The Lost Art of Critical Thinking with Dr. Chris Pachel

Artificial intelligence is a big part of the conversation in our industry right now. The real question isn’t whether we’ll use it, but how to use it without losing the clinical reasoning that makes us effective practitioners.

In this episode, I’m joined once again by my good friend Dr. Chris Pachel to explore one of the biggest shifts happening in our profession. We discuss where AI is genuinely useful, from organizing lengthy medical records and capturing consult notes to creating reports that improve communication with clients, veterinarians, and trainers. But we also talk about its limitations, the risks of bias and overreliance, and why AI should never replace the thinking that comes from experience.

We also dive into behavior medication, including some of the newest developments in veterinary behavior medicine, what’s currently available, and what’s still on the horizon. More importantly, we discuss why medication decisions require careful clinical reasoning. Dogs displaying aggression may look similar on the surface, but the underlying motivations can be completely different. The goal isn’t to medicate every dog or avoid medication altogether. It’s about understanding the individual in front of you and choosing the interventions that give both the dog and caregiver the best opportunity for success.

The second half of our conversation focuses on prognosis, risk assessment, and behavioral euthanasia. Chris shares why he has become increasingly cautious about making early prognostic predictions, how repeated assessments lead to better decision-making, and why acceptable risk looks different for every family and every dog. We also explore some of the most challenging conversations professionals have with clients and why empathy, curiosity, and humility are just as important as technical knowledge.

Whether you’re a trainer, behavior consultant, veterinarian, or simply fascinated by canine behavior, this conversation is a reminder that our work rarely has simple answers. The best decisions are usually found in the nuance.

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:
Webinars, courses, and more! 

Transcript

Welcome Back Dr. Chris Packel

SPEAKER_01 0:02

In this episode, I'm joined once again by my good friend Dr. Chris Packel, who's a board-certified veterinary behaviorist, internationally recognized speaker, and one of the most thoughtful voices in our profession. It's actually been six years since Chris was last on the podcast, and a lot has changed since then. In this conversation, we explore some of the biggest topics shaping behavior practice today, including how AI is changing the way practitioners work, new developments in behavior medication, the importance of clinical reasoning, and why nuance matters more than ever in our field. We also take a deep dive into prognosis, risk assessment, behavioral euthanasia, and the mindset that has allowed Chris to sustain a remarkable career helping some of the most challenging behavior cases. So whether you're a trainer, behavior consultant, veterinarian, or simply someone who enjoys thinking critically about behavior, I think you'll find this to be a fascinating discussion. So let's get into it. Hey everyone, welcome back to the Bighty End of the Dog. I've got my dear friend Dr. Chris Paco back with us. He was on here six years ago. I can't believe it. We were just talking about this before we start going into the recording. It's just that that was like pandemic times, and we were talking about all kinds of different things. So we've got a lot of different topics we can talk about today, but I'm really happy to have you back on. So welcome back to the show, Chris.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

Thanks, Mike. I you know, when you said six years, I was like, no, no, that can't be possibly true. But here we are. Here we are.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

I I can't uh it's just time flies, and uh, you know, a lot of things have changed since then, and a lot of things are the same. Uh, and we know dog behavior problems and aggression are are still around. So, you know, I let's kick off the show with that. Like, what's what's got you excited in terms of uh in the veterinary behavior world? So so new developments, new meds, anything new on the horizon that you've seen in the last year. I I know AI's uh hot topic. So let's dive into that first,

Using AI Without Losing Judgment

SPEAKER_01 2:07

actually. AI and what you're you may be using it for and the pros and cons you might be seeing.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

Yeah, absolutely. So I I can come at this from a couple of different angles. The first one is, you know, I I will say that I how should I say this? Uh, in full transparency disclosure, I'm a pretty heavy AI user. I I know everybody, you know, has their own take on sort of what they do and where and when. I try to be really mindful of not using AI for generative work in as much as I can. So uh I know initially I was like, yeah, let me do some images and let me do this and that. And I I really do shy away from that. But where I do tend to use AI a lot in the practice, especially, is to be able to organize reports. Uh, so I use AI in every single consult that I'm doing, whether it's a phone call, whether it's an in-person assessment, uh, to be able to allow me to really focus my brain power not on note-taking, but on consulting. And to really be able to do that and to be able to generate reports that are meaningful, you know, it gives me the ability to organize what I have done in a way that's not now spending my time re-documenting. And I know that we go back and forth on, you know, what level of documentation is needed, what do clients read, what do they not read. The reality is, as a veterinary practice, I need legal documentation of everything that we've done. I've got to keep my general practitioners in the loop, I've got to keep my trainers in the loop, I've got to get that documentation. And so being able to really get that AI-generated report and say, hey, wait a minute, reframe that to the client, reframe that to the vet. Wait a minute, this is a consulting vet. Can you reframe it in this language? The ability to do that efficiently, I will honestly tell you, Mike, it has reignited my passion for the work that I get to do versus being like, no, I've got so many reports to write. So it's been that piece has been huge.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Yeah, you got to think about just that benefit alone, you know, as practitioners or consultants or trainers, how much just having someone that saves so much time can allow us not to be so burnt out by spending so much time on those reports. So it sounds like you're using it kind of on both sides of the equation, both for generating it for your team and for your own note-taking purposes and history-taking purposes, but also for the client side as far as a summary for them.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

Yeah, absolutely. And it's it's really the organization of information. We use it heavily on the prep side of appointments as well, being able to compile lengthy medical records. Uh, you know, I know some of our listeners out there, if you think about the medical records that your own dog might have, some of these records are, you know, one, two, three hundred pages of documentation and blood work and this and that and the other thing. And don't get me wrong, I'm happy to read through it. But most of my clients don't want to pay me an extra three hours to prepare for that appointment. And that's three hours that I could be consulting, that I could be helping a greater number of animals. So trying to find that sweet spot between allowing AI and technology to do organizational things really efficiently and really well, and not overusing it or you know, continuing to be mindful of the trade-off, of the cost of that usage, you know, trying to be mindful that I'm not using it to fill in the holes in my skill set, for example, which is very doable, right? Oh, I forgot to think of all these things. Let's let AI fill in all the stuff I left out. No, no, no. At least for me, that's not the way I use it. So it's it's organizing what I have shared as a way to make that more efficient for particular clients, even from the standpoint, you know, we know that individual learners have different learning styles. And so I may have a client who really prefers a narrative style report. I can regenerate that bullet point list into a narrative or but or vice versa. And so I can really customize the care that I'm providing efficiently and up-level the quality of service that I'm providing by utilizing that technology. You know, so again, I know there are trade-offs. Uh, I know that we could have, you know, a three-hour conversation to scratch the surface on, you know, both the economics, uh, job security, the environmental impact. These are all considerations. Trust me when I say that I'm looking at them to the best of my ability. And also I it's tough. It's right.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

You're coming in from a responsible point of view, too, because I I think from a practitioner standpoint, again, going back to that, we have to be careful not to start relying on it for solving our cases or saying, hey, what did I miss? Because that deter, I think it deteriorates our critical thought skills, our clinical reasoning skills that come with years of practice. So um I think that's an important distinction for the industry to think about, is when we have somebody that's younger that may not have faced a bunch of cases of a certain type, and they're thinking about the nuances. And let's face it, the cases we work, training behavior cases, there's always the nuances, right? And and it's it's much different than something that's you know, you're fixing a refrigerator, that's step by step, and it's almost always step by step the same. So yeah, yeah. Um, what else? Big picture, like in in terms of the industry, are you seeing AI used in any other creative ways that you're excited about?

