Canine Intelligence and Puppy Kindergarten with Vanessa Woods

Join Victoria Stilwell as she interviews Vanessa Woods, a renowned researcher and director of Duke Puppy Kindergarten, about canine cognition, bonobos, and innovative puppy training methods. Discover how scientific research is transforming our understanding of dogs and improving training and welfare.

Genius of Dogs by Vanessa Woods - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00A7U4V4Q

Duke K9 Cognition Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/duke_k9_cognition/

Lola ya Bonobo Sanctuary - Friends of Bonobos 

Canine Cognition Center at Duke University - https://sites.duke.edu/dognition/

Twitter - https://twitter.com/VanessaWoods

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/duke_k9_cognition/

• Solve reactivity with Victoria's powerful course on Positively.com: Help! Stop Reactivity. Learn more & enroll here.

• Launch or level up your career as a professional dog trainer with the Victoria Stilwell Academy. Learn more here.

• Launch or level up your career as a professional dog trainer with the Victoria Stilwell Academy. Learn more here.

• Solve behavior problems and find tools to help live your best dog life at Positively.com.

Transcript

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Victoria (00:01.56)
You know, I always, well, I don't complain about being busy, but I am busy. And my next guest is also busy. I don't know where she has the time to do everything that she does, but I am so very honored that she has agreed to come on this podcast. Her name is Vanessa Woods. And I know you know who she is, but I will say it anyway. She's the director of the Duke Puppy Kindergarten.

She's an award-winning writer and journalist. She has written a lot of books, including, and I do want to talk about this, Vanessa, a book you wrote in 2010 called The Bonobo Handshake, a memoir of love and adventure in Congo. I know this is about dogs, but we're going to talk bonobos because I want to hear about that. You've also written a children's book and you've also written along with your husband, Dr. Brian Hare, you've

Vanessa (00:49.334)
I'm

Victoria (00:59.584)
written the Genius of Dogs, Survival of the Friendliness, and then your latest book, Puppy Kindergarten. my gosh. there's, and you also, and people will be wondering like, what is the Puppy Kindergarten? We're going to talk about that and talk about all of the really fascinating things that you have learned raising this group of puppies. And also you spoke at the Dog Behavior Conference. People adored you.

They had so many questions. So I'm going to be asking some of those questions that you didn't have time to get to because there were so many questions at the tail end of this podcast. Is that good? First of all, welcome.

Vanessa (01:41.639)
Thank you so much for having me on the show. I feel like we've known each other for such a long time and now I'm just excited I get to be here.

Victoria (01:50.882)
Well, I'm really glad, thank you, because I think the studies that you have been doing and have done has really helped shape what a lot of us dog trainers, boots on the ground dog trainers and behavior consultants shaped what we do, shaped our understanding, especially books like Genius of Dogs has really been pivotal. Pivotal? Pivotal?

Vanessa (02:20.529)
You

Victoria (02:20.872)
in my learning, it's been a long day, in my learning as well, especially when it comes to canine cognition. And then working with Brian on the dognition all those years ago with Duke, that was a great honor. And to learn from you both, but what you've also learnt regarding puppies with the research that you're doing is just phenomenal. So I'm so glad you are here and

First of all, can you tell us a little bit about Puppy Kindergarten and what it is? And then we might go back to Bonobos and then we'll come back again to Puppy Kindergarten just so that listeners know what it is.

Vanessa (03:04.039)
But that sounds like the best ride ever. yes, but firstly, I do want to say just how much Brian and I really appreciate trainers, actually. We do everything we do just because we are dog lovers. We are dog lovers first. And our main purpose is to make the world better for dogs and the people who love them. And I think that we can talk about this.

later, but I think there's been a real cultural shift in the way that dogs in our relationship with dogs, that's probably the biggest shift we've had in like 15,000 years since our relationship first began. And, you know, that creates many wonderful changes, but it also has created some struggles. And I think really the trainers are on the front lines of those struggles. And if there's anything, anyone who can help us, it's really people who have a lot of

experience with dogs, behavior modification. Like I know you know that behavior is one of the straws that breaks the camel's back and can really kind of fracture the relationship we have with our dogs. So Brian and I are just, you know, so thankful to trainers and we are just happy to help.

Victoria (04:17.388)
Well, tell us about what got you into all of this to begin with, right? So you wrote this book, you lived in the Congo and you are spending time studying Bonobos. Can you take us back to that time and why and how did you get there?

Vanessa (04:37.895)
I know it's, well, you know, I'm just getting to the stage where I do feel like I've lived a long time. I was talking to one of my students today. She's like, I can't even believe the graduating class is like 2030. I'm like, well, when you were born in the last century, like that kind of puts things into perspective. So, I mean, I guess, you know, Brian and I, Brian, you know, is my husband. And when we met, he had really come from.

things for the dog side of things. So, you know, his work with dogs goes all the way back until, you know, he was a teenager, basically. But I was really in love with primates. you know, bonobos and chimpanzees, there are two closest living relatives. They share like 98.7 % of our DNA. And, you know, it's kind of like just like you have two cousins, they are from

different sides, but you're equally closely related. That is our relationship with them. And I have just always loved the great apes ever. When I was very young, you know, my very early 20s, I went to work with chimpanzees and look after some of the orphans from the bushmeat trade. And it's just the first, it was just love at first sight. was, I never understood how similar they were.

to us, like, you know, when you look into chimpanzee's eyes or bonobos eyes, it's not looking into the eyes of like, I don't know, like a goat or a shark. It's like, you know, different eyes. They are human eyes and they look back at you with all, you know, whatever, whatever it is that you see when you look into the eyes of someone else. I mean, that is what, you know, I saw in bonobos and chimpanzees. And so I had really spent a long

time, spending time with them, trying to help their conservation, writing about them, filming them. And so, you know, I guess they were really my first passion. And Brian and I started studying bonobos together. And funnily enough, bonobos and chimpanzees have a lot in common relationship wise as dogs do with wolves. And so that's kind of how all the worlds collided and how we got started.

