Podcast appearances and mentions of linda case

Hello there!In this special rerun of The Pet Food Podcast Show, we revisit a conversation with Linda Case, a leading figure in pet nutrition, who explores fresh ways of making scientific knowledge more accessible in the pet food industry. Linda shares her insights on the complexities of plant-based diets, the benefits of insect-based proteins, and the hurdles of communicating science clearly to both pet owners and industry professionals. Tune in for an engaging look at sustainable pet nutrition and the latest industry trends. Available now on all major platforms!"Bridging the gap between scientific research and practical pet care is essential for informed nutrition choices."Meet the guest: Linda Case, owner of The Science Dog and AutumnGold Consulting, holds an MS in Canine/Feline Nutrition from the University of Illinois and a background in animal sciences from Cornell University. Renowned in the pet food industry, Linda is dedicated to advancing pet health through scientific writing and online courses. Her work bridges academic research with practical knowledge for professionals.What will you learn:(00:00) Highlight(01:10) Introduction(04:49) Online pet courses(10:25) Knowledge translation(16:29) Perspectives on pet nutrition(28:18) Plant-based pet food trends(37:55) Sustainable protein options(44:23) Final QuestionsThe Pet Food Science Podcast Show is trusted and supported by innovative companies like:* Kemin* Trouw Nutrition- EW Nutrition- Alura- Symrise- Biorigin- Corbion- ICC- Scoular- ProAmpac

Welcome to The Empowerment Exchange, where we believe in the power of transformation through shared wisdom and inspiration. Join us on a journey of self-discovery, growth, and empowerment as we engage in candid conversations with thought leaders, experts, and everyday individuals who have embarked on their own paths of personal development.In each episode, we explore a wide range of topics designed to uplift and motivate you to become the best version of yourself. From practical tips for achieving your goals to insightful discussions on overcoming challenges, our goal is to provide you with the tools, insights, and encouragement you need to thrive in every aspect of your life.Whether you're seeking guidance in relationships, career advancement, wellness, or simply looking to enrich your mindset, The Empowerment Exchange offers a safe space for learning, reflection, and connection. Get ready to be inspired, empowered, and equipped to create positive change in your life and the world around you.Tune in to The Empowerment Exchange and join the conversation today!PS: If You are a Coach or Consultant Looking to Grow your business organically and reduce stress then Join our Biz School Community with 50% off Today.Here is More information Link Below-https://www.skool.com/biz-school-community-4365?invite=db4c04ac4e1945a6942e3396caf656baBuild your own Community 2 weeks Free Skool Platform Triall: https://www.skool.com/refer?ref=6ffb188375cb4188963b34eb9b4200d8Links: My Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/InulC786My LinkedIn :https://www.linkedin.com/in/inul-chowdhury-818a00157?My TickTok : https://www.tiktok.com/@inulchowdhury?_t=8jcs1NKOq1p&_r=1My Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/inulchowdhury786?igsh=cjdyY2hkb2RnNHFwMyPodcasts : https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/inulchowdhury786My Website : www.inulchowdhury.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Unraveling pet nutrition's complexities is crucial for the pet food industry's dedication to enhancing animal health and welfare. This episode features Linda Case, who discusses healthier diets for dogs and cats, including plant-based alternatives and the significance of informed decisions. Gain expert insights to improve the pet's well-being by listening now for an in-depth comprehension of their dietary requirements."Bridging the gap between scientific research and practical pet care is essential for informed nutrition choices."What you'll learn:(00:00) Highlight(01:35) Introduction(11:62) The role of knowledge translation in pet nutrition(15:08) Emphasizing evidence-based science in pet care(21:03) Favorite projects and the impact on pet nutrition(26:54) Potential role of AI in knowledge translation(28:39) Introduction to plant-based diets for dogs(47:12) The final questionsMeet the guest: Linda Case, owner of The Science Dog and AutumnGold Consulting, is a renowned figure in the pet food industry. With an MS in Canine/Feline Nutrition from the University of Illinois and a rich background in animal sciences from Cornell University, Linda has dedicated her career to enhancing pet health through scientific writing, consulting, and online courses. Her work at The Science Dog Courses bridges the gap between academic research and practical knowledge for pet professionals, making her a pivotal voice in the discussion on pet nutrition and care.The Pet Food Science Podcast Show is trusted and supported by innovative companies like:* Trouw Nutrition* Kemin- Innovafeed- ProAmpac- Wilbur-Ellis Nutrition- ICC- ADMAre you ready to unleash the podcasting potential of your company? wisenetix.co/custom-podcast

SHOW DESCRIPTIONE:2 | Dedicated to: Gustavo, a Goldador from Boulder, COThis Episode is sponsored by Fig & TylerIn Episode 2 of The Love, Dog Podcast, hosts Mark Drucker and Drew Webster interview internationally acclaimed canine nutritionist, Linda Case. Their conversation takes a deep dive into the most important topics related to feeding dogs, including the importance of feeding puppies a lean diet, the many different types of dog food available to pet parents and dog guardians, and the factors to consider when selecting dog food. The conversation also touches on the importance of managing weight, and the importance of adjusting diet as dogs age. As a Hot Topic, the hosts and guest discuss human food vs. pet food. They also discuss the current debate over grain-free diets, whether or not it's ok to feed your dog chocolate, Et al.Links From Episode1. If you enjoyed the show and found it helpful, we'd love it if you'd consider supporting the podcast with a donation of any amount Ko-Fi THANK YOU!2. Linda Cases's blog: thesciencedog.com3. Canine research: BSM PartnersBooks by Linda Case: Dog Food Logic Chapters00:00 Podcast opens04:12 Intro by Mark Drucker07:28 Guest Introduction: Linda Case9:38 Stages of Development and Feeding Dogs18:40 Switching from Puppy to Adult Food19:40 Feeding Large and Giant Breeds25:00 Understanding Dog Food Options26:40 Factors to Consider in Dog Food Selection39:44 Different Types of Dog Food47:37 Variety in Dog Food and Enjoyment49:29 Essential Considerations in Dog Food Selection51:50 Dealing with Obesity in Dogs52:55 Managing Weight in Older Dogs58:05 The Importance of Adjusting Diet as Dogs Age01:00:33 The Connection Between Weight and Pain in Dogs01:02:37 Feeding Dogs During Training and the Importance of Portion Control01:07:39 Hot Topic: Human Food vs. Pet Food 01:12:53 The Debate Over Grain-Free Diets01:21:48 Can your dog eat chocolate?

Linda shares advent and her Jesse Tree for teaching children and grandchildren the true meaning of Christmas in a meaningful and fun way. We want to hear from YOU! If you would like to submit a question or comment for further discussion, please email us at: questions@afjministry.com.

Today's podcast is brought to you by SimpleNexus, an nCino Company, and award-winning developer of mortgage technology for modern lenders. SimpleNexus leads the pack in mortgage technology innovation, continuously introducing new features that enable lenders to support borrowers at every step of the homeownership journey. Learn more at simplenexus.com.

Upcoming Event!How Can Mindfulness Help You Reach Financial Independence?Do you want to reduce money anxiety, but don't know who to trust?Would you like to learn how to set up and manage your own retirement plan?Do you want to know how we create a passive income stream you can't outlive?If yes, join us and learn how to answer the 4 critical financial independence questions:Am I on track for financial independence?What do I need to do to get on track?How do I design a mindful investing portfolio?How do I manage that portfolio and my income over time through changing markets?Learn more: https://courses.mindful.money/financial-independence-bootcampLinda Case is a financial therapist and financial coach with over thirty years combined experience in financial services, professional counseling, and coaching. She coaches her clients to manage their money and mindset so they can get firmly on the path to financial freedom and comfortable retirement. Today, Linda joins the show to speak about female entrepreneurship, why the best laid financial plans don't always pan out, and her thoughts on the conditioning of limited beliefs.

In this episode, Linda Case joins me and co-host Drew Webster (CPDT-KA, CDBC) to talk about what we need to know when feeding our dogs. We discuss:Changing nutritional needs from puppies to seniorsMaintaining a healthy and balanced diet while using treats for trainingGeneral effects of diet on behaviorChoosing the best diet based on quality, budget, and personal valuesHow the ingredients and level of food processing mattersLinda Case's bio:Linda Case is well-known author, canine nutritionist, and dog trainer. She earned her B.S. in Animal Science at Cornell University and her M.S. in Canine/Feline Nutrition at the University of Illinois. Following graduate school, Linda was a lecturer in canine and feline science in the Animal Sciences Department at the University of Illinois for 15 years and then taught companion animal behavior and training at the College of Veterinary Medicine. Linda is the author of numerous publications and nine books, including Feeding Smart with The Science Dog, Dog Smart, Beware the Straw Man, and Dog Food Logic. She owns AutumnGold Dog Training Center in central IL and also operates The Science Dog Courses, an on-line education program that provides courses and webinars (https://courses.thesciencedog.com/). She is also the author of the popular Science Dog Blog (http://thesciencedog.wordpress.com). Linda and her husband Mike live in central Illinois and share their lives with two amazing dogs: Alice and Stanley, and Pete the cat. In addition to writing and teaching, Linda enjoys hiking, swimming, cycling, yoga, and gardening – all activities that she happily shares with her dogs.Links:The Science Dog Blog The Science Dog CoursesTheme music composed and performed by Andy SellsContact Behavior Vets tweet us @BehaviorVets follow us on Facebook email us at nyc@behaviorvets.com follow us on Instagram

Thank you to Appraisal Logistics for sponsoring today's podcast. Just this year, Appraisal Logistics decided to make AIM-Port, their appraisal management platform that has propelled them to success as an AMC, available for mortgage lenders looking get a better handle on their own appraisal operations. AIM-Port is a dynamic appraisal management platform that reduces costs, improves operational efficiency, and elevates the borrower experience for lenders who are seeking to maximize returns in these market conditions. Born from Appraisal Logistics, a full-service AMC licensed in all 50 states, AIM-Port's robust integrations, custom automations, and granular reporting tools are battle tested daily by their own staff and their many lender clients. Lenders using AIM-Port experience improved internal communication, automatic order allocation, seamless payment processing, and much more. Reach out to info@aim-port.com for to join the growing list of mortgage lenders seeing improvements in appraisal operations. That's info@aim-port.com

A book that anyone with an interest in companion animal including horse behaviour should read is "beware the straw man". In my latest podcast I get to catch up with its author Linda Case - The Science Dog. A terrific communicator of science, who has a wonderful way of highlighting how we need to think about the various bits of science coming out. She has a particular passion for nutrition as well, so needless to say we end up chatting a lot about what you should and should not feed your dog. All good common sense based on science. Despite the glitches int he internet, we had a great chat, and I am grateful to Sedrick Vangronsveld for his editing skills. This would eb a lot later coming out, if it was not for his expertise. Hope you enjoy it.

This is part two of our interview with Linda Case: trainer, author and owner of https://thesciencedog.com/ (The Science Dog). Linda's latest book, "Feeding Smart with The Science Dog," explores common myths and misconceptions surrounding canine nutrition and feeding practices. In this episode, Linda explains what AAFCO feeding trials are, what the "complete and balanced" claim on dog food means, and how important processing is in creating pet food (from kibble to wet food to raw diets). Listeners of The Good Dog Pod get 15% off the Good Dog merch store with the code GDP15. Go to https://shop.gooddog.com/ (shop.gooddog.com) to redeem this exclusive discount! If you are interested in entering the giveaway to win Linda's most recent book, "Feeding Smart with The Science Dog," fill out this form: https://goodbreedercenter.typeform.com/feedingsmart (goodbreedercenter.typeform.com/feedingsmart). This giveaway ends on Sunday, March 20th, 2022.

Dr. Mikel Delgado chats with Linda Case, trainer, author and owner of https://thesciencedog.com/ (The Science Dog). Linda's latest book, "Feeding Smart with The Science Dog," explores common myths and misconceptions surrounding canine nutrition and feeding practices. In this episode, Linda talks about what you can do to feed your dog right: understanding key concepts such as digestibility, how important it is to have a feeding routine, what a food being biologically appropriate means, and more. Listeners of The Good Dog Pod get 15% off the Good Dog merch store with the code GDP15. Go to https://shop.gooddog.com/ (shop.gooddog.com) to redeem this exclusive discount! If you are interested in entering the giveaway to win Linda's most recent book, "Feeding Smart with The Science Dog," fill out this form: https://goodbreedercenter.typeform.com/feedingsmart (goodbreedercenter.typeform.com/feedingsmart). This giveaway ends on Sunday, March 20th, 2022.

On today's sponsored episode, Malessa Smith, managing editor of content solutions at HousingWire is joined by Linda Case, the SVP loan administration at The Money Source. They discuss the current state of subservicing and the intricacies of service transfers. 

We share stories of overcoming worry, fear, & anxiety and share our Christmas traditions and why so important the joy of this during our Christmas season with our families.

In the 1970s, New York artist and UFO investigator Budd Hopkins began to specialize in abduction research after being confronted by multiple reports. He wrote about his research in the 1981 book “Missing Time” and it wasn't long after the book was published that people started to be featured in the press and on television with claims of their own abduction experiences. In an interview for the PBS series “Nova,” Hopkins stated that his “best case” was one that involved witnesses who claimed to have seen a woman accompanied by three small humanoids float out of a 12th story apartment in Manhattan and into a waiting craft close to the Brooklyn Bridge. The woman who was reportedly seen was originally identified by Hopkins as “Linda Cortile” (now known to be Linda Napolitano) and the case has become known as the “Linda Case” or the “Brooklyn Bridge Abduction Case.” Hopkins described the “Linda Case” in his 1996 book, “Witnessed.” According to him, Linda had written him a letter in spring of 1989 after reading his 1987 book, “Intruders.” In the letter she described seeing strange nighttime visitors while lying paralyzed in bed as a child. She also wrote that she was asked by a doctor about what looked like evidence of surgery inside her nose as he was dealing with some built up cartilage that caused a lump that had concerned her. She wrote that she had never had surgery in her nose and that this was confirmed by her mother. Read more →

Linda, wife of Rich and cofounder of ministry, shares how the ministry started and her personal experience in abiding.

In this episode of The Woof Meow Show from July 11th, 2020, Don and Kate talk about pet nutrition with author, and animal nutritionist, Linda Case. People often ask Linda, Kate, and I what we feed our pets. Unless they know us well, they are often surprised by our answer. In many cases, it may be the first time that person does not hear “Feed this brand of food, and this formula and never, ever change.” In this episode of The Woof Meow Show, Kate, Linda, and I discuss what criteria we look for in pet food, the various types of pet food, and then what we each actually feed our pets. During the course of our conversation, we address the pet food industry’s lack of transparency and all too frequent deceptive marketing. Pet food ingredients are a big topic in this show. Did you know that some of the ingredients used in pet food are considered “inedible?”  Are you aware pet food companies are prohibited from using any quality descriptors for ingredients on their label? During the show, we talk about the pictures that appear on a bag of kibble, such as a delicious roast chicken and how that photo in no way accurately portrays the frozen chicken frame that was actually used to make the food. We talk about kibble, the most common form of food fed to cats and dogs despite its dehydrating effects. If you want to learn what Kate, Linda, and I feed our pets and why you do not want to miss this podcast. You can listen to The Woof Meow Show on Z62 Retro Radio, AM620, and WKIT HD3 at 9 AM on Saturday. If you are not near a radio, listen on your computer at http://bit.ly/AM620-WZON or your smartphone or tablet with the free WZON 620 AM app. A podcast of the show is typically posted immediately after the show. You can download this show and others at http://bit.ly/WfMwPodcasts, at Don’s blog http://bit.ly/Words-Woofs-Meows and the Apple podcast app.   Contact Info Linda P. Case, MS AutumnGold Consulting and Dog Training Center Mahomet, IL (217) 586-4864 Autumngoldconsulting.com https://www.facebook.com/pg/LindaCaseAutumnGold/posts/ https://thesciencedog.wordpress.com/ Don Hanson & Kate DutraGreen Acres Kennel Shop & The Woof Meow Show Bangor, ME (207) 945-6841 https://www.greenacreskennel.com/ https://www.facebook.com/GreenAcresKennelShop/ https://woofmeowshow.libsyn.com/ https://www.facebook.com/WoofMeowShow/   Recommended Resources Articles on Don’s Blog ( http://www.words-woofs-meows.com  ) GAKS Philosophy on Pet Nutrition – http://bit.ly/GAKS_Nut_Phil Pet Foods We Offer At Green Acres Kennel Shop – http://bit.ly/GAKS_PetFood_Brands Pet Nutrition – Which Companies Are Behind Your Pet’s Food?  – http://bit.ly/PetFoodComp Things I Wish I Had Known… The Importance of What I Feed My Pets - – WWM-MAR2019 – http://bit.ly/Things-Nutrition-1 Pet Nutrition: Some Myths and Facts – Part 1 – My story with Gus – Maine Dog Magazine – Winter 2017 – http://bit.ly/Gus-Nutrition Pet Nutrition – What Should I Feed My Pet? – http://bit.ly/What-Should-I-Feed-My-Pet Pet Nutrition – What Do You Feed Your Dog? – WWM-JUN2016 - http://bit.ly/WhatDoYouFeedYourDog Pet Nutrition – The Wisdom of Rotating Your Pets Diet – Part 1 – http://bit.ly/DietRotation1-30JUL19 Pet Nutrition – The Wisdom of Rotating Your Pets Diet – Part 2 – http://bit.ly/DietRotation2 Podcasts from The Woof Meow Show ( http://bit.ly/WfMwPodcasts ) Podcast – DCM, the FDA, and Dog Food-the Science and the Hype with Canine Nutritionist Linda Case - http://bit.ly/Blog-DCM-FDA-8AUG19 Podcast – Is Feeding A Grain-Free Food to Our Dogs Dangerous?, with Linda Case, MS - http://bit.ly/Podcast-FDA-Grain-Free-LindaCase-29SEP18 Podcast – Pet Nutrition with Kymythy Schultze Author of Natural Nutrition for Cats: The Path to Purrfect Health – http://bit.ly/KymythySchultzeCatNutrition-Podcast Podcast – Pet Nutrition with Dr. Richard Patton - http://bit.ly/DrPatton-Podcast Podcast – Pet Fooled – A Look Inside A Questionable Industry with Kohl Harrington - http://bit.ly/WfMw-Pet-Fooled

Treinadores que trabalham com reforço positivo sempre expõe os benefícios para os cães, da mesma forma que advertem sobre os potenciais riscos de se usar métodos punitivos no treinamento. Mas será que esta história termina apenas na impressão? A treinadora … O post #29: Drops: Treinamento e relacionamento baseado em recompensas, Linda Case apareceu primeiro em Meu Nome Não É Não.