Wearables Data And Real Baselines

SPEAKER_01 7:44

You know, one of the things I talked about on the show before is the uh health metric measuring type of devices, so things that measure dog's heart rates and heart rate variability, respiration rate, and all those things. Are you seeing any developments in that space yet?

SPEAKER_00 7:58

I am, and that's I I think it's a another great avenue to explore that when we're looking at at utilizing technology to assess data, to look for trends, deviations, like that is really complex. And you know, and even when I I think when I when I think about you know the use of AI, I think the one thing that has changed is the visibility and the accessibility of AI. If you go back, you know, even a couple of years, five, six, seven years, a lot of devices that we've been relying on for very long time were using a version of AI in the background. We just didn't have visibility, we didn't have direct accessibility to things like Claude or ChatGPT or any of the other platforms that we have available to us now. And so uh, you know, it's it's it's it's all in there. So yeah, I absolutely love the ability to to review large quantities of data from a health metric standpoint, you know, and and to be able to look at, you know, uh, I could say for for some of my patients who might have blood work done every couple of months, in some cases, to to look at those overall trend lines across a huge data set relatively quickly, summarize the data for me. Don't don't do my job, summarize the data and you know, give me this information for critical thought and consideration. It it it's allowing me to do more. And I know that in and of itself is uh uh a bit of a slippery slope as well. Doing more is not always better. And yet, when we look at you know, one of the major concerns, especially coming at this from the lens of a veterinary behaviorist, one of the major criticisms that we get as a profession is we're not accessible enough. The wait times are too long, it takes too long. If I'm able to see more cases, I will tell you that in really adopting the portion of AI that I use within the clinical practice, both is as we're talking about metrics and understanding data analysis, as well as what I was mentioning for some of these other details, it has literally tripled the number of billable hours that I'm able to do. Yeah. And and I say that not because it's a money metric. I want to be really clear why I say billable hours. That is contact time with clients. Yeah, that is the number of direct hours that I am spending consulting as a VB, as a veterinary behaviorist, uh, and the ability to do more to help more to just be a better clinician within that frame. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

Are you using or is anybody in the veterinary behavior field currently using some of those metrics? So, like some of these wearable devices like the pet pace collar, there's a couple others on the market that look at things like, again, respiration rate and supposedly being able to tell if a dog has arthritis based on their movements and things like that. Do you are there any practices kind of say pulling that data at the moment, saying, oh, this is a good day to go out and do that uh session with your dog? Or today, maybe it's not such a good day because you're just out there, heart rate is high, HRV is is flat, and all these other metrics are telling you, well, maybe it's not the best day. Do you know if that's happening yet?

SPEAKER_00 11:11

Uh, not to my knowledge. I suspect that it is. And I know that there are some really cutting-edge practices out there that that are likely to use that, especially when we look at some of the pain clinics where they're looking at truly monitoring response to individual therapies. You know, are you more of a pre-gavalin responder or gabapentin? Let's look at heart rate, let's look at movement patterns, let's look at accelerometer data, let's look at these things to try to get some of that data. Um, I think the the my experience so far has been that there's a lot of individual variability in what we need to be paying attention to. Uh, and so there's a big learning curve. Again, at least what I've seen so far, others who might be a little bit deeper into that deep dive might have a different sense. But I think there's a big learning curve that, you know, even if we've got a device that can actually um or accurately measure movement patterns and some of the things that you were mentioning, those actual numbers are going to look very different for, you know, an eight-year-old basset hound than they would an 18-month-old Vishla. And so, me as a practitioner, I still have to be thinking critically what is my baseline, what is my intervention, what changed, what does that mean for our therapy?

SPEAKER_01 12:29

Yeah, it it's kind of like you know, both of us were like this whooped advice, right? But it's we've getting we're getting metrics based on the human population. Uh, you know, let's say, you know, 40, 50-year-old men or something like that. It gives us like what's what's typical for that. But yeah, I get what you're saying is that it's not gonna be the same, yeah, right. For talks, that Bassett and the Belgian Malmar are probably gonna have different baselines, and so it creates more difficulty, I think, when looking at that. Yeah,

The New Dr. Google Problem

SPEAKER_01 12:56

yeah. So one more question on the AI side of things. Do you guys do you have people coming into your practice now saying, Well, that's not what ChatGPT said, or you know, Claude told me that I should ask you to get this test done. Are you seeing seeing some of that? Or and and is it actually good or not so good sometimes? So it's like Dr.

SPEAKER_00 13:14

Google, right? Yeah, it's it's totally, it's the new iteration of Dr. Google. I would say that in the in the vet behavior practice here at Animal Behavior Clinic, I don't get that a lot. I do have a couple of clients who are relatively early adopters who are using that. I can tell based on their update summaries, and you know, I can tell that they're utilizing that as a way of framing questions and being uh uh actively informing their communications. I hear from general practitioners that that is happening a lot more as they're coming in to GPs saying, hey, here's what I think I should be aware of, here's what I think we should do. Uh at a specialist level, most of my clients arguably have been down some version of that. Either they've talked to the GP, they've Googled the best they can, and they're basically saying, I need to surrender and I need, I need you to tell me what you need to do next. So I get a lot less of that. Uh, but I do know that what, you know, on the on the the training side of things, I do hear that reported from my trainers at Instinct here in Portland as well, that we do have some of those like, hey, you know, I was I was Googling stimulus, uh stimulus gradients the other day and desensitization protocols, and it said, gosh, should we be doing engage, disengage? I'm not sure. You know, so so I I think it uh it definitely is inserting into the conversation. And I and I think for me as a practitioner, I don't mind it. Because honestly, there are going to be things that based on the way that that client worded that question to that platform, it may be different than how they're presenting that question to me. And it may generate a different response that allows me to see it from a different angle than what the client is sharing, or that what I would, you know, spawn it spontaneously think about in the way that that conversation is evolving. So I look at it as another data point to be considered and weighed according to the rest of the data, rather than saying, no, no, no, no, no, you should never do that, or perhaps even taking it defensively. What do you mean? You're checking that rather than trusting me. I don't got time for any of that nonsense. I'm just saying, what did you ask? What did it tell you? Let's consider it.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

Yeah. What does Chris Backel think about how helpful that's gonna be for the work we do as practitioners going forward? So we all complain about Google and some mostly bad ways, a lot of times, but sometimes there's positives, people find the right things. But I think with AI, it's gonna tailor it a little bit, the responses to that individual and what their maybe their biases are sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 15:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:52

Um, so what are your thoughts for us as practitioners listening in?

