Brewing Better Animal Behavior: Shelter Science with Dr. Erica Feuerbacher, Part II

ABA on Tap is proud to present Dr. Erica Feuerbacher (Part 2 of 2):

Grab a cold one and pull up a chair! In this episode of ABA on Tap, we’re joined by Dr. Erica Feuerbacher, BCBA-D, to explore the fascinating intersection of behavior analysis and animal welfare.

Dr. Feuerbacher is an Associate Professor at Virginia Tech and a leading expert in applied animal behavior. We dive into her groundbreaking research on what truly reinforces our four-legged friends, their social connections, and how we can use the science of behavior to improve the lives of shelter dogs.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Reinforcement in the Wild: How to identify what actually functions as a reinforcer for dogs and horses.
• Shelter Science: Interventions that reduce stress and increase adoption rates through evidence-based practices.
• Human-Animal Bond: The behavior-analytic perspective on why we (and our pets) do what we do.
• Humane Training: Moving beyond "jargon" to practical, compassionate care for all species.

Whether you’re a BCBA looking to expand your scope or just a dog lover curious about the science of "sit," this episode serves up a refreshing look at ABA beyond the clinic.

Always Analyze Responsibly. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:01

Welcome to A Rat. So without further ado, sit back, relax, and always analyze responsibly. All right, all right. Welcome back to ABA on tap. I am your ever-grateful co-host, Mike Rubio, and this is part two of our interview with Dr. Erica Fuhrbacher. Enjoy. This is a good one. You you alluded to, you know, I guess certain things in the pet stores or things that we use to stimulate our pets. Tell us a little bit about things that you might see on the shelf that you're like, that's just not a good idea, versus those things that you look at and go, oh, this is a really good idea. And I'm sure, you know, most dogs are going to enjoy the stimulus and and you know those things. I'm sure I'm sure that happens to you as a consumer. And you don't have to put anybody on the spot, but if there's anything that really gets your go, you're like, oh, this is dumb. Please tell us about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

We can stay away from it for our dogs. I I think I just really try and base it on what the animal likes. So trying to, I think that's why you have such an array of toys out there is there's so many individual preferences for for dogs. And even, you know, they can change over time. Sometimes my dogs want to chew on a bone, and other times they want to chew on a ball and and play tugs. So having an array, I think, is really important for your dog to get to choose what they what they want to engage in. I think the main things that I'd be careful about are like safety concerns. Our current Malin Wild likes to, she's again ball obsessed. I would get her those big Kong balls, and she loved them, these giant squeaky balls. She would take one and then smash another one into her mouth. She could get five of those into her mouth because she just smash, smash, smash. And so we have to be really careful with her on making sure the objects we get her that we think she's gonna pick up are bigger than what can go down her throat so that she doesn't choke. So those are the things, you know, I think the safety concerns are the big things that I would be cautious about. But other than that, I would just try and explore and see what what your animal likes. I had, I was this is before I got my first Malin Wat, I had was kind of doing a test foster with another male, and I had uh cats, and not all mouse are straight with cats. And so they had said that in her foster home she had met a cat at the foster's parents' home, and so they thought she was cat safe. So I brought her in and she would not disengage, like just the cat was separated from her, she couldn't disengage. And my friend and other and colleague, Sasha Protopopova, and I trained her that you know she'd look at the cat, she could disengage. But it's like, I don't think I could ever live safely with this. And I said, I just need to know. So we quickly trained her up to wear a muzzle briefly and put her into the cat. And she just bam, like just hit the cat with the muzzle. Like, nope, we can't, we're not gonna live safely together. So I was trying to help them find placement for it because she was a pretty, pretty high energy, pretty intense dog. And I said, Have you have you contact and we were had a flirt poll, which is like a long, it's almost like a horse whip, but it's got a toy on the end, and you can move it around, and a lot of dogs, you know, go nuts over that. And she was really intense and really, really into that. It seemed like a really powerful reinforcer for her. And so I said, you know, I think she's pretty environmentally stable. She doesn't, she doesn't react to a lot of environmental stimuli. She's pretty intense. I think we've got a powerful reinforcer here. If you talk to like police departments, they said, Oh, yeah, we had a police department. They came out and he evaluated her with a a toy, a tennis ball, but she wasn't that into it, so they didn't take her. I was like, You didn't look at any other toy.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

That's the only one.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

Yeah, that was the one. And if you didn't like this ball, then then you're not a candidate. And I was like, but they missed out probably on a really great dog because they didn't just explore that space, that toy space a little bit more. So yeah, so I think again, trying to see what your dog enjoys, even within those toys, I think there are variations on what your dog likes. Your dog might like to possess the toy, that might be the reinforcer. Other dogs like to chase the toy, other dogs like to play tug. And so I think again, thinking through all those steps in that game, what part of it does your dog really, really enjoy?

SPEAKER_03 4:39

And there's no real way to predict that. You just you have to affirm the consequent, as we like to say, right? What does the dog like? So is that like some species, some breeds, or do this more or that? It's really just whatever the preference is or the temperament is.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

Yeah, exactly. I think you know, there you'll probably get some breed suggestions, right? Like shepherds like to have balls in their mouth or things like that. But I think even within that, even if you know, like, well, these dogs are often reinforced by by toys, the the exact interaction or the exact toy might might differ. So I think you're right. You just have to kind of go out and ask the animal what they like.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

Apparently, it's pretty common with doodles similar to ours, that like just getting balls in their mouth and prancing around and saying that you can't have it and trying to have you get it from them.

