77. Senior Dog Grooming, Pet Health Tech & Tiny Heroes

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Speaker 1 (00:00):

Pets ad Life, your guide to the latest in Pet Trends products and the joy of the human animal bond with Kristen Levine and Chris Bonafide, powered by the American Pet Products Association and Dog tv.

Speaker 2 (00:14):

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Pets Ad Life podcast. I am your host, Kristen Levine, and today's kind of a special day because Chris is taking some time off. So I got to invite a special guest host, and if you're a regular listener, you've probably met her already. I'll tell you a little bit about. Her name is Alex cesa, and she's a professional certified dog trainer and the founder of Peach on a leash dog training that is based in Atlanta, Georgia. And with a focus on modern positive reinforcement techniques, Alex and her team help families build strong lasting bonds with their dogs. She's dedicated to providing practical, compassionate training solutions and is highly regarded for her expertise in behavioral modification and puppy development. Welcome, Alex.

Speaker 3 (01:03):

Hey, thanks for having me. I'm excited.

Speaker 2 (01:06):

Yeah, it's great to have you back on the show, but now as a co-host, I know it's kind of weird

Speaker 3 (01:10):

To be on the other side of things here. It's going to be fun.

Speaker 2 (01:13):

I know, I know. I know. It's going to be fun. And yeah, I was excited that you could join us. So is the summertime, is it busier for your business and dog training, or does it kind of get slower?

Speaker 3 (01:27):

Actually is, I was just talking to another business owner, dog training business owner that we were both saying we have just been so slammed the summer. I think a lot of people wait, understandably until the summer to get a new puppy or to get a new dog. The kids are home and can be somewhat helpful with the new dog. So we do find that a ton of people get dogs over the summer and a lot of people travel over the summer. So if our board and train program has been super slammed because people, when they're traveling, they want their dog to be somewhere where they're actually working on skills and learning things. So we have been busy,

Speaker 2 (01:57):

Busy, busy, and I guess it's also a good time for polishing up manner. Not even if you just adopt it, but you have a dog that maybe needs a little bit of manner polishing or behavior modification.

Speaker 3 (02:09):

Yeah, this is kind of like that window before the holidays, the fall and winter when it gets crazy and you're going to have people in your house all the time. It's kind of like your chance to get that out of the way now. So definitely a lot of people wanting refresher training too, and just getting those skills fine tuned. Awesome,

Speaker 2 (02:25):

Awesome. So yeah, if you're listening and your dog could use some new skills though, or some fine tuning, check out peach on a leash. Alex, you're all over social media and I love your content because you give a lot of really practical actionable advice. So remind folks where they can follow you on

Speaker 3 (02:43):

Social like that better than the dancing. They don't like the dancing content. They want me to do the informational stuff, so that performs better for us. Imagine that, imagine that. But no, we do love to do the educational side of things and to give people practical tips though, we try to just condense that as much as we can into social media formats. But yeah, you can find us on Instagram at Peach Unleash. We're also on Facebook, I think it's facebook.com/peach, and then our website, obviously peach unleash com.

Speaker 2 (03:11):

Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you for being here. And for our listeners, thanks for being here. If you're new, welcome. If you are a regular, thanks for being in a regular. But Alex, just a refresher about our format. We are going to share two stories. We're going to have two awesome guests. We're going to recommend two products, and then we're going to wrap it up with answering two questions from our audience. Let's do it.

Speaker 1 (03:35):

Kristen and Chris, present story time

Speaker 2 (03:39):

Guests first, I'm going to let you share your story first today.

Speaker 3 (03:43):

Okay. Well, I found this story, this popped up on one of my social media feeds. There was a dog, I think this was in Virginia, at an adoption event, and this adoptable dog alerted to a man at the event that was having the start, I guess of a seizure really. And it wasn't visible. No one else could tell. I guess the man has epilepsy and it was just his eyes had started some kind of movement and the dog was pulling and pulling and pulling, trying to get the handler over to this man, literally alerting to the seizure. The cool part is that the dog ended up getting adopted by a family who has a child that has seizures, and so the dog is now helping her and helping that family. Sometimes the cutest, coolest story ever that we have this adoptable dog that has this talent that probably was never trained. We see this a lot where dogs don't always need this formal training for some of these types of alert behaviors. There's some dogs that just do it naturally, whether it's a diabetic alert or a seizure alert. We have certainly seen instances where the dog does some sort of behavior change when that type of medical issue is happening. It just blows my mind. They're just amazing.

Speaker 2 (04:52):

That's an awesome story. And the dog, it wasn't the dog's handler that was having the seizure, right? It was

Speaker 3 (05:00):

A person, a random person, no person that didn't even know. Yeah, just was, dogs are so amazing and amazing.

Speaker 2 (05:06):

So I guess that means the dogs could be trained to alert to things like that, and then also they could have a predisposition to have that talent.

