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
HELTER SHELTER - The Candy Man
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Who can calm a kennel with patience, skill, and care, turn a stressed-out shelter moment into something bright and fair? The Candy Man Can.
Who can sort the chaos? Who can read the room? Spot the tiny signs of worry and help shelters beat the gloom? The Candy Man Can.
Join the Amys and their legendary guest, Tom Candy, UK-based shelter behavior guru, professional myth-buster, and owner of what may be the most practical philosophy in animal welfare: the "Fuck It" approach. (Don't worry—it's more evidence-based than it sounds.)
We dive into why shelters sometimes get stuck chasing perfection instead of getting animals into homes, why flexibility beats rigid rules, and how a little less hand-wringing can actually lead to better welfare for dogs, cats, and the people trying to help them.
From behavior assessments and enrichment to adoption policies and the impossible balancing act shelters face every day, Tom reminds us that the goal isn't to create perfect animals or perfect adopters—it's to create successful matches that improve lives.
Come for the British accent. Stay for the science. Leave with permission to occasionally say, "Fuck it," when perfection is getting in the way of helping animals.
Grab a cocktail and pull up your knickers… it’s time to 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! Cheers to Season 3!
Warning: Contains evidence-based opinions, British sarcasm, and occasional profanity in the name of better animal welfare.
- Visit The Honey Pot at behaviorbuzzzzzz.com for episode references and more information about our crackerjack guest, Tom Candy. Thanks, Tom!
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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
So we're, I was like, you know, I knew of Tom. I saw him walking around the conference. I was like, he seems like a really nice chap. I'd like to get to know him. I thought, aren't we gonna throw in some words? I feel like we should throw in some British words. So he seems like a really nice chap. We're gonna go hopknop and talk to him a little bit. I love it.
SPEAKER_05All right. Well, any questions before we actually truly get started?
SPEAKER_02No, I don't think so.
SPEAKER_05Okay, awesome. Welcome, Hive Mind. We are buzzing with excitement about today's guest, Tom Candy, a certified clinical animal behaviorist with the Animal Behavior and Training Council in the United Kingdom, and a certified canine behavior consultant, and certified shelter behavior specialist with IAABC, and a member of the faculty and a C B A T I K-A, that's a lot of letters, with the Grisha Stewart Academy, and host of the Simplifying Animal Behavior Podcast. Tom is joining us today to talk about shelter dog behavior. 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, spelled with a U today because we're pretending we're in the UK. British. Pretending we're British.
SPEAKER_03And I'm your other co-host, Dr. Amy Lern, also a board-certified veterinary behaviorist, and so glad to be chatting with our guests from across the pond. So welcome, Tom. Thank you, Tom. I'm so pleased for you to be here. I can't wait to learn more about shelter behavior and how we can help our friends that are um maybe not having the best lives and waiting to get to their best lives.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be here as well.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we could listen to your accent all day.
SPEAKER_05So we'll just talk.
SPEAKER_03I feel like we should start out with some funny walks. Do you have a lot of Monty Python like enjoyment? Is that one of your favorites? Faulty towers. Those are the things that I think about when I think about British humor.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we definitely tend to be a lot more um uh satire and uh uh more subdued in our humour, but I think it does make it all of the more funny. Um and I straight away to start, yeah, uh somebody rang me yesterday um from the people that I host my website with, and they were like, You have two domain names, and they're pretty much exactly the same. And I was like, Oh yeah, one has a U. And she was like, Yeah, and I was like, Oh yeah, that's because the Americans spell it wrong, and I'm still wanting to find my website. So uh that was quite funny on the phone yesterday because this lady was just like, Why do you have two of the same names?
SPEAKER_05That's so funny. One of my new assistants um is originally from Scotland, and so she's she's on the struggle bus right now, trying to remember to take the you out when she writes behavior.
SPEAKER_03Oh my god, I love that. I love that you thought to do that. That's fantastic and just shows how brilliant you are at solving problems. Right? Seriously. So I wanted to remind everybody that we are coming to you live from the PRN PharmaCal Studios. That's why you have your assistant with you that's giving you a foot massage right now, and beverage fridge, and snacks, and all of those things available, right? I wish I wish we had a studio.
SPEAKER_05So you guys know what PRN stands for, right? Um yeah, I'm pretty sure it stands for planned random nonsense, which is what this podcast did. Random nonsense. No, that would be savage.
SPEAKER_03I'm quoting Tom. That would be savage. No. It actually means prorenata. This is a Latin phrase, meaning as the circumstance arises. And do you know how long the veterinary 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_05Yeah, since 1978. They have been at it almost as long as when the Sex Pistols released God Save the Queen, which was a defining moment for punk rock and apropos for our guest today. You pulled a UK reference. That's fantastic. I love that. I love that. 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.
SPEAKER_03So this is my favorite part of the show. Uh the second part. My favorite part is gonna be getting to know Tom more and talking about all cool Tom stuff. But then my second part that's my favorite part is to find out what's getting us buzzed today. I am drinking a spot of tea, but it's really Long Island iced tea. It must be tea time over there, right?
SPEAKER_05It's tea time. I love it. I'm drinking a pink poodle, which uh is a really pretty drink. It's got vanilla vodka, lemon lime soda, and grenadine. So, Tom, what is getting you buzzed today?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's a good question. Uh, so normally I'd go for something like a Kentucky mule, but for a change in the UK, it's been really warm. Uh, so I'm opting for uh a GT with a twist, because it's gin and tonic, but with lemonade, because tonic is water devil.
