The Bitey End of the Dog

A podcast dedicated to helping dogs with aggression issues. Michael Shikashio CDBC chats with experts from around the world on the topic of aggression in dogs!

All Episodes

The Bitey End of the Dog

Dr. Kathy Murphy

June 27, 2022 • Michael Shikashio CDBC • Season 3 • Episode 5

What does the study of neuroscience have to do with aggression in dogs? A lot. In this episode I take a deep dive into what happens in the brain with none other than Dr. Kathy Murphy. Kathy always has amazing insight about what happens when a dog might be barking, lunging, growling, snarling, or biting, from a neurobiological perspective. And we also discuss what we can do to help dogs from this neuroscience perspective during the show, and I think you will gain some nice takeaways from this episode.

For additional resources on helping dogs with aggression, visit:
https://aggressivedog.com

If you want to take your knowledge and skills for helping dogs with aggression to the next level, check out the Aggression in Dogs Master Course and get a FREE preview here:
https://aggressivedog.thinkific.com/courses/aggression-in-dogs

Don't miss out on the third annual Aggression in Dogs Conference 9/30-10/2/22:
https://aggressivedog.com/conference/

Woof Cultr swag!
https://woofcultr.com/collections/the-aggression-in-dogs-conference

About Dr. Kathy Murphy:

Veterinary surgeon and neuroscientist; (veterinary degree in London, 2 post graduate clinical qualifications - anaesthesia and pain management, and laboratory animal science - from the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, and a PhD in Behavioural Neuroscience at the University of Oxford)
Founder and Director of Barking Brains Limited - a science-outreach platform for the behaviour and training community
Co-Founder of Ethics-First, a clinical research think-tank
Oversight Committee Member for the UK Dog Behaviour and Training Charter

She is currently transitioning from her clinical-academic position as Director of the Comparative Biology Centre at Newcastle University, UK, to focus on her role as Chief Scientific Officer at Behavior Vets LLC.

https://behaviorvetsnyc.com/webinars/

https://www.facebook.com/neuroscienceisawesome/

Learn more about options for help for dogs with aggression here:
AggressiveDog.com

Learn more about our annual Aggression in Dogs Conference here:
The Aggression in Dogs Conference

Subscribe to the bonus episodes available here:
The Bitey End of the Dog Bonus Episodes

Check out all of our webinars, courses, and educational content here:
Webinars, courses, and more!

Michael Shikashio: 0:02

What does the study of neuroscience have to do with aggression in dogs? A lot. In this episode, I take a deep dive into what happens in the brain with none other than Dr. Cathy Murphy. Cathy has always had amazing insight about what happens when a dog might be barking, lunging, growling, snarling or even biting from a neurobiological perspective. And we also discuss what we can do to help dogs from this neuroscience perspective during the show, and I think you'll gain some nice takeaways from this episode. If you are enjoying the by the end of the dog, you can support the podcast by going to aggressive dog.com with a variety of educational opportunities to learn more about helping dogs with aggression issues, including the upcoming aggression in dogs conference happening from September 30 Through October 2 2022 in Providence, Rhode Island with both in person and online options. You can also learn more about the aggression in dogs master course, which is the most comprehensive course available anywhere in the world for learning how to work with and help dogs with aggression issues. And special thanks to John masala for editing the podcast this season and bringing the production to the next level. Hey, everyone, I'm really excited for this conversation. This week. We are really going to geek out but we're gonna geek out like I'm a two year old and Dr. Cathy Murphy is going to help me out understand neuroscience. So Dr. Murphy is a veterinary surgeon and neuroscientists a veterinary degree in London to postgraduate clinical qualifications with anesthesia and pain management and laboratory animal science from the Royal College of Veterinary surgeons and a PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience at the University of Oxford, so certainly an underachiever obviously with education. She is the founder and director of barking brains limited a science outreach platform for the behavior and training community. She's the co founder of ethics first a clinical research Think Tank and oversight committee member for the UK dog behavior and training charter. She's currently transitioning from her clinical academic position as director of the comparative biology Center at Newcastle University UK, to focus on her role as Chief Scientific Officer at behavior vets LLC. Welcome to the show, Kathy, I'm really excited to have you here. Thanks, Mike.

Unknown: 2:22

It's great to be here.

Michael Shikashio: 2:24

So we are going to really geek out on this episode, right? We're gonna talk about neuroscience and the brain and among many other things, but I kind of wanted to jump into that topic. First, you know, when, as trainers, or maybe a lot of the pet owners, or even some of our other listeners may be wondering, alright, so there's this neuroscience thing that I've heard about? Why do I need to know more about it for aggression cases, especially as our dogs that have aggression issues? And how can we help them by better understanding neuroscience? So if you were to answer that, what would it sound like?

Unknown: 2:56

So neuroscience is the science of the nervous system. So it encompasses a broad range of different topics, not just about the brain. But of course, the nervous system, supplies all of the other body organs. So it really brings in a holistic view of neurobiology, but also biology of the whole body. So it's incredibly useful to understand a bit about neuroscience and about the way the brain and the nervous system functions. And I would say, with regards to aggression, I guess there are two aspects to it. One is how the brain actually processes emotion and threat assessment and how it connects that to behavioral outputs, ensuring that they're both appropriate and proportional for the situation. We can maybe come on to this a little bit later talking about how some aggression cases, have appropriate responses that are disproportionate, and that's how they present. But then there are also it's really important to understand the nervous system outside of the brain because of course, we've got really important clinical conditions that can influence a dog's aggressive behavior. So hormones, for instance, endocrinology, that's the study of hormones, and also pain and pain processing and pain management, and also processes that we don't spend a lot of time thinking about in terms of neuroscience like sleep, but sleep is a fascinating subject within neuroscience. And disturbances in sleep can have direct and indirect impacts on an animal's or an organism's aggressive responses.

Michael Shikashio: 4:47

Yeah, so it's interesting you're talking about many other disciplines or science and different lenses to look through and as trainers a lot of trainers start out as understanding or learning you know, applied behavior analysis or looking at the antecedents and consequences. But we often, especially in aggression cases need to know kind of what's happening from a physiological standpoint, from understanding the nervous system, understanding it from what's really happening inside the brain. Because when you think about it with aggression cases, it kind of starts there much more. So I mean, we can argue back and forth, like, what is the antecedent or what's happening internally, but really, with aggression cases, we have to be aware of what's happening, you know, in the brain, and especially from all the emotions that can kind of come into play with our cases, right? So, so let's unpack that a little, maybe, from a biology standpoint, just help us understand the brain, or at least the parts of the brain, maybe that that you think about when you are talking about aggression in animals.

Unknown: 5:43

So it's really interesting, because aggressive behavior as it presents with cases that are brought to somebody for support with the aggressive behavior, it's really interesting to think about the fact that an aggressive response, rarely, in those cases actually serves the individual. Because aggression is a very, very useful repertoire to have in certain situations. So in threat assessment situations, so where there's a threat to life, either to yourself or to your peer group, your immediate peer group, or where you may need to compete for a really valuable resource, such as food, etc. But when we think about pet animals, very often, they don't have those considerations as we see it. So we keep them safe, and we feed them, that's our bargain, right? come live with me, make me feel good, give me Cuddles, and I'll make sure that you're safe. And I'll make sure that you're fed and your needs are taken care of. So in that situation, aggressive responses are actually incredibly energetically draining, they use a lot of energy, a lot more energy than some of the other coping strategies or behavioral phenotypes. And by that, I mean kind of personality types, if you like, or behavioral types. So aggressive responses are incredibly energetically draining. So they're really not very economical when you look at it in terms of biology. So I think, for me, that's why even more than ever, it's really important to be thinking about biology, what would drive an individual to have that as a response as a behavioral response, when actually it doesn't really make that much sense, because it is so energetically draining. And that's where we need to start thinking about what's going on, physiologically within the body, with the hormones, with pain, with sleep with diet with all of those physiological factors. And really think about what might be going on in the brain and how that response therefore does make sense for that individual biologically.