Speaker 3 (05:15):

For sure. And sometimes people will ask us, what's the best type of dog for that work and how do we train it? And we don't do a lot of service dog work these days, but I always tell people that the most amazing service dog that I ever trained was a Pomeranian mix that was rescued from, I don't remember what her story was, but she was from a rescue, and the family contacted me saying that they wanted to train this dog as a service dog for the child and the home. And my first thought was, are you kidding me? A Pomeranian? It's not happening. But this dog was incredible. She learned so quickly how to alert to certain behaviors. I mean, it totally killed my own bias of, okay, well there's a right dog for this and there's a wrong dog for this. So often it's not related to the breed.

(06:07):

I mean, there are certainly breeds that are more likely statistically to do better in the work, especially if you're looking at guide dogs and things like that where it's a very physical job. Any type of dog that obviously needs to do mobility work where they need to be a certain height and weight, that's a little different. But dogs that are capable of alerting and helping a person, whether it's psychiatric needs or physical medical alert kind of things, we've seen it all. Whereas some dogs that we think would be really great are not great, and the dogs were like a Pomeranian, are you kidding me? It turns out to be an amazing fit for it. So there isn't a right or wrong. We really look for the dogs that love the work, and it's sort of like a person, if we see our job as something that we love, we don't feel like we're working. And the dogs that love this type of work, it doesn't feel like work to them either.

Speaker 2 (06:51):

Yeah, true. That is a fantastic story. And my story is kind of similar in that it is about a little dog who is a hero. So this actually happened back several weeks ago, around the 4th of July holiday. There was a hiker that was out exploring this glacier in Switzerland, and he had his little chihuahua companion with him, and I tried to find the dog's name, I couldn't find the dog's name. But anyway, the man fell through a snow bridge that he was crossing, and he plunged 26 feet into this cva. So the dog fortunately did not fall with him. The dog just kind of sat next to the CVAs and stayed there with him, and the hiker apparently had a walkie talkie with him. So he radioed for help, but the rescue team couldn't find him. And they even had a helicopter looking for him. It was really difficult because snow, it's all whites hard to see, but the helicopter, they noticed the little dog walking around the area, and that's how they knew where he was. So she stayed put the whole time just waiting for her owner to be rescued. That's amazing. Yeah, so they're obviously calling her a little four-legged hero and he would not have been found had it not been for her staying there waiting with him.

Speaker 1 (08:16):

That is

Speaker 2 (08:16):

So, and it's funny because to your point about the typical rescue dog, you would think of a St. Bernard as a mountain rescue dog, but here's this tiny chihuahua

Speaker 3 (08:26):

Who Yeah, I mean it really blows my mind.

Speaker 2 (08:29):

Yeah, it's incredible. So dogs are awesome, as if you didn't know all already. That

Speaker 3 (08:34):

Is the moral of the story. Both stories today, dogs are amazing. They do amazing things. Exactly

Speaker 1 (08:39):

Beyond the leash, exploring the untold stories of pet passion and professionalism.

Speaker 3 (08:43):

Alright, well we are so excited to have Angela Dinsmore on the podcast. Thanks for being here, Angela.

Speaker 4 (08:49):

Hi, I'm so excited to be here.

Speaker 3 (08:52):

So Angela is a seasoned senior dog groomer gerontologist, her animal advocate and the founder of Gray Whiskers, a Denver-based community newsletter and certification program focused exclusively on senior dogs. I love this so much. With over 20 years of hands-on experience, Angela created gray whiskers to fill a gap in compassionate in-home grooming and care for aging pets and supports professionals and pet parents through education, gentle grooming practices and heartfelt storytelling. Oh my gosh. I mean, I just love this so much

Speaker 4 (09:24):

Coming

Speaker 3 (09:25):

From the training side of things where we're very much on the fear-free side and just really trying to support kind training practices. I just love that you're doing that on the grooming side and especially for older dogs. I just think that's so important. So I just love that. Thank you. After two decades in grooming and with your background as a gerontologist, what inspired you to focus on senior dogs? And I guess how did gray whiskers in general just take shape?

Speaker 4 (09:50):

So I started off in the long-term care industry. I was in a nursing home for a while and I quickly realized I'd rather work with animals. So many people do. That's how it all starts for a lot of us, honestly. And so I switched to working with animals. I trained to be a groomer and started my own business doing that. I worked with dogs of all ages first and then second I learned massage therapy. So as a certified massage practitioner for rehab animals, so dogs who are going through specific medical conditions, a lot of that was old dogs not, excuse me, not surprisingly. So that's just kind of how that works in the rehab industry. And then I was having a conversation with a friend one day. She had an old dog who had passed out at the groomer heart problems and she was saying she didn't know how she was going to solve that for her.

(10:43):

So I was like, I can do better. There's got to be some way to fix this for them. And then I realized that senior dogs are falling through the cracks in many ways, not just in the grooming industry, but even in the veterinary care industry that's getting so much better in the training industry, also in the pet sitting and pet care industry in general. Senior dogs are just falling through the cracks. So I've really sort of taken that up as my mission since then to try to address as much of that as I can for people.