SPEAKER_03 5:24

Play with me, but I won't give you the ball, but play with me, but I won't give you the ball. I'll drop it a little bit and then when you approach it, I'll pick it back up. I I love that. Yep. I love that. So as far as qualifications or I guess prerequisites for dogs, if and I I'm guessing you would know a little bit about this, and you you talked about the police department coming out with the tennis ball, it seems like a pretty simple test. But I mean there there's got to be the parameters they're looking at. You know, why are certain breeds more specific to like you know, drug-sniffing dogs, or is that just by matter of convention, or is there a science behind that too? I'm guessing it's probably a little bit of both.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

Yeah, I think there's a lot of history there. Um so I and I think there's there are goals beyond the main goal. You know, there could be goals of intimidation, and certainly a shepherd looks more intimidating than a Labrador. And so I I think it's interesting. I talked to somebody once, I think they were in the Department of Defense and talking about breeds, and some of these high, like some of the mouse are are can be kind of environmentally unstable and be very reactive in new situations, really sensitive. And so they're trying to find something more stable for some of the some of the soldiers, and but they still need to be manly dogs, right? You can't just, you know, maybe a border collie is not going to work for them. So maybe a lab is seems like a more of a manly dog with our typical conventions. And so I think there are other things that go into it beyond just the dog's performance. The TSA, uh or sorry, the USDA, they have the Beagle Brigade that detect for in you know contraband at at airports, they're nice because they are smaller, so they can walk across the luggage without doing any any damage. They're also not seen as intimidating, and so that's that's helpful. Yeah. So I think there are a lot of things that go into that. My colleague, Dr. Nathan Hall, does amazing studies with doggle faction. And as you can tell, I'm a German Shepherd fan, and he has this study where he had several different breeds in there, and the pugs actually outperform the German Shepherds in his scent detection task, so which is really fascinating. But then there are also deployment requirements, those pugs might not be able to be able to run fast and chase people or you know, engage in that behavior in hot environments or work long term. And so beyond again, just that one skill, you have to think about what environment are they going to be working in and do they have the morphology and physiology to be able to succeed there too.

SPEAKER_03 8:04

So, what is it about the pugs? Is it that just just kind of closer to the olfactory bulb? Or I mean, because you would almost think the shepherd with the the larger snout seems like a more prominent, you know, organ for that. But I mean, what is there a particular reason why the pugs are better?

SPEAKER_00 8:18

Didn't I I don't think he's explored that. Yeah, I'm not I'm not sure why. I think generally speaking, though, we've done some studies. My uh student who's now graduated, Dr. Sally Dickinson, she's a search and rescue dog handler. Uh we did a study in conjunction with Nathan Hall and his team, where we recruited average dogs and average owners that were interested in scent detection. Most of them had done some competitive scent work. Uh and we recruited them to train them up on detecting an invasive species, the spotted lanternfly. So they were supposed to train their dogs to detect spotted lanternfly egg masses. Uh the dogs were very successful. They were, they outperformed human visual searchers. So we'd have a trained human and one of these trained community dogs, and the dog would find egg masses that the human didn't detect, which was great. And in that study, we had 180 participants, and we had dogs of all breeds. And so we did have the shepherds and mouths, but we had border collies and I think we had some bulldogs and poodles and mixes, and it was great. I just I think it shows that all dogs can do that. It's just a matter of do we have reinforcer valuable to them to teach them how to communicate to us that they can smell these things and that they want to engage in that, you know, in that kind of task. But I think it it is really fun to think that all of these dogs, regardless of breed, are amazing smellers and we can do a lot with their noses.

SPEAKER_03 9:47

How long does something like that take in terms of the protocol? Because you have to start super basic in a controlled environment, I imagine, with the representative scent. And then I mean, how does that build from there? And how long does that take? I think that's a good analog for us to discuss, knowing that you know, given what we do day-to-day, there's a lot of urgency and people push through things, and then there's this idea that this could take a long time. So give us a little overview on that.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

Yeah, so in in that study, the dogs that we recruited, like I said, had sort of knew the scent work game already. And so we're just teaching them a new so they they competed in like competitive scent work detecting things like birch or anise.

SPEAKER_02 10:24

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

And so we were just giving them a new odor that was probably really subtle compared to what they've been trained to detect in their further competitions. And that training, most of the dogs took probably about eight to 12 weeks for that training to get the dog up from basic up there. It probably depends a little bit on the dog. I think it depends a lot on the handlers' you know abilities and knowledge. It might take a couple months, it might take a year or so to get them up there. I I know when I first trained my my first agility dog, I was flowing her down. She could have learned much faster. And it was me having to figure out how to train her and what to train her to do. And then my next agility dogs, I could train much faster because I knew what I was doing and I could move through my protocols a lot, a lot more quickly because I knew where I was going then with the with the training. So I think there's probably, you know, there's definitely some human input there. But I would say, you know, minimum a few months to get them going. And for some dogs that might need more support, that maybe are on the more cautious side, that really need to learn slowly that this game is fun and safe. It might take longer.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

Scent work is interesting because um, like I said, we've got this doodle who's a got way too much energy. And I was talking to one of my coworkers who's a big dog person, works in like some shelters and stuff like that, and she recommended Scentwork, and I never really heard of it before. I guess there's some people we're in San Diego, up in northern San Diego, that do scent work, and and she highly recommended it. Thoughts on scent work in general? Is it something that you recommend? Yeah. Any thoughts?

SPEAKER_00 12:02

Yeah, I think it's I think it's a really fun activity for them. It's tapping into what they like to do anyway, which is sniff around and interact with their world through old faction. So I think it is it is really useful. I think they're it's just a fun activity. It's low pressure. One of the things I like about the way they run scent work is that if your dog does feel uncomfortable around other dogs, there's typically only one dog out there working at a time. And so our current Mal, Mal Noise, a little cautious around other dogs, and she can start to feel really uncomfortable if they're too close or barking at her. But she's done some scent work classes and really like them because there was she was the only one out there. And so she didn't feel you know impinged on by other dogs. So I think it's a really nice way for dogs that might have those sensitivities to get to do fun things with their people.