Michael Shikashio: 7:59

As trainers, we often throw out round big words, you know, and ways to apply to our training strategies like understanding behaviors, such as like Olympic system or hind lizard brain thinking for some aggressive responses, versus more frontal thinking. But if we're really digging into the anatomy of it, is it more the amygdala or prefrontal cortex. So to help us understand that if we're just starting out to kind of unpack what's happening in the brain,

Unknown: 8:24

so that's really easy, anyone can remember that. It's everything. No one brain area functions on its own. And the idea, you know, you'll sometimes see these memes that say, we only use 20% of our brain a bit like I only use 1% of my iPhone. But actually, that's not true. We might be using 20% of the capacity of our brain. But we're not using 20% of our brain at any one time, we're utilizing all of our brain all of the time, it's always active. And what's key to behavioral responses is how those different brain areas interact. So when we're thinking about aggression, there are three brain areas that are really interesting to look at. So one would be the frontal cortex. So that's kind of I'm pointing this is a podcast, isn't it? That would be at the front of your brain where your forehead is. And another would be the amygdala, which is a brain area that you mentioned, which is an brain area that we often associate with emotions and emotional responses. And then there's a third brain area called the striatum, which we'll come to in a minute, but if we just focus on the frontal cortex and the amygdala to start with the frontal cortex and the amygdala are very tightly connected. That means that they have a lot of neuron connections, structural neuronal connections, so they're very, very well connected a bit like two cities that are connect Did by major motorway. So there's a very, very direct lines of communication between them. And what's key to what behavioral responses are displayed by an organism is how those two brain areas communicate with each other, and how in sync they are. So we call that coupling, like a couple, like a couple who are in love. And if you're in love, you tend to finish each other's sentences, and you tend to automatically be able to predict when the other one wants a cup of tea or when the other one's a bit sad or happy, you're very well in tune with each other, and you're very coupled to each other. And communication is very rich between you without necessarily any overt behavioral signs. And that's the case with the frontal cortex and the amygdala, they're so structurally connected, that they are when they're working well, they're working as a couple, so there's synchrony between them. But that coupling, that ability for them to remain very well connected together, can change and can be interrupted. And it can change either in the short term. So perhaps, if you have a lack of sleep, for instance, you've got disturbed sleep, then that can interfere with the coupling, because essentially, coupling those two brain areas then isn't a priority for the brain anymore, because you're sleep deprived. And so you have other priorities that the brain needs to spend its energy and time on. So the coupling gets a little bit disrupted. Or you can have long term effects. So that would be where you have a particularly traumatic incident, for instance, or you have a hormonal change, then you can have changes in the biology of those neurons that actually change the way they speak to each other. And also how well they listened to each other. So how well information is passed from one neuron to another. And those changes in coupling are what can then lead to the expression of aggression.

Michael Shikashio: 12:01

You know, what's interesting to me right now is that you're describing the brain. And I've seen Utah do talks, and I've seen the pictures that you put up, and it's making, you've just given such a great analogy also, but also when you're talking about your iPhone, too. And it's just I'm understanding it much more clearly now without also having to look at the picture. Perfect. Yeah. So it's interesting, I wonder what's happening inside my brain right now.

Unknown: 12:27

I can tell you exactly what's happening because it's on Dawn springs as well. And it is really interesting, because often we think we're supporting our dog by giving them more information when we're training them. And actually, sometimes what we're doing is we're doing what you've just described, which is distracting them. So we're presenting them with information that their brain has to process and prioritizes because of the way that it's presented. But therefore, the brain is less well able to process the information that is really key to understanding what's going on. So yeah, it's really great that you just said that.

Michael Shikashio: 13:02

Yeah, it's it's interesting to not to get off on a side note too much. I'm thinking about my own clients and how they learn and their learning style and what might be the best for them to grasp a concept at first, maybe just hearing me talk about it, versus showing them a video and hearing me talk at the same time, it'd be too much right or, or you're showing them, you know, technique, and then you're asking them to do and they're holding the leash, and then also doing the mechanical skill. And all of these things happening at the same time might be overwhelming. And it's such a good point you bring up about the dog. So I love the way this conversation is going. So let's let's kind of segue into, you're talking about neurons and neurotransmitters. So one of the other things you hear a lot in the dog training community is, you know, it's like an animal's learning a behavior, right? Those pathways are becoming stronger, so to speak, someone looks at this roadway. And the path becomes more clear for those neurons. I'm sure it's the most basic simplistic definition you've heard. But would you say that's kind of what's happening and then with aggression or aggressive behaviors? Is there an argument to say that there's it happens more quickly, because of, I guess, we can argue that safety being such a primary need for animals, that's going to be more likely for that to occur. So stronger pathways being connected, then some other behaviors?

Unknown: 14:17

Yeah, so I guess that probably brings us on to the third brain area that I mentioned, which is the striatum and the striatum sits anatomically in between the two more or less, it's not directly in between slightly to the side, but basically, it's connected to both of those brain areas individually the frontal cortex and the amygdala and it sits in between the two. And what the striatum does is modulate the behavioral responses and also the emotionality. But if we think about it in terms of modulating the behavioral responses, then let's say for instance, the amygdala screams at the frontal cortex. Oh my goodness, we're on under threat, you need to get aggressive right now because we can't back out, you're going to have to get aggressive and the frontal cortex decides, Okay, I'm getting a lot of information here that says we're under threat seems like that sensible, let's go for an aggressive response. The striatum is responsible for saying, Okay, how proportional is that response? Let's just take a second to really integrate all of the information that we have. And not only listen to the amygdala, but also listen to other brain areas and assimilate things like how far away is this threat? How fast? Is it moving towards us? Is it a single threat? Or is it associated with multiple threats that are coming from different directions? And all of these things will obviously need to be integrated, so that the straight and can decide, okay, we've decided on an aggressive response, but how aggressive are we actually just lifting our lip here and just standing still to kind of take a minute? Or are we going full on bark and lunge at the end of the lead, let's take out anyone within a, you know, two mile radius, and anything in between. And all of those things are possible. And what the brain one of the reasons the brain is really clever is that it doesn't do that once it does that several times a second. So it's constantly updating whether the threat is still a threat, and whether the behavioral response is still proportional. So if I'm a dog, and I've, my brain has decided lunch, and bark, is lunge and bark still working for me, or actually, do I have information to suggest that now I can just sit back down and lift my lip, or whatever it is, I go into next, or actually is bark and lunge not effective, and we need to go nuclear, that could be another response. So the striatum is key to that modulation process. And there are also lots of events and also biological changes that can affect the striatum, its ability to modulate the aggressive response. And you were talking there a little bit about how neurons can change their structure and function over time, so you can strengthen neural pathways and other neural pathways can weaken. That's happening several times a second, as you and I are talking, our brains are rewiring, I know that sounds dramatic, your brain will not be the same when you leave this podcast mic as it was when you started. But of course, those changes can be temporary. So I don't anticipate you're going to have any lasting brain changes as a result of an hour of talking to me, although it'd be great to think that you do. So they can be temporary, or they can be long lasting. And whether they're temporary or long lasting, essentially relies on that process of threat assessment. So that's how biologically the brain keeps us alive is by constantly updating that threat assessment. And by ensuring that changes to the structure and the function of the brain can become long term or permanent, so that it doesn't have to keep updating the information. And that's where we get into what I would refer to as an aggressive phenotype. But it just basically means an animal who has frequently has aggression as its behavioral response. So it predictably responds to a variety of situations in an aggressive way. And that aggressive phenotype is associated with those more long term or permanent changes to the neurons and to the brain areas. But key in case anyone is left hanging thinking, well, there's no point we might as well go home because we can't change their brain structure. We can it doesn't have to be permanent, it just means that it's going to take some work to be able to modify that behavior, that that behavior isn't just going to dissipate on its own.

