Dr Edwards: 0:02

Hello everybody and welcome to the whole Energy Body Balance podcast where we explore all kinds of things that can make life better, bring healing, more connection, better relationships for humans and for animals, and we hope that we will inspire you. We might challenge you a little bit today, because normally when we talk about interesting, deep things there's some challenge in it. I'm your host, Dr Edward, the Healing Vet. I help deeply caring people and pets and horses unfold profound healing. And today we've got Annie Phoenix, who has got a whole lot of a whole big box full of certifications and things like that to do with canine behavior, fear-free certification, dog training, all sorts of things. So could you give us a little bit of a rundown and introduce yourself and let us all know who you are, why you do what you do and how did you get to this point?

Annie Phenix: 1:05

yeah, I am located in utah in the united states and I'm not from utah. I've been here about seven years and because I like mountains is the main reason, and I've been working with dogs professionally for like at least 25 years and I came out of rescue, which I think made me the trainer that I am more than anything else, any course because I was in central Texas in the wild west from like 1990 to 2010, where I wasn't really sheltering I mean, I was born in Texas but that's when I was very active in rescue and it wasn't the shelters were not there to foster or adopt or anything, it was just an on full scale slaughter.

Annie Phenix: 1:50

For especially in the nineties it was really bad. So I started working with a new group then called Austin Dog Rescue, and my role I lived outside of Austin at the time was to go into the rural shelters and the city ones and find the best temperament dogs that we could. We weren't breed specific, um, but because it was rural there was a ton of herding dogs which I is my, my absolute favorite. And what me and the ladies started at love german shepherds. And so we pulled german shepherd after and you know we would you have to temperament. We didn't temperament test. I used my best judgment, having been around a lot of dogs, having having a lot of German Shepherds and walking into a cage unsupervised in the dog's most stressed out time of its life, and so I had to learn communication like that and I was never bitten and including.

Annie Phenix: 2:37

I mean, if there's a Rottweiler, a German Shepherd, call me, I'm going to come see it. I just liked those breeds and I had to learn really fast, and pit bulls too, and nothing against any of those breeds. I love them all and they taught me to be the trainer because I had to learn body language from a very stressed out animal. I got burned out, which everyone you work with animals long enough.

Dr Edwards: 2:58

Well, everyone who works in rescue at that level is prone to burnout.

Annie Phenix: 3:02

Yeah, and it was 10, 15 years. My husband and I together he had never had an animal in his life fostered more than 400 dogs. Whoa yeah, and it adds up fast when there's puppies. You know a litter of 10. But I realized I was done with that part of my life in 2010 when I had a litter of three puppies that needed help. One was white, one was brown, one was black, and I couldn't think of any names because we had named so many. So they were Whitey, Brownie and Blackie and those were their names. Those people kept their names. I'm like I'm just done.

Annie Phenix: 3:39

And then I realized there's such a massive influx of dogs into shelters for what I call silly reasons that are quite trainable, like jumping on people, pulling on the leash, maybe growling at other dogs and so I wasn't an official trainer, but I went to a training school in Texas and that was my goal and this was like 20, really around 27, 207.

Annie Phenix: 4:04

I want to get those dogs when they're young and help people so that they don't have to dump the dog. For that reason at least, because it seemed preventable, At least I could stop some of it anyway, and I ended up going to a Schutzen school, which is totally opposed. If people don't know, it's a sport that's like military style training. They teach bite work and attack and trailing and high level obedience. It's not for pet dogs. Actually, I don't mind the sport, I don't like how it's trained and I didn't like. I was trained there and I knew that I would have to learn the shot collar, but it was the only school in Texas and I was totally against it. I'm glad I did it because I at least know exactly how they work. I had to put it on a rescue dog. I took my own dogs and I refused to put it on my dogs.

Dr Edwards: 4:54

So I'm just going to interject because I can't help myself, because I think it's fascinating to talk to someone with your philosophy who has actually used shock collars, because I refuse to have anything to do with them.

Annie Phenix: 5:06

Yeah, I do too on a philosophical level. It was really the only school at the time and I wanted certification. That was so important to me and I knew it was going to be difficult. But it has served me well, because one of the big arguments here against the cookie pushers like me is you don't know how to use it.

Dr Edwards: 5:25

You don't know what you're doing. Yeah, so you, you've trained and you know how to use them, according to how they use them I know better than they do generally, but do you still use them no no god absolutely not awesome.

Annie Phenix: 5:39

I never use them again and I knew I wouldn't. And, um, one thing I saw which I can speak to, that most force free trainers cannot speak to is so. It's a big metal building in the middle of Texas and the trainers with the kennel dogs were at one end of the building and we, the students, were the other with our dogs, or we had to train a rescue dog and that's the dog. I'm sorry that I had to put a shotgun on, and almost every day they were German shepherds because they were just big, tough, macho kind of dog owners and dog people. A dog would break loose from the trainers with all their shot collars, no leashes, and come and try to attack one of our dogs and they run through the shock Every like once or twice a week and some of our dogs were hurt. And so I'm like this. It it doesn't work if the dog is determined enough and strong enough. I mean the dog. It was horrible, it was abusive.

Dr Edwards: 6:31

Not only that, if the dog goes into hot, orange or red zones of arousal, their pain, tolerance drops off and their brain turns off. Then nothing's going to make any difference.

Annie Phenix: 6:42

And since then I know trainers here in the States who still use them and say oddly on podcasts oh well, yeah, I had a German Shepherd but he got hit by a car. And I'm like, why did he get hit by a car? Because you have the shock collar on him and you trusted that it is a guarantee. And I have not had a dog hit by a car because I have a leash.

Dr Edwards: 7:03

No, I hear you and I'm really curious about that, and it's a good conversation to have in that. One of the things they say is it saves dogs lives and you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's a big argument from the shockers, as I like to call them, and I don't agree with that.

Annie Phenix: 7:21

I don't either. There's no proof of that whatsoever. So that was traumatizing for me and I knew it would be and it was not a good experience. But I have that knowledge. I can talk to people who use them because I can say I have used them once one dog 15 years ago and then I found clicker training and that was kind of just becoming the big thing. And then I'm a journalist as well.

Annie Phenix: 7:45

I grew up in a journalism family and a writer and I started writing for this company called Dogster, which at the time was a big online, one of the first online community for talking about dogs, and I was their lead trainer and I ended up writing a book for Dogster which is the Midnight Dog Walkers.

Annie Phenix: 8:01

It was my first book and I called it. Midnight dog walkers was my first book and I called it midnight dog walkers because my clients I was really I was always in behavior Like I don't care. I did sports stuff on my own nose work but I don't care about, and it's fine if you want to do that, but to me I'm. I want to help the troubled dogs it was, I don't know. I think it's because I I know it's because I had trauma in my own life as a child and felt that when you're out of control and you don't have any control and it's scary and I could see it in the dogs. So I called it the midnight dog walkers, because my clients would say I walk my dog at midnight because it's reactive.

Dr Edwards: 8:37

It's the only time when I know I'm not going to meet another dog, right.

Annie Phenix: 8:45

I'm like, except you're all out meeting each other, um, and it did really well and um, it's kind of half memoir. And then I got burnt out. By then I'd been dealing with dogs 15, 20 years and we again. So I keep trying to retire and I did for five years, like after the book came out 2016 to 2020 and we were selling a property in Colorado. It was a horse property. I know you have a horse background too and I love horses and we were moving to Utah because of my husband's job and so I just was in and out of the, I just quit all and it's so political and it's so. There's so much infighting, all the stuff. It reminded me of a dysfunctional family with lots and lots of trauma on our side. I don't know if it is there in Australia, but there's so much fighting on the force-free side against each other.

Dr Edwards: 9:30

Oh yeah, and you know the whole force-free, the whole absolute positive reinforcement thing. I think you can go too far with that too. You know, and I've seen some dogs that are just like fat puddings, that will only move for a treat and they won't do anything else ever in their life.

Annie Phenix: 9:48

And then people say well, what you use is not force-free, but what I use is force-free. And how dare you?

Dr Edwards: 9:53

You're frozen on me.

