Kera Wilhelmsen - You Want Your Dog to Trust You, Right? S2 E14

Kera Wilhelmsen Transcript

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, I'm Barbara O'Brien and welcome to The Empathetic Trainer podcast. Today's guest is Kera Wilhelmsen. She is the owner of Creature Conference Pet Services, where she offers dog training, behavioral classes and home visits. Kera believes that patience and compassion are important parts in wanting to live with our companion animals. Well, I can't disagree with that and we're really glad to have you here today. Thanks for being our guest.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 0:53

Thank you for having me.

Barbara O’Brien: 0:55

Okay, well, when I put out the, I think I think how we connected was when I put out, when I first started the podcast I put out there on Facebook and social media I was looking for interesting people and that are following that same kind of path that I'm learning more and more about, which is having empathy and compassion and understanding of our animal our dogs, our cats, our horses principally, but all animals and I'm pretty sure you were kind enough to respond and so I put you on the list of someone and now we're catching up.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 1:28

Yeah, no, it was very intriguing to me as well, so I love the direction.

Barbara O’Brien: 1:33

So, we've been looking over your blog and the other things you're doing and it's really nice to see you're obviously quite a bit younger than me and that's great, and it's really nice to see a young person so early start out already having this in hand, like already coming from that approach. Because when I was growing up, the way that we treated animals, well you know, it wasn't horrible obviously. I mean, I didn't grow up, but we were taught a different way and even back then it was like they don't even have feelings like that quit amorphous sizing, quit saying like they have the same feelings as humans, which, of course, you know, down in our heart we knew that was ridiculous. But even scientifically now they've proven that, because we're all mammals, which means at least not at least mammals that we're working with, and that means we're animals too. So why wouldn't we experience trauma in a similar way? Why wouldn't we experience happiness? Why? So why wouldn't animals be allowed to have or you know, we're not amorphous sizing, they are feeling things.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 2:40

And their brains are very similar.

Barbara O’Brien:  2:42

Right. So that's what I want to talk to you about a little bit, and so we'll get to that. First, I want to start out like how did you become what you're becoming and what you're doing? And then I want to go into more of the feelings and emotions and the whole empathetic thing that we're trying to do. But how does, how do you get to be you? Because that's pretty cool.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 3:01

Yeah Well, it didn't start out with being around a lot of animals as a kid. I actually didn't grow up with my parents having animals, so it must have just been meant to be, because I always was obsessed with animals and learning everything I could about them. And it wasn't necessarily just dogs. At first, I did. I was interested in horses and cats and everything too. But I just had the opportunity to work at a boarding place. My mom's friend knew someone and loved being around dogs.

Barbara O’Brien: 3:29

We’re talking dog boarding?

Kera Wilhelmsen: 3:30

Yeah, yeah, yep, dog boarding. They did some daycare too, but mostly boarding, and I kind of just got into that a lot and I ended up becoming like a manager type of person there, a crew leader, they called it so that had helped run the facility and it kept growing. And then they started offering grooming and training.

Barbara O’Brien: 3:49

Okay.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 3:50

So, tried my hand at grooming. Not for me. I give them lots of props. It's very stressful and hard on your body. But I was a little bit too stressed there because I was always caring about the animals being really stressed in that environment. I didn't feel I had enough time to kind of help them. You know, be okay with what was going on and everything. So got into the training, I kind of assisted with some training there for a while in that same sort of facility and fell in love with it. I will say kind of like you mentioned back then I'm trying to think of how many years ago this was probably 20-ish years ago they were doing things that I didn't feel right about them I gut. There were, like you know, prong collars and lots of things. One of the things that I'm passionate about is words. Words matter. I have an English degree, actually from one on a state university. So, enjoy writing and stuff. But it was very clear to me right away that I didn't gel with everything and luckily, I've always been a person who questions what's going on and why things are the way they are, and I don't just follow because it's the status quo. So, I knew that I wanted to do stuff a little bit differently. I didn't want to necessarily even call it obedience, because that means you know it's like militant, you have to obey. I want to call them cues, not commands or cue you it's okay if you don't figure it out. You know those types of things. So, I picked up on a lot of, I guess, what I wouldn't do the same there, and so I got interested in finding where else I could learn information from. So, while I was in college for English, I went to it's called animal behavior college.

Barbara O’Brien: 5:29

Oh cool.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 5:30

And it's, yeah, it's an online well, mostly online. It's about maybe three quarters-ish online learning and, funnily enough, I already feel like I knew everything, just instinctively. But the best part was actually the in-person mentor program. So, yeah, it was great. I got hooked up with the, I think the biggest, one of the biggest, if not the biggest places in Rochester. Paws Abilities Dog Training

Barbara O’Brien: 5:54

In Rochester, Minnesota? Yeah, okay.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 5:57

Yes, thank you.

Barbara O’Brien: 5:58

Just for context.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 5:59

There’s a New York one, I know. Yeah yeah, and the owner was my mentor, so she had already gone through a lot of stuff, so she gave me so much good advice and then, right after my mentorship, she hired me on. So, I started assisting with a bunch of classes there and I did Jill with 99.9% of the stuff that they were espousing and explaining to people and how they went about things. So, it felt more of a fit and I just was also loving being around trainers, so other people that had the same ideas and passion as I did. But I was one of the few that was like I want to do this full time somehow someday.

Barbara O’Brien: 6:38

Yeah, and that's not an easy thing to do, it's not.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 6:41

No, most of them are doing it kind of like an evening. I'll do classes here and there in addition to their full-time job. So, it wasn't even 2015, 10 years ago. It's kind of a new like full-time position or whatever you want to call it, career, I guess that is coming up where you can be a full-time behavior trainer. So back then it was just classes.

Barbara O’Brien: 7:08

Right.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 7:09

Classes, classes, classes. That that's all-what people knew. Left of my dog has issues. Go to a class that'll solve everything, which it doesn't. So, knowing all the stuff we know now with science is when I started reading the books my mentor told me to read and going to conferences. I Loved hearing about all the behavior, Scientific background stuff now that we know much more about, as you said then we have ever, and I felt like I wanted to do more than just classes. So that's when I started getting into learning about specific behaviors like reactivity, fear, you know, aggression or whatever those things. But it also helped that at the time I had a border collie mix who had a lot of her own behavior stuff going on that I didn't really just instinctively know what to do about it. I cared, but I didn't know how to help her.

