Dr Edward: 0:02

Hello and welcome everyone to the Whole Energy Body Balance podcast, where we explore all kinds of possibilities, practices and philosophies that bring greater healing, connection and harmony to pets, people and horses. So we aim to inspire you. We may well challenge you a little bit in a beautiful way, and we really want to inspire you to grow and create positive changes and healing in your life and in the lives of all the beings you care for. So if you're interested in that, you're in a good place. I'm your host, dr Edward the Healing Vet, and I help deeply caring people, pets and horses unfold profound healing and healthy relationships through somatic awareness, loving, therapeutic touch, intuitive perception, kind training and energy work. I also practice worldwide as an intuitive, integrative veterinarian and healer, helping people, pets and horses.

Dr Edward: 0:56

So we've got Andrew Hale with us, who started off as a psychologist yeah, that's right, human with humans, human psychologist and now is a certified canine behaviourist and he's the behavioural consultant for Pet Remedy, proud to be an expert advisor for canine arthritis management and a Kids Around Dogs trainer. And Andrew has a business called Dog Centred Care, which focuses on supporting a dog-led, emotionally centred approach to providing the best care and support for dogs and their caregivers. And what we're going to be doing today is exploring the emotional experience together. But before we start that, we always start with this question, which is Andrew, who are you, why do you do what you do and how did you get to this point in your life?

Andrew Hale: 1:52

Well, thanks for having me, Edward, and that's a very deep place to start, isn't it? How am I? That's very profound.

Andrew Hale: 2:00

No, so I think. So I've got a human psychology background and I made the shift over to animals. Actually, that all came about because of my own breakdowns. I had a really big breakdown mental health breakdown in my 30s, very much based on my trauma as a child, and this is why I'm very it's all connected, though I share those things because it's relevant to the story, I guess, because I mean we can unpack that a little bit in a bit. But so, yeah, so I was working in human psychology, human therapy, and then I had my breakdown, and then I had something like a breakdown to help you to re-evaluate life, and then I made a shift over to working with animals and that's why I think I'm really passionate about one thing that's kind of connected through all along is this real interest in the individual lived experience, whether that's a human or the animal lived in my experience, whether that's a human or the animal.

Andrew Hale: 3:10

Uh, focusing specifically on dogs now, but it doesn't matter whether it's a dog, a cat or a horse uh, you know, we all share three very fundamental things.

Andrew Hale: 3:14

For me uh, the need to uh feel heard, especially when we're trying to communicate. Need, uh, we all want to feel safe, physically safe, of course, but emotionally and socially safe especially, and we all want to find relief. For me, edward, the most important it's one of the most important words in the psychology of behavior really is the notion of relief. Because when you experience something you know, especially something that isn't particularly pleasant physical pain, emotional pain, social pain, whatever you seek relief, and a lot of challenging behaviors that we see in young children and animals are actually just relief seeking behaviors. So there's a connection there for me with all those things. So that's kind of who I am and why I do what I do, and a lot of it like this is often the case a lot of my motivations in life, even going down the, I look back now and recognize even pursuing human psychology was more about finding myself and understanding my trauma, understanding what happened to me, happened to me and, um, uh, yeah, so, so that that's.

Andrew Hale: 4:31

It's all very neat really in that. In that case, really um a lot of threads there, but they all kind of tie together.

Dr Edward: 4:36

okay, so with with the emotional experience of beings and I think I think we can confidently say that humans and animals have very similar kinds of emotional experiences what are the major emotions that you understand and can see and work with in the dogs that you're working with?

Andrew Hale: 4:58

I think it's worth framing the emotional experience before we go into some of the more specifics, because this is the big thing for me, that the emotional experience lens is the one I like to look through because, like you say, we all have an emotional experience. So that emotional experience is how we feel, how we get affected by things, how we cope with things, the different things that motivate us all these, these kind of things. It's that experience of how we feel, and especially with animals. There's been this thing that's been said in the past what's to get said now? That well, we don't know how animals think and feel, so we're not going to go there. Uh, that's changed a bit over time, but, um, uh, but that has ended up with a focus on just looking at changing behavior. So we don't know how they think and feel, so we're just going to look at behavioral output. Can we get more of it or can we get less of it? Um, but the thing is about the emotional experience. We all have one. The, the horse has one, the dog, the cat, us.

Andrew Hale: 5:58

But the second thing about it is it is unique to us as an individual. You know, we are all a unique combination of our genetics, our early experiences, our trauma, our secure and insecure attachments, our learning histories, all these kind of things you know, come together, which is why guess what it's complicated. Um, so the point there is whilst, yes, I don't know how a dog in this case talking about dogs thinks and feels, but the point is edward, I don't know how you think and feel. That's the point. So do I ignore that and just make you do stuff and behave in a way that I deem to be appropriate?

Andrew Hale: 6:33

Um, or do I find ways of finding out more about how you think and feel as an individual? There are a lot of things that connect us, of course, and I think when we think about, uh, you know, um, the, the primary emotional states of feeling, anger and fear and joy and all these kind of things, we can look at that, but for me, it's a case of utilizing what science gives us. Um, uh, but especially when I'm working with the dogs I work with, um, I want that dog. Yeah, I'm quite happy with the study of one. As I say, I don't necessarily wait for a, for the next paper to come out to tell me something it's more of, actually, especially on the emotional side of things.

Andrew Hale: 7:16

I'm just waiting for science to to kind of yeah exactly so I think it's important to be to be led by the science, but not necessarily defined by it. I think you know we have to. So that's just my personal view on it. But yes, so that's the thing about the emotional experience is, you know, we all have them and we have to be mindful, for me, that there's all these different camps out there regarding behaviour, all these different kind of philosophies, ideologies and scientific disciplines. The same happens in human, human side of things, as well as animal behavioural science. For me, there's only two types of behaviour. I think when we see it like this, we then start to really understand why we have to think about things, especially when working with animals, in a slightly different way. The first is the behaviour we judge in others, and we have to understand what that's about and the problems that come with that, uh and secondly, the behavior we do ourselves.

Andrew Hale: 8:13

Uh, so, um, uh, yeah, we are, we are kind of designed to judge our brains like uh and um, and especially we create this kind of safe world view, if you like, especially as adults, based on our belief systems, our value systems, and our brain doesn't want to have to change that very much. You know, appraisals, cognitive reappraisal is quite difficult. So actually a lot of the judgments we make about another sort of saying a minute ago, about, you know, do I get you to behave based on my judgments of what is safe and right and everything else? And and this brings us on to that kind of good bad continuum which we can look at in a minute um, but when we think about the behavior we do ourselves, guess what? It's complicated, it's complicated, that's the point. And our behavioral outputs get more, especially for us as humans, because a lot of our behavioral outputs are managed and molded through societal conformist norms.

Dr Edward: 9:09

Yeah.

Andrew Hale: 9:10

So I think when we start thinking about these things, it starts to open up how important it is, if we are going to turn up to influence, change, modify or whatever the behavior of another living sentient being, we need to be really aware of what we're doing and what that behavior actually represented for that animal in the first place, or the human indeed, yeah, um, I like to think of the word inspire.

Dr Edward: 9:40

I want to inspire animals to to change their behavior. I know it's a little change in language, but it implies that they want to change, that there's value in them changing.

