Amy and Josefin have been working together on a new program designed to help us rethink every interaction we have with our dogs... and they're calling it "The Social Approach." 

 Transcription

 Melissa Breau: This is Melissa Breau and you're listening to the Fenzi Dog Sports Podcast brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy, an online school dedicated to providing high quality instruction for competitive dog sports using only the most current and progressive training methods. Today we're talking to Amy Cook and Josephin Linderstrom. I talk about the canine need for social connection. Hi, Amy and Josephin. Welcome to the podcast.

Both: Hey, Melissa. Hello.

Melissa Breau: Awesome. So to start us out, do you guys want to each just share a little bit about yourself? Your background, maybe your personal pets? Josephin?

Josefin Linderström: Yeah. So I'm a Swedish trainer. I have been always had dogs like my whole life. I grew up with the best dog on the planet. I feel very lucky to have shared my childhood with just a really nice dog. She never wore a leash.

I grew up just like walking in the woods with her and my sisters all day. Like that's my earliest ish memories of dogdom. And then I started to go to the training clubs and stuff. I started with my mom, with our next dog when I was around 12 years old and I started to do agility and then I just kind of didn't stop. So then, you know, it kind of just went on.

I did work in schools. Like I was in education for a couple of years. I was helping the kids who kind of were struggling, having some challenging behaviors and whatnot. And so having that background has also been really influential on the way that I now train. And then since 2020, I've been just training full time. Cause I decided, you know, left school and just did this stuff. Fun year to choose to go out on your own.

Yeah, right. It was a choice for sure. One of many interesting ones. But hey, it's worked out pretty well. It's been very fun. 2020 was also the year that I became a mom. And I've also learned a lot about things like attachment and social connection and all of that stuff that I've been learning from my parenting journey that also has actually influenced this stuff that we're going to talk about today quite a lot.

Melissa Breau: Awesome. Amy. Oh, bio is my favorite part.

Amy Cook: Dr. Amy Cook, developer of the Playway I been training dogs for forever, but my heart is always for the, the shy, the fearful, the anxious, the worried, the stressed dogs, because that is the kind that I got at one point. And once you have that, once you get a dog who has a very specific kind of problem and you delve so far, sometimes I think the dog trainers out there will relate to this.

That becomes your guiding light, your specialty, if you will. But I went back to school, got a doctorate and some stuff and combined a bunch of that into the playway, which has been my just professional focus for such a long time. I mean, how long has FDSA been here? Are we in 13 years now? Something like that. Something like that, yeah. And so that's, you know, that's how long I've been.

Been doing that. But I'm really excited to talk about this. I was about to say new direction, but to me it doesn't feel like new direction, it feels like expansion, you know, if you will. And who I have here, I've got caper, my nine year old. Nine year old Chihuahua terrier thing, which Melissa you helped name. I always love to, to give you props for that, but she's my only dog now.

Having. I lost Marzipan over the, over the summer and, and Josefin has this, this Belgian of amazement. I love to watch. So yeah.

Josefin Linderström: She's under. I'm sitting. I'm like all. We're all cozy on the couch with like a blanket and she's under the blanket with me. So like she's also. She's here. Salvia. Right? I think I was gonna say, I was gonna say. It's not. Say her name or maybe she'll be like, me, me. Let's do stuff. She played with the spaniel boy today, so she's actually not. I, I don't think she doesn't, she doesn't look like she's gonna harass me tonight. She looks comfortable. We might get lucky. No.

Melissa Breau: All right, so Josephin, since you're in Sweden, how has that like influenced things for you in terms of like raising and training dogs and built your perspective?

Josefin Linderström: I've been thinking about it a fair amount since I started taking on clients more internationally.

Since I started to like, I got on TikTok, I started to do TikToks in English and I just thought TikTok, I could just speak English here and have this be my little corner of the Internet where I just kind of do that or whatever. And I noticed like certain differences in just language. Like I find myself reaching for words that don't exist in English that we use to talk about dogs all the time or like we used to instruct all the time.

And I'm like, well, you just do the. You gotta work out the. And then I'm. I'm like the. Some. The Some spiel. You know, you gotta work on your. Some morning a little bit. So important to dogs. They gotta have the experience of Samhari here. And Sam is like, it's From Til Samans together. So there's all these words that we use all the time when we talk about dogs that center togetherness.

And it's like trying in English. And I get words like group cohesion. Group cohesion isn't wrong. And behavioral synchrony isn't wrong. But that's not what you tell like a group of, I don't know, a little kids football team. You don't tell them to go work on their group cohesion. You go to the. You tell them about, you know, their. Some spiel or like, I don't. So that's been one thing.

And I feel like it shows up in sort of how we just kind of expect dogs like what we expect them to be like. We expect dogs to think these things are important or like to be strong in these qualities. I sometimes when I talk to American clients, I try to like explain it and they look at me like, I don't know what you're asking me to do, I don't understand.

Amy Cook: And I'm like, well, you. I'll say that, you know, hearing her perspective doing dogs, you know, in her tradition or the, you know, the way they do over there, I don't want to oversimplify it, but as we speak, things stand out to me like that. Not that she just has words for things, but that she has certain assumptions that I know come from the way they interface with dogs, the way they raise dogs.

They have so much more opportunity to access nature than we often do over here. And they have so much more information in their puppy classes, in their dog books about play. Actually, we found, we compared all of our dog books and like, oh yeah, I think all of them or most of them had, you know, an expectation of teaching new dog owners how to interact with their dogs, how dogs behave normally and how we can be with them socially and how to play with them.

And you know, she would say those kinds of things. I'm like, I don't think our books really have any of that. And we would look together. It's like, wait a minute, we're not, we're not doing that. And so, you know, it's not that we have none of that information, but I could see that there was a bent toward a little more, a little more social connection, a little more kind of understanding from the beginning.

Whereas we focus quite a bit on how to change the behavior, how to get our dogs to kind of do things they do a little more. How can we live together well with our dogs? And, and that was just really exciting. For me, because a whole, you know, it's like the, we, we would talk about it as the water we're swimming in. It's not the stuff we're talking about all the time, but just more the, the default assumption that kind of drives us.

And, and me being as interested as sociality and, and social connection as I am. It was really neat to think about that, that she takes a lot of that as the water that she's swimming in. And so it helped us know what to be very specific about when we want to teach people this. It's like, okay, well, we have to get very explicit about it because if it's just, you know, an assumption made, it's not going to be easy to transfer.

So I think it's been a great, it's been great to collaborate with somebody from, you know, a whole different. Just, just influenced by a whole different perspective. Like, you know, you always surprise me, Josephin, with stuff like that. They're like, oh, we do that when they're puppies. I'm like, you do all of your puppies do tracking? That's so fascinating.

