Behavior Buzzzzzz with 2 Amys
We're your sassy hosts, Dr. Amy L. Pike and Dr. Amy Learn, A.K.A...THE AMYS! As Board Certified Veterinary Behaviorists, we understand the challenges of pet guardianship. Every day we diagnose and treat behavior problems. And, every day we help pets and their people navigate the sea of confusing, misleading, and downright false information swirling around on the internet and social media.
We provide clinical insight into underlying causes of behavior problems, make cynical sense of nonsense, disprove myths, and promote positive, trusting human/animal relationships.
We're dedicated to modern, science-based intervention without the use of pain, fear, force, or intimidation. It is our mission to drive comprehensive pet wellness to the forefront of veterinary medicine and mainstream pet culture. JOIN US and the HIVE MIND, to set the record straight on the hottest and most controversial topics we encounter as clinicians, educators, and guardians.
Behavior Buzzzzzz with 2 Amys
Losing Lulu - The Origins of Caretaker Support
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In this deeply meaningful episode, The Amys sit down with Sue Alexander, founder of Losing Lulu, to talk about one of the most painful and misunderstood decisions in companion animal care: behavioral euthanasia.
Together, we explore the emotional weight carried by families and professionals when love isn’t enough to keep everyone safe. Sue shares her behavioral euthanasia stories, and the origin story behind Losing Lulu, how the community has become a lifeline for grieving pet guardians, and why shame and silence so often surround this topic. We discuss the moral injury experienced by veterinarians, trainers, and behavior teams, and how creating space for honest, compassionate dialogue can change outcomes for everyone involved.
We also preview the upcoming Losing Lulu Summit — a gathering dedicated to education, support, and reducing stigma around complex behavioral cases. If you work in veterinary medicine, training, or behavior — or if you’ve ever loved a “complicated” pet — this episode offers validation, nuance, and hope in the midst of heartbreak.
This is a tender, courageous conversation about grief, ethics, responsibility, and the profound love we carry for the animals who challenge and change us 🌈.
Grab a cocktail, and get up to speed on the latest buzzzzzz, courtesy of your favorite VBees 🐝🐝, on the latest episode of Behavior Buzzzzzz with 2 Amys veterinary behavior podcast.
- Visit The Honey Pot at behaviorbuzzzzzz.com for more information about Losing Lulu and our very special guest, Sue Alexander. Thanks, Sue!
Bee Positive. Bee Informed.
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Thank you to our amazing sponsors:
PRN Pharmacal, makers of Reconcile®
Nestlé Purina PetCare, makers of Purina Pro Plan® Veterinary Diets & Purina Pro Plan® Veterinary Supplements
Malena DeMartini, Inc. founder, Certified Separation Anxiety Training (CSAT) & Mission POSSIBLE
Ceva Animal Health, makers of ThunderEase® & FELIWAY® products
Amy L. Pike, DVM, DACVB, IAABC-CDBC - Co-Host
Amy Learn, VMD, DACVB, IAABC-CABC - Co-Host
Teryn Blais, Executive Producer
John LaSala, Podcast Editor
All right. Welcome, Hive Mind. We are buzzing with excitement about today's guest, the founder of Losing Lulu, Sue Alexander, who's joining us to talk about supporting pet parents through behavioral euthanasia and supporting behavior professionals in their own careers. This is the Behavior Buzz, a veterinary behavior podcast that aims to bring cutting-edge scientific information and education to pet parents, behavior professionals, and the veterinary community. I'm your co-host, Dr. Amy Pike, a board-certified veterinary behaviorist.
SPEAKER_00And I'm the other co-host, Dr. Amy Larne, also a board-certified veterinary behaviorist. Hey Sue, welcome to our show. We're so excited to have you here today. One of my favorite things to look on in Facebook is losing Lulu. I think I've been a member for since I started my residency. So I love having that support system out there, and I definitely refer many of my clients that need that support to your website. Yeah, thank you for doing that.
SPEAKER_03Oh, well, my honor. And truly it is my honor to do that. I I feel so profoundly, I don't know. Like I just don't even have words for what I feel about this. And and, you know, I, of course, I founded it, so I was there right at the beginning. And all I can say is it was an accident. Really, I didn't mean it. Um because I started it expecting that, you know, maybe a few hundred or even a few thousand people would join in. I had no idea that we would now, seven years later, we're pushing 40,000 members. So we're at that. That's amazing.
SPEAKER_00Oh my god. See, it's a much needed resource. And so, you know, we're gonna talk even more about all the good that you do. Um, but I do want to say that we are coming to you live from the PRN PharmaCal Studios, and you guys know what PRN stands for, right? Oh, oh, can I?
SPEAKER_03Can I can I Yeah, I want you to, I want you to. Yeah, it's for pretty radical noses because it's tracking season. It's we finally have enough grass that I can start tracking with my love. Pretty radical noses.
SPEAKER_01Put your nose to the ground, PRN. What kind of uh tracking dogs do you have?
SPEAKER_03Uh I share my life with a German shepherd named Hawkeye. He's four, and he has his TD title, and we bombed the um the urban TD track last year, and we bombed our TDX track. So now we're hoping that this time we're gonna nail it. But uh last Friday was the first day of of tracking for me um because it we've had such deep deep snowpack here, I couldn't even do snow tracking, which I normally do. But um I have snowshoes, but he does not, and so he would have just fallen through, and that's not so good for tracking.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, it's so cool. How fun!
SPEAKER_03Oh, I know, I know. It's so cool to watch the dogs um find the scent, and you know when they're on the scent, and they start to lean into the harness, and then you know, I was tracking uh tracking last Friday, and he was so excited to go for the first time in this season. He started to track at a canter, and I'm running as fast as I can, and you know, I have not started my spring running fitness yet.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, he's like you better get it. Running in snow shoes must be a big deal too, right?
SPEAKER_03Well, I wasn't in snow shoes, but yeah, we're we're uh it's a big deal because the snow was up to my ankles, so you know, we're breaking through, and yeah, it was a lot different. It's a good workout for us. It's a good workout. I love tracking though. That's I love tracking. My favorite thing is to get like a dime and put it on the tracking um on the track, and the dog finds it, and you know they've found it when they lie down. And then sometimes I lie down, he lies down, and I go up to him, and I'm like, okay, I know there's a dime here, but if we're in long grass, where is it? He knows.
SPEAKER_01Oh my gosh. Wow. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So my guy is trying to lie down right over the the object that we're looking for, but not touch it. So Wow. That's neat.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I love that. And while I love all the stories about tracking, you are not correct in your answer for what PRN stands for. Pretty much actually, it's actually pro reinata. This is a Latin phrase meaning as the circumstance arises, maybe in tracking too. And do you know how long the vet community has been trusting PRN PharmaCal to be here when needed with industry-leading research and innovative products to improve animal health and quality of life?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I do. Since 1978. They've been at it almost as long as I've been alive, and as we found out last week. Almost a little longer than. Amy's been alive.
SPEAKER_03PRN Pharmacal. I was nine. I was nine. Oh man, I love it.
SPEAKER_01I love it. PRN PharmaCal is a proud sponsor of the Behavior Buzz Podcast and is committed to the physical and emotional health of animals everywhere, which makes sense why their slogan is PRN Pharmacal here when you need us. Almost as much as we need tracking dogs.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And cocktails. So need tracking dogs. We do, we do. So let's find out what's getting us all buzzed today. I am drinking a salty chihuahua. Salty chihuahua, which is made out of tequila, grapefruit juice, and salt. Oh my god, that sounds awesome. I love it.
SPEAKER_01I so I'm trying to get more protein in my life. So I figured why not combine a protein drink with uh some alcohol. So I'm drinking a blue raspberry lemonade sparkling protein with smear-off blue raspberry vodka. What about you, sir? Of course, why not? I know. What's getting you buzzed today?
SPEAKER_03Uh, well, I am just finishing off my morning um electrolyte drink because if I don't take my electrolyte drink, my muscles get really, really stiff. But I don't put any alcohol in it because I don't have enough inhibitions as it is. And I decided that perhaps it would be a good idea to sort of rein in the inhibitions just a little bit because it's I hear you guys are a lot of fun to do a podcast with, and and like it could get, you know, we might not look crazy. I'm Canadian, so I have to be polite. We have to take these things into account. That's right.