Barbara O’Brien: 8:00

Well, let's, let's talk about, let's talk about her and the issues you faced at the time, and then like, how did you learn to help her regulate or, whatever it is that she needed to do. I have.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 8:11

Yeah.

Barbara O’Brien: 8:12

Two border collies in a border colleague or a collie cross, you know. So, I I do get them. I'm a little biased, I love the herding dogs, you know.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 8:22

Yes, they’re a lot of dog.

Barbara O’Brien:  8:23

Yeah, and luckily, I live on a farm, so this is the best border collie life, one could have, because there is, I mean, so much run, play, you know, do their job. There’s sheep.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 8:33

Yeah.

Barbara O’Brien: 8:34

So, mine don't have. I've been lucky, you know. I mean they have there, but when you don't have an environment, that's, that's perfect for a border collie. Sometimes things can happen, and then also there's a lot of variation in border collies. You know the drive things like that, so please tell me about, about your border collie.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 8:51

Her name was Tayla, and she was my second dog. My first one was a pug, so he was just chill, you know, bred to be a lap dog. He was very sweet, but all the dogs I've owned so far have had bad past situations, though, and hers was as a very, very young puppy, she had been attacked by a dog in the first household she was in. So, then she Friend of a friend type of situation fell into my household at the time and I was still in college, towards the end of college. But so, yeah, I wasn't in, I wasn’t in a rented house, but it's still was like I had to go to school and stuff. So, I did what I thought you should do with the puppy, because I never technically owned, especially a very smart puppy that wanted to do things all the time. So, she was one of those, like you know, chew on cords, tear up things like oh, she got my shoes. Like I had to learn the hard way with a lot of things because the pug was not the same.

Barbara O’Brien: 9:51

Yeah.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 9:52

As a border collie. They're very, very different, but I learned pretty quickly she was smart. But part of being so intelligent is a lot of these intelligent dogs to easily almost make connections, associations with things. So, like for self-preservation, they're being hyper aware of everything, hyper vigilant, and she went okay, dogs are bad. So, I was attacked by a dog. We went outside on walks and then she went oh, there are people with dogs. So now people are bad because they're associated with.

Barbara O’Brien: 10:18

Oh, wow, okay.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 10:19

Yeah, yeah. And then it was oh, movement, because border collie herding, bridge movement got her very, of course, going there, so it became just basically anything so people on bikes, rollerblades. It became cars then because they had wheels, and it would move by fast. So basically, I felt like I couldn't have her outside of the house.

Barbara O’Brien: 10:40

You must have been overwhelmed. I mean, that's, that's a lot for anyone.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 10:44

Yeah, especially at that age where I, you know, I didn't have at that point the trainer. You know, support group, I guess. Basically, that I have now where I can kind of bounce ideas off of.

Barbara O’Brien: 10:55

The average person in that case would be like this dog's too much and they would you know, like that's it and they'd re-home or whatever it is.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 11:04

But of course, being me, I was like I don't want to give up, I just don't know what to do.

Barbara O’Brien: 11:07

But what a lucky dog, you know. But let me say something about how they make a quick association, or what did you said something like that, right? No, let me. When you said that. It reminds me of something. With an animal actor trainer. We audition, you know, dogs to be animal actors, so people will bring their dogs to set, and I've got strobes set up and we'll take a photo right and 95% of the dogs aren't really bothered by the strobes. Now we take our time introducing the strobe, we don't just throw them out there. We we know, we gradually get them close, we make sure they're not being bothered. But the border collies, some Aussies, they go like the sky is freaking, exploding, just like they are so quick to go. This is not real life. You know something's wrong, because the vast majority of the dogs that are bothered by the strobes are gonna be really highly intelligent. You know paying attention because they're like really watching their environment, not to say other breeds. It happens in other breeds too, but, more often than not.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 12:11

We bred them to be like that.

Barbara O’Brien: 12:13

More often than not, that it's gonna be a border collie who says, nope, the sky is exploding. We, mom, we got to get out of here, you know yeah, and then we don’t make him do it. I mean, we just go, okay, we get it no problem, because it's not, it's not like we have to have him do it, I will not stress a dog out with fear.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 12:26

Right.

Barbara O’Brien: 12:27

That's not fair, so but,

Kera Wilhelmsen: 12:29

And I love that.

Barbara O’Brien: 12:30

No, and it's not worth it. Why would you do that? But uh,

Kera Wilhelmsen: 12:31

No, it’s not.

Barbara O’Brien: 12:33

So, I understand what you're saying when you say, okay, then it grew into this and then it grew into that, you know. So go on. You were,

Kera Wilhelmsen: 12:39

Yeah.

Barbara O’Brien: 12;40

You were like overwhelmed, so then what happened?

Kera Wilhelmsen: 12:42

Yeah, so once I kind of coinciding with getting that mentor, I would bounce things off of her and then, at like, every book I read, every conference I went to, I learned more that made me understand her better. As in okay, this is more of a deep-seated thing. There's nothing that I can do. That's just going to be like a band-aid, because that's not going to actually help long-term, which is what a lot of old school kind of traditional training was. Let's just make the surface thing stop.

Barbara O’Brien: 13:14

And what would be the answer to that? Like I was told when I had a German Shepherd who I got when she was six, seven months old, so I didn't start her as a puppy would worry, and they said, well, have her sit. Have her sit and think about and somebody give her a treat. It was like, but we're not solving that the dog turned out to be fine. But it wasn't solving the underlying, you know.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 13:36

I was just talking about this the other day, like sit was the answer to everything back then. It was just have your dog sit and then they can't do anything bad If they're sitting and staying. That solves everything or laying down.

Barbara O’Brien: 13:47

Until it doesn't, right?

Kera Wilhelmsen: 13:51

Until it doesn't. Right, no, but it really, it really just doesn't. It's just kind of trying to control a situation that they didn't know enough about?

