The Truth About Stress with Dr. Kristina Spaulding

Your dog can look “fine” while their nervous system is working overtime, and that mismatch is where so many training plans go off the rails. I sit down with Kristina Spaulding, PhD, CAAB, to get precise about canine stress, resilience, and what the science says about how dogs cope with change. We talk through the sympathetic nervous system, the HPA axis, and the difference between stress (the internal response) and stressors (the external triggers) so your next decision is based on biology, not buzzwords.

We also tackle the messy middle: good stress, tolerable stress, and toxic stress. You’ll hear why “stress inoculation” is not a free pass to flood dogs with scary experiences, and how agency and coping skills change the outcome. We break down what to watch for beyond single body language cues like yawns or lip licks, including approach vs avoid behavior, recovery time, and the early signs of chronic stress such as emotional dysregulation, shutdown, and escalating reactivity that can spill into aggression.

Then we shift gears into responsible research literacy for the dog training industry. Dr. Spaulding explains scientific consensus, why a handful of papers can’t carry that label, how bias shows up in both writing and reading studies, and why replication and broader evidence across species often matter when dog-specific research is thin.

Learn more about Kristina:
http://www.sciencemattersllc.com/
Unlocking Resilience Course:
https://go.sciencemattersllc.com/unlocking-resilience-landing

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

Learn more about the CANIS Conference here:
CANIS Conference

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

Check out all of our webinars, courses, and educational content here:
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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:01

In

Why Stress And Resilience Matter

SPEAKER_02 0:02

this episode of the Bydea into the dog, I'm joined once again by Dr. Christina Spaulding for a wide-ranging conversation about stress, resilience, and the science that helps us better understand behavior in dogs. In the first part of our conversation, we explore the biology of stress and how the body responds to challenges through systems like the sympathetic nervous system and the HPA access. These systems play a powerful role in shaping learning, emotional regulation, and behavior. We also talk about resilience and why some dogs recover quickly from stressful experiences while others struggle, and what we can do as professionals to help dogs build stronger coping skills. In the second half of the episode, we shift gears and dive into a topic that's becoming increasingly important in the dog training industry, which is how to interpret scientific research responsibly. Dr. Spaulding breaks down what the term scientific consensus actually means, and why a handful of papers can't represent the consensus of an entire field, and how science evolves as new evidence emerges. We also discuss bias in both writing and interpreting research, the importance of replication, and why looking at the broader body of evidence, including research from other species and fields, can help us build a more accurate understanding of behavior.

unknown 1:22

Dr.

SPEAKER_02 1:23

Spaulding has a PhD in biopsychology, which is the study of the biological basis of behavior, and is a certified applied animal behaviorist. She's the author of The Stress Factor in Dogs, Unlocking Resiliency and Enhancing Wellbeing. And she teaches a variety of online courses and webinars on the science of behavior through her website, sciencelc.com. And she also teaches the carefree companion certification with Irite Bloom and serves as Vice President of the IWBC Foundation.

Resources For Aggression And Training

SPEAKER_02 1:55

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 on over to aggressivedog.com. For pet professionals, there's the Aggression and Dogs Master Course, which is the most comprehensive program available on aggression, packed with expert insights and continuing education credits. For dog guardians, check out Real Life Solutions, a practical course covering everyday challenges like leash reactivity and dog-to-human aggression. You can also join the Ultimate Access membership for just $29 a month, which gives you access to expert webinars, live mentor sessions, and exclusive discounts. And don't forget to check out the Canis Conference happening this October in Schaumburg, Illinois, which is going to be the world's largest conference dedicated to dog behavior, training, science, veterinaire, dog sports, scent work, and shelter and rescue. Now, let's jump into this conversation with Dr. Christina Spaulding. Hey everyone, welcome back to the Bighty End of the Dog. This week we're gonna geek out with Dr. Christina Spaulding for a second time on the Bitey End of the Dog. And I'm really excited to be continuing on this conversation. Last time we talked about stress a little bit and resiliency, but I want to continue that and get deeper dive into this subject. So welcome to the show, Christina.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Thank you so much for having me. I'm glad to be back.

SPEAKER_02 3:17

Yeah, so let's let's dive right in

What Stress Is In Dogs

SPEAKER_02 3:19

here. Last time, uh actually, because some people might not have listened to that last episode, it's just a real quick definition of stress, because I think it is important to define these steps, these topics, because there's a lot of misconceptions around it. So your 30-second elevator pitch of what stress is.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

Yeah, so stress basically is a response to challenge or change. And so there's some kind of triggering event that causes a need to ad for the animal to adjust. It sort of changes their status quo. And then they have a specific physiological response that involves activation of the sympathetic nervous system, as well as what's called the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis, which basically is what is releasing stress hormones. And so that's what it is. It's the it's the body's way of adjusting to change or challenge.

SPEAKER_02 4:13

I'm glad you were able to uh articulate what HPA stands for. Lots of productness. Yeah, I bet. Um so then we hear the term stressor. So like there's stress, what the dog experiences, and then there's stressors. Um can you touch upon that? Because I I see that a lot where people sometimes might say, you don't want to add stress to your dog, which might be one way of saying it, but you know, in terms of the stimuli in the environment or what the dog experiences, would you say those are stressors?

SPEAKER_00 4:45

Yes. So you you can sort of think of a stressor as a trigger. That's maybe, I mean, that's a little bit oversimplified, but it the stressor is the thing or the event that is causing that threat or disruption to the status quo.