SPEAKER_03So it's awesome. Well, remember you can find all of our signature cocktail and mocktail recipes on our website, behaviorbuzz.com. That's behavior buzz with six Z.
SPEAKER_05And you didn't come up with a Z word today?
SPEAKER_04I didn't. I didn't even bother. It's awesome. I didn't even bother. We ran out. It's official. Z are so hard. I just gave up. Two years in, I'm like, that's it. Forget it. That's it. We're done.
SPEAKER_03Oh my gosh. All right. Well, let's dive into actually the meat of the matter. This is what I've been looking forward to for so many weeks. So let's talk a little bit about shelters and kind of the general shelter system. There's lots of different kinds of shelters here in the US, and I don't know if that's true in the UK too, as far as like no-kill shelters and government subsidized shelters. And how do you kind of categorize that and what types of shelters do you work with?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so great starting point. And like everything is a sort of complicated answer. It is fairly similar, however, we don't really use the term shelter. So um when I started working a lot more internationally, that was like quite a big change for me to understand like the difference. Um, but essentially we do have like private funded rescues, uh, and then we have like council pounds. So councils are like our municipalities, I suppose, or states. Um, so any dog that doesn't have a place to go that's found straying uh goes to a council pound for seven days in the UK. After those seven days, they can legally be destroyed unless they have somewhere to go. So some council pounds do their own rehoming, but not like at the same rate at like municipal shelters in the states. So most council pounds in the UK work with a private rescue who take those dogs and then they do the rehoming, all of the stuff that comes with that. So the council pounds are very much like emergency backup, there's a dog on the street that ends up there. However, I'm sure we'll end up talking about it. We don't really have stray dogs in the UK, so there's not just dogs walking down the pavement in the same way as other countries. So generally speaking, they are coming from somewhere. It's just that somewhere is maybe not as obvious as uh, you know, a dog that's being handed over to a private rescue by the owner.
SPEAKER_05So responsible of you guys. Wow.
SPEAKER_03I mean, so that's like our animal control, right? Like the our our our municipality, our police have an animal control and they get the stray, or if there's neglect hoarding, right? Some of those kind of atrocious situations, and that's where those animals go. But when you say rescue, our word for rescue is like random people that like start a group and they save all these animals, and then sometimes it's good, and sometimes it ends up being like another hoarding situation. So it's interesting that that's the word that you use for like kind of the shelter system that we have.
SPEAKER_02Yes, but I would say that our word also represents that. So you can have, you know, the UK's largest dog welfare organization is a rescue, it is Dogs Trust. You can look it up, and they help around 14,000 dogs a year. Wow. But we can also have Merrill down the street who stars you know, British Bulldog rescue and is actually just hoarding 50 bulldogs in her house. Good old Merrill. They always get it. So, yes, rescue is just our all-encompassing word. Uh and then there's different attachments to it. We generally have a couple of large rescues and then a lot more kind of smaller local ones that do things on a more local scale because we're obviously a much more condensed land mass than you've got in the States, right? So there's only so many rescues we can fit uh in one place.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it's true. Do you work with all of those types of organizations, or do you specifically work with the pounds or the the rescues?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so um I've done a right mixture overall. So at the minute I mainly focus on um like staff development and supporting staff rather than like the hands-on dog work. So that tends to be with the the larger rescues or the rescues that kind of have got uh got stuff together and are looking for that extra support. But in the past, um I have worked with other rescues, and I do I am a trustee for Hope Rescue Wales, and they they have four stray dog contracts, so they represent like four areas of the country where they take all of the stray dogs from, like we were just kind of discussing. So there's a real mix, and similar to the states as well, we have like only foster-based rescues, we have kennel-based rescues. Most rescues now are sort of moving towards a hybrid model, which we can definitely go into, but seems to be the way the industry is kind of moving. Um, so I'm actually working at the minute with a rescue in Ottawa looking at their five-year plan for behaviour, and a large part of that is like how do we do more behaviour support in homes to prevent relinquishment? How do we get our trickier dogs into foster so they've got better environments to learn in and develop in and be less stressed in? Um, as well as the like, what do we need from a brick and mortar point of view to make the most of the space?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and speaking of which, like from a brick and mortar point of view, is there like any movement on how to like restructure the way shelters are built to truly decrease stress and improve welfare?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so it's really interesting because I've been lucky to work at um the UK's largest rescue for 10 years now. This is my 10th year, and even through that, like they have 22 sites across the country, so we're pretty much always in a cycle of changing design. And I was doing some staff training last week and we were having this big conversation about how design has changed. Um, so that's it's again it's really complicated. I definitely don't think anybody's got like the perfect design yet, but moving much more to having variable spaces, so some kennels are much bigger, so that you can have multiple dogs in there, or if there's a really big dog that just needs a bit more room, they can do that. Some of the kennels are sort of normal size. A really big focus that we're starting to see in the UK, probably because of the weather, is um trying to have more indoor spaces that we can do things like training, that we can do adoption meets, and then dogs can spend more time out of kennels because ultimately, you know, the the however big the box is, it's a box, right? There's lots of stuff we can do in kennels, but ultimately we want to have the dogs out as much as possible. And I think that's why we're also leaning more towards this idea of actually can we get dogs in homes? Um, and quite a big movement in the UK over the last few years is like home stay or home direct. So actually, if you're struggling with your pet, you ring up, you say, Oh, I need to find a new home for XYZ reason, the dog stays with you, but a rescue organization does the matching, finds somebody, does all of the post-adoption support, but that dog never has to come into a brick and mortar kennels. They stay with their owner where they're comfortable, and they move straight to another home. So that's like quite a big opportunity, I think, for rescues at the minute. That's that's being more and more explored. Because I guess the difficulty is as many we can build as many kennels as we want, and we'll never solve the problem. Like space isn't the issue, even though it's often what we talk about.
