Welcome to the Soul Touched by Dogs Podcast, the show for dog lovers who
see dogs not as toys or tools, but wise souls worth our respect and care.
I'm an Herrmann, and I'm your host.
I talk to poor some humans, people who do great work for dogs and their people.
So come and join us for today's conversation.
Anke: Hello and welcome, Dr.
Laura Donaldson.
I'm super excited to have you with me.
Laura: I'm delighted to be here and, um, you know, I love any opportunity
to talk about becoming trauma informed.
and what trauma is and, um, you know, I think you've had such great podcasts,
Anke, so I'm, I'm thrilled to be here.
Anke: And it's such a, I think it's such an important topic and the more I hear
about it, the more I think, you know, when I got my first dog, it's like, oh
boy, I wish I, I wish I'd known then, you know, what I'm, what I'm learning now.
So, and, and if there's anybody, you know, anybody who's listening,
it's like, That's for you, you know?
So it's bringing that awareness and that knowledge that still
doesn't seem to be the default.
But before we dig in all the way, , all the way, let people
know where you based and you know, what's your business with dogs?
Laura: Well, I live in upstate New York and, uh, we're in the middle of
snow, ice, below zero, wind chill.
Um.
I live on Lake Cuyuga.
It's one of the Finger Lakes.
We're about 250 miles upstate from New York City.
And, uh, not that far from the Canadian border.
Uh, and Ithaca is my city and, and I taught at Cornell for a number
of years, Cornell University, and I live about five minutes from there.
Uh, so I, I, uh, I've turned into a farmer in my retirement.
I'm retired from Cornell now.
Um, and I have sheep.
I used to have chickens.
Of course, I have dogs.
I'm down to two.
I've lived with as many as six in our little tiny 1829 farm.
And my African gray parrot, Obi, who most people hear, because he loves
to chime in anytime I'm online.
So if you hear whistling or Somebody calling out Laura, that's him.
Anke: Oh, that is funny, but he doesn't swear, does he?
Laura: No, he doesn't swear.
It
Anke: just makes me laugh because there is this, um, I saw like, in, well, in
a YouTube video, there's apparently, there's a bunch of, like, five or six
African parrots in the British Zoo.
And they swear like truck drivers and they will insult the
visitors
Laura: and stop so they're pushing them forward.
And they're the most popular attraction.
People are flocking to come see them and be sworn at by the parents.
Anke: Somebody in the Facebook group, you know, somebody says, Oh, well,
you know, I'm surprised that You know, that positive reinforcement training
should really work there to teach them.
I go, I think they're getting plenty of positive
Laura: reinforcement.
They are, yes, yes, yes.
I love parrots, but they're not for everybody.
Let
Anke: me just say.
So now let's unpack.
What do you mean when you say trauma aware in the context of dogs?
So, you know, how can I become trauma aware from with my dog for my dog?
Laura: Well by listening to podcasts like this, that's one.
But you know, so I want to maybe back up a step and I love this quote from
By Gabor MatÃ©, who's one of my favorite thinkers, The Myth of Normal, um, if you
want to have something to read by him.
But, um, he says, trauma is a foundational layer of experience in modern life.
But, It's one that's largely ignored or misapprehended.
Meaning, a lot of times we see it, but we think it's something else.
Um, I think There's two ways that can come out.
If you have a child, for example, who's struggling with trauma, that
may come out as aggressive behavior in a elementary school class.
So if you get called, if your kid is hitting other people in the lunch
line, um, that's liable to be slapped with one of two things, either a
toxic label, you know, he's just.
bad, or she is just bad, naughty, um, unlovable, or it's clinically
diagnosed as oppositional disorder.
Uh, and there may be some of that in there, but what is missing
is the even more fundamental underlying layer of trauma, because
aggression is a very common response.
to trauma, not just in humans, but dogs.
That makes a lot of
Anke: sense.
So that means if somebody comes to you with an aggressive dog,
your first direction, the first direction you look in is like, okay,
what's the underlying trauma here?
Laura: Yes.
Anke: That correct?
Laura: Yes, absolutely.
Um, because I do think the history is important and what you'll often
find out is, um, you know, and, and people don't connect these dots, right?
Well, let's see, six months ago, my dog was attacked by an off leash dog
when we were just walking down the sidewalk, or, um, my dog was really
terrified by a skateboarder, or, um, you know, there's what I call microtrauma.
