Understanding Trauma in Rescue Dogs: Insights from Canine Behavior Expert Kate LaSala

In this insightful episode, Amy and canine behavior consultant Kate LaSala, CTC, CBCC-KA, PCBC-A, CSAT, FFCP-E, dive into the world of adopting rescue dogs, especially those with traumatic pasts or behavioral challenges. They discuss why understanding a dog’s history and needs goes beyond love alone, requiring structured training, patience, and empathy. Kate shares her personal journey as well as her experiences working with more than 2600 clients, highlighting that while love is vital, fearful dogs often need tailored training and an understanding approach to help them thrive.

Amy and Kate explore key aspects of responsible pet adoption, including the reality of adopting “project dogs” and the need for transparency from rescue organizations to set adopters up for success. They address common misconceptions about rescue dogs and discuss how shelter environments can impact a dog's behavior, but also their genetics, maternal care, socialization, and other factors that make a difference. This episode provides practical advice on navigating the financial and emotional commitments involved, along with management strategies to support a smooth transition for both the dog and adopter.

Listeners will gain valuable insights, including holiday preparation tips for new pet owners and the importance of realistic expectations. Through real-life success stories, Amy and Kate reveal the transformative potential of patient and compassionate care, proving that many rescue dogs can become well-adjusted pets with the right support.

Tune in for practical advice, heartfelt stories, and resources to help you make a lasting impact in the life of a rescue dog.

Learn more about Kate and her services and check out her extensive library of FREE resources including handouts, infographics, and her blog at: https://rescuedbytraining.com/

 Big changes are coming soon to Starlight Pet Talk! 🚀 We’re excited to share that we're evolving to bring you even more engaging content and fresh perspectives. Stay tuned for new features and exciting updates that will enhance your listening experience. We can’t wait to reveal what’s next—keep an eye out for more details! 

Chapters

• 0:00 Building Trust With Rescue Dogs
• 12:18 Understanding Rescue Dogs and Their Needs
• 22:14 Assessing Rescue Dogs for Adoption
• 34:56 Managing Situations for Rescue Dogs
• 46:07 Holiday Safety and Managing Dog Behavior
• 53:03 Rescuing Dogs

Transcript

Amy Castro: 0:00

Thinking about adopting a rescue dog, but you're worried about their unknown past. Although many rescue dogs adjust beautifully and haven't experienced trauma, some do come from difficult backgrounds or have experienced trauma simply by being in a shelter or rescue environment. My guest today, kate LaSala, will share how you can build trust with any rescue dog, how you can understand their unique needs and how you can turn initial uncertainty into a lifelong bond, whether your dog has experienced trauma or not. So stay tuned. You're listening to Starlight Pet Talk, a podcast for pet parents who want the best pet care advice from cat experts, dog trainers, veterinarians and other top pet professionals who will help you live your very best life with your pets. Welcome to Starlight Pet Talk.

Amy Castro: 0:48

I'm your host, amy Castro, and my guest today is Kate LaSalla. Kate is a multi-credentialed canine behavior consultant who specializes in fear, aggression, separation, anxiety and helping families with dogs who are struggling with newborns and toddlers. Her passion for senior dogs led her to become a companion animal end-of-life doula which we have to do a whole episode just on that, I think, but we'll talk about that later and she basically helps people with anticipatory grief, end-of-life planning and assisting her clients navigating stigmatized losses such as rehoming, surrendering and behavioral euthanasia. She serves behavior and doula clients worldwide via remote one-on-one sessions, so this is a multi-talented person I've been looking forward to having on the show. So, kate, thank you so much for being here with me today. Thanks for having me.

Kate LaSala: 1:37

I'm excited to talk to your audience.

Amy Castro: 1:39

Yes, and, like I said, I think we need to do more of these, because there were so many things that we got into discussing about oh, we could do this or we could do this, or I thought about this but we're starting with talking about, and what prompted me to focus in on this idea of traumatized dogs and bringing them home and helping them adjust is two things really. Number one as much as we hope that the holidays get people to thinking about, maybe this is a good time you know we're going to be off for a couple of weeks good time to bring a pet home, and I know a lot of people have strong feelings about whether pets should be given as gifts, and I don't believe they should be. I just want to make that clear right up front. I don't believe you should give a random person like your grandma even your grandma maybe not be random, but you shouldn't just give a pet but a pet. But if you are a grown adult human and you have decided that you are ready to bring a pet into your home and you want to make that a holiday thing for your kid, I think with the right planning and preparation, that's fine. So we're going to hit on that at the end.

Amy Castro: 2:33

But the other reason I wanted to talk about this subject is that I think many times people are hesitant about rescue dogs and I've heard this many times over the years. Is that well, I don't know what their past is, or maybe they've been abused, and there's a lot of assumptions that people make and some might end up being true and some might not end up being true. So I wanted to get into talking about that. But first, how did you get so involved and interested in focusing specifically on fear and trauma with dogs?

Kate LaSala: 3:04

So I have been an animal advocate for over three decades. I became a vegetarian as a teenager. I've really been a champion for animal welfare in lots of capacities rescuer, transporter, shelter worker, foster family. We've fostered not as many as you but over 60 dogs, volunteered, processing applications, all sorts of things like that. When Humane Society US was going through New Jersey to try to have townships ban new puppy mill stores from opening, I went to all these town council meetings to speak out against puppy mill stores. But really my training origin story started when we adopted our my soul dog, boo Boo. So she arrived from a transport van in Kentucky. We went to go meet her. The driver took her out, her collar snapped off and she bolted and she was gone for nine days before we even touched her before we even laid hands on this little dog, and so we spent nine days looking for her.

Kate LaSala: 4:02

When we finally caught her and brought her home, it was clear she was very fearful, and this wasn't my first experience with a fearful dog. Our very first dog as an adult bandit was aggressive. He had bitten seven people, including both myself and my husband, in the face. But that was long before I was a trainer, so I didn't know how to help him and everything I tried really just made him worse. That was long before I was a trainer, so I didn't know how to help him and everything I tried really just made him worse.

Kate LaSala: 4:26

And I knew, having Boo-Boo in front of me, that we owed it to her to do better. So I really embarked on this journey to learn as much as I could. I earned a scholarship to the Academy for Dog Trainers, which is sort of the Harvard of dog training academies Graduated with honors training academies graduated with honors, and from that point on I sort of dedicated my life to positive reinforcement, science-based, very kind training to help these types of dogs. So my passion for fearful and aggressive dogs just really deepened and I knew that I could empathize with clients who are struggling with that feeling of hopelessness and anger and fear and anxiety and all that heartbreak that comes with having a fearful or aggressive dog. I will point out we lost Boo Boo seven months ago and we had-.

