The Truth About Stress

00:00 — Kati Peppe introduces owners’ concerns about stressing dogs during boarding, new situations, and feared…

Are you one of those people that sometimes worries about stressing your dog out? Maybe you're leaving them for boarding or introducing them to a new situation or something, you know, they're afraid of. And you thought, geez, this is gonna be really stressful for my dog. I don't know if we should do this. If you do, that makes you totally normal. Congratulations, you're human. Um, but you hear people talk about stress a lot, and that definitely implies that it's, it's something bad and it's something you need to worry about. But is it really? The answer may surprise you.

So we're gonna kind of jump into that today. We're gonna break it down for you. We're gonna talk about the different kinds of stress and whether or not you actually need to worry about it. Welcome to Off Leash and Unfiltered. Trigger warning. I'm Kati Peppe, delivering the truth in dog training. Thanks for joining us today. I am Kati Peppe, owner of Diamond K9 Dog Training in Biddeford, Maine, and we specialize in e-collar training. This podcast is here to provide you with all the information we have, everything we know, everything we talk about with our customers, and I hope you join today's episode.

So let's get right into it. Stress, man, that's a big one. This is a big topic, so hopefully I can get through this without just rattling on and on. <laugh>

Everything we do during the day is gonna result in some kind of stress, right? So we know at some degree, like, stress isn't all bad, right? 'Cause everything's stressful, like just having to get dressed and leave the house. Like there's an element of stress to that. So, but where do you draw the line, right? How do you know if the stress that your dog has is too much? How do you know if it's an unhealthy level of stress or type of stress? I wanna kind of get into that. Um, but I wanna start by saying all the narratives out there, everything, you're, almost everything you're gonna see on the internet, right?

In these trainers that become these huge YouTube sensations, almost all of them, they're all just repeating the same canned phrases. They're all just saying the same idiot stuff. <laugh> And don't buy into that, right? So you, you gotta do your own research, um, which is hard with the internet. You gotta actually talk to people that do the stuff that are in the field directly, um, and see the results. That's the most important piece. So these people like to talk a big game, but they can't actually show you any results. So that's a huge red flag.

03:00 — Kati challenges the idea that all discomfort is harmful, comparing it with vaccinations, dental…

Um, but anyway, everything that you find out there just about is going to tell you that anything that's negative in any way is bad.

That is the most childish, infantile philosophy of life you can even dream of, right? That's like saying going to the doctor's to get a shot is bad, or going to the dentist is bad because it's unpleasant, right? Um, you could even say exercising, right? If it's really difficult and uncomfortable, that that's bad. Of course it's not, right? It might be physically uncomfortable, it might be mentally uncomfortable, but it's not bad. That's why we do it anyway. So right off the bat, if that's somebody's approach, that everything that makes your dog uncomfortable, everything that's negative in any way is bad.

You know, this person does not have an accurate perception of reality, right? Or they might just be lying. But either way, you're not gonna get good information there. Um, so I think it's important to really, really dial in when we're talking about stress. To take all this stuff that you've seen out there, set that aside and really trust your common sense.

Not your feelings, not your emotions. Those have a place, they have a role. I'm not telling you to ignore them, but set those aside, right? They, they play a role, but they should be a smaller voice than your logical, rational, common sense brain. So I want you to pay attention to what you see with your own eyes, and I want you to apply it kind of to yourself, right? Human beings, which should be easy to do. 'Cause most people treat their dogs totally like people. But I want you to think about, so here's an example, right?

A lot of people will say that like if you correct a dog in their crate, that that's stressful and it's going to create a negative association with the crate. Okay? Well, let's think of a human example that's a lot like that. Let's say we go to the beach and we go underwater and we get water up our nose and it's really awful and we get, you know, we aspirate the water and we're like coughing and choking and gagging. Do we then hate going to the beach? No. Like you can have an unpleasant experience in an environment

And it doesn't necessarily become a permanent association with the environment. Yes, it happened there. Yes, you remember that it happened there, perhaps, right? But it doesn't actually make you hate that environment. Now, if it happened every time or constantly, then that might be different, right? So learn to kind of make real-world associations, analogies, and just think about it. Like use your common sense, because I gotta tell you, some of the stuff that's out there is really wild. And I know my customers are smart enough to know that it's malarkey. But the problem is nobody takes the time to really think about it.

07:00 — Kati urges listeners to question research conclusions rather than accept reported results without examining…

And I don't wanna get into it, but this is true with a lot of the scientific studies out there too. A lot of the research, you know, that's being done on different topics, not just this, but just anything at all. Um, we'll read the result, but we don't question anything. And that makes a huge difference. So I'm reading a book right now, um, that has to do with nutrition and they'll, they'll, you know, kind of cite studies, but they don't always tell you anything about the study, right? They'll just tell you what they found. Well, how do you know that that's true?