In the home, maybe you have young kids who are violating the dog's spatial
boundaries on a daily basis, pulling their ears, yelling, moving fast,
and for many dogs that, that is very hard to deal with and threatening.
Um, and then I say, and then they, they remarked on how the dog's behavior kind
of deteriorated over the last six months.
And I connect the dots and they go, Oh, um.
It helps them to understand their dog's behavior.
Anke: Yeah.
Laura: Uh, that, that actually, I think, I've never met a dog struggling with
aggression who didn't have some kind of trauma in their profile or background.
And that can be veterinary.
It can be a young puppy who has a series of surgeries and injuries.
And for a lot of their puppyhood, they're confined.
That can be very traumatic.
Anke: That makes a lot of sense because, uh, literally like in last week's news
that I wrote about little, little Leo, he got bitten when he was 11 months old
and it literally destroyed his world.
Yeah.
It, well not, it didn't destroy his world, it destroyed his trust in the world.
Yeah, you know, and like he lit in he was this, you know, I'm cute and you know
it like this is how he went through the world and then this dog came along and
just went for him and he wasn't really the vet said oh he's ready for Hollywood
what an actor you know because he was hysterical and um and the vet says oh yeah
he just had this little like if that dog he really had wanted to he wouldn't be a
kind of thing right so like physically He didn't have much of an injury, but the,
the, the shock of it all, you know, yeah.
And then he had his cone, which he loved.
And I always got the sense like, Oh, he feels safe with that thing.
Right.
And he started being reactive against other dogs afterwards, you know, and
funny enough, funny enough, uh, male dogs, Big male dogs in confined spaces.
He was fine on the beach, right?
So you could really, it was easy, but that's, the thing is, it's easy
to trace that back because it was literally instant, the shock at
the vet where he was obviously also frightened, you know, because they said,
Oh, well, no, we had to sedate him.
We couldn't even like examine him.
So it's really clear.
Now, what are some.
Things that can traumatize a dog that may not be as obvious to see.
Laura: Well, I think there, there are many.
I talk about, um, you know, I've written this series of articles on canine trauma
for Happy Healthy Dog, uh, and we can post the links to some of them because
the very first one was on, uh, was called, Is Your Dog Experiencing Microtrauma?
Right?
And microtrauma is often hidden in plain sight.
It's daily, it's not like, uh, the macro trauma of being attacked by an off leash
dog, or being in an accident, or, uh, being in a natural disaster like a fire.
Right?
This is, um, it often has to do with the interaction between
dogs and young children.
Um, it can be, um, the presence of other dogs in the building, in the neighborhood.
Let's say you live in a more urban area and you have to take
an elevator to go anywhere.
Elevators can be quite Scary for dogs and, um, I think it's not just the confinement,
it's the noises, it's the movement.
And it's also, there's no escape route.
So if you're in there with another dog who doesn't have good intentions, I've worked
with dogs who were attacked in an elevator and, um, that was quite traumatizing,
but microtrauma, it could be even noises, hidden noises that we can't hear.
That your refrigerator is giving out.
Um, Eileen Anderson has some wonderful, um, articles on Sonic, the sonic
overload that's often happening to our dogs that we can't hear.
Um, so it can, it can just be anything because here's the bottom line.
Trauma is our response to an experience.
It has, it's not in the inherent qualities of the experience itself.
So, um, one dog could be attacked in an elevator and be, you know,
maybe be stressed out and need some recovery time, but then they'd be
fine to go in the elevator, no issues.
Another dog would be attacked and, and you would have to, you know, put a, uh,
a new set of stairs outside your window.
That's how bad the resistance would be.
But it's like
Anke: with people, it's the same.
Laura: Yeah.
You know some people Exactly.
Anke: I like . You know how they always say, oh, the most stressful,
like the 10 most stressful.
Actually, during, when I did coach training, we did an exercise and
we were like put in a group with a list of like horrific stuff, right?
And we were supposed to come to an agreement.
What's the order of horrific?
And there was being in prison, there was being like, I don't know,
broke, like being paralyzed, like all these different things, right?
And as you can imagine, it was impossible to find an order because
it wasn't like, oh, moving house is horrible, it's super stressful.
