In part two of my chat with Lauren Rubin, we talk more about the differences in dog and cat body language, the importance of management, and just how important support is in your coexistence journey.

Key Moments

[03:13] The difference between cat and dog body language

[05:29] Cat testing

[08:35] Coexistence doesn't mean unsupervised

[09:32] Rehoming is sometimes necessary

[12:05] Don't ever let them just work it out

[14:37] Space issues

[18:56] What to do before bringing a new pet into your existing setup

[21:24] Physical and behavior management prep

[24:46] Cat and dog body language is different part 2

[27:56] You're not alone in your struggles

Key Links

Part One

The PETS Process Guide

Cat Tail Twitching

Cat Tail Swish/Thump

Hey you cat and dog people.

This is It's Training Cats and Dogs - your source of practical

strategies to keep everyone in your multi-species household, safe and sane.

I'm your host, Naomi Rotenberg and today we're bringing you part two of

my chat with Lauren Ruben, about how she used her expertise to manage their

relationsship between her own pets.

If you're just joining us for the first time, you can find the first part of

our interview in last week's episode.

There's a link in the show notes.

Let's get back into it.

I have a client who has a cat and a dog that don't do well.

And her cat has hands down the best place behavior that I have ever seen.

Like first off in a cat, he's probably in the top 10 dogs that we used to meet.

He has this, they have this really cool, their house has this neat alcove.

I think it's meant for like a vase or something, but instead they put a

blank sheet, put a blanket up there and he learned to go to place and

no matter where he is in the house, if you're like Kiki place, he's like

placed and then he'll fall asleep.

And the dog has a place nearby.

They can both co-exist in their own places.

Chill, relax.

Again, I'm just so amazed with her.

She worked really hard.

He not only goes to the place, but he'll like sleep in it.

He just chill so hard, so fast.

It's awesome.

Which is so nice.

My nerdy brain just went to, I wonder if it's something.

Strong behavior because it's being both negatively and positively reinforced.

Right?

Cause you get the removal of the scary dog situation.

So the dog's up in your face and then mom, like coos and praises and pets

and feeds you and snacks by hand.

And again, the scary dog can't get to you.

Yeah.

And I think that a, like, we're almost always dipping into multiple quadrants.

Right.

And then you give an acute.

Yeah, but the other quadrants and it helps when, again, it's kind of that

functional reinforcer of, oh, if I am up here, no one can get to me.

And then he has such a strong reinforcement history of great

things happening to him there.

His mom put a lot of cookies in that jar.

Love me a good place cookie jar.

Usually there's a jar near the place of cookies.

It's convenience.

I know have jar stashed all over the house.

The thing that I like to think about in terms of negative reinforcement,

and I think it does come up the most when we're talking about cats, avoiding

dogs being too much, although there are definitely cats that are too much

and dogs who need space from them.

So it's not, it's not a one sided thing.

I have a client with a, um, a hound mix who we've been working

on integrating with their cats, and he's doing great with the female cat.

And I have no idea why, but every time her male cat turns his eyes

on this dog is like ahhhhhhh!

They've never had a negative interaction together, as far as I know, but for

whatever it is, the cat looks to the dog and the dog was like, don't see me.

And it's just the most bizarre thing.

Yeah.

It's so bizarre.

I mean, I love him, like, bless him.

I don't know what's going on there.

We've worked a lot on place.

Like you don't have to run when you see the cat just don't

run at the cat, but he's fine.

As long as the cat is not looking at him, he turns those moonbeams directly

on him and he's like, oh, it's so weird.

And he has like, he's one of those cats with the humongous pupils.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think about that.

A lot of like the differences between cat and dog body language, where like

there's gonna be some miscommunications going on, large eyes staring at you

with no blinking, um, also know as cats.

But for real though.

If dogs aren't familiar with the fact that, like, that's just a thing

that they, that those cats do raw.

It's not indicative of any particular amount of mood or arousal or whatever,

Not a warning sign that I'm triggered.

They cannot handle it.

Totally.

They cannot handle it.

Yeah.

And I actually tend to teach cats who have freaky eyes towards the dog

to have a really good whiplash turn.

Because it is that staer, that is the trigger for the dog.

And not even the movement of the cat, necessarily as much as like

I'm coming at, even, even like, it's like, it's like the threat of becoming

at, even though he's not moving.

Totally, totally.

Because as far as the dog, I love that I'm going to text his mom after this

and be like, Hey, I just had an idea.