Speaker 2 (11:10):

Yeah, that's amazing. I'm so glad that you spearheaded this just for our listeners and for both of us too. Can you give us some examples of what's different about grooming a senior dog versus a younger dog, both physically and emotionally?

Speaker 4 (11:26):

That's a great question. I love that, and it's one of the reasons I love doing this so much because frankly, I started to find working with dogs of all ages, a little repetitive, and there's just something so special about a senior who comes and I go to them at their homes. So when I go to their homes, I get to see them in their natural little element and I get to see some of the challenges they're having every day. I work a lot with dogs with dementia, and so some of them don't necessarily like to be handled. They don't like to be restrained and they don't like to be held. So learning about the personality that they had leading up until the old age stage and then their medical problems too, really helps me. And seeing them in their home environment really helps me to provide the best service I can possible for them.

(12:14):

And I work a lot with advanced medical conditions because a lot of dogs have heart disease and they have cancer and they have Cushings and all kinds of medical conditions. It just takes a slower approach. It takes, I do have a lot of knowledge about the medical background of things. I research diseases, I don't know, and I know a lot about dementia from the gerontology world for humans as well. So I try to put myself in their place and then also the knowledge that I have with the medical piece of it to slow down for them and really provide dedicated services that are different for each dog's specific needs at that day.

Speaker 3 (12:53):

So you offer a certification for senior dog groomers, I guess people who maybe want to focus more on senior dogs. So what are the core topics that you teach in that and how do those things help improve care for just aging pets in general?

Speaker 4 (13:08):

Okay, sure. I'm so excited about this certification program. It's like my baby. It's the thing that I, it's the culmination of everything I've learned over the years because I did an apprenticeship to learn my grooming, and then I learned a lot over the years about the medical piece of things. So we haven't quite launched the certification yet because we're getting it into a format that's presentable for online teaching. But it's great so far. I've got a lot about behavior, behavior, recognizing the different signs of behavior and how a lot of people think, oh, if only dogs could talk. Well, dogs talk. They talk quite a lot. And when they get older, they have really strong opinions. You just really have to be able to read their behavior in order to understand what they're saying. So there's a lot about behavior. There's a lot about physically adapting the grooming process and the environment at home.

(14:01):

There's a lot about handling the dog in different ways, learning to use your body weight to offset the body weight of the dog as he can't necessarily stand on three or four legs and three legs anymore. So easily a lot about client communications because I'm huge into education and informing people. And many people just don't understand what the grooming process is for their dogs and what it asks of them to tolerate in order to go through a groom. So I work a lot with clients on trying to manage expectations and keep things realistic for them so that they understand the process and we can make it more of a lifestyle groom for the dog. I teach a lot about learning to research medical conditions so that if a dog is going to be on your grooming table and you don't necessarily know something about congestive heart failure, then I teach students the way to research that at a higher level and then to learn to translate that into what it means on the grooming table or during your session with them so that they can manage the groom accordingly. So those are just some of the highlights. There's a lot more

Speaker 2 (15:07):

That that's a lot that's like am masters in grooming, having to cover so many different elements of a senior dog's life. And also I would imagine you are often supporting pet parents when the time gets close to end of life, and do you help them with those discussions and decisions and what does that look like?

Speaker 4 (15:33):

I am there for people if they want me to be. It's kind of like a relationship with your hairstylist. Some people really unload every time they go to their hairstylist and some people don't. I'm there for whatever the client needs. I do a lot of what I would consider to be grief counseling during my process. A lot of talks about quality of life. I would say conversations about quality of life is the most intense thing that I do, which is not for the record easy to do while you're wielding a pair of scissors in front of a dog's eyeballs. I would just like to point that out.

(16:04):

So I do a lot of that and I do have conversations about end of life stuff. I try to avoid weighing, in my opinion, what I try to do is frame it in a way that works for my clients in that moment. Ask questions like, how is this going for you and your dog? And how is that working? And what do you think he's having in terms of, do you think he's having more good days than bad days? And I try to allow them to talk it through because sometimes that really helps. And then maybe they'll realize something in the end that they didn't realize when I was with them. That helps 'em come to some clarity on making decisions for how they can monitor their old dog going forward.

Speaker 3 (16:46):

I feel like there's a lot of overlap between what you do and just what we do from a training perspective, because we do just a lot of work on minimal restraint and handling, just trying to reduce stress and handling and grooming. So I'm curious what your kind of favorite tips and tricks are for dogs that don't like to be restrained. Do you have things that you'll use that are maybe different from the typical groomer restraint kind of things? And I guess are there things that people can do at home to help prepare their older dog for grooming and make it a little bit less stressful?

