00:00:00 Speaker 1: Coming from the Southeastern Wildlife X Phil. I'm your host, Tony Peterson. I'm sitting down with my good friend and veterinarian badass, ruth Anne Lobos, and we are going to talk about when it's time to seek out some professional help while you're working with your dog. So this podcast came up because I know a bunch of people in the dog industry. 00:00:21 Speaker 2: I've known ruth Anne a long time. 00:00:23 Speaker 1: I interviewed her on my previous podcast, and a lot of people have some misconceptions about when they should like enlist some help for their dogs. And so there's various aspects of this, right veterinarian health, there's professional trainers, there's just people who know their stuff. I wanted to sit down with ruth Ann at this show to just talk about this aspect of dog ownership. So that's what we're gonna do right now. It's so good to see you. Yes, even though your husband likes to give me shit about missing dear on films sometimes things like that, I always love. 00:00:57 Speaker 2: To see you. 00:00:58 Speaker 1: I see you everywhere on social media now, and recently you got into a little trouble on social media for something that I would view as totally innocuous and smart. But the trolls came out after you over what. 00:01:15 Speaker 3: Yeah, So we recently got a wire hair pointing Griffon puppy, my very first dog puppy that I've had in over twenty years, a pointing breed. Not ever had a pointing breed. So I decided that for her best interest, she was going to go off to we call it bird dog school, So she was going to a professional trainer. And I still, you know, I'm softie, and so I made this cute little reel of journey going off to hunting school and posted it in a group that I thought would be really sympathetic to sending your dog off to hunting school. And it was quite the opposite. I was told that I was taking the short way out. I was missing the best part of being a bird dog owner. I was, you know, shouldn't trust any trainer that I can't see what they're doing all the time. 00:02:11 Speaker 1: And did these people assume that you went to Craigslist and picked the first trainer that you found and sent your dog away. 00:02:18 Speaker 3: I mean maybe I was just I was so blown away, and I tried to I think, like probably most people who are defending their choices in life. I tried to kind of give the rationalization of I travel for work, so I'm gone, you know, sometimes to three weeks a month. We live in Boulder, Colorado, so it's a little bit challenging to find good hunting grounds in a short period of time to train her on. And we specifically selected her because of her high drive and her genetics of success in the hunting world. So I was like, if I don't seek professional training for her, like, I'm going to do a disservice to all of the reasons why we got her, and that only fired up the trolls even more. So I decided to just rein it back in and not say anything anymore. 00:03:11 Speaker 1: So I want to be I know you at a level that the audience probably doesn't, So I want to I want to contextualize this for a second. You went to school for a few years to learn about dogs, right. 00:03:22 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, like you know, four years of undergrad and four years of veterinary school. 00:03:26 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you have studied this. You understand dogs. You've been running dogs a long time, and you went out and you got a griff, something new, something different to try. You recognize that there's probably a hole in your game there that you don't want to make the mistake of screwing up you know, live bird introduction or gunfire introduction or some of these big like formative things that screw them up. You don't get them back, or if you if you try to get them back, you're in for a real process. Yes, so you did the adult thing and you're like, I'm going to seek out a professional for this aspect. It wasn't like you weren't training this dog at home and working with it, but you took these big things and people they look at that like that is sort of a cop out or you're taking an inappropriate, irresponsible route there with your dog. Where if you interviewed, I mean obviously professional trainers would come into this bias because they want clients, but they're also professional trainers with the long history of training ducks because they know that the damage that you can do with these things is so very real. And so you did that and you couldn't escape the raft. 00:04:36 Speaker 2: No, No, that is. 00:04:40 Speaker 1: There's such a lesson there and I know people are going to listen to this and they're going to think, well, you can do this on your own. And you know, if you have a soft lab, and you've been working with labs your whole life, and you're like, I know the gunfire process, I know the water introduction process. I'm capable. I have the time. I'm home every day with them. Like, you're a prime candidate to take that dog as far as you want to go. 00:05:06 Speaker 2: Yep. 00:05:06 Speaker 1: But if you're unsure of you know, we use the gunfire intro thing a lot. If you're unsure of that and you don't do that process correctly, you have probably ruined your. 00:05:16 Speaker 2: Bird dog absolutely. 