Dawn Walton, a human therapist, and Jess Probst, a dog behaviourist, sit in Jess's house catching up on stuff that's happened in the weeks since their last podcast.

The only background noise is from the feisty Bean the black and tan Dachshund who doesn't settle for the whole hour of the podcast, while Jess's other dogs snooze happily.

They begin to explore the concepts of identity vs behaviour (continued in the next episode)

They talk about retreats and residentials, and the difference between trainers looking for 'what' behaviour is, and not necessarily looking at 'why' the behaviour happens. The 'what' is an important first step, but the 'why' must come after to create lasting change.

Once behaviour in a dog has been observed, we need to do a pattern interrupt, to change the state and see what's behind it. After the pattern interrupt, we then need to positively reinforce the new behaviour we want. Dawn also does the pattern interrupt with her clients, getting underneath the behaviour to find where it comes from, and then changing the programming of the brain so that new patterns can form.

Dawn introduces the concept of resting b**ch brain. It's like a resting b**ch face but for the brain!

Want to understand more? Listen to this episode now, and tell us your thoughts.

Dawn Walton, a human therapist, and Jess Probst, a dog behaviourist, sit in Dawn's car and discuss the latest social media trend where you have to decided if you'd rather be alone in a forest with a bear, or a man.

Dawn was surprised when most people choose bear. What would you choose?

Dawn talks about the theme that clients have where their expectations stop them actually seeing progress - expectation is the killer of progress. And they go on to discuss how this also affects dog owners and the trainers that work with them.

This is also the episode where they talk about their exciting new mentorship programme for dog trainers that will be running in 6 month blocks.

This episode is recorded in Dawn's car so will include the random noises you'd expect of a public setting!

Dawn Walton, a human therapist, and Jess Probst, a dog behaviourist are taking a trip to Costco and decide to do a podcast to record their conversation as they drive (Dawn is driving while Jess holds the microphone. All safe!)

Along with the normal meandering conversation, this episode includes a discussion of the difference between Tonic Immobility (as experienced by sharks and chickens when they are upside down, possums and fainting goats, among others) and the Shutdown state. As with everything, the conversation involves exploring how this applies to dogs, and how we can see this in autistic humans. They discuss what we can actually do to help a dog or person in a shutdown state, particularly by activating the parasympathetic nervous system.

They also discuss the favourite topic of labels. Particularly how important it is to treat every individual (dog or human!) based on what you see in front of you. Decision trees can be used to ask the right questions and eliminate things that aren't relevant. So instead of A =B you can instead ask a series of yes or no questions to narrow things down. This can avoid falling into the trap of making assumptions, and of thinking that what you are doing is automatically right just because that is what you were taught.