Victoria (06:58.316)
What was it like in the Congo? What is it like studying the Bonobos there?

Vanessa (07:04.283)
The Congo is one of those places where there's just nowhere like it anywhere. You know, it's in its home, of course, to the Congo Basin. It's one of the largest areas of biodiversity in the world, you know, after the Amazon. And then it's also incredibly urban. Kinshasa, the capital city, has like a 20 million people. And so it's kind of like this.

I think this juxtaposition that we're seeing everywhere in the world, the contrast is just really stark with this really dense urban population kind of like sprawling out to contact this really untouched wilderness, you know, and all the challenges that come with that. think, you know, we've been working in the Congo for almost 20 years now. And so,

We have lots of friends there, lots of people that we know and we love. And some of those who I love most are actually bonobos. We went to visit them. I think was the year before last we took the kids and it was just amazing to see them all. Some of the females brought their babies to show me. There were orphans that I'd spent a long time with.

Victoria (08:13.998)
you

Victoria (08:24.053)
Ugh.

Vanessa (08:27.973)
you know, a while ago and they all recognized me and some of them didn't, but some of them really did. And you could tell the difference. And so it was just, it was wonderful to see everybody again, human and ape.

Victoria (08:39.596)
And are they in a rescue center? Are they in some kind of sanctuary?

Vanessa (08:44.515)
Yes, Lola Yaa Bonobo is the world's only bonobo sanctuary. And they have the largest captive population of bonobos in the world. And they rescue orphans from the bushmeat trade. So in Congo, it is illegal to hunt, kill, or keep bonobos. And so when the law is enforced and these orphans are found, they go to Lola Yaa Bonobo Sanctuary, who also has this incredible program.

to then release rehabilitated bonobos into the wild.

Victoria (09:18.574)
so there is, there is a release program there. Amazing.

Vanessa (09:21.175)
Yes, there's a release program. It's been running since 2009 and it is it's incredibly successful They have released bonobos these bonobos have reproduced which is really, you know the kind of like in in science speak the benchmark of successful Release and rehabilitation. So yeah, it's been really exciting to see that journey and follow that journey And I feel like in a world where there aren't that many hopeful stories. This is one I revisit a lot

Victoria (09:49.774)
When you are there with these bonobos, what have you learned about them? What have they taught you?

Vanessa (09:56.135)
I've, well, I mean, I mean, so many things research wise, so many small things, you know, we run these kind of research studies to kind of understand where we as humans kind of sit, but similar and what is it that makes us human? But I mean, really sort of zooming out what they've taught me is all about friendship because, you know, as I said, the

Bonobos and chimpanzees were equally as closely related to their but chimpanzees live in this male-dominated society. They hunt and kill each other. They have war. have something very similar to gang violence. Infants are really often killed. And even though they're almost genetically identical, bonobos don't have any of that. The most dominant individual is always a female.

And the babies are not killed and there's, you know, very few cases of one bonobo killing another, like very few, like less than, less than 10. And sometimes the circumstances aren't even clear. And so, you know, and the way bonobos do this is really via female friendships. So in chimpanzees, the females are, you know, often quite isolated and they rely on the males to protect them.

But in bonobo societies, it's the females that form these really close friendships. So whenever a male bonobo starts acting really dominant or aggressively, the females will band together and correct them as the Congolese, you like to say. So that's just been really amazing, both in terms of thinking about our own society and culture and where cooperation

breaks down and violence and conflicts start to occur. And then also just, you know, in the broader framework of survival of the fittest, this idea that the most dominant and aggressive will really win. But it's not like that at all. And bonobos are just the perfect embodiment of survival of the friendliest, like we like to say.

Victoria (12:15.074)
Survival of the Friendliness, is obviously the title of one of your books. I think that's fascinating and I don't want to be sexist here, but maybe things would be really different if women ran the world, right?

Vanessa (12:25.73)
Hahaha

Vanessa (12:31.355)
Yeah, female friendships. And it's interesting because in the animal world, there are examples of female dominated species like hyenas, for one, and some species of lemurs. But in these species, the females tend to be bigger than the males. And they use violence and aggression just the way, exactly the way males do in comparable species. But bonobos just don't do any of that. It's not that they don't have any violence. They do. But

In contrast to chimpanzees that use violence to establish dominance and maintain control, bonobos use violence to maintain the peace. And they really do that through these strong female relationships that they have where the females really support each other.

Victoria (13:17.262)
So we have a lot to learn from them, right? Wow. Okay. So then you're there, you're in the Congo, you come back to America. How did the work at Duke and cognition and the cognition start there? The really great research into canine cognition, how did that come about?

Vanessa (13:18.82)
Yes. Yep, that's absolutely.

Vanessa (13:42.033)
So we're in an evolutionary anthropology department. And one of the things we think of in just relation to how we became human is just this concept of domestication and self-domestication. And without going into it too much, there are a lot of similarities between the relationship of chimpanzees and bonobos and then wolves and dogs. Because you know.

