Transcript

Mia Cunningham: Welcome to the show, Dr. Pachel.

Christopher Pachel: Well, thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here. And of course, I’m looking forward to being back at the conference again. It’s been a few years and yeah, I couldn’t be happier to be there again. 

MC: And I know people are thrilled. So, but for those who may have been like living under a rock and don’t necessarily know who you are, can you just give us a brief kind of like, just peek into your background and your dynamic career in veterinary medicine?

CP: Absolutely. So yes, I’m in Portland, Oregon. That’s my city of residence as of right now. And here I am the owner and lead clinician at the Animal Behavior Clinic, which is a veterinary behavior-specific practice. It’s me and four other docs on the team here in Portland. And so we focus on all things veterinary behavior here. We also operate under the same rooftop here in a new facility, a behavioral health facility that I am a co-owner of, in combination with a business called Instinct Dog Behavior and Training, which is a national training organization, franchise-based business model. And so we have a facility here that allows us to house up to 42 dogs in our facility and the opportunity to work with them as a boarding dogs as well as board and train programs using positive reinforcement. So my teams on the training and veterinary behavior side are really active here in the Portland market. And then I do a bunch of training and teaching around truly around the world at this point in time. Usually doing a teaching event at least twice a month, sometimes three to four times a month. I’m on the road and, you know, doing lectures and hosting workshops, both in the veterinary as well as the training and behavior spaces. There’s some other stuff that gets mixed in there too, but those are the big buckets .

Krysten Bennett: Well, it sounds like they keep you busy. And as one of fewer than a hundred board certified veterinary behaviorists, you speak at, like you said, a lot of conferences, but I also read on your website that you are a sought after expert witness. So I’m, I’m curious, can you tell us about a recent or a particularly memorable case where you were called to testify about animal behavior?

CP: Sure. So yeah, I would say most of the cases that I end up testifying on have have some degree of connection to aggression in some capacity—whether that’s a bite incident, and there’s a question about whose insurance is there to pick up the tab, or in other cases, it’s more sort of criminal wrongdoing in some way that involves the animal and an understanding of the behavior aspects for that dog or cat or whatever species we’re talking about really become relevant as part of the case.

And so I’m working on a couple of cases right now, involving—well, I can’t go into a lot of detail on the cases, truthfully, because I’m still actively involved in them—but there are some bite instances and trying to figure out exactly, gosh, you know, “could have, should have, would have.” Should someone have done something different to avoid that? Or was there a management failure in some way? And how do we use that information to go forward? So I’m grateful I get the opportunity to weigh in on those cases, but it’s a very, very different skill set than what we do in the clinical practice on a daily basis.

MC: And I’m just curious for you, why animal behavior? 

CP: Great question, Mia. I got into the field of behavior, not accidentally, but it wasn’t my intended goal. Going through veterinary school, I was curious about behavior and, you know, took the class that we all had to take as small animal practice students. When I went into general practice, I thought that was going to be my career path. I was looking forward to lifelong relationships with my clients and my patients—you know, from birth to death and evolving through that entire trajectory. And then quite honestly, the thing that tipped me into behavior was my clients; it wasn’t the dogs or cats that I was working with. Initially, it was the clients coming in saying, “Hey. We love this dog. This cat means everything to us and we don’t know what to do. We trust you. Can you help us?” And, you know, based on that need and those tugging at the heartstrings, I started to get a little bit more involved in some of those cases and started doing some additional continuing education.

And I remember about a year and a half into my general practice career, I had done a week-long intensive behavior course for veterinarians. And I remember messaging my significant other at the time, who was also in the veterinary field, and I remember messaging him saying, “I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen next, but I think this is the beginning of the end of my general practice career, so hold on tight. I’m not sure what’s coming next, but things are going to be shifting here.” And I never looked back. I left general practice about six months later, went into residency training for behavior and, gosh, that was 2004. So going on 20 years ago now. 

KB: And now look at you! You’re this household name in the industry. So I think you made the right choice.  

CP: Yeah, it’s funny. My dad, who lives in northern Minnesota, small town, grew up on a hobby farm, kind of a functional hobby farm with some cows and the dogs on property. And that was his upbringing. And I remember when I broke the news and I said, “Hey, this is what I’m doing next.” I remember the look on his face. He was like, “: “Are you sure? Like, it feels like you’ve been working toward this goal for a really long time. Are you sure?”