Andrew Hale: 9:51

You know, I like that and I think, um, I I use the word invitation, I think it's similar to me uh, everything has to be an invitation, but I think, um, yes, and. And the thing is, when we think about what behaviour is what it represents. You know, behaviour is an expression of need, the need to connect, especially if you're social, the need to feel safe, as we talked about a minute physical, emotional, social safety, the need to find relief, and also behaviour is an expression of self. We don't talk about that enough. You know, as a member of the LGBTQ community, it's interesting if we think I mentioned about the good-bad continuum. It might be worth explaining that a little bit now, because we're all indoctrinated in the good-bad continuum, which is this notion of behavior is good through to bad. Uh, and underpinning that is a big societal focus on rewarding the good and punishing or ignoring depends on what you're use the bad yeah and that sounds so compelling, doesn't it it's like?

Andrew Hale: 11:01

but we want more of the good, of course, we want less of the bad until we we ask the simple question who's deciding what is good and bad? This comes back to those two types of behavior the behavior we judge in others, behavior we judge in others. So who's deciding what's good or bad? How representative of that is based on the actual needs of the other that we've decided is bad. So, as I say as a member of the lgbtq community, I know that, you know, I'm married now with my husband and it's all wonderful, um, but um, literally what? 60, 70 years ago I could have gone to prison. Yes, for the expression itself, um and uh, yeah. So I think this is important.

Andrew Hale: 11:37

We've got to start thinking about these different components, about the richness of the individual lived experience and, whilst the having the objective is important, and I think definitely in dog training, uh, we needed the science. Uh, at one point, because it was a bit of a wild west at one point, we needed some of the science. I think it's gone the other way a little bit. I think we've almost weaponized the science a little bit. Uh, in in that thing. But the objective is important, but the richness of the individual lived experience lies in the subjective and the anecdotal.

Dr Edward: 12:10

Actually, that's that study, I agree. So what is your objective when you meet a dog and I know you work with a lot of dogs that are, you know, inverted commas dangerous, aggressive, that sort of thing what's your objective for the dog when you meet a dog?

Andrew Hale: 13:31

For me it's no different to working with humans. In many ways. I think I have my learn, support, teach mantra. So my first thing is to learn from the dog first, learn from the dog first. Really important to learn from the dog first, learn from the dog first. Really important. Um, you know, I've shared in some of the talks I've given, with um footage of either some of the dogs that I work with that already struggling, but also even with young puppies.

Andrew Hale: 13:57

I do a lot of support work. I do um like consultation with a couple of the big assistance dog here in the uk and we're completely redoing what happens in that first 12 months. Because once we start thinking about things differently, everything we traditionally do in that first 12 months with the dog and everything but a lot of it, we have to rethink it because it's not helpful, um, because, um, you know, a lot of the things that we teach dogs trade through training has a little intrinsic value to the dog, yeah and uh. So that's a problem then, because the dog support you want, they want to feel safe, they want to find relief, all these kind of things, um. So, um, yeah, um, learn, support, teach is what I tend to look at. So I've got to learn from the dog first. I need to learn as much as I can from that dog without influencing them too much. I also I see behavior a little bit like painting a picture. I need that dog to paint that picture for me and I've got to resist the temptation to try and grab the brush off them and think I can paint the picture better. And of course, if you've got a dog who's potentially dangerous, we have to mitigate for that. But I just really want a dog to behave. I want them to feel they can behave. No dog is safer to be around by being made to feel less safe, and part of that thing about feeling safe is being able to communicate, and they have to communicate. So learn from the dog first. Learn um and uh.

Andrew Hale: 15:15

There are three really important words for trying to understand safety in another, especially one who can't talk to you directly, and that is their processing, engagement and exit preferences. So how do they need to process the world? What do they need to do to process? Most of them need to process. How well is that sensory integration process working? What is stopping them from being able to process well? And I've got my doors of the brain analogy for processing. So if you imagine the dog, dog's brain, same goes for horse, same goes for us, by the way. Um, if you imagine the brain has lots of little doors in it, it is many doors to be open for that brain to have a chance of being able to process well, uh, and for the sensor integration process to work well.

Dr Edward: 16:00

Pain, trauma, stress, um, you know physical pain, emotional pain, social pain, um, all big door closes we know they, um, they increase arousal and as arousal increases, well, when you get to a certain threshold of arousal, you start to lose cognitive capacity, right?

Andrew Hale: 16:19

exactly, and the thing is with doggies especially, is what you're going to recognize is, uh, the first doors are likely to start closing when that elevation, that arousal happens. Are recognize is, uh, the first doors are likely to start closing when that elevation, that arousal happens are likely to be the training doors that we put training behind um, because they have little intrinsic value to the dog. The doors are likely to stay open. Of the survival doors, right um, and this is why it's really challenging, because the caregiver, the general public, have been convinced that the most important thing I put is a well-trained, obedient dog. So we've already got a big hurdle there. Oh God, yes.

Dr Edward: 16:53

Oh God, yes, I actually love it when my dogs disobey me consciously, deliberately decide not to do what I ask them. I think that's incredibly beautiful most of the time.

Andrew Hale: 17:04

Well, exactly, I think this is the thing. Everything's about balance, of course, but um, I think, um, uh, and it is, you know, a molly, who's our younger dog. You know, we brought her up in a very naturalistic way and, um, you know that first 12 months we didn't inadvertently train her anything, but that didn't mean she wasn't learning, she was learning all the time and she was learning fundamentally important things. She learned that she had a voice.

Dr Edward: 17:28

Yeah.

Andrew Hale: 17:29

And a big one. She learned that she could. She could have safety on her terms and, importantly, that my husband and I were her return to safety. This is really important We'll perhaps come on to this in a bit because social attachment is key on so many levels and it's so connected to not only emotional and social safety but also physical health. Now, we know this, we know so much about. So, um, yeah, so learn, learn from the dog. So, processing, how does this dog process stuff? So, um, how does the dog process me? How does they process the environment?

Andrew Hale: 18:04

An important way, why is that dog unable to process some things at some, at some points? Um, and that's where pain comes in. Often, you know, and nothing closes doors like trauma, and you can't force those doors open. Um, taking a truly trauma-informed approach, the first thing we think about is not add more trauma. Well, how can you do that unless you are able to back off and just learn what you can?

Andrew Hale: 18:28

So learn learning is really important for the dog. I think part of the problem. I think, with dog training specifically, it's like I know, uh, you know, um, I know what I'm going to do straight away. I'm gonna dive in and do some training, because I have the knowledge the dog has to learn. We've got to turn it around. We're going to learn from the dog first, even the puppy. So molly came to us at 16 weeks. She already had two homes. She was a very fizzy puppy. We had to learn from her first and there's a lot that we learned from her.

Andrew Hale: 18:56

So learn, then support.

Andrew Hale: 18:57

Once we've learned that stuff, then we can support what we've learned.

Andrew Hale: 19:00

And we can and a big part of it is doing things like get analysis and all this kind of stuff so we can think about whether the dog might be uncomfortable physically, but also look for those signs that dog not processing well socially, not doing social threat evaluation very well, whatever it is that we do through our observations, just taking our time to spend lots of time observing a dog.

Andrew Hale: 19:18

So if I've got a dog who struggles around with the dogs, for example, the last thing I want to do is see the dog around other dogs. Yet I want to spend a lot of time just seeing them in other contexts because there's a richness to their lived experience that I can learn from. So learn, support and then the final thing is teach. If I am going to teach anything, I want to try and make sure that I'm teaching things that are intrinsically valuable to that dog, not just getting them to do something else instead and this is a big thing, I think getting them to do something else instead, and this is a big thing, I think for positive reinforcement trainers to understand, and that is the potential of reinforcement.