If you are concerned about heart disease in your pets and grain-free pet foods using non-standard proteins, you will not want to miss this show. Kate and Don speak with canine nutritionist Linda Case, author of Dog Food Logic about the June 29th 2019 press release from the FDA addressing their current investigation into a reported increase in cases of dilated cardiomyopathy in dogs and an alleged connection to what a few veterinarians are calling “BEG’ (Boutique, Exotic ingredient, Grain-free) pet foods.  We will discuss: We will discuss: Is there a proven correlation between DCM and ‘BEG’ foods? Has the investigation by the FDA been designed to meet the criteria for peer-reviewed scientific research? Has the FDA withheld information on some of the foods fed to dogs reported with DCM? Big pet food and how powerful they are. For information on Linda's webinar - https://thesciencedog.com/science-dog-webinars/

In this second of a two series, Kate and Don interview dog trainer and author Linda Case about her book Dog Smart: Evidence-based Training with The Science Dog. In the last episode, we focused on foundational material covered in the book. This week we get into the nitty-gritty of dog training and talk about: The benefits of working with a professional dog training instructor. Qualities to look for in a dog training instructor and what to avoid. Why it is so important to teach students how a dog learns and the most important things we can teach them on this topic. What is clicker training and why it is so useful when training a dog? The power of using food as a reward when training a dog. How we help students address undesirable behaviors, they experience with their dogs. The four most valuable behaviors we teach our students to train their dogs. If you want to learn about your dog and how to live together happily, you will want to listen to this show and read Linda’s book. Linda P. Case, MS AutumnGold Consulting and Dog Training Center Mahomet, IL (217) 586-4864 Autumngoldconsulting.com https://www.facebook.com/pg/LindaCaseAutumnGold/posts/ https://thesciencedog.wordpress.com/

In this first of a two-part series, Kate and Don interview dog trainer and author Linda Case about her book Dog Smart: Evidence-based Training with The Science Dog. When Don read and reviewed Linda’s book last December < Click to read review > he stated “If you love dogs or work with those who love dogs, you need to read this book!” and he knew we needed to get Linda to talk about her book on The Woof Meow Show. In this first episode we discuss some of the foundational material in the book such as the damage done by the myth of dominance, pack hierarchy and violence focused training, why your dogs breed matters, the importance of socialization and how it is often misunderstood, and the importance of understanding canine body language. If you want to learn about your dog and how to live together happily, you will want to listen to this show and read Linda’s book. Linda P. Case, MS AutumnGold Consulting and Dog Training Center Mahomet, IL (217) 586-4864 Autumngoldconsulting.com https://www.facebook.com/pg/LindaCaseAutumnGold/posts/ https://thesciencedog.wordpress.com/

A treinadora Linda Case mantém um site com diversos artigos sobre pesquisas científicas relacionadas ao bem-estar canino – educação/treinamento e também nutrição. No artigo deste podcast, intitulado Science Says: Nose Work is Good For Your Dog! (livre tradução: A Ciência … O post #7 Drops: A Ciência Diz: Nariz Trabalhando é Bom para Seu Cão!, de Linda Case apareceu primeiro em Meu Nome Não É Não.

Linda Case on her book Dog Smart, depth of dogs' cognitive abilities; Ellie Laks (My Gentle Barn); Sara Driscoll on co-authored Storm Rising: An FBI K-9 Mystery

Summary: Linda P. Case is a science writer, dog trainer, and canine nutritionist who lectures throughout the world about dog nutrition, training, behavior, and health. Her academic training is as a canine and feline nutritionist and trainer. She earned her B.S. in Animal Science at Cornell University and her M.S. in Canine/Feline Nutrition at the University of Illinois. She was a lecturer of companion animal science at the University of Illinois for 15 years and taught companion animal behavior and training at the College of Veterinary Medicine. Linda currently owns AutumnGold Consulting and Dog Training Center in Mahomet, IL. She is the author of numerous publications and eight books, as well as the popular blog “The Science Dog,” which I’ll make sure we link to in my show notes. Links: The Science Dog Blog Leave FDSA A Voicemail! Next Episode: To be released 11/16/2018, we'll be talking to Barbara Currier about teaching and training weave poles for agility!  TRANSCRIPTION: Melissa Breau: This is Melissa Breau and you're listening to the Fenzi Dog Sports Podcast brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy, an online school dedicated to providing high-quality instruction for competitive dog sports using only the most current and progressive training methods. Today we’ll be talking to Linda Case. Linda Case is a science writer, dog trainer, and canine nutritionist who lectures throughout the world about dog nutrition, training, behavior, and health. Her academic training is as a canine and feline nutritionist and trainer. She earned her B.S. in Animal Science at Cornell University and her M.S. in Canine/Feline Nutrition at the University of Illinois. She was a lecturer of companion animal science at the University of Illinois for 15 years and taught companion animal behavior and training at the College of Veterinary Medicine. Linda currently owns AutumnGold Consulting and Dog Training Center in Mahomet, IL. She is the author of numerous publications and eight books, as well as the popular blog “The Science Dog,” which I’ll make sure we link to in my show notes. (http://thesciencedog.wordpress.com/). Hi Linda! Welcome to the podcast. Linda Case: Hi Melissa. Thanks for having me. Melissa Breau: Did I totally butcher the name of where you live? Linda Case: No, you got it exactly. It was great, first shot. Melissa Breau: To start us out a little bit, do you want to tell us a little bit about the dogs that you have, and what you’re working on with them, and a little about you? Linda Case: Sure, sure. Currently my husband and I live with and love two dogs, which is low for us. We had a bad year last year and we lost two dogs in succession. But our two current dogs are Alice, who’s a 3-year-old Golden Retriever, and Cooper, who is a 7-year-old Golden Retriever. What we’re working on with them right now, which I know a lot of folks are excited about, all of the AutumnGold instructors — I have a group of great instructors that work with us at our school — we went to ClickerExpo last spring and we all got excited about concept training with Ken Ramirez, so I’m working on match-to-sample with them. We’re also working on object and identification in concept training with objects — colors and shapes and things like that. That’s not going so well, but match-to-sample is going well. Melissa Breau: That’s pretty cool. Linda Case: It is. It’s really cool. I love it because it brings together what’s the topic of my latest book is animal cognition and higher levels of thinking with behaviorism. I think it meshes those two so beautifully. I no longer show competitively, but I love to train tricks, so I’m doing quite a bit of tricks training with Alice and Cooper. My current goal … Alice is being trained to scoot backwards, like a backwards crawl, under a bunch of … it’s like basically a backwards Army crawl, and she loves that. And Cooper is doing a forwards Army crawl. My goal is to get them to do it together. Again, not going so well, but that’s my ultimate idea. Also I just want to mention that our school — I kind of separate these two — our school primarily works with what I call the highly interested pet owner. We have folks who want to do basic manners training and oftentimes want to do more, but they’re not generally dog sports folks. They’re people who just want to get out and have fun with their dogs. And so our school, we’re kind of challenged a lot of the time to provide things that are fun for them but not too intense, because then they may not want to do the competition stuff. So we recently came up with a concept that we call Life Skills Courses that are a bump up from your basic manners courses and things like good greeting behaviors, or being out in a park or even a dog park behaviors, or behaviors at doggie daycare, or behaviors at the vet. We also do things for CGC. So that’s where our school is, too. We wanted to do concept training with the school, but again that’s probably a little bit higher level than most of our clientele like or are interested in. Melissa Breau: I can see that. It definitely takes some commitment and some playing with things and a pretty solid understanding of training mechanics. Linda Case: Yeah, yeah. Sometimes I think we have a view … we look at it through rose-colored glasses, like, “Oh, everyone will love this!” And people are like, “Yeah, but I really just want my dog to sit when he says hello.” Melissa Breau: Right. I mentioned in your bio that you’re a science writer, dog trainer, and canine nutritionist — so which came first? How did you originally end up “in dogs,” as they say? Linda Case: I came by it very naturally. I actually grew up training, so I guess training came first. My mom was a dog trainer and she showed dogs, primarily in obedience, some tracking, and a little bit of conformation. She was also the leader of our 4-H Club when I was a kid, and that was a dog-training club, which was pretty cool, because back then those things were pretty rare. I started out with a Sheltie, and then, when I graduated from undergrad, that’s when I got into Goldens. My mom and I did a lot of training and showing around the country together, because when I started moving around, she would meet up with me and we’d go to seminars together, we’d go to shows, so that was a lot of fun. It was something really special in my life. So training definitely came first. Melissa Breau: That’s awesome. That sounds like such a unique opportunity to have family-bonding-type stuff but enjoy your dogs, too, especially as you travel around and do stuff with them. Linda Case: I know. I feel lucky to have had that. Melissa Breau: How did you get from that to focusing on nutrition? Linda Case: I would like to be one of those people that would say, “Oh, it’s been a passion of mine all my life,” but that would actually not be the truth. The truth is that I was an animal science major at Cornell, and at that time most animal science majors, if you were interested in companion animals rather than farm animals, you went to vet school. I wasn’t that interested in vet school, because I was training and showing dogs a lot and I knew I really wanted to do something with behavior and training. But this was a while ago, and at that time — I think things have changed amazingly in the years that followed — but at that time there really were no academic graduate programs in canine and feline behavior training. So I went back to my advisor, he was a great mentor at Cornell, and said, “I want to go back to school for something with dogs. What is there?” And at the time he said, “Linda, go into nutrition. You’ll get a job that way.” And he was right, because nutrition … it was in the mid-’80s, and nutrition was taking off as a field of study. Luckily my mentor here at U of I was also a former student at Cornell and a good friend with my advisors. She took me under her wing and was both my mentor as a dog person and in nutrition. So I did that and did find that it did become a passion, even though it wasn’t originally a passion, it was just “I want to do something with dogs.” Melissa Breau: Looking at that, is there a “best” or a “right” choice when it comes to nutrition? I know that’s kind of jumping straight into things, but … Linda Case: There probably is not a single “right” choice, but what I can say with confidence is that there are too many choices today, and that’s what baffles people and frustrates them and makes people finally throw up their hands and say, “How do I choose?” In my view, there are two problems with where we’re at right now with nutrition. One is that owners and consumers are not provided with adequate information about the foods that are available to them in order to choose well, and that’s a drum that I beat very hard in Dog Food Logic, in that book, things such as the food’s digestibility, ingredient quality, even ingredient sourcing. Many of those factors are hidden from pet owners, and they shouldn’t be. We should have full access, we should have full transparency, and we do not have that in the pet food industry. In fact, a lot of regulations are set up to hide many things from, or at least to not make them available to pet owners. So we don’t get the information that we need to choose. And the second is that there are so many choices and there are such small differences. I call it “a distinction without a difference” among these foods that it makes no difference, and people get confused because there are such small and subtle differences among these many choices in the different categories of foods. So that’s the long answer to say there is no clear choice, and even if there was, it would be hard for owners to choose because of the information they’re given today. Melissa Breau: Thinking about that, are there factors they should be considering? What should they be looking at when they’re trying to make a nutrition decision for their own dog? Linda Case: That’s actually the primary focus of my book Dog Food Logic, and the four primary factors that you can break that down into are, first and foremost, the dog, and that’s what I’ll be talking about primarily in the upcoming webinar — your dog’s life stage, their activity level, their health. And then the second would be the owner, and those factors really have a lot more to do with the owner’s values — what they think is important, what they’d like from a food, and also, sadly, economics. Lately I’ve been exploring some different types of foods, just exploring their digestibility and how valuable they are in terms of their nutrient content and their quality. One thing you’ll find is that there’s such a huge range in price point in these foods, so economics can affect a person’s decisions. The third thing, of course, is the food itself — the type it is, the ingredients, the information the owner is provided with and can have access to. And then number four would be the manufacturer — the manufacturer’s size, are they multinational, are they a small, private-owned company, certainly their long-term reputation, how many recalls have they had. Again a big one, this is my drum I keep beating: how transparent they are, how forthcoming they are with information when they’re asked by consumers. Those four factor categories are, I think, are the most important when you’re selecting food. Melissa Breau: It’s almost like you knew I was going to talk more about manufacturing in my next question! I used to actually cover pet food and pet manufacturing for my day job. I used to be a magazine editor at a business-to-business magazine covering that stuff. Of course, every manufacturer out there does their absolute best to make a case for why their food is the best on the market. What research is there that actually tells us what dogs need for a balanced diet? What do we really know, from a scientific perspective, about what we should be looking for? Linda Case: Of the questions that you sent me ahead of time, this was my favorite question, and the reason is that — you present it really well — is that it’s marketing today. Twenty-five years ago, when this field was really first taking off, science did govern the day. There were really great, small, start-up pet food companies that were hiring scientists, hiring nutritionists, they were doing really good research, they were partnering with universities and academic institutions to do this research, and food was about the science. But starting probably about 15 years ago, marketing — just as in the human food industry — became more and more the driving force, and it now pretty much owns pet food companies, so everything is driven by marketing. And so while marketing is very good at its job at selling pet foods to people, it tends to downplay and sometimes even mislead about the science. In fact, that’s one of the reasons “The Science Dog” was born, was trying to bring the science to the people that need it. So there is a real disconnect today between the scientific knowledge and the great research that’s being done, and I would argue this is true in behavior and training as much as it is in nutrition, between the science that’s being done and getting it to the people that need it, the people that are really interested in dogs, that want to do the best by their dogs, both in terms of the nutrition and training. So in terms of what we know, we know a lot. We know all of the nutrient requirements of dogs and cats, we know age differences, how activity affects the dog’s energy and basic nutrient needs, how certain health problems affect a dog’s nutrient needs. That knowledge is solid and it’s backed by good science. The problem is that it often doesn’t get where it needs to go, or it’s again misrepresented because of marketing practices. We also know a lot about many of the ingredients that are used in pet foods. I’m sure you’re aware of the recent grain-free scare and DCM in dogs. One of the problems with that — it’s a great example of ingredients that are relatively new to the pet food market and have not been studied in-depth. Things like chicken and rice and even lamb, all of those, certainly meat, pork, have been studied a great deal in terms of their nutrient availability, what happens to them when they’re extruded, what happens to them if they’re fed raw. We know a lot about those ingredients, but what we don’t know a lot about are the newer ingredients such as legumes and peas. They just haven’t been studied that much. It doesn’t mean they’re necessarily bad or they’re necessarily dangerous; they just haven’t been studied. We also know a lot about ingredient digestibility and safety, but again, does it get where it needs to go. It’s in the literature. It needs to just be disseminated in a better way, in my view. Melissa Breau: To dive a little more into that, it does seem like there are a lot of people trying to put out information. Everybody and their dog seem to be blogging about dog behavior, nutrition, all these things, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are all doing their research, or that the research that they’re doing is very good. Do you have any advice for, when you’re out there on the Internet, figuring out what’s reliable and what’s … not? How can folks tell what is based on research and what maybe is just somebody’s opinion dressed up as fact? Linda Case: What you’re really describing is evidence-based decision-making or evidence-based choices, which refers to saying, “If I’m going to make a choice, what evidence is there to support that choice and how reliable is that evidence?” Reliability of course is key. I hate to keep plugging my books, but I have a book called Beware The Straw Man, and the entire purpose of that book was to help interested dog owners and pet owners, and professionals as well, to understand how to sift through evidence that is reliable and evidence-based versus evidence that is just anecdote or opinion. Of course, you can always go back to the original research, but most folks don’t have the time or the interest to do that, so you have to find out where that information came from, what the original source was, how it’s being presented. But again, as far as the average pet owner goes, it can be really challenging. So I think critical thinking skills and being aware of some of the cognitive biases we have when we make decisions can be really helpful. This is why I said earlier this could be a three-hour conversation really easily, so I’m going to refer them to a book instead. Melissa Breau: Fair enough, fair enough. I know in addition to the nutrition stuff, you occasionally debunk training myths. I was curious: What are some of the oddest myths you’ve heard when it comes to training? I was wondering if you could debunk a few for us.   Linda Case: When I looked at this question I thought, Hmm, how do I pick? Because I probably have about twenty that I’ve written about, either on “The Science Dog” or in books. Probably one of my favorites, and I think many listeners will agree with this, but remember there’s a difference between what we intuit and what we believe to be true versus what we have actual evidence to be true, and it’s pretty common for the evidence to not support what we believe or to at least support part of it and hopefully change our beliefs. But this is actually one that most trainers already are onboard with but most pet owners are not, and that has to do with the guilty look. There’s the belief, this prevalent belief, amongst pet owners that when they come home and their dog is showing what they call “the guilty look,” which is usually just fear or submission, that that shows the dog knows he did something wrong or chewed something up or did something they didn’t like him to do, and therefore he’s showing guilt. There was a series of studies by Alexandra Horowitz and Julie Hecht, and Adam Miklosi also was involved in these, that showed once and for all it’s not guilt. It’s fear, and it’s fear of impending punishment. They did this through a series of very unique and creative studies, and I present it in the book Beware The Straw Man. It’s called “Death Throes of the Guilty Look,” and literally walks step-by-step through and say, you can actually fool the dog into thinking he did something, or into thinking that he’s going to be punished, rather, and he will show what’s called the guilty look. My hope is that that information can help trainers then convince their clients who are saying their dog feels guilty and shows guilt to understand that no, your dog has learned to show fear because they’re afraid of an impending punishment. The importance of that is not so much … we don’t really need to debate what the internal emotional state of the dog is, because I would argue it’s probably the same internal emotional state as humans when we supposedly show guilt. It’s basically fear of being caught at something you did wrong. It’s not that. It’s not that we would say, “Oh, they’re not feeling anything internally.” It’s rather that when we label a behavior as guilt, when we label it a certain way, that can then lead to improper and, in my view, cruel treatment of the dog, because if you say he’s feeling guilty, that means you can do something about it, which means punishing that dog, and that’s where we certainly go awry, rather than to understand your dog’s actually fearful, you should manage his environment better so these things don’t happen. That belief in guilt gets in the way of actually changing the behavior and changing how you manage that dog in another way. So that was one of my favorites. If we have time, a second one was an essay that I believe is still on the blog, but it’s also in … I think it’s in Beware The Straw Man and I also talk about it in Dog Smart. This one was called “The Kids Are All Right.” This I just found fascinating because we all know that it’s really important to teach children to be appropriate with dogs, to ask before they come up, and hopefully to learn to read a dog’s body language. I had a personal anecdote very recently with this, in that I was at our veterinarian’s office with Cooper just last week, and Cooper is pretty bombproof. He’s a very steady, easygoing Golden. He loves all people. But he was at the vet’s office, so he was a little nervous. As I was waiting to leave, I was actually talking to our vet about something, a little girl about 8 years old came up with her mom and she came up and said, “Can I pet your dog?” So I was like, “Good girl. You asked first.” And I said, “Sure, yes. He’s friendly.” Well, that’s where it went a little wrong, because she did start interacting with him, but she was very inappropriate in that she started — I’m sorry, that’s a dog drinking behind me, if you can hear that — she was very inappropriate with him. She threw her arms around him, she was leaning over him, she was way, way, way too close. Cooper put his tail down, he backed up, he was showing her every physical sign that he was uncomfortable. I intervened and said, “Hey, honey, you’re a little too close, he’s a little nervous, he’s at the vet’s,” and she was having none of it. This was how she interacted with dogs, and she was going to hug him. And Mom did nothing. Mom just stood there, because I think the mom looked at it as, “My job is done. I taught my child to ask before she went up to greet.” It ended up fine. We told her, “Back off, let him come to you, here’s a treat,” and everything ended up fine. But that story fits right into this essay. It was called “The Kids Are All Right,” and what they did, it was a series of studies from different researchers, which is wonderful because that is a really good way to corroborate information is if different researchers did the studies. They looked at a bunch of different programs that are available for teaching kids to be appropriate with dogs, for teaching kids to not only approach them correctly, but to pet them gently and to show appropriate body language and to read also body language from dogs who are unfriendly. They found that, above a certain age, these programs worked great with the kids. They did a test/retest, so they would test to see how the kids were before they’d had the training, they’d give them these trainings — and there were various types of training; some were online, some were onsite, there were various approaches — and then they’d retest to see did the kids learn something, and sure enough, they did. So this was all good. Then another study looked at the parents’ behavior, and what they found was that oftentimes the kids had learned this behavior, but their parents did exactly what this parent did that I saw. They taught their child to ask first, and then it was kind of like no holds barred, do whatever you want. And even though their child had been given this good information about good interactions with dogs, the parents didn’t follow through. The parents didn’t learn anything. So this essay basically is saying the kids are all right, they’re learning. We need to get to the parents and to teach them to teach their kids to be more gentle, to not encourage their kids. They even had examples in these studies of the kids showing appropriate behavior, just gently petting, and the parents encouraging them to do more, you know, “Throw your arms around the big dog, lean over him.” So what that particular myth busted to me was that it’s not always the kids, that we really need to educate parents as well. Do you want one more, or do we not have time? Melissa Breau: Sure, sure, give us one more! Linda Case: OK, I’ll give you one more very quickly. This has to do with extinction or sometimes negative punishment, which again I’m assuming again probably most of your listeners know what extinction is. It’s removing a reinforcer to decrease a behavior. The most common use of extinction in dog training of course is dogs who jump up or dogs who pester for attention. Owners are said that to extinguish that behavior, you ignore the dog or you step away, you turn your back to the dog. We have not used extinction at my training school for many years. I’m not a fan of it, I never have been. Although I know it is still used a great deal, veterinarians recommend it, a lot of trainers still recommend it, I’ve never been a fan personally because I think it causes frustration. That’s the short end of the story. The interesting thing is that there’s actually some evidence that the end use of negative punishment, removing something the dog wants in order to stop a behavior, do cause frustration in dogs. It’s a very quick experiment. They basically taught dogs to offer eye contact for a positive reinforce, for a treat. The dogs of course learned that very quickly. And then they either would continue to reinforce it or they would use extinction. So now the dog offered the behavior and they stopped reinforcing it and would either turn their back or walk away or just not reinforce the behavior. What they saw — what behaviorist would cause an “extinction burst,” cognitive scientists would call it frustration — that the dogs became very unhappy, they started pawing, they started pestering for more affection, they actually got a little distressed, some of them would whine. And so the conclusion of that study, even though it’s a very small study, was that maybe we need to rethink the use of extinction, especially if it’s not used with training an alternate behavior, which is again the way that a lot of trainers use it. They train an alternate behavior and use extinction. I would argue that just train the alternate behavior and don’t use extinction at all. This essay basically talked about we need to consider the outcome. “Extinction burst” sounds very pure and emotion-free, but actually what we’re seeing in an extinction burst is a dog who’s becoming frustrated and unhappy, and why do that when we don’t need to, when we have alternate approaches. We can just train an alternate behavior rather than the behavior that we don’t want. Melissa Breau: So, I know that we were introduced because you’ve got a webinar coming up at FDSA. It’s titled “Canine Athlete or Couch Potato? - Feeding Dogs to Meet their Exercise Needs,” and I wanted to talk about it just for a minute. Can you share a little bit on what you’ll cover, the type of person who might be interested in the webinar, that kind of thing? Linda Case: Well, first of all, thank you for inviting me to give that webinar. I’m really excited about it and really happy to be part of the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. I’m going to focus on exercise because I know that many of your audience are interested in dog sports and that that’s an important topic for them. We’ll start off with just a small discussion of obesity. That’s again recognizing it, looking at different foods that are on the market that are marketed as light or low calorie, and then we’ll really spend most of the seminar on exercise, looking at the three factors that impact nutrition and exercise, and those are the intensity of the exercise, the duration, and its frequency, and how these three factors influence the energy and nutrient needs of the canine athlete. And then we finish with choosing the best food for a canine athlete, and once again that whole idea that there’s so many choices out there, how do you distinguish among them, and what are the factors that someone who is interested in feeding a canine athlete should pay attention to when they choose a food. Melissa Breau: We’re getting close to the end here, and there are a couple of questions that I usually ask first-time guests, so I’d love to go through those. The first one is, what is the dog-related accomplishment that you’re proudest of? Linda Case: Oh, that’s a nice one. Can I say two? Melissa Breau: Sure, sure. Linda Case: Because I would divide these into an accomplishment that reaches a larger audience versus an accomplishment that reaches a local audience. I guess one of the things I’m proudest of is my writing, because I think science writing that’s brought to interested people, to everybody, rather than just to other scientists is what I’ve really tried to do in my writing, especially in recent years. And then I feel like it reaches many people outside of my local area, and hopefully to many dog trainers and dog professionals who are interested in learning about the recent science. The second would be my AutumnGold dog training school for the local audience, that hopefully we strengthen the loving bond that people have with their dogs, and hopefully increase their understanding of positively based training to our local area, because we only serve of course the local area with that. Melissa Breau: We talked about FDSA is making a ripple and you’ve got to start with your ripple where you are. Linda Case: Yeah, I love that. Melissa Breau: My second question here is, what’s the best piece of training advice that you’ve ever heard? Linda Case: I think the best piece of training advice is also the best piece of life advice I’ve ever received. It started with my dad and it has come from other mentors, and that is just simply “Be kind.” That’s it. Melissa Breau: I like that. Linda Case: It’s short. Be kind. Melissa Breau: Makes it very easy to remember. Linda Case: It is. Melissa Breau: And the last one here, who is somebody else in the dog world that you look up to? Linda Case: Right now I’d say, because I’ve been thinking about a lot and using his methods, is Ken Ramirez is way up there. Certainly of course Karen Pryor. And one of my personal mentors who I mentioned earlier, who was my advisor in graduate school and who now is also an amazing nutritionist and she’s also a KPA certified trainer, so we connected on many levels, and that was my mentor Dr. Gail Czarnecki, who is in the St. Louis area now. She’s no longer here. But I would say she’s definitely one of my most admired personal mentors as well. Melissa Breau: That’s awesome. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast Linda! This has been great. Linda Case: It’s been wonderful! Thank you so much, and I’m really excited about the upcoming webinar, and again very grateful and happy that Fenzi Dog Sports Academy has invited me. Melissa Breau: We’re thrilled to have you! And for everybody who’s listening, just so that you know, the details on that, it’s November 15 at 6 p.m. Pacific time. It is up on the site already, so if you want to, you can go over and look. She’s got a full description up there, and we’ve got a link to her bio, and all sorts of good stuff, if anybody wants to go take a look at that. Thank you to everybody for tuning in! We’ll be back next week, this time with Barbara Currier to talk about teaching your dog to love weave poles. In the meantime, I have a special request. For this year’s anniversary episode, we want to do something special. We want to feature you, our listeners. I’d love it if you’d consider leaving us a voicemail that we can include in that episode. To do so, just go to SpeakPipe.com/FDSA_podcast. I’ll have a link to that in this episode’s show notes so you can go there and click on it to be taken to the page. There will be a record button there and you can leave us a message. Have a burning question we haven’t answered? A brag you want to share? Your own best training advice? Well, we want to hear about it. And if you haven’t already, subscribe to our podcast in iTunes or the podcast app of your choice to have our next episode automatically downloaded to your phone as soon as it becomes available. CREDITS: Today’s show is brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzi for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty-free by BenSound.com; the track featured here is called “Buddy.” Audio editing provided by Chris Lang. Thanks again for tuning in -- and happy training!

