711: Building Trust with Dogs Who Need Space with Susan Aceti
Time to Pet. Go totimetopet.com/confessional for 50% off your first 3 months.
Pet Sitters International- Visit https://www.petsit.com/psc
What does it take to care well for dogs who are fearful, reactive, or slow to trust new people? In this episode, Collin talks with Susan Aceti, owner of Challenging Dogs Pet Care, about building a thoughtful, patient process for dogs who need more than a standard meet and greet. Susan shares how her own dog Molly shaped her approach to empathy, client communication, and practical behavior support. They discuss the importance of going slowly, reading body language, using safety tools, and creating predictability for both dogs and staff. This conversation is a reminder that challenging dogs are not problems to conquer, but individuals to understand.
Main topics:
Caring for reactive dogs
Going slow with trust
Client shame and empathy
Safety tools and predictability
Team training for consistency
Main takeaway: “Go slow. And if you think you’re going too slow, go even slower.”
That simple reminder from Susan Aceti is at the heart of working with challenging dogs. In pet care, it can be tempting to rush trust, push for progress, or make petting the goal. But for fearful, reactive, or anxious dogs, success often looks like peaceful coexistence, predictability, and small steps forward. Susan reminds us that our job is not to force a relationship, but to create the conditions where safety and trust can grow. When we slow down, we give the dog, the client, and ourselves the best chance to succeed.
About our guest:
Susan Aceti is the owner of Challenging Dogs Pet Care. Her own challenging dog, Molly, was Susan's most profound teacher for 15 years in how to care for a dog with behavior challenges. After Molly died, Susan spent four years on Rover providing services primarily for other anxious, stressed dogs. She founded Challenging Dogs in 2021 to expand the pet care capacity in the Baltimore/DC area for dogs with behavior challenges. Susan has an instructional design background that strongly influences the materials she has developed to provide training to other pet sitters around the country. Her approach recognizes the experience and skill all pet sitters bring and how to learn in a collaborative, respectful way.
Links:
Her email: satei@challengingdogs.com
Her course: https://www.challengingdogs.com/learning
Her website: https://www.challengingdogs.com
Give us a call!(636) 364-8260
Follow us on: Instagram and Facebook
Subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
Email us at: feedback@petsitterconfessional.com
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by our guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Pet Sitter Confessional, its hosts, or sponsors. We interview individuals based on their experience and expertise within the pet care industry. Any statements made outside of this platform, or unrelated to the topic discussed, are solely the responsibility of the guest.
A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Pet Sitter Confessional, Challenging Dogs, behavior modification, reactive behavior, dog training, client communication, team approach, safety tools, desensitization, classical conditioning, client compliance, aversive techniques, fear-free certification, predictability, learning hub.
SPEAKERS
Collin, Susan Aceti
Collin 00:00
Paul, welcome back to Pet Sitter Confessional, an open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter. Today, we're brought to you by our friends at Time to Pet and Pet Sitters International. Dealing with dogs of various behaviors and temperaments tends to just be what we do in this job and in this industry. It causes us to need to ask good questions and make sure that we have the knowledge necessary to interact with not just them, but walk through it with their owner to do all of this. Today, I am really excited to have Susan Aceti, owner of Challenging Dogs Pet Care, to talk about what this means, how we do this with a team, and how we work with clients, Susan. Again, I am so excited to talk to you about this topic today. For those who aren't familiar with you, could you please tell us a little bit more about who you are and what you do?
Susan Aceti 00:50
Sure, and I, I always say that the origin story of challenging dogs is probably one that no one is going to be surprised at, that I had a very challenging dog, she was. I'm sorry, your door is opening and closing a little bit in the vets,
Collin 01:05
that's my, that, that is the aforementioned cinnamon, and now she is locked in my office with me, ha ha,
Susan Aceti 01:16
so I adopted my first dog at this was like 2025 years ago. My, you know, she was my first dog. I had a sort of kind of Disney view of dogs, and I thought, oh great, I, you know, I had a little nephew at the time, I need a dog who's great with with children, and brought her home from the shelter, the local shelter and found out just like the next day reactive to other people and to other dogs as well to new people and other dogs, so just and didn't didn't hide it, didn't have any sort of honeymoon period, she was just her name is Molly, she was just like all out there, I don't like this person, I don't like this dog, and I'm going to make sure everybody knows that. So, basically, I go on forever about our journey together, but basically I spent the first weeks heard of crying and thinking, what am I doing, you know? And then I was like, okay, I gotta, I gotta, you know, stay with my commitment. I adopted her, I'm not gonna, and so I wandered into my vet at the time and some tech whose name I wish I could remember at this point saved her life and said to me, Why don't you read this book? It's called The Power of Positive Dog Training by Pat Miller. So Pat Miller has someone who I've actually worked with since then. She has a company called Peaceable Paw. She's in Maryland as well. And I read it, and I was like, oh, I can sort of understand the foundation of behavior. She's pretty much, she was, you know, did not have a good socialization period at all, and so she's actually scared, and this is a technique she's using to say, go away, I'm scared of you, I don't want you in my life. And so Molly lived for 15 years, and we, I learned a lot from her. She hopefully learned something from me, but the basic thing is that over the years I struggled to find care for her, and I was traveling a lot for a particular job. I was very lucky to have family members that she ended up loving, one particular friend who got her, like other people would be like, "Oh no, she'll love me. I'm like, "No, she won't. She hates everybody. Doesn't matter who you are until she knows you.