Right? How do you know it was a good study? There are so many variables, guys, because we don't live in a Skinner box. We don't live in a sterile environment. Reality is complex. Our environment is complex and unpredictable, and there are so many variables and so many factors at play that for someone to just say, "If you do this, you get this," is fucking wild. 'Cause that's not generally how things work. There's usually a little more to it than that. Um, and don't get me wrong, there are definitely very short correlations, right? A causes B.

But if you're gonna tell me that, you are gonna tell me how you know that, right? So for instance, I was reading one about aspartame and fertility, and they say that women between 19 and 49 who consumed low doses of aspartame,

Um, did have a reduction in their fertility. And women that had a higher dose of aspartame regularly had an even greater reduction in their fertility. Um, especially if they were under 35, which is interesting, but they never defined what low and high was. So do you know what you get out of that? Nothing. It means nothing. What is low? What is high, right? So you can't just take what people say at face value without using your critical thinking skills. It's so important. And so I just wanted to mention that because people will cite all kinds of studies and they're not really studies.

They're garbage. Um, and they're either gonna leave out gaps in, in the information and not give it to you. Um, either, or the study was done very, very poorly and they actually, they actually can't prove what it is they're trying to prove.

10:00 — She criticizes cherry-picked findings and asks what researchers actually observe when labeling dogs stressed.

So they just stay <laugh>, you know, they, they just cherry-pick things. So it can look a certain way. It just doesn't mean anything. So your study, if it's a good study, should be an accurate representation of reality that you can observe with your eyes, right? That you can look around and do the data collection yourself and you can say, yep, that's actually consistent with that study. And so with dog training, what we see is that never happens when so-and-so says a study, um, you know, found this or found that. It's either meaningless garble, um, for instance, they'll say, you know, found dogs were more stressed.

Or, well, what does that even mean, <laugh>? Like really, what does that mean? What does it look like for a dog to be stressed? What do they do? What are you, what are you observing? And does it matter?

Like what, what are the consequences of that? Um, and they don't tell you, but people just eat it right up and they go, oh, that stresses dogs out. It's bad. We can't do it. Um, and so that's just, it's just garbage. But anyway, I don't wanna spend all my time talking about studies, but I just wanted to point that out because no doubt you'll hear and see that stuff if you start poking around. And so it's really, really important to just, you know, picture these scenarios in your head and think about what are the things I would wanna know?

What are the things I would ask? What are the things I would control for if I were doing a study where I wanted to get this information? And you'll see they're not doing that or they're not talking about it. Um, so really, really important. But at any rate, <laugh>, let's just break down like the two major differences in types of stress in my opinion. So we have chronic stress, which is sort of a perpetual ongoing or chronically recurring stress that's typically bad, right? Especially if it's a high level of stress.

We don't want to be in that state all the time, right? That's no good, especially if it's like a fear state, right? An anxious state, whatever that might mean. Everyone's got a different definition for that too. Um, those are things you don't wanna be feeling, you don't want your dog to be feeling all the time, right? You have a lot of dogs. It's like every time we go outta the house, my dog is anxious, my dog is afraid. Every time someone comes over, my dog is anxious and afraid, whatever the case may be, every time I try to put my dog in the kennel, he freaks out, right?

It's like, okay, well, we don't want that happening constantly. But so how do you fix

chronic stress? How do you fix the dog that is anxious all the time? That is always in a state of high alert, that always has that radar running in the background, waiting for a noise to pick up on, to bark at, waiting for a visual to react to, uh, waiting for something to fall so he can jump and hit the ceiling. 'Cause he is afraid of everything. What do you do when you have a dog you can't take out? Because like every stranger they see, they react to or they're afraid of or they try to run away.

What do you do when you have a dog that goes through life and every day thinking, I have to guard my food from my owners. I have to, um, bite when they put my collar on. I have to defend my space. I have to, what do you do? 'Cause those are dogs, right? Even the scenarios I'm describing where they're like biting their own family most of the time, these are dogs that are in a, a constant state of stress and anxiety. Like they are really uncomfortable in some way or another, right? That's chronic stress. That's no good.

14:00 — She defines episodic stress as temporary discomfort rather than a constant state of mind.

Now, at the other end of the spectrum, we have episodic stress, right? Episodic stress is like a very temporary stressor that comes and goes.

And then that's it, right? It doesn't mean it's instantaneous or even that it's super brief, but it means it's not gonna last forever, right? It means it isn't our constant state of mind. Um, so an example of episodic stress might be somebody unexpectedly comes through the door and jumps you. That's episodic stress, right? Or, um, even kick it up a notch and be like, okay, snakes make me uncomfortable, right? Not me <laugh>, but they used to make my husband uncomfortable. Um, and since I own several of them, the way he got over that is he voluntarily exposed himself to them.