SPEAKER_00That's right. That's right. We are using your good Canadian upbringing judgment to use your memory. Yeah, yeah. Well, remember, Hive Mind, you can find all of our signature cocktail and mocktail recipes and electrolyte drinks on our website, behaviorbuzz.com. That's a behavior buzz with six Z. What six? Zzz. Uh I actually don't even know, but there is another behavior buzz out there that is some kind of education website. Like, oh really? I don't know. So it's awesome. Like I started looking it up like uh years ago when we started this little thing. Uh-huh. And uh it was all about teaching and education and and stuff like that. And I was like, well, that's not the right behavior buzz.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but we're about teaching and education. So it's it was human. It's human. That's fair. That's fair.
SPEAKER_03I think I might know that website actually because I used to be an outdoor educator. Like 20 years ago, 35 years ago, before I was a dog trainer, before I was a dog behavior consultant, I was an outdoor educator. And yes, I think I remember them.
SPEAKER_01That's so funny. I love it.
SPEAKER_00Well, there you go. And I want to use that as a jump off point because I want to hear about your journey into the pet training world. So tell us all about your history, your education background, and how you got here.
SPEAKER_03Well, um, my okay, so it goes back to when I was a kid, which often these things do. And I was about 10 or 11, and my aunt had a golden retriever, and she used to show her golden retriever in obedience. And I thought my aunt was just the coolest person in the world. Because not only did she show in obedience, she had horses, and she did all the things that I thought were just truly the coolest things ever. And I said, How do I train my dog? And this was back in the 70s, so you know, we had a choke chain on the dog. That was the only collar our dogs wore. And she said, Well, you know, you just go out and you use you use food, so take a handful of your dog's kibble. And if she does what you want her to, give her a treat. And if she doesn't do what you want her to, you're just gonna tug on her collar so she knows that was the wrong answer. That was the total sum of instruction I got. I I did so many things with that dog. I, you know, did what we would now call canine parkour. Um I taught that dog to do so many, you know, staying and posing for pictures and walking nicely on a leash and running beside my bicycle. And she was a really, really special dog. So I started training then, and when I left home, I got a German shepherd, and I wanted to show an obedience. So I took um some obedience lessons. I did show her I didn't do very well. Um, I don't think I finished her CD, her companion dog title. But, you know, I I learned a lot from her. But unfortunately, and this kind of ties into my connection with losing Lulu, at 20 months, she became incredibly reactive and incredibly aggressive. And we had somebody from the electrical company come to read the meter, and then we got a nice notice that said, either you curb your dog or we're gonna stop giving you electricity. And that's a big problem. Um, anyways, we tried a number of things, and I worked with my veterinarian a little bit, and I did not get anywhere, and she was a liability. And unfortunately, we euthanized her at 22 months for aggression. Oh my goodness. Yeah, it was devastating. I was 21, 22 years old, something like that. Um, it was absolutely devastating, and there was no support. Yeah, it was well, it's a dog, and these things happen, and let's move on. And so, you know, six months later, I wanted to get another dog, and I got an adult German shepherd. I got a lovely intact male, and he was wonderful. And about six months later, he started showing reactivity. I went into the vet, it was a different vet that time, and she said, Well, tell me what you're doing. And I said, Well, every time that he, you know, leaps at somebody, I I use the choke chain and I tell them, you know, he's not to do that, and and give him what for. Now, being that you're both um veterinary behaviorists, I'm sure this is not what you would say was a good idea. And I can tell you, as a certified dog behavior consultant, I would not tell you to do that either now. But it's what I knew to do, and it's what we were told to do in the books. I mean, you know, I had my keeler and and I read that cover to cover many, many times, and you know, it basically said that if your dog is aggressive, you need to double down on the punitive actions. And I said to my vet, I said, I can't do this twice. And she said, well, when I was in university, I wrote a paper that showed that if you are less assertive with your dog, you are going to see less aggression. And that led me to a deep dive into behavior, behavior analysis. That would have been in about 1990, maybe, maybe 88, 88, 89, something like that. And eventually I ended up on the remember the old bulletin boards? Um right? I was on a bulletin board where I met people like Karen Pryor and um, you know, like all of all of the people, Shirley Chong and all of the pioneers of clicker training. And I I recently came across my binder where I had what we do you remember keepers? If you had a post you really light, you pa you printed it out because we didn't really have that much data storage. So you'd print it out. So I came across my binder of keepers. I actually have six binders and they're each three to four inches thick of keepers. And I some of the conversations were so funny because I would often come back with, well, that can't work. And I look at how I practice now. And of course, not only do I do all the things that I thought couldn't work, I allow the animals I'm working with to have much more agency, much more freedom. You know, and I I think we've learned a lot about the science of behavior and how things work. I kind of lament those days, the loss of those days, because back in those days we didn't argue about which quadrant was the good quadrant. We argued about is the dog's welfare good? And so we would have conversations that said, well, of course I have to use punishment because my dog does this off leash out in public, and I have to have this level of control. And so, although there were ways that we can get that same behavior using positive reinforcement, nobody was ashamed to say, I use a check cord so that I can teach my dog to navigate traffic safely. Now, if somebody does that, we can't say that in public anymore. And what we looked at was what is the welfare of the dog? And welfare is more than what happens in a single training instant. So, you know, I think that and I I wrote an I wrote a blog for um Mike Shakashia last year, last year, about a year ago now, where I was talking about how there's a clash between the different factions where if we take somebody who is a protection dog trainer and they're dealing with aggression, they're gonna do all those things that I they'll do them, most of them do them better than I did them, but all those things that I was doing that got me in trouble, and they will say to their protection trained dog, no, no, not that bad guy, choose another bad guy. And you know, in that circumstance, sometimes telling the dog, no, no, that behavior is off the table, and we don't have to do it forcefully if we understand behavioral science. We can just go, oh gosh, you're a bit the bad wrong bad guy again. You're gonna go in your kennel, you're gonna lose a turn. Sorry about your luck. But I've worked with a number of clients who say to me that the other thing which our our positive reinforcement trainers do almost exclusively, which is counterconditioning, and I do I do tons of counterconditioning. Don't get me wrong, but if I've got a dog who is biting because they're genetically predisposed to bite, as my German shepherd was, and I try and countercondition when they're like, no, no, it's a party. When you don't know what to do, just bite somebody, it'll be great. Because I don't know if you've worked with with dogs like that, but I certainly having done some protection work with my protection dog, if he took what we call a sucker bite, which was when you know he wasn't supposed to bite me, but bit somebody, then he I would say, Oh, you lost a turn. And he would say, But, but, but, but there are bad guys to bite. That's what I want to do. That's what I'm genetically primed to do. And so we've got this clash now. And instead of looking at the overall welfare of the dog and saying, you know, what makes the most sense, what we're saying is you have to be doing it this way. And so I lament those days because reading back in my cult keepers' files, I mean, my gosh, we had creative solutions coming up from the ground. And remember, we in that day were starting from everybody used either choke chains or prongs and food. And so we had to make it up cold. And I miss those conversations because now we have to talk about what quadrant we're sitting in. And and I don't really care what quadrant I'm sitting in. What I care about is the bigger, and that's I'm not advocating for the use of force.
SPEAKER_01Sure.
SPEAKER_03Okay. What I'm saying is my priority is welfare. Yeah. And again, that ties into how I got involved with losing Lulu. Is it's about the welfare. At the end of the day, it's about my welfare, the welfare of the families I work with, and the welfare of the dogs. Um, I work primarily with dogs, although I I want to be clear, losing Lulu is all about losing a beloved animal, family member, or friend. It's not about dogs only. Um so I I, for instance, lost a horse to a behavior problem. Um it's sad. It's sad, but her welfare was not being served by keeping her going. And and I'm happy to talk about that if you want. Well, I mean, I'm not happy to talk about it. No, I wish it hadn't happened.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. But yeah, why don't we talk about the other species that you've you've had or worked with over the years?
