Enrichment for the Real World

Perfectionism is a fickle little creature. It doesn’t always show up as striving for exact perfection. Sometimes, it’s the little bouts of waiting for the next “right” thing. 

Waiting for winter when the streets are calm to work on leash skills. 

Waiting until spring, when the weather is nicer because it’s too cold. 

Waiting to find the “right” treat for the training session.

The next “right” thing is usually just a short wait away, so why not wait for that “best” time? 

In this episode, Emily and Ellen talk about how p...

In this week’s episode, we’re joined by Pet Harmony’s newest consulting team member Beccy Hughes! With decades of animal care and training experience, Emily and Beccy talk about the wonderful, windy story behind Beccy’s skills. From college, to a career in marine mammal training, to finding herself struggling with pet conflict in her own home, to realizing she can help pet parents too, Beccy’s journey here highlights there’s no wrong way in animal care.

Join Emily and Beccy for a discussion on learning when the path is anything but straight and narrow, how...

Enrichment is just for pets. It’s for the humans too. It’s for pet parents trying to keep their cool while their dog parkours around the house or their cats who keep making biscuits on their chest at 3 in the morning. It’s for the pet professional who is building the multi-layer plan for a family going through one of the worst weeks of their lives, or welcoming home a new puppy who will send their routine into chaos. 

In this episode, our PETPro mentors, Allie, Emily, Tiffany, and Ellen show that once you learn how to use...

It’s been seven years since Canine Enrichment for the Real World came out, and you know what, you learn a lot in 7 years. After teaching hundreds, if not thousands, of people how to use the Pet Harmony Enrichment Framework, Allie and Emily kept seeing the same breakdowns happen in the same places, and decided it was time to update the framework. Because when you know better, you do better. 

Behind the scenes, with our PETPro members, we’ve been trialing and evaluating the update, and now, we’re releasing it into the wild. 

In this epi...

You didn’t get into animal care work because you wanted an easy career. You got in because you care about animals and the people who love them, well past the point of convenience and ease. In this episode, Emily and Ellen name five patterns we see (and have personally lived) that wear pet professionals down: no client boundaries, no safe space for hard conversations, no clear direction, skipping real self-care, and not believing in yourself.

We’re talking about what’s actually happening to good, committed people in a field with no real standards, no shared traini...

“I did not sign up for this.” 

It’s the one little sentence that flashes in your brain as you clean up another accident, watch your dog blow up over the sounds of a car door three blocks away, or spend yet another Friday night at home alone. 

It’s one little sentence that sends you, and pet parents all over the world, into the pit of guilt, despair, and shame. 

This week, Emily is joined by Valerie Bogie, Veterinary Social Worker, Pet Harmony team member, and overall empathetic badass. Valerie walks through what caregi...

You’re tired. You’re deep in your soul, day in and day out, exhausted. In a world where everything is hard, the stress keeps on coming, and pushing is applauded while resting is punished, may we introduce you to Dr. Amelia Nagoski, D.M.A., co-author, with her sister Emily, of the New York Times bestselling Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle and the Burnout workbook.

In this episode, we talk about: why “just relax” is useless advice, why burnout hits caregiving professions so hard, and what it really means to “do self-care” on a deep, func...

We’ve all been there. The standoff where your dog is dancing and staring, waiting for you to do the thing, and you’re trying to negotiate a different plan. Maybe it’s 105 outside, and the heat has reached dangerous levels. Maybe wildfires have made the air unbreathable. Maybe it’s hurricane season, and you’re watching rocks fly through the sky. Or maybe it’s Monday, and you’re doing your Sunday routine. 

While you know why it’s different, your dog is just staring, waiting for you to follow the rules, and has no interest in a different pl...

Does your dog barking make you jump out of your skin? Or send you down a shame spiral? Or have your dog’s triggers become your triggers? You are very much not alone. In this episode, we flip the script, and instead of asking, “How do I help my reactive dog?” we ask, “How can I help me, the reactive human?” 

Join Emily and Ellen for a chat about when your dog’s (or bird’s, or donkey’s, or cat’s) noises don’t just annoy you, but send a startling jolt straight to your lizard brain. Because yes, v...

If you’ve been struggling to help your dog rest or relax, despite following protocols and trying your dangest, it’s time to zoom out and look at the environment. 

This week, Emily and Veronica dig into the three common ways the environment gets in the way, and why the classroom we’re teaching in matters just as much as what we’re teaching. 

TLDL (too long, didn’t listen): 3 Key Takeaways 

1️⃣ Environment is the classroom – Predictability, safe space, and routine are what make relaxation possible in the first place. 

Y’all, we gotta give a little warning with this one, it may get a little spicy. To prep for this episode, we turned to the internet to see what advice pet parents are likely to find, and boy, oh, boy… We don’t even know how to end this sentence. 

