have had people come to me after going to other trainers. So, and sometimes it's not that they didn't find any value in the stuff that they were teaching them. It just that it wasn't really hitting the mark at the core where they needed it to be to create that understanding and change that they needed.
So I think sometimes people focus a lot on obedience, which can be really helpful, but oftentimes obedience can just be masking some underlying emotional dysregulation, maybe on the dog, but maybe also on the people's side. So, I really like to, instead of just tell people what to do, I really want to kind of help them learn why we're doing something.
Let's look at how are animals feeling, meet them on that level and kind of build up that resilience and skills together from the dog as well as the person, because I want to empower these people to be able to work with their dog long beyond their sessions with me and to be able to tackle anything and understand their dogs, you know, for the rest of their lives.
So yeah, I think it's not always just methods, you know, I guess different people get along with different people all the time, so it could just be that, but yeah, I really enjoy it. I find it very, what do you call, very self-rewarding. Yeah, very good.
And yeah, that, that makes a lot of sense about sharing with people, kind of the why behind things too, that sometimes maybe we want to, sometimes maybe some, it might be tempting to approach things with an obedience kind of focused mindset, and maybe that is, maybe those skills will work for what we need, but knowing the why behind it is definitely a way to help empower people moving forward.
Like you said, sometimes they may be the skills we want, sometimes they may not be, but either way, I think knowing the why behind it can be really helpful. So yeah, thank you for sharing that. And I, yeah, you said that you could talk more about that on collaborations if I would like, so tell us some more about that, the work that you've done with Jose.
Yeah, so I guess my online creation started just with like little infographics, you know, like Canva and things like that, which I love and I wish I could do a little bit more of. And every now and then I do try to post some videos of my own training. And a couple of the times that I've done that, one of the videos initially was about a chin rest that I had taught my Finnish wife in Asgard. He's quite a sensitive dog.
He's my first dog as an adult and he's been very soft and sensitive and not very good with vet handling. So I've worked really, really hard on helping to build those skills where at least I can do most of that care for him. And yeah, so I had shared a video of a chin rest that I had been working on. And yeah, and then Jose reached out to me about that and that he would like to do a collaborative video together on that.
So we collaborated together on that to create a really awesome video about teaching your dog how to do a chin rest for kind of medical examinations and health checks, which is valuable. And I think everybody should check it out and have a go with their dogs. And then the next one we did was when I brought my home, my new puppy Seda.
She's a little bit older now, but that was also a great opportunity to try to work with Jose and create a new video about everything that you can do to prepare for that first day home with your new puppy. What are some of those things that people can do to prepare with their first day home with their new puppy? Well, maybe go and check out the video. Lots of things.
So of course, you know, just making sure that you're allocating time to spend with that puppy, planning to take time off work if you need. I think a lot of pet parents underestimate how much time it can take to kind of help them settle in. And a lot of people try and, you know, work and do it at the same time. And it's just too much.
So just taking from taking some time off to spend with the puppy, helping to set up routines, helping them, you know, build a regulation cycle of, you know, resting. So a lot of people as well, just let their puppies just go, go, until they stop. So helping to set some structure and routine for things like that to help them learn how to switch off. Obviously toilet training, providing appropriate chew toys.
We also include information about having a health check with your puppy when you first bring them home. Many contracts with breeders will also stipulate that you should do this. So we included some information there and yeah, a few other little helpful tidbits, but yeah, lots in there. That's great. I remember when the video first came out, I actually remember both of those videos when they first came out and definitely encourage people to go check them out. They're really well done.
And I appreciate you sharing some of that information, giving us for those who have not seen the videos, giving us a little bit of a teaser about what's in the puppy video. And it sounds like there's some great content out there or in there. So thank you for sharing that. Yeah. Could you share with us now? Well, first, could you share with us now about what animals you have in your house? Who do you live with? Well, currently I sadly just have my two Finnish Lappuins.
