Kari Bastyr - Your Dog is Not Bad, He is Just Having a Hard Time S2 E18

(Intro music): 0:00

Barbara O’Brien: 0:14
Hi, I'm Barbara O'Brien. I'm an animal trainer and photographer and I'd like to welcome you to The Empathetic Trainer.

(Music): 0:21

Barbara O’Brien: 0:26
Hi, this is Barbara O'Brien and you're listening to The Empathetic Trainer Podcast. Today's guest is going to be a great one. We are so excited to have Kari Bastyr with us today. Kari Bastyr is a dog behaviorist and canine nutritionist. She's the founder of Wag and Train Animal Behavior Specialist. Her training methods take into the account the whole dog, including emotions, behavior and their effects on the gut-brain axis. Kari doesn't believe dogs are bad. She just thinks they're having a hard time. That's the whole conversation right there, isn't it? Hey, Kari, so glad to have you with us.

Kari Bastyr: 1:00
Hi, thank you so much. It's good to see you.

Barbara O’Brien: 1:04

Well, this is great. Boy, I already have so many questions right off the bat. I'm just trying to understand. So first, though, let's talk a little bit about your background, kind of who you are, how you got into you know, were you born with it, like it seems almost all of us were. Why dogs over anything else? Or is there a whole other set of animals you're crazy about too? Let's just kind of start with little Kari. Let's figure that out.

Kari Bastyr: 1:28
Well, I I wasn't really born into this. I didn't really have the itch when I was a kid. We had dogs and my family are dog lovers, but I wanted to go into film and that didn't work out. I just realized it's way too expensive to go into film, so I switched to what mostly most people probably switch to is psychology and.

Barbara O’Brien: 1:52
That's right. I want to. I want to be in the industry. The film industry, but I'll be a psychiatrist.

Kari Bastyr: 1:55
I'll just go into that. So, the program that I went to had a behavior analysis program in my undergrad at St. Cloud State. The program is still there, but the track that I took they had a rat lab and I loved it. I loved working with the rats and doing the experiments and I decided to go to grad school because they had a animal behavior grad program and I ran the rat lab. I was the graduate assistant and I I just soaked it all in and at the same time I was working for as a dog trainer, for a veterinarian and his best friend was the head of the veterinary animal behavior department at the university of Minnesota, RK Anderson and

Barbara O’Brien: 2:51

Oh, I'm familiar, yep.

Kari Bastyr: 2:53

Yes, he invented the gentle leader and I learned so much from him and I just decided, wow, I really love this. I I you know really, um, you know, it speaks to me. Um, our Dr Anderson was a very gentle dog trainer and.

Barbara O’Brien: 3:11

Ahead of his time, you know, ahead of his time,

Kari Bastyr: 3:13

Yeah, and so I continued teaching classes for this veterinarian and, um, I was lucky enough for Dr Anderson to be my mentor, and the rest is history. So, I started, I started my own business and moved to Denver, and, yeah, that's how it all happened.

Barbara O’Brien: 3:35
And now you're back where In Minneapolis?

Kari Bastyr: 3:38
I'm from Minneapolis and what I'm told is everyone moves back to Minneapolis. So, I moved to Denver for 15 years and moved back after some health challenges. So, I love it here. This is my home.

Barbara O’Brien: 3:52

Yeah, well, I mean, who doesn't love the winters here? I’m in Wisconsin of course. Who doesn’t love the winters? Why wouldn't we come back for 20 below, you know?

Kari Bastyr: 3:57
I know, you know well, they're the same in Colorado, pretty much just at higher altitude.

Barbara O’Brien: 4:03

Right and it's very pretty there.

Kari Bastyr: 4:06

Yes.

Barbara O’Brien: 4:07

Okay, well, I’m. Let's see, some of my notes here. Sorry, some of my notes here. Lizzy, my producer, writes so beautifully for me. Let's talk about dog dominance and that theory debunked. So, dog dominance theory debunked. Let me go back just briefly. Um, you know, I've been working with animals with my animal actor agency since 87, a long time, but I'm old enough to remember very dominant methods of dog training. And you know, um.  

Kari Bastyr: 4:35

Yes.

Barbara O’Brien: 4:36

Even witnessing a dog being hung up, you know, on a choke chain because it was aggressive to another dog and they hung it up to choke off its air, which you know as a, as a young person, I knew that was abhorrent. But.

Kari Bastyr: 4:47

Yes.

Barbara O’Brien: 4:48

Um, you know, you just, you don't have any power. You didn't think you had any power at that point, but I knew that isn't the route I wanted to take

Kari Bastyr: 4:54

Yeah.

Barabara O’Brien: 4:55

And then being an animal actor trainer. Of course everything has to be the most fun games, the most you know, whatever. So, we don't have to play that ever. We, we didn't.

Kari Bastyr: 5:03

Correct.

Barabara O’Brien: 5:04

But still, sometimes dogs will come in for auditions and you'll have owners that you can really read, that they are, you know, there will be marching you know, and it's really dominant and it's so disheartening because the dogs are trying so hard. Like you said, they're having a hard time, so maybe we could talk about that. Um, one of the points is dogs are definitely not out for world domination. Cats are. Let's start. Cats are definitely out for world domination.

Kari Bastyr: 5:34
Yes, I love cats. I train cats too. They're um, they're a little bit more difficult but, um, I do work with cats but yeah, I dogs don't want to be. You know, they're not out for world domination and and I think that's a big part of where you know the, the dominance trainers think that they have to be dominant over their dog or over a dog that they're training. But dominant dogs are actually very calm and stable. My last dog, paisley, was pretty, she was really dominant, and she was just chill. She just she didn't have to, really, you know, um, tell dogs anything, once in a while a little snark, but um, she was really chill and puppies knew that she was in charge and other dogs knew just by the, by her presence and I never, ever had to use a heavy hand for her, nor do I have I ever for any other dog. But um when people call me and they say, oh, my dog is really dominant and is doing this, I automatically know okay, their dog's having a hard time, they're reactive, maybe they bit someone. They think that's dominant behavior, but it's not. It's actually the opposite. It's insecure. The dog's insecure, fearful, anxious, just having a hard time and trying to communicate its needs. But it's being read as dominant. Dominance in dog training is still extremely pervasive. It's very prevalent on social media it's prevalent. You can Google dog training and a lot of the trainers are dominance-based trainers just really.

Barbara O’Brien: 7:21
Let's explain for our audience that may not know what we mean by dominance-based training versus other types

Kari Bastyr: 7:28

Um, well, it started back in the 1970s, um, a wolf researcher, animal researcher, Dr David Meck, hypothesized, after watching captive wolves, that there is this dominance hierarchy and um, it's, you know. So, it was a really big study. Um, but it wasn't in a yes and um it's a whole thing. Um, but it was in captive wolves, it wasn't in wild wolves. And you know, his hypothesis at the time was that, um, dogs and families were like that, and I don't know, I think a couple weeks or a couple months later he, you know, came out and said whoopsies, that's not true, and this was in the early 70s, I think 1973.

Barbara O’Brien: 8:19
Yeah.

Kari Bastyr: 8:20

Um, and at that time too, we know this from Dr Ian Dunbar that a lot of.

Barbara O’Brien: 8:26

Who was a podcast guest.

Kari Bastyr: 8:27
Yeah, yeah.

Barbara O’Brien: 8:28

We got to talk to him, it was pretty great.