Amy Castro: 5:15

I know I was following the journey through the blog posts.

Kate LaSala: 5:19

Yeah, I've been chronicling as part of my doula work. I've been chronicling my own grief journey to sort of help clients and to get it out there. You know, I think it's really helpful. You know, death is not a topic that Americans in particular really embrace talking about, so I think being really transparent about my own grief journey has been helpful to a lot of other people. So we lost Boo Boo seven months ago. We had lost our other senior dog, mr Barbo, the year before that and so, like you mentioned in my intro, senior dogs really drove me to my doula work. So that's a separate part of my sort of behavior practice but it's something that I incorporate into my practice. And because I focus on fear and aggression, I do have a percentage of clients every year that are faced with rehoming or surrendering or even behavioral euthanasia, and there's not a lot of supportive, positive resources for that. So having that be sort of in my toolbox as something that I can offer clients I think is really helpful.

Amy Castro: 6:17

Yeah, definitely. I mean because life with dogs, life with all animals, but we're focusing on dogs today I mean it's a 360 degree thing. Things come at you from different directions and you don't know what's going to happen. You know you might be in one position at this point and five years later you're on a completely different position, and so, having a resource like yourself, to me the credentialing is very important. I know that the dog training world is very unregulated and I know that one of the things, because I've had trainers reach out to me and they want to be on the show and it's like have you done anything to even attempt? And it's like, oh, you know, I've learned from this. And it's like you know, at least there are resources out there to get that science-based background, and I think there's a lot of trainers that don't take advantage of that. So more power to you for seeking that out, for sure. Yeah.

Kate LaSala: 7:03

And it's not commonly known. I think people just assume that if someone's out there calling themselves a dog trainer, that they must have education or credentialing or licensing. You need a license to give someone a manicure or cut their hair, but you don't need any sort of licensing to train dogs, and that's a living creature that you could actually damage. So professional licensure is not required to call yourself a dog trainer. In the United States, nothing is stopping anyone from waking up one morning and saying I'm going to be a dog trainer today and hanging a shingle and start collecting money from people. So there's no legal or education requirements required and that leaves the door open for any method being allowed to quote train dogs. So that includes shock collars, prong collars. You know there's no overseeing authority ensuring that people are working in an ethical, humane way.

Amy Castro: 7:56

Yeah, such a good point. One of the things that I know I ran into a lot when I was volunteering because, like you, I volunteered at a shelter for many years. A lot when I was volunteering because, like you, I volunteered at a shelter for many years and we did see a lot of fearful dogs and many times the staff doesn't know how to deal with them. You know, it's like they're less worried about it when it's a little dog because it's like, okay, it's not going to eat your face off. But with larger dogs who might have fear or fear aggression, you know, oftentimes they end up getting euthanized or they get pawned off on the unsuspecting public. And now I'm an inexperienced dog owner that's trying to deal with these things. So when we're talking about fear and trauma, I guess I know what I've seen. But what kind of things do you see or are people facing when it comes to this?

Kate LaSala: 8:41

So I think it's helpful to understand why animals are prone to fear in the first place. You know it has a role in survival in the wild. Fear is an evolutionary advantage to a certain degree. So fear is how animals instinctively avoid injury, disease or even death. If you're not certain, is that a tree or is that a lion? I'm not sure it's better to be afraid of it because if not, if I make the wrong choice, I could end up injured or dead. So as long as that animal's fear doesn't prevent them from survival, so mating, procuring food, it has an evolutionary purpose and that animal survives to mate and pass on their somewhat fearful but survivalist genes to their offspring.

Kate LaSala: 9:26

Obviously, domesticated dogs, they don't need to have that because we're bringing them into our homes and we're providing for them, but they're animals. There's still that element of fight or flight and survival instincts. So in dogs, fear can come from five different places. So it can come from genetics. It can come from maternal fear. Fear can come from five different places. So it can come from genetics, can come from maternal fear. It can come from maternal behavior, lack of socialization and bad experiences. So, contrary to what everyone thinks, oh, I'll get a puppy and I'll raise them and it's all how you raise them. That's completely not true. You cannot discount genetics or early life experiences. So in dogs they have a very sort of spongy window. The first 12 weeks of life is what we call their critical socialization window and in that window anything good or bad that happens to them has a really formative impact into adulthood. So if we think about even dogs coming from a breeder interesting sort of side note during COVID overwhelmingly more than 80% of my dogs that I had as clients during COVID came from some sort of breeder, primarily doodle breeders, because everyone wanted to doodle during COVID and all the rescues and good breeders sold out and they had very long waitlists. Good breeders sold out and they had very long wait lists and so what was left were Amish puppy mills and all these places that were very unscrupulous in their breeding practices, pushing out tons of fearful dogs. So even getting a dog from a breeder doesn't necessarily protect you from not having a fearful dog. So if that breeder doesn't do the right things in those first 12 weeks of life and most breeders hang on to their dogs until about eight or 10 weeks most of that critical socialization window is out of the owner's control, because we're getting dogs usually when that window is closing.

Kate LaSala: 11:21

So, understanding what are the parents like? You know, when I have people who want a puppy and they're going to a breeder, I always encourage them to meet both parents, because if mom and dad are showing fearful behaviors, they're they're afraid of strangers. You go to reach out to pet them and they kind of pull themselves back or they're not overtly pro-social. You know we've all seen bouncy happy puppies that just bound up to you and are like hi, love me, play with me, touch me. That's a pro-social dog.

Kate LaSala: 11:51

So absence of pro-social behavior is a huge red flag in dogs. So if mom and dad are not pro-social or they have a history of separation, anxiety or resource, resource guarding or body handling issues, all of those things can be passed genetically. So genetics is a huge piece. Obviously, with rescue dogs we don't usually know their genetic history and it is a little bit of a risk. But I still advocate for rescue because there are very few breeders that actually do it right. I probably have a list of maybe five breeders that I would say actually do it right, there's a lot of things that are outside of our control, right.

Amy Castro: 12:36

But the socialization piece is within somebody's control. And when you're talking about a person that's a responsible breeder, they breed a manageable number of animals so that they can do that properly at the proper time. And so, really asking questions, if you're going to get a dog from a breeder and finding out what have they done, you know, if you're getting that puppy at 16 weeks, let's say what has been done, what have they been exposed to? And another thing I've been thinking about the shelter environment. I think sometimes people think oh well, if I have to choose between this adult dog here who's two years old, and these puppies over here who are 16, 18 weeks, I'm going to go with the puppy because then I can mold it and whatever.