SPEAKER_03Right, that's true. Yeah, I love that. I I wish, you know, we sometimes have people that are spend years trying to rehome their dog because they don't want to have that dog go right into the kennel um structured situation. And and many of our physical building kennel shelters, dogs can live in there for years, whether that's just because nobody picks that one for whatever reason, or if they have some kind of behavioral concerns and nobody wants that one because that's more of a a risk for whatever family or home that they're going into. So, how do we work towards helping those dogs, the the ones that are not picked, that spend a lot of time in that brick and mortar kind of prison setting where they don't really get a lot of um outreach to the outside world and and their welfare is maybe not as great.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02It's it's always been one of the biggest challenges. Like, what do we do with long-term dogs? We know kennels uh is not the place for dogs to be. There's very few dogs that can live a really full life in kennels. One of the phrases that um comes around a lot when I'm talking to people is like a life worth living. So, you know, dogs can have a life in kennels. Yeah, is it a life worth living? Is the question that we often need to answer. Yeah, so is it's a big challenge, but it's something that's being talked more and more about because, especially post-COVID, the homes for these type of dogs has plummeted. Like it's so much harder to find a home for a behaviourally challenged dog now versus five, ten years ago. But so much of it is about how do we uh improve the skill set of staff so that they can better support the dog? How do we make the most out of the environment that we've got for that individual? Uh and that's a key thing that we'll come back to. And then what is our pathway out of care? And I think that's another question that we kind of need to ask because if we can't find a clear pathway out of care because we're concerned about the behaviour, we're concerned about risk or organizational risk, or you know, we've tried a couple of homes and they've just not quite worked out, and the dog's always ended up coming back, then I think we need to have that kind of wider welfare conversation. But if we've got a clear pathway, like i.e., you know, the dog's really lovely in the home, but he really struggles to be seen by the vet, so he needs to have a muzzle, we need to try and get him a little bit happier in the vet. Maybe we can um look at alternative options to support that. That's a really clear pathway, and that comes down to staff training, so the staff have the skills to to work on that, and then the environment to try and create the best possible space for learning. So that might look like what enrichment schedules do we use? That might look like how do is the dog in the best kennel that we have, and that's another thing I think is often missed is like sometimes just being on an end kennel. So if you've got a line block of kennels, if you're in the middle, you've got a dog either side of you, if you're on the end, um, you've only got one dog connects to you, that can make a huge difference for a dog, even though we actually haven't changed the environment. So the individual aspect of it is the most complicated but also the most beneficial part because a lot of the time we can't change the kennel environment that the dog's in. We can't change how much time we have. So we need to make the small tweaks to try and get to that that kind of plan uh to get the dog out of care.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_05What other things do you do? I've seen I've worked with shelters where they are trying to do like play groups and and you mentioned, you know, like foster homes versus actually being in the kennel. What what all do you recommend?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, good question. So playgroups is a good place to start because it's a really interesting one in that we don't really have playgroups in the UK. Definitely not on the scale that we have in the States, and it's not because um like they don't work or like we're just against them because we a hundred percent see the benefit that they bring over there. There's like one sort of rescue in the UK that does kind of large group living, and then uh some of the big ones do have like group living facilities, but you know, they're generally sort of like three for maybe five dogs, unless they come in from like a hoarder situation where you basically can pick them out from the the hoarder home and drop them into a large compound and they're already established, right? So then we can pick and choose and take away as as we see fit. But um we do a lot of mixing, so that's the term that we use, but we introduce a lot of dogs together and hopefully get them to play and have a nice time or just enjoy a walk together. But we definitely do don't do large group off-lead mixes in a compound in the same way that you do in the States. Um, and I don't really know why. I think it's just maybe more to do with the space that we have available or how generally UK culture is, like we don't really have dog parks, for example, in the same way that you guys have. So I don't it's pretty common to like take your dog to the park, let them off lead, and let them play with other dogs, but like as part of a walk. Like I don't think in the same way British people would like be like, oh, let's go to the dog park and just let the dog off lead to run for a few hours and then go home again. So I think it's like the outside culture as feeded into um rescue, which is super cool.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's really interesting. Yeah, I so I have questions from that discussion. Like, I think that the United States has uh moved away from some of the ways that they treat their dogs appropriately like dogs, right? And so it's a daily walk, and also then they get to play, and those dogs are very responsive. They have a great relationship with the owner. Here, people are like on their phone, and like the dog just happens to be an accessory that's attached to their arm, and so they're not really walking the dog for the dog in every circumstance, they're just walking because I think they think they have to. Um, and and so that is interesting to me that they walk their dogs and then there's this park, and the dogs are off-leash and they come back to their owner, and it's just like this peaceful bliss. And I'm like, okay, well, all of our dogs are like barking and running into traffic and like trying to attack somebody, and it's like just a nightmare like that would never happen here. So that's one of my talking points.