Josefin Linderström: It's so funny. Yeah. Because we were talking about this. I haven't taken a puppy class that hasn't had scent work in it. Right. I have. We did blood with my last dog. We did, we went with the whole puppy class, went into the, out into the woods and everybody did blood trailing because that's something that puppies can just kind of do. Like they just figured out and with Salvia. We all just like puppies. First track, they're all around.

I mean, they're puppy age. They roll less than six months, I think or something. And they're all tracking. Yeah. And they, and they're, we're just starting them with a regular just like, you know, a 300 foot track that's has laid there for like, you know, about 20, 30 minutes to set and has a toy in the end because they can just go, what do you mean? What? They, of course they could just do that.

Like, they'll figure it out and if they don't, we'll just do a little difference so that they help them out a little bit so that they figure it out. They could do that. And it's. And I'm talking to Amy and she's like, you did what in your puppy class? But don't you do these things in your puppy classes? I mean, of course, if you ask us, could dogs track that early?

Of course they could. Of course they can sniff stuff. If you ask me about it. But our, Our. Our perspective, we. It isn't something we are coming into it, expecting and thinking about. It's not what our puppy classes seem to want to emphasize most for our puppy owners. We're prioritizing different kinds of information. Right. And to. And to think about that. That is what you're prioritizing. That is what you put emphasis on from the beginning was really very.

It was. It was interesting to me. And I think it. I think it. I think it's something we can take a page from. I think we could. We could really think about that right from the beginning. That dogs have a whole lot of skill, and I don't want to quite say expertise, but expertise and, you know, strengths that they have. I will say I don't. Yeah. I don't know that every single puppy class ever actually goes, like, takes everybody out into the woods.

That might be a regional thing. It might just be because I live in the woods and there's, you know, but certainly there's going to be, like, things like little food searches and stuff. Also, like, Amy, you mentioned earlier, like, we have access to nature here. We. We have the right to roam. So anybody can just go anywhere. And dogs can be off leash unless they bother wildlife. Like, it's.

You could just. And nature is also in the cities. I never have clients who are just. Just walking on the sidewalks. That's a rare thing, even if they live in. In the city. So that's also been. It's like you're solving entirely different problems than I'm solving because I'm like, well, the dog, of course, must be. Be able to be off leash around all this wildlife and other dogs, and they shouldn't eat fox poop and stuff.

And you're like, no, but I got to get past this other dog on the sidewalk. And that's what we're. I mean, it's not that I don't get that, but not to the same degree. It's a different. Just a different. It is. And, and all of that to say it's. It's. It's, you know, it's not so much that. That we don't have most of those things in common. It's the little things that I think have influenced you to think or just to emphasize different things in the way that you want to help dogs.

You know, it's not that we're saying that you have to have access to nature or have to track as a puppy or any of those kind of things. It's more that it's it's been a very interesting set of conversations we get to have where what we most want for dogs is often built around what we have around us most. And I think it's allowed both of us to kind of grow and say, what is the core piece that could apply to everybody, no matter what your circumstances and what you're sort of facing with your dog?

And I love that we can kind of take these two perspectives and blend them and find what. I don't know what the magic sauce is, I guess. I mean, if you want to call it that, like what the, what the piece is that makes this work.

Melissa Breau: Yeah. I know you're talking a little bit about the kind of differences and the types of situations, but maybe also the different types of dogs that you guys are working with. Can you guys incorporate that into the can add that piece to the conversation a little bit and talk a little more about kind of how you. Amy, started to hint at the bit that you found in common there, but I just want to make sure people kind of have a picture of the differences in what you guys were working with.

Josefin Linderström: Yeah, I get more of the over-exuberant dogs that kind of overwhelm their owners that are just loud and jumpy and they are, I want to say, sturdy and robust and a little bit too much of that.

Maybe they pull hard on the leash and they run away far from their owners and they, they just, they're just looking for fun and they just bounce all over and they're just a lot, A lot of. It's just a lot of dog. Yeah, she's got the high energy, the high drive, the. The powerful swords, and that's also just what you gravitate toward. That's the kind of dog that you, you yourself also really like, which is really cool. It's the kind of dog I have.

Amy Cook: Yeah, it's kind of dog you have. And you know, I. I won't belabor. We all know that I'm. I'm mostly working with the, the dogs who are stressed and, and shut down and worried and scared and all of this, but it isn't even so much that we have focused on different dogs, but we. Because of, because of the kinds of solutions, because of the kinds of dogs we had and we each sought social solution to help both the kinds.

When we intersected, when we met each other and we started talking dogs and all of this, we. We found that because we were each coming at two different problems with the similar sort of solution that sociality was the, was the source of this. The more we talked about it, the more it was like, wait a minute. So you're solving these kinds of problems with just improving social communication, social connection, social, you know, skills between the partners, and so am I.

Wait a minute. Is there something under all of this that could, you know, did we both tap into the same route? Was the conversation that we started to have, did we both find, you know. Because I say play is magic, right? And I'm not always sure why. When I improve social connection, when I give dog owners and dogs a chance to be seen and say things in ways that are meaningful and say things in ways that are understood and just slow down and make room for each other, when I find that it solves a whole lot of problems, I don't always know what to do, what to credit.

I don't exactly know what the force is underneath that. But as she and I are talking, she's like, well, that happens to me, too. I also improve people's social situations, and we find problems just kind of go away. So the magic, you know, is we're thinking like the trunk of a tree, and we're each on. You know, we were on two different branches, but we're both tapping into the same trunk.

I mean, Josephin, as you taught, you know, when you clear up things, communication socially between people, don't you see, like, that other. Other problems they were having are just no longer on?

Josefin Linderström: And I'm reminded, like, as you're talking about this stuff, I'm reminded of a Malinois client I had that was just. They just struggled with a lot of things, including, like, thunder. And they were where they lived.

They were in a season where there was thunder every day. As I was on, like, this zoom call with this person, this dog was just really clingy, and she was like, oh, he's just really struggling to settle. And he's. And I'm just kind of like, yeah, but, like, he looks like he kind of wants some pets. Try giving him some and then see what happens. And then we just kind of went on to talk more about tactile connection and more on different ways of doing that and when and how and all of that stuff.

And then, like, let's just sort that out first so that we get that need met, because it did soothe him in the moment. And so, like, that was the focus for a little while. And then when we got on to start work more on the thunder, it just really turned out not to be needed anymore. So I was, like. I was talking. I was talking to Amy about this and she's like, oh, wait, did you do magic?

And I was like, what? Because, like, play is magic, because I get that thing when I do play stuff, and it's just. It's just solves stuff. And I was like, yeah, I guess. I guess I do that. So, like I said, yeah, that happens sometimes. It's just a thing that I. Yeah, usually just kind of sorts things out, usually. And we were like, but what is it, though?

