How is that for a blog title? Wild eh? Imagine how I feel! This has been a wild week, and I have doggy first aid preparedness to thank for keeping me safe. I wanted to share because it showed me the importance of being prepared for emergencies - not just with our dogs, but with ourselves as well. 

A few weeks ago, I had the team over to teach pet first aid basics. I also updated & upgraded our first aid packs - which meant I had all the supplies on hand. 

The first aid kit contains mostly stuff for cleaning and wrapping wounds, but also peroxide to induce vomiting and Benadryl in case of an emergency allergic reaction. Before I upgraded these packs, my house was without Benadryl. This gives me anxiety, because if what happened last Wednesday happened a few weeks earlier - there's a chance I wouldn't even be here to write this blog. 

So, a week and a half ago I was eating chips on a Friday night (nothing new here). I was eating my favourite flavour of non-dortios chips, sea salt and malt vinegar. They were SOOOOO sour, and made my mouth burn and my tongue feel raw but I live for this. Even typing this my mouth is drooling because I love those sour and salty chips so much. As I was eating, I noticed my lips tingling. I looked and they were for sure swollen. But I just assumed it was because I was eating my mouth raw and swollen lips didn't seem so crazy to me. So I finished the bag (as I do), and went to bed. Whatever.

A few days later on Wednesday, same thing. Different brand, but same flavour. I was laying in the dark watching RuPaul and eating the chips. I do this disgusting thing that I can get away with because I am single, where I lick each chip to maximize the flavour before eating the chip. Lmao so gross. Anyway my tongue was so sore, but I was loving the chip eating so I actually was like using the side of my tongue that didn't hurt to lick the chips. I just kept eating through the pain. But then it was really really sore, so I was like "you know what would help? Ice cream!" So i went into the kitchen and like, got a bottle of dulce de leche ice cream, put it in a bowl, and microwaved it... and got the ice cream tub and a spoon and went to the couch. I took a bite and it honestly hurt so bad. I tried again, but it still hurt so much and I couldn't even really get the spoon in my mouth. Then I thought about it, and my lips were really tingly. So I got my camera and opened snapchat and took a video of my face. My lips were VERY swollen. 

OK. Kind of scary. So I go to the bathroom and before my eyes I see my tongue swelling. So I do what any reasonable person would, and I take snapchats and send it to my best friends like "lol wtf?". However, a very reasonable voice in my head told me to take Benadryl - which literally 1.5 weeks ago I would not have had in my house. So I took a huge dose (75 mg) and I called David, he told me he was on his way. Then I called my mom. As I was talking to her my tongue swelled so bad that I couldn't talk. Fuck. What the actual fuck. Now I was scared. She told me to go to the ER - so I did what any reasonable person who is about to die would, I call an uber :) 

Uber gets here, we are on our merry way - and we get stopped in traffic. The TFC game just got out. This is when I panic. I realize that I could die here in this uber, and that I should have called 911. But that because we are gridlocked, even 911 couldn't get to me. My sister had tuned in at this time and she was very mad I didn't call 911 but I confirmed to her I could still breathe and she kept me calm. As I was sitting there in traffic, I could feel half of my tongue stop swelling and I realized the benadryl was kicking in. Thank god. It was the longest 15 minutes of my life, but I got to the hospital. 

How it works is that you get triaged by a nurse, and then called back based on the urgency. However, to get triaged - you have to take a number and wait til your number is called. Me, being the reasonable person I am, took a number and sat and waited. With my swollen tongue. My number was called quickly and the nurse was like ~WTF WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY SOMETHING~ and I get surrounded by help as I register and am taken back immediately. I get hit with extreme nausea and guess what! Turns out I am having an anaphylactic reaction :') The nurse told me it was really good I took the benadryl, but that next time I needed to call 911. They gave me 0.5 of epinephrine and an IV. Blah blah blah, I now carry an EpiPen and as far as I know am allergic to salt and vinegar chips (??).  

I guess allergies can just happen like that. All of a sudden your body sees something that you have had hundreds of times as a threat - and attacks it. And I guess each time you are exposed after that, the reaction gets worse (and in my experience from time 1 to time 2 this is totally true). I lived my whole life not being allergic to anything, I never even considered it to be a threat that I had in my life. If it wasn't for my first aid preparedness for my DOGS I have no idea how that night would have turned out. I say my dogs are my little life savers because they make me so damn happy, but because of them & my need to protect them (and your dogs) my life literally was saved in a tangible/measurable way. 

Morals of the story:
- Be prepared for emergencies for both your dog, and yourself
- Having benadryl can help save your dog if they get stung by a bee or have another emergency reaction, but also can help delay an allergic reaction from becoming anaphylaxis or deadly in time to get you to the ER or to have an ambulance come to you
- The benadryl dose for dogs is about 1 mg/1 pound. The standard pill is 25mg, so a 10 pound dog can have about 1/2. A 25 pound dog can have 1. A 50 pound dog can have 2. But please always consult your vet first if possible.  
- If your tongue and lips swell, call 911. Do not fucking uber. 