Summary: I got an email a few weeks ago from a listener, asking if I’d consider doing a podcast on doing sports with rescue dogs and/or dogs who join the family as adults. She suggested a number of excellent questions … so this will be the second of two podcasts where we’ll look specifically at rescues and training for adult dogs. Next Episode: To be released 11/09/2018, we'll be talking to Linda P. Case, well known for her work in nutrition and focus on the science of dog training, about those two topics! TRANSCRIPTION: Melissa Breau: This is Melissa Breau and you're listening to the Fenzi Dog Sports Podcast brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy, an online school dedicated to providing high-quality instruction for competitive dog sports using only the most current and progressive training methods. Today we’ll be doing something a little differently. I got an email a few weeks ago from a listener, asking if I’d consider doing a podcast on doing sports with rescue dogs and/or dogs who join the family as adults. She suggested a number of excellent questions … so this will be the second of two podcasts where we’ll look specifically at rescues and training for adult dogs. The previous one was with Sara Brueske, and for this episode of the podcast, I’m here with Dr. Jessica Hekman. Dr. Hekman is a postdoctoral associate at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, where she researches how genetics affect behavior in pet and working dogs. Jessica received her Ph.D. in Animal Sciences in 2017 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she studied canid behavioral genetics, so very on-topic for us. Previously, she graduated from the Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine in 2012 with a dual DVM/MS degree. Her Master's work was on behavior and the cortisol responses of healthy dogs to being hospitalized overnight. She also completed a shelter medicine veterinary internship at the University of Florida Maddie's Shelter Medicine Program. Hi Jessica! Welcome to the podcast. Jessica Hekman: Hey Melissa. Thanks so much for having me. Melissa Breau: Absolutely. To start us out, do you mind just reminding everyone a little bit about who your current pups are, and maybe share where they came from and at what point in their lives? Jessica Hekman: Absolutely. We almost heard from them while you were in the middle of your intro. I think somebody went by outside and they both ran to the door and started squeaking a little bit, and I was like, “Shh, shh, dogs. I’m on a podcast. Be really quiet!” This is their downtime. So I have two. My older one is Jenny, that’s short for Guinevere, and she is a mixy-mix. I had her tested with Wisdom Panel, turns out she’s probably Labrador/Samoyed. She came from a shelter, and we know from the shelter that she is at least part Lab, so that much is true. She’s a very, very cute little blonde, 35 pounder. She looks like a little Border Collie who’s Golden Retriever colored, so she’s super-cute. And Dash, which is short for Dashell, is an English Shepherd and he is a little bit over 2 years old. I got Jenny when she was 13 months old, and Dash was my first puppy ever, so I got him at 9 weeks. Melissa Breau: There are, I think, lots of good reasons to have you on, but before we get into some of the professional stuff, I was hoping, as somebody who has one dog that was a rescue and one that you got from a breeder, if you’d talk a little about that piece. With Jenny, my understanding is you adopted a dog, you knew there was some serious stuff going on there, you’d have to work on it from a training perspective. Can you talk a little bit about where she was when you brought her home, where she is now, and what kind of work you put in to get her there? Jessica Hekman: Yeah, sure. Jenny definitely has a long and interesting story. I had just finished up my Master’s and was going back to finish up veterinary school. I was a third-year vet student and I had a lovely, behaviorally very healthy Golden Retriever named Jack, who I adored, and I wanted to get a second dog. So I was looking around at shelters, and a really close friend of mine was doing her shelter medicine internship and came across this dog. I later found out she was actually joking when she emailed me to say, “There’s this dog, maybe you want her,” because she was like, “This dog’s crazy. Clearly you wouldn’t want this dog, ha ha ha.” I got the email and I was like, “Oh, that sounds great,” and afterwards she was like, “I don’t know what you were thinking.” I like to say she comes from an “oops” litter, except it was the “dogs do that sometimes” litter. She was from a farm that was in rural upstate New York outside of Ithaca. I think they had some number of dogs they just knew were going to have litters sometimes — not so much of an “oops” litter as “oh yeah, that happens.” At some point Animal Control came to that farm and said, “You have nine dogs and that’s too many, and you need to give some up.” So they took the two 10-month-old puppies from their most recent litter, I gather, and took them in to Tompkins County Humane Society and said, “Here, you can have these, and that will get us back down to seven dogs and everyone will be happy.” Apparently the owner was surprised to discover that these two dogs were super-shy. They hadn’t noticed anything behaviorally wrong with the dogs, but due to the fact, I think, that the dogs had never, ever been off their farm at all, and I don’t believe any socialization had been done with them at all, then the dogs had thought that their whole world was this little farm, and when they came into the shelter discovered the world was much larger than that, they were horrified. There was one woman working at the shelter at the time as a behavior consultant, had a Master’s in behavior, and she referred to them as “toxically cute.” They were these ridiculously, looked like identical twins, girl and boy, cream colored, so cute, 10 months old, and she said they had people lining up to adopt them, but they knew that they were going to be behaviorally really challenging. So they gave these two dogs to a pair of guys who tried really hard with them but apparently didn’t have so much the dog skills necessary and did some stuff that we know is not the best way to convince a shy dog to like you, such as luring them close with canned cheese and then trying to pet them when they had lured them close, which then taught the dogs that cheese was terrifying, for example. After a month or so of that, the dogs were not warming up to them at all, and so Jenny came back into the shelter, but they kept her. She was fostered by this behavior consultant, and that was when I found out about her. Shortly after I took her, her brother came back and moved in and took her spot with the behavior consultant. They wanted to place her with me because I had this dog who was going to be a really good influence on her and teach her that people were not scary. When I first met her, I couldn’t make eye contact with her because she would tremble. She’s not aggressive at all. She just entirely shuts down, so she’ll huddle in a corner and shake. So I couldn’t make eye contact with her because she would complete decompensate when I made eye contact with her. I couldn’t touch her. We were living in Massachusetts, and my then-boyfriend and I drove out to Ithaca to meet her and decide that we wanted her and pick her up, and her foster mom had to lift her into the car for us because she would pee whenever we touched her, and when we got home and getting her out of the car, she peed. She lived for the first few weeks on her dog bed, and I kept a harness with a one-foot-long tab on her at all times. When it was time to go outside, I would crawl on the floor backwards, not making eye contact with her, to attach a leash to the tab so that I didn’t have to touch her, and take her outside. After a few days of this, I was going through this ritual of crawling backwards towards her as she stood up and very clearly said, “No. I understand the situation. I can take it from here, and you don’t have to put that thing on me. It’s horrifying.” So we went down outside together, and I had this big, safely fenced yard, but it was almost half an acre, and I remember thinking, Am I ever going to get this dog back inside? I was like, Well, let’s just see what happens. So I let her out and she did her business and came back in. And that’s very Jenny, being terrified of the world but really wanting to make her way in it, and thinking outside the box to try to figure out what’s going to happen. She did not let my husband, my then-boyfriend, touch her for about the first six months that we had her. It took a week before I could touch her. The first time I ever had a stranger in the house after I got her, she hid in a corner, pooped, and sat in it, so that was lovely. It took her weeks to stop submission-urinating. I still remember the first night that we were sleeping in the bed and she was on her dog bed at the other end of the room, didn’t want to sleep in the bed with us but was willing to be in the room with us, and I had given her a pig’s ear. Whenever I gave her food, she’d tuck it under her chest and be like, “I’ll eat this later when no one can see me and it’s safe.” I remember around midnight, after we’d been in bed for a couple of hours and it was dark, she felt safe enough and I could hear her start to crunch on the pig ear. I remember lying there in the dark, smiling to myself and thinking, Oh, she’s doing better. So what did I do with her? She came to me on fluoxetine, which is a behavioral medication that is effective in a lot of dogs, but it is the one behavioral medication that general practice veterinarians tend to feel comfortable with, and it was a general practice veterinarian who had prescribed it. So I took her to a veterinary behaviorist. I was a vet student at the time, so I had a friend who was doing her behavior residency. I had Jenny go meet with her. and she prescribed a different medication that she thought would be more appropriate for Jenny’s particular issues, and she has done very well on that. She has continued to improve. I’ve had her for nine years now. Our Gotcha Day anniversary is coming up on New Year’s Day this year. She’s just continued to improve. At first, it was really, really hard. When we let her outside, she had trouble coming back in if there had been a stranger in the house over the last few hours. If I was out and my husband let her out, sometimes she wouldn’t come back in. He’d call and say, “Can’t get her in,” and I’d say, “You have to leave the door open and walk outside and get behind her so she’ll go in,” and he’d say, “But it’s January in New England, can’t you come home?” I’d say, “No, I’m on clinics in vet school, they won’t let me leave for another twelve hours.” So it was really hard. She gradually started being able to make friends. I needed to have someone who could come let her out to pee when I was working these fifteen-hour days, so I had to pay this dog walker to come five or six times while I was there and pay her to come get to know Jenny, and then she was able to start coming and Jenny was able to warm up to her, so that was really nice. When I finished vet school a year-and-a-half later, and I moved down to Florida for my internship, had to drive the dogs down there, Jenny hadn’t ever taken a long car trip before or really been off the property all that much. We’d been to the vet a couple of times, but I was minimizing it because it was so traumatic for her. So we drove down to Florida, a five-day drive because we took it slow, and she didn’t pee for the first 48 hours, so that was terrifying, but she eventually did. She has continued to improve and to change, and so while we were in Florida, we got to the point where instead of huddling in a corner and shaking when people came over, she would roo, which is not the behavior I was aiming for in the end, but showed that she was feeling more confident. When we then moved to Illinois for my Ph.D., I still remember the very first day that she was willing to go to sleep in the middle of the floor, just stretched out laterally in the middle of the floor. She’d always slept on couches before. I had never seen her sleep in the middle of a floor. When I first got her, she wouldn’t go into the kitchen. She’d run from the kitchen really fast. Now she’s comfortable in any room of the house. While we were in Urbana, there was a lovely, really big dog park, really nice dog park, and I was able to go at off hours when there weren’t many other dogs there. She was able to do that and be off-leash, and make dog friends, and eventually even make human friends. She even had some human friends that she really liked there. Now we’re back in Massachusetts. She’s able to hike off-leash with us in the forest, she is able to go to her chiropractor — she has chiropractic problems, probably from being so tense all the time — and she’s able to handle that and not completely decompensate, and when people come over she now understands that while she thinks that all people are axe murderers, some of them do come with cheese, of which she is no longer scared, and so when people come over, she’s nervous at first, they toss her some cheese, and now she’s at the point where she’ll sit and make cute faces at people to get cheese, which is really nice. The huge thing recently was I have a dog walker come now for her and Dash, and I tell the dog walker, “Let them both out to pee, that will be fine, but only take Dash for a walk. Jenny won’t go for a walk with you.” I got this text message from the dog walker saying, “I asked Dash if he wanted to go for a walk, and Jenny was really excited about it too. Can I take her?” I was like, “Sure, just be prepared to go home if she freaks out.” But she didn’t, and I got these great photographs of her on the walk really happy. So she’s made massive progress. She’s a really different dog than she used to be. So a lot of behavior modification, a lot of management, a lot of time, and a lot of her trying as well. She really likes people, and she really likes being near people. She’s just scared of them, and I think she’s really made an effort because of that. If she wasn’t so people-social, I don’t think she would have overcome everything as well as she has. But she continues to improve. I thought she’d plateau after a couple of years, but she has not. Nine years and she continues, she’s better this year than she was last year. It’s amazing. She’s a fabulous little dog. Melissa Breau: Now on the flip side of that, with Dash you did all your homework, and I know you originally had some hopes to do agility with him, but now you’re not sure that that’s the path he’ll take you down. Are you willing to talk about that a little bit? Jessica Hekman: When I got Jenny, I was interested in fearful dogs and I got sort of a sad project. When I got Dash, I was like, “I want a dog that will be fun, and I want to learn about what it’s like to raise a puppy.” I was interested in socialization as part of my job and my research, but I also really wanted to do dog sports, and agility in particular. So I went to a breeder who did agility and nosework and some other stuff with her dogs and got Dash. She said, “He’s a very confident puppy and he’s going to be ideal for agility,” and he did start out that way. He then started around 6 months of age to have some fearfulness and to have off and on lameness. I’m a veterinarian and I am not afraid to take him to specialists. I took him to a bunch of specialists trying to figure out what was up with the lameness, and it took a year to find somebody who could diagnose him. It was a complex problem, and so when he was a year-and-a-half old, we finally figured out that he had a tiny little chipped bone in his right elbow, and because he’d been on it for so long now, that that elbow was really painful and his shoulder was showing changes as well because he’d been compensating. I’d been doing agility foundations and early levels of agility, not jumping full height, and I’d been doing this and hiking him, he’d been running in the woods, and we were doing parkour, so he was doing all this stuff with his broken bone basically. The vet said it probably was similar to walking with rocks in your shoes, clearly more and less painful at different times. He had also pretty clearly learned that when other dogs approached him, if they bumped into him, it was going to hurt, so he had learned to warn other dogs off proactively. When we finally had the surgery, got his elbow repaired — the elbow injury, by the way, pretty clearly a traumatic injury. I know the day that it happened. He was 5 months, 5-and-a-half months, running in the woods, and there was ice and snow. He came up lame that evening, and it kept coming and going ever since then. He probably had what the orthopedist called a “jump-down injury,” probably jumped off of something too high that he shouldn’t have and chipped that bone. Had the surgery, was a six-month recovery, and he is fully recovered, so technically I could go back to agility. There’s a couple of things stopping me. One is that given that he had this issue in that leg, it means that he’s going to develop arthritis earlier than he would have otherwise. The rehab that I was working with put it to me as, “You may only have so many jumps in him, and he’s going to be doing some jumping on his own — into and out of the car, on and off the bed — so maybe you could conserve the amount of jumps you’re asking him to do, so that you put off the arthritis as long as possible,” and that sounds reasonable to me. The other thing is that he had learned to be very slow and cautious in agility, and I think a lot of that was that it hurt, and also that I’m a green handler, and so we’re doing some stuff that he can learn to really enjoy. So we’re doing nosework right now, which he thinks is fabulous. It’s very low-pressure, there’s none of my expectations, there’s none of anything hurting, and so possibly we’ll go back to agility at a later point, certainly not anything that I would push him really hard to do a lot of jumping. So that’s how I got redirected with him down into a slightly different road than I had originally imagined. Melissa Breau: Personal experiences aside for a moment, you also deal heavily in all of this stuff professionally. Can you share a little bit about how your day job ties in? Jessica Hekman: I had been a computer programmer for twelve years or something like that, and I decided I wanted to learn about what causes dogs to have different personalities and to behave differently — why some are shy, and some are aggressive, and some are really friendly, what’s different in their brains. It turned out that the best tools that we have right now for getting at that kind of thing in pet dogs is genetics, because you can look at a dog’s genetics without having to actually cut their head open and get at their brain. It’s a better way of doing things than the other alternatives involving laboratory animals. I am, as you said, currently working at a research institute. The institute actually focuses mostly on human health, and the group that I’m working with, we use dogs as models for humans to study how genetics interacts with behavior, and how it interacts with diseases like cancer, to try to understand more not just about dogs but also about humans. And that’s great, that’s how we get our funding, saying that this is applicable to human health. I’m obviously in it because I care about dogs, figure there’s plenty of other people looking at human health, I’m really more interested in the canine health, but that’s sort of the focus of the lab as a whole. What we do, anyone who’s interested in learning more about that can go to DarwinsArk.org and check it out. The main project lets people come, sign up their dogs, answer a whole slew of questions about their dog’s behavior, and then get a kit to have us sample their dog’s DNA, which we do just through saliva, so it’s very easy. And then we run analyses and hopefully find fascinating things, although the project is young so far, so we have not solved all the questions of behavioral genetics quite yet. Melissa Breau: Quite yet. What CAN we know, what do we know about a dog based on their genetics? What kind of traits does research show us come “hardwired”? Jessica Hekman: A lot of it is still up in the air, and a lot of people are surprised to find out how much we don’t know. We do know that things like retrieving and herding and pointing, things that you see that are definite differences between breeds, and things that we know that people selectively bred for, those definitely can come hardwired, and so you can see dogs offering retrieving behavior or herding behavior without having been trained to do it, which I think is crazy. How do you program in the DNA that a dog really likes putting things in their mouth and bringing it back to you, or that they really like collecting sheep into a little circle? I think that’s just insane, and we don’t know what it is that does that exactly. We have some initial ideas, but we don’t know what genes are that do that. So we know that that can be more or less hardwired, although, as a lot of you know already, it certainly is not the case that every single Labrador Retriever is interested in retrieving. So even though a particular breed may have many or most dogs in it be hardwired for one particular skill like that, it doesn’t mean that every dog in the breed will be that way. When it comes to personality, there’s still a lot of differences between dogs. Every dog is really an individual, even though a breed may have some tendencies. So the kinds of stuff that we’re looking at with the Darwin’s Ark project is, what I’m personally interested in, is personality. I would say that personality are traits that change only very slowly over time, that tend to be fairly static over time. They can change, but slowly. Jenny’s example is … I’d definitely say she has a shy personality but that she has become less shy over time, but it has taken a lot of work. One initial question that we’re looking at based just on the surveys, not even on genetics, has been, “Are there certain personalities per dog breed?” because we know we feel like most Golden Retrievers are friendlier than most, say, German Shepherds, which are more aloof, that kind of question. The initial work that was done by the last person who had my job suggested that that’s not actually the case, that he wasn’t able to see any personality differences between breeds. It’s interesting, it has occasioned a lot of debate in the lab, because I was sort of like, “That’s shocking, and I think we have to question whether we’re approaching this the right way, because I’m convinced there are personality differences between breeds.” And my boss, Eleanor Karlsson, who’s the head of the lab, said, “Remember a hundred years ago we told ourselves there were differences between humans with different skin color, and we used to honestly believe that based on someone’s skin color we could make assumptions about their IQ. We now know that that was really wrong, at least genetically it was wrong. People of different skin color tended to get different levels of education, but that there were no real genetic differences in things like IQ or personality.” Fair enough, although I would respond that we have not been selectively breeding groups of populations of humans for particular personality traits, and we have been selectively breeding dogs for different personality traits. So I am in the middle of working on trying to dig into that data right now and see what I can see. One of the first approaches I took … Labradors are a great example for us because they’re the most