Up until recently, we had also a cat who we had him for quite a long time. And he was interesting one because he was a spicy ginger kitty. So he was not the most cuddly or friendly cat and he belonged to my partner. So he was already in his life when we met and I used clicker training and tricks training as a way to, you know, relate to him and build that relationship without having to use that physical touch and pressure on him. And that was amazing.
So he learned a few tricks, which was really awesome. And he was a great advocate for positive reinforcement training as well. And in addition to him, I, in the last few years, did also have some ferrets who are also sadly no longer with us, but they also were very receptive to positive rewards based training as well as clicker training. And I learned many things from them and I think they're an absolute joy.
And I can't wait till in the future when I can have ferrets in my life again, because they're absolutely the most joyful little critters. I have never lived with ferrets. So that's an interesting, I'm sure there are lots of interesting things about them. And maybe we'll talk a little bit more about them in some of the, a little bit later in the show, perhaps.
Could you share with us now about a training-related challenge that you've experienced, including how you worked through the challenge and maybe some things that you learned from the process? I sure can. So one of the ones that comes most immediately to mind for me is my Finnish leopard, Asgard, who currently is almost six. And I think I mentioned before that he's quite a sensitive dog. So we had quite an interesting time with him as he started to hit adolescence.
I found that he was just so incredibly overstimulated. His brain was just constantly on whenever we were not at home. At home, he was beautiful. He was well-behaved. He was smart, switched on. He could learn everything. It was great. The second that we walked out the door with him, it just went out the window. He would pull constantly, bark and be so frustrated.
Like if he saw a dog, even just on the other side of a residential street, I could, you know, I tried all of these things as a dog trainer, you know, I was like, all right, increase the value of my reward. So I have memories of literally freshly cooking a steak and hot dog and cutting it up and taking it out on our walk. And I would try to put some steak in his mouth and it would just fall out. So he just could not even take food out of the house. And he was just, yeah, really difficult.
And he made me question a lot of things about myself as a trainer, which I think many trainers go through something similar. And it's these kinds of dogs that really kind of help us grow. And you know, what is that saying? You don't always get the dog that you want, but you get the dog that you need. So I learned a lot from that with him where I had to really, really stop and moderate my expectations with what I was expecting him to be able to do.
So I had been going to some drug training classes that my friend ran. And again, he would just bark constantly. He just could not settle. And I would, you know, use all of the tools of the skills that I had where I would move him away and calm him down and try to work a bit closer. And you know, the barking and reactions weren't tied to a specific thing. It was just life. It was just the environment in general. He just couldn't cope with it very well.
So that was really interesting for me where I then went on and kind of looked into some temporary veterinary medication with him that I sought veterinary assistance with. And yeah, so we tried that with him. And on that, he was a completely different dog. He was the dog that I had at home. So yeah, the dog that at home could focus and learn tricks and do all of the things I could now do. So I went to that dog training class and he was amazing and he could focus and do everything.
And everybody was like, oh my God, wow, he's doing so well this week. And I was like, oh yeah, you know, we've had a little bit of help. Um, but yeah, so that was amazing and really interesting for me to learn that in this case, it wasn't a training challenge that I was faced with. It was just something else. And sometimes training is not what the dog needs. And I had to reassess what it was that he needed around that time.
And so I also stopped putting him into those situations for a while, maybe like even five to six months where I stopped putting him in those highly arousing environments. I stopped taking him to, you know, places that would be like that, you know, markets and things like that. And just really wound back what I was expecting from him. We did a lot of like snow, slow sniffy walks where we just relaxed and let him sniff.
If I got some attention or anything from him, I obviously praised and rewarded him. If he would take that kind of reward, depending on what he wanted at the time, a lot of it was just, he wanted to sniff. Um, so we let him do that. And same as with just the loose sleep walking on a residential street, you know, he did not want to walk in my bubble. So he just wanted to be further away from me doing his own thing, sniffing.