Annie Phenix: 9:55

I did oh no.

Dr Edwards: 9:58

Oh, we're back. We're back. There's been a little internet glitch here.

Annie Phenix: 11:06

I hope I'm. I probably froze with a weird face, anyway, so I quit. I mean, I was still working with clients, because I've always done that, but I just I was out of groups, I wasn't participating. I had a good time, I had hobbies, I painted furniture and learned to cook, I spent time with my dogs and then I wrote. I was asked by my publisher to write a second book in 2020, 2020, covid. Nothing else was going on in the world and I almost didn't write this book. And this book changed my life and I'm training again because of what happened in this book. I'm halfway through the.

Dr Edwards: 11:37

Just tell us the name, because you know some of this is going to be audio only, so we can't see it.

Annie Phenix: 11:43

It's Positive Training for Aggressive and Reactive Dogs and it is in Australia and it just was released on audio cool as well and it's been a bestseller. It was a bestseller year before it was released and it's been a bestseller on amazon. So one reason it's a bestseller is I I'm a journalist and so I just here. What happened is I almost didn't write the book. I'm like it's too's too much trouble. You don't make money. I'm kind of retired but I said let me see if there's anything new. I don't want to talk counter conditioning or the four quadrants ever again in my life to help these troubled dogs. What is new? And I saw Andrew Hale, who I saw you had interviewed him in Beyond the Operant, and he was interviewing Sarahah fisher and laura donaldson, who they're all in my book, and I said what is beyond the operant? I'm finally people are talking about something other than operant conditioning, not to get too dark what is?

Dr Edwards: 12:37

give us the? Give us a little summary of what is beyond the operant.

Annie Phenix: 12:41

Um, we've used operant conditioning for the skinner. It goes all the way back to Skinner and Pavlov and we're trying, we're saying, oh, we can change the internal emotion around a scary event for a dog through little by little, counter desensitizing. And I in my book I said chicken will fall from the sky when the dog sees the trigger, a reactive dog. And we're trying to say to the dog let's make a healthy association, don't be scared of the chicken. And for my clients it didn't often work. They didn't like it, they didn't get it. I thought it was too slow and no one was talking about trauma to bring it back to trauma. So I watched Beyond the Operant, which is still on YouTube. It was fascinating and I got so excited I said, yes, I'll write the book and I interviewed 17, 16 experts around the world that were doing fascinating things that were kind of somewhat new to me, like Sarah Fisher with free work, and I got excited again. I really probably the first time as a trainer, and I started focusing on trauma and because of the trauma in my own life. And then I got two healers, finn and Cooper, who are five now. I got them 2019. They were five weeks of age and I knew taken. I never took to the person who took them from Northern Idaho to Southern Utah. So a seven hour car trip at five weeks of age, taken from their mother. I only talked to the wife over texts. I never met the people and I said I'm kind of concerned that they're five weeks old. They should have stayed with their mother at least till eight or nine weeks. And they're like oh, we didn't know that and I tried for adult foster dogs.

Annie Phenix: 14:21

My beloved, highly trained border collies had passed away so I was in an emotional state. Anyway there was a white one at least. Red, big, fluffy and a blue heeler. And I always wanted a blue heeler cattle dog, australian cattle dogs, and I've always had herding dogs. I just hadn't had healers and they were mixed with Border Collies, supposedly.

Annie Phenix: 14:40

So two of my favorite breeds and I had tried adult dogs. They just didn't work in the environment that we're in now and I thought at least a puppy I can influence. But I knew at five weeks I got them at five and a half weeks. That is a tremendous trauma and they were thrown in a backyard unsupervised and they were fighting each other over food because they probably imagined they'd just put kibble out during the day and good luck. And so that's a massive, massive trauma. And when the brain is still forming and they're still there just to me, they're just saying am I safe or am I not safe? And they're like we are not safe. We are definitely not safe and it took me because I took so many photographs, because I didn't have enough from my previous puppies, 20 years in the past I took some videos and I noticed that on the seventh month their bodies relaxed, so they trusted us, but their body kept the score of that.

Annie Phenix: 15:40

Oh, they had worms two types of worms and fleas. So they were neglected, yeah, and traumatized, and so they are a big part of this book too. And that's when I got and I started writing the book, maybe a year later, and I still remember the day. So when they were growing up, we would sit on a chair and have our feet up on a coffee table and both dogs love to put their back feet on the ground and their front feet on us, and I didn't realize that that's a form of grounding for dogs. I learned that from Dr Laura Donaldson.

Dr Edwards: 16:16

Is this one of the reasons why dogs like to jump up on you?

Annie Phenix: 16:19

Exactly.

Dr Edwards: 16:21

Oh, this is new to me.

Annie Phenix: 16:22

We punish them for that, you know. So they miss being petted at at the right time. It should happen with the breeder way before they ever get to you. So even with all the love and everything I knew I knew they were going to be a lot of work they're still apprehensive about just petting. They think they think it's weird, even though we did all the puppy stuff.

Annie Phenix: 16:43

So I'll ask Finn, who's 75 pounds, can I pet you? And he knows what it is. And he'll sit down and he looks dejected and he's like gross. And I noticed that he self-grounds. He's a completely different. I should show photos for those who can see this. If he puts his back feet on the floor and jumps on the kitchen counter, which we also punish with his front feet, he's never stolen one thing in five years. He looks like a happy-go-lucky lab. His mouth is open, his tail is wagging, I can do his ears. He's very comfortable if he's grounded. And it was Dr Laura Donaldson, who's a US trainer out of New York, who taught me that there's also the outside grounding and the negative energy, and that's also Laura. Laura brings the science and improves all that. And now when I see a dog that's frantically jumping, I'm teaching my clients to have them train to jump up here on your arm like this. Teach this as a cue.

Dr Edwards: 17:42

So personally, you know I like to have boundaries around my personal space and ownership of my personal space with a dog, but I'm very happy to invite them to jump up on me as well.

Annie Phenix: 17:54

Yeah, and that's a personal decision, but I think, if we understand, the behavior is not a bad dog. Necessarily they're trying their own way to calm their own self, and so there's other ways we can do it. Jump on the arm, jump on the counter if you need to.

Annie Phenix: 18:07

I mean they're not mine are not counter-surfing. They can smell whatever's there. They've had opportunity. They don't do it. And Cooper, his brother, is a short, more short. He's got more healer in him because I got their DNA and he looks like a blue healer. And Finn looks like a border collie and he has a border collie coat, which is fascinating, and he's more neurotic. Cooper is that kind of I said if he was a guy in a pub he'd buy everybody around to drinks and tell all the stories and he's just happy-go-lucky but also stubborn, which he's not like.

Annie Phenix: 18:39

Using that labor, cooper's in life for Cooper, whereas Finn has got the oh my god, where's my family? Almost circling, whereling, where are you? Where are you? Like we go on a walk together and Finn is watching us. Where are you? Where are you? Where are my sheep? And Cooper's like I'm going to go over here because I want to smell that. So Cooper doesn't ground as much. But Cooper also doesn't like to be petted, just he doesn't know how to normally be petted. So I brought in a little bit of T-Touch and Sarah Fisher's work a free work and Laura Donaldson, where I touch pressure points here, here at the top of their head and there's a spot here on his paw, and when there's thunderstorms and Finn is scared and Cooper is not bothered, I will tap, use tapping on Finn.

Dr Edwards: 19:30

Yeah, on yourself as a surrogate, yeah.

Annie Phenix: 19:32

Well, no, I'll tap on Finn because he likes it, or massage, but Cooper, you tap on him and he gets up and leaves Like, don't do that, but Cooper likes this, and so I don't have to pet them because they're not comfortable, because they missed it at that critical age.

Dr Edwards: 19:51

That's an interesting thing for me to hear because you know my whole thing is therapeutic touch and one of the big things with therapeutic touch is how it causes relaxation responses and oxytocin release and if you do it consistently over a period of time, consistently see very big improvements in terms of better regulation, less anxiety, healing of trauma and all that sort of thing. And you have to teach them how to accept the touch because a lot of them number one they've never been touched, so it's weird. But number two when they touched, so it's weird. But number two when they relax, it's scary.