Then he and I had a conversation about three or four years ago when I was coming back from, I think it was Iceland at the time, or some international speaking gig. He pulled me aside and he said, “You know what? I think back to that time when we had that conversation. I don’t know if you remember when I questioned your life choices…” and I said, “Yeah. I very much remember that conversation, Dad!” And he said, “No, no, no, I think you made the right choice, and it’s lovely to see you really sort of leaning in and succeeding in that way.”

KB: When you know, you know.

CP: One hundred percent. 

MC: So, Chris, I feel like I could go down a tangent for a while in that vein, but just to keep us on track, I do want to bring it back to your presentations at Midwest. So you will be presenting 12 hours of CE during your time with us, and we just want to narrow it down and talk about one of them today. And so, we really wanted to kind of focus on conditioning a relaxation response in your dogs. You know, I think Krysten picked this one for me because I have a psychotic dog! So, I guess, first of all, I mean, can you tell us, do these techniques translate to humans?

CP: Absolutely. I’m glad that you picked this one of all of the topics. It’s one of the ones I’m most passionate about, because of how much traction and momentum I see within the dogs I’m working with. As we were starting the podcast recording today, I’m at the facility and we’ve got a young hound dog. He’s a treeing coon hound named Rex, who is in facility with us, who’s doing some training with one of my trainers here. And as a seven-month-old boy, like he’s got big feelings about the world, and settling and chilling out when there’s stuff happening is not in his wheelhouse.

So, I was working with him to start actually building some of that relaxation response. And it’s something that, you know, for me, it’s sort of the equivalent of… how should I put this? If I’m sort of on the edge of my chair, like I’m a singer, right? I’m ready. I’m like straight up, arched, you know, ready to sing, ready to stand. And you kind of feel all of that core engagement and your body is activated. The feeling of that is sort of the way a lot of dogs go through life when they’re working and they’re on and they’re going and they’re going.

For those folks who are kind of feeling what that posture might feel like in their own bodies, as I described it, if you were to take a deep breath and then just sort of relax into the chair or the space that you’re in, that’s the feeling that we’re really trying to work with when we’re training this conditioned relaxation and truly trying to teach dogs—or cats, we do it with them, too—teaching them how to actually take a breath, how to soften their shoulders, how to slow their breathing rate, truly how to decompress and chill. And we can teach that as a skill and then we can use it.

And so, you know, with Rex, he spent a lot of time this morning barking his big feelings out because he’s, well, he’s a coonhound, right? And so that baying was echoing through the building. I had him with me for about 30 to 35 minutes. We did a little bit of that training and you can see that transition happen. And within about five to eight minutes of making that transition, he is laid out flat, almost snoring, by being able to achieve that decompression. So it’s, it’s magical when we’re able to do it, whether it’s in a long training span or even just in a single session. Magical. I love it.

KB: I’m so glad you said that it was magical, because I’m reading this session description thinking, like, this sounds amazing and I need to figure out how to do this. So can you talk to us a little bit about these techniques? Is this pharmaceuticals? Is this aromatherapy? Is this magic mushrooms or wizardry and witchcraft? Like, what does that entail?

CP: Well, we can use meds to facilitate relaxation and for dogs who are really struggling in these areas. Sometimes that’s part of the collaborative treatment process. But the technique in and of itself, it’s all about training and reinforcement. And so, at a core level, the way that I was working with Rex here in the office this morning, for example, is we start out with some small, tasty but generally not super high-value food treats. And I reward him for moving into a sit. And then into a down position, very typical of regular lure reward reinforcement based training. But the moment we get into that relaxed down, that’s where it kind of starts to go in a little bit of a different direction. And so when I have a dog in that sort of sphinx position where their legs are still kind of very much tucked up underneath them, and they could pop right back up to their feet at a moment’s notice, at that point, what we do is we try to lure using that same food treat, luring like we’re trying to make their nose touch their shoulder. And so I’m really just kind of bringing their nose gently to the side, sometimes all in one movement, sometimes in a couple of approximations. But as I start to move the head and neck in that way, not because I’m physically moving it, but as the animal is voluntarily doing that, we start to get a C curve in the posture and the spine. And if I continue moving that food treat around as I go just a little bit farther, then we get those hips flipping into a lateral position. And so without having to poke or prod or manipulate or restrain, I now have a dog who settles in and takes that initial breath and then we can mark and reward that.