Collin 03:33
Yeah,
Susan Aceti 03:34
not going to be happy. So finding care for her when I had to travel, as well as finding a walker for her, which I would have loved to have, since she was a very high energy dog, was just, just a challenge over many years after she died. I thought, okay, I'll do rover, I, you know, make a little extra income, I have, and I said, I have experience with reactive anxious dog, that's I think how I kind of phrased it, and just people started coming out of the woodwork, and so after doing that for a few years, I switched that to my own company, thinking to myself, I just don't have the capacity, I had a couple folks who are like, can you take my dog now, and I was like, I'm booked, and I cannot mix, I do not mix, you know. So that was the origin of challenging dogs, pet care in late 2020 early 2021 and so since then we have grown a lot and cover basically the DC Baltimore metro metro area, and have actually a couple of staff in Richmond, Virginia, as well. So
Collin 04:43
I love you started off by saying you had this Disney view of dogs, and I think that really struck me in two different ways. One is from clients' perspectives that we deal with, they have this often romanticized version of dog ownership from. Um, from TV or movies, from media, all or rose-colored glasses, looking at their family dog from when they were a kid, right? Yes,
Susan Aceti 05:08
yes, yes. I, I guess, fortunately or unfortunately, didn't, couldn't say, well, my last dog was so incredible. Why is this current dog like this? So, I think that's probably why it was such a profound experience for me, because I, I just sunk into the whole experience, or I just threw myself into the whole experience. I mean, I, I love behavior, I, you know, behavior junkie kind of person, both human and dog, but I think I was just like, okay, I can figure this out, I can figure out strategies to do this, and, and I didn't have to go through that disappointment phase of, oh, my other dog was this, it was my first dog, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Collin 05:56
and I know with us, as we bring on employees and build our team, sometimes they have that view too, their Disney view of dogs, of well, oh man, well, my dog always, or I've always had this, and we have to take that moment of, go, I'm glad you had those positive experiences with,
Susan Aceti 06:11
yes, yes, a
Collin 06:13
lot of the dogs we care for, they aren't going to be your immediate best friend, and you have to be okay with that, right, like you said, you mentioned, like they get that, that that's just an aspect of, hey, we're never going to be buddy buddy, and that's fine, I can still do what I need to, but that does take a person, a special kind of person, to understand that that's an aspect of that relationship, instead of this is a challenge to be conquered, right, and overcome,
Susan Aceti 06:38
yeah, and that has really manifested itself in both hiring staff and working with clients, so in terms of hiring staff, I would, you know, folks who come on for an interview and I'd say, why do you want this position? They would say, well, I love dogs, and I would end up saying, I love dogs too. However, I want you to know this is not fluffy down the corner, who you know, and I, you know, whatever. This takes some, I would say to them, this takes some fortitude. This takes getting past, or being able to accept some of that reactive behavior that we hope to not have, but does happen inevitably. So that was sort of the staff part of it, the client part of it, that is really important to this day to me, is that we will always have a Zoom introduction meeting with a call, and my perspective on it now is that there, it's very frequent, a client will cry, it's very sometimes I'll cry too, and you know, and sometimes it's like half introduction to their dog, half counseling session, because one of the things that clients will say is I recognize I made these mistakes, and whatever mistakes they might be, you know, whether they're, you know, aversive equipment, whether it's aversive techniques, whether it's just not knowing what their dog liked or didn't like. I'll say to them, I made mistakes too. We all do. And let's, let's, let's move past them. I'm not, I'm not here to judge you. I don't want to judge you. I made the mistakes myself. Let's go past that. And I think we have clients now who are just like, I know we have clients now, we're just like, this is the I will do anything with, I will go, I will do anything with you to get through this process, so you can take care of my dogs, because I can never go anywhere type thing. So
Collin 08:31
I mean, that is an aspect of this, the more behaviorally challenging. I do want to get to that in a second, but even your own story of you spent moments crying over Molly, and like, what's going on. So, I know in our perception, perception on this too. Your take of, you know, that that embarrassment, that shame that clients carry. How do you, I mean, you talk about that's kind of a therapy session. How do you walk with a client through that, though? Because they, they come kind of primed and ready for carrying the embarrassment of I can't do these things with my dogs, carrying the shame of I made this mix, or this is my fault.
Susan Aceti 09:06
Yeah, I think primarily it's just empathy. It's just it's just expressing that to them that I've been there. I know how embarrassing it is. I know how much shame you feel as if it's your own child who bit another dog. It is, it is a terribly embarrassing experience. And I, again, I think it's just expressing that I've been there, and through that, I remember also, you know, working with one of my staff people to set to improve her interviewing skills, and I said to her, you know, share the experience you had of making mistakes with your dog in terms of using aversive equipment, and she said, oh, okay, I should, I should share that, I said, yes, yes, definitely share that, because it. In the peculiar sense, we are talking to a client who said, I did this, and I feel bad, and it made my dog worse. Okay, I get it. We've been there, we've been there with you, so that's a big part of it.
Collin 10:13
Just, just humanizing that too, I think helps us, and especially from the like, from what, like, professional talking to my client, there is that tendency to be like, no, I have done nothing wrong, right? I am perfect. I have this all figured out. I'm here to answer your questions, and that's one approach to that person. And sometimes that may work, sometimes, but, but I think the more humanizing aspect of that is going, yep, been there, done that, and I got the T-shirt twice, so let's talk,
Susan Aceti 10:42
How Absolutely, absolutely, yeah. And, and I think you know the, the other part of it is just something I, you know, we can stay in that, we can be in that place where we feel we feel embarrassed, Archie. But let's move past it as well. Let's, let's get into what can we do now to have some solutions.
Collin 11:07
Well, when you share your story, that gives them hope that I can get away from this, that I can move forward, because when we approach it, of I have everything figured out to that client, it's just all theory at that point. They have no conceptual framework to the steps from point A to point B.
Susan Aceti 11:22
Yeah, and one of the other things I try to say to clients is, I don't have all of.. I all.. it's hard to say.. I don't.. I don't have all the answers, you know. Let's.. here's your dog, and this is interesting. They're presenting something new that I haven't dealt with before, and that's good, that's great, and you know, about 75% 80% of what we've done in terms of how we work with clients is tough, that I've gotten in working with clients in things that I've learned from them or with them, and I, you know, I wouldn't still be continuing to do this, I think. If I didn't come across new things, new issues, and so I try to, I try to be clear about this. We're going to figure out some of this together, and that helps as well.
