Welcome to Dog Pro Radio Radio. Well, Jason, I had a lot of fun with this talk. How about you? Yeah, yeah, definitely. Um, definitely a lot of takeaways, uh, regarding the evolution of the dog and how, how it pertained to our evolution as well. There’s some, there’s some, definitely some, uh, some takeaways from that.

And then the information about some of those breeds and, and how they fit, fit into society was definitely, definitely interesting. For sure. Yeah. I could talk Village Dogs every day when you Yeah. It’s, there’s so much there. It’s interesting. It’s like, it’s just a whole different world when you watch those animals interact.

Yeah. I don’t, I don’t know that you can truly, uh, get that though, unless you’ve, you’ve traveled a bit and you’ve seen those dogs outside the US ’cause I mean mm-hmm. Really? We don’t have ’em here. Yeah. Uh, not like they do in other places. So it’s, it’s definitely interesting to see. I’ve seen them, you say Village Dogs?

I’m, I’m lumping street dogs in there too, because they’re, you know, uh, they’re, to me very similar, but Yeah. Um, I’ve seen them in lots of different places and it’s, it’s really interesting to watch. Mm-hmm. To me, and this is not scientific at all, but I, I use Village Dog when I see a dog that is clearly not bred, that when you say, what breed is it?

I couldn’t even guess. Just a mixture of literally everything doesn’t. Doesn’t look like a shepherd mix. Doesn’t look like a pit mix. It just looks like a dog of some sort. Yeah. It looked to, to me, to me, it’s kind of a flashback to what I imagine dogs would’ve looked like thousands of years ago on some, on some level.

Yeah. Yeah. We see a lot of them, see a lot of ’em in Puerto Rico and throughout the Caribbean. The, the Bohemians call ’em pot cakes. I don’t know where that name came from, but they call ’em pot cakes. Man. I’ll tell you, and I, I know you deal with this too, when you get one of those shipped up for training, you know, you’ve got your work cut out for you.

Yeah. And a man, Americans love bringing ’em home. They really love bringing ’em home. The, the, the Puerto Rican. And, uh, we get, we get quite a few of those from time to time. And then we’ve had pot cakes from, uh, The Bahamas and other Caribbean islands. Yeah. There you go. The client’s like, why doesn’t he enjoy living?

He seems like he’s not all that happy in my house. I guess because you’re walking him for like 20 minutes a day and that dog’s lived his whole life outside and we’ve got some work to do. Yeah. Yeah. He is looking at your apartment like a prison set, uhhuh that tie, that dovetails nicely with the conversation and I think that people listening will really be intrigued by the conver, the way the conversation went.

It was a lot of fun. And if you know, you know, Kim is, you know, great, you know, great to listen to. She’s a lot of fun. She is very different on her training philosophies than I am and than you are. But you know, we’re able to have a good conversation and we don’t even dive into training philosophies because like we’ve said so many times, there’s so much we agree on.

We agree on way more than we disagree, right? We didn’t talk about tools, we didn’t talk about methods, but we talk about welfare and actually raising your dog right, treating it right, giving it a job, a purpose. I think she used the word partner, which I thought was pretty cool. Yeah. And. I, I hope people watch this and listen to it with an open mind and can take techniques, methods, tools out of the mix and just think about dogs for a minute.

Yeah, absolutely. There’s way more to dogs than, uh, what people want to get polarized about. Absolutely. Well, I hope everyone enjoys the episode. Yeah. And hey, by the way, be sure to head over to our YouTube channel. We we’re, we’re creating a new home. So, um, our podcasts have been on the ICP YouTube channel, but Dog Pro radio’s getting a new YouTube channel, uh, sort of as we speak, I think.

And, uh, it’s all happening. Yeah. Be sure to go over, check out our videos there. Uh, be sure to like, subscribe and, uh, leave us a comment. Let us know what you think. Guys, we just want to give a quick shout out to one of our longtime IACP sponsors, uh, blue Nine PET Products. So, are you looking to level up your training classes and boost client success?

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We use ’em in group classes, shelter programs, lots of different ways. We implement the climbs and with exclusive wholesale pricing, there’s never a better time to get started. Visit blue nine.com to apply today and start building a better training business. Welcome to Dog Pro Radio. Jason, you ready for today?

Absolutely. Been been looking forward to this. This should be a pretty interesting, uh, pretty interesting conversation. It will be. And you know, I’m just waiting for the day. I always say, Jason, you ready for today? You always say yes. What happens? A time you say no, I’m just, I’m not, it, it could happen. But, um, so far so good.

Uh, I think we’re having some fun doing this, so, absolutely. Well, I’ll go ahead and introduce today’s guest. So today’s guest is Kim Brophy. Kim is an applied ethologist. She’s a certified dog behavior consultant. She’s an author of the book Meet Your Dog. She’s also the creator of the Legs Model, which is a framework that looks at behavior through the lens of learning and environment, genetics and self.

And today, I mean, every dog trainer has an interest in the history of dogs, or at least I think they should. If you don’t, you should probably get a, his, an interest in that history. So today we’re gonna leverage Kim’s knowledge to dive really deep into that history. And Kim, welcome to the show. You already told us you hate talking about yourself, so we’re not gonna put you through that.

We’re just gonna ask. How you doing today? We’re, we’re excited to have you here. Oh, thanks for having me. I’m really excited to be here too. Yeah, we have been looking forward to this. I think this is gonna be a, a really cool episode where people will get to learn a lot. I hope so. Glad to join a conversation.

These are always interesting. So, yeah, and as trainers, I think we all have the interest in this stuff, but we don’t, you know, a lot of times put in the time to study it. So talking to someone who has studied it, I think should be a lot of fun. Well, I hope so. I hope I can bring some interesting things.

Anyway, I think it’ll be interesting. For sure. So we were just thinking about talking through the origins of dogs. How did they become domesticated? What does that history look like? And then maybe even get in into the future of dogs, you know, what do we see, you know, going, going down the road 5, 10, 20 years into the future?

And I think farther than that, it’s probably hard to speculate, but I’ll just hand it off to you. The origin of dogs. I mean, you can go any direction you want with us. What, what can you tell us your opinion about where, how do we get to this point of having domesticated dogs? Yeah, it’s a really long story.

So I’ll, I’ll try to, um, uh, keep myself from going down too many rabbit holes here, but, uh, you know, humans. And dogs relationship evolutionarily started 10 to 40,000 years ago. Depending on who you ask, they seem to change their mind on that, you know, on a regular basis, depending on what new fossils they’re finding where and things of that nature.

Um, but by and large, the kind of understanding that we have at this point is sometime between 10, 40,000 years ago, um, a new ecological opportunity came about for wild canids wolves, uh, in terms of getting closer to human settlements camps, um, Mesolithic villages, et cetera, where there were additional resources that were available to them, right?

So wolves are hunters and scavengers and, you know, everybody in nature wants to kind of spend less and get more, right? They’re always thinking about the economy of their behavior. So being able to kind of come around these, these locations where humans were and get the scraps from our hunts that we didn’t want, things like that.

Um, nature started pulling on those strings with. Natural selection first in domestication where it was, um, selecting four individuals in the population that were less scared of humans and were therefore bold enough, willing to go closer to, you know, where those human, uh, human beings were, um, as well as less aggressive towards them.

So they weren’t as much in danger of getting injured by humans. And those are the kind of two primary domestication strings that get referenced, right? Like, um, less fear of humans, less aggression towards humans. Um, and so as nature started selecting for, wow, okay, so these individuals that are more affiliative, um, more, um, willing to approach less aggressive, et cetera, started being the ones that were more successful, right?

In the, in that population. And that kind of was slowly moving its way towards the first proto dogs in the world. Um, which as kind of a byproduct of that fundamental domestication process, which is a genetic process, right? Taming is like. You know, a learning process for an individual domestication is a, a genetic process that happens by selecting for those individuals with those traits of less fearfulness and aggression.

Um, then we, we ended up having, um, the, the byproduct of ne atony. And so ne atony, for those who haven’t heard that term, is the preservation of juvenile traits throughout adulthood. And so relative to wolves, those first proto dogs, um, were pe amorphic or ized to some degree, um, meaning that they didn’t fully, uh, demonstrate the kind of scope of behaviors.

Um, the, the full, um, kind of repertoire that an adult mature wolf wood, um, which made them more amenable for us to be in close proximity to. And so that was kind of the beginning of that turning point that differentiated them as a species. Um, and from there, boy has it gotten interesting and gone in a thousand different directions, right?

Like we found all these things that were under the canine hood were like super useful for our own evolution. You know, they could let us know when something was approaching our camp. They could provide these alarm systems, they could track down the prey that we were hunting, so we’d be in the right direction, um, and be more successful at our hunting.