Speaker 4 (17:16):

For sure. So for dogs who don't like to be restrained, what I typically do is I'm monitoring their behavior so carefully that as the stress levels start to escalate, I'm able to say, okay, it's time to give her a break. And then we let her off the table. Or if I'm working on the ground with her, then we let her walk around and have a little walkabout. And usually I'm pretty low stress for most dogs to deal with. So what I find is most of the time they'll come right back to me. So we give them that little time. Dogs process things physiologically, so they process stress by walking and moving. So if I give them that little chance to spin around the table or outside the grooming area, then often it calms them down enough so that they can refocus. Sometimes for advanced dementia dogs, I have to do that quite a lot.

(18:03):

And for some dogs I don't, it just depends on the case, it depends on the day, it depends on the dynamic between the owner and the dog. It depends on how well the dog knows me. As far as restraints go, physical restraints on the table, I'm not a big fan of a lot of restraints on the table. They use groomers, use belly bands a lot, which are fabulous. They're a fantastic safety tool. It's a band that goes around the waist and under the thighs, and I like those to be wide and very soft if people are using those on dogs, because a lot of times with advanced senior dogs, which is what I work with, my average age is 15, we don't necessarily know there may be masses in the belly that hurt, or he may just be having digestive issues that cause that little thin strap to be uncomfortable. So say a wider strap around the belly. And then as for the neck, I don't ever use groomer's loops. The ones that go around the neck always use a harness because there's so many dogs who are elderly and have collapsed that aren't even want to go down that road. And then the last question was, what was the last question?

Speaker 3 (19:04):

Just talking about what people can do at home to just help

Speaker 4 (19:07):

Prepare their dogs. Oh, home to prepare their dogs.

(19:09):

Yeah. I really think the most important thing hands down people can do is have an open dialogue with the groomer that you're already using. Your groomer needs to have all the information about how your dog's medical conditions have progressed, what the medication is that they're on right now, has it changed? Are they having more good days than bad days? Is today a good day or a bad day? How did he do after his last groom? So just if your groomer is willing to have an open conversation with you, I think that's the most important key to really preparing your dog for the groom. And I have a lot about that. I actually have one of my newsletters about that on my website, so I've gone into that quite in depth too, because it's more than we can cover in just this quick time. But I would say that's the first place to start.

Speaker 2 (19:54):

That's great. And that was, you also answered my last question, and we are coming up in time, but for our listeners, can you tell us where we can learn more about your services and the future certification? And also if people are interested in getting on your newsletter, where did they go?

Speaker 4 (20:11):

Sure, thank you. So Gray whiskers.dog takes you to everything you need. It's got the newsletter sign up for subscription there. It has the grooming certification and the community for groomers there. It also has the pet owner community there as well, once that's launched. And then it also has booking for my grooming services and then a direct connection to me. So it's all in one place.

Speaker 2 (20:33):

Fantastic. Well, as we all know, senior dogs are so, so special, and thank you so much for dedicating this very focused niche of attention in the grooming arena. And you're really making a difference for senior dogs and the people that love them.

Speaker 4 (20:48):

Thank you for having me, and I'm lucky to be able to do this work.

Speaker 2 (20:55):

It makes me think about my senior dogs that I've had and how senior ages really sneaks up on you.

Speaker 3 (21:03):

It does.

Speaker 2 (21:04):

Sometimes we don't realize our pets are seniors when they are seniors,

Speaker 3 (21:09):

And this is just such an important niche for her to be doing. I'm so glad that someone is doing this because it's so important for our older dogs to get compassionate care.

Speaker 2 (21:19):

And I look forward to the day when regardless of where you live, you can find a groomer for your senior dog that specializes and is certified in that. I love that. Way to go, Angela. Alright everybody, join me in welcoming our guest mlu. He's the founder and CEO of Maven pet, a smart pet health platform that blends AI and veterinary oversight to continuously monitor dogs and cats. Now, it was launched in 2023 and Mavens wearable sensor and data dashboard empowers pet owners and veterinarians to detect issues early and to deliver proactive care. And this can prevent serious health problems before the symptoms even appear. Gleer has a background in clinical informatics and bioinformatics, and he previously co-founded CPG startups. He also founded Maven to shift veterinary care from reactive to preventative and is driven by the belief that pets don't talk, but their data can help us understand them. Welcome.

Speaker 5 (22:23):

Hi. Hi everyone. What an introduction. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (22:26):

Well, it's all you. It's You've been a busy guy.

Speaker 5 (22:30):

Yes, it's true.

Speaker 2 (22:32):

I love it. Lemme just kick off the questions by asking you, I mentioned in the intro that you said pets don't talk, but the data can. So what was the moment where you realized that data could close the gap between pets and their owners?

