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!
The Bitey End of the Dog
Microbiomes and Behavior with Sarita Pellowe
What if you could unlock the secrets of your dog's behavior through their gut? In our latest episode, we welcome Sarita Pellowe, an esteemed dog trainer and researcher, to guide us through the fascinating world of the gut microbiome and its profound impact on canine behavior. Sarita demystifies the vast and diverse ecosystem residing in your dog's gut, explaining how these microorganisms can shape health and behavior. You'll be amazed at the parallels between human and dog gut microbiomes and what this could mean for advancements in mental health research for both species!
About Sarita:
"I’m a trainer/behaviour consultant and grad student based in St John’s, Newfoundland. Proud human to Denzel (12 yo Boston terrier mix) and Leeloo (6 yo Rottweiler), and owned/ruled by our 6 year old kitty, Brookie. Originally from Blackpool, UK, I moved to Newfoundland in 2012 to pursue my first Masters degree in fish cardiovascular physiology after completing my B.Sc. in Zoology at the University of Manchester. I met Denzel in 2012, and as my problem child we set out on our training journey together. In 2017 I gained my CPDT-KA, then in 2018 I launched East Coast Canine Dog Training and gained my CBCC-KA. I returned to school in the height of the pandemic and joined the Canine Research Unit at Memorial University, where I have been researching the links between gut microbiome composition and anxiety/aggression in dogs. At East Coast Canine, I offer both private and group training and regularly volunteer at our local SPCA providing behaviour assessments and training for our rescues. In my spare time you’ll typically find me out fishing at the cabin, hiking the beautiful and rugged East Coast trails of Newfoundland, or attending agility/rally classes with Leeloo at our local sports club."
https://www.eastcoastcanine.ca/
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We've talked briefly about microbiomes and behavior a couple times on this podcast and since I find the potential connection so interesting, I knew I had to bring in a guest that is doing research on this very topic. Sarita Palau owns East Coast Canine Dog Training, based in Newfoundland, and she joins me for this episode where I get to pick her brain about all things gut biomes and behavior and you'll hear some really interesting insights and connections. She has a master's in science and is currently enrolled in her second master's degree at Memorial University, this time studying under the Cognitive and Behavioral Ecology program, with her research investigating the links between gut microbiota and anxiety and aggression in dogs. Sarita holds a CPDT-KA, a CBCC-KA, and is currently working towards fulfilling the requirements to become an associate certified animal behaviorist with the Animal Behavior Society. And if you are enjoying the bitey end of the dog, you can support the podcast by going to aggressivedogcom, where there's a variety of resources to learn more about helping dogs with aggression issues, including the upcoming Aggression and Dogs Conference happening from October 11th to 13th 2024 in Scottsdale, arizona, with both in-person and online options. You can also learn more about the Aggression and 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.
Speaker 1:I also have a wide variety of webinars, upcoming courses, videos and articles, all from the foremost experts in training and behavior. We are your one-stop shop for all things related to aggression in dogs. Hey guys, welcome back to the Bitey Under the Dog. I am really excited for this week because we're going to be diving into a topic that I don't know much about but I really want to learn a lot more about, and it's something that is new kind of new to the dog training community, which is the gut biomes and behavior. And this week I have Sarita Pello, who is joining us and has done a lot of research actually on this topic and is a dog trainer. So welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be here to talk to you today. This is pretty huge for me.
Speaker 1:I'm so excited for you to be here, so I would love to first, for my sake and I'm sure a lot of the listeners really dive into just the basics of this first, so we can get a kind of foundational understanding. So how would you define biomes or gut biomes? What are they and what are their function?
Speaker 2:So the gut microbiome in particular is a community of organisms living within the mammalian gut. Some people consider it to be a super organ, and some of the facts and figures around the sheer size of the gut microbiome itself are absolutely outstanding. I've seen comments on the human gut microbiome that the content within there, all of these organisms, can weigh up to two kilograms in an adult human being. So it's an amazing amount of life fostered there inside our gastrointestinal tracts. Typically, the gut microbiome itself is made up of upwards of millions of organisms we're looking likely in the billions and trillions kind of a level of numbers and the communities made up it's not just bacteria and there's also archaea, which are single-celled organisms, fungi and viruses as well. And when we talk about the gut microbiome in our research, we are specifically referring to the bacteria that are in there.
Speaker 2:For the most part, these bacteria have a pretty symbiotic relationship with the host, but there are also problematic bacteria in there. They can start to cause issues with gastrointestinal disease and even those bacteria that we typically consider to be beneficial. If things go out of line in terms of the composition, if we're getting too many of those bacteria, then we can start to see problems in terms of health and disease. So it's a really complex system. There's a lot of back and forth between the gut microbiome and the host in terms of not just health, but we're seeing a lot more evidence for behavior now as well and those impacts. They can be short term and they can be longterm as well. So we can see short-term effects in terms of, say, diarrhea, gastric upset. We see big shifts in the composition of the gut microbiome then, but there's also indications that specific bacteria might actually be indicative of an increased risk for certain types of cancer and mental health disorders as well.
Speaker 1:That's fascinating, and so a lot of the research now and it seems like everybody's talking about this, like we're talking you know Andrew Huberman's got people on his podcast talking about it. So a lot of studies in humans, but what about dogs or animals? For that matter, it's not quite as much research, is that correct?
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely. So there is a big focus in humans because, you know, mental health is the forefront of everybody's minds right now, and especially since the pandemic. My generation in particular are becoming increasingly aware of taking care of our mental health. In terms of the gut microbiome itself, the entire field, even in the well-studied organisms so organisms humans, in the well-studied organisms so organisms humans. It's only really been within the last 15 or 20 years or so that we've seen big advances in the field, and a lot of that is because of the emerging technology that we have.
Speaker 2:We actually have the computing power now to deal with these enormous data sets that we're getting from the genetic information within the gut microbiome, and we also have the databases, too, to be able to accurately identify the bacteria that we're seeing, and even now, day after day, there's new bacteria being identified constantly, not just in humans, but in dogs, and other mammalian models too, like mice and pigs, are also a big area for study.