Uh, when we started developing agriculture, for instance, then we were keeping livestock. We needed to be able to manage that livestock, move them from point A to point B, have dogs that could guard that livestock for us. When we started having more settlements, we started having more issues with ments and things like rats and all the problems that they presented in terms of taking our resources, introducing diseases.

So, you know, we had the. The whole rise of terriers, if you will, to help us conquer things like the Black plague and, and whatnot. Um, so we, we, we basically took what was this natural selection process of domestication, which was a win-win evolutionarily for both of our species. And then we started getting involved in two ways, um, as humans, one by human intervention in natural selection.

So that’s like favoring and culling. So we might say like, oh, I really like the, these dogs, they’re, they’re doing their job real well, so I’m gonna give ’em more food. And I really don’t like this one for whatever reason, so I’m gonna put him out of the gene pool entirely. Right? Um, and so we started pulling on those strings, but still with natural selection.

And then we started intentionally pairing breedings, and that’s where we’re getting into artificial selection. So guy down the streets got a dog that’s doing a great job moving his livestock from point A to point B, you know, the, the guy, three counties over what have you. Probably didn’t even have counties back then.

Um, but you know, he’s got a great dog doing the same thing. We’re gonna get these two dogs together and see if we can make like a super herding dog. Or maybe I have a herding dog, but he is not doing a great job protecting my livestock. So maybe I’m gonna actually breed in, you know, with another dog that has some guardian ancestry to kind of beef up his guardian behavior.

So. It’s not been a linear progression to get to this point where we have these hundreds of dog breeds we have in the population today by any stretch. Um, we kept, you know, uh, like re different kinds of dogs back together. We were trading dogs throughout history as we started crossing oceans and whatnot.

You know, we, we would bring different dogs from different geographic regions with us and introduce those to the local population. They would naturally inter breed all kinds of things. Um, kind of started to happen over the course of those years. And you know, what’s funny about where we are now is that we’ve been all kind of conditioned in the last.

20 to 30 years especially, and really in the last 10 to believe that none of that is relevant. They’re all just pets. They were all designed to be pets in the first place, which is not actually true. Um, and therefore any dog should be able to succeed in any modern pet condition environment, regardless of the circumstances.

And that’s where the rubber’s kind of meeting the road for us now, right? As the industry is like, wait a minute, if we’re divorced from all of that history that got us to this point, that’s been so important for both of our species and we have all this amazing working potential under the hood with all these different kinds of dogs, and we’re asking them to live these sedentary, unemployed, boring, purposeless lifestyles.

Like they, we shouldn’t be surprised that we’re having epidemics of behavior problems. Right? Um, so going forward, I think we’re gonna really need to reinvent what it looks like to be good keepers of dogs and good partners if we don’t need them for all those survival functions anymore. What are we gonna do with ’em so that they can have a good life?

You know, it’s gonna be a complicated question that we’re all gonna have to work to answer. Yeah, there, there’s a lot there. I was writing down questions while you were talking ’cause we, Jason and I came in with the list, but that opened up a a lot of new ones for me. So I have a big picture one for you with what you were talking about, just the importance of dogs to early humans and all the different roles they served.

Have you heard anyone make the argument that humans might not have survived as a species without dogs? Yeah. Were they that instrumental? Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I don’t know how substantiated those various theories are, but I’ve even heard the theory that humans might not have actually developed.

Spoken language, um, in the manner that we did, had dogs not come along because it was our noses. Were able to take up less, uh, space on our faces. And it’s structurally changed some things that enabled us to use our tongues in different ways. Um, and I’m, I’m not sure you know how much meat there is to that, but that’s one of many theories.

Um, and, and clearly there’s a lot of things we would’ve had trouble doing, particularly when you get into agriculture and human settlements, um, you know, urban environments and things like that, like some of the earlier urban environments. Um, I mean, there’s a lot of people that think we owe our survival through things like the Black Plague very much to the terriers at the time.

Um, and if we weren’t able to protect our stock and move our our stock, that would’ve been a huge impediment to agricultural development and things like that. So I think very much we owe a lot of our success as a species to our partnership with dogs. Never thought about the, uh, the terriers during the Black Plague.

Always. You always hear about the cats and how the. The ladies that had cats never got sick. So they were witches. Yeah.

The the dog people who had terriers, I guess never got accused of being witches. Yeah, because witches don’t own terriers. No, just cats. Just cats. So if we went all the way back to the beginning for a second, I’ve heard people say that I think there’s some people that believe that domestication started by humans going and stealing wolf pups and raising them on their own.

Do you think that’s completely untrue, or do you think that’s just a small, do you think that happened after the wolves became somewhat domesticated through natural selection? What do you think about that? Yeah, I’ve heard that theory as a matter of fact. Um, my, um, kind of, uh, uh, mentor hero in the industry for all these years, Ray Carpenter.

Um, he and a couple colleagues would go back and forth about that on their theories, you know, and I, it Ray’s theory on that in terms of the, um, ecological niche and the opportunistic nature of dogs, kind of taking advantage of those, um, new resources always made a lot more sense to me. But I think like most things in life, the truth can be complicated and even contradictory.

I would not be surprised if there were some cases in which humans found a, you know, litter of wolf cubs and because of our own social nature and. Um, you know, nurturing behaviors with young animals. I mean, this is one of the ways dogs kind of hijacked our own, you know, physiology and, and whatnot as a species and kind of got us to take care of them, right?

And what’s a little parasitic? And, you know, in some cases you could look at that like early on, that it’s like I’m being taken care of and my needs are being met by this other organism. Um, I I, I don’t think dogs would’ve intentionally, or wolves would’ve intentionally put themselves in that kind of position, but I think some people sure might have stumbled upon some young wolves and found themselves engaging in their natural, social, caring sweetss of behaviors.

Um, what the part of that that, uh, was always presented by Ray that wasn’t as logical as like, the best explanation for how humans and dogs came to be. Was that, you know, when you are struggling to put food in the mouths of your family members, um, in, in, in that period of time, right? When like you don’t have extra resources to be handing out, would it be sustainable to keep a pet?

Like you might have enough to share your food with them or you might not. You know, uh, and so even when pet keeping started to become more of a phenomenon, it was first really observed, um, in that kind of, I don’t know, like functionless way, if you will, with like, you know, the upper class, uh, like the Victorian area era, for instance.

Like, I have enough extra resources that I can have all of these dogs as like a luxury. Um, and, and something just kind of unique, uh, to have where, um, I’m not actually like struggling to feed all my kids and, and things like that. So, um, that whole, uh, need for organisms to be economical in general as an evolutionary principle would make us question whether that would’ve been a widespread phenomenon that humans would’ve been going and taking wolf cubs from their dens to raise them.

That’s a good point. I never really thought about the fact that, how hard it would’ve been to get food back then and are you really gonna wanna share it with, right, with a wolf pop when you’re hungry yourself? Probably depends on how successful your hunt was that day, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here’s a, here’s, here’s another theory.

I, I think that’s come up a couple times super unpopular. So, um, people may not want to hear this one. Um, but, but I think there is a theory out there that, um, early man may have, uh, utilized dogs as. Yeah. Their own livestock, I guess. Is there any, you got any thoughts on that? Um, in, in terms of humans eating dogs, right?

Like I, I think that’s been part of different cultures throughout history and we know, right? We’ve got the Korean meat trade now, like, it, it definitely became part of certain cultures and if you are a, as a whole additional good point to kind of additionally combat what we were just talking about too, I think you, an early human would be maybe more likely to eat them than to, you know, raise them necessarily unless there was some benefit for the person that they were immediately seeing, you know?

Um, and uh, and, and it’s reality is with all these things we don’t know, right? We can’t go back and ask. We have to like try to parse together some of the evidence that we have. Um, but uh, sure. Yeah, I think that definitely at some point and, and continuing even through today, people have act actually Eden dogs.

Yeah. So do you think, is there anything special about wolves that made them the only choice to become our true domesticated partner, the way you know and turn into dogs versus some other animal? So basically, is it just kind of dumb luck or coincidence that it happened to be wolves and turned into dogs?

And it could have been, I don’t know, tigers or many other things. Right? Or is there something truly special about dogs that it really couldn’t have, or wolves that it couldn’t have been anything else? Yeah, I think one of the reasons that we were predisposed for that species, um, in that capacity, well, I think there’s a number of reasons.

Um, I think some of the wolves natural behaviors were things that we needed help with, right? Like tracking and stuff like that. So some of their superpowers were things that we were like, wow, that’s one of my major shortcomings as a human. I’m really not amazing at like scent tracking down game, right?

We’re like visually dominated, you know, and, and where dogs are dominated by the olfactory cortex. So things like that. But I think socially is the biggest piece. So there’s been a number of, um, individuals that have discussed, uh, how the, the kind of natures of our families where you have like a breeding.