Good Tolerable And Toxic Stress

SPEAKER_00 5:04

And I think it's helpful too, when we're talking about the definition of stress, to break it down a little bit further, which I'm sure I talked about last time, but it's worth reviewing, is the I like to use the three different types of stress as defined by Dr. Bruce McEwen. So, because we often think of stress as being just bad, and it absolutely can be very, very bad. However, there is also good stress. So good stress, which some people call you stress, is a challenge that is not in itself distressing, but it is some kind of disruption to status quo. So travel, going to a conference, exercising, learning, all of those things are stressors. But as long as they're not causing distress, that would be considered good stress. And good stress can result, it doesn't have to, but it can result in personal growth. And then we have tolerable stress, which is a distressing experience that the animal is able to cope with. So this is something that happens that is unpleasant, but it's not so upsetting that it's starting to cause sort of long-term negative outcomes. Toxic stress is what we're usually referring to when we're talking about stress. And that is a distressing experience that exceeds the animal's ability to cope. And that's when we start to see all of these negative fallouts from stress.

SPEAKER_02 6:39

And sometimes we see the people label these things as good or bad. So distress, bad, use stress, good. Right. Uh, would you agree with that statement? It's sort of like when people say positive punishment, bad, positive reinforcement, good, and they're signing sort of moralistic labels to these things.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

Well, I definitely don't think it should be moralistic. In in terms of talking about the impact on the animal, I think we can say that good stress is a positive thing, and toxic stress is a negative or detrimental thing. Tolerable stress is kind of in between. And we can talk about this more because this is one of those gray areas that gets complicated. There's some evidence that indicates that, well, so high levels of stress lead to decreased resilience and poor outcomes. But there's also some evidence that very low levels of stress also lead to decreased resilience and that the ideal level is somewhere in between. But we have to be very careful about exactly how we interpret that because it's easy to listen to that and say, oh, well, then we should help our animals have negative experiences because then they'll be more resilient. And there's, I think there is this attitude in a lot of our culture, right? Like what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Well, it doesn't always make you stronger. So when we're looking at why tolerable stress may be beneficial in some cases, it probably has to do with the animal learning to develop coping skills. My argument, however, is that tolerable stress is going to heaven. So we do not need to create it. We do not need to set up situations that are intentionally going to distress an animal in the name of increasing resilience. Instead, we should be thinking about this from the perspective of if something bad happens, how can I support my animal through this so they are able to cope with it and they develop better skills in the long run, as opposed to I either need to create stressful situations intentionally, or we need to like if something distressing happens, then that is a disaster. Like the reality is more in the middle.

SPEAKER_02 9:20

I'm

Stress Inoculation Done Wrong

SPEAKER_02 9:21

glad you mentioned that because that's where my thoughts were going next. Is I think sometimes I've witnessed more of the extreme sides both ways. So people saying, oh, stress is, we need to inoculate them. Stress inoculation is sort of a buzz term, right? And be like, let's make sure we're allowed. And I've actually sadly seen a video of this where I think I was a trainer, but lighting off fireworks right next to the dogs with the dogs on leash and saying, this is gonna help them because they're gonna get used to fireworks. You know, they need to build this stress tolerance. And then on the opposite side, I've seen the extremes where it's just like, oh, I don't want my dog to experience any of this because it needs to be as an aversive free environment, or you know, in you know, seeing dogs pushed around in like um strollers with the top over it so they never get scared by anything, like really sort of extreme measures to protect their dogs from that. So are you seeing the same thing, or would you, you know, can you speak on that?

SPEAKER_00 10:18

Yeah, I mean, I hear people talking about both extremes, and and it's especially again, I think it's very embedded in our culture, right? So we have we have sort of on one end of things saying you've got to be tough and you've got to suck it up and and you know, don't be a wimp. And then on the other side, it's you know, we need to prevent our dogs, children, you know, whatever, from ever having anything bad happen because that's a negative experience and we want them to be like feel supported. I think the reality is that it's in between. And the research suggests that the reality is that it's in between. And the thing about the example that you gave of having the dog on leash and setting off fireworks, I think the really important thing that we have to understand is when our animals, when our dogs are being exposed to distressing experiences, so either tolerable or toxic stress, if it is going to work as stress inoculation, we think. I mean, to be honest, there's not a ton of research on this, but the research that we do have suggests a few things. So the the distressing experiences have to be brief, they have to be intermittent, so not, you know, frequent or long term. And the animal has to have the ability to cope with that stressor in the moment. So if you're putting an animal on leash and setting off fireworks, and they have there's nothing that they can do in that situation really to cope, then we're almost certainly doing harm and not building up resilience. So when we're thinking about trying to build resilience when the animal is exposed to stressors, they need access to coping skills. So that is things like having agency over how they're interacting with this thing, right? Do they want to stand 20 feet away and just watch it? That's fine. They're working through that, right? And we need to give them the space and the time to do that. Do they want to go up and investigate the thing as long as that's safe and appropriate? That's fine too. But trying to take over in those moments and deal with the situation for them is not going to build their coping skills. If we are ignoring signs that they are overwhelmed and they're not coping, that is also not going to build resilience. So, I mean, most dogs go through this naturally and they be more or less turn out okay, right? Because most people don't have this level of detail about stress inoculation, and their dogs are fine. But where we have to start to really be careful is those dogs, like the dogs that you and I work with, that aren't fine. And so some of those guys are going to really need help from a professional that is very skilled at making those in the moment nuanced interpretations. And they can say, okay, I think this is too much now, or we need to switch strategies. Because with the easy dogs, it's easy and we don't need high levels of education and experience. But with the dogs that are really struggling, I really do think it requires a lot of expert support.