Wolves are much more aggressive than dogs, within their species and then also with humans, they're much more wary, more fearful. so, just kind of like looking at the differences, some of the changes in dogs have been cognitive.

So, you know, just as in evolution, you can have like wings evolving multiple times with like, you know, bats and birds that, you know, and squirrels in some cases. your mind, there can also be what we call convergent evolution in psychology. And so dogs have this incredible ability that is called theory of mind. It's one of the theory of mind abilities, but it's almost like mind reading.

because of their close relationship to humans. And wolves don't have this and even our close living relatives, bonobos and chimpanzees don't have it. So this really special kind of niche ability that dogs have is super interesting to study. And it's given rise to this, you know, whole research program around, you know, why this ability evolved, you know, how it evolved, what it means and the other kind of

you know, byproducts of this.

Victoria (15:36.089)
So in the book, Ingenious of Dogs, you write about left gaze bias, that dogs have what we humans, so when the human looks at a human face, normally we start looking at the left, the left-hand side of the face, and then immediately as we're looking at somebody, our eyes move to the right.

Vanessa (16:00.135)
Yeah, so...

Victoria (16:01.582)
Okay, so why?

Vanessa (16:04.547)
It's just, okay, so it's like, it's that and like, like other funny little things that you were like, what is this? It is, you know, an example of convergent psychology. is just our life, like we have shared so much of our lives together that the dog mind in some cases have evolved these abilities.

to really overlap in similar ways to our own. So there's like the left gaze bias and that's one of them. But I think, you know, one of the big ones is being able to follow gestures. you know, when we're born, we aren't born with the whole deck of cards. Everybody who has a baby knows that they're, they really take a while to develop both physically and mentally. But one of the first skills that comes online is that,

Victoria (16:50.764)
Right. Yeah. Yes.

Vanessa (16:58.543)
you know, is to be the ability to follow gestures. So, you know, when you were younger, if your mom pointed to something you started to understand. And this was the first cognitive skill that really developed that it wasn't not to look at her finger, but to look at something beyond her finger. And not only that, but that, you know, she knew that you didn't know something and that she was trying to point it out to you. And this is, you know, one of the

You know, and it's called theory of mind because you have to have the theory of somebody else's mind. And this kind of really simple ability is like the foundation for all language and culture. So, you know, we spend our whole lives thinking about what other people are thinking about. And it all starts with this ability to kind of like follow a gesture, like just, you know, follow a point is a really good example. you know, chimpanzees and bonobos don't have this ability. cannot follow. They do not follow our gestures.

the way that dogs can. And just the fact that dogs can do this, not only within their species, but actually across a species is really just remarkable. And so that discovery that Brian made 20 years ago is really what started this whole explosion of this new research into dog cognition, almost this revolution. Because before that, dogs were kind of

seen as, know, cute but dumb. They were domesticated. They didn't have, you know, any of the glamour of wolves or, you know, they were allowed, you know, they could barely survive in the wild. you know, most puppies die before they're one if they don't have humans to help them. So, you know, the fact that everything we've learned about dogs and what they're capable of cognitively is just, you know, fascinating.

Victoria (18:54.808)
So you, I mean, for people who go, well, that's not a big deal to follow a human point, but actually gestures don't mean anything, right? They don't mean anything until you attach some kind of significance to them. So, mean, and gestures actually, this similar type of gestures can mean different things depending on what country you are. So, and I remember, so let's just take the V, right? The V and I'm doing it on the book.

Vanessa (19:09.539)
Absolutely.

Vanessa (19:23.451)
Mm-hmm.

Victoria (19:24.172)
I'm doing the V here. I came over to America and a lot of people were saying one, two, and they would show the V. And it was with the back of the hand facing forward. Now in England, I was kind of shocked because in England that gesture means F-U, right? When you put two fingers up like that, it's F-U. But I was seeing everybody in America do it. And I thought, well, that's very odd.

Vanessa (19:42.056)
Vanessa (19:51.079)
Right!

Victoria (19:51.085)
And victory is the same because it's the palm facing forward with your fingers in a V, but no, that meant F you. And that, that got me thinking, well, not only do gestures are meaningless until you attach some kind of significance, but the similar gestures mean different things in different countries. So actually for a dog, right? So babies are able to follow their human point at around, is it around nine months or is it earlier? Okay.

Vanessa (20:17.755)
Yep, that's very exactly right. No, nine months.

Victoria (20:20.022)
around nine months. and dogs can do it from puppies.

Vanessa (20:26.439)
I six weeks, like just after they've barely opened their eyes and have started to get their other senses online. Like this is one of the first cognitive abilities that appears in dogs just as it is one of the first cognitive abilities that appears in humans babies. And it's incredibly important. And to your point, it's not the actual gesture, it's the meaning behind the gesture, this really kind of like complex level of,

Victoria (20:51.884)
Right?

Vanessa (20:56.263)
would you, think what you think that I think that you think. Do you know what I mean? It's just like, I know that you know that you don't know something and I do know something. So now I'm going to show you and you're gonna understand that I know something that you don't know and then you're gonna pay attention to it. So that's insanely complicated. And yeah, it is just the foundation for culture and language. We spend so much time with these sub.

verbal cues. mean, we talk a lot and that's what we attribute most of our communication styles to be, but you can communicate so much just with tiny gestures. you know, if you and I met and you kind of like, you know, I was like, hey Victoria, how are you? And I saw you just like flick your eyes down to my name tag. I would be like,

Victoria (21:28.526)
Hmm.