SPEAKER_02 12:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

And you can take it as far as you want, you know, up to competition. I think they're just fun things you can do around the house, so like hiding treats and having your dog search for them, or having, you know, somebody in a household hide and having your dog search for them. So all those things are just really enriching for the dog. Nice.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

What are your thoughts on like eye contact? I've heard some people say like direct eye contact, dogs take that as aggressive, whereas we would take it as assertive, you know, Western human society. What is that perceived as aggressive from dogs? Is that does it depend on the situation? What are your thoughts there?

SPEAKER_00 13:26

Yeah, I think it really depends on the situation. So with a new dog, I'm not gonna make direct eye contact with them. I'll probably look to the side. I think it does, you know, a hard stare directly at them is gonna be taken as threatening and is gonna make most dogs uncomfortable. And so until you have some rapport with that dog and know what the dog feels comfortable with, I wouldn't do that. So I'd look to the side of the dog so I can still see what the dog's doing and and keep myself safe and see what they're feeling, but not putting them in a in a situation where they feel uncomfortable. But then I think some of that eye contact develops kind of naturally. Our our current dog, the one that I said was shy around men, when I'm getting him harnessed up, I will look down and he's looking up in my eyes. And I do think they there does seem to be some evidence that you know they can gather some information about our emotional state from looking up at us and looking to our eyes. So I think the dogs are probably doing that to try and gather some information about the status of things and and how safe is this person. But I wouldn't necessarily be the one to stare back at them initially. So again, it's one of those if the dog wants to look at me, great, but I'm not gonna try and force them to deal with my stare.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_03 14:41

You you allude to this sort of maybe higher connection. I think that you know you can take that to different realms. Certainly a lot of videos online of dogs you know rescuing kids in certain situations. You I can't imagine they were trained to do that. Can you talk a little bit about those cues that that maybe we don't pay enough attention to or that we don't think dogs can perceive, but maybe are you know taking in a lot more of our world than we give them credit for? Like how does those how do those things happen where you know a dog sees sparks from the wall and there's gonna be a fire and suddenly they're picking up another animal or picking up a baby and removing them? You know, I maybe those some of those videos are maybe AI generated, but there's plenty of those that have, you know, that I've seen throughout history. So how does that happen and what what what's your opinion on that deeper connection? Because certainly dog owners talk about that and can appreciate that in a way that maybe non-dog owners just can't fathom, right?

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Yeah, I I I think our dogs are just really good at picking up patterns. They're really sensitive to what is the typical pattern, right? Your dog will start to learn when you put on certain shoes, whether you're going out for a walk or you're going to work. So they're they're just paying so much attention to us and and what predicts what, that I think a lot of those situations are just so different that they make that they stand out to the animal. And I think a lot of these animals have learned that they can ask owners for things. Like they can come over and ask you to go out or ask you for food. And so when something weird happens, I suspect that behavior comes out of like, I ought to check with my person. This is making me uncomfortable, or how are they feeling? And so that that behavior of going to alert somebody is already sort of in the repertoire because they've come to know they can come to the owner and get things from them. One of our old shepherds was really sensitive to our fire alarm. So if it started to beep like it was like losing power and it started to warn you, he would come wake us up. And that was never trained, but he would come and like nudge me and nudge me just because it was beeping a lot. And it was just weird for him. And so I think that, you know, that weirdness, he's like, I, you know, this is me anthropomorphizing, but probably then is like my person helps me with things. And so then in this weird situation, he would come to, you know, essentially seek help from from me. So I think there's a a lot of that that goes on. These are all, you know, sometimes hard to hard to test, right? Because they're one-off situations. There was a study where they looked at whether dogs would seek help if their owner fell or something like that. So they'd have the owner fall down. And would the dog you know, try and find somebody to seek help? And I think they had someone nearby. So would the owner would the dog run and seek help from that person or try and get their attention? And the dogs really didn't. So, you know, whether the stimulus situation was not quite right for that, that the dog is like, oh, you're you know, you're fine. This is not actually an emergency. Like there were stimuli that don't appear in a true emergency. That could be part of it. It could be that some dogs are are more or less sensitive to to those things.

SPEAKER_01 17:44

You used the term improper socialization a little bit earlier. I made note of that. What are your thoughts on that? Maybe dog parks in general. What are your thoughts? What does that mean?

SPEAKER_00 17:55

Yeah, yeah. So interestingly enough, despite how much we talk about socialization, we actually know very little about it. And there's some old studies from like the 50s and 60s that demonstrate the effects of deprivation, like depriving a dog of you know, access to a human, they're getting more fearful of humans. But there's not really great research to say this is the best way to socialize and this is what you need to do. So a lot of what's out there on socialization comes from practitioners and their observations, which might be right, but really haven't been assessed. I think the the current view and the one that I appreciate on socialization is trying to think about all the places you would want your dog to be comfortable, try and start exposing them to those situations and counterconditioning. So bringing along great treats, great toys to make it fun for them. I think where people run into problems is they do too much too fast, which we've talked about before, right? Of people pushing too hard. That really, if you wanted your dog to go to the farmer's market, I wouldn't take my dog or my puppy there for an hour. I'd take them there for a few minutes and then we'd head home. And it's really that gradual exposure where they get to go someplace, it's probably a little stress-inducing. And then they get to go home and relax, and it was all good. And then you can start to build up their sort of tolerance for that. I think the same thing when they're interacting with humans and other dogs is I think we have this view that, oh, they just need to meet everybody. And I don't think that's quite true. I think the more they meet, the better. The greater range of people and dogs they meet, the better. But I think what's even more important is that those meetings are positive. If you are, if I if my puppy gets to meet 100 people, but it's been nervous every single time I let these people come up, it's not doing my dog any service. And they're probably now learning that humans are unsafe. They approach and make them feel uncomfortable, and we might end up with reactivity later on. And so what I'm gonna do is really work on my dog, being able to say yes or no to approaching and saying hi, making it fun when they approach, but also reading any subtle behaviors like lip-licking, small, you know, tensing a little, looking away, any of those, and I'm gonna be calling my dog back out. So trying not to put my dog in those situations. And if I misjudge, being really cognizant and aware so that I can call my dog back out, and and so they learn that they don't have to stay in places that make them feel uncomfortable. So yes, I think taking your dogs out, having them meet people, but on the dog's terms, and that takes being able to read subtle signs of stress like lip-licking, looking away, yawning. People are good at big overt behaviors, identifying growling or things like that, but they are not as good at seeing these subtle signs, and then they end up putting their dogs in positions that make them feel uncomfortable. And I think in the long term, then we we end up with some behavioral issues from that.