00:05:18 Speaker 3: And I will add in there like the dogs also like they read us so well, and so if you are unsure or nervous or you know, anxious about it, they're going to feed off of that energy, which then also can spiral when you're introing in big things like that. 00:05:36 Speaker 1: Right, I think we are, So I would I'm in a stereotype here, okay, because I've dealt with a few trolls on social media in my life. I would guess that a lot of those people that would come after you for something like that are pretty self conscious about something with their dogs, right, Like I would guess that they're sort of overcompensated and being like I've had the best dogs ever, but it would be like, once you got to know them, you'd be like, well, my dog won't do this, or my dog won't pick up this way, or there's something right because I would you know, like, you hit a certain age and you start talking to people and you can just be more honest, and you find out everybody's family screwed up, and everybody deals with addiction and anxiety and stress and depression, and that's why you go run eleven miles in the morning to keep your head right. And when you start getting into people with their dogs outwardly, you're like, I love drafts the most, or I love gsps or whatever, and my dogs are the most badass ever. And then you get to know them and you're like, well, by the way, my dog won't bring a bird back to me, or my dog bark's NonStop from separation anxiety when I'm gone. It's like, yeah, we're all we're all trying to mitigate as many of those things as possible, right, and if it takes seeking out the Tom Dawkins of the world or the Josh Millers or whoever, that's a really good idea. Yeah, Yeah, And we were just talking. You were over at the doc dog thing here, Yeah, and the things that you see it's fun, Like it's fun, right, see that dog that runs up and it's hesitant or whatever, the dog that's losing its mind. But you also see, like you mentioned, the human aspect where people are now there's all the eyes on me. Now it's about me, and it's a different scenario where you can make a mistake just emotionally in the moment, yea change the arc of that dog's life in your life with them. 00:07:26 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:07:27 Speaker 3: Absolutely, And it's fascinating here, I will say of watching all of the dogs, whether they're the doc dogs, whether it's wild Rose Kennels out doing demos, or the people that are just walking around with their dogs here. To me, it has been a fascinating sort of microcosm of watching how people interact with their dogs and how the dogs respond in this scenario, and then also sometimes watching when people are just not aware of how they are impacting their you know, there's little starter pistols that are going off, and I've watched several people who are so engaged watching the demo and have no idea that their dog next to them is losing their cool every time that starter pistol goes off. So I think there's just there's huge opportunities for us to watch not only how our behavior impacts our dogs, but how our dogs behaviors impact us. 00:08:21 Speaker 2: Right. 00:08:22 Speaker 1: We literally watched that yesterday where there was a yellow lab somebody was watching a retriever demonstration and that starter pistol go off and that dog was losing its mind. 00:08:31 Speaker 2: It was terrified. Yeah, and I know, like, I don't, I don't. 00:08:34 Speaker 1: I'm not saying that to shit on these people or whatever, Just just to be aware that we often look at our relationship with a dog like it's about us. Yeah, you know, like it's as people, right, Like what can this dog do for me? Can it flush a bunch of pheasants? Can it listen? 00:08:48 Speaker 2: Really well? Is it not going to embarrass me when somebody comes over? 00:08:51 Speaker 3: Yeah? 00:08:52 Speaker 1: Whatever, But really it's like what are they going to give us? And what do we give them? And paying attention to that stuff is so important. And that's so when you say when somebody like you, who knows dogs so well, says, here's the reason why I did this for my dog. 00:09:11 Speaker 2: This wasn't for me just to take the easy way out. 00:09:14 Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, you pay more, your dog goes away, you have to now plug yourself into that training style, because if you don't listen to that trainer, when it comes back, all of that, I mean, maybe, well maybe it won't all atrophy. 00:09:28 Speaker 3: Right, but there's a there's a high likelihood. I've already had the pep talk with my son, who will be ten here in a few weeks of like when Journey comes home, like it's going to be. We got to reinforce all of the behaviors that she just spent the last four months trying to figure out. I said, Otherwise it's it's not good for us and it's. 00:09:48 Speaker 2: Not good for her. Right. 00:09:56 Speaker 1: The the other side of this that it may it's probably equally as important at certain times, probably more important, is on the veterinarian side. Oh yeah, and I know, you know, my wife works. My wife's the physical therapist. So there's like a sort of a parallel here between her patients. Yeah, yeah, and the clients that you have where people will decide that they know, like we're going to fill in the blank with my dog because my dog has a little limp here, so it must be this thing in the elbow and I'm going to get it some glucosamine supplements and we're done, and I go, you're not qualified probably to make that call, or just an objective look at a dog's health, right, you know, like the number one issue we're dealing with right now is obesity and dogs. 00:10:39 Speaker 2: And do people want to hear that? 00:10:41 Speaker 3: No? 00:10:41 Speaker 2: No, they no, they do not. 00:10:42 Speaker 3: I will say, though I have had and maybe it's a different demographic that comes through here at Seawee in the dog ownership world, but I have had today three people come up and ask me if their dog was in good shape or not and be willing to hear the answer. But I will say more times than not when I'm in practice and I'm like, your dog, you know, is