SPEAKER_00 15:57

I think that yeah, I think that you nailed the the bias piece. Absolutely. I think that is probably one of the biggest concerns that if we're utilizing the uh the responses that an individual client or caregiver or trainer is getting from their conversation, it sort of replicates some of the social media bias. What I see on my feed is very different from what you're seeing, what my husband is going to see from, and so we can get a little bit uh kind of inundated with our own sort of influence, and we really start to get kind of self-righteous about, oh, well, it said this, so therefore that's right. And if we don't have that critical thought to understand that the information that it's giving us back is heavily influenced by what we've put in, we have to be able to, if we're going to do this responsibly, create enough of a uh enough integrity within the platform itself that it's weighing those biases and not getting sucked in all of those individual practitioner or client or trainer directions. And that is, uh I'll be honest, I'm not prepared to share one of my next projects quite yet. Um, but it's very, very close to being ready to share. Uh and and spoiler alert, it does involve AI in the behavior space, uh, focusing on recommendations for general practitioners as a way of trying to improve the quality of recommendations and the accessibility of solid, solid recommendations. Yeah. Uh we're st we're still still doing some some pilot testing right now, but it's close. It's close, y'all. So we're coming.

SPEAKER_01 17:44

Yeah, and I know that you know sometimes people push back on that, but I think for the again, the practitioners, trainers, consultants listening in now, is that and people are worried about AI replacing that job, right? Because yes, you can put in uh how do I get my dog to sit, these basic skills, and it's gonna put out a pretty good plan for you most of the time on those basics. What is job preservation for us is what we were just talking about the clinical reasoning, the critical thought, the nuances, because let's face it, it's behavior. We're not fixing again cars, fridges, you know, it's this, it's there's different approaches and nuances so much in the work we do. And that's what is is really, I think, what our positions are going to shift to in the future. Because the basic stuff, most people can go on and say, I need to teach my dog how to walk on a leash nicely, and it'll give them a good plan, you know? It's just yeah, those nuances come into the picture. So, what else is exciting right now in in the veterinary behavior?

New Behavior Meds And Availability

SPEAKER_01 18:41

Let's talk about meds. Anything new in the in the medication department? I I I was reading about uh TESI is like uh anti-anxiety sort of because this is fourth of July just happened here in the US. Uh that's coming out of Europe, so something you're seeing here now?

SPEAKER_00 18:55

Yeah, so we've got a couple of different options that are that are kind of I don't know if they're taking the world by storm quite yet, but we've got some new options that I think that's a really cool thing to think about. That even when I go back three years, I'm using drugs today that I wasn't using on a regular basis, even three years ago, let alone six, eight, ten, fifteen, twenty years ago when I started in this space. Uh, the one you're mentioning, TESI or TASIPimidine, is a new option. It is FDA approved for both separation, anxiety, and noise aversion. The limitation of that yet, while it has been available in Europe for a number of years, uh, it is labeled by the FDA for use here in the US, but it's not being distributed yet. So we don't actually have it on the shelves. I can't script it out to anybody. Um, you know, and that's the the same thing. We've got another drug that's actually been approved for use uh here, a drug by the generic name of Amepitoin that is used for both noise aversion as well as for seizure control. It's been labeled for years. It's in Europe, it's in Australia. I can't get it yet in the US. So, you know, as people kind of get fired up about some of these new options, yeah, absolutely. We also need to ask: is it actually available for use yet? So, Tessie, not yet. Uh, last I heard, uh, probably somewhere in Q2 of 27 is when we're looking at distribution on that one. And we'll have more information coming along that way. With that being said, you know, we're seeing growing research for some of the newer generation SNRI medications like Venlofaxine. Uh, you know, we were just up in Seattle, gosh, about three, four weeks ago for our annual veterinary behavior uh symposium, a scientific paper session, as well as our practical behavior forum, listening to research projects on Venlofaxine as well as Prasicin, which is something that we're seeing a growing use of as an alternative to drugs like clonidine or celio, the alpha twos. Prasicin as a different mechanism of action. We also have another alpha-2 agonist called Guanfacine, which is kind of a longer duration clonidine. It's not exactly that, but it's same family, longer duration. So, you know, so so there's there's new things coming down the pipeline all the time. And that's just super cool. Because then I get the question, you know, the question coming to my brain, like, what do we have available? The toolbox is getting bigger. Why would I reach for one versus another? Which again, coming back to critical thought, I can't just say, oh, it's the new drug. Now everybody gets Venla vaccine. Yeah, that's probably not the right way to go, y'all. Um, but we'll learn as we go.

SPEAKER_01 21:38

Yeah. How about in the aggression space? Are you seeing anything new in that department that's being used more or more effectively?

SPEAKER_00 21:44

Yeah, in the drug space, not necessarily. I think the the ongoing conflict, and it will continue to be an ongoing conflict, is when we're looking at research and when we're looking at label claims for drugs, some of these FDA approved drugs, you know, there's a bit Of a slippery slope when it comes to labeling or studying these drugs for the use of aggression. And I think one of the biggest things that we have to be really mindful of with any of these patterns, whether we're talking about separation distress or noise aversion or aggression, is that there's a lot of different underlying motivations for those. And especially when we get to aggression, whether we're looking at frustration versus fear versus anxiety versus conflict versus reinforcement loops, to have quote unquote a drug that addresses aggression is a bit of a misnomer, right? Aggression is a motor pattern, it's an operant behavior sequence. And if we're really trying to control motor patterns, then we're actually back to drugs like ace promosine, which do a pretty good job of controlling motor patterns, but don't touch the emotion. So we go in the direction of touching emotion, but then we're back to that multifactorial which emotion are we trying to modulate? And is it helpful for an individual dog within their learning history and within their physiology? So yeah, are we using drugs for aggression? Of course we are. When that aggression is motivated or influenced by arousal, uh emotional dysregulation, by anxiety, but by fear, by frustration. But we've got to be really discerning as to what we reach for, when and why.