SPEAKER_03Well, I have clicker trained pigs. Um, I helped uh a master's student doing a master's degree in animal behavior, and so I helped her clicker train her pigs, and I consulted on how she would clicker train pigs. Um, we used Smurties. Um Canadian Smurties, not American Smurties. Yeah, Canadian Smurties are different and better. Oh, so much better. What's that sound?
SPEAKER_04Sound of smarties all down pigs sound so much better.
SPEAKER_03So much better. So I clicker trained pigs, I clicker trained uh blue and gold macaw. Never again. I do not like working with parrots. I am not a parrot lady. Oh, oh no, I am not. I I hate the feeling of picking up a bird, and it feels you know how their long flight feathers go all the way around their body? It feels to me like I've got a squirming animal inside of a cage in my hands, and it's just it's yucky. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Aside from my whole concern for the welfare of keeping large parrots, it's so hard to do it well.
SPEAKER_01Totally.
SPEAKER_03But we taught him to do some cool things, you know. He would wave his wing, he would um strike out with his claws, he would uh vocalize some things on cue. Here's a fun bird. He um he lived in a family, and so he had, of course, the doorbell and the telephone. That was all good fun.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03He also learned how to scream, shut up, beta. No, you shut up. No, you shut up. And he had all the family's voices.
SPEAKER_01Oh my gosh. How funny.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it was hysterical.
SPEAKER_00Birds are fantastic, birds.
SPEAKER_03They're so smart.
SPEAKER_01So smart. So smart. So smart. Yep.
SPEAKER_03Um, and it's the debate. Is it a chain or does he know what he's saying?
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_03I'm I'm I lean on the he knows what he's saying thing because he wouldn't the bird.
SPEAKER_01I think the bigger ones for sure, the little ones, I don't know. For more mimics. Yeah, they're more mimic, but who knows?
SPEAKER_00But many of those birds use the right words in the right context. So I mean, chaining is great, and I I get the prediction of you know what's coming next, but there's there's definitely some reasoning in there about what you should choose to say. For sure.
SPEAKER_03Well, he was screaming at the TV in the event that the TV was too loud.
SPEAKER_01Oh my gosh. Oh funny. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So I've I've worked a little bit with cats and I've worked a lot with horses. Um, because I'm I'm a dressage rider. I ride classical dressage, and yes, that means all that you think it means, but I also use clicker training with my dressage horse. And uh he and I got to a point where we were butting heads this this winter because. He was not what we call forward enough. So, what that means is he wasn't using his back legs and his back, his bum muscles properly to really drive forward. And that meant that he was always, it felt like you were riding downhill because his front end was kind of anyways. So it's it's a very techie kind of a thing. So I started clicking for using his back end the way I wanted him to. And we've had a really nice progression with him. Most days. Most of them. Not today.
SPEAKER_01Not today.
SPEAKER_03No, no, not today. Today he said, you know, you know, we don't really have to work that hard. Oh, I love it.
SPEAKER_01I love horses. Buddy.
SPEAKER_03He's so smart. They're so much smarter than they know.
SPEAKER_01That's yes. Yes. Or that people give him credit for.
SPEAKER_00Yes, that is absolutely true. Yeah. And in addition to all the fun animals that you have worked with and trained, part of your job through the dog trainer's crucible is supporting other trainers, right? When they get stuck or they need help or, you know, just to talk through some things. Sometimes you get a client and you're like, this is not doing what I thought it was going to do. I've done this a million times and now I'm stuck because this individual is an individual. It's different than everybody else. So tell us a little bit about your support for the training world.
SPEAKER_03Well, it started, it started in part because when I started as a trainer in the 90s, they're really, you know, yeah, we had the Bolton boards and we're talking a lot about training, but we weren't talking a lot about the consulting end of it. How do you talk to your clients? What do you say to them? What do you say when you walk in the room and something that has happened and you just your jaw drops and you go, I didn't anticipate that one. And you know, when I first started, I didn't have colleagues to talk to and to talk through that. And so the first thing that I started offering was behavior consulting for consultants. So I'm not going to work with your client, I'm going to work with you. And we're going to treat this as an opportunity for continuing education so that you come to me and you say, you know, I had this client and I sent them home and I thought that they understood it. And then the wheels fell off the bus. And I help people to sort out is that because there's something that's not working with the dog? So one of my reasons for referring a dog to someone like you, so as a behavior consultant, I might refer to a veterinary behaviors. If that dog is not learning, if I look at the dog and I say, learning is not intact. So maybe they can do a sit today and they go to bed and they get up in the morning and that sit is just missing. That tells me there's something going on with that dog that is not my job. I don't know what to do with that. I didn't train him what to do with that. I trained to work with dogs whose learning works.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03Um, you know, and I've had people come to me and they say, it's just like he doesn't get it. And I'm sure something's happening between sessions because he left with good leash manners and he came back as though he'd never been on leash. What's going on? And we talk about it and work out what's going on. Do we need to refer to someone else? And I've had a few cases where they've said, Well, I'd like to refer to you, and I work with the client for a bit and send it back to the behavior consultant. I always try and keep the behavior consultant engaged in those situations so that I can help them learn what I know. But sometimes I say, you know, you gotta you've gotta refer this back to the veterinarian. Maybe you've got a dog who's working on leash today and not tomorrow. And I say to you, you know, let's look at a little video of that dog just running around loose in the backyard. And I say, well, of course he did it for you. You can compensate for him. But when I look at that dog, I see a dog who is lame. And that's not our job. I can see the lameness. Yeah, I know that I know that he is lame. I don't know why he is lame. And so one of the things that I'm really, really good at is picking up lameness and going, not my job anymore. I am not a veterinarian. I'm gonna send it off to send it back to the vet. Sometimes uh one of the ones that I see a lot of, well, not a lot of, but it's one of the things that confuses behavior consultants that I work with are dogs who have either PICA or idiopathic polydipsia, which is we don't know why. He just drinks a lot. Yeah, and they they say to me, you know, he is just obsessed. If there's a water bowl, I can't get him to work. And I say, Right, well, that's not our job because we're dog trainers, that's a medical problem.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So, you know, a lot of it is helping my behavior consultant clients sort out is that your job or is that not your job? And if it's not your job, where can you send them? Yeah, right. Another thing that I do is just help them to develop better skills at taking histories. A lot of the time I'll talk to my behavior consultant clients or training clients, and I'll say to them, Well, what's the dog eating? Oh, I don't know. Okay, why don't you know what the dog is eating? This is really, really important. Because if it the dog is on a very poor diet, and I mean a very poor diet based on the science of nutrition, not based on I've got some boutique idea of what a good diet is. And I can say that when somebody says to me, Oh yeah, Bob in the basement next door is formulating diets, and the wheels fell off the dog's behavior as soon as he moved to Bob's better dog food. I can say, okay, why don't you take a sample of your dog food in to the vet? Because that again, that's not my job. But it is my job to know enough about nutrition to know what I need to say to my clients. We need to go back and talk to the veterinarian or even talk to the vet tech because they've got some really good resources for vet techs now on nutrition. And we need to talk about that because if the dog is not being properly fed, he can't learn properly. So taking good histories is something that I help my clients do. Sometimes it's just a case of okay, you know, I've been working with this client, I've been working with them for four or five months, and I can't get them to do their homework. And I can talk to them about the idea of, you know, something that I firmly believe is if your clients can't finish their homework, that's not your client's problem, that's your problem. And, you know, one thing I advocate for rigorously is when you are working with a client, if they're not completing the work that you sent home, ask questions. You know, do they have an elderly parent who suddenly moved in with them?
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_03And yeah, no, they can't do their homework then. And at that point, when I'm working with a client, what I say to them is, I still want to see you every week, and I still want to work with you, and I still think it's really, really important that we see each other regularly. But our work is gonna change. I'm not gonna send you home with anything other than management. And we're gonna do all of your behavior training in the classroom. And people say to me, Well, you know, aren't you supposed to give me homework? Well, not if you can't get it done.