Dr Edward: 19:55

If we're just um, of either positive reinforcement or negative reinforcement.

Andrew Hale: 20:02

They can both be coercive right well, yeah, of course, and I think this is the key, I think anything. There's a great saying in human psychology which is um, the path to coercion can often be laid with good intention. Oh, yes, so we have to be mindful of that. So just because we can get another behavior doesn't mean necessarily that the dog is finding the relief they were seeking, feel any safer. You know, whatever it is, you know, um. So we just have to be mindful of stuff, so we have a better chance at working by this, by taking our time, slowing things down, doing good observations. I follow a lot of um, kind of sensory mapping stuff. We're just trying to get the brain to map stuff as we build things up, um, so, yes, that's how I kind of approach things with dogs, and they have a survival story to tell us. Edward, this is the point, and I think we need to try and work that out as best we can.

Dr Edward: 20:53

So I'd be curious. Then you know you have to have boundaries as well. So how do you find a healthy way to express boundaries with dogs, with puppies, that you might need them to be out of your personal space for a period of time or you know whatever?

Andrew Hale: 21:09

Yeah, perhaps it's important, but they shouldn't be barriers to unmet need. That is the important thing. So I think what we have to recognise, especially all the everything, pins back to the importance of secure attachments. You know, when John Balby came out with the initial kind of attachment ideas and the notion of secure base, but he was very much influenced by the studies that have been happening on animals. So he took those and thought about the, the mother and infant and then it was mary ainsworth, who doesn't get talked about enough really, um, uh.

Andrew Hale: 21:53

But she worked with john balby but she kind of built on this notion of attachments and actually she took herself over to africa because she was very aware of her kind of um, kind of cultural bias in the West and she said, well, I'm going to go and look at how they bring up children in Africa. And she really saw this connection, this way of putting the child, those child social needs at the forefront. And literally it wasn't just the mom, it was other women in the village, if you like, all supporting to make sure that child felt secure. And Mary Ainsworth added to the kind of work that John Bowman did by looking at different types of insecure attachments. It's interesting that a big meta-analysis was done looking at criminals violent criminals in the States and Europe, of violent criminals in the States and Europe, and looking at all these different studies on the male population of prisons. But 70% across the whole meta-analysis identified as insecure, having insecure attachments.

Dr Edward: 23:02

Wow.

Andrew Hale: 23:03

And it makes sense really, because if you feel at a young age that your attempts to connect with another are either, um, you know, not forthcoming or, even worse, having the the abuse put to you physically, emotionally, whatever then it's hard to think that you can, can get another to care. Um, I share a little, a little story with you here, because my husband's a, he's a hospice nurse, he's an end-of-life nurse yeah and um, uh, what?

Andrew Hale: 23:34

this is going back quite a few years now. But um, one of the local prisons had a violent offender in there and um, he was end of life and they couldn't look after their symptoms within the hospital at the prison. So they arranged for this prisoner to come to the hospice. So the hospice became a dipto prison, if you like, well, that particular room. So my husband was giving him care, this gentleman, and at first he was very dismissive of curing very cold, very, whatever. It's all very challenging. But my husband's amazing at his job. So as the days went on he became more open to the care of my husband and there was a big moment when he said to my husband, once they'd made a connection, that he was one of the. He said to my husband you're one of the first person who's ever cared for me. Oh, wow, when Kieran told me that, that really hit me and it showed the challenges for us as a society, both with, obviously, on the human side, but also with dogs. Actually, because remember a lot of the stuff that we learned about attachment, social pain, social processing we learned from studies on predominantly monkeys and dogs. The social pain hypothesis came directly from dogs. That's Panskepp. He took puppies away from mom, very upset. Then they injected the puppies with a mild opioid and the puppies seemed to cope better and he hypothesized that maybe social pain was like physical pain.

Andrew Hale: 25:06

Jump forward to modern day. Matthew Lieberman and Naomi Eisenhower I can't quite remember her name, anyway, naomi, it'll come to me in a minute, but anyway, matthew Lieberman is well over at UCLA in the States. They've proven that. Now, with the FMS Moving on even more to now, we recognize that, um, social exclusion, loneliness, if you like, social rejection, um.

Andrew Hale: 25:34

So, going back to math, they literally found that the part of the brain that dealt with physical pain and social pain overlapped, because it hurts and it's supposed to. Um. Coming back even more to the forefront now is um, uh, the evidence seems to show that when we experience chronic social detachment loneliness, if you like, our inflammatory system gets dialed up and our antiviral system gets dialed down. Now, all this stuff, if you take it all in its entirety, it makes sense because, as a social species, it makes sense because, as a social species, if I'm detached from my social secure base, my body's going to think right, well, there's no point being protected against antiviral stuff because I'm not around anybody, but I'm possibly going to get attacked by something, so I better get my inflammatory system ready just in case it makes sense, um, the need for secure attachment as a social species, even when you think about polyvagal theory and the social element of that, this notion that we reach out to our social network.

Andrew Hale: 26:35

This is your area, I know, and if that fails then we're more likely to go into that other thing. If you look at all the bits, it makes sense and I think for dogs, then we are, with a lot of the things we do, with this big focus on training and obedience primarily, remember, the general public have been convinced that's the most important thing. So they know how to teach, sit and to get it, all the flipping time regardless, right, but they don't know about pain, um, about stress, about social, uh, connection, social processing, development stages.

Dr Edward: 27:14

So actually that everybody's being failed here a little bit, especially the dog, because a lot of those behaviors that are being seen as difficult, challenging, dominant, you know, vertical well, we will have to talk about the idea of dominance and the alpha and stuff in a minute, because that's another very, very deep misunderstanding that humans have with dogs.

Andrew Hale: 27:33

Hey, Well, yeah, I think it's probably one of the most damaging things that we can think of. You know, social hierarchies exist, of course they do, and dogs as they do with us, but actually all the kind of things show that it's more on a. Deference is a better word than dominance.

Dr Edward: 27:51

yes, oh, that's a great word. I'm gonna. I'm gonna use that one and just to loop back a little bit to what you're saying about the, the whole social thing, I think there was some other research with rats that were given um access to to drugs and if they're on their own they became junkies, but if they had other rats they weren't interested in the drugs, which I think is another very interesting piece of research I love.

Andrew Hale: 28:14

Yes, it's a brilliant piece of research because the, the, the kind of um received wisdom was you know, uh, and this, this is. This is part of the problem with the more kind of setting. The setting stone. Behavior is a model really, because you know, oh yeah, you've got a rat there, they've got a choice between normal water and water with cocaine in it and they went for the cocaine because it made him feel great and that's reinforcing them and it's all right. So that was how it was looked at and a lot of, a lot of um I say this as somebody who has had a drug addiction himself. Actually part of my, that's part of my breakdown um, so I, I, I feel this quite deeply, actually, this notion that it's just the fact that it makes you feel good, that that and you're kind of connect to the feeling. No, it's about lack of connection elsewhere, and that's what was shown with the, with the experiment, because I can't remember who was there but this, the person doing the research created like rat city. Right, it was just amazing. It was just this great place with all those stuff going on. The rats weren't interested in it because they had connection, they had, they had friends. They had things to do, uh and uh. So it's important and I think show you a bit on my own story a little bit here, just going back a bit because I think it's it's relevant again.