Kate LaSala: 13:17

But you've already missed that window, you've missed that window and I push for three years and older because then what you see is what you get.

Kate LaSala: 13:25

If a dog is going to have behavior issues barring medical changes or pain or something like that, once a dog reaches three years old they are socially mature. There's very little movement in behavior and temperament once a dog is three and older. So even if you get a puppy and you do all the right things during that critical socialization window, there are some dogs that when they go through social maturity between two and three they have extreme behavior changes. So I've had clients say I've been taking my dog to the dog park or daycare. You know his entire life and he's. He turned three years old and now he's snarking off dogs that come into the dog park or he's picking fights at daycare. And that is just an element of social maturity very often.

Kate LaSala: 14:10

And so you can do all the right things with a puppy. It does not guarantee that it's going to end up fine as an adult. But if you get an adult dog, you get a three-year-old dog. What you see is what you get. You can assess if they have resource guarding or body handling issues and then you go into a better educated knowing. Okay, this dog guards his food. We can work with that. We can modify that behavior. It's not a deal breaker. You got a puppy? Yeah, maybe it's not guarding food early on. But if you don't do the right things or that dog goes through social maturity, you might end up with a dog who decides he doesn't like people or dogs as a three-year-old, yeah, and that's where that education comes into play.

Amy Castro: 14:49

And I think too many times people think, oh, it seems like a happy-go-lucky puppy, so I don't have to do anything, all I have to do is potty train. Like they're so focused on the wrong things Although I mean, obviously we want our pets to be potty trained, I get it but they're focused on teaching it sit and they're focused on the potty training but they're not focused on socializing it. And you know, you talk about COVID. I mean that was probably the worst possible time for anybody to get a puppy, because you can't socialize it, because you can't get it around other people and other dogs, and so I'm seeing the fallout of that.

Kate LaSala: 15:19

Now you know, years post COVID, dogs with separation anxiety, dogs with incredible fear of strangers because they were isolated and they were only around their familiar family members and then when they went out onto the streets of Brooklyn they're like, holy crap, who are all these people that look different than my family? The dogs that I have big concerns about in the rescue world are ones that come from known bad experiences. So you know, one of those ways you acquire fear in dogs is bad experiences. So if we think of things like puppy mills or meat markets in Asia or street dogs, you know, coming over from wherever they're coming, those dogs are more prone to have fear issues. Just because of genetics.

Kate LaSala: 16:07

Probably, you know, stray dogs are probably coming from a dog who was also a stray, so they weren't being raised in a nice comfy house with love and and all the good things. But dogs coming from places like puppy mills that are just breeding for money, living in a cage, they're not getting socialized, they're not getting any good experiences in that critical window. Even when they get out, if they seem like they're a bouncy, happy puppy, there is a much stronger likelihood that they are going to develop issues later on. So puppy mills, meat market dogs, dogs transported from overseas, that were. You know, puerto Rico has what has been not very affectionately called dead dog beach, which is basically where lots of dogs get dumped on the beach, lots of strays. There's lots of efforts Sado Project and other rescues do lots of efforts to go in and spay, neuter and to pick up the puppies and try to socialize them and transport them here for adoption. But you know Indian street dogs, lots of dogs coming from Thailand and other places. What about?

Amy Castro: 17:15

Houston street dogs. Yeah, I mean the city of Houston, I mean, and there are groups in our area. I mean. I could talk all day long about the challenges and you know what the challenges in rescue and the different beliefs and views like. I am not a believer that everything can be rescued or saved, you know, and and there are people that believe even more strongly than I do about that and believe that anything that would be fearful, no, we're not going to deal with that. And then you've got people on the other extreme that everything could be saved, and I think what it does is it puts the adopting public in a bad position.

Amy Castro: 17:51

So I'm rounding up these dogs wherever I am, whether it's Puerto Rico, whether it's here in Houston, I'm rounding up these street dogs. I'm telling their sad, sad tale on Facebook. And then the person I think a lot of times when people are adopting, they're so focused on I want to save that dog that they're not focused on. Am I capable of managing the issues that could go along with that dog? And I don't know that many rescues do themselves a service, like you know, even just something as simple as even when you try to be transparent, and you know we've had dogs where I've clearly put on there no kids are like I know for a fact, like anything that's going to be at eye level, you know, like it needs to be adult human beings.

Amy Castro: 18:32

Okay, fine, you've got a 15 year old. From the dog's perspective that's probably close to an adult human being. But then I'll have like 20 applications from people that have toddlers and it's like how much more clear can I say this dog will probably bite your toddler, you know, maybe. And then the question becomes maybe I shouldn't be adopting out dogs that could bite a toddler and it just it spins out into this whole, this whole thing. But going back to the issue of when somebody wants to do the right thing by saving one of these dogs, it's a great story, but you got to live with the consequences. So what are people supposed to do? I think there's some misconceptions.

Kate LaSala: 19:09

You know like it tugs at those heartstrings and people want to be that savior, they want to be that hero. Oh, this is her origin story. I saved her. You know she would have died if it weren't for me.

Kate LaSala: 19:18

But I think the biggest misconception is that dogs just need love. Like oh, he just needs a place to land, a soft place to land, and he just needs to be loved. And these dogs need so much more than love. They need training, they usually need medication, they need a home that is going to be understanding and make their world small and not bring in lots of strangers because that dog is possibly afraid of strangers. They need to understand what loving a fearful dog really means. And I think that is a big misstep between a lot of rescues and sort of well-meaning advice giving public like oh, you got this sad dog, oh, he just needs love, and similar to the idea of when a dog comes home, how much time do they need?

Kate LaSala: 20:06

Like there's all sorts of well-meaning advice that gets thrown around on social media. That is actually potentially very harmful information because it delays people from getting real professional help with these dogs that need structured training in the right way. It's not just throwing food at the dog. I mean, that's a big part of what we do. We use food in training. But if you don't do it the right way, you're not going to get results. And so people thinking that they're just going to love the dog and our idea of love usually means touching or hugging or or bringing them close to us and many fearful dogs that's the last thing they want. They want space, they want distance. They don't want you to touch them. So you're not proving anything by touching them to prove that you're not a threat. You're actually teaching the dog that you are a threat if you're forcing yourself into their space or forcing yourself on them, when most fearful dogs need to go at their own pace and they need to be the ones to decide when they feel comfortable to have an interaction with you.