Speaker 5 (22:47):

So I think I've been in the pet market for almost 10 years now, and I've been a pet owner in my life. So I grew up with pets. I don't actually know what live is without pets. And when I was studying and finishing my master on biomedical engineering and data, it was at the same time that one of my dogs suddenly start suddenly is no longer able to send it by himself. And this was a very active dog, a big breed. It was a lab mixed with us. And basically when we took Tommy to the vets, we realized it was already too late. There was pretty much nothing we could do about it to reverse the situation. I knew the market and personally, I couldn't stop thinking about the signals that I was pretty sure were there early on. So now we know that dogs that start developing joint problems, they'd start to get letic, they start to reach less intense levels of exercise, they start to be restless in the middle of the night, maybe there's a spike on the resting respiratory rate. And those are all things that we humans we cannot measure, quantify, understand deviations, but a wearable sensor data technology can. And so that was the genesis at Maven that believed that because pets cannot tell how they're feeling if they're in pain, if something is wrong, if we are overexercising them, but we can have that information, that same information through data. So that was a complex combination of experience turned out and was the reason why we funded Maven a couple of years ago.

Speaker 3 (24:27):

So Maven debuted with vital sign tracking. So what new health metrics are you guys working on next? And I guess how do you balance accuracy, usability, privacy, just kind of finding the balance of those pieces?

Speaker 5 (24:44):

So one important key aspect is that data means nothing if you cannot transform it into value. And now I see value is something that I can act on, so a behavior that I can change, a medication I can introduce. And one of the first things that we did was make sure we work with veterinarians with experience in the industry across everything that we do from the product side team to the tech team, to the data team, to the clinical studies and research team. And so we go as deep as we can on data, but then we treat that data to make sure it's simple and actionable to the pattern.

(25:27):

To answer your question, obviously the first metrics, the first health perimeters to track was everything related to activity, different levels of activity, sleep, sleep scores, and the amount of hours, slab, sleep interruptions, all those things. And then we start to be more focused on biometrics. So one year ago we launched the resting respiratory rate, which has already been validated by the University of Florida. And just last month we launched heart rate, which now we just kick off the study to validate that feature as well externally with external entities. And then we also do what we call two clinically relevant behaviors, which is water consumption for dogs that have chronic condition, she cells diabetes, Addison Cushing disease, and then itching behavior, which is allergies. And springtime, it's crucial to measure that. And so every new behavior that we track, we first do exploratory analysis with our own dogs, then we expand a little bit to friends and families.

(26:31):

And then when we think it's in enough of a mature place in terms of accuracy, we work with external entities such as universities and the research center that validate the feature and we write publications about that. So that's our process. We work very close with these entities and the vets to make sure that we build something that's clinically relevant and that's a unique position that Maven has compared to other wearables that are more on the funny side and the gamification aspect of pets, which is also important. But from day one, we do want to be this clinical grade system and device that can really pinpoint problems on an early stage.

Speaker 2 (27:12):

Yeah, that's so interesting. Glare. I noticed on the Maven website a statistic that said 68% of pet deaths could be avoided if the issues were caught early on. That's a pretty powerful statistic. Can you give us an example of how Maven has detected a particular condition or illness in a dog that was ultimately saved from that?

Speaker 5 (27:43):

So we have hundreds of stories like that. So the thing about the industry is that everything is reactive. So pet owners only realized that something is wrong with their pets just like I did. When there's a clear effect of it. In my case, my dog suddenly cannot stand up by himself. But if we're talking about the diabetic, suddenly the dog is eating the walls because they can no longer see if we're talking about a dog with a heart problem, suddenly they have, it's it. It's taking a lot of a heartford to breed and there's a strange noise about it. And that's when pets realized. But the thing with Maven is that on all these situations that I just described, signals were there early on. So we do have a lot of cardiac patients that they've just been diagnosed with a heart murmur or it's a small breed that's getting older.

(28:36):

So it's highly prone to heart problems. The pet can go four or five years without it being diagnosed, but the moment it gets diagnosed, the pet has a short period of years that rest. But if we detect the problem one or two years in advance because there's increases on the respiratory rates, we can implement a treatment and the pet can keep living their life for long, healthier years. So in some of the cases, just like this one, small breeds, it's not a matter of if they will have a heart problem, unfortunately, it's a matter of when. And so we want to make sure that when signals start to appear, these incremental changes that happen on a weekly and monthly basis, that we can flag those because it's way easier to treat the pet on an early stage compared to an late stage. And this is a reality for pets as is a reality for our own human health. And so respiratory cases, diabetes, mobility issues such as joint problems, I dysplasia, those are our top use cases where we can clearly understand early on when something is wrong.

Speaker 3 (29:46):

So it's interesting, this reminds me, I was thinking about it when I had my kids when they were babies. There's a wearable sock that I had on both of them, and it just tracked basic, I think it's oxygen and heart rate, but for me it was the biggest peace of mind to have something, especially at night when I wasn't watching them. And so do you find that people give you that feedback? This just gives me peace of mind, even when nothing's wrong, it's nice to know that there's kind of a baseline that's normal.