Andrew Hale: 29:27

Um, I had, I had, sexualised trauma as a child with non-family members. Now, before that happened, I had everything as a kid my parents were amazing, lots of love, it was all fantastic. The thing about trauma nothing actually changes around you. My parents were the same, my family was the same. What changes is your perception of stuff? This is really important. My perception of the world around me fundamentally changed then. This is that thing about feeling safe, and I felt very unsafe, of course, and my behavior changed in a big way. I became very disruptive, I became very challenging, all the kind of things we want to do. My school took a very punitive approach, really, so I got into more and more trouble until eventually I got the cane. We used to hit kids with sticks back in the day, but yeah, I had that and guess what, I didn't want to be hit with a stick anymore. So my behaviour changed. So punishment works.

Dr Edward: 30:29

But did your internal state change?

Andrew Hale: 30:33

well, this is the point, it didn't. And, um, my behavior changed at school through punishment. My, my father had a different approach because he recognized the reason I had everything as a kid was because my parents worked very hard and they were very successful and and they were away doing stuff a lot. And and my father thought my behaviour changed was actually because I was kind of rebelling against them not being there so much. So he's like you know what? We're going to do more as a family, I'm going to do less at work, contingent on you behaving. So guess what? Again, my behaviour changed because I wanted their love.

Dr Edward: 31:05

But again it wouldn't have resolved the trauma right and that's probably why eventually you crashed and burned and I had. You know, I went to boarding school at the age of 12. I grew up on the cattle property and did school by mail and radio. Before that I had an idyllic childhood and then went to this hellscape. So I have some similarity in understanding how my you know similar experiences.

Andrew Hale: 31:30

yeah, that must have been a huge adjustment then, because I think you know, when you had that secure base, when you had that safety, and then literally a car ride, and then everything changes. It's quite dramatic. It's not a gradual thing.

Dr Edward: 31:46

It was. I mean there were some other issues with my family of origin and attachment and stuff there, but comparatively it was really beautiful, yeah, and what's more. My mum said oh, it's going to be fun, it's going to be lovely at boarding school, you're going to really enjoy it.

Andrew Hale: 32:00

Oh my god well, I think this this comes back to that uh thing about what we judge for others and what we do ourselves, and projection, a lot of projection about our own perceptions of safety. The thing about safety is, when we think about safety in another, we tend to think in terms of physical safety, because that's what our brain can get feedback from. But our own brain is more interested in emotional and social safety, and this is why we can be safe physically but not feel it. Um the wonderful rachel leather, who's a trauma expert she was um human trauma expert, now she works with animals. She says the problem is you can't teach safety because the other has to feel it problem is you can't teach safety because the other has to feel it.

Dr Edward: 32:54

That's it, and I suppose that, um, you know you're too prompt. I've been taking some notes here because it's just so much information coming out of you. It's unreal you've got such a wealth of knowledge. Um, so safety and relief are the two big things, yeah, and for me, I add in care slash love to that. I think that's the other thing that all living beings want to feel is care and love, which comes back to that social kind of connection.

Andrew Hale: 33:17

Yeah, yeah, I think care and love are really important. As far as seeking that safety and seeking the relief, remember, relief is about if you've already got especially from the care and love and you have that secure attachment, then then there isn't then any relief. Seeking that you're looking at, invariably, is about returning back to your point of safety, which is that return to safety stuff. So, yeah, I completely agree, it's all very interconnected all of it, and I think, um, uh, and you're right when I think back, you know, as I say, my behavior changed based on those two inputs, uh, the both two extrinsic motivators of punishment and, and, uh, more positive stuff. But the real consequence for me was that drug addiction breakdown some 15 years later.

Andrew Hale: 34:07

This is the point, as you say, because and this is what we have to be mindful of we, when we're working with animals, that behavior change itself. Just because we can change the behavior of another doesn't mean anything to that individual if they're still struggling to find that relief or you know, whatever it is. Um, and especially, you know, we know that, you know, especially with the daniel mills study that came out a few years ago, looking at dogs with challenging behaviors and finding that 80 percent of them had a physical pain component. Doesn't mean that was necessarily primary, but it was definitely an aggravator. Um, we've got to make sure we're looking at that dog in a very kind of holistic way really, and very much in the round well, yeah, and another thing that I've found in my work over 30 years in practice, you know.

Dr Edward: 34:56

Firstly, I got triggered into looking at neck and back pain by a fellow that had started working with horses and he would anesthetize the horses and bend their neck and mobilize the vertebrae and these horses that had a falling lameness that they would have nerve blocked, an x-ray several times sometimes couldn't find any reason and deal with the nerve root compression and suddenly the lameness goes away and more than half of the animals that I see have significant pain that is totally invisible to their humans soft tissue pain that's invisible to x-rays, that vets aren't trained about and vets miss all over the place too.

Andrew Hale: 35:30

So it's a huge problem well, you know, chronic pain is just so misunderstood.

Andrew Hale: 35:37

And my facials, after you talk about, they're the kind of neuropathic stuff and, um, uh, I I do work with with cam canine arthritis management, um, and, and I do a lot of work with Hannah, who's the vet there, and Dr Amber Batson, who's amazing, sarah Fisher, who's just absolutely, um, if you've not had her as a guest, then please do, because I think you two would find loads to talk about on this stuff, because that's Sarah's bag really, and how much actually damage we do to horses and dogs just through the training process getting a dog looking up, left all the time to get the treat, and all this kind of, and you're creating these kind of things. So, um, you know, uh, I would say of all the dogs I work with who are the most challenging, those kind of more dangerous dogs, if you like. I can't think of one in the last 10 years that wasn't in pain, physical pain often, but, as I say, emotional and social pain are equally as important and it's often all connected, of course.

Dr Edward: 36:34

This is the point, it's all and trauma right, which is kind of like. For me, trauma is physical, emotional, social pain that's got trapped in the body, mind, system what a great way of seeing.

Andrew Hale: 36:47

I think that's a good way of looking at it. I think, and uh, you know, um, uh, say, rachel leather, who's who's I've done a lot of learning from uh on the trauma side of things. You know, she doesn't make any real distinctions between working with humans and working with animals. A lot of the core things are the same that we have to look at how we approach these things. And, and again, it's especially when you're having a trauma-informed approach, but it it is allowing the other to behave, you know, within the reasons, within the, within the kind of confounds of physical safety, of course, both for the animal and for us.

Andrew Hale: 37:22

But um, uh, you know a good example a dog who's quite shut down and maybe has come in a quite traumatized state. As they start to find some of that confidence and they start to connect to the caregiver and they start to feel more able to express out of the blue, they suddenly start barking at the mailman and then the temptation is to jump on the barking because I can't be barking, but actually now the dog's like I just felt safe enough to communicate and now I don't feel safe again. And that's the thing about emotional safety especially. There's two things about emotional safety. One is this is very much applicable to us humans. I can't say it's necessarily the same for animals. But first is feeling safe to even feel right.

Dr Edward: 38:07

Oh my god, we've all been yeah, I, I personally think animals are much better at being with feelings and experiencing feelings than most humans. I think we've been socialized so heavily. You know, men are allowed to be angry, women allowed to be sad, and that's about it in our society, um yeah, but I, I honestly think animals have got a lot more emotional freedom than humans in a lot of ways unless humans have stuffed that up, of course.