SPEAKER_02 13:54

Yeah. And I want to lean into that because I think there's probably some listeners saying, well, how do I measure that? How do I know if it's distress or what type of stress my dog is experiencing? I want to talk about that in just a moment, but it had me thinking everything you were just saying there about the environmental um ability to have that agency in the environment theory. So I'm thinking like street dogs, you know, in in environments that are they they can come and go, but it's not a really difficult or harsh environment, you know. So certain countries it could be more difficult for dogs or the resources are less, but some places you go, plenty of resources and tourists and places to get food and attention. But I I think of those dogs as some of the most resilient, you know, you don't see them really, you don't see the level of stress signals, so the amount of stress signals that you might in some other and then you when you think of more natural environments, when you think of that term natural environment, you think of a city dog, right? And obviously they're not gonna have to have the same agency because of the restrictions and traffic and things like that. But some of those dogs also do well when in my mind they've been given the opportunities and the same type everything you're talking about. So being able to go to the the parks and get that off-leash time and go for hikes and even experience cafes or things and just be exposed to those stimuli in the environment. So, yeah, let's jump into that.

Reading Stress Signals Without Panic

SPEAKER_02 15:14

Like, um, how do people know? You know, they see because we they they go on social media, they see like, oh my gosh, tongue flicks, that's a stress signal, yawns, you know, whale eye, and they and the average person just learning about dogs be like, oh my gosh, my dog does that all the time. And they do it when I'm playing fetch, and are am I stressing out my dog? So no more fetch, because I've also seen that on social media, right? So then suddenly they become, you know, micromanaged. So so what should people look for when when they want to measure is my dog experiencing distress, eustress, tolerable stress?

SPEAKER_00 15:49

So yeah, so body language is a big thing in terms of being able to understand what's going on with the animal. So I certainly think we want to be looking for those things where I think people start to run into troubles where they start to focus too much on one thing, right? Because one thing is never going to be enough. So looking for signs of fear in the body language, and I can mention some, but you know, there's other resources out there. Lily Chen is a great resource for looking at body language in dogs. But you know, crouching, tension in the body, tucked tail, ears back, yawning, lip licking, all of those things can be indicators of fear, stress, or discomfort in a dog. The other thing I would look for is approach versus avoid. So, and this is not perfect, like none of this is perfect. But in general, if a dog is trying to avoid a situation, that means that it's probably unpleasant for them. And actually, avoidance can be an effective coping skill. So, one of the things you want to look at is what does the overall picture look like? Is the dog choosing to avoid something they don't like or that's concerning to them? And the rest of the time they seem to be happy and healthy and relaxed? Or are you seeing situations where there's so much avoidance going on that that dog's world is becoming smaller and smaller and smaller, or that it's progressively getting worse, that they're avoiding more and more things, or they're they're the intensity of their response is increasing. So I have seen dogs that are very emotionally stable and healthy avoid certain things. That's awesome. You know, good for them that they have the skills to do that. But if you look at the rest of the picture, you're not seeing signs of concern. You're seeing that they're coping with life well and they're able to, you know, have a good quality of life and deal with the different things that are happening. It's when the dog can't recover or too many things are stressful and they're avoiding like everything, that then we have to start to be concerned. Other things to look for that are signs that a dog is not coping, are things like not taking food. And we can talk about that whole issue too. But so not taking food, if there's multiple different things going on in multiple different contexts, that's often a sign of toxic stress. And if they have really long recovery time, that's often a sign of toxic stress. The other thing is that chronic stress is almost always toxic stress. So once something goes on for more than two or three weeks, it's probably starting to go into chronic stress. And really good copers will be able to hold it together for longer. But if it continues, it will almost always turn into toxic stress. So you also want to look at the nature of the situation, how much control does the dog have? So talking about dogs in cities, right? It's much more difficult. If you have a dog that is afraid of people and you live in a high rise, our ability to limit their contact with people is very restricted. And so you can predict that that dog is going to be more likely to be in toxic stress than a dog that lives on a farm in the country that is afraid of strangers because their exposure is so much less. So those are some of the things. It's it's a long list and there's a lot of it depends, but those are some of the things to look for.

SPEAKER_02 20:09

Yeah. And so, you know, obviously aggressive behavior can be a result of chronic stress. What should guardians like look for if, like you mentioned, the two to three weeks of just exposure to loud noises or people and and you know things start to deteriorate. What tends to deteriorate? What do we see in dogs that indicate chronic stress?

