Episode #131 Navigating Adolescence with Sabrina from World of Woof

Sabrina joins Amy on the podcast to discuss adolescence, the science behind it, how to navigate it and build a relationship you enjoy with your dog. 

https://www.worldofwoof.org/

Transcript

Amy: 0:00

This is the puppy training Podcast Episode 131, navigating adolescence this podcast designed to help you on your journey of becoming best friends through love and learning as you train your own dog from home, and I'm here to help you every step of the way. This is the puppy training podcast. And I'm your host, Amy Jensen. Hello, everyone, I hope you're having a fabulous week. Today on the podcast, Sabrina from the world of Wolf is joining me. They have a passion for canine adolescents. And so I invited them to share their story with us today. I know many of you can relate to their experiences. Welcome, Sabrina.

Sabrina: 0:44

Thank you very much for having me, Amy. To get started,

Amy: 0:47

will you tell us a little bit about yourself how you got into the dog space and anything else you want us to know?

Sabrina: 0:53

Yeah, my name is Sabrina. And my company is well worth. I am a passionate dog lover. And I really enjoy what I do. I specialize in adolescent dogs with neurodivergent guardians. And I have been the founder and creator of my own company since 2020. So right in the middle of COVID, literally started as we hit lockdown, which was not ideal, but I've managed to make it work somehow. I actually do fully virtual training as well, which I really, really enjoy. I find that having people and dogs in the comfort of their own home can make a world of difference sometimes, especially with those adolescents and you know, sometimes overreact to dogs and things like that. I am an avid Dungeons and Dragons player. And I really enjoy dancing. So I try and do those two things as much as possible in my downtime as well.

Amy: 1:46

That's so fun. Yeah, at the virtual training space is awesome, isn't it? Like you mentioned some of these dogs that have some issues with you know, we're asking clients, please don't take them where they're going to be flooded right now. Let's get them where they have some space and virtual coaching is a really great way to do that in the beginning.

Sabrina: 2:03

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. It's, it's nice, because I also get to meet people from all around the world. And, you know, sometimes the time differences can be a little bit tricky. But we make it work. I even when I was on holiday in Canada, I was able to still work with my clients, which was really nice as well. And just having what I feel like is a little bit more freedom to speak to people and have them teach their dog as well. So you're teaching them and they're automatically then teaching their dog. And so let's just say I haven't heard, oh, well, he'll do it with you, but not with me since I started virtual training.

Amy: 2:38

That's an excellent point. Yeah, that's something that we used to hear a lot. And now as a virtual trainer. Yeah, they're doing it and we're just having to coach them verbally through it. And visually exactly like the video but it is nice.

Sabrina: 2:51

Yeah, it really is. It just gives a little bit of an extra Janessa quoi in the sense of like you said, you know, you can see them doing it on camera, and you can get them to refine certain things and iron out the edges and all of that. And it's just it's it's a great way of doing it. I thoroughly enjoy it.

Amy: 3:07

And the time saver, I'm not having to drive, you know, the time I used to spend in my car driving from place to place. That's no more really.

Sabrina: 3:14

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And yeah, like zoom is such a great tool, because it was, you know, really made to be the thing to have during COVID. So the the actual company have made the best version of their tool, essentially. So we get to experience that too.

Amy: 3:30

And I found that it taught everyone to use it. It wasn't just me educate how to use Zoom. Everybody's like, Oh, we're on Zoom. Everybody has to learn how to do zoom really quickly.

Sabrina: 3:39

Exactly, exactly. Yeah. Now we get to work from home, too.

Amy: 3:43

Yes. Well, thanks for coming on today to talk about adolescence. When does this typically begin? This is definitely something that we get lots of questions about. And it's a tough phase of life. I tell people though, that it can also be a great time of life. I happen to love both human teenagers and dog teenagers. They have some really great things about them. So I don't want to scare people away from the word adolescence. But I do feel that there's a little bit of I don't know what the right term is maybe angst or nervousness around adolescent apprehension. Yeah, definitely is a good word for that. So when does it typically begin? That's kind of the first question we usually get.