Andrew Hale: 38:33

That's a really good point. So if you listen to ethologists like Kim Brophy and Simone Gabois and others, there is hardly any dysregulation in the adult species in Mother Nature, and that's really amazing because they're fighting for their life on a daily basis in the adult species in mother nature and that's really amazing because they're fighting for the life on a daily basis. But if you think about emotions, moods, feelings, behavior and consequences, if you think about all those together, mother nature has stitched those together nicely. So you feel stuff, you act on it. What's the consequence? I'm still alive.

Andrew Hale: 39:04

Phew, that's okay, so it's quite yeah um, whereas, as you say, through our civilizing process in inverted commas, civilizing um we've detached behavior and consequence because, um, you know that we have to behave in a certain way and and the consequences are, are very much connected to behavior, not to actually how we feel. So you're absolutely right as a, especially here in the kind of west um, we have this now, especially in the uk, with a stiff upper lip kind of thing. Um, you know, you can feel what you like, but you just don't show it and that, and that's really damaging. And especially when you're being pushed to conform, it's only the kind of rich emotional social peg, uh, that we have, the square peg being pushed to a conformist round hole. It's quite damaging often and our whole educational system is kind of is pushed onto this stuff as well. Even you know, and there's a big friction between structured learning and experiential learning.

Andrew Hale: 40:07

You know there's a great little saying in human psychology game, which is there's a great little saying in human psychology, which is there's a difference between what we are taught and what we learn, and that is hugely important. Perhaps some of the most damaging few words really is well, they gotta learn. You know, um, they say that to the kids. You know, when I was working with humans who had social anxieties, many could pinpoint back to their formative years in adolescence, where they were forced into social engagement that they couldn't cope with because somebody thought you've got to learn, you know? Did they learn to be more sociable? No, uh. Did they learn to be more safe to be social? No, they learned to mask better. They learned different coping mechanisms and guess what, when they became adults and they had more agency, it's easy just not to turn up to social stuff then actually go through it again.

Andrew Hale: 40:55

So this is the things that if you do what we taught, what we learn people think back to school days. We don't remember much of what we were taught as such. There'll be things that we do remember that had intrinsic value or really kind of um, uh, inspirational teachers, whatever. But we are still affected by what we learned intrinsically a lot of the time how we connected to our peers, how we connected to authority, how we connected to the learning experience and that friction between attainment and achievement. You know, if you imagine little johnny is in school today, that's an achievement for him. It's an achievement for him because he didn't have breakfast this morning or he didn't sleep last night or he's traumatized by what's going on at home. Because of that state, he can now not match what is needed from an attainment point of view within that class, so his behavior will change.

Dr Edward: 41:46

His learning doors are closed.

Andrew Hale: 41:48

Exactly, yeah, he can't learn, but he will be classed as being disruptive, naughty, difficult, challenging.

Dr Edward: 41:54

This is the story. I went to boarding school and I won some year prizes for subjects in year eight and by year 10 I had to repeat because I just hated it and I stopped doing anything. I just shut down.

Andrew Hale: 42:09

And the problem there is Edwardward. Those around you saw you as being the problem. Yeah, not the other way around, which was the environment was the problem for you and your and some of those needs that you needed, especially feeling safe. I was saying about the two things with emotional safety. One is um feeling safe to even feel.

Andrew Hale: 42:28

The second one is feeling safe to communicate how you feel that is a big one and um, uh and this is a big one especially uh I do emotional health kind of workshops for animal care professionals and um within veterinary and within rescue yep, both both very challenging, challenging professions.

Andrew Hale: 42:52

Very challenging professions and where, if you're in the wrong environment, if you're in the wrong culture, where you're being told, look, you know, be professional. Which is a kind of way of saying you know, do as you're told, but be professional, don't get involved, don't get attached, don't be emotional. The problem is you're going to be all those things, but now you feel you can't talk about it, so you're now working in an emotionally unsafe environment.

Dr Edward: 43:21

Emotional safety for animals. Yeah, I suppose you know I also think so mentioned when we were just before we went live that Bucky Phillips is a mentor of mine with Emotional Horsemanship and he talks about dominant emotions and how they drive behavior. You know, care drives one kind of behavior, rage drives another, seeking drives another, lust drives another, I can't remember. I don't think I've got the whole list there. I haven't remembered them all. I think that's interesting. You know, I think that that emotional states drive behavior and if we don't take that into account when we're trying to understand and you know we as a veterinarian, if I have an anxious animal come to me, an aggressive animal, well, we want to, we want to have behavior modification, we want to have changes that make that dog a good, safe and family member. But we don't want to just make it good and safe, we want the dog to be happy and secure and have a good internal experience at the same time.

Andrew Hale: 44:20

Yeah, but that's why, if we're going to provide safety for the animal, it has to be on their terms. It becomes more risky if we just change behavior, because what will happen is behavior, the, the, you know the animal might adapt slightly, but then, um, if some of the, if some of the fundamental things haven't been addressed, then we're likely to get get the behavior either come back or even more severe stuff that comes back and this happens. This is definitely the case with the punishment, of course, which is just a way of stopping any communication. But what you're saying about the different things, I think this very much falls into PanScape stuff with the seven regions.

Dr Edward: 45:06

Yeah, it is PanScape. Yeah, that's where it comes from.

Andrew Hale: 45:09

And what's interesting, there is the one part of the brain that is always on is seeking really? Yeah, it's always on, so seeking is the one that's always. And this is if we start thinking about things in in relation to geek, you know, in relation to core affect space, how we plot mood state, um, and how we think about how different parts of the brain are activated. Seeking's on all the time, but it's dialed down until you want something and then it's dialed up and then it integrates in with other parts of the brain.

Andrew Hale: 45:37

You know that might come in um, but this is very relevant especially with a lot of um. A lot of aggressive behaviors come down to frustration not being able to get what you're seeking yeah so um, especially if you're seeking connection, seeking safety, seeking care seeking, they all, I?

Dr Edward: 45:54

I'm just seeing this in a whole new way. They all have a seeking component, don't they?

Andrew Hale: 45:58

they all have a seeking burden they have to have uh, so, um, and what's really? So I, I've got my little kind of donut example here, so so they're quite nicely now. Sorry, everybody's going to be thinking about donuts now. Anyway, when you think you want a donut, your brain, your seeking circuit, dials up.

Dr Edward: 46:16

now it's like right, I really want a donut, simmy, sugary, nice and hot.

Andrew Hale: 46:23

And when the seeking circuits is confined up in that very specific way. It wants two outcomes. It either wants the donut that's the ideal outcome or it might settle for something that's a bit similar yeah it's only this I say sweet and hot and whatever it is that you like. Problem is, if it doesn't get those outcomes, the um, the rage circuits will take over. Now that sounds very dramatic, but rage really is just frustration.

Dr Edward: 46:52

Well, it's a lot of things but frustration is that if you had a grade of one to ten of rage, then frustration might be down two or three.

Andrew Hale: 46:59

Yeah but, but frustration is really challenging because this is why children have tantrums, of course, and actually a lot of studies have looked at kids and just by providing young children with more choices and predictable outcomes has a marked reduction in tantrum like behaviors well, you know I've got about a year old with it and she's a very active, very intelligent, very sensitive dog and she's the first dog I've ever had that I've not used any kind of aversive stuff.

Dr Edward: 47:31

You know, my other dog's 14 years old and I was still using physical punishment when he was a puppy. I didn't know better at that time, but on the weekend we went for an extended walk and she was on the lead the whole time and she experienced quite vast amounts of frustration. But one of my things is, I think, that kind of frustration allowing, if you don't let dogs find their way through frustration, they don't learn how to regulate either.

