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
Be BiteSmart: Protecting Children from Dog Bites with Dr. Nicholas Dodman and Vivian Zottola
What if we could drastically reduce the 4.5 million dog bites that happen annually—half of which affect children—through innovative education that teaches kids to "speak dog"? That's exactly what the Be BiteSmart initiative aims to accomplish.
Dr. Nicholas Dodman, one of the world's most celebrated veterinary behaviorists, and Vivian Zottola, anthrozoology consultant and behavior specialist, join forces to discuss their groundbreaking approach to preventing dog bites to children. Through the Center for Canine Behavior Studies, they've developed age-appropriate resources that go far beyond traditional "don't pull the dog's tail" warnings, employing animated videos, interactive coloring books, sophisticated apps, and even virtual reality experiences, all designed with input from child development psychologists.
Be BiteSmart - Center for Canine Behavior Studies
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Today I'm joined by not one but two powerhouse guests, dr Nick Dodman and Vivian Zatola, to talk about an ambitious new effort to keep kids safe and dogs out of trouble the Be Bite Smart initiative. We dive into why children are disproportionately at risk for dog bites, the gaps in current bite prevention programs and how Be Bite Smart is using animation apps and even virtual reality to teach respect and safety in dog-human interactions. We also touch on the medical side of aggression, the long-term impact of bites on families and the broader mission of the Center for Canine Behavior Studies to reduce surrender and euthanasia through evidence-based research. Let me tell you about our special guests. Dr Nicholas Dodman is one of the world's most celebrated veterinary behaviorists, board certified in both anesthesia and behavior. He founded Tufts University's Animal Behavior Clinic and now serves as president of the non-profit Center for Canine Behavior Studies. He's authored best-selling books, hundreds of scientific articles and holds multiple patents aimed at improving animal welfare. Vivian Zatola is an anthrozoology consultant, writer and the creative force behind Be Bite Smart's animated lessons. A certified behavior consultant and fear-free professional, vivian runs a Boston-based practice specializing in human-dog relationship therapy and volunteers as a research associate with CCBS.
Speaker 1:And before we jump into today's episode, a quick heads up If you're looking to learn more about helping dogs with aggression issues, head over to AggressiveDogcom, because we've got something for everyone. For pet pros, there's the Aggression in Dogs Master Course, which is the most comprehensive course available on aggression, packed with expert insights and CEUs. For dog guardians, check out Real Life Solutions, a practical course for everyday challenges like leash reactivity and dog to human aggression. And if you want full access to expert webinars, live mentor sessions and exclusive discounts, the Ultimate Access membership is just $29.95 a month. You'll also find info on the 2025 Aggression and Dogs Conference happening in Charlotte this September. That can all be found at aggressivedogcom. Check it out after the show.
Speaker 1:Hey, everyone, welcome back to the Bitey End of the Dog. This week, I have two really special guests, vivian Zatola and Dr Nick Dodman, who have this exciting project they're going to be talking about, as well as dog to child bite safety and awareness. So I'm really excited because this is a very important topic to us, of course that listen to the show and talk about aggression in dogs. So welcome to the show, vivian and Nick. It's great to have you here.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having us Good to be here.
Speaker 1:So let's jump right into what the CCBS, or the Center for Canine Behavior Studies, is and how this Be Bite Smart project came about. Do you want to tell us a little bit of background about CCBS?
Speaker 3:Well, I'll start, mike, because it originally started with me and my sort of co-founder, chris Gianelli, who is now our board chair. We were working on a different project, which was about human health, which was getting very complicated, and in the meantime we said you know, we can use a lot of the same technology to start something purely for dogs. So we founded this 503C not-for-profit organization called Center for Canine Behavior Studies in 2012. And we've kept going year after year thanks to the support of generous benefactors and supporters. At one time we had probably about 9,000 members. I think we might be down to like four and a half to 5,000 at the moment.
Speaker 3:There were some dupes that we had to cut out, and we call these people citizen scientists because what they do is they help us with our studies. They respond to questionnaires asking them about their dog and their experiences, and then we formulate that using a very clever informatics expert in Dinwoody to create scientific articles. The first one we did was the days before Din Woody. We used a different statistician and that was about the relationship of how your personality affects your dog's behavior. It turns out there is an impact, that you do have an influence on your dog's behavior. It's only about a 15% influence because you've got other things like genetics and environment and circumstances and management, but there's an impact and it's exactly along the lines you'd expect. The next one was an award-winning paper about the demographics of dog behavior problems and what's called comorbidity, like which problems travel together, and that one got the award for the best welfare paper for the year it was published, and Ian Dinwoody got the Young Investigator Award as well. So we were cruising. We did one on aggression all the different types of aggression, who they went to see to get advice on the problem, how it worked out for them, what programs worked, what medications were used, if any, and so on. And then we repeated the same kind of study with behavior problems that were due to fear and anxiety. We actually somewhere in the wings, we have something about compulsive disorders too, which we haven't fully analyzed, and a house-soiling paper which we're working on at the minute.
Speaker 3:So we've been going through that, but at the moment I think it was our board chair, chris Gianelli, who said you know, looking at all this data, it does seem that there's a tremendous need. For you know what is our main message? Prevention as opposed to treatment. Don't be after the gold rush. Don't be the fire engine service. Be the people who helps to treatment. Don't be after the gold rush. Don't be the fire engine service. Be the people who helps to prevent, and one of our key messages was helps to prevent surrender.
Speaker 3:But, of course, one of the specific things that leads to dog surrender is if they show aggression, which in most publications, is about 70% of all dog behavior problems. So it's a very common condition, many different causes, but we were specifically focusing on dog bites to children. The reason is that there are 4.5 estimated 4.5 million dog bites to people every year and about half of those are directed towards children, and that's bad news for the child, it's bad news for the parents and it can be particularly bad news for the dog, because our interest is tends to slant towards the dog. We want to save them from being in these predicaments that lead to them being aggressive, but also, you know, we don't want children to get bitten either. So we've got two missions, the dog mission and the child mission, and that all started in 2010 and it's still going strong in 2025 with this project, which Vivian can perhaps explain a little bit about where we're at with it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would love to hear your role too, vivian, and especially with your influence as a trainer and successful business owner. You know how did you get involved with this program.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm a little bit of a dog nerd. And back in 2018, I went to Dr Dodman's seminar. He had just published Pets on the Couch and Chris was there actually Chris Cianelli and I spoke with them about volunteering with the center. He shared the Center for Canine Behavior Studies, that it was fairly new and, yeah, and I just asked him if I could do anything volunteer, and so that's when I started with them and I was just helping with anything that they were working on and I was eager to learn about certainly having access to Dr Dodman right, that was really something special being able to ask him questions and I'm a behavior consultant, so I'm working on cases and so we were able to talk a bit. And then I started my graduate studies and that worked well with what we were doing at the center, because I started then working as a research associate. So participating in some of the studies, working with Dr Dodman and Ian Dinwoody and two other behavior consultants, was very educational for me as well.