SPEAKER_01If you can't do it, then you're not gonna do it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah. But by seeing them every week, I can make sure that we're not losing ground with the dog with a serious behavior problem. And it means that we've got eyes on the dog weekly, and I can even do things in that case and say, look it, you know, this life change that's happened in your life that's preventing you from doing your homework. We're now seeing an uptick in your dog's anxiety. We know that when your dog's anxiety goes up, you start ending up with inappropriate chewing, inappropriate elimination, inappropriate vocalization. Maybe we need to go talk to the veterinarian about some medication for the short term to bridge you over this stress time because I have eyes on the dog and I see them on a regular basis. So these are all things that I can do to help the behavior consultants. And sometimes what I do is I just let them talk and help them kick it around so they've got a better idea of what they're looking at. Because, you know, I cannot emphasize enough, and you folks know this from when you did your residency. When you were a resident, every single case you got to kick it around with your supervisor. Yep. And sometimes just saying, okay, let me just talk this out. Okay, we saw the dog, we got the signalment, we know who lives with the dog, we know how many people are in the family, we know where they vacation on on weekends, we know all this stuff about it, and none of this is adding up. And and your supervisor will say to you, Yeah, but did you ask them what they feed? Oh, I forgot to ask them what they feed.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, exactly. Dang it. We'll never forget that again.
SPEAKER_03Right. And did you get blood work on that? And what did it tell you? Yeah. It's when your supervisor's reading your case notes and you're like, I'm so confused. And the supervisor goes, Yeah, give me more. Give me more. Come on, there's another piece in here. Yeah, I've been the bug on the wall for too long.
SPEAKER_01I love it. I love it. You mentioned that, like, you know, you know and and you teach your consultants, like, when is it not your job? When do they go to the veterinarian or the veterinary behaviorist? But you taught veterinarians for almost two decades, fourth year veterinary students. Tell me, tell me a little bit about that, what you what you worked with them on.
SPEAKER_03I offered, I think it's called a non-standard rotation. So in fourth year, veterinary students have to go and shadow other professionals to learn to do the actual hands-on part of their job, which, you know, in surgery, it means they go and they stand in the surgical suite and sometimes they get to mop somebody's brow. Uh, they might get to hand some instruments, but they get to watch the surgeon practice and then they do a lot of the follow-up. Well, for behavior, it's a little bit different. And so, you know, in veterinary college, veterinarians get a solid scientific education on the basics of a lot of things. And they get a few weeks to a few months, depending on who they are and where they went to school, on companion animal behavior. And so I offered a non-standard rotation where they could come and do two weeks with me of a deep dive into dog behavior, specifically dog behavior, but behavior consulting. And so what happened was we had there were actually it evolved. It started out that they would just come with me to every case and do every bit of consulting with me. Um, and I gave them reading assignments. And the one thing that the feedback I got year after year after year was mine was the most rigorous um rotation that they could take because I had so much reading because they had about 400 pages of reading to do. Oh, gosh. And I'd just look at them and I'd say, You're fourth-year vet students, you can do 400 pages of reading. Yeah, sit down, get it done. I'm hard about this, okay? But I gave them oh, four chapters from um Handbook of Applied Training and Learning. Uh Dog Behavior and Learning. Um, Stephen, what's his last name? It's right here. I've got it. I've got it. Stephen Lindsay, Handbook of Applied Dog Behavior. Oh, Lindsay, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00There's like a three-set book. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So I gave them the first four chapters of Lindsay, volume one, a couple of chapters from volume two. I gave them two or three chapters from clinical uh behavioral medicine by Karen Overall. I gave them a couple of chapters of uh of Landsberg, uh, Hunthausen and Ackerman. So like it was there was some actual epidemic end to it. Oh, there was. Then what they had to do was they each got given a dog to work with for the two weeks, where they went to obedience classes with that dog. And because they were staffed dogs, they also had to do things like walk them, toilet them, get them in crates, get them out, out of crates. And then they would shadow me in all of my behavior consults and kick the cases around with me. And then they also came to my group counterconditioning and desensitization course. So they had a lot that they did in that. They also, as part of it, they had to coach um three different students and they had to teach a new student how to do a new behavior. And this was the beauty of having a large school. And at the end, what I wanted them to be able to do, my goal for that work, to know how a behavior consultant works. What do I do? I do different things than you folks do. I do the hands-on, I'm gonna teach you how to do the thing. I'm gonna teach you how to do desensitization and counterconditioning, I'm gonna teach you how to safely get your dog out of the car. I'm gonna teach you how to do a hierarchy of exposure. And, you know, those are all the things I do. You guys don't get to play with them like that. You guys get to diagnose things and I know you see them for a bit and then you're like, and we'll hand them off to somebody else who gets to go play with them. I know. Right. You guys don't get to get in the car and drive through 20 drive-throughs and give the dog treats.
SPEAKER_01Like true. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I yeah, so, anyways, I wanted them to know what we do and how we do it. I wanted them to know the basics of how to capture a behavior using some sort of a marking system. We use clickers, you can use your voice, you can use a flashlight, doesn't matter. How do you mark a behavior that you want to keep and then reward it? And, you know, I wanted them to have the basics of counterconditioning. I see so much overshadowing in the veterinary office where they give the reinforcer at the wrong time. So what happens is instead of getting a dog who goes, Oh yeah, needles, this is not so bad, I get a treat. We get dogs who go, oh no, it's treats. I'm going to get a needle. I'm gonna get a needle. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. How many, how many cases have you ever seen in your careers that won't take treats in the veterinary office because treats predict bad things for dogs?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I had a bulldog attack me because I tossed a treat. Oh no. And I didn't know the history. And, you know, food, food is always good. And the dog had been to so many aversive veterinary visits that food predicted bad. And so I was like, here's a treat. And the owner's like, don't. And I was like, oh no. The dog's like, and I was like, oh no. So that was like one of the early cases in my residency, and I learned to ask more questions. She learned to take a history. I took a better history.
SPEAKER_03I had a pit bull who I was working in full protected contact. And so there was a fence between me and the pit bull. And I discovered just exactly how full that protected contact wasn't when I upped my criteria too fast. And that dog said, right then, let me come over the fence. And he was two-thirds of the way over the fence before the owner was able to pull him back. Oh my God, it's so scary. It was a it was a scary and profound moment about the value of food to the learner, but also about how you use that food and how you increase criteria and how you are able to manipulate those things. Because, you know, these are the things I want my wanted my veterinary colleagues to know coming out of that college. And what it meant was they also got eyes on things that were common that they were gonna see in practice. Resource guarding. My gosh, they would see a lot of resource guarding, and I was able to show it to them live and what I did with it. Um, you know, fear-based aggression. Also, because I had protection dogs, I could show them confidence aggression. Yeah, because a person a protection dog doesn't think that biting is bad. That's his birdie. No, that's cool.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's super cool. Yeah, totally.
SPEAKER_03I I used to, when I had a protection dog who was trained um and able to do this, I would allow them to take a bite from my protection dog. And I had a number of my vet students who said to me, I had no idea a bite could happen that quickly. I knew it was coming and I couldn't get out of the way. And they'd gotten all the way to, you know, that was more than once I had students say that to me. Yeah, it's so true. I would encourage any of my veterinary or behavior colleagues, get to know someone in the protection world. Yeah, go take a bite. There are safe ways to get bitten where you won't get damaged, but you can learn so much. I mean, I can still tell when a dog is going to bite me just by the drawback of the tongue, the muscles in his face when he draws back his tongue. Because before a dog bites, he draws back his tongue. And you take enough bites and you start to learn that as one of the big tells. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I was a military um veterinarian, and like that was like the scariest thing is when they would put us in the bite. So it's they would do it for fun. Like, like, hey, let you know, let's take a bite from Rocky, who was my favorite, um, little Dutch Shepherd. But like these dogs are super nice otherwise, and you're like, oh my god, this dog is so scary. Like, oh my God, it's gonna get me. And no one is fast enough to get away from a bite. Like, if a dog wants to bite you, they will bite you. So, like, I always love my clients, they're like, Oh, but I pulled my arm away fast enough. I'm like, you didn't. You didn't, the dog did not mean to bite you because there's no way you're fast enough.