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, I probably explained it in a really prettified way because your example, you the first word that you just said was, and then the dogs come back to them, which is I think the part that often is missed. Oh, okay. So, yes, I do think it is slightly different in culture, but we're certainly seeing the same things. Like you do see owners on their phone not really paying attention to the dog and just walking the dog. I live really close to the beach, which is amazing, and the beach that I live near is dog-friendly all year round, which is quite rare for the UK, and I have a semi-reactive dog, and it is awful. Um, in the winter, it's great because we're like the only people on the beach in the summer, particularly because people like come down to the so I live in Devon, which is at the bottom of the UK. People come here on holiday, so then the dogs on holiday, so they just kind of let them run wild. So, yes, we still have a lot of dogs that do run up to you, uh, and it's okay, they're friendly, is definitely uh a transferable phrase over here. Um, but I just think the infrastructure's different, right? So, I mean there are a couple, but I don't they definitely haven't taken off. Like, there isn't a space in a park that is fenced off for dogs to go. And uh I was in Toronto last year, and it like I was quite surprised because that was like the first dog park I'd seen in person, and there was like a large dog space and a small dog space, and they were both the same size, and um yeah, we don't really have that, but what you will have, like I said, is like a park that normally has like kids' football fields in, and then the dogs are let off there, so it's a lot freer because there's more space attached to it, and it isn't like a space that you're going to let your dogs interact, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. So my second follow up question, sorry, is that talking about the people in shelters, most that our um employees are working the staff? Most of our shelter systems have like one or two paid staff members and then a ton of volunteers. So we have a lot of turnover. And when you're talking about staff training and how to help the dogs by helping the staff, I don't know that we have the same follow-through because the volunteers just love dogs. They just love dogs. They just want to be there and they just want to be with the dogs. And so they don't always have the same structured education and training to help the dogs the best way. Does that make sense? So do you guys have mostly paid staff or are they also volunteers? They just are more responsible.
SPEAKER_02Again, it depends. Um, it depends on the size of the organization. Lots of rescues in the UK are moving towards all paid staff because I think we've realized some of those difficulties. They're 100% are still like 100% volunteer organizations, too. Um, but they do tend to be the foster-based organizations because once you have a building, things do change. I mean, would they all like more staff? 100%. Um, but I think the big difference in the UK is particularly over the last few years, a lot of the legislation and laws around volunteers have changed. So actually in the UK, you can't use a volunteer in the same way that you can use a paid member of staff. So one example is paid member of staff can give out tablets to the dogs that are obviously prescribed by a vet. A volunteer can't do that because that's seen as like too much responsibility, and somebody should be being paid for that responsibility. Um, so it's really changed. You know, when I first started 10 years ago, so I've been in rescue for actually I worked out this morning, it's like 22 years. Um when I officially started like full-time um 10 years ago, our volunteers like if if you had a green, super easy dog, the volunteers would just go in the kennel, take the dog for a walk, do do everything. Uh now that's not really the case. Generally, a member of staff will get the dog out for the volunteer and then they'll take them off and do and do happy things. Now, part of that is because trying to find green, super easy dogs in the shelter system like doesn't exist anymore. Yeah. Um, like I remember going to do some filming with a colleague just like fairly soon after COVID, and we were like, Oh, like we need some dogs that we can pick up and put on a vet table and pick up and put in a car because we were filming four foster carers. Um, and they were like, so 40 kennels, and they were they were like, Oh, there's this pug called Jeff, he's probably okay, and I was like, Yeah, yeah, cool. And then they were like, Yeah, that's it. And I was like, So you've got like 30 dogs and two members of behaviour staff, and what you're saying to us is the only dogs that we can get out of Kennel is Jeff the Pug. So maybe something's gone wrong here, um, and that is a trend that we've kind of seen continued. So that's obviously part of it, but then the other side of it is um the the British government in their infinite wisdom has changed the rules around volunteering, so it's actually quite difficult to have a fully volunteer-run facility in the same way. So, yes, I would agree with what you said. I think we have more staff, but I also think organizations are become across both sides of the pond are becoming more aware of um volunteer training because, like you said, there is there is high turnover. Part of that is it's an emotional role, part of that is people don't really understand what it's like to work in shelter. Um, the number of times I get sent like a oh, that's really cute, you must work with puppies all day, video off Facebook, and then it's like somebody being pulled over by a St. Bernard or or mouthed or you know, yeah, um it's like yeah, yeah, that's what I do. Um so I think you know that's a feature too. But also if we think about like what motivates people, like one of the models that I really like is Daniel Pink, who talks about like autonomy, so the ability to do our own thing. It's quite tricky to do with volunteers, but we can do it. But another big part of that is mastery, so actually recognising who your like core group of volunteers are and then upskilling them is how you then create a sort of more stable pool. So I'm um meeting with uh an organization after this, actually, and they've got about 12 volunteers who've been around for a couple of years, and they're kind of escalating them to like the next level uh to work with some of the trickier dogs, which hopefully is going to be really helpful for the staff, and they're also gonna engage those volunteers and keep them around longer as well. Nice.
SPEAKER_05Um, Tom, in your work, you meant I mean you mentioned people can give tablets, right? Like, are you using or you seeing widespread use of anxiolytic medication like trazodone and gapapentin, that kind of thing?