And by that, I mean, Naomi had an idea.

I love that.

Turn those moonbeams

around.

Huh?

And then you could reinforce the dog for either moving away slowly or

moving to a different settle spot.

And that would be negatively and positively reinforced.

So I think I never, I very rarely, I can't think of the last time I ever

I'd done this set up a negative.

Contingency, but in these kinds of cases where there is animosity between animals

in the home, like there are going to be triggers and there are going to be

stressors, no matter how much management you do, there's going to be negative

reinforcement, contingencies at play.

So we might as well use that.

Totally.

Yeah, totally.

I don't like the idea of being like here's a cat in a crate.

Either like move the cat closer and then move it further or whatever.

That's setting up a synthetic knit, re negative reinforcement contingency that

does not, and it's probably very stressful for the cat cause they can't move.

Um, when I, I used to work at our local shelter and as the

dog behavior trainer and people are always like, oh, well, do you

know if the dog is good with cats?

No, I don't.

Well, can you find out, Nope, I will not subject any shelter

cat to this experience.

We had a little fake, like a little robotic cat and that was

like, what I can tell you is.

As far as robotic cats go, this dog does X, Y, Z.

I don't know what he's going to do with a real cat, but

the robot cat does it's this.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, yeah.

Cat testing in and of itself is a whole thing.

I should do a whole episode on cat testing.

Um, if you do that, Trish McMillan.

Talk to her about it.

Great, cool, wonderful.

I will.

I will.

She's like a little above my pay grade.

So I'm going to have to get up a little bit of a gumption to, to ask her.

That's like you telling me to like, email Susan,

RIght?

Like, oh, just go chat up.

Ken Ramirez.

It'll be fine.

Um, I took an IWC ABC course from Trish and the shelter and, uh two years ago.

And then recently did a like peer to peer.

She calls them peer to peer consult because I needed help

with a case, but let's be real.

It was mentee to mentor consult.

And I spent the whole week telling everyone I knew that I was going to get to

hang out with Trish McMillan for an hour.

So yeah, I almost fainted when I saw Gerard Patel at Clicker Expo.

So it's fine.

Back in the good old days.

Those in-person conferences we'll get back there someday.

Yeah.

Okay.

Going back to, I will, I will message Trish.

Um, cause yeah, cat testing is going to is a lot of people

ask about that because right.

They want to know ahead of time.

Is this going to work?

They want to have a sense of, even if it doesn't work.

Right now, is this going to be a project?

Is this going to be possible?

And the answer is you don't know, it's not even just like dog dog stuff, right?

People say, oh, well just have like a play date with them.

Or like meet through a fence or whatever.

I mean, you have more shelter experience than me, but it doesn't translate.

It just doesn't translate at all.

Nope.

The mantra is shelter behavior is not home behavior.

I can't even tell you how this dog is going to do with people

based on their shelter experience.

If we're being a hundred percent.

Uh, shelter behaviors, not home behavior.

I don't behave the same way when I'm taking a super stressful

exam as I do in my regular life.

And it's the equivalent.

The animals there are under a lot of stress.

They behave differently when they're weighed out.

Yeah.

So, no, I'm definitely not going to shove a cat in their face at that point.

Yeah.

And I wish that I could say, you know, a lot of people contact me

and they say, Is this something that you think will work out?

And I say, well, we can try.

And I, if there are positive signs, right?

I'm not curious, a lot of red flags, but it's never going to be

predictive.

And that's why we never leave them alone.

In the magical world where everything is fine, like, unless they've grown

up together and like have never had an issue, I'm going to recommend like

always having some management around.

Again, Fen and their cat do great together and she has never been

left unsupervised in the house with him.

I mean like unsupervised, she's not currently being supervised

because I'm talking to you.

But I am here.

So I can also, our house is 800 square feet, so I definitely know what's

happening, but if I leave the house fence still goes in the bedroom.

We're not - one of you is 60 pounds.

And the other is like nine.

We're not taking any risks, even if, even at her friendliest, she

could do serious damage to him.

So for sure.

But I it's a struggle on those consults because people do want like a, if I'm

going to spend this amount of money, if I'm going to take this amount of

time, if I'm going to put in this amount of heartache, can you at least

promise me it's going to get better?

And it's like, there's no point through this process at which I can guarantee

you that everything is going to turn out all sunshine and rainbows, you know, like

you said, we can look at the red flags and if I'm not seeing them, it's like,

yeah, I think it's worth giving it a shot.