Vanessa (21:48.743)
Oh my God, she doesn't remember me. Victoria doesn't remember you. has no idea who I am. Like, yes. Do you know what I mean? Just like by that tiny gesture, I'm making a model of your mind. I'm like, you know, thinking about what you don't know and then remembering like, how could she not? And then, you know, there's all these other thoughts. How could she not remember me? We had such a good time at the last conference we were at, like all, all that kind of thing. And, um, you know, from something that simple to, uh, you imagine seeing someone that you

Victoria (21:51.532)
Right, yeah you'd know.

Vanessa (22:18.287)
I had in a relationship with and you hadn't seen for years and you walk into a room, you lock eyes and then the other person just leaves. It's like, you know, like just the emotional trauma. then you're thinking like, wait, what are they, you know, I know they remember me. So are they telling me they it's over? They don't want to see me like this giant.

Victoria (22:27.552)
Terrible, devastating, crashing.

Vanessa (22:42.311)
part of my life that took up years is now nothing to them. Like, do you know what? We spend our whole lives looking at nonverbal gestures and attributing meaning. I mean, they give our life meaning and fulfillment. And the fact that this completely different species has kind of leapt onto that and can do even an elementary form of that, think, is

Victoria (22:48.12)
Yeah.

Vanessa (23:10.341)
really fascinating. It is in the heart of the, it's at the heart of the genius of dogs.

Victoria (23:15.48)
So what Brian had through his research, not only did he find that dogs have gone through this, in living with us, this evolutionary process of, I think that makes them one of the most successful domestic species on the planet because they have evolved alongside humans to recognize certain gestures and to communicate with us as best as they can.

I think humans need a little, we need more coaching in doing it back in general. But there was also great research done on memory and on reasoning and on cunning, all of these incredible things that has given us so much more information about the inner emotional lives of dogs and what they can do. And that, if...

If you wanna learn more about that, you've got to read Genius of Dogs, right? Because that will just set you straight about this incredible research. But I do want to talk now about Puppy Kindergarten and how that came about, because you really are the director of that and why.

Vanessa (24:27.687)
You have a puppy kid to go.

Vanessa (24:37.457)
So puppy kindergarten came out of this idea that there are millions of people in the US who could do with a service dog. Because of the special ability that dogs have, dogs have now more jobs than ever. There is no technology that can replace dogs in terms of you might be able to get Alexa to turn your lights on and off. But can Alexa then also like

Victoria (24:58.478)
Mm-hmm.

Vanessa (25:04.647)
Go to the refrigerator, get you something to drink, pick up your credit card, find your keys that you've lost, and then all I need is that, but just like give you a hug at the end of the day. So, you know, millions of Americans and, you know, more worldwide could do with a service dog. And there just aren't enough of them. It's incredibly difficult and arduous to qualify as a service dog. And it takes like two years and costs about $50,000 for each one. And then half of them fail.

So what we were trying to do with puppy kindergarten is that we were trying to come up with the list, you know, just kind of like this, cognitive test battery that would allow us to tell early which puppies were most likely to make it. So then, you know, instead of waiting for two years and investing all that time and money, you could take a puppy at like 10 to 12 weeks and kind of figure out with some amount of certainty of, you know, whether they have the right cognitive profile.

to make it and some of the things you were talking about like memory and reasoning and self-control and this ability to follow gestures, they are what we found over decades of research as what these are important and they really count towards service dog success. So that's why we had to enroll an insane amount of puppies. I think it was 101 at the end and we still had like 10.

on campus last semester. mean, you can't stop having puppies once you've started with them. But yeah, puppies, we tested them once every two weeks from eight to 20 weeks old, which is the kind of final period of rapid brain development to see when these cognitive skills emerged and then how heritable they were over time.

Whether a puppy with good memory when they were, you know, eight, 10 weeks old, still had good memory when they were two years old, that kind of thing. So that was the purpose of puppy kindergarten. And then we also wanted to see how rearing, because, know, we've talked a lot to our trainer friends and one of their questions was, you know, does rearing matter? Like everybody has really strong ideas about how dogs should be raised and service dog puppies are usually kind of raised just in a family home.

Vanessa (27:20.551)
They have an amazing amount of socialization. They're so well taken care of. But we wanted to see what would happen if we kind of like super socialized them and kind of like flooded them with all sorts of positive experiences with lots of different people. Because in children, it's sort of research is that that really matters. Like kids who get early exposure to a lot of people, a lot of diverse different people are more flexible, problem solvers, they're more tolerant. And so we wanted to see if the same was true of puppies.

Victoria (27:51.147)
Now, this was not just, I mean, this was so different because you're actually having students, the puppies are living at Duke and the students are helping raise them.

Vanessa (28:02.937)
Yes, we had half the puppies raised in a normal household that came into Duke to test every two weeks. And then, yes, the other 50 puppies were raised by Duke students in student dorms. So instead of having one family they lived with, they were raised from between three to five different students. They moved dorm rooms. They kind of rotated through dorm rooms. They had me and then 100 undergrad.

taking care of them every semester, you know, for this kind of like last period of rapid development. They went to visit and they went all over Duke's campus. They went to the dining hall, the library, the chapel, like so they just met people everywhere they went. You know, all these experiences were positive. We were careful to give them like lots of break times, lots of rest, but they just did. They had a lot of wonderful experience with like thousands of people.

Victoria (28:57.378)
That's just amazing. And I'm sure, did you have lots of, lots of students signing up?