SPEAKER_00 20:31

So I

Chronic Stress And Emotional Control

SPEAKER_00 20:32

would say one of the things that I really see is a decreased ability to effectively regulate their emotions. So this is sort of a technical term, but this is actually something you were asking earlier about like what new things are coming up. So this is one new thing. Uh, it's not necessarily that new exactly, but there's in like if you look at the mental health research in humans, there's this really increased focus on this concept of emotional regulation, which is being able to intentionally change your emotions to a more desired state, right? So if you're very, very upset, being able to change those emotions. This does not mean, I want to be really clear about this, this does not mean suppressing your emotions. It means being able to tolerate them and manage them in an effective way so that we can get through. And I think for a long time we sort of thought, well, dogs can't do this, right? Like dogs aren't humans, they can't regulate their emotions. However, I believe pretty strongly that they can regulate their emotions. And if you just think about a wild animal living in a social group and a predator especially, if you cannot regulate your emotions, like if there's some kind of conflict and you completely lose it and attack and kill your social partners. Partner, that's not a good thing. And that involves emotional regulation, right? Like when we talk about aggression and inhibited bites, like that is a form of emotional regulation. When you're hunting, if you can't regulate yourself, how are you ever going to catch an animal? Because you're just going to run full speed at it. And that's not going to generally catch the animal. So I think that emotional regulation is something that other animals can do. And that is one of the things that I think start to fall apart first. That is an early sign, right? And that might, what does that look like? That might look like barking a lot and not being able to sort of interrupt yourself from barking. Or it could look like having what I very non-scientifically call temper tantrums, where the dog is melting down and they're biting up the leash and they're collapsing on the floor and rolling around and not really, you know, able to do anything, or like severe mouthing, those kinds of situations to me indicate that the dog is not able to get themselves regulated. I believe, this is my opinion, this is very hard to confirm scientifically, but I believe that that is not a pleasant emotional state to be in. And so that in an in and of itself is a sign of distress. And if we can start to intervene when we start to see those kinds of things, I think that's really important. And this speaks to the importance of early intervention, right? Like don't wait for the dog to be growling or biting. Wait to see signs that the dog is not in control of themselves. And that is a sign that things are starting to break down. And I'm I'm using sort of like the more outward-facing, but this could also look like something where the dog is shutting down, right? And they're not, they're not really able to function and they're not really doing anything. But that is still an example of emotional dysregulation because those distressing emotions are so strong that the dog cannot effectively engage with their environment.

SPEAKER_02 24:18

Let me let me talk this through with you a little bit because I'm trying to wrap my head around it in a sense of because we might, some of the things you're describing, we might label as displacement behaviors. So like the biting the leash, you know, displacing the often returns referred to as displacing stress or relieving frustration, uh barrier, barrier aggression issues sometimes get thrown into that mixed pool of discussion. But I'm thinking like when when I think of emotional regulation in humans, you know, like let's say um, I don't know, you just had a bad day, or somebody flipped you off while you're driving and you get into an angry or state of mind, or you experience that emotion. And then as humans, we can be like, okay, take a deep breath, or I'm present, I'm here in the moment, or I'm gonna hear my favorite song, or I'm gonna do this to help me feel better. So we're kind of making this consciousness, I guess, lack of a better word, conscious decision to say, okay, I'm going to do this to because I I've learned some tools through whatever I've learned through life, versus the other way I could possibly relieve some of that in a physiological sense is punch my steering wheel like uh screw that guy. Now now I feel better. So does that make sense, like in the sense of the ability uh from inside the brain to do that and cognitively think through it versus what dogs might be doing as displacement or this is um evolutionary mechanism.

SPEAKER_00 25:45

Maybe what it is is that I feel like we need to focus more on the underlying processes, like what is going on that is causing the dog to behave in this way. And to me, that's an issue of emotional regulation. But I think part of what you're asking is, you know, humans can say, okay, let me take three deep breaths and then maybe I'll feel better. Well, I don't think that dogs are doing that. However, I do think they can emotionally regulate themselves. What is going on internally? I don't know. So one example where I feel like I'm seeing dogs emotionally regulate is when we're working with a dog that barks and lunges on leash, and they're seeing a trigger or a stressor and they're having a reaction, they're having a vocalizing, lunging, etc. type reaction. But we're working with that dog so that we're rewarding them when they look at us or when they disengage from that stressor. What you can see, this isn't going to be on video, but after you've worked with the dog for a while doing this approach, they will often see the trigger and you can see their body change, right? You can see them get tense and and you know, honed in and focused. They they kind of get higher or something, like their head goes up. And then once you've worked on it enough, you will see them disengage and say, I'm not gonna do this thing, I'm gonna look over here instead. To me, my interpretation is that that is some kind of emotional regulation. Now, what is the cue for that? I don't know. Is the cue that they are consciously aware that they are feeling an emotion and now they consciously and intentionally want to change it? I don't know. I mean, I I'm not gonna rule that out as a possibility, but I don't think it has to be that, right? So maybe the cue is their tension in their body, right? And they have learned that if they look at you after the tension in their body, that they're going to get reinforced or that they'll just gonna feel better if they disengage at that point. So I can't say what's going on in the dog's head, but effectively, what is happening on a practical level is that they are regulating their emotion. And you see this, I mean, you see this in play, right? Like, not all dogs can self-regulate during play, but many can, and they're not totally losing control of themselves. And so that is self-regulation. Or you see it in a dog that is going out for a walk and they see a chipmunk and they chase the chipmunk, and the chipmunk goes in a hole, and they're like, okay, I'll go do something else now. Some dogs can't do that. And when I say emotion, I mean that's a whole nother, I'm talking about what emotion is, is a totally other conversation that's also very long and complicated. But briefly, just to clarify, because people are probably thinking about this, very often when we talk about emotion, one of the aspects of emotion is arousal. So there is an arousal component to emotion. So when I'm talking about emotion, that includes arousal. So we if we talk about dogs like regulating their arousal levels, that is, if not the same thing, very closely parallel to regulating your emotion. And if you can't regulate your arousal, you're probably not going to be able to regulate your emotion.