SPEAKER_02Uh yeah, definitely. So, again, it's another thing that I think has changed a lot over the last few years. I remember having when I first started having a conversation with like a senior behaviorist about a dog that I'd seen like outside of the shower who I felt needed medication, and they were like, Oh, uh no, let's just try some other stuff first. Oh, have you seen the dog in the house? Like this, that, and the other. Um, whereas now it's like drugs for everyone. Um, not quite, although it does feel like it's maybe moving that way a little bit, which I'm sure we can talk about. But yeah, so it is something that has evolved over time. I think because we generally recognise the benefits if you get it right.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02So, you know, there's been so many cases that I worked with that probably 100% would have ended up in euthanasia had we not used behaviour medication, you know, like the similar cases that we can compare across and we know the outcomes. Yeah, we don't have the data, but it a hundred percent has saved a lot of dogs' lives. I've also used seen it used in ways that um go against that conversation we had earlier about, you know, what is our plan, what's our route out of rehoming. Yeah. Um so I do think it's a difficult thing to use well in shelters, but a hundred percent it's being used more and more, which I think is only a good thing, generally speaking.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, that makes sense. Uh I agree that our job for a rescue, for a shelter, for a kennel is to get that dog out of there. And unfortunately, sometimes that doesn't happen for a while or sometimes ever. And while they're there, oftentimes they need help with their anxiety, but we shouldn't use medications to justify keeping them there. We should use medications to help them and hopefully get them out. And again, our focus should be getting them out. So let's talk about that a little bit, right? Like how do we find from a shelter perspective, how do we find that adopter that is the perfect match? How do we um help that transition to a new home or increase our re-homeability for that dog so that we can shorten their stay as much as possible?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, great question. I was just gonna jump back to the meds though, because I had more to say.
SPEAKER_01Uh we love it.
SPEAKER_02So we love meds. Um so yeah, I think the big thing with medication is what we were sort of saying earlier. One of the biggest things that we struggle with in shelter is that we can't change the environment. Like the kennels you've got are the kennels you've got. We often can't find foster homes for these trickier dogs. We don't want to be adopting dogs out that aren't ready. So medication can help in those situations because we can sort of change the internal landscape of that dog when we can't do anything for the external. I think where it becomes even more complicated in shelter than it does if we're looking at medication in private behaviour work, is then we need to take that dog, put them into a home, which medication can be really helpful with to support that transition. But now we've got an owner who wasn't involved at the start, who's got a dog on medication and often prefers the dog, particularly if we're thinking about like fast acting medication. So um Amy Pike mentioned like Trouser and Gabapentin. I really like I'm not a vet, just saying for the for EK listeners, I'm not a vet, I'm not stepping out of remote, but like I really like like clonidine, uh that's really great for some shelter dogs because it just knocks that arousal right down. Um and lots of people then struggle with the dog off said medication, so that's like another challenge that we have to think about. Um, and I do think is important when we're talking about it in shelter. Like, I know there's some shelters in the states, particularly, that it's like, oh, drugs for every dog when they come in first two weeks, keep everything nice and quiet, everybody's really chill. Um, but often those dogs then get re-homed on those medications, and that the shelter nor the owner has seen the true dog in infant commas. Um I have like a huge ethical bugbear with that, as I'm sure both of you also do. But I feel like it would be remiss not to mention that when we're talking about anziolytics.
SPEAKER_05No, totally. And and a lot of owners, uh at least here in the States, like they're like, I don't want my dog on meds, right? So then, or the veterinarian that they subsequently take that dog to is not comfortable with behavior medications in general and doesn't know, like, should we taper, should we continue this trazodone for a lifelong? Like, what are the risks of that? All that it's kind of a hot mess sometimes.
SPEAKER_02So, yeah, agreed. And it's the same in the UK, like I think it's becoming more prevalent now because vets it's just talked about more, right? Like, like anything. It's it before it was really taboo, nobody wanted zombie dogs, nobody wanted it to change their dog, and we know like if that is happening, then something's wrong, is the wrong med, or we're using older medication or whatever. Um, but now vets are more confident with some medication, like Triceratopentin, and therefore sometimes that's passed out. And as a non-vet, you can still be a bit like, oh, okay, cool, that was a choice that maybe I didn't um see coming. That was a choice. Oh, yeah, that was a choice. And then in the UK we also have like an additional complication, which is the Veterinary Surgeons Act contains a cascade, uh, which is how vets have to choose which medications they're prescribing. Oh, so they are legally required. I think it's actually across Europe, but um certainly within the UK, they are legally required to consider a medication which is licensed for the problem in the species, right? Licensed for the problem out of species, licensed for a different problem, etc. etc. Yeah. Um, and throughout that, what isn't included is cost, which is right, maybe possibly, depends which lens you look through, right? This is turned into a huge tangent, sorry, but I'll finish the point. Um and where that becomes difficult is like licensing, because of that, like we've just said, vets have to reach for a licensed product. So a couple of years ago, actually, probably only two years ago, we saw a massive spike in the spending on behaviour medications at one of the organizations I was working at. And the vet team, rightly so, had a minor freak out and was like, Oh, we've gone from spending X amount of money, that's like nearly doubled like what's going on. Are all our dogs really stressed? And no, it was just because Fluoxine became licensed, became reconciled, uh, which is the same as you guys have. Yeah, um, and the price went from like 7p a week to like like 10 pounds a week, like hugely different sums because of the licensing. So, yeah, we have that added additional challenge, which is always fun to work around.
SPEAKER_05That is interesting. Yeah. Well, we talked a lot about dogs. What about our cat friends? Are there like do you work at all with cats in the within the shelter system?