Sabrina: 4:21

I mean, there are so many factors that come into play here. But basically depending on you know, things like breed size, genetics, environment, neutering, individual dog and lots of other things. Generally, it will begin between five to seven months of age and can last up to three years. And that is with the brain development of it all. They will look adult much much much before they actually are brain adult very much like us as well. You know, we look adult from you know, mid to late teens kind of thing. But actually, our brains don't stop developing till we're about 25 which is a really interesting thing I found very, very recently. as well, that it's kind of across the board with mammals. So they, they will reach social maturity around two years, 24 months. But it can take up to a year 36 months, according to peer reviewed studies for that brain to be fully developed,

Amy: 5:16

I tell people to take lots of puppy pictures, because by about five to six months, it looks like an adult dog.

Sabrina: 5:21

I know it's there's also that awkward teenage phase where you can see that kind of growing and maturing and they're halfway in between puppy and adult and they look a little bit weird and pictures. And then you're like, Okay, there we go. There's that threshold? No, you look like an adult dog. So yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

Amy: 5:37

Very similar to the human experience as well, what are some of the typical adolescent behaviors that we see that people often talk about?

Sabrina: 5:49

So one thing that I found really interesting in all of the research I've done is something called pruning. So basically, their brains are literally rewiring themselves. So that's a really confusing time for them as well. Interestingly, it happens to all mammals in during adolescence, so including ourselves, which is why I often asked my clients, you know, remember what a confusing time it was for you as a teenager to you know, hair growing in places, aches and pains, acne, like all of the things that some people will have had, some people won't, depending on the severity of each thing as well. But in terms of actual behaviors, you'll start to see that they're exploring the world a lot more. And a lot of people like to say they push boundaries, but the thing is, they don't know that those boundaries exist, right? Were the ones who put those in place, because it's a human led world. So what they're really doing is risk taking and questioning why the world looks, smells sounds like it does, and maybe becoming a little bit more cautious about certain novel items. And a little bit less cautious about things that they are very used to that are no longer novel, such as us or, you know, animals that they know as well. So yeah, that's when we talk about that fear phase as well. And it can show up in some adolescence and in others, not at all, some people are very lucky and saying, Oh, I didn't even realize my dog was a teenager, at any point, it just went from puppy to adults. And it's just, Oh, that's lovely. I'm really glad that there's the types of people that that, you know, don't come to me for help, essentially. But yeah, you get higher arousal levels, as well. So the arousals usually shoot up a lot faster. And what I tend to say, is trying to keep activities at a low impact and low intensity as much as possible, because all those hormones that are going through their brains and through their bodies are affecting all sorts of different parts of them. And that's why you'll get more risk taking as well in the sense of the reward that they perceive they will be getting might mean that they ignore some of the other things that come into play, that could be more risk risky for them, essentially. So that's why you'll see things such as pushing boundaries, and things like that, or, you know, likely to run across a road to go and say hi to another dog. Whereas as a puppy, they only had eyes for you kind of thing, but their world is expanding. And so things can seem more interesting to them. When it's not you everything other than you can seem a lot more interesting. You've got more to compete with as well, when it comes to the environment because their world is growing and getting bigger as time goes on.

Amy: 8:26

We hear that commonly is they act like they don't even know what I'm saying to them, right. And adolescence, unfortunately. Yeah, I find that once we figure each other out again, it's like a new adjustment for me, I get oh, well, in this new phase, I just have to readjust re align my expectations, and then it goes much smoother.

Sabrina: 8:47

That's a big one. Yeah, with the pruning, it's really interesting because the neural pathways in their brain are literally destroying themselves to create new ones. So what I used to say, was a brain fart to a lot of people is actually not necessarily that it's literally that their brain has deleted, whatever cue that you've asked of them. And that whole sequence of you know what happens before the cue, the behavior, and then what happens afterwards. So they look at you as if to say like, I've never heard this word in my entire life. And it's because their brain has literally deleted it. So it's a really good time to show that patience and understanding and like you said, try and reframe things a little bit because our expectations, especially as people, we tend to have pretty high expectations of ourselves of our dogs of having, you know, the perfect dog of being the perfect person, the perfect guardian. But actually that's completely unrealistic because Perfection doesn't exist or trying to attain it is impossible.

Amy: 9:38

And we see a lot of times remember they're not a robot. We are not programming a robot. We have a living, breathing creature that we are helping to shape. Absolutely. Well, will you share a memorable experience trading and adolescent dog I know you have experience in this. You've rescued a dog and have a story to share with us, right?