And before this, I had been, you know, in that mindset of trying to battle to just keep him, you know, in that zone, because this is what I've been taught I needed to do is this is where he needs to be. And I need to train him to walk on a loose lead, but yeah, this journey kind of taught me that's not what he needed at the time. So I changed what I was expecting and I started to do have a longer lead, even just for those residential walks, just let him sniff, you know, I would engage with him.
And if he responded to me, that was amazing. And I would reward him and praise him, but I was not trying to force him into this mold of what I was expecting him to be. So now he's six and nobody believes me when I tell them this story, because I do agility with him, keeping in mind, he is the most slowest agility dog you'll ever see, but he has a great time doing it in his own time, but he's so focused and engaged and he loves working.
And yeah, you just would not think it was that dog from that time. And people don't usually believe me. So I think it was really important for me to kind of learn that adolescence is definitely a time for patience, not more pressure. So, and training is not linear. And I think we get to adolescence and things go south and that's okay. And we can just moderate our expectations during that time.
And then as they start to settle and mature, we can start to kind of, you know, increase that back and see what we get as opposed to just pushing, pushing, pushing. Cause I think you can create more longer term damage by trying to push and train through something when it's not a training problem at the time. I love that adolescence is patience, not more pressure. That's wonderful.
I think a lot of training, well, training or other behavior challenges often require patience and not more pressure, but it does seem that we often, and when I say we, I mean, the collective, we maybe want to reach for the, the pressure is in just like we were talking about earlier, trying to quote unquote, fix things with obedience type solutions or fix things with, well, my dog is supposed to do X, Y, Z. So I have to teach them to do this.
But I think that story is such a beautiful example of shifting your expectations to relieve some of that pressure for both you and Asgard and practicing some patience. And also of course, calling in other experts for help when needed as well. It's a great example of all of those things. So thank you for sharing that all with us. What about Seder? Does she, has she presented any similar challenges as a young dog to Asgard or any unique challenges of her own? Yeah, definitely.
So she's actually very different to him. She's definitely not so sensitive about things. She's not, yeah, not very similar in many ways, but she is a thinker. She's a watcher. She wants to see and understand everything before she decides if that's what she wants to do. So in some ways, a lot of people would maybe describe her as stubborn, which of course we know that label is not very helpful. So she's not stubborn.
She just likes to understand and has her own motivating systems in place that aren't always in line with what I'm trying to get her to do. So she has been very different to train. So this time I have approached it quite differently where as before I was like, all right, I need to do, I need to teach, leave it. I need to do all this impulse control.
I need to teach this loosely walking, all this kind of stuff, which I did with Asgard and to his credit, he's beautiful, but he doesn't, he doesn't have a lot of drive. So he's very well behaved, which is lovely. But with Seder, I was really wanting to do some sports with her. So I was really wanting to try to really keep that oomph about her and keep that motivation, keep that optimism with her. So I actually have done very little impulse control work with her.
And I just find when you're building kind of a training relationship, that's fun with them. They learn so quickly to respond to you anyway. So I have never taught her a formal, a formal leave it cue. And yet if I pop my dinner down somewhere within reach and get up and walk away, she won't touch it. So for me, that has been also very valuable where they're learning so much from us all the time.
And I'm focused with her a lot more on shaping her responses, as opposed to forcing her, like teaching her specific things. That's more just guiding and shaping her responses and helping her to learn about the things that I would like her to do and tell her the things that I'd like, as opposed to working on very specific things. Similar with loosely walking, I haven't done the thing where you have them in a heel position and you change directions all the time.
I've really gone on the other end where I went straight to a longer lead and we're winding it back by marking rewarding check -ins or any engagement I get from her. I make it fun for her to be in my bubble, but I'm not constraining her to make her be in that bubble. So she's really coming along nicely. Sometimes she has days where she's obviously a bit too excited and it can be a challenge, but she's really getting there and you can see that she's still keeping that enthusiasm for everything.