Mother and father and then their offspring and sometimes multi-generations of that offspring that are kind of living together in an extended family like nuclear family plus kind of style was very similar to what like human social groups were looking like in those same times. And so I think a lot of our just kind of natural behaviors and structures compared to say.

Um, even our closer genetic relevant, uh, relatives of like chimpanzees, you know, tend to live in much larger groups, um, than, than what humans were, were living in at that time. So maybe it was just, um, enough, uh, similarity in terms of some of our social suites of behaviors that we found, some things that, you know, we were able to recognize in each other.

And then at that point we started co-evolving and then dogs literally started evolving to be able to recognize and, and respond to our body language, facial expressions, gestures, et cetera. Um, as they were becoming even better adapted to optimizing this niche of living close to humans. With what you mentioned, uh, were you saying something Jason?

Yeah, it is just gonna touch on, um, so I’m sure you’ve heard of the Fox Farm project and, and looked at the physiological changes and how those foxes. Physically morph as well as behaviorally, obviously. Um, how early do you think that took place with these, with these early wolves and their interactions with humans?

Oh, I’m sure actually someone’s got the, the historical data on that, at least, you know, whatever our current updated models are and the timeframe. But like the, those changes like curly tails, pie balled coats, um, uh, dropping ears, um, uh, feminized, craniums, things like that. Like I, those, those same changes did of course occur in the domestication process with dogs, um, from their, their wolf uh, ancestors, uh, in the same way that it happened with the Fox farm studies, um, that Bailey of did there.

And it’s interesting though, because there’s been some, uh, debate, um, and kind of controversy around those studies too in recent years. I’m sure you guys have seen it, where they’ve said that Bailey have actually selected foxes that had already been. Domesticated to some degree, even for the controls, that there was some kind of confounding variables to all of that.

So I, I don’t know how that skews some of that data that we’ve been relying on so heavily for all of these years as kind of a point of reference. But I think the fundamental principles that were demonstrated through the Fox Farm studies still hold true, uh, in terms of, um, when we select for behaviors, we get different morphological or physical traits as well as those changes in behaviors.

Yeah. And then, you know, if people aren’t familiar with that, um, particular work, those changes took place, relatively speaking in a blink of an eye. Mm-hmm. I mean, as far as generations go, it was, it was really short in my opinion. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Um, and, but that’s, that’s the bit I think that maybe has been kind of pressured post.

Sure. Has been like, well, but how many generations were there before that, that we would just aren’t on our radar? And I still think it was quickly because even if you’re looking at how those foxes were at the beginning of the study versus, you know, after the selective process, um, there was a lot of changes, um, in their behavior, um, and their morphology.

But it makes you wonder like, I don’t know how many more generations they’d been kind of pulling on those strings before they started the study. Yeah. Yeah. I think he got those early ones from fur farms or something. So yeah, there had been some, some interaction there. Mm-hmm. Yep. You know, whether it was four generations or 25, either way.

Still pretty amazing. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And like everything with, you know, um, science is, we get more information, we get more insight, we get better understanding, but it’s not as like black and white and conclusive ever as we’d like it to be. You know? It’s, it’s all kind of evolving our understanding.

Well, here’s something that’s not conclusive, at least to me. I would love to hear your opinion. So I’ve seen a video of these baboons stealing this little puppy, and it’s super sad. They’re like dragging this puppy, and he’s like, really sad. He is yelping and que, you know, squealing, and they’re like pulling him by the tail and it’s like at a garbage dump in Saudi Arabia or somewhere.

And supposedly these baboons are raising the dogs to be guard dogs for them. And you can see videos of the adult baboons with adult dogs, with them interacting and hanging out. It’s shocking footage. But when you read online, there’s people that say it’s true. And then others that say, this is absolute bs.

This is not true at all. Do you know anything about that? Have you ever heard of other animals raising dogs? No, I have not. And I haven’t heard about that particular, um, video or, or, you know, kind of a question that people are, are looking at there. And, and I think you, you have to look at like what are the conditions that create new pressures and opportunities, and how does that change natural behavior?

So for instance, baboons, um, with their social behavior, if there was some other pressure in the environment that was somehow, say, compromising their own reproductive success, right? So for whatever reason, maybe the food sources aren’t good enough and so they’re having a lot of failed pregnancies and things like that.

Are they still then experiencing the motivations to raise young. But then they’re unable to actually raise their own young, and that creates a new pressure in the environment that then catalyzes them to, um, displace, if you will, that behavior towards another species. Um, and that, that’s actually one of the concepts I will be talking about this sheer, um, at the talk is evolutionary mismatch.

And so a lot of the things that are happening right now in the modern Anthropocene that we’re all living in, which is kind of an epoch that’s defined by humans influence on the planet, is that a lot of species are experiencing evolutionary mismatch as well as us humans. Um, because of the kind of rate of environmental change and new pressures that a lot of species are not able to biologically evolve fast enough to, to be adaptive.

Um, and so that can create a host of different kinds of welfare problems that show up as weird behaviors or behavior problems could without spending too long on things other than dogs. Could you give us a couple examples of other animals that’s happening to. Just intrigued by, by that thought process.

Yeah. Um, so actually the, the concept was born in human psychology, which is really interesting. So, like you, they’re the most literature is about humans. Um, and so, um, another example from humans would be, um, take the phenomenon of people spending so much money that they don’t have and shopping addictions.

Okay, so why would we do that? Why would it make sense for us to go out and buy things that we don’t need to go out and like search for stuff, search on the internet, go to the mall, you know, and, and buy all the stuff. And, um, what it is, is it’s a function of our original hunter scavenger or, or hunter gatherer kind of ancestral roots, right?

For foraging. And the fact that now we’re living in the modern age where I can just order my breakfast on GrubHub or I can go on Amazon and order all of my groceries and things like that. But we actually, just like all species, we experience dopamine that motivates us to engage in our natural behaviors as a species.

So those suites of foraging, hazard avoidance and management and social behaviors that were adaptive for our particular species. Through the course of our evolutionary history, we experienced dopamine that motivates us to do it, even if the conditions no longer necessitate it because they did for so long.

And then we get a dopamine hit for engaging in the behaviors. So we can feel like, I need to go shop, I need to go find things, forage for things, gather things right. Um, so something like hoarding behavior would be an extreme representation of foraging gone wrong and also can dial into all kinds of other things.

So if our social needs aren’t being met, like they often aren’t in the modern world because we’re finding ourselves. Isolated indoors alone. You know, maybe having more of these kinds of social interactions with people through technology as opposed to in person. So we’re not getting human contact. You know, all of these different kinds of things that were part and parcel to our evolutionary history socially.

Um, that can also make us like over collect and hoard things that have emotional sentimental value from other lost family members. Um, it can make us engage in tribalistic. I’m sure this is totally unfamiliar to anyone in the dog industry right now, behavior online, where we get all this social reinforcement for people being like, yeah, yeah, you’re right.

That’s right. And we’re all on this team over here and we’re all connected and bonded over our opinion and platform. Um, and a lot of frankly, like dysfunctional, modern human behavior. Is a result of our unmet foraging, social and hazard avoidance and management needs. It’s also why we create conflict out of thin air, right?

Like if we were actually in danger in the United States, right, under some eminent threat of being predated against or something like that on a daily basis. I doubt we would be going online and starting fights out of thin air where we’re finding these opportunities to like face adversity and you know, like feel like we’re, um, uh, having some type of thing we have to defend ourself against or like attack for some reason.

Those are natural sweetss of behavior that we have motivations to perform to some degree. And it turns out like the easy life really isn’t so easy that us people and, and dogs are kind of dealing with. Um, but, but yeah, there’s, there’s a lot of examples of like, uh, another one evolutionary mismatch, just to give just an animal example, um, is like the, the plastic islands and things that you guys have heard about, I’m sure.

Where all of our waste is washing up on these different islands and various seabirds are feeding the plastic to their babies. Right? Like there’s not supposed to be plastic in their environment. So things that their, their physiology recognizes as potential food sources aren’t actually food sources and they’re killing their babies by feeding them plastic.

You know, it’s when the en mm-hmm. The environment no longer is functional for the, the genetics, the biology that the animal has for what they were prepared to solve, evolutionarily, and it’s presenting new problems that they’re not equipped to solve in a claims situation. You wanna be sure you have the right coverage Business.

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That’s interesting. The, the human example just makes me think about is that going, is that going to change, you know, or through, so you know, natural selection where you mention if a shopping addiction and all these other things are caused by strong hunter gatherer instinct, do people that have a weaker instinct there somehow?

Are they more likely to raise children? Are they more likely to have the money to do it? More likely to have the money to give their kids proper healthcare? Do they have more offspring and do we get to a point a hundred years from now where the hunter gatherer instinct is? I. Gone or, you know, or, or very, very weak because of that.