Because I thought. I thought, you know, oh, it's the oxytocin from the Bobbity, blah, blah, blah. And she's like, okay, but we could do it from. But like, okay. So, like, I had these theories about why it worked with that, like, with Touch, for example. Right. But she's doing it with play. And I'm like, oh, but that also works. Then I'm wrong. And Amy's like, oh, but then it.

It's not just play. Then. Okay, so what is it then? Like, and then we've just keep. Or like, we've just kept at it. Kept asking that question, like, what is it? What is it? What is it? What is it? For a long time, for many hours for. We've both been up at weird hours because we're nine time zones apart trying to figure it out. And I think we have figured it out pretty well.

Melissa Breau: So I'm gonna jump the gun a little bit here. I know you guys are kind of getting to this, but you kind of. What you've kind of worked on together, I guess you're calling it the Social Approach. Do you guys want to talk a little more about what it actually is? Go for it.

Amy Cook: We do. We do. You know, it is. It became so clear that what we were both realizing people needed was a better lens on our social relationship together.

And each of us realizing that need is there, came at it from maybe slightly different directions. I'm an extroverted, playful, sort of silly person, and so my solutions are kind of silly. But Josephin really focuses so beautifully on how we physically are with dogs, how our body language works, how we interact that way. And it led her to really interesting observations that way. So changing our social selves led us to say, well, this whole thing is just a social approach.

Whichever. Whichever direction we, you know, come at it into, that's how it is for me. So, like, I. I don't know if. I don't know if that's how you, you know, I know, Josephin, that you're thinking about all the time how people are socially with their dogs, you know?

Josefin Linderström: Yeah. I'm always looking at the, the tiny little misfires. Like if when, when the dog tried to say a tiny little thing and it just went unheard or unnoticed, or it just wasn't recognized for what it was.

And it's fine to have that. It's nobody. I mean, in conversation with other humans where we have speech, we misunderstand each other all the time. And then we repair that misunderstanding and we go huh? What? No, but wait, wait, wait, wait. Like that's a normal, perfectly normal thing to happen in communication. But if you are like where it becomes a problem is where that, where there's too much of it, like it accumulates.

These tiny little things just kind of stack on top of each other. And the Social Approach is about just seeing what they are so that you can acknowledge them in some way or like in whatever way that is needed at the moment. And it's not even about because like the dog might say, hey, I want dinner. And it's like, yeah, it's not dinner time yet, dog, right. It's not about necessarily doing the thing that they want all the time, but to have a social response to their social signaling like that we respond to them in a way that makes sense for their species and for us.

And we have that in common. Right. You know, we have a co evolutionary story. We have very similar sorts of social needs. We have a need to bond, we have a need to have our, you know, social relationships with others. And as such we think that both of us, our social connection is going to rely on sensitive exchange of social signals. And if a dog is signaling us socially in some fashion and we miss this, we don't see it.

We can't, we don't. We just. That's not our channel. Maybe we're not as, as, I don't know, experienced in reading things a certain way. Well then that, that information gets lost and the dog didn't have a successful way to say something to us. If they, you know, if they, you know, are trying to get access to something to sniff and we are feeding them food instead, or if they'd like to say hi to us and we are instead training, you know, sit for a cookie.

Not that of course, we always do that, but that can be a misfire. I wanted to connect to you, but that is not what you offered me. Right. And you few misfires here and there, no big deal. But us not spending, you know, a lot of mental space really looking at that between us, I think can, can end up, end up with the dog really just not being seen and not being heard nearly as much as, as we, we want them to be.

We need to hear them, to be able to understand them. And, and the, the focus we've had for so long on, on how we train and how we change their behavior, how we get them to do things, how we can communicate to them what heel position is or when we want sits. This is all very. I teach you my language so that you can understand what I'm asking you to do.

And I think sometimes at most we look at their body language to understand maybe how they're feeling. But it impressed upon us both that maybe we're not really spending a lot of time learning their language such that we can speak it. Right? The way we act in this world impacts them through their language. Like our bodies are their language and our bodies are not always speaking the right way.

We don't say the things in their language the way they would like to hear them. And sure they can learn ours, but over time, should they only learn ours? Like is it, should we spend some time learning, learning theirs? We're good communicators when it's from us to them. And we do, I mean everybody, I think, not everybody, but a lot of us, like we, we spend time trying to learn their language, right?

We try to learn. Or like we, it's not even try. We recognize body language. We recognize a lip lick and tail carriage and all that stuff. Right. But to, to look at it in context is a little bit of a different thing. Yeah, I mean it is. And, and are. I don't think I, you know, I don't know a lot about proxemics. We're going to talk about it.

I don't know a lot about proxemics in people really. I don't really know how we, how we speak to each other, humans with our bodies. There are specialists that do that. I don't study it, but, you know, so we just use our bodies as we use them. And I think our bodies just express themselves naturally. We just do what we do with our bodies when we're talking and when we're interacting with people.

But when we do that with dogs, when we are interacting with dogs, I don't, I don't think we're paying a whole lot of attention to how our bodies are also speaking.

Amy Cook: But to you, Josephin, I mean, like you, it speaks loud and clear to you how people use their bodies to speak when around dogs. It's very high lit for you because you can see that dogs are like, hey, wait a minute, that's not how you should.

That's not how your body is supposed to go. And when you say. When you say, come here, but you are facing me squarely, your body is also saying, maybe don't. Maybe don't approach me so much. Right. And so there can be this clash. And I think it really stands out to you, Josephin. That kind of body language really stands out to you. It doesn't stand up to me as much.

I've learned a whole lot from. From your eye, watching your eye on people and dogs. It's been really helpful. I think you see it, I think, like the question, what is the Social Approach? We've been rambling for a while. The short way to kind of say it is that, hey, you know, dogs are a social species. Their social nature is really compatible with ours. So that's why we can live these lives together that we do.

Josefin Linderström: That's why they. That's why Salvia is under a blanket now and not like a goat. Not a. You know, if somebody has a goat, good on them. I have a dog. But. But we both have, like, social needs. Dogs have social needs. And something that is underemphasized, in my opinion, in, in just the dog training world is their social needs when it comes to us as their owner, as their person.

Like, her and I are like, we're not roommates. We are in a dyadic relationship here. We're like in. We're. We're attachment partners, actually. Right. And so they have all these social needs that are about us and things that only we can meet for them. Like, they need to have that exchange of social signals with us in sometimes pretty specific ways. Like, if they give us an appeasement signal, we better be appeased.