Collin 12:11
Well, that again lets them know that you're there with it. Would you describe what you do more like? Like, how do you present your dog trainer behavior modification, like, because you have a lot of things tied up in your, yeah,
Susan Aceti 12:25
so I am absolutely self-taught for the most part. I did go through an apprenticeship with that Miller at Peaceable Paws many years ago, but I'm very clear that I don't have a dog trainer certification. I don't have a behaviorist type of certification, you know. We do, we do myself and my staff, we do get fear-free certifications. We do take advantage of a lot of learning resources out there, but what I say is that we have expertise in providing care for your, for your dog, and how to get them to the place where we can provide care. Is there training incorporated in that? Yes, there absolutely is. But I'm not, I'm not going to do basic behaviors, and I'm not going to be somebody who's necessarily going to be able to deal with some really intense behavioral issues, without a, without question, I will automatically say I'm going to refer you to this trainer, or I'm going to, for you know, for you know some intense issues, you know, intense separation anxiety, for example, I'm not going to hold myself out as an expert in dealing with that, so, so that's that's what we do. It's just sort of getting through that process and saying these, this is the expertise that we have.
Collin 13:51
I like how that's presented, of, hey, this is not training, but by us and our knowledge and expertise and experiences we're working with, we, I know how to handle, how to read, how to accomplish a lot of times. It's just I know how to accomplish the goals you are needing, giving your dog's behavior, right? That's sometimes that's as simple as it
Susan Aceti 14:15
is. Yeah, and when I'm talking to staff, for example, because ongoing training with staff is a big thing that we do, but I say to them, you know, look, we brought you in, you have experience in pet sitting. I will bet you that you already know how to do, or you understand the concept of classical conditioning, for example. So I'm just going to put a name to it, and I'm going to describe it in a little bit of a formal way, and then I'm going to tell you, forget that formal definition, just use what works, because I'm not good, I cannot go, like, you know, like the sort of, you know, negative reinforcement, you know, I obviously, I know a positive reinforcement is, but when you get into those sort of four quadrants, I'm like, I, that's not what we're doing. Way we're not doing that, we're straight up classical condition. I have a working knowledge of operant condition and desensitization and counter conditioning. Right, that there we go. What works for us, and I'm not going to use those terms if I don't have to. I'm just going to say when we come, good stuff happens, and only good stuff, that's kind of how I approach it.
Collin 15:23
Yeah, and I think just equipping them in that way of, and I like that perspective of saying I, you probably have at least some experience, knowledge, expert, or one thing that happened, and here is what the term is. And now we're going to just set that aside, because now fundamentally, for us, given I know you do drop-ins, you do daycares, you do some sittings overnight sports, like you do kind of a combination of everything. I definitely want to talk about how your tree gets to that, but like basically it's like, okay, we're doing a drop-in. How do I do a drop-in with a dog acting like xyz? How do I give medication to this? How do I do the walk? How do I do this? What does that actually fundamentally look like, and how is that different than another kind of behavior in a different that is
Susan Aceti 16:04
really the meat of things, and that is really what it's about, and what I say to people is that we have a process called the getting to know you process, and because I am fond of picking up phrases that that just make sense, that just, you know, it's getting to know you, and so what I say to people, it is the meet and greet process on steroids. It is longer, and it is more intense, and it is more complex, but if you think of it that way, so I'll try to explain it very, very briefly, because there's a lot of variables that go with it, a lot of details that can go with, but I'll try to keep myself to basic explanation, which is the so that the biggest thing we have is as dogs who have reactive behavior to other to new people, people they don't know, so stranger danger, whatever you want to call it, and so what we're going to do is start out with a parallel walk with those dogs, and so it's going to be a 30 minute visit, and we're going to be far enough away so that we don't, the dog does not react, so it's very, very preventative. We don't want the dog to react, we want to be far enough away, and there's going to be good stuff happening. So, for example, at that time, the own the client is providing treats to the dog, delivering treats to the dog when the dog notices us. Good stuff is happening, and so over the course of the process, the getting to know you process is a series of 30 minute minute visits, it can be three visits, it can be six, it can go over 20 visits, it can take two months, it can take a year. So it depends on the dog's issues and the intensity of those issues, and all we are doing basically is keeping the dog under threshold, providing good stuff, and moving very, very slowly through a process to be where we are inside the house providing services. I always want the dog to be like, "Hey, oh, you're here now. Oh my gosh, how did that happen? Right, I didn't even notice that's happening. That's sort of my aim.
Collin 18:21
Yeah,
Susan Aceti 18:21
so you go from walking on a street with the dog on the other side to getting closer, closer, closer. We're delivering treats, then we're moving into their backyard, then we're walking up the steps, then we're inside, and then we're moving around, and then the client isn't there, and then we're going in without the client, so that is sort of a summary of how it works with with dogs who have, who have reactive behavior to other people. If they have reactive behavior to other dogs, then what we are doing is equipping ourselves with as much knowledge as possible, and working with the client to say, okay, when you walk out the door. I bet you don't go that way, because your dog doesn't like that husky on the corner, right? And the client knows that. So, okay, so tell us to go this way now. Tell me, what's the distance that your dog needs? Is it, you know, five feet or is it 20 feet? And what is their level of reaction, like, is it you know, I don't like you, or is it what you know, just, you know, complete explosion of, you know, you better get away from me. We need to be equipped with that. And then we talked to them about what management techniques work. If I hide behind a car, is that going to work? If I toss one treat in the grass for distraction, is that going to work, or do I need to get the heck out of dodge as quickly as I
Collin 19:47
can?