Michael Shikashio: 19:04

So can you talk more about the kind of had me thinking about instability, or maybe something? I think you've used that language before and some of your presentations about some of those areas of the brain that are there's I'm not even sure if I'm using the right word there. Well, yeah. When the when, and how that impacts the behavioral choices, or at least the behavior when it comes to aggression cases. Can you talk more about that?

Unknown: 19:27

Yeah. So we talked about two potential mechanisms for disrupting behavioral responses. So one of them is the coupling or communication between those two brain areas, the frontal cortex and the amygdala. And the other would be the ability of the striatum to modulate those signals, so to keep them within what is logical and appropriate and proportional for the given situation. The coupling and the modulation in a healthy brain are both stable, they're stable and predictable. Now, I should say that's in a healthy adult brain, adolescence, all bets are off. That's a whole different brain that that is going on there in adolescence. But in the adult brain, those two processes, we want them to be stable, because that's how we get these appropriate and proportional responses. But the activity that so the activity between those different brain areas can become unstable. And there are different factors that can influence the stability. So there are neurotransmitters, which are brain chemicals is another word for neurotransmitters, there are a variety of different neurotransmitters within the brain. And levels of those increasing or decreasing can actually increase or decrease the stability of either coupling between brain areas or modulation. That would be one example, the most impactful example because it's something that most of us have experienced is disrupted sleep. So disrupted sleep has a couple of effects on the brain, but one of them is emotional instability. And that's because it affects the coupling between those two brain areas. So it's a bit like the messages are getting lost. And because there's another effect of disruptive sleep, which is to affect the modulation, you get abnormally high, emotionality and low emotionality, and importantly, swinging between those two, with less control than you would have if you did not have disrupted sleep. And when I say less control, it's important here not to put the blame on the dog, if we're talking about a dog and say, well, the dog isn't showing enough control over its behavior. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the ability of the brain or the capacity of the brain to be able to control those signals. And because disrupted sleep has really marked effects on physiology, and disrupts production of neurotransmitters. So the dog's brain doesn't have enough neurotransmitter to be able to stabilize those signals, and also disrupts the connections between individual neurons. So individual neurons are only passing on part of the signal, or they're passing on a signal that's already been disturbed. So it's a bit like, you know, a situation where the information is changing slightly, every time it crosses over into a new neuron, by the time you get to the brain area that you're heading for the signal is actually different to the signal that started out. So it's not a question of the dog needing to pull itself together and control its behavior. It's a question of in that example, with disturbed sleep, the dog's brain doesn't have the physiological capacity to actually stabilize those signals. So you get what you get. And very often, in the case of me anyway, with disrupted sleep, you get grumpy Cathy.

Michael Shikashio: 23:01

And it's the you know, everything you're saying is the perfect perfect example of why that saying a tire dog is a good dog is completely wrong. You know, and it because that's something again, in the dog training community, at least you wonder talking about dog behavior, that thing comes up a lot. And for many years, we were always focused on like, good lots of exercise, the dogs got to get tons of exercise. And then maybe we see no changes in behavior ever gets worse. And we're wondering, well, what is it that's happening? Maybe that dogs actually not getting enough sleep or rest because the somebody is so focused on exercise or running on a treadmill four hours a day or something like that at all? It's not getting enough sleep. So yeah,

Unknown: 23:40

now you have a thick dog that has an aggressive phenotype, which is more difficult to manage than an unfair aggressive phenotype.

Michael Shikashio: 23:49

It's like if you're training it, I'll grumpy athlete, right? It's a more tired and grumpy athlete that just gonna be better at chasing down somebody who wasn't there. Yeah, God rested, right.

Unknown: 24:00

I mean, if you go back to the human example, you know, if I think about what I'm likely disturbed sleep, I'm grumpy Cathy, but I can go from grumpy Cathy to cuddling Cathy in a split second, and to sub my eyes out Kathy in a split second. And that's very characteristic of that instability, that emotional instability, because you go from one extreme emotion to another extreme emotion seemingly with very little in between, because the information is shuttling so quickly in the striatum, which is supposed to be keeping everything modulated. It's like, I cannot cope with this, you are out of control.

Michael Shikashio: 24:39

Can we talk about other things to that effect that you know, the instability aspect, so I know we were just talking about sleep. What about pain? Because I know that's something you know a lot about, especially in your background with anesthesia. Can you talk more about what's happening there? Yeah. So

Unknown: 24:55

if we springboard off the sleep conversation, one of the effects that have Pain is to actually decrease the production of a hormone called melatonin. Anyone who does long haul flights probably knows that name, because it's the tablet that we take to get ourselves to sleep to get our bodies back into a rhythm of sleep, when we've disrupted our circadian rhythm or our body clock, that pain actually leads to a decrease in the production of that hormone, melatonin. And so it makes it much more difficult to remain in a steady state of sleep. It makes it more difficult essentially, to get to sleep and then to stay asleep. So what tends to happen is that you have disturbed sleep. And it's the disturbed nature of the sleep that is so bad for the brain, it doesn't matter. If you stay in bed for three days, if you've got disturbed sleep, you will still have those effects that we were just talking about happening to your brain, so that isn't going to help grumpy Cathy even though you may have had a total of 36 hours sleep, so it's not about the total, it's about the nature of the sleep. So yeah, you get a decrease in melatonin. So that's going to cause all the effects that we were just talking about right there. And then before we've even thought about what the direct effects of pain or but then you've got other effects of pain, so effects on serotonin, which is a neurotransmitter, so one of these brain chemicals, and pain can have effects on serotonin, most of the time, pain leads to decreases in serotonin. I say most of the time, because this is where I'll start to get probably a bit too nerdy. When we talk about changes to melatonin, or serotonin or dopamine. That's a very blunt tool for talking about the way the brain functions, because actually, serotonin is a neurotransmitter could be high in one brain area and low in a different brain area at exactly the same time. And those effects could be different. And that's not a huge surprise. Because if we didn't have that level of complexity, we wouldn't have the beautiful complexity of our behavioral repertoire and our ability to respond to our environment, we just simply wouldn't have enough combinations and permutations. But it does make it quite difficult to talk accurately about what's happening in the brain, because we're usually just glossing over that and saying serotonin increases or serotonin decreases. But of course, it's different in different brain areas. And on top of that, it can be different in different neurons within the same brain area. So it gets even more complicated. But as a general rule, if we look at most cases of aggression, you would expect that their serotonin levels would be lower, particularly in the amygdala, it's not the case all over you do get increases in serotonin and some aggressive phenotypes. And I should say that there's a difference in the way the brain is processing threat, depending on whether the individual has an aggressive phenotype or not, but is responding aggressively. So I don't have an aggressive phenotype. I don't commonly display aggressive behavior, but I do sometimes. And in those moments, my brain will be processing that aggression in a particular way. And my neurons will be changing and my neurotransmitters will be changing. But those changes are very often completely the opposite to the changes that happen in the brain of a person that has an aggressive phenotype. So a brain that's already trained, molded, and the the neurons are already changed structurally in order to support that aggressive behavior. So it gets complicated depending on which of those you're talking about. And I know for you, Mike, you probably see both of those categories, right? You see animals that have a true aggressive phenotype. And then you see a lot of animals I imagined that don't at all, but that are simply misunderstood or in the wrong circumstances, or maybe have a health issue or whatever.