Amy Castro: 21:08

Yeah, If I am just Joe Public and I'm going to get a dog and I don't see that bouncy happy-go-lucky and I want to try to give that dog. Maybe it's kind of sitting quietly in the corner of the cage like how should that progression work? Because you mentioned the social media and I know you wrote a blog post about the whole three, three, three.

Amy Castro: 21:28

You know there's there's different numbers that get thrown out you know, three days to do this, three weeks to do that, three months to do that. And I know where some of that comes from, because we have we have a 72 hour joke around our house and the 72 hour joke is in the first 72 hours it's going to seem like a really quiet, well-behaved dog, because it's terrified and it has no idea what it's doing here. And I'm not talking about a fearful dog, I'm just talking about a regular, regular dog. But it's a completely new environment and it's like, wow, this dog is so mellow, this dog is so quiet, this dog is so good with everybody. And boy, a couple of days later it's bouncing off the walls and eating the sofa. And boy, a couple of days later, it's bouncing off the walls and eating the sofa.

Kate LaSala: 22:08

It's like where did that come from? There's reasons for that, yeah, yeah. So the 3-3-3 rule, kind of what you said. It sort of suggests that it takes three days to decompress to their new surroundings, three weeks for them to learn the routine and then three months for them to feel entirely comfortable. And I think it's a very oversimplified way of setting owners and dogs up for the trajectory that they should be on.

Kate LaSala: 22:32

And the harm in that is one if that is what people think is normal and their dog doesn't fit into that mold, then they're going to start to think, oh, there's something wrong with this dog. That alone can affect that relationship and bonding. But really, more importantly, if people are sort of waiting out these timelines, it delays them in getting actual help. If you have a dog who is so terrified that they're not approaching, they're not eating in front of you, that you're not able to touch them, and that goes on for more than a couple of days them, and that goes on for more than a couple of days, you shouldn't be waiting for weeks or months to wait it out and think, oh, I just need to get through this period of time and then he'll be totally fine If that dog is showing incredible signs of fear or aggression or anxiety, we need to get that dog help immediately.

Amy Castro: 23:21

We don't want to wait and let them rehearse that anxiety and rehearse those unwanted behaviors and you're probably doing things along the way, like you said, reaching out and touching them, or I think people try to talk their way through a scenario with a dog and it's like I tell people, dogs don't understand intent.

Kate LaSala: 23:40

Your intention might be good. Oh, I'm going to give you chicken, I'm going to reach out and hand feed you. And I tell you, do not hand feed fearful dogs. By definition, to hand feed a dog you have to invade their personal space. You have to get close enough to their mouth to deliver food. If a dog is not approaching you, they're fearful. They don't want to be close to you. So if you're coercing them to come closer because you have food or you're trying to approach them with food, I've had clients come to me after they tried that and they said the dog took the chicken and then he bit my hand. Because once the the chicken is gone, then all that remains is this scary hand in my personal bubble and that makes me uncomfortable. So I want that to go away.

Kate LaSala: 24:24

So I'm gonna bite you, remembering in those early days you're a stranger to the dog. They've been bounced around, they were astray. They got picked up. They were by animal control. They got put in a shelter, then they got picked up by a rescue, then they went into a foster home and now they're with you. Like these dogs have had such a journey and by the time they get to you. They don't know that that's the last stop on the train, that this is supposed to be their forever home.

Kate LaSala: 24:49

So you're a stranger to that dog. You have to let the dog call the shots and go at the dog's pace and I said it before, keep his world small, you know. Don't force leash walks. Don't think, oh, I'm going to put a leash on you. We're going to walk around the neighborhood. There may be cases where that dog is pottying inside for weeks or months because they're too afraid to go outside, especially if they've come from a rural location you know, they've from down South and they get transported to Brooklyn or or DC or wherever, and these are really busy urban areas and this is not what the dog is used to. They probably don't want to go outside because that's loud. There's cars, there's buses, there's people, there's all sorts of things that they are not acclimated to the average person is probably not equipped to acclimate them to it.

Kate LaSala: 25:36

Right and so forcing them to do those leash walks is going to make them worse. It's not going to help them quote unquote get over it or get used to it. It's actually going to make their fear and aggression. If they are aggressive, it's going to make their fear issues worse, which can lead to aggression.

Amy Castro: 25:50

Yeah, if I choose to take on anything other than the dog that bounds through my door, jumps on the sofa, because I have had some like that, that it's just like you know they probably hadn't had anything traumatic or they got over it or whatever, but it's like they adjust perfectly well. And then I've had some that didn't even know what to do once they got on the tile and they were just kind of like whoa. And then I've had the fear biters and I've had you know kind of everything in between. But for your average person like how do they know when they need an intervention? And are there things I should be doing when I'm at the rescue, visiting the dog or at the shelter? That lets me know more what I'm getting myself into.

Amy Castro: 26:27

Because, speaking from somebody who volunteered at a shelter, I hope rescues are different or slightly better. But because of the incredible lack of animal behavior knowledge on the part of the paid staff, in many situations they can't help you with anything. You know they don't hardly know the dog, they haven't really interacted, all they do is feed it and let it out in many instances, and so they're not going to be much help in helping you make that decision whether this dog is appropriate for you and what you need to do when you get it home. It's just going to be like give me your 50 bucks and bye, here's your dog.

Kate LaSala: 27:01

Yeah. So I think transparency is a big thing, you know, asking them what they really do know about the dog's history and getting a clear picture on that. I volunteered for a long time with a very bad rescue. I did not know it was bad at the time, but it became apparent once I was volunteering with them for a long time that was intentionally lying to adopters and hiding medical information A dog that was recovered from Parvo. They wouldn't tell the adopter that that dog had Parvo. And even when a dog recovers from Parvo, that predisposes them to future medical issues later on in life. So knowing that that puppy had Parvo, even if they've recovered from it, is an important piece of that dog's medical history. So intentionally hiding that information from an adopter is terrible. But similarly behavioral or training history.

Kate LaSala: 27:53

A lot of shelters are required to do behavioral assessments like a safer test to look for things like resource guarding and body handling issues and things like that. There is some discrepancy on whether that's valuable information or not. Of course the dog comes into the shelter. They do this test within the first 24 hours. The dog is stressed out. They may behave differently than they would a week or two later. So some shelters do repeat that the shelter I was in we did repeat that after a period of time if the dog was still there. But by our insurance rules we were required to have a behavioral assessment for every dog over the age of three months when they first came in. So we did these safer tests and so if there is a behavioral assessment you should be able to look at that. You should ask about that.