Barbara O’Brien: 13:54

Did it bring up the dog's anxiety? Why, by being told to sit and stay, does their anxiety go up?

Kera Wilhelmsen: 13:59

Of course, it definitely does, because you're taking away options. Right, you're saying okay, you can't show your full body language, which is how they communicate. They can't do the flight part of fight or flight, like there's just you're not listening. They're going, okay.

Barbara O’Brien: 14:13

Yeah, it's the same thing with horses. Same thing with horses or cats.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 14:15

Yeah, like I don't trust this person because they're not listening to me and actually helping me. They're just trying to control me and have me do one very specific thing, but it doesn't help the underlying thing. It's kind of like, you know, putting a Band-Aid on a bullet wound, like that's not, that's not going to do much, it's not going to help long term, like it's you got to get to the root of it all, because if you help them feel better, they're going to act different. Which is what you're looking to solve is the actions, but it's the. It's the emotion behind why they're acting the way they're acting. If they're afraid of something, they're probably going to bark at it to get it to go away, and a lot of what we think of as aggression is a lot of it's just they're afraid of something, they're unsure what's going to happen, they don't trust it, they don't like it, they want it to go away. So, they act tough and bark loud and they kind of. You know they do all those things that look scary to us, but it's supposed to be because they're trying to get the thing to go away. They're trying to tell the dog to not come near them. They're trying to tell the person they don't trust, whatever it is. They're outwardly showing those things. But as people like we don't like that, we don't like growls, we're not supposed to though instinctively, because that's survival instinct. If a wolf growls at you or a bear like you know, you're not supposed to think that's a great thing. It's just you don't want to just have them not vocalize what they're feeling, because that doesn't solve the feeling. So don't worry so much about the vocalization, but let's think of why they feel the need to vocalize like that. What are they feeling? That we can help? Because if they feel better about the situation or their triggers, they're not going to do those things. But it's also good information.

Barbara O’Brien: 15:51

And how? Because the horses are the same way. I keep going back to that, but like a horse is pawing right, and then the old school thing would be like get after him for pawing. You know, like okay first of all, why is he pawing? And then, if we get to the where he can regulate and not feel the need to paw, it's like the more work you're doing to make him feel better what you just said then those problems take care of themselves instead of getting after a particular action. You know so how exactly happened then. So, you have her and you taught. You see the problems. Then what happened?

Kera Wilhelmsen: 16:23

Yep. So, I learned about like behavior modification because there was a couple of things at the place, I was working Paws Abilities where they would help people with those. So, I learned a couple of key things. One, just to help her learn the skill of relaxation, because she didn't know they don't, I mean just like us, they're not born just knowing how to relax in all different situations. So, I actively worked on her learning the skill of relaxation, which sounds weird because it's kind of the act of doing nothing.

Barbara O’Brien: 16:52

Well, it's self-regulation right. I mean in a sense self-regulation. It's like when we teach children, basically children. It's okay. Take a deep breath.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 17:02

Yes, so you're. You're also this is the key part that I had to learn. That helped a lot was I needed to calm down too. So, if I saw her triggers, I started getting, you know, triggered, and so she would go oh, mom's worried about something, where is the thing? And it just made it worse. So, I had to do I tell people all the time I'm like you can inwardly be freaking out, that's normal, but I really just take some deep breaths and be calm and calmly talk to them and that's going to help them feel more secure because they're watching us.

Barbara O’Brien: 17:31

Does it help the owner too, because you can't fool a horse.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 17:34

Yeah, it does eventually.

Barbara O’Brien: 17:35

You can't fool a dog, a dog knows what you're feeling, whether you pretending or not.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 17:41

For sure, yep. So I say it kind of starts with it's kind of like a fake it till you make it but it also, yeah, but it's also telling them and having them understand what to do which is my next part helps them feel more confident in the situation, because then they know how to react to their dog doing these things or how to be proactive about having them have that behavior. Behavior modification happens so that they feel better. Having that plan.

Barbara O’Brien: 18:05

So, what do they do? That's a great thing, but,

Kera Wilhelmsen: 18:08

Yeah, so after the relaxation, because you can do that at home and kind of start that going. The other part is the behavior modification where it's basically like classical conditioning to an extent here. So, watch the world is the phrase of the I forget who coined that but it's basically going okay. You're going to go to a space where the triggers are, but you're going to have distance enough from the triggers that your dog is still it's called at or under threshold.

Barbara O’Brien: 18:41

Yeah, no I understand what you’re saying.

Kera Wilhelmsen:
18:42

Over threshold is the crazy at or under threshold because they can't learn if they're over threshold.

Barbara O’Brien: 18:47

No, cuz their brain is, the executive thinking is shut off. Yeah.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 18:51

To stressed. It's gone. Yep, so they just care about the trigger at that point. They're just kind of seeing one thing, worrying about one thing. But when they're at or under threshold they still will take food. Which food is going to help with multiple things. One it does help them kind of turn off, almost the kind of flight or fight type of brain where if you're eating the body goes oh, we're in rest and digest. So, to a certain extent the body calms down because you also have to chew and swallow and breathe and all that stuff kind of happens, but it helps the brain that way. You know there's dopamine, just like with us eating makes us good quickly. So, stress, eating all that stuff. But so, food helps with that, but also the watch the world is, specifically you connecting the food, the feel good, that stuff with their trigger. So, for example, if I'm sitting at a lake we haven't known that there's a lake and dogs are walking around it I can sit back in the field and when a dog let's just say it's dogs that my dog is barking at or you know reactive to the dog starts showing up and I start treating my dog just for knowing the dogs there in the distance and the second that dog goes out of sight, I stop. So, it's every time one comes you get that connection going. So, it's not just sight necessarily tell people to. It's like if they know it's there, because you know that dog can be looking at something and look away and be looking at you, but they know that's still going on. Their ear might still be kind of twitched back there or they might be kind of glancing because they're keeping an eye on it, but it's just knowing the triggers present, getting that very distinct connection of you, get this stuff to make you feel better and connect that with the trigger, which also does double duty of having them go. Oh, I'll look to you in case you have something good when I see the trigger coming. So, I'm not forcing them, by the way, to look away, because that is a thing that used to happen a lot, where they're like, just have them look at you and sit and ignore the trigger. But that also just isn't a natural thing, right. Like, if you're worried about something, you're going to want to look at it. And I'm okay with my dog looking at things. That's normal. I look at stuff when they walk, you know something walks by or squirrel shoots out a tree on our walk on the, look at it. But it's how they feel, again, that matters. So, I don't care if they're looking at it or not. Now I still worry about, like, if they start to, you know, inch up the threshold a little bit so they start to get too stary or, you know, get too tense, and I can tell it's too hard. If it gets too hard, then that just means you need to create more distance. So, distance is the variable that we work with, with watch the world. So, the farther way, the easier they're going to have a time learning and feeling. You know, learning basically.