Kari Bastyr: 8:30
Yeah. So, he, but before before Dr Ian Dunbar, kind of came on the scene. You know, people didn't think that puppies could be trained earlier than six months and he, Dr Dunbar, totally blew that out of the water. Now we know better, right, but this, this dominance in dog training, has been around for a really long time. And Dr Meck came, you know, he came out and said, nope, it's not true. And it's still really pervasive, unfortunately.

Barbara O’Brien: 9:08

Well, it happened in the horse world too. A very similar pattern I mean dominance of horses has been going on forever.

Kari Bastyr: 9:14
Yeah, yeah.

Barbara O’Brien: 9:15
But they, you know, when people talk about the horses, some people will be like, well, you can't let him push you around or you can't let him dominate you. Now, of course, there's safety issues he's a thousand pounds but the more recent, hopefully growing, trend is the horse. Everything he's doing and Lockie Phillips talks about this is communication right.
So, everything the dog is telling you. The dominant dog you know air quotes is telling you something, right? So, they study horses in the wild. I'm sorry they've studied captive herds of horses, you know, like horses that are boarding barns right and they go like there's a lead horse and he's in charge of everybody. You know this kind of like what David Meeks story, the wolf guys premise there's dominance, dah, dah, dah. Well, in horses in the wild they found it to be completely different. Um, there's not always this fight for leadership. It's not the stallion always. You know, it's a fluid. It's a fluid rolling pattern with horses because, uh, captive, well, horses not captive. But you know, horses living in a man-made environment are going to react differently because there's fighting over resources, fighting over water you know there's

Kari Bastyr: 10:22

There’s family. Yeah.   

Barbara O’Brien: 10:24

Yeah, and then they're not in the family groups, and then, uh, they can only graze so much, but horses in the wild have all the acreage to move around and not get in each other's space if they don't want to, you know, so I mean, it's a whole different thing and, uh, there's an awakening in the horse world about understanding and communicating with horses a whole lot better. You know, Warwick Schiller, Lockie Phillips, um Kerri Lake.

Kari Bastry: 10:42

Yes.

Barbara O’Brien: 10:43

Several of our podcast guests are really getting the word out, and I hope that we can continue to get the word out about dogs too, which is why I love that expression. How you know, we don't think dogs are. You don't think dogs are bad, it's just they're having a hard time. You're not putting human attributes on a dog's behavior when he's acting like a dog.

Kari Bastry: 11:03
Yes. And trying to communicate his or her needs, and they're so misinterpreted. And that's where the dominance comes out. Is we, we do we put anthropomorphize and we put our human emotions on the dog and try and make them submissive. You know, because we're the all you know powerful when all they're trying to do is say hey, I'm a little scared right now. Can you help me?

Barbara O’Brien: 11:28
Exactly.

Kari Bastry: 11:29
Yeah.  

Barbara O’Brien: 11:30

Exactly so. Then one of the other points is the majority of people who have dogs use the terms dominance or dominant incorrectly, and that's kind of what you're speaking to just now.

Kari Bastry: 11:40
Correct, yeah, know, correct, yeah. Dominance is, like I said, calm, stable, stable brain chemicals or neurotransmitters, because the neurotransmitters are produced in the gut too. I'm sure we'll get to that.

Barbara O’Brien: 11:58

Yes.

Kari Bastry: 11:59

And then being dominant is usually for dogs. When that's interpreted as a dog who's dominant, it's usually a scared, insecure, fearful, anxious dog.

Barbara O’Brien: 12:11
Isn't this interesting? I just said they're not like people, but they are mammals and we're mammals.

Kari Bastry: 12:16
Yeah.

Barbara O’Brien: 12:17

If we think about a bully someone who we consider a bully. He's trying to be dominant, but a lot of times if you look deeper, you know the the paradigm is uh, not um, what's wrong with you, but what happened to you right.

Kari Bastry: 12:31

Exactly.

Barbara O’Brien: 12:32

So then you know the paradigm like why are you being a bully? What? What is this insecure? You know what is this not feeling good about? Because the leaders we are drawn to naturally are, you know, relaxed, calm people that regulate re-legulate sorry sorry, regulate themselves well and then inspire um other people to want to be with them, and so a a dog, that is calm, like you're saying. Um would would be other, it would be the. So, in theory, is he sort of like a pack leader or we're not even talking pack leader things anymore. Like things are different.

Kari Bastry: 13:04
Things are different. We're not really talking. We're not. We don't use like pack leader, you know, leader in general, because they do imply kind of the dominant space.

Barbara O’Brien: 13:16
Okay, so then tell me, about a family dog. Just explain a family dog, you know, like, how does this work? Okay, so I'll give you an example in my own life. Just because I've got a border collies and a collie mix, right, and my oldest one, who's 15 now, when we first got him, my oldest child was 12 or 13. So he didn't have a lot of exposure to babies. Okay, because my boys are already older. And so then when I started having grandchildren, and these are my house dogs, they’re with us, you know. He was underneath a couch he can get under; you know. Like, like a little den, that’s where he like to hang out. Right? And the baby was crawling at some point. Baby crawled towards that spot and he, and he went like, no, my spot, cause you’re not a big enough human, or whatever the reason. And he didn’t do anything except for a warning, ruff, mine. And I didn’t get after him except to say, oh, we’re putting you in an untenable position, this is not fair to you, dear dog.

Kari Bastyr: 14:09

Good for you.

Barbara O’Brien: 14:11

You know, when baby's loose, we'll have you be in your safe place, because they're crate trained and baby can't bother you there, you know. And so, to be fair to that dog, right, but so he's not a dominant dog. He's not trying to push that baby around. Right?

Kari Bastyr: 14:27 
He's scared, he's cornered.  

Barbara O’Brien: 14:28
Anxious. What is this thing coming towards me that I'm just not sure. Right? Is that kind of what happened?

Kari Bastry: 14:33
Yeah, yeah, he was trying to express his needs and he was uncomfortable and scared probably and cause the baby's at the same level. And you know he just was saying back off like get out of my space. And that's a. It's a very appropriate warning, but a lot of people interpret that as the dog trying to be dominant.

Barbara O’Brien: 14:56
Okay, all right, yeah. And then the last comment on that part was most people think dominance means aggression, but let's just take that apart.

Kari Bastyr: 15:10
Well, just like I was saying before, when I get calls that my dog is being dominant or I have such a dominant dog, I automatically know well that dog's not dominant, that dog's fearful or insecure or anxious, but those behaviors are attributed what we think. Those people think, like my clients because of this whole dominance theory, that that's what dominance looks like.

Barbara O’Brien: 15:29
Okay.

Kari Bastyr: 15:30

And when I explain that's not it, you know, then they're, then they want to learn. Thankfully.

Barbara O’Brien: 15:37

Okay, so then what? What is it? Is it reactivity, then, or you know what? So, I'll be like, okay, I understand. So, they have a dog and he's doing whatever, and I'll go like, okay, then what is it? But what are we going to be? Is there each dog different, of course, or like what's the most common thing, when a dog is, when we misinterpret as trying to be dominant, what is he really trying to tell us? And then how can we best help him?

Kari Bastyr: 16:00
Well, it's an emotion or series of emotions. You know, a lot of times dogs give us signals way, way before the bark, snap, snarl, bite

Barbara O’Brien: 16:10

Yeah, just like horses

Kari Bastyr: 16:12

They're called calming signals and most people, you know, don't know how to interpret them. Tongue flicking, lip licking, yawning is a big one, shaking off, doing a little head turn. That dog's trying to communicate. You know, I'm uncomfortable right now. Maybe you can dial it down a notch. But then when those calming signals aren't interpreted correctly or just totally, you know, glossed over, then it might become the growl or the snarl, you know and then unfortunately, some dogs then have to resort to the snark or the nip or the snarl or the bite, and that I mean that dog is just having a hard time. The dog is fearful, scared, cornered, has some anxiety issues. Um, you know, it's just trying to. We want to try and support those puppies and dogs to build their confidence, to decrease that underlying anxiety, to build more positive associations. And the biggest thing and this is what you said that you did with your dog and your grandchildren is you always have to set your dog up to succeed.