Andrew Hale: 48:00

This is actually a little bit tricky. Learn how to regulate either. Oh, this is a little bit tricky. It's a little bit tricky because, um, learning to self-regulate is everything and it's not only nothing. We have to learn it.

Andrew Hale: 48:12

Um, all juvenile mammals I don't know, it might be the same for the species I don't know are the brains are designed to dysregulate. Really, this is really important because there's a part of the brain, the moderating, modulating part of the brain, which helps us to regulate better. Um, but it's very lacking because it's not, it's not connected and wired up. So, for dogs specifically, then that part of the brain doesn't even start until 18 months, oh, really. So when we think back to the doors of the brain analogy for that adolescent dog, a lot of those dogs aren't even open yet, let alone being able to utilize them.

Andrew Hale: 48:46

Um, so, and it kind of makes sense a little bit so it's really hard for children to regulate well, so, uh, so it's important. So, yes, so a lot of this is why, coming back to um attachment stuff, uh, how important it is for us, as the secure attachment, to offer co-regulation in those formative in the case of dogs, months and, in the case of children, years to be able to hold space, to be able to allow the child to go, stress cycles, um, uh. But if you have a I'm talking dogs now um, a dog who's just constantly going through frustration, frustration, frustration, everything's frustrating because they're not being able to do some of their breed specific stuff, some of their oh yeah, and that is I would not do.

Dr Edward: 49:37

I'm not doing that. That is not you've got. I only can have a dose of frustration.

Andrew Hale: 49:41

That would be what I think is healthy, right but it's better to provide an outcome because that helps the cycle. So, um, if I'm working with a dog, for example, who really wants to kind of bark up a tree when it sees a squirrel and happily stay there barking for hours, um, the barking is coming from the fact the seeking circuits are involved. It can't get the donut which is the squirrel or anything like it. Uh, we have to provide this is what we do with gundog training, of course because a lot of those seeking circuits that we're using them very strongly actually for them to do the dog's work we want to activate them, we want to strengthen them and make them a real dominant feature right but.

Andrew Hale: 50:21

But we also need to create an off switch for it. We need to create an outcome that that that um reduces that nervous system but gets the parasympathetic parasympathetic system back in going here, so we can get back to kind of a homeostasis process rather than just leaving the dog on a high. And it's the same with kids to say you know, um, they say a lot of these concept has been looked at. Giving kids choices, giving them outcomes. You know, we can all recognize the rage bit, because a really good example is if you go into a car park looking for a parking space, seeking circuits are fully on board.

Andrew Hale: 50:54

Now, if somebody pulls out of the one space this is the worst of all scenarios now, seeking breaks, like, well, I've now seen the outcome, I know the outcome and I can have it, brilliant. And then you're just about to pull in, some bugger pulls in ahead of you. Right, you will feel like exactly you will feel it now. Most of us, the majority of us, we're. We might get a bit fruity with our language or give some hand gestures, um, but that's it, because we can regulate back some people one of these violent men that's had a life where they've never had any care and blah, blah, blah.

Andrew Hale: 51:33

Maybe they get out of the car and murder them right well, that's a very, that's the other extreme, um, but even those who have struggled to learn to regulate well, uh, and are at the mercy of some of those, those kind of base emotions and and it's hard for them to get back to a kind of homostatic baseline, uh and um, we understand the importance of co-regulation.

Andrew Hale: 51:57

So, again, mary ainsworth saw this a lot when she was over in africa, in uganda, seeing how well they held space for the young children and allowed the children to feel stuff and remember emotional safety and, you know, being safe to feel uh and to and to communicate how you feel. So I think all these things are important for us and when we start thinking this, we think right, we need to start thinking about things differently than for the early development or the dogs that come into our lives. The training, as in traditional functional training sit down, come, stay with. Actually, I'm not saying we shouldn't do training, but rather than be the most important thing is actually the add-on bit, it's the extra bit and it can wait.

Dr Edward: 52:39

Actually it can wait this solution I really think what I want to teach more than anything else with dogs is is regulation, self-regulation, and you know, dopamine is the seeking hormone and oxytocin is the regulation hormone. So I'm very, very I really want to trigger oxytocin, but not only in the in the animal, but in the human, and the way that I've managed to stumble on to that I found is very effective, for this is certain qualities of touch, relaxing touch, and you can help a dog regulate and learn to regulate with touch. It's a really interesting thing.

Andrew Hale: 53:16

And there's a lot of crossovers there again with children.

Dr Edward: 53:20

Yeah.

Andrew Hale: 53:21

Yeah, usually. Wasted blankets and firm hugs and all those kinds of things, yeah, and the nervous system feeling the quality of the presence of another yes, which is? Important, isn't it? Because one thing we now know with babies which is really interesting, so jen shyrock. Jennifer shyrock is a great um educator. She does a lot of um. She came from child development working with children and then works with dogs. Now that specializes in working with dogs and children oh good, I must get her complex.

Andrew Hale: 53:55

Well we um and uh, uh the um. We used to think that, you know, babies are just a mushy brain, right, and they're all like goo, goo, ga ga and they're not able to think and whatever. What we now know is that the nervous system is, is, is the thing that's already well developed, yeah, even pre-natal. So, um and so, whilst the brain might not be doing much, the nervous system is learning all the time, and this is so anyway, because it has to right and because, if you think about it, if that baby's gonna have to make a connection and it has to feel safe and um, and it connects to mom, um, and we know that. You know my sister. When her kids were growing up, they didn't want uncle andy for sure. They didn't feel the quality of my present um, because they screened their eyes out whenever I picked them up but, um, but so it's important, isn't it?

Andrew Hale: 54:54

I think so. Touch is everything. You know what makes it a lot of the stuff you talk about learned behavior all the time, a lot of the stuff you know. We talk about learned behavior all the time, a lot of the things especially with the dogs I work with the learned behavior isn't from a cognitive base. It is more from a nervous system base and we can change things cognitively. But if that nervous system doesn't believe it, if that nervous system doesn't feel safe, it will override the cognitive stuff and it does.

Dr Edward: 55:21

Yeah, and, and you know the emotional states that I think the nervous system is driven more by the emotional experiences than the cognitive. I think that's a deeper layer.

Andrew Hale: 55:30

Yeah 100, and this is almost the friction you know, in the human psychology world you have those who are very much into you know, if you think it, it'll happen. Uh, and then you have and um, and I get get that to a point. But the point here is there is no one answer. That is the biggest thing. The most important thing I would invite everybody today is just stay humble enough to think there's something more to learn. Yes, especially about the lived experience of another, let alone the lived experience of our own.

Andrew Hale: 56:01

And to give ourselves grace actually actually for our own lived experience, actually because you know the reason that I share about my own kind of challenges when it's relevant is because being vulnerable like that is the best antidote to shame.

Dr Edward: 56:17

Well it is, and you know, though, growing up on the cattle property was lovely, there was incredible violence towards animals, which left a great amount of trauma in my system, and we had a head stockman who had a very traumatised background and traumatic brain injury and was extremely volatile and would go off the handle, screaming at things all the time, and then went to boarding school and I ended up you know, my collapse was chronic fatigue for 20 years, so my nervous system and my immune system just got fried to the point where I got really sick, and I had a marijuana addiction for quite a number of years too.