Speaker 2:One of the great things about dogs, though, is we're finding more and more that the dog gut microbiome is probably, out of all of these mammalian models, the most similar to the human gut microbiome, and that's interesting for me, because we do share so much of our environment with dogs that it does kind of stand to reason that would be some similarities, given how many environmental factors impact the shape of our gut. And obviously we're a very different species we have different dietary requirements, different physiological processes and lifestyles but sharing such close similarities it makes dogs are really interesting species to study, especially given that so many of the responses of the gut are so similar between us. I think it's absolutely fascinating and I'm so excited not just excited to have been able to do it myself, but how the canine gut microbiome field is starting to grow now too.
Speaker 1:What got you into that? So you kind of started your research project, which we'll dive into more, but what kind of got you going to do? Okay, there's this relationship between behavior and the biome. Was it something you saw in the human research or is it something you were interested in animal research?
Speaker 2:So I actually can't take credit for that one, because this project was not my idea. The job was essentially posted by our local university and at the time I was itching for something to do. It was late 2020. I had recently got my permanent residency here in Canada as well, and there was a lot of insecurity there after the pandemic. We didn't know if we were going to return to life as normal. I wasn't sure if my business was going to thrive or not after everything that we'd been through. So I saw this opportunity to do the master's and I just thought you know what, why not? Like now is as good a time as any. I can go back to school for a couple of years and in my mind, a big part of that driving factor was to then be able to use this master's thesis as a way to gain my ACAB, the Associate Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist designation from the Animal Behavior Society. So it just seemed like I don't know the stars aligned in this project coming up, so it was actually proposed by my three supervisors at Memorial University.
Speaker 2:Here Dr Carolyn Walsh is the head of our canine research unit. Carolyn's history is in the behavior side of things. Carolyn's history is in the behavior side of things. We also had Dr Don Bignall, who's our microbiologist, and then Lourdes Pena-Castillo is our computer sciences wizard. She's literally the smartest person I know. The things that she can do with data analysis are just unreal. So they are all scientists here at the university and they're all big dog lovers as well.
Speaker 2:And there had been a paper had recently come out, the mondo paper, which I believe you covered previously, probably a couple of years back now, on your podcast. That paper had just come out. It was a wonderful paper but it was based in shelter animals. So there was sort of a question there of okay, so if we know that there's a bi-directional relationship between the gut microbiome and behavior and we're looking at dogs who are in a potentially stressful environment, how is that going to impact not only the gut microbiome composition but the behavioral assessment that they're doing as well?
Speaker 2:So what my supervisors proposed we do was take that study, learn from what they had found and repeat it in a population of dogs who were living in a more stable environment.
Speaker 2:So we were aiming for pet dogs who had adult pet dogs in the local area who had more consistent living arrangements, so they've stayed in the same home with the same number of animals, for we went for over three months to be conservative and had been eating a consistent diet as well. And then we went for a slightly broader scope of behavioral assessment rather than doing in-person which at the time was going to be quite challenging with COVID. It was hard enough for us to get the university to let me go to people's doorsteps and pick up their fecal samples, let alone doing in-person behavior assessments. So we opted to use the CBARC and that helps us to get sort of quite a wide profile from a lot of docs. I think we had initially 494 participants took our first questionnaire and out of those around 235 went on to do the C-BARC. So it gave us a nice little population to then be able to start selecting people that we could invite for the more in-depth study of actually taking those samples from the dogs.
Speaker 1:I imagine it was, yeah, during a pandemic. You know, let me go pick up some. Like, with the whole phobia of germs at the time, let me go pick up some more germs to bring back. I'm sure that was a little bit of a hurdle. So you mentioned Seabark, you know, which is a really robust questionnaire that's used in a lot of studies. And then you mentioned you were looking for dogs that were at least in the home for three months, and I think you mentioned, or we had talked earlier too, about the age of the dogs being a certain age, two to seven. Is that correct?
Speaker 2:That's right yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay. And why was that? Why was that particular narrower group of dogs?
Speaker 2:So we wanted to ensure that essentially, the gut microbiome had settled to its final form in those dogs. So what happens? As far as we know from the limited information we have about the development of the canine gut microbiome, it's rapidly developing from birth through to, we think, about a year old and then once that dog reaches adulthood, the core composition of the gut microbiome then stays relatively stable. So we can cause shifts in the gut microbiome by adjusting diet. If we supplement with probiotics, if we use antibiotics, we see a big shift there too. But essentially what happens after you stop adding in extraneous factors like probiotics? The gut will then go back and settle to what is considered normal for that individual dog. So we wanted to avoid risking looking at a little snapshot in time with that fecal sample in a dog who was younger and that gut microbiome still developing. So by setting our age limit from two to seven years old, we are pretty safe in the knowledge that that is the core population for this particular dog and they're not on the older end of the spectrum where we might start running into age-related changes or potentially underlying disease associated with age that might also impact the gut microbiome.
Speaker 2:I guess one of the things that we really need to focus on when we're doing gut microbiome research is we're trying to limit as much variability as possible, because behavior in the real world is messy enough. There are so many factors that contribute to the development of behavioral issues in dogs, and then we're looking at an equally complex system arguably more complex in terms of the gut microbiome. So we want to make sure that when we get our data at the end of the study, that we have accounted for as many potential variables as possible. Age was just one of them, but we also looked at the dog's diet. We looked at their history with using dewormers, with probiotics and even their body condition score too. So when you see the posters in your vet clinic of the underweight, average and overweight dogs, we wanted to try and match them as closely as we could there to ensure, when we come out the end, the main thing that separates two dogs when we're looking at them is their behavioral score from CBARC, rather than any of these environmental factors.
Speaker 1:Got it. So you have these wonderful advisors. They tell you to take on this project, this research project. You go out, you start getting these poop samples and analyzing them, and then you have the CBARC questionnaires as well, so you have that data coming in. What did you start looking for? So let's get into like what kind of questions on the CBARC were really focused for this particular study and then we can talk about. You know what we're looking in the biomes, but so what kind of information were you?