And it's just taking a little bit of time to teach her and help her learn about what we would like her to do in this human world and making it worth her time to do those things. So it's very different, but it's a fun journey. They're such great teachers and it's so fun to learn with each of their unique individual personalities and using different things that we learn as we get more and more educated as trainers. So very cool. I'm jealous of your journey with a young dog right now.
For my next question, I would like to know if you think I need a puppy. I think everybody needs a puppy. Because that was my next question. I was going to say, and everybody listening, do we all need puppies? Yeah, I've got a great video about what to do when you get a puppy. Perfect. Yeah, that'll be really helpful. We almost have to get a puppy now so that we can apply the information from the video. I think that sounds like a good idea. How old is Seder now?
You might've said that and I missed it. She's almost two. So she's about 19 months at the moment. So she'll be two in December. So she's definitely coming through the adolescence period now. I think she's starting to settle. We definitely had, again, a few months around, probably 11 months onwards, maybe five months where we've had to moderate those expectations and understand that we're not going to get so much out of her.
But yeah, so she's really, she's starting to settle now and getting a little bit more focused and really excited to see where our future will go in terms of trying out a lot of dog sports and things with her. So that'll be fun. And have you done some confirmation with her already or what kinds of things have you done with her already in that realm? Yeah. So she has been involved in confirmation showing since she was a puppy here in there.
It was a world that I never thought I would be that interested in, but learning a lot more about it now, I can see there's quite a lot of amazing things there and it can be an amazing community. But first and foremost, it's been an incredible way for her to have those socialization skills as a young dog, where we are exposing them to lots of different sounds and sights and smells and dogs, but without having that social pressure of dogs interacting. So I think that was fantastic for her there.
So that's been really awesome. And in terms of the other stuff, I've done a few agility workshops and foundation classes with a few different trainers, as well as our local dog club. And I do that with Asgard as well. And again, that's really great. So we have a lovely supportive community down at our dog club and we're getting there slowly and she's getting more and more focused. So she's doing really well there.
And the other thing that we've really started to work on was tricks training, which I had always taught Asgard tricks because I think tricks are a fantastic place for any dog and human team to start to build that positive working relationship because it's fun, it's low pressure, but I had never done anything competitive with him until I got Seda. And recently I was like, Oh, do you know, I'm going to give this trick trialing a go.
And yeah, so I got them up to kind of just some starting level tricks for this trial and we entered and somehow we managed to do a triple tricks trial in one day for both dogs, which was enough for them to get their trick dog starter title here in Australia. So that was really exciting to know that we can work in some kind of competitive environment. So in a low pressure way, cause I think tricks are a great low pressure way to do that.
So that's kind of where we're at at the moment, but yeah, looking forward to branching out into more competitive based sports in the future. Well, I'm definitely looking forward to keeping up with that as you do. So please share with us in animal training Academy, as you continue on your journey with both of your lovely dogs, could you share with us now about a training situation that you are proud of and or one that you found reinforcing? Of course.
So this is one that's quite close to my heart, which is about my dear little ferrets, which I don't know if you could tell, I love them very much and very sad they're no longer with us, but they've taught me many things. So my first ferret, Pascal was quite mellow, quite, you know, just really nice. He had no issues. He just got along with everybody. He was really great. And then we rescued a second ferret called Stella, who again was quite spicy and was labeled as a biter.
So of course you get a lot of different advice when it comes to biting and particularly with small domestic critters, like ferrets and other animals, the advice is still quite traditional very often. So I was told to, you know, scruff her until she would yawn to give in to me or, you know, to flick her on the nose and not to put her down if she bites you, because that would reinforce the biting and all these kinds of things.
And they kind of just didn't sit well with how I wanted to train and work with my animals and, you know, understanding their emotions. Like I don't think animals bite because they want to, there's some emotional driver behind these things. So I really wanted to take a step back and, you know, look at it a bit differently than what I was getting told.