popular dog in America, and so we have a lot of examples of them, and they’re also kind of behavioral freaks because they have really low risk of being fearful of things and tend very much to be friendly and outgoing. So they’re behavior outliers and there’s also a zillion of them. I look to see what questions in the questionnaire Labs scored really different from breeds of the same size on, and unsurprisingly one of the questions was, “Does your dog like bringing things to you?” Labs statistically, very significantly, were much more likely to want to bring things to you. Whether you want to call that a personality trait or not, I don’t know, but it was a good place to start. And again, very interesting, not all Labs wanted to bring things to you, but they were much more likely to want to than other dogs. So we’re starting to try to do an analysis of if all these mixed-breed dogs we have, if they have more Labrador in their ancestry, are they more likely to enjoy retrieving. So that’s one of the things that we’re working on right now. Melissa Breau: Digging into this stuff a little bit more, I think a lot of the time people will have their perfect puppy, and then something goes wrong. The dog becomes reactive or obsessive or … something. And then they decide, “OK, it must be genetic.” Is that true? Is that the case? Is there evidence to the contrary? Jessica Hekman: I would say that any behavior or ongoing behavior or personality trait is genetic. They’re all genetic. So the puppy being perfect was genetic and the puppy not being perfect was genetic, because it’s all about how genetics interact with environment. What I caution people against is imagining there’s this pre-programmed switch in the dog’s brain that’s programmed genetically that says, “Around 6 months this dog is going to become fearful, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.” I don’t think that’s true, at least not in our pet dogs. When we talk about some laboratory populations, where we’re selectively breeding animals, there’s a study with fearful Pointers where they were really, really heavily selecting for super-fearful dogs, and those dogs were never going to be normal. There’s the tame fox study that I used to work on, where they have for many, many decades been selectively breeding some foxes to be very tame and some to be very aggressive, and those, that’s all they breed for. They don’t breed for anything else. But in our pet dog populations, where we’re breeding for a lot of things, you just don’t see that genetics is going to force an animal to be a certain way in the sense of there being a switch that, “OK, the behavior appeared around 6 or 8 months and I don’t know what caused it and therefore it’s genetic.” I would say that genetics causes risk, and so genetically an animal may be at increased risk of developing fearfulness, for example, and that that risk is going to interact with the animal’s environment. So there may have been something … if you didn’t see the cause … if you see the cause, you sort of know what’s going on — he was just a puppy, and some dog came out of nowhere and bowled him over and bit him, and so of course he was traumatized by that and now he’s fearful of other dogs. You know what happened there. But sometimes … I think Dash is a fabulous example of I didn’t know what was going on with him. I was very lucky to get to figure out what was going on with him, but I started seeing this reactivity to other dogs. It was never terrible, but it was a real change from how he had been when he was younger and I wasn’t able to perceive that he was in pain and that was why it was. And it can be much more subtle than that. It can be this stuff that goes on in the environment that sets dogs up to develop in certain ways, can happen while the dog is still in the uterus, it can happen while the dog … super-important stuff happens during that first eight weeks when the dog is with the breeder, and again, stuff that we don’t necessarily have control over. It could be interactions with the other littermates. It could be this is the smallest dog in the litter, and the biggest dog in the litter bullied him and that’s how it turned out. Not the fault of the breeder, not the fault of the owner, but also not a genetic switch, but perhaps that dog was genetically at risk of becoming fearful and that experience made him or her more fearful. I also feel like we don’t fully understand always … it’s hard for us to grasp quite how complex this concept of environment is, and so you might say to yourself, “Just because two dogs are both in the same environment …” Dash and Jenny, they’re both living in our house, so it’s the same environment, but I would point out that their perception of what environment they’re in differs from each other. There’s been a lot of research in humans, when we look into how different siblings growing up in the same household basically perceive very different environments, certainly if they’re of different ages. One had been an only child for a while and also maybe was being raised by parents who didn’t make quite as much money early on, and then the parents started making more money and at the same time also had another child, and so the second child experiences a very different environment. They are not an only child, parents are much more affluent now because they’re older, maybe they’re being raised in a house instead of an apartment, so they have very different environments. Even twins, who you think, Well, they’re born at the same time, but they can have very different environments as well, based on just their interactions with each other where one starts being the bossy one, one starts being the more submissive one, they can have different friends in school and different interactions with that environment. And I think it’s really the same for our dogs, that we just don’t realize what tiny little differences there are that they have this whole world that they perceive that we don’t. So I think the answer is there isn’t a genetic switch to make a dog be one way or another. There’s only risk, and so it’s all this complex interaction that gets us there. I hope that answers that question. Melissa Breau: Yeah, absolutely, and you started to talk a little bit in there about how early life experiences can have a big impact on adult personality, right? Can you talk a little bit about some of the research or the science? I know you shared some interesting stuff when you did the webinar, and you’re planning on including some good stuff in your class. Jessica Hekman: I actually talk a lot about the socialization period in my class on The Biology of Building a Great Performance Dog, and that’s not yet on the schedule to come back, but I definitely will be offering it again. I am super-lucky right now to be working in the same laboratory as Dr. Kathryn Lord, who is also a post-doc working in Karlsson Lab, and she is the expert on dog socialization. She did her Ph.D. looking at differences in timing in dog versus wolf socialization, and she has amazing insight, so one of the reasons I love my job so much is I can just go hang out with my friend Kathryn and ask her questions about socialization and she will hold forth and I will learn so much. That has been amazing to add on to, in addition to all the reading that I had done on my own, because socialization is super-super-interesting. One of the things she really emphasizes is how important that first eight weeks is, how much is going on at that time, and how these puppies need to interact with their environment very early on and try to learn what’s normal and expected in their world. Puppies and other mammals are born without a strong fear response, just “whatever I’m interacting with for those early weeks.” Puppies start leaving the nest around 3 or 4 weeks. They don’t actually start being afraid of things until somewhere between 5 and 8 weeks, depending on the breed. And so they have somewhere between one and four weeks in which they’re interacting with the world without any fearfulness and just being set up to make good associations with everything that they see, the idea being that they would be carefully under their mother’s care at that time, and that then by 8 weeks they’re starting to venture out farther, and then it starts being really useful for them to be afraid of things, because at that point there might actually be predators and dangers that they need to be able to run away from. So that means that that really important time before they’re afraid of things, when they’re set up to make these good associations, is happening while they’re at the breeder’s. That’s before you get your hands on them, which is one of the reasons why, when I was looking at breeders, I looked into finding someone who had done a whole lot of work with the puppies, giving them a lot of enrichment and taking them offsite. One of the things that happened with Jenny was she had never left her farm until she was 10 months old. So with Dash, someone who takes the puppies out for exploratory field trips, and does early scent stimulation and all that kind of stuff, that’s really important to do early on, although I think we also sometimes discount how much interesting stuff is also going on with puppies in the uterus. There’s been a lot of work on that with laboratory rodents, and it turns out that puppies start having different experiences from their littermates even in the uterus, so they’re getting, based on where they are relative to the bitch’s blood supply, they can get fewer or more of her stress hormones, or fewer or more nutrients, just based on how the blood supply goes from one end of the uterus to the other, and if there’s a bunch of puppies, it may be a bit depleted of both stress hormones and nutrients by the time it gets to the puppies at the far end. Melissa Breau: Interesting. Jessica Hekman: Yeah, a lot of interesting stuff there that we don’t fully understand how that sets dogs up for issues later on, but we do believe that it does. Melissa Breau: That’s neat, and it’s very different from what some people necessarily think about. Jessica Hekman: We think about how important it is to socialize puppies when we bring them home, and for sure it is, I’m not discounting that. It is super-important. But there’s a lot that goes on before that first eight weeks that is also really important. Melissa Breau: I think we’ve gotten into this a little bit already, but thinking about our audience, if you have somebody who’s evaluating an adult dog and they’re not entirely sure where that dog came from, are there things about that dog’s personality when they meet them that they should consider “fixed”? How flexible is that when you’re talking about an adult dog? Jessica Hekman: Of course, because all dogs are individuals, it’s different for every dog, so it’s really hard to know, when you start working with a dog, how far they’re going to get. I love using Jenny as an example, as when I got her, I had no idea. I didn’t know. I had been doing rescue work before, and I had known through the rescue there have been some dogs who would come in super-shy, and they made these magical turnarounds in a month or so, when they realized they were in a new home that was safe. So she could have just turned around immediately. She didn’t. And then, after you’ve had the dog for a year, the question is, How far can she go? At the time, I figured, She’s never going to be a normal dog. I had pretty much given up on being able to take her for walks around the block, even. I thought, I’ll make sure to have houses with big yards, she can exercise in the yard at home, I will minimize trips to the vet and make home visits for her, and that was as far as I thought she was going to go for a long time. She has just continued to improve and that was surprising, and it was powerful to me to see how far some dogs can go. On the other hand … so I don’t consider personality completely fixed, but it’s also about how hard you want to work on it, and Jenny, obviously, it was really a welfare issue for her. She was terrified of the world, and it was really important to me to make her feel more comfortable in her own skin. I had taken her on knowing that was going to be a project and a learning experience for me that I really wanted to work on. In terms of sports, there’s this question of, if you get a dog who’s wrong for a particular sport, as it turns out — like I got Dash really wanting to do agility, and it turns out it may not be the best sport for him. Now could I get him to where he was competing successfully in agility and was really enjoying it? I probably could, if I put in the kind of time working just on that that I put in with Jenny. I’m sure that I could get him to where he relaxed more and figured it wasn’t going to hurt so much, and improve my own handling skills so that he’s more confident. I think I could get him much farther than I have so far. But is it worth it? It’s not a welfare issue for him. He doesn’t miss agility. He loves nosework, he loves parkour, so I’m focusing on that stuff. So there’s this tradeoff, definitely, of how much effort do you want to put into it, and are you doing it for yourself or are you doing it for the dog? Melissa Breau: Assuming that most of our audience is probably trying to determine whether or not a dog is suitable for sports, evaluating an adult dog most likely, from that angle, what things would you look at? What things would you consider? Jessica Hekman: For sure, it’s going to be easiest in an adult dog to evaluate how good their structure is, whether they are the right size and shape and conformation for the sport that you’re interested in, and whether they’re medically healthy. Assessing behavioral health is going to be another important thing. Depending on where they’re coming from, it can be harder to tell behavioral health. So if a dog has been in a shelter for months and is really shut down, it can be hard to tell if when you bring them into your house they’re going to open up. And then some dogs of course the opposite, that you have them in the shelter and they stress up, and so they become really jumpy, mouthy, crazy, and it’s hard to know if once you start working with them they’ll be able to have more self-control or not. It would be very rare to find a dog coming out of a situation where they’d been in a shelter for some period of time where they appeared behaviorally healthy, and it’s hard to know how easy it’s going to be to turn them around. Definitely looking to see if a dog has an interest in humans is going to be super-important, and that, for me, I think was Jenny’s saving grace was that she was really, really interested in humans and wanted to be around humans. Obviously Jenny is not the kind of dog that any of you I think would go and pick up as a sports prospect. I don’t think she’s ever going to be able to compete. I mean, she’s 10 now, so I’m not looking at her being able to ever be a competition dog, although I am actually hoping to put some parkour titles on her, because we can do that at home just on video. But for a dog who has their act a little more together than Jenny did, making sure that the dog is interested in people. If you go into the room and the dog is just not interested in you — they should want to check out the new environment first, that’s fine, but if after they’ve had a couple of minutes to sniff around, they should also want to come and check in with you. If a dog is just not interested in interacting with you, that is a major warning sign for me that that is going to be a difficult dog to work with. It’s also ideal obviously to try to assess right away whether the dog has some interest in toys and in food. But again, all of it can change when you bring the dog home. It’s too bad that there’s no way to a hundred percent guarantee that you’re going to get a dog that is really good at the sport that you’re interested in. It’s something that upsets everybody. We’d all like to have the guarantee that before we commit and tell the dog that they’re going to be our dog for the rest of their lives and we’re going to take care of them, and we become emotionally attached to them, we’d like to know that they’re going to be a good partner for the sport that we want as well, and there’s just not a way to a hundred percent tell about that, unfortunately, either route that you go, whether it be getting an adult dog that somebody else has had, or whether it be getting a puppy from a breeder. You can minimize your risks, but there’s always going to be some risks. Certainly when you get a dog as an adult you should try to take advantage of all the opportunities that you have to get information about how that dog was in its previous environment. So definitely if you’re getting a dog from a shelter, I would ask them, “Are there staff members who like this dog, who know this dog, who worked with this dog?” A lot of shelters will even have training classes that they do just for enrichment with their dogs, and they’ll be able to tell you some stuff about how the dog has responded to that. But even failing that, if you ask around, you’ll often find people who clean the kennels will say, “Oh, I love this dog, she really got to know me, she’s always so glad to see me.” That’s useful information. Or “She barks, and she seems really nervous of me and was unable to warm up to me, even though I tried to offer her treats.” That would be useful information too. If you go the rescue route and a dog has been in somebody’s home for a couple of weeks, that’s fabulous. That is just a goldmine of information. Hopefully you all know this already, but definitely sit down with those people and grill them for whatever they can tell you about that dog. Melissa Breau: Right. As trainers, I think we know that behavior modification works, but what does the science say about how that and genetics interact? You mentioned you’ve done so much work with Jenny, and I’d love to hear the other side of that, the research and that piece of it. Jessica Hekman: As I said, there’s just no guarantee and biology is really complicated. And it’s really early days yet, too, of figuring out how we’re going to be able to use genetics to predict anything. What we’re looking at right now is working with some groups who breed dogs for guide-dog work and assistance-dog work. They manage populations of dogs, and we’re trying to get to where an initial goal for us is to try to find some markers in the DNA that will help us say, “Dogs with this marker tend to do better on this trait,” whatever trait it is they’re interested in is. They’re interested in things like not afraid of thunderstorms, and not afraid of walking on unstable surfaces, and how easily stressed-out is the dog. We’d like to be able to give them some genetic tests for stuff like that, with the understanding that these genetic tests are useful for a population of dogs, and there’s always going to be this interaction with the environment, and so even if you have genetic tests like that, that’s to help you decide which dogs to breed and to try to make some selections among the litter, and these are the ones that are going to be better guide dogs and these maybe would be more useful going off and doing some kind of tracking work or something like that. But it’s still very much never going to be a black-and-white “Yes, he passed genetically, he’s going to be a guide dog.” We’re pretty much never, at least with the current state of the technology, not going to be able to say things like that. And it makes it even harder when you’re asking things about individuals. So those groups working with populations, what we’d really like as sports people would be to be able to say, “I don’t care about the whole population of dogs. I just want one for me that will do my favorite sport.” Genetics is always going to be really hard, so at this point we don’t even have any sort of tests that we can do. But even when we start getting to where we’re going to be able to do them, it will only give you a hint, it will only be a small piece of information to put into the rest of the picture and try to figure out what’s going on with that dog. Melissa Breau: To bring it back to what you said initially, it’s really about genetics may put a dog more or less at risk for particular behavioral traits, but there’s really quite a bit of flexibility within that. Jessica Hekman: Yeah, and remembering that genetics isn’t a switch. It’s all about risk, and whether a dog is more sensitive to their environment maybe and more at risk for developing some problem. But I think one thing I didn’t really say enough earlier in this conversation, though, is that if you are raising a dog from a puppy, and the dog does end up developing a shy personality, and you’ve done everything right, I do want to emphasize that it does not mean that it’s your fault. It doesn’t mean that the dog had some switch determining that it was going to be shy. It just means that there’s a lot going on that you may not be able to see, and it definitely means you shouldn’t give up and say, “This is just genetic, it can’t be changed.” It probably can be changed. You aren’t going to know going in where you can end up. I didn’t know going in with Jenny where I was going to end up, and she’s much less shy than I ever thought she’d get to be. I didn’t know with Dash going in where I was going to end up. I hoped I’d end up in agility. I ended up in nosework. In both cases I’m really happy with where I ended up. They are fabulous dogs and I love them so much. So working with your dog, I guess, and not giving up, but also being open to different paths is hopefully the answer. Melissa Breau: Okay, for those interested, where do they go to learn more? Jessica Hekman: I definitely mentioned DarwinsArk.org. That’s where my work project is. And I mentioned that we were working with guide dogs and assistance dogs currently, and we are hoping to start expanding into sports dogs soon. I’m definitely going to make so much noise about that on the alumni list when it happens, and I’ll probably call you up, Melissa, and see if we can do another podcast just talking about that. But it doesn’t hurt to get signed up now and be prepared for when that happens. I am also teaching a class pretty much about all of this stuff in December. It’s a class about the genetics of dog behavior, and with the help of some very creative people on the alumni list, I decided to call it The Melting Pot: Genes, Environment, and Personality. And so it’s very much about genetics, but it’s also about how it’s not just genetics, it’s also environment. That’s going to be in December. I think it should be on the schedule, and I’ll make sure that it definitely is by the time this podcast goes live. Also I am very active on both Twitter and Facebook, and I tweet and message on Facebook a lot of different stories about dog science. It’s some of the stuff that I’ve written, but more often I find stuff out there and share it. So people who want to know more about this stuff, following me both on Twitter and on Facebook is a good way to do it. Twitter is @dogzombieblog and Facebook is Facebook.com/dogzombieblog, or in either case if you just search for Jessica Hekman or go to dogzombie.com, in all those cases you’ll get links to those things. Melissa Breau: Awesome. Thank you so much for coming back on the podcast Jessica. This was great. Jessica Hekman: It was a lot of fun. Thanks for having me. Melissa Breau: Absolutely. And thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in! We’ll be back next week, this time with Linda Case to talk about dog nutrition. If you haven’t already, subscribe to our podcast in iTunes or the podcast app of your choice to have our next episode automatically downloaded to your phone as soon as it becomes available.  