And realistically you need to understand that you may have to make a decision

either to create and rotate or in the case of cats, like rumen rotate.

Rehome somebody, you know, think about alternative options because we don't know.

Yeah.

It's hard.

It's a bummer because they love both of their pets and it's not easy.

It's not like, all right, well, we've got the dog and then we just Chuck the cat.

It's like, they're both beautiful individual entities.

Sometimes it's just hard.

It's a bummer.

Do you think Loki hat was okay with Fen, because she was a puppy.

You think that played a huge role in it?

I think if we had brought home an adult dog, it would not have gone

well, and I did, when I, early on, when I got him had tried to live with

a roommate and her dog not knowing his issues, uh, and, uh, that didn't work out.

But I think that because Fen was a puppy, he was way more

tolerant of just her existence.

And again, he didn't really let her like, do a lot of

harassing or anything like that.

But that puppy card goes a long way, but I also get clients

who ask and we're like, okay.

So then with my reactive dog, if I bring in a puppy or if it's a kitten, is

that going to mean that it'll be okay.

It's like, that's not a guarantee.

I don't think there's a kitten license from dogs.

They don't know what that.

That's not a dog.

We got that much.

Um, and that'll all adult dogs, handout, puppy licenses.

So again, Loki was, I was blown away.

He was remarkably tolerant of her.

And again, like they never really played, but they'd get to a point

where they could like be together and co-exist without direct supervision.

Still, always separated if I wasn't home.

But yeah, it's just not worth the risk.

I like that.

The puppy licensing kit and license.

I think you, you had the magic formula, which is you didn't rely on

the potential puppy license, right?

You said from day one, there's going to be intense management here and I'm

going to be reinforcing the living blank out of behaviors that I want

to see in order to make that puppy license actually have merit, right?

Like puppy licenses like they can be freaking annoying.

Oh, it's more so than an adult though.

Right?

So license can be ripped up and thrown.

Immediately Loki probably gave out a puppy punch card.

And if 10 is like, we're cool.

And every like 10 is the max you get, he was like, here's one punch.

Do not come back for another, like, this is give you, there will be no

free ice cream at the end of this experience because puppies are

hard and they're super annoying.

Like I love them to death and I'm so glad she's eight now.

So nice.

Yeah.

And I think that's the hard part is I often get called out to help people

with their, like, Six month old dogs and their nine or 10 year old dog.

And they have been trying to just let the two dogs work it out and

dogs don't really work it out.

And I would definitely never recommend that with a dog cat situation.

Again, the size difference is so intense.

Generally don't recommend that with the puppy adults either because the size of.

So intent or adult dogs, because even if you're the same size, that's real scary.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Managing it carefully is so important.

And I, like you mentioned earlier, like the management management management

management, can we talk about management?

Can we talk about management?

Well, I want us to just define a little bit.

Like we can say management 20,000 times and we have, right.

Do you have any kind of go-to management options that you just

say, okay, like I hear this kind of case is coming down my pipeline.

Like what management plan is going through my head to introduce to this client.

Yeah.

And, um, anytime it's multi-species stuff, it's almost always first management.

A separate space.

Everybody gets their own separate space.

Nobody has interactions with each other until I can get there,

depending on the level of intensity.

Boy, it's hard to come up with these right off the bat without having like a case.

Cause if it's just resource guarding, no toys together until I get there.

But if they co-exist fine, otherwise they can still spend time together.

Um, we're having full blown blow up fights.

It's like, we're not two weeks.

We don't see each other.

And then I show up and we see what happens and by see what happens,

that's not a, like now we're going to let them work it out.

It's like, I'm going to meet each dog individually.

Check your plan, go from there.

So it really depends on what's happening.

Almost always because I only do behavior cases.

I don't do puppies or anything else like that.

It's almost always, we're going to get a two week stress vacation management plan.

So whatever the triggers are, we're going to eliminate them from your

life as much as humanly possible.

And then we're going to implement the training, but they're going to get.

Let those cortisol levels drop stop immediately having negative feelings.

As soon as we see the other animal, it's like living with a roommate that

you, you get to a point where everything your roommate does is a pet peeve.

If you have not been getting along, like listening to

them, breathe as an annoyance.

And there's no where to start there.

If you're already up to your eyeballs in it, there's no, no room to be like, okay.

But like, what if they did the dishes with.