Speaker 2:going for and actually you should start with what was the kind of final sample size for this. So we were hoping to get 50 samples, 50 fecal samples, from this population of dogs. And this is essentially why we needed such a large response to the questionnaires in the first place is because every time we cut our population down, accounting for all of these variables, that cohort just got smaller and smaller and smaller and we ended up with, I think it was only around 72 dogs out of that entire population that actually met the criteria to be able to go on to the fecal sampling section, met the criteria to be able to go on to the fecal sampling section. So, with those 72 dogs, basically what we did and the reason why we use Seabirck was we wanted to decide okay, out of this population that we have, who are about as controlled as a community sample can be, out of these dogs here, who's the most aggressive and who's the least aggressive, who shows the highest signs of anxiety, who shows the lowest. So essentially, how we use CBARC in this particular study is we took the aggression subscales, we used stranger-directed fear, dog-directed fear and non-social fear For anxiety. We also included the separation-related issues as well.
Speaker 2:So we created an average, so it's just sort of an index of how much of a scaredy cat are you and when you take the Seaburk you can kind of look at it as a sense of if you get a score of zero, this is not an anxious dog, and then as you go up we're increasing the severity of it.
Speaker 2:So we did capture quite a few dogs who were on the higher end of the spectrum, scoring the threes and the fours, the more severe aggression and anxiety cases. But the majority of our community sample was down at the lower end, around the zeros, which is kind of nice. When getting onto the results, to just keep in mind that these are pet dogs and they're pretty normal. And even though they are normal, we're still seeing a very clear pattern in terms of the gut microbiome and the particular bacteria that were associated with behavioral issues. We didn't need a drastically polarized population of heavily anxious and heavily aggressive dogs versus quote unquote normal ones. Even in such a pet basic community we still saw results. So that's probably one of the more exciting aspects of this research for us is, I think we've shown some pretty good evidence that there is a link there.
Speaker 1:Can I ask you a little bit more about the CBAR questions in regards to how are people identifying a dog that's aggressive, air quotes there or anxious or showing anxiety? Were there any particular measures or body language or behaviors that would classify them?
Speaker 2:So it is owner reported. So to a certain extent it is open to interpretation and the owner's perception of how severe a response is. So as they go through the questionnaire, there's 100 questions and you're presented with various situations. How does your dog respond when they see an unfamiliar person? When they see an unfamiliar dog For inside the home? There's questions like when your dog is approached by a familiar dog or when they're approached by a person and they've got a bone or a toy or their food. So the owners have to report that in terms of severity. And there are loose examples there in the descriptions for sea bark where they say you know zero is no reaction, no concerns, and as they go up they do state you know lunging and barking as suggestions for typical behaviors that you may see. But for the most part you're reporting it on what we call a Likert scale. So from zero of no concern up to four for most concerned. And you know CBARC has its pros and cons for sure, and I know it has.
Speaker 2:There are critics out there in terms of questioning the validity sometimes of the questionnaire, questioning the validity sometimes of the questionnaire For us. I mean we were able to collect a large amount of behavioral data in our questionnaire, in this project itself, from doing it with my own dogs. I mean recently had a presentation where I showed my dog Denzel, who is a very spicy little character. He's extremely dog aggressive and I had my own concerns too when we first started reading about Seabark and deciding if we're going to use it. So I did it for all three of my dogs at the time and I was pleasantly surprised with how accurate the summary of my dogs was. I'm able to see. You know I'm a consultant but I'm also a scientist. So I have a healthy level of skepticism when it comes to the methods that we're going to use, and I do genuinely think that it accurately reflected my dog's personal profile.
Speaker 2:And we've got to keep in mind too that you know, no one approach is going to be absolutely perfect.
Speaker 2:We're going for volume and being able to capture a large amount of data and essentially use behavioral score as a proxy. We don't necessarily need to know the specifics of the behaviors that your dog shows, when they're behaving aggressively or when they're in the pits of anxiety and they're in the pits of anxiety but we did need it to be able to establish this is our less anxious group. This is our more anxious group, I think, when you compare it to the in-person behavioral assessments. Absolutely we'd love to be able to validate for every single dog that the C-BARC responses were absolutely accurate. But then you get into the issue of time and resources, of being able to dedicate that to larger sample sizes as well. Often you've got to take what you can use, the resources that you can use, and just be honest and transparent about the take-home messages that you're getting from that questionnaire. I don't think that CBARC is absolutely perfect, but I do think that it's a wonderful tool when it's understood and used properly.
Speaker 1:I agree. I think it's been used in so many different studies and I think the information that we're getting from those studies is very helpful, so I think the sea bark has been a wonderful tool in academia and research and so okay. So now, what did you discover? So you get these samples, you've got the questions, you have identified the dogs that might be anxious or aggressive and you start to analyze that poop and you spit it into the supercomputer. You can tell us more about that? And what were the results? What did you discover?
Speaker 2:So we ran a multitude of different sort of approaches for this, because one of the big sort of caveats we've got microbiome research at the moment is because it's such a rapidly developing area and technologies are developing all of the time. There is a lot of variability between studies and between methods. So we use multiple different approaches to look at the differences between our higher anxiety, lower anxiety and higher aggression dogs and essentially, what we wanted to see is, when we use these different methodologies, do we have the same bacteria being identified consistently, even though we have different methods of analyzing it? So what we initially found was a little bit sad on my part as a young scientist. You really want to have the significant results. You want those really low p-values and the sexy graphs coming out at the end of it. And what we found when we looked at just the relative abundance of the bacteria in our cohort is that there really wasn't a big difference in the core populations of bacteria when we separated them out by behavioral group and, while it's somewhat disappointing for me, seeing that, it does actually confirm that the dogs that we had within our study are just perfectly physically healthy dogs and, based on the other literature that's been published. There was a 2020 paper by Elizabeth Amando and then another in 2019 by Nicole Kirchhoff by Elizabeth Amando and then another in 2019 by Nicole Kirchhoff. They both said that any differences that we see within the gut microbiome are going to be quite nuanced and subtle differences, likely relationships between a couple of subdominant bacteria. So not the main population, but these small, small, subtle changes. And when we started digging deeper with the more in-depth analyses that we did, we actually started to have one bacteria that kept getting identified again and again across these analyses. And what's interesting is well, I wish this was anxiousdogcom rather than aggressivedogcom because truly, for aggression, we really didn't see that many differences between the two populations.