Otherwise, how are they gonna feel safe in the world if they can't successfully, you know, resolve conflict with the person that's most important to them? So. Or like, if they, if they express joy, then we should also be happy that they're happy. Like, we should cheer them on, like, yay and all that stuff. So it's about meeting their social needs. To put it really, really shortly. It really is.

It's about meeting their social needs. And, and I, I, you know, have. As usual, I'm just losing track of what I'm going to be asked later. I don't want to jump. Jump the gun in all of this, but. But there are, you know, there elements that we've been able to pull out. It's not that we're just saying, hey, be. Just be more sensitive and you'll be fine. Or, like, be more social.

Yeah. And it's not even just, like, be nicer. I think everybody is absolutely being, like, nice and kind and loving and warm and like, learning everything they can and like, using rewards. Like, everybody's doing. Doing a lot and doing well. But this information just isn't quite out there about how. How we impact them accidentally with. With the choices we make with our bodies and. And, you know, the lack of clarity that can sometimes come from that.

Learning their native language takes a little bit of thought. And I think Josephin's very good at their native body language. And so we're really excited to bring that kind of thing out and put a spotlight right on it and say, these are the kinds of things your body is doing that is in clash with what your words are saying.

Right. So there's a word for that. We'll get to that in a second.

But we want to teach people how to listen so that when they have a response, it is the one that fits. And then when they speak, we'd like it to be much clearer to a dog because it's. It is closer to how they're. How they would be speaking to each other. And I think it would just only improve the channels of communication. It doesn't replace any of them.

It just adds more ways to be clearer and in concert with each other and listening sensitively. I think there's. There'd be hard. You'd be hard pressed to find a downside to improving communication. Right. Because it's not replacing anything, it's just adding.

Melissa Breau: So I think a lot of folks listening to this are probably thinking, okay, I can kind of see what you're talking about. I kind of get the touchy feely bits. But I know you guys have dug quite a bit into the science side of things too. So do you want to talk a little about kind of what the science is about all of this stuff?

Amy Cook: Do we. Do we ever. And I'll only start it by saying that we can find a paper in the. Something, you know, like one paper that shows an interesting social signal or something.

And I'll go to bed because of our time difference, and I will wake up to Josephin Having read 30 papers in the time out, and she's like, oh, my God, sit down. I have found some stuff. So, yeah, there's really cool science about. About. About talking with dogs this way. There really is, right, Josephin? There is interesting things. I may have lost my mind a little bit for a while because I found out, like, I've been all like, you know, I'm just reading, you know, the, the, the stuff on animal behavior and the stuff on ethology as you do.

And then all of a sudden something pops up in the, the Journal of Pragmatics. Linguistic journal and dogs. What do you mean? Language research on dogs? Dog. It's like, what do you mean they. They. The linguists. There are dog linguists. There are linguists. There's an entire field of study called animal pragmatics. And I'm like, oh, hello. Because also I've been working with kids who have pragmatic disorder. Pragmatics is the use of or it's the social use of language.

So it's not like you're just your speech, your vocabulary and so on and so forth. It's also the gestures and the, all of the signals, non verbal communication, the conversational rules, how you greet somebody, being able to adapt to your listener. All of that stuff goes into the pragmatics. It's a social use of language. And so there's a. They looked at dogs and they wondered, hey, I wonder if dogs have pragmatic language.

And the answer is yes, they do all those things. They do adapt to the person they're speaking to. They do adapt to context. They understand when they are addressed or if another group member of the group is addressed. Or like they know honestly, it's so fascinating. Isn't that amazing though? They can tell when you intend to send signal to them and not to the other. And we both were talking about this as in, so maybe we don't always have to put dogs in place when it's not their turn to train.

Maybe they understand that it's not their turn to train and they can go entertain themselves if we are more maybe if we're better at communicating that. I don't know. That was just something we were talking about the other day. But anyway, pragmatics go back. Yeah, I mean, I would say yes, because it's how I solve it. When I have more than one dog here, I've stopped like, as I've gotten more into this stuff, there are a bunch of problems that I've just stopped solving with training that I used to train and now I just kind of like, I just use the, I just social at the dog.

Like I just tell them, hey, it's not your turn yet. Like, but I tell them in dog. Right? Which sounds bonkers. I realize it sounds like it's. That's not real. But yeah, science says it is real. So they did this study was from 2023. They, a bunch of researchers in Helsinki looked at like, hey, how does fetch work actually, like language, linguistically, how does fetch work? What exactly is being said to whom?

In what order? How does this person, like, why do they know that the dog wants them to throw the ball? And they looked at how it's dog driven and how there is an exchange. It's not just I'm throwing the ball to make you kind of get it, it's also the dog. And I mean, we all know this, right, because the dog puts the ball there so that you pick it up.

It goes both ways, right? And it's just like, nice to have it on paper. And these papers are also hysterical to read sometimes because it's all trans. Like they have to transcribe it. It's a very, it's all very cumbersome to read. I had to learn how to read these transcripts, by the way, to be able to read all those 30 papers like it was. And the language is so cumbersome, it's absolutely ridiculous.

But sometimes linguists need to transcribe different vocalizations from dogs. They have to figure out how to spell ruff, ruff. And what vowel is that an O or an A? Is that a ruffle or is it a? And then as I'm reading, I'm like wondering, it's very funny, but isn't it amazing that you can do conversation analysis? It's conversationalized. That's the, that's the, that's the method that they're using.

So it's not behavior analysis. It's not. They're not doing an ethogram. They're doing conversation analysis. So they were using language tools to study these interactions, like play or like how dogs solicit touch from us or just all of these casual. So all of this conversation analysis is only done like it's never done for anything formal or structured. It's never an experiment. It's always observation for like, how, how does it work?

And the question of conversation analysis is just, how do we make sense to each other? What is it that dogs do that makes sense to us? Because I also was thinking about this before learning about, about it. I was like, hey, I am spending so much time, I have all these books about understanding dogs and like their body language and their ear set and their tail and their little, oh, their tail can wag a little bit to the left.

And that means one thing compared to if it doesn't, right? And you know, that's really cool. And all these little details. And then I'm like, hang on a second. Why is it that my dad knows what his dog is saying? Like, how, how does that work? Because he's never trained a dog in his life. He's never read a book on dog body language. But their little dog can absolutely tell them, hey, human, it's dinner time.

As can most dogs. Yeah. And they don't have a specific tail wag or lip like that tells humans that. They just kind of tell them, you know, and they, they, they do it with pragmatic language. They make themselves understood. If you don't understand, they try again. They try again. Didn't. Isn't there something with children? The children play. Negotiating conversation with children. I kind of forgot. Yeah. The French study, they discovered all kinds of stuff.

