Kim joins me this week to talk about the relationship between resilience and arousal. We talk about how control unleashed and freework can both help improve resilience and arousal management for dogs with big feelings.
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'll be talking to Kim Palermo about using Control Unleashed and Free Work to build resilience and and modulate arousal. Hi, Kim. Welcome back to the podcast.
Kim Palermo: Hi, Melissa. Thank you.
Melissa Breau: Absolutely. Always happy to have you. So, to start us out, do you want to just take a minute and kind of remind folks a little bit about you?
Kim Palermo: Sure. So I'm a certified Control Unleashed instructor and an ACE Practitioner, and I'm the one with collies. So I have three collies, a miniature poodle, and a golden retriever.
Melissa Breau: Awesome. Before we go too deep on this topic, I want to just kind of make sure we're all thinking the same things when we talk about the words. So can you talk a little bit about just what you mean when you talk about resilience and arousal?
Kim Palermo: Yeah, I think there's a lot of different ways we can look at it and different definitions. And when I think about resilience versus arousal and I'm thinking like the actual behavior that I'm seeing, resilience, I think of that as like by how quickly the dog gets over something and arousal more as that, like maybe initial reaction.
But then also arousal goes along with the resilience in that if arousal doesn't come down, I would say that we don't have a lot of resilience because it's staying up after an event. So like a real life would example would be, well, it's a cat example, it's not a dog. But I think we can also agree that it's the same. When we brought my cat Fig to the vets, he needed some blood work done and he's like super friendly, he's purring, he's like walking all over the place.
And then as soon as the vets went to draw blood, he became kind of like Cujo kitty. And he was all like, you know, didn't want to be have his blood drawn. And as soon as they did it and then let him go, he like immediately starts like purring and like being all cute again. So even though that was a hard experience for him, he very quickly got over it and, you know, forgave all the people, which I know is anthropomorphizing it, but he just kind of moved forward from that.
Whereas maybe a dog that doesn't have as much resilience. Now, I'm thinking of, like, a time when my dogs might hear dogs barking out in the backyard. They have a big reaction. I call them in, and then they're, like, huffing and puffing and pacing inside the house for, like, a good half hour or something. So it's a dog that can't really come down from what had happened. And so it's.
It's kind of continuing to affect them. Now. That said, I think we can put aside, like, big situations. Like if a dog experienced, like, you know, fireworks or something, or in the example of my cat when he was very, very young, he jumped up onto our wood stove when it was on and burned his paws. And he has avoided the wood stove ever since. I'm not gonna argue that he's not resilient just because he hasn't repeated that action.
That was something kind of. That was bigger, and he learned from it. And that seems like a proper response to me. So. Whereas arousal is more of just like, that kind of big reaction, but it could also be shutting down. So arousal doesn't necessarily mean a big reaction. I don't see as many dogs that tend to stress down in Control Unleashed or in any of the work I do because I think it's kind of easy to just dismiss what's happening.
Whereas, you know, our dog that's barking and lunging at the end of the leash, it's hard to dismiss that. But those dogs are definitely also showing us a kind of arousal and also maybe low resilience. And, yeah, so I would say that would be. When I'm looking at the behavior in front of me, that's how I would decipher the two.
Melissa Breau: What do Control Unleashed and Free Work kind of offer that allows them to help build resilience in a dog?
Kim Palermo: I would say it's pretty different how the two help, but they're pretty magical when they're put together. So with Free Work, I would say Free Work is essentially just we're working on our dog's just kind of overall well being, their happiness, their ability to use their bodies properly, their ability to use their nose, and kind of build in some curiosity. And we do that just at home. We can certainly start to bring it out into the real world.
And in my last class where I taught Free Work, some of my students did that. But for the most part, when we provide Free Work for our dogs, I'm just seeing resilience improve without working directly on it. The dog just. It was. It was pretty magical. In my class, how much resilience changed for some of the dogs. Now with Control Unleashed, we're kind of doing it a little bit more of where we're thinking of how we can help build resilience in those certain situations.