Speaker 2:I was studying as an anthro-zoologist, getting my master's of science degree. My role was more project-directed Whatever came up I would jump in, and when this BiteSmart initiative developed, I was really excited because a lot of my clients are families with children, and so I was certainly utilizing the information that I learned from Family Paws Parent Education Jennifer Shryock, which is a wonderful course that she offers, and as a professional, it came in handy so I'm able to help the team both brainstorm and come up with storylines that have to do with real life events, as well as work on the animated lessons and the facial, the body posturing, the different low level stress signals that dogs give out and provide people with to let them know that they're uncomfortable. So it's been very, very rewarding to be able to participate in these projects and the lessons.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's an amazing resource and we'll definitely link to those in the show notes. The Bee Bites Spark videos are excellent. I was looking at those actually this morning and they're very well done and educational. That's, whose voice is behind that? Is it your voice behind some of it or somebody else's?
Speaker 2:no, that's uh. We hired fable vision, which is a company in, I think, watertown nick somewhere like that, yeah watertown, massachusetts.
Speaker 2:We worked very closely with them. The whole process was really interesting. We worked with their creative directors and their staff maybe seven to 10 staff helped us put that together. We came up with again the storyboard, the storyline, and then provided that to them and the voice was someone that they hired. Yeah, and we have it in English and we have a version in Spanish, which the IABC, dot Baisley, and their Spanish language director. They were wonderful. They translated the lesson in Spanish for us. So we'll be working with them again, hopefully in the future.
Speaker 1:And it sounds like you have some really wonderful partnerships already in place and one of the obvious goals of this initiative is to really just to help the dogs, help the children. But you know, in terms of your ultimate outreach, who's the audience you're most looking to go for right now. If you had a wish list of let's get this out into the world, because we often as trainers, trainers we're kind of stuck in the trainer community or the veterinary community. It's hard to break out into the masses and the general public, so kind of talk us through more of that. What are some of your goal points here with the overall reach?
Speaker 2:yeah, in terms of channels of distribution where we've been aligning with avsav, avs, avs and veterinarians, the pediatric community, the medical community, because they have really been the voice behind wanting more educational content and upon doing some research, we found that what we were hearing is there wasn't enough information out there, at least it wasn't getting to the community, children. So we're looking to tap into maybe schools channels would also include veterinarians, as I mentioned, the medical community, anyone that lives or handles at a shelters, rescues. So our space as providing preventative information, research information that's a hard space to be in because it's not sexy, right, and so that has been the biggest issue for us is to get that information out there before an event happens, right? Not after the event.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, well, let's talk more about that, because what you're just saying there was completely resonating with me. Because people don't have a problem with it. It's kind of like changing the oil in a car there's not a problem until they see there's actually something's gone wrong.
Speaker 1:And that's the unfortunate aspect of dog bites, because we know that and I'm going to throw out some common statistics, but you know, dr Dahman was just mentioning the four to four and a half million dog bites that happen a year, with the vast majority happening to children, and I think it's five to nine-year-old boys that are the most significantly impacted by dog bites.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:But many parents. They don't see the potential risks until something happens, right. So I'd love to hear your thoughts, dr Dahnman, as well as you, vivian, in terms of what can we do to get this messaging out there. Because, let's face it, people can hear about science and the studies and the data, but until it impacts them at home, it's tough for them to actually see the importance of it. So what are your thoughts there?
Speaker 3:Well, sometimes there are warning signs of almost aggression that people sort of ignore and usually it's the dog that gets punished and that's usually the child that's doing the wrong thing and invading the dog's personal space. I mean, one very dramatic example I heard of years ago was a St Bernard up in New Hampshire and it had never been before. It was the opposite of warning, it just suddenly out of the bit this child quite severely and the dog was obviously admonished but also put to sleep. But because of the rabies potential and they have to examine the brain to make sure it doesn't have rabies, you know niggery bodies in the brain in the process of doing the dissection they discovered that the child had rammed a pencil down the dog's ear canal and popped through its eardrum and the dogs screamed in pain and bit the child. So this is just a rather extreme example of child not understanding, doing the wrong thing to a dog.
Speaker 3:So we're simultaneously trying to educate both children in their own language, using child psychologists or developmental psychologists, professors and such like to get the right medium in the videos to reach a certain age group. And the minute we're doing like the three to five age group, then there'll be the five to nine, then there'll in the videos to reach a certain age group and the minute we're doing like the three to five age group, then there'll be the five to nine, then there'll be the nine to 13,. Then there'll be the 13 to 18. That's when childhood officially ends. Or some could argue it's a little bit earlier than that. But I don't think a 17-year-old young man would appreciate being called a child.
Speaker 3:But I guess legally they are, so they're doing the wrong thing. And Vivian was explaining about all of the different outlets that we want to get the message out, about how to educate parents as well as the children about what the dog enjoys, what it doesn't really enjoy and what it really won't tolerate, because all dogs are capable of aggression. I remember I once did a talk to about 150 trainers with, you know, co-talking with ian dunbar, and he was the one he stood there and asked all these people which one of you has never yourself personally got into a situation where you responded aggressively and only one person put their hand up. He said God bless you, you're a saint, but you know, most people have had some aggressive incidents, so dogs do too, and they don't use boxing gloves, they use their mouth and their teeth, and different dogs have different biting styles and severity, sometimes according to breed and sometimes upbringing. So we just wanted to educate people, but we're concentrating. You mentioned, mike, the videos, but we also, from the videos, we've developed coloring books. So when you're sitting there coloring in a page of a dog with certain expressions, you know as a child, a five-year-old, with a colored crayon. You're spending a long time looking at that picture and it sinks in more. So another thing we've got being developed with a group called Teams in Chicago is an app, and this app is very sophisticated and you can enter it with any situation of child of any age and dog of any persuasion and it will guide you through measures that you can take to keep that child at that age group safe from that dog. But it's also got things on there that are entertaining and educational for children or will have, because it's a work in progress. There will be games where children can interact with a dog on a screen and as they walk up to the dog and pet it on the head, it causes the dog to have some facial expressions that are not right and it takes you back to the level before and you can go back and try again. There's no punishment, it's just only progression and you've progressed to learn how you go through the stages and there will be rewards when you reach certain levels, just like there are in other video games. You know you could win little tokens and this, that and the other. Maybe you can buy a new jacket for your dog and you can go up the scale. So these educational games will be.