SPEAKER_01 20:55

Interesting. What about the uh the dog park and like dog with dog behavior? So they're kind of learning how to interact with other dogs and that kind of stuff. What uh what are your thoughts there? Because there aren't a lot of rules really at the dog park um until the owners intervene. So any thoughts there?

SPEAKER_03 21:11

Let me interject with you. You you mentioned so one thing that we talk a lot about is this idea of compliance. Maybe the equivalent in dog world would be obedience, but you mentioned manners training and maybe that fit that fits in here. What is what does that mean in terms of dog etiquette, you know, and how do you train that? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:27

Yeah, yeah. I think you know, with with the manners, I I think we're veering away from the word obedience. I don't really want my dogs obedient. I I want my dog to have, again, some agency. There's certainly some safety things, right? If I ask you to come, I need you to come or stop if I, you know, but beyond that, I I we're not so focused on the compulsion and and the obedience quite as much. And if my and I think, you know, we go back to Skinner's quote the animal's always right. So if my dog doesn't do what I want it to do, that's on me as a trainer to figure out did I cue them wrong? Did I not train through this situation? Do I not have the proper reinforcer? Like, so rather than blaming the animal and then turning to aversives to get that obedience, I think it turns back to me on being a good trainer. In terms of the dog park, so in that socialization period, yes, getting your dog interacting with other dogs is really important, but doing it again safely. And the dog park's not the safe place to do it. You mentioned that there are no rules there, and you're absolutely right. There are no rules. People bring in dogs that are not equipped to be there. Um, some of them are very fearful, some of them might have some aggressive tendencies towards other dogs, and you don't know that until it's too late. And the other big variable is human behavior. And if you had humans that intervened appropriately and nicely, and when they should, it could all go a lot better. But you have folks that either are not attentive or are attending, but don't see the problem. And so I our that first Mal, the stranger danger one, the one place that she felt safe and would not react to humans was strangely at the dog park. So I ended up going to dog parks more than I would normally because that was a place for her to run and be safe. But I had to be really cognizant about who was around. I would do a lap before I went in the dog park. If there were certain dogs that I saw coming in, if they were wearing shock collars and things like that, that to me indicate the owner might have some issues with them, we would exit. And so so I do have experience being at dog park, seeing the good and the bad. And there was like a Labrador that was harassing her. And the lab was friendly, but my dog had asked nicely a few times to stop. And the the lab persisted. And the owner was oblivious and didn't care. And I finally said, Can you get your dog to be? Oh, they'll work it out. And I said, No, that's that's not on my dog. Like I don't need to put my dog in that position to tell your dog no for like a third time that this is on you, that your dog's not listening to my dog. So you need to intervene. And so there's this idea of like, oh, they'll work it out, which is really unfair to the dogs because you're just saying you're gonna have problems, you might get bullied, you're gonna have to sort this out yourself and hope the bully doesn't escalate. And and likely what's happening is the dog that's getting bullied is not gonna want to go back there, right? You've put them in this position where they feel uncomfortable to the point where they might have to, you know, up their aggression level. And guess what? Now you're gonna have a dog with dog issues. So I agree. I think if people intervened the way they should, it could go a lot better. But most owners, like I said, or many owners are either oblivious or have this sort of they'll work it out rather than recognizing that many of these dogs don't have great dog dog skills. And so they need human input to learn. Oh, when that dog said no, that nice way, I need to listen. I can't just keep bothering that dog. So, in terms of socializing with dogs, then what does that leave you? I think that leaves you some well-run puppy classes. So I look around for a puppy class, make sure that it's run nicely, that there is not this sort of they'll work it out mentality that they're intervening, they're trying to skill build with dogs, teach them how to interact, how to separate, how to de-escalate when when arousal levels get high. And then also finding other dogs that you know have good dog dog skills in your community and doing me, you know, play dates with them. So just one-on-one dogs. I think that's the other thing with with the dog parks, is it might be okay with one or two dogs, and then suddenly you've got 30 in there and it's just chaos. And your dog might be getting kind of tagged from multiple dogs at the same time and can't respond appropriately to anybody. So I think having nice play dates is probably the way to go.

SPEAKER_01 25:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 25:52

So you outlined some parameters there. If you guys had to make your top five rules at the dog park, what would they be? I'll oppose that to both of you, but you kind of alluded to some. And it would be more about the humans, right? The humans don't do this or don't do this.

SPEAKER_01 26:05

What let me defer to Erica on that. She's the professional. I know you've got some. I know you've got some rules. You want nobody wants to hear my rules. Maybe you had some problems.

SPEAKER_03 26:16

What would be the the top three, top five rules, any Erica?