So if we take, for example, so with Control Unleashed, like, we have the look at that game, we have patterns, and then we have a lot of, like, you know, relaxation skills. So if we look at just, like, patterns, for example, so a pattern is just a simple way where we can provide predictability for our dogs. And the reason why that that helps so much is because our world is very unpredictable for our dogs.
And so if we, the handler, can provide that predictability, it allows us, our dog, to take in the environment with the comfort of that pattern. Now, the goal is, over time, I don't need to use a pattern. Let's say every time I step out my front steps with my dog, right? They start to. I've done it enough where my dog can actually take in the environment without that pattern.
But that said, in that, you know, when we first start to build it, that's what we're looking to help our dogs with. So whereas Free Work is kind of just this activity that we're doing in the home, our Control Unleash skills are activities that we are bringing out into the real world to help our dog. And in addition to that, like, if I think of, like, let's go back to that, like, the dog that barked at the neighbor dog, and it's, like, all worked up, right?
So I teach one of the control and leash skills that I love to teach and I've taught all my dogs is take a breath. So that is me taking a deep breath and my dog mimicking me, and they're taking a deep breath. So what I would do is just call the dogs in, and then we would all sit on the ground and breathe together. And that just brings everyone's arousal down, right?
And so then over time, again, I don't have to do this every time there's a reaction out in the backyard, but the resilience improves because we've practiced it over and over again. So now if the dogs were to bark at the neighbor dog, I call them in, and then they're all like, okay, well, that happened. And then they go on to their own thing. So that's kind of where Control Unleashed and Free Work, they both differ, but they also put together, they help so much.
And so that said, when we teach Free Work, we are sorry. When we're teaching Control Unleashed, we are doing it at the comfort in the comfort of our home, without arousal built in, eventually we start to bring it out, but we're going to practice it easy, where it's easy, so that then it's easier when it's hard. Right. So when we're out in the real world, our dog has practiced these patterns. They've practiced taking deep breaths, and so then it's easier for them to come down from whatever experience they had.
Melissa Breau: So what kind of dogs do you usually see this work best for? Are there dogs that maybe this isn't a good fit for what, you know, what types of behaviors do you usually see in training?
Kim Palermo: If a dog maybe lacks resilience or lacks some of these skills, I mean, I'm gonna say all dogs are gonna benefit from them.
How can I not? But I do truly believe that. And I also believe that proactivity is really important. So my youngest dog, Sunday, as soon as she came home, I started working on CU and Free Work skills. A game changer for her, I have no doubt. You know, we have to kind of change how we're using these skills based on the individual dog. So some of our dogs that really, really like to work, I personally believe that they potentially kind of mask their feelings about the environment through work.
And so if I have a dog like that, a pattern might not always be the best skill for them, because they're just gonna get, like, super focused on that pattern, and then as soon as we stop, they're gonna take in the environment. Right. So I really wanna make sure my dog is taking in the environment through these patterns. And there's definitely ways we can do that, which I teach in this class.
In addition to that, the look at that game is phenomenal for this, especially for those kinds of dogs, because we can teach them to actually look around the environment, look for things that they think are worth having feelings about, and then simply pointing them out to us. So rather than having a. They would indicate this thing in the environment and then reorient back to us. So the look at that game is going to help with those dogs, which is why I really think it's going to help any dog.
Now, sometimes when I think of a dog that, like, lacks resilience and then training that dog and Sunday, my puppy really makes me think of this. I almost find that sometimes they act, they lack resilience in training itself. It might be hard, it might be confusing to them, and so they might just not enjoy training. And then when we have that. So we have a dog that has big feelings, we want to work on these Control Unleashed skills or Free Work skills and then they're like walking away from our training sessions.
What do we do then? Right. And so building resilience in the training itself is very important. I use my opt out stations for that, which would will be touched on briefly in this class, will be touched on a little bit more in the upcoming conference. But it allows them to kind of build that resilience in training so then we can use our CU skills. So that's something I'm kind of looking to do as well.