Annie Phenix: 20:29

Yeah I do pet them on the bed because that's where they're comfortable if they're lying down and I you know it's just like, but they don't like any kind of pet like, and we don't hit them anyway or pet them, but they just it's not relaxing for them. Yeah, in a traditional way. And it reminds me of I. I read this horrible study years and years ago. They used to do, and still do, horrible things to animals, as you know, as a scientist and veterinarian anyway, a study that I have not seen since, but I know that I read it and maybe you've heard of it. It was a long time ago that they had two kittens that are blind at birth and they sewed one eye shut before both eyes opened and so then this eye opened and this was sewn shut and the cat developed normally and then, at like three months of age or four months of age, maybe six, they took this, the stitches out, and this eye was blind. It didn't get the information that it needed to learn to see Like, it just missed it while it was growing and they never saw out of this eye again.

Annie Phenix: 21:36

And I thought that was very interesting and same with petting sometimes, and I tell a story about my own life, where my family is very small, very dysfunctional. There's only four kids and no big relative family or anything. And just you know, we weren't touchers, we weren't huggers, we didn't say love, you Just neurotic and not neurotic, neglectful. Mostly we weren't a loving, close family by any stretch. And then I meet my husband, who's seven of seven children, from a Catholic family from Baton Rouge.

Annie Phenix: 22:10

So when you marry into the family you have to agree to go to Christmas, because that Christmas is a big thing. For a week they celebrate for a week. We're called the outlaws. It's like you, as an outlaw, you agree to go to Christmas. I didn't like care for my family, so I'm like, fine with me, and the first few years we would go, his family is hugger, they're huggers. So we're seeing 40 people over five days, which is a lot for me, and they're hugging. They hug when you come in, they hug when you come out and I would be like, don't, I'm just like Finney Cooper, like I don't just met you and I'm like I just saw you this morning, do I have?

Dr Edwards: 22:46

and you can't say that as the newest girlfriend, I hear you and I I can relate to that because personally I had terrible problem in receiving any kind of intimate touch for a large part of my life. So I'm on the spectrum autistic ADHD and it's something that I've had to learn to accept. And now that I've had you know, my partner is the cuddliest woman in the world I've had to learn how to educate my nervous system to to get comfortable with that touch and I I don't know it's been really good for me doing that, but it's's been challenging.

Annie Phenix: 23:25

Yeah, because we just didn't. We didn't to me. I didn't get it as a kid and it felt uncomfortable and that's how I can relate to Finn and Cooper, the dogs that don't like it. So the first couple of years I would cry on the eight hours there and I'm not a big crier like oh, I would cry on the way home because I missed it. I'm like I'm not going to be in for the next year by 20 people or 40 people. I adapted. It wasn't. Nothing scary happened, it wasn't. You know, if you're a kid and the wrong person hugs you or makes you feel uncomfortable and you're out of control, that's gross, but I was an adult.

Dr Edwards: 24:04

You just said you adapted, you had an experience and nothing bad happened, and I so. That's exactly what we need to do for our dogs, isn't it?

Annie Phenix: 24:14

yeah, keep and guarantee them that they're safe. I stopped teaching growly dog classes and I taught it in durango, colorado. We helped so many dogs acclimate to like. I kept saying I want 10 feet, I want you to be able to pass. You know your dog doesn't have to live other dogs, but I don't want. We want to convince them that they're safe enough with you that they don't have to do the grappling, lunging because it's not productive or it's scary and all that. So we would convince all the dogs over an eight week course, more less, that you're safe, through a long process and then, almost all the time, within a month or two months, I would hear they were attacked by off-leash dogs in a city park where leashes are required. So I felt like I'm telling the dog you're safe, you're safe, you're safe. And then some human yeah. So I stopped teaching the course and instead taught a course on how to protect yourself and your dog on walks, because it will happen.

Dr Edwards: 25:11

I don't know how big of a problem it is in australia, but they're it's a massive problem and you know, I remember, I remember in one dog park on dusk with my three dogs in melbourne and suddenly a staffie comes galloping in and blindsides us with a flashing light on its collar and the human's like 100 metres away, Just total loose cannon. And at that time Mitzi was quite reactive so it was not a good circumstance to be in. But yes, it's a problem.

Annie Phenix: 25:47

It's terrifying and it seems to be almost everywhere. So I got defensive and reactive, like I am now, because I had senior border collies and I'm like you your dog is not allowed to hurt my senior border collies. These are my children and now my two. So back to Finn and Cooper. I didn't care about training anymore. I was burnt out.

Annie Phenix: 26:07

My border collies had lots of titles. They were nose work competitors. Echo became a therapy dog at age six and they were semi-feral. When I got them they were also brother and sister, so they loved it. They love that work. Some of these Border Collies are like I want to work, I want to work and they loved it and we had a great relationship To me. They were wonderful, perfect dogs.

Annie Phenix: 26:30

I get these highly traumatized young healer with. Throw some healer in there and I knew that I had to heal them versus train them. And they did all. The sit down, stay in the world is not going to help trauma, it's it's it's stupid.

Annie Phenix: 26:47

And we've always told people sit down, stay, take your puppy to puppy school. Well, the puppy's traumatized because it just left everything it ever knew. If it had a good home, even if it had a bad home, it's still what it knew, and I'm trying to get people to treat puppyhood as sacred as it is for a mom and a human baby. We know that they need that connection. They need the skin to skin. We know that they need that connection. They need the skin to skin. Um, they need you know. Normal countries, unlike my own, give six months or whatever, of mother baby time, or even paternal time. Um, we know it, and so we treat infants and mothers with more respect, a little more. We know that it's important, and we don't with mother dogs and we don't with the puppies. It's like eight weeks go and we don't I don't know.

Dr Edwards: 27:32

I mean, I started training jem, our 14 month old whippet, as soon as she got here at eight weeks. I started teaching her things, but I also did a lot of touch work and healing work right from the beginning too, to help her not only heal but to teach her how to regulate and relax, which humans are dreadful at teaching dogs. They're very good at teaching dogs how to be raised up and over the top and excited and stimulated because we're monkeys and I think we're really good at being monkeys, but we're not very good at giving dogs what they need on that level.

Annie Phenix: 28:03

Yet and I say to now it's a difference. Are you raising your dog? Are you training your dog? Are you training your child? Are you raising your child? And I I say to now it's a difference. Are you raising your dog? Are you training your dog? Are you training, are you raising your child? And I I say to my clients I want you to be that mama bear and to nurture your dog first, or your papa bear, go ahead and nurture your dog. They start crying because they're like what it has to heal, it has to. I think we will get to that. I'm not saying, if anyone's listening, don't ever train your dog. I trained five skills, really three that were important to me. Come when you're called, because that's life or death, don't on me, preferably stay down, stay, stay down.

Annie Phenix: 28:41

Respect my space if I ask you to and um the others for my me because of my lifestyle. Where we live, we have a live on a corner in a busy neighborhood with a wooden wire fence, so kids come by and stick their hands through the fence. So I'm like, I need you to like people and not be scary. And I need you to like other dogs because I have other dogs coming through To the best of your genetic capability and they do that. My dogs do that and preferably don't yank my arm off on a walk, but you can sniff and it's not about healing and making me look good. All my other dogs had all the training. I know I can do it, but these dogs are the happiest dogs I've ever had and they're silly and they're like.

Annie Phenix: 29:22

It's a miracle to me, given what they had to begin with and that it took me seven months to earn their trust in their bodies. They had to begin with and that it took me seven months to earn their trust in their bodies. With everything that I know, I can't imagine an average person with two people and a job and three kids in the house being able to devote the amount of time that my husband and I did, because we don't have kids and we work from home. I mean, it was a lot, a lot of work. They were attacking each other as well, which think that's why, um, people think they're sibling problems and I I haven't seen anything about that and this is my second pair of siblings, but to me they had so much nervous energy and that they had been together their whole lives, and so they would play, play, play, and then one would pull a bite really hard and squeal, and when one squeal, the other went in harder and they were, so they didn't get that.