Grain-Free dog food has been all over the news since July 12th and sadly the information the mass media has reported been oversimplified and incomplete. The fact is this is a complex issue. In this episode of The Woof Meow Show from September 29, 2018, Don speaks with canine nutritionist, science writer, and the author of Dog Food Logic Linda Case about this very issue, asking, Is Feeding A Grain-Free Food to Our Dogs Dangerous? Other issues addressed in the show are: Should dog parents currently feeding their dogs a grain-free diet immediately switch to a non-grain-free dog food? What is Dilated Cardiomyopathy and what is the role of Taurine in the disease and grain-free foods? Does the FDA know with 100% certainty that grain-free food is the cause or could it be something else? There has been some suggestion in posts on Facebook and other places online that one should only purchase dog food that has been tested via AAFCO feeding trials. Is that sound advice? Is it important for dog parents to review the ingredients label when making decisions about what to feed their dog? Recommended Resources FDA Reports FDA Investigating Potential Connection Between Diet and Cases of Canine Heart Disease – 12JUL2018 – https://www.fda.gov/AnimalVeterinary/NewsEvents/CVMUpdates/ucm613305.htm Questions & Answers: FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine’s Investigation into a Possible Connection Between Diet and Canine Heart Disease – https://www.fda.gov/AnimalVeterinary/ResourcesforYou/AnimalHealthLiteracy/ucm616279.htm How to Report a Pet Food Complaint – https://www.fda.gov/AnimalVeterinary/SafetyHealth/ReportaProblem/ucm182403.htm Whole Dog Journal Articles DCM in Dogs: Taurine's Role in the Canine Diet - What is taurine-deficiency dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), and how can dog owners prevent it? (Hint: It involves more than just grain-free foods.) – The Whole Dog Journal – September 2018 – https://www.whole-dog-journal.com/issues/21_9/features/DCM-in-Dogs-Taurines-Role-in-the-Canine-Diet_21901-1.html Please Don’t Panic About the “Grain-Free Thing” – Whole Dog Journal’s Blog – 2AUG18 – https://www.whole-dog-journal.com/blog/Please-Dont-Panic-About-the-Grain-Free-Thing-21893-1.html Articles on Don’s Blog ( http://www.words-woofs-meows.com ) UPDATE! – Pet Nutrition – Grain-Free Foods and FDA Reports of Increased Heart Disease in Dogs – https://www.greenacreskennel.com/blog/2018/07/27/update-pet-nutrition-grain-free-foods-and-fda-reports-of-increased-heart-disease-in-dogs/ Grain-Free Foods and FDA Reports of Increased Heart Disease in Dogs –  https://www.greenacreskennel.com/blog/2018/07/22/pet-nutrition-grain-free-foods-and-fda-reports-of-increased-heart-disease-in-dogs/ What Do You Feed Your Dog? – http://bit.ly/WhatDoYouFeedYourDog Some Myths and Facts – Part 1 – My story with Gus – Maine Dog Magazine – Winter 2017 – http://bit.ly/Gus-Nutrition Book Review – Ruined by Excess, Perfected by Lack – The paradox of pet nutrition by Richard Patton – http://bit.ly/RuinedByExcess-BookReview Podcasts from The Woof Meow Show ( http://www.woofmeowshow.com ) What do you feed your pets? – http://bit.ly/WhatDoYouFeedYourPets-Podcast Podcast – Pet Nutrition with Dr. Richard Patton – http://bit.ly/DrPatton-Podcast Podcast – Pet Fooled – A Look Inside A Questionable Industry with Kohl Harrington – http://bit.ly/WfMw-Pet-Fooled