SPEAKER_02 29:21

Let's segue into his resiliency a little bit more because we touched upon it, but let's use that example, you know, the dog barking, lunging, unleash, and then let's say they do have that ability to emotionally regulate, they look away, right? And they experience something physiologically that brings some relief. So it's reinforcing, I guess you can say, negatively reinforcing, right? So what should people look for? Again, I think what what the question comes up a lot is, you know, how do we measure this? How do we really know? How do we help our what's the best way to help our dogs by is it um to build that resiliency or to look for it? Because resiliency is a hot topic too. Like I want to build my dog's resiliency so they're like superheroes, they can deal with everything, you know? And actually, I just had a conversation with a uh trainer from the Ukraine and the impacts of war on the dogs there and what they're experiencing and how much resiliency is a factor there. So so for people that really want to help their dogs with this asset, their dogs struggling with resiliency, what can they do? What should they look for? And so it's it's hard to track data, right? Because you can't say like we're this or that. You know, you might put assign a scale or numbers to it, but you know, what what can people do when their dog does struggle with resiliency?

SPEAKER_00 30:36

So

Building Resilience With Agency

SPEAKER_00 30:37

uh my favorite definition of resilience is also coming from Bruce McEwen, who did the three different types of stress. And I'm paraphrasing here, but it's something like experiencing a positive outcome in the face of adversity, something like that. And so I think that helps us figure out what that might look like, right? So a resilient animal is going to go through negative and distressing experience. Again, not something we're intentionally putting them through, but life is life, and they are going to have negative and distressing experiences, and they will go through that and they may be distressed at the time, but then they will bounce back. That's what you're looking for is the ability to bounce back. If you're not seeing that bounce back, or if you're seeing it's very slow, or the stressors are coming in so quickly that there's not an opportunity to bounce back, that's when we have to start getting worried. And the research on, so I already mentioned agency, and I'm gonna keep coming back to agency because the research is very clear that this is one of the key ingredients to dealing with stress. And this is where enrichment starts to come in. And I think the more I read the research and the more information that comes out, the more I feel like enrichment and agency are basically the same thing. So the current definition of enrichment or those maybe the criteria for enrichment in research right now is that it needs to create positive engagement. So meaning the animal's engaging with it in a way that is uh pleasant or enjoyable for the animal, it needs to improve well-being, it needs to create an appropriate challenge, and it needs to provide agency. So agency is baked into the definition of enrichment. If you look at the current uh scientific definitions of agency, uh, they are talking about agency being providing an animal with opportunities to engage in the environment and overcome challenge in such a way that builds skills and knowledge for future use. And challenges like enrichment is challenge and stress is challenge, and overcoming challenge is a resilience, and so it all starts to tie together. And so it seems a little surprising, I think, at first, that like why is enrichment so important? But if you look at enrichment, and again, this is what some researchers are talking about. So there's a paper by Vessier and colleagues that talk about enrichment as being an opportunity to gather information. And then you add that onto this building skills, right? So, again, let's just think about an example of taking a dog for a walk and they encounter this really scary, concerning thing on the walk that's this trash can that has been put down at the bottom of the driveway. And what do a lot of people do? They they maybe get sort of laugh at the dog for being terrified of the trash can, because it does seem a little ridiculous, and often sort of hurry the dog past, right? Especially if the dog is like stopping and looking at it. Well, what just happened there is the dog missed an opportunity to gather information about this potential threat. And now the next time they encounter a similar or slightly different threat, they don't have that information and experience to back them up. And if you stack that over and over again, where they are frequently encountering things that they're not sure of and they're not having the opportunity to investigate them and learn that it's okay and that they can cope with these things, we are over time making them less and less prepared to cope with stress and challenge in the future, which is then reducing their resilience. So, I mean, at this point, I would define letting them interact with that trash can as a form of enrichment. And it's maybe, I mean, it might be maybe it's not an exact match because are they having a positive experience? Yeah, you know, maybe not, but it is certainly giving them agency, let's put it that way, right? Because they're they're gathering information about their environment and overcoming challenge by making choices and building knowledge and skills for future use. And so I think that things that are as seemingly innocuous as not letting them investigate the Halloween decoration or the pile of trash on the street, especially for younger dogs, I suspect that those are actually probably contributing to decreased resilience in dogs. I don't know if I answered your question.

SPEAKER_02 35:47

I I absolutely loved how you answered that question. It's like my mind is like great round because yeah, you know, because classically, again, in the dog training world, people think enrichment is like Kong stuffed toys and snuffle mats and going on sniffaris, which is absolutely, you know, this we're not arguing against that at all. So just clarifying that. But that that's kind of that narrow lane of you know classically what people define as enrichment. But yeah, I I think you know, we don't think about the other things in life that can be absolutely forms of enrichment. So yeah, great answer to that question. And I think it's a good one to get people thinking too. Um, and and the science that you know, you were citing the science. I'd love to dive into that more. So uh, and and the misconceptions around some science too. So we're gonna we're gonna do that in a moment. We're gonna take a quick break to hear word from our sponsors, and we'll be right back. What

Sponsor Break Pets For Vets

SPEAKER_02 36:41

if there was a way to help both shelter animals and veterans struggling with emotional trauma by engineering a powerful, near instantaneous bond between them? That's exactly what Pets for Vets, a nonprofit focused on positive reinforcement for animals and veterans, is designed to do. Pets for Vets' unique program model creates a super bond, which is a carefully crafted, professionally trained version of love at first sight that leads to a lasting connection between a veteran and a shelter animal. Because each animal is evaluated and selected to match the veteran's specific personality, lifestyle, and emotional needs, the result is a reciprocal, healing relationship. The organization, founded by Clarissa Black, is expanding its network of highly skilled, well-qualified positive reinforcement trainers. It offers an incredibly rewarding opportunity for trainers who grow professionally, enjoy flexible schedules, receive stipends, and can live anywhere in the United States. Pets for Vets is also seeking new collaborations with animal shelters and rescue organizations across the U.S. to help us find the right dogs. To learn more or get involved, visit petsforvets.com. Okay, guys, I'm back here with Dr. Christina Spaulding, and we've been talking all about stress and resilience and uh clearing up some of the misconceptions that we see out