Dr Edwards: 30:13

I don't know five to eight weeks of um bite inhibition, training and socialization that they would get with their mom and the other puppies and that sort of thing probably.

Annie Phenix: 30:22

Hey and learning to back off. They were, and I even said to my husband if I can't fix it, I'm gonna have to get rid of Cooper because he would not bite. I knew that Finn was going to be a biter and he proved me right he hasn't hurt anyone, but he will, because he's a cattle dog and if he's pushed he's going to use his teeth. Cooper will not and I said I need to probably rehome Cooper while he's cute and small. But I said but I don't want to. So I started puppy play dates twice a week at about two months old, two or three months old, and then COVID hit because I got him in August of 2019.

Annie Phenix: 31:01

We went through February but those other dogs taught them what I could not, which is to back off and to if I yelp, you need, and if I give you cut off signals or stop signals, you need to stop. And some of them were bigger. They were all about I questioned everybody and so now I'm like there are times, especially a young dog have to. They have to learn it from other dogs.

Dr Edwards: 31:25

Safe dogs, they need to yes, use jim, my little whippet with puppies, to do that. Except she's actually she won't teach really pushy puppies how to back off, so she's too soft for that, but okay, so, um, you said you know you've started to touch on this first point we're going to cover. We have to shift our thinking healing first, training second. So what do you do what? What do you use? What are your strategies and skills for healing trauma in dogs?

Annie Phenix: 31:57

yeah, I love that question, um, and I'm sure owners that's you know well now that we know we need to do it how, how, and every dog is an individual individual. So you know it's like some dogs may crave petting and that gives them comfort and mine don't find it as comforting, so I don't do it as much as I might a different dog. So a lot of it does depend. But I do know that they need to feel and I got this term from Laura Donaldson who I've learned so much from. She told me about the grounding, she's trauma-informed as well for humans and dogs. She knows that deep safety. They need to feel deep safety, particularly when they're taken as puppies or you've got the dog from the shelter.

Annie Phenix: 32:40

I say to people what number home do you think you are with your dog? Oh, I'm the second because I got it from the shelter. I said no, he had a home before the shelter, probably more than one. The litter home, however scary that was, because most of them are not well done, adopted or bought or whatever shelter you probably so at least three other homes, probably four. That's a lot for anybody, and so they come up with their own code. So it's not just for puppies. But puppies, we have a unique opportunity to prove to them you are safe. And so my big message is slow down, don't get a puppy on Thursday and have a kid's party on Saturday so all your, all the neighborhood kids can come stick their hands on the dog. And we've been so wrong about socialization the way we do it. They have to be socialized, but I say that first 30 days.

Annie Phenix: 33:37

Whether it's a shelter dog, an older dog or a puppy, this is the time for you and the dog to get to know each other, and for your, because everything is new. The smells are new, your house is new, your routines are new. Even if it lived in a house, everything is, but particularly for a puppy. The, your house is new, your routines are new, even if it lived in a house, everything is, but particularly for a puppy, the whole world is new. And so I'm like please, 30 days.

Annie Phenix: 33:56

And if you have vacation time, people will tell me good, good, loving people will say I've gotten a puppy, I'm picking it up on Thursday. I'm going to stay home Thursday, friday, saturday, Sunday, monday, I go back to work and it's in a crate like four days is not enough to acclimate from being everything that it just lost. And I said take a week off If you, if there's two adults, take two weeks off and you each take a week, and that's the time to teach them some self-regulation, start reinforcing calmness. In between the frantic puppy stuff laying down chewing, they have to have something to chew on, because that's self-soothing, appropriate things. It's really that 30 days.

Annie Phenix: 34:40

I learned this from a horse trainer. He was kind of a jerk, a jerk cowboy, because I had a horse off the racetrack at the time and I took him straight to a weekend trainer who I thought I'd heard good things about and I was so worried this horse was going to buck me because he had never he'd only been a, he was a pony horse, so he ran in circles all day long. He didn't really have any training and he was huge.

Annie Phenix: 35:02

He was a big, gruey horse and I was scared of him and I was on the horse, clenching, and I kept turning, turning, turning, turning, just waiting for him to erupt, and I wasn't helped, that emotional contagion I was not helping the horse calm down and he screamed at me in front of everyone, which is not the best way to learn, but it stuck with me. He said you on the blue horse, do less faster. And I go, do less faster. What the heck? I was so stressed out and he said put your hand, put the reins down. I'm like I can't, he'll buck me, put the reins down. I'm like, yes, sir, and I had to put him down and it was hard to you know. I just was holding him to the saddles Western saddle for dear life and he basically like you're micromanaging the hell out of that horse and you're making his tension go through the roof and he will buck you as opposed to, I have to co, we co-regulate and we mirror each other and I have to call myself first, because I'm sitting on him and I'm the human and that horse and I had a wonderful relationship after he learned to be a horse, after being a racehorse, a pony horse, and kept in a stall.

Annie Phenix: 36:12

He didn't know what grass was, and so I tell my dog trainer clients do less, faster. And they're like what does that mean? It means don't get a new dog and go walk in the neighborhood within two days and I and I have a 30 day reset program that says this is what I want you to do every day for 30 days and it's five to 10 minutes. We'll get to the training. I mean you have to do potty training. I usually get potty training done in 24 hours almost always and it dogs should be potty trained really and it's miraculous to me that they can in a whole house. They figure it out. Our house is 3,200 square feet and they know not to pee in the house, like that's crazy.

Dr Edwards: 36:52

Pretty good, isn't it?

Annie Phenix: 36:54

Yeah, but the sitting, the down, the staying, the trading objects, so you don't get resource guarding. All that will come in time, but that dog needs to trust you and we don't spend time on trust. We don't spend time on trust. We don't spend time on being I'm your mom or whatever you want to say that pisses people off for some reason. I'm your nurturing some people off.

Annie Phenix: 37:18

Yeah, not everybody, that's okay, you are the social support for that little bitty being who has lost everything he or she knew, or the new rescue that's been in a shelter, in and out in three or four homes and doesn't know what's going on. It works for both. So what you do first is think about deep safety. How do I convince this dog I'm not going to hurt it? And it's also about getting to know that dog and not sit down, stay and cranking. And we're going to the park and we're going to go to Home Depot. I say don't go to the vet the first unless the dog is sick, until you have a rapport with that dog, because you're the safety vet. As you know, vet offices can be so stressful for I get started absolutely.

Dr Edwards: 38:02

I did the fear-free certification a couple of years ago and I learned a lot more about just how stressed dogs were when they come to the vet. It's probably more than half of them are really suffering when they come in.

Annie Phenix: 38:15

And I'm stressed because I can see it on them how stressed they are. I now have vets who come to the house. Well, actually I have for years because we had horses, so they were large animal vets and they did both and that was such a luxury to have the shot. But so, number one, deep safety. I'm replacing the mother dog, I'm replacing the siblings. If I have a dog in the house, I'm going to go so slow introducing the two.

Annie Phenix: 38:41

There's a trainer in the US named Diane Garrett. She did go to Australia recently. She's all about detoxing and de-stressing. She got a beautiful German shepherd that had been she has shepherds that had been sent to several homes and it came to her and it was young, maybe three months old, and she had two senior, older dogs that were very well trained and used to dogs. She spent four months going very slowly, introducing, introducing, introducing and she could have done it in four days. But she knew the nervous system and those dogs are best friends and it wasn't a guarantee that the 14-year-old dog would accept the four-month-old dog.

Annie Phenix: 39:21

And so if you have another dog in the house you have to go so slow. Even if your dog loves dogs, that older dog needs some space away from the puppy. So slow it down, don't take your dog everywhere. I would rather you spend 30 days let's just say 10, if that's all you can give and like at the end of 10 days. I want to know if I called you and said what does your dog love Like? What does it love most in the world? Is it sleeping? Are they getting enough sleep? Most dogs do not, especially puppies. We're constantly interrupting them. Does your dog like a walk? Hopefully you don't know the answer because you haven't taken him. I don't walk the dog for a while. We need that nervous system, not forever. We will get to the walk. But if you've walked the dog before the dog is really settled and trust you, you're just trigger after trigger, you're trigger stacking the dog before the dog is really settled and trust you, you're just trigger after trigger, trigger stacking the dog.