Michael Shikashio: 29:08

Absolutely, I'm sure we can also talk about breeds and what we've selected for us humans, but since we're on the topic of serotonin, also, I wanted to quickly touch on meds, and for instance, the SSRI class drugs or the serotonin reuptake inhibitors, that and what are your thoughts on that? Because obviously, your with your veterinary background, but also your neuroscience background, you probably are acutely aware of what's happening. So can you give us a little bit of your opinion on that?

Unknown: 29:35

Yeah. So I mean, obviously with my interest in psychopharmacology and animal behavior, I'm a big sort of flag flier for making sure that our brain chemistry is at an appropriate level. And I think, you know, it's great that there are some cases that present with aggression that don't need pharmacological support, that just need their circumstances looking at a need a bit more Understanding and behavioral support. But it's true that there are a lot of cases that either started out with imbalances in brain chemistry is a bit of an old term. Now it's a bit old fashioned because it's a, again, a bit too simplistic to be accurate. But if we, if we stick to that terminology, because it's very easy to understand this something that's different in the brain that's led to different levels of production of neurotransmitters, if you work with those animals, without that pharmacological support, you're basically saying, your brains made it really difficult for you not to respond aggressively. And I'm going to now make it even harder for you. Because you've now got to learn what I'm telling you and learn expectations about how to respond even though your brain is screaming at you that you should be responding aggressively. And that's really difficult, and borderline unfair. And in some cases, I would argue, borderline unethical. But that's a huge debate that we could probably have off the podcast. And you know, each case is an individual. So I'm not saying there are any sweeping statements here. But I really think it's important that we look at whether pharmacology is going to support the patient, because that's really what it's all about. And the way I look at pharmacology, and this will differ depending on you know, if you I'm not a veterinary behaviorist, I should say. So to start with, I'm not coming from that point of view, I'm coming from a brain science point of view. But when I look at pharmacology, and it's its place, when we're treating cases, I think about it as supporting the brain function and the brain health, so that the patient or the animal can focus on what it is they need to learn a new coping strategy, a new way of interacting with the environment, new skill sets, and being able to deescalate situations, you know, those things that that we're asking the animal to learn. By providing pharmacology that supports brain health, we can make it much easier for the animal to practice those things, and to be able to learn those things. And we know for instance, serotonin is the one that you were talking about, that's really, really key for mood, you know, and anyone who's been on serotonin uptake inhibitors, which are frequently used to treat human anxiety and sometimes depression. Well really know that marked difference that it can make to both the way you think about things, but also how you feel about things. And that isn't changing your circumstances, that is changing the way your brain is processing that information. And changing your brain deciding whether something is a threat, whether you feel safe, whether you feel taken care of. And that's really important that we move towards ensuring that all of our patients get the ability to feel safe, and have their mood be stable, and have their brain be healthy so that they can then learn how we want them to interact with the world. But yeah, I mean, as I've said, few provisos, I'm not a veterinary behaviorist, you should always consult with a veterinary behaviorist if you're using pharmacology. And the other one is that every case is an individual. So it's not possible to give individual case advice.

Michael Shikashio: 33:23

Everything you're saying is so important. Because really, you spell it out in such a very easy to understand way, about why it's so important, crucial for us as trainers, or anybody working with the behavior to understand everything that's happening as much as they can, within the brain. And what a disservice disservice to the dogs that we could be working with, if we, you know, don't provide that opportunity for better learning experiences, through pharmacology, or at least some understanding of it. And then having navigating that conversation with our clients is a whole nother thing. But if we understand that we can explain the benefits to our clients, right?

Unknown: 33:58

Yeah, and it's not the case that, you know, if, if a dog is anxious, or a dog is fearful, or a dog is aggressive, or has some kind of extreme emotional response to something that they are capable of learning the same way as an animal is who has emotional stability, they are not. And that's not because they're not trying hard enough. That's because their brain isn't functioning in that way. And there are very specific changes at key points along the learning pathway. That mean that animal cannot retain the knowledge that we're giving it in the same way. And that when it goes to sleep at night to consolidate those memories, that process of consolidation is disrupted also. So even when the memories are laid down, they're not laid down as we intended them to be laid down. They're laid down, disrupted with other information. And unless we understand that, then we're just constantly focusing on why isn't this dog learning why isn't this dog improving? As if you know there's something wrong with the dog or or in some cases, I guess, as if there's something wrong with the situation or the environment. And actually, in some of those cases, what we need to be saying is, is this dog's brain healthy? Do we have a dog that has enough emotional stability, to be able to prioritize the information that we're giving it, and to be able to really learn from listen and benefit from the interactions that we're having with them.