Vanessa (29:02.247)
yeah, we had, we set up this like really like, because back when we started, like Facebook was still a thing. We set out this really low key Facebook post, like, if you're interested in taking care of puppies, like, you know, here's where you can sign up. And we didn't know, because, you know, all college students are so busy these days. You know, they're overloaded and they have all these clubs and activities. just said, we didn't know. We had 600 students sign up.

which is like a tenth of the student body at Duke in like a week. And even now, I think we have like 400 students who are part of Puppy Club. yeah, so it's, the demand is high.

Victoria (29:44.206)
That's incredible. Okay, we're gonna talk about the amazing things that you have found out from raising these puppies after this short break. We'll be back.

Victoria (29:57.647)
I'm back with Vanessa Woods. We're talking about everything puppy and we're talking about the Duke puppy kindergarten, which is the goal is to graduate more service dogs. So what kind of things did you discover with raising these puppies?

Vanessa (30:12.753)
So I think, well, think firstly, realized that, you know, because service dog puppies are such a specialized population, but we realized how useful what we were seeing would be to people with pet dogs. And what I mean by that is that, you know, we're experiencing

this real cultural shift in our relationship with dogs, probably the biggest we've had in 15 to 40,000 years. And that is that for the entirety of our relationship, dogs have always, we've relied on them to guard the things we care about and the people we love. And that was the deal. We relied on them to protect us. that has, there's been hunting and all other kind of like jobs we've asked them to do, but it's like protection.

was the main thing, alarm systems. But we don't want that anymore. And as a matter of fact, we actively don't want that. A lot of the time, we want dogs to come with us on vacation and come to work with us and sleep nicely under our desks, to go to outdoor cafes, to hang out with our friends, to be kind to all the neighborhood children who come in and out without knocking the door or ringing the bell.

Victoria (31:07.052)
Yeah? Yeah?

Vanessa (31:35.419)
to not be super upset every time an Amazon package gets delivered, which in my house is like every four seconds. And so, you know, and then not only that, but we just really want them to be part of our lives in a way that we didn't when I was growing up with dogs. mean, you know, just sort of like, and by that, mean that, you know, when I was little, like my dog and I would just...

roam around the neighborhood and nobody cared where we were or what we did as long as we were home by dinner. But now it's like my kids have a very structured, very scheduled life. know, Brian and I as parents are always just like up in their business. And I think dogs are the same, like a lot of them are crated for a lot of the day and that, you know, we expect so much of them, you know, to

Victoria (32:19.299)
Yeah.

Vanessa (32:26.497)
for example, like sitting at work nicely for like eight hours or, you know, going on vacation, meeting lots of strange dogs and strange people like all the time and just having to be like calm and friendly. And what we, and I realized is that service dogs are a century ahead in popular culture and they've always had to do those things. And their main jobs, apart from the task they do, is the fact that they really had to fit into our lives the way that we want.

all our dogs to fit into our lives and our society and culture. So, I mean, a lot of things that we learned while we were raising all these puppies is, you know, things that we want our puppies at home to be able to do. So, you know, for instance, just temperamentally, we look at the temperament of different puppies, how reactive they are to different events. And one thing we did find is that the Duke puppies were a lot more confident.

than the puppies who were raised in homes. So they were lot less reactive to new events and strange things happening and strange people. And the other thing is that we found that eye contact was really important. Eye contact was a real, I mean, eye contact is just, yeah. Yes.

Victoria (33:26.637)
missing.

Victoria (33:44.258)
This is fascinating though, the eye contact is so yeah, if you can expand on that, it truly is.

Vanessa (33:50.757)
OK, we have this funny little game where you kind of put a treat in a box and then just one of those snap lock containers and you teach your dog that they can open it. You don't lock the box, basically. And then after a couple of times once they've gotten the treat out, you lock the box. And then you just see what happens. So some dogs, their strategy is they'll just

go for it. Like they will just they were like, could open this box, I'm going to get this treat out. Like I remember I could get it and they'll just like try and solve the problem themselves. And other dogs will just like stop and just like sit down and look at you. Like as in, you know, you just put this in here. Can you get it out? Like, and so you know, yeah, can you help me please? And those two strategies and you know, I love this game because it shows not only about eye contact, which I'll get to in a second, but also that

Victoria (34:36.044)
Yeah, can you help me please?

Vanessa (34:45.991)
there's no right or wrong answer. So the dogs who were like really self-directed problem solvers tend to make really good military working dogs. And the dogs who sit and ask for help are more likely to become service dogs. And so, you know, there's kind of like not right or wrong. It's just your strategy. But something interesting we found is that when we played this game with puppies, the puppies that did this game once every two weeks for like five minutes from eight.

to 20 weeks old made almost twice the amount of eye contact than dogs who didn't. So eye contact between dogs and their owners is super important. Owners whose dogs make more eye contact, they report being more satisfied with their relationship. Dogs who make more eye contact get adopted out of the shelter faster. So it just kind of like, there's this beautiful oxytocin lip that happens. It's sort of like when you...

Victoria (35:35.918)
Yeah.

Vanessa (35:42.107)
look into your dog's eyes then, and they're looking into yours, like your oxytocin goes up and their oxytocin goes up and it makes everybody just feel loving and loved. And so, you know, just the fact that we had this funny little game that not only could predict what job a dog would be best for, but it also could, you know, potentially improve the relationship between owners and their dogs.

Victoria (36:05.046)
Amazing. It truly is amazing. so where are the puppies now? This started how many years ago? Like the puppies, adults, how many in that first lot, how many went on to become service dogs?