And, you know, I think knowing what I know now about start buttons and things like that, maybe I would also do things a bit differently even again, but, you know, it was still a valuable lesson for me where I approached her and I'm like, okay, I want to help her feel more comfortable about, you know, being held all these humans. So I would pair being held with, you know, tasty little bits of chicken and things that she really liked. And that was all good.
And we'd keep trying to keep that short and brief, you know, I'd pick her up and hold her and give her some chicken and hop her down. And that was all, that was good. However, if I would hold her for a little bit too long and she would bite me, which can happen, they can escalate very quickly. I would just calmly pop her down and move away. Okay. You know, she obviously didn't want that interaction to continue. That's fine.
Which is obviously against the advice that I had been told, but yeah, so I continued with that where if she, if she did get overwhelmed and would bite me, I would, you know, pop it down. But what I very, very quickly saw was that her behavior started to reduce the intensity. So I was showing her that I was listening to her and that she had autonomy and that I would respond to her behavior if she wasn't comfortable.
So what she started to do, if I was holding her is she would just start to lick you. She'd start to lick you a little bit more furiously. And that was your sign that she was starting to maybe become a little bit overwhelmed. And that's the time is now to end the interaction. So that was incredible journey for us where she eventually basically never bit me.
And I didn't have any problems with her because she had learned that I would, I respected her when she didn't feel comfortable and she had that autonomy over her own behavior. So giving her that voice, what is that old saying as well? You know, dogs don't need to scream if you listen to them. So that was really valuable for us and really taught me that it's right to make sure we're considering their emotions and how they're feeling.
And it's not just about these surface things that we see as problematic. Cause of course, you know, it's problematic. We don't really want them to be biting. It's not good for them. It's not good for us. But I did find it really reinforcing that taking that empathetic approach really paid off for us. And we had the lovely relationship. That's wonderful. I love it. Thank you for sharing about that story with your ferrets. Could you share a little bit about, I'm curious about ferrets.
We don't have a whole lot of ferrets around here that I'm aware of. And I'm curious about ferret behavior assistance. Is that a thing? Like where were you getting information about what to do with the ferret when it was biting you? Yeah. So there's not a lot around, obviously. So this kind of came from the rescue where they came from, which they do amazing work.
They spend a lot of time and resources to provide for, you know, many ferrets that come into their care and help rehome them and all of that kind of stuff. But of course, you know, it's not quite the same as working with them in a pet context one-on-one. So I think there's not a lot of information out there actually about ferrets as domestic pets and how to help them. There are a few vets and things like that, that of course specialize in, you know, small animals.
So they might have a little bit more expertise there as well, but there's nothing really, really, it's not a very big industry out there. So this is another case where I was really inspired by what kind of happens in the zoo industry where, you know, there's people working with these big, dangerous animals all the time. And, you know, you can't just, you know, scruff a tiger if they're biting you and they'll learn to not bite you.
So, you know, all of my training has often been really influenced by stuff like that. So yeah, they are small, they're obligate carnivores, they were bred to hunt rabbits. You would put them in burrows and they're very good at that, but then that's very different environments to having them as a pet in a house.
So I think there's not a lot out there in terms of their behavior in terms of a pet context, but I'm happy to be proven wrong and have people share some resources about that because I'm sure that would be wonderful to spread even further. Yeah. I don't personally know of a whole lot of information out there for behavior with those kinds of animals.
And I know that we had Thea Harding on this show a while back and she was talking about even rabbits, which I think are more around here, at least a little bit more commonly kept as pets and the need for more behavior services for those smaller animals that they just don't, you know, it's not there like it is with dogs and horses and increasingly cats lately. But for some of the smaller animals, I think there is still a bigger gap for assistance with them.