Kate LaSala: 28:46

If the dog has been in foster, you should be able to talk to the foster family to get an idea of how that dog behaves in a real home outside of a shelter environment. Some places offer foster to adopt situations to make sure that that's a good fit for your family because if it's not, the rescue or shelter would rather that dog come back right away than to be in your home for six months or a year and then have you call and be like I don't want this dog anymore. So you know, depending on the organization you're working with, there may be different options. But you're right, most places don't have qualified behavior staff that actually knows what they're doing. So I do generally recommend people try to meet the dog more than once and not just go and meet the dog and then decide on the spot. Okay, this is it. But some organizations may not be open to sort of quote unquote, wasting time on multiple meet and greets.

Amy Castro: 29:40

Well, and in a shelter environment too, I mean. A lot of times it may be a matter of that animal could be euthanized if you waited to come back in five days, or somebody else is going to get it, which I'm kind of of the philosophy that if it's meant to be, it's meant to be. But you also could be missing out on the prime dog if you think about it. So people do tend to. I've decided I want a dog, I'm going to be getting one today, and you've got to find some balance within that, I think for sure.

Kate LaSala: 30:07

Yeah, and I think you know if you can spend some time with the dog with the sort of understanding that this is a stressful environment for the dog when you're meeting them especially if it's in a shelter and not in a foster home or something like that and sort of look at the trajectory over the hour, 30 minutes or 60 minutes that you spend with that dog.

Kate LaSala: 30:28

Is there some degree of increased warmup? If you toss food, will they go and get it? If you squeak a toy, do they kind of perk up or are they completely shut down, you know, burying your face in a corner, not looking at you, not responding to anything. And those dogs still deserve to be adopted, even if that's their behavior. But then you go into it knowing that this is a project dog. You are going into it knowing this is going to be work. This is not going to be an easy dog probably, but if you want to be that hero, you want to be that savior, then at least you're educated and knowing what you're getting into and you're not being surprised by lack of transparency or lack of information.

Amy Castro: 31:34

Right, it's a two-sided thing. Obviously, as adopters you need to go into it with your eyes open. You've got to ask, you know. Just to kind of summarize, you know, asking those questions about health history, ask to see those vet records, ask to see the paper copy report, whatever electronic report of the temperament testing, and if people can't provide any of that then I would be very suspect as to whether it actually happened or not.

Amy Castro: 32:00

And then the other thing is when you say project, I mean you can be a savior and then be a failure savior, or you can be an open-eyed savior that realizes that this is going to be a project, and I think the momentary satisfaction that you get by saying I saved this dog, you're going to be stuck with that dog for 15 years or 10 years, and so are you really up to the task?

Amy Castro: 32:25

Be honest with yourself, it's not about that momentary social media post. And the rescues do a disservice too, because they're pushing, like you said, they're pushing the dogs out the door, whether they're lying, or they're lying by omission, or they just haven't taken the time to figure it out, or they don't have good return, like we have a lifetime return policy, so we don't. We don't necessarily even have to do a foster to adopt, although we can if you want to but basically you can give it the time you think you need to give it and we kind of go from there so it's, and we provide resources. You know, we'll provide training after care, we'll provide tools that we have found that work, I mean, we'll give that to people. It's about setting people up for success and the dog up for success, the people and the dogs exactly.

Kate LaSala: 33:06

And that's, you know, when rescues are not transparent about behavior or medical issues that they know of, you know, of course some problems might pop out that the rescue didn't know about, and that happens. But well-intentioned people who are committing to adopt an animal that they think is healthy or behaviorally sound and then have fallout, whether it's financial or emotional, because of misleading information. So if you have a project dog that is going to need a visit with a veterinary behaviorist, that's close to a thousand dollars. If they're going to need ongoing training, support with a qualified trainer, like me, that's going to be a good chunk of money, it's going to be a good chunk of time. It's going to be disruption to your life.

Kate LaSala: 33:48

If you have a dog with separation anxiety, you literally can't leave the dog alone ever. So that means paying for daycare or paying for a dog sitter or bringing the dog with you everywhere you go, because if you leave them alone they're having a panic attack and just locking them in a crate is not the solution for that. That does nothing to help their panic and it actually makes it worse. So you know there's financial implications, unexpected training or medical expenses. There's potentially the emotional fallback of realizing after the fact oh, I bit off more than I can chew and surrendering the dog back once you're emotionally attached to it, or if the dog has become aggressive in the family and it's no longer safe, then we're looking at behavioral euthanasia and that is crushing for the family to make that decision. So knowing what you're getting into is so important, and that is affected by both the transparency of the rescue or the shelter and the breeder if you're getting a dog from a breeder but also being realistic with yourself about what you can really handle.

Amy Castro: 34:56

Yeah, and I think another piece of it too. I don't remember if we said it here, but we definitely said it in our previous phone conversation. We were talking about fixing situations versus managing situations. So, just as an example, right now I've got a blind pit bull named Sassy, who is great with other dogs, she's great with cats, she's great with us, but she has bitten somebody. It wasn't a huge puncture bite, it was more of a kind of snip bite, for lack of a better term, and it was in a situation where there was a lot of chaos going on. There were dogs barking, there was noise, the person was very abrupt in how they were moving. There were dogs barking, there was noise, the person was very abrupt in how they were moving, and so it was not a situation for success for her and obviously we've not had a lot of interest in her, probably for a lot of other reasons.

Amy Castro: 35:46

She's got a lot of other physical history. Like I said, she's blind and you know she's not a puppy anyway. So here she sits, she sits at my house and it's like she is perfectly fine in in our environment, because we don't have a ton of visitors. We have no small children here that we have to worry about startling her. And if somebody comes over and I feel like she's not comfortable with that, because some people just don't know how to act around dogs. They're just too hyper, they're too touchy, they're too this and it's like OK, so-and-so is coming over. That's not going to be a good mix. We just put Sassy in the bedroom and we're fine, we're done with it.

Amy Castro: 36:22

And that's kind of where I was getting at with all this is like is it okay to just manage the situation and realize that the easiest thing to do would be to just put Sassy away if we ever have kids come over, because she's perfectly fine sleeping on my bed rather than me training a situation when I might have kids come over once every five years? You know it's different if I've got kids and they're having kids friends come over, that's a whole different ball of wax.

Kate LaSala: 36:45

So what are your?

Amy Castro: 36:46

thoughts about that.