Barbara O’Brien: 21:32

But it's a process, right? It's not overnight. This is going to take time. I mean, you know it takes time to reset. You know build safety.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 21:40

It's like habit, making breaking. Yeah, it's definitely. You basically are building up a neurological pathway. You're trying to have them go down this pathway when they see their triggers, instead of this old one that they’ve been doing.

Barbara O’Brien: 21:52

Are people, are you finding people more open to wanting to take the time to do this versus I'm just going to get rid of the dog, you know? I mean like, because it feels to me like back in the day, which is you know, and there's still, of course, a lot of poor dogs that are dumped, and you know, I mean they just never get a chance, but are people. Is there a trend to people wanting to be better owners? Do you see that?

Kera Wilhelmsen: 22:15

I do think so. I think that unfortunately, sometimes it stems from trying everything else first. So then I or people like myself that do behavior, this, this kind of way with the science based knowledge kind of, are their last resort because they've fallen for these quick fix guarantees of people who aren't actually certified trainers, that are trying to just do the band-aid thing or use something to basically control the dog or make them afraid of even reacting. So, a lot of times they've come from that. So, then I actually have to do a little bit of, you know, rebuilding and shaping and having the dog trust them again and all that stuff. But but I will say more and more, it does seem like people are actively looking for the kind of situation that I offer, which is going at it scientifically and empathetically, like making sure that they're comfortable with what I'm doing to their dog and that they understand what's going on because I teach them too you know.

Barbara O’Brien: 23:11

Yeah, you’d have to.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 23:13

I make sure they understand. Yeah, everything right, like how do how to read their dog, because everyone should know that. But they don't ask necessarily how to read their dog, how what thresholds are and how to work on the watch the world and all that stuff. And I write them a very, very, very detailed email because writer and I give them lots and lots of information and I give them resources, because people just Google stuff now and it's you're never gonna know what you're gonna find. You're gonna find the opposites and person you know a that doesn't know anything. They don't know which one to go with, they're just gonna be guessing.

Barbara O’Brien: 23:47

We find that with the dogs that come in, so it's, we're gonna see a wide variety of owners that want to, you know, get their dog into showbiz, right, and and we see some dogs that are handled exactly like you're talking about and these, you know, it's a joy, right, I mean, these dogs are gonna be fine. And we see other dogs and they it might even be a young dog and it doesn't need a prong collar, it just this, just, you know, there's just, and I'm like, hey, your dog is really sweet. I just don't, you know, you know why, and they go. That's what they told us. It was like, whatever school they're going to, it's like that's the default and that's the behavior we're gonna do. And if you are a, if they're open and and you can say, you know, maybe you try this approach instead. You know, we just had that happen recently, you know, and then so she switched schools, and her dog is, I'm so grateful, is so much happier, for it is gonna be fine, you know, but it was.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 24:39

I love that. Yeah.

Barbara O’Brien: 24:40

But they need to be open to that you know so.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 24:43

Yeah, yeah, it's a whole another way of thinking about things. So, I definitely feel like I do a lot of like human psychology when I go to these one-on-ones at people's houses, because I have to read the person to and figure out where they are as far as what they think of even just dogs, so like are they property? Should they just do everything that you say and not you know. All these types of things to see where they are. And then I start laying a foundation of well, here's what we know now because of science. Because usually if you say that.

Barbara O’Brien:  25:11

Yeah, a little credibility.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 25:13

A lot of people kind of go oh, okay, yeah, science and the kind of questioners or naysayers. I can usually pick those out right away and I also give them you know some knowledge of what to look for in the trainer, because even if they don't connect personally with me, I want them to understand what to look for as far as like. Are they, are they credible, right or do they have good you know knowledge? Do they continue their education? Because if they're doing the same thing, they've done 20 years ago, we know better now. So, anyone can call themselves a trainer. Unfortunately, they're working on it, but there it’s unregulated.

Barbara O’Brien: 25:48

Yeah, it's the same in the horse world. Yeah, for sure.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 25:51

Which scares, it scares me, because it scares a lot of us trainers, because any Joe Schmo can tell you to, just you know, shock your dog anytime they do something bad.

Barbara O’Brien: 26:00

Yeah, we, uh what I got it. We had that happen to. A gal came in with a nice enough dog or whatever, and she had a shock collar on it and the dog wanted to say hello to us because it was excited. And she was shocking it for wanting to be friendly and I'm like stop, stop, stop, you know. Stop right now. Do you know we're? We have a different collar here. Or take this off, you know, I said we.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 26:22

Because what is she teaching that dog?

Barbara O’Brien: 26:23

Not to be nice, you know because I just couldn't see any issues and you know. I get really upset, I don't… I'm not gonna go there, I just get so upset about that, you know. So, I hear you

Kera Wilhelmsen: 26:32

Totally.