Speaker 3:I've seen some examples of what we're going to do and they're pretty amazing and ultimately, this is a little bit further in the future, I mean maybe five years virtual reality, where the child can. An image of a dog can be projected onto the floor and the child can interact with this projected dog and it will send signals that are appropriate or inappropriate depending on what the child's doing. So this is a multi-pronged approach, from studies that we're doing and videos and coloring books, app games, virtual reality. Basically, there isn't any sort of medium that we're not following and, like I said, it's going to be for about five different age groups. So everything that we do for the three to five age groups, we're going to replicate now at a level for the five to nine and our psychologists will keep us online as to what is the best way to entertain these people, what can they understand, what's too much for them and so on.
Speaker 3:So it's a major project. It does involve lots of players, lots of players for the behavioral stuff. Vivian and I kind of boots on the ground in terms of. You know, in the videos, when the child, who we've named alex, approaches the dog who we've named charlie, what does he do when he's sleeping and the child approaches him and disturbs him when he's sleeping and what happens to his ears and his eyes and his mouth and the signs and the tail.
Speaker 2:It's like building an ethogram right in which it's visually talking about them.
Speaker 3:Right, we call it canine literacy. Yes, so it's like learning to speak another language and the language is dog. We're teaching the children to speak dog and we're teaching the parents to understand what could be triggers for a dog. They don't like everything. Some dogs will tolerate anything. I had one that you know. Children could ride him like a small horse, but I didn't let that happen because I know too much. But you know, some people have dogs that have very low triggers.
Speaker 2:So what I've done is I've taken videos actual videos of dogs and children, slowed them down for the team and analyzed and pointed out because we're all learning, right. So I'm using this as an opportunity to teach my co-workers but my team about body language and stress signals. We're using the same low level stress signals that we use in fear-free and that's being taught across the board. But when Nick and I have a little bit of a because it's all context driven, right we know that and sometimes a startled or fearful look might change to something else, maybe aggression, and these are subtle, right, these are very subtle. When you're a behavior consultant, that's one of the first things that we learn is we study ethology, we look at animal behavior because we don't want to be bitten, right. So there have been times when Nick and I have maybe had a question about something, not disagreed, but we need to pull someone else in. So we've leaned on our scientific advisor, dr Mark Bekoff, on a couple of occasions to ask him. And so we're all learning. We're all learning and improving upon our craft as well. So it's been interesting. And earlier, mike, you had asked about family dynamics and one of the things that I have found is that something that? And this isn't something we talk about specifically in our educational lessons, but we do bring up agency, respecting the bubble, respecting the dog, allowing them to have consent to being approached, and young children don't understand that. So the lessons are designed to explain one theme at a time. We have 10 on the books that we'd like to develop. It's all driven by donations that we get because we're a nonprofit. We have had some people generously donate and so we have our second lesson that we're working on now.
Speaker 2:But there are some higher level concepts that we don't really talk about specifically, but they do come up in how we design our lessons.
Speaker 2:Another one that we won't really talk about in our lesson is the way that we name our animals right. We do consider them part of the family and we might name them as a sibling, right. And I've heard my clients say to me well, it may have been a dog bite, for example, or a near miss, and they'll name their dog or they'll label them their brother or their sister, right. And so when that happens, their biases drop their defenses. They're not really, maybe proactively, observing the dog because they trust the dog, but the dog is, of course, it's an animal right. Anything can happen and they may not be versed in dog language and stress signals and so miss some of that and all it takes is, you know, a second moving away from your child. So we want to try to reduce the risk of bites and we're hoping that people will start to think about some of these things about labeling their animals. Well, refraining from labeling their animals as a brother or sister, certainly a family member.
Speaker 3:In a way it's very much like people. I mean, especially these days people must and again it's terrible trouble if they don't respect the bubble of a person's personal space. You know, if you just walked up to somebody on the underground station on the metro and they gave them a big hug and kissed them on the lips, I mean, and you don't know them, and that is an assault and they might turn around and swing. If it's a man to a woman, it might turn and smack him in the face with a pocketbook. You know you react. So we have to respect each other's personal space. And even with a brother and a sister, you know you don't want the brother barging into the bathroom while the sister's taking a bath or a shower. So it sort of applies to people. But the thing about the dog is it's a nonverbal species, so they can't express themselves in any other way other than this body language, body tension, eye positions, whatever, and vocalizations which we're trying to teach people to read them.
Speaker 2:And it's also a completely different species and that's something that people overlook completely right, we bring our dogs into our homes, away from their biological family, into our homes, and we forget to enculturate them into our homes, teaching them the way that we live and what's appropriate, what's not appropriate. People don't think that learning the skills, dog training skills, or even simple things like antecedent arrangements and moving things around to improve behavior, they don't even think about those things and they think children will understand which they don't. If a parent is saying, well, this is your brother or your sister, they're going to take that literally, right?
Speaker 1:Very good point, and I just want to back up for a second, too, to the app that you were talking about. That is not out yet, correct, it's in development.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've seen like blueprints for it and they're really impressive.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:And the only reason it's not going faster is, of course, what else Funding. And we almost had an opportunity with the drug company CEVA, c-e-v-a, ceva, who have very deep pockets and they're mainly a edicts of what they're supposed to fund. But we did get into the very final thing. We almost got we're talking large amounts of money, like globs of $250,000 and multiple thereof, to end up with our final thing. And we are approaching other large corporate entities, mars for example, to fund these things because you know it's good work, it saves lives and the misery that a child experiences after a dog bite, I mean it can be totally extreme. They can have terrible disfigurement, they can have psychological problems, ptsd. We don't want that to happen. We don't want dogs to be punished for things, especially if they're not their own fault. We don't really think punishment's a very good strategy period.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely. And is there going to be a name for the app that people should look for if it does come out?
Speaker 3:It hasn't got a name yet.
Speaker 1:Okay To be named.
Speaker 2:Well, it'll be under the guise of Be Bite Smart.
Speaker 1:Okay, so we'll recognize the branding. You know it's very impressive because I actually have not seen any of the projects. We've seen a lot of initiatives and campaigns on dog bite safety, whether it's to children or just to the public in general, but I don't think I've ever seen anything where somebody's collaborated directly with the human psychologists to integrate what's going to work. And that's quite impressive because, let's face it, many of us trainers, when we're advocating for bite safety, we pull the science. We might see a study or we might reference things.