Sabrina: 9:57

Yes, so this might be a little bit long. So I'll try and keep it as short as possible. But essentially, my own teenager who is a husky called foo, so she's no longer a teen. She's almost four years old now. But we rescued her when she was seven months. So she had just been spayed as per the laws of the UK from the rescue, and she got Giardia straightaway afterwards. So we knew that we weren't seeing the real boo, when we got her because she will have you know, been suppressing a lot of behavior, she will have been really tired not feeling well. So we will absolutely understood that. What we didn't expect was the experience that we did get. So indoors, she is where she was and is still very chilled, essentially, especially for a husky like she sleeps a lot. She really loves to train, you know, she would, she would see what her limits were, again, she was still a teenager, but she didn't really seem that interested in taking risky behaviors inside, she was happy to relax with us run around the garden play, you know, quite the opposite of what we thought having a husky would be like, and then we step outside. And so again, we were no longer that novel thing. You know, we were competing with everything in the environment that was super exciting, again, with all those hormones and all that dopamine and adrenaline going through and everything was so exciting. And so what we found was that very much like we just said, she would have a butterfly brain. And she no longer knew what cues were, she would pull right to the end of her long line, her name became nothing but noise, essentially. And it didn't really matter what reinforcement had worked inside, outside, it just it just didn't exist anymore, the world was the most reinforcing thing for her. So if I'm being completely honest, I actually really disliked her for quite a while I lost a lot of that connection that we had started to build. And at times, I did resent the decision that we had made to take her in. I didn't have anyone as a support network other than my partner at the time to talk about it. So after a while, you know, he was understandably a little bit tired of hearing a lot of complaining. And a lot of me saying, Oh, I don't understand. And I don't know why. And I don't want this anymore. And it's not fair. And it's so hard. And I actually got into a little bit of a depression and found it really hard to feel anything towards her I was I was quite numb for quite a while and discussing this with my clients. I'm very, very open and honest about this. Because a lot of my clients can relate and they have felt those difficulties in having a teenager you know, I didn't play with her anymore, I didn't want to train with a, I didn't even want to feed her because that was such a chore at the time, because we hadn't found the right thing that she liked in terms of food. So it felt very, very difficult. Whereas now it's my favorite thing to do, because she gets so excited for it. So I love feeding her. It's it's really fun. And everything fell to my partner. So on top of the Depression, I was then riddled with guilt and shame. And, you know, just it was just getting worse. So eventually, I was able to get myself around to the idea that she's not the dog I had hoped she would be. And my expectations were actually quite unfair. So I put more effort into getting to know the dog in front of me and trying to bond with her and other ways. You know, we started playing games to find out what reinforcement she likes, which it turns out to this day, string cheese is the winner above all other things. Like if you have string cheese, you have her attention at any point. And we started training things that weren't necessarily obedience base, because that's a lot of what I had been taught was, you know, you get to the dog has to be obedient. And if they're obedient, and you work on obedience, then you'll get the results you want. But actually, we worked a lot more on our connection and on our relationship. And so I was giving her more choice, and putting a lot of these choices on cue. So when we were out in the walking, I'd say which way do you want to go. And I would look at her body language, she turned a certain way. And we would walk that way. And that's how it went. When she did hit the end of her long line, it was about me taking a big deep breath. And taking a beat and taking a moment even if it meant just stepping on that lead, giving her a moment to to analyze and take everything in around her and then reconnecting again as well. And then what and I gave her I asked her for her consent a lot as well. So we implemented a lot of things like pep pause, you know, like learning a lot about those kinds of things. And getting that very enthusiastic, more please, for a lot of things really strengthened our relationship because it was no longer a relationship of tolerance. It was a relationship of enthusiastic consent. And that was the big game changer for us. And we started going for like shorter, more sniff sniffing focused walks around the neighborhood, not necessarily needing to do as much novelty with her as well because already she was finding that herself so I didn't have to on top of that give her more because that can be quite overwhelming for her which in turn was overwhelming me. And then I quickly learned that she might not look at me while we walk. But whichever side I'm on that ear is just constantly listening Due to my voice, so it's about, you know, finding those little things from your dog, they might not look at you all the time, but maybe they're listening, they might not put their whole body towards you, but maybe they are orienting towards you just not with their eyes, it's about picking up on those little things, learning about body language was a huge one as well. And yeah, all in all, essentially, a lot of it was learning to have patience, not just with her, but also with myself. And like I said earlier, it was, you know, trying not to be the perfect guardian, or for her to be the perfect dog. And we eventually found ways of living more harmoniously together and having more fun, I got to know boo, and she wasn't just, you know, some Husky anymore. She was she was my baby girl. And we've we've had the best connection ever since. And it's all based off of that, that understand thing that taking time isn't a bad thing. And things will be a little bit slower in those moments. But that's also not a bad thing. And actually, it's, she's taught me to stop and smell the roses a lot more, which has been really nice.