I can't remember if it was about that. Like, if they did conversation. They did, yeah, they did do conversation analysis where kids, like how kids play with dogs. And obviously kids are very good at play. And dogs are good at play. Doesn't always, I mean, I'm not saying it. That's always a great idea, but it can be fabulous. Right. And they noticed a bunch of stuff because, like, we can assume that in general kids do play.

Right. And like, we can learn things about play from kids. And Amy, you certainly know all about that. Finding your inner five year old, like the play therapy. I do think that kids, I mean, I, I certainly, I'm, you know, I'm not speaking about having kids play with dogs, but I'm thinking that, that a lot of times children are much more. They're doing less narration in their head, they're doing less.

What is it like, editing of themselves in conversation. So with dogs, they see what dogs say. They're seeing what a dog says maybe a little bit easier than we are at. I suspected what they found, among other things, was that kids can socially reference dogs like they do with other kids and like they do with adults. And that the proxemic adjustments will influence the volume of speech of the child, among other things.

So, like, just like, if you're, if you're closer, if you're really close, you'll start. The kids will start whispering. And like, that's also a pragmatic skill to be able to adapt your speech to the listener in the context. This is sense. Context sensitive. And it sounds like an obvious thing. Right. But sometimes we are much too loud. Actually. Dogs understand subtleties. Dogs understand these. And kids just kind of, at least these particular ones.

Oh, and also, this is also another Just beautiful little fact from, like, the science side of things and the pragmatic side of things. Oh, God. There was a paper that was about, like, the way that we narrate for our dogs. God, I can't. No, I can't. I can't remember the details of it, but, like that thing that we all do where the dog looks a certain way and we go, oh, do you boo.

Poor you. Right? Like that's. It's like just a universal human thing that we probably should be doing because we share. I mean, it solicits certain responses from dogs consistently. So, like, hey, why not? I would say that since we share, you know, have shared so much time together co evolutionarily and throughout modern history, having an understanding, at least on a level of what we might be meaning by what we're saying is a bit of a given, and that is already there.

And I think what we'd like to highlight is that sometimes when we're more in training mode, or sometimes when we're trying to solve an issue or when we're in conflict, we want something different from the dog. We're not always as clear in utilizing the things that bond us and the language that we can find that we share, helping people get more cognizant of that we think will bring that out.

And science, since we're on the science, you have the science of pragmatics. There's also. I don't know if now we want to talk about the science of use of space or not, but that's also something you have researched quite in depth. Yeah, I just was so happy to find a word for this thing I've been doing. But it falls under. Kind of falls under. Pragmatics is proxemic, which is how we share space or the social use of space or interpersonal space.

Like, if you are in conversation with somebody, how close are you to them while you're talking? It's their cultural differences in different countries. Us Swedes, we have a really big personal space, especially like somebody who lives in the country, like me. My. My personal space is like. I would expect my conversational partner to stand probably farther away than Amy would if she showed up in my living room tomorrow initially.

And then we would have to do, like, we would figure it out because we would just. Just do some proxemic adjustments and it were. What's a good example? Like, if you're gonna stand in an elevator with a bunch of other people, it would get real awkward if everybody's standing one way and you just stand the wrong way so that you're facing everybody. Like, that would be instantly uncomfortable and awkward.

Right. Because now you're not sharing this space according to the social convention or social rules. Well, and our social. The way we use space impacts. Each impacts each other. How we face, how we stand, what we do with our bodies impacts each other. And it turns out how humans use their bodies impacts animals. We are impacting dogs with the way that we are with the way we are using our body.

So. And I mean, I know, yeah, sometimes we are the person who just like we are trying to give our dog or cookie a dog a cookie, or like, we're trying to engage them in play, but we also are standing the wrong way in an elevator with them, and they are. It's just like a little bit awkward, and they're like, okay, I'll take the cookie. But it's like, it just.

You could just adjust your angle in relation to them and just make it a little more comfortable. You could be a little bit more upright with your torso, and it just would make it a little bit easier for the dog to hand you the toy. And those kinds of things are what we refer to as proxemic adjustments. Proxemics. It's a new word to me. It probably is a new word to a whole lot of dog trainers.

I mean, I suppose they're. We're probably going to hear about it. We're probably going to hear people who are like, oh, no, I think of that. But I had never heard of it as a word, and I had never thought about, at least in this level of depth, how much even an. A slight angle change made all the difference. We tend to. Yeah, we tend to be very verbal, and I think working with Josephine has made me a lot more embodied and sort of thinking about that.

Melissa Breau: So. Yeah, so I want to. I want to pull the conversation back to talking about, you know, The Social Approach or kind of your system. What are you guys particularly excited to like, introduce people to. From the. From the new system.

Josefin Linderström: I mean, that would be it. It would be. I know. Yeah, I. Absolutely. Because in part, because when we get people thinking about proxemics, then it just changes things so quickly.

Like when. If somebody's been stuck on a thing or they've been trying real hard for a long time to just. Whatever problem they have, they're just kind of stuck and it's not getting better, or the dog just isn't motivated for the rewards, or they're just so reactive and they're so fixated. Or whatever it may be. I don't want to say there's always. But, like, I'm struggling to think of a time where proxemic hasn't helped.

Like, like, it's pretty, pretty, pretty damn quickly. Like, you know, not that it solves the entire problem, but it just alleviates a lot of stress. Like, a lot of conflict is just, like, it kind of just kind of melts away, and then people feel better, and it's just nice.

Amy Cook: If the. If you are trying to train something, you are trying to train a retrieve, or you are trying to improve your recall and your body says, your intentions, your voice and the way you move your body, you are intending to say, give me that toy.

Hand it to my hand. But from your dog's perspective, your body is saying, don't come in this close to me. Don't square up to me. Don't challenge me. Don't walk straight up into my. Straight up facing you. And the dog now has a conflict. The dog has to sort out which things should I do. I've kind of been told two things, and body language reigns, right? So if you are looming or if you are facing or if you are staring or you are any number of things when you say, give me that thing, and they instead veer off or sniff or go to ground.

We are so unused to taking that as feedback about what we said or feedback about what we did. And I'm really excited to get people to be very sensitive about how their mixed signals are a problem, but also that a dog is telling us when that is in place. A dog is giving us that kind of feedback a lot. And I'm excited to get people to be really aware of when they make changes in what their body said, how much their dog's behavior changes.

It's not about getting more clear. Like, no, I meant delivered to my hand. You don't seem to understand hand delivery in fetch, apparently. And the dog could be saying, no, I understood that you asked that, but you also said, please don't do that. And I was trying to sort it out, right? So I'm really excited to see what kinds of things we can solve for people just by getting their.

Their body channels to be in alignment with what they're trying to actually get, you know, get out of dogs. Getting people's ability to converse, ability to cue, and ability to respond in a way that is in alignment with what they're already trying to do. Right? And we're not getting anyone to change what they want to say, right? We want them to say it much more clearly and in a way that their dog says, oh, I completely.