Speaker 2:But when we split the dogs by anxiety group, we saw one bacteria at the genus level just getting identified over and over again. That bacteria's name is Blautia and it's a relatively newly identified bacteria that has sort of divergent evidence in the literature for what that bacteria's role is. There's little that we know about it in dogs, but when it's been studied in humans and also in mice, I believe as well. Some state that this genus has probiotic and protective effects, that it's a great bacteria that we want to keep around, has probiotic and protective effects that it's a great bacteria that we want to keep around. But then others have indicated that it might also be indicative of an increased risk of breast cancer and it's also been associated with autism spectrum disorder in humans as well. So what we have to sort of think about there is well, it's really exciting that we had a really high level of accuracy within our mathematical models here of essentially our analysis.
Speaker 2:Cell bowel, it was called, was able to predict whether or not a dog was in the higher anxiety or lower anxiety group with around 85% accuracy, just looking at the specific relationship between our little friend Blautia and two other bacteria. Those are Salospiraceae and Negativicutes. So to have 85% accuracy from 48 perfectly average pet dogs was a pretty astonishing finding for us that that's actually really convincing. Obviously we'd love to have a much higher accuracy for these models and I think that that might be possible if we start to go on and target more clinical dogs, so dogs who really they're all clustered up around the threes and fours on those Seabark scales. I think if we can capture those more intense, the more problematic behaviors, then we might then start to build more evidence and figure out exactly what's going on with this bacteria in these anxious dogs?
Speaker 1:So the question that comes to mind is sort of the chicken and egg argument or conundrum, you know. So do we see in these anxious dogs which is amazing that you found that common flautia in these dogs in the anxiety group. What would common Lautia and these dogs in the anxiety group? What would you say? Is you know for the people listening in and I know I have this question is it because these dogs have this anxiety that we're seeing a higher production of that bacteria, or is potentially the bacteria causing some of the anxiety?
Speaker 2:I think that's going to be a question that I take to my grave, honestly, because we know there's a bidirectional relationship there. But you're exactly right, it is a chicken and egg relationship, and until we know more about the specific mechanisms, potentially have some longitudinal studies too, to see if, as a dog or as a puppy, is developing, if maybe Blautia could be identified as a biomarker for an increased risk group Again, that's going beyond the scope of what we could say from our study, but I think it's definitely something that bears keeping in mind for future studies is, if this is indicative of an increased risk, it could be used in predictions, but we don't know right now if it is a case of anxiety coming from other sources, that's then altering the gut microbiome through stress. One thing I do think our study has sort of made me start to think about around that, though, is where we see bigger differences between the groups based on anxiety, but not with aggression. When I then put my training hat back on and start to think about what does anxiety look like, what does aggression look like?
Speaker 2:Anxiety I kind of tend to think of as a more chronic condition. It's that ongoing chronic stress, that chronic worry, whereas aggression could arguably be thought of as a bit more context specific. You behave aggressively in X context to get certain desired outcome. So that would make sense if you know, if Blautia is more heavily associated with anxiety, if we're seeing more patterns within anxious dogs that we're looking at more of a chronic condition than potentially with aggression. That being said, the other studies have mostly focused on aggression and they have some differences too. So again, variability between studies. I would never be so bold as to say that ours is the right way or anything like that, because they provide pretty valid evidence too to say that there's a difference between aggressive and non-aggressive dogs in a couple of different populations.
Speaker 1:now too, what was the number or percentage in the aggression group? You had 85 in the anxiety group. What was the percentage you found in the aggression group?
Speaker 2:For the accuracy in predicting the group yes. For anxiety, in two of the analyses we had 85% and 87% accuracy. For aggression, when we ran random forest with feature selection, we got 75%.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So when you get down to 50%, that's a flip of a coin if the program is going to assign the dog to the correct group. Right, a flip of a coin if the program is going to assign the dog to the correct group. So definitely a lot more convincing evidence for anxiety group for us than for the aggression group.
Speaker 1:So, with that being said, with aggression, you studied it with fear-based stranger issues, dog issues and dog non-social fear, right? So you're kind of looking at that emotion of fear in the CBAR questions where they kind of skewed towards that emotion of fear in the aggressive responses, or was it just dogs displaying aggression?
Speaker 2:any of the validation studies. There's evidence in the literature, but also in real life, for so many comorbidities between anxiety and aggression. So what we found with the groupings that we had? We split them on aggression or anxiety, but when we look at the combination of the two, the majority of the dogs that we were comparing were both highly aggressive and highly anxious, compared to not anxious and not aggressive. So the majority of dogs that we had within those groups were essentially the same dogs. There were very few who came out to have low anxiety and high aggression and, conversely, very few that had low aggression and high anxiety.
Speaker 2:We did see a lot of comorbidity within our sample that you would want to assume exhibiting fear-based aggression, but again you can't really extract that from the questionnaire and derive the mechanisms for their aggression.
Speaker 1:CB. Yeah, because what comes to mind for me is sort of thinking in that gut-brain axis and what happens in the brain. When we're talking about the brain, when we think about anxiety, we're thinking about an emotion or sort of a byproduct of some emotions. So you think about what's happening in the brain there. But with aggression, when we're measuring aggression, we're often focused on the outside. We're seeing the barking, lunging, growling.
Speaker 1:So we might ask a pet owner you know, what do you see? Do you see barking, growling, lunging? But that could be the cause or the motivation could be from a variety of different emotions. Sometimes we might see like a fear-based aggression and sometimes we might see a dog protecting a resource which, I argue, is often they're starting to teeter into other emotions, such as anger or rage, if you're looking at an effective neuroscience model. Or even, let's say it was a dog that's doing it for sport or is happy about it. So a dog trained to protect somebody. Or just genetically, they're like I'm a Belgian Malinois and I'm supposed to protect somebody.