Barbara O’Brien: 17:19

Exactly.

Kari Bastyr: 17:20

It's the, you know the best way for them to be successful and not put them in situations you know where. You have them on the end of a leash, and you know they're, they're barking and lunging and going crazy. That's a really stressed dog and you know we, we have to make sure that we're supporting them and teaching them to feel safe and so, working on leash reactivity or, you know, fear of people or whatever it's like, taking a thousand steps back and starting from the beginning, at the root cause, which is typically anxiety and fear.

Barbara O’Brien: 17:57
Same same exact thing with horses. Cause the best thing we can do with our horses is to have them feel safe. Feel safe, right, and the reason they're reacting is they do not trust us to keep them safe.

Kari Bastyr: 18:07

Correct, same for dogs.

Barbara O’Brien: 18:08
You know we're not keeping them safe, and so it's yeah. Sounds very similar.

Kari Bastyr: 18:12

Yeah.

Barbara O’Brien: 18:13

So, um, when we were getting back, going after covid because for when covid came, of course all of our work as animal actors shut down and, um, uh, people got a lot of puppies during covid. And now you, we have these year old, two old, two-year-old dogs who just could not be socialized in the typical way at the time.

Kari Bastyr: 18:35
Yes.

Barbara O’Brien: 18:36
They just. So, my question. So they come in for an audition and they're clearly, even though we've stated, hey, your dog, you know, if he's shy, if he's anxious, he may not like this, you know, but as they come in and they, they exhibit all that, I kind of feel bad for him because they kind of had kind of had a rough start. So, is there hope? I mean, if these people, you know their dogs are shy, their dogs haven't been socialized, you know, whatever is there, do dogs get? This is, I mean, I probably know, but our audience might not. Are dogs ever too far gone, too old, can't be helped? Or can every dog, with time and patience and the right you know, help? I mean, can we help?

Kari Bastyr: 19:09
Oh gosh, that's such a hard question. I mean, the short answer is yes, it just depends on you know, I mean, the biggest thing is if you have a dog, and this is totally individual. But when you have a dog who is, who has, you know, a multiple bite history or you know, just, I mean that's probably the only thing I can think of where, you know, you know, management is really the best option. Changing emotions is, you know, really kind of the key, just depending on the dog, of course. But oh yeah, you know the COVID puppies, you know, if they weren't exposed to, you know, certain environments or certain people and they have a fear. You know there's a lot we can do to help counter condition those behaviors and and work on desensitization and decrease in that anxiety. Sometimes it's genetic. I work with a lot of genetically fearful dogs. But when we, you know, focus on, like I said, counter conditioning or, you know, improving the microbiome to increase the neurotransmitter production, you know there is a lot of hope. Um, it's not especially in a young dog, like three years old, but I've worked with much, much older dogs, you know rescue dogs who are 10, 11, 12, where we can do a lot for them.

Barbara O’Brien: 20:35
And then we can also protect our dogs. Like, this is not a normal situation, but for our animal actors, actors right if we get dogs into the audition and we're testing the strobes and strobes pop. So, to some dogs, it's the sky exploding. You know, all right, they're really smart, they go to the sky. If the dog doesn't like he he we start out way away from the lights. But if we get a reaction that is fearful, we just go. No, not his thing, it's okay, because there's no reason that we have to make him do this. You know what I mean. Like he's has a happy life. This is a human thing, doesn't need to do it. But the living in society part, that part we want to help the dog with. But you know it's like if your dog doesn't like jumping in, you know like doing dock diving or jumping into the water, you know you're not going to make him do it. You know at least you shouldn't make him do it. But if you need him to be able to walk, you know, walk safely, at a safe distance away from people down the street. This would be a good thing to help him with, you know so that he can be in the world, doesn't have to be next to anybody, or certainly doesn't have to interact with other dogs, but you don't want that whole thing to be so stressful for them, so this is how things can help which is a good segue. So, let's let's talk about this gut brain access. I've I've only briefly starting to learn about how there's like two brains, like we have a stomach, humans too, we have a brain in our stomach and our gut somehow, and then our brain and these things interact and so that's a whole new world I'm learning a little bit about. Hadn't thought about applying it to the dogs and, of course, any mammal or however that works. So, gosh, I know nothing. Just start us, just like the rest of my audience, perhaps Please fill us in on what this all means and how we can help. This is fascinating.

Kari Bastyr: 22:19
Yes, so the whole gut brain axis gut microbiome thing came about when I had an imbalanced microbiome, when I was diagnosed with celiac disease, and then I, you know, I had to heal my gut and obviously I went gluten free, but there were so many other aspects to it and then I, you know, I, just became a gut nerd and started reading a lot of research and this was 10 years ago, um, and there's a lot more. There's a lot more now. At back then there was, you know, research, um, research starting to be done on dog's microbiome, and probably the first thing that I learned is that puppies inherit the mother's microbiome, just like human babies do.

Barbara O’Brien: 23:12
Okay.  

Kari Bastyr: 23:13

And so, if a puppy is born to a mom who's stressed or has, you know, dysbiosis, which is leaky gut or just an imbalanced microbiome, that puppy's going to inherit it.  

Barbara O’Brien: 23:25

So, right before we go on, we go on. Microbiome. Please explain for us in the audience microbiome.

Kari Bastyr: 23:32

Yeah, that's just the makeup of the, of the, the um, the gut, the.

Barbara O’Brien: 23:40
So, like an ecosystem? Like an ecosystem in a sense?

Kari Bastyr: 23:43
Yes, um, and there's good and bad gut bacteria. When you have an imbalance, typically the bad gut bacteria takes over the good gut bacteria and sometimes it causes what's called dysbiosis or leaky gut syndrome.

Barbara O’Brien: 23:57

Okay.

Kari Bastyr: 23:58

That’s where the small intestine is damaged and has those. The short answer is get um through just this imbalanced microbiome and stress and um, you know, bad bad diet and environment um develops these little tiny holes in the gut and that's that's the leaky part, and then toxins leak out into the bloodstream and it causes a lot of brain fog, cognitive dysfunction, anxiety. It's the same for people.

Barbara O’Brien: 24:27

Wow.

Kari Bastyr: 24:28
Yes, and that's why I became this gut nerd, because those were my symptoms.

Barbara O’Brien: 24:33
Wow, that must have been scary at the time?

Kari Bastyr: 24:35
Yes, it was. And then my dog was diagnosed with some health issues, and I went down the gut, the dog gut rabbit hole even further and realized that, you know, one of her issues at the time was also leaky gut syndrome or dysbiosis.

Barbara O’Brien: 24:52

And which dog are we talking about?

Kari Bastyr: 24:55
Paisley, the one that I was talking about before with um, she was really dominant dog, and she was she's the best dog I've ever had.

Barbara O’Brien: 25:01
Paisley's, what kind of dog?

Kari Bastyr: 25:03
Chocolate lab.

Barbara O’Brien: 25:04
Okay.