Um, that was episodic stress, right? So you open the container, you see the snake, oh my God, it's so stressful. He takes it out, he holds it. Oh my God, it's so stressful, right? But he does that for a few minutes, then he puts it away, then we do it again later, then we do it again the next day. So every time he does it, yeah, there's episodic stress, but it begins to reduce over time and it's temporary, right? So we temporarily expose ourselves to this episodic stress intentionally in an effort to reduce it, reduce it, reduce it until it just becomes not a big deal.

And that's what we do with dogs. That's what, same principle. So if you have a dog that is afraid of traffic, we're probably gonna go hang out near some traffic,

Right? So if you don't do that, you keep the dog in a state of recurring chronic stress. Every time you go out, the traffic is going to be stressful. We fix that by going, okay, we're gonna go hang out by some traffic and I'm going to have some standards. You are not allowed to try to run away.

So people see that, and some of them are gonna say it's mean, you're stressing the dog out too much. They're gonna probably go on about cortisol levels or something stupid that does, doesn't matter, <laugh>, right? But at the end of the day, what's gonna happen? The dog is gonna, you know, sit or maybe just stand still near some traffic and they're gonna start to see that they're fine, right? Or I can just let them go nuts at the end of the leash, try to pull me down the road, run away, yank it on the leash the whole time in flight mode.

And we can do that every time we go out. And we can move away from the traffic as soon as humanly possible for the dog's comfort and for the sake of not stressing them. And what happens is they just never improve, they'll never get better. So you are keeping them in that state of mind. That's you, you are doing that, right? Not you, the listener, but <laugh>, anybody with a dog like that who says, I don't want to stress my dog out. I don't want to be making them that uncomfortable. I don't want to hold them accountable for a command when they're stressed out, when they're anxious, when they're nervous, 'cause that's quote-unquote mean.

They keep their dog in that unhealthy, chronically stressed state of mind.

But

If you know what you're doing, you can take your dog out and you can require them to hold a command or just to stand still. The key is not to run away, right? And then they get over it. Yeah, it's uncomfortable, but it's just episodic. It's temporary, and every time we do it, it's gonna get less and less and eventually it's gonna not be a thing. It's gonna not be a thing at all. So that type of temporary stress is not only perfectly normal and healthy, right? This is a normal, healthy part of life. There's going to be things that episodically stress us, things that surprise us, things that make us uncomfortable.

If you don't have that, I actually believe that there's a damaging effect from shielding people, animals from the norm of daily stress.

Our mind and bodies are designed to encounter and deal with stress, just not in a chronic state, right? The zebras aren't running from a predator all the time, but if they never have to, I'm not actually convinced that that's great for them. Um, another whole can of worms to open up there, right? <laugh>. But so temporary episodic stress is generally not something to worry about, especially if you're using it in a productive way to decrease chronic stress. Very, very beneficial. Um, an another example of episodic stress would just be a correction, right? Which, of course, this is the big one.

20:00 — Kati argues that predictable corrections cause temporary stress rather than chronic anxiety when dogs…

This is the one everyone's crying about all the time, is like, oh, you shock the dog, now they're stressed out.

It's like, no, there might be a little bit of stress. So what? When someone comes through the door, they experience a little bit of stress too, good or bad, positive or negative, right? Excited or worried. It just doesn't matter. Like if a correction stresses your dog out, the fact is it just isn't important because it's not chronic stress. And our corrections also are always done in a manner that is predictable to the dog, right? So if you know what you're doing, your dog knows why they were corrected. So there's no reason to be chronically stressed by that.

Now, if you just went around like a psychopath ringing the e-collar like a doorbell at a hundred for no reason, just random all the time, frequently, yeah, your dog's probably gonna develop some stress from that. That's probably not healthy, obviously. But no one does that, right?

Nobody's doing that. It's like an analogy I always use. Like I know that driving off a cliff would be incredibly dangerous and scary and could be fatal and all these awful things. Yet I don't actually worry about that happening, right? Because I have to do something to make that happen and I'm just not gonna do that thing. Simple corrections are the same with your dog. They know what causes them. They don't do that thing anymore, and they're now in the driver's seat. So that actually eliminates anxiety, guys, and chronic stress, right? Because it takes the question marks out, it makes things more clear for your dog, which is helpful.