Speaker 1:So you might have underlying emotions, different emotions in play, all with the same suite of behaviors of barking, lunging, growling, snapping, biting that the person taking that questionnaire is going to see. So what are your thoughts on that? Do you think it's just more difficult to study because of so many variables, with aggression versus like anxiety, where it's kind of universal for us, especially as professionals, we can say, okay, we see, you know the signs of anxiety, the vocalizations, the pacing behavior, the signs of anxiety, the vocalizations, the pacing behavior, the type of outward behaviors and signals that we could measure as anxiety, if that makes sense I mean when, when we look at how we collected the information, like it's hard for us to extract the motivations behind it, although that was a question that I had when we first started digging into the CBARC and we were in the planning stages of this.
Speaker 2:So we did also ask another questionnaire. We called it the diet and lifestyle questionnaire, and one of my areas of concern there with the CBARC is I'd be looking at the descriptions of the behavior and the context that they specifically ask about and in my mind I'm thinking of some of my clients, say, an adolescent doodle who is just really excited to be here and they're a really frustrated greeter and sure, they're lunging and they're barking and they're jumping around and they're pulling towards the other dog, but they're not necessarily trying to get that dog to leave, they're trying to get the dog to come closer to them. So what we tried to do in the other questionnaire was sort of confirm some of those behaviors. So I specifically asked people I went for a very non-scientific approach in the answers to this particular question because I wanted to get a feeling for how does your dog feel in that moment or how does the owner perceive their dog in that moment. So they were asked when your dog sees an unfamiliar dog on a leash, is he excited? Is he wagging his tail? Is he pulling towards them? So we could create this little profile of what the owner like, the specific behaviors that the owner sees and the emotions or feelings that they might attach to them. Because when we talk about behavior from like a scientific perspective, we want operational definitions, we want when X happens my dog does this and we want context and we want accuracy. But I think there's also a lot of value in what the owner thinks the dog feels, because you know, a wagging tail is a wagging tail. It can be a happy wagging tail. It could be a very angry and stressed, intense one.
Speaker 2:So this was actually really helpful for us because our paper, this research, is currently out with peer review and we got the reviewers comments back and they actually challenged us quite a bit on the use of seabark and the use of these composite aggression and anxiety scores. So I went back into the way way back machine to the first data that we collected there about these behaviors and I split our entire cohort up into the high and low aggressions. We had this little matrix of behavioral designations and what I kept finding was all of these high aggression, high anxiety dogs. They are barking, they're lunging, they're trying to move away, they're trying to hide, they're trying to ignore them, and then the low anxiety dogs are excited and they're wagging their tail and you could see like this happy little picture for the low anxiety and low aggression dogs, and for me it was just sort of satisfying my own curiosity.
Speaker 2:We didn't really have a plan for that information when we threw it in there, but I thought, as a trainer, I'd just like to know if you're giving me a high aggression score, say in dog directed aggression, is your dog going to maul my dog and kill them when I see them, or is your dog just really excited to be there and they're just showing all of these explosive behaviors? We're actually now using that as evidence for the reviewer to say, no, actually, these C-mark scores are pretty accurate and even though it's been validated in multiple different languages and multiple different scenarios, they still wanted us to provide a little bit more evidence that our dogs are actually high aggression, high anxiety dogs. And just having that little snippet just from my own training consultancy curiosity has actually, you know, made sure that this paper is probably going to end up getting published, so yeah, yeah, that's fascinating because you have the dog trainer side again.
Speaker 1:That is so influential in making those decisions and being able to see those nuances, which makes me I think just again this study so unique. So I want to talk more about some of the influences on the biomes and what we can do to help some of these dogs with the information we have currently. But we're going to take a quick break to hear from our sponsors and we'll be right back. Hey, friends, it's me again and I hope you are enjoying this episode. Don't forget to join me for the fifth annual Aggression and Dogs Conference, either in person or online from Scottsdale, arizona, from October 11th to 13th 2024. This year's lineup includes many incredible speakers, including Dr Clive Wynn, dr Jessica Heckman, emma Parsons, sarah Kallnice, laurie Lawless, carmeletta Ofterheide, jess Feliciano, dr Amy Cook and many more. Head on over to aggressivedogcom and click on the conference tab to learn more about the exciting agenda on everything from advanced concepts in dog body language to working with aggression in shelter environments, to genetic influences on behavior. Dr Amy Cook will be bringing her entertaining and energetic personality to the grand reception and cocktail party which, by the way, will be live streamed as well as in person and, as usual, you'll find a wonderful, kind, caring and supportive community at the conference, both in person and online. I also want to take a moment to thank one of our wonderful sponsors this year Pets for Vets.
Speaker 1:Did you know that approximately 1 million shelter animals are euthanized in the US every year? At the same time, many of our country's veterans are experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, anxiety and or depression. Pets for Vets founder and executive director, clarissa Black, created a solution for these problems by rescuing and training animals for veterans. Pets for Vets has a unique program model that customizes each match between a veteran and a shelter animal to create what is known as a super bond. Each animal is selected and trained specifically for each veteran, based on the nuanced relationship between animal behavior and human personality, to ensure a successful, reciprocal and enriched relationship.
Speaker 1:Pets for Vets has a positive reinforcement mentality at its core for animals, veterans and trainers. In addition to helping veterans and rescue animals, clarester has created a generous opportunity for positive reinforcement trainers to join our organization. Trainers are able to participate anywhere in the US while receiving stipends, professional development opportunities and maintaining a flexible schedule. Pets for Vets is also seeking new partnerships with animal shelters and rescue groups from around the country. For more information, please visit petsforvetscom. All right, we're back here with Sarita Pillow and we are talking about the biome and now we're going to jump into what influences the biome. So we talked about, obviously, things like diet, medical antibiotics. Can you walk us through that a little bit? What are some of those major influences that people listening in with their own dogs should be aware of that could really mess with the biome or help the biome.