Kari Bastyr: 25:05

She was a rescue. I got her at about nine weeks. She's from the Dumb Friend’s League in in Colorado. So, yeah, she was, she was eight and I, just I did a total diet change, I did supplements, I did like foot baths and a bunch of stuff that I won't go into, but, um, I ended up, you know, really working on her gut health to build her immune system also, cause, um, she had a, uh, a blood disorder, um, and I realized, through more research and, just you know, kind of going down even more of the rabbit hole, that diet plays a big part in anxiety. And at the same time this is huge I realized, read, researched, whatever that 90% of serotonin and other neurotransmitters are produced in the gut. Only 10% are produced in the brain.

Barbara O’Brien: 26:09
Wow.

Kari Bastyr: 26:10
So think about it. Same for people, um, 90% of serotonin. Serotonin is the neurotransmitter that regulates mood. So, if you don't have enough serotonin, dopamine, gab and norepinephrine, you're going to be anxious. And this is where the light bulbs. The light bulb really started to go on with me and I started I, you know, I started a nutrition certification. I started working on gut health with clients whose dogs have, you know, pervasive anxiety, these rescue dogs that were so anxious and I started seeing huge behavior change.

Barbara O’Brien: 26:51
Oh now, that's fascinating. So, these dogs have trauma you know, and they carry their trauma because mammals carry trauma, the same. Pretty much. There must be parallels in the human world. So, I'm finding all of this extremely fascinating. So, what changes had to happen in a dog's diet that you could see the manifestation of less anxiety or, you know, more serotonin being produced? What would have to have happened?

Kari Bastyr: 27:13
Well the first thing is that we want to, we want to focus on healing the gut and there's several ways to to start that process and it does take a while, or it can take a while it took me almost a year to heal my gut, and probably the same for Paisley, with little changes. Basically well, not basically. But because it's not basically, the first thing that I would look at is the food, because food affects mood. I'm not wearing my sweatshirt today, but I have a sweatshirt that says that.

Barbara O’Brien: 27:45

Food affects mood. Oh yeah.  

Kari Bastyr: 27:47

And trying. Yeah, same for people.

Barbara O’Brien: 27:48
Exactly.

Kari Bastyr: 27:49

Just trying to focus on doing a more minimally processed diet and adding in fresh foods which, in you know the dog world is like. You know's a, it's a, it's a paradigm shift. Right?

Barbara O’Brien: 28:04
And well right, but it's current. It's recent, though, if dog history, if you look at the long you know, centuries of us being together with dogs, um processed dog food is a relatively new thing.

Kari Bastyr: 28:17

It is.

Barbara O’Brien: 28:18

You know, in a sense um, you know, I remember the Chuck Wagon commercial you know, the Chuck Wagon commercial was like canned dog food. The Chuck Wagon would run underneath the covers. It had horses in it. This is why I remember, but um. I don't know how long, and I'm not going to trash the whole industry. But.

Kari Bastyr: 28:32

Correct.

Barbara O’Brien: 28:33

But um cause, there must be something out there. But it's a relative. I mean, you know, is it a hundred years old, 50 years old, you know, compared to the dogs being with people eating what people ate? Right, if you had all your leftovers, whatever you're eating like my dogs eat every. You know someone would be like you shouldn't give him table scraps and I'm like, but he loves broccoli.

Kari Bastyr: 28:52
Oh my gosh, broccoli is so great.

Barbara O’Brien: 28:54

Why wouldn't I give him a carrot, you know? I mean so things that I'm eating, that they can eat, you know. I mean we share. Obviously, we're careful what they can't have, but or too much.

Kari Bastyr: 29:01

Correct, yes.

Barbara O’Brien: 29:02
But the point is is like they have a, they're very, very diet if they get a chance. Yes? Yes, a dog will choose a variation if he's got access?

Kari Bastyr 29:10
Absolutely, yes. The one caveat, though, is when I'm dealing with the highly anxious dog, they typically don't have an appetite. So.

Barbara O’Brien: 29:19
Oh, that always shocks me. You know, we know that's a sign of anxiety at an audition If they won't take a treat. That's the first, if they haven't reacted in a different way the fact that they don't want to take a treat, which is like you know, it could be some string cheese or something, just lamb or something really you know something really good. I'm like oh okay, he's not happy. No, he's fine, he's fine and I go. No, I'm sorry he's not his thing. Thank you. Maybe when we do video and there's no strobes. But you know, I mean I right away, that's if I haven't already seen it, if he hasn't shown me another way. First way, because think about if you and I are anxious. Yeah, you know, we get that sinking feeling in our gut we couldn't eat, we’d throw up.

Kari Bastyr: 29:59
That’s fight or flight. We're not meant to eat when we're in fight or flight.

Barbara O’Brien: 30:02

Right, so.  

Kari Bastyr: 30:04

A lot of you know, yeah, a lot of rescue dogs I work with are fearful dogs. Won't eat breakfast, they'll only eat dinner, or they'll eat really late at night and they literally fast themselves to try and heal their guts. Because that's what wolves and, you know, wild dogs do when they're sick, they don't eat, and or when their tummy hurts. But that's why we feel butterflies in our tummy too, it's because the microbiome.

Barbara O’Brien: 30:25

It's going hey warning.

Kari Bastyr: 30:27
Yes, yes, we're anxious, we're anxious,

Barbara O’Brien: 30:30

Fascinating.

Kari Bastyr: 30:31

Um, yeah, so minimally processed diet and there's plenty of minimally processed, complete and balanced. You know great diets out there but, um, one thing that I have people start doing is just trying to add in more fresh foods a little bit at a time. Veggies and fruits are typically the easiest just leftover or even not leftover, just like smash a couple blueberries. Or at my house it's cucumbers oh my gosh, Birdie loves cucumbers and they're like crack. You know, a little fresh chicken breast. You know, no, no seasoning, just boil it. Or I put mine in the instant pot, just start adding in some fresh food to increase the good gut bacteria that's. You know that's a great first way, and so I have people start doing that and just you know, depending on which direction they want to go with the diet, I can help them with that. I just finished my second um uh nutrition certification, so that's kind of my wheelhouse now, but that's cool, just adding in top. We call them toppers in the industry and you know, just working on trying to incorporate more of those fresh foods and that can really help.

Barbara O’Brien: 31:51
Well, I have a question then. You know like yogurt has live bacterias that are good yogurts, stuff that's good for us. Is that same principle apply to dogs, as long as it's not too much dairy, or you know?

Kari Bastyr: 32:04
You know, I, I will do yogurt, I'll do kefir instead. But I have a lot of people who you know, they, they, they get a lick mat, and they want to know what to put on it. And I say, do you have yogurt in your fridge? And like, okay, just put a tablespoon on there. Of course, I don't want it like high in sugar or anything like that, but, um, you know, Greek yogurt, kefir, I use that. I recommend that a lot. Um, goat smell is an amazing probiotic.

Barbara O’Brien: 32:33
Oh yeah.

Kari Bastyr: 32:34

So, there's a lot of options.

Barbara O’Brien: 32:36
So, um. She held up a lick mat for those that aren't watching the video, and a lick mat is usually some kind of dog safe, rubber, plastic, whatever that has little bumps and things like that the texture, so that the food can be spread around. It takes them a little time instead of gulping something down, and it's, it's stimulating, it's interesting to the dog.

Kari Bastyr: 32:57
It's calming, and I use it to calm and create positive associations and just to help a dog have some mental exercise. So that's a side note. But you know, licking on something like that is really good too. You know, stimulating endorphins and then enzymes for digestion,

Barbara O’Brien: 33:20
Okay, so when we change the dog's diet and it takes time, right. Cause we have to build, but there must be behavioral parts of it too. That go with it.

Kari Bastyr: 33:31
Oh yes.