Now some dogs at that point in time, while their physical posture may have moved, they’re still very much in working mode at that point in time, or maybe the food is keeping them a little bit more amped. So we continue down that process, either by starting to slow down the food delivery, perhaps by feeding rather than right up to their mouth, keeping them engaged and up and forward. I’m feeding that food treat or I’m placing that food treat down on the floor kind of by their elbow. So I’m kind of grounding them into the ground with this slow, smooth, low arousal reinforcement history. Once we start to see that whole process moving in that direction, then we can start to make some modifications and really start to develop the skill. But for most of my patients, with the exception of some of those who really, really struggle, we can see immediate improvements, usually within the first session.

MC: So I think we’re, we’re both assuming that like some of the techniques that you’ll use will vary based on the animal, because I’m thinking about, you know, dogs that may have, you know, a great grasp of the basic commands and then those who don’t. So does the timeline and the process take, you know, is it different based on the maturity of the animal?

CP: So it varies on a lot of factors, but when I’m starting to work with an individual dog, I hesitate to predict which of those factors are really going to be meaningful for that particular dog. You know, in some cases we may say, Oh, well, this is a dog who’s got a lot of training history, so they’re going to pick this up like nothing. Well, that might be helpful because this is an animal who has already really learned how to learn and they’ve practiced that. But sometimes they have now a high frequency or a high rate of reinforcement for high-arousal active behaviors. So sometimes that long training history actually gets in the way of them learning how to just be. 

I think, potentially some listeners to this podcast within the veterinary space, some of us who tend to be more, I’m going to call us type A doers. I don’t know, some of us struggle a little bit with just being in life. And yeah, like we’re all raising our hands here, right? Like, yeah, it’s really hard for me. And a lot of my canine patients, especially those with a lot of training history are really good at doing, but struggle with being. And so in some cases that works against us, whereas in other cases, you know, sometimes the novel dog, like Rex here in the office, picks up on it really quickly. He doesn’t know a lot of skills yet, he doesn’t know a lot of cues, but he can make connections. And so as soon as I help him to understand the relationship between his behavior and the timing of food reinforcement or other reinforcers, his brain lights up and says, “Ooh, I liked that outcome. I can do more of that.” And now that breathing starts to change and we start to see that whole shift. So, lots of factors, but every dog is truly an individual.

KB: Does it ever get to the point where the animals relax on their own, or do you kind of always have to cue them?

CP: That’s a great question. Yeah, I would say for most of my patients, what we start to see, even within the first couple of training sessions as we’re starting to build that reinforcement history, is that it’s… I hate to say this because I don’t actually know what’s going through their minds, right? I’m good, but I’m not that good! But it seems like just going through that process of settling and taking the deep breath has an inherent reinforcing quality to it on its own. And so for a lot of those dogs, as we start to create that reinforcement history, we see them offering and spontaneously performing that behavior and other times, whether they’re in training mode or as they’re winding down at the end of the day, or as they transition back into the house after a vigorous walk or any of those other activities. So it’s fascinating to see how their brains start to really opt in for some of those experiences. 

KB: One of your other sessions that you’re going to be covering is about canine separation anxiety and in particular prescribing for it, and how do you determine if a medication is appropriate? In just talking about what we’re talking about right now, it makes me wonder, in this post-COVID world, do you see a lot more separation anxiety in animals and is it different from how it was before COVID?

CP: Yeah, I think there’s a lot of complexity within the behavior cases that we’re seeing these days. And by, you know, by these days, I say even in the last three to five years, even I would argue pre COVID, but especially now, there’s a lot of stress in the world. There’s a lot of complicated lives. There’s a lot of lives that have been overturned or upturned or uprooted or whatever label we put on that. And the animals that share our homes are not immune to those stresses. And so I see a lot of really complicated cases, whether we’re dealing with complicated lives and the impact of that on the emotional well being of the animals, or perhaps even as we’re seeing you know, a lot more recognition of the way in which pain or physical ailments can manifest as behavioral disorders as well. And we really see those patterns coming through. 