Hi guys! Today I want to tackle a really common training myth that I hear from people all the time (including this week) - one of the hardest things for people with reactive dogs to understand. And that is that reactivity is not a behaviour. Why this is something I want to address is because it really affects how we approach reactivity training. 

The biggest issue people have with reactivity training is what to do when the dog goes over threshold, and has a reaction toward the trigger. Most people (even those very familiar with positive reinforcement) see this as undesirable behaviour & therefore they either choose to ignore it, or punish it in hopes that this would cause the behaviour to extinct or decrease. They also believe that if you were to feed the dog in this situation, that this would REINFORCE the behaviour - and therefore cause it to increase in frequency. But that isn't how it works when you are dealing with reactivity - because reactivity comes from emotion, mostly fear. You cannot reinforce or punish fear. In these situations when our dogs go over threshold, training is on a time out. All we can do in these moments is make our dogs feel better - and giving treats is a great way to do that. 

I recorded a YouTube video on this. This is my first training video, so bear with me as it is a little bit rambly.. but the information is there. I go into detail on this topic, and hopefully I can help you have that Aha! moment if you, like I once was, are struggling to grasp this concept. 

I know it is embarrassing, frustrating, stressful, etc, when our dogs go over threshold - but we need to take a step back and remember that this comes from a place of emotion, not behaviour. Our dogs are not thinking logically, and therefore training can't happen. We simply need to make our dogs feel better in this situation, otherwise we run the risk of the fear getting even worse. If we punish our dogs in this situation, we are adding salt to the wound! Making a scary situation even worse. If we ignore the behaviour, we aren't doing anything to help our dog. But if we feed our dogs, give praise, carry them, jog away while singing to them - we are doing our best job to make them feel safer in that moment. To make that fear they feel a little less raw & scary. 

The goal here is to NEVER go over threshold, and to do training at a distance where the dog still has the ability to process things logically. But this is important to know and to understand for those inevitable times where our dogs do over threshold. Be kind. Be patient. Be generous with treats. Your dog needs you to advocate for them. 

Remember, it's a dog's world - we're just living in it!

Most of you already know this, but! I am very proud to announce that I am now officially a Certified Professional Dog Trainer, Knowledge Assessed (aka a CPDT-KA). I have worked incredibly hard behind the scenes over the past few years toward this goal, and now that I have reached it - it is time to reflect & think about what comes next. 

To be honest, I had no intention of being a dog trainer. Look at the original email that I sent to When Hounds Fly back in 2016:

I really felt a little insecure after taking the Dog*Tec course, and knew that I needed to know more in order to give the best to my customers. I was taking some online courses, but I wasn't satisfied. I needed MORE. Andre was amazing, and took me in as a volunteer classroom assistant. For months it was cleaning up puppy pee pees, getting to say "hi" to help teach polite greetings, passing along questions, and a LOT of sitting and watching the instructors make the magic happen. I was amazed, I loved watching the classes. I loved seeing the moment when the information *clicked* with the students (both human and dog students).

​I was inspired. 

When Andre started to ask if I wanted to do demos in the class, I jumped on the opportunity. I was simply showing how to teach basic behaviours like down/touch - while the instructor explained things, but it was a big step forward. Soon, Andre would ask things like "Kelsey, why do we teach touch?" and I would get to explain to the class why we do it! I was starting to be a little mini instructor. Very mini. But very exciting. Soon Andre began offering us volunteers some deeper learning opportunities (read a blog by Andre about it here). We had a clicker 101 course, with both hands on and theoretical learning, and Andre assigned us readings and then would schedule 1 on 1s where we would discuss the concepts & he made sure we really comprehended things. I was obsessed. I loved learning. I know dogs, I have always lived with dogs & interacted with them - but I didn't understand how they learned and how much that friggen matters. My life was changed. And while my goal was still to make the lives of the dogs I walk better, I had another goal too - to be .a dog trainer, and give students that A-HA moment. There is so much (wrong) information out there, and I wanted to give the right stuff to students in a fun & easy to understand way. I call this method the "When Hounds Fly" method ;) 

After a year of volunteering, mini sessions (both group and 1 on 1) I was given the chance to do a "Teacher in Training" class. It was pretty nerve wracking, but I loved it! I have seen classes taught hundreds of times, but to actually run one on my own was a whole other experience. After that, after passing a "shark tank" I was given the title "Associate Instructor" and became the newest instructor of Foundation Skills & Puppy Socialization. WOW! 

Andre had given me so much knowledge, and the opportunity to be a dog trainer. I was a dog trainer, I always had a hard time calling myself that though. I felt, insecure? I guess that's it. Because I didn't learn through a school like the Karen Pryor Academy or Jean Donaldson school I was technically "self taught" - and that made me feel like I was one of the 1000s of dog trainers out there who call themselves a dog trainer with no real experience or qualifications. Just like dog walking, the training industry is highly unregulated. Anyone can call themselves a dog trainer/walker - and it doesn't mean a whole lot. Despite having years of experience under my belt, I felt insecure when it came to calling myself a trainer. Part of it is of course perfectionism, which is something I am working on daily to combat, but insecurity was at the base of it. 