What Scientific Consensus Really Means

SPEAKER_02 38:10

there. But uh, let's dive into some science now, you know. And uh anytime I have an academic on the show, I I want to start asking this question the definition of scientific consensus. Because now I think in the dog training industry, we see a lot of some papers, some research being used to sort of uh argue points. And sometimes we see it that the paper's not being cited properly, or that we have a collection of three or four papers that argue a point, maybe for or against something, and that is being labeled as like the scientific consensus. The whole scientific community agrees that X is bad or Y is good or Z is in the middle. So what is your definition of that term, scientific consensus?

SPEAKER_00 38:52

That's a really interesting question. Um, you know, we're looking at, I mean, I can't give you like a number, right? Like 75%. Um, although it'd probably be higher than that, honestly. So I guess I would say scientific consensus is when virtually every scientist in that field agrees on a particular point. So there is scientific consensus on evolution via natural selection. That is just a given fact. If you talk to any biologist, I mean, it's not even a question. And that might sound like, oh, well, why aren't they questioning the evidence? They're not questioning the evidence because there are decades and decades of hundreds and thousands of papers that provide evidence for, you know, natural selection. So that is the scientific consensus because the the evidence is overwhelmingly strong. That is sort of an extreme example because it's so strong. But there are other things like stress is bad, toxic stress is bad. There is a consensus on that. People are not questioning that, which is not to say, by the way, that if and actually I think this is a really important point. So the scientific consensus can change if the evidence changes, if we get new evidence, right? So there are things, so there was a scientific consensus that once you reached a certain point in adulthood, that your brain couldn't really change anymore, like you couldn't generate new neurons. Well, that changed. We got new data that showed us that that's not true. And researchers changed what they said. So I think talking about science is really challenging because very often you have to hold two things that appear to be opposites. You have to hold those things true at the same time, right? So on the one hand, you could say, well, if there's a scientific consensus on something and then new evidence comes out and researchers change their mind, then how can you believe anything? Right? Because well, they just change their mind all the time. But it's not actually true that we change our mind all the time, because there has to be overwhelming evidence to support that change. And so it happens that we change our mind, but it's not like a paper comes out or even four or five papers come out, and then we're like, oh, we were wrong about this, right? We keep asking the question in different ways and going deeper and deeper and deeper until we get a clearer idea of what's actually happening. And so to me, the fact that you can have a consensus on something and then eventually change your mind actually helps me trust science more because it's it's rare that we go from we think A is true to A is completely 100% false, right? It's usually more of it's a it's a shift where we go from thinking that I'm trying to come up with a specific example, which I'm really bad at on the fly. But I guess I'll go with a genetics example. So researchers thought that they were gonna sequence the human genome and they were gonna have all these answers on which genes cause which behaviors. And then they sequenced the human genome and they realized that it's way more complicated than we thought it was. So it's not that we're now saying, well, genetics doesn't influence behavior. Now we're saying, oh, there's a lot more going on here than we thought. And it's not a direct line from A to B. So it's not like, oh, genes don't exist or genes are they don't matter, or they have no role in biology. It's just there's so many steps in between that we don't understand that we can't draw that line. So I hope I'm giving a clear answer. I feel like I'm kind of going all over the place, but scientific consensus does not happen from three or four papers. It never will, because that's not enough. Scientific consensus happens from hundreds of papers in a particular topic that are pointing at the same or very similar results.

SPEAKER_02 43:18

And on that note, and what we see sometimes is bias, of

Bias In Research And In Us

SPEAKER_02 43:24

course. And when we're talking about studies, is of course on animals, sentient beings, you're gonna have a lot of bias and uh naturally, right? How as a scientist, how can we you you mentioned like you know, somebody being having the ability of seeing both sides, sort of that integrative complexity to things? And so how can people who are reading these papers, or vice versa, actually twofold question there. How can the researchers or the scientists try to keep bias out of it? And then how can the people reading those papers that are trying to interpret them keep bias out of it? Because that we see all the time, right? We see because people are Defending their views. They're going to try to extrapolate something out of a paper. Maybe correctly, maybe incorrectly, but it's it happens a lot. Yeah. What can we do?