Speaker 5 (30:15):

So the first thing, our users use our mobile app several times a day. So particularly when they are away from their pets, because if you log in on Maven, on your dashboard, you have a summary of all the metrics and then you have a quick saying that everything is fine, there's no normality within the parameters, and then you can close the app and go on with your line. So a lot of the sessions we have are five to 10 seconds, which is precisely what you were saying, just that quick nudge, everything is fine, I can go on with my line. And that's exactly what pets are looking for. So when we did a study at the beginning of the year where we interview a lot of pet owners and there's a duality about being a pet owner. So it's, people mentioned love, joy, but they also mentioned stress, overwhelm, things like that.

(31:07):

And when we double down on why is it stressful, why do you feel overwhelmed is because they cannot understand or control, but control. I don't like the word control. They cannot understand how their dog is feeling, right? And when you ask, but how do you feel stressed? Because at night I'm looking at my pet, they are laying down next to me. I have no idea if they are in pain, if they have an amazing day, if they feel energized, if they're ready to go to bed. And so we at Maven want to help make or shift the focus towards the positive things and not search the negative things. Because when you feel stressful or when you feel overwhelmed about your pet, you can just pick up your phone, go on your Maven app and have that green light that everything is fine, nothing to worry, just enjoy being a pet owner. And so yeah, we do see a lot of pet owners that they feel more connected with a pet, more at peace because they now have a way to almost communicate with their pets.

Speaker 2 (32:08):

Well, thank you not only for being on the show with us today, but for dedicating your time and efforts to creating better lives for dogs and the people who love them. Well, first of all, let me just say that I pronounced his name correctly. Yes, you did. We got there. We figured out. I'm just patting myself on the back. No, but I think that's why, oh my gosh, that was really a fascinating interview and I think that I'm definitely going to look into Maven for my dog Tulip. I actually had, this is a long time ago, I used an activity tracker from my previous dog chili, and one of the most important pieces of data that I learned from it was one day I picked him up from doggy daycare and he was lethargic. He was just really out of it, very uncharacteristic of him. I checked his activity tracker and his playtime had spiked at noon, which at the time I lived in Florida in the summer. So I pulled him out of that daycare. We didn't go back because obviously he was playing too much. But anyway, all that just to say that these tools give us so much data that's actionable. And like you said, they give us peace of mind when things are good.

(33:27):

Alex, this is the part of the show where we share two pet products, and this one actually costs me money sometimes because when I'm searching for a new pet product to share, I often buy it.

Speaker 3 (33:40):

Yes, I have that problem as well.

Speaker 2 (33:42):

Yeah. But I'm going to let you go first since you're our guest host. What is your product of the week?

Speaker 3 (33:47):

So this is one that I use all the time in my practice. My trainers use it all the time. It is the outward hound tail teaser. So if you've ever seen a cat toy that looks kind of like a fishing pole, this is sort of the dog version of that. So it's a bigger version. We call it a flirt pole. It has a little squirrel looking thing on the end of it, and there's a million different flirt poles out there. But this one is my favorite. It's the only one that has a realistic looking little creature on the end of it. And I find that most dogs are more interested in it than one that has just a boring little piece of fabric on the end of it. So the idea is that we are eliciting a natural chase slash predatory response and allowing the dog to just chase after something.

(34:28):

It is a great way to get rid of some extra energy while also giving the dog some mental stimulation. We love it, especially for puppies that are bity, mouthy puppies, where so often we want to correct the issue and say, oh, we don't want this puppy biting at all. But for the first six, seven months of life, mouthing is a pretty normal puppy behavior, but to completely eliminate it isn't exactly fair. That kind of behavior has to go somewhere so often. So this is a great way to channel that into something appropriate. So don't bite me, you can bite and chase and play this little guy. So we just have people run it along the ground. So you keep the little squirrel along the ground, running it in long lines back and forth. Ideally outside, you don't want to do this on a slippery surface, but five or 10 minutes of this once or twice a day will go such a long way for a dog that just naturally likes to chase and stalk and hunt and bite things. So one of my absolute favorite things,

Speaker 2 (35:23):

I might just get one for Tulip, my dog, because she loves, we have little chipmunks and critters outside and we have to keep her on a leash when we walk her because she'll chase off. That's a great

Speaker 3 (35:35):

To channel that great way to channel that. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:37):

Awesome. That's a good one. So my product of the day or the week is this is for cats. I figured we'd throw something in here for kitty cats today. These are called true blue fresh fur cat wipes. Now you might be wondering why would you need a cat wipe? Because cats bathe themselves. However, sometimes it could be helpful, especially if your cat is an indoor outdoor cat or maybe an elderly cat that has trouble reaching certain areas of her body. These are really gentle, a hundred percent natural and organic ingredients, and they claim to be veterinary formulated too. So this can remove extra dirt, dander, drool, and other unmentionables maybe on the back end there just to kind of maybe like a pre-wash for your cat before they give themselves a bath. And let's see, let's see. It has natural honeysuckle, which apparently helps to fight germs and bacteria made in the USA. And I was reading the customer reviews and people really, really love them. And they say the cats love 'em too. They don't have a strong smell because cats are not great with fragrances. So I thought that was a good benefit and it looks like you can get them on Amazon, chewy and other pet retailers. So just a kind of great grooming tool without the drama of bath time.