SPEAKER_00 26:20

Um, I don't know about I'll I'll just list some. I don't know how many I have. One is not being on your phone, reading the newspaper, but actually or talking with people so much. Yeah, attending to your dog. The dog park I would go to in Florida, there's a group that would sit and chat, and I was floating with my dogs. And they said, Erica, why don't you ever come and sit down and talk with us? I'm like, because I'm going with my dogs because I need to make sure they're okay. And you don't know where your dog is currently. So I would that would be one. The other is look for early signs of stress and intervene on behalf of your dog or other dogs. So if you see another dog getting bullied that's not your dog, I would try and step in there too. I mean, you'd have to be careful because you don't know how the bullying dog's gonna respond. But still, maybe even just like walking closer or walking through that interaction can help separate and give that dog a break. So early, early intervening, watching other dogs to see if there's if there are unsafe dogs in there. And if you don't feel comfortable taking your dog out, it's not worth risking it. If your dog, if you have to bring your dog in on leash into a dog park, your dog park, your dog is not suited for a dog park yet. And they and you just make them a target. Now they can't escape, right? Because they're they're tethered to you. So though those would those would be some. And again, I would take a lap around, see what the flavor is at the dog park with the current currently. And if there are problems and people aren't doing things about them, I wouldn't take my dog in that day.

SPEAKER_03 27:48

You structured that so nicely because most people, and I certainly well, I we'll talk about her in a second. I've got a very old dog, so there's no dog parked for her at this point. But people would go there, we'll go there with the notion of I can let my dog loose and not pay attention. And what you're saying is, no, not at all. In fact, yeah, you can socialize with other humans here, but you need to pay attention to your dog, and that's pretty counterintuitive. I think people think they can just go there and let them loose.

SPEAKER_00 28:16

Exactly. Yeah, I think I I I agree. I think people think, well, my dog will go off and do its thing and really work. This is a yeah, exactly. And this is kind of a high-stakes situation where you really don't know those other dogs and you don't know their bite history, and you don't know, you know, if they do bite, how much damage they'll do, what their fighting style is like. And so you really have to go in saying that there might be some dangers in there. And so, you know, I think if we think about it as you're taking your dog park, your dog to the dog park for them to have a good time, that means you have to be there to intervene and make sure they have a good time. And there are there are horrible things, you know, you hear about dogs killing other dogs at dog parks every once in a while. So it it it it it can be really awful as well. And certainly if I were a small dog owner, not take my small dog into a big dog area. And what I hear from small dog owners is my small dog is fine around big dogs. That's not my concern. My concern is are those big dogs okay with small dogs?

SPEAKER_01 29:12

I always say too, we have this dog park, it's kind of like a hybrid dog park right by our house. And the dog owners will bring like their one-year-old kids that like can barely walk in this area. And I'm like, my dogs like interesting, seem super friendly, but I wouldn't trust like my one-year-old kid around anybody's dog. Like that just seems so weird to me. Seems like too big of a risk.

SPEAKER_00 29:33

Yeah. Absolutely. I think that's that's a big thing as well, is if you're taking kids in there, those kids need to be really well trained in how to interact with dogs, and you need to be able to make sure that the kids have know how to escape. And I would do the same thing, right? Make sure that the dogs are safe in there, but really you don't know because those dogs might be good with dogs, but not not good with kids. I knew our malinois was not good with kids. And so if I ever saw a kid coming in, we were exiting. And so, again, it was again something that was on me to keep my dog safe and keep the kids safe, knowing that, but you can't count on owners, owners to do that. My my craziest story on that is in Florida, we went to a dog park and this family came in that didn't even have a dog. So you came to the dog park without a dog, they had a lunch and they sat on the ground with their lunch in a dog park. And like, so you brought your kids in with resources into an environment with multiple animals, and you don't know if they resource guard, and your kids are gonna get caught in the middle, right? When these dogs get in a fight over the food that you've brought in. I'm like, there are some amazingly bad decisions people make.

SPEAKER_03 30:46

I've got two things that I've got left. So I believe you've well recently, or maybe you're doing ongoing research on the idea of learning frustration with search and rescue dogs. Will you talk a little bit about that? I think that's a nice crossover discussion in terms of what this idea of frustration is defined as behaviorally, and and what does that mean in terms of now how as a trainer or somebody in our field, you would adjust your methods or your approach to to account for that.

SPEAKER_00 31:15

Yeah, so that that was work done I'm on the paper because I was the PI, but that's really my student, Sally Dickinson's interest. She's a search and rescue dog handler. And I think this is one of the things that I would consider, I know we're not quite there yet, of getting into this field is knowing the field before you get in. And I think that's what Sally brought to this was she was a search and rescue dog handler for many years. She's deployed all over the world to Haiti and exotic places with her search and rescue dogs. And so when she joined my lab, she had her pertinent questions that that were burning for her, that she knew, right, that she's in the field and these things were of interest or concerning to her. And one of them was the use of frustration to kind of rile dogs up, thinking that they would search better. And so she did a study where she created some frustration where they could see their reinforcer, but then couldn't access it. And those dogs, we saw elevated heart rates in them, but then they also didn't perform their search as well. And and so I think that's really interesting because there's so much training lore in the applied animal field. People think that that you know, you have to do X to get the dog to do Y. And nobody's ever really explored those things, and it's just passed down trainer to trainer, and you'll get tons of training lore. Again, some of it might be right, but some of it might be wrong until we explore it scientifically. We we don't know. So that's what Sally did with that was exploring well, is frustration necessary or even beneficial, and she found out actually inducing frustration like that was detrimental to their performance. Interesting. Which I think is really interesting to then think about how we train and maybe maybe brings us back to thinking more about like errorless learning and things like that, where we're trying to really increase rates of reinforcement, decrease experiences of extinction while still training our animals to do what we want.

SPEAKER_01 33:14

It's an interesting hypothesis because I know with humans it's pretty clear the more frustrated we get, the less blood's in our prefrontal cortex, and then we perform less good. So it's interesting that they would hypothesize the opposite with dogs.

SPEAKER_00 33:28

Yeah, people come up with some uh real crazy ideas sometimes around animals.