You give me no conflict. I get it. I also will do that. That to me is really, really like, I can't wait until class starts so I can see what sorts of changes and what sorts of feedback we get from. From people. So how does kind of understanding dog's need for connection, the pieces that we're talking about, can you guys talk a little bit about how those things improve our overall relationship and extension our training just a little bit more?

Melissa Breau: Diving into some of those pieces. I know you gave a couple of examples in that last answer, but I'm hoping you can expand just a little more on it. I think Amy should talk about Caper and the cookie that we just talk about yesterday.

Amy Cook: Like, Yeah, we can't even, even the simplest interaction that you can think of, even just handing your dog a treat, proxemics and pragmatics are going to influence that interaction.

You're influencing everything. And anytime you're trying to talk to your dog or trying to interact with your dog, you are interacting with your dog, with your body, you're interacting with your dog, with all of your, you know, your hands, your shoulders, your eyes. All of that is part of how you're interacting. And I, I. We just, you know, we're filming different things, feeling different ways, how, how your body works with dogs.

And I happen to get a couple of different videos of. Of Caper, my little dog. Now, she is, for context, she's very small. She's maybe 12 pounds or so, and, you know, very short. I'm a tall person. And so I did two different versions. In one, I just bent over maybe, as if to check something on her face, or put my hand near her face, and you'll be able to see it.

We'll put these out. But you can see that as I come, as I bend over and as I reach toward her, her ears go back. And that can be sociality that's not always its own, only one kind of tell. And her eyes shift to the side slightly, and then she kind of licks her lips a little and her little tail goes into a little wag. And she's doing this kind of like, hey, that's a little like, you're back.

That's fairly forward. Oh, goodness. Right. And we're used to seeing those sort of signals in dogs, you know, but the next version of it, I do the same and I am feeding her a cookie, right? And so it's a different sort of context because I'm now feeding her a cookie, and her body language looks better. It looks different. It looks okay. But without the cookie there, she had her own feelings about what it was like to be reached for that way.

And the only difference in the next version is that I have a cookie to give her. So the fact that it might be under there. It probably is under there for her that she's eating this cookie. But she's taking a bit of a social hit in the way that I was delivering it. I was delivering it in a way that made her ever. Just slightly uncomfortable or made her have to appease me a little or made her just want to shift that pressure a little.

Right. And when the cookie was. Was there, it hid that from me. And if that's underneath a lot of the ways that we are just simply feeding our dogs, choosing to feed by having hands go right to faces, hands go right into mouths, hands delivering food right to them. Just because they're not giving you that social signal in that moment doesn't mean they're not also feeling a little bit underneath of like, oh, gosh, that was.

Wow, you came right into my space bubble. Goodness. That was okay, but that's okay because I'm eating a cookie. How many times have I asked her to kind of make that compromise? I don't know, because it wasn't a question. I was asking if we. I've been going on, if I don't see the behavior on her, you know, directly in her signaling right now that it's probably okay. And I want to question that.

You know, I want to question and say, how often are you in conflict? And are you just trying to solve it, dog? Because that means you're taking. You're doing the heavy lifting, and how much. How much are you compromising that I can't see. Right. Like, does the food have less value because you had to just pay a little bit for it, for the way that I delivered it to you.

And it's not such a big deal that you had to scream it at me. If it were, you would have. I would have seen it already. Right. We're talking about the subtleties. And. And if it's a subtle effect, it'll be cumulative. Yeah. And it will also be the. Like, you can get away with it in certain situations. But then I just. It's impossible to redirect my dog at all when they see another dog.

Well, we're gonna have to have a look here if it's like. If that's part of the problem, like, you don't see the hit the dog is taking with your feeding. Like, that sounds brutal, but, like, it's not like you're being mean. That's not what I'm saying. Okay, but the value is taking a hit. That's a phrase. Yeah, the value taking a hit. Like, it's getting a notch down in value.

Yeah, it's getting a notch down in value. And if the dog is under social stress, like in those really tense moments is where that. Where those, like, where it comes out basically. Like, if they expect the. To be making a compromise when you try to redirect, like. Or am I trying to redirect my dog into a compromise here with me? If so, let's just fix that real quick.

Let's just fix it, right? It comes up in reactivity, doesn't it, Josefin? Like, what. What kind of clash do you see people do when, you know, if they're trying to. If they're trying to redirect their dog or move them off. What kind of things could they be saying?

Josefin Linderström: I mean, it's the. It's the. It's the thing that you just mentioned, right? Of like, the dog is looking at something.

It's not quite the thing you mentioned, but it has to do with feet to mouth, right? It's. It has to do with approaching the dog in a moment when they're tense. So, like, the dog is looking at something and they are kind of stiff. And in that moment, if the person takes a step towards their dog, reaches towards their dog with the. With the treat to redirect them, even if they have that treat to redirect them, it might just be like, enough like it.

You often ends up pushing the dog forwards instead. With the space bubble with. With your proximity, with your personal space, with your. Yeah, mention the space bubble. Because dogs, you know, dogs are very aware of the space around us, around them and around to us, and with those clash. That has an effect. Yeah, it does. We are bumping into each other all the time without actually touching. That's the proxemics, right?

Dogs are very, very explicit, precise, and intentional about how they treat personal space with each other. If they're about to cross a threshold from, like, social space, which is like a slightly outer circle, slightly bigger bubble where more people are welcome, and then they are, like, making friends with a new dog and they are gonna cross the threshold into, like, their personal space and, like, get a little bit closer to their face and, like, you know, do some fun play that's a little bit closer or something.

They make a really big deal out of demonstrating that they recognize and honor that invisible threshold. And we don't really necessarily see that or do that. We don't really do it. They treat it as an invisible wall and that they have to, you know, perform a whole ritual to be allowed to get through. And we just kind of. We just kind of bloop.

Amy Cook: We can be plain about this. Dogs are very respectful of the space bubble around new dogs, around tense situations, around any kind of conflict. And we are just not. We just are not that aware of the space bubble around a dog. We're not that aware of how we can clash right into it and the effect it has. We are just not that sensitive. And I don't know if it's because it's cross species, because I think we are with each other.

Like, if I stand too close to you, I would know. But maybe because we just feel like we can be in their bubble because they're our dogs. I don't know. We don't seem to have a lot of respect for the boundary between us. Us. And once we do get very respectful and not only respect it, but see it, like when we tell a dog, oh, I see that there is this.

That there's this space between us, and I'm going to acknowledge it. Dogs are. I. I've been so surprised how often they go, oh, my God, you see our bubble. What? Yeah. It's like their behavior changes very, very quickly. It's like in the movies where there's, like, some magical creature or like a ghost or something, and they're like, you can see me. You see me. Dogs go, you see me.