Speaker 1:But we've actually, I don't think anybody's worked directly to see. Okay, this is how it's actually going to work best for children to learn. So I'm really excited for the app, but also everything else you're doing, because it's backed by good data, which I would expect nonetheless. So let's talk about that a little bit more. We've been kind of talking about a lot of different things, but we touched upon the relationship and the ramifications, and Dr Dahman was just mentioning the really awful dynamics that can happen in these kind of situations. But let's go a little bit deeper into that. You know, we all know somebody that's been bitten as a child and they're an adult now and they have xenophobia or fear of dogs or you know. So what else can you see and educate the masses that are listening as far as ramifications for dog bites to children age zero to 17, let's say, Just backing up to the videos, a second Vivian said we want to make 10 of these videos.
Speaker 3:I just want to point out that it's 10 for that age group, and then 10 for the next age group, and then 10 for the next, and when the price tag for each video is $20,000 to $25,000, you know, we need to raise a ton of money. Yes, yes, yes, but go ahead.
Speaker 2:Vivian, you were going to say something. So, michael, you're asking about mitigating bites. Is that what?
Speaker 1:Well, we could talk about that, but I'd like to just kind of make sure everybody understands their ramifications, because that's one of the things If it hasn't happened to somebody then they may not be aware of the real damaging consequences. We hear about dog bites. We hear about dog bites happening to friends and things like that, but sometimes we don't recognize the gravity of the situation when it's a child that's been bitten, especially by the family dog. So talk us through that, like the relationships that are fractured the outcomes, even the divorces we might see.
Speaker 1:I mean, there's some serious outcomes that can happen. So what do you think on that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's very heartbreaking and it's an honor to be able to help people. But when they're faced with having to surrender their dog because the dog is a bite risk, if we could just get to them sooner, right? So when they're looking to adopt that dog, if they choose adoption or acquiring a dog through a rescue or shelter, educating them at that point, staying close, you know, maybe even ensuring that they work with a trained professional to help them understand stress signals, even something as simple as our lessons, we're hoping that it'll be enough to at least help people pause and say, hmm, maybe I need some help, and then reach out right.
Speaker 3:But the thing is, even with all this good stuff that we're trying to teach, unfortunately we cannot be 100%. Not every single person in the world is going to see our problem, I think, and that right now not everybody knows about it. So the bites are happening, and Mike's right that it totally changes family dynamics and you often end up in a situation where, let's say, the man is totally enamored with his dog, it's his buddy and that the wife says, yeah, these are my children and you're exposing them to a risk of bites in the future. And he says, no, I'll make sure that that doesn't happen because I'll keep him by my side. And she says I don't trust this dog. You can't be there all the time. You have to do this, you have to do that. And then the wife's parents join in. And then somebody else and his brother comes in and the whole family is feuding.
Speaker 3:I've had that numerous times. One of them it wasn't a child, but it was a man who's a very good friend of mine and he was driving along in his car with his springer spaniel in the back and he said to his wife could you just give the dog a little bit more water, because I think he's thirsty. It's been a long car ride. She grabbed the water bottle, reached over the back and poured it, but apparently she didn't know there's a special way of doing it so as not to aggravate the dog, which is kind of weird. It bit her right in the hand, broke a bone in her hand. She had to go into hospital. She had antibiotics for three days and then continued antibiotics when she got home and she said that dog must go. And the man said that dog can't go. That dog is my heart and this was a client of mine as well as a friend now. Client first, friend later.
Speaker 3:And I got called up by his son one night. I'm just cooking dinner and the phone rings. I don't know how he got my number, maybe from his dad, and he said I don't know why you're leading my dad on to think that this dog is not going to bite again. And I said I'm not leading him on. I said what you don't understand is people have a very close association with their dog, they're absolutely, totally bonded to it and if you do have that dog put down, I mean your dad could go into depression. So that's why I'm trying to work to keep things safe and in fact it did work out.
Speaker 3:That dog eventually died of old age but fortunately the man was wealthy enough to build a small kind of almost other house in his backyard where the dog lived and he'd go there and spend time with it. But later the dog became blind and he was allowed back in the house and the woman got some confidence. But that could have been a dead dog and I could tell you several stories like that, where there's this family feud and it could even be that there isn't a resolution, like a house in the backyard, and people have separated as a result of this complete different view of the same situation.
Speaker 2:And what happens is it's the dog that gets sequestered and people think you know they'll put their dog in the basement. I'm not suggesting that dogs are more important than humans or anything like that, but it's just finding a way to coexist. There are people that will love their dog so much they'll agree to train the dog on a muzzle to keep the dog in the house. So the dog's always wearing a muzzle, so you know they find solutions that work for them and each family is unique and their tolerance levels are unique. I mean, I've worked with clients that they've had 10 bites to one of the adults and more, and they've continued to try to make it work.
Speaker 3:One of the common causes of dog bites is the children kissing the dog. Children are very oral and they tend to put everything in their mouth. It's kind of testing the environment and they see the dog and they know about kissing and they go up and they grab the dog by the snout and start applying their lips and this is an insult and that can result in the dog triggering into aggression and I've seen that even with adult human beings. I had a woman come in once. She had a German shepherd and it had bitten her in the face three times and I said what were you doing to get bitten in the face?
Speaker 3:She said I was loving on him, I was kissing him, right? And I said you've got to stop that. And she said I can't, right, I love him so much. I said well, you're just going to keep getting bitten in the face then.
Speaker 2:That's something that when I go in and work with families. We go over body language, we go over modeling right, children watch their mothers, their fathers, kissing on their dogs and then they model it. They think it's okay to kiss other dogs in the park or running up to other dogs. I think more parents are recognizing and guiding their children, but I still see children running up to my dog, who's an old man now, but yeah.
Speaker 3:But most of the dog bites are a lot of them are to dogs in the home. In the home, yes, so it's a dog that you live with and your children, yes, but unfortunately those dog bites aren't covered by insurance because that's the family and such like. But they can also be if you've got children, especially in the sort of five to nine age group or a little older. They will have friends come over and the friends maybe don't know as much as they do unless they're schooled by their mates. Don't do that to Peggy. No, she doesn't like it. But if they get bitten, that's on your household insurance and the household insurance- $900 million.
Speaker 3:It's close to a billion dollars a year paid out and those kinds of bites. You'd think somebody would want to invest in a program that would help to prevent that, because what we're teaching applies to these visitors to the house too.
Speaker 1:It's exactly what I've been saying. Yeah, for many years.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so you know. And then what happens is they take dog bites off the insurance. Yeah, and then if there's another one happens, you could end up with a massive bill. I had one lady yeah, it was a lady, not a child, but it could easily be a child she was bitten by a brace of dogs who jumped over a fence and knocked her down, and that's, that was settled for eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars if you don't have insurance. Eight hundred fifty thousand dollars. Most people wouldn't be able to put their hand in the back pocket and pull that out. So you can go broke, yeah yeah, the average dog bite lawsuit.