SPEAKER_02Or somewhat, yes. Not it's not like part of my big day-to-day. I work for a dog-only organization. Got it. Um, but yeah, I do I have previously done cats and I do some cat stuff, uh, not as much as I want. I actually think cats are much more fun than dogs in terms of behaviour modification, right? Because there's just generally more to it. Like, there's more to think about, like where are their litter trays, where are their food? Whereas a dog, it's generally like stand really far away from the scary thing and teach the dog to do something different and then gradually get closer. Like, that's obviously super simplified, but that is desensitization and cat conditioning in one. Whereas a cat is like, oh, maybe they hate the other cat because you've only got half of a food bowl and you need four because obviously that's what it needs. And have both cats got core territories? And oh, what if something two blocks away is scaring the cat because they're so much more sensitive? Like, I just think it's much more nitty-gritty. Whereas you turn up to a barking dog and you pretty much know roughly what you're gonna do, don't you?
SPEAKER_05Like, yeah, yeah, so true. I love it. What recommendations do you have for shelters um to improve welfare of cats within the system?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, cats in a way are easier and more complicated because, like we've just talked about, they actually have quite a lot of like rituals and species-specific needs that dogs tend to be a bit more flexible with. But in terms of shelters, that can actually help us out a little bit because it means we often know a lot more what we need to provide. So things like um having the availability to use height, so vertical space as well as uh horizontal space, um, having heidi places that the cat has multiple exits from, so the first few days they can hide away. Um, and I particularly like if we're able to provide like heidi spaces that we can then gradually um withdraw, so still having a hidey space in the cat area that you're using, but something like a little um like camo net, so you've got like some holes that the cat can look through but they feel like they're covered, that can be really great because then gradually we can also like reduce that space um in a space where they feel safe. So for cats, it's a lot more about how do we create the environment. Also, where we're luckier with cats is they do tend to have a bit more leeway in terms of problem behaviours. So, you know, you can often find somebody that's willing to take a cat. So if we make them as happy as possible in our in our shelter environment, we often don't need to think too much about behavior modification. Whereas with our dogs, if you've got a dog that's uh kicking off on lead uh every person they see, that's a really hard sell. So we kind of need to improve that before the dog goes home.
SPEAKER_03Oh, that's really interesting. Yeah. Yeah. So let's talk a little bit more about some of the things that you are a specialist at. And so when we're building the skills to help these pets in the shelter, when we're teaching the staff, you know, how does staff get that information? Tell me a little bit about your mentorship program and the advice and the support system that you have available for trainers in general, but specifically training for shelter staff.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so I think so much of it is putting it into practice. Generally, if you are a shelter person, you're not wanting to sit down and take in information through PowerPoint or through things like that, through reading. And part of that is because we tend to be more active if we've gone to that sort of role. But I think a big consideration that we need to have with staff training is because of resourcing, because there's never enough people and there's never enough time, you're always thinking back to oh, I need to do X with that dog. That dog hasn't been out yet. So I'd love to do this training, but these dogs haven't been out yet. And I'm I've had that conversation so many times. So we try and do like small bits of learning through PowerPoint or things like that, and then look straight at how do we apply it. So going out with people and dogs and just pointing out things that they're not doing, and really highlighting that actually when we're thinking about training for problem behavior or training for behavior to move us towards rehoming, it can be part of day-to-day life, and that's often the conversation we end up having with staff when they're saying things like, Oh, yeah, I don't have time to do that five-minute training session that you've asked them to do. It's like, right, okay, how many times does the dog look at you when you're on a walk? How many opportunities to have to reinforce that dog for their name? How many times do you have opportunities to have to reinforce that calm behaviour for not jumping up, for engaging, for doing anything that we can reward, which is pretty much any behaviour that we like to see, right? So I try and focus a lot on like how do we actually take this knowledge and apply it straight away, day one on the job. Um, so thinking about how we kind of build people up and then bring it in that way. So we can do that through group sessions and getting people to think about it, lots of post-it note parties, so getting people to write down ideas and share them. Uh, because the other thing that we know is if you put a bunch of shelter people in the room, probably not going to talk to each other. Um so too introverted, yeah, too introverted, too much to do, mostly neurodivergent, massive sweeping fame, but it is true. Um, so lots of fidget toys as well. That is like my top tip for shelter-based training. Fidget toys and food tends to be a good way, but um yeah, in the seriousness, it's about how actually how do we show people that this learning is super cool. So, for example, we just talked about behavior medication, right? So I could spend an hour talking about the different types of medications and which neurotransmitters they work on and how that's beneficial, but that learning is just going to be lost if they're not particularly interested in it. So, what we try and do is have that available for the people that want it, but focus a lot more on right, okay. Your role is to think about how the dog's feeling, report that back so that a vet can make a decision. So, this is a dog, here's a case that looks like it, um, they're really struggling in kennels, like what are the things that you'd be most worried about? Right, ah, cool. Okay, those things are a really great indicator that this dog might want medication. So, for example, so thinking about how do we get knowledge across in a way that's going to be instantly applicable is like what I uh try and do a lot in in all of the training that I'm involved with and um and my team in the organization that I work in. So yeah, it's cool. It's been really interesting to do it because I went to university and you're taught in quite a different way, especially 15 years ago, and now to see like how we actually run our sessions and stuff is so cool.