Linda: Has it already happened? Katrina: Yeah. It still says starting. Get your head in the picture, because otherwise you're revealing the trick about our cushions. When your head when down, it just looked like a weird cushion arrangement behind us. Linda: There's some crazy talking going on over here. Katrina: Get rid of it. Kill it dead. Linda: What is this? Katrina: Is that a cage to keep humans in? Linda: Oh my God! No, he's wearing pants. Katrina: What are you doing? Linda: He's wearing pants, it's okay. But I got excited there for a minute. Katrina: Creepy cage for humans. Linda: Hello! Katrina: I'm just getting a little insight into this YouTube selection. Alright. Linda: Hi, we need to pay attention to this. We're here. Katrina: We're present and in attendance. I was on a plane like an argon, I'm just like a freaking professional. Linda: You literally just walked up. Katrina: I just walked off a plane. There might have been three full-blown temper tantrum on that plane had by one of my children. It was much wine required. Linda: And, this took a little bit of time. Let's just be - Katrina: This took a little bit of time to make the set fabulous. Wait, wait. I haven't even shared this. Only on my business page. I'm going to share it to my own page. Hang on, everybody. Just wait. You're going to have to wait. I'm just going to entertain you. Linda: I'm going to entertain you. Katrina: I'm sitting with what will come out of me, I'm unsure. Linda: We were about to call ... What were we going to call the live feed? Katrina: You wanted to call it "Whatever the Fuck Comes Out." Which is actually very accurate. Linda: Yes, we have this amazing set up going on. Katrina: It is amazing, look at it. Hang on, we've had a cushion fail. Linda: Oh my God. Katrina: There's been a cushion fail already. Linda: Fail. Katrina: Hello, hello, hello people in my live stream. Linda: Hello, kids and hello people in mine. We should introduce each other. Katrina: Oh that's an idea. People could just figure it out. Linda: People could just figure out who we are. It would be pretty cool if I choose you to my people. My people. You introduce me to your people. Katrina: That's impressive between peoples. Begin, begin. Begin while I share this. I'm going to share it into my group and then to my other page. Linda: Aw look, that's us. Katrina: We look amazing. It is what it is. Linda: Katrina Routh is a serial internet breaker. Katrina: That's actually true. She just wrote me a small, beautiful card. And in there it's some flowers and my favourite chocolates, and some vegemite. Linda: She deserves it, let's face it. Katrina: I came home to this little, I'm going to call it an alter, to me. But in the card- Linda: It was an expression of love. Katrina: But in the card she said, "to the woman who breaks the internet every day." Linda: I did, I did. Katrina: It was beautiful, actually. Thank you. Linda: No worries, well thank you. For having me in your space. But I mean, who wouldn't want to have me in your space. Katrina: All the time. Thank you M.D. alright, last introduction. I think I [inaudible 00:03:22] your introduction. Linda: You did. That's all she cares. No, I'm kidding. Katrina: You can figure the rest out. Linda: She breaks the internet, apart of that, she's my soul sister friend and she's a kick ass entrepreneur. I really, really honour and admire how much she's standing on truth and just kick ass on the internet. Katrina: And all. Thank you. For those who don't know the amazing, talented, and fabulous Linda Docta, here she is. I've prepared her in the flesh earlier. Many of you know us both and follow us both, but for those who don't know, Linda is one of the ... I'm going to say it this way, because this is the simplest way to explain just how highly I think of this one. Linda is one of the few people in the world whose post I consistently read because she's an incredible messenger and writer. And you know, I'm a content creator, not a consumer. I don't consumer a lot of content from other people. I do consume some people. I consumer some people, and I consume some people's content. But Linda's posts are incredible. She's an incredible [inaudible 00:04:37]. You're one of the few people who is not afraid to say what's actually inside of her, and to share what's coming from the soul. As you know, that's what I believe its all got to be about. That's just one reason why we gt along so well. We have a relationship that is predominately on, somewhat, almost an embarrassing amount of audio messages per day. That goes back and forth from all around the world. Linda: They do. Even in the house. When was it? Before you went to Melbourne. You were downstairs, I was upstairs. And you were audioing me and listening to my audio. Katrina: So we don't hang out in person that often, but Linda's here staying in my home for a few days before she jets off again. And often, I don't know, I'm over in American and she's in Sydney, or I'm in Bali and she's in Melbourne, or wherever we are. Now you're going to be in other places around the world, and I'll be here. That's how it is. So we don't see each other in person that often. What just happened? Okay, Linda's phone literally just turned itself off. Katrina: Alright, well you're going to reboot your phone and we're going to start again. Linda: What is this? Katrina: That's it, you broke the internet. Linda: I did break the internet. Katrina: You can't go around saying shit like that. Linda: It's okay, I'm going to share your post onto my ... Oh. Katrina: Yeah, but that shouldn't have turned itself off. Linda: I don't know. Katrina: Oh, well that's because of that. The turned off because that turned off. Linda: Yeah, it did. Katrina: Linda's phone just completely powered itself down. Linda: We're just going to do it on one phone. Katrina: Just start it again, I reckon. So, we don't meet in person. Katrina: Would you want to put yours back on again? Do yours. Katrina: We don't meed in person too often, but then when we do, it's like no time has passed because we're speaking on audio all the time, every single day, and that's how I feel about all my soulmate people around the world. You sometimes feel confused as to when you last saw them in the physical world because you're connecting with them in other worlds so continuously, right? But anyway, she came in here, when was is? Thursday last week or something. And I'm downstairs eating my little midnight snack, as I do, standing at the kitchen bench. Katrina: Okay, let's wait until this starts again. And we'll tell the story. And I'll just tell it anyway because it might take a while to get going. Yeah so, I'm downstairs in the kitchen, which is just through there. And I'm listening to audios as I do often at 1 A.M. or something, and so then I'm listening to Linda's audio message, and then I realise she's actually upstairs in the bedroom, in one of the spare bedrooms. I'm like, "Oh my God, I'm so addicted to listening to audios from you that I'm still listening to audios from you when you're in my house, upstairs, sleeping." And then I'm writing back. Even though I'll see her in the morning at 6 A.M. I'm like, "I can't wait for that, I'm going to need to audio now." Linda: Peoples! We broke the internet. Yes, I already did tag that girl. She's tagged. Peoples, we already broke the internet. Katrina: Linda's phone spontaneously combusted itself. Linda: It did. Katrina: Self-combusted. So, anyway. You missed the story over there on Linda's side. Linda: Sorry, guys. Katrina: Sorry about that. Linda: She was just telling an awesome story, and I kind of feel a bit like I should have gone more with my intro about you. Because that was really beautiful, thank you for that. Katrina: You made me an altar. Linda: I did. Katrina: That was pretty next level. I've got to take a photo of it, later. Linda: Oh I've got to post that stuff. But that was a beautiful expression, because what you said about speaking truth, because I'm just a reflection of you. You know that, right? You are a woman who just stands in her power, in her truth. Katrina: Thank you. Linda: And you always have been. You're just not afraid to say what's flowing through you. Katrina: It's sometimes scary, though. But thank you. Linda: Yeah, no it's amazing. I admire that. Katrina: Well it's been agreed we're both amazing. I just think we can finish there. Linda: See you, later. Cheers! Katrina: Cheers to being amazing. Linda: Cheers. And this is funny because I never drink. [inaudible 00:08:37] Katrina: Never, never. Linda: I feel so naughty. Katrina: Continually breaking the internet now. Well my new programme is part of the internet, so it's only appropriate. But, it is so relevant because the more you stand in your power and in your truth, isn't it true that you're just going to attract in those soulmate people who stand in their truth, and so then you honour that person, like I honour you, for the way you sharpen them, you're honouring me. And then it's just going to turn into a never ending cycle of we both think the other one is amazing, which means that it's a reflection of us. Linda: Yeah! Katrina: It just keeps going. Linda: It's like, you're amazing. No you're amazing. You're amazing. Katrina: Exactly. Linda: And then, it ends up being an altar on the kitchen table. Katrina: You end up coming home off a flight from the other side of the country, and you walk in and your soul sister forever finds you an altar on the kitchen table, vegemite included in the altar. Linda: You know what I should have done? I should have just laid myself down on the table, naked. Katrina: You're reminding me of this thing from Sex and The City, where the guy lays ... No, she's about to lay down naked with sushi all over her body. What's his name? The young guy that she's dating? And then he doesn't come home, though. And then she's laying there on the table for hours covered in sushi, and he just never comes home. He comes home like four hours later or something. And she's still laying there covered in sushi. Katrina: Okay, I was going to do a nice segue into the conscious relationships conversation, but instead we're talking about Samantha from Sex and the City covered naked in sushi. Linda: See, we should have called it Whatever the Fuck comes out. Katrina: Well we were just saying, it is the perfect union to the topic of conscious relationships, which may or may not be what we talk about. Because it will be whatever the fuck comes out. Linda: Exactly. Katrina: But that's ... People say to me all the time, I'm sure you hear this as well. But probably one of the most common things I do hear from people in my community is what an amazing friendship, when they see me with my soul sister friends, right? Like I'll get comments on that a lot, like, "Wow, what an incredible, beautiful friendship." Okay, oh my God. Jermaine literally just wrote what I'm talking about. She wrote, "Gorgeous ladies, #soulmatefriendgoals." Linda: Aw, that's amazing. Thank you. Katrina: So I hear that all the time because I do only have women in my life who are deep, soul sister connected friends. Deep soul sister, however you want to say it. And that's definitely ... Katrina: Okay, you have a marriage proposal over there. I think we should address it. Linda: Aww. Katrina: That's not a wall, actually, Maria, that's a painting that my sister-in-law painted for me. It's not a wall, it's a painting. Linda: Do we need to address this marriage proposal? Katrina: Linda's been proposed to. Linda: I've been proposed to. Katrina: On her live steam. Linda: What should I say? Katrina: We'll consider your offer. We'll get back to you. Linda: Let me sit with it. Katrina: What does your soul say? Linda: Stop, stop now. Stop now. Katrina: What does your soul have to say about this? What are we going to talk about? Where is this conversation going? Linda: I don't know. Katrina: Do you think that life just gets better and better and easier and easier? Linda: I think so. Katrina: Do you think that we have almost an inappropriate amount of fun, except that nobody realises that you meant to have so much fun all the time? Linda: Yeah but here's the thing. I go in and out of having a lot of fun and then sometimes I get very, very serious in my work. Katrina: Sometimes you get a litter angry. Linda: What do you mean? Katrina: When the passion really comes out. Warrior Linda. Linda: You've had some amazing audio from me lately. Katrina: I've seen the warrior ninja come through a few times. I've seen the [inaudible 00:12:13] ninja, as well, in fact it was doing back flips in my bedroom the other night. Linda: She calls me an "it." Katrina: I meant the ninja. I'm calling it an it, it's an extension of you. Okay, go, you were saying about getting serious. Linda: No, but I have another story. See, I swap stories. I'm a Gemini, just to let you know. I'm a Gemini, so I start a sentence, and then I never finish. And I start another one, I don't finish that either. So I start three different stories in one go. Katrina: And then meanwhile, I'll be doing the exact same thing [inaudible 00:12:46]. Linda: And then she cuts me off and we never get anywhere. Katrina: So, if you're hoping to take some kind of orderly notes from this evening's session, we're going to need to let you know that's not going to happen. But sit back, buckle up, enjoy the ride, and trust you will receive whatever it is that you'll hear divinely to receive. Linda: Whatever your soul is wanting to receive, it's always the perfect timing. Katrina: Exactly. Linda: What I was saying - Katrina: You said sometimes you get really serious. Linda: No, before that. There was another story that cuts off what I was saying. I need to finish this story, first. Katrina: Just let it come on. Linda: It comes out really fast. So, only today, because you were talking about the ninja stuff. I only got a reminder in my phone, in my memories, that it was only a year ago exactly, I was competing in the ninja championship. Katrina: Was that already a year ago? Linda: Yeah, yep. It was. Katrina: So cool. Linda: So what I was saying before the ninja, that yeah, I feel myself going in and out of having a lot of fun, and fun is one of my highest values. Katrina: Yeah. Linda: And play vibrates the same as prey. Play is one of the highest vibrations, so - Katrina: Explain that. Linda: Imagine having fun, like think about the vibration you're in when you're having fun. Like think about how you're actually feeling, there's no ego when you're just full of joy. When you just ... you're immersed in this bubble of love and joy. An ego doesn't exist in that moment, it's just an embodiment of excitement, fun, love. Katrina: You're completely present. Linda: Exactly. You're fully present. Katrina: An ego can't be there when you're completely present. Linda: No, it can't. Katrina: I just had breakthrough moment, already. Not being a smart ass, either, it sounded slightly like I was. Isn't that a powerful concept. Linda: Is it. It is. And I continue to remind myself to have fun, because sometimes I feel like, oh shit, maybe I'm just caught up too much in my serious side, or introspection. Katrina: You are one of the most fun people I know and I'll give you a case study. Linda: Case study? Katrina: Case study. Linda: I cannot guarantee what she's going to say tonight, so. Katrina: It's not that outrageous. But one time I wanted to take my friends to the indoor ... children's ... my friends? - I wanted to make my children to the indoor, you know they have the indoor play centres, right? It was a really rainy Saturday on the Gold Coast sometime last year, back in [inaudible 00:15:14]. My kids are driving me crazy, I'm like, I've got to go to the indoor play centre, but I was like, I need some adult time. I was actually just losing my shit. And I was like, "Who can I invite to come to an indoor kid's play centre with me?" And all my friends who had kids were occupied or busy already, and I'm like which of my friends who doesn't have kids could I invite to come to the indoor play centre with me? I'm like, Linda. Obviously. Katrina: So I audioed her, I'm like, "Hey do you want - it's called Juddlebugs - I'm like do you want to come to Juddlebugs?" She's like, "What's Juddlebugs?" I'm trying to describe it, I'm like "There's like a netting thing you get trapped in and you fall down, and there's slides and you can shoot people and then there's a foam pit." And she's like, "How have I never heard of this?" Linda: And I was going off on you. How dare you not tell me there's a place called Juddlebugs? How dare you? Katrina: But we had the best afternoon. We got trapped upside down in the spiderweb for an unreasonable ... We nearly did a live stream up there. Linda: We did, almost. Katrina: That would be inappropriate. But you are a fun orientated person and I think I've learned a lot about having fun. Kids themed party for adults, that's an awesome idea, AJ. Linda: Oh, yeah. Was I having this conversation with you, AJ? We need to create, yeah you were only saying that the other day at breakfast, yesterday. Katrina: Yeah, I've learned a lot about having fun from you, but I think that that concept of there being no ego in it, is really, really interesting and really powerful. And it's a reminder that if we can get into being present, then I think ... Okay, fun is one thing, then I think we also, that is the place where we access our highest [inaudible 00:16:53] areas, in terms of, for example, greatest creative flow, right? I know that when I get into silliness, playing, silliness, being frivolous, maybe a little bit reckless, or kind of making a fool of yourself, that sort of thing, sometimes I don't know, I'd be curious to know if you feel this way, sometimes when I get really silly and really kind of frivolous and lighthearted, I'll feel a slight shame feeling afterwards. For self-consciousness, where I feel a little - Linda: Like you're judging yourself? Katrina: Do I embarrass myself, did I make a fool of it? Linda: The ego comes back in? Katrina: Yeah, the ego's coming back in afterwards. But then, at the same time, and I'll notice it afterwards, and it feels kind of like a walk of shame type of feeling. Like, did I really do that? And the thing is though, that I don't allow that to infiltrate me and stop me from going wherever I go in my energy when I'm on a live stream, for example, or whatever it is I'm doing in any situation. Because I know that I get into such an amazing creative flow and I get all the downloads when I'm in that place. But then afterwards, my human mind will come back in and be like, "Oh you probably pushed it a little too far," or, "You're making a fool of yourself," or, "People probably think you're off your head." All my judgements come through. Linda: Yeah, yeah. Katrina: But I still do it. I still do it. I notice them and observe them. I'm like, "Okay, thank you for showing up and telling me all the reasons I'm not good enough. I'm going to keep going anyway." Linda: Yeah, yeah. It's amazing to be your own observer. Here's the thing, we all have an inner child within us. We all have an inner child, and sometimes when we get in on this conscious journey of growth and conscious growth and there's ego and then there's a spiritual ego that can come and slap - Katrina: Oh, that's a [crosstalk 00:18:39]. Linda: Yeah, yeah. So I've definitely been wacked left, right, and centre by the spiritual ego sometimes. As you start moving through this experience, you go into that judgement of, "Now I can't be silly because I'm conscious or spiritual." Katrina: Ah, I so nearly put a post up tonight, I'm not even kidding, the only reason I didn't post this on Facebook an hour ago is because I just posted to say we're going to do this. Linda: Well, see, who's a mind reader. Katrina: And I nearly wrote something like, "Be careful not to get so fucking involved that you can't," I don't know. I can't even remember what then ending of what I was going to say is. That like, you become so freaking involved that your whole thing is how involved you are. Linda: Yeah. Katrina: Be careful of the ego that is attached to walking around being like, "Oh I've had all the ego deaths." Yeah, but that's ego, so. And we all do it. Spiritual ego. Linda: Yeah, it's a very interesting concept and to ... I love being my own observer of just allowing myself to be with ease, I don't go into judgement that often. I'm like, "Okay, that was a fascinating, internal response." Katrina: Right, that's similar to what I'll say to myself, like curiosity. Linda: Yeah, it's like, okay. Katrina: Observation. Linda: Okay, that was fascinating. I'm interested why I responded internally that way. Katrina: Yeah, that was an interesting [inaudible 00:20:06]. Linda: And still, I've moved away from that judgement , I'm just like, "I wonder where that came from?" Katrina: Yeah, that's actually really similar to ... I talk about that a lot with clients, as well. I definitely still have those self judgmental reactions come through, but the way that I persist them is curiosity or lightheartedness. My two favourite ones. Linda: Really important. Katrina: When I say lightheartedness, let's say you said something or did something, maybe on a Facebook live like this, or maybe in a one-on-one conversation with somebody, and you really feel that you went quite far with vulnerability and you exposed yourself, and then you go out of that situation and you feel like a need to protect yourself or you feel like maybe you went too far and you put yourself in some vulnerable space or place, and then maybe the judgements comes up, like it could either be, "Yeah, well that was an interesting choice, I wonder