Some of the team member of WHF said they were going to write the CPDT-KA exam (it is offered 2x a year in Spring and Fall), and I got very overwhelmed. Was I ready? Was I good enough? Was I a dog trainer? What if I wrote it and I failed? Classic negative thoughts. I was too scared to even write the practice exam. I spoke to Andre, and he SO CASUALLY was like "oh yeah you'll pass for sure". So I was like OK Kelso, chill. Write the practice exam. And I flew through it. I knew the answers to 98% of the questions. My confidence went right up. I had spent a lot of time telling myself that I wasn't there yet, that I wasn't quite good enough yet, that there is more to learn - but I never really challenged those thoughts. Writing this practice exam did that for me, and I was ready. I signed up for the Spring 2019 exam, and got to studying. 

After writing the exam, I felt STRESSED. The CPDT-KA is composed of 180 multiple choice questions, with focus on Instructor Skills (38%), Learning Theory (38%), Ethology (10%), Equipment (8%), and Husbandry (6%). I felt extremely comfortable with everything except ethology and husbandry - but even then that was a total of 16%. In the past, you had to get around a 75-77% in order to pass. So I did the math and realized I could probably get around 35-40 questions wrong and still pass. Not that I wanted to get 35-40 questions wrong, but, you know you do the same thing! I didn't study Learning Theory or Instructor Skills at all because I know that stuff, and learned all about worms/vaccines/socialization periods. I felt pretty ready.

I wrote the exam and I will be honest it isn't a super fun exam to write. You sit in a testing centre, in front of a laptop, and all 180 questions are on a computer. Maybe it's because I am still old enough to be in the pen & paper generation - but I have never taken an exam fully online. But it's a whole different experience. The other tricky thing is that the questions come from current CPDT-KA who write their recertification exam - they are required to submit 2 questions as part of the recertification. Because of this, the questions 1) are not all worded in the same style and 2) this allows for a little bit of subjectivity. I found that especially with the Instructor Skills, there was a lot that depended on context - and of course you can't possibly get the full picture with a multiple choice question. Because of this, I found that many of the answers could have been correct. And with this section weighing 38%, that was a little stressful. But I reminded myself that I can get like 35-40 questions wrong and I would be OK. There were some questions I was like "lol IDK", like about dog vision & how far they can see, but overall I felt pretty good. 

So even though it is an online exam, you have to wait 4-6 weeks to get the results via SNAIL MAIL (lol wut). So we just had to sit there and wait. But someone heard that they released the names on the online directory after 5ish weeks, and so I went and checked. Typed in "Kelsey Edwards" and clicked search. The STRESS was REAL. But BOOM! There she was. 

A few days later, the mail came! And my pretty certificate was there. It was a little less dramatic of a reveal that it would have been if I didn't find my name online, but it was still an incredible moment. I am so proud to announce that I got 93% on the exam (which means I got 13 questions wrong, and more importantly 167 questions CORRECT). The cut off this year was 80% (so you needed to get 144 questions correct in order to pass), but thankfully I made that cut off and beyond! So here I am:

​ Kelsey Edwards, CPDT-KA. Feels right. 

Great question. This journey to become a dog trainer has been so fulfilling on its own. I have never really known my place in the world. I know when I started my business that I had found something I was destined to do, but continuing the path and finding dog training has really solidified this - and I feel like I have found where I am meant to be. But, I don't just want to have the title and stay where I am. I want to move forward, and continue to enrich the lives of dogs and their humans. 

Through my experience, it's clear that what I love the most is teaching groups & dealing with reactivity (AND PUPPIES OMG!!!!!!!). So I am thinking that is the path that I will go into. Slow and steady. I am so thankful to get to work with When Hounds Fly, and that's where you can catch me training! As time goes on, we will find what works & what makes sense - but you can rest assured knowing that I am here to inspire. I want people to know that dog training is more than just tricks, it is about enriching the lives of our best friends. About making them feel safe. Make them feel loved. Make them feel confident. 

There is still so much wrong information out there, and I want to help teach people about Positive Reinforcement and make change through leading by example. Not shaming, but inspiring. 

Thank you everyone who has been a part of this journey. In particular I want to thank my sister, Brooke, and my best friend, David. Both have never given up on me and pushed me to follow my dreams - even when I felt like they were so so SO far away. I am beyond thankful. And thankful to my team, and my amazing Dog's World Family. Have a great day everyone. 

Love always, 

Kelsey Edwards, CPDT-KA (I am never going to get sick of seeing those letters next to my name). 

PS - if you want a laugh... look at this press release that comes with the certificate LOL. Imagine I sent this to the newspapers, I can't.