Meds Are Not The Enemy

SPEAKER_01 23:33

So um I want to dig a little bit more into meds because uh, you know, there's this place called social media that um we see themes happen. And I think we're seeing a theme pick up again about this anti-med, you know, just always going to meds and you know, drugging dogs and uh and this almost as viewpoint as culture taking off in that direction on some sides of social media. So what are your answers to that? Like you're presented that with that question from somebody maybe that's just starting training, or they just got their first dog that has behavior issues, and they're getting all this noise, and somebody's putting in their ear, oh no, you should never use meds, it's gonna drug your dog, or they don't test these things on enough, you know, they don't even have enough data on the people and all these like these misconceptions and things. What is your kind of elevator pitch for that?

SPEAKER_00 24:24

Yeah, honestly, I say I agree. I think there's a possibility that if we are over-medicating dogs in certain contexts, I'm right there with you. I don't want that any more than you do. The question is, can we lean into where and why we're reaching for meds versus not? And I, you know, I'll usually circle back to some of the examples like if I have a dog, um, I'll use an example from yesterday. If I have a dog who comes in with an 18-month-old Vishla with complaints of hyperactivity and over-arousal, and I say, cool, you're you've got an 18-month-old Vishla. Let's actually do some fact-checking to ensure that needs are being met and that we're doing all the things. Having done that for that particular dog, we say, Oh, wait a minute, you are providing appropriate exercise, like truly, trust me when I say appropriate exercise with varying arousal levels and decompression and mental enrichment and all these things. And we actually can't find a balance of that that allows this dog to be functional across any of those circumstances because any level of arousal is tipping into dysregulation in both positive and negative emotional states. Okay, now we steer away from that sort of, oh, it's just an 18-month-old Vishla who needs better Vishlaness. No, we've got a dog who's actually not terribly functional. So having that critical thought to be able to understand that those are actually two different dogs. So this is a dog who I thought would benefit from emotional support from arousal regulation. And yesterday I saw that dog for their first recheck, and they're doing amazing. The dog is not drugged, it's not overly medicated, the appetite is strong, the arousal level is there, the dog is still out going for hikes, doing all the things. And the important thing, and this is what I try to come back to in these examples, is these were clients who had done a ton of really solid work. Not just saying, oh, I did the training, I went to class. Like these are clients who get it. They can talk stimulus gradients, they can talk arousal thresholds, they can talk body language, their mechanics are stellar, and they were still struggling. So seeing these clients for their first recheck today, watching their handling now having an impact, watching this dog contextually appropriately assessing its environment, reading the room, getting a bit frustrated, navigating that successfully with relatively small supports. To me, I'm like, yeah, now we're cooking with gas. Now we're actually leveraging those two sides in a way that allows your dog to learn. And now what we did yesterday is we highlighted some of their training deficiencies. Cool. You haven't generalized arousal regulation and settling skills at your mom's house yet. Because your dog was so non-functional in that space, you never went there before. Now that's going to be our homework. We're not going to make a med change. Now we're going to be looking at the training. But it's, you know, one foot forward on this side. What is our meds? What is our, you know, that piece? What is our management and our B mod on the other hand? And then constantly re-evaluating those two things in complement and in, you know, truly with each other to say what's needed next. Very long answer to what I do with that client who says, I don't want to think about meds. Number one, I lean in, I agree before I get combative. I agree with you. I don't want to over-medicate dogs. So let's look at your dog and try to answer those questions of whether or not meds might be appropriate. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:18

And there's the clinical reasoning answer, right? Because it's not an easy answer. It's not just something you just start saying, you know, one-liners and say this is the answer for meds or no meds. Right. It's all the nuances in there. And I think that's what happens too in these social media like discussions, is or if you want to call them that, is that you see something like this new shiny thing is comes out. Which is sometimes a really great thing. So people are saying, Oh, we need more nature to get your dogs back out in nature, natural medicine, that kind of thing. Of course, that's a great recommendation, but it's not nuanced, right? It doesn't take into account the actual case in front of you of that Vishla or this other dog that could benefit from meds and the other stuff that everybody's kind of poking a stick at at the moment. So yeah. So um, all right, what else uh in terms of newest developments? Anything else that's got you excited out there for uh dogs in general?

Holistic Care Without Going Extreme

SPEAKER_00 29:17

You know, I think there's some cool stuff coming down the pipeline. Uh, not quite ready to do a whole heck of a lot about, yet at least on the on a on a population level. One of the presentations that we heard in Seattle was talking about micronutrient supplementation and really coming back to that sort of holistic, are we as healthy as we think we are? And if not, what are all of those cofactors, whether we're talking magnesium or I'm in not even going to go down the list of all the different things. Um, there was a lovely presentation from a human therapist, a human, uh, I believe she was an MD, um, who was really talking about uh that micronutrient supplementation in the adolescent and child mental health development space. And so we had a lovely opportunity to hear some of that nuance where they are a bit further ahead than we are in the in the veterinary and animal care space, to be able to say, okay, what do we do about it? Do we have formulations yet that we could reach for to be able to address that in a broader sense? And, you know, again, somebody who's much more into that space might have a slightly different answer than I do. But our takeaway, at least what was presented to us by someone who did do a deep dive, was I think it's coming and I think it matters, but we're not quite sure what to do yet. So again, I think that's the cool thing here is that we've got things like that where people are constantly asking questions and saying, what do we do next? Not because what we're doing isn't good or that we can't make really, really amazing progress utilizing tools that are already in our toolbox, but what's the next threshold, what's the next frontier? And I really think that some of even what you were mentioning with you know getting out into nature or being mindful about medication use, for me, I think we're seeing, again, maybe this is my own bias and my own sort of uh think tank, but I think we're seeing more of a lean into that holistic nature of the animal in their environment with their caregivers, with their social, you know, circle, all of those things to be able to say, how do these things factor together? And again, we could go too far in any one direction, even with the good stuff. We could say, okay, maybe we did go too far down the pathway of operant training and really sort of drilling, come sit down, stay place. Maybe that is too far in one direction, but I also think it's too far to go in the other direction to say we're just gonna meet the dogs where we are, where they are, and you know, just sort of lean into their needs. Training has a place, as does meds, as does health, as does nutrition. And trying to be mindful that I need some of these voices on the outliers to be able to push us in all of those directions. Yeah, but to live only in that outlying space is probably not best for most individuals. So I want to count on that. And then what do we how do we take those nuances and bring them back in? How do we go out to that outlying edge and bring it back in? How do we do that and overall expand the holistic nature of what we're doing? That's a piece for me that I'm really excited about as we see all of this growth happening.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

Yeah, likewise, I think what you stated there could not have been a better argument for getting out of your own silo and and being curious about other professions, other professionals doing things even if you don't do agree with them all the time. You learn so much, and that's gonna create a much better uh way of seeing all those nuances, right? And having that clinical reasoning. So the holistic, I love that. I love that. Um, I want to switch gears to prognosis, and because you're you're as a veterinary behaviorist, a well-known one, you're gonna get the worst of the worst cases a lot of times. So I want to dive into that. But first, we're gonna take a break to hear word from our sponsors, and we'll be right back.