Susan Aceti 19:48
So that's what we're doing, and we're again, we don't want to have the reaction provoked if it happens, it's some good information, but I don't want to go there if we don't have to, and then the final thing. Say, is that, as I'm sure you know, a lot of dogs have multiple issues, so I don't like other people, and I don't like other dogs. Or the one of the most common things we find is it's okay if you come in my house, but you're going to touch me and put my harness on. I don't think so. So we spend a lot of time on that. We also spend a lot of time, I'm walking in the house without the client there, because dogs can be like, I don't want you in here without my person here. Some dogs do a little bit better with that, but that's that's rare. But those are all the things that we're dealing with as we go through the process, and at the end of the process, we have a wonderful sentence: your dog is ready for services. Yeah, and that's how we do it.
Collin 20:44
Have you heard of Tying to Pet? Dan from NYC Pooch has this to say.
Speaker 2 20:48
Time to bet has been a total game changer for us. It helped us streamline many aspects of our operation, from scheduling and communication to billing and customer management. We actually tested other pet sitting softwares in the past, but these other solutions were clunky and riddled with problems. Everything in Time to Pet has been so well thought out. It's intuitive, feature-rich, and it's always improving.
Collin 21:09
If you're looking for new pet-setting software, give Time to Pet a try. Listeners of our show will save 50% off your first three months by visiting Time to pet.com/confessional I am curious, Susan. You mentioned the kind of conditioning the dog to be used to new people. I know you have a team. Do you do more of a one for one, or are you working to so that anybody can step in at any time? Because I know that's kind of a maybe a little bit of difference there.
Susan Aceti 21:35
Yeah, it is. It is a critical difference for us. So, what we do is we have a team approach for the most part, not always. It depends on staff availability and geography, because we have such a big service area. Sometimes we have to say, look, we've got one person, but but our our basic model that we try to follow as much as we can, it's to have two people, and typically that is a lead person and a junior person, and so the lead person is there to facilitate and lead the visit. They have goals in mind about what needs to be accomplished, and they also have safety in mind. We need to step back now. This isn't working. We need to try another approach. The junior person is there because ultimately they're going to be the person providing the services. So we have some people like myself who act as leads, and it, we're not necessarily going to be the one providing the services, but I am an emergency backup if I am a lead person, so that means that if my staff person gets sick or has a car accident and can't get there. I'm the backup, and that dog knows me. That dog knows me. That's the critical, that's the critical thing, because no, I can't just send anybody else in, even if they're in the same geographic area. I can't, I won't. It doesn't work. That's the whole point of it.
Collin 23:00
Yeah.
Susan Aceti 23:00
Now another thing that we do is we say to clients, you know, and they know their dog, they know, you know, this is what we have to do to get your dog to be able to be able to do services, and I'll say to them, do you want your dog to get to know multiple members of our team, because that means availability, right, because if I have one staff person, a who knows five dogs, and they're booked for sittings, they're not available for somebody who hasn't asked for the sitting, and I get that. So we do go through, we do go through getting to know other, having the dog get to know other staff people as much as we can. Yeah, there's lots of variables with that, but as much as we can,
Collin 23:44
yeah. Well, and that's again, that's kind of that just a very practical step and decision to make. And I know, I love how you linked it to going, hey, this might not be your first preference, but availability is that kind of important to you. I'm sure you know, for you, that provides flexibility of who can come over, and it kind of opens up some spots and routes, and makes it a little bit more flexible, and long-term goals wise, too. You get that dog, now all of a sudden everybody's acting the same way, everybody's following the same protocol, everybody knows all the steps. Yes, that dog you talk about, predictable. Yes, every person who comes through the door does xyz abc one tooth every person. Oh, okay, yeah. So
Susan Aceti 24:27
you use the much more behavioral focused term of predictability. I call it fairy dust,
Collin 24:33
or you know what? I like that. I'm making that note. Fairy does what
Susan Aceti 24:37
I discovered. What I discovered, maybe I should have known earlier, but because we've been, we've been building and tweaking this process the last five years, but what I discovered is if a dog gets to know me and I bring another person on to get the dog to know the other person later, the process is usually shorter, and I said there's some fury dust that. Goes from me to that, but it's really predictability, probably what you're saying versus what I'm saying, but you're right. We have a, we have a number of dogs who have gotten to know four or five people on our staff, and is one of those people who has a lot, one of those clients who has a lot of availability, and then we have other, it goes from spec, you know, goes from one side of the spectrum to the other, like some dogs are like, okay, you're my person, I don't really, I'm not really feeling this other person to in between, where okay, I'm good with two people, and that's kind of my limit, but we do recognize that, you know, both availability and the dogs themselves, their personality, their ability to get to know more than one person, all is in the mix.
Collin 25:47
Yeah, and that's just that conversation you have with the clients, just that setting those expectations of, okay, given that you only want the one person, given that your dog is like this, and given our availability, here is what we can expect, and how you know the timeline, and what this is going to look like when you need us, and that, but at least, and that may to us sound so, excuse me, that may to us sound so restrictive, of like, oh my gosh, I've locked this client away, but when you're dealing with the kind of clients that you are specifically dealing with, to them they have one lifeline and a path forward that they're like, ah, okay, yes, got it right, like it's that's so freeing to them,
Susan Aceti 26:24
yes, yes, it is. And I love bringing clients along to the point where you know, just like every business we have staff people leave and go on to other jobs, or they go back to school or something. Yes, I like to bring a client along to the point where they're not absolutely crotch, the staff person leaves, like, oh my god, like, no, it's okay, we're hiring new people, here's a new person, and we'll, we'll, we'll work to, you know, to have your dog get to know this new person,
Collin 26:55
yeah, that is, that is hard to break, I know, we are, you know, we don't deal with quite the extent that it sounds like you deal with, but we still do have the clients who go, "Oh, I really like when XYZ comes over. Yeah, they're awesome. Also, everybody on my team is awesome. Let me explain to you about how great they are. You know, it's.. it's, but again, it's just setting them, letting them know, like, here's just.. you've trusted me, here's my process to making sure that the care continues.