Kate LaSala: 36:47

Yeah, management can be your solution for a lot, of, a lot of situations and management is something that we set up as pretty much step one, even if we're going to be doing training, because management prevents the problem from happening.

Kate LaSala: 37:03

So if you have a dog who's fearful or who struggles in a certain situation, if we manage that situation, we prevent the dog from being triggered, from being set off in that situation, which then prevents the dog from rehearsing unwanted behavior. So if you have a dog who's afraid of strangers, people coming in the house, and they bark and lunge and growl at people coming in the house, we don't want to give them opportunities to continue to rehearse and practice and get better at barking, lunging and growling at people, because then it becomes habitual, becomes something oh, I see a person, I bark, I lunge, I growl. That's what I do in this situation. If we can separate the dog, put them away, give them some sort of enrichment so that they're comfortable in that separation, we have now created a positive association when people come over because the dog has something awesome, that they're working on, I got to lay on the bed and eat cookies Exactly.

Kate LaSala: 37:54

Or I worked on my frozen Kong or I got a bully stick or whatever it is, and that happens when people come over suddenly. Now people predict something good instead of something scary. So we manage that situation without any training in that situation and then if we decide we want to embark on training, we have now set this dog up for success so that they're not always triggered when people are coming over and we can control the environment that we're training and by making sure people aren't getting too close and by using really high value food like chicken and cheese and meatballs and hot dogs and things like that. But management can be a hundred percent of the solution. I have clients who just don't have bandwidth for training.

Kate LaSala: 38:32

I had a couple come to me that had just had twins and they were both, you know, wall Street banker type people in New York City and they basically scheduled a session because they said we have twins, we have our dog, he's not comfortable. Can we just put him behind a baby gate? Is that okay? We want to make sure we're not going to break our dog if we separate him and I said, yes, that's, that's fine, but we have to make sure he's getting exercise and enrichment and his needs being met. We can't just isolate them and remove them entirely.

Kate LaSala: 39:07

There are things we want to do to make sure that they're still happy and having a good quality of life, but we don't necessarily have to do structured training at this point in time. If that's something you want to do later down the line, fine. But for now, to create safety for dog and babies and to make sure mom and dad are not like crazy of their mind trying to juggle dog and babies, we can put the dog behind a baby. That's totally fine, as long as that dog is comfortable. So we're managing that situation, we're keeping everyone safe and, ultimately, safety is paramount. Safety is the most important thing keeping the dog safe, keeping people safe.

Amy Castro: 39:45

The secondary aspect of the reinforcement of the bad behavior. Sometimes, when you're making those scenarios happen because you're trying so hard to fix them but you don't really know what you're doing, so better off to just prevent it. And then, when you do have the bandwidth or when you have the ability to hire somebody that's qualified to help you with it, then go at it from there.

Amy Castro: 40:04

So that's good to know. Are there any other things? Just to kind of talk about shelters and rescues? I mean we know there are bad ones, that we know there are ones that are dishonest, but are there other things that you think good meaning shelters and rescues could be doing better in helping people and dogs be more successful, especially these fearful dogs or dogs that have been traumatized?

Kate LaSala: 40:26

So you know, it comes back to sort of that transparency, being clear about expectations and setting realistic expectations. So even if they do say this dog was a street dog, he's really afraid of people. Having clear expectations about what that really means and not giving out advice like oh he'll be fine in a couple of months, he just needs to settle People giving out advice that they're really not qualified to give I think is something I wish we could stop, but also understanding that using training methods like aversives, prong and shot collar or choke collars or sending dogs off to boot camps, that is not a long-term fix. So there's a big difference between behavior suppression like getting a dog to just stop barking at people when he's afraid of people versus actually helping him learn that people are not something to be afraid of. And so in theory, you can shock a dog every time they bark or growl and, yeah, they'll probably stop barking or growling, but you've done nothing to help the underlying emotion, the actual problem that was driving that outward behavior.

Kate LaSala: 41:39

And I think a lot of shelters and rescues, just because they don't know any better, they send these dogs to boot camps or they have balanced trainers that they work with that are shocking a dog and then giving them a chicken and the dog's like wait, like I'm so confused, you know I don't know what I'm supposed to really be doing and so having good information to pass on or good trainers to refer out to, and building that network of support. You know we see it a lot in urban communities to try to cut down surrenders and things like dog food banks to. You know, if you're surrendering your dog because you can't afford to buy food for them, there are places in many communities that you can go and get support for that. You can get free dog food, you can get discounted vet care, you can. Communities are building ways to help animals stay in their homes and reduce those surrenders and I think if there was more of a focus from a shelter and rescuing community sounds like what youive methods prong, collar, shot collars, choke collars, things like that, or even, you know, spray cans or yelling or anything that the dog perceives as scary or intimidating that stops or interrupts behavior.

Kate LaSala: 43:07

Those dogs have a much lower quality of life and and research shows that that is not the most effective way to train dogs for long-term behavior change. It may look like you've fixed the dog because you've shocked them or you've pronged them, but long-term that doesn't stick. Long-term it does. So these boot camps that take the dog for two weeks and they throw a prong or a shock collar sometimes both on the dog to get them to stop barking at other dogs or at people. Then those dogs come home and even if the owner is trying to implement those same methods that are inhumane and causing pain, it doesn't last long term and very often those dogs end up being more aggressive.

Kate LaSala: 43:49

When I was in the New York City shelter, we had someone adopt one of our dogs. She sent her off to a board and train a two week board and train with a shot caller trainer in New York city and then, literally the day the dog came back, the dog bit her kid and so then she came back and wanted to return the dog and that dog was way worse coming back, had sensitivity around her neck, didn't want to be touched, was terrified and she wasn't prior to that experience. So we had much more work to do as a result of trying to undo the damage that that aversive board and train did. So I think helping shelters and rescues understand that the information and resources that they're providing can really make a big difference in the life of that person and that dog.

Amy Castro: 44:39

Yeah, definitely so. I had mentioned early in the beginning of the show about the holidays season and, as much as you know, we're trying to move some cats that we have. We have a lot of cats in our rescue right now and it's like I'm actually looking forward to the holidays because I'm hoping it'll increase adoptions. But we also take pretty significant steps that if somebody wants to do this for the holidays, that we know that they're doing it for the right reason, that they're not giving the animal as a gift and that they have a plan if they're going to spring this kitten on their or cat on their kids Christmas morning. It can't just be chaos and mayhem. So any quick tips as far as advice for the holidays and bringing home a new pet at this time of the year.