SPEAKER_01Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I love that like on-the-job training, like that I think is really much more valuable than just the PowerPoint presentation, much more practical.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. So if a like a shelter, if somebody's listening to our podcast right now and a shelter wants to reach out to find you and get help, like what information do they need? How can they reach out to you?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so the best place is my website. So that's simplifying shelter behavior with or without the E. Either way. Um and same for Facebook and Instagram. Um, and I think we briefly mentioned I've also got a podcast, so that is like shelter specific. Um, hopefully both of the AMEs are gonna feature in the future. Um really thinking about like how do we practically apply things in shelter in the difficult environment, and that's on your Spotify, Apple Podcasts, all of the places. I love it, I love it.
SPEAKER_05And if there's one thing that you want our hive mind to take away from today's episode, what would it be?
SPEAKER_02So it's actually something that we've not talked about, but the one big thing that I always think about with shelter work is like flexibility. So the the the one answer to every single training and behaviour question in the world, which is it depends. It depends. Um but my second answer to every rescue question is fuck it. So if you've done an appropriate risk assessment and you've thought about the options, sometimes we just need to try things. So maybe the home that walks through the door isn't your pitch perfect home in the sky thinking for this dog, but they are really willing to learn, they're really keen, this dog's had no other interest. Why don't we just try it and see what happens? Or hey, we don't know if this um dog's gonna live with a cat, but the owner's got a really good setup, they can separate the dog and cat to start with, we can build it up. Why don't we sensibly try it? And I think that's why I'm saying it's not it's not just a complete relaxation of the rules, and and but we need to be flexible in our approach to adopters, to training and behaviour, to everything that we do because the environment is so constricting on us that we need to be able to take flexibility in these other places.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, get your home. Fuck it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, fuck it. Uh I remember rehoming this little staffy called Vespa, um, and a little sort of staffageable terrier, white and black dots, really pretty, absolutely crazy in kennels, would just rip everything up, tear everything up, rip in all the staff's clothes, just 100% on the goal all of the time. And this woman came in and was like, Um, I'd like to adopt Vespa. So we were like, amazing, great. And then she showed us a photo of her cat, and we were like, hmm, I don't know if this is gonna work. And the the woman was like, No, I'm really keen to try. Like, I've had the cat's really used to dogs. I've had dogs before who chase, I think it'll be fine. So we like obviously gave them lots of advice, made sure the cat was safe, um, and sent the dog home. And I think like two days later, we just got a photo of Vespa like asleep with the cat like on her chest. And I always just think of that like, yes, we need to be safe, yes, we need to be sensible, but sometimes for these tricky dogs to get Out of care, we need to stop looking for the perfect solution. Because it perfect doesn't exist.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, totally. Exactly. Yeah, I love that. I was in vet school, I think it was my sophomore year, and I tried to rescue a standard schnauzer from like our local rescue, and they would not adopt to me, even though I've owned schnauzers my entire life, but like they wouldn't adopt to me because my fence was five feet and not six feet. And I was like, standard schnauzers are not known to be big jumpers in general. So like I but I was like, you gotta be kidding me.
SPEAKER_02So also you're on a you own a leash, right? Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, we could talk about it for hours, but that is another big shift that is slowly happening and 100% needs to happen in shelter across the board. Like we said, that flexible approach because yeah, these these random rules that are sort of plucked from thin air years ago, like yeah, you must have a six-foot fence, you can only leave the dog for four hours XYZ, are really damaging. I remember a dog that I was working with um in foster, it had been in foster a long time, quite reactive to other dogs, really dedicated, um foster carers, and they were really struggling, and they were like, We're gonna have to bring her back. Um, she wasn't getting home. The dog loved w being with them, and they loved this dog. And we were having a conversation, I was like, right, okay, what is the what's the actual problem here? Because we know she's reactive, you're working on it, she's improving. You know, what why are you thinking that you need to bring her back? And what they said was well, we love doing coast walks with our friends, like we like doing long walks with our friends, but we don't want to take the dog with us because it's quite narrow, she reacts, it's stressful for us, it's stressful for her. So we leave her in the house, but that means we can only go somewhere that's like an hour away, so that we can do a two-hour walk and then drive the owl back because she can't be left for more than four hours. And I was like, Okay, cool, right. What's she like? Like, do you have a camera or anything in the house? And they were like, Oh yeah, we do, actually. I was like, what does she do when you sleep, when you're not there? And they were like, Oh, she just sleeps. She occasionally moves, she gets up, she's really not bothered. I was like, right, okay, do you do you leave her over where she sleep overnight? Oh yeah, she sleeps downstairs. I was like, right, okay, she okay with that? Yeah, great. I was like, so I'm gonna tell you a secret, and they were like, What? And I was like, four hours is completely made up. I don't nobody knows where it's come from, it's just been like a shot in the dog thing that people want. And I said, Sometimes I go scuba diving and we go to an island in the middle of the ocean near us, and that takes time, and because of this because of the sea, it moves in tides, it means I'm sometimes out of the house for 12 hours and the dog's alone. And is that every week? No. Is she stressed by that? No. Does she toilet as soon as I open the door? No. Sometimes she still waits another hour on a walk before going to the toilet. So if this keeps the dog in the home with you and she's okay with it, and you're okay with it, just go for your walks without her. And they were like, oh wow, and then they kept that dog yeah, forever. And I think they've still got her. So flexibility in our re-homming approach is a big takeaway that I think we all need to think about.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, fuck it.