In this episode, Emily and Tiffany are getting into why the things that come up when you search “How to calm down a hyper dog” aren’t bad, just… You know, overly simplistic, prescriptive management techniques that aren’t actually addressing the issue. We’re breaking down the small kern...

Dealing with leash reactivity can really be a drag (only moderate pun intended 😂). Jokes aside, if you have a dog that does the whole barky, bitey, lungey thing on leash, to dogs, to people, or to the leaf that blew across the neighbor's roof, and you’ve been feeling like a failure, or are just really freaking tired of still working on this, grab a chair and join Ellen and Emily for today’s episode. 

We’re talking about 5 ways we see leash reactivity plans get f*cked up, and no, it’s not because anyone is bad at this...

You bought the “good” treats, you know, the all-natural, human-grade, $14-a-bag ones. You've got the *perfect* dedicated pouch after hours of research. You’ve studied your protocol. Shoot, at this point, you could probably coach your friends through it. 

And you have followed it with the devotion of a formerly gifted child who has to do everything right the first time, or the world will come crashing down. 

And your dog is still screaming at every dog, jogger, and suspicious mailbox on the block. 

In this episode, Allie and Emily see your perfectionism and your...

You've been told your dog needs daily walks. We get it; everyone has. 

When you were a kid and wanted a dog, your guardians probably said something like, “Okay, but you have to make sure to feed, water, and walk them…”  

And that probably stuck with you until now. Maybe that routine has been great for all your past dogs, but your current dog, the one you love so deeply, is capital S Struggling, and you spend almost every walk trying not to cry. 

In this episode, Emily and Ellen hope you feel a little...

In this Q&A episode, Allie, Emily, and Ellen tackle the questions they hear most often from clients, mentees, and the internet: Should I get another pet? How do I treat my pets fairly when they all need different things? And how do I actually bring a new animal home in a way that sets everyone up for success?

Of course, in true Q&A fashion, we may meander a bit (look, we are who we are 😂), but we packed this episode full of real-life examples, how we guide clients through the process, and reflection questions to hel...

This week we’re joined by Kiki Yablon, behavior analyst, dog trainer, KPA faculty member, and general bad a**. Kiki’s incredible skills of observation, communication, and implementation are honestly inspiring. 

If you’ve found yourself running around in circles trying to figure out how to apply the science to your training, felt your eyes glaze over at jargon, or broken down trying to work while your dog yells at you, we promise, Kiki’s teaching brings a beautiful, practical, and applicable simplicity to behavior change. Tune in to hear Emily and Kiki talk about some real nerd...

You know that feeling where you're staring at what feels like a total dumpster fire, and you’re just… frozen? It’s not because you don't care or because you don't know anything. It’s because you're waiting to feel certain before taking action. You’re waiting to know you’re doing the right thing. 

So, you gather one more resource, take one more course, do one more deep dive, and each bit shows you one more gap until certainty, starting the cycle all over again. 

Here’s the problem, though. That certainty you're waiting for? It isn't co...

Hey, hi, hello. Do you also fall into the pet parent spiral? Worrying that you aren’t a good pet parent, that your dog is suffering, and that you aren’t doing enough. After a two-hour planning session, you have a color-coded, 14-item document that addresses every single thing your dog has ever done, might do, or could theoretically do on a Tuesday. 

No? Just us?

In this episode, Emily and Ellen dig into a common trap we see people fall into, both pet parents and professionals alike: building plans driven by anxiety, fear of judgm...

Do you ever feel like you and your dog are on the Hot Mess Express together? The challenges just keep coming: leash reactivity, resource guarding, body-handling sensitivities, gut issues, sleep disruption all at once, and that’s just the dog’s list. 🤣 

Your first instinct may be to make a nice, neat list and start checking off boxes. 

Leash reactivity = counterconditioning. Check. 

Resource guarding = trades. Check. 

But the list keeps growing, and growing, and growing, with no end or rest in sight.

In this episode, Emily and Tiffany break down why th...

Management is one of the most underused and misunderstood tools in dog training. KPA CTP and author Juliana DeWillems (she/her) joins Emily to reframe management (aka antecedent arrangement) not as a shortcut or bandaid, but as behavior science done proactively. They explore why good management increases a dog's options rather than restricting them, how it ties directly into enrichment, and why guilt around "not training" gets in the way of genuinely good outcomes. And for the professionals in the audience, they also get honest about building a sustainable dog training career, and it may look different than you...

Is your dog’s management plan starting to feel more like a full-time job than a support system? In this episode, Emily and Tiffany break down the critical differences between strategic management and exhausting micromanagement. Whether you’re a pet parent feeling trapped in a plan that requires constant perfection, or a behavior professional wondering if your recommendations are actually building capacity, this episode is full of frameworks and real-world examples to help you think more clearly about what supportive management actually looks like.

TLDL (too long, didn’t listen): 3 Key Takeaways 

1️⃣ ...