SPEAKER_03 33:33

It's the big foreheads. I told you, it's it's the foreheads. That's the problem with it. The big foreheads. So the lastly, and I've alluded to her a couple times. I have a 17-year-old, she's too maltese, and she's deaf and she's blind, and she seems to motor around okay, outside of my wife not being absent for too long, where she can't detect her scent. She might howl a little bit if that's the case. But it's been one of those questions for us where sure there's a little bit of a mess to pick up here and there. You know, she's deaf and blind, so bumping into things and trying to find her way around the house, making sure we're not moving things frequently or if at all. I mean there's always that question for pet owners of, you know, are we what where's where's the cutoff point here? Where's the idea of us then saying, okay, we probably need to put her down versus hey, she's doing okay, she seems comfortable. You know, where where's that line of convenience for either the human or the dog? I don't know what your what your thoughts are on that.

SPEAKER_00 34:30

Yeah, I think that's that's such a tough question, right? Is uh you know, are we keeping the animal alive for for our benefit or for theirs? And and I think it, you know, there are nicely some folks that are now thinking about this, and there's some quality of life measures you can find online to try and help guide you on that decision. Certainly I always think about is my if my dog is in pain and it's uncontrollable pain, then then that's something to really consider, right? I think we don't want them to suffer at all. So if there is pain, like arceritic pain, and we can put them on like rimadil or something, and that does it, great. But if it's still uncontrolled and the animal's experiencing that on a daily basis and it's impacting their ability to engage in other behaviors, then I think we're we're starting to talk about other things potentially. So I'd I'd certainly look at, you know, does your dog, if they're eating well, they're getting to do some of their other behaviors that they like, right? Like snuggling with you, those those behaviors might change, right? It might not be going on a 10-mile hike like it used to be when they're puppies. Maybe it's snuggling with you, but they still get to do that, then then great. So I think as long as they're, you know, not in high levels of uncontrolled pain, and they still get to they seem to enjoy find reinforcing many of the activities that they typically do, then then I'm I would try to keep keep them going.

SPEAKER_02 35:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 35:55

Certainly I I understand that the there are limits, right? There are financial limits, there are resource limits. And so, you know, given all the time in the world and all the money in the world, maybe there's some animals we could keep going even longer. And so there are those factors that you know come into play. You know, if the medication is out of somebody's financial abilities or the time it takes to, you know, arrange your life to meet the animal's needs might be too challenging. Okay. You know, maybe though those are things that also play in. So it can be it can be really hard. But you know, I think from the animal side, as long as you're still having a good quality of life and not in pain, then I just let them float along too. All right.

SPEAKER_01 36:41

It's kind of hard to determine their quality of life sometimes, though, right? Like we're trying to infer, but we don't know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:48

Yeah, exactly. And I think this is where you know you try and identify what are my my animals' things that they love to do. If they've never liked eating, then that might not be a good measure. But if they love their food, they loved eating and now they're not, then that's a concern, right? If they used to really like interacting with me or going even on short walks and now they don't want to do that. So trying to find those things that are really valuable to them. And if they now can't engage in those, then I think maybe that's that's something to think about in terms of quality.

SPEAKER_03 37:18

And it's interesting too. So she can no longer jump on the couch to come snuggle. So the idea that we had to then be more conscious of that and say, hey, we got to go pick her up sometimes. Right. She does sleep with us still, which you know, that created some some impracticalities at one point. And it was like, well, that's the time where she's closest to us, so we can't deprive her of that or unless we really step up our approaching her game. But yeah, to your point, that's been our quandary. It's just like, you know, my wife is sternly attached to this dog, has had her since you know she was a puppy. And yeah, that's been an ongoing question of like, we love this dog, and then is she okay to move on? And I given what you said, I think we're okay. It made me feel better, we bought some more time. But it is, it's a day-to-day kind of thing of monitoring her and and seeing what she's doing. We got her some better food, and we're very glad that now, you know, by six in the morning she's circling around the place where that food is supposed to be, and she's you know, kind of wandering around like, where is this? I know it's gonna appear soon. Where is it? Especially if we run out, you know, one morning and then we've got to go out. She'll be a little bit of distress. So we know she's aware of those things, and uh certainly the old faction is still kicking pretty strong. That's the only sense she has to go on at this point, and nothing else. So it's yeah, it's an impressive little dog. And we understand these breeds and these mixes also just have you know pretty uh good longevity with smaller dogs and and fewer problems with bones. And I'm pretty sure her back legs and her hips, she's got some arthritis there. I can see that. Uh sometimes it's a little hard for her to stand back up if she's been sleeping for a while. I think that's part of it. But I mean, I I wouldn't see what I would determine to be any obvious signs of distress. But then back to your question, I I don't know you know what that means unless she's clearly howling in distress. And that, you know, again, that only happens if my wife's gone for a long time. So Right.

SPEAKER_00 39:09

And I think the behaviors you're seeing of her like anticipating and engaging those behaviors, looking, you know, again anthropomorphizing, looking forward to something like her food. I think those are all good, all good signs. It's the ones where you're like they they don't want to engage anymore that I think we worry about.

SPEAKER_01 39:26

Cool. I have a couple questions about my dog, but I'll hold those to after the podcast because I won't take too much of people's time on the podcast about my dog if you do have a minute afterwards. But I wanted to get to something that you wanted to talk about. So you wanted to talk about people coming over maybe from the ABA, more of the either working with kids field or either the lab field into working with animals. And I feel like you have some some thoughts on that. So yeah, let me uh pass it back to you and get back into the ABA uh animal world here.