Speaker 2:Sure. So we can sort of split it into two categories. I guess there's the colonization and the development of the gut microbiome and then, once we are in adulthood, I guess, the maintenance of the gut microbiome and the development of the gut microbiome, and then, once we are in adulthood, I guess the maintenance of the gut microbiome and the environmental factors that might affect it. So when we look at where the gut microbiome starts, there's actually a little bit of controversy between scientists of how the gut is initially colonized. So if we look at the puppies when they're in utero and they're still tucked up nice and cozy inside of mom, the original theory was what we call the sterile womb theory, that bacteria can't pass that barrier. They can't get to the puppies, which would make sense from the perspective that we don't want any harmful bacteria getting into the womb and potentially affecting these puppies. So the main line of thought there was looking at the differences in delivery. So if the puppies were born naturally or if they were born by a C-section, that would alter the initial colonization of the gut. What we've actually seen more recently is that there is evidence that the gut microbiomes do start to colonize while the puppies are still in utero. So this means that you know there is actually some transfer of bacteria into the puppy's little micro environment in there. What I think is likely happening is probably a little bit of both. So the colonization the evidence there is pretty strong for it. I feel the colonization starts while the puppies are still in utero, but then that gut microbiome composition is probably going to be affected through transfer when the puppies are born. If they're born by a C-section, they're not going to get that physical transfer of microbiota from the birthing canal onto the puppy. What does happen, though, is, once the puppies are born, the mom's colostrum does a whole lot of work of kickstarting their gut microbiome and their immunity. So what we see between around days two and around 54, 56, I think it is, there is rapid early development of that gut microbiome, and then there's a big switch at the major milestone of weaning. Once the puppies start to get switched from the mom's milk onto their puppy diet, the gut microbiome again has a big shift and continues to develop then until we think about a year old and continues to develop then until we think about a year old. Once the dogs are around a year old, the colony then within the gut microbiome is relatively stable. So what happens once we've reached this place of settling down on an individual's core population is we start to adjust with.
Speaker 2:We can adjust the gut microbiome with diet, with probiotics we can introduce beneficial bacteria. With antibiotics we deplete a lot of the diversity that's in there. But whenever you stop one of these supplementation processes the gut microbiome is going to revert to its original state. So that's, I think, quite important to consider if people are looking into using probiotics for their dogs. Very commonly if a dog is put onto antibiotics, they'll have a short course of probiotics to go along with it to supplement the gut, and then they can stop because there's no need for that individual once the gut microbiome has recovered after the use of antibiotics, which can take a few months.
Speaker 2:After the use of antibiotics, which can take a few months.
Speaker 2:We had a question about that recently in the presentation of after antibiotic use, like how long does it take for the gut microbiome to go back to quote unquote normal?
Speaker 2:So I did some digging this morning and it's looking at anywhere from two to six months. So I would suggest from that if a dog is struggling after they've been on a course of antibiotics and it's resulted in some gastrointestinal upset. They probably want to get some Fortiflora on board, probably for a couple of months, to help the gut microbiome sort of restore itself. I like to think of it as sort of a pendulum when you're putting new supplement in there or if you're changing the diet. So long as that supplementation is in effect, the gut microbiome has shifted, but as soon as you stop it's going to revert back to its native population. So if we then consider potentially in the future we might continue to use probiotics as a means of treating behavioral issues, if that behavioral issue is considered long-term, the probiotic would have to be administered long-term in order to continue affecting the gut in the way we want it to. They say, as soon as you stop, the gut microbiome is going to go right back to normal.
Speaker 1:And there's been very little research done on that part of things of treating behavior issues with probiotics correct.
Speaker 2:That's right. Yeah, because we don't know what the link is first. So we don't exactly know which probiotics or supplements to throw at the problem. There is some research out there, but I have my questions about it. I guess I mean, we do regularly use both Portaflora and Calming Care, the two Purina products for dogs who are struggling. In terms of the research that they deliver to us, it's not exactly the same level of information that you might see from a peer-reviewed article. And I have no doubts that it works, because I've seen it work in my clients. I've seen it work for my own dogs. Humans benefit from probiotics. They have probiotics for everybody.
Speaker 1:And you're talking about both the sorry, just to clarify the Flora and the Purina. Common Care or?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've had pretty much equal results for both of them. So Fortiflora is the Enterococcus bacteria, whereas so Fortiflora is the Enterococcus bacteria, whereas the newer one, common Care, is Bifidobacterium. From anecdotal evidence in my teeny tiny little population of clients here, they have both been beneficial. So it's pretty much been a case of whichever one. Your vets got there, or, if you know, if you can pick it up on amazon or something like that. They are both beneficial, but it's risky there because we don't know the exact mechanisms that we're looking at. So they're still kind of in the can't hurt, might help category for me until we have more information, and I think if a dog has any level of underlying illness, it's definitely worth having a veterinarian on board. I'd probably argue that if a dog has severe enough issues that they are considering using a probiotic, the vet should be on board already, because you probably discussed either a veterinary behaviors consult or implementing some medication to help with the anxiety that they're seeing.
Speaker 1:Okay, so what are some of the other things we can do to help? You mentioned a couple of supplements there, but you talk about often. Just getting out there in the natural world could be so helpful for regulating the biome and helping dogs and people.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. There's a lot of evidence that access to the great outdoors and getting the exposure to nature whether that is from our dog's perspective, the items that they might interact with in the environment, or simply just from the simple act of decompression going out for a nice relaxing walk where there are no reactions and there are plenty of sniffs and you're able to satisfy the individual's physical needs and mental stimulation I think they go a long way to helping ease some of the symptoms of anxiety and also supporting the gut as well from reducing that chronic stress. If you're cooped up inside all day, you're not getting enough exercise and you're not getting access to the fresh air, it can't be good for us mentally and it's likely not good for the gut either because of those long-term impacts of stress on chronic inflammation. So for my clients personally, I've got a few recommendations for them. When we're dealing with a situation where emotions are high, you're dealing with a highly anxious or aggressive dog, there are things that you can put in place. You don't have to run out and start picking up supplements. There are things that you can put in place. You don't have to run out and start picking up supplements. You don't have to change your dog's diet. But we do track some things to help support their gut health because whether these mechanisms are acting through the gut microbiome or otherwise, I have recommendations for my clients just to ensure that if you've got a happy gut, you've probably got a happy butt too. A happy gut, happy gut, happy mind.