Barbara O’Brien: 26:33

I also told her. I said yeah, I told her we can't use your dog. You know if you're gonna be, if this is your methods, we can't work with you. You know, and so I don't know where she went with that, you know. But but it was like what are you thinking? Why? You know I don't. I think they get told something. They honestly I don't think they're trying to. I don't think they understand, you know.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 26:57

No, that's the thing. I think you're right. I think a lot of it's naivete, like they just don't know what they don't know, and they will just listen to someone because it's if you make it sound good, you can make anything sound good like. I have had dogs my whole life and I've trained them all with this shock collar and they're all perfect. So, if you do this, I promise your dog will be your idea of perfect. And they say that, and someone goes okay, why would they not buy in and trust that, especially with all the? Usually, they give kind of the kind of key phrases or words of like I guarantee, like they'll be, like it's a little bit kind of too good to be true. And then it is a type of situation but, yeah, people just want quick help and when they are told that if they do something it'll help in an instant, that's they'll kind of latch on to that without knowing there's an alternative, necessarily and Unfortunately using fear, which usually punishment, it's kind of all based in here, right or intimidation, using that unfortunately it does work right. So, like, technically, what they're looking for to happen tends to happen. The dog feels something negative, so then they stop, they try and not do whatever they need to do to not get that negative feeling. So, fear and intimidation work. I mean, look at there's like our military, like there there's definitely fear, and intimidation have been used by people forever, even in classrooms back in the day. Like fear and intimidation, they work to get very obedient results and black and white, but they don't take into account feelings, emotions and how dogs learn, how people, how any kind of relationship with your dog is usually broken. When you start to do that and that's one of the things, I say to people is I do want your dog to like, trust you and like you and not be afraid of you. Like, don't you want your dog to like, and then you can kind of see them going. Oh yeah, I guess it wouldn't feel good if I got zapped every time. But you know, they have to really kind of get into the mind of the dog and again be empathetic and understand that that's not actually gonna help long term, so it only works short term. And when I say works, it just looks like it's helping because the dog might shut down. Because they don't want to feel that right, so it's. It's like an outside again thing versus working on the inside. So, if I see a trainer that just says I do this for every single dog, I always use punishment for every single dog, I always do shock collars, whatever it's, they're just not knowing enough about each individual dog. First of all because not just not just a black and white world, not one size, that's all. And then also they're just feeding on the basic, you know, idea of fear can work, and intimidation can work to get someone or something to do what I want them to do. But it doesn't have anything to do with how dogs can learn without having to.

Barbara O’Brien: 29:40

Yeah, if you're trying to learn something, if somebody hits you every time you make a mistake. I mean, how are you gonna learn? You're not gonna learn your times tables that way. You know four times for whack. No, you know, you're not gonna learn. And, of course, mammals, animals in a way. So so then, what happened with your, your, what was, I'm sorry, the sweet dog's name, the border collie’s name?

Kera Wilhelmsen: 29:58

Tayla.

Barbara O’Brien: 29:59

So, you got Tayla, you, you understood. So then how did Tayla herself get helped? What, what were you able to do for her?

Kera Wilhelmsen: 30:07

I did just that. I worked on relaxation. There's something called the relaxation protocol that Dr. Karen Overall created. That I worked on, where I just she was on a mat and I help her learn that I can walk around, her noises can happen, things can happen kind of like the herding breed thing, where I wanted her to be used to things happening around her and not worrying about it. So I did that she would get calm treats for things happening around her and she just practiced that in our house and then outside of the house I did the watch the world, so I would go to places where I knew that there would be dogs and people of course too, but but I would go at times, specifically when it wasn't super busy, because that would have just been setting us up to feel so less going on, but I could have a clear sight line of them coming and going, so it wasn't just constant.

Barbara O’Brien: 30: 55

Right, right,

Kera Wilhelmsen: 30:58

You know triggers. Yeah. So, there's a little gaps in between and I would only do it for maybe five or ten minutes and then we go home and take a break and rest. And I do think that I don't know why I did that specifically because I wasn't necessarily told that, but I have learned since then. It's a very key thing is to not just overdo it with our dogs, not to just go, go, go, drill, drill, drill until they have to tell us they're done, by kind of having to melt down.

Barbara O’Brien: 31:20

Oh yeah, no, I understand that completely, because we work on set you know, we train animal actors, right?

Kera Wilhelmsen: 31:25

Yeah.

Barbara O’Brien: 31:25

And that's it stresses, you know. So, just being in the studio stress. Okay, now you're on a new people stress. And now you're on set now, luckily, because I've worked with these dogs, have met them, I know which dogs absolutely love it. You know, like like this is a cheese treat day and they get excited. Yeah, I mean. And so, because we don't we don't use dogs that don't love it, because, a it's not right and then B, they don't look good on you, don't look, it's not nice. Same thing with a cat. You know, I mean, my cats like to do the studio work, because you're not gonna make a cat do anything. I mean there's no obedience. No so you know they have been same thing with those other animals I work with. So the I will tell I'm on set and I'll just go dogs done or we need a break and then like they, you know, if the photographer who 99% of the time of course they're good and they know what you know they're doing it, but if they miss it in the time frame, you know, because they're not ready, I'm sorry. Dog is done because I want him to come back.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 32:23

Yep.

Barbara O’Brien: 32: 24

Next time and be just as happy.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 32:25

I want to. Yeah, exactly, you don't want to kind of taint it.

Barbara O’Brien: 32:29

Right, no, and so we do it. I'm watching him before he starts telling me he's done. I'm watching him beforehand because you know you might have a five-minute window to get your shot. But you know, sorry, dude, you know you weren't ready. That's on you, you know. I mean we're really lucky because the people we work with are so intuitive and so great. But I've also feel like I have trained. You know, like I've trained the people to.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 32:49

Yeah, seriously.

Barbara O’Brien: 32:50

Understand the limitations of that. It's a dog. My favorite thing to do, yeah, my favorite thing to do is they'll. They'll give you a complex set. We want him to walk under set, pick up the toy, shake it, turn around, lay down and then look at camera. And I always look and look at him like I'll tell him because, like you know, yeah, like it’s a human, he's gonna do one thing at a time. One one action.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 33:11

Yeah, to break it all down.