I'm like, Moving house, bit of a pain in the butt, but not stressful, right?
So other people freak out over it, right?
So another one, I thought, Oh my God, the, I did the shame of going into prison.
Somebody else goes, Oh yeah, no, I've been in prison.
Not that bad.
It's like, it's literally, it's not the thing itself, you know?
Yes.
Laura: It's not the experience itself, it's our response to it, and it usually
is our long term response to it.
Uh, I use an expansive definition of trauma, uh, from Judith Herrmann,
who's again one of my favorite trauma thinkers, and it's anything that
overwhelms our capacity to cope.
So this is not stress, right?
And it's not even severe stress.
This is something that actually causes us and our bodies to activate adaptive
survival strategies that we may still be using 20 years later, right?
And it's no different in dogs.
This can expand over a period of years.
Um, and so that, in that sense, dogs and humans process trauma and respond
to trauma in very closely parallel ways.
Anke: So apart from aggression, you know, where it becomes like
a problem for the owner, right?
So what other ways can, especially these micro traumas, like in other,
in what other ways can they show up in a dog that we might often overlook?
Laura: There are many, and, and again, it parallels what happens
in humans, especially children.
Um, but you, you can develop avoidance behavior.
That's a big strategy.
That's an adaptive survival mechanism.
And I often talk about, this has been one of my favorite themes over a period
of years, there's no stubborn dogs.
There's no willful dogs.
They're confused, scared, traumatized dogs.
And what happens is, let's say you want, you take your dog out for a walk, right?
And something really scares her.
Maybe you have a dog that runs down to fence fight.
three houses down the road or something worse.
I, it could be anything.
Um, and the next day you want to go for a walk and she says, no, thank you.
You know, she's balking at the front door.
I'm not going out.
So one thing I want to stress is that this is a communication.
It is not willfulness.
It's not being stubborn.
Um, and so we need to listen to our dogs, take their communication seriously.
That is a communication of stress.
Or dogs who just plop down on the sidewalk in the middle of a walk.
Why are they doing that?
That is the first question to ask.
Are you in pain?
Are you scared?
Usually it's because outside has become too dangerous for them.
And so, you know, one of my huge themes, and if you do any of my trauma Webinars
and courses, you'll hear me talk about this all the time, is we have to start
with a foundation always, always, always of deep safety, deep safety.
Why does a dog not want to go out of the house?
Because she's not feeling safe.
And so, our, the usual behaviorist response, and I would say, you know,
some people have done things like take a water bottle and spray the
dog in the face with water, right?
Or you get a shock collar and you zap them.
I mean, those are just Don't even,
let's
Laura: not even go down that road.
That's very cruel.
But, I think even doing something like, okay, you don't
want to go out of the house.
I'm, I'm gonna get your favorite treat, and I'm gonna lure you out,
and I'm gonna keep Is that really, that is I would say that's putting way
too much pressure on the dog before we even understand what's going on.
And it breaks trust as well.
Breaks trust, yes.
Yeah.
Because listening to and hearing our dogs for who they really are is one of
the most healing things we can do and that's where we always have to start.
So
Anke: what would you suggest?
Let's just play out that scenario.
So Maybe, I don't know, you know, maybe somebody hasn't even, the
dog got scared, but you know, like, I guess, you know, I'm living in
Spain, so you see a lot of stuff.
People might be chatting, so the owners might not have even
seen what happened, right?
Exactly.
And so now the dogs, they're like, I'm not going out.
Right.
So we're not forcing him.
I've seen a dog trainer, local dog trainer, adopt a Mali
who was like super scared.
And then he goes, look, look, I'll fix them.
And he totally flooded him.
You know, he was scared of people.
He took him into some like manifestation with like people to, the dog literally
froze, the dog would not move at all.
And he goes, look how obedient he is.
Right.
Cruel to the nth degree to my, in my books.
But, um, So we also don't want to manipulate them and like lure them to
do something they don't want to do.
Okay, what do I do to support my dog and to, to help them, you know, get over this?
Laura: Let me just say, obedience has nothing to do with healing from trauma.
Suppression, in fact, I, I have a, I did a whole Facebook post on this and
I talk about it in all my courses.
Suppression of behavior.
does not equal healing from trauma.
Um, compliance is not, uh, cooperation.