Kate LaSala: 45:24

Yeah. So what you said earlier, like making sure that they understand this is not just a holiday decision, this is a lifetime decision. So we see it a lot around Easter time people get bunnies and chicks and then they get turned out into the wild or they die. So making sure that they understand you may want to have this kitten or this puppy or this dog for Christmas or whatever, but this is a long-term, this is a 15-year commitment. So making sure the family is really prepared for that long-term commitment, Even if you have an existing dog at home, holidays are chaotic, they disrupt the dog's routine and dogs thrive with predictability and routine, so that change can cause some inherent anxiety.

Kate LaSala: 46:07

And so I go back to safety for everyone. Safety for the dog, safety for humans is paramount. So if we are not sure that Fluffy or Fido is comfortable around all your family members coming for Thanksgiving or you know we don't want to wait until they're hiding or growling or snapping before we decide to put him away. So maybe we are proactive, we do some advanced management. We put the dog, we put the cat away before people come over. If we think that he's pretty social this is not his first Thanksgiving, his first winter holiday, then we can be proactive and make sure that we have notes on the doors to remind people there's a dog or cat in the house and to close the door behind them, because people who don't live with animals don't always think close the door.

Kate LaSala: 46:55

I'm going to run out to my car and get something. I'm going to leave the door ajar and then dog and cat are missing. Holidays bring lots of novel, interesting foods that aren't around all the time, so that's going to be extra temptation. So making sure that food and table scraps in particular, and trash are put away. Veterinary World has a sort of inside joke that the Friday after Thanksgiving is pancreatitis.

Amy Castro: 47:19

Friday Pancreatitis day. Yeah, yes, pancreatitis. Friday we actually did an episode on that last year.

Kate LaSala: 47:24

Oh, did you.

Amy Castro: 47:25

Yeah, whole ER vet and the holidays, holy moly. Yes.

Kate LaSala: 47:29

Pancreatitis Friday, so we call it Black Friday. But that's what they call it because so many dogs get into the trash or they're fed table scraps and it causes pancreatitis. Plants, you know, certain plants are toxic to dogs and cats. So keeping these seasonal decorative plants out of the way or not even bring them into the home I you know, I had a client whose cat got into a lily and that didn't end well. So people might send you flowers thinking that they're being nice, but it might have a lily in it or might have a poinsettia, and these things can be toxic to certain animals.

Kate LaSala: 48:02

Making sure that we're giving that animal exercise, enrichment and doing that before people come so that they get it out of their system, so they're not so amped up when people are coming.

Kate LaSala: 48:12

You know you've got a lot going on for holidays, but that doesn't mean that your dog still doesn't need his regular walk or doesn't need some extra enrichment to burn off some of that energy, because maybe he's not getting a long walk or he's not getting the trip to the dog park that he usually gets.

Kate LaSala: 48:26

So there are things that we can do to help keep everyone safe during holiday gatherings, but a lot of times I just you know, if we're not sure if this is going to be a positive experience for that animal, I just prefer people put them away. And you know you want your animals to be part of these gatherings but if they're not enjoying it then it's not going to end well for anyone. It's not going to be good for them, it's not going to be good for people and you know you mentioned kids before. You know really separating kids and dogs, because kids do not inherently know how to appropriately interact with with dogs and that's a whole separate episode. But do not just assume that because your dog is comfortable with adults, that they will be comfortable with kids. Trusted, familiar adults can do and get away with things that kids or strangers may not be able to get away with.

Amy Castro: 49:20

So you're distracted.

Kate LaSala: 49:21

You've got lots of people. You're worried about the food burning and keeping everyone entertained, unless someone is there with eyes actively supervising dog and child. They should never be left alone. They should never be on the same level. You know I have lots of hard and fast rules about dogs and kids interacting.

Amy Castro: 49:39

Yeah, yeah, we had an incident one year with our Doberman who was at that time I don't know that we really realized that he wasn't great with kids because he hadn't really that was. You know, he was socialized early on and then it was like we made the mistake of thinking, okay, we did that in this window. And then we just, you know, when your Doberman gets big, it's like hard to go up to somebody in a park and be like, hey, can I have my Doberman interact with your toddler? They're not usually too cooperative on that front and I didn't have friends that had little kids. Anyway, dog was doing fine until there started to be excitement.

Amy Castro: 50:11

And I'm standing in the kitchen and I hear him. He made this kind of noise and it was kind of this noise that he used to make when the other dogs or the cats were getting into it and it's like that's this is my warning noise that I don't like that activity that's going on there and if it doesn't stop I will be putting a stop to it. And the next thing I know he went over and luckily she was wearing a diaper but nipped my niece in the butt, but she, he gave her a good pinch. I mean she cried, it hurt.

Kate LaSala: 50:49

And so it's just put the dog away. It was just easy, because I can't manage. I can't manage the dog and watching her and watching the food boiling over on the stove. So and people so often say, oh, it happened out of nowhere. He didn't give any warnings. And I always say behavior isn't random, it doesn't happen out of nowhere, it's we just didn't see the signs, we missed that body language, and some really subtle body language can just be a yawn or a lip lick or a head turn. So you know, it can be slight, subtle signs of avoidance, where it's not the dog's getting up and running away, but someone reaches towards them or gets close to them and they just turn their head away Like no, I'm not looking at you, and that's a stress sign. That's, that's, that's your tip off to intervene, because the dog is already saying no, thank you, I don't want any interaction, but a child is not going to most adults don't even know to look for those signs.

Kate LaSala: 51:26

There's no way that a kid is going to know that. You know, we definitely pay attention when there's growling or snapping, because that gets our attention. But a dog yawning or licking their lips? You know, these really subtle signs of discomfort or anxiety often get overlooked, they get completely ignored. And then in the dog's mind they're telling us hey, I've been telling you, I'm uncomfortable, no one's doing anything to help me. So I need to dial up that volume and be more clear in my communication. And that's when you hear the growl or you see the lip crawl or you get more obvious signs and then we're like, oh my gosh, that happened out of nowhere.

Amy Castro: 51:59

Yeah, no, that's yeah. We could do a whole episode just on that alone. So let's, let's wrap this up on a. You know I think we've talked about a lot of good advice and information, but is there a particular success story in your work of working with a fearful dog where you really saw a tremendous change that made everybody's life better?