No, absolutely. And that’s a really good question. And like, again, all truths have all this wonderful paradox and contradiction to them. So I would say yes, all that evolution’s still happening. And I was actually just in Vegas with some of my friends last week for the, um, uh, what was HSUS and is now Humane World for animal, the animal care expo.

And, um, I myself do not like overstimulating environments like that, right? Like, it’s not my bag. I live in western North Carolina, like where I can’t see another house, and you know that that’s my bag. That’s what I like. Um, and so for me, when I’m in that set of conditions, I am not well adapted to them. So there’s all these people walking around and they’re like, this is fine.

All the bleeping lights and the noise and the, you know, whatever, and all the chaos and naked butt cheeks walking down the street and all that, they’re like, fine with it, right? And I’m like, wow, what is this? I’m so overstimulated. Take me back to the hotel room at 8:00 PM Um, and so I am not well adapted to those conditions.

And so we were talking about how. The human domestication process, right? So like we’re less aggressive and less fearful and less hypersensitized to all these environmental conditions. We’re more successful in higher numbers in smaller proximities that’s adaptive to the modern world. So the question then is though, because the litmus test in evolution is ultimately whether you successfully reproduce, is that happening?

Right? Because if we have modern healthcare and we’re trying to make sure that’s available to everybody, which is the cool, nice thing to do, then that is not preventing individuals that are not successful from reproducing. So, uh, uh, maybe that’s me, right? Like I have now produced two children that maybe aren’t gonna be as well adapted to the modern world.

But, you know, that’s the interesting thing is that like, depending on where you are in the modern world, it’s either really adaptive, like, my kids know how to hunt and fish and farm and things like that. So like, you know, if we have an apocalypse coming around the corner, they’ll be much better equipped to those circumstances than, you know, um, individuals that are hanging out in Vegas and it’s all going right over their head.

So, um, I, I think that like the, because the rate of change has been so fast in the modern world in the last a hundred years, like none of us are fundamentally super well adapted to that ’cause there’s so much interruption in natural selection. So it’s still happening, but it’s so confounded by all these other moving parts that like, I’m not really sure where we’re gonna land, you know?

Mm-hmm. I don’t think anyone has any idea. Um, and uh, and then, you know, we’ve got all these artificial things like that, that are in our diets and things like that, that are making people taller and grow faster and reach puberty early and all. Like, is, is any of that gonna have any kind of adaptive benefit or is it all just stuff that’s happening because that’s just randomly what we’re putting in our food sources?

’cause they can make more money. Like we have no idea. You know, all I know is if there’s an apocalypse, I’m going to Jason’s house. He’s a southern man, which means he can do anything. Hunt fish, fix a tractor. Yeah. Probably make moonshine I would assume. Yeah. That’s the world where, that’s the world. My kids have grown up in here, you know, so that’s, um, and, and it’s interesting.

Yeah. I’m not far from you at all. Oh, you’re not? Where are you Jason? Of, uh, just at the Foothills. Oh, okay. We’re in Harmony. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. Harmony North Carolina. Yeah. Yeah. So, so really we’re not far though. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and, and North Carolina, I mean, it’s, it’s an anomaly as, as many little pockets are.

Um, and it’s, it’s fascinating because my kids, having raised them here, just seeing what, what they are kind of wired for and prepared to do and, um, and, and what’s not appealing to them. Like neither one of them wants to go far from home for college. Um, and the kinds of things that they’re choosing to do, I think with their adult lives are gonna be more.

Kind of attuned to the environment that they’ve grown up in. And, um, again, all of that could end up completely ill fit to modern conditions. And, and I mean, not to get into politics, but like, that’s one of the arguments, right? Like, let’s just say like the gun thing. Like one of the arguments is that like, well, you don’t need guns in the modern world anymore because we have grocery stores.

And it’s like, right? But a lot of families still have that as part of their heritage and culture, and those skills do feel adaptive and necessary, and they wanna maintain those skills and the autonomy that those skills provide. Um, and so, you know, any topic out there, whether we’re looking at like, is it, is it good or bad for humans or dogs to do A, B, or C?

Just like in nature, there’s no fundamental good or bad, it’s just whether it fits with the conditions at a given point, right? Like there, so a mutation isn’t bad. It’s how does it work with the new conditions? It could be that the guy with the mutation is the one that suddenly ends up successful when everyone else that didn’t have the mutation is failing just because some new food source, you know, or, or predator or whatever, like appeared in the environment.

Um, and so, uh, you know, going a little off the rails there, but just bringing it back to that whole idea of like everything that we’re doing, even as a species, I think we forget, we’re also part of this like messy evolutionary process and this weird epoch of the Anthropocene where like kind of all bets are off ’cause nature’s not really behind the wheel like she has been.

Um, and that’s, that’s definitely throwing some things south. So circling back to just the domestication of dogs. Can you tell us about Village Dogs? So everyone knows that, or I’d assume everyone knows about Village Dogs, but what are they, in your opinion, how much of a hand have humans had in those dogs and how much are they really a, a product of nature?

Yeah, that’s a good question. So it definitely would depend on the particular, uh, land, race or population that you’re looking at. So depending on what geographic area, um, you know, you’re looking at, whether it’s Mexico or Chile or Argentina or India, there’s, there’s, there’s lots of even different populations within all of those countries, right?

Um, and so the level of human involvement looks really different depending on the culture. Um, some cultures are like trying to get in there at this point anyway, and, um, uh, you know, say provide healthcare to the street dogs or the village dogs. Um, other populations of humans are not providing those, those kinds of things.

And so I would say that relative to modern breeds and what we think of as the dog breeds here in the United States and most developed nations, there’s a much stronger influence of natural selection because they have autonomy to adapt to their conditions. In real time, and they have the benefit of natural selection still functioning.

So if you’re not street smart, you’re not likely to be able to successfully reproduce. So offspring are going to, you know, increasingly be better adapted to being street smart for a variety of reasons, you know? So, um, uh, being able to, uh, navigate all of those conditions, um, with agency also fundamentally creates better welfare.

Um, and so you’re gonna have less physiological stress and things like that, right? So then, then captive animals are, um, so I think they are a naturally evolved population in general, right? That is much more directed by the influence of natural selection than what we think of as dogs, but not without human influence.

And, and there is a lot of that human influence and natural selection going on with people, feeding them, calling them, you know, that dog bit, somebody, somebody shoots it. You know, um, this dog is super cute and everyone just thinks he’s so adorable. And he comes around to all the cafes at this cute little town in Argentina every day, and they all feed him, you know, and so he’s making the rounds with all the ladies in town and, you know, producing lots of litters of puppies and stuff because he’s getting really well fed.

Like, so we’re definitely a part of that process still. Um, but there’s a lot less like artificial selection. There’s some, and it’s interesting where you see it, you see purebred dogs in those areas where there’s land races and their behavior is really different. It stands out in a variety of ways. Um, for anyone who’s gotten a chance to observe these dogs.

Man, their communication, their ritualized signaling with each other is unbelievable. It’s so economic. It, it’s so like, um, sophisticated and refined and, and reserved. You know, you don’t see a lot of knockdown drag out fights. You don’t see a lot of explosive or neurotic behavior. Um, it, there’s a lot more intentionality seeming behind it.

Um, and I think that’s one of the things that’s beautiful about studying them is we realize just how much potential for like, self-directed, good choices dogs actually have when we’ve all been kind of taught to think that, you know, they wouldn’t be able to learn their way out of a box without human involvement, you know?

Yeah. I’ve seen a lot of street dogs, village dogs, different parts of the world. It seems like they’re consistently good at one of two things. Begging. Mm-hmm. Or larceny. One of the two. Yeah. Yeah. Both good skills to have if you’re a street dog. Probably both. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. That’s, it’s interesting what you said about them having a, maybe a better style of communication than our domestic dogs.

’cause I did see, we were in South America and I watched a dog come out of a cafe and he walked down the road. I was watching it all happening, went into another building, came out with a dog, and I was like, that’s kind of weird. It’s like he went there to get him and the dog followed him out. Then they went trotting up the street together and the one dog stopped and the one kept going and he went around the corner and about 10 seconds later you saw him.

I watched him come back and look for the other dog and go down by him like he was getting the other dog. And then they walked off and they left together and I watched it happen. I’m like, no way would this happen with your average domesticated dog. They just would be running amok doing who knows what, but watching ’em go get the other dog and wait for ’em.

It was really neat to see and trying to figure out what the heck’s going through their brains right now. Well, heck, I mean, think back to like, you know, not that many decades ago when dogs would wait at bus stops for kids. Yeah. I mean, we, we’ve. We’ve robbed them and, and ourselves from so much of the richness of their potential accidentally through all of these modern restrictions.

Mm-hmm. Because, I mean, dogs have more common sense than we give them credit for by a long shot. We don’t give ’em a lot of opportunities to develop it and practice it. One of my students actually said at a meeting we had a few months ago, you don’t develop common sense unless you have the opportunity to develop it.