Annie Phenix: 40:14

Um, yeah, 10 days, whatever. Um, have a puppy play date, but maybe not for a month you have. If it's a, really if it's, if it's a four month old dog, I'm spending that time to build and if I don't have a safe dog, it has to be a safe dog about the same age or an older dog that really likes puppies.

Dr Edwards: 40:32

So this is very different than what the majority of people tell you to do, right?

Annie Phenix: 40:39

Go to puppy school, terrorize the puppy in a class, yeah.

Dr Edwards: 40:47

So what do you say to people then? So say, people are hearing this for the first time. I find with my clients that a lot of them immediately go to oh my god, I did the bad thing. I'm an awful pet parent. I've harmed my dog. I've got gonna shower toxic guilt all over myself for the rest of my life because I didn't know what was the best thing. What do you say to these people right now? What can they do to feel good about themselves and maybe help the dog that didn't get help early on?

Annie Phenix: 41:19

That's a great question and guilt is. There's a whole lot of shaming and everyone is an expert, by the way, on your puppy. That's another thing. My clients will tell me. But my neighbor said, but my neighbor has will tell me. But my neighbor said, but my neighbor has shot collar. But my uncle said, by my best friend, raised dog for 30 years.

Annie Phenix: 41:35

And I like, tune it out, listen to your inner nurturer first and foremost. Like the whole thing of letting puppies cry it out in a crate, no, we, please don't do that. For 20 years ago it was, or I don't know how long ago, because again I didn't have children, it was let. Or I don't know how long ago, because again I didn't have children, it was let the infant human cry it out in the crate. I mean the crate. See, I've never had kids in the crib. And thank God we matured and said pick up the baby, nurture the baby, don't let it. Don't let a baby cry, it's a freaking baby. It needs that connection. Don't let a puppy cry in the crate. If they're crying in the crate, they're not ready to be alone. And go get it out of the crate and spend shorter amount of time than the crate you're, you're bringing your nurturing self forward.

Annie Phenix: 42:21

We've kind of taken that out away because of the higher critical sit down, stay, make me look good when I'm healing you in the park and instead of this dog is so little, my world is so big and the dog that. Cars don't make sense to dogs, vets don't make sense to. Living in a house doesn't make sense. Most dogs do not live in a house. In the world, 80 don't live in houses. So all of these are human constructs that work for us and some and the thing about feeling guilty is guilt to me is an unawakening in a way, unless it's just somebody else is putting guilt on you and you didn't do it, but internal guilt and a little feeling of I could have done that differently, I think is good in some ways as long as you're not just beating yourself up for 10 years or something.

Annie Phenix: 43:09

But guilt is an awareness to me. Could I do this differently? I don't like how I treated that first dog and it turned out it wasn't a very happy dog or it got more reactive instead of less reactive. And can I do it differently? So a little bit of guilt to me is an awakening. You don't need to overdo it and then start questioning. That's what some of my favorite trainers, like Sarah Fisher in the UK who created free work. Her favorite question is why, why, why, why, why do I feel guilty? Take that out and examine it and say, instead of just being guilty, I'm going to do it differently this time.

Dr Edwards: 43:46

I'm not going to put the dog in the crate for 10 hours a day.

Annie Phenix: 43:48

I'm not going to take the dog to Home Depot after two days after I got it out of the shelter. The dog has to decompress. I'm going to switch and say instead of what is my dog doing for me? Because we put so much expectation, like all the COVID dogs that people got, because the world was freaked out, those dogs are the trouble that those dogs have because we had to go back to work and I think it's because the world shut down and we were terrified and dogs are very good at many dogs at comforting us, yeah. And then we have that expectation and then it's like the separation anxiety.

Annie Phenix: 44:23

I saw a study from like the dogs from 2020 to 2022 up 700%. Noise phobia is through the roof because we gave them one thing for the first year of their life and then, sorry, I got to go back to work and you're all whatever. So if you have guilt, listen to it, learn from it and say I'm going to figure out a better way. And honestly, when I say to people you know how to nurture. Even if you don't have kids unless you're a psychopath you know how to nurture something. So you may not get it exactly right, but if you know that you're creating a safe space for your dog and you take some time to educate yourself about a dog.

Annie Phenix: 45:06

Dogs need 14 to 16 hours of sleep. Puppies have to have those naps. They have to process what happened to them Mine were like just maniacs if they didn't get their naps. Like it was Montessori school for six months where canine enrichment and I was much more concerned about enrichment and creating resiliency and creating joy. Resiliency and joy has gone out the wayside for dogs because we're just micromanaging the hell out of them. Oh yeah.

Dr Edwards: 45:39

There's no freedom. Any dog that experiences any frustration, the human instantly rescues them, so they never get to work through frustration and learn how to regulate and become resilient. So, joy and resilience. How do you support that in a practical way? How do you, how do you help dogs enjoy those? Well, their skills in a way, aren't they?

Annie Phenix: 45:59

yeah, and it's up to us to teach them that they don't. I mean, they do have inherent things, but particularly like mine, that were taken at five weeks of age. Their answer was to attack each other because they were so stressed out. That's not joy, that's not resilience, that's not going to be good for the rest of their life. So we did a lot of separating. My husband would take one and I would take one. I would have done that anyway, just so they can be okay by themselves. At some point. They slept in separate crates immediately. But if they were scared in the crate, they slept in separate crates immediately. But if they were scared in the crate, I would get them out and go spend some time with them.

Annie Phenix: 46:33

Most of the time we did so much enrichment, but slow. Most day I was outside. Sitting in the front yard with them is what I was doing, because our yard is fenced and it happened to be lovely weather and I spent so much time and I liked, I loved it. I loved being outside. I did all my work outside and I changed my schedule, particularly for the first 30 days. I'm there, I'm your support and I started teaching a recall right away. So people might've heard me say I teach healing first and we'll get to training. Recall is so important to me that I do start teaching that, but that a recall is also a relationship.

Dr Edwards: 47:09

I'm asking oh, oh, say that again. Everybody listen very carefully to this.

Annie Phenix: 47:15

This is pure gold a recall to me is a relationship like if we could see what they smell. We would be shocked that any dog ever comes back to us outside and because their nose is so powerful and we're asking them to ignore it ignore the deer that came through the yard last night, ignore the cat that wandered through the yard, even if it's just your yard ignore all that and come back and all the things that they can hear that we can't hear. And it's remarkable. And I can tell to me what is your relationship off leash work with your dog. That's the other thing is my. I always do off leash work in a safe area. That's training. Then you, that's a relationship and giving you a choice. Do you want to come to me? No, why don't you want to come to me?

Dr Edwards: 48:03

How can I inspire you to want to come to me?

Annie Phenix: 48:06

Yeah, have I scared you or are you just being a puppy, you know, know? Or did I call you when you were really involved in a sniff, instead of waiting until you kind of looked at me anyway and made it successful? My dogs have excellent recalls, and they always have, because another.

Dr Edwards: 48:21

Another thing that people can try is to tape up your mouth and then work with your dog so you can't talk, you can't make words and you can't do the human vocal thing, and that can be deeply frustrating, but it can be a very powerful learning experience too and they're so into watching us, and so their.

Annie Phenix: 48:38

Your body language is crucial.

Dr Edwards: 48:40

It's like dogs know when you're going to go for a walk versus you're going to the grocery store because we dogs know when you're coming home, when you're outside their sensory range of awareness too, so you know they're.

Annie Phenix: 48:52

They're incredibly energetically sensitive as well and I think they're amazing and they're a gift and they're just so common and that anyone can get one. I don't know that they're. They're some people some of us do our dogs are our life and we get that um but other people they're like it's a car, you know it's.

Dr Edwards: 49:14

I bought this five thousand dollar, whatever, and it's not um, treated as an amazing creature that somehow agreed to live with us so, when it comes to relationship, what are your kind of key takeaways for helping people build that beautiful, deep, wide, connected, respectful loving bond with their dogs?