why I chose to do that, let me get curious about that," or it could literally be like, "Oh, how silly, how cute. That's really funny, I wonder why I chose that." Or it could even be you did something that really caused some sort of sabotage, right? We've both spoken publicly many times about backgrounds of self-sabotage, and then those old patterns can sometimes try to continue to knock on the door. Many times, people ... I don't want to call it relapse, maybe not the best word, not my favourite word anyway. But many times, people will pick up an old sabotaging pattern and then they'll tend to feel like, "I'm bad, and I'm weak willed, and I got to hate on myself, and why did I do this?" Katrina: And instead, and I speak about this a lot with a lot of clients who have struggled with binge eating and if the binge eating comes back ... I have bulimia for 10 years, so I understand it, right? And they'll be like, "Oh my God, this is fucked up, what did I do?" And I'm like, "Wait no, what if instead, it was 'Oh, wow. I wonder why you needed that? Let's get curious about that. What was it inside you that needed that?'" Or also, even to smile about something that perviously felt so heavy and to make it lighthearted. It takes the power out of it and actually gives you back your power. Linda: Yeah, yeah. And conscious, when I say, because we said in the title "Conscious Relationship" it's not just conscious relating with another person or in an actual partnership or relationship, it's also how we're consciously relating to ourselves and what kind or relationship we're having to ourselves. Katrina: 100% Linda: And I think that's even more important to dive into, because if you don't understand yourself, then how can you consciously relate to another human being, if you don't understand your own ways of internal response and dimension and your operation system. Katrina: Yeah, I love that, and it's funny because I think when we said we'd talk about conscious relationships, we said that to each other earlier today, and I think we sort of thought, relationships with other people, but when I was on the plane just before, I was thinking, I feel like this is going to be more about the relationship with self, because the place that we create epic relationships with other people from, even an amazing friendship, an amazing client-mentor relationship. I always say that my clients, so many clients, it wasn't always that way. It could be a romantic relationship, as well. All the different relationships. In order to call it or allowing or flowing to incredible incredible conscious relationships with other individuals, we have to first be in an incredible conscious relationship with our own selves. Linda: Absolutely. Katrina: And in a space of non-judgment, understanding, compassion, and full acceptance. Linda: I only wrote a blog about that this morning. That I got inspired by someone who asks me yesterday, "Linda, why haven't you been swept off your feet yet?" And I didn't get triggered or anything like that, it just simply inspired me to talk about it openly and to express myself why that is, and just put a little slightly different perspective on it, as well. And take it into the relating with self, because if we want someone to show up for us, if we want someone to be present with us, we have to be present with ourselves, first. We have to show up for ourselves, first. Linda: Quite often, we're longing for something, we're wanting, we're even needing. So there's a needing ness and you are filling a void within us, that we haven't even actually given ourselves. And if we're not giving ourselves, then how can we truly experience that outside of ourselves? Katrina: Well you learn you receive from others what you're giving to yourself. That's the reality. So if you feel, maybe sometimes you get frustrated or angry, this happens a lot with coaches and with their clients, and it happens with men and women in romantic relationships, it even happens in friendships and family dynamics, also. I guess I hear it fairly frequently in the coaching industry, "I seem to have all these clients who are behind on their payments," or whatever, right? Some sort of pardon like that. And it's always like, "Okay cool, this is great, this is great feedback and information because this is a great opportunity to look at where am I not honouring myself?" Linda: Absolutely. Katrina: And yeah, the think with relationships that I think sometimes we all forget, I know give forgotten this or put it aside at times, is there'll always be instability there. The goal is not to get to some sort of place of done, sorted, everything's predicted and predictable. Imagine how fucking boring that'd be, anyways. But it's growth, relationships are there for our growth, right? Exactly, AJ just that's where we attractively show our voids. Linda: Yeah. Katrina: So when you have people in your life, any area of your life, who you feel like their causing you to feel something, it's always "Wow, thank you, because this allows me to see an area in myself where I wasn't paying attention, where I wasn't honouring myself." Can I give an example that's a little bit naughty? Of course I can. Linda: Are you asking for permission? Katrina: I don't know. I don't know. When I was on the live stream last week, Chris told me not to swear, I was like, "What?" But it's because we were going to use it for a Facebook ad. I'm like, "Mother fucker." He's like, "You can't swear." I'm like, "What do you mean I can't swear?" Katrina: Okay, so I had an awareness only very recently, actually. I had always thought, not always, but I had frequently felt frustrated that when I have sex with Mare, he would very rarely pay attention to my breasts. All men, I don't mean one individual man, right? But it was a pattern that I noticed. I felt frustrated that men would just kind of ignore my breasts. They would sometimes even just leave my top of and just go down there, and not always, but a high percentage of the time. And I definitely had a story in my head that this is because I have fairly small breast and that's the reason why. And I was 100% certain about that. And then, long story short, I realised that, "Holy shit. I never give my breasts love and attention. I never pay attention," previously never. I was never paying them attention, I was not giving them any love, any touch, any affection, I didn't really consider them ... I didn't dislike my breasts at all, actually I find them very practical for fitness reasons, but if we take that story even further back, though, and I did blog about it. Yeah, Marie, I did blog about it a week or two ago. Katrina: Because I'm actually having breast enlargement surgery in two days. And I'm so grateful I realised all this before that was coming through, right? Because that's coming from a place of desire, not from a place of trying to fill a need. But with this, if you go back even further, when I was a teenage, I had really big boobs. And when I was in my late teens. And people would comment on it often and I would wear low cut tops often, and I wasn't heavy either. I just actually had big boobs. But then I would learn from my mom, about be careful because men are going to whatever. I got the message that I was being too sexual, and I really think when I look back now, I think I manifested them way. Because now look, they're like an A cup or whatever, they're a small B, maybe. But yeah, it was just this interesting realisation of I'm walking around going, "What the fuck is with these dudes that don't take the time to touch the rest of my body because that's what I really want and that's really what opens you up as a women, to have that attention to all areas, not just, obviously." Katrina: Whether or not it's obviously, if it's not obvious, now you know. Welcome. And then I'm like, "Oh my God, holy fucking wake up call. I get to love on myself in that area." And I'm not kidding, within four days of when I started to give attention in that area and then I had a sexual experience and it was like, "Yeah, I'm like ..." Linda: But see, this flows into all areas of life. It's not just what we experience with relationships. It's actually in all areas. So I'm just going to invite you into a moment of introspection and to really reflect on in what area of your life are you feeling that, "Oh I'm not receiving what I'm actually wanting?" And you're kind of blocking yourself from that. In what area of you're life, is it maybe money, it is money stuff? What's your relationship with money, how you speak to money, what do you feel about money? If you're someone who wants to contentiously create that or you want to consciously create a beautiful relationship, or experience certain things. Then you have to look inside, first, and check in, are you giving yourself that? That was a beautiful example. That was a really beautiful example. Katrina: And that's a physical example, but it's also with the emotional stuff. Linda: Yeah, yeah. Katrina: And any time we're looking for something to fill a need in us, money is a great example, if I had that money then I'd be safe, I'd be free, then I'd be credible, then I'd be good enough. It's always like, "Oh, wow." As soon as you realise that, how can I give that to myself. Well actually, how you can give any of these things to yourself is to decide to. It's not something you've got to go out and work for. You can do it in this moment. Linda: Absolutely. It's simply a choice. It's decision to do so in an instant because we can so easily get caught up, and like you said before, when I get there, then I'll be good enough. When I lose this weight, then I'll feel good enough, or then I'll feel beautiful. Or that was just one example. Katrina: Or when I make the money then I'm safe or then I'm worthy. Linda: Then I'm successful. Katrina: Then I can relax in my life, then I can have fun in my life, then I can be happy. Or when somebody loves me then this, then this, then this. So anything that we're putting onto a pedestal like that, we're saying, "If I have this thing outside of myself, then I can experience and live in the emotions and energies that I desire." It causes you to actually push it away. It means that you hold the thing that you want at arms length, it's a lesson that you've got to learn. Is that you get to give that to yourself. So when you continue in that pattern, it's kind of like, "Oh, okay cool. I see that you just want to keep learning that same lesson again and again and again." Interesting choice. Linda: Isn't it interesting when the universe continues to teach you the same lessons until you learn? I'm just reflecting back on some of my own patterns, and like, oh my God. Katrina: Right, right. Linda: And it just clicks. I'm like, "Okay, well I haven't been honouring myself in that area," or "I haven't been giving myself attention in that area." Katrina: Yeah. Okay, we're back. We just froze over here. Linda: She broke the internet again. I mean, we broke it. Katrina: You put it into words on the card over there. Linda: I did. Katrina: Now it just keeps happening. Linda: We're manifesting it. Conscious creation. What was I talking about before? Going on tangents. Katrina: You were talking about how there's been times where you've noticed you learning the same lesson again and again and again. And then it's like, "Okay. I'm finally done with learning that lesson." Linda: Yeah, yeah. And the learning can be in an absolute instant. You choose to shift your internal matrix and you just chose to observe what's happening. And you chose to - Katrina: It's an instantaneous decision. Linda: Yeah, absolutely. And how quickly your outer matrix can shift with that. Katrina: Yeah. Completely. Linda: So phenomenal. Katrina: It's amazing. I mean, earlier on this week, you know I was in Bali until Wednesday. I remember Monday, I think ... Well we audio every day, anyway. But I was really feeling kind of stuck and in some heavy energies, and you know where it's up in your face, I get anxiety sometimes. And I was having a pretty extreme anxiety day, which I hadn't had in a while, and I was really just not enjoying that feeling of it. But at the same time, I remember I walked into the gym and I remember saying to myself, "This will shift. As much as in this moment of insane anxiety and feeling frustrated or whatever it was that I was experiencing, as much as that felt real." I was so aware, I guess, from all the work that I've done over the years and the way I live my life, I was like, "This could shift any moment." And from now on I might feel on top of the fucking world and completely understand all my madness and why I was making something into a really big thing. Or I might stay in a state or feeling stuck and anxious and frustrated or trapped or whatever for the whole day, and either what it's okay, either way it is what is, and that's all it is, and that's okay. Katrina: But I think that sometimes when we're in that state of feeling like, "Why can I have what I want and why is money evading me or why is this happening or why is my business here or why are my relationships like this or whatever," that we get so caught up in this kind of story of "This is not fair and why am I getting [inaudible 00:34:18] this instead of just being like this could change in an instant based on your own thoughts," I don't mean based on something happened. I mean based on you suddenly get some new perspective and on that day earlier this week, I said just kind of a simple loose intention in my mind that this will get to shift and that they'll be a way for me to be empowered by this situation that was causing me to feel a bit panicked, and I felt like, "How could that happen?" Because there is something that makes me feel upset. Katrina: And I'm not kidding, like two hours later, I was like, "Holy shit, wow. I feel so grateful for this now because I just realised how I'm not addressing whatever area inside of and that I now get to learn about this, and oh my God, I'm so glad that this happened to cause me to go into this anxiety of this crazy tail spin." I had to sit in it and marinate in it and it didn't feel fun, but even when you're in that state, like we know that it's for our greater good, right? Linda: Always. Katrina: So we might be like, "Ah this feels like shit. This has been dragged through the ringer, and put on a freaking spin cycle and then you go ten rounds after that, and then somebody" ... But you still know that it's for your learning and growth. So even in the mists of the worst of it, you're like, "And I'm getting fucking strong as a mother fucker." Watch me grow. Linda: Watch me grow, watch me expand. Katrina: We talk about this all the time. Linda: We do, we do. I think it's really powerful how we can go into, even when we're triggered, so this is the thing, previously the gratitude always comes after, the learning comes after. You're not going to get clarity and learning and wisdom when you're full of emotion. You need to left that shift. You need to be with it. But can you be your own observer at the same time? And instantly, while you're having that experience of, "I feel really shit. I feel really challenged." Can you be your own observer and go, "Hey I'm still grateful, because I'm being shown something that I'm not quite getting yet. Katrina: Right. I don't know what it is yet, but I know that it's here for a reason. Linda: It's here for a reason, it's here for my greater good, and I get to learn something. I get to be a better version of myself as I come through this. Katrina: Yeah. It's just when I'm triggered, I'm secretly happy because I know I'm healing. Linda: Yeah. I love that. I love that expression. Katrina: Well even on the plane just then, my four year old had three next level tantrums on the flight that were just so bad, so full on. I'm first I was conscious as fuck. I'm using conscious communication with my child, everybody probably so impressed by me. I was staying super calm, I was very proud of myself, right? And I got him through the first tantrum. Katrina: But then he had another one. And I felt myself start to break a little bit. I was like, "Fucking." I didn't say that, but that's what I was feeling, right. I was going to be like skanky bogan mom on the plane. But I didn't. But I was feeling it. But it was so full on. He's just like that when he's not ... he's a free spirit. Linda: Auntie Linda never gets those attacks, let's just leave it like that. Katrina: You can freaking fly with him. But honestly, at the same time, there was this small part of me that was like, "I'm becoming a warrior right now as a mother." I'm learning and growing. Okay he did break me a little bit, there was one point when the stewardess come up and I may have just been sitting on the tray table ignoring him while he jumped up and down in the seat and threw a marinate sauce on the guy in front of me. Linda: What? You didn't tell me that part. Katrina: I didn't have time to tell you anything, I got home and we went straight into the live stream. It was a small moment there where I was like, "I'm just going to pretend this is not happening and I'm not even going to try to do anything about it." Linda: As he was throwing sauce at people. Katrina: And the stewardess is like, "Could you stop standing up on the seat, please, the captain's going to come out and get you." And he was like, "No he's not." But he goes, "Never!" He refuses to sit. Linda: I love Nathan, he's just so unapologetic in his stuff. Katrina: Yeah and then she's like, "Wow, he's quite stern mood isn't he?" I'm like ... Linda: He's just unapologetic. He doesn't take no for an answer. Katrina: I really did break a little bit. I was like, "This is too hard. I just want to drink my wine and write in my fucking journal." Linda: I honour all the moms out there, honestly. I really honour all the moms because I don't have kids myself, yet, it might be an experience that I get to have in this lifetime, it may not, you know, either way I'm okay. But it's beautiful to watch from a distance. Katrina: Honestly, even through that, I'm just like, you go into this place when that shit happens on a plane where you're like, "I'm just going to choose to not allow anyone else' perceptions to impact me right now. I'm going to be in my space, with my child doing the best I can fucking do and now worrying about what everybody else is thinking about it." But there was definitely that part of me that was like, "I'm growing from this experience." And it's like what AJ just said about when you get triggered, and yeah, anything shit's going on for us and we always share what we're working through and what we're processing and stuff that's coming up. Linda: But we still have our tantrums, as well. Katrina: Ah, yeah. Linda: Some of our audience, like yesterday - Katrina: Sometimes we're extraordinarily immature. Linda: Oh my God. I just make - Katrina: Yesterday was an interesting day. Linda: Oh my God. But we also have these tantrums. Conscious tantrums. It's hilarious. Katrina: #concioustantrums. We do. It's release. Linda: Yeah, it is. Katrina: The thing is, even when we're having a tantrum through, we're aware and we know what we're doing. Linda: Yeah. Katrina: And we talk about it, usually at the same time. Not even afterward. But you won't be like, "losing your shit," or "I'm losing my shit," or whatever, and in the same audio, we're like, "Oh, well then I also understand that blah blah blah." And it's like, people don't talk like that normally with their friends. We give ourselves credit and give yourself credit if you are catching yourself, even a little bit. Because it's not about being so fucking involved that you're not in a human experience at all. But I think that one of the most powerful things is to be able to catch yourself and to notice it. Linda: Absolutely, absolutely. And like I said, be that own observer on the side. And go, "Okay, I'm allowing myself to just be [inaudible 00:40:56], I'm allowing myself to be with this." Katrina: Right. Linda: I'm allowing myself to be a little brat. And like I was saying yesterday, I just want to fucking kick and scream. But I'm not going to. [crosstalk 00:41:07]. And then just verbalise it, which is an expression of releasing. What was I saying? I either feel like having two litres in wine and I hardly ever drink or I want to have two litres of ice cream, which is not an option, or give me a bucket of peanut butter, or - Katrina: What is that, that's on the table over there? Linda: Where? Katrina: That packet of interesting items that I threw on the table down there. Linda: It's for you, my dear. Katrina: Did you buy me peanut butter? We needed some peanut butter in this house. [inaudible 00:41:43] Linda: We have peanut butter cuddles. Katrina: Well, you know what, what do you think ... peanut butter orgasms are also a thing that people need to be aware of. But that may be a topic for another live stream. But what do you think about, we were talking before about having fun and how important fun is, so fun is something that's often thought of as a childhood type thing, right? Children naturally know how to really be in a set of higher fun. Well children are also fabulous at having next level temper tantrums. So do you think it's just totally okay to be ... if you're going to be in that child energy of play and fun and lightheartedness and frivolity, why don't you get ... This is still live, Patrick - Linda: Yeah, it's life. Katrina: No need to replay. Why don't you get to also ... Well you don't necessarily get to lay down on the floor in the airport like my son does and kick and scream. Linda: But could you imagine though? Next time we go travelling, we should ... you