Speaker 2:So a few of the things that we do we track their bowel movement scores so we can identify patterns of behavior for one, because often you'll see the morning bowel movement wasn't so great. And then they'll track their feelings about the dog's reactivity throughout that day if they had any episodes. And typically we're seeing worse bowel movements on the days where they're having a lot of trouble. But again, chicken and egg are they stressed, so their bowel movements aren't great or is something going on in the gut and it's impacting their behavior. I also get them to track their food and treats so if there are any new treats being introduced that might upset the belly. But there's also been a little bit more interest in food intolerances and allergies as well and the relationships that that might have with behavior.
Speaker 2:I saw a case study not too long ago n of one.
Speaker 2:There's only one dog, but it was quite an interesting little paper where they believe that the dog may have some level of, I guess, canine celiac, and they had an intolerance to grains, so they put the dog may have some level of, I guess, canine celiac.
Speaker 2:They had an intolerance to grains, so they put the dog on a hydrolyzed protein diet, and the behaviors were all but fixed, and the one time that they did actually have a re-up in the aggressive behavior from the dog was when it got into the cat's kibble. That was just one tiny shift in his diet, brought on a couple of days, I think, of aggressive behavior that was then remedied again by going back onto the strict diet. The kind of unfortunate thing there, though, is obviously it's one dog, so it is an isolated study, and when an owner in that position starts to feel better about the behavior, then chances are they're going to turn down costly diagnostics and follow-up, because for them the problem's fixed. I think more studies like that would be really interesting. We've had, anecdotally, one of the dogs that I've worked with here in Newfoundland. We found that both fortiflora and beef liver were two key predictors of how his behavior was going to be on a given day.
Speaker 2:We started to notice that when he had beef liver, usually that night he would have an aggressive reaction towards his family. And with Fortiflora we had him on it for I think we did about two months starting off and then the owner wasn't able to pick up another pack. Within a week He'd reverted right back to the intense guarding and aggressive behaviors.
Speaker 2:So, I wouldn't claim it to be a scientific finding, but it is interesting to see those patterns. Once you start to record the information and get the data from your clients, you start to highlight these patterns and it's just fascinating to see how it can have an impact on the individual.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is fascinating and I love that you know again with humans and with animals. We're talking more about diet and how that can influence behaviors in so many ways, you know, and we're definitely seeing it more in the human research and the people talking about it more, which is great. I think it's something that we've kind of at least in the US culture swept under the rug for quite some time, and there's obviously a lot of outside influences which I won't get into on this podcast. But now, speaking of that, you're a scientist and you're a dog trainer, and so for me I would say I'm just on the dog training side.
Speaker 1:Of course I love the science, but I don't do the research like you do and I'm not necessarily diving into papers every day, and so when we're working with clients, there's like this kind of sometimes this balance we have to keep, like okay, we need to back things up. So the science-based dog training we often hear that kind of term used like I want a science-based dog trainer and we can unpack that as well. But you kind of struggle also with there's a lot of stuff we talk about with clients that there hasn't been research done or that we don't have the information from academia yet to back up what we're saying. So from your side, because you have both hats on, how do you balance that? Or just kind of an open-ended question what are your thoughts on that? And especially for the dog trainers listening in that aren't in university research.
Speaker 2:On a good day, I balance with therapy and on a bad day I balance it with wine.
Speaker 2:You know it's a lot. I didn't really expect my business to be quite so busy when I made the decision to go back to school but it has resulted in, you know, very long days, very long nights. By day I am glued to my computer trying to write my thesis and then by night I'm going in and to people's homes and getting heavily involved in essentially being their little group therapist for their families and their dogs. So it's demanding in terms of time and demanding in terms of emotional capability as well to keep on top of all of it, and I think it's. You know it's important at the best of times for us to be taking care of our personal mental health. When you're dealing with such very it can be polarizing sometimes. You know, I'll go to a client's home and we're discussing behavioral euthanasia and then I head on down to my group classes and spend two hours with 10 week old puppies you know we think of sometimes are like I don't know how vets do it half the time when they're doing all of that within one building. They're going from one room of euthanasia to the next one. It's a puppy's first vaccines and it's such a an intense flip for us to put on our ourselves and our psyches and then we expect to come out the other end with no consequences to our own mental health. I think everybody who does the work that we do should have somebody on board whether it's a therapist or a counselor or a decent support network to help you genuinely process the emotions that you go through on a day-to-day basis. Because we can't you know you can't rationalize your way out of a fight or flight response when you're stressed. You know you can't think your way or justify your way out of burnout. You have to actively take care of yourself.
Speaker 2:For me, that sort of got triggered last year by a behavioral euthanasia case that we were actually on vacation and it's the first vacation that my partner, chris and I have taken in I think almost eight years since we actually fully left the island together. It was beautiful, we were in Barcelona, we just got engaged, we were having the time of our lives, spending time with my family, and I got a couple of messages off the client saying Enzo bit me, enzo attacked me, enzo was attacking me and it was escalating so quickly. Obviously, I felt completely powerless to help in another country. I can't do anything about this and the dog was euthanized before I returned to Canada. I think it was the right decision.
Speaker 2:Um, it was such a heartbreaking case but as their sort of like mentor and caretaker in all of this, it left me feeling like I hadn't done enough because I left the country and you know that took a decent little bit of therapy to get me past that feeling of guilt that my leaving my job for a moment to take care of me and my family caused this dog to behave this way and I know now that it didn't like.
Speaker 2:I've had a lot of help in getting past that and one of the best things is that myself and this client are still in touch and we've actually become quite good friends now because of this process has brought us a lot closer. But I truly think that I wouldn't have been able to overcome that and genuinely heal from the trauma that was that case if I hadn't had a good therapist, who I trust, on board for just to talk me through the process and show me how to help take better care of myself when I'm starting to have those doubts about a scenario, and I think I'm probably going to be better equipped to deal with that again in the future now, and not quite let it impact my personal health as much as that one did.