Susan Aceti 27:23
Yeah, I think also, as I think about this a little bit more, our model has worked well in one particular way, because there are two of us, instead of operations director, she also functions as a lead, she and I both do services sometimes, but we also function as just a lead, and so we are able to fit in that person who may not be delivering services, but is that emergency backup, and I will tell you that we have had to call on that a number of times, like there's a, you know, there's a problem with the dog, Nicole, you, you gotta go. I can't go. That dog doesn't know me. I can't go, but, like, you know, I tried to pull people, you know, I, you know, you know, we're very careful with staff and vacation and time off, because we don't want people to get burnt out. But there's, there's an aspect of, you know you're the only person who can go, and so we balance that. We definitely have to balance that,
Collin 28:25
and part of what you're providing there is this, this, oh, this umbrella of institutional knowledge about the pet and the client to then give to the sitter, give to the walker. Of okay, you may be the emergency backup, or you know, we're trying to slot you in, make through, make this work. Here's everything you know how to operate, so that you can do this safely. And that is such an underappreciated aspect of what, what is going on here in the background of it. Sure, you know it's one person who's trained to walk in, it's another person who is trained and has the background information and history for that client. That's a very, very different kind of interaction
Susan Aceti 29:03
it is, and the platform that we use for our, for my business, for the business is was selected not in small part because it contains all of that data, and from the very beginning of the Zoom introduction call, where we take all the basic information all the way through conversation after conversation after conversation that we can look back and say, hey, remember we went here, or remember we did this and it didn't work, or it did work. I just had a Zoom with a staff person yesterday who's going to get to know a dog that I've been taking care of, and I said, "Oh, we didn't.. we started.. we started using the platform after we did the Zoom intro, so I don't have that immediately, but I said, "Let's take a half hour, and I'm going to give you the background and history of this dog and what I feel like. Your approach should be because that's this is what worked for him and me, so yeah, that is very important for us,
Collin 30:07
and tracking that too. I mean, how do you do, how do you track that information, that progress from from team to team and time over time? Is that just reports, or do you have a central location where that information goes?
Susan Aceti 30:19
So again, I'll call out our operations director, who has instituted a very much of a case management approach, so so she and I both come from a sort of social work background, which has helped us tremendously, because I used to call our staff meetings case rounds, that we don't do it, we do it differently anymore, but she, she says she said, Susan, we have to do this in a case management way. So she said, this is this is where we need to have all of the information, and this is where we need and how we need to track it. So you know, there is there is systems upon systems upon systems to have that whatever data it is that we need to be something that we can retrieve and use, and so that is absolutely important for what we do.
Collin 31:13
I'm even thinking about we had a client who came on, and I had worked with that dog for probably a year and a half to two years, and then I brought, we hired, and I had started putting that person on that dog, and they came in, and they were like, 'Oh my gosh, this is so bad, this is so bad. I can't imagine how I'm like, 'Oh, oh, the barking. Oh no, like when you should have heard the barking when we first started. I wore earplugs, it was real bad. Now he only does that for seven minutes, and then he goes quiet. This is a huge improvement, but again, because they had no context for anything, and that was what I realized at that moment. This is dangerous if they don't have the context necessary to do this visit. I'm putting it's a safety issue. Yeah, and and I can unintentionally then hinder the progress that I was making because somebody doesn't know where we've come from.
Susan Aceti 32:04
Yes, yeah. Oh, I have probably very, very similar dog who is barking is her way of saying I'm uncomfortable, and it's a lot of barking, and it's very high pitch. And I got a new staff member. I said we're gonna, and to get to know this dog, and I said she's gonna bark a lot. And then once she gets to know you, she's never, she's probably never gonna bark at all, and she's gonna want you to pet her the entire time you're there. She's one of my absolute favorite clients, but that is very, that is very exactly the same as you got to get past, you'll get past the barking, because it will actually disappear after a while. That was crucial to know. At swear to God, it disappeared.
Collin 32:52
Yep. Now it's so funny. Now we've since worked with that dog for about four years now, and now he doesn't bark, but he kind of huffs to himself. You can tell he's kind of like, why are they okay, fine, but hey, treats, and we're good, we're good to go, we're best friends, like that's that's but, but it's one of those things of also saying the expectation of, hey, I've been doing this dog for four years, I have pet him exactly twice, that's all he will take, and some, so many people come in, they, I love dog, they just come in there. Oh, can I? No, this is no touchy dog, right? So, the flags.. hey, don't touch that. Is not a goal of this. And setting those expectations of the goal of this is so like a little bit of socialization, socialization with us, some desensitizing of people coming in, and a potty break. It is not touchy cuddle time, and
Susan Aceti 33:40
yes,
Collin 33:40
that's just that's such a different way of thinking about why I'm here and what the purpose is.
Susan Aceti 33:46
I call them bubble dogs, and I'll say this dog has a personal bubble. I
Speaker 2 33:51
love that,
Susan Aceti 33:51
and I have - I have a dog, one of our most amazing cases. It took us years - well, it took a year initially, but I've never touched her. I have never touched her, and the other side of that is, I will say to people, there are three goals for the process, for the getting to know you process. There's the, there's the goals for the process, there's goals for the visit, but there's three goals for the process. The first one is, we can walk in the house and move around. The second one is, we can take, we can provide a potty break of some way, which might be a walk, or might not. The third thing is, we can provide any other care as needed, feeding, medications, whatever it is. But those are the goals. One of the goals is not I can pet the dog, right? That happens a lot, that absolutely happens a lot, but there is a definite number of dogs who I'm like, this is not a dog, you're gonna pet a lot or any, and that's okay, you're peacefully coexisting, and that's all that needs to happen with this type of dog.