So we as veterinary behaviorists really have to be incredibly astute to peel back those layers and try to figure out, is this something that I can get through with training relaxation, for example—like asking somebody to do yoga or do some meditation? Or is that maybe a part of the solution, but that individual is actually going to need some significant help? And maybe we won’t need medication in the long term, but we may use that medication as a bit of a scaffolding around the behavioral profile of that animal to help them shift their emotional and behavioral patterns. And once that gets sort of moving in the right direction, we have that momentum, ideally, we’d then be able to start peeling away that scaffolding and have that animal sort of go on without the additional support.

With that being said, if an animal needs long-term medication, there’s no shame in that. Right? It’s something that we have the opportunity to be able to provide. And I’m grateful that the majority of the medications that we reach for are very well tolerated by the majority of our patients. So we have to kind of figure out which tool in the toolbox am I reaching for to help an individual dog with that progress.

KB: It’s so interesting because it sounds so much like what people go through, too. And I know, like, when my husband and I are really stressed out, the dogs will pick up on that. And I’m curious, do you ever work both with the human on their relaxation in tandem with the dog? Because I feel like they would be linked.

CP: Yeah, they’re often connected. It’s one of the things that I as a behaviorist can recognize. You know, I was talking about Rex here and the relationship between behavior and consequences. We also recognize the relationship between antecedents, or those conditions under which behaviors are more likely to occur. So if I’m looking at the behavior of the animal and I’m seeing panting, pacing, drooling, whining, attention seeking behaviors, and those are happening exclusively, or perhaps more likely to happen when we have a condition in the household that includes owner stress. Bingo. Now we’ve got our relationship there.

And while it’s never my job to step in and pretend to be a marriage and family therapist or a human counselor—that’s above my pay grade—I can recognize that relationship and acknowledge that to my clients. And if that’s something that we need to be able to address in order to move in the right direction, I’ve got some ways of bringing up some of those: Do you have somebody you can lean on for support as you navigate the stress in your own world, as I’m asking you to take on more for the dog that’s living with you? Do you have support you can lean on? And if not, then we can make a segue into what that might look like for them to reach out and get some additional help themselves.

KB: So, you might not be, like, technically qualified to do family counseling, but it sounds like you have a little bit of experience. And I wonder, if people are not ready to acknowledge that they have a problem or they need help, can that ever hinder what you’re doing with the dog and kind of interrupt that progress?

CP: It absolutely can, and it’s something that, in the early days of my career, as I was learning about a lot of these patterns and how these relationships show up and what they look like and how to recognize them and, and understanding again, what’s within my scope and what’s outside of my scope to address, I sort of jokingly said at that point, I was learning how to become a professional door opener, in that if I’m talking with a client, I can invite them through a door that I’ve opened and basically say, Hey, do you have someone you can lean on for support? And I sort of just prop that door open. If that, if that person chooses to walk through and they lean into that conversation, awesome. Now we’re meeting again at the same room and we can have that conversation. If that is not a comfortable place and I see the owner physically or conversationally moving away from that door, awesome. I’m just going to leave that door open and we’re going to move right down the hallway, and let’s see if we can find another door. And when you find a door that’s comfortable for you to walk through, I’ll meet you on the other side. And in the meantime, if you need to stay in the hallway for a really, really long time, we can do that. But the solutions are usually in the other side of the door to some degree, kind of going with this analogy. And so if we, if we’re finding that we just can’t get there, there absolutely are cases where then that becomes the conversation. Where I can recognize that there are certain things that I believe, based on clinical experience or research, would need to shift in order to see the progress they’re looking for and that I can have a difficult conversation with that particular owner and say, hey, you’re looking for something that I don’t think is going to happen under these conditions. What can we shift? And then we take it from there.

MC: I think Krysten and I are going to be sitting in on your sessions.

KB: Yeah, we’re just going to disappear for two days. No one’s going to know where to find us.

MC: Turn locations off on the iPhone!