Speaker 3 (37:04):

I love that. And probably pretty easy with a cat to be able to just do a wipe versus something that you're having to hold them down and brush or something. It's just a quick and easy way to do that.

Speaker 2 (37:12):

Exactly, yeah, with a wipe, you could give 'em an ear rub and just, have you ever given a cat a bath?

Speaker 3 (37:20):

No, I do not have a death wish.

Speaker 2 (37:24):

Yes. So opt for the cat wipes over the bathtime

Speaker 1 (37:30):

Q and a,

Speaker 2 (37:32):

Alex, we have made it to our favorite section of the show, and that is where we get to answer two questions from our listeners. And I'm really glad you're here because we have a training question today. So I'm absolutely going to toss this one to you. But every single week we take two questions from viewers. If you are listening or watching and you want to get your question answered, it's really, really simple. All you do is you go to our website, which is pets at life.org/podcast, and then you just scroll down to the bottom of the page where you can either type in your question and submit it, or what we would prefer is if you would do a voice recording, you have the option there on the page to record yourself actually asking the question. So we encourage you to do that, and then we just kind of randomly select questions. Sometimes it's based on who our guests are. And today we just thought we had a really ideal question for you, Alex, would you like to hear it? Sure. Okay. Alright. So this one's from Priya in Austin, Texas, and Priya says there's a lot of talk about obedience training versus behavior training. What is the real difference and which one should I start with?

Speaker 3 (38:43):

Great question. So I think to me, obedience and behavior are both equally important. They're very different types of training. So when we think of obedience training, it's more foundational work. So functional behaviors like sit down, place, stay, the more traditional things that we think about maybe when we think of dog training, we're looking on the behavior side. We're looking at things like aggression, reactivity, fear, just all of those other emotion driven behaviors would be more along the lines of what we're looking at when we're dealing with behavior. I think it's also important to note that there's a lot of misconception out there about what qualifies someone as a behaviorist, that word is thrown around a lot, but technically speaking it means someone that has actually an advanced degree in behavior. And there's actually very few veterinary behaviorists in the country. So I would never call myself a behaviorist, even though I'm highly qualified to work behavior cases.

(39:40):

We really reserve that title for people who have advanced education in behavior on an academic level. So with that said, those of us that do work in behavior, there are great qualification certifications that you can get to just show that you are qualified and able to work with behavior cases. But to answer her question, what should she start with? If you have a brand new puppy, to me it all kind of goes hand in hand because while we're starting on obedience work, we're also doing preventative behavior work too. So things like preventing fear, preventing anxiety, preventing aggression. So a lot of that is socialization, early handling skills, getting them exposed to things early on. So a good trainer isn't going to approach things purely from an obedience perspective. You can have a dog with the best say and recall in the world still bites people because it's two very different types of work.

(40:32):

So our goal is always to prevent a dog from ever exhibiting any of those undesirable behaviors, but also when we see them to be able to give the owner and the dog the skills to work through those. So they are not interchangeable. So she's definitely right that it is different, but it's very dependent on the individual dog's needs and what your goals are too. So if we're looking at, again, those behavior things like aggression, reactivity, fear, those are obviously more important to us than obedience, and we don't use obedience to treat them. So we're using very different types of behavior modification when we're dealing with those. We're not going to be treating aggression with a place in a stay.

Speaker 2 (41:10):

Yeah, great answer. And is it ever too late to train obedience? Let's say you adopt a four or 5-year-old dog. Is it ever too late to teach them new tricks, so to speak?

Speaker 3 (41:21):

I love that question. It's really not too late. We actually work with lots of senior dogs. We might modify exercises for them. So if we have a dog that maybe has physical limitations, we're not going to make that dog do a bunch of sits and downs if it's physically uncomfortable for them. But we'll find modifications and things that are functional for what the owner's goals are so that they can still get their needs met. But we make sure that we modify things as needed for that older dog. But no, cognitively speaking, never too late.

Speaker 2 (41:47):

Awesome. That's good to know. All right, well thank you Priya for your question. I hope that was helpful.

Speaker 3 (41:52):

Yeah, great question. I love that.

Speaker 2 (41:53):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (41:55):

Is this when I ask you a question?

Speaker 2 (41:57):

Yeah, you ask me a question and we're going to do the cat question.

Speaker 3 (42:01):

Okay. Alright. So this is from Jason in Seattle, Washington, and his question is, my cat goes nuts at night, dashing around meowing, scratching doors. Is this normal midnight crazies behavior or should I worry?