SPEAKER_03I had a police officer in one of my workshops one time, and they had just gotten a melanoir on the force, and it was just a little 55 or 60-pound melanois. And this guy's one of these big six foot four, you know, 250-pound muscle men. And I said, So uh let's just talk about the dog on your force. Yep. I said, What do you do when this 55-pound melanois tells you to lie down, says you get down on that ground as fast as you can. You do not want to get bitten.
SPEAKER_00Yes, absolutely. Yeah. And it really is interesting. You're right, a lot of people don't know that world and they don't know how those dogs work, and it is completely different than a dog that has a behavior problem and is biting for a different reason. These are happy dogs, comfortable dogs. They have special uh knowledge to kind of turn to their other job and they do it with happiness.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you're cognition too, right? Like they're cognitively doing this versus like just fight or flight reacting, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03I use uh I use an arousal chart that I created to talk about the dogs that I'm working with. And what I always say is when arousal goes up, discretion goes down. So my chart goes from zero to ten, zero is dead, one is asleep, two is awake and alert, but not moving, three is sort of casually wandering around, four is intentional walking. I want a drink, I want to go to the bed, but I'm not doing anything. And five is cognitive. Six is play and roughhousing, seven is out of control frantic, eight is we can still eat, but we're pretty out of control. Nine is we can physically be restrained, and ten is beyond that. So I've seen a couple of dogs in 10. Usually you're talking there about dogs who are um suffering from some kind of a seizure, or there's something going on that is not neurologically when you right when you get to 10. The protection dogs are all working in five. That's the same place that our agility dogs work. That's the same place that fly ball dogs work. Any of the performance sport dogs, they can't, my tracking dog is working solidly in five six cognition and play. And when we look at, you know, dogs who are in seven, eight, and nine, when those dogs are biting, you're not just gonna go fluffy, here's a steak. Because they can't. They just can't. You might be able to get the food in their mouth and they might be able to chew and swallow and turn that arousal back down. But people don't realize that a protection dog is, and this is the thing that, you know, unfortunately, so many of the people that I work with on Losing Lulu have dogs who are phenomenally, phenomenally aggressive. And one of the questions that I often get when I consult with people about behavioral euthanasia, whether the, you know, do we euthanize or not? They say, well, surely the police department would want a dog who's aggressive like this and other. Surely the police department would not want that dog.
SPEAKER_01No, they do not.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Yeah. It's not just dog We want more aggression. We want controlled aggression. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I wish more people knew about arousal and aggression.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. That's so true.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01I agree. I agree. Equate it to like a hockey game, right? Like all of a sudden we're like, yeah. And then we're like, rah, we're gonna, you know, murder each other, right? Like that arousal can flip so quickly, quickly.
SPEAKER_03Well, and you know, I often talk to my clients about the two teenage boys who are, you know, 15 or 16. They're in high school, they get in a fight, and the guidance counselor sits them both down and says, Why were you fighting? And what do they say? I don't know. They genuinely don't know. They don't know why. They were just highly aroused, highly provoked. Whatever happened, happened. Whatever the provoking stimulus was, their arousal was so high they could not figure out what else to do. And I always talk about the garden breed puppies. I call them pinchy puppies because what do you do when you're hungry? You bite. What do you do when you're happy? You bite. What do you do when you're angry? You bite. What do you do? Well, you bite. And the more around they get, the more bitey, the pinchy they. Oh man, eight-week old German Shepherd police prospects. I raised some of them, and I was covered from my shoulders to my fingertips and from my knees down with these little pinchy dog bites.
SPEAKER_00Yep. Yeah. You need a bite suit just for the puppies, just for puppy raising. Yeah. And we've talked a little bit about this difference between eager controlled biting protection work, but also then on the other side of that are dogs that are overwhelmed and overroused and fearful and some of the behavior problems that come with that. And, you know, we started talking early on in our this podcast about losing Lulu and founding Lulu, losing Lulu, and the support system that we have out there. Go ahead and kind of finish your story. You said that you had a horse that had a behavior problem. I mean, you know, that kind of was a moment for you to say people need help. People need help with their animals that they don't know what to do and are now considering euthanasia.
SPEAKER_03I have had several Lululus. We call any animal who has passed on after they have passed. Until they have passed, they are not a Lulu. They are a potential Lulu. After they have passed, if they have passed because of a behavior problem, we call them Lulus. And I have had three dogs and one horse in my life that counted as Lululus. One of the dogs was in childhood. That was not my problem at all. Uh, I think I mentioned my German shepherd, and then my husband had a dog who was a Lulu, brought into the marriage, and over time his behavior decayed. I suspect he probably, we'd now probably look at him as having a cognitive decline of some sort, an age-related cognitive decline, but he came very dangerously aggressive. And then we had my horse, and her name was Kayak. She was the first horse that I owned myself. And she was a very, very special. Oh my, she was so special to me. And in fact, she's the horse that we used to promote the Losing Lulu summit, which I'm going to talk about in a bit. Yeah. She was, I got her as a four-year-old. She was much more horse than I should have had. I was not ready for that much horse. And I didn't know that. You don't know what you don't know. You know, I'd ridden most of my life and I thought this was going to be fine. As it turns out, it was not. I fell off her within the first year I had her and sustained a traumatic brain injury. Which I still live with the residual things. Don't ask me to do statistics anymore. Oh no.
SPEAKER_01Except don't ask me, and I don't have one of those.
SPEAKER_03Um, but um, when she was about 10, we were riding in an arena, and the arena had not been properly maintained, and she tripped. And she tripped and fell on me. And we thought she was okay. She got up. Two days later, we rode her back from where she had been to our farm, which is a five-kilometer ride, no problem with that. I was not able to ride. It was a friend who rode her. I was I was pretty injured in that fall. Anyways, she uh we moved burns and you know, I started bringing her back to work, and she would, you know, she'd be okay, and we'd be walk, trot, canter, no problem, and then it wasn't working. And then she'd be okay, and then it wasn't working, and she'd go lame, and it was intermittent lameness. We finally decided it was her right hind. We had done all kinds of diagnostics for her. We did metabolic tests on her to find out if she had a metabolic problem where she didn't digest sugar properly, and we were wondering if that was causing the outbursts that we were seeing. And in the end, it turned out that she had an effusion in her right stifle. So the stifle is the back leg joint that corresponds to our knee joint. So it's just below the hip for anybody who's listening and doesn't know about horse anatomy. Um, and what that meant was she was never going to be fully sound. She'd look sound for a few days, but if she ran too hard in the pasture and was playing too hard with her buddies, she'd go lame. So we put her on Provocox while we decided what to do. And I had my coach helping me, and we were having a lovely time in the arena with her doing clicker training. And we'd bring her up three or four times a week, and we would take her in the arena and we would do clicker training with her. Now, she'd always been a difficult horse. She was the kind of horse who dealt with frustration by explosive behavior. So when she was frustrated, she would buck, it was three to the left and two to the right, and three to the left and two to the right. And I knew this very, very well. She was the kind of horse who didn't deal well with frustration. And we all know somebody in our life who's a little bit like that. You know, don't play Monopoly with them because if they get frustrated, they're gonna have a temper tantrum. And that's not a judge board, they're gonna dump the board. And that's not a judgment thing. That's a reflection that at our core, each of us has ways that we deal with frustration. And the more we study about behavior and human behavior, animal behavior, the more that we're starting to see that some of these things are, if not genetic, they're kind of innate. You know, I have always been an explosive person. If I'm frustrated, I'm gonna make noises and I'm gonna push harder. When I'm frustrated, I just push harder. And Kak was a bit like that. Anyways, as long as she was being ridden six days a week, she was fine. She and I, she was a sweet horse, she was kind, she took good care of me, but she needed to be ridden six days a week. And she and I were real peas and a pot in that I need a ridiculous amount of exercise just to maintain baseline, just to get along in society. So, you know, we're coming up at Sue's best season because we're now coming up to running season and tracking season. But all year long, regardless, I exercise hard and intentionally six days a week. I ride six days a week, I do weights on the day that I don't ride. Now I'm coming up, it's gonna be great. I can start canoeing in preparation for vacation because I always take five weeks in vacation in the backcountry of northern Ontario by myself. And and so I have to train for that. So I'm coming up to my best season where my mood is gonna be the best, everything's gonna be the smoothest. So that's the kind of person I am. Kayak was a little bit like that, and I've worked with dogs who are a little bit like that. As long as they're getting what they need, everything goes well. But let's