CP: Well, I will welcome you with open arms, because there’s so many of these things that we’re talking about within these sessions, whether it’s the two that have been mentioned so far or whether we’re thinking about incorporating behavior into kitten exams or, you know, any of the other strategies that we’re going to be talking about. There’s a lot of universal concepts here when we talk about stress and wellness versus illness and how does that show up for living creatures and what are the inroads to moving the needle, to be able to make additional progress. And so it’s something that I really, really love, not only presenting on, but truly inviting conversation around so that, you know, the questions that get introduced within session, they teach me just as much as I’m teaching people in the audience. They’re teaching me about what, what do they need to know? What are the cases that they’ve encountered where these particular skills or this knowledge could be helpful? So I will invite anyone and everyone into that space to share in that collective learning experience.

MC: Awesome.

KB: You teased this a little bit, but in addition to the sessions that you’ve mentioned, what else are you going to be covering?

CP: Oh, that’s a great question. We’ve got 12 topics, as you mentioned, which makes for a really dry palate by the time we finish up with that. But we’re also going to be talking about some pitfalls in canine socialization. We’re going to be talking about the teenage phase of dog development. We’re going to be talking about stress associated conditions in cats, as well as patterns of reactivity and resource guarding in dogs. We will have a conversation around the topic of behavioral euthanasia, which is always a, It’s an enlightening conversation to have. It’s something that we’re kind of bringing out of the shadows a bit more as, as the veterinary field evolves. But it’s definitely something that I think is a really helpful conversation to have. And then we’re also talking about the medical model and how that applies to behavior cases, as well as what do you do with a history form? All of that information that we get from our clients where they’re, you know, dumping a lifetime’s amount of knowledge and data in our laps… what do we do with it? So we’ll be looking at all of those things over the course of the two days.

KB: That was a beautifully brief summary, so kudos to you! But on a more serious note, picking up on one of the sessions you just teased… Behavioral euthanasia isn’t something that anyone really wants to talk about, but it is a reality in some cases. I’m curious, how common is it versus a strategy like rehoming?

CP: I would say for my current patient population, it most often comes up when we’re talking about aggression. There are quality-of-life concerns where rehoming is a more viable option, but it often comes up when we have a client who says, “You know what, I just can’t do this anymore. There’s a safety risk. It’s just not working.” And so we talk a lot about rehoming. The reality is, in many cases—again, at least for our patient population—by the time we get to that level, we’re usually talking about some pretty significant issues, and that’s a lot for someone else to step into as well. So sometimes rehoming is a viable option. Sometimes it’s just not something that we will talk a bit about within that behavioral euthanasia discussion. Not to say that euthanasia is the only other option. But when there are significant quality-of-life concerns, or there’s safety risks that we just can’t mitigate in a way that works for everybody, sometimes euthanasia is the outcome that makes the most sense. And we all have big feelings in one way or another around that topic—whether it’s sadness or anger or disgust, even, that we would consider that. And those are all emotional responses that we can get into in that session.

KB: Do you find that, when it comes to that and you do make that recommendation for euthanasia, do you have clients that, like, feel relieved that that is the option they have?

CP: Yeah. Sometimes the owners will describe it as, you know, being given permission, where it’s something that they sort of know that that’s the right option for them for whatever reason. And, you know, the guilt, the shame, the heartache that goes along with that just won’t allow them to make that decision on their own. It’s rare, truly rare. I can count on one hand the number of times where I’ve truly recommended euthanasia. But we talk about it as an option, you know, not unlike the way that a veterinarian would talk about let’s say a dog comes in with a hind limb lameness, and we diagnose a cruciate tear. It’s not my job as the veterinarian to tell them whether they should do a TPLO or a TTA or physical therapy or carprofen. They’re all options. We just have to kind of have that conversation: these are the pros and cons, these are the prognostic indicators, these are the things that you can expect in terms of outcome. What do you want to do? And so for me, when we’re having that euthanasia discussion, it goes down a very similar pathway, where it’s not here’s what you should do. It’s these are the options that you have at this fork in the road. What do you want to do next?

KB: I think that’s really encouraging that you’ve only recommended it a handful of times. It sounds like for most issues, there’s something that can be done.