Anke: I love that.
Ooh, I love that.
Laura: Yeah, and, and it doesn't mean that our dog really has a good
state of emotional well being, even if they are sitting or lying down in
the presence of concerning triggers.
And I'm always concerned with the emotional well being first and foremost.
So I, I would do, so let me just give you an example, and this is one Um,
if people are interested, the next place to go for, you know, a deeper
dive would be my webinar called, Why Becoming Trauma Informed Will
Change Everything You Do With Dogs.
It's on Thinkific.
We can put the link in, it's almost free.
Um, and so one of the examples I used.
was a nine month old lab mix who, uh, refused to be or was very
difficult to, to house train.
Right at nine months, he was still pooping inside the house.
And, and he had a lot of other severe fear, anxiety, stress.
issues and, and what the dog's human had not done was connect the dots, right?
Why at nine months was he still not house trained?
Because it definitely was not a physical like bladder GI issue.
No, it was a trauma issue.
For this dog, going outside was too dangerous.
And so he might go out and pee and then run back in, but pooping, uh, requires
the dog to make themselves a lot more vulnerable because it takes longer.
They have to either squat or change positions, right?
And so what we actually did was we worked on the deep safety aspect of it and
we were doing this for his whole life with this family, but particularly for
house training, um, we had to find a way to help him feel safe going outside.
So we put a tent up right off the porch, right, that had sides and an
entrance so he could, you know, go out on the grass, but he was protected.
Um, he actually ended up choosing his own little safe haven outside,
but erecting that tent, that safe space, was a way to acknowledge,
okay, you're not just being difficult.
You're not just being naughty.
You're not just untrainable.
This is Really a, a deep seated, um, somatic, as well as cognitive issue,
and, uh, that was the beginning of him actually being able to go outside.
Uh, with no issue.
Um,
Anke: that makes so much sense though, because I'm just like thinking,
if you imagine, you know, if I'm imagining like I , I don't know.
You know, when I lived in Grenada, there was a time when, you know, you couldn't
hardly go outta the house without somebody kind of trying to grab your back, right?
Yeah.
And so you get kind of scared, you know?
So when you're sort of scared to go out at night, you know, whatever.
Yeah.
And so I do remember that sensation, right?
When you kind of don't feel safe and you feel vulnerable and, and
so just the thought of somebody then treating me as if I'm stubborn
or as
Anke: if I just don't want to do the thing or if I'm just being difficult,
you know, so it's not just that you deal with the thing, then you're on top of
it deal with that being misunderstood and judged Unfairly, basically.
So that's pretty much what we're doing to dogs if we don't start to
recognize what's actually going on.
Laura: Yes, and we know trauma lives in the body, right?
First, foremost, most deeply, it's somatic.
The body keeps the score, which is the name of a very famous book by
Bessel van der Kolk, a trauma, uh, a leader in the world of trauma.
Um, and so I, you know, becoming trauma informed, Um, I, I just think I, in the,
in this, in the article I did for Happy Healthy Dog, um, I talk about five basic
realities of being trauma informed.
First and always is safety.
Ensuring that feeling, that visceral sense of deep safety.
So, if my dog is balking, going out the front door on a walk, I have to assume
she's doing the best she can with the strategies that are available to her,
one of which is avoidance behavior.
And she is actually able to express some agency, no, I don't want to go out there,
I, It's too scary for me right now.
Um, so instead of doing the way too often monologue, I talk, you
listen, we're going on a walk by God, I don't care what you feel.
I would say you need to leave your dog at home and take the walk on your own.
You know, uh, but, but safety first.
What can I do to help you feel safe?
And maybe that means we only have exercise in the backyard for a
while until I can get a better sense of what is happening, right?
Second is trustworthiness, which we've talked about, and that means not tricking
my dog by laying a trail of treats.
And saying for them, well, you're just mistaken, outside is safe.
Well, no, maybe not for the dog, right?
Um, prioritizing choice, because we know with trauma, agency is taken away.
So, um, and not, and not just, by whatever happened to us.
Like, I didn't ask for that dog to attack me.
I didn't ask to be assaulted.
Um, you know, the list goes on, but, but it, it, it's also, um,
we can't heal according to other people's schedule.
Agenda.
Yeah.
Healing only comes from within.