One of the analogies that one of my favorite trainers used, um, he's fantastic. He likened it to the use of power tools, right? If you don't know what you're doing, you've never used a power tool before and no one's giving you yes, no, right, wrong. They're just throwing a power tool at you and saying, have at it. Think about how incredibly stress-inducing that would be, right? Now if you have someone there telling you, no, don't do that. That's wrong. Yes, do this. No, don't do that. Suddenly you now have a blueprint for what you're supposed to do.

You now have a set of instructions, you have something to focus on, you know how to stay safe, you know what's expected. Like you, you just, you can do it now, right? And after a few times it gets really easy. And guess what? Now it's not anxiety-inducing anymore. And you don't have to lose any limbs in the process.

Rules, boundaries being enforced clearly reduces anxiety. It makes things clear because that's what anxiety really is, right? It's question marks and chronic anxiety is bad. Chronic stress is not healthy, but episodic stress is totally fine and healthy, right? And corrections that are tied to a behavior are perfectly fine. Not only are they a a normal healthy type of stress that we're supposed to experience during the course of our lives, um, but it's very beneficial because it's going to help to alleviate sources of chronic stress. Very clear rules, clear expectations, just makes things so much easier for your dog.

24:00 — Kati introduces Daisy’s sock-eating and describes using a high e-collar correction tied to that…

And getting a buzz from an e-collar, I mean it's just not a big deal. Even a high correction, it's just not a big deal. It happens and then it's over. And hopefully if you know what you're doing, your dog has tied it to a behavior and they're just not gonna do that behavior anymore.

So for instance, Daisy went home yesterday. She's a sock eater. That could kill her. Um, she eats, she eats them, she puts it in her mouth, she swallows it, she poops it out. But one of these times she might not poop it out and it could literally kill her. So we don't mess around with that. So when she goes to eat a sock, we have instructed them to set up that scenario and see if she will, first of all, but if she does, an extremely high correction for a few seconds, right? And they know exactly how to do it.

And so what will happen is Daisy will have a few really bad seconds, guys, but that's it, right? And now she's not gonna eat socks and she's gonna get to live and she's not gonna need emergency surgery and the end result won't be that Daisy's walking around being a basket case because she had a high correction. It just doesn't happen. Okay? We have worked with hundreds, thousands of dogs maybe at this point. Like it doesn't happen. Nothing bad is gonna come of this, nothing. What's gonna happen is she's not going to eat socks, she's gonna avoid socks.

Great. That's a win. And she's not gonna walk around afraid of being corrected, right? Because there's a thing that causes the correction and that is getting too interested in a dirty sock <laugh>.

Um, so that episodic stress, yeah, I'm sure that's a stressful experience for the dog, but it's temporary, it's healthy and the benefit just way far outweighs the fact that our dog is gonna be stressed for a few seconds. Like who cares? Doesn't matter, right? So what happens if your dog tears their CCL? Do you think that's stressful? Of course it is. And they're gonna be potentially having procedures done and on bed rest. Do you think that's stressful? Of course it is, but no one talks about that. But that's the thing, the things that you can't control versus the things you can, that doesn't change how the stress affects the dog.

27:00 — She presents unfamiliar places as opportunities for dogs to tolerate uncertainty and build confidence.

The dog doesn't know the difference, right? Your dog steps on a thumbtack and it hurts. Do they then become just scared to walk around? Are they then chronically stressed? No, of course not. Uh, it just, it doesn't make any sense logically. So anyways, stress, episodic stress, totally fine for your dog. Like going to a new place that's a, your dog's uncertain about. Yeah, they're gonna be stressed by that. That's okay. They might skip some meals. That's okay. So what's gonna happen is your dog is gonna get a chance

To build confidence. They're gonna get a chance to get over it, right? They're gonna get a chance to just sit in it a little bit and see that, oh, everything's actually totally fine. And so then your dog, when they come out of that experience, gained that little bit of confidence, right? And every time they do it, they gain a little more and a little more. The worst thing you can do for your dog, the worst thing you can do to them is try to shield them from that type of stress. It is the worst thing you can do.

You will make your dog very soft, right? You're gonna turn your dog into glass, you're gonna make them brittle. We don't bubble wrap your dog. Dogs that learn to just take a little bit of stress in stride. Those are the best, most confident, well-adjusted dogs, right? You don't want a dog that just crumbles because you've just shielded them from everything stressful and coddled them, right? Those are the, those are the, this is kind of a joke, but kind of not. Those are the dogs that won't go out in the rain <laugh> to do their business.

Um, because it's like, oh, we could just never do anything that's a little uncomfortable.

It's like, no, you can't go through life that way. 'Cause ultimately that will lend itself to you being more stressed by normal everyday things that you should be able to tolerate. So I hope that was helpful, guys. That's it for today. Um, don't bubble wrap your dogs, <laugh>. Thanks for joining me, and I look forward to next time.