Vanessa (36:15.173)
Yes!

Well, so we let's see. we we had 10 semesters that were tracking and we work with, you several wonderful organizations, canine companions and then eyes, ears, nose and paws. And, you know, I think we had some guiding eyes for the plane puppies in there, too. So we were just observing. We had no interventions, but we.

like literally we were kind of half half. So 50 % made it, 50 % did not. And, you know, we had some medical releases in there too. So yeah, I mean, we're still waiting for like the kind of like final dogs to sort of like graduate and see where they end up. But yeah, it's a real thing. The 50 % is a real thing. But hopefully, you know, once we've completed all the research and looked at all the data, we'll be able to, you know, see what.

Victoria (36:58.254)
interesting.

Victoria (37:09.784)
Wow.

Vanessa (37:16.903)
kind of cognitive profile at 8, 10, 12 weeks would really predict server stock success.

Victoria (37:24.62)
Amazing. Goodness me. just, you my hat's off to you because I know that's a lot of work. but again, it's going to help. It's really going to help. And not only just with our knowledge, it's going to help for people who need these service dogs. mean, truly, and I should say that most of these dogs, they're Labradors. Are they all Labradors?

Vanessa (37:32.423)
Sciences.

Vanessa (37:43.376)
Absolutely.

Vanessa (37:50.161)
Yeah, their lab golden retriever mixes usually, but they're from close populations. So I always tell people that breed doesn't tell you much about a dog except for what they look like. So just for an example, we work with military dogs and we work with assistance dogs and they're all Labrador retrievers. I mean, you couldn't tell them apart from a photograph, but I mean, they are as different as two different species. I mean, really the...

Victoria (37:52.374)
mixes. Okay.

Vanessa (38:18.263)
service dogs have had because they've been bred for this calm, friendly temperament. They've had changes to their brain chemistry and they're much more pro-social, much more friendlier to strangers. And I think this is what we need to be thinking about is that, as I said, this cultural shift that has happened, I mean, we really need to stop

thinking about so much what dogs look like and more about how we breed, raise and train them. And, you know, the breeding, we should be really focusing much more on temperament than we do because, you know, you can just see for service dogs how big those changes are when you start focusing on temperament. And then, you know, in terms of the way we're asking our dogs to live with us, know, trainers are just incredibly

helpful as our other service industries for dogs, things like doggy daycare, things like, you know, helping them get socialized with like pet walking. But yeah, if they're going to live with us in the way that we're asking them to, something, you know, that stood out to us from the service dogs was how much training there was and how intensive that training was and how it just, you know, and how it didn't stop.

Victoria (39:37.699)
Hmm.

Vanessa (39:43.659)
and how it was constant. It's like raising children now. You can't just tell them when they're like six months old to be polite and say please and thank you. It's like you've got to do it when they're young and you've got to continue all the way. And there's so many lessons that they need to learn that didn't matter so much when they were just running around our backyard and jumping fences and chasing cars. It's like they really are, we're asking our pet dogs to behave in ways that is

very similar to service dogs and the amount of training and consistency that you need is just, you know, it's so important. And, you know, so that's why we always say like hats off to trainers. You guys are really at the forefront of bringing dogs and their, and most importantly, their owners into this new world in which we find ourselves.

Victoria (40:35.752)
And even within the positive community, there's a shift and there's a shift to like we have almost it's gone too far to where everything is so controlled and where, you know, where it's the, say you do, and if you do, you get a nice reward. it's very much a sort of one sided where we're now really focusing almost going back.

to what it was like when dogs were looking at environment, how we can, it's not just about enrichment, it's literally about how we can create environments that are more conducive for dogs to grow and feel safe and feel enriched. so, because there are so many dogs there that are living in this crazy human world with our rules and...

Yeah, being put in crates for hours and hours on end and expected to be a certain way. And then when they don't behave in a certain way, that behavior is labeled bad. And we're saying there really isn't bad or good behavior. It's what that's the significance that humans label on it. But that behavior means something to that dog. makes total sense to that dog at that time. And so we, the, the, too much control is causing

We believe so much more anxiety, reactivity, aggressive behavior. And when we take a step back and we enable dogs to have more choice, to have more agency, it's this beautiful dance that we need to get right. And every dog is an individual. So for example, VSA and what we do at Positively in VSA is we are real less about teaching dogs to sit, stay.

and down and all of these inhibitory positions that we put dogs in. And we are now more into looking at how we can utilize movement to help dogs not just cope, but thrive in different environments. It's truly, it's very exciting. And it's what we in the positive community are really so many people are moving towards because we've got away from that.

Victoria (43:02.958)
beautiful, organic way of raising and living with dogs like you did, like my husband did. Like I wasn't allowed a dog growing up, but my grandmother did. It was just, it just was. And these dogs, you can't just let your dogs wander around neighborhoods now and you just can't do it. But, but I feel like there was less issues with them when they could and when they had. So that's.

Vanessa (43:22.393)
Mm hmm. Right.

Victoria (43:31.875)
very exciting from a training and behavior standpoint of the success that we're seeing now. But that's the whole thing. And I'd love to talk to you more at some point about that. But I had, there was some questions that people had from the DBC and it said, a couple of these questions I'll just delve into.

One of them was, said that puppy brains are basically fully developed at 20 months old. And does that mean secondary fear periods change their brain development? So that secondary fear period that can happen in adolescence between six to 14 months or six to 18 months. But if the brain develops around 20 months old, can it be profoundly affected by that fear period? Especially if a dog is having some negative experiences.