SPEAKER_00 39:55

Sounds good, yeah. Thanks for bringing that up. I think we we folks that are in the applied animal behavior field and behavior analysis get a lot of inquiries from folks that have really great behavior analysis training on getting into this. And we do have some strong thoughts. We need more good people in here. And so this is not to deter anybody, but it is to kind of put out there the the sort of footwork that you have to do ahead of time. Certainly the the principles of behavior analysis are powerful and we know they cross species. And we've alluded to this, talked about this already in this podcast, that how you apply them might vary, and what are what is seen as acceptable practices can vary. And I will say I think oftentimes the animal world, the progressive force-free animal world is ahead of some of our behavior analysis trainings with humans, which still can rely more on physical prompting and things like that that can be aversive. And so this is where I see challenges, is when folks come from that human world and say, Well, I do this with humans, I can do this with my dog. And they end up doing things that the that the animal world would see as being abusive. And that I think is a real detriment, A, to the animal and B to behavior analysis, because if people see that and and contact that and think that's how behavior analysts train animals, that is not a good look for us. I think it also means we ought to reconsider how we're training humans, which I know is an ongoing discussion in our field of how to how to reduce the the uh reliance on aversives. So what would what would it entail coming over? One is a lot of humility that yes, you know your behavior analysis, but you don't yet know the applied animal field. And so you can't just step over the line and say, Well, I can train kids, I can train dogs. I earned my BCBA at UF in Brian Iwata and Tim Bollmer's labs working with kids. I would not go work with kids right now, even though I have that training without doing a lot more footwork to you know figure out well, what's what are current best practices, what are you know target behaviors. I'd have to do a lot more work in that, even though I have that credential and did that work. Um, since I've been out of it for a few years, it would take some footwork for me to get back in in there. And and I think what happens is people think, well, I have a dog at home, I can do this. But working with your dog, okay, but working with other people's dogs, this is where again we're we have to think about best practices and what is that animal training community, what are the standards and the values that they hold, and make sure we meet those. So things like escape extinction are would be viewed as abusive in the animal field. And so if you're going to do a procedure like that, it it is not going to go well.

SPEAKER_03 42:50

It's gotten a lot of us into trouble recently, too. So I think it's a really good conversation to have.

SPEAKER_01 42:56

Not us specifically, not us specifically as a field. Yeah, no, not us specifically.

SPEAKER_03 42:59

But no, it's because we're always considering you know those parameters that you're you're talking about and just the idea of agency and and freedom and uh you know what makes us the authority figure here, what is our role. I think that it takes active you know, questioning on that line and and in expression, looking at yourself and what you're doing with any given client, any given response from the client to make sure that you're always watching that. Yeah, because yeah, we do hold the position of authority that doesn't make us authoritarian over those organisms. So it's an important concept.

SPEAKER_00 43:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:31

Yeah, absolutely. And and I think you know, oftentimes we we focus on the operant side of things and forget the Pavlovian, and what's happening there is the learner is finding you unsafe and now it's going to avoid you, right? And and so especially our animals, they're either going to aggress to get us to move away or or they're going to stay away, and it's gonna be harder to work with them. So we have to be really cognizant of those those Pavlovian effects. So so getting into this field, I would you Have to take some courses in animal behavior, I think itself, whether that's through a university or not, but really starting to learn your species of interest, that means they're warning signals, they're subtle warning signals. What are behaviors that are likely to occur in that species? So if I think I'm gonna put some behavior on extinction, what are other likely behaviors to come out? So if I'm putting a horse's mouthing behavior on extinction, I'm gonna guess that I'm gonna get head tossing or hoof pine. So understanding your species enough to know what behaviors are likely to occur, what are reinforcers, what are punishers, and how to work safely around those species. For example, horses are usually trained with the them being on the right hand side of us. And so if you're now working, if you go in and start working with a horse on the other side, it might be a really weird experience for them. And so you have to kind of know that generally horses are handled this way. And if you don't handle them that way, you might get weird behaviors from that horse or how to walk around them so the horse knows you're there, where to stand to minimize any force from a kick, right? All all those safety things. Working with dogs, how do you keep yourself safe, making sure that the dogs you work with have their babies vaccine, that you, if you're working, I would certainly not start with aggression. I would mentor with somebody that does aggression work and and you know, work your way up, start with something easy of teaching dogs to sit and lie down. But how do you make sure that that dog is safe? Making sure that the owner has secured the dog in another room if you're doing a at-home consult, or has two leashes on that dog, and one of that one of those leashes is tethered to a piece of furniture. So there are all these safety considerations that I think people don't consider. But then I'd also really immerse myself in the field, the practitioner field, to learn best practices. We have just amazing, elegant trainers in the applied animal field, the ones that are force-free, can just do amazing things. And I think really immersing yourself in that to see what the practitioners are, what are current best practices, uh they're oftentimes ahead of our science. Uh, they're using our principles, but we might not have data behind what they're doing. And so you can't just turn to the applied animal behavior literature, unfortunately. It's too sparse at the moment, to say, I know what I should do here. It really is going to these practitioner conferences and workshops and seminars and finding out what are the techniques out there that are being used. And that's not to say that as a well-trained behavior analyst, you can't improve on those, but I think it is definitely an essential starting point. So I always say if you really want to do this, you're gonna you're gonna want to be doing these things anyway. You're just gonna find it so fun to read the books and go to the workshops and the seminars. And if that isn't reinforcing to you, then maybe you don't really want to work in the field as much as you thought.

SPEAKER_01 46:49

So, what is the when you speak of the field, I guess AAA, right? Applied animal analysis. I'm not really uh too familiar with that side of things. What what does that entail? Is that like academia? Is that working as a dog trainer? What is that field? Like how do people that get into that field make money or like what is what is that?