Michael Shikashio: 35:24

I am loving the way this conversation is going. And we're going to take a short break. And when we return, we're going to talk more about adolescence and maybe some other interesting things like biomes. So we'll be right back. Hey, friends, it's me again, and I hope you are enjoying this episode, you may have figured out that something I deeply care about is helping dogs with aggression issues live less stressful, less confined, more enriched, and overall happy lives with their guardians. Aggression is so often misunderstood. And we can change that through continued education, like we received from so many of the wonderful guests on this podcast. In addition to the podcast, I have two other opportunities for anyone looking to learn more about helping dogs with aggression issues, which include the aggression in dogs master course, and the aggression in dogs conference. If you want to learn more about the most comprehensive course on aggression taught anywhere in the world, head on over to aggressive dog.com and click on the dog pros tab, and then the master course, the course gives you access to 23 modules on everything from assessment, to safety to medical issues to the behavior change plans we often use in a number of different cases, including lessons taught by Dr. Chris pockle, Kim Brophy and Jessica Dolce. You'll also receive access to a private Facebook group with over 1000 of your fellow colleagues, and dog pros all working with aggression cases. After you finish the course you also gain access to private life group mentor sessions with me, where we work through practicing many different cases together. If you need see us, we've got you covered. We're approved for just about every major training and behavior credential out there. This is truly the flagship course offered on aggression in dogs, and it's perfect for pet pros that want to set themselves apart and take their knowledge and expertise to the next level. Well we do for pet owners who are seeking information to help their own dog. And don't forget to join me for the third annual aggression of dogs conference either in person or mine from Providence, Rhode Island on September 30 Through October 2 2022. This year's lineup includes many of the amazing guests you might have heard on the podcast including Suzanne cool the air, Jen Shryock, Simone Mueller, Dr. Ampere, Batson Kim Brophy, charisma noir, Lauren Monaco, tirelli, Dr. Simone Gadbois, and many more, head on over to aggressive dog.com and click on a conference tab to learn more about the exciting agenda on everything from advanced concepts and leash reactivity to using positive reinforcement to work with predatory behavior. And if you'd like to show off your support for the podcast. This year, we teamed up again with the folks over at Wolf culture for some catchy limited run conference merchandise. What culture is known for their witty, nerdy endo nonsense apparel that was created in 2019. To spread more awareness towards the use of humane training methods. Their power is here to help you start conversations, advocate for your animals and rep force retraining in a different way. Don't forget to get your conference gear it leaves the site after 1231 2022 If you want 10% off your order, use the code bitey 10, bi t y one zero at checkout all right, I'm back with the amazing Dr. Cathy Murphy. We've been talking about all things neuroscience and aggression. And I'd love to jump into kind of this next topic I had Dr. Amber Batson on the amazing Dr. Amy Batson on a few of her last season. And her episode actually is the most downloaded episode for the biting end of the dog podcast is the most popular episode I've had so far. For good reason. It was just you know, she's like you it was just a wealth of information, I could talk to you for hours and hours and hours. And we chatted a little bit about microbiomes as well on her episode, I would love to of course, pick your brain on that and the gut biome and what you've seen lately and in relation to behavior, and even if you have any insight on aggressive behavior if we want to really go that extra mile. So what are your thoughts there on biomes? And what have you been reading and researching lately?

Unknown: 39:24

Yeah. So the gut microbiome is becoming increasingly important when we think about the way that the brain functions. It's kind of weird, because we've known that for 20 odd years, and yet we've basically ignored it because it's difficult, raises so many difficult questions about you know, are we feeding the right diets and how frequently should we be feeding and what happens when the diet changes and all of those things, but we can't ignore it anymore. It's really key to behavior. The gut microbiome is termed the second brain now who knew? neuroscience by some people, it's got an incredibly rich nervous supply. So when we were talking at the beginning about what neuroscience means, it's not just brain science, it's, it's the science of the whole nervous system. And actually, the nervous system of the gut is so complex and so rich, that it's incredibly important to understand that and understand the influence that it has on the gut microbiome, and then the influence that the gut microbiome has on it. So our brain doesn't function in isolation. Our brain needs oxygen to power the cells, and it needs nutrition to power the cells. But how those cells function is dependent on the gut microbiome to a greater or lesser extent, depending on which brain area we're talking about which neurons within those brain areas, which situations those areas of firing and etc. But it is really important to understand that. And I guess, for me, one of the take home messages about the gut microbiome, because there's still a lot we don't understand about its relationship to behavior. But one of the important take home messages that we now know, is that it isn't just about which organisms are within the gut microbiome. So you know, we used to kind of think, all once we know which organisms are good, and which organisms are bad, then we could take out the bad ones and put in the good ones. And that's basically how we all buy those little yogurts that cost a million pounds each. And, you know, I'm sure other yogurts are available, but you know, what, which ones I mean, that's the principle, you know, put the good bacteria in and kill off the bad bacteria. But actually, what's becoming increasingly interesting is that it's about the diversity. So it's the diversity within the microbiome, that leads to our behavioral diversity, our behavioral repertoire. And it looks increasingly like if that diversity is reduced, that that can have an impact on your ability to respond to different situations in different ways. So it can make it more likely that the brain will choose a common way to respond. And that might be run and hide. So for those fearful or anxious types, that might be you know, retreat in some way. Or it could be aggressive responses. And that you know, which of those it is, will depend, we think partly on the microbiome, but then also partly on past experience, what's worked and what hasn't worked in the past, as well as the genetic propensity for various different responses, because there are genetic components to those phenotypes as well.

Michael Shikashio: 42:43

So it's, it's really exciting all of the latest research on this, and who knows, maybe it will be sponsored by a yogurt company someday, but you know, so what would you say right now about, you know, if you were to see diets affecting that, and, you know, I know, the research has been thin on diet and behavior, and that, especially with aggression, but would you have any insight there? So like, if somebody's feeling a certain thing or worried about that, and I'm sure many of the listeners mind are going right to what am I feeding my dog? And is it gonna affect them? Biomes?

Unknown: 43:17

I know, well, it will. So that's the first thing to get over is everything that goes into our dog's mouth is going to affect our bio, and I have a scavenger. So you can imagine. It's really difficult to be accurate when answering a question like that, because we simply don't have enough research. Most of the research that we have on the microbiome has been done in humans. And there are some similarities with the human gut and the canine gut, for instance. But there are huge differences when we come to rabbits and horses, for instance, that are hind gut fermenters. And there are differences between dogs and humans. Anyway, obviously, our diets are different, and our guts are anatomically different. The research is scarce on the ground. The one thing I would say from looking at, I mean, I've looked at probably over 300 papers now either microbiome and microbiome related to kind of get a sense of the research. And the one thing I would say is this point about diversity. And we don't know yet because the studies haven't been done. But it really looks like feeding the same food source with the same makeup all of the time could be problematic could be problematic. And that it may be that that diversity of microbiome is supported by more diversity in the diet. And that doesn't mean we have to go out and feed our dogs different things every day. But it does mean we don't have to beat ourselves up if we run out of food and soft food. And it may mean but this is not scientifically supported yet because the studies haven't been done yet. It may mean that feeding our dogs a more diverse diet so that they getting their food sources from multiple different sources will support that healthy diversity in the gut microbiome. Because essentially, what happens if you're feeding the same food source with exactly, you know, standardized ingredients all of the time, is that if you hit it bang on. So if that diet is a really great diet for your dog's gut microbiome, that's fantastic. But if it's slightly incompatible with your dog's gut microbiome, then what you'll find is that some microorganisms die off over time, because that diet doesn't support them. And those microbiome, those organisms dying off will reduce the diversity of the microbiome within the stomach. Well, not just within the stomach, the oral cavity, the intestines, and also the rectum. And the microbiome along each of those different sections is different. So you don't have one microbiome, you've got lots of micro biomes. So again, if we talk about gut microbiome, we're usually talking about studies that look at stomach, gut microbiome, or rectal gut microbiome. Rectal gut microbiome is more easy to collect, obviously, particularly for canine studies, because you just collect fecal samples. But for human studies, they usually look at stomach microbiome. But it's different at different points along the gut, and it will be impacted by different factors. So factors like anxiety, or trauma or arousal will affect the microbiome differently in different anatomical regions. So yeah, it's really difficult. And I, I would just say, it's interesting that diversity in the microbiome is now seen to be as important, if not more important than the individual organisms within the microbiome. And I wonder, therefore, whether there is, it's going to, you know, it's going to become apparent that having that variety in diet is actually a benefit. And obviously, you know, there's a sliding scale of everything. If you vary the diet so much that the gut doesn't ever know what's coming, then that probably isn't a good thing. It's like some of these things you have to use. I mean, it's common sense. It is common sense, isn't it? Scientists hate using those common sense that there's some point at which you have to think what's logical, it's not logical that we change the diet so much. So they've never had two meals that are the same. But it also doesn't really make biological sense to feed exactly the same food substrate all of the time. So yeah, it's probably not at all the answer you wanted, I can talk, there are a couple of papers on canine aggression that I can talk about. But we just have to bear in mind that they're small numbers, and they're only single papers. One of them is a really, really well designed study. So I'm quite excited to see what happens when they expand the numbers and look at that in more detail. And obviously, there are university units now that are looking more and more gut microbiome. So there are more small studies coming out, but they are still small. And they're also relatively difficult to interpret, because it's very clear that the results depend on the individual circumstances. So if you do the same study in two different populations of dog, you'll get two different results. So that's not because one's wrong and one's right. That's because the way science works is you need hundreds and hundreds of those studies to then look at what averages out and what the commonalities are.