Collin 34:58
I'd love for you to talk about. Just two sides of this coin, Susan. Of okay, so we're in somebody's home. How do sitters and walkers help the process? And then the other side is maybe how do we unintentionally hinder the process that you're talking about here?
Susan Aceti 35:15
Yeah, I would say, you know, unintentionally hindering it, is there's there's a couple things, you know, one is this is a mantra I learned from Pat Miller, peaceable pause, which is go slow, and if you think you're going too slow, go even slower than that.
Collin 35:36
Yeah,
Susan Aceti 35:37
so that is one of the things that I, you just, you just cannot rush it now. Dogs are different, and so you can sometimes go through a series of steps a little bit quicker with one dog than another, but, but one of them is go slow. Don't be tempted to make your progress go too fast. The second thing is, you know, as, as I'm sure you can, you know, attest to no body language inside and out, you know, and don't be afraid to say I'm not getting this particular signal. I don't understand what this dog is trying to communicate. I'm stumped by this. That's that's what that's one thing that you know comes up fairly frequently, you know, because dogs are so variable, and how they, how they speak to us, and I would say, you know, in terms of having the process work well, it's sometimes it's the flip side of this, it's kind of flipside going slow helps in being able to be very sensitive to body language, so it starts from the very beginning. We do a written plan for our getting to know you visits, especially in the beginning, and the visits are number one, have a bag of high value treats ready, that's what we're saying to the client. Number two, when you come out with your dog, we will be standing with our bodies angled away, and we will not make eye contact. And so that is really important for a sitter or walker to realize that I'm not, I'm, I need to be standing to the side when this dog comes out. I need to be able to do that, and so I can think of, you know, a staff, one of my staff people in Richmond, who I trained early on, and I remember stepping back, and I kind of put my hand out, so she would step back as well, and I realized she had already stepped back, and I said, oh my god, she's got it, I don't have to unintentionally, like, you know, juggle my position, she, she gets it, she gets the space thing, she already gets it. So one other thing that I'll throw in there, just because it's really important, is that as we're going through the process, especially when we're entering the home, we make use of safety tools, so a flexible gate is something that we provide to every lead and every staff person who's doing visits on their own, if they want it, and that gate is used because going into the house with or without the client is one of the trickiest times, and so the process of using a gate is, hey, client, come out and get this gate before we ever start the visit, and you walk in, you know, with this big scary thing. I'm not doing it because I want the dog to love me without hesitation. So we won't use it if a dog is terrified of a gate, we simply won't use it. Period. But most dogs are okay with gates, and we say set up this gate. We start out walking outside, and then I say very carefully, do you want to go in before us? Are we going in first? Because some dogs are like, I don't like you behind me, and other dogs are like, I don't like you ahead of me. But however it works, we go in, we're on, we, and we end up sitting down on one side of the gate, and the dog is on the other side of the gate, and then that gets us like we were sort of restarting things, no eye contact, tossing treats, and then we start to sort of put the gate aside for a little five minutes, come on out, you know, we'll toss treats and then go back in, so the gates are gates are really important if a dog is very well conditioned to his or her muzzle. We'll use muzzles, I mean, that just makes everybody feel a little bit more comfortable. We'll use things like leash extenders with a dog who's like, 'please don't touch me, but I gotta take you out for a walk, so you know, we'll do things like that. But that, that I'm not sure if I exactly addressed your question, but those are really important tools, valuable tools of what we do.
Collin 39:45
And now a word from our friends at Pet Sitters International.
Speaker 3 39:48
Hi, this is Megan at Pet Sitters International. We know you're busy as a pet care business owner, and finding quality training options for you or your team may feel like an impossible task. That's why we created Petsit. Pro a monthly online training subscription that gives you a new mini course each month, taught by a pet expert. Plus, you can access dozens of past trainings and PSI staff certificate modules, great for onboarding. We offer affordable plan options, whether you're a solo sitter or manage a team. Visit Pet sit.com/psc to learn more and get a special promo code.
Collin 40:21
No, you really did, but you know fundamentally it's it's it's understanding what you're walking into and have the resources at hand, and I love the gate aspect of that, because sometimes that entry point is so that's where a lot of tension is, there's a lot of anxiety there, both for dog and for us, and yeah, and sometimes it's like I don't like, I, we have found when we've used gates in the past, it's I don't think I'm not worried, like it's kind of hard to explain. Well, why use the gate if you're not worried about, you know, having an interaction with the dog? But at the same time, it's going, this helps me actually stay calm more than anything, more than anything. This is for me, so I can breathe and work calmly, because if I have a goal of going slow and being calm, okay, what do I need around me? So,
Susan Aceti 41:07
so one of the other things that we do, and I got this from a client, can't remember what client it was, but one of the other things that we do, and I stress very, very strongly to staff that you need to do this, and we communicate this to clients, is take a mid visit break. You can take a break either outside or inside, it just kind of differs how you do it. But I say you need that five minute break. The dog needs it, and you need it too. So, like, if we're outside, go way down on the other end of the parking lot and walk your dog, let him pee, or you know, whatever, sniff, like you're, you're just a long distance away, and we are taking a five minute break as well, and that is as critical for the people, it's also critical for the client, sometimes who can be like nothing happens, you know, and I'm like, okay, I understand your, your nervousness, you take a little break too, but that, that break, you know, inside it's here's a treat field item, or a long chew, you go over there, we'll be over here, and we'll just chat and relax, kind of thing.