No, they just be doing it out of a sense of obligation, whatever, you know, we've

all had that roommate and same with the dog and other dogs are dogging candidates.

Like there's, I don't care how many French fries you show up in my face.

I'm already up to here.

I have no room left to give no grace for this other animal, but if we give them

a little break, they relax a little bit.

We don't immediately on seeing each other have this like

huge fight or flight response.

Then we get that sweet wriggle room where it's like, okay, now

we can start an intervention plan.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah, it makes total sense.

And my mind is just going to the, one of the, the quote-unquote red

flags that we were talking about of like the prognosis for these things.

One of them is actually completely unrelated to the animals.

And it's the space that you live in.

Um, yeah.

So like if you live in a studio apartment....

I was just thinking of that.

I was like, yeah, if you're in a 200 square foot studio abort the mission,

Right.

It's like cat in bathroom is your only option.

You know, I, I mean, unless you have a tiny toy dog, that would be a potential

bathroom scenario for like a minute.

Yeah.

But I'm just picturing like all the New York apartments

that I've ever seen in my life.

It just, it has complete, like, that is the foundation of everything.

Like if you can't be in your home without a large amount of stress.

There's no point in trying to work on any kind of behavior modification

because there's, they're never going to be able to come down from it.

They're never going to feel safe in their own home.

And how can you do that to your pets?

How can you have them be, feel perpetually unsafe in their homes?

Yeah.

That's the last thing we want to do.

Yeah.

And that's always, when I come down to, especially having worked in a

shelter when I do bring up and I don't often have to talk about rehoming,

but it does occasionally come up, usually in those untenable situations

where either it's like, you know, the, the lifestyle in your home is.

Going to work with this.

We live in a studio apartment, whatever, and moving is not an option, et cetera.

Or, you know, we've worked really hard.

It's become obvious now that these two animals are not going to

safely co-exist with each other.

But what I find interesting is most people have this gut reaction of like,

no, I could never rehome an animal.

Cause I'm not that person.

I'm not one of those people.

But in those cases, rehoming is really a gift because living your life stressed

24 7, 365 constant worried about what.

Are they being creepy?

Are they about to come around the corner?

Are they going to scare me?

That's a party on, we're not done yet.

I do live in a fairly busy street, but that's pretty intense.

That's frisky also it's not like nine o'clock at night for you guys.

That's loud.

That's loud for nine o'clock at night.

Well, I mean, Philly.

So to be fair.

Yeah.

Like I live in a town of 150,000 people and I moved here and I

was like, this is the big city.

So I know I'm cute.

I'm from Oregon.

It's all woods.

All rural.

I'm jealous.

I live on how do you even say it, Oregon, Oregon.

I'm supposed to say

so it's like gold or, or done whatever you do.

Don't yeah, Oregon.

It's all kind of one mush, Oregon.

Yeah, whatever you do, don't say it the way Peter Siegel does

on wait, wait, we don't tell me as long as you don't do that.

We'll be good.

He's like Oregon.

I die like every time

Shoot.

Okay.

I have to retrain myself.

You're good.

Yeah.

time click treat.

Just, well, we'll break it down shaping, right.

Or, or more, uh, or, or please include in your show notes.

It's org dash eh dash g - u- n,

Everyone, whoever listens to this will now know or how to say,

yup.

You're welcome.

Now when you get here, everyone will think you're cool.

Perfect.

I only need a flannel.

You already know, and you got to shave, shave the side of

your head or an undercut and the flannel and you're good to go.

It's it.

It's all you gotta do.

And eight tattoos nailed it.

So I guess, even though I'm having the most wonderful time

talking to you and we need to do this another time because you're fantastic.

Um, let's wrap up with my favorite general questions, which is there's

two phases of cat dog existence, right?

There's people who currently have a single species home and they're thinking

about introducing a member of the other species, and then there's the ones

who are already in it and struggling.

So what advice do you have for people in both of those areas?

So let's start with, what advice do you have for people who are

thinking let's add another species,

Hire a trainer.

Get professional help first

Before they choose their animals?

I, um, I am a huge fan and I realized most people aren't necessarily

this, uh, they're not as stressed and anxious in their general life as I am.

But looking back, I wish that I had to take on the trainer with.

To the shelter.

When I had picked out Loki they probably would have told me not to take him.

And I'm super glad I did, because I loved him with my whole being and he's

the reason I became a dog trainer.

But I would have at least had a better idea what I was getting myself into.