x amount overweight, and they're like everybody's happy, and so they just they do not typically want to hear it. 00:11:14 Speaker 1: Right when those people, when you have three people come up to you like that, Yeah, do you think that that was spurred by somebody being like, your dog is a big chungus and you got we got to cut back on the pro plants board a little bit or what? 00:11:27 Speaker 3: Yeah? You know, I well, the one that I just had recently was she has now three dogs, and she's noticed that one has gotten bigger than the others, and so she was really she was like, well, now this one is bigger, so like, but I don't know if it's he's too big or like or and if we do need to slim down how much we need so I think like in that case, it was more of a comparison within uh, within the group. But the unfortunate thing is with over half of our dogs overweight or obese, Like everybody's fat dog looks like everybody else is fat dog, right, because that's how everybody looks. And then you get the haters who think that, you know, my dog who's in tip top condition is too. 00:12:11 Speaker 1: Skinny, right, Well that's a I mean you see that a lot when people have they don't have exposure to pointers, right, and now they see pointers and they look at them and they're like, that dog is starving like that. I mean, it's a it's like a it's a touchy subject. People take it personally, And I love hearing you say that that. People are like self aware enough to come to you and be like, hey, you're professional, right, because you know at the bottom of the day, I mean, I know this, like sounds a little cliched, but like literally that's for them. It's not about you, like if you let your dog get too big big deal, like if you're self aware enough to be like, maybe I'm not the best judge of my dog's body condition, and somebody else can say that. It's literally a matter of more exercise and just bringing back usually the treats. Yeah, but it's like a it's not a it's not a huge thing, like you can get them back right, and you should, yeah, because otherwise your dog is going to die earlier than you want it. 00:13:15 Speaker 3: To, right, and just live a less enjoyable life. I mean, we know from the studies that Pyina did that, Like it was more arthritis, more diabetes, more hypothyroidism, like all of the things. And there was recently a study that came out about dogs with when they're a body condition score seven or above, so it goes all the way up to nine. I would say that I've seen some tens out of nines in my day, but that for them, like it also impacts their respiratory rate, so and a bill and just the effort that it takes to breathe, and so sometimes when I use that analogy of like imagine like trying to breathe, but you have like a super tight like just Jack waited jacket on, and so you literally like it takes so much effort, and sometimes that will help it to click in people's minds that like, oh, this is a problem right. 00:14:12 Speaker 1: Well, when you that's that's such a good point. And when you said that, people like they're kind of default defense mechanism is like the dog's happy. 00:14:19 Speaker 2: It's like the dogs my kids. 00:14:22 Speaker 1: If I fed my kid's ice cream for dinner every day, they would be happy for a while, you know what I mean. They were like that's awesome, Like this is great, but eventually that catches up to you and that you know that just like shrunken life span that they have. Yeah, if you knock a year off the end, that's maybe like ten percent of their life or eight percent of their life or two years, which is like pretty common. Now you've taken off a huge and it you know, like you don't want to be over dramatic, but if you were, like what would you pay when you're looking at that dog because I have a twelve year old lab now and I'm like that dog's getting old. Yep, you know, maintaining her weight is entirely food at this point. But what I wouldn't give, right, you know, for. 00:15:09 Speaker 2: Two more years. 00:15:10 Speaker 1: Yeah, and you think about you're going to probably get into that position. So not only are you having that situation where the quality of life is not you're kidding yourself now, You're you're in a situation where you would run up those credit cards. You do everything you could to get another year or two out of that dog. Yeah you can't, right, you can't buy that back. 00:15:27 Speaker 3: And that's where I try to also for like frame it such that like I'm not I don't ever like shame the owner or like or you know, it'll be, oh, my grandmother lives with us or whatever, and she always feeds snacks, or the ladies at the office are always giving treats. I'm like, I don't like great, Like then we'll figure out a way to still have that like happiness happened. But like, this conversation is about the dog, and I've got to be an advocate for your dog. And so that I try to also tell because my so I will say say, like veterinarians in general don't like to and I'm talking in blanket statements here stereotypes, but like we don't like conflicts like we want to be you know, there's already enough haters out there for like the bills that come along with owning a dog, right, So like to try to bring things up that may be touchy or emotional or sensitive. Oftentimes we don't necessarily bring it up. And this is where like I also try to tell my veterinary friends, I'm like, make it about the dog, and we're being an advocate for the dog. Don't worry about like even talking about like anything that the owner might have as baggage. Like we are focusing on the health and well being of the dog, and somebody's got to be their advocate. 00:16:40 Speaker 2: Right. 