Collin 42:13
We had a client one time, they had an American bull terrier who was not okay with people in the home, and we were doing this process, and we, it's so funny that you mentioned, of like, you started off like, "Hey, we're gonna meet at a park and walk. I'm like, "Hey, I.. I did that. I didn't, you know, that was years ago. I didn't have no idea what I was doing. Now, this is kind of part of what we do. And with the client brought the dog out to us, and I was talking with her, and her hand was shaking because she was so scared and nervous about what was going to happen, and trying to have that conversation with her, of going, you, this isn't helping the situation. So, you know what? Let's reset. I want you to come out. We need to have a conversation here without the dog, because your dog, I can, is feeding off of what you're putting out right now, and sometimes you have to have that conversation too with the client, of yeah, pre-assigned break, or hey, let's just step back right now and gather ourselves,
Susan Aceti 43:08
yeah, for sure. I mean, part of that information I can usually glean in our introduction call, how nervous is the client going to be? Not always, but sometimes I can, and then I look for opportunities where the client might say, you know, so and so does better without me in the hat, in the dog does better without me in the house, and I'm like, oh, that's interesting, that could be indication of resource garden, but it could also be an indication that the dog that the person is very nervous and the dog is sort of feeding off of that, so yeah, yeah,
Collin 43:42
How do you, I know you offer a wide variety of services, how do you kind of decision tree your way into what be the best fit and frequency for a particular client and their pet?
Susan Aceti 43:54
So there's a couple things that we do, a lot of it is sort of figuring out, so well, I'll say, first of all, that while we do provide boarding, I'm the only one on staff who boards, and so if it's since it's just me, the opportunities for that are limited, and so that doesn't come up that often. Occasionally it will, but most of the time, what we're doing is we're saying, you know, in order to be able to provide the service that you want, so we asked the, we asked the client what service they want, of course, and so a client may say, "Hey, I'm really looking for boarding, and I'll say, "Well, what do you think about sitting? and I, because I'll say, you know, you know what your dog is, is has is anxious, and having been at her own home, having her own routine, having her own stuff, there is going to really help her, and the person will say, oh, you're right, that will help her, because sometimes they're just so used to, I have to bring my dog someplace else, so. They don't realize that sitting at their home will be useful. The other thing that we do is we have a service called I Can Sleep Alone, which again is my silly way of saying here's a phrase that makes sense. I'm going to call.
Collin 45:13
I love this because it took either no other reading. I immediately just went, yes, that's exactly that's exactly what a client would say. That's how they would describe their dog. What you name the service after it? I was like, Susan, this is.. I love this.
Susan Aceti 45:28
Right, right. So, we'll say to a person, you know, is your dog okay overnight by him or herself? And sometimes I say, well, I don't know. Well, I guess we can try it, or they'll say, yeah, she or she really is, and we'll say, okay. Well, we don't have to have the staff person there overnight, but we will arrange it. It obviously involves a number of visits, and so it can be three visits a day, can be four, it can be 30 minutes, it can be 60 minutes, and what we really do is work with the client to say, you know, how long can your the dog I have might barking the how long can your dog be left alone for, and how much time would it benefit them? You know, is a half hour dropping going to be okay? Or do you want to expand that, so all of those things that come into consideration, how long the dog can be on their own in, and what that dog needs, or is, you know, is okay with.
Collin 46:31
Yeah. Well, and I'm sure it also can help too, if you know that client's goals of, hey, I'm working towards more socialization with more people. Hey, well, then boarding really isn't your jam. Then we need to continue this. We need to continue with the multiple visits with the people coming and going from the home, because not only is it going to allow them to be more comfortable in their home, but it's going to continue to reinforce what we're working on for the rest of the year as well.
Susan Aceti 46:56
Yes, yes, absolutely, absolutely. We've had one occasion where I actually switched somebody from sitting to boarding because the dog was not doing well having another sitter be introduced to them in her home, so yeah, so she wasn't doing very well with that, so and she knew me well, and but we couldn't get her, like the fairy dust didn't work in this case couldn't get her to be okay with the other staff person, and maybe that was because it was a small apartment, maybe it's because we had this long stairway going up, I don't know, but I said, you know what, let me just board her, she knows me, we, you know, we have a very close relationship, let's switch to that. So, what I try to do overall is just be open to whatever you know, whatever service works the best when you look at a whole bunch of different variables, if that makes sense.
Collin 47:55
Yeah, yeah, and just keeping things open, I think, is a great way. Just walk through again. Hey, given this, given this, given this, here's what we have open to us, and sometimes that means being willing to go well. Didn't that didn't quite work out. Let's, let's try this, let's mix this up as is appropriate for the animal in front of us, and not just, you know, rant every day. It's one of those things when we, when our kids were young, you know, we're trying to get them on a schedule and routine. We're trying all this stuff, and you know it's like my kids not sleeping or not this, and the doctors would say, "Oh, well, you got to be super consistent with everything, but also don't be willing, don't be unwilling to change it up whenever. And it seemed very counterintuitive, but the more like we've been involved with our dogs and with everything, it made so much sense. Be committed to the plan, like dead serious about the plan. It's the plan, right? However, you're holding it very loosely, because we may need to pivot at any given moment,
Susan Aceti 48:52
right, right, right. And one of the things I say to staff is you have a written plan when you go into a getting to know you visit, so it may be, you know, there may be 10 steps, and that is our goal, but then I say to them, but be prepared to change that plan on the fly, because it's not gonna, it's like a script, and sometimes the script just falls apart, and you have to be aware of that and deal with that. The other thing we do is I'll have occasional what I call regroups with the client. Hey, you know what? Let's get on a Zoom and let's regroup, because strategy A isn't working, and so we maybe need to try B, C, D, or E, or maybe what I need to do is I need to reach out to an expert, so there's a number of trainers, even you know that we've worked with where I said you're a trainer, you've got you are the expert. I don't know what to do in this situation. Give me some advice. And I've had trainers where I've been like, here's a video of a dog whose body language we cannot figure out for the life of us. How would you interpret that? And then that helps us a lot, so I try to reach out to the people who are really good at what they do in various areas of dog care, so and that has been helpful in the past, for sure.