Barbara O’Brien: 33:14

Yeah, but it's just so funny because I always have to go. I'll tell him and we'll see what happens, because you know.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 33:21

Yeah, I always joke that they don't know our language. They don't. They are not. Aren't verbal species like us, where they are, like they don't English and all this stuff? I'm like they, 99% of what they do is body language and so if you're not listening, it means you're not looking for it, like you got to actually try with them, like they just are. We're kind of their world, like they really quickly learn us. They learn what we look like, what we sound like, what we do when certain things happen. They can learn to read our faces so well. There's some cool studies there where they can especially their people with facial expressions and everything like that. But yeah, they're brilliant at that stuff because it's kind of word, their world in a certain way Right, like a lot of stuff revolves around us. But yeah, it's amazing how many people don't even know some basic body language, like you know communication that dogs are trying to say something like. I will look at a dog and go, okay, your dog is really unhappy right now and someone will have no clue, and it's not that they don't care, it's that they just don't know.

Barbara O’Brien: 34:17

Or they’ll go, like I don't know, I don't know what happened. He just, he, just all of a sudden bit that person.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 34:21

Yeah, there's basically now such. Usually there's several warning signs that they just aren't aware of before something happens. So, I have to kind of get to the nitty gritty of the timeline of things. And, hey, do you remember what their body looked like when you did this?

Barbara O’Brien: 34:33

Yeah, they're the famous horse trainer who said what happened before what happened.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 34:38

Yep, totally. It didn't just come out of the blue. Something usually triggers something and sometimes it's just a troubleshooting, problem-solving game where I'm like, okay, is it because this dog physically doesn't feel well, and the kid pushed whatever it physically could be? That could be part of it too. It doesn't have to just be mental; it can be the dog's getting older and has arthritis and so it doesn't want to do something. I had a trainer friend whose dog wasn't grabbing things anymore and holding them in their mouth and she ended up learning that the dog had a fractured tooth.

Barbara O’Brien: 35:10

Oh, yeah, it's hurt, it would make sense. Yeah.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 35:13

Right, but like you wouldn't know otherwise because the dog was still eating. But yeah, it was just one of those things where, if something is different, there's some reason. We got to just get to the bottom of the reason. And yeah, they're always talking. That's why I tell people I'm like they're constantly saying things. You just got to learn how to read it.

Barbara O’Brien: 35:29

Do you find that that energy plays a big part in this, like our energy around them?

Kera Wilhelmsen: 35:36

Yes, it really does. There are definitely people where I can tell that they're just so frustrated with their dog that it's hard, because you can see the dog and then both kind of at odds just in the room right away. I can tell that there's not a good relationship.  Because if you are constantly stressed just like if a dog's constantly stressed you have all these stacking stressors and not enough time to regulate. You know you're on a hairpin trigger like there's. You're not going to be able to handle things that you maybe even could have handled before. Like I'll see someone get really frustrated about some teeny, little thing and I'm like, okay, there's something else going on. You've had a hard time for a while now and you just need some help learning that some things are natural and that we can do a couple of things that'll help you guys and to rebuild that trust back up, because it is a relationship, it's not just a one way you know thing and having people learn that they're also not most of the time off the hem. You know. Of course I'll say you know, you're not doing anything wrong, you just don't know what to do and that's why I'm here and it's okay. You know, we're going to have you learn these things and even just getting someone who's understanding like that does tend to help the people almost immediately. I will have people that will sometimes cry or hug me and be like I feel so much better. It's not me, I'm not ruining my dog, you know, and all that stuff and they're like I just want to have a good relationship with my dog and I'm like I know everyone wants to have a harmonious household. Like that's right, that should be a normal thing. But yeah, it's definitely just there's a lot of just not enough knowledge on dogs in general and that's why education for me is such a big thing and I'm kind of more and more in my career I'm kind of zooming out and wanting to figure out places that I can, you know, give that knowledge and have education in just basic dog stuff like body language, communications, how to interact with a strange dog. You know, all these kids and dogs. I mean there's a lot of things that if just more people knew it would really, really help. And if we had people understand to get that information from. Behaviorist, you know, certified trainers, behavior is not just their neighbor, their friend, their groomer, their breeder, their vet which, that being said, that's our great task for a lot of advice, but they're they're not technically just behaviorists and I've worked at several vets, by the way. I loved doing that. It's very stressful environment as well, very draining emotionally. But they are like, yeah, we don't really get. You have to basically specialize it and in it. And I was like I know, which is why you guys probably feel bad when you get asked for advice and you just kind of have to guess on the spot to try and help them if you don't have a trainer, you know. But having worked at two vets, they both now recommend people to me because they're like, oh, at least I can give them somebody who knows right. Who is a behaviorist, but I get like people could naturally gravitate towards asking maybe the vet if they think of you. Know someone who might? Know, you know the science behind behavior or something like that. But it definitely is one of those things where, the more we get you know vets to work with trainers or even breeders to recommend a trainer, instead of just giving behavior advice Sorry my clock, I don't know if you're gonna be able to hear that, but it plays a song every hour, okay, but yeah, it's definitely something that collaboration is helpful, and not just you know. The ego needs to go away too. There's definitely some of that where you know that you work with dogs, that doesn't mean you know everything about dogs. I'm not, even though I groomed for like six months. I'm not going to give grooming advice. I'm going to send someone to the groomer. You know I'm not going to. You know, just pretend I know things or just try and help, because you know you don't know what else to do. I want everyone to kind of collaborate in a way or at least know where to go. At least just go, here's a great resource, here's someone who and again, to do that they need to know what to even look for.

Barbara O’Brien: 39:15

Right, because I remember a few years ago there was a very popular television show with a fellow that was using methods that we just kind of find abhorrent, you know, but you'd have to know that because it was very popular you know.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 39:28

Oh yeah, it's the charm.  It’s like, it makes it sound good.

Barbara O’Brien: 39:33

Yeah. And.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 39:34

They want to believe it.

Barbara O’Brien: 39:33

I don't know how, I'm like you know. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 39:37

I know exactly what you're talking about. It gets me very upset too. Yeah, it's a lot.