SPEAKER_00 44:08

So for the writers, we are trained as researchers to not be biased. Now we are still human beings. So we are biased. Like you can't totally take that out of a human being. But we do go through training to sort of, I think, help us see some more of that. The other thing that I will say that I think is very important and probably doesn't happen as much as it should is I think it's really important. Like this is why diversity matters. If I, as a white woman who is an animal behavior, like welfare person, writes a paper and everyone else that's looking at it has the same like cultural and educational background and ideological background, then we all probably have some similar biases. And so it's going to be difficult. Like it's that paper will probably be more biased than if I had a very diverse set of people looking at it and giving me feedback because people with different experiences have different perspectives and they're going to see things that I'm not going to see. So certainly research does some of that because you have peer review. And so papers that are published in academic journals have been peer reviewed. And is there enough diversity? Probably not. There should be more, but I do think it's better than like someone just writing something up and publishing it with no peer review, right? And so if we're trying to address bias, I think you have to be able to accept the fact that you are biased. Like that's the first step. The first step is admitting there's a problem, right? We are human beings, and so we are biased. I'm biased, you're biased, everyone that is listening to this podcast is biased in a variety of different ways. And if you see that as some kind of weakness or failure or something to be ashamed by, it's going to be difficult for you to accept that this is true. Once you accept that it's true, you can actively engage in trying to have open, honest conversations with people who feel differently than you do or have different life experiences so that you can maybe get more perspectives and that can decrease your bias. So do I think that science is perfect at this? Like, no. Do I think that they're worse than the general population? No. I think that they are probably usually better than many other venues. I don't want to say that they're perfect and I don't want to say they're better in always, but at this particular thing, because we are really strongly trained not to be biased, I think we're usually better. But then there's also biases within the entire scientific community, which is a totally other issue. In terms of reading papers and not being biased, it's kind of a similar answer, but you have to be willing to ask questions. And you have to like do your best to look at a paper that has results that are consistent with your opinions and your values. Do your best to treat that paper the same as a paper that is not consistent with your opinions and values. Because if you don't do that, you you risk that confirmation bias of like, I read this paper, this paper, I agree with what they're saying. And so I think this is a great paper. And I fight with myself on this all the time. Like I really have to, like, I have to keep bringing myself back and saying, okay, I know you think that this, these results are really exciting and cool. And you want to tell everyone about how exciting and cool they are. And you also need to sit here and think about all the reasons that you have to be careful about this. And again, it you're holding two things. You're holding the fact that you think that these results are awesome and impactful and amazing, and also that you have to be cautious and you have to also think about all the reasons that they're not perfect and all the flaws. And this is what I think people struggle with a lot with science is that I feel like I'm talking about this a lot in this podcast today, but you have to find that middle ground, right? Like you don't want to totally and completely endorse a single paper and like use that as the paper without looking at all the other evidence. But you also don't want to totally dismiss papers because they have some flaws. And this is I because all papers have flaws, because you cannot design a perfect experiment. And this is why repetition is so important. And this is where I do think it gets a little tough because I think the reality of the situation is unfortunately that if you have not had years of training and how to analyze science, your ability to analyze research papers is going to be limited. I don't mean you can't do it at all. And I don't mean that you can't get better and better at it, whether you go to a formal academic program or not, but it does take extensive training. It's just, it's the same thing as like working with an aggressive dog, right? Like if you take someone who's been training dogs for two years and they get an aggressive dog, they're not going to be as good at understanding all the nuance and all the pros and cons of doing this thing or that thing as someone who's been doing that exclusively for decades. And so you have to be comfortable living in that middle space. I guess that's the answer for both, whether you're the writer, the researcher, or the reader. We have to be comfortable of living in that middle space of knowing things, but also admitting that there are many things we don't know.

SPEAKER_02 50:36

I I'm so um into this conversation right now. Like I love that answer so much. I want to like record it over and over again, just play it out there. Just that clip right there. You know, because uh like I'd love to get your feelings on what we're seeing in the dog training industry when it comes to the papers that are out there that are commonly cited and at the biases, and because obviously in the dog training where there's very strong views on, you know, polarization going on. And so we see this natural bias at a very high level, I guess, in supporting one side or the other. So these papers are often taken, and it's there's only a handful. Let's just use like the e-collar studies. There's a handful of studies out there, but not like certainly not hundreds or thousands of them. There's maybe a couple dozen. And we see them often cited to support one side or the other. How can we like move away from that's such a strong bias, you know? And you might not have an answer, but maybe just get your feelings or thoughts about that and how it's ultimately really how it's uh impacting the industry, I feel in a negative way.

SPEAKER_00 51:46

Yeah,

Looking Beyond Dog Training Studies

SPEAKER_00 51:47

I like this question. I I thought I'm I'm gonna kind of script the answer about like the answer that the e-color papers do or don't give, but I I think I'm also answering it in a sort of a roundabout way because if we want to try and combat that, that like here are these papers and these papers prove or disprove this, I think it comes back to that issue of like it's only a handful of papers. And as there will always be, they all have some methodological issues because you just can't, you just cannot design a perfect study. The more questions you ask, the more difficult it gets to analyze and interpret the data. And the less questions you ask, the more you're missing. That's why we need multiple papers. So to me, I think the problem with the shock collar papers, and I'm not, I mean, we were talking earlier, like I'm not really in the social media world, but I hear what people say about it. So my impression is that what's going on with the shock collar papers is that people are focusing on those exclusively. And that's where I think the the problem is. There's a joke in academia that it takes so long to write research papers because to write one line, you have to read like 10 studies, right? Like you to say anything, you have to have such a deep knowledge of not one or two or three papers, but the entirety of the research that's out there or most of it. And so if you're just looking at the shot collar papers, you're not seeing the entirety, the whole body of research that is out there on that topic. So we don't have a lot of, I mean, we don't have a lot of research on dogs, period. We have even less research on specific topics in dogs, like the use of positive punishment to modify behavior. And so because we have so little research on that, we need to expand what we're looking at. So we need to look at things like what does the parenting research say on positive punishment in children? What does the parenting research say on the value of attachment? What does it say about the different parenting styles? Like how much punishment they use, how much warmth they show, what kind of boundaries they set? You know, what does the research in rodents say about punishment and its effectiveness in changing behavior? What do we know about the research on suppressing emotion? If you're punishing behavior, you're you're suppressing behavior. Does that mean you're suppressing emotion? I don't know. But there is a good chance that there's a connection. And the research on suppressing emotion shows that suppressing positive emotions works pretty well. You can suppress positive emotions and they'll go away, but suppressing negative emotions actually makes them worse and it messes up emotional regulation. So that's I think we need to expand our knowledge. And I say this, I say this understanding that people have real lives and they're working with dogs and they're very, very busy, and it's difficult to keep up with the research. But we have to find a way to do it. And I mean, like I say that like I literally quit my job training dogs so that I could learn the research full time. But pay attention to the people who are doing the science full time and listen to them so you can get the nuance, because that's where I think the error is, because there's a lot of other research out there that we can pull from to get a much more complete, much more complex picture. And it is complex. And if we're just focusing on, I don't know how many there are now, but four, five, six, seven papers that have different methodologies, which makes them hard to compare to each other. Like, I think there's more than seven. But what it's it's still not a lot in the world of like what we need to be confident about something related to behavior.