Annie Phenix: 49:47

Honestly, I love that question too. It's hearing the dog and seeing what they're communicating. Because the trauma to me as a young kid was my needs were not met basic needs and I was not allowed to be myself because it was a transactional relationship. I had to be XYZ to be loved or even just to get a pat on the head in my family. And if you have a transactional relationship with a dog or a child, you have to be X in order to get my affection or calmness or even food. That messes a creature up. And so I beg owners to understand canine communication and canine body language, things like calming signals. Because I say once I show you what your dog is saying to you, without a voice other than a bark, of course, or a growl, but all the stuff they're doing in their face and their tail and their body, once I show it to you, you cannot unsee it, unless you're just willfully wanting to because you don't want to, you want to use something harsh on the dog or whatever, or you just don't want to see it. And I say the same about trauma. Once I say to you this about trauma, once I say to you, this is freeze, a freeze, it could be a trauma response. A dog like people. I hate videos on social media where the dog just sits down in the middle of the street and won't go any further. Well, it could be tired for sure, and then they drag it. No, a freeze is not a good thing. Generally speaking, a freeze could come before a bite, but it could also be.

Annie Phenix: 51:20

I am overwhelmed right now now, and I am not stepping forward, and so once I start showing body language, I do a lot of videotaping of clients. I mean, I ask them to videotape. First and foremost. Let's go through, show me your dog's day in three or four short videos and then I'll say stop the film. Did you see the lip lick? Did you see the slow blinking? That's really hard for people, is a slow blinking. Did you see the dog turn his head away from the other dog? Did you see the dog suddenly start scratching? All of these are so subtle and we are not good, and studies have even said that that most owners cannot recognize anxiety in a dog.

Dr Edwards: 52:02

Oh God, no, Not at all. So how do you interpret slow blinks and those soft, heavy, sleepy kind of eye things that they do?

Annie Phenix: 52:10

I see it as it needs to be, contextual. It's kind of like a shake-off, where a dog does this. You know it's like, well, you just had a bath. That's contextual. That's shaking off the water.

Annie Phenix: 52:22

But if you're in your kitchen and a loud noise happens and the dog does a shake off, then I'm saying I almost think they're resetting their nerves a little bit. I don't know for sure, but it's like a yawn or a heavy sigh, or when we do this to be, it's like oh, that stressed me out a little bit. So to me, blinking in my interpretation and anybody you can interpret anything you want um is a couple of things. One is a calming signal to another dog. I don't mean you any harm, I don't mean you, especially if they're kind of turning. My dog, finn um, is exquisite and he's white with dark eyeliner around his eyes, and so his slow blinking is I almost think he's either trying to say you're stressing me out a little bit and or I'm trying to figure out what is happening in the moment with Finn Um because, um, uh, thunder one night and then the stupid smoke alarm went off and he started shaking and and I actually thought he was almost having a seizure.

Annie Phenix: 53:24

but um, when he kind of came out of it, he just was slowly blinking like what in the hell was that?

Dr Edwards: 53:32

and social processing is huge yeah, I I when I'm doing relaxing touch. That's a very common hallmark of response to relaxing touch is this often sleepy, heavy eye type, slow blinks and stuff like that. So I kind of wonder if it's a self-regulation, as in the parasympathetic nervous system is switching on a little bit and that's one of the kind of signs of that.

Annie Phenix: 53:56

Yeah, and people do not see blinking or yawning. They don't see the dog yawning.

Dr Edwards: 54:02

Oh God, I do. In fact I do slow blinks to people and they respond to it.

Annie Phenix: 54:08

Yeah, yeah, and that's the calming part of it for sure. It's fascinating.

Dr Edwards: 54:17

Well, it's also like I feel safe with you because I'm willing to shut my eyes while you're here with me. Yeah, there's another way that I interpret that, because you know, if your dog's anxious, they're never going to close their eyes. They're going to be watching you.

Annie Phenix: 54:28

Yes.

Dr Edwards: 54:29

If they trust you, closing their eyes is kind of also for me at least some level of trust to close your eyes. And cats too. I've got my kitten here. He's asleep on the bench. Coolest kitten ever. But cats, if you give them a slow blink when you meet them, they'll often give you a slow blink right back and then say come right up to you and be friends. And the people say my cat never talks to anyone. What do you do?

Annie Phenix: 54:55

We should challenge people. Start blinking at animals and watch them blink.

Dr Edwards: 55:00

Slow blinks. I call them eye kisses because I have situations where dogs will come and do that and it's in a relaxed context and they're just wanting to connect and communicate. And they'll come up and they'll do the little soft half blinks and slow half blinks and I call them eye kisses as well.

Annie Phenix: 55:20

And I've even paid more attention to mine again because of free work and filming filming my own dogs. I think that they are throwing me calming signals quite a lot, not because they're calming me down, they're just a lot of dogs don't like direct eye contact. Some do they. You know, let's share the love hormone by looking in each other's eyes. We know that that happens between the species, but some of the hurting dogs in my experience can be so sensitive that just a direct stare is like you're being really rude. And I've started paying really close attention to my dogs, and Cooper particularly, even though he's rowdier than Finn or not as sensitive. When I try to look him in the eye he just he's turning his cheek and he doesn't like direct eye contact. And so I'm like are you throwing me a calming signal or I think he just doesn't appreciate.

Dr Edwards: 56:11

It makes him a little nervous it's like that's too intrusive, it's too invasive, whoa too much yeah, just the eyes.

Annie Phenix: 56:19

So imagine how we touch dogs and we, just our hands are all over them, we just throw on a harness or whatever and drag them by the neck. I mean, they're giving us so many signals and that, to me, is the first step is watch videos, find out which are good and healthy ones like Fear Free Prets has a ton of a very sensitive video library and healthy ones like Fear Free Pretz has a ton of a very sensitive video library. I find a positive reinforcement trainer and there's one I love in Canada called Happy Hounds Dog Training. She's got excellent videos. There's so many really good ones that you can trust. But if you don't know who to trust, you could go down a rabbit hole.

Annie Phenix: 56:58

When I wrote my first book, I typed in in 2015, could go down a rabbit hole. When I wrote my first book, I typed in in 2015, aggression in dogs, and at the time Google would say 680 million responses in 2.3 seconds. So if you're dealing with a dog that's growling and lunging and you go to the internet, you could get Jim Bob or Kathy Sue, who has no training whatsoever, not a single certification, and says, oh, I can cure your dog's aggression, guaranteed in 30 days because they can go get a shot. You know, use some discernment and if you do and that's where listening to yourself and your own heart comes in If you're like that looks harsh, I don't want to spray my dog in the face with a water bottle. That seems gross to me. I don't want to spray my dog in the face with a water bottle. That seems gross to me. Yeah, it stopped it, but what does that do to the relationship? Well, I'm not going to throw a chain at my dog on the floor or crate it or scare it. A lot of us can see, particularly if the dog is crouching or has the whale eye. I mean, use your heart. We've gotten away from that in training because it's science, science, science says that's what has happened in the industry anyway, as trainers, and it's like that's going back to joy.

Annie Phenix: 58:12

We get dogs for a reason and most people get it because they love dogs Most, not all people. Some people are assholes to dogs, for sure, but they. And if you get so bogged down into the training or you have a difficult or frustrated dog or anxious dog that's barking and lunging, and then your frustration grows and you don't get help from a qualified and there are fewer and fewer force free behaviorists who are behavior consultants who really can help with reactivity, and a lot of it is because they're not looking at it as a trauma response. My dogs actually were also car phobic because of that very early journey taken at five weeks they were in a truck for seven hours. In my mind they were just in the back of a truck, maybe in a crate.

Annie Phenix: 58:54

They were the most phobic car and I've worked with car phobic dogs before, mostly counter conditioning and desensitizing. If one more, when I was writing I wrote a whole horse about them because now they're they're mostly over it. We go places every week. I didn't for two years because they had streaming diarrhea and streaming vomit and their hearts were pounding so hard. It was traumatizing to them to be in a car and we tried the medication. We work with vets and if one more person told me, give them ginger snaps that'll fix it, that'll fix the trauma, that'll kill the trauma, just like that just does not fix trauma.