Michael Shikashio: 48:30

Yeah. And I bet that big food companies are paying attention. I know where my

Unknown: 48:35

brain is going on, I somehow backed up by big money.

Michael Shikashio: 48:42

Maybe Maybe not, you never know, they might you know, because I know that they are also interested in behavior, seeing the soldier quote, unquote, calming formulas and things. So it'd be interesting to see, it's definitely the conversation route. I'm glad it's happening. Because it's important. We study all aspects. For me, it's all exciting, you know, when we're talking about behavior, and the influences on it.

Unknown: 49:01

I think also, what's exciting for me is hopefully, I've still got enough years in me left as a clinician to be able to investigate and be part of that journey of finding out whether we can use fecal microbiome samples to give us information about behavior. So to give us information about behavioral phenotypes that might help distinguish between those dogs that you know, have behaviors that are more dependent on the environment around them and those dogs that are actually more dependent on their internal physiology for the way that they respond to that environment. But then also to find out, are we going to be able to use that as a diagnostic tool to be able to decide, okay, well, dietary change, make a difference here, can I give a certain probiotic and there are probiotics that are starting to creep onto the market now. And it will be really fascinating to see what the impact of those products are, and we've got, you know, fecal transplant capsules and some people have reported really good responses to some of the behavioral cases with those fecal transplant capsules, fecal transplant capsules essentially are, what they say they are. And all that's doing is it's flooding your microbiome with a whole bunch of organisms that are essentially going to hijack your gut at a particular point along the gut. We used to think that that solves the problem, like they just set up residents, and then your behavioral change is just sorted. But of course, now we know that it's more complicated because everything's more complicated. And those microorganisms usually don't set up permanent residents, because the rest of the animals physiology is entirely tuned to supporting the microbiome that was there before. So it kind of says, Oh, well, you can live here for a bit. But actually, no, you can get out you're not supposed to be here. So it's more complicated than we thought it was. It's not the case that we can do fecal transplant capsules and solve behavioral problems forever. But you know, it's a sliding scale again, and there are some patients that respond incredibly well. And some patients who either need repeated administration of the capsules or don't respond, and that's simply because the makeup of those capsules is not going to suit that individual.

Michael Shikashio: 51:19

Yeah, wouldn't that be amazing if we could just get a poop sample analyzer, get an idea of the behavior, and then put a poop several back up to fix the behavior? Is that easy?

Unknown: 51:31

It's not, it's probably only five years away, that when we're looking at how we manage our behavior cases, we're going to be doing a full pain assessment, and potentially a pain trial, we're going to be doing either fecal transplants or probiotic additions or dietary change, but in an evidence based way, in a targeted evidence based way. And we're going to have activity monitors on all of our dogs. So we're going to have sleep readout so that we can see you know how disturbed sleep is disturbed sleep is not easy to diagnose. If you ask owners, whether their dog gets enough sleep, most owners will say yes, and yeah, I know from putting activity monitors on my own dogs, that actually they go through periods of disturbed sleep. And I've got a little two hour upstairs, Dennis, who has he's 16 years old now. So he has arthritis in multiple joints. And he's on a drunk, unfortunately, that you guys can't get yet in the States, but you will be able to get soon. trade name is liberal or over here, but it's an injectable, painkiller. And it's a new type of painkiller that specifically for chronic pain. And it basically acts by dampening down the pain responses within the body. And he had an amazing response to that. And when that is effective, it lasts for about eight weeks in him on his activity monitor, he will have solid sleep undisturbed. So he remains still in the you know, curled up position for long periods of time during the night. But I know when he's due for another injection, because his activity monitor shows me that he's constantly getting up to reposition himself. And it starts off with maybe once an hour, then twice an hour, and then four times now then six times now. And then, you know, I did let it run as part of my case management for him to work out what interval would suit him best. And it gets so disturbed that in the end, he was only having five or six minutes and then getting up to reposition and then getting back down again. Now you would miss that if you sleep through that he's two kilos, he's not going to wake me up when he repositions on the bed. So the only way I'm going to know that is with a camera or an activity monitor. And I think you know, cameras and activity monitors really undervalued for behavior cases, you get a lot of really interesting information about preferences, behavioral preferences, but also about activity patterns and sleep patterns.

Michael Shikashio: 53:58

Yes, technology is really underrated, highly underrated for our work and behavior cases for sure. So let's move from talking about pooping pain to maybe more plasticity, and the adolescent brain maybe and what you see there from so because I know that there's a lot of changes happening when dogs are developing. So we go from zero to two years old or service 18 months depending on the breed when we're talking about adolescents and social is going into social maturity. But what are some of your sort of main things you think about when when we're talking about adolescents in neuroscience in the canine mind,