Vanessa (44:28.433)
So the eight to 20 week period of brain development was kind of like the best research that we had found in terms of the site. No, 20, yeah, 20 weeks, 20 weeks. And like, yes, of course, like the brain is still, you know, that's the final period of rapid brain development. So, you know, yes, of course the brain can change.

Victoria (44:37.998)
sorry, 20, I think she said 20 months old. I think she meant 20 weeks old. Yep.

Vanessa (44:56.391)
grow, have experiences that affect us. It's just like, so we just sort of like use that because as humans we have really slow growing brains. But we also have this period of rapid brain development. I mean, it takes years. Like, you know, if you think of like what happened to your brain from the time you're a baby, just to the time that, you know, you were just nine or 10 years old, like just the, the rap.

just the way it like grew so rapidly, the way it, you know, expanded and increased in complexity is that that period is just really shortened with dogs. And, you know, it's difficult to compare, but it seems it does seem like a 20 weeks old, the brain has reached the size, the approximate size and complexity in terms of that rapid development. So it's not that.

Victoria (45:29.454)
Mm.

Vanessa (45:53.267)
the brain still doesn't grow and change. It's just that really fast period was during that time. So absolutely dogs can have adverse experiences at whatever age that could really throw them for a loop.

Victoria (46:04.396)
Yeah. And that's going to affect development. Yeah. Okay. So, did the puppies spend time with adult dogs or just with other puppies?

Vanessa (46:15.143)
So we actually had a principal of the puppy kindergarten and he was called Congo. He is in the book. features very heavily. He was a retired service dog and Brian and I got him when the kids were very young and he was incredible. He was so patient. like he the puppies learned a lot from him.

like, you know, the puppies were going crazy and were like, you know, zooming and biting and things like that. He would like just very patiently pick up a toy and hold it out for them. So they would, you know, learn that they were supposed to bite the toy and not each other. And then he would sort of like demonstrate loose leash walking because the puppies were obsessed with him, like completely obsessed with Congo. And so he would work walk at a pace.

Victoria (47:07.892)
I bet.

Vanessa (47:10.875)
that then the puppies would walk out. so, I mean, yes, Congo was amazing and he was just one of those really special dogs. you know, the puppies and all of us were just lucky to have him.

Victoria (47:24.556)
Amazing. Were the puppy peak activity periods controlled with the home routine? Because the puppies have these peak periods throughout the day, don't they? And did they see, so you saw that in the Duke puppies, did they see the same kinds of activity periods in the home puppies? They did.

Vanessa (47:37.028)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Vanessa (47:46.223)
Yes, yes, that's right. I, and you know, I get the routine aspect of it, like, but usually puppies are kind of like, like if they're at home, they're kind of out. Do you know what mean? It was the same at Duke. Like, yes, of course they had nap periods, but in terms of like, we had seven puppies in the kindergarten, there was just some periods where everybody was just out. And then there were periods where everybody was just bananas. And you know, that happened either if they were all together.

Victoria (47:58.423)
Yes.

Victoria (48:11.251)
Thank

Vanessa (48:14.445)
or if they were separated. And obviously it's kind of like averaged and smoothed over time and it wasn't every day, but yes, those peak puppy activity periods, four of them were what averaged out over the, you know, however many puppies we looked at with the activity monitors.

Victoria (48:31.672)
So there's four peak periods throughout the day. There's four activity peaks. I think lots of people don't know that.

Vanessa (48:35.237)
Mm-hmm.

Vanessa (48:41.133)
No, because I mean, really the only research that had been done on puppy activity were actually in older dogs and dogs have these two activity periods at dawn and dusk, which really makes sense because they're corpuscular dogs who are free ranging. This is when, you know, their activity periods are. But yeah, puppies had four, which we believed having that number of puppies at kindergarten. And it made sense to us.

But I think that, people who think they're just gonna have their puppy at home in their crate for four hours in the morning before lunch and then four hours at night, I mean, there's this real physiological constraint. They have these bursts of energy. And if they're confined during that time, it's gonna be difficult for them.

Victoria (49:25.23)
Right, okay, thank you.

Hold on, I know I had this question. I'm trying to get a mean of them. see a mean of questions so that I don't have to, okay. Have activity levels been studied in teenage dogs, like six months to a year? Is there a phase between the puppy and adult activity levels as the dogs transition? So do those activity levels change?

Vanessa (49:36.655)
Yes, I've got it.

Vanessa (49:51.833)
I think, I don't think so. I think we did the first puppy activity study. And so I think the others, I mean, may have been an average. I don't know. I'd have to go look at the papers again, but I don't think the teenage period has been compared to the puppy period because nobody had really looked at puppy activity before we put the activity monitors on the dogs.

Victoria (50:03.758)
and

Victoria (50:08.13)
has been right. Okay.

Victoria (50:17.166)
Right. So you did, you put the monitors on them. they had.

Vanessa (50:19.897)
yeah, put everybody had an activity monitor. It's kind of like a Fitbit and they wore that they wore them for the whole eight to 20 weeks. We took them off at nighttime for their sleep. But then we video recorded some of them while they were sleeping so we could see what would would happen. But yes, all day soon as though from the minute they woke up to the minute they went to bed, they had activity monitors.

Victoria (50:41.442)
Wow, okay. And so, the... So did you ever, there's a question and there's quite a few questions about using white noise with puppies. About how does that really help? Can that be very annoying? Did you use any kind of noise for when puppies were sleeping?