So I would say those dogs might be a little bit more challenging to initially teach these skills to. But then once they're, once we got them motivated to work and to train and I think those dogs actually are the ones that really thrive on this stuff. So we kind of talked a lot there about how the resilience and the arousal management stuff kind of overlap. But can you pull them apart maybe a little bit more for us?
You know, do you see dogs who maybe are okay with resilience and really lack arousal management or vice versa or do they always overlap like that? I think they have a tendency to overlap, but they don't necessarily always do. So I guess I'm just picking on Sunday today, but I'm gonna bring her up again now. Sunday as a baby puppy she, I helped to raise her litter. She really lacked resilience.
So an example would be when they were like, the puppies were like four or five weeks old. It was the first time we brought them outside onto like a screened in porch and she just, she started whining, crying and she ended up kind of shaking and she even, she got upset, she vomited. The breeder brought her inside and took her about 45 minutes to come down. And that's a puppy who was not showing resilience.
And I would say she was also showing arousal. Now there's a reason why I ended up with Sunday because she did have big feelings and I was going to help her work through that. And I would say her resiliency is amazing now. Like she, this girl can travel anywhere. We could do a whole bunch of different things together. She's got amazing resiliency. She does get over aroused sometimes.
And it's more of like if anyone has a collie or a collie-like breed, it's kind of just like I'm gonna start shouting because the energy is coming up. So it's not necessarily a bad arousal in my opinion, but it's definitely there. So I would say she's become much more resilient and for sure, her arousal would be far worse if I hadn't done all of this work with her.
So if we have a dog, though, that does have resiliency, like, they can handle a lot of things and they don't have high arousal, I would say that's more the kind of dog that might shut down. Okay. So we want to kind of consider that, too. So they can definitely be a part of each other, but they can certainly be separate as well. For me personally, I think building on resiliency first is the most important step.
And then, you know, those little big reactions can be much easier to work on once we've got some resiliency built in. So to me, that's the more important part to look at. That's the foundation for then being able to work on the arousal modulation.
Melissa Breau: Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah. All right. So we talked kind of earlier about how, you know, Control Unleashed and Free Work help with the resilience piece.
Now that if we take what we just said and say that, okay, so we've done some of that foundational work, what is it about the two programs that then allow us to help dogs maybe struggle with the arousal issues even after? Maybe the resilience is where we want it.
Kim Palermo: Yeah. So that's definitely going to be working on our patterns, the look at that game, those kinds of things. So let's just take, like, we'll take a classic example is a dog that reacts to other dogs, so barking and lunging when they see another dog. We can use patterns to create, like, some predictability. So we're out on a walk. You know, there's a lot going on. I'm going to build in a pattern because I see your arousal coming up. Right. And I'm going to work on a pattern, and that's going to bring your arousal down.
And then in addition to that, we can use the look at that game where the dog can start to learn. If I see another dog, rather than having this big reaction, that's just an opportunity for me to have a conversation with my handler. So pointing the other dog out and, you know, as the handler, I would then kind of feed off of that and talk to the dog about what's going on.
You know, where's the dog? You see a dog over there, and they might indicate that dog and then look back at me. So it kind of turns that big reaction into just a conversation with me. And that's where we can really help with our arousal issues is through those two games. And then in addition to that, like this class also goes over. I teach voluntary sharing and requested approach training.
So voluntary sharing would be primarily working with dogs that have resource guarding. But it also, I've done a ton of work with dogs that get over aroused by another animal. Okay, so let's say, I mean, my best example is Jane. My dog would kind of run and bark at my chickens. She thought it was hilarious because they'd all flap and stuff. And so instead I taught her her that she can interact with the chickens by essentially giving me a start button that says I can feed the chickens and then I feed her.