Dr Edward: 56:55

So I understand from a lived perspective that I've had to learn how to self-regulate, and I think one of the things that I've had to learn how to self-regulate and I think one of the things that I've found really important in that is to build an appetite for what I call healthy discomfort, and I think this is a principle we can apply with animals too Little doses of frustration so they learn how to regulate through that and come out the other side and help them co-regulate with us and that sort of thing.

Andrew Hale: 57:19

But I know I wouldn't have got well if I hadn't been able to do hard things like get up and exercise every morning and and and work with therapists to go through my uncomfortable stuff and assimilate and integrate trauma and all that you know yeah, I think you know there's an element of almost reparenting, uh, for ourselves and definitely for me, um, everything is about our relationship with stuff and so it's not about not feeling, it's about changing our relationship with it, changing our relationship with our trauma, changing our relationship with the world around us, all these kind of things. I think there's some in my. It's only my opinion, but I think some of the advice that gets given out there for people isn't very helpful when it's about trying to push away stuff. You know emotions and feelings and our mood state. We talk about mood, emotion, feelings, interchangeably. They're all very, they're very separate.

Andrew Hale: 58:18

But we have this for a reason and when you think about it, mother Nature is the one thing that has gone through millions and millions of years of evolution, that side of things. We were all a nerve net once. We were the first kind of thing that became a nervous system. The kind of prefrontal cortex came along a lot later. So for Mother Nature, then, emotions kind of work they have a reason along a lot later. So for mother nature, then, emotions kind of work they have to, they have a reason. As you said earlier, we've kind of detached ourselves from a lot of stuff as we've in a vertical, um uh, and it's not healthy and it's a case of sitting with. There are things that I know I still find triggering. There are things I know that are that that I know are difficult for me, um, uh, and but I I won't say I welcome the fears, but I know them.

Dr Edward: 59:09

Now and I don't welcome them, but I will embrace them yeah yeah yeah, and I, and, and, and.

Andrew Hale: 59:18

It's as well as self-regulation, but I think it's our improved self-awareness through that process.

Dr Edward: 59:25

Look, I'd love. I mean, we could talk for days, I reckon, but I would love to just talk a little bit about the whole alpha thing, which I think is just one of the greatest disservices we've done to the canine kingdom possible, and I also want to talk a little bit about the possible harm of positive reinforcement.

Andrew Hale: 59:48

Well, the dominance thing is a fairly serious thing, all these things we can dive down and rub our holes, but I think the history of that really is because of the wolf studies back in the day David Meck is the name that kind of comes to mind but um, where they looked at wolves and they were like, yeah, there's definitely a hierarchy here and we're going to name the top ones as alpha and we're going to, you know, and this notion of rank hi, who's that? Who's that?

Dr Edward: 1:00:18

jim nearly always comes and joins us in the podcast, if you're watching on youtube, you'll be able to see Jen. If not, she's just jumped up to say hello. She's a very lively, very loving little whippet.

Andrew Hale: 1:00:30

Oh, she's absolutely adorable, and.

Dr Edward: 1:00:32

I love her name too.

Andrew Hale: 1:00:34

She looks like a gem, yeah. So, and you know a lot of things about kind of rank and about all these kind of things. And then the word dominance got attached to that, because I'm not comfortable with the word dominance period. Really, I think it's a very human kind of creation, really, how we look at stuff and they use it in other terms.

Andrew Hale: 1:00:54

Anyway, ethology has a different way of looking at dominance, looking at dominance of confidence, but. But so the this, the, the studies came out, the dog training world at the time, which was very kind of, um, uh, authoritarian and uh, very kind of punitive in nature. Oh yeah, dog's wool is very similar. Uh, we've got to make sure we're the boss, so we're going to put them in their place and they better do, is at all that kind of stuff, so all kind of set, I think. Also, at the same time we had a big explosion in the marketing world. When you think about the 50s and 60s and what we know. This is just my extra bits I'm throwing in here, but we know, when we think about the behavioral kind of scientists behind marketing, they found that men were quite hard to sell to, that men were quite hard to sell to.

Andrew Hale: 1:01:40

Ah yes, this theory came along about alpha right pack leader and it was a big, big explosion of a lot of advertising in that period, utilising this notion of being the alpha, being the whatever. So it really takes hold right.

Dr Edward: 1:01:57

Is that a whole toxic masculinity, aggressive Western Anglo-Saxon invasion, overtaking colonisation kind of cultural thing? Yeah.

Andrew Hale: 1:02:09

A hundred percent. And that is still, I feel, part of the problem we've got with even just aversive trading more generally, but especially the dominance thing. But David Mackie kind of came out with that stuff. He brought another paper or book or whatever or some five or six years later saying I got all that wrong actually.

Dr Edward: 1:02:29

Well he did, because the other thing about it was that the wolves were contained within an enclosure, so the adolescent males couldn't move away, which is what drove a lot of the aggressive behaviour which you don't see in a family pack, which is really a family unit with two elders and a whole lot of loving, caring, deferent kind of behaviours.

Andrew Hale: 1:02:49

And there were walls from multiple family units because they were all put together artificially in a zoo.

Dr Edward: 1:02:54

I didn't know that.

Andrew Hale: 1:02:54

That makes it even worse, even worse. Well, I don't know whether you had Big Brother over there, the TV show, but you only have to get with the humans, you only have to put people from different family units into a space where you can't get away and you will end up with a pecking order of some sort. So when he studied wolves in nature, he's like actually, yeah, this is more deferential, it's a family unit, and they don't even call them alpha anymore, they call them the primary breeding pair. And so when you think about what that translated to then into human things, it's like you must go through the door first, you must eat first. It's just, it's just rubbish. And it stopped the dog's ability to be able to communicate all those really important needs and try and make a secure attachment. Uh, uh. So, um, and also I think another problem we've still got in dog training which we're moving away from.

Andrew Hale: 1:03:47

My, my um platform is called dog-centered care, and I took that title really from child-centered care, the child-centered care movement, the progressive side of child educational, psychology and development, where I get a lot of my kind of inspiration from, really. But um, we used to have children should be seen, not heard, right, and this is very much based on that kind of good bad continuum and also the normalisation of pain in discipline. I had the cane right, it was normalised, you're told, or I will whack you Exactly. And over here in the UK we have a ban on corporal punishment and also on certain levels of smacking and they're looking at actually banning smacking period In the dog world. I think the perpetuation of this normalisation of pain is still being pushed and I think oh, check collars, God damn it.

Andrew Hale: 1:04:39

Yeah.

Dr Edward: 1:04:40

Check collars are a big example Okay, so I'm looking.

Andrew Hale: 1:04:41

Yeah, that was a big example. Okay, so I'm looking yeah.

Dr Edward: 1:04:47

I'm just going to divert a little bit here, but there's some really interesting thing that came out of studying wild dogs in Africa. They noticed this huffing or sneezing behavior, like a kind of thing. They tried to work out what it was. Well, it turns out it's let's go hunting, but in that pack. If the lead turns out is let's go hunting, but in that pack, if the lead dogs didn't want to go hunting, about 70 of them would have to display this behavior. If the lead dogs did want to go hunting, only about 30 would have to display that behavior. And when I do it to my dogs, they go oh and get really excited. It's really interesting. I just thought I'd throw that in because it's kind of fun, yeah it.

Andrew Hale: 1:05:20

It's interesting and I think for me, I think especially. I know we've heard of Sindor Sindor Pangal over in India. She's doing amazing stuff with looking at the streeties over there and how they interact and how they work socially and moving away very much away from a lot of the kind of dominance hierarchical stuff.