Barbara O’Brien: 33:32
Right? Is there stuff that, as owners, we can do to help our dogs? If we're like, we've come to you, we've gotten an idea of what foods we're going to work with.

Kari Bastyr: 33:38

Yeah.

Barabara O’Brien: 33:39
What would be the next step?

Kari Bastyr: 33:41
Well, I certainly work a lot on building confidence and problem solving that's a big thing, and you know and decreasing whatever the cause of the anxiety you know, because sometimes it's genetic, sometimes it's environmental. So just decreasing stressors in the environment and then working on what we call counter conditioning. So that's you have an emotion conditioned emotional response that's classically conditioned already like a fear of fire hydrants or garbage trucks or dogs.

Barbara O’Brien: 34:14

Like children.

Kari Bastyr: 34:15

That’s a classically conditioned response. Similar to horses, I would imagine. We want to work on counter conditioning that emotion with a new behavior and a new emotional association and that's where a lot of the behavior change comes in. The gut part is big because we have to try and improve the neurotransmitters to help with the gut brain access. The neurotransmitters talk through the gut or talk from the gut to the brain through the Vagus nerve and so when we have more neurotransmitters you're going to have less anxiety. Then we can actually really start the behavior modification process.

Barbara O’Brien: 34:55

And the vagus nerve, for those listening is a long, and it's on horses and dogs and other mammals too.

Kari Bastyr: 35:00

And people.

Barbara O’Brien: 35:01
You could just, it's a long set. It's like a central railroad, isn't it? In a way it runs down. I don't know biology, but it runs down from our brain, down our, through our, near our spine. I'm trying to remember like our spine or something.

Kari Bastyr: 35:12
Yeah.

Barbara O’Brien: 35:13

Okay, yeah, because.

Kari Bastyr: 35:15

It's part of the central nervous system.

Barbara O’Brien: 35:16
Right, because it helps us whether we're going to be in executive mode, like we're actually thinking, and we're not in fight or flight.

Kari Bastyr: 35:22

Correct.

Barbara O’Brien: 35:23

So, it helps, but that I never had learned much about the whole gut part of it like that's talking. Of course, our whole body's talking, it's all integrated,

Kari Bastyr: 35:32

Yeah.

Barbara O’Brien: 35:33

But I just it's, it's interesting. So, you know. So, people, if you're feeling, anxious. Go look at your nutrition. Talk to a nutritionist about that as your person.

Kari Bastyr: 35:41
Oh gosh. Oh, you're preaching now.  I cannot tell you how much my life changed when I cut out gluten and dairy and sugar. Not that everyone has to do that.

Barbara O’Brien: 35:48
Let's talk about that. It was a pretty serious health crisis for you. Let's dwell into that a little bit. I'm hoping you're on the mend. But what was going on and what made you realize that something was happening, and you got help, hopefully. So, what happened?

Kari Bastyr: 36:03
I didn't, I had no idea, actually. I didn't even know I was sick, which happens a lot with celiac disease. I just I had to have eye surgery and I had blood work and I was super anemic and that's one of the biggest symptoms of celiac disease, but I never had any GI issues or anything else. Um, I had migraines, really bad. That's now when I, when I accidentally am exposed to gluten, that's my symptom. Um, but yeah, that was, that was 10 years ago. So I had an endoscopy and then I was diagnosed through biopsy, which is kind of the gold standard, um, but you know, you can um do get blood work and stuff, uh, for celiac.

Barbara O’Brien: 36:42
Okay.

Kari Bastyr: 36:43

There's over 300 symptoms of celiac disease, believe it or not.

Barbara O’Brien: 36:48
So, then you were able to find some relief, like just by changing your diet, I guess.

Kari Bastyr: 36:52
Well, I had to cut out gluten, obviously, and that was cold turkey, and I've learned a lot in the last 10 years. It was. It was difficult at first. It's not as difficult now. I'm actually now pivoting a little bit um with my business, because I am now training a gluten detection service dog for myself and my mentor is the first gluten detection trainer, Don Choi from Willow Service Dogs, and so now I'm going to be training gluten detection dogs too. Um, and she checks, Birdie, checks my food and shampoo and stuff like that.

Barbara O’Brien: 37:30
So gluten detection um cause dogs have the incredible um the the cells in their nose, but the gazillion cells in their nose that are. That's why they can do the detection for drugs and everything else.

Kari Bastyr: 37:42

Yes, there noses are much more sensitive.

Barbara O’Brien: 37:44
Dogs can even learn, learning to detect cancer and amazing, you know amazing things, and we have several stories about how, uh, dogs that we were working with knew the owner had something wrong, had cancer, before the owner knew it. The dog was telling us I could recognize on set that something was wrong, but I didn't know what was wrong.

Kari Bastyr: 37:57

Oh wow.

Barbara O’Brien: 37:58

Um you know that blew my mind, that the dog knew. You know, because the guy went home after that job, after that shoot, and like within a week he said I've got pancreatic cancer, and I didn't even know I had it.

Kari Bastyr: 38:08

Oh, my gosh.

Barbara O’Brien: 38:09

But the dog, the dog wouldn't leave him dog would only work independently, and the dog just went. Nope, I'm, I'm anxious. I'm not thinking about this job, I'm thinking about my guy, and we couldn't figure out what was like, why he was so not himself. The dog was not himself and he's screaming. He's screaming. Something's really wrong with my guy.

Kari Bastyr: 38:24

Yeah.

Barbara O’Brien: 38:25

You know.

Kari Bastyr: 38:26

Oh, my gosh.

Barbara O’Brien: 38:27

And sadly, you know, within six months to a year, the, the fellow passed. But if we dogs do our early warning system, you know, if we allow it, if we're listening, their early warning system and on a side note horses have the same amount of cells. Horses can sniff as well as dogs, and I just learned that this summer.

Kari Bastyr: 38:44

Oh really?

Barbara O’Brien: 38:45

Horses could be trained to do. Horses could be shaped to do scent detection too.

Kari Bastyr: 38:49
Interesting.

Barbara O’Brien: 38:50

I had no idea.

Kari Bastyr: 38:51
Interesting. Okay, I'm going to have to look more into that. Not that I need a horse or anything.

Barbara O’Brien: 38:54
No, I know, but isn't that interesting that animals can teach us so much? So, gluten detection, they're going to be looking for some compound, some way that the dog can sniff it out.

Kari Bastyr: 39:02

The protein, gluten protein and barley and rye also.

Barbara O’Brien: 39:06
Okay, so he gets trained to exhibit an alert so that you could be just going through looking at products and whatever it is, and he could go like, oh, it doesn't say it, but it's in there, you know, or something right?  I mean I can warn you ahead of time.

Kari Bastyr: 39:25
Yes. If, if it has, if she detects gluten, she freezes, and if it's, safe she noses, my leg.

Barbara O’Brien: 39:29

Wow, who knew this? That's, that's amazing. Can we have one that says things like uh, I'm being a jokey here, but like no, that, that, that, uh yeah, that chocolate, ice cream, that chocolate ice cream is not good for you, even though you don't have a, you know like no, no, no, don't, don't buy that.

Kari Bastyr: 39:45

Yeah, well, she, she'll tell me, I present it to her. You know a package or a plate or a bowl, um, you know some sort of container, and she'll sniff it and she'll let me know.

Barbara O’Brien: 39:57

How does the dog not just go like oh, but just eat it, thank you.

Kari Bastyr: 39:59
Training.

Barbara O’Brien: 40:02

I can't leave it.  

Kari Bastyr: 40:04

She's never, well maybe she's trying to eat once, but then you know, of course I worked on it when I first presented the plates, she, she was like what?