Amy: 16:01

Thank you for sharing your story. I know so many people can relate to that to the emotions that you had, and to the struggle that boo had. And I think the important point of recognizing, like we mentioned that they're living, breathing creatures, and they have ideas and thoughts. And as you mentioned, making helping them make choices or allowing them to make choices. And listening to them. It's so rewarding. This is how I train my dogs as well. And I'm always asking Baxter, are you ready to come in yet? Like when he's out in the back? Are you ready to come in? And sometimes he is. And sometimes he looks at me, I'm like, Okay, I'll give you a few more minutes. And then we'll come in, you know, we're, we're out on a trail hike. And which way do you want to go? So I relate to those things and, and see the benefit of that, right, taking the time to ask them what they want. And you get a much better relationship. It's not a power struggle. Now you're working together?

Sabrina: 16:52

Yeah, it's absolutely that. Absolutely. I think one of the things that I researched on as well as like, the average adult human gets about 35,000 choices a day that they have to make the average child, human child's gets between two to 4000, the average dog gets about 25. So the more choice we can give them, the more we actually allow for that to just happen, the more they're going to choose to interact with us because they're like, Okay, you you facilitate this, you make it make my life a lot easier, a lot more comfortable. Sorry, she's just barking she wants to come in. But I know that my friend will get that. And so yeah, a lot more comfortable. And they just feel like they can express themselves more make those mistakes in inverted commas as well to, you know, because they feel confident that there is no such thing as a mistake. There's just maybe something that you need to guide towards a little bit of a better direction. And that's it.

Amy: 17:49

I thank you for the research you've done and for sharing it with us today.

Sabrina: 17:53

Yeah, of course. Absolutely. I mean, I love adolescence, I think, very much like you said, I really love adolescent dogs, but I also love adolescent people, I think they are an incredibly misunderstood lot. Because there's so much going on in the brain in the body that either we forget that we have been through because we're so far removed from that period of in our lives, or that we just can't empathize with anymore. And so trying to get back into their headspace of, okay, maybe I didn't go through those struggles. But if I had, how would I feel about it? How would I want to have been guided away from, you know, these poor decisions, and maybe making some that are a little bit easier to navigate this human led world as well, because our dogs, you know, they didn't decide to come into our lives, we are the ones who domesticated them. Were the ones who said, Hey, I like what you do. So you've got to do that more, please. So it's really unfair to then expect, especially in this very, very fragile stage of life, that they're just going to be, you know, obeying us in every single sense of the word, essentially, because that's completely unrealistic. And that's not what I want to base any of my partnerships on.

Amy: 19:07

Yeah, absolutely. I agree. 100%. It's a joy raising a dog having a relationship and a connection with them versus I say you do, right.

Sabrina: 19:18

Yeah, that's why no longer commands but cues because cues are a question. Whereas commands you have to do it. And changing our language can can be a huge thing for our dogs, but also for the dog community, for other guardians, rather than saying, owners, you know, guardians, because that's what you're doing is you're guiding these dogs to have the best life that they can in a world that wasn't really made for them.

Amy: 19:41

Yeah, I think it just helps us stay in a good headspace and to understand what we're trying to achieve.

Sabrina: 19:46

Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, it's been such a delight

Amy: 19:49

having you on today. It's so nice to hear your expertise and to have you share your story with us and I just really appreciate you being on the podcast today.

Sabrina: 19:57

Of course, thank you so much for having me. It was wonderful. For having a chat and I really look forward to chatting again, hopefully at some point.

Amy: 20:05

I would love that sounds great. I want to thank Sabrina for being on the podcast today. You can find out more about them at a world of worth.org and on social media. You guys have a wonderful rest of your week. Happy training. We'll talk soon. If you have a question about anything you heard on this podcast or any other Puppy Training question, visit my site Baxter & bella.com to contact me