00:16:41 Speaker 1: Yeah, it sounds horrible, it does. I mean it sounds horrible, but it's again back to the original point of this podcast is you have to recognize. 00:16:53 Speaker 2: As a dog owner. 00:16:55 Speaker 1: Like you know, this docin talks about this a lot, right where people will be like, I'm not a dog trainer, and he's like, well, do you want a dog? 00:17:02 Speaker 2: Then you are like, you don't. 00:17:04 Speaker 1: You're not a professional dog trainer, right, but you are a dog trainer. You are responsible for that dog's diet, Yep, you are responsible for that dog's health. That's just you're by default by picking up that puppy and accepting it. This is the reality in which you've placed yourself and that animal that has no means to go to work outside of you for what it needs. And so if you have if your veta is like tiptoeing around and I get it, these kind of issues, it's just no good. It's no good for your dog, and you should want that. 00:17:41 Speaker 3: Yes, Yeah, it's so hard, he said, I don't. 00:17:46 Speaker 1: That's one of the reasons I actually kind of love the job that I get to do. Yeah, because I can just say shit all I want and I don't have to deal generally with individuals on it. But there is like that concern and I think about, like I had a weird experience recently in my life where I guess it's not that weird, but our microwaves stopped working, okay. And I am not a handy guy, yeah, like I can. I am pretty good at hunting and I'm pretty good at fishing. And that's about where my manliness ends. Like if you were, like, you know, rebuild the carburetor on this, I would be like you could give me a thousand years. Yes, So naturally, my wife is like, hey, do you think we can fix this? And by we she means me, and I'm like, I don't know. Microwaves are like a couple hundred bucks. This one's been like it's like an eight year old microwave. So she's like, can you just like look into it? So I google a couple of things, and I'm like, I really think we should just buy one and have somebody install it, because it's an over the range one anyway. So the first thing I google is this, like this little motor that spins the plate. I'm like, okay, I think I can do that. Order that part in replace it works or sorry doesn't work, but that part works. I'm like, okay, that's so. The next thing is like kind of deep inside the electrical part, and I kind of find out what it probably is, but I'm like, I'm not that comfortable, and I forgot to I had was plugging and unplugging it to check if different things work, and I forgot to unplug it and I touched a hot wire to the metal part, so I had an explosion of sparks about four inches from my face, and I was like, yes, this is why you get professional. I write squirrel hunting articles for a living. 00:19:31 Speaker 2: I don't. I'm not an electrician. There are so. 00:19:36 Speaker 1: Many times in your life where you run into something like that now where you're like, oh, I wish I could do this, or I want to be the person who can, and I realize that, like, not everybody can go pay to have somebody gunfire introduce their dog or ly bird or whatever. 00:19:50 Speaker 2: I get it. 00:19:51 Speaker 1: The next best thing is there's resources all over out there, all over free advice. And then if you have a dog, you're taking it to a vet. Yes, yeah, your vet probably isn't out to get you or make you look better. 00:20:05 Speaker 3: No, not at all. We are literally in it for the health and well being and we are not trying to you know. I think there's also a bit of a maybe misperception that veterinarians are out there to like run up the bill, and it's like, we definitely not, and it's really more about, Okay, what does your specific dog need and we are trying to address that to the best of our abilities, knowing the schooling and training and continuing education and all of that that we go through every single. 00:20:38 Speaker 1: Year, right and I mean, and this is not like a knock on the general population, but they don't know the situation we're in with veterinarians, and it demands on animal clinics, especially post COVID. Yeah, like there's there. You can be real busy. Yeah, yeah, you can be real busy. So when you would you say, because I'm always curious about this because we've kind of been talking down on a lot of stuff. But you also mentioned the people who came to you and who are like, please please assess my dog and be honest with me. Am I is this right? Or what do I need to tweak or whatever. Do you feel like there's like a certain percentage of people out there who are definitely kind of leveling up their dog ownership game, because I feel like there. 00:21:16 Speaker 3: Are, Yeah, I would, I would say so, I mean, and maybe it's the difference, you know, I'm the demographic of people that I interact with because I feel like also a lot of sporting dog owners are a little bit more into in tune with what their dogs need and what their dogs are have experienced and things like that, So that may be creating some bias, But I do think, you know, I get out there I talk to the public a lot, so I would say that people are and I you know, I have multiple theories on why this is. But you know, whether it's a change in the relationship of the dog with us as far as you know, it used to be, oh, you know, especially if you have a bird dog, Like I don't pet the bird dog because you might mess them up, And now like the bird dog's sleeping in the bed, and so there is a change in dynamic of that relationship. There's also I feel like there's whether it's post COVID or just how insane the world seems to be, there's a bit of a more focus on like wellness and he like mental health and all of that, and just knowing that key piece that our dogs play in all of that, I think does help to kind of elevate the relationship with the with the dog and you know, and also just there then also ladders into their overall health and well being. 