And I was like, wow, is that true? You know? And she actually lives in Gambia. So we were talking about village dogs at the time, um, and we were talking about it, just the, the common sense that these dogs have relative to our dogs. And you wonder like, if, if they, if they still had that opportunity to develop it, would more of them develop it?

You know, if you have a bonded social member as a dog, there’s no reason at all that you can’t remember where your buddy hangs out most of the time. Check and check and see if he’s there. Go by and be like, Hey man, you wanna go? Whatever. And trots along with you, and then you know, you have it in your mind that you’re like with a social member and all of a sudden they’re not there anymore.

For anyone who’s had herding dogs or livestock guardian breeds, you know about like, which dogs are head counters and they know how many people are in the room at any given moment, and who’s new and who’s not, and where did so and so go? And, um, I’ve, I’ve always had, uh, well for the last, you know, maybe 6, 7, 7 years, uh, a livestock guardian mix or livestock guardian, and it’s just fascinating to me there.

Propensity for supervising and babysitting and monitoring what’s going on. ’cause that’s their job. They, they have to be able to count heads as, you know, watching flocks, you know, if somebody disappears, it’s on you if you’re the dog. And that was your job, was to keep track of everybody. So, um, I, I think that’s, that’s one of the things I’m really hopeful about going forward in the industry is that we can step back a little bit from our human hand of intervention and our kind of ego directed accidentally.

I’m not saying for any bad intention, but like we can, myself included, get drunk on what we can get dogs to do. It’s so fun to train dogs to do stuff and we can kind of get carried away with ourselves on how much we intervene. And sometimes when we step back we might see that there’s all this amazing potential there.

Um, that if we are a little bit more, um. Conservative about how we decide to intervene, when, where, why, and how we might find that the dog has a lot to offer that isn’t really on our radar till we look. Yeah. To sort of jump in here real quick, um, throw a statistic at you. It’s a little older one, so it might not be a hundred percent correct, but, um, it, the statistic says that 80% of the dog breeds that we have today didn’t exist 150 years ago.

So, um, with that being said, the question is, you know, what does, what, what is the impact of selective breeding at that speed and that scale? Hmm. Well, so a lot of the modern breeds, so like a lot of the gun dogs, a lot of the terriers, um, a lot of the herding dogs, um, some of the scent hounds. Right. The, the, some of the newer breeds that we kind of like, we took their base sample, sent Scent Hound and kind of were like, modified it for different game to track, right?

Or we took, you know, a, a certain type of herding dog and we modified it for different kinds of animals to herd. ’cause obviously it’s harder to move cows than sheep and things like that. So why we ended up with cattle dogs and sheep dogs. Like those, those changes have happened more recently. And the, the closed gene pools, I think is where my brain immediately goes in terms of concern and consequence for like, when we say, okay, um, nature’s always breeding for what’s fit for the animal.

Nature’s selecting for what’s in the animal’s best interest. That’s like a principle of evolution, right? Like you have to be adapted to your environment and be fit to those conditions and winning at nature to survive and reproduce. For us, when we are deciding what to breed and what to select for, that bar is no longer what’s in the animal’s best interest.

So we start seeing more health problems. We start seeing more maladaptive behaviors. Frankly, we’ve bred a lot of dogs in the last 150 years that are physically and behaviorally just really unhealthy. Like nature would never have created them because they violate other fundamental rules in nature, such as, um, self preservation.

So self preservation is supposed to be this constant operating filter that tells you whether something’s a bad idea because you could risk dying if you did it well. Terriers are a great example of breeding against self preservation. You know, it’s like, I don’t care if it hurts, I don’t care if I am, like, the thing is four times bigger than me, I’m going in the hole anyway and I’m gonna mean it, and if I come out bleeding, so be it.

Like, whereas, you know, nature would be like, is it a good idea to go in that hole? Like, you know, like depending on how big you are and what you just chased in there, right? Um, we’ve bred, for instance, uh, ritualized signaling out of certain breeds of dogs because that wasn’t beneficial for the function, say of blood sport, right?

And so ritualized aggression is meant to actually avoid full altercation conflict. It’s meant to tell you, dude, I don’t wanna hurt you, but I will hurt you. I’m telling you back off. Don’t get in my space. Stay away from my stuff or my social members, or whatever. And then, so it’s not, it doesn’t make a good blood sport dog, for instance, if that dog is like warning you of all the things that he’s gonna do, in the interest of avoiding conflict, the dogs that are gonna be more successful are the ones that just get right in there, you know?

And they, they make the better hit first. Um, and, and are able to get that upper hand. And so, but ritualized singling is really adaptive for all animals in nature. And, but when humans were breeding for that particular function, we didn’t have the dog’s best interest in mind so much as our goal of what sport we were kind of developing and the entertainment that that provided and all that.

So I think the consequences, Jason, or you know, that we’ve, our meddling has, has been, um, demetrious to dog’s physical health and it’s been DeLeT to their behavioral health in a variety of ways that have only been compounded by the measure of captivity we now have. It’s interesting the differences you see in different spaces of dogs or dog training.

So I’m in the pet dog space, so I see working dogs, but most of the time it’s a working dog in a pet household. And so we’re called in for behavioral problems and circling back to the village dogs, my point that sometimes they, in what you had said, sometimes they seem like they have more common sense or smarter.

What most pet dog owners seem to want, at least in my experience, is just a dog who’s not doing things they consider to be bad barking, pulling on leash, biting people, whatever. And it makes me wonder what the breeding is. I mean, Frenchies are a great example, but what, like what’s being bred and what are we creating that we’re creating for a sedentary lifestyle?

And I don’t know, is that good or bad? I’m not really sure. And I’d be curious your take on that. But if you take working dogs out of it, obviously remove Border Collies and Malises and all these, you know, dogs that are truly being bred to work. What are we creating and what is it doing? Because I see a lot of dogs that don’t have common sense, a dog that I don’t think, no matter how you raised it, would wait for the child at the bus stop.

I think the dog would just do, who knows, whatever it’s gonna do. They’re happy. They’re happy, go lucky, but they seem fundamentally different than some, some dogs. So what do you think? Do you see that as well? Do you think that’s happening and where does that take us in the future? Yeah, I mean, I think that, um, definitely people in the pet dog part of the industry, um, and that’s where I’ve been operating for the last 25 years too.

They, you take a list of all the natural behaviors of dogs and that’s basically the list of complaints they have for us when they call us. I don’t want any of these things. And you’re like, you do know you got a dog, right? Like, um, but all of these natural behaviors that are basically restricted by captivity, they show up inappropriately because they’re not out there doing it in like the conditions that they were designed to do them in, in the first place.

And if, if, if our modern world is moving in this direction of increased technology and sedentary indoor sterile lifestyles, it’s not fair possibly to keep breeding dogs with so much common sense that’s gonna have them losing their ever-loving minds in those conditions. If you put me again in those conditions, if you say, Kim, you’re gonna live in a condo in Vegas, I’m like, no, thank you.

Not doing it. Rather not even be here. Not interesting to me. Right. And so maybe common sense is loss is a kindness if we’re gonna keep dogs in those conditions. I mean, that’s a real ethical quandary question that I don’t think there’s a clear answer for. Um, there was an article I read years ago called Dumbed Down by Domestication, right?

And essentially the, the, and I like kind of thinking about this with humans too. It’s just kind of fun. It’s like complacency is more convenient, it’s easier for everyone to live with, and it’s more adaptive to those modern conditions. And that’s a byproduct of domestication. So it’s a kindness if you’re in those conditions.

And if suddenly you’re not, you’re s you’re, you’re in trouble. You know, like if suddenly those conditions change and you find yourself, you know, navigating other circumstances where you’re no longer bubble wrapped, then y. You’re gonna find yourself in, in, in poor form. And, and so this is one of the challenges, um, is if we should be breeding dogs for the world we have today, but what does that really look like to me, one of the best examples is service dog training programs.

So you’re breeding for dogs that can think they can follow directions, they can learn, they can handle modern conditions, right? They’re not super disrupted by being in airports, train stations, you know, all the kinds of modern stimuli, um, tend to have good temperaments as far as, you know, handling, being around a lot of people and, and other animals and stuff like that.

But they’re bred for the modern world. So I think I’m really curious about like what that magic formula is for the, the new frontline of service dog breeding that people like Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods are, um, working on at Duke Canine Cognition Center with their service dog, um, breeding program. Um, I’m, I think that there’s a lot of.

Potential. And they even have said there was a recent article that they, um, were involved in about a new wave of evolution in, in the dog world or evolutionary trajectory. Um, and kind of pointing to the service. Dog breeding is part of that. So I, I think we’re, we’re stuck a little bit, I think breed, continuing to breed dogs for jobs we no longer have.