Speaker 1:I think the last statistic I looked at was about two years ago from the insurance industry. It's around $54,000 now Exactly, and that's up from around $18,000 just a few years prior, so that the insurance costs have ballooned significantly for any kind of dog bite related lawsuits Absolutely.
Speaker 1:I want to talk more about those ramifications, but we're going to take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsors and we'll be right back 28th 2025 in Charlotte, north Carolina, with both in-person and live stream options available. Whether you're a seasoned behavior professional or just diving into this work, this is the premier event for anyone looking to deepen their understanding of dog aggression. This year's speaker lineup is packed with world-renowned experts, including Suzanne Clothier, kim Brophy, trish McMillan, chirag Patel, sarah Fisher, leslie McDevitt and so many more. Topics span from cutting edge research and behavior and welfare to hands-on strategies for working with aggression in shelters, veterinary clinics and client homes. Join us for a weekend of powerful learning, community and connection, including what will be a legendary cocktail party hosted by Chirag Patel and yours truly that will be streamed live for our virtual attendees as well. Spots fill fast every year, so head on over to aggressivedogcom and click on the conference tab to reserve your spot and check out the full agenda. Whether you're going to attend in person or from home, you'll be part of a kind, welcoming and supportive global community committed to helping dogs and their people. You can also get your conference swag, as we are happy to be collaborating with Wolf Culture again this year. Check out the show notes for a link to get your favorite t-shirts, hats, hoodies and more. Just for listeners of the podcast, wolf Culture is offering 15% off your order. Use the discount code BITEY at checkout. That's B-I-T-E-Y, like in the bitey end of the dog. I also want to take a moment to thank one of our wonderful sponsors this year Pets for Vets.
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Speaker 1:All right, we're back here with Vivian and Dr Nick Dodman and we're talking about dog bite safety as well as the specific demographic of children and all of the ramifications involved. And you know we had been talking earlier, before the break, about relationships. But what can we do to help families when there's a fractured relationships? We were talking about, you know, divorced families and what can happen with the adults. But what about the child and the dog? And we can kind of look at both sides how does the dog feel about the child? How does the child feel about the dog? Is it something that we need to communicate more to the parents about what they might not be seeing, because sometimes they're advocating for their dog or their child and they don't see the other party's emotions and how they're viewing the relationship. So, vivian, we can start with you with the cases you've worked with or you've had to try to help repair that relationship. Or maybe you can even talk about a case where it was not repairable because the child was so scared of the dog or vice versa.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I worked on a case with. The child was on the spectrum and the dog was a rescue dog. The spectrum and the dog was a rescue dog. They had sent the dog to a boot camp those of you who don't know about boot camps sometimes they're using aversive measures. The dog came back worse and when I worked with them the child wanted to get closer to the dog but the dog was afraid of the child. So we were working on certainly keeping them safe with each other. We introduced gates to separate the child. We'll separate them physically but still have the dog and the child be in the same room. But we worked on the biofeedback protocol Dr Karen Overall's biofeedback protocol where we are gradually working toward teaching the dog to be calm. We were working on some desensitization with the child and the dog. So I was working with both of them and also using some of I don't know if you're familiar with Dog on Safe.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Okay the games, and I've been introducing the video that we have as well as a learning tool just to help the child understand when the dog needed space. And we also used I bought just on Amazon, it's yellow and it says just I need space. So whenever the because I was also educating the adult to understand the dog's stress signals and when the dog needed to move away this was a small apartment that they had but in that case she ended up getting another dog in Newfoundland, thinking I don't know what she was, thinking that it would help their dynamics and that caused some issues between the Newfoundland because the Newfoundland puppy became very big. The two dogs had some issues. She favored the Newfoundland. The original dog ended up finding another family. So that was actually a good story for them, I guess, although it was a completely new environment for that dog.
Speaker 2:Yeah, each case is going to be different and depending on whom is feeling nervous about the other, whether it's the dog feeling nervous about the child or the child feeling nervous about the dog. I approach it that way and focus on the one in need at the time and sometimes it's the parent. So again, I'm using the same similar tools that I would with the child Visuals illustrations, pointing out, I take video as well and I break down the videos just to show them real time.
Speaker 1:Do you find that helps to build maybe some understanding and empathy within the child If they are able to say, well, oh, the dog's doing it because of this, or this is their body language, communicating this where they didn't see it before, right?
Speaker 2:You ever?
Speaker 1:see kind of that epiphany shift. Obviously it's going to be a child of a certain age.
Speaker 2:Depending on the age of the child. Yeah, yeah. When they're three years old. Two years old, they don't understand crawling, they don't understand. They don't understand crawling, they don't understand. But it's that five, six, seven year old that understands. Oh, aren't there days when you need space from your sisters and brothers or your mother or father? Right, yes, you know? So, using those analogies.
Speaker 3:Well, your dog doesn't speak in words, so you were just saying that they got another dog, and I remember a famous quote from the late great RK Anderson, and someone in the audience said it was a video he was showing. He was in someone's house and they said, well, maybe we should get another dog. And he just said, well, then you would have two problems.
Speaker 2:Right yeah.
Speaker 3:And that's not always the case, but it's very often the case, right?
Speaker 3:And I just wanted to mention we did a study recently about the circumstances leading to dog bites of children.
Speaker 3:And you're right, mike, as you said in the beginning, it's mainly in a five to nine age group, mainly boys, who of course are made of slugs and snails and puppy dogs tails, as opposed to the girls. But one of the questions we asked in that survey was you know how was your child afterwards with the dog? Were they standoffish? And, strangely, a lot of the kids who are bitten it didn't change the relationship at all. They said they still loved the dog and he was fine and they were happy with him being in the home and being in the home and some other people you know gave the dog a wide path and that they, you know they didn't respect that dog. Some of them became phobic of dogs in general. So this huge spectrum from being really quite tolerant of the situation, the bad situation that had occurred to it, sort of morphing into this much wider problem with all dogs yeah, there's not many things that we get for our kids that have such a potential for great happiness and also potentially great harm, other than maybe the first.
Speaker 1:That's a good point, maybe their first car as a teenager Been through that phase twice in my life and then trampolines maybe. But you know, when you think about it there's such a I think, when there's such a romanticism about having you know we're getting a family dog, a puppy, happiness and then it turns into something so different, especially if there's a major dog bite incident.
Speaker 3:But it can be very educational to teach your children an interaction with a different species and I think, if it's done properly, it can teach empathy. And I never really trust people who, you know, just have no time for animals at all. It's just like they're widgets, you know. But I find that the average dog is nicer than the average person.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that we can all argue for sure or state that the benefits certainly outweigh the risks of getting a dog right.