Unknown: 54:34

I always think about the adolescent brain as needing a cuddle. It's so vulnerable, and it just needs to be protected through that period of adolescence. And it's hard for adolescent well any species, adolescent humans, adolescent dogs, adolescent anything, because their brain is definitely not functioning in a normal healthy way as in it's normal and healthy for that life stage. But Ah, it's a crazy time in terms of brain development. And they really do need, yeah, they just need a big cuddle. That's what I think when I think of adolescence. I mean, there are several kinds of big events that are going on in adolescence. One of them is the maturity of the inhibitory neurons. So inhibitory neurons within the brain, you get excitatory neurons, so they're the neurons that are gonna get you excited and aroused. And, you know, let's go and do that agility, round, or whatever it is. And then you get inhibitory neurons, which are the ones that go, Whoa, hang on a minute, and they inhibit excessive behavior. And they inhibit pain, they inhibit arousal, all of those kinds of dampening down. And that's not to say that, you know, they're the bad guys, it's just that the balance between the excitatory neurons and the inhibitory neurons is exactly what keeps us as normal, healthy adults. And to have that emotional stability. And that behavioral stability, you need that balance between the two different types of neurons. But because the excitatory neurons mature much more quickly than the inhibitory neurons, the adolescent brain, the puppy brain, and the adolescent brain is full of excitation, but actually not full of that much inhibition. And that's really important when we think about how we plan our training programs. So you don't want to be doing impulse control with an adolescent dog, you don't want to be doing activities that require it to inhibit behaviors to ignore people to ignore dogs, etc. And when I say you don't want to be doing them, nothing is black and white, everything's on a gray scale. But you want to be thinking very carefully about how much of those activities you're doing. And whether you're setting them up in a way that's fair to the dog. And if the dog isn't thriving, doing that class on impulse control, is that actually because it doesn't have the inhibitory neurons to be able to physically do what it's being asked to do. And then it's getting confused, because it might be being given either feedback or corrections, whether it's, you know, particularly if, if punishments used or you know, corrections use, that's a lot for the brain to cope with, when the brain can't do what it's being asked to do in the first place. It's got nowhere to go, like how does it deal with that you're asking me to do something that I'm physically not capable of doing. And then when I don't do it, there are consequences for not doing it. So that's what I mean about our adolescent brains need a cuddle, they need understanding. And they need us to realize that that brain is not the same brain that the dog will have as an adult. And that it's how you respond, how we respond. And the situations that we put the animal in when it's going through that period of brain instability, if you like or excitation and inhibition instability, are going to shape how the animal comes out of adolescence and what it thinks about the world around it, how it processes threat, how it processes learning and memory, how it processes in that example, operant conditioning, for instance, its relationship to operant conditioning. So yeah, it's incredibly important to be thinking about how we manage our training plans. And you know, we've all heard it, we've all experienced it, if we've had puppies, they go a bit mental. And things go a bit crazy. I've been head butted. I don't know how many times by Zebedee during his adolescence, he's adolescent at the moment. And He's big. He's big and lanky. And his thing is jumping up, he loves jumping up and I don't mind him jumping up, we could talk about that till the enth degree about whether that's appropriate or whatever. But I've decided that that is fine for Zebedee. And there are only some situations where I require him to kind of be calmer. But yeah, so during adolescence, the jumping up became running up to me pulling his head backwards and then hurling his head at me really hard. Well, that's not okay, right. Now, I'm fine to manage that. And it's not a problem. And I find it funny sometimes, but I'm still having to manage it. But imagine if that's somebody just your average dog owner, you know, they have a puppy that's really exuberant, really happy, really lovely, loves to jump up and give kisses and licks, and then all of a sudden it gets to adolescence and starts head butting you, or, you know, jumping really suddenly underneath you to knock your nose and knock your chin that is going to be really difficult to deal with. And you're going to have responses to that. And those responses aren't always going to be nice and kind. And the situation gets complicated very, very quickly. If you don't understand that you should be anticipating whatever behaviors you're seeing in your puppy are going to be much more exaggerated during adolescence, because that imbalance between excitation and inhibition is so much great data because those extra excitatory neurons are constantly maturing through puppyhood. So they're firing like crazy. In adolescence, they're like, let go, the world's our oyster. But the inhibition, neurons are still lagging behind going, hang on, hang on, I've got another six months of development, you need to, you know, hold on.

Michael Shikashio: 1:00:21

So and I love the way you put it like, we have to cuddle that that mind right. Now, what happens if we, you know, to shift gears to it's sort of the opposite is when you know, this topic of trauma with a dog experience is something very traumatic. Whether Well, let's actually talk about adolescent minds, because they're obviously more susceptible than the adults mind, I guess we can say that. I actually should rephrase that, because it's not necessarily less susceptible. But we can argue that maybe there's more potential for significant impacts in an adolescent brain from a trauma experience versus an adult's brain, right. Yeah. And so what are your again, from a neuroscience perspective, trauma and dogs? And what's happening there? And what can we do about it, maybe something like a real scary event for a, you know, an eight month old puppy or adolescent dog, you know?

Unknown: 1:01:11

Well, one of the interesting things is that the other thing that happens during adolescence is that the individual works out its coping strategies. So those start to be developed, obviously, as soon as the individual is born, and throughout puppyhood. So early puppy class experiences are going to shape what coping mechanism I use. And by coping mechanism, I mean, I could choose to hide and be really cautious and not go forward into a situation until I've checked it all out and worked out exactly what's going on. So I need processing time to kind of process all of the information before deciding how I'm going to respond. Or a coping mechanism could be the opposite of that would be, I'm going to throw myself 100 miles an hour into that situation. Because I know, therefore, that I can control how this is going to go. If I'm the most energetic in that situation, then it's going to be action reaction, but it's all going to be based on my action. So that's a way of coping with the situation because you get some control. So that's the difference between a puppy that hides under the chair during puppy classes and a puppy that dive straight into a whole bunch of puppies that it's never met before without a care in the world. Those are two kind of opposite coping strategies. And some of the coping strategy potential is underpinned by genetics. So some puppies are hardwired, if you like, not to only ever respond in that way, but to be more likely to respond to situations in that way. But some of it, of course, has to do with experience. So did that work for me in that class? Or did it not work for me? What were the pros and cons of using that strategy. But of course, that all comes to fruition during adolescence, because that's when we start to get these coping strategies laid down into some sort of structure within the brain. So that again, not that it's impossible to influence those coping strategies. But it does make it very difficult to change the coping strategies after that point. And that going back to, we mentioned neuro economics at the beginning, that kind of how the brain keeps you safe, and how it does that using the least amount of energy. And what's happening during adolescence is that the brain has to decide, okay, I can't forever assess every single situation before deciding how to respond because I will be exhausted, and I have a million other things to concentrate on. Because we're gonna go and learn how to do agility, or IGP, or whatever it is. So I can't spend my life constantly assessing that. So why don't we just lay down the most likely method that works. And we might have a little repertoire, so we might have several options. But we're going to know roughly when we're going to use those options by default, because that just makes it so much easier. And essentially, the brain then doesn't have to use higher cognitive processing, which is very energetically draining. In order to behaviorally respond. We like to think that animals the same as us kind of think consciously about how they respond. But actually, anyone who's interested in human psychology knows that a lot of our responses aren't conscious either. The conscious thought comes actually after the neurons have already fired for the behavioral response and modulate the behavioral response. But the initial behavioral response is very much laid down in adolescence and becomes our kind of coping strategy or ways of interacting with the world ways of working if you like. So those processes are very vulnerable to disruption during that period, because obviously, they're being laid down into for want of a better term hardwired within the brain. But of course, if they're disrupted any point during that process that's going to affect how they're laid down. So it might change the coping stress to G. Or it might mean that one coping strategy just becomes the coping strategy. And I now don't have enough behavioral flexibility to be able to use other coping strategies as easily. And going back to that kind of train of thought of when we're presented with an aggressive case, if we take an aggressive dog, kind of how we approach and it's a mistake to think the dogs not trying hard enough, or the dogs thinking, I want to buy everyone or respond aggressively. And, you know, the dogs not putting in enough effort to be able to restrain itself. Well, if it's laid down a coping strategy, that is an aggressive coping strategy, then that coping strategy is going to be automated. And actually, it's not about teaching the dog to inhibit that it's about teaching the dog to modulate that. That's the reality of it, because you're not going to be able to overcome that that coping strategy for whatever reason during adolescence was laid down as a primary coping strategy. So our job when we go in to support the dog is actually to support the dog to be able to modulate that behavioral response. And hopefully, if if we get to work with the dog for long enough to be able to work with the dog to teach it other coping strategies. So for instance, in Nancy, she has an aggressive response as her coping strategy when she's under pressure. And one of the really key bits of work I did with her after the initial kind of emergency work and how to manage that response and learn more about it so that I could avoid putting her in situations where she had to resort to her. But one of the key things that really made a difference to her quality of life, was actively teaching her another coping strategy, which was teaching her that when she looks at me, we get out of the situation. So she can then either choose to respond using her default response, or she can respond using her default response. And within a split second, she can modulate that by looking at me, and then I will march her away from the situation. And we've overtime, we've been working together now for six years. So we've got much more subtle cues and subtle behavioral changes between the two of us, but it's that conversation always between us. And I had to set that up, because she came to me without that skill set, when she came, she was very much resorting to, I'm in this situation, I need to get myself out of this situation, and I had to shift her to were part of a pair now and I can help get you out of that situation, you're going to have to trust me to do it. And it's going to take time for you to trust that that works. But I am going to teach you that that does work without fail every single time regardless of the cost to me. So regardless of whether it's embarrassing for me, or whether I have to climb over a barrier with or or, you know, whatever it is, I'm going to make it happen. So I'm going to teach you that that is a good coping strategy. And that will work.