There’s a cruelty to that. Um, and I think breeding dogs to the point where they can’t think their way outta that box might be cruel as well. Or it might be super adaptive. I think this is kind of where we’re at as an industry is that we have new questions we have to ask ourselves. I think we need to break, frankly, all the molds and templates that we’ve had for the last 20, 30 years and reinvent because the problems we are having now are not the same problems we were having with dogs 20, 30 years ago.

The problems they’re having are not the same problems they were having 20, 30 years ago. Um, and we’re now seeing this epidemic rise of dog behavior problems, which from animal welfare science models tells us we’re having welfare problems. ’cause, you know, behavior problems are not at all common in nature.

Um, if they happen, it means something’s terribly wrong. And so when we’re having this widespread phenomenon of dog behavior problems in the United States right now, then we have to really look at that as like, there, there’s some dysfunction underneath all that. This is really welfare issues. We’re dealing with more than just training issues.

Training is part of the solution, but um, it’s, it’s that we have to get to that evolutionary mismatch kind of question. No, and being a responsible pet owner is huge of course, and it’s rare. I’m sure you two see the same thing. It’s rare for me to see a client who raised a dog from a puppy, walked it very often, did a lot with it, and is still having major issues.

It’s, you know, I see it a lot where people rescue a dog that came with issues or they get a dog. They don’t walk it very often, and lo and behold, there’s problems. But it’s pretty rare if someone comes to me with a dog they’ve raised since a puppy that they’re walking 5, 6, 7 days a week and doing a lot with, and they’re having major problems.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of people, they just don’t know. I mean, that, people I think, really believe that a dog spending 23 hours a day inside is fine. They walk it, you know, for three 20 minute walks a day, and they’re like, I walk him. Mm. Mm-hmm. And depending on what kind of dog you have there. I mean, my Australian Shepherd used to drive me nuts back in the day.

She was my senior thesis project when I was in college. And um, like many Australian shepherds could keep going, like the Energizer Bunny for like 18 hour days, and I could take her for a five mile horseback ride with her, like running tandem along with the horse and running out and back like they do across fields and over mountains and creeks and streams and all this.

We’d come back from the five mile horseback ride where she would’ve probably done 10. I’m like, whew. She looks at me like, now what? And I’m like, well, I don’t know how to do this right. I don’t know how to meet your needs. But we had a 30 acre farm, you know, at the time. And there was lots of fun things that she could just be a sidekick for and like be a part of.

I mean, this is the thing like we used to a hundred years ago, we lived outside, you know, like we spent our lives working outside and using our bodies and our hands and our dogs were our sidekicks for that. That’s not the world we’re in anymore. And so like even just getting to be a sidekick for all that activity.

I mean, that’s the thing about the pet concept is like we have to realize that historically that whole idea that like all dogs are pets is so new. They really were meant to be partners and, and, and sidekicks and functional, um, uh, family members in a variety of capacities. And that’s what we made them to be.

’cause they were useful and even necessary for us. And now we’re like, I just want you to be a sedentary pet. You know? And I think mostly in the public now, the pet industry, because they make a lot of money off the idea that if you just get ’em all the right products and services, it’ll be fine. Right? You don’t need to do anything.

You don’t need to meet their needs. You just gotta go buy ’em this stuff. That’s why the anxiety aisle and PetSmart just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger. You know, all the like little medications and supplements and thundershirts and all the things like to make your dog calm down. And a lot of what’s causing all of that is just the dog’s confusion, overwhelm, frustration, boredom, you know, um, frankly, kind of lack of a life.

And so, yeah, pet, if we’re gonna keep this pet concept as part of our culture, we have to redefine what it looks like to be a good pet owner. We, we’ve gotta say like, people need to level it up. They need to understand that effectively with the level of captivity we have in most spaces, like in the United States, you’re kind of like a zookeeper for your dog.

Like, that’s on us. Who else is gonna do it? Right? They can’t meet their own needs. And in a zoo, if it’s a good zoo, they’re really worried about that habitat design. They’re really looking at like, what are the natural behaviors for a polar bear versus a Bengal tiger versus a flamingo, and how can we design this animal’s reality so that they can do the things that are natural for them in order to have a fulfilled life?

You know, and we haven’t been taught to look at dogs that way. We’ve got this kind of reductionist recipe that’s like, um, uh, homogenizing all of them into, you know, a dog. When there’s really just so much tremendous variation there. And, and I hate seeing movies come out with Malinois Stars, knowing now people are all gonna go get a Malinois.

Now we have a Pyrenees Anatolian that just saved a 2-year-old, so now even more people are gonna go get Pyrenees and Anatolian. And we know how that works out in condo environments. So, you know, um, I think we all kind of just need a reality check. Don’t don’t, don’t forget we got dire wolves coming. Oh yeah.

Right. Well, we’re all gonna have dire wolves, you know, because then we can be like game of throne stars and stuff. That’s cool. Di dire, dire dire wolf doodles within a year. No, thank you. You need a better name than that though. Dire doodles come up with something catchy. It doesn’t worked out the marketing part of it yet, but I mean, the concept’s great.

Yeah. Oh yeah. Well, I mean, they won’t shed What more could you want? First time I heard about a Tibetan mastiff doodle about, about fell over. I was like, wow, that is a terrible idea. I’ve never heard of that. Oh yeah. Yeah. There’s one hero, local community. They will, they will mix a poodle with anything. Yes, they will.

Well, it’s all the benefits of the poodle with the ability to accidentally kill your neighbor. I mean, there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of good there. I like what you said, Kim, about being a partner. We stress that to our clients a lot. I don’t generally use the word partner, but take them to Home Depot with you.

You’re going on a shopping trip, your dog’s gonna love that, and you’re going to pick the kids up from school, take the dog with you. He’s going to love that. And there’s so many easy, fun things you can do. And I might steal that word partner from you and use that like they need to be part of your life.

And I have clients right now that are moving and they’re making a hundred trips back and forth between their houses, and I was stressing to them, bring the dog with you. That’s fun for the dog. Yeah. Bring them with every single trip. And then at the end of the day, your dog’s tired when you’re done moving as opposed to.

You left him home for 16 hours and now he’s pent up and crazy. Well, and that you, you just kind of stumbled on another really important point and that is that we know actually it takes a lot more energy for us to be using executive function. Like, ooh, new interesting learning and things that I’m trying to process that are not just habit, emotion, and instinct.

Right? This takes a lot more energy. So when we mentally stimulate the daylights out of our dog by taking ’em to see and do all these other things, it doesn’t matter if they’re like running their butts off all day, they’ll still come home really tired. You know, it’s not that we just literally need to like run them six miles.

That’s actually potentially less energy draining. That running six miles, even if it’s hard on their body, then it would be for them to be like out there doing all that stuff. So, I mean, I do that. I take my dogs, they allow ’em at Marshalls and TJ Maxx and you know, if I’m going out to eat at a place that has an outdoor patio, I take the dogs and it’s great for them.

It’s nice for me, it’s nice for people and it’s keeping their world and life interesting, you know, so that they have some sense of purpose. Alright, everybody, let’s take a quick break to talk about our friends. Aurora cold weather should not stop you or your dog from staying active and enjoying daily outside time.

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Visit aurora.com, that’s OROR o.com to find the perfect heated apparel for you and your pup. Even better. You can use IACP. That’s once again the code IACP to get 15% off your new heated gear back to the episode. That’s, that’s another thing that I just, I think about so much with our, our species and theirs and so much of domestication and kind of, um, the easy life being too easy is like in nature, every species has to have purpose.

Like there is no free ride. You have to use your energy towards foraging, hazard avoidance and management and social and reproductive behaviors to get by. So it literally doesn’t make sense to our brains or theirs to be like, what are we doing today? Nothing like, yeah, one, we get depressed. One of the things you mentioned, I I, I stress to clients all the time, um, mental stim, that mental stimulation trumps physical activity.

Pretty much every single time. Not that, not to say that dogs don’t need both. They do need both. But the reality is, if you got a stock line Border Collie, I don’t care how much you take it for a run, it’s not gonna come home tired. Yeah. However, you know that that mental stimulation can create a tired dog at the end of the day.

And that’s, it’s super important. I think that’s one of the things that, that a lot of pet dogs really miss out on. Yeah. Pet, pet owners just simply don’t understand. Um, the analogy I I use for a lot of folks is, you know, they have kids and I’m like, you know, take your, take your five-year-old to the playground, let ’em play for an hour.

You know, give ’em a juice box. They’re ready to go for another hour. Yeah. Right. Take the same kid and give them a, a 40 minute math test and then they’re ready to nap for three hours. You know, the brains are fried, so you know that mental. Mental portion is super important. I think people need to focus on it more.