remember she had a serious knee injury, and I don't know if anybody out there has had knee injuries. Knee pain is terrible because we use our knees all the time. You stand up with your knees, you walk with your knees, you run with your knees, you jump with your knees. And horses sleep standing up a good chunk of the time. They usually lie down once a day, but they don't lie down all the time, they can't take the weight off that knee. So we put her on some medication called prevocox, and that helped with the pain a bit. And eventually the vet said she's not really going to ever be rideable again. And he said, You can try, it's up to you. But as I said at the very beginning, I'm all about welfare. Welfare. It's not in her best welfare. So I said, okay, she's gonna live out in the paddock, we'll bring her up, we'll do clicker training. So there was a day in December, it's about about six years ago now, and it was a really sad day. It was icy, it was incredibly icy. And we had done our our training session in the barn, and I asked my coach if she would walk her down to the paddock. And my coach said, Yeah, sure, no problem. So I, you know, was getting things cleaned up in the barn and tootling around, and I looked out the window and I saw her doing what we call airs above the ground. So she was leaping up and doing big leaps and bucks and twists in the air. And my coach that got it was my coach on the line because I would have let go because there was nothing I could do. And she got her back under control, put her away, came back up, and I knew at that point I had to make a decision because at that point she had been blowing through the burn staff to run around the fields. She had been getting herself into all kinds of trouble because she wasn't getting enough exercise, wasn't getting enough enrichment. Um, this is a horse who loved being ridden. She would come to be ridden. And I started to think about it. And I thought, you know, we've got we've got 12-year-olds who go into her paddock. And if she decides she's gonna run a 12-year-old down just because she can run a 12-year-old down, I am responsible for what my animal does. And I'm not there all day, every day. She lives at a barn. And I thought, okay, well, can I bring her home? Well, you know, yeah, you could. Not a great choice for her here. We've got small paddocks, but not a great choice. She'd never get ridden again and she wouldn't have as many friends. She'd have one friend instead of eight friends, which is what she needed because horses are social animals. And it's part of what they need to be normal. I was very afraid she was going to get out of the road and cause a traffic accident and kill somebody. And people often don't think about that as a risk or a liability with horses, but she weighed over a thousand pounds. If she ran into traffic and it was a busy road around that farm, somebody would die, and she would die. They don't survive traffic accidents, but neither do we. She'd had peanuts, plain peanuts as treats. So I went to the bulk store and I bought her five pounds of gummy spearmins. And she and I together ate five pounds of gummy spearmint while I cried into her mane and walked her all over that farm. I took her into the gildings paddock and I let her snip all the poops. And normally we don't allow horses to sniff each other's poops because that's how worms are spread. Yeah. This is a fast way to make your horse sick. I took her all over the firm and she was like, this is brilliant. I can smell all the poops. I said, you know what? You hate having your feet picked. And it makes sense she didn't like having her feet picked because it was hard for her to stand. I said, you know what? If you get a bad case of thrush, oh well, it's fine. I don't have to worry about it. So there were all of these many different things that I was able to say, I'm gonna give you the best last week possible. Because euthanasia means good death. And if you have to die, let's make this the kindest death we can make it. Let's make this the best death. So on the day that we euthanized her, my veterinarian came. I have another good friend who's also a large animal vet. Her coach came, my husband came, the burn manager came. There were three other people around, and we were able to bring her in, sedate her, and euthanize her. And as she was going, she was eating pounds of carrots and apples. Aww, I love it. And what we did was we were able to set up a situation that was safe where she could be surrounded by the people who loved her the best. You know, I I miss her.
SPEAKER_01I bet.
SPEAKER_03She's such a good horse. I have her picture right beside me here. She was such a great horse. She tried so hard. And she had such a great heart, but she also dealt with frustration in a way that was not safe.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And I couldn't provide her with what she needed in order to be safe. I provided it for her for eight years. Yeah. And we came to the end. And I said goodbye, and I love my horse.
SPEAKER_02I love my horse.
SPEAKER_03And we had a feast for her, and all of her friends came who hadn't been able to be there. And we had prime rib and good food. And we shared stories and memories about a great horse. Oh, that's great. Yeah, that's kayak's story.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it is tough because those, I mean, our Lulus are they were great animals, right? Like they were troubled, but they were great animals at the end of the day. And unfortunately, I think there's such a misconception of uh, you know, whether it be uh in our community or you know, even outside looking in our community, of like these animals were bad. They weren't bad, they were troubled, right? Like they couldn't help it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, well, and I I think one of the things that I always want to reassure my clients, and I want to reassure the people on losing Lulu is you know, I often hear I killed my dog. No, you did not kill your dog. You provided your dog with a a good euthanasia, yeah. And what I want people to understand is the veterinarian is not allowed to just euthanize anything. Yeah, right, it's legally not permitted. So at least someone else said, no, this is a serious problem. This is we're taking all of the aspects into account. And the other thing that I want people to know that I think is super, super, super important is that you will do what is reasonable for you. And what is reasonable for me with 33 years of background in the training industry, and what is reasonable for my next door neighbor with zero years in the training industry is different. And I can't just say, oh yeah, well, I'm gonna take that dog who lives next door because I have the skill set. I have my own animals.
SPEAKER_01Right, right.
SPEAKER_03And it's not fair to ask my animals to live with an unending circus of animals with behavior problems. So those two pieces of the veterinarian has to agree that this is the appropriate choice, and you've done what's reasonable. Right, you've done what's reasonable because nobody does a behavioral euthanasia because they hate the animal.
SPEAKER_01No, right, absolutely, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Even if you did not like that animal, and I am going to tell you, I don't love every single dog I've met. I have now met a large enough number that I can tell you there are dogs I like better than others.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And that doesn't have to do with their behavior. I mean, some of the dogs that I have loved the best did not have terrific behavior. Yes. Okay, I loved my husband's dog, Alex, but when he aged into a state of severe regression, it's not that I stopped loving him. It's that he was unhappy, he was frustrated, he was anxious, and he was dangerous. Right. And so because I loved him, I let him go.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I I let him go so that he was not suffering, but also so that we were not suffering.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the human side of things, too. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So I just want to, I always like to take that moment to assure people when they've had to make the choice, you are not killing your dog. You may feel like you are killing your dog. Right. But you guys have how how long is a residency now? Two years, three years, three three to five. Three to five years. Okay. Okay. In that time, you will have seen dozens of animals that needed to be euthanized for their own well being because they were suffering. And I am betting you would not agree to euthanize an animal who had good welfare and was safe to live with.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And I would not refer a dog to discuss with their veterinarian behavioral euthanasia unless I felt in my heart of hearts, and I have, again, years of experience, hundreds of dogs where I have unfortunately had to say to the family, I know you love your dog. I know you love him very, very, very much. But a dog who is spending eight hours a day spinning in circles, chasing his tail, vomiting, lying down, standing up and doing it again is not a dog who has good welfare. You have small children, and you have a dog who is being predatory to your small children. That is not a dog who has good welfare, and that is not safe for your children. And I think that, you know, what's reasonable, that has to come into it. It's reasonable for me to live with a dog who's predatory to small children because I don't have children. I have neither children nor nieces and nephews who come and come. The very, very rare time that a child is on my farm. I have a kennel room, I have kennels, I have a place that my dogs can go for hours at a time where they're safe. So it would be reasonable if I had a dog that was predatory to children to say that's something I can work on. I have the skill set, I have the resources, I have the time, I have the money, I have all the things I need.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_03But if you have a three-year-old and a five-year-old and you have a predatory dog in your home, it doesn't matter if it's a golden retriever, it doesn't matter if it's a Rottweiler. What matters is that that is not safe for your children. Right. And it is not good welfare for the dog to live in a circumstance where he is constantly being triggered to be predatory. Yeah, right. Totally. And so I really I want people to understand I will never judge somebody for when they euthanize a dog for behavior problem, even if I disagree with the choice. I won't judge you because it's not reasonable for me to say, well, I could have solved that problem. So what? Right. It's a different scenario.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, totally.