Sponsor Message On Safe Chews

SPEAKER_01 33:31

I've tried a lot of products that dogs can chew on over the years, and one of the things I'm always looking for is a chew that I feel comfortable giving my own dog. I'm also very selective about the products I recommend, and I only endorse products that I've personally tested myself or that I've given to my own dog because I want my recommendations to reflect real experience and not marketing claims. Castagna, my own dog, absolutely loved the rugged dog bully sticks from the moment I handed her one. Just one kept her happily occupied to close to an hour, which is impressive for an enthusiastic chewer. What really stood out to me was the quality. They're 100% natural, fully digestible, brahde-free, and ethically sourced from South America. One of the reasons I felt so comfortable giving these to Castagna is that she's not very experienced with bully sticks, and I wanted something I could trust and rugged dog delivered. The thickness of these bully sticks gave me additional confidence and I could simply relax while she enjoyed chewing. And with the additional bully stick holder, which is a genius product by the way, it allowed for an additional layer of safety for a dog that likes to, you know, sometimes swallow things whole. And beyond the bully sticks, I was impressed by Rugged Dog's entire lineup. They offer an outstanding variety of durable, thoughtfully selected chew products, making it easy to find options that suit different dogs' chewing styles and experience levels. And of course, given the work I do helping dogs with aggression, I know how valuable appropriate enrichment can be. Providing dogs with safe, engaging outlets for natural chewing behavior is an important part of supporting their overall well-being. And Rugged Dog offers some of the best enrichment products I've come across. And if you're looking for long-lasting, high-quality chews that you can feel good about giving your own dog, I can honestly recommend Rugged Dog. They become one of Castagna's favorites, and they've certainly earned my trust. And for listeners of the podcast, I have a special offer. Spend $65 and get a free territory treat lock bully stick and yakchew holder. That's that cool device I used so that Castagna wouldn't swallow the bully stick. So be sure to add the treat holder to your cart when you go to the checkout and enter the code aggressive dog free holder as your coupon code to get that free treat holder.

Prognosis Versus Risk Assessment

SPEAKER_01 36:07

All right, we're back here with Dr. Chris Pockel, and we're gonna dive now into prognosis. But for for the listeners that maybe aren't familiar with what that word means for the work we do, can you just give a quick uh definition of what that is?

SPEAKER_00 36:21

It is. So prognosis is basically the expected outcome. If we do X, Y, and Z, this is what we believe will happen next. And whether that's a prognosis for a week, a month, a year, a lifetime, timelines can vary, but it's it's essentially forecasting what we think the outcome will be in response to certain interventions going forward.

SPEAKER_01 36:45

We're gonna talk a little bit about risk assessment too. How do you differentiate that from prognosis?

SPEAKER_00 36:51

Yeah, so I think for me, risk assessment is really where are we right now? Uh, and so I'm often looking not just in the rear view mirror, but I'm often looking at things like what is the size of this animal? If they were motivated to respond in a particular way, what's their capacity? And not just from an aggression standpoint, but you know, what is the capacity this animal could do harm? What is the potential this dog could break free from a crate of a certain strength? Like the size of the animal may come into factor as one of the risk assessment details. I may be thinking about bite history or incident history as a way of saying, is this getting worse? Is it getting better? Are these very intermittent? Is this relatively continuous? Is it predictable versus unpredictable? I'm looking at all of these factors to try to say right here, right now, how complete is my picture of what this dog is likely to do in a given set of scenarios? And what would management need to look like in order to manage that particular animal safely, either for public safety, for safety of other animals, or even for their own safety, their own emotional well-being? What would management look like? Do we have the capacity to do that? Are we able to do that within what we refer to as an acceptable level of risk? Something that is largely up to the caregiver or the organization if they happen to be the owner of an animal at a given point in time. That acceptable level of risk might be very different for me and what I could sustain in my household compared to you, Mike, or someone who has young kids, or who has 19 other dogs in the household, or you know, wants to have a free living environment with, you know, dogs and gerbils. Like I'm thinking about all of these different variables. I don't know who would want to do a free living environment with dogs and gerbils, but maybe they're out there. We have to consider those individual environments to say, what's the risk here? What do we need to do and be able to be able to move forward at all? So risk assessment is really kind of about the here and now and what things do we need to put in place moving forward in order to maintain safety in a way that allows us to explore medical workups, BMOD, uh, you know, other medication-based interventions or anything else that we want to do. The risk assessment is really what determines our safety and management plan, at least in the way that I tend to see it.

SPEAKER_01 39:26

So, in a sense, it's part of the pro overall prognosis because assessing risk is going to determine what a potential outcome could be, of course.