Speaker 2:You know, mike, you brought up a good point, and it's managing expectations. The onus is on whom, though? Who should help manage a parent's or a family's expectations? Who should take on that role? Is that something that all the veterinarians, you know, all of us trainers, veterinarians, the medical community, pediatrics should we all take on that? Should we ask the questions at intake? So, as a society, I mean, that's, I guess, a societal question.
Speaker 1:A social media question too right. Right, I mean if you think about all the bad influence that you know, because there's lots of people kissing their dogs on social media.
Speaker 2:That goes viral.
Speaker 1:Right yeah.
Speaker 2:And everyone's trying to upstage each other.
Speaker 1:And they don't see the risks because so many people get away with it with the dogs on social media Right. And then you have people replicate. You know the child's at home watching that on. Tiktok, and then they're going to go try that with their own dog.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:That's when the disaster happens, and it's really hard to compete with that because you can't well, first of all, show gory videos on social media. You could show some really shock, terrible videos of what happens to children. But that's not going to make the algorithms or make it even pass the filters on social media. So it's an uphill battle for certain. I know, I've heard that for sure on social media.
Speaker 3:Maybe we should put our video on TikTok.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I mean, the first thing that's coming to mind right now is that today is January 15th, as we're recording this, and TikTok's supposed to be not around, I think in a couple of days, facing a van.
Speaker 2:It'll be around.
Speaker 1:Well, we'll see, but absolutely share the sentiments of getting this information out there any way we can, absolutely. So let's kind of get into some for the dog pros that are listening in some of the more advanced cases you might have seen, or concepts, what's top of mind for you when you think about I want dog pros to know this information or be aware of this particular dynamic. So kind of thinking of you know we have lots of dog guardians that listen to this. But if you want to get to more of the advanced stuff, stuff, any particular research lately or whatever what's top of mind for you in that regard?
Speaker 3:I've got one thing to throw out, and that is if you have a dog who has been, you know, quite well behaved and calm and respectful and fun and goes on, walks with you and everyone's copacetic, and then suddenly at the age of six you notice a change in his behavior, that all of a sudden he's very grumpy and growly and stuff like that, usually that indicates a medical problem. That's something where you need to start out the consultation with the vet, who would pull all kinds of blood work and make sure that it wasn't this condition and that condition. And it's very controversial. But I think that borderline low thyroid conditions, which tend to develop in older dogs, can increase anxiety like they do in human beings, and anxiety is a big, you know, kindler for aggression if you're an anxious, shoulders up by your ears type person or dog.
Speaker 3:I had a funny twist on that one time because there was a friend of mine at the gym and his wife said you know, we've got this golden retriever. Well, golden retriever is number one breed for hypothyroidism. And all of a sudden he started to show aggression and I just, you know, getting into my car, I said have the vet check his thyroid. Just, you know, getting into my car I said have the vet check his thyroid. And so the next thing she came up a few weeks later she was hugging me and said you know, thank you so much, you saved the dog.
Speaker 3:And I said well, it was low thyroid, right? She says, oh no, it was high, really right. What? Because it's almost never occurs. Yeah, so what it was was a thyroid tumor and they operated and the dog went back to normal. That's great. So super high aggression and borderline low anxiety to aggression. We did publish one paper on that. The effect of thyroid hormone replacement did not actually produce any significant results on improvement in the biting until the sixth week of treatment. So it's not something that happens overnight.
Speaker 1:Interesting. And just to touch on that, since we're on the topic of thyroid, are they still recommending the full panel and the T4 and the free to test for all of that when they're looking at thyroid levels?
Speaker 3:I think a free T4 is probably the most accurate way because T4 itself, just thyroxine, can go up and down with sort of general health problems. You know, if they've got a virus condition or something like that it'll get knocked out of kilter. But the free T4 is the most expensive. It's not free at all. But the TSH that's the other test that's used in humans to diagnose it. And TSH I think it's worth doing but in fact it's not always because the test is basically designed on human fundamentals. It's not always accurate for dogs. So but I think if you've got 20% of dogs where it's not an accurate reading, it's still worth doing for the other ones and it's absolutely definitive if you have low free T4 and high TSH. I mean that's nail in the coffin of the diagnosis.
Speaker 3:But we found some other curveballs, Like if you do the full panel with the T3 and free T3 and thyroid antibodies, we found some dogs where the conversion doesn't work well and the T3 is low. So instead of treating with thyroxine, it's triiodothyronine instead. Very comprehensive things to do a full panel and the people at Michigan are pretty good at interpreting that for you. You know they'll say this is very suspicious of this, and so vets can pull panels, send them to Michigan. I think Dr Jean Dodds at Hemopet also does these tests, but she's definitely not a believer in the um tsh. She said it's garbage in dogs but it's not complete garbage, like I just said.
Speaker 1:Speaking of medical issues, since we're on that topic, let's dive a little deeper, because I think the the cause for a lot of our cases well, many aggression cases in terms of under diagnosis. We can talk about pain and medical issues. Pain, especially arthritis, and it's sort of the perfect storm when you have children climbing all over or touching a dog that might be experiencing medical issues.
Speaker 1:So maybe Vivian, and then Dr Dobman, you can chime in too as far as the most common medical issues that are occurring. You might go specific into certain pain issues or certain conditions, but what do you typically see in your work when it comes to children as well? I mean it could be, of course, occur in any aggression case, but especially in your child-directed aggression cases.
Speaker 2:So arthritis. They're jumping on the dog, they're sitting on the dog, they're pulling their tails. Dental is one as well. Touching the dog's mouth or squeezing, those are the top ones that I've. When they've come back from the veterinarian. They've let me know that if there's an underlying medical it's for that reason.
Speaker 3:Well, we did a couple of studies looking at the medical causes and the first striking finding was that 15% of all dogs that have behavior problems if they've seen a vet, 15% are diagnosed with a medical condition which is contributing to the behavior problem. So that means it's almost worth getting a clean panel of health from the vet in every case.
Speaker 2:That's what I always ask.
Speaker 3:And then, in terms of the order of things, pain came out in both the studies, for just plain aggression and fear and anxiety, pain was the number one. And pain can arise in any part of the body. You can have earache, dental issues, you've got arthritis in the neck, you've got abdominal tumors, all kinds of things. Anything could cause pain, but arthritis is clearly a big one.