And, and that's what a lot of people lose sight of.
By God, you're going to heal because I'm going to go, we have to go to
our family vacation in a month.
So whatever your issues are, you need to be over them.
But I hear this a lot from clients, right?
Yeah.
Anke: And I guess it would be worth, worse with, with dogs, you know, you
wouldn't say that to your child, you know, but it's almost like the dogs
expected to fit into our life, you know, so who would go as like, Oh,
we'll just reschedule the holiday.
Right.
Laura: Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Um, and then collaboration.
This is a huge one, right?
And, um, the way I define collaboration is, um, as interspecies cooperation.
This is a mutual relationship.
You're my partner.
And with a partner, we We both have responsibilities.
We both gain deep benefits.
But, uh, the hallmark of a partnership is is, um, communication and me listening
to you and changing what I do, right?
I change what I do based on what I'm hearing from you.
Um, and, and part of that is also taking a step back to trustworthiness, believing
that our dogs are doing the best they can.
with the adaptive survival strategies they have at their disposal.
It doesn't mean we won't work with them to help them find more adaptive,
more appropriate, uh, more functional.
Um, but yeah, and then, and then, um, empowerment.
And I used to hate that word, right?
Because it, it can.
It can be blaming the victim.
If you're not empowered, then you must be doing something wrong, right?
But for, but for dog, I've reclaimed it, right?
And this is how I've redefined it through my work with dogs.
And that's by helping dogs learn the coping skills, the coping
strategies they need to heal.
whatever they need, and I've got to take my clues from them.
I can't come in and say, okay, here's the A, B, C, D, you need to heal.
No, it's different for every dog.
And then they have like a toolbox or a repertoire of independent coping
skills, even things like grounding, deep breathing, trauma informed
movement that they can use on their own.
Independently, that's what I call empowerment.
Anke: You know, knowing how to deal.
And I think that, that not being
kind of, not overlooked, but you know, like not being ignored and not
being, oh yeah, you don't, you, you just be, I'm just like, like, this
really sits with me when I'm thinking, okay, when I'm scared and somebody
says, oh, just don't be an idiot.
You know, hang on, we've got to go like just get over it.
Like, you know, it's it's cruel.
It's inconsiderate.
It's unkind, you know, so
it's just like you would not want to like you would certainly not trust that
person because you you think like, well, they don't have my best interest at
heart because they don't even stop long enough to understand what I'm feeling.
Exactly.
And they don't even make an effort.
Yeah.
And so, and I'm thinking we, we really owe it to our dogs to look at them as,
you know, yes, another species, but somebody who, who deserves enough respect
to sort of think about, like, hang on, what, like, how does it feel for you?
You know, what does this whole situation look like through your eyes and not what
I'd like to have because, you know, I want to go to the barbecue on Saturday.
Right.
Laura: Yeah.
And I love your example of, you know, it's the basic, just get over it.
Life is easier for me if you get over it.
Anke: I mean, the thing is, I mean, and that's why I just love that
conversation because I do like, I have to admit, you know, like
Leo got bitten like 20 years ago.
You know, and I didn't know then what I know.
He was my first dog.
I didn't have a clue.
And you know and I was living in a in a, in a house where we
had to go out for him to pee.
If I didn't want him to pee in the house, right.
But I mean, to be honest, like after like, this whole situation and the
whole shuffle and then he was to the vet and the vet goes, he's an
actor, like he's ready for Hollywood.
He just kind of like, he's a drama queen and I took him
like now I'm like, Oh my God.
Like makes me sort of 20 years later, makes me kind of like shrink back in
embarrassment because the day, like, you know, after, when he sort of recovered,
like, okay, let's go for a walk.
Cause that's what I.
For what I needed and that's what I thought like he needs to go out and
pee, you know Everybody always tells you you need to go out for walks.
Now.
I'm thinking I would have left that dog inside, you know for You know
enough time for him to just even process what happened, but it wasn't
that I thought like oh Stop Leo.
I don't give a I love that dog to bits.
I just didn't know You know, it never even occurred to me that that You
I mean, and he didn't sort of, sort of, not want to go, I didn't have
to pull him out because he probably didn't know anything different
either, but it's like, I'm now looking like, oh, that was probably not the
best thing to do, you know, but I literally, it didn't even occur to me.
that something else would be available or the much, much better way of rather than,
okay, let's just go back to normal, right?