Michael Shikashio: 1:08:01

That's such a helpful explanation of what you're talking about with the coping strategy. I don't think I've ever heard it in that description. And it's so helpful for me to really think about because yes, we really are modulating looking to modulate that versus suppress, you know, things and get into that mindset of punishing our behaviors or, you know, we've got to help the dog in that aspect. So, yeah, it's really excellent, excellent. Wait, we

Unknown: 1:08:24

didn't even touch on trauma. Did we do all?

Michael Shikashio: 1:08:28

The way explaining? Well, actually, to follow up on that? Yeah, if you want to get into what happens in the brain when a dog or an adolescent dog experiences that traumatic moment? So you know, you'd mentioned what we do after but what would you say is happening from the, you know, the chicken and egg, I guess, argument here. So what's happening when the dog experiences trauma.

Unknown: 1:08:48

So I mean, when the dogs experiencing trauma, there's a whole range of effects that are happening that are affecting coupling and modulation, but the pathways for coupling and the pathways for modulation. But essentially, the way to think about it is that the brain has had a really, really important piece of information really salient, we would say, are really important. And the brain needs never to forget that because it is so important. And the brain needs to work out how to incorporate that into its physiology and its structure and its function. Now, if the animal has already gone through to adulthood, and already has inhibitory neurons, for instance, then those inhibitory neurons will be dampening down the brain areas excitatory response to that traumatic event. So the inhibitory neurons will be saying, Okay, let's just take a minute we can deal with this. We just need to take a breath, work out what's going on and work out how to assimilate this into into our brain. Now, that's not to say it's not traumatic if you experience it as an adult. But that's in contrast to what's happening as an adolescent, which is that you don't actually have your inhibitory neurons online in as effective as they would be as an adult. And so that means you've got less balance between the excitatory response and the inhibitory response. And so your brain's response to that traumatic event is essentially more dramatic, it's going to be more extreme, it's going to involve more emotional instability than stability. And it's also not going to be easily overwritten by cognitive processing. And what I mean by cognitive processing is that ability to think your way out of something. And I mean, trauma is on a sliding scale as well. And I'm not talking about extreme trauma here. But if you take the trauma of, let's say, stepping out in front of a fast moving car, and it slams on its brakes and slams on its horn that is traumatic in the moment. But what happens in the minutes following that if you're a healthy adult with a normal healthy brain, as in emotionally stable, and no prior history of extreme trauma, is that your brain will be able to think its way out of that and think, Okay, you messed up, you didn't look, before you cross the road, you need to take out your earbuds, stop looking at your phone and take road crossing seriously. And you'll be fine. You don't need to take this trauma any further than that, yes, you'll be shaken up for a day. But you'll be fine. Of course, if it's the adolescent brain, you don't have such a well developed ability to think your way out of that. So this actually happened to me. So that's why I'm using this example. Because when I was I think I was about 10 and a half, I didn't have a Bunsen because they didn't exist then because it was in the dark ages. But I was thinking about something to do with not, I think it's my horse, my pony, I was thinking about my pony really, really intently. And I stepped out in front of a car and the person driving the car screamed out of the window, and then wasn't content with just like scaring the pants off me. They had to drive past me and continue to scream. And it really, really shook me up. Now, if I'm presented with a similar situation, I remember that event. Why do I remember that event, because it's so important for my brain to remind me of that event. Because that event wasn't dampened down. If I didn't think my way out of it, my brain just went, Oh, my goodness, that is awful. And that the amygdala was firing and the frontal cortex was firing and the motor system was fine, everything was firing, and it was all going crazy. So my brain is laid down that memory as this is really important, that must never ever happen to you again. And, you know, I wasn't able to think, well, if I just looked both ways bla bla bla bla and kind of took myself down. So that's become that trauma has become internalized in the way that my brain processes those signals. And it's not conscious, I don't consciously remember that. It's just that my brain will, for instance, speed up the responses. So speed up responses to anything that sounds like a car or a car screeching or a car horn or someone shouting if I'm near a road, because it will prioritize those signals and make sure that those signals get through, regardless of what other signals I'm processing. So if I'm thinking about my pony, then it says no, To hell with your pony. We're not doing ponies day, we're definitely only doing road safety today. So I can't ever change that. I just have to incorporate that. And because I'm an adult, and I have healthy brain, I can now think my way out of okay, I don't I'm not 10 and a half anymore. It's okay, I can cross the road and look both ways. But that's the that's the vulnerability in the young brain in both puppyhood and in adolescence or in any other species, whether it's mammalian, or indeed non mammalian, although, arguably non mammalian may not have the same life stages that were Malians have.

Michael Shikashio: 1:14:11

Well, I can say, Kathy, that my neurons are officially fried in a very, very delightfully good way, though. So I want to really thank you for coming on the episode and also ask you what you're up to and where can people find you?

Unknown: 1:14:26

So you can find me on Facebook at barking brains, which is at neurosciences. Awesome. Yeah, really exciting for bulking brain. So up until now, I've had a very busy life as a clinical academic in research and teaching, and clinical work, and I'm leaving that all behind focus on bulking brains. I'm going to be working closely with behavior vets. I've taken up a post there as chief scientific officer, and I'll be working with them essentially collaborating so that the plans that I had for barking reigns and the plans that behavior that's had for their educational science outreach. We've just kind of pooled our resources and said, Hey, guys, why don't we do this together? Like we're much stronger together. So I'll be working really closely with the team there, which is fantastic. And I've just taken on an associate, Steph, hi, Steph, if you're listening, who is amazing? Oh, my goodness. She's just fantastic. So I've got Yeah, I'm really excited about the projects that we've got coming up, we're gonna get a new website and make sure that our content is searchable, because at the moment, that's one of the limiting factors for people wanting to search the various content streams. Yeah, and big things for the future. So really, really exciting, as well as getting married and moving house and all of the rest of it.

Michael Shikashio: 1:15:46

I'm certainly excited for you. I am excited for barking brains in collaboration with behavior vets. There's such an awesome team over there, doctor, at least Chris and Jean and team. They're just amazing, amazing people. So Kathy, thank you so much for coming on the show and I hope to hear from you again in the future.

Unknown: 1:16:02

You're very, very welcome. Thank you.

Michael Shikashio: 1:16:07

I hope you enjoyed learning from Dr. Cathy Murphy as much as I did and got some nice takeaways from her amazing insight into the brains of dogs. If you liked the show, please feel free to subscribe, share and give a rating and hop on over to aggressive dog.com For more information about helping dogs with aggression. From the aggression in dogs master course two webinars from world renowned experts, and even an annual conference we have options for both pet pros and pet owners to learn more about aggression in dogs