So I love that Stella found you so that when she needed some help with somebody listening to her, she was able to get that and you were able to stop being bitten, which I imagine is pretty reinforcing as well. Definitely. They are very known for having quite a strong, painful bite as well. Do they bite pretty commonly? Yeah. They do have a name for being bitey animals and they would clamp and just hold. Because they would be bred to, you know, hunt rabbits and they would grab.
So they can be very strong. Yeah. I don't know anything about them. Even when you were talking about how you first approached it, you know, how, when you first started like approaching the biting with her and you would hold her and give her some chicken, I was like, oh, they eat meat. I had no idea. And so then yes, yes. So they were bred to chase rabbits. And I'm like, oh, then I guess they do like meat, huh? So they do. They do indeed.
I guess they weren't probably bred to chase rabbits to eat them though. Were they bred for hunting purposes? Correct. So normally you would put them down a burrow and a hunter would have a net on the burrows that exit somewhere else and they would flush them out. But I have heard of stories where unfortunately, if they come across a nest of rabbit babies, you may have to dig the ferrets out or wait for them to have a nap after a meal. And then, yeah, they are obligate carnivores.
So they are, I think of them a lot kind of about across like almost like long cats. They're just, they're very similar to cats in some ways in terms of they have similar dentition and things like that. Interesting. Well, thank you for satisfying my curiosity a little bit about ferrets there. And thank you for everything that you have shared with us so far. When do you, you mentioned you would maybe get ferrets again? Just want to, I can't let go of the ferret thing.
I'm going to go back to it for a minute. I love them. I love them. I'll talk about them forever. Yeah. I would love to have them again in the future.
Don't tell my husband, but yeah, just currently our house is not very well set up for them because the way that I like to have them in my home is to, you know, they would have like a multi -level cage area where they have plenty of space and then they would sleep in there, but then also have quite a lot of outs out of the cage time where they would have some enrichment and space that they can do things in.
So just currently our house and our lifestyle was not set up at the moment to give them what they would need. So a bit of a pause on that one, but hopefully in the future. Well, I hope that for you too, it sounds like you really enjoy them and like, it would be fun for you to have them again and they'd be lucky ferrets to wind up in your household. Yeah. Well, Tisha, thank you so much for everything that you have shared with us so far today.
Before we wrap up, I have a couple other questions for you though. I do want to give you a chance. If there's something that I have not yet asked you about that you wanted to share about on the show or that we've kind of skipped over, I'd love to give you a chance to share anything like that now. Oh goodness.
I think we've covered most things that have been relevant to making up who I am, but yeah, I just, I'm very grateful to be here and have the chance to talk about everything that I have done and things that I enjoy.
And yeah, I just, I'm very excited to continue to help people with their dogs and train my own dogs and animals, you know, without really empathetic approach where we really need to take into consideration how they're feeling and to also moderate our expectations on what we're expecting of them.
And if we're taking all of this into consideration, you know, then I think down the track, we end up with a fabulous animal and a wonderful working relationship that you can do many things with them anyways. But I think I just want to remind people to make sure that it's not linear and you can take that time to just really go into more management mode where we're just helping get through a tough time and that it's not always a time for training. Wonderful. Thank you.
And how could people, for people who are listening to you and wanting to learn more about what you're doing, maybe wanting to get in touch with you, how can people find you? So I'm most active on Facebook and Instagram. So if you look up behavior antics on there, you will find me. I also have a YouTube and hopefully one day a website that I have the domain for. But like many dog people, website building is not a strong point for mine. So that's something on my to do list.
But primarily, please reach out to me Facebook or Instagram, unless it goes into a junk folder, I very happily will respond and talk about anything that you might want to talk about. Wonderful. Thank you so much. And thank you for sharing about how people can get in touch with you. Also, thank you for sharing about those videos that you did with Jose before. I think we'll be able to link to all of that in the show notes too for people who are looking for that information.
And most of all, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to be with us today and tell us just a little bit about your story and work that you're doing. Thank you so much for having me. 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.