Annie Phenix: 59:34

Counter conditioning does not fix trauma. So I used I finally, all my dogs I would with, and these two never went hiking with me and I started missing it. They were fine in the neighborhood, they didn't care, that's what they grew up with. But I knew that we could be hiking in these gorgeous mountains and it was weird to me to walk without a dog, like I haven't done it in 30 years, like what's the point of walking when you don't have a dog. And so I missed it. So I said I have to help them and I started looking. There wasn't a course. There's hardly any courses and if they are, they're old and not of use. And medication didn't help them. I mean, the car was wrecked. Basically, we would put so many layers down. We tried to take a little trip here and little trip there, try the gym. I mean nothing. I mean it was a huge trauma response to them because of what had happened to them.

Annie Phenix: 1:00:22

So I used free work, which is Sarah Fisher's program. I put the car in the garage off with the door shut. You don't want to turn your car on in the garage. I have to say that, yeah, with the door shut. And then we did free work once or twice a week with the car in there. Ignore it, I don't care, I don't see a car, do you see a car? And free work is they're doing stations and smelling and sniffing and seeking it lights up their brain and I'm just observing, I'm not saying anything, do what you want. And they're finding treats here and there, licky treats, crunchy treats, and I'm observing the whole thing is watching what they're doing. And so then I would go to the car door open with no car on, and that is a little bit of counter-conditioning and desensitizing, but the free work is what engaged their mind and calmed their bodies.

Dr Edwards: 1:01:15

So free work would be a kind of serotonin-dominant kind of thing. Yeah, because of seeking.

Annie Phenix: 1:01:22

It does everything. It's a. I mean it almost seems like magic because it can do so many things. Like sarah says, don't go into it expecting anything because we put too much expectations. But I still kind of use it that way.

Annie Phenix: 1:01:35

Like finn is ball obsessed to the degree that I think is unhealthy, and so I was talking to sarah fisher about it, he came up with free work and she works with police dogs that kind of fail out of the course because they won't let go of the ball because they're so they breed them to be toy driven and all of that. And that's Finn like his life is ball. And she kept saying she did a whole police course of free work, one dog, one at a time where they could very quickly, with one or two sessions of the dog being off leash, free work, sniffing here, sniffing there, seeking, digging through snuffle mats and not being talked to or managed, maybe encouraged. But we're not our job, it's not us, it's the dog is being a dog. That's one reason it works. Yeah, and then the owner could just drop a ball. And so then the question for Sarah is does the dog need the ball as a security blanket? Because she's noticed her. She has a big arena that's outdoor but covered, and so she would notice most of the dogs were able to leave that ball and I didn't believe it because I'm like Finn will not leave the ball and I started filming it. I went through a course of hers and she said she did notice that sometimes if dog could ignore the ball, which is huge, but a flock of birds would fly through or an airplane would go over and the dog would kind of get out of it and it really helps.

Annie Phenix: 1:02:54

Noise phobic dogs noise sensitive because they're busy working. But if they kind of come out of the trance or whatever they're in and they hear the noise, some of them might go grab that ball because it's kind of an emotional and chewing the chewing is helpful. So I did it with Finn, except it wasn't a ball, because I worked a way up to a ball. It was a snake toy and I have it on video and because I couldn't believe it.

Annie Phenix: 1:03:17

I always feel my free work because I'm learning from my own dogs and so he's gone through the free work, gotten all the food he knows what free work is and then the snake was left and he brings it over and I could see it in his eye it's not, doesn't shape like a ball at all, and he brings it over and he drops it. And he brings it over and he drops it, and I just kind of look away, I don't correct them, and he starts whining and that's what he wants. I don't care what it is, just throw something. And I just kind of said, I didn't say anything, I just sat there and just kind of turned my cheek away a little bit and he looked at me because I'm still filming and he looks at the thing and he looks at me and you could see him like but there might be a treat over there, might be something I didn't find, and he goes and he leaves it and he goes and he's done. He doesn't do it again and I worked up to a ball.

Annie Phenix: 1:04:06

Um, so that's, that's the and that's how I helped them with getting over their car phobia. Because when I opened the door which they ignored for a long time, but when they're happy, seeking free work the day finn jumped into the back seat, I started, started crying and said I can help him now because that's consent. He jumped in that car because we forced him in the car and he chose after. I mean, it wasn't even that long, maybe a month of building up to that, the door open.

Annie Phenix: 1:04:39

And then I did the old counter conditioning, which is we're doing free work, jump in the car, jump out of the car, jump in there. And I wasn't bribing him. You don't throw the ball in that some people want to do that. That's mixing something he loves with something he's terrorized by. I got him very comfortable in a stationary car, not turned on, even with me in the driver's seat, him at the door shut, because then they're trapped, even with me in the driver's seat, him with the door shut, because then they're trapped. And then we started doing the little drives around and I'll give him a choice. We walk out our garage door and I'll say do you want to go for a ride or do you want to go for a walk? And he'll go to the car door every time.

Dr Edwards: 1:05:14

Okay, cool, that's a massive transformation.

Annie Phenix: 1:05:17

And it was that consent, and we don't think about consent. He chose yeah, and it was that consent, and we don't think about consent. He chose to get in the car. It wasn't such a big scary thing anymore and it took time.

Dr Edwards: 1:05:27

When it comes to consent, um, and you've got dogs that need to be handled or examined or have interventions and stuff like that, how do you manage that? Because that that's kind of like sometimes necessity is is urgent. How do you do that in a way that serves everyone?

Annie Phenix: 1:05:47

that, to me, goes back to resiliency. So if something happens where you have to take a car phobic dog into the and this is one reason we need to get them past the car phobia because there will be probably a time that they might even you might have a medical emergency and they have to go stay with somebody else, but they have to get there in the car. I mean, we are car driven humans, I'm driven, that's a pun. But so to me, resiliency of I have worked so hard on showing you new things and building your trust up over time, but putting trust into the trust bank. And so if something scary happens, like that time that we had thunder and then the fire alarm, smoke alarm went off and it was one of those ones we couldn't stop, and those things are so loud and they go off, they're horrible.

Annie Phenix: 1:06:35

And I feel for dogs, even if they go off and the owner's not home, because they cannot get away from it. So I took him out to the garage. It was like two in the morning in winter so it was freezing and my husband almost beat the thing with a bat to get it and we've unplugged it and it's never been plugged back in. But that was very traumatic for Finn. But I had built so much trust in him that I will help you solve your problems. But I also want him to solve some problems. I teach him how to solve problems. I give him agency. He has a lot of choices that he makes day to day so he can trust himself.

Annie Phenix: 1:07:10

I have a dog door and a fenced yard. We control when they're out there and they're never out there if we're not home. But that dog door gives them the choice to go inside or outside. If I have to pee I can go outside, that sort of thing. I look for agency, I look for backup. I'm your social support. I will help you through these scary things. And it's really that seven months I took of calming that nervous system and saying you are safe, you are safe, you are safe. So when that accident happens. Yeah, I may have to put you in the car, even if we hadn't already gotten over it, but you're you're bleeding, so we got to go, that's you know it's not an option.

Annie Phenix: 1:07:50

Yeah, yeah, but if they have resiliency and a lot of dogs are not resilient or if something does happen. You're walking your dog and he's had a great life for three years with you, never been approached or scared by an off-leash dog and one day they come flying out of a door and hurt your dog. That's trauma and we need to go home and we need to give 10 days off of walking or whatever. Every dog's different. A lot of people go. I'm going right back tomorrow so you won't be scared in that spot and I know the nervous system needs if you, if you have a big trauma in your life time to figure out what just happened to you and let that body rest. And we don't do that. We don't.

Dr Edwards: 1:08:34

We don't let dogs rest yeah, look, and I think that's one of the probably the big key things overall is we don't let dogs rest, we don't support downtime and relaxation, we don't teach dogs how to self-regulate and build capacity. I really see that that self-regulatory capacity is resilience, you know.