SPEAKER_00 47:11

Yeah, so it's a pretty diverse field. So there's certainly a lot of dog trainers and and behavior consultants. So folks that make their, you know, their whole job is working with animals with behavioral challenges. The most common ones are aggression and anxiety, like separation anxiety, unleash reactivity. So there could be trainers that work exclusively on building up new behaviors that they, you know, maybe work with puppies or teach group classes on manners, some that get into sports like agility or nose work, some that become you know into the professional line of you know, working dogs. But then a lot of the folks are are working with animals with behavioral challenges and doing kind of one-on-one consultations. But then we have folks in the shelter world in behavior departments applying our principles. So there's a whole gamut from sort of these working dogs, performance animals, like you know, jumping horses that that also need trainers to folks, you know, working in group classes or doing private consultations. And of course, the researchers trying to trying to put some data behind what they're doing too.

SPEAKER_01 48:21

Okay, so it's a pretty broad field. And then what do you recommend for? So you said like the aggression, the behavioral training side of things. If somebody listening has a dog that might benefit from said service, what do you recommend them looking for? Because I imagine, like in in our ABA practice, you know, the words innovation is like a big one. And some of so people know these words that are kind of buzzwords. And when we were looking at it for our current dog, it was you know, positive behavioral supports and stuff like that. And it's like, great, but just because you write it on the behavior on your website, well, I'm glad that that's a start, doesn't mean that you're doing it. So, like I I know you have some, you know, thoughts or like in terms of shock and things like that, that's probably more of an antiquated way of going about dog training. So it seems like a lot of people are moving away from that, or at least say they're moving away from that. So somebody has a dog that would benefit from an applied animal analysis service. What should they look for? How should they go about finding somebody that's going to be right for them?

SPEAKER_00 49:23

Yeah, and you've made a lot of good points there about language and like, are you doing what you're saying? Because we have those those same issues. I think the the consumer world has understands that they're looking for positive reinforcement trainers typically. And so the more aversive base trainers have learned that, and so use lots of euphemisms like, oh, the shot caller is not a shot collar, it's an attention-getting device, or all these other things. And so you really do have to be cautious about that. And we are an unregulated field and we don't fall under the BCBA sadly, because they you know restrict themselves to work with humans, understandably for legal reasons. Um, there are organizations like IAABC or APDT and the and their associated CCPDT, there are a lot of acronyms that are certification bodies. I would look for somebody that has a certification in there, but again, that's not a guarantee. In terms of when I look at somebody's website, there are keywords that I'm like, I don't I'm gonna have to dig a little bit deeper here. Things like obedience, anything that smacks of compulsion, anything that talks about packs or hierarchies or leaders, those are usually red flags. Those are usually folks that are probably gonna use more aversives, even though they might or might not tell you they're going to. So I'd look for things where they're trying to build relationships using force-free methods, pause reinforcement, skill building, things like that. And then I'd always go and watch them train. If they won't let you watch them train, you shouldn't don't leave your animal there. It should be a real partnership between the owner and and the trainer. So those would be the the sort of the easy key things to look at, but certainly going and actually watching them train. There are a lot of folks, like you said, that say they train one way and they'll say, I use 99% positive enforcement, and then I'll scroll through their photos on Facebook and I can see 100% of the dogs have shot collars on. So maybe not 99%.

SPEAKER_01 51:28

Sure. Yeah, I mean, even in the ABA field, we run into that. I have family and friends that you know get a child that's diagnosed with autism, and they're like, should I get ABA? And it's like, well, maybe kind of depends on the provider, because yeah, there can be it can make great benefits, but also you get the wrong provider and it can be very traumatizing. So I imagine the same thing that you were saying. Thank you so much. You've helped us cover so much ground and answer so many questions. Before we wrap it up, is there anything that we didn't cover that you wanted to talk about? We can open up the floor to you. Anything that you wanted to add?

SPEAKER_00 52:04

I think we've covered most of it. I I think just like you all, I just love the field of behavior analysis and think it can do so much good in the world as long as it's uh applied by folks that know how to apply it and are really sensitive to their learners. And I appreciate you both being on that side too. I think some folks we talk to are not as sensitive to their learners and and concerned about things like agency and choice. And so it's it's nice to see that popping up in the human world too, because I think we have to join forces and push our field that way. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 52:35

That's why we started the podcast. I mean, because I mean we started the podcast seven years ago almost, because there's this huge anti-ABA movement, and we're like, well, what's true, what's not true, who needs to change? Kind of we all do. We recently started our own company, Ascend Behavior Analysis, which is a play on ascent, really focusing on that more ascent rather than compliance piece. So yeah, definitely. The other thing I wanted to open to you is is there anywhere that you would like people to find you, you or any of your work that we could direct them to?

SPEAKER_00 53:08

Sure. I have a website and I have a lot of my research listed there. I can say it now and email you a link later, whatever works.

SPEAKER_01 53:15

We'll put it in the description, but go ahead and say it if you like.

SPEAKER_00 53:18

Okay. It's just my name, Erica, and then N for my middle initial, N as a Nancy, and then Fuhrbacher.com. Our lab, the applied animal behavior lab at Virginia Tech, also has a Facebook page that folks can follow along. That's where I usually post when our papers get published or students are doing certain types of work. Cool.

SPEAKER_01 53:37

So Erica Nurebacher.com. That is you. Do you want to go ahead and spell that? It's kind of hard for me.

SPEAKER_00 53:46

Yeah, sure. It's F-E-U-E-R-B-A-C-H-E-R.

SPEAKER_01 53:53

And then the Virginia Tech, you said Facebook page?

SPEAKER_00 53:56

Yeah, it's the Applied Animal Behavior at Virginia Tech, and I think it's Facebook.com backslash AAB for applied animal behavior v T for Virginia Tech.

SPEAKER_03 54:05

Awesome. Well, I'd like to close with a a few takeaway points. I'm going to say move away from plain obedience. Consider the agency of all animals, not just those with large foreheads. And always analyze responsibly. Thank you, Dr. Erica. It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much. Cheers. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 54:24

Always analyze responsibly.

SPEAKER_02 54:27

ABA on staff is reported live and unfiltered. We're done for today. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. See you next time.