And she loves playing that game with the chickens or really any animal. And it immediately brings her arousal down. And with requested approach training, that's for a dog that might get uncomfortable with either a person or another dog approaching. And again, it puts them in control. They have agency. It's completely voluntary. And that's going to bring any of those big feelings down because now they're in control of what's going on. So lots of different ways where we can bring arousal down with that.
Melissa Breau: How do you help handlers, you know, once they kind of are starting to work on these skills, how do you kind of bridge the gap between using them to manage a situation or manage a behavior to actually kind of creating behavior change that we start to see, you know, lasting change or dog initiated change? I don't, I don't know what phrase to use there, but I think you get what I mean.
Kim Palermo: Yeah, yeah. So. Well, here's the thing. When I really look at Control Unleashed, and I'm going to focus on, on Control Unleashed here because Free Work is, like I said, that's more like we're doing it in the house. I don't necessarily look at it as management per se. There are definitely times we can use it as management. So what I tell my students now is like, you can use like one or two patterns and that can be for management.
And management can certainly change feelings, it can change behavior. So that's all good and well, but in general, we're going to be working on these skills at home without the trigger there. So that we're just kind of teaching them the patterns, teaching them the look at that game without using any sort of trigger. And it was actually Julie Daniels who really taught me a lot about building variation as opposed to challenges or distractions or even triggers.
So what we start to do is change the picture ever so slightly. And this builds resilience so much because now we can tell the dog like, okay, you now know the up down game all right, now, can you play the up down game if I put like, a banana on the couch and the dog's like, well, yeah, that's easy, right? And so then I'll say, okay, can you play the up down game if I wear a hat?
And we start to kind of build in these variations so that our dogs learn that they can do these skills with all sorts of different things happening, and that's not a big deal. And that starts to build resilience. And when we teach the look at that game. So the look at that game is ultimately to help them with triggers. We start with a neutral object, so something that means nothing to them.
And then we'd use a neutral helper. And I can help people if they don't have a lot of neutral helpers in their life. We can figure things out. And then eventually a neutral dog, if we can, or even like a stuffed dog or something. So we really build the games up slowly, you know, kind of essentially working under threshold so that our dogs can gradually and eventually be able to do this in the real world when the challenges are really there.
So, and I would say this class is essentially building those foundations first and foremost. And we're building a lot of variations depending on the dog and the students. Some may start to be able to, like, work outside or start to add some, like, real, you know, rather than a neutral helper, maybe it's someone who's like, you know, not quite as neutral. Right. You know, like a neighbor or something.
So we can potentially do that. Or you can just. I will give you give students advice on how to progress after this class. And then in December, I teach my I CU In the Real World class where we really start to just bring it out into the real world and focus on that. But any of this work, when it comes to arousal and resiliency, it's gotta be done slowly and properly in order for it to really work.
Even I think the look at that game more than anything kind of is misinterpreted often in that it's just clicking when the dog looks at a trigger. Right. And in a sense, that could potentially work. Right. If you click, the dog looks back at you, you feed them so they don't have that big reaction. But we're not actually changing feelings. So by working on it at home with neutral objects and then a neutral person, we can really kind of build that foundation of, I'm simply looking at a thing, and I get fed by that.
For that to, like, now we're going to take this into the real world. And the dog's going to be like, oh, wait, does that game we play in the house work for that little kid walking across the street? And then we'll be like, yes, it does. And that's how we start to build it up. So I think I answered your question. I might have gone off on a tangent. I'm not quite sure.
Melissa Breau: I think you covered it. So once you kind of get to that point where you're looking at the real world, like, how do you decide in the moment which tool from your toolkit you're going to pull out?
Kim Palermo: Right. Whether you're going to pull out a pattern game or whether you're going to pull out some relaxation tip, or if you're going to try and change an environmental setup.
How do you decide then? Like, what, what, what you're gonna do next? I guess, yeah. Unfortunately, I can't sit on everyone's shoulders because I wish I could. And I'd just be like, do this one, do this one. Ultimately, I want students to pay attention to what works best for them and what works best for their dog. So something that's gonna work well for one dog isn't gonna work well for another dog.
