But before I move on to some of those questions, could you just describe what it was like in the 70s to be training guide dogs compared to how we train now? Just so that we have a little bit of an idea of some of the changes that have rapidly occurred.

Well, the changes that have occurred have been quite dramatic.

Back in the 70s, guide dog schools did a really, really good job of teaching dogs to be guides for the visually impaired.

And guide dog schools have always used positive reinforcement.

When a dog made a mistake or when a dog got distracted or when you needed more, quote unquote, discipline from your dog, there would be this tendency to go to a punishment and to punish unwanted behavior so that the dogs would learn they could not do that with a blind handler.

And so punishment was a very common tool used for correcting unwanted behavior.

But it's a misconception a lot of people think when we talk about traditional training that no positive reinforcement is ever used, but that's not the case.

And how did that happen that she became or her methods became so well known?

that people were just discovering this.

Yeah, you know, there's several things I'd love to say about that.

First of all, when you talk about those old listservs, I would imagine that modern new trainers aren't even aware of what those are because it was the predecessor to social media.

You know, today we can go on to Instagram or Facebook or TikTok, or whatever social media platform is popular at the time, and people use that, and it's a great way of distributing information.

But before social media, we had these listservs, and I remember the ClickListserv, the ClickListserv, and it was a great source of information.

It was the first time I came across a community of trainers outside of visiting a conference and was able to have all these people weighing in on concepts and ideas.

And I think When people like yourself and Marian join in or Karen would join in, they would often, you would have information from the past that people hadn't heard before.

Right.

And if you're looking at it from a trainer's point of view and you're thinking, okay, all of this sounds great, how do you turn that mirror back on yourself and make sure that you're training in an ethical way, that you are lining up?

It's an excellent question.

And it is about, I do it in two ways.

I always recommend that when you're watching someone else train, when you're watching someone else work with their animals, if you ever find yourself passing judgment, like, I can't believe they just did that.

I always say check that and say to yourself, do you ever do that? Why do you do that? Instead of asking and criticizing them, ask yourself about whether you can actually say that you've never done that yourself and recognize that there's probably a reason for it.

Additionally, for me, it's always about looking at animal welfare and well-being.

We start, of course, with the basics of, is the animal healthy? It's one of the most important things that we always think about when we're caring for an animal.

What are a few of the kind of common misunderstandings that people have about the work that what is possible, how you can change things?

Mm-hmm.

It is, it is just, uh, one part of the overall spectrum, and the example that I use is I, I went to a restaurant recently with a vegan friend of mine, and the restaurant did not appear to have any vegan options.

And so consequently, although it was a big menu with dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of choices, that particular person was not able to have control over the kind of meal that she wanted for her particular dietary restrictions.

And so, uh, while there were lots of choices, it didn't give her the control to be able to do the things that she wanted to do with the meal.

So her only options were to have a glass of water, to have a, a dinner salad or to go el- to leave and go elsewhere.

Um, now fortunately, we asked the waiter, "Do you have vegan options?" And he was able to say, "Well, actually, pages 11, 12 and 13 of our menu are all, uh, able to be made vegan." And suddenly my friend was happy and felt like she had control over the outcomes of, of, of, of, of, of that particular meal.

And so I often think about that in terms of when we pri- provide enrichment, for example.

Yeah.