Yeah. Yeah. I agree. And, and beyond simple things like, you know, puzzle feeders and, and, and snuffle mats and, and things like that. Like, we, we gotta get a lot more creative. We, we really need to start rethinking, like, what is fun and interesting for dogs that kind of, you know, ticks all their boxes, um, and get back in that, that kind of world where people are taking their dogs out more, you know?

Yeah. And, and giving ’em the skills so that they can navigate all those modern conditions. So they’re like me going to Vegas, but somebody’s holding their hand and showing ’em how to do it without losing their mind, you know? Yeah. But don’t you, don’t you feel like it’s on some level sort of a self.

Fulfilling prophecy. I mean, I’m maybe dealt with it, Matt. I don’t know. But we deal with it a lot. You know, I, I don’t take the dog out because it acts crazy. Yeah, well it acts crazy because you don’t take it out. So, I mean, this is kind of this, uh, unfortunate revolving door here. Yeah. And if you don’t break this cycle, at some point, you’re gonna continue to deal with this in perpetuity.

Yeah, no, I agree. I think that’s actually one of the challenges. I think for our good intentions, people have gotten so protective of like. Well, A themselves and b, the dog. And we’re so risk averse. Like there’s this awesome book behind me called Last Child in the Woods, saving Our Children From Nature Deficit Disorder.

And he talks about the figurative boogeyman that’s like we, we kind of adopted back in the eighties, like, uh, some kid’s face on a milk carton and all the children are get ab gonna get abducted. And so don’t let ’em run feral like we all did growing up in the neighborhoods, like being out till eight, nine o’clock.

Our parents having no ideas where we were. So we’ve got this kind of like, don’t let anything bad ever happen thing. And, and we’re, we’re, we’re. Cornered by it, and then we corner our dogs by it because we don’t go out and do the things. And actually, the building of the skills and the confidence and the problem solving and the facing and overcoming adversity at levels you can handle, like, that’s, that’s the fulfilling stuff in life and the interesting stuff in life that gives you some sense of meaning.

And, um, you know, I if, if you’re out in nature, like one of my suggestions, even just taking your dog out in nature is like, look for opportunities to interact with wildlife safely. Um, you know, instead of just avoiding it. So like, you know, if your dog finds a turtle instead of being like, don’t get near it or whatever, be like, like, just check out the turtle.

Like what’s the deal with the turtle? You know, if you’re out. And, and about in, in urban environments. And your dog is, you know, scared of something, trying to help them work through it as opposed to like, avoid it to be if you can, you know, and if it’s too much, I mean, that’s where we have to have skills as trainers to know what a dog is ready for, what criteria in their learning process are they prepared to succeed in versus when are we just setting them up to fail.

Uh, we don’t wanna just throw ’em in the deep end of the pool, but we also don’t wanna say, well, we’re not gonna swim because you might drum. You know, like, we, we’ve gotta find that middle ground in that for sure. Yeah. And for some reason people think it’s Buffalo getting buffalo petting season. We’re not suggesting that at all.

Don’t, don’t take your dogs out to Yellowstone Pet and Buffalo. No. That’s not the kind of interaction with nature I’m talking about. I think it’d be a bad idea. Or maybe turn your border collie loose on a whole herd of ’em. That’d be fun. Yeah.

Fun for the Collie. Yeah. Well, for a minute, for a while. Yeah. Well, do we wanna pivot to just talking? We’ve already touched on this a little bit, talking about the future of dogs. We’ve, I mean, we’ve talked some about kind of what’s happening now, you know, what, what we’re doing with breeding. You had mentioned maybe, you know, breeding to get rid of common sense is the kind of thing to do.

Maybe it’s not, and I know we’re speculating as we look at the future, but what do you, what do you think is the most likely scenario in the future if we continue down our current path with dogs? Where do you think we are in 10 years? I, I do still have dire wolf doodle on my bingo card, just so you know, as far as future goes.

How long? Five years at one year? Uh, probably not economical right now, so I’ll give it five. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So my wife has always said she wants a dire wolf, but they shed too much. Right, right. So this solve literally everything. Um, you know, it depends on what day you ask me whether I’m feeling optimistic or pessimistic.

Right. You know, um, the realist in me just says. Well, this is gonna be bad, right? Like, just generally. Um, but then the optimist in me feels like we, we gotta keep plugging forward. And frankly, I’m even encouraged by some of the progress we’ve made in the last few years. I mean, like, you know, um, four years ago I was being called a dog racist for suggesting dogs are biological animals, or a phenotype might be relevant.

And maybe there’s some differences between breeds. You know, now, um, the climate has shift to where people are like, yeah, okay. You know, like, dogs are biological animals and maybe there’s some differences between breeds. And that was like an uphill battle that I had been fighting for a long time, um, at least in the professional circles that I had been in.

And, um, so I, I’m seeing progress in some ways happen faster than I thought it would, and I’m encouraged by that. Um, while I’m seeing more divisiveness in the pet dog industry than I’ve ever seen, I’m also seeing more like high level collaborative stuff happening where people are stepping up and really trying to solve problems.

Standing shoulder to shoulder, rolling up their sleeves, and like, what do we, what do we have to do to solve these problems? And so I think, like most things in the world right now, we’re just tipping. We’re like this teeter-totter. We have no idea which direction it’s gonna go, um, for any number of reasons.

And I, I think if we were just to kind of look at likelihoods, assuming we don’t have any major events, probably our worlds are gonna get smaller, more technological, more sedentary, more sterile, and people need stuffed animals that maybe have a heartbeat, you know, goldfish, goldfish, who also are miserable by the way, in their little, you know, bowl you put them in.

But yeah, I mean, like, I, I think that the, like I went to Toronto a few years ago, have y’all been to Toronto? Uh, about a year ago. Yeah. Big city, right? So driving down the interstate in Toronto, I’m in the backseat of the car, of the folks that hosted us presenting there, me and Mike cio and, um, the buildings, these are residential buildings that you could spit onto the interstate from.

And then you look all around the buildings and there’s no trees. There’s no like nature. It’s just concrete. And you look around and you drive for miles and miles and miles by all of these buildings of the same. And you think how many people and how many dogs are living in those homes, those, those apartments, those condos.

And you’re like, this is the direction that humanity’s chosen to go. You know, like, for better or for worse, this is, you know, we’re, we’re in the age of the Jetsons and plugging away, right? And so if that’s the case, I think we and our dogs are in big trouble. I think we’ve gotten carried away with ourselves and what we can do.

And I think both of our species are suffering tremendously as a result. And all the statistics on dog behavior problems going through the roof and human mental behavior and behavioral problems going through the roof, the writing’s on the wall is from my perspective, but I don’t think we’re gonna stop.

I think we’re just like, I’m gonna do it ’cause I can and ’cause it’s making money and that’s just what people are doing. So, um, I I think that it’s gonna get worse before it gets better, if it gets better. But I’m gonna keep working for better because it’s the only thing I know how to do. You know? Um, but I, I, I think it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s getting weirder.

I think dogs are gonna be very much accessories to that reality from most people’s perspective. And if they can breed them dumber and prettier and quieter and slower, that will all be. The kind of goal for artificial breeding going forward. I’m pretty sure I’ve worked with some of the dogs that come from those breeders that are doing the dumber version.

I’ve, I’ve dealt with some of those lately. Yeah. And it’s a whole different kind of set of problems in a way, you know? Um, but if they’re, if, if they’re ultimately uber complacent, that’s what people want, you know, just passivity. That’s not what I want in a dog. You know, I, I, that’s not what interests me. To me, that would be boring.

Um, but I, I think it’s what a lot of people want. I, I, one of the things that I was talking with one of my colleagues about recently is that like, so I grew up around animals, right? Like, and we’re starting to get some generational effects, right? Like those of us that grew up. Outside feral, running the neighborhoods, hanging out with kids, doing all the things till nine o’clock at night.

We grew up in, around animals. We grew up in the creeks, you know, and in the woods. And you know, like we, we know dogs and, and have some expectations of them in ways that some of these younger generations whose families didn’t have dogs. So they might have been from environments where pet dogs just weren’t kept one generation ago or two generations ago.

And so it’s just, it hasn’t been part of their life experience. But then they’re like, I want a dog. ’cause that seems fun and I see all these cool tiktoks and I see all this stuff on social media and I that that’ll be fun. I’ll have a dog and my friends will have a dog and it’ll take our dogs places. And a lot of these people that don’t wanna have kids, they’re getting dogs instead and all this, but they have no idea who dogs are.

They didn’t grow up around them. They only know what the internet is telling them about dogs. And the internet is not full of a lot of incredible advice and insight. You know, it’s full of advice, full of advice, but not necessarily good advice. Right. Um, or advice with no context. Yeah. That could be good advice for a different dog or a different person, but not good advice for you in that moment.