Barbara O’Brien: 39:42

I'm really glad that the world has changed in the sense that there's so much information out there. But, like you said, it's a matter of finding the right information, and we've been really lucky on the podcast to have people who are advocating for better treatment and understanding of animals. That's pretty much our focus, and so you've been fantastic because you're totally exactly expressing what I believe, and I want more people to hear. So, let's talk about that, because you mentioned that's what your future goals are. Because first of all, let's talk about what you're doing right now, so that we'll be adding all of your links and information, you know, to the show notes so that people can reach you, but what you're doing right now. But I was also interested in what you had mentioned for your future, which sounds pretty exciting and helpful for all the dogs out there. I mean, it's a good thing.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 40:30

Yeah, no, it's definitely. Currently I've gotten to the point. Instead of focusing on kind of dog care or any of that stuff, I am, like I said, really honed it on the training. But I think of it as just behavior and training because they kind of are a little bit different things than I tell people. When I say behavior, that's more of an all-encompassing thing, whereas training that's just teaching dog skills, usually right. Like it's kind of. But I want to focus more on the behavior stuff because I want to help people as much as I possibly can but doing it with just one person at a time. While that is fulfilling, I don't feel like I'm doing enough. For what I can, like my knowledge that I have, I want to just be able to give to as many people as I possibly can. So that's why I'm looking at the industries within it, right, that I people that touch dogs, so vets’, groomers and all that stuff. But also, recently shelters and rescues. I just spoke at one of them like an internal. They had all their dog people, volunteers come, and I spoke about dog body language, and I left that feeling like I did so much good because there's like 30 people that asked a bunch of great questions and I knew that them handling dogs all the time, especially strange, you know and stress the dog stress constantly. Exactly, and so it just felt like I touched more you know lives that will then touch dogs’ lives, and that really ignited a flame in me and I kind of had a feeling from the beginning like I kind of just want to speak, lecture, help the people understand the dogs. I will still always love working with dogs, but to be able to have more of a you know effect, more change in this world, I need to touch more.

Barbara O’Brien: 42:11

A bigger platform, as it were. A bigger platform.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 42:15

Yes, yes, yeah, yep. So, I kind of I do want to branch into doing that. I do think I don't know if this is necessarily where I will go in the future, but I have thought about having finding a way to have vets, have you know, maybe one, maybe one behaviorist or trainer, kind of on call or on staff to send people to because it's such a big part of what they I mean. Again, I've worked at vets. I was always one who had to hold the dogs because I instinctively knew how to help the dog calm down and hold them, but not feel like I'm holding them so that they could relax while things were happening and I would say, oh, they're over it, I need, they need a break. You know, there's someone that knows those things to train the vet techs, who do most of the holding of dogs, or anyone, anyone, anyone that would touch a dog. Again, groomers, I mean, even though I don't have the grooming skills, I would know how to handle a dog better because I would be reading them constantly and I would be okay taking breaks when they're specifically needed, and I would work everything around the dog.

Barbara O’Brien: 43:18

Dog centric you know it's much more dog centric.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 43:20

Yes, yes, so I mean long, long term. It'd be great if I could even just start facilities that kind of had multiple different things, where I was training trainers to know behavior and then also having them get connected with different within different industries to kind of either go to to help other people learn, so kind of teaching people to teach people.

Barbara O’Brien: 43:42

Yeah, oh, I think that's a brilliant idea. I hope you know I think dogs would be better off for it. I think it's brilliant idea to combine resources in one place for people. You know, like it was a beautiful boarding facility or doggy daycare or whatever you know, and they have like and they're doing things right. Okay, but to have that added part of like, hey, if you're having specific issues, you know here's our on-call person or here's the seminar you can go to, or here's, you know, or the big, you know, the shelters, like you say, or you know it's probably difficult to monetize. So, I hope for the best for you, but.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 44:20

I know that's always the thing with training. It's always like, okay, how can I do what I love? But also, you know, make a living, and.

Barbara O’Brien: 44:25

It's only fair, I mean, I get that. You know our podcast is not monetized. It's a labor of love because I just want to get this message out. But if somebody came along and said, hey, we'd like to create something bigger out of this, I'd be like, sure that, a bigger platform so we can get the message out, you know, and then make a little living awesome, but you know, so I get it. I get it what you're saying, but I know that your heart certainly in the right place for the dogs, and helping the people will help the dogs, so that's.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 44:52

Exactly.

Barbara O’Brien: 44:53

All right. Well, we're to the part of the show where we, we I sent some questions to you, and there are questions that we borrowed from a book called Tim Ferriss's. Oh gosh, Tim Ferriss and I'm blanking out on the name of the book because I haven't said it out loud. So, Tribe of Mentors, thank you. Anyway, I wanted to give credit because we totally, you know, borrowed this idea. This tribe of mentor’s questions, and it's also what we call let's see if I can hold this up, snack break. These are some cornbread cherry scones. That's what they are. Yeah, yeah, because I feed my crew and we're done because that's a food's part of we're also food made of it, motivated just like the dogs.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 45:38

Yeah, exactly. Right.

Barbara O’Brien: 45:41

It's the question time. Okay, so what is the worst? Advice given your profession or bad idea that you hear of in your field of expertise?

Kera Wilhelmsen: 45:52

I mean, I guess an all-encompassing one is quick results. I mean to try and get everything done as quick as possible, because nine times out of ten, and maybe even ten times out of ten, if you're just going for quick results to get things taken care of, you're gonna probably go for harsher methods because you're not actually taking time to learn about the animal and figure out a way to help them. That's going to not just be good for you but for them, which should be the goal. So yeah, the quick fixes are that's not the goal. The goal should be, you know, quality of the information that you're getting and how to learn about helping your dog in a way that's empathetic. I guess.

Barbara O’Brien: 46:37

I love it.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 46:39

Don’t know the word for it to make sure that.

Barbara O’Brien: 46:40

Okay. What inspires and motivates you to do what you do? What is your true purpose in the world?

Kera Wilhelmsen: 46:47

Yeah, honestly, from I can remember thinking this from being just a little girl. I always felt like I had to be a voice for animals, because they don't have a voice in the way that we think of it, like speaking right, they can't stand up for themselves in the way that we're used to even seeing from people, and I always wanted to be like a voice for the animals, so kind of speaking through them, going okay, this is what your dog is feeling, how can we help them with the feeling? So, it's not just it's being a voice for them, but also in the way that I'm helping people understand that voice too, if that makes sense. So, connecting them to people more, with them and their voices.