SPEAKER_02 56:11

One more question before we wrap it up. Because it's got me thinking about when you're talking about this, the studies on children and other species.

Lab Data Versus Real Life

SPEAKER_02 56:19

And another common issue I think that comes up is real world versus in the lab. Yeah. So people talk about Skinner and those, you know, they like, and then this argument's like, oh, of course, it's you know, great, it's replicated in a lab. And it's like, so, and then the others are like, that's not real world, and you can't apply that. And, you know, we're not in a little box here. So, what are your just thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_00 56:41

Yeah, another great question. And it's it's in the middle again, right? So there are pros and cons to lab research, and there are pros and cons to looking at things in the real world. And we really need both of those things to get a full idea of what's going on in behavior. So I think that it is a mistake to just look at lab research and ignore experience and field research. We don't really have a lot of field research in the animal behavior world yet, but I think, I hope that will be changing. But if you just look at your personal experience and you're not taking into account the research, that's also not enough. So we really need both of those things together. Because if you're doing research, if you're running experiments, what that is doing is it it is allowing you to isolate certain factors and directly look at what does this do? When we do A, how does it change B? You cannot do that in the real world because you cannot control enough things. And we're talking about bias, like there's so much bias there. But at the same time, when you're looking at the lab, there's all kinds of limitations there too, right? Like for one thing, we're bringing dogs into a lab. That alone is going to change their behavior. And again, as I was saying earlier, you can't ask all the things in one study. Like you can ask about attachment between dogs and humans, but maybe they didn't look at training level in that particular study. And so then we we can't say how training level matters. But that doesn't mean throw out the whole study. It means think carefully and critically about how does what they're doing in this study and what they found in this study, how can that inform what I'm doing, like my knowledge and my experience. Because if we're just going by our knowledge and experience, we're missing things too. Like I, and I'm a little embarrassed to admit this because I should know better, but for many years, I told people that if you don't address behavior problems, they tend to get worse. And then finally, probably while I was in graduate school and going through this training, I was like, I don't know that's true. That's what I see, but I'm not seeing the dogs that don't get worse, probably, right? Like if you have a dog that is barking and lunging on leash and that goes on for a few months and then it gets better, I'm probably never gonna see that person. So I don't actually know that it gets worse. I know that within the population of people that contact me, it tends to get worse over time. But that doesn't mean that that's what's happening to everybody, and that's what we need research for, because we cannot answer that kind of question accurately if we don't have the research. And so we really have to have both things, in my opinion, in order to do the best we can for the animals that we work with.

SPEAKER_02 59:53

Fantastic

Canis Talk And Where To Find Christina

SPEAKER_02 59:54

answer, as always. Thank you so much. Um, so Christina's gonna be speaking at the Canis conference happening October 7th to 10th this year. So you're gonna be talking about um stress is everything. Can you tell us a little bit more about that talk?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:10

Yeah, I'm gonna be talking about how stress impacts behavior. And we talked a little bit about that today, but I'm gonna be getting much more specific and in-depth. And then we're also gonna talk a little bit more about how you can build resilience in animals and dogs specifically, and why that matters. Because once you understand what stress does, you're going to want to build resilience. And so I always give both because if I just talk about all the bad things that toxic stress does, I feel like I leave people very depressed and discouraged. Um, but there is a lot we can do. And so I will be talking about both is the sort of the bad part and how much damage it can do, but then also what we can do to help mitigate that.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:57

Amazing. I'm looking forward to that. And then where can people find you if they want to learn more about everything you're talking about?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:03

So they can find me at uh www.sciencematterslc.com. And I am also on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:16

Amazing. And uh subscribe to uh Christina's newsletter, guys, because it's one of the best ones out there. It's always packed with good information, always gets me thinking when it hits my inbox. So Christina, thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate the conversation, and I'm looking forward to seeing you soon.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:32

Yeah, thanks so much for having me, and I look forward to seeing you in October.

Final Takeaways And Next Steps

SPEAKER_02 1:01:37

What a pleasure it was speaking with Christina and exploring how stress and resilience shape behavior in dogs. Her ability to translate complex neuroscience and physiology into concepts that are practical for trainers and behavior professionals makes this conversation incredibly valuable for anybody working with dogs that struggle with fear, reactivity, or aggression. And if you're ready to go deeper into understanding and helping dogs with aggression, visit aggressivedog.com, whether you're a professional or a dedicated dog guardian. You're gonna 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 Canis Conference happening this October in Schaumburg, Illinois, with both in-person and virtual options. And don't forget, Christina is gonna be presenting at Canis as well. Thanks for listening in, and as always, stay, stay, stay, stay, well, well, well, well, my friends, friends, friends, friend, friend, friend, friend, friend, friends, and then we're gonna do it.