Speaker 1:You've summed up my question really well, because it was like thinking your academic side, your dog trainer side, but then you're talking about the human side, right, you need to balance all these things, all these hats you're wearing, and remember that, talking about the human side, right, you need to balance all these things, all these hats you're wearing, and remember that it's the human side of the equation that's the most important. Because I think we all struggle with and I was just thinking too, as you're talking about the conversations that you must need to have, especially if you're on social media or you're having discussions or debates around certain topics is because I find that academics, or when I see conversations between researchers, scientists, they're different. There's a different feel or tone, and sometimes dog trainers will look at me and go, oh, why are they being so rude to each other? It's just the way they talk to each other and it's just a good debate.
Speaker 1:It's good debate, no hard feelings, Nobody's throwing names most of the time at each other. It's just normal scientific debate. And when we get into dog training conversations it can get much. There's a different vibe or a different feel.
Speaker 1:And so what I was thinking like just a follow-up question for you, is what if you know somebody's talking to you and you're like you've got your academic hat on, your science-based hat on, and somebody's like, oh, so how do you really know? Has there been any studies or research done on that? And then that side of your brain is like, ooh, has there been? But then your dog trainer side is like, well, I've seen this work a million times and I know it works because anecdotally I've seen it work and a million other trainers are doing the same thing and I've questioned it, I've said, okay, is this the ethical, positive thing to do with this dog? So like that kind of example, right, you know.
Speaker 1:So what is kind of your advice there, seeing that you have these two hats on? For the trainers that are maybe struggling with trying to be science-based and to back everything up they're doing with data and research, but maybe they can't all the time because, like, the biome hasn't been studied enough, so I can't be like let's give this dog a Blautia killing pill and everything will be fixed Right. Like, like. What do you do there?
Speaker 2:So I hope that makes sense respect the most, I think, within the industry and the people who have the most valuable information to give are not stuck in the weeds there. On the comments of some argument between a force-free trainer and a balanced trainer about X type of equipment, I think a lot of the time emotions run high with those kinds of things. But I think the more confident somebody is in their field and in their expertise, the less likely you're going to see them devolving into that kind of debate. Like there's some wonderful information out there on social media. There's some great trainers who put out wonderful videos and I think it's really important, especially in this economy, that people have access to free information that's going to help them and their dogs. But on the flip side is the Internet. Anybody can post anything that they want and I can't help but wonder sometimes if people are seeing that somebody has a large social media following and assuming that the information that they're putting out must be absolutely correct simply because of that following. It's kind of a. We've got to exercise a bit of caution as dog owners and consumers of information on social media. Like it's a tough choice to make for a lot of people. Who are you going to listen to who are you going to say? That is the professional opinion and they are correct.
Speaker 2:And when that comes to science-based dog training, I sometimes have a question. It was actually my supervisor, carolyn, has had me thinking about this over the last couple of years now. So when I started training dogs back in Denzel's early days, I was what I would consider a balanced trainer. My dog had a prong collar. I was taught that if he reacted, you give a correction. You need to suppress that behavior and if you're not seeing the behavior, then the dog is okay, which you know, as I've learned over the years, is obviously not necessarily the case, and I'm a lot more aware now of stress signals and of not putting him into situations where it might be considered flooding.
Speaker 2:But when we take that to science-based dog training, I think the interpretation of that is up for a little bit of debate, because we use science to guide our decisions in forming new protocols or training exercises and a lot of that psychology. It comes from multiple mammalian models it's humans, it's dogs, it's mice, it's all kinds of things. But I think we can't pick and choose which science we decide to listen to just because it resonates with our preconceived notion of what it should be. So you know, without getting too much into the weeds on all of it, I don't think that you can look at the four quadrants and say that they are all scientific concepts, so I'm going to use all of them.
Speaker 2:There's a lot more science, especially over the last 15, 20 years or so, looking at the impacts on welfare and on stress hormones and all kinds of things that if you're going to use the argument of science-based dog training, you have to go and look at the science. You've got to spend a couple of weekends getting out and reading some papers and thinking about the methods that they're using. Is this a valid study? Should this have been published in the first place? Because not every journal is created equal.
Speaker 2:You know, just because it's peer-reviewed, it doesn't mean that the peer who reviewed it is necessarily the best person to be providing an opinion on it. So you know, you can definitely get caught up in it and you can get quite cynical with it too sometimes, which I really don't want people to do. I don't want that to be people's like take home from this comment about science-based dog training. But I think if you're going to use that term, you should probably justify what you mean by it. And on a personal level, you should definitely be actively involved in doing your research on the scientific literature, so you know what science you're referring to when you say that.
Speaker 1:CB. Well said, very well said, and I think it's a great way to wrap up the show as well. Sarita, where can people find you? What are you up to next?
Speaker 2:coast canineca next steps for us. I am finishing up my thesis, so hopefully by the time this airs I'll be able to say that I have finally finished, and we are also looking into the possibility of setting up our own little clinic here. I am going through the process of trying to start east coast canine dog training academy, where we hope to be able to expand our services and offer an indoor location for private training as well.
Speaker 1:Wonderful Sarita. This has been an excellent conversation with you. Thank you so much for joining us and I hope to see you again in the future.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much, it's been my pleasure.
Speaker 1:I truly enjoyed this conversation with Sarita and I'm really excited to see where science takes us on this topic in the next few years. I'm hopeful that, as we continue to make connections between behavior and the biology of dogs, we'll be able to have more options to help dogs with aggression. And don't forget to head on over to AggressiveDogcom for more information about helping dogs with aggression. From the Aggression in Dogs Master Course to 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. We also have the Help for Dogs with Aggression bonus episodes that you can subscribe to. These are solo shows where I walk you through how to work with a variety of types of aggression, such as resource guarding, dog-to-dog aggression, territorial aggression, fear-based aggression and much, much more. You can find a link to subscribe in the show notes or by hitting the subscribe button if you're listening in on Apple Podcasts. Thanks for listening in and, as always, stay well, my friends, and you'll go, and you'll go.