Barbara O’Brien: 47:26

Oh, absolutely no that makes perfect sense. What quality do you admire most in people?

Kera Wilhelmsen: 47:35

I definitely, empathy and it is and passion. I've always compassion, and empathy are words that have ruled my my whole life, because they're very easy not to have. I feel like it's more of like I really am happily surprised when I see people I connect well with because they have the same type of empathy. I feel like empathy rules my world. I feel like if I got one you know personality trait, it's empathy like that. I just that is who I am. So, I feel like having other people that I find ever that have it. I always will connect with them, whether they're empathetic about its passionate about certain other, you know things. It's the empathy where you can put yourself in other shoes when you care about the well-being of others, even if it doesn't affect you. That is something that I really cherish, and think is super important for me.

Barbara O’Brien: 48:31

I wish there was more. You know, I have to agree.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 48:34

I do, I know, I know.

Barbara O’Brien: 48:36

Okay, what have you become better at saying no to?

Kera Wilhelmsen: 48:44

Lots of things. One, it's just kind of, in general, standing up for my energy. I guess I'm. When I say that, I mean I don't let myself burn out as much as I used to because I could be working constantly. I used to work a lot. I used to do like 20 classes a week and then I do stuff on top of that and while it's good, I always, you know, would burn out in the end anyway. So, it's like, well, I can't help people if I'm burned out right. So, I have to learn to say no to certain things that are gonna take too much energy, which is why I landed in this part of the field, because I was getting burned out. In veterinary care I was getting burned out, you know, grooming burned out really best, and even in boring and daycare it's just a lot of physical and I would see all these animals and their emotions and not be able to do something about it. So, protecting my energy and my emotional well-being has been a huge thing. So that might mean saying no to, you know, having too much of my time taken up. It might mean saying no to, you know, physically interacting with people for a day, because I sometimes just need to. I have, like an autoimmune disease and other things going on with myself that I just need to listen to more than I used to. So luckily, the right people understand so if I need to say no to something I have, a good, yeah, you know support system. Now that understands and a lot of my clients, the good ones, understand. I mean, you know when they're, when they're on the same level as you. If you can't understand that I'm human and sometimes need to say no, then we might not be able to. You know, work together well anyway. So, I need to be okay with people maybe not understanding me, but I just need to listen to myself and protect my energy.

Barbara O’Brien: 50:23

Okay, all right. The other question was if you could send a message to the world, what would it be?

Kera Wilhelmsen: 50:33

I feel like they need to be super poetic here, but in general, the idea is I want people to understand that what they do and how they act affects others, including animals and dogs. So, thinking about what you're doing before you're doing it and understanding that what you're doing is going to affect something else or someone else. So, like you have ripple effects, like one negative thing can affect someone's whole day and then they might be a little bit more, you know, grumpy towards someone else and it just kind of negativity can spread. And it goes with animals, like I said too, where you know, I just like to pause and have people just think about okay, well, what I'm doing isn't just going into the void, others around me are being, so it's just self-awareness huge and it really does help with being empathetic. It's like you kind of need to actively work on that to be able to understand and again, it goes with with dogs too. If you're understanding how what you're doing affects them, it makes it a difference.

Barbara O’Brien: 51:40

Sure, for sure. No, that's, that's. It's a good message, all right. So then, how do we get it? If somebody wants to learn more about what you're doing, how do we find you? I mean, we'll have these links, but let's, let's have you share everything you'd like to about all that.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 51:58

Sure, yeah, I have a website. It's www.ccpsmn.com, and it has kind of a long bio on myself, and it has all my services on there my blog, which I need to post more on there. So, look forward to that coming soon. I'm getting there and then I also now on there, you will see, have virtual classes.

Barbara O’Brien: 52:18

Oh, I was gonna ask you about that because that you know hopefully more people that can see this, can, you know, work with you virtually, which would be great so?

Kera Wilhelmsen: 52:26

Yeah, because I want to be able to help people that aren't just in my radius physically. I mean, I would like to help people around the world if possible. So virtual learning is obviously more common now than when we had certain things in the world happen. So, I want to be able to connect with as many people as possible and answers as many questions or, you know, help people with their specific dogs, whatever it might be. Even just having like lectures there, where it's like if you all you care about is one topic, there's an hour. You know that you can go on and learn about that. That's something that's somewhat new, but I'm hoping it picks up a little bit and takes off because, like you said, that that's just connecting more people right like I I just want to be able to do that, and a lot of people, if they're sitting at home, just pop on. It's like a podcast. You can just pop on and watch something or listen to something for a little bit of time. You know.

Barbara O’Brien: 53: 15

I have several subscriptions to horse trainers because they are putting out information. That is where I'm learning over and over again you know how to be better with my horses and it's so inexpensive. I mean, when you have a model that you subscribe, it's, like you know, so inexpensive for tons of information that's so useful, and then you can usually find a community of like-minded people who are following the same thing and then you can talk about it more and more.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 53:43

Yes, yes, that was what I was thinking of doing too. Like I am in the works of having like a Patreon, which will have a community on there, and I'm gonna have like PDFs that you'll have access to and things like that and videos and topics you can do. You know, question and answers or people.

Barbara O’Brien: 54:01

Yeah, no, it's pretty, it's limitless and I need is out there and you know, because I live like what? 70 miles from a city center, you know, a big major city from like I'm out the country, and a dog training school to physically take my dog would be 30, 40 miles one way, you know, you know so.

Kera Wilhelmsen: 54:22

And that might not even be what you need. You might need one.

Barbara O’Brien: 54:26

Right, exactly, so being able, to you know, learn things remotely is a is also a great way besides the in-person stuff. I am glad that you're in the world for our dogs and for the helping the people with their dogs and we really appreciate you coming on our podcast today and, like I said, everyone, she'll have all of our information Kera’s, information on the website and I bet there's a book in there somewhere. You probably got a book you know you're gonna be working on and

Kera Wilhelmsen: 54:53

Yeah, it's in the works. Using that writing degree.

Barbara O’Brien: 54:57

There you go. So, thank you so much for for coming on. We really appreciate it.

Music: 55:04