You see not. You see the bubble. You see my entire, like, being that is outside of my body. That sounded very rude, but, like, you see my space. You see my space. You see. You recognize the. The thing. Yeah. And. And dogs, as you mentioned, dogs see it with each other. They are. They are nothing if not aware. It is their main channel of communication. It is. It is what they're always doing, and it is what we are not always doing.

And so Josefin and I hope to be able to help people clear that up, because if we're almost never doing it well, and dogs are always aware and concerned about it, then the potential for conflict there is quite. Is quite high. I mean, not that we all have the high conflict, but the potential is there. And looking at it carefully really gives us a good channel for improvement.

Josefin Linderström: Yeah. And in terms of, like, pragmatics and that whole framework, we humans start out a little bit more similar to dogs. And I've been also watching this play out so many times because I take Salvia with me sometimes to pick up my son at daycare. And I see how the smaller kids that don't talk yet behave one way around her. And the kids who have started to talk, they start to behave differently.

Like, they become a little bit less aware of the space bubble. Like, and also they're a little bit bigger, so they're a little bit less respectful, frankly, of like, they're. They're just, like, they're becoming monkeys. They're becoming more. More. Less animal, more ape or like, how do you want to frame it? Whatever. The proxemics thing is, not just dogs. It's. It's everywhere in nature. I saw a video of a rhino playing with like, some little deer thing or something, and the rhino was like, I'm honoring your space bubble.

Look, I'm. I'm not dangerous. For real. I would never. And, like, the bigger. The bigger animal, the bigger dog. And when we play with dogs, we are the. We're the rhino in that interaction. And the self handicapping of that is like the. If you're the big one, then you shouldn't approach. It's the little one that does the approaching, that does the forward stuff. If you're unsure, like, it's different when.

Once you're. Once you know each other, but it's to establish safety. It's to demonstrate that. I know I'm. I recognize this dynamic here. Whatever. It's the whole thing. That's not what I was going to talk about. I was going to talk about. I was going to talk about the pragmatics of, like, how children, like humans, we develop speech, we refine our words, our vocabulary, and we have podcasts where we talk with our words and not with our bodies.

Right. And dogs don't have that. They. That's where we diverge. They instead grow up to refine their pragmatic skills. It's why puppies are so annoying to other dogs, is because they don't have it yet. They don't have it yet. They don't. They don't think about the space bubble. And adults are like, hey, back off more. Right. I think everybody will relate to that. Who's listening? You know, that puppies don't know about it yet or don't honor it. We're not sure what it is.

Amy Cook: But you're. You're totally right, Josefin. That's why. That's. That's a good way to just even say why puppies are not doing the social convention and adults are like, okay, I need to teach this to you. Stay back. Yeah. And they do it, you know, with the. It's. It's like we develop because we both have like, dogs have some vocalizations, but it's just not as refined as our human speech.

And we have pragmatics, but it's not as refined. Like we like, I mean, we have proxemics, but it's not as refined as dog proxemics. We are really like, if we had to navigate conflict and make friends and negotiate resources and keep the peace, and we had to do all of that without speaking at all, we would probably be better at it. Right? And that's what dogs do. So this all sounds like it requires a fairly high degree of self awareness from the human half of the team.

So can you guys talk a little more about kind of that? What are you asking for? Hear from the human half of the team? You know, as you're teaching or as you're talking about this approach. Oh, it's going to be fun. It's going to be fun. We came up with games to, to actually help you ritualize these things. We've, we've developed games that say, let's use your body like this and let's see what your dog says.

You know, here's a thing you're going to do. You're going to face this way and do this thing and walk this way and play this game. And we've been working a long time figuring out what are the entry points to this. How can we get people to be aware? It's not, it's not really just like, hey, be aware. Okay, Best of luck. Right? It's, it's. Let's teach you how to play this particular game, which will give you facility in this kind of body language.

And, and we're. I, I'm pretty excited about the, the, I mean, they're fun games. They're just, they're really fun. I'm literally, I'm very excited. And it's the, like the self monitoring that I have been like before all of this, I've been having to remind people and just, you know, like, oh, you did that thing. Because the thing is, it's not that we don't do proxemics, it's just that sometimes we, we just have different.

Our bubble is too small. We don't feel the, our bubbles bumping into each other yet, but the dog feels it. It's just miscalibrated. And so the human kind of automatically without realizing before noticing they shift their weight forward and they can't notice that they've done it because it runs on autopilot and it's really, really hard to interrupt those patterns that are like so ingrained. And a huge part of all of the nights that neither of us have slept in so on, so forth has been about like how can we make this so that all of that self monitoring and all of that stuff just isn't so hard or needed.

Like how can we make this a really fun learning experience for the human where they just kind of download an upgrade into their bones so that their bodies will just kind of. Yeah, you can't top down this. You can't say, well I'm going to make sure to stand like X and say X with my body. That's not how language works. So giving people, we really hope a chance to play in ways that supports the body language dogs want to see from us and supports, you know, the kinds of movements that dogs really love that make them bright and you know, tall and happy.

You'll, I think people will see that their dogs respond and, and love these things too. And then I think that's what makes that upload or download or whatever it is the upgrade happen. It's not about think your way through it and think about how your face is fixed. This is a social channel and kind of helping people see that if you just turn a few degrees this other direction and you know, if so many people when doing recall will face their dog and we can just say hey, when you're doing a recall, if you, if you turn to the side a bit, open your shoulder and you know, act like you're going the direction you'd like them to come.

You see completely different body language in the dog or different performance. So, so like that it's not, well, you must turn X degrees. It's more, your body will be more invitational of movement if you face the way your dog is facing. Right. Things like that. So we come up with games. Yeah. And because the human here is trying also to have a social exchange like we are also trying to achieve something in this interaction.

And just as soon as people start to have success with it, it tends to just stick and the self monitoring isn't needed anymore. It gets automated in a way that I thought it was hard to learn the mechanics of clicker training. I remember having like a click and then move your hand and like it took a lot to like teaching it to people is a whole thing because it's not, it's like software that is from a.

Amy Cook: It's not native software. Yeah, yeah. You're acquiring a skill that is all conscious. You have to make all the decisions and override and do your mechanics exactly as you intend to. And when we're talking about sociality, that is not true. You are doing all sorts of behaviors and we're trying to, you know, we're tapping into what you, you do already know how to do. We're just making you a little aware of your social partner and the effect you're having on them.

And when you see the effect you're having on them, you tend to edit well and go like, oh, I now see it. Oh, did, did we bump bubbles? Oh, gosh, I see it now. I'm so sorry. And you move on. It's a little more native language than it is third party software. I want my dog. I want to see my dog be bright and happy. I can tell that they are not currently bright and happy.