Yeah, and I think that’s a part of that whole homogenizing all dogs, like they’re just dogs. Mm-hmm. It might be fine for this dog if, you know, if you have a Labrador or something, but it’s not gonna work for your a Keita, you know, or whatever. Like, and so, um, yeah, I, I think, um, that, that, that dumbness, um, is gonna continue to be kind of the goal.

Uh, just passivity, whatever that looks like, just passivity. But they don’t want dogs that are gonna stand up for themselves and their own feelings. They don’t want dogs that have strong opinions, strong drives, strong needs. Um, so yeah, I mean, at a certain point they won’t be dogs anymore. You know, at a certain point we’ll have another evolutionary crossroads, much like when wolves became dogs in the first place, where it becomes.

I don’t know, a chia pet like something. Mm-hmm. And that’s what I wonder with the future, with people living in an apartment and they want their dog to go to the bathroom inside, you know, on something, whatever they happen to be using. Mm-hmm. And we see that a lot in cities of course. And it’s something that people like and what’s gonna happen after that?

That just became a thing I feel like, in the last 10 years or so. At least more common. Yeah. What happens 30 years from now if that continues? Oh yeah. I mean, I, that’s, that’s a great example of think how much money, how the Fed industry stands to make for dogs peeing on pee pads. Pee pods are expensive, they’re ridiculously expensive.

It’s like diapers that they stay in forever. I don’t wanna have to pay for diapers forever, but somebody’s making a lot of money off of that being a great idea. And when you live on the 21st floor, I get it. Mm-hmm. But we’re then, none of us are living naturally, you know? And then that dog never maybe goes outside.

Have you seen those fancy things they sell that have like AstroTurf on them? Oh yeah. It’s like a litter box, you know, to be on the porch of your condo and the dog goes to the bathroom on that and then you clean it off. Oh yeah, absolutely. Yep. And they’ve got the, the, the fake grass, uh, or sorry, the real grass now where you can, you’re, they send you sod replacement, um, on a monthly basis.

And I’ve had clients in Asheville that I recommended it for because they’re disabled little old ladies that live on the 21st floor with a Pomeranian that they literally never take outside and refuse to. And they’re like, why is the dog peeing on the carpet? I’m like, I, I, gee, I don’t know. You know, so it’s, I’d rather give the dog, well, here’s something that smells organic since you never get to go outside, like, but it’s so bizarre that these are the conversations we’re having in a way, isn’t it?

Mm-hmm. My god. And it’s tough ’cause when someone has the dog, they’re not getting rid of it. So as a trainer, all we can do is speak our mind. And then do the best we can to convince them to give the dog the life it needs. Yeah, absolutely. And, and, and I, that’s the part that I really hope changes and what I’ll be, you know, talking about at the conference this year is what I feel like that really looks like, um, by applying modern animal welfare science models to our industry because we are that first line of contact us and veterinarians and, and other dog professionals.

Like we have to kind of recognize the writing on the wall for what it is and start changing some of our narratives, I think, towards what our responsibilities are as humans for meeting needs instead of all the things I can get dogs to do and not do. Right. Because training’s amazing. You can get all kinds of behavior change with training, but it doesn’t mean the animal’s welfare is better.

Right. And so at a certain point we have to say, is it fair? That like I’m erasing all these behaviors from the dog’s repertoire because the owner had that as the complaint list. Even though they were all natural behaviors, they don’t want the dog to do any of those natural behaviors. And I can successfully remove them from the dog’s repertoire, but not without consequence for the dog.

You know? And I think as an industry, we’ve been like pretty impressed with ourselves when we get a lot of behavior change. And that’s almost been our calling card for whether we’re good at our job. And I would like to see that value change to like, we’re good at our job when we can make sure that dog has an awesome life and they’re well behaved.

Like that’s what it should look like. ’cause everybody wins. Mm-hmm. Yep. I say a variety of this on every episode we do, because I say it to clients every day, but you need to spend just as much if more if not more time teaching your dog what they can do versus what they can’t. Yeah. And can’t is important.

We spend a ton of time on can’t, you can’t bite people. You can’t bark constantly, you can’t do a lot of things. But you have to spend a lot of time on the can. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Absolutely. They need the skills, especially in a world they don’t know how to navigate. Mm-hmm. Like you can’t raise a kid without like showing them what to do out there, you know?

Um, it’s more like, how do you navigate it as opposed to bad good. It’s thinking of it like, I like to think of training as a, as guiding and advising. Like, let me give you some advice on how this works. Let me show you how to do this so that it works for me and you. ’cause I can’t end up face first on the pavement and you wanna have as much freedom as possible.

So that’s what this leash thing’s gonna look like. Okay. You know, it’s like kind of this, um, you know, we put deposits in the bank account by meeting those needs and by helping them out. Right. Being their guide, showing ’em how the modern world works and then we can make withdrawals. There’s plenty of money in there to make those withdrawals and be like, and now you need to chill out.

’cause I’m at a restaurant and you can’t be disruptive and trip the waitress or try to steal my hamburger. You know, like, just like with kids, it’s like, you know, we, we have this responsibility to them to provide and to teach and I don’t know that we’ve got that fully integrated into the public psyche when it comes to keeping pets.

I don’t think we do. Definitely a lot more education that needs to happen. Yeah. And so, on that note, you know, I know you said you don’t love to talk about yourself, but tell our listeners some things about like what, anything fun you’re working on right now. Any projects, any upcoming events you’re doing.

Yeah, actually, um, so the total welfare talk that I’ll be giving at IACP this year, I’m giving it, um, six major conferences and I’m really excited about that because it’s a bit of a intentional tour because this is kind of my Legs model 2.0, if you will, by integrating it with these other, um, widely, uh, accepted models and animal welfare.

Um, and so with all of that, we’re releasing an app. So I’ll have that ready by the conference this year. Um, and I’m, because Marlene will, you know, kill all of us. If I say too much about it, I won’t get into all of the exciting weeds of it. But let me just say, we will finally have an objective way to start measuring the efficacy of our work and the welfare of our dogs.

And that is gonna be game changing for the industry. Um, so I’m really excited about that. Um, that’s the biggest thing in front of me right now is just making sure that this. This talk, um, is uh, is something that reaches people as powerfully as I’m hoping that it does, and that these new resources will be employed, and I think it’ll help us all get on the same page.

Um, and, and the legs course is something that’s been kind of an evergreen course in the pet dog, um, industry, uh, across, you know, training veterinarians, shelter employees, et cetera. Um, frankly, even the total welfare talk I’ll be given this year, if people haven’t taken the leg course, they’ll still be at a deficit for optimizing, um, the total welfare model because we all have to really understand the legs of the animals that we’re working with in great detail to do it super well.

So I would invite anyone that hasn’t already taken a good look at that or considered it to take a look, talk to people who’ve taken it. We’ve had nothing but five star reviews on it. People have said it’s been the best course they’ve taken in their career. Largely, I think just because it’s so validating for things that so many of us are witnessing, feeling, experiencing, and know on many levels, we just maybe are missing some of the scientific reference for why we’re seeing all that.

And so it ties the pieces together in a way that I think optimizes all of our work, whatever capacity we’re working with dogs in. So, um, and if you guys, uh, uh, want for your listeners, I’m happy to offer a, uh, 40% off on that course. For any of your listeners that hear this and they decide that they wanna go ahead and, you know, take a look at that course and enroll in it, um, it’ll be IACP 25.

Awesome. Yeah, that’s great. And if you give us just a, you know, a list of links, we will put all of that in the description of the show here. And just so people listening can hear, where do people go to find you? Are they going to your website, going to Instagram? Where do you like to be found? Yeah, so, um, the family dog mediation.com um, is our Family Dog Mediation Education Center website.

Uh, and, um, we’ll of course give you a link directly to the course page for the Leg Applied Pathology course, but we have a lot of different stuff on there. Our conference that we’ve had for the last few years and are having again next month, um, in New Hampshire, we take the presentations and those become, you know, seminar, webinar kind of offerings on our site.

So they’re on a variety of different topics. Uh, people wanna check those out as well. But yeah, that, that main website. And then we’ve got an Instagram that’s at Family Dog Mediation. Um, and um, our Facebook page is, um, family Dog Mediation, legs in Motion, if people wanna check that out too. Yeah. Awesome.

Jason, did we, did we forget anything? Yeah, she was talking about all those five star reviews. All I could think of is we, we let, we need to remind people we need five star reviews too. All those listeners go and go and Seet when they do that doesn’t, yeah. Yeah. She shouldn’t get ’em all. We should get a few, right?

Well they both go to Kim’s go to Kim’s program. Five Star Review there and a five Star to Dog Pro Radio. That’d be perfect. There we go. Alright, thank you so much Kim. This was awesome. Yeah, a lot of fun. Yeah. Thank you guys. Enjoyed it. Really fun. Alright, thanks for listening everybody. Have a great day.