Speaker 3:And then, going down the list, we had things like thyroid was on the list seizures, and I don't mean convulsive seizures, I mean these partial seizures, simple partial seizures, where they maintain, not necessarily Viv, but they maintain consciousness. But they go into this strange warp and you can usually see some sort of what they call pre-ictal sign, like the dog, not always, but sometimes the dog appears a little off for a few minutes before and then it goes into this completely different mode, sometimes raging aggression, and it's sometimes called rage. And then in the post-ictictal period, after the ictus, which is the seizure, the partial seizure they can act kind of depressed or as if they've just expended a lot of energy. And of course there's other things too, like tumors, you know, brain tumors and such like. There's a whole slew of things, but those four or five came up in both studies almost the same order and the same prevalence.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm always asking my before starting a case. I'm always asking them to see their veterinarian first, right, because they're calling me for a reason. They're calling me for either it's pre-bite or post-bite. I'll ask them to first get a clean bill of health from the veterinarian. That's first and foremost.
Speaker 3:The other thing, nick, is when the dog is sleeping at night, when they're aroused and you were sharing with me that sometimes that can be partial seizures while they're sleeping- yeah, I've got a good video of that and it was, um, it was a sort of rather not a very good specimen of a golden retriever and it was lying there sleeping, and and suddenly it starts to twitch. You know, we all know that when dogs sleep and dream they have little movements. But this wasn't that. This was twitching around the muzzle. It was twitching and then all of a sudden the dog called comet would raise up, absolutely raging, crazy, and it would attack anything. If there's nobody there, it would attack a blanket. I had a bull terrier that had that too, and when it was sleeping it would.
Speaker 3:The woman would lie in bed and her dog was on a blanket beside the bed or around bed or something, and suddenly in the middle of the night it would jump up and rage and and she's trying to defend herself best she can. So I suggest, for your safety, you know, while we work on some medical things, put the dog on a lead, a strong lead, like a leather lead or a chain link, so that it can't actually reach you. And she said thank you. And she told me that because you, you know, in a follow-up call she said he woke up raging again and he stopped like six inches from my face because he had this thing.
Speaker 3:And there's also postpartum aggression too. So, um, you know, when a bitch has had puppies, you know they're very protective, just like all females when they've got youngsters to protect, and there can be this postpartum aggression I saw that in a bull terrier and if you've got children, they of course they want to go and they want to pet these little cute little things that are just she's going to protect them. So I fixed that problem in one case by giving the bitch progesterone, which I wouldn't do lightly because it's got a number of side effects. So basically put it back into the more well-being state of pregnancy instead of the postpartum and, of course, going forward. The advice was to, you know, if they didn't want any more puppies was to spay the bitch, which they did because it was just too dangerous a situation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Well, now we're getting into stuff. I could talk to you guys for another couple hours ago, so but I want to be respectful of your time. But I just want to just swing back to the rage. What they used to call it was I think they used to call in dr diamond, you can correct me from cocker rage, springer rage, yeah, springer rage.
Speaker 1:And then they kind of shifted away from that, saying well, could happen with any dog. So then they just started saying like, at least from what I'm hearing in the circles, is just rage syndrome. And even that they started to say, well, is it because it looks like rage? So the dog wakes up in a very agitated, highly aroused state. That is indicative of not a fear-based response, where we're seeing weight shifts away, darting away, lip retraction. We're seeing much more of what we consistent with the emotion.
Speaker 1:Or, if we're looking at Panksepp's work, the system of rage, where you see much more agonistic or overt aggressive responses. So agonistic, puckers, hard staring ears forward, really uninterruptible type of aggressive response. So what is the correct kind of way to look at it now? And we're talking about those neurological things like a partial seizure, where a dog is just sort of indiscriminately attacking whatever blanket person nearby, whatever's next to them, and it can happen from a resting state or even an alert state. So would you still consider the proper label rage syndrome, or is it more neurologically based or seizure related? What's the way to properly assign the label to that now?
Speaker 3:Well it is. You know, I think the label rage is going to stay around because a term like that's been used for such a long time. And Dilla Hunter, who wrote a textbook on neurology from Cornell University, went ahead and described precisely that issue in Springer Spaniels and that's why, really, it got labeled as a Springer condition. Of course Cockers are so closely related to Springers, then of course Cockers would show it too. I reported it in Bull Terriers, but I'd seen it in other dogs, other breeds, pit Bulls and such like. And when you think about it, in other dogs, other breeds, pit bulls and such like, and when you think about it, seizures certain breeds are more prone to seizures than others, and the ones who are more prone to seizures may also be prone to partial seizures, right? So in humans it's about 50% of all seizures are the full-blown, what you might imagine as a seizure, a tonic or clonic or tonic-clonic seizure, where somebody's on the floor and either stiff like a board or writhing. The other 50% are the partial seizures. So if vets are only diagnosing, you know the rolling around on the ground type seizure they're missing 50% of them. Know the rolling around on the ground type seizure they're missing 50 of them. So, and it's, I agree with you, mike, it's not just the one breed, it's not the same mechanism, but in humans there's a term called intermittent explosive disorder, which has different pathophysiology but it's, you know, it is intermittent and it's explosive and one of the key diagnostic factors is that it's for I like the expression it's for trivial or no reason at all.
Speaker 3:One case I saw with Dr Marder a long time ago the man was sitting at a table this was a pit bull, a staffer or something. He's sitting at his table just reading the newspaper and all of a sudden, what was he doing? He might have turned a page, but for this trivial, non-challenging, non-threatening move. The dog suddenly raised up like a raging bull and charged right at him and attacked him. And it was in the days before the term was more widely accepted as it is today. And Amy looked at me and said you think of what I'm thinking? I said, yeah, so I don't know if it was the absolute correct treatment, but it did work. But we put the dog on a long-acting Valium-type drug and Valium is an anticonvulsant and that did seem to solve the problem in the short term. I wouldn't use Valium these days. I would use one of the longer acting, safer, fewer side effect type anticonvulsants.
Speaker 3:But I've fixed a number of these and they can manifest in different ways, not just rage. Pretty much any natural behavior can be expressed during a partial seizure, depending on which part of the brain the seizure is in. So if it is occurring in areas that promote aggression, aggression will be the outpouring. There's another one I reported.
Speaker 3:It was a very unusual case and I called it snoofing because the owner said my dog's snoofing. I said what's that? And they said he's going around the floor snoofing up all these dust particles and you know, all stuck around his face. And then all of a sudden he's got this bizarre look on his face, his eyes are wide and he's spacing out and he asked to go out and I let him out the back door and he starts eating great big chunks of dirt. And I had another case exactly the same and almost within a few weeks that, and they said you know, my dog's glugging. I said what's glugging? Well, it turns out they make this glugging noise too. So as they're snoofing on the ground, they sometimes there's this swallowing thing goes on too.
Speaker 2:Pre-seizure.