So I will do this thing that makes them bright and happy and they will know what to do in that moment because they've had the experience. Whereas a lot of times it's a lot of trial and error. People are trying so hard, people are working so hard to get their dogs to engage with them and all this stuff and it seems random or the engagement is kind of like flaky from the dog.

They seem really distractible and all that stuff. And then the human is like trying many things and sometimes it's working, sometimes not. It's really confusing. And then when they kind of edit this and they get consistently rewarded for it, so to speak, by the dog now being bright and happy, they just go, oh, that's the thing I should be doing. I just need to change this. I just needed to do the thing. Oh, I just needed to, I don't know, stand up a little taller and now it's fine, whatever.

Melissa Breau: So we're talking about all this because you guys are doing a class for Fenzi on some of this. So the class in the February term, the social approach. Do you guys want to talk a little more specifically about what you're covering in the class? Maybe who might want to sign up still?

Sure. We have made sort of a bunch of entry points into all of this, you know, all this social complexity to say we're going to help you connect better, read each other better, we want your listening skills and we want you to be able to listen in dog and we want you to be able to use your body in ways that help your dog feel comfortable and seen and respected and communicated with.

And so we're teaching you how to pretend. We're going to teach you some silliness right in the beginning and how to. Which. Which will enable you to be in conversation, really think about how you say something, then your dog says something, then you respond and they respond. So we're going to teach you how to do that. Then we're going to move on to teaching you your use of space with a fun game called Roundabout.

We can't wait to show you. We're going to put you in a pen and you know, it just. And it moves on from there. That all weeks are games based. All weeks give you these little skills that you can do very easily. We want this to be just, just you dive right in and you can do it the very first day. And what we're hoping people take from this and who would we want to sign up is really anybody who's interacting with a dog.

Because it works underneath all of our interactions, underneath every training that we might intend or want to do. Every system you could have of training has you interacting with your dog. And clearing up these places where there could be misfires and conflict would only improve everyone's efforts with their dog. So I do think anybody can sign up. If you are interacting with a dog and want to do it in a way that is as respectful and communicative and clear and to see your dog in new ways.

When your dog does things that you, you haven't been misinterpreting, you might see them much more clearly now. So I think really it's a class that anybody can sign up for and that will have just, just an enormous amount of fun. It's not skills and analysis and you know, where did your shoulder go? It is, it is goofing around, being silly. We know if I'm involved, there's a lot of goofing around and silliness in it.

Right, right. It's got a healthy. It does. And so we're just, we're excited to bring that. Bring, bring like I'm excited to bring what Josefin has been very, very passionate about for, for all of her years of training, clearing these mis. Misfires up. Something about Josephine's eye. You can just see when a dog and a person are doing a thing. They're interacting. You can see what the dog is seeing in the person.

You can see when a dog isn't being seen or has said something that didn't land. And as we've been working together and seeing all these things together we've distilled pieces that say that doesn't have to happen. The person just isn't. Just didn't see that one tiny little thing. And we can help them listen in a new way and we can help their bodies say the thing that they're already intending to say.

So I'm excited to take what Josefin has been really aware of and really wanting to share with the world and kind of combining it with, not with play. I want people to understand that they're not playing in this class. It's not playway style at all, but it's what the magic under playway had been, has been. I've been trying to maximize. Trying to find under there to be able to bring out to people who aren't going to play.

Not everybody is going to do the Playway. Right. But the magic should be portable. It should be in there in all of your socialities, not just the kind where you're laughing together or rolling around. So sort of combining forces here has allowed us to bring the peace that clears up conversation and clears up all of that. All of those clashes and brings a new sensitivity and a new enjoyment to anyone.

Whether you're rolling on the floor or heeling or tugging or hiking through the woods, all of that conversation should be rich and rewarding and successful to all of you. And I think that. I really think that we've combined it in a way that makes that accessible.

Josefin Linderström: Yeah. Because I want to just like, Amy, you are much sillier than I am. I am so serious all the time. We've talked about how, like, I just don't really smile that much.

Like, just I am not quite as expressive. It's also a bit of a cultural difference. Like, just like my body language being less. Less like I'm just. And like, I think if I were to have made this class on my own or like trying to come up with something similar, it would have been relatively, like, really dull. It would have been dryer. It would have been for a really specific set of people. Like, a bunch of people are just like, has happened to share my flavor of like, nerdiness would have enjoyed it. Probably.

Amy Cook: Like, people who do it just with me are getting like, only the play and not. Not the

part which is. I'm so grateful to you for. It's not the part where we can clear up the conversation around the toy or clear up the conversation around the threshold or clear up the conversation around dinner.

Like, you know, you've been able to take the things that are. That are impacting all of those things and take it out of play for everybody else. So, you know, I bring the silly, but you're bringing a lot more of the accuracy of exactly which piece is the most impactful. And I'm throwing. I have been throwing a lot of sociality at it and improving sensitivity, but it's been so isolated to just the playful interactions.

Josefin Linderstrom: It would have been a math class. It would have been straight up. Right. It's not a math class because I'm here. Brought their rulers. I would have been measuring angles. I. I'm so glad I'm not doing that right.

Amy Cook: It's going to be a lot of fun. It's a. It's a combo pack of a lot of fun. It is.

Melissa Breau: All right, any final thoughts or maybe key points that you guys want to leave listeners with?

Amy Cook: Yeah, you know, this. This always makes me. Thinking about these things with dogs always makes me, like, a little bit on the emotional side because. Because we've lived together so long and so much of what we do can be unidirectional. You know, we teach them, we control things, we tell them where to go. And I want them to be seen. I want them to have clear channels from us.

I want them to be able to say things and for us to hear them correctly, because I think we owe that to them. And I think it enriches both of us. It enriches both of our lives when that is in place. I think we owe that to dogs, and I want everyone to feel that kind of connection. I know it's available to everybody, and I want to really bring that to them. So I hope that that's something they get from our class.

Melissa Breau: Awesome. What a beautiful sentiment to end things on. All right, so thank you both so much for coming on the podcast. Thank you, thank you. And thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back again next week, this time with Ashley Escobar to talk about Conformation. If you haven't already, subscribe to the podcast in itunes or the podcast app of your choice to have our next episode automatically downloaded to your phone as soon as it becomes available.

Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks. Thanks to Denise Fenzi for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty free by BenSound.com the track featured here is called Buddy. Audio editing provided by Chris Lang. Thanks again for tuning in and happy training.

 Credits

 Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzi for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty-free by BenSound.com; the track featured here is called "Buddy." Audio editing provided by Chris Lang.

Thanks again for tuning in -- and happy training!