And I think if you bring a trainer into your home before you bring in another

species, the trainer can help you evaluate, is this a tenable situation?

Do you have the space?

Do you have the setup?

What is it going to entail?

What's the best case scenario.

What's the worst case scenario.

What are we looking for in the other animals?

So if we already have a cat, we're going to get a dye.

What are the things we should look for in the dog?

What are the questions we should ask the shelter and vice versa.

If you go into the shelter to get a cat, you know, we're not looking for a shy

cat, we're not looking for a flighty cat.

We're not looking for an aggressive cat.

We're looking for a very easygoing - what's the cat that you can pick

up and like cradle a, like a baby.

And will just let you.

Not because they're petrified, but because they're like, Hey, humans

are weird, what are you gonna do?

And having a trainer help guide that can be really helpful.

And this is not a shameless self plug.

Just any professional trainer who has an understanding of interspecies experience

would be really helpful ahead of time.

Plus then you can, instead of going to Petco the day you adopt your dog

with your dog, with you buying a puppy cream stuff, uh, which I've done.

True story.

You can be prepped ahead of time.

You can get the other animal ready, you know, here's the new stuff.

You get to check it out.

Here's the baby gate.

We're putting up in this room.

You get to check it out.

So it's not like all this new stuff has happened.

And now this guy is here, which can be a lot.

Yeah.

I think that both space prep and current animal prep in terms of behaviors, right?

So you start at that place behavior now.

It's our place to start a really good positive

interrupter attention, noise.

Right.

Even one of the best thing.

I mean, for dogs that like to chase is like an emergency down.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We call them flying stops.

Same thing.

Well, oh yeah.

I liked that was just like, Yeah.

It's just like, boom drop.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Uh, my employee Kiana is really great at teaching invisible boundaries too.

Like you don't cross this line unless you're invited, which can

be really helpful in addition to baby gifts and stuff.

Yes.

Physical management and behavioral man.

Yeah.

To get everybody set up ahead of time for success and make sure you're

bringing in the right other animal to be the, as close to, as an approximation

as you can get to the right mix.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes.

So if people are already struggling, what changes to that plan of the, you

know, here's how it should have been?

Well, it's not, um, so let's work from where we are in.

Which we should be doing with all of our clients and all the people we meet

wherever your are now let's work forward.

So, what would you...

Yeah.

Um, no, I share these stories about all of my mishaps because

it's like, Hey, no, one's perfect.

I should have known better.

And I did these things anyway.

There's no judgment.

Now, given what we have, what do we do?

And first piece of advice is always management.

Safety is always priority.

Number one.

So anytime you have a situation where safety is questionable, What is the, what

are the things we need to do to make sure that nothing scary happens to anybody?

So I often sit down with clients and we make a list.

What are all of the situations where bad things have happened?

What are the situations where we think bad things might happen?

And then how do we match those to a plan that will prevent

those situations from occurring?

And then, uh, if you haven't already hired a trainer, that's the other piece of.

And get help.

We're here for you doing it alone is hard and scary and full of mishaps.

I, you did say this one thing really kind of nonchalantly

is like trainers who are familiar with interspecies relationships.

Not every dog trainer knows how to deal with a cat.

And it's really important to make sure that you're working with someone

who is comfortable with these kinds of cases, because it's very rare that

you only need to work with the dog.

Unless you have a magical unicorn cat, and often people, the

reason they call a trainer...

I mean, again, we got lucky with that...

...because they don't have magical unicorn cats.

Um, and the person needs to be comfortable with addressing the

behaviors of both sides of the relationship and then also how to

eventually move them closer together.

And yes, there's a lot of things about training dogs and cats that

are similar and there are a lot of things that are not, um, so...

Yes, definitely.

Um, and I think that that was, yes.

Ask your trainer again.

We got lucky, like not only is Sydri a magic, unicorn cat, but

we also still did a little general counterconditioning with him.

If the dogs are around, you're getting good stuff.

Everything is for you, little Deuter, everything is for you.

So, and because my husband was a strong, like, very solid cat person had always

had cats, huge behavior nerd in his own.

Right.

He knew how to set up the room, how to make sure that our cat had hidey holes

to get away high places to get away.

Lots of options play enrichment, which was all stuff I was learning because

at that point I had been a dog trainer that had exclusively worked with dogs.

So having someone who gets the other species helps then since then

I've taken, continuing add on it.

And I'm very lucky to be friends with Olivia who I think you have done another

interview with, um, their Clicker Kittens on Instagram and Olivia is awesome about

letting me be like, Hey, let's do this.