CP: There usually is, yeah. And you know, and sometimes when we’re, when we’re having that conversation, you know, part of what we’re trying to figure out, and this actually goes back to something we were talking about earlier, is that, you know, when we’re trying to figure out what can shift, sometimes it’s the behavior of the animal. Sometimes it’s the environment. Sometimes it’s our expectations and what we think that animal should be able to handle. And so the shift can happen in a lot of different ways. And, you know, I never want to be the one who says, well, there’s only one way forward. It’s really where can we be wiggly? Where can, where can we adjust? 

KB: Where can we be wiggly? I like that.

MC: So for those who may be attending the MVC for the first time or who may not have heard you speak before, can you tell us a little bit about what they can expect from your presentation style when they show up to listen and learn?

CP: Oh, that’s a great question. Nobody’s ever asked me that. Well done. So, you know, in some ways I think it’s a lot like this, right? It’s a lot of conversation. I try to lay a foundation of base knowledge that we can all sort of connect over, but then it’s a matter of connecting some of those nuggets so that somebody who’s been practicing as a veterinarian or even as a veterinary behaviorist, you know, or some other element within the veterinary space if they’ve been practicing for a long time, I want to move beyond the core concepts and I really want for us to dive into some of these nuanced layers of what it looks like to really dive into these concepts, but I don’t want to leave anybody behind by doing so. So my goal is to never talk so high level or in depth or in that minutiae that somebody who doesn’t have that foundation knowledge is going to be lost or without something that they can also grasp on to. I try to kind of weave through those concepts as we go through. Here’s the concept; if that’s new to you, here’s the framework to ground yourself in this discussion, whatever it is we’re talking about. Let’s make some connections, and let’s see where this conversation can take us. And ideally, folks have a good time in the process, and if they have questions that come to mind for them, they get the opportunity to ask those questions in an interactive session as well. So hopefully all of those things happen.

MC: So it sounds like the broad audience of our attendeeship will be comfortable in your session. So whether you’re a student all the way up to a practitioner, everybody’s welcome.

CP: Everybody’s going to find something. That’s my goal at least. You know, some of the topics are probably a little bit more, let’s say prescriber focused. You know, for some of those, there may be some certain nuances where going in a particular direction is going to be helpful. But overall, yeah, the concepts are going to be applicable to anybody who wants to show up.

MC: If anybody wants to get in contact with you, you know, after they hear this podcast or after Midwest, where’s the best place for them to contact you?

CP: The easiest place to find me is DrPachel.com. There you can find links to any and all of the things that I’m involved with, including podcast recordings like this one, as well as webinars and other recordings and articles that I’ve written collaboratively with folks around the world. All of that gets linked back to that particular site from there. Folks can find information about the Animal Behavior Clinic, as well as Instinct, which then kind of takes you down those rabbit holes of all of the different support options that we’re able to provide.

KB: Before we let you go, I just have one more very important question: Are you a dog person or a cat person?

CP: I love them both. I have a dog in my household now. I do not have a cat in my household. To some degree, that probably answers the question for me. I love the collaborative conversation that I get to have with dogs through training. And while there’s a lot of cats who absolutely love training as well, it looks a little different in cats than it does in dogs. And I love spending time with cats, but I’m probably 60/40 dog on this one. Don’t tell my cat fans.

KB: Your secret is safe with us and, you know, all of our listeners. (Laughs) Okay, one more thing before you go: We’re doing this new thing where we take selfies with all our podcast guests, so… Can we take a photo with you?

CP: Yes!

KB: Awesome. This is a new thing that we’re doing with our speakers and it turns out to be really fun. So you’ll see a countdown on your screen.

MC: Are we doing a serious or a funny one?

KB: Go with the wind! …. Did it do it?

MC: I can’t tell. It didn’t pop up on mine. I can’t see what we came up with.

KB: It says it’s putting it together. Please wait.

MC: Oh, it’s processing. 

CP: Guys, I love it!

KB: Well, we’re about out of time here, unfortunately, so I will table the rest of my questions for next time.

CP: Excellent. And I do hope there is a next time. This has been fun. 

KB: Absolutely. Yeah. Anytime you want to come back, we would love to have you.

CP: Excellent.

MC: Thank you so much for being here.

CP: You’re welcome. I look forward to being in Ohio!