Barbara O’Brien: 40:14
I did my dog a plate. He's like that's mine.

Kari Bastyr: 40:18
Well, she’s. You know, there's so many, many, many months of training that go up to before we start working with plates. But yeah, now she just sniffs and.

Barbara O’Brien: 40:28
That is, that's really cool. I I just never heard of that and uh, what an amazing dog Birdie is, just on the whole, you know. How old is she? Right now?

Kari Bastyr: 40:37
She's three.  

Barbara O’Brien: 40:38

Three, just oh, just a baby, okay yeah, and Birdie is um what kind of dog?

Kari Bastyr: 40:43
Chocolate lab also.

Barbara O’Brien: 40:45

Another chocolate lab. Okay, great dogs.

Kari Bastyr: 40:46
Yes.  

Barbara O’Brien: 40:47

Okay, very cool. All right, let me see if I've got covering all the things I wanted to talk about. Um, talk about her chocolate lab, Birdie. That's one of my notes here. Good, okay and then. Oh.

Kari Bastyr: 41:04

I don't know if you remember this, well, you probably don't, but you photographed Birdie before for Target.

Barbara O’Brien: 41:08

Okay. I believe you because.

Kari Bastyr: 41:11

Couple years ago.

Barbara O’Brien: 41:12

When she was like a puppy or?

Kari Bastyr: 41:13

Yeah, she was before. She was like a year, so it's like two years ago. Search Birdie in your archives and you'll see her.

Barbara O’Brien: 41:20

Oh, and she was an audition, or? Or this was a shoot?

Kari Bastyr: 41:23

An audition. And Tinker um is one of my Tinker's mom is one of my best friends. Tinker the yellow lab from Target.

Barbara O’Brien: 41:30
Oh, love Tank.

Kari Bastyr: 41:31

Yeah.

Barbara O’Brien: 41:32

I always call her Tank.

Kari Bastyr: 41:34

Oh yeah, that's right. Tank, yes, Tank.

Barbara O’Brien: 41:36

Okay, no. Um, yeah, she's a dear, she's, the dog and the owner. She's just a dear um well, did you ever get Birdie's pictures? I'll make sure you have them, if you didn't get them.

Kari Bastyr: 41:43
Oh, yeah, yeah, yes, they're beautiful, thank you. She's never been chosen by Target, though, but that's okay.

Barbara O’Brien: 41:49
I actually no, to be fair, now, they haven't been using the chocolate labs that much, but I did put her up because she does. She have a green collar on. I think I did put her up for something just recently. We'll get Birdie in dang it.

Kari Bastyr: 41:59
Okay.

Barbara O’Brien: 41:59

Um, cause, yeah, we do a lot of work for them. Okay, let's, um. It says that you lost Paisley, which I'm sad to hear, in 2021.

Kari Bastyr: 42:08

Yes, thank you.

Barbara O’Brien: 42:09
So how old was Paisley then?

Kari Bastyr: 42:12
She had just turned 11.

Barbara O’Brien: 42:14
Okay, so the normal age roughly for a lab, but always hard.

Kari Bastyr: 42:19
Yeah, I mean I she got, she got osteosarcoma because her immune system was just so shot from her blood disease. Um, I, you know, I believe she she could have lived a little bit longer. Um cause it, you know she had not developed that the blood disease. But yeah, she was an amazing dog, the best dog I've ever had and I'll never have another one like her.

Barbara O’Brien: 42:42
I understand I feel that way about a particular horse. I get it yeah, she was an.

Kari Bastyr: 42:47
Yeah, she was amazing. She was my demo dog and she trained so many puppies, because I do puppy board and train hundreds of puppies and yeah, she was awesome.  

Barbara O’Brien: 42:58

It takes a special dog to tolerate all those naughty puppies.

Kari Bastyr: 43:00
You can see her, she's right there.

Barbara O’Brien: 43:02
Oh, dear girl, yeah, dear girl. So, you have just one dog right now, or a couple?

Kari Bastyr: 43:06

I do yeah, I'm thinking about getting another, another chocolate lab puppy to to train as a gluten detection dog, probably next year, and actually I'm, I've been wanting to do this for a while. Um, and I'm, I'm just, I'm just gonna do it. I don't know why I'm not, but I want to adopt a senior dog that's in a shelter that's been, you know, like their owner died or something, and I'm, or a hospice dog from a rescue. Um, it's just, I think it would be really rewarding, so I'm going to do it soon, very soon.

Barbara O’Brien: 43:38
Yeah, I have um senior mares horses that I got from uh Forever Morgans out of New York and Pennsylvania, but they gosh. I've had them 10, 12 years now and they just we don't ride them. They're just you know, retired old Morgans. I have Morgans.

Kari Bastyr: 43:52
I love it.

Barbara O’Brien: 43:52
And they're just wonderful, grandma horses. That's my. You know, they're probably my last ones, because we did it for about 20 years and now I have three young horses that I purposely my first purpose bought Morgans. But I love my, my old girls.

Barbara O’Brien: 44:06
They're just this you know.

Kari Bastyr: 44:09

I love seniors.

(Music): 44:10

Barbara O’Brien: 44:18
All right, we're back, and this is the part of the show where we do the questions when I, when I sent you the intake form.

Kari Bastyr: 44:24

Oh yes.

Barbara O’Brien: 44:25
There was a series of questions that we totally stole this concept, this idea of asking these questions, from Warwick Schiller, who is a horse horse person trainer that is helping all the horse people become more attuned to their horses, and he stole the idea from Tim Ferriss's book, Tribe of Mentors. So, these questions come from Tim Ferris.

Kari Bastyr: 44:44

Oh yeah, I like Tim Ferris.

Barbara O’Brien: 44:45
Yeah, so we have to like give credit where credit's due.

Kari Bastyr: 44:47
Yeah.

Barbara O’Brien: 44:48

So, I sent you 20 questions, and you picked out five of them. Okay, so the questions that I'm going to ask you about is uh. The first one was what book would you recommend and why?

Kari Bastyr: 45:00
All right, this is easy. I took it off my shelf, oh shoot you can’t see it.

Barbara O’Brien: 45:05

So, she's holding up a book. No, it's good for us.

Kari Bastyr: 45:09
The Forever Dog.

Barbara O’Brien: 45:10

The Forever Dog, by Rodney Habib and Dr Karen Shaw Becker. So tell us about The Forever Dog.

Kari Bastyr:45:16
Well, it's a book about how the things that you can do to help your dog live forever.

Barbara O’Brien: 45:23
Oh, everyone's going to want that.

Kari Bastyr: 45:25

Yes, um, these two authors are, um, well. Dr Becker has been one of my idols for many years, um, and Rodney Habib I've, I actually just saw him in October at the feed real um Institute conference and he's just a force. He started Planet Paws on Facebook years ago and it's the most followed Facebook page. There's millions and millions of followers and they have studied the dogs in the world that have lived the longest and why they lived the longest. And so they pulled tons of research and there's so much research in this book, um, and just kind of outlined how how to help your dog live forever. So, it's a it's a fascinating book.

Barbara O’Brien: 46:16
I'm curious, is one of the things for helping a dog live forever? I'm going to get the book; you know it sounds great. Um, I'm going to try and get him on my podcast cause now I want to talk.

Kari Bastyr: 46:24
Oh, you should. Yeah, they have a new book coming out in two weeks called the Forever Dog Life.