Annie Phenix: 1:08:56

It is Exactly, and there's so much that we're learning and their nervous system is just like ours, we co-evolved. And so that's when we say I'm a human trauma informed person. And then I moved over to dog canine trauma informed because they have an amygdala, they have the frontal cortex, they have a nervous system cortex, they have a nervous system. They can respond in many of the ways and do respond that we respond physically, like our bodies the freeze, the fight um flight. A lot of dogs just want to escape and get the hell out when they're scared.

Annie Phenix: 1:09:32

But we've put a leash on them and the pigeon, of course yeah, it's, if you can help a human body regulate like talking, like I had a startle reflex for many years and a cold shower finally finally helped me. When nothing, you can't talk through a somatic body response in talk therapy it's like a ginger snap. It's not going to help solve trauma oh look, I, I agree.

Dr Edwards: 1:09:59

Um, after my marriage I had post-traumatic stress because I'd spent seven years with a covert, narcissist, abusive type of human being and that somatic experiencing approach changed my whole life and now that's my core practice, and when I do my somatic practices I see all the dogs in the room relax in response to me doing an internal practice relax in response to me doing an internal practice. Yep, it's crucial. Oh, it's absolutely the thing.

Annie Phenix: 1:10:25

And it's like we put training before healing and training before trust traditionally, and we put learning and school and road and society above somatic body work. To me, that was my final I mean, you're never finally healed but it was the missing piece that I could never get to in my own trauma is the cement, the tapping, the cold water, deep breathing. It's like it should be taught everywhere and it's just not. And for a long time it was ridiculed. In fact, I have this. I wanted to bring this up. I don't know if you can read this. You probably can read that. I'll read it. Have this. I wanted to bring this up. I don't know if you can read this.

Annie Phenix: 1:11:02

You probably can read that. I'll read it. Um, peter levine and I love and this is from the cptsd foundation, which is in uk, and I love their stuff. It's a um incredible uh website and I love their memes, but this was I was where I got it from. Peter levine is a psychologist trauma, is perhaps the most avoided, ignored, belittled, denied, misunderstood and untreated cause of human suffering, and I scratch out human suffering and say canine suffering. It's for both of us yeah, and equine especially horses.

Annie Phenix: 1:11:36

I don't have horses anymore. While they they passed away. I kept them until they passed away, but, um, like I can't stand how horses are treated in texas, give me a break. I rode without a bit, finally, and I had a runaway horse. He didn't have a buck, but he was. I mean, I almost went through fences with him and he didn't like the bit, and because I took the bit out and I learned how to work him in just a light harness halter.

Dr Edwards: 1:12:05

Hackleball halter, yeah, those things.

Annie Phenix: 1:12:07

He never ran away. That alone, I think it's like a deep breath. I don't need to outrun the bit.

Dr Edwards: 1:12:16

Yeah, what an interesting conversation we've had today. We've covered a lot of ground, and a lot of really important ground, I think, and you've certainly given me a whole lot of food for thought. I've given everyone else out there who's listening food for thought. Um, so one question that that we'll finish off with. What is the change that you want to be and inspires others to be in this world?

Annie Phenix: 1:12:48

I think it goes back to what I said about seeing dogs as something to cherish and not just an accessory. It's not a fashion statement, it's a living, breathing, feeling dog. That is an animal that is very similar to us and they're a gift and they've given us a gift of quiet understanding of us. I feel like they have to understand us, or they do, because they're watching us constantly. They can be such a source of emotional relief for us because of their natures. Like we don't have raccoons in the house, we don't have possums in the house, you know you don't have bears, you shouldn't anyway. And this one animal, of all the animals, said, yeah, you're kind of cool, or whatever happened.

Annie Phenix: 1:13:40

And over 30,000 years we have this incredible opportunity and relationship and they've been so helpful throughout our history. Um, you know they used to all have jobs, important jobs. You know, guarding the flock. Or you know rottweilers used to. I had a rottweiler and they used to be carry um like a wagon behind them and the butcher put all the meat back there because the dog wasn't going to let you get the meat, but also just useful. And the little terriers were getting the barbers you don't want mice back in the plague days.

Annie Phenix: 1:14:12

I mean, they've served us so well and so honorably and I think they're a very kind species that is easy to mistreat because they don't have a voice, they don't have lawyers, they don't have lobbyists. They have their teeth and if they bite it's probably the end of the road for them most often. And they're just, I mean, they're a gift from somebody I don't know who, and I want them to be elevated to that that they deserve all the respect, all the gentleness that we have to give them that maybe we didn't get, and to honor them and to say they have a right to have a good life. And what there is important to them may not be important to me. What may be important to me, like I want an agility dog. Well, my dog may hate agility.

Annie Phenix: 1:15:00

Then we say yes, yes yes, yes yeah, they deserve a wonderful life, and how many of them? And a wonderful life to an america, to a human. A human is, I'm going to say, american is maybe the nicest car or the biggest piece of jewelry, or the trip to cabo or whatever. I don't know what it would be in austral terms, but it's stuff and it's experiences. Maybe, or the best dinner. That's not what a dog makes a dog happy and it's up to us to know what it makes a dog happy. A lot of it is being with us, but it's also the sniffing, the seeking, the chewing, the rolling and the smelly stuff. Being able to run. When do dogs get to run off leash in a safe space, you know?

Dr Edwards: 1:15:48

Not a lot Many dogs.

Annie Phenix: 1:15:52

So that's what I wish I want dogs to not be thought of as just a throwaway object. They need to be respected and honored as much as they have given to us.

Dr Edwards: 1:16:10

I think it's our turn to give back to them. I wholeheartedly agree with you. Now you do have a free download, a free gift for people, which will be in the show notes. If anyone wants it, just tell us a little bit about that. And where can people find you if they want to connect with you? And I don't know, work over Zoom or anything like that?

Annie Phenix: 1:16:25

Yeah, I do work with clients all over the world. Today I've talked to Canada, a Canadian person, and Australia twice today. So I do virtual consults all the time. But the seven steps to healing is seven steps that I've. You know. People say what do I do first? What do I do tomorrow? My dog's traumatized, what do I do? So it's a free seven step process of here's the seven things you can do. It doesn't have to be in that exact order, no, it depends on your dog. But it's the slowing down, recognizing body language, some of the things we've talked about tonight. So that's free.

Annie Phenix: 1:17:03

And then I started an off Facebook community called the Canine Trauma Clinic, because I've even had trainers tell me that dogs can't have trauma and I'm like, do they have a nervous system? Of course they can experience trauma Like force-free educated trainers like that's silly. Experience trauma like force-free, educated trainers like that's silly. And so there's still a lot of education that has to be done about trauma, and trauma is how we respond to our life. You know you could be in a car wreck and it doesn't scare you as much as me. Being in a car wreck scares me for a variety of reasons. Maybe I had a scary one when I was a kid scares me for a variety of reasons. Maybe I had a scary one when I was a kid. You know your house burns down and you move on. Or a hurricane or whatever. You move on pretty quickly. I maybe can't and I'm traumatized by the idea of fire. It's how our body system responds to what life throws at us.

Annie Phenix: 1:17:56

So I started the Canine Trauma Clinic. It is on Mighty Networks. It's a paid community and people can get all of my courses. All of my courses are about trauma healing because there's big t and little t's. You know there's this and the faster you help the smaller t's, then it doesn't become the big t's absolutely and I'm a.

Annie Phenix: 1:18:17

my website is chooseotrainhumanecom.

Dr Edwards: 1:18:21

Say that again, please.

Annie Phenix: 1:18:22

My website is choosetotrainhumanecom.

Dr Edwards: 1:18:25

Choosetotrainhumane. I like it.

Annie Phenix: 1:18:29

It's a choice Every day you wake up, and how you're going to treat your dog is a choice.

Dr Edwards: 1:18:34

That's true too. Thank you so much for your time and your wisdom today. It's been really fascinating. We'll say goodbye to everyone now. If you enjoyed this, please you know, rate give us a rating. Share it with your friends and we'll see you in the next episode, whenever that might be. Thank you so much, everyone for listening and be lovely to your dogs, but also remember to be lovely to you too.