Kate LaSala: 52:18

Yep, so I've had over 2,700 clients but one really sort of stands out. So I had Arnie, who was a meat market dog and he came from Humane Society International. He had been sprung from a meat market in Asia and transported to New York City for adoption with a bunch of other meat market rescues, meat market dogs. For those who aren't familiar, in Asia they eat dogs sometimes in some countries and Humane Society International has been trying to shut down the meat markets and put those workers into other lines of work. So those dogs are really raised more like livestock rather than pets because they're intended to be eaten. So they're very roughly handled. They're moved from cages in a very rough way and when Arnie came to the shelter, if you put a leash on him he would immediately turn his head and just gnaw through the leash. In about five seconds he could not be leashed. He could not be touched. If you looked at him he would stress poop. He was incredibly fearful. So we immediately started medication at the shelter. It took me about three and a half months to be able to leash him and I did that through a very slow process of of having him voluntarily put his head through a leash and we had him out for adoption. You know who's gonna take this dog right. But he was adopted by a lovely couple and when we talked about, well, he's on this medication, he's on that medication, oh, we're on, we're on those medications too, we understand.

Kate LaSala: 53:52

So they understood he would be a project dog. They were all in on it and when they first got him home he didn't even come out of the travel crate for 48 hours. He loved other dogs. He loved other dogs and that's when he blossomed. So they started arranging for play dates to come over to their apartment. He couldn't go outside. He was a 60 pound dog. He was terrified, you know. You could barely leash him. He definitely wasn't walking on the streets of Brooklyn and so they would arrange play dates. They use social media, they use Instagram to get strangers to come over with their dogs so that Arnie can have a good quality of life.

Kate LaSala: 54:33

We eventually trained him to potty in the walk-in shower, because he couldn't go outside and they were going through potty pads and it was just a mess. So we trained him to go to the walk-in shower to potty. They eventually realized that Brooklyn wasn't a good environment to try to help him, so they moved from Brooklyn to New Jersey to get him out of the city and then about a year later so this is about a year and a half into training and medication we were finally able to get him to the point where he could go outside and he would go outside in a fenced in field and he would run and play with the other dogs. And he continues to see a veterinary behaviorist for his medication management and they're still doing some training with him. They ended up adopting another dog so that he had a buddy.

Kate LaSala: 55:22

But Arnie is sort of this success story of coming from a meat market and being so terrified that you couldn't even look at him to being able to be walked out, you know, on the street like a normal dog and go to a park and play with other dogs, and I think it's a beautiful story of resiliency and and really helping people see that with the right medication, with the right training, with patience and, yes, love. You know it's not the only part of the puzzle, but understanding what that love really looks like for a dog like Arnie, they can have a transformation, they can make improvements, yeah, and it doesn't happen overnight, you know, took almost two years, yeah, and it doesn't happen overnight.

Amy Castro: 56:04

You know, took almost two years. Well, and the tremendous dedication of the people who were what you just described was a flash forward of two years times 365 days a year, of that family working with that dog and basically bending over backwards to create a situation and an environment where he could be successful. And I think people just it's a fantastic story, but it's also something that people need to think about. Like, do I have that level of dedication? Am I going to let my dog poop in my shower? For I mean, that's just a simple thing to me. Somebody's always pooping somewhere in my house, so it's not a big deal, but I mean something as simple as that, plus the play dates and it's um, and I mean he was a 60 pound dog.

Kate LaSala: 56:43

These weren't. This isn't a five pound chihuahua, this is a 60 pound dog. So this is, you know, a lot of pee and poop.

Amy Castro: 56:49

Yeah, exactly so you know, a tremendous dedication on on their part. More power to them for for taking on that project. Yeah so, kate, thank you so much for being here today. You have provided us with a tremendous amount of information and I know that even before we did this recording today, you had sent me a lot of different links to different information, which I found tremendously helpful. So for somebody out there who is feeling a bit overwhelmed right now at the amount of information we've thrown at them, I'm assuming there are places on your website or resources that would be available to them. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Kate LaSala: 57:25

Yeah, so you can find me at rescuedbytrainingcom. At the top of the website you'll see a link for a section called free downloads. There's a bunch of free downloads there. It's also where you can find my blog. You can find me on Instagram and Facebook at rescuedbytraining.

Kate LaSala: 57:41

I do a weekly blog post and then corresponding social media content throughout the week that's tied to that that topic and then I also do a weekly newsletter which you can also sign up for on the website. So lots of information. I have almost four years of blog posts, so there's a ton of content in there. There is a search function on the website if you want to use that, but the free downloads is probably a good place to start. I've got a download about dog communication, which we talked about. I have a download about the holiday gatherings. I have a download on the fear in dogs, the five ways that fear can be acquired, lots of other things. I have a handout on surrendering and rehoming and behavioral euthanasia, if that's something that you're considering, and you can also get information about my doula services on the services tab, along with behavior training that I have.

Amy Castro: 58:30

Yeah, I love the way that the blog had all the little you know in addition to the search, but just categories. Like I could jump right to a category separation anxiety and then see blog posts that are about that. So that was super, super helpful and we'll put those links up on the on our show notes so people have access to it and I would assume that if somebody wanted to work with you because you do work virtually that they would just contact you through the website as well.

Kate LaSala: 58:54

Yep, there's a contact page there. Everything is self-service, so if you know what you need, you can just go to the services tab and pick your appointment and pay for it and schedule it right there on the spot. It doesn't require any back and forth with me. But if you have a specific question that's not answered on the website, there's a contact form there that you can fill out and I'll get back to you. Okay, great.

Amy Castro: 59:12

Well again, kate, thank you so much for being here today. I really appreciate your knowledge, your caring and your expertise. It's been super helpful, given me a lot of food for thought. I'm kind of rethinking all kinds of things with Sassy at this point, but hopefully for everybody that's listening too, I didn't want to do this episode and scare people away from adopting rescue dogs or from adopting a dog that had fear, but I think going into it as you've said several times with your eyes open, knowing what you're getting into it, makes things much more, I think, mentally manageable for people than being caught off guard by something. So thank you for giving us some of that information so that we can be more aware of what we're getting ourselves into.

Kate LaSala: 59:56

Yeah, yep, great Thanks for having me. I've enjoyed it.

Amy Castro: 59:59

All right, and thank you again to everybody for listening to another episode of Starlight Pet Talk and we will see you next week. Thanks for listening to Starlight Pet Talk. Be sure to visit our website at starlightpettalkcom for more resources and be sure to follow this podcast on your favorite podcast app so you'll never miss a show. And hey, if you like this show, text someone right now and say I've got a podcast recommendation. You need to check the show out and tell them to listen and let you know what they think. Don't forget to tune in next week and every week for a brand new episode of Starlight Pet Talk. And if you don't do anything else this week, give your pets a big hug from us.