Vanessa (51:06.833)
We use the white noise during testing just to, like when we were playing the games with them, just to kind of like decrease the distraction. I mean, from what I saw with the puppies is that like when puppies are gonna sleep, they're gonna fall asleep. Like some of the puppies would literally fall asleep walking across the testing mat. And I think that, yes, there was probably individual variability, just with some kids. Do you know what I mean? Like some kids are particularly sensitive to noise, but what we found was most important.

Victoria (51:30.926)
Mm.

Vanessa (51:36.615)
of these four activity periods. And you know, we didn't know about the activity periods like while we were raising the puppies, but we saw that our puppies were walking like three miles before breakfast. Like there was so much walking. There was like walks in the mornings and then there was walks before lunch and then they went out and then they walked a mile to their dorms. Like there was so much walking our puppies did. And I know a lot of vets are like, you've to be careful while their bones are growing, but you also have to be careful.

Victoria (51:49.912)
Wow.

Vanessa (52:06.465)
not exercising them enough. And puppies will tell you when they're tired, you know, they're just pancake. They just stop. They stop walking. Then you have to carry them. So I think that, yeah, the walking was super important. And then we didn't have any problems with napping during the day. I will say that there was also variability in sleeping at night. And it's just nothing helped those puppies like.

Victoria (52:09.912)
right.

Victoria (52:13.74)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Victoria (52:30.67)
Hmm.

Vanessa (52:35.099)
bad sleepers were just bad sleepers, but I will say hope to everyone at home is that every single one of our puppies was sleeping through the night by the time they graduated. 18 to 20 weeks, everybody was sleeping through the night. And by sleeping through the night, I mean a solid six hour period. You've got to keep your expectations in the right place, I think.

potty training as well. Everybody was toilet trained, crate trained, walking on a leash by the time they were 20 weeks old.

Victoria (53:02.99)
amazing.

Yeah. See that just shows what you can do with just, yeah, really focused. Exactly. Intense, intense. What this, this, is amazing. And thank you for sharing all of that. What, what other projects do you have? Are you allowed to say or?

Vanessa (53:09.443)
intensive amounts of training.

Vanessa (53:22.299)
Yeah, sure. So now we're actually we're working with NC State, their amazing veterinary team over there led by Margaret Gruen. And we are looking at now the other end of dog life, which is the older dogs. So our team is looking at kind of like the cognitive profile for dogs who have osteoarthritis. So looking at kind of like early indicators of pain.

So dogs are really good at masking pain. Sometimes it's difficult to tell if your dog is in pain until it's like really severe. But we know that in people, you know, several cognitive abilities like, you know, your memory, your self-control, all that's impacted by chronic pain. So we're just kind of trying to figure out if we can develop this cognitive battery that would indicate when dogs are in pain before they start showing those really severe symptoms.

Victoria (54:12.418)
Very exciting. Well, I'll be really excited as a huge supporter of the elderly dog, of the senior dog. And I think, my goodness, don't we need to understand more about osteoarthritis and what we can do before we see those symptoms that your dog is in discomfort? I mean, all of us who have elderly dogs have seen their dog in discomfort with osteoarthritis. And so then you have to go through of like, what is going to be the best pain relief? We've done everything from

Vanessa (54:19.49)
Ew.

Vanessa (54:30.107)
Yeah, that's right.

Victoria (54:42.146)
medication to physio to, you know, therapies, just to ease this terrible disease that elderly don't get.

Vanessa (54:51.631)
Right. And the key thing is that early intervention, the earlier you know that it's happening, the more comfortable your dog will be. So that's kind of what we're working on right now.

Victoria (55:02.03)
Vanessa Woods, are amazing. Thank you. Oh my God, you're awesome. Thank you so much for coming and speaking with us today.

Vanessa (55:05.669)
Thanks, it was so fun to be on your show.

Vanessa (55:14.051)
Awesome. Well, hopefully I'll see you soon again and good luck with everything and hello to all our dog training friends out there.

Victoria (55:21.922)
Thank you so much and thanks everybody for listening to this podcast. Wow. I knew that we had learned so much today, but yeah, if you want to check it out, then get the book. Yeah. Vanessa, where is the best place for people to go if they want to buy the books, if they want to learn more about the research.

Vanessa (55:40.891)
Well, I love independent bookstores. I just, you know, I was just reminded this, yes, independent bookstores. You know, if you can't easily access one, then Amazon is always great. Independent bookstores were so male. So wherever you love to get your books.

Victoria (55:44.237)
You're here.

Victoria (55:57.579)
And if they want to find out more about the actual research, is there anywhere that they can go about the puppy kindergarten? I mean, if they...

Vanessa (56:06.087)
Yeah, well, we have an Instagram we keep the students keep pretty much up to date. So that's at Duke K9 cognition. I remember it at Duke K9 cognition as our Instagram handle. You can see the puppies, some of the things we're working on, more about the research as we get going. So yeah.

Victoria (56:25.784)
Fantastic. Well, thank you so much and thanks everybody for listening. know, raising puppies right is so important and the more that we can have scientists and researchers giving us information, it makes our job so much easier. That's why it's always really important as trainers, as learners, as dog owners that we always are learning because once we learn something new, we got to take it and distill it.

and use it so that we can be better for these incredible animals that we share our homes with. All right, everyone, you take care and I'll see you again on another podcast.

Vanessa (57:05.233)
Great, thank you so much, bye.