Collin 50:14
Yeah, what do you wish more people knew about working with challenging dogs like this in this industry,
Susan Aceti 50:24
you know. What first of all, that like people, dogs can actually span have the span of mental health challenges that people have. I don't want to say that, you know, without any doubt in my mind, there is some doubt, you know, but, but you, I can look at dogs and say, this is this dog is an introvert, this dog is an extrovert, this dog is has low confidence, you know, and, or this dog just, you know, has trouble paying attention, and you know, or has different rewards, or whatever, so that's one thing to, you know, sort of acknowledge. While there are some common principles and needs, dogs are very much individual as well, so that would be a big thing. I would say that also to clients, and this is something that we've, we've started moving into a little bit to say to clients, when you're looking for a sitter, look for these things, and make, and if you see this, that's a red flag, you know, we, it is not uncommon for us to start working with a client who said, well, I tried somebody else before, and they got bit, or they said, you know, oh, I can't work with your dog, or whatever, and, or I'm not, or the sitter or walker didn't seem patient to get through getting to know my dog, and so from that different approach, from, you know, from the client's point of view, make sure you're doing your due diligence and really vetting somebody you're going to hire as a sitter or walker.
Collin 52:10
I love that, and it's investing in that relationship, because at the end of the day, like, we've talked, you've talked jokingly about fairy dust, we are not magic crater, I can't, yes, I'm not miracle workers, that we're not. That's it. This is a long-term thing, and it's, it's saying I need to pick the right person. And on the sitter and walker side, it's I need to have the knowledge and be honest when I'm out of my depth here, instead of just chasing, hey, here's somebody desperate, I can make some money off this.
Susan Aceti 52:38
Yeah, the other thing I'm very careful to say to clients, is there is no guarantee this will work. If somebody says, 'Oh, okay, so we'll have six visits and it'll be fine. I'll say, 'I hope so, but there's no guarantee. And, but I can say to people that about 90% of our clients work out, 9590 95% of our clients work out, and I'll say to them, when it doesn't, you know, yes, it may be because there's a severe behavior issue, but it also can be various things that come into play, like compliance, you know, client compliance, you know, they, and knowledge can have an impact. I will also say that, you know, I've sort of mentioned this in passing, but you know, we do not use any aversive equipment or strategies at all, none, none at all. We don't do that because we're dealing primarily with dogs who are coming from a basis of fear, I don't think those things should be used with any dogs, but if we use them with our dogs, we're shooting ourselves in the foot. It's just not going to happen. So, if we have, we ask questions, what in the Zoom introduction call, what have you done in the past in terms of strategies you use, and if people say, "Oh, I tried this and it didn't work, I said, that's okay. How you know, because we've all tried things that haven't worked, but there's like one thing we'll say, if you currently use a shock collar, or if you've used it a lot, or if you've used it recently, we're probably going to have a very low chance of success, because your dog's body language probably has shut down, and if we can't read the dog, we can't do the process, and it's just.. it can be very dangerous. So, there are things like that that is really important for for clients to know, and for anybody who's working in this area to know. I think,
Collin 54:38
yeah, it's about having everybody on board, right? And on this, and behind it, because when everybody is behind it, everyone's consistent, that that fairy dust, right, makes it works all the better, and that's kind of what we want. We want this being one coordinated process, and people moving forward, so that the dog has consistency, and we can start seeing some of those, and you can start reading it, just it helps that. Whole process.
Susan Aceti 55:01
Yes, absolutely.
Collin 55:03
Susan, I really want to thank you for coming on the show today, encouraging us to take our time to ask good questions, and to also encourage our clients through this as well. When we have that, for those, this is a big topic. I don't know if you know this or not, but it can be. There's a lot of things we didn't touch on, shockingly, but so for those who want to learn more and get in touch, how best can they do that, Susan?
Susan Aceti 55:25
So, the best way to do it is probably just by direct email to me, and it is s a c e t i at challenging dogs.com That is one way to do it. The other thing that I'll say is that we are developing what I'm calling a learning hub, and so what we're doing is we're saying, look, we've developed this process, we have a lot of practical expertise as well, and sorry about that, and and we want to be able to provide this type of knowledge and skill to other folks as well, so they can contact me. We're starting to develop resources that other people can learn from to be able to go out and do it, maybe in a location where we're not, where we don't provide services, or to say, hey, I would like my sitter to do some of this stuff, whatever it is. We, I like teaching training, whatever you want to call it. I like, I like the idea that there's some dog in some place that it doesn't like other people, but their client has some kind of resource at some point in time to be able to provide care.
Collin 56:47
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I'll have the email, I'll have the link to your website and to that learning center that you're developing out on the show notes and on our website, so people can click right to that. Susan, this has been absolutely fantastic and phenomenal. Thank you so much for your time today.
Susan Aceti 57:03
Pleasure talking with you as well. Thank you very much. I love when Susan reminded us to go
Collin 57:10
slow, and if you think you're going too slow, go even slower. That really is the heart of working with challenging dogs. It can be really tempting to rush to push for that progress to make petting or interaction the goal, especially when we've got that timer and that clock running in the background, we've got to remember that those fearful, those anxious dogs' success often looks like just peaceful coexistence, or maybe just a little bit more predictability in their life and in their schedule. This is where we focus on the relationship, not forcing it, but allowing it to build slowly over time and create the conditions where safety and trust can grow over time, and that's even more important when we have a team to build that into the structure to build that into the ethos of how we do this work, and that is something that we should keep at the center of everything that we do. We want to thank our sponsors today, Time to Pet and Pet Centers International, for making the show possible, and we really want to thank you so much for listening. We hope you have a wonderful rest of your week, and we'll be back again soon.
58:27
Bye.