What am I looking at?

Tell me, tell me.

Yeah.

I mean, I was the kind of person that when we brought Syndri home,

he would like flick his tail.

And I was like, oh cute.

He's wagging his tail.

That's not true PSA.

It's embarrassing.

You know, you guys can't see my face, but I made the face of extreme shame.

Cats don't flick their tails cause they're wagging them.

They mad.

Yeah.

Yeah,

I'm actually talking - I'm like I have themes of the month in the Cat and

Dog Coexistence Club and this upcoming month for Halloween is cat body language.

So I was, I have like the idea of just the Halloween cat and being like, what can we

learn about cats in particular, um, and what they tell us subtly or not so subtly.

And yes, one of the easiest things to, to look at is twitchy tail, not good.

Leave that cat.

Also wagging in dogs, not always happy, but definitely not happy in cats.

Not always in dogs, NOT in cats.

So the one caveat I will have is when they're lying down

and there's like an occasional bump at the end of the tail right.

That tends to be okay.

But if we're talking like full twitches

Yeah.

We're only like side to side swingy.

Oh, I need to find, I'll find some, some videos to put up in

the bonus areas for people because

Who can't see my beautiful hand gestures?

Here's the twitch tail, here's the thumpy.

Can you tell I mostly do in-person and virtual training

where people can see me?

I'm like, let me talk with my hands the whole time we're doing this.

That was going to be my other two truths a lie.

I was definitely a theater kid in case that was not apparent.

I as well.

Yes!

My people.

I love it.

Okay.

So you're the best.

Thank you so much for talking with me.

I am so sorry.

I'm all over the place.

So hopefully this edits down okay.

The way everything is.

Gold.

Right.

It's it.

Even if they don't think that it came out exactly the right way.

It's perfect.

So my last question is if any listeners want to get in touch with

you, what's the best way to reach?

Yeah, so we tried to keep it as easy as possible.

So the business is creative canine solutions.

So it's creativecaninesolutions.com.

It's Creative Canine Solutions on Facebook and if you guessed it

@creativecaninesolutions on Instagram.

We're very active on both of the social media channels.

Instagram is probably the one I'm the most active on because I'm a younger

millennial and that's how that plays out, but reach out holler at us

any time we love, love, love, love, nerding out about behavior stuff.

So holler at us.

We also do virtual consults and no matter where you are, the furthest

away I've done so far as Maryland.

Yeah, it looks pretty out there again.

It's very far away.

I don't know what goes on.

Perfect.

But yeah, you can find this out there.

We do virtual stuff to intermittently, mostly for reactive talks.

Um, so webinars, stuff like that.

So yeah.

Follow us like us.

Stay in touch.

Yeah, quite

I'm glad you had a good time.

And I will link all of that information in the show notes as well.

Is there any thing else that you want to say before we wrap up?

Let's leave it on the note of, if you are listening to this and you

are currently struggling with either dog, dog, or dog cat stuff you are

far from alone, be kind to yourself.

That is also really important is the human self care aspect while you're working

through any kind of household species stuff is just make sure you also have a

management plan for your stress levels.

Take care of your own self to the blame game will get you nowhere and

there's no point in worrying about it.

It is what it is.

Let's help you figure it out.

That is exactly why I started the club.

I should just take that and just put it there.

We're not alone and everyone has their stuff.

And it's really nice.

Yeah.

Self-care to discuss with other people who are also going through the

stuff, how you can support each other.

And a judgment free space supporting each other.

Yep.

And again, like professional dog trainer made all of the same mistakes.

That's how we learn.

We grow.

We do better next time.

No shame in that game.

All right, well thank you, Lauren.

It was a pleasure.

Thanks for having me.

It was so fun.

Talk to you later.

Yay.

Bye.

Thanks so much for listening.

If this episode helped you feel less alone in your struggles with your cats and dogs,

please rate review and subscribe to the podcast on your favorite podcast app.

You can also follow me on Instagram @praiseworthypets.

I'd love to hear your suggestions, who should I interview next?

And if your pets aren't getting along and you don't know where to start, go

download my free PETS process guide.

A helpful step-by-step explanation of the process that I use with

my own clients when helping them through their coexistence journey.

You can get access to the guide by going to praiseworthypets.com/guide.

That's all for this episode, you wonderful cat and dog people.

See you next week for more It's Training, Cats and Dogs.