Dr Edward: 1:05:46

You know, going to Bali and Peru, which are two countries I've gone to, they've got a lot of street dogs. They're very harmonious.

Andrew Hale: 1:05:55

And there's hardly any conflict between them because they're regulating. Well, you know, they work stuff out. They're like well, I don't know who you are, let me just back off, let me work it out. That I don't know who you are, let me just back off, let me work it out. They're not already pumped up and they're charging over. You know, I live on a beach down here in Devon in the UK and the dogs are running around like crazy. They're not doing any threat evaluation or anything and it's no wonder they end up barking until they get into scraps all the time because they're all over the shop and actually heavy extrinsic motivation through training is not going to help a dog intrinsically regulate well.

Dr Edward: 1:06:31

No, actually my thing is that treats are stimulating and they are kind of the opposite of regulating, in a way, and I tend to. I will use them, but I tend to want to use touch and communication as my primary modes of working with and helping dogs heal and learn how to regulate.

Andrew Hale: 1:06:48

I hear you on that, and I think this is the thing it's about having a relationship, hasn't it it's about? For me, everything's a request. Everything's a request. People can call it a command or a cue. For me it's a request, and because the dog will either do it or they won't uh, that's the reality and we need to be available to that feedback that we get. We need to allow everything is an invitation.

Dr Edward: 1:07:12

Yes, and if the dog says no, well then you just got to do a better job of inspiring them. It's not your job to punish them. It's your job to get better, yeah, or to work out why. Most of the time, it's not because they to punish them.

Andrew Hale: 1:07:21

It's your job to get better, yeah, or to work out why. Most of the time, it's not because they won't, it's because they can't. They're preoccupied with something else. Their nervous system is focused on something else in the environment that is more important to them at that moment, and we've just got to get better at picking up on the cues from the dog, not for them to pick up on cues from us, so we can understand. Actually, do you know what? You are well regulated, you're old enough. You're good at learning. Let's go and do some. That's gonna have some fun in the in a teaching point of view, and understanding our dogs in that way.

Dr Edward: 1:07:55

It's a beautiful thing, I think, um to have that kind of more relational approach I think, our relationship first is my whole thing with animals, with people, with all the living energies of the world. I think it is the essence of a life well lived is is a continual growth into stronger, better relationships. Yeah, 100. Okay. I think it's time for us to wrap up. We're going to close up with just two questions. First one is the wake-up call. What do you think is humanity's biggest blind spot when it comes to our shared journey of evolution, healing and wellness?

Andrew Hale: 1:08:34

uh, I think that good, bad continuum doesn't help the way that we see behavior in in a very arbitrary way, but I think also um, the the other ring, the notion of other ring, because which is which fits in with that. It fits in with everything we've talked about actually from us as a social species, because part of our brain wants to find social safety, so we will seek similarities, of course, but we've ended up with especially political classes that want to make a lot of things about blaming others for stuff. And I think that other ring, that dehumanizing it's a scary thing and I think the world at the moment edward on many levels is, is um showing us that it's still very alive and well, sadly.

Dr Edward: 1:09:22

Oh yes, yes, I think that is true and I think it's very scary.

Andrew Hale: 1:09:34

And the political chatterings that create a lot of this we've had it here in the UK happening in America now. Lot of this we've had it here in the uk happening in america, I know uh is is the symptom, actually not necessarily the cause, and I think we have to think about the disenfranchisement of many people, um, because they don't feel safe emotionally or socially that we need to stop billionaires taking 95 of the wealth and everyone else being poor and struggling.

Dr Edward: 1:10:05

You know, I think that's probably the other thing is that there's just an incredible lack of care and generosity when it comes to how resources are distributed among the world.

Andrew Hale: 1:10:19

Definitely, and this is part of that disenfranchisement for people. I think, well, definitely, and this is part of that disenfranchisement for people.

Andrew Hale: 1:10:25

I think you know, and, um, yeah, so I. So I think that's uh, uh, I've got my, uh, my cake acronym. Uh, because we all love cake, right? Uh, compassion, awareness, knowledge and empathy, and I think, um, I, I think it's important to try and bring cake.

Andrew Hale: 1:10:43

And the thing about compassion for others. You know, compassion isn't about condoning, it isn't about approving, it's about turning up anyway, and I think that's an important thing for us. The example I gave earlier with my husband he was very aware of the person he was caring for and what their offences were, and his compassion was not a way of approving, it was I will turn up anyway. And the awareness, truly trying to be aware of the lived experience of another, to try and bypass our own distortions and our own biases. It's not easy, edward, it's not easy. Do you know what? Um, trying to be like this in the way that you and I want to try and live our lives isn't easy. It takes work and there's a lot of things we have to navigate and I think, sadly, within some areas of society, viewing things this way is somehow seen as being snowflakey or whatever.

Dr Edward: 1:11:39

Don't get me started on how you're denigrated for compassion by being a snowflake or a communist, because you want to have some kind of progressive policies that actually care for everyone equally. It gets me a little hot under the collar.

Andrew Hale: 1:11:54

I think it's the pinnacle of human existence. It's easy to be driven by instant judgments and lack of awareness. It's easy to do's the easy, yeah.

Andrew Hale: 1:12:05

So yeah, compassion, awareness and then knowledge, genuinely seeking knowledge of the other yeah knowledge we have, and then I think that allows more of more of the chance of a of a right of bringing in empathy, um, you know, but yeah, so, so that's our pay grade. All we can do is try and do our bit, I think, but, um, I do have. But having said that, I just want to say this I do, I do still have faith. You know, over here in the uk we had, we had these riots not so long ago, uh, very much driven by the fire, right, uh, and it was all pretty horrendous. But you know what, the people who came out to clear up after the riots, and the masses of people that came out against that rhetoric, that's where hope lies. Hope lied within those crowds.

Dr Edward: 1:12:52

For me, yeah, yeah, I, I hear you and and I think that that is definitely something that the human nature there's a lot of good in it and the final question is what is the change that you want to be and inspires other to be in this world, which I think you've kind of almost answered in the answer.

Andrew Hale: 1:13:12

The first question in a way, do you want to do with? Anything I do is is to invite others. It's not to think differently, necessarily, but to feel differently about stuff. I think if we feel a bit differently, um, there's a great, um marcel prowse quote which is um kind of journey discoveries about finding new landscapes, but um having new eyes or something like that. Uh, and I think it's one of the most fundamental kind in human psychology is perception, truly is everything. How we perceive something drives our response, how we perceive others, how we perceive the behavior of others and, importantly, how we perceive ourselves. These conversations are great because it's not a case of saying do this, do that. It's a case of let's think about some great. But because it's not okay saying, do this, do that, it's okay. So let's think about some stuff.

Dr Edward: 1:14:05

Yeah, let's be curious. Let's be curious and think and explore and learn. Thank you so much. This has been a fascinating conversation today. And, andrew, where can people find you? Uh?

Andrew Hale: 1:14:18

so dog center care on facebook. Uh, and also my dog center care youtube channel, where I get to speak to a lot of amazing people and it'd be great to have you as a guest. Uh, a lot of the people I've talked about here sindor and uh and uh, sarah and others they're all on the youtube channel. Uh and um uh, dogccorg. Uh is my website if people want to hear a bit more about me and my stuff Beautiful.

Dr Edward: 1:14:45

Thank you so much. We will press stop on the recording now and hopefully we'll see you in the next episode.