SPEAKER_00 39:34

It is, it

Why Single Visit Prognosis Misleads

SPEAKER_00 39:35

is. And and and also, this is a place where, you know, I will tell you if you had asked me 20 years how hard I lean into prognosis versus now, I would give you two very different answers. In my current practice now, I almost never talk about prognosis. Almost never. And the main reason for that, and and not all my colleagues agree with me. So if you're working with a veterinary behaviorist or a trainer who really leans into prognosis, I'm not saying they're wrong and I'm right, or that I'm wrong and they're different different ideas. For me, the reason why I tend to really lean away from prognosis is because I was trained in the medical model of saying what's the likely outcome if I have uh, you know, an ear infection, for example, with a particular microbe, and I know that this particular antibiotic has this type of tissue penetration. It's going to penetrate differently in the ear than it would in the bladder, than it would some. These are all variables that tend to function relatively consistently across time and across animals. And so as long as that caregiver simply gives that antibiotic once a day, twice a day, whatever the frequency is, I can make a reasonably accurate prediction as to what the likely outcome is going to be. When it comes to behavior, on the other hand, most of what's happening is outside of our control as practitioners. We're dealing with an organism that is responding to their own health, to environmental changes, to their emotional state from one second to the next. I'm relying on the skill of a caregiver. I'm relying on the focus of a caregiver to not be distracted, to know that their motivation is not going to change, that their financial resources are not going to change, that who knows what's going to happen. And so I find it really, really challenging when I come back to that contrast between how I was trained in the medical model to talk about prognosis and reasonable confidence of what I think the outcome is going to be. When I shift that lens over to behavior cases and I go, gosh, most of those variables that inevitably influence the outcome are not discrete variables. Right. We don't have enough data to truly understand how those are likely to impact future behavior or evolution of behavior patterns or coping strategies. And so I'm often looking at this from the standpoint of saying, listen, I would love to have the crystal ball. I would love to be able to tell you if you do X, Y, and Z, then this is the likely outcome. What I can tell you is that based on our assessment, based on the knowledge that we have here today, X, Y, and Z, I believe is our best path forward. And when we get to today plus X, Y, Z 12 weeks or four weeks, or one week, then we'll have to reassess. And then we'll say, okay, now where are we? After having done X, Y, and Z, how much progress did we make? How how flexible was that learner? How consistent was your implementation? How stable is your pet's medical health? We can look at all of those things and get a better sense of what the likely trajectory of treatment is going to look like if those variables stay the same. But for me, before I start talking prognosis, I almost always want to have at least two, ideally three independent time point assessments to be able to track as many of those variables to then be able to say if we keep doing X or L or B, this is what we may be able to expect. But as a single time point, it makes me really uncomfortable to talk about prognosis. And I say that in both directions. It would make me really uncomfortable to give a poor prognosis for a particular case because that owner might go home and knock it out of the park and blow my prognosis out of the water. And if I unfortunately bias them. To going, gosh, this will never get better, then it might not actually get better. So I don't want to bias it from that standpoint, and vice versa. I don't want to give someone, you know, a healthy prognosis. Gosh, if you just do X, Y, and Z, things are going to be great. And they now think, gosh, this is easy. I don't have to do hardly anything at all. The doc said this was gonna get better. And now they're actually not investing in the way that we wanted them to. And now the actual outcome is significantly less than prognosis. And that discrepancy is something that I realized, gosh, probably eight to 10 years into my career, was that I was looking at, you know, what did I assess as the prognosis? What did that caregiver do? And I was wrong just as often, if not more so, than I was actually right. And so that made me really uncomfortable that if I'm actually biasing outcomes by projecting a prognosis, I might actually be not doing as good of a job as I wanted to. So I really backpedaled on the prognosis piece and lean more on that multiple assessment point, putting our best foot forward, trying to get a better sense of how that case evolves over time. And then we talk more about outcomes at that point. God, that was a long-winded answer, Mike.

SPEAKER_01 45:18

Yeah, but such an experienced viewpoint, too. Uh, because I actually have heard it framed that way, but it makes a lot of sense. Um, because you don't want to in terms of expectations, right? And so kind of flipping it to the other side of the coin here for a moment.

Setting Expectations Without Absolutes

SPEAKER_01 45:33

If you can you use it or have you found yourself using the prognosis as a way of setting realistic expectations or goal points, I guess. Probably more expectations, it'd say is probably the better word for it. But you know, you have a client that their dog has just mauled somebody and they're like, when can I have a service dog? Right? Like, can this dog be a service dog? And you have to set realistic expectations. So I found that using the prognostic variables, like here's your dog's bite history, here's what provokes. I mean, they're from they're a street dog from where so you start to tick all those boxes that helps them understand what a potential realistic expectation in some range, right? We can never say for sure, um, but probably not going to be a service dog if it's mauled somebody, right? So, so like that kind of I mean, that that kind of case is not gonna be very common, but have you found you yourself using that to to help set some pathways, I guess?

SPEAKER_00 46:29

Yeah, I and I I like the reframe from prognosis to expectation setting. And this is a place where I arguably am probably biased by my medical background, where prognosis means something very specific to me. Yeah. That if I look at that word in a more general sense, somebody could argue, you're talking about the same thing. You're talking about expectation setting versus prognosis. Uh, and and I think for me, the prognosis implies a much clearer relationship of if X then Y, in a way that makes it really hard for me to talk about with behavior cases. However, you know, in in the way that you're talking about expectation setting, you know, if we've got a dog, as you say, who has, you know, inflicted a significant injury to someone, I could look at that and say, well, we now we now know that that's at least within this dog's capabilities, within their learning history, within their expressed behavior patterns. And in order to be a service dog, public-facing service dog, I need that dog to have X, Y, Z, Q, R, L, M three times on this. It's it's a lot that we ask of those dogs. I'm not sure that we're gonna have a way to evaluate effectively whether this particular dog, knowing this was in their learning history, is capable of doing that. So the likelihood of achieving that is probably pretty low. And so I think in that scenario, I think, yes, setting realistic expectations can be helpful. With that being said, I think, you know, you know, you and I, I know we've talked about these two scenarios before where, you know, we look at a dog and we do that initial assessment, we go, man, there's no way that this is gonna have a positive outcome. And lo and behold, yeah, sometimes they do. And again, lots of different versions of what quote unquote positive outcome can look like. Sometimes that's heavier doses of management. Um, I remember a case that really, really stands out to me. This was actually really early in my career, where a client reached out and said, Hey, I did an assessment for my dog. This individual said, under no certain circumstance or no uncertain circumstances, or whatever that phrase would be, uh, you absolutely need to put your dog down. Like it is not safe to have this dog in your home with your kids, X, Y, Z, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. This is your outcome. And the client said, No, I'm not doing that. Like, that is not an option for me. And we can talk about the merits of that on individual cases and all of that. But this was a client who who then reached out and said, Hey, I'm not doing that, at least not right now. Would you be willing to help me do the best we can to manage safety and figure out what this can look like? And this was a dog, I think, I think he was, if I remember correctly, he was two or three when I met him. And he eventually was euthanized for health-related reasons. I think he made it to 14 or 15. Did they ever have another incident? Yeah, they did. Was it catastrophic? No, it was not. Were we able to manage that dog safely in the home to an acceptable level of risk? We were. And so, you know, I think the moment we get into some of these absolutes and, you know, thinking about risk and thinking about prognosis, you know, this is a client who, for those of you who follow any of my social media handles, especially on Facebook, if I were to share this client's name, you would recognize her name because she's one of my biggest supporters. Anytime I post something, she's right there to talk about, you know, her experience. And I'm not saying this just to sort of toot my own horn. It's really to come back to say this was a client who had a need. I didn't know what they were going to be capable of doing. I wasn't sure what resources they were, you know, that they had access to or what they were going to be willing to invest today, tomorrow, a decade from now. We just don't know. But if we can put our best foot forward, setting those expectations to say, cool, maybe this isn't a dog who's going to be there at the slumber party, you know, without some direct supervision, yeah, we're gonna do some basket muzzle training, we're gonna put the safety nets in place to be able to manage as best we can. And there are going to be times where there are those outlier cases where if we have a dog who, despite appropriate interventions, is continuing to behave in a way that exceeds that acceptable level of risk for that environment, for that household, for that caregiver, for that shelter if they're trying to seek placement after some version of rehab or BMOD. Yeah, we're gonna have to make some really hard decisions there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:14

I I wanna uh actually, if you can give us um sort of just an overview of some of the other variables in the prognosis that you would look at. So you mentioned risk assessment, of course, and then the bite history size of dog and things like that. But from the prognostic side, uh, so we can dive into the next part of this conversation. What are the sub just some of the other variables in that

Variables That Shape Likely Outcomes

SPEAKER_01 51:34

for you?