Barbara O’Brien: 46:32
Yeah, well then, this is good timing. Um, I'm curious, cause someone has told me this. Um, I have a 15-year-old border Collie, right, I've had him since he was a pup. Now I live on a farm, so he's been able his entire life because I've had, you know, we've lived here. He's able to free run like he's supervised. We don't let our dogs out, we're out with them okay, right we exercise, we go for walks you know we and he also works. He likes to work the sheep and you know he does his dog job. Okay.

Kari Bastyr 46:57
I love it.

Barbara O’Brien: 46:57
He doesn't have to be on a leash, you know, ever, unless we're in town, right.  

Kari Bastyr: 47:01

Well, he's 15, so.  

Barbara O’Brien: 47:02

Yeah, but I mean he doesn't have to, even there's, no, he doesn't run away, right. So, like, we play frisbee and he's got my two other dogs so they have this happy you know chase game and all this stuff, I was told, because so many, there's a lot of border collies, um, that, uh, live in town or do other dog sports that kind of maybe not last that long or they have serious, like they break down their, you know tear and I tear an ACL, or, you know, things can happen, right, um, I'm told that because he's had free exercise, like like this and and on a daily basis his whole life, of of this time to run and play and run and play, and run and play, you know that physically fit, he's physically fit and he's never had any health issues. Now he's 15, so, so he's, he has the selective deafness. You know, like I don't need to hear you, so I don't need to come in, but, um, you know, I'm like, oh, thank you, thank you, right, I mean, what a thrill that he's lived this long.

Kari Bastyr: 47:53

You’re so lucky.

Barbara O’Brien: 47:54
And my, my brain goes. I hope you just die in your sleep, you know, because you don't want to go through that process. But is that part of it? Is part of living forever being able to exercise in an appropriate way?

Kari Bastyr: 48:06
Yep, exercise is one of the main things, for that's important for dogs. You know, there's diet, there's environment exercise, for sure. Um, there's some other things too, but absolutely, and I I have no doubt that that's why he's lived as long as he has.

Barbara O’Brien: 48:23
Well, I'm happy that he's had a. You're lucky if you're a dog here, because, man, you know, for the occasional modeling job where you get lots of treats, there's not much work, you know, you just get to have he's right over here. He's just right there under my feet.

Kari Bastyr: 48:37

He's also been exposed to a lot of you know. I want to say you know, microbes, or um.

Barbara O’Brien: 48:46  

Oh, on a farm, yeah.

Kari Bastyr: 48:48
Yeah, dirt.

Barbara O’Brien: 48:49

And poop. They'll eat poop, if you let them, and horse poop and things like that.

Kari Bastyr: 48:53
He has a really balanced microbiome, I would imagine.

Barbara O’Brien: 48:56
Oh, see, I never put that together, that is interesting. Where a city dog. You know, unless they find some rabbit poop or something, they're not going to. You know you're not gonna let them have that. You know you're going to be like don't eat that. You know.

Kari Bastyr: 49:06
Yeah, yeah, dirt, dirt's not bad. I mean obviously they can't.

Barbara O’Brien: 49:11
Well, I think that's why my husband you know, knock on wood strong is because you know the dirt that we live with.

Kari Bastyr: 49:16
Yeah.

Barbara O’Brien: 49:17

So yeah, they mentioned like when polio came around, when polio came so badly in the 1950s and things like that, when polio was a terrible scourge before the vaccination. Um, they had changed from the early, in the early 1900s, 1920s, I can't exactly to become more sanitary, which is a good thing, right, but then and then horses became less involved in human's lives, especially in cities. So, people didn't have access, there weren't the germs of horse manure and farm animals to help build up immune systems, so that when polio came, it was so bad and I just thought, wow, everyone needs horses in their life. That's where I'm going with that. We need to eat more dirt and have farm animals.

Kari Bastyr: 49:58
Yeah for sure. Well, the immune system is in the gut and that's where you know. That's why, how the microbiome comes into play, it's all related. It's so fascinating.Barbara O’Brien: 50:09
Yeah, definitely going to have to come back and circle back on some of these subjects sometime, because this is cool. All right, the next message, or sorry.

Kari Bastyr: 50:17

No, I forgot, we're on the questions.

Barbara O’Brien: 50:18
Yeah, that's all right, we could go on, because it's so cool If you could send a message to the world, what would that be? And do you have a favorite quote or why?

Kari Bastyr: 50:27
Yes, I have had a favorite quote for many, many years, probably 35 years. Well, maybe not that long, but I saw it one day and I thought, oh my gosh, that's how I live my life. And so, I have. You're not going to be able to read this, but I have a magnet on my fridge, and it says leap and the net will appear.

Barbara O’Brien: 50:46
Oh faith, and you know just that it's going to be all right. Leap and the net will appear.

Kari Bastyr: 50:50
And that's just how I've lived my life. And you know, if you're just, my message would be if you want to do it, just do it, leap and the net will appear. You know, and that's kind of an all-encompassing.

Barbara O’Brien: 51:10
That's a good. It's pretty broad and so people can interpret it the way they like. Yeah, I happen to. I'm a person of faith, so I kind of go like, all right, I'm, I'm covered, you know. But I think, that's a really great way to I have kind of like faith, not fear, you know. So that's kind of a a paradigm on that or a thing on that too. That's great, that's a great. I always look at you know, I joke about it look at risk or look at things like, hey, will it? Two questions Will it hurt someone? Cause I never want to hurt anybody that can try and do something Will it hurt someone. I don't want to hurt me, and the same thing like creating a podcast, or starting a business, or make a new friendship, or getting the puppy, getting the puppy why not?

Kari Bastyr: 51:49
Yeah, becoming a gluten detection dog trainer. I never thought it was going to happen.

Barbara O’Brien: 51:54

Right, right.

Kari Bastyr: 51:55

Why not?

Barbara O’Brien: 51:56
Oh, I bet that that could parallel to people with allergies then too, like deadly allergies, you know.

Kari Bastyr: 52:01
So yeah, there's a lot of people in our program that are training dogs for like peanuts and um dairy, soy, um,

Barbara O’Brien: 52:10

Oh yeah, no, my dog, the dog I just used yesterday when I was working um in Milwaukee, a dog we use yesterday is a little Jack Russell and her owner, um, has to carry EpiPen um for um bee stings and things like that she's training the dog. She's training the dog to alert her to a possible allergic problem. You know, like cantaloupe just set it off or something, something that she wasn't. She wasn't aware that she had these issues, and so she's learning. Yeah, exactly, and I was just like yes, I was like wow. You know, she's not only your best friend, this little dog, but she could save your life

Kari Bastyr: 52:45

Exactly, I know.

Barbara O’Brien: 52:46
Isn't that mind blowing? You know, and I think if we could shape cats, they'd probably do it too. They just don't care, you know. So.

Kari Bastyr: 52:52
That's right.

Barbara O’Brien: 52:53
No, I'm not trashing the cats, you know, I love my cats.

Kari Bastyr: 52:55
Yeah, no, I love cats too. Cats are really trainable.

Barbara O’Brien:

Oh yeah, that’s what I do, that's my living, as my cats are models, and they have the best life. But, yeah, yeah, so no, they're, but there's no dominance. So that was the early lesson, right there there's, there's no dominance.

Kari Bastyr: 53:09
And they do what they want.

Barbara O’Brien: 53:11
Yeah, and that's really smart of them. Good, we should be more like cats, like you know. Is it in my best interest? Okay, no, I love them all right. Sorry I digress, but that was, um, that's a wonderful quote. Uh, the next question what is the most valuable thing that you put your time into that has changed the course of your life?

Kari Bastyr: 53:31
This. Not podcast, but like, um you know, getting the message out that dogs are just having a hard time. That's, that's my message.