And then deal with you getting kind of scared at other dogs.
Laura: Well, and I think the example of the vet You know, you cannot
assume that even our veterinary professionals are trauma informed.
They're not.
And I gave a webinar on exactly that topic to the National Group of
Veterinary Behaviors from Switzerland.
And I was thrilled to do that because it shows there's a growing interest
in and recognition of the need for this in the veterinary community.
because that response from your VAT, that that is equivalent to malpractice.
It really is, um, and I, but I think it's one that a lot of people,
it's not just that trauma is ignored as a foundational layer, so people
don't even know about it, but it, you have to remember, it hasn't been
that long that we've recognized dogs.
as, um, sentient, emotional, cognitive beings, and of all the kind of
higher, uh, mammal species, it's actually, we now know, because the
research is ongoing and accumulating, dogs and humans have uncannily
similar social and emotional brains.
It doesn't mean dogs think like humans, because they don't use verbal.
language, but they have sophisticated communication.
They process experience and information from the environment in very similar ways.
And because of that, they have very similar behavior issues.
Um, and so that's why I start almost all my webinars with the dogs
and humans are uncannily similar.
And You, if you really took that seriously, you would never make
a response by saying, Oh, they're just acting, or this is not
important, or just get over it.
That kind of thing.
Anke: Yeah.
I mean, it makes, you know, it makes so much sense to think, well, yeah,
you, I mean, also like looking at it, it, it helps, you know, what's right.
You know, because there's so much stuff that you wouldn't do or wouldn't
say if you, if you thought like, okay, you know, if that was me,
you know,
Anke: frightened of something, would I appreciate somebody
say, oh, don't be stubborn now?
Well, no, you know, I probably wouldn't trust you again.
Yeah.
You know, if I know that I can't trust you to even bother to try and understand me.
Laura: And I think that's a great rule of thumb, what you just,
if I would, if I, how would I feel if someone did that to me?
Don't do it to your dog.
Anke: Well, that's a, that's a, that's a pretty cool ground rule, right?
So I think, you know, if somebody stopped for long enough to even think
that, you know, I think we'd get a lot, a lot better, better reaction.
So if somebody wanted to really dig into that.
So obviously we're going to pop the links to the um, articles
and to the Thinkific course.
What's, where's the best place to get in touch with you and
find out more about your work?
Laura: Well, you can go to my website.
I have a contact form.
It's fourpawsfourdirections.
com really easily remembered.
Um, I get to know most people through my courses and webinars,
and they're all on Thinkific.
The one I would recommend starting with is the Trauma Informed one.
Um, Why Becoming Trauma Informed Will Change Everything You Do With Dogs.
And then I have others.
I have one on trauma and aggression.
Um, I have a new one coming out in May called, um,
Befriending Difficult Behaviors.
And befriending is kind of my new rubric that incorporates a lot
of the work I've done on trauma.
Aggression, fear, anxiety, stress, the whole nine yards, um, and then you'll,
you'll get, you know, you, people have to kind of make their own path, right?
I'm a, anyone who knows me knows I'm blueprint aversive.
Um, so, um, are you okay?
I had a bit of a cough attack.
Yes, I'll keep talking.
Um, and, and so what, what I, would want people to take away are some underlying
principles, guidelines, like the safety, trustworthiness, choice, collaboration,
empowerment, deep safety, but how you actually build that into your life
with your dogs or client dogs, that, that is yet to be discovered, right?
Uh, so that's why a good working knowledge is so important, um,
because there's no blueprint for this.
Yeah, this is
Anke: really kind of, it's kind of trailblazing in a sense, right?
Laura: Yes.
Yeah.
Uh, so we'll put, I'll put the link, I'll send Anke the links for the, the one
course, and then you can go to my website.
Email me.
That contact form comes right to my inbox.
You can always direct message me too if you're on Facebook.
So all of those are ways to get in touch.
Awesome.
Anke: Well, thank you so much.
Um, you already know that I'm going to be on your case in May to get you
back when you have the new webinar.
So definitely want you back for that as well to share about
it and tell us all about it.
Yeah.
Thank you so much for today and I'll hope to speak to you again soon.
Laura: Thank you for having me.
Take good care.
Thanks so much for listening.
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