SPEAKER_00 51:34

Yeah, so some of the things that I may think about could be breed. And I know that's a that's a sticky subject when we start talking about breed-related predispositions, but it does matter. We know that certain patterns are more likely to be expressed and maybe harder to modify in certain individuals. So breed may factor in. I'm also thinking about age or developmental stage, that if I'm looking at a problem where we're navigating impulsivity, for example, and I've got a 21-month-old dog, okay, we're we're kind of at the height of a lot of impulsivity as a normal part of development. If we can manage that dog safely and make additional progress, some of that does naturally tend to dissipate a bit, or at the very least, becomes a bit more stable over time as we get closer to three years and truly social maturity as well as cognitive maturity. So I'm gonna look at that as well as looking at the other end of the spectrum. If I'm looking at an age-related concern, maybe it's a behavior pattern that's happening due to perceived discomfort or osteoarthritis. And I've got a 13-year-old Labrador, I'm probably not gonna make that arthritis go away. And so this is now probably going to be more of a progressive condition that may get harder to navigate simply because of the medical needs of that animal as they continue to age. So that would be another factor, is looking at age or developmental stage. Um, in some cases, we might be looking at sex, whether we're talking male versus female, intact versus altered. And I know that's a question that gets answered very differently around the world. I'm not going to do a deep dive on that for today, but it is something that we factor in. I would even say culturally, there can be absolute huge differences in the relationship that people have with their dogs, the way in which those relationships show up, how they might approach training versus management versus medication use versus allocation of resources. These are all things that really do change a lot. And, you know, even thinking here in the US, I grew up in a very small town in northern Minnesota. So, you know, growing up in areas where the vast majority of dogs, once you got outside of city limits, fences, there are no fences. The, you know, the dogs are free-ranging. You know, this is this is something that is a part of a cultural difference that will affect prognosis and the likelihood of a dog being able to be successfully managed or treated in one environment versus another. Those are some of the other ones that come to mind. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:12

So, and that's just the tip of the iceberg, I'm sure, when you start really getting into the nuances. Uh, but that's a good framework to kind of build on because I want to dive into next, you know, it's a difficult topic.

Behavioral Euthanasia Needs Nuance

SPEAKER_01 54:22

And I know we've talked about it in the past on other episodes and on other formats, but behavioral euthanasia and some of the um, again, uh social media, it's one of those hot topics these days in terms of which training methodologies result in that, or which environments, which organizations, and all these other arguments. But really, all of these conversations I'm finding are missing the nuances in a lot of the what we've just been talking about. So one of the biggest misconceptions or one of the sort of factoids that's put out there is that you know, we choose behavioral euthanasia before uh resorting to other things like aversives or or maybe meds are used too much and all these other things that that sort of are blanket statements. But again, it it doesn't dive into the nuances, right? So you might have you could take the same dog, right? The same exact dog with whatever issue it has, biting children, and you take it from one home and put it to the next. It's two totally different cases, and it doesn't matter the trainer that's involved, it's gonna matter, of course, the environment. So I guess just an open thoughts question.

SPEAKER_00 55:23

I think it's a great framing, Mike. The nuance is so important. And you know, anytime I start debating whether a technique, a medication, a management style is inherently better or worse, I can name you 32 examples that would take my brain in the exact opposite direction. You know, some would say a leash is better, no, off-leash is better. Cool. Here are examples of both. Oh, here's the best type of muzzle. Well, here's 32 examples where that wasn't the right case. This the nuance is that all of these variables influence the entire picture. And so, you know, when I'm looking at an individual case and trying to decide, you know, specifically thinking about something like behavioral euthanasia, you know, it's not even have we exhausted all of the options? Because the honest answer, and I will tell my clients this straight out in all of my years of practice, I have yet to meet a caregiver who has done everything. It's not possible. There is always something different that can be done, even if it's a matter of going back and revisiting different combinations or different techniques or a slight deviation in timing of a reinforcer or an aversive, whatever. We will never have done everything. So that argument of, well, if we haven't tried this, then it's not time to consider euthanasia, I think is kind of a false argument. What I'm really trying to look at across the cases, at least those that cross my path, is what is accessible to us, whoever the us is, in that moment. And is that good enough to maintain safety, to maintain quality of life, to expect improvement, or even just to maintain where we are? And that's where we, you know, we look at so many of these factors where you know, before I debate, is re you know, is positive reinforcement force-free better than correction or a balanced training method? I know really, really, really good positive reinforcement trainers who could run circles around less experienced positive reinforcement trainers. So depending on who you get along that spectrum, your outcome is going to be different. I also know some folks in the balanced or corrective community that I don't think that's right, the corrective community, those who are more likely to leverage aversives as a tool, trying to be really mindful of this because I'm not trying to paint camps or draw or draw lines here, but folks who are more likely to use some of those techniques. I know folks in that community as well who approach their decisions with every bit as much ethical integrity and care for the animal's quality of life as folks I knew in other disciplines. There's also folks, let's say, talking about folks who are willing to leverage aversives more, more, more readily. I also know folks who are newer or more liberal in the use of corrections that I think are absolutely compromising quality of life as well as the safety and the emotional well-being of animals and human caregivers that they're working with. And so I think before I could ever draw a picture of yes, no, no, yes, those would have to be discrete groups that are exactly cohesive in their quality, in their skill, in their nuance, in their experience. And that will never be the case. Even someone like, so I'm gonna, you know, look at veterinary behaviorists for a second, someone else who is also gosh, how many years? I went transitioned to vet behavior in 2004. So somebody else who's had 22 years of experience as a veterinary behaviorist, we may have very similar qualifications and credentials. But if somebody practiced in Manhattan versus me practicing in Minnesota and Oregon, we have different learning histories. Like those are going to show up differently. They just are. So anytime we start, you know, kind of getting ready to die on that hill, yeah, there are certain things that I can absolutely say that there are pros and cons of different methodologies, there are pros and cons of different tools and different practices, as well as different medications and different medical care providers. But it's never an absolute. And it also deserves a level of empathy and curiosity that gives respect to the individuals who are making decisions that they never wanted to make, regardless of how they actually decide to move forward. I will say, without exception, individuals that I've had the fortune to talk to who are even just asking hard questions, none of them want to be there. Nobody's coming in and saying, Yeah, is this is this a dog I should euthanize today? Yeah, yeah, let's do that. You know, I'm just sort of fed up with this scenario, let's just move on. Now, we could argue that sometimes those scenarios may happen. And yet, and again, even then, I've had the great fortune of working alongside veterinary social workers for the majority of my career. And when you start to understand, not as a therapist, I'm not a therapist, that's above my pay grade, but when you start to get education in what some of those tells are, the vast majority of the cases that I have come across where quote unquote convenience euthanasia was sort of said as maybe this is why they're taking the easy road out. When you actually start to recognize some of the tells within client communication, most of those clients, in my experience, are actually presenting that way as a self-preservation tactic. Yeah, I agree. They don't actually have the skill set or the bandwidth to actually unpack what that needs. So they've already detached, they've already removed themselves and basically said, I just need to wash my hands of this. In those cases where we do have the luxury, the privilege of digging a little bit deeper, you only need to get one or two layers under that surface to know that the vast majority of folks really do care, but they may not have the luxury or the privilege of caring in the way that we want them to care in order to move forward. And that, when I think about those details, it gives me such a different perspective on a conversation like this to say, guess what? You know, those phrases like, gosh, you never know the struggles that someone else is facing in their life. It's true. We don't. We can't, we never will. And so I would rather choose to show up with empathy and curiosity and with an approach that gives that unconditional regard for everybody's perspective on those scenarios. We're all doing the best we can. Yeah. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:52