Barbara O’Brien: 53:45
Well, I think you're doing a great service.

Kari Bastyr: 53:46
Oh, thank you, that's.

Barbara O’Brien: 53:47
That’s, that's great. All right. Uh, what accomplishments? Sorry. What accomplishment are you most proud of, and why?

Kari Bastyr: 53:54
My business.

Barbara O’Brien: 53:55
Good, cause it's helping.

Kari Bastyr: 53:58
It's a constant hustle, but it's, it's my baby. I don't have kids. So, Wag and Train’s my kid, it's my, it's my greatest accomplishment, it's my legacy.

Barbara O’Brien: 54:09
But what a service-based business. You know, I mean you're not selling a trinket, you know you're, you're actually helping people,

Kari Bastyr: 54:10

Right.

Barbara O’Brien: 54:11

It's, it's a really and dogs. So.

Kari Bastyr: 54:14
I have the best job.

Barbara O’Brien: 54:16
I agree, I agree, that's wonderful.

Kari Bastyr: 54:19

Okay.

Barbara O’Brien: 54:20

Yeah, what is the worst advice given in your profession or bad idea that you hear of in your field of expertise?

Kari Bastyr: 54:27
Well, I think we already covered this one, but it was the dominance part. But when I read this question, I thought the one thing that stuck out in my mind and it wasn't really advice, it's just something that I hear all the time is my dog is stubborn. And I think the worst, like I. I hate pet peeves, um, but like that's, I only have one, and it's people who drive slow in the fast lane and people who are, and maybe a second people who call their dog stubborn. Stubborn, but um, anyway I digress. Stubborn, I equivalent is equivalent to a dog not being motivated enough or being too scared or too stressed or in an environment they can't handle, they're having a hard time. So, whenever people tell me their dog is stubborn, you know I automatically know okay, well, that dog's having a hard time. You know why? Is it fearful? Is it stressed? Is it sick? You know dogs aren't willfully stubborn. There's some breeds that are, you know, like cats, that are a little more. You know they have a. It's more challenging to motivate them.

Barbara O’Brien: 55:39
Well, they’re discerning. We just call that discerning. They’re not.

Kari Bastyr: 55:41

Yeah, they're doing a cost benefit analysis constantly, but they're not being stubborn, so that I think in the industry, if I could abolish that one word, oh it would help.

Barbara O’Brien: 55:53
It would help horses so much. It would help horses so much if people understood that stubborn isn't the thing it's. You know fear, it's not understanding. You're not asking the question that they can understand. You know things like that and you know fear, it's not understanding. Children, too, you know, oh my, my kids. So stubborn, it's like. No, that's it's, it's a whole thing. You know, yeah, what is going on? That paradigm again, like when you have children with adverse childhood experiences and they, you know, in air quotes, again misbehave, which is a form of communication. Okay, so, instead of um, not what's wrong with you, which is our instinct, you know what's wrong with you. You're a terrible child. What's wrong with you? No, what happened to you? You know why are, why is this emotional state, this dysregulation?

Kari Bastyr: 56:37

Why are you having a hard time?

Barbara O’Brien: 56:39
What's happened? If we could always, if we could always ask the dog, you know why as opposed to you are bad, you know?

Kari Bastyr: 56:43
well, they're trying to tell us you know.

Barbara O’Brien: 56:45

Everything is communication, all, all all movement, all everything is communication. It's just we're not listening. You know, human beings, we're just so above everything, we're not listening. Interesting. Okay.

Kari Bastyr: 56:57
It's frustrating but, yeah.

Barbara O’Brien: 56:59

It's going to get better because they're going to go to your site and learn more things and be better for our dogs. Okay, what inspires and motivates you to do what you do and what is your true purpose in the world?

Kari Bastyr: 57:10
Well, this is my true purpose for sure, you know I I love working with people, I love working with dogs. Uh, I just. It's so rewarding for me to see the light bulb go on in someone's head when they just realize like, oh my god, that's what my dog's been trying to tell me or that's how I can help my dog.  

Barbara O’Brien: 57:28

And they do want to help.

Kari Bastyr: 57:29
They do want to help they do. They I mean, these are their you know children, or their, you know their, their um. You know highest commodities is are their pets, and they just people just don't know how to, how to interpret um or or communicate are their pets, and they, just people just don't know how to, how to interpret um or or communicate with their animals. And it's just so rewarding for me to do that. And that is my purpose. Like I said, it's my legacy that's.

Barbara O’Brien: 7:57
That's a good thing. Uh, how.

Kari Bastyr: 57:58

As small is it.

Barbara O’Brien: 58:00
Oh no, I think it's important. A couple, two things. One first how do we find you? So we're going to have all of your links and everything in the show notes, but just tell us how to find you and then what you can do for people. They have questions.
How do we find you?

Kari Bastyr: 58:17
Well, the easiest way is my website, which is wagandtrain.com.

Barbara O’Brien: 58:24
Okay, and so they can go there, check that out, send you an email message.

Kari Bastyr: 58:29
Sure.

Barbara O’Brien: 58:30

Things like that.

Kari Bastyr: 58:31
Yeah.  

Barbara O’Brien: 58:32

Great.

Kari Bastyr: 58:31
Yeah, I mean my email is kari@wagandtrain.com. Um, but my website has all the information on it too, and you can learn all about the gut, brain access and, you know, behavior modification on there too. I have lots of blogs, videos.

Barbara O’Brien: 58:48
I love that when people are so generous with information.

Kari Bastyr: 58:52
I try to be.

Barbara O’Brien: 58:53
Yeah, yeah, that's wonderful. And then I have another question for you, because you have you're such a wealth of information to me, you have such an interesting story, and it's not easy in this world anymore. But I mean, are you going to write a book? Because I would read your book.

Kari Bastyr: 59:08

I am writing a book.

Barbara O’Brien: 59:10

Ah, there it is. Good.

Kari Bastyr: 59:11

I need like seven more hours in the day to finish it for the next six months. Yeah, I'm writing a book on treating anxiety and aggression through healing leaky gut.

Barbara O’Brien: 59:22
There you go, and I bet there's principles apply to people too, so I just play this whole thing. You know, yeah, we're going to okay, so when you get that going we'll have you back on.

Kari Bastyr: 59:31

Okay.

Barbara O’Brien: 59:32
We definitely want to learn more about that.

Kari Bastyr: 59:34.208 --> 00:59:35.150
I'll be 80 by then. No, I'm joking, I'm trying, yeah.

Barbara O’Brien: 59:37
Yeah, I'm supposed to write a book about all our adventures as an animal actor trainer. You know I'm supposed to you know because we have 30 years of that and there's, yeah, some stories, but first of all, not a writer problem.

Kari Bastyr: 59:50
Yeah, that’s a problem. I love writing, I just don't have time yeah, no, that's someday

Barbara O’Brien: 59:53

Well, Kari, this has been so informative and I'm I know that people are going to be really interested in this subject. Um, knowing that you know the dogs aren't bad, they just need help. It's that's a great premise. To start with.

Kari Bastyr: 1:00:07
Just having a hard time.

Barbara O’Brien: 1:00:08
They're having a hard time, um, aren't we all in some ways?But we do. We do love our dogs. We don't want them to have a hard time, and they're. They're so good for us. They want to. All they want to do is like make us happy. What species is like that, that just wants so much to be part of the family, part of the team, part of the. I'm with you fellas you know, so that's pretty great um. So I thank you.

Kari Bastyr: 1:00:30
Thank you for having me. This was wonderful.

Barbara O’Brien: 1:00:33
Okay.

(Music): 1:00:36