00:22:41 Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, I totally agree. 00:22:43 Speaker 1: I mean, I feel I feel like you do see a lot of overweight dogs, and you see a lot of people who are like pretty defensive about it. But I also feel like you see this whole other side of it where people are like, I know my dog needs this kind of exercise, and I know my dog needs this kind of mental stimuli or stimulation like and and they're like leveling up that relationship and giving the dog a lot more than even you know, like you mentioned fifty years ago that dog was in a kennel in the backyard and that dog was a tool to flushbirds and you fed it, maybe ran it once a day or something, but it was not a part of it wasn't in your house, part of your life, right, like a pseudo family member kind of thing. 00:23:23 Speaker 2: It was different. 00:23:24 Speaker 1: And so we've we've definitely changed, and of course you get the bad with it, where people are like that's fur baby, it's just like a human, yeah, which is unfortunate. Yeah, but you also have the other side where people can seek out like people who are genuinely into their dogs and want them to have a good like a good life mentally and physically. Yeah, can can and are doing that and it's freaking awesome, right. 00:23:47 Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, And I think you know, I mean, I think that's also like that's one of my passion points too. Of I do feel a little bit like sporting dogs are the new French bulldogs of the twenty you know, like the early two thousands, where like everybody's talking about how cool their new xyz v shlow whatever it might be. And I'm like, my, like, one of my passion points is like trying to make sure that people understand the mental and physical needs of the dog that they're bringing in. So if you have three kids who are involved in four sports, and you know you, you and your significant other in the house both work fifty hours a week, like maybe maybe bring in that gsp hy drive dog and puppy into your household is not the best. Like maybe we look at something that's a little bit more you know, low key from a breed perspective, because yeah, it's a it's a commitment and you know, and and so trying to again just raise that awareness that's out there for the people who don't necessarily know what breeds in all the breeds and compass. 00:24:53 Speaker 1: I very recently dropped an episode here on on that topic, Like, Yeah, I know that you love this kind of dog or you love the idea of this kind of dog, but what can you give a dog and what is that dog? 00:25:04 Speaker 2: Like what are that dog's traits? 00:25:06 Speaker 3: Right? 00:25:06 Speaker 1: Like, are you going to get a Chessie that's going to be like a one person dog that's gonna be pretty stubborn. Then do you have the time for that and then know how or do you need something else? And that is a really yeah, I agree with you because I see a lot of people out there where it's like sort of trendy to have like a GSP or something like that, and you you end up going, you know, you like the idea of this dog, but you don't know what it is. It would be like taking me and being like you're never going to hunter fish. I know that this is like your like, well, for whatever reason, you just have this, but you can't like I'm not going to be that good of I'd be a bad dog, right like you'd see some behaviors manifest themselves. So I agree with you on that, But I think I think that's one of the challenges and I'm sure you've seen this over and over, is you know, we do a podcast like this and we're speaking to people who are already pretty keed into like there they understand that more than the average population, Like how do you get the general dog population to know that? Like maybe that month at the shelter is the best dog for you because it wants to walk by your side and you know, curl up next to you at night. Yeah, and isn't driven like bird driven or mission focused over everything else and going to be denied that until the behaviors are insane for you, right right. 00:26:31 Speaker 3: And I will say it was one of the cool opportunities. And this goes back to kind of the original thread of seeking out that information and that like, you know, knowing what you don't know, being aware of what you don't know, and trying to find folks who are better at it. I went recently to the AKC had an event called Meet the Breeds and it was in New York City and they had one hundred and it was over one hundred and seventy different breeds and you could go. I was open to the general and you could go around and you could talk to It wasn't like it wasn't like a dog show like Westminster National Dog Show. It was literally like the people who own these breeds and they're in their breed club and they're they're there for you know, a weekend, and you can go and you can talk to them about what you know, like oh, there's and there are so I I mean, I've been in this industry for over twenty years and I'm like, I still didn't know all of the breeds that are around, but like being able to get that first hand information of what the dogs needs, what their personalities are, like you know, all of that was I thought, just brilliant of the AKAC to put on. 00:27:36 Speaker 1: That's so important. Uh, we're out of time here. You are all over social media. Where can people find you? 00:27:42 Speaker 3: Yeah, so they can find me at pet vet Ruthan on Instagram. 00:27:46 Speaker 2: Awesome, Thank you so much, ruth Amne. Yeah, thanks