I want to dig deeper into that thought that you just had, too. So clearly you're speaking from experience. Clearly, you're speaking from a point of empathy and understanding from all the work you do, as well as the colleagues you were mentioning, those veterinary social workers and folks that can help you on your path. What's going on in Chris Pockle's brain that helps you decide what's most important, especially when you're talking about prognosis and that behavioral euthanasia conversation? What goes on in your brain? Like if you're going to say this is the secret sauce to like how you can navigate so many of these conversations and cases, yes, experience matters. Yes, empathy matters. But does what's what's the secret sauce for you? What keeps you going?

Sustaining The Work Without Burnout

SPEAKER_00 1:03:37

I I just had a conversation yesterday with one of my team members who expressed uh some concern or some struggle going into a session, and and they are working with a client who would be perceived as challenging, a dog who is challenging in a lot of different ways. And they were expressing just a level of tiredness. I don't know that I can keep going with this client. It's it's taking an un an unhealthy toll on me and my reserves. And I, you know, I was sharing back to this individual, listen, I I've been there, or at least I've been my version of there at various points in my career. And one of the things that I that I was fortunate enough to learn through some dark times, truthfully, is because the work we do in the behavior space is so nuanced, and we will never have all of the answers, and I won't know what's gonna happen. I have to develop a skill set that allows me to lean in on my efforts. As long as I am showing up and doing the best I can, and those of you who have heard me speak before, you know I've got that mantra. I choose to believe each and every person, including me, is doing the best we can with the tools we have available in that moment. It's it's true. And and so the ability to lean into my intention, knowing that the outcomes are actually out of my control. I can't measure my success by outcomes. I can't measure my success about whether I was good enough to get the job done. I have to be able to find a way to attach my worth, my value, my reinforcers to showing up. And that for me allows me to show up at 51 perfectly imperfect, right? I I would not have said any of these things when I was 30. Oh man. Ego was running the show, and I I've got recordings of me at those times. I'm like, oh man, oh man. Oh, but you know, and not to say that you know, every 51 year old is gonna have the same perspective, but it it's that idea that, you know, for me, that's what allows me to sustain, to be 22 years into the behavior space, feeling like I Just getting warmed up that I'm like, I'm just now coming to the point where I'm like, oh, I think I'm I think I'm actually pretty good at this most of the time, not all, but I can't dwell on the places where I coulda, shoulda, woulda done better. Yeah, I did the best I could with the tools I had in those moments, and as long as I'm doing the best I can to evaluate those outcomes and say, oh, yeah, going forward, next time in a similar situation, I have more data. And I will probably do something a little different. And that will benefit that client a year from now, but I can't kick myself for not having those skills at a time when I simply didn't have them. And that for me, in terms of the secret sauce, is what I come back to over and over and over again, is I have to be able to attach my value, my worth, my reinforcers to the efforts and the the aspirations that I bring, which could go a bit in a rainbows and unicorns direction. Again, those of you who know me know that that's a tendency. But I'm not doing that with blinders on. I'm not so toxically optimistic that I'm not aware of these other factors. I simply have to say, I'm gonna do the best I can, and that's literally all I can do. That will have to be enough because there isn't anything more than that until there is. And then when I know more, I'll do better. But it's it's it's an evolution. So you know, long-winded answer is you know, I'm I'm I uh want to give uh but it's that's that's the secret sauce. It's finding that way to sustain the effort, not attached to outcomes.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:44

Some amazing words of wisdom, and I think I could say wisdom since we're both 51 now. Um so just to wrap it up,

Where To Find Chris And Next Steps

SPEAKER_01 1:07:52

where can people find you? Where's the best way to to uh learn more about you?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:56

Yes, you can find me a couple different places. Uh, certainly if looking for podcasts and other recordings like these, if you're wanting to do a deep dive on what else did that guy have to say, uh you can find all of that curated on drpacle.com. So drp.com. Go to the media pages and it's all there for you. Uh, we try to get it uploaded just as soon as things launch. If you're looking for me on the clinical side of things, by all means, you can get to Animal Behavior Clinic, you can get to Instinct, you can get to all of those things even through drpackel.com. You can also find me on socials, Facebook, Instagram. We've got some other platforms that should be launching hopefully soon. But uh, but yeah, that that's the place you can find me. Amazing.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:37

And don't forget, Dr. Packel will be speaking at the Canis Conference as the keynote speaker, along with Sharag Patel. And Chris is going to do a webinar for us in September, September 24th, on this very topic of prognosis and risk assessment. So I'm looking forward to that. Chris, thank you so much. It's always great talking to you, and I'm looking forward to seeing you at Keynes.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:58

Me too, Mike. Thanks for having me on, and I look forward to all of these opportunities for our paths to cross and intertwine and work together for the rest of the year. It's gonna be awesome.

Final Takeaways And Closing

SPEAKER_01 1:09:08

I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Chris as much as I did. One of the things I appreciate most about him is his willingness to embrace complexity rather than search for simple answers. Whether we're discussing AI, behavior medication, prognosis, or behavioral euthanasia, the theme that kept coming up was the importance of critical thinking, humility, and recognizing the many variables that shape each individual case. And if you'd like to learn more about Chris, be sure to visit his website at drpackel.com. And if you're joining us at the Canis Conference this October, you'll have the opportunity to hear him deliver one of our keynote presentations. He's also going to be presenting an in-depth webinar for aggressivedog.com on prognosis and risk assessment in September. So until next time, thanks for listening in, and as always, Vishliness.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:29

Almost never.