Speaker 3:Not pre-seizure, it was a partial seizure. It never became a full seizure, it's another partial seizure. That was the seizure Interesting. And you know they start chewing up linoleum on your floor. If they start chewing up linoleum on your floor, if it's lino floor, they'll bite the edges of it and they go around all the dust and they do this swallowing thing and then they look into space, they freeze for a second. Their pupils are massive and if you let them out they'll chew on grass and everything. All of a sudden it's gone. Just lasts a few minutes. Both of those dogs responded to phenobarbital anticonvulsant and I followed them up for years and it never happened again once they were treated. We didn't do an EEG on those cases. We did on one RAGE case and found abnormal EEG. But those ones we just diagnosed by response to treatment. I mean it's not 100% but if you give an anticonvulsant and the behavior stops, there's a good chance that it might have been a seizure.
Speaker 1:Fascinating, Fascinating. I wish we had another 10 hours to go through all of Dr Dodman's interesting cases, because I'm sure there's lots of juicy nuggets in there that would be really interesting for the dog pros out there. However, I do want to be respectful of your time, so let's wrap up with just talking about what you have going on in the future. Where can people find out more about this project and anything else you want to give a shout out to?
Speaker 3:Well, I think one thing we should mention is Vivian's written a book. I've written a few in my time. My best sellers were the Dog who Loved Too Much and the Cat who Cried for Help. But there were other ones, like Vivian mentioned my one with the pets on the couch. But Vivian herself has written a very instructional book that I'm sure she would like to say a word about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, please, please.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a labor of love. As Dr Dodman knows, it takes years to write a book, and this one certainly did, and it will be supposed to be released for sale in February. It is entitled being a Good Dog in the Human's World, and actually I didn't tell you this, nick. I used your book as a model. I was so impressed with your book and the cases and the stories that you wrote, so I used that structure talking about some of the cases. I talk about our relationship with our animals. I talk about some systemic problems.
Speaker 2:I didn't want it to be a training book, because there's so many out there. I wanted to really just keep it a little bit more philosophical, as Dr Dodman calls mea philosopher sometimes. So just to help shape and shift people's thinking about our animals and as our family, but continuing to recognize they have their own umwelt, their own understanding of the world and that impacts how they respond. And so I do have some training tips in there, but it's more storytelling and, yeah, I think I'm hopeful people will like it and another thing circling back to the beginning of what we were talking about.
Speaker 3:I would encourage people to go to the website for the Center for Canine Behavior Studies, which is most easily accessed through the URL dogstudiesorg. So dogstudies is all one word D-O-G-S-T-U-D-I-S, dot, O-R-G.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we found the Center for Canine Behavior Studies too long.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we got that shorter URL and the BeBite Smart program is up there as one of the things. There's a section called Our Studies and the ones that I was referring to can all be read, either in their scientific form or we had a PhD English person. She works with us and she's got a PhD in English language. She read these articles carefully. She's an animal lover extraordinaire with a house full of about 12 animals. She wrote what we call, you know, a simplified version. It's not really simplified, it's just converted into user-friendly version of science to translate the language of science. User-friendly version of science to translate the language of science which is scientese, into proper English that people can understand.
Speaker 3:So there's those things there and people can ask questions, and there's all sorts of interesting things on that website.
Speaker 2:You can also participate on upcoming studies. So if you want to be a member and it's free, and we try to offer as much free information Be Bite Smart videos are located there and also the coloring books that you can download are on the Be, so you can also access the Center for Canine Behavior Studies with bebitesmartorg. We didn't give a shout out to our team. You know we do have. We're a collection of wonderful, intelligent people. Yeah, robin Grimm. Allie Tellier she was in the shelter world for about 15 years. Nahid I can never pronounce her last name.
Speaker 3:Shazakian.
Speaker 2:Designer, graphic designer. And Robin is she actually runs. I forget what organization.
Speaker 3:She runs the town of Sturbridge in Western Massachusetts.
Speaker 2:Massachusetts, yeah, sturbridge.
Speaker 3:Massachusetts, famous historic village Recreation of times that were long gone, with people walking around with funny hats on and brewing things in pots. But she runs the entire town, not just the village, does animals and works with us. So she's wonderful.
Speaker 2:She actually has a farm. She has chickens and horses and cows. Then we have Ian Dinwoody is our statistician and Chris Gianelli is the co-founder. He's a very interesting man.
Speaker 3:By the way, everything we've talked about, from the center to the Be Bite Smart, to the coloring book, and everything is free. So we are not for profit, we don't make a profit. We just rely on donations to keep us afloat and we do our good work and the results we hope will be on the preventive side. The prevention of problems, whether it's aggression or fears or phobias, compulsive disorders, house-soiling, address all of the issues, but on a sort of proactive lens.
Speaker 1:I love it and that's always been my inkling as well is if I could be out of a job, right, so not working on the side of what happens after dog bites, then I would be happy because that means there'd be no dog bites happening anymore. Of course, that's a big wish, but I think that's what we're all striving for is let's be proactive and prevent these things, so we don't get hired after the fact, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And you can always make things better, right, you can make it even if you can't completely fix all the problems in the world you can at least do your bit to make things better.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely Well. I'll make sure I include all of the links you mentioned in the show notes, and I really appreciate both of your time and sharing this wonderful project. So, vivian and Nick, thank you so much for coming on and I hope to see you again in the future.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I hope so, mike, it's great.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having us. Thank you Great to meet you. Yeah, I hope so, Mike. It's great. Thank you so much for having us.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Great to meet you. It was such an honor to speak with Nick and Vivian about the Be Bite Smart project and the broader work of the Center for Canine Behavior Studies. Their commitment to evidence-based education, cutting-edge technology and genuine empathy for both children and dogs is exactly the kind of innovation our community needs. And dogs is exactly the kind of innovation our community needs. If today's conversation resonated with you, please visit BeBiteSmartorg and CanineBehaviorStudiesorg to learn more, watch the first Pause to Parent video or lend your support to future research and outreach.
Speaker 1:And if you're ready to go deeper into understanding and helping dogs with aggression, visit AggressiveDogcom. Whether you're a professional or a dedicated dog guardian, you'll find everything from the Aggression and Dogs Master Course, which is the most comprehensive program of its kind, to expert-led webinars, informative articles and the Aggression and Dogs Conference happening from September 26th through 28th 2025 in Charlotte, north Carolina, with both in-person and virtual options. And don't forget to check out the Help for Dogs with Aggression bonus episodes, which are solo shows where I walk you through real-world strategies for issues like resource guarding, fear-based aggression, territorial behavior and more. Just hit, subscribe or head to the show notes for more info. Thanks for listening in and, as always, stay well, my friends.