SPEAKER_02So it depends, and fuck it. That's all we do.
SPEAKER_03I love that. I love that. Oh my goodness. So I also would love to talk to you about shelter stuff forever. Like I could talk to you for hours. I just love listening to you talk. But I also want to get to know or our audience to get to know you more as a person. So I want to have you tell us something off topic. Like, it was cool that I didn't know you went scuba diving, like something like that. Share a special story or funny anecdote. Do you um have a special football club that you, you know, cheer on, or like tell me something?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no, it's good. I think the biggest thing about me is I am a complete water baby. So my way of you know getting out of my head, getting out of the stressful shelter life is just anything to do with the water. So I paddleboard, I surf, or sometimes I kayak, I canoe, I scuba dive, I swim, and that is the the massive benefit of us. We moved last year to only be five minutes closer to the sea, but um, it's made such a big difference. So I'm really grateful of about where I live. And then I have a funny story about a football team. So uh one of you American lot uh sent me a voice note last week when I was driving home to be like, oh, that was such a good game. Um, England, it was so close. I don't know why England didn't let uh Cuba win because they're the underdog and they scored in last minute, and I was like, okay, so firstly, I'm Welsh, which is a different country, so I don't care about England anyway. B, I have absolutely no interest in football, and C, I've been driving home from a shelter for the last four hours, so I also have no idea what you're on about. Um so it's it's been quite funny because I do now live in England and it has been the World Cup. Um I've just yes, I've had no interest. I'm now very glad that it's over.
SPEAKER_03Oh my goodness. I love it. It's funny. So because you said you're Welsh and football is not really exciting to you, are there other sports that are? Like I just did a trip to Ireland and I was watching um rugby and hurling, and uh obviously uh people play cricket in other places and so like is there a different sport that is something that you care about, or you're like, nope, go I'm at the beach. I don't care.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, pretty much nowadays. I have recently started mountain biking, which is uh really good fun. Um it's also really good for switching off because if you feel like you're just constantly going to die, it's really hard to stress about work or worry about what's going on. Which is basically how I feel now. I just feel like I'm gonna die every minute of it. So yeah, um, but yeah, growing up uh we did quite a lot of rugby. So rugby is like the Welsh sport, that's like the big one. And I used to go to matches with my dad and stuff, but um yes, my my sports are definitely a lot more kind of water related.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah, I'm a water baby too. I totally appreciate that. So but I don't live near the beach.
SPEAKER_02Oh no. I knew it. And I did not make it into the lake or Burlington like some of the other American.
SPEAKER_03Oh, it would have been freezing cold.
SPEAKER_05So cold.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that is not cool if that.
SPEAKER_05Super, super cold. Well, here at the Behavior Buzz, we know that you are all busy bees GET busy bees! Who live and die by the science like we do. So we'll put all of the references from today's show on the website. So buzz on over to the Honeypot page to find those.
SPEAKER_03And I want to thank Tom so much for joining us today. This was so much fun. It was really fun. And a fascinating discussion about making shelter more comfortable, um, as well as helping pets find the perfect home or achieving a life worth living. Thank you, Tom, for coming. We appreciate you being here.
SPEAKER_02Thanks for having me. It was really good. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Thank you to our premium sponsor, PRN Pharmacal, the makers of Reconcile. Reconcile is an FDA-approved drug for the treatment of canine 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 pets and their people. And HiveMind, we thank you especially because without listeners like you, we would have nothing to buzz on about. And that's Buzz with a Zed. So good. Girl, Zed, I should have said Z. Oh my god! So grab a drink 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_04Okay, if you don't like it, that's fine.
SPEAKER_01All right.
SPEAKER_04I just gave up. Two years in, I'm like, that's it, forget it. That's it. We're done.
SPEAKER_03So anyway, we're playing uh we're playing um Portal. Portal Knight. Yeah, yeah. So Tom, I was like, hey Tom, I want to play Portal with you. I think it'll be really fun. Uh I'm excited to play. So I sit down at a table with Tom and some random other person. And uh, and this other person, you know, everybody is um at IAABC. So you could be amazing PhD somebody, you could be like world-class trainer, awesome, you could be brand new beginner. We don't know who you are, and I don't know who this person is. And so we're ending up being partners. And I was like, so I want to get to know more about like how difficult I make my thing, right? Right. So I'm like, hey, nice to meet you. You know, do you have any training experience? Like what's your level of training? And and the woman looks at me and she goes, Oh yeah, I'm uh I've been training for a while, but I haven't, I'm not doing it, you know, on a day-to-day basis. And I was like, okay, you know, so I'll I'll make it easy.
SPEAKER_04Oh no.
SPEAKER_03Fuck me. It's Laura Lawless. I think I made her like just like silent in the corner. He's just sitting there, just like whatever. And so I think I made her like jump over a couple of things and and like put her ball in a cup or something like that. And Camille comes over and she goes, Oh my gosh, I have all the pros right here. And I look at Lori and I look at Camille and I was like, What? And she goes, Lori Lawless. And I was like, I just want to hide under the table and dominate right now. I just wanna go away. I was so mortified. Oh my god, that's amazing. I've never said a word the entire time.
SPEAKER_05Oh my god, he's like, I'm just gonna let this play out. I just can't wait to see what you do in typical learn fashion. She was an asshole.
SPEAKER_04Put in mouth put in mouth, horrific disaster. Zed, I should have said Zed!