Speaker 2 (42:18):

Well, this is also a great question and it sounds like you're describing the classic zoomies and cats get zoomies just like dogs do. And the reason they tend to get zoomies at night is that cats are naturally ular creatures. So they're most active at dawn and at dusk, and they're also nocturnal. So in the wild, this is prime hunting time. So your indoor cat still has those instincts. And so when the house gets quiet at night, they're kind of going into hunt mode. So it's normal that they have these short burst of activity. Typically, it happens at the same time every night, which sounds like what you're describing. And usually the cats are happy, not really distressed, but I guess the time to maybe worry would be if this is a very sudden change in your cat's behavior or if it's accompanied by excessive vocalization or your cat sounds distressed.

(43:15):

And then for a few quick fixes, if you want to kind of maybe modify that behavior, you can increase the daytime playing sessions to tire them out a little bit. Also, it's a really good idea to feed them a little bit before you go to bed. So this would be like their natural hunting time and rather than just putting it in their food bowl, try hiding little bits of kibble. Or if you feed a moist or wet food, you can put them in little tiny bowls and hide them around the house so that they literally have to hunt to find that food. And you can also consider a puzzle feeder. We obviously talk about puzzle feeders a lot when it comes to dogs, but they make puzzle feeders for cats too. And those can keep your cat busy and hopefully a little bit quieter when you're trying to sleep. But it is a normal behavior unless like I said before, it's something that's just suddenly happened and maybe your cat sounds distressed while doing so.

Speaker 3 (44:17):

So interesting. Love that.

Speaker 2 (44:18):

Yeah. Did I miss anything on that? I don't know if you ever train cats.

Speaker 3 (44:24):

I don't. I really don't. But there are so many similarities to what we do with dogs. I'm just listening like, oh, this is so interesting because dogs obviously don't have the same activity level that you were describing at Dusk and Dawn. That's not typically when they're necessarily most active, but we do see sort of an evening zoomies in a lot of dogs, and a lot of times we'll tell people the dog's not getting enough daytime sleep. So it all kind of either comes out because they're overtired in the case of dogs. So it's a little bit different, but it's just so interesting to listen to. It's such great tips.

Speaker 2 (44:57):

I just thought of something funny. My dog Tulip gets the zoomies after she poops. Is that common? It's a big event. She feels so much better.

Speaker 3 (45:10):

Do so much lighter. Yeah, we do see that where they get so excited afterwards. So she's not alone in that.

Speaker 2 (45:16):

See you got your listeners here. You're not going to hear stuff like this on any other podcast. We talk about the real deal stuff that Paris do. We're

Speaker 3 (45:24):

Hitting the hard topics today.

Speaker 2 (45:26):

Before we go, we get to make an exciting announcement. It is from Dog tv, who is a co-producer of the Pet's Ad Life podcast. Recently they were doing a search for a chief dog officer for dog tv.

Speaker 3 (45:41):

That's amazing.

Speaker 2 (45:42):

Yeah, I mean, it's an actual job that the dog actually gets paid for. So I bet there were just tons of entries. But the requirements was you had to be a dog, you had to have a human who can film. I'm already out. You had to have a human who could film and post regular social content. You had to love the camera and bring a big personality, even bigger than heart and bigger than tail wax. So I am super excited that we're about to announce who the winner is.

Speaker 3 (46:12):

Oh, that's so exciting.

Speaker 2 (46:14):

And the winner is

Speaker 6 (46:16):

The new chief Dog Officer. Is Willie Good dog Dog. TV's new chief dog officer. Is Willie Good dog, who together with his brother Jax, will soon be bringing all dog TV's fans, some awesome dog friendly adventure videos. So stay tuned.

Speaker 2 (46:39):

Well good luck to our new studio, chief Dog Officer. What a great opportunity for a dog. And thank you for all of those folks that entered your dog. Thank you for participating. Well, Alex, believe it or not, we are at the tail end of the show and it flew by as usual. And you are awesome. Did you enjoy it?

Speaker 3 (47:00):

Thanks for having me. It was way too much fun.

Speaker 2 (47:02):

So remind our listeners and viewers where they can follow you.

Speaker 3 (47:06):

Yes, you can follow us on Instagram at peach, on a leash on facebook.com/peach a leash, and then our website is peach on a leash.com.

Speaker 2 (47:13):

Awesome. Well, it's been really fun having you. Thank you. I hope you'll join us again when Chris is out. I love that. So if you are listening on your favorite podcast app, you can also watch us on Dog TV's YouTube channel, or you can catch us on their Unleashed channel, which is on Amazon Fire Channels. And you can also follow us on all the pets ad live socials, whatever your preferred social platform is. And other than that, it's a wrap for the show. And until next week down, stay Pets

Speaker 1 (47:46):

Ad life, your guide to the latest in Pet Trends products, and the joy of the Human Animal Bond with Kristen Levine and Chris Bonti, powered by the American Pet Products Association and Dog tv.