have the phone, I'll do the thing. Honestly, we can do some skits. Katrina: That would be hilarious. [crosstalk 00:42:51]. I want the fucking peanut butter! They took my peanut butter off me at security! Totally. But it's actually not that funny because we're talking about, as adults, we learn to restrict our expression of our emotion. Linda: Right. Yeah. And we get so suppressed, but it's a form of release and no wonder we're so programmed to repress and not express ourselves, no wonder all of the sudden all these things are bubbling up inside, and then we just snap at the smallest little thing because we haven't been taught how to express ourselves. We haven't been taught how to create healthy containers to release our emotions and the energy from our bodies. And here's the thing, our physical bodies are going to store emotion and if we're not creating healthy containers to let go of that and to constantly release, like crying is a form of release, and we've even made crying bad. That crying is weak. Katrina: Right, right. It's a method as well. Linda: It's a mode of healing. Katrina: Absolutely. But it's also, if you continue to hold back what you're acting thinking and feeling from yourself, nevermind the other people in your life, then actually over time, you accidentally created yourself into a version of yourself which is not the real you. Linda: Yeah. Katrina: Because every single time you make a choice to respond from, "This is how I should show up or behave in this situation, as opposed to this is my true self, my true soul," you just made a small adjustment off track. And if you're doing that day by day, multiples times throughout the day, you kind of cultivating yourself into being this service based, masked version of yourself. And so then you wonder, why your relationships aren't working, why you can't seem to attract in those ideal soulmate clients, if you're an entrepreneur. I had a client a year or so ago say something about there's always these conflicts like friendships, and at the time I was like, "Wow, I don't have any conflict in my friendships." Now, I'm saying I don't experience conflict ever in my friendships, but it certainly not something where ... I don't expect it or I don't really think of it as normal, right? I wouldn't expect that we are friends would have some kind of conflict. Of course it's possible, nothing's impossible, but to me that's a soul aligned relationship, whether it's client or a friend or something different in the personal life. Katrina: I don't look at that as there should be currents of turmoil. Now if there would, that would be okay as well. Because it is what it is. But it's more that when the soul connection is there, there's an actual real true understanding of who we each are as individuals. It's not based on some service masked foundation, is what I'm saying. Linda: Right, yeah. Katrina: So therefor, there's actual legitimate acceptance of each other on a soul level, not just, "Oh yeah, you say the things or do the thing or have the things in your life that similar to me and so we'll be friends." Linda: Yeah, absolutely. And I think you and I are similar in many ways, but we're also so different in so many ways, and I think I remember ages and ages ago when I was just playing at a different level of consciousness, to just observe my human connections and relationships that I had back then and it was kind of like this ego game of, "Oh why wouldn't you like that? We can't be friends now." It wasn't honouring people ad accepting people for who they were. And now that I find with all of my friends, who I connect with on a soul level, we may not agree with everything, we may not do everything the same way, but we're fully honouring each other for who we are. Katrina: Completely Linda: And accepting each other for who we are. Katrina: Yeah. Linda: And life really isn't about, like you said earlier, touched on how we tend to lose ourselves because we're told who to be and we're told how to live our life, we are operating from this mask. And we're not even ourselves. And quite often we hear this expression of I just want to go and find myself. It isn't about finding yourself. Life is about remembering who you aare. Because everything is inside of you. We've all been born a free spirit of love, we all have an inner child within ourselves, so it's the programming of society that puts you in a box and tells you how to live your life, what to believe, how to ... We're even been thought what to think. We're being thought what to feel, in this type of situation, you should feel this. Katrina: Right. [crosstalk 00:47:34] Linda: And every single part of our life is manufactured in this system. So quite often we hear about, "Oh I'm going to go around the world to find myself." We don't need to go around the world to find ourselves. We can literally sit in stillness and just think right here and start to peel back the layers of who we're not. Who we've been told to be. And that's really powerful. It's not about, "Hey I want to figure out everything at once," that's not how it works. You figure something out about yourself, start to remember who you are on certain levels. It's like the onion. You peel back one layer and then there's something else under that. Linda: We run away from ourselves, yeah. I definitely run away from myself. A lot, in fact, back in the day. Because I couldn't face and stand the person who I was. So I did everything and anything to continue to numb and escape from my reality. Katrina: Right, yeah. There's a lot of things that are on the surface that could look like fabulous life choices, travels one of them. Which people might use in some cases, for numbing or escaping, but it's all about the place it's coming from. Because it can be coming, obviously from a place of hiding value and grounding and expanding, or it could be coming from a place of hiding. Like alcohol is one example of that. Sometimes people drink alcohol to obviously escape and run and hide, and then other times alcohol is expanding a higher vibe of abundance energy, basically. So it's all about where you already are, but either way, you've got to be giving yourself everything you need. If you think going on a silent meditation or going to a retreat or doing a course or getting a coach or getting a partner or whatever it is that's going "to change everything for me, that's going to fix me, that's going to give me what I need. I need this, I have to do it." It's like, "Well cool, do it if you feel called to do it, whatever it is." But you're actually still going to need to figure out how to give that to yourself at some point. Linda: Really good point. Katrina: You're not going to get it from going to that thing, paying that person, doing that thing. Linda: Yeah, absolutely. People can guide us, absolutely, but at the end of the day, a good coach is someone who guides and teaches for you to how to heal yourself, how to be more of you, how to connect to your truth and your believes around things, and how to be your own observer. So you're not relying on an external coach all the time. Or you're not relying on another external resource. Katrina: Yeah, I read about this. I did a little [inaudible 00:50:14] as my plane was taking off about maximum abuse learnings around relationships, business and personal, and like I mentioned specifically, a mentor shouldn't be telling you what to do. I believe a mentor is to help you remember how to be your be your own [inaudible 00:50:32], but a mentor is there to be more of who you are and connect to your soul, connect to your intuition and your own guidance and wisdom. Not to tell you, "Here's the rules and you must do this in order to get this result." Linda: Yeah, absolutely. And it's powerful when you can start to tune into yourself and listen to your own soul and allow your inner compass to guide you, and I'm very big on that. Katrina: Yes. Your soul always knows. Linda: Your could always knows. I actually have to admit to one thing. This year, I ended up getting caught up with events, like person - Personal growth is one of my highest values, and I love ... I can throw my money on personal growth. Coaching, mentoring, events, all this stuff. And I found myself doing one event after another, one course after another - Katrina: Yeah you were in a - Linda: ... I'm like, "Holy shit, this is actually too much." What am I actually searching from these events? Is that thing of, "Ah, I want to expand more, I want to evolve my consciousness more. And I don't feel good enough." So that was really interesting to obverse myself in that. But I caught myself. I was completely honest with myself. I'm being honest with you here as well. It doesn't matter how much you continue to evolve, you'll never get to a stage where, "Okay, I've had enough now." Katrina: Yep. Linda: But also, be careful that you're not going the other way of "I want more and more and more." Because you can't be okay with what you have inside of you. Katrina: Right. Like learn ... yeah. Learning, growth work, is a great example of what we were just saying. A lot of people use growth work to escape from being in the now and from living their lives. In fact, you know Bali, like we're both obsessed with Bali and we both go to Bali a lot. You're leaving back again Tuesday for Bali, right? And I just came back from Bali on Wednesday and I go there every month. Linda: And you're coming back for my birthday. Katrina: I'm going back to Bali for your birthday, of course, in a few weeks. So Bali though, is a place ... There's an expression about Bali I remember hearing, it's like, it can be a place for the internal wanderer. Now, nothing wrong with being an internal wanderer, but specially there's a lot of people who go to Bali and 20 years later are still in Bali and have not, as I would call it, pressed fucking play on anything, they're just floating around freaking Bali being healed and cleansed. Bali cleanse. Linda: That is starting. Katrina: We have our own detention of what a Bali cleanse may entail. But there is. There's a lot of people in Bali who are amazing artists and messengers, but who have not put a single bit of work out in the world or barely anything. They're just caught up in their energy and the obsession and the vortex of Bali, and I'm healing and I'm learning and I'm exploring and I'm wondering. And it's like, cool, when are you going to fucking do something? Linda: Yeah. Katrina: So there's going to be that part of it, as well. Linda: Absolutely. Katrina: And Bali's a good example of that. But life is a good example of that, as well. And in this industry, for sure, you see so many people who are continually learning, continually healing, continually absorbing new content and regurgitating stuff on the internet, I guess, but when are you going to actually admit that you're scared to let what's inside of you out? And then just do it. Because that's what's going on. You're becoming addicted to the growth work as a way of escaping doing your own fucking work. Linda: Yes, and we're hiding under the spiritual masks, then we become, like we start to awaken our self worth and our beliefs are still at a level where we think that, for example, money is bad, or we can't do certain things because it's bad. And we actually have a lot of limiting believes in operating from that space, and then we just hide under this spiritual façade of spiritual masks where, oh no, no, but I'm spiritual and I'm a good person - Katrina: Bold as fuck. Linda: And we hide and we use that as an excuse to cover up and limiting where you're thinking or our low self worth and how we're operating. So we're using it as an excuse and I'm masking. Katrina: It's hiding. Linda: It is hiding. And at the end of the way, we can get so caught up in the whole, "Let's just do yoga and meditate every day and do nothing else." Katrina: Right. Linda: But at the end of the day, yes those are daily practises and very important, I believe in them very much. I'm a yoga teacher - Katrina: Yeah, journaling. Obviously I'm obsessed with journaling, I talk about it all the time, but one time I wrote a post, something like, "Put the fucking journal down. Stop fucking journaling. Go and do some work." Like, okay journaling is that work, I get that, obviously I teach that. But yeah, there's go to be those ... it's that dance, back and forth between, okay I'm going within and I'm accessing guidance and I'm learning and growing, or connecting with others who are helping me to grow. And then it's like, okay now I'm in creation mode, because as humans, we're all brought here to create. We're not brought here to consume. Consumption of content or growth or whatever - Linda: That's what we're taught. Katrina: But creation, I believe, is of higher value for the majority of us, or certainly, at least, for people in this community. We're creators. Linda: Yeah, yeah. Katrina: So are you creating or are you caught up in that continual, perpetual, wondering and seeking and never being ready to press play, and there's always something else to learn and nother fucking healing session to do, and another journaling session to do, and at some point it's like, put the journal down. Linda: Yeah, and you know, it can be uncomfortable to observe these things about ourselves and we don't always want to admit to that. But it's really powerful to just own that space and not just own your story, but own everything where you're at. First of the changes is awareness and then acceptance. Accept where you are, and go, "Okay, awesome, I acknowledge where I am now, and if I'm not aware, then how can I create change?" And like I just own up about the whole event thing. I'm like, "Oh my God, I just being going from event to event." Katrina: Well you said yes to all those events in alignment, though. Like you're the opposite of a person who doesn't do the work. But then, at a certain point, you noticed that it was too ... it was feeling like, this is not what I need. Linda: Yeah, yeah. Katrina: To be continual. But you weren't saying yes to those events in a place of trying to escape or avoid anything. It was the opposite of that. Linda: Yeah. Katrina: It was aligned to say yes, and then at a certain point it was like, "Oh, okay cool. I can learn what I need to learn here," which partly is that I don't need to go to events back to back to back to back. Linda: Oh my God. Katrina: In different cities continually. Linda: I'm having a month off, okay. A month off. Katrina: Yeah, but now, you're falling out of that and you're into more growth and time and taking actual time, it's a perfect balance, right? Linda: The integration - Katrina: You're allowing it all to just sink deeper into who you are. Linda: Yeah. The integration is a really interesting topic and I think it's a really important one to discuss because we can, for example, if you're using the event example again, we can continue to do courses, events, blah blah blah, and we take all the information in, or we do healing. But are we allowing ourselves to integrate? Are we actually applying also our learnings? We can get caught up in the personal development world, as well. We just continue to do all the courses, learn all the stuff, but are we applying it? Are we actually embodying - Katrina: Are you testing it out? Linda: ... the teachings? Are we embodying the wisdom of what we're actually being taught? Because knowledge is not power. It's what you do with the knowledge. Katrina: Yep, that applied knowledge is power. Linda: Yeah. Applied knowledge is power. Yeah, I definitely believe that, too. Katrina: Yeah. Linda: So it's powerful to observe where you are and just be up front and honest with yourself. Okay, cool, well I get to see from a different perspective. I'm going, "Okay, well I own that part of myself. And now I can create change." But if you're not accepting those parts of yourself, then you can't change it. It's like this with anything in life. If you're not accepting where you are and you're not accepting a previous experience, you can't shift from it. You have to accept it. Katrina: You have to continue to receive that same lesson until you learn it. Linda: Acceptance is part of the healing process in anything in life. Super powerful. I accept that you're here. Katrina: I'm just thinking about the Bali cleanse. Linda: On the audio you're like - Katrina: We're going to have a fabulous Bali cleanse when I come over again in a few weeks. Linda: And it is my birthday in a couple of weeks. So [crosstalk 00:59:16]. How am I going to make it? Oh yeah. 34. Age is only number [crosstalk 00:59:25]. Katrina: That's why I'm like, I think I know, but I'm not [crosstalk 00:59:27]. Linda: Yeah, it's like ... sometimes I'm friends with people, like close friends, and I'm like, "How old are you?" After couple years, I'm like, "How old are you, even?" Age is just not a thing that we know. Katrina: Not at all. Well I like that expression, I don't see faces, I see souls. It's the same with age, I think. It's a soul thing, not an age thing. Linda: Guilty on consume too much learning. Yeah, if we're not taking aligned action or applying the stuff, nothing's going to happen. We've got to step into the actual taking responsibility for our actions. Katrina: And pressing fucking play. Linda: And pressing fucking play. Katrina: Or pressing go live. This is an example, right? We're really just having a conversation here that we would have by ourselves anyhow, and we do all day, every day, and how hard is it to just go live and do it as content for your audience. It's not hard. But people make it really hard. And if you wanted to build brand for example, and then maybe you're like, "I've got all these powerful, cool stuff inside of me," and you talk about it with your friends or maybe some groups or your mentor or something like that, well, that's being stuck in the cycle of I'm learning and I'm growing and I talk about amazing, interesting things with people, but are you showing the world? Are you sharing what you're here to show the world? Linda: Yeah. Katrina: Marie says, "I'm 49 and [inaudible 01:00:51] I feel 35." Yeah, well, that's what's funny right. I would never think of you by being 49 based on what the conventional definition of 49 is. But I think, even my ... what's his name? The yoga teacher? In Bali? Linda: Yeah. Katrina: So he asked me once how old I was, because I mentioned having an eight year old, and he was like, "How old are you?" And I told him, and he was like, "Holy shit, I thought you were like 30, basically." And I've gone, "How old are you?" And he's 49, right? Linda: Ah is he 49? Wow. Katrina: I was like, wow. So then we both congratulated each other on how young we look, of course. And he was kind of talking about how people don't take care of themselves and stuff. But I said to him, "But how you look at 49 and how I look at 38 is what it's meant to be like. What if that is what 49 is suppose to look like? It's just that most people are all fucked up, basically." So it's not even that you look younger or I look younger, it's that we're the ones who have actually honoured our bodies and taken care of ourselves and this is what ... 38 is not suppose to look like what most, sorry. What most women look like at 38. It shouldn't look like. Or what most men look like at 50. It shouldn't look like that. It should be, if you took care of yourself. I don't know. That's my theory. Linda: Longevity. Katrina: My theories that when we meet people when we're shocked at their age, and that they look like, Marie's a great example of this. Marie's in my inner circle. And I've met her in person, obviously, as well. Not obvious, but I have. People like that, where you think, "How can you be that age? Doesn't make nay sense." My theory is that they look the correct way that you're suppose to look for that age, it's just that everybody else is ageing super fast because they didn't take care of themselves. Linda: Yeah, and I guess, yes the numbers are ticking in our linear timeline and we get "a year older ... pardon? Katrina: That we've been in time and space. Linda: Oh, we do. There's so many different timelines. The talk about time is just a whole other live feed again. But at the end of the day, we celebrate these birthdays, when really we're just one day older, every day. Katrina: Yeah. Linda: It's actually really interesting because we're not going to feel ... We're still this infinite soul, we're still this person that's inside of this physical body that we carry for life. We're not going to feel any different in 20 years time. We're still going to be this soul - Katrina: Everybody says that. Linda: We're still going to feel the physical restrictions because the body starts to shut down, so the only difference you're going to feel is your physical limitations that you'll eventually have because your body is getting older. Katrina: Yep. Linda: So that's why its so incredibly important to look after your physical being, health and wellness is not just - Katrina: It's not negotiable. Linda: Yeah. Yeah. And it flows into mind, body, and soul. Looking after every parts of self, and we can't continue to neglect that. Even as an 80 year old, we have child. Katrina: You look fabulous for 80. You're like, "Even as an 80 year old." You're looking fucking amazing. Linda: I met this man. I live steamed about it last night. I met this beautiful man - Katrina: The guy that you shared your food with? Linda: Yes! Yes. I want to share it again, can I? Can I? In a really, really short version. I was feeling very triggered yesterday. And I was sitting outside eating my little rice crackers and my avocado, and this elderly man, he was about 70. Katrina