SPEAKER_03Exactly. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Sue, tell us about the Losing Lulu summit that we have coming up here. Tell us more about that.
SPEAKER_03I am so excited about it. And next year I'm gonna tap one of you ladies to come and talk on it, you know. Oh so we have, I think we are now up to 36 speakers, and it runs for two weeks. And so what it means is every day of the summit we'll release between two and four speakers, depending on how long each of their talks goes. We have to juggle what order they're going in based on how long it is, so we don't ever have a day of nine hours of uh material being released. Right, right. It is covering research into why do animals have behavior problems? It's covering research into what breeds are most common and what happens, you know. Why is why are these problems happening? We have a section that is specifically for talking about behavioral euthanasia in the shelter or rescue. And why is it important that we have it in in shelters and rescues? We're another section all about the impacts on professionals, because I don't know about you ladies, but it is not a good day at work when we have to euthanize one of our clients' dogs for a behavior problem. It's an honor to be included in the journey. I always am willing to go with my clients if they need me to go. So I've been to many, many, many euthanasias for dogs with behavior problems. It is a profound responsibility to be there and to be part of that. It's always a quiet day when I come home and I'm like, there's a bright spark that's not with us anymore. And I wish they were. And sometimes you end up as a professional feeling like a failure. And I want to I want to share that even when I feel like I failed, I know that I didn't. Yeah, but sometimes the heart and the head don't want to talk to each other about this. And my head says, just one more thing. And you know, and and you go to a conference. I I I had a case early, early, early in my career, and it was a stumper. We just couldn't figure it out. And 10 years later, I was at a conference and I went, I know what happened to that dog now. I know what was going on now. And you know, sometimes those sit with us because we sit there and think, if I had just thought more, tried harder, come up with something more innovative, and that can lead to a lot of guilt for professionals. But again, be reasonable. I was three or four years into my career, I am 33 years into my career now. Yeah, and sometimes I'm still gonna get that happen to me. Sometimes it's I'm still gonna look at a case and go, huh, not sure what to do about that. Yeah. Um, I always say the last thing you want to hear your dentist or your behavior consultant say is, ooh, that's interesting. I've never seen that before. But just because I don't know what it is, I had a client come back to me one day really angry with me. She says, You recommended behavioral euthanasia and someone else fixed the problem. And I said, I'm glad I was wrong. Yeah. You know, yeah, because it's it's hard to be a professional who is dealing with animals who may be facing end of life.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03So we have that section. We have a section on how do you make the choice. You know, I have criteria for how I do it, other people have different criteria for how they do it. So there are six sections, and I don't know if I covered them all. But we have a bunch of different sections, and what I want people to understand is this is not just for behavior professionals, this is not just for pet guardians, this is not just for veterinarians or shelter workers, and this is not just for researchers, this is for everybody because at the end of the day, losing Lulu impacts everybody. It does. And we've got somebody coming to talk to us about how to tell your children.
SPEAKER_01We've got I get that question all the time, and I'm like, I have no idea. So that's awesome.
SPEAKER_03I have some ideas now because I did the interview.
SPEAKER_01Yay, but they've got resources.
SPEAKER_03Each one of the speakers, well, I think each one of the, I hope everybody has resources for me. Almost everybody's giving me resources. So there's a resource section. The general admission for this is free. Oh, I did. How do people sign up? How much does it cost? Let's go. All right. So if you go to losinglulu.com, there is a ribbon at the top of the website. Hit that ribbon, it'll take you right to the registration section. Okay. And general admission is free, and that means you've got each speaker for 24 hours and then it goes away and you get another speaker. You get another speaker for the whole two weeks. If you want access to it for longer, we have a three-year pass that you can purchase, and we made a sliding scale. So you can pay$19.99,$49.99, or$79.99, depending on what you want to pay. And that is 35 hours of content.
SPEAKER_00We are applying you'll never get that much information for that money. Yeah, never.
SPEAKER_03No. You can also sponsor the summit if you want. So we have sponsorships you can find out about on our website. Um, but we are applying for continuing ed credits for IAABC, PPG, and CPDT. Great. And the reason that we're charging for the three-year pass is because I have to maintain the website. And the other reason is because I also have to apply for and submit all the continuing ed credits for that. Right. Which is a lot. And next next year I'll see if I can tackle race.
SPEAKER_01Um, that's the whole thing. That's a lot more money. Yeah, that is a lot more money and effort. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03We know that's a lot of work.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03But um, so that's why we've got got the sliding scale. And we want to make it as affordable as possible because I really do believe the more people who learn about behavioral univer euthanasia, the more people who learn and understand that this is not convenience euthanasia. I mean, erase the term convenience euthanasia from the vocabulary. Please, because there is no veterinarian who would consent to a convenience euthanasia. Totally. And we need more people to know about it because we're still in the era right now, okay? 2026. And if you go into work and you say, My cat died this week because of his behavior problem, and I'm really not coping well, you're going to get people who say, but it's just a cat. How hard could it have been? Yeah. And that does not reflect the fact that cats suffer from behavior problems as well. We have Katana Jones coming on to talk to us about cats. We have two cat consultants. We have Lauren Fraser coming on to talk about horses and behavioral euthanasia. I love it. Yeah, we've got Kim Brophy is talking about trauma for us. Nice. And Trish McMillan, who had the first Lulu named Lulu. Trish. She's gonna come and tell us the story of Lulu who passed away because of her behavior problem. And everybody was dumping on her, and everybody, all of her friends were saying, we need a place to talk about this. Yeah. And I said, Well, that can't be heard. Like, like I say, beware of things that can't be heard. You get what you asked for, right? I I got what I asked for because now I have a summit that takes up every waking minute. That's right. Yeah, but you love it.
SPEAKER_00You love it.
SPEAKER_03I do. I get so happy talking about what we're doing because we've changed the world. Yeah. You know, in 2019, when I started losing Lulu, I did not see a single presentation anywhere. Not in the veterinary world, not in the training world, not the behavior consulting world about behavioral euthanasia. And now they are at every single conference. That's good. I mean, I I feel a little bit like egotistical saying, but I did that. That's great. I did that because I did that. I'm gonna be loud and proud about that because yeah, we needed to talk about it, and I'm awfully glad we are.
SPEAKER_00Totally. Yeah. Um, so we talked about our summit, we're all excited about that, all the amazing speakers. And what I want to know next is what other plans, what other things do you have in the wings to support those that have had to make this difficult choice?