And same with us humans. Like, I wanna go to a skill that I'm comfortable with asking my dog for or I'm comfortable with doing. And it's something that's natural for me, something that I've practiced a lot. So with this class, for example, we review six different pattern games. We don't necessarily review them in detail, but I kind of like people to pick, like, maybe two that they really want to focus on and build on based on what works well for them.
And like, some of these pattern games are going to be movement, whereas some are going to be stationary. And so, you know, for our herding breeds, they might like the movement and maybe some another dog would like the stationary ones. So it's really going to depend on that. And you're also going to kind of see what your dog. They might actually kind of ask what they want. Right.
So my dogs often, I mean, they'll just start playing lat and. And so I know that that's what they want. Sometimes I'll just a deep breath and see if they're up for breathing. If I cue a deep breath out in the real world and my dog starts taking deep breaths, well, that's all I need. Usually if they're not breathing, then I know to jump onto something else. So I'm just going to kind of play around with it and see what works best for me and my dog and then build that routine in based on whatever's happening.
And then I'm always I think management is so important and that is always something that should be in someone's back pocket. So if it's too difficult, my dog can't play lat and they're not able to give me eye contact after a pattern and they're not taking deep breaths. Well, I'm just getting out of there. I'm not going to try keep trying to work through patterns. So we always want our management tools there as well.
Melissa Breau: We're talking about all of this because you have your class on this stuff. The Big Feelings Dog Using Control Unleashed and Free Work to build resilience and lower arousal. Coming up in April. Can you share a little more just on the class itself and maybe who might want to sign up?
Yeah. So with this class we're going to go over like I said, it'll be six different Control Unleash Patterns. We're going to work a lot on the look at that game. So we're going to build it from the baby steps and build up from there. Done. In my opinion, the best way we possibly can to set our dogs up for success. In addition to that, we're going to be working on voluntary sharing and requested approach training. And and really I with both of those they require a start button.
So I teach. One of the lessons I teach is how to teach a start button and some of my students just kind of use that to kind of play around with it. They don't necessarily need it for any sort of big behaviors but it's fun to have a start button for certain things. So we'll do that as well. And then Free Work we will. Last time I taught this class Free Work was just kind of like a very, a somewhat minor part of this class.
But since teaching it last term I saw just how magical Free Work can be and it was really changing behaviors and building resiliency without like really doing anything other than just doing daily Free Work. So we're gonna use that in addition to this. What some of my students have done in the past is they've then taken the freeware concepts and they've used it towards like an opt out station or they've used it towards keeping their dog more physically comfortable or getting the benefits of snuffling or licking through their patterns.
So we're just gonna kind of play around with it and be creative with it and see where it takes takes us. So I would say, as far as who this class could work for, I'm gonna say anyone again or everyone. I think, like I said, it's a really good proactive tool. And then any dog that might have, you know, big feelings, whether it's stressing up or down, whether it's in the trial environment or if it's just like going to the vet or your dog is just losing its mind when you pull out his collar and leash to go for a like, regardless of where you see the big feelings, we can use these skills to help bring those down.
Melissa Breau: Any final thoughts or maybe key points you kind of want to leave folks with?
Kim Palermo: I do want to mention that like my other classes, CEUs are part of this class. So if that is something you're looking for, it would be beneficial. I also anyone who is looking, who is a trainer or teaches others, who's looking to either learn more about the look at that game or control, unleash skills or Free Work, I think it would be really helpful for that too.
So it's not just for the dog that you own. It could also just be for your further education, you know, as a dog trainer or someone who works in a shelter, someone who works at the vets, dog walker, any of that. I think it would be extremely beneficial.
Melissa Breau: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast to talk about all this, Kim. Thank you for having me.
My pleasure. And thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week with Shade Whitesel to talk about overcoming environmental scent distractions, including things like bitch in season scent. If you haven't already, subscribe to our 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 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!