SPEAKER_03Okay, so losinglow.com is the website, and I've been running that now for about five years. And on that website, we have a course, and it is called Making the Decision for Families. And this was written because there are very few resources where families can go home, sit down, watch something online, or read something online, discuss it, think about it, process it. And that course is free. And I made it free because I want people to take it. I want them. Some people are gonna take it and go, wow, there are things I didn't think about that I can do. I didn't know about veterinary behaviorists. I didn't know about behavior consultants, I didn't know that these professionals are available online. Because you can talk to behavior. I've worked with clients from Australia. I've worked with clients in Europe, in England, Canada, the United States. A lot of people don't realize that many, many, many of us are available online. Then they go, hey, I can get help. And that means we are saving lives. So making the decision is not about you have to euthanize. It's about let's do an inventory of all the things that you need to know as you go through the process of making decisions. There are other families that watch that and go, I didn't realize my animal was suffering. And we're now at a point where we can't help them, but we can euthanize them, and that letting them go is an important thing to do. We, of course, have the Facebook group that you can join. It's a lot of work. I have a large team of moderators who work with me to make sure that it is a safe space. Okay, nobody is going to give you a hard time, give you grief if you are on Losing Lulu. You and if they are, you report it to a moderator, and you there's just the three buttons, and you you hit the three little docs, and it'll say report to moderation team. We will take care of it. And we do. We remove anybody who is being inappropriate and we remove comments. That's part of what takes up three hours a day, every day of my life. Goodness. But those are our resources we have. We are looking to do the summit again next year. I had hoped that this year we were gonna get enough people that we would be able to have a nest egg to start to consider going to a not-for-profit state. I cannot finance being a not-for-profit. We did not get big enough this year. That means it will not be happening in 2026. Um, I don't know what 2027 will look like, but I do intend on doing this again. We are starting to have a YouTube station so far. All it's got is promotions for the conference, but we'll probably have other things on it as well. And we'll certainly list this podcast in the resources on the on the website once it goes up. So we've got a lot of resources on the website that you can tap into to both make the decision to find a behavior consultant. I think behavior consultants, there are more of us than there are veterinary behaviorists. And we need more of us, and we need more of you. But we're trying. Yeah, yeah, I know. Me too. I'm I encourage all my veterinary student friends. Wouldn't you like to do behavior? Um, but you know, I would like to see veterinarians referring more frequently to people who have either a certificate of dog behavior consulting or a certificate of behavior consulting canine, because those are the two credentials in my field that at the moment have a level of minimum standards. It means that you're talking to somebody who's got some education. And then if I can't help you, what I always tell my clients when they come in the door is if I can't help you, I have a plan. I'll refer you to a veterinary behaviorist. And every behavior consultant, get to know a veterinary behaviorist. Yes, because you need to know who you can send them to. If you are saying I've never had a dog that I couldn't help, you are fooling yourself and there are not enough dogs old. That's true, you know, and and your jobs are a little different than mine, as I talked about earlier. You know, I do that hand holding of like, yeah, yeah, we're going to go and sit in the car in the parking lot near the park. Yes, we are. We're not getting out.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_03And I will be right there with you. Yeah. And how many times have I driven the car because the people are too anxious to even drive the car to the park?
SPEAKER_02No.
SPEAKER_03Well, I'm I'm I don't say, oh, I'm like, it's gonna be a fun afternoon. You know, we I get to spend time with people and their dogs, and we're trying and we're making matters better. That's so true. You know, you guys don't get to do that. You just get to like write prescriptions and draw blood and stuff.
SPEAKER_01That's so true. Yeah. Well, we have done talked about so much today. Um, and here at the Behavior Buzz, we know that you are all very busy bees. Get busy bees! Who live and die by the science like we do. So we'll put all of the references that Sue mentioned from today's show on the website. So buzz on over to the Honeypot page to find more.
SPEAKER_00And Sue, thank you so much. We have talked again about so many wonderful things, so many wonderful resources. I love hearing all of your stories about your life and how you got into this field and all the crazy things that you've done and all the wonderful things that you're helping out with. So this has been such a fascinating discussion about navigating behavioral euthanasia, death with dignity, animal welfare, and finding resources for support no matter who you are.
SPEAKER_01Thanks for coming. Thank you. I've had so much fun. Thanks. We have too. Thank you to our premium sponsor, PRN PharmaCal, the makers of Reconcile. Reconcile is an FDA-approved drug for the treatment of penine separation anxiety in conjunction with the behavior modification plan. PRN PharmaCal is committed to meeting the evolving needs of modern veterinary medicine and dedicated to developing products to strengthen the bond between cuts and their people. And HiveMind, we thank you especially because without listeners like you, we would have nothing to buzz on about. So grab a drink or some electrolytes and join us next time for cocktails and conversations. Follow us on all our socials. Facebook at Behavior Buzz, Instagram at Behavior Buzz, and our website, behaviorbuzz.com. Be positive, be informed. Now Buzz.
SPEAKER_00Okay, if you don't like it, that's fine. He's like, leave it to the professional. He's like, that was terrible, and your ears are awful.
SPEAKER_01And that's why you were even recording.
SPEAKER_03So my assistant is named Laura, and Laura and I have two dogs. There's Pig Pen and the Professor. My dog is the professor, that's Hawkeye. Pig Pen is an Australian shepherd who doubles as her service dog. And Pig Pen can leave the grooming studio absolutely pristine and be dirty by the time he gets in the car. Like he is such a pig pen. And he answers to Pig Pen now. Anyways. So I get to hang out a lot with Pig Pen and the Professor and Laura. And it's two years ago I went, I helped them build her front garden. And she has a lovely little area. It's mostly concrete, but it's got some natural areas that you can build. So we pulled out all the weeds, we put everything, and I thought, what this needs more than anything is a garden gnome. So I got her a gnome and she named it Rupert. Rupert was all good. So Rupert the Gnome was there. And he got knocked over, and you know, like nobody was paying a lot of attention to him. So one day I went and I swapped him out for a different gnome. So Laura says to me, Did you did you go paint my gnome? And I said, No, I didn't paint your gnome. Why? She says, I thought he was kind of duller than he is now, but he he's really bright now. And I said, No, I didn't paint your gnome. Why would I paint your gnome? She says, Oh. And then I got an idea, and this is terrible. I'm a terrible person sometimes. So I went to the dollar store. Oh no. And they had gnomes. So I bought like three or four of them. And what I was gonna do was I was gonna swap them out. But I spend a lot of time with Peg Pen and Laura. And so it's really hard for me to get her her house and swap out the gnomes. So I gave the gnomes to one of our students to swap out. So they went, but they didn't swap them out. They left a second one.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_03So then I get a call and Laura says, So, did you put a second gnome in my garden? I said, No, I did not put the second gnome in your garden? I said, What do you mean you've got a second gnome? She says, I've got a second gnome. I said, What's his name? She said, I don't know. I said, call him Gerpinder. So she has she now has Rupert and Gerpinder. Well, there's actually Rupert one. Ended up in um the trunk of one of our our students, the student who was supposed to swap out. That was Rupert 1. Rupert 2 and Grupindra spent the whole summer in the garden. So I gave the other two gnomes to the students. And they put them in the garden, but she didn't notice for months. Oh no months.
SPEAKER_01Oh no.
SPEAKER_03Oh no. She and I spent this fall looking for a horse for her to buy. And the day that we went to do the vet check on the horse that she eventually bought, she's sitting in her front garden, and I'm driving, and she says, Jesus Christ! Did you put two more gnomes in my garden? I'm like, I did not.
SPEAKER_01Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_03She talked herself into believing that she had had the gnome that I gave her and that she found Gerpinder in her shed. And she gaslet herself to bleed. Gaslet herself. So he takes she then takes pictures of the gnomes and she posts it on the local cot in Guelph. Oh my god. And she says, Do these gnomes belong to anybody? I own my gnomes. So she's in the truck and she's getting more and more uptight and bent out of shape. And I made a mistake. I started to laugh. So she says, What do you know about these gnomes? I said, I didn't put them in your garden. And she says, Well, what else did you know about these gnomes? And I said, Well, I might have known something about the gnomes. So, but it gets better because there are now more gnomes that I didn't know anything about. Oh my god. Where are you coming from? We don't know. Like you're in the dark. We know about Rupert 1, Rupert 2, Gerpinder, Cynthia, Jose. We do not know about Jorge. Oh my god. And we do not, there's another one, I think. Anyways, so there are like seven of them now.
SPEAKER_01Oh my god, that's so.
SPEAKER_03And what she she's afraid of, she's afraid of what's going to happen when the snow melts. Because maybe more gnomes. And she won't let me put a gnome train station. Oh. So if anybody wants to send me a gnome, put it in Laura. A gnome to put it in Laura's.
SPEAKER_02I love it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, if anybody wants to send me a gnome, I told her she's really lucky I'm not rich because we have a statuary company in town and they make a seven-foot-tall snow white. Oh my god. She is so lucky I am not wealthy because I would so get her a seven-foot-tall snow white.
SPEAKER_01That's awesome. Well, send all your gnomes to Sue, Ayla. That's right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I am the gnome repository, and I'll just, you know, give them to our students so the students can take them across town, and then I can legitimately say. Yeah, you didn't. You did not put it there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I have no idea. Excellent. That was so fun.
SPEAKER_04When you eat your smokies, do you eat the red ones glass? Do you sock them very slowly? Or clench them very fast. Eat the tender cold chocolates. But tell me when I ask. When you eat your smokies, do you eat the red one's glass? When you eat your smartties, do you eat the red one's glass? Do you sock the smart soulies? When you eat your smarties, do you eat the red one glasses?