29 OctEpisode 176 | Ilana Alderman talks to the animals–all of them: Training and enriching the lives of fish, mice, squirrels, dogs and toddlers, too.
Dog trainer Ilana Alderman, one of Annie's closest friends, has a reputation at School For The Dogs for being a kind of Disney Princess: She looks sort of like Snow White, and seems to titter with birds and befriend fish like Cinderella or Ariel. For nearly a decade, Ilana has focused on training (and enriching the lives of) pretty much every animal she's come across. She has taught fish to play basketball, helped ring tail lemurs learn to step onto scales, taught goats to enjoy being milked, built tiny amusement parks for mice, and even trained the squirrels in her yard to ring a doorbell. She also has helped Annie organize her closet, and feels this is a kind of animal training too. Ilana has never owned a dog, but she has helped many dog owners, and is the architect of the School For The Dogs Professional Course and its open source free online text book, Born To Behave. She and Annie discuss her journey into the world of behavior and the latest animal who is benefiting from being her presence: Her son.
Find Born to Behave at schoolforthedogs.com/courses
For more from Ilana, see this summer’s bonus episode: Annie reads animal trainer Ilana Alderman's 14 tips on getting a toddler to brush his teeth
Find Ilana on Instagram @baby_enrichment and on the web at Childcooperativecare.com
Subscribe: iTunes
Mentioned in this episode:
School for the Dogs Professional Dog Trainer Course
LLA Professional Course: Overview – BehaviorWorks.org
Ilana (@baby_enrichment) • Instagram photos and videos
10 Tips for Helping Toddlers Be Comfortable with Nasal Spray
Transcript:
[music and intro]
Annie:
Ilana Alderman. I have tried so hard to get you on this podcast. You know how hard I've tried. So, God, I don't even know where to start, cause you are such a dynamic person who I also happen to love very much.
Ilana Alderman:
Aw honey.
Annie:
But, why don't you just introduce yourself, and then maybe we can kind of go chronologically. Why don't you introduce yourself by whatever title you would currently give yourself in your life, and then we could maybe work backwards or forwards. Forwards from, from early on…
Ilana:
To now. Okay. Yeah. The title I would give myself professionally would probably be Animal Behavior Consultant or I, at parties, I say I'm a dog trainer. It's just so much simpler. And yeah, I like to work with any species of animals, including humans. So everything to do with behavior and how it works, and how we can change the way people or animals feel in a given situation. That's what really fascinates me. And let's see what else we were asking me, how did I,
Annie:
I mean, I say that you came into my life, I guess it was before the fire.
Ilana:
It was before the fire!
Annie:
Cause I remember you came to School for the Dogs when it was in my living room.
Ilana:
Yes.
Annie:
And yes, I think at that point you were thinking about doing Karen Pryor Academy and you were living upstate and you came in to just talk to me a little bit about it. Little did I know what a force you were. So it must have been like 2013, 2012.
Ilana:
Yeah. 2013, 12. Yeah. Something like that. And I worked for you.
Annie:
Yeah. And then you worked for me for a few years before you moved to Colorado, and then you continued to work for School for the Dogs, really building out our professional program, our professional course, which is still in full force and lives ato the scaffolding you built. And of course I know that you still occasionally train animals in Colorado. And I should also mention that when there was this massive fire in my apartment slash at School for the Dogs, when it was in my apartment, you took my cat.
Ilana:
I did. Sylvia.
Annie:
Yeah. Who has since passed on and was already then kind of on her last legs.
Ilana:
Yeah, she was. We still did some training together. Some tricks.
Annie:
But you are someone, I mean, I think, you know this about yourself. Like people refer to you as like some sort of Disney character. Like, you look kind of like an Israeli Snow White.
Ilana:
[laughs] Tan snow white.
Annie:
Yeah. And you do seem to have this ability to talk to mice and birds and squirrels and such like Snow White or Cinderella. And to me you've always seemed like you must have like hatched from an egg. Like I know you're from Israel and I know you were in the army and then I know you made it to upstate New York because of family cause you're half American. Half French, even though you were raised in Israel.
But it's like, I can't picture how you actually became the person that you are. You seem like an unrooted little miracle that somehow appeared in the world. So maybe you can talk about how you first became interested in animals back in Israel, I'm guessing
Ilana:
If I had to pinpoint it, I'd say stray cats. That was my gateway drug. But maybe even before that, maybe insects. My mom was the kind of person who would be like don't step on that and, look at the cute little ant, kind of mom. So I was always very aware of animals, loved animals. I was one of those kids.
And stray cats was how I think I learned my first behavior lesson, because on Shabbat on Saturday, no school, I couldn't really, I lived further away from my friends. I could sort of walk to some friends sometimes, but most of the time I would just roam by myself at a really young age. I know I did it at seven and eight and nine and 10. And I would just spend all day long roaming the streets and looking at bugs and looking for cats. I was obsessed with cats.
So I would take kibble from my own cat at home and I had a very limited supply of how much I was allowed to take. And so each little toss of a kibble cost me something. I had to be really careful in how I used it. So I tried to lure the cats to just not be so far away from me. I'm talking about real feral cats, not the kind that I used to people and meow and come over to you. Like the kind that if they see you approach they'll hide.
So I would use what I know now to be negative reinforcement and positive reinforcement and toss my treats and the big victory was if I could eventually after several weeks, get a certain cat to let me touch it. Like that was what my child ape mind wanted to do the most. It's like pet you. So I did a lot of that, a lot of hours and hours of observation of stray cats and any animal really that I could see.
But I didn't know that animal behavior was a profession or that dog training was a profession. The only dog training thing that I knew of was really harsh, corrective military type or police dog. And that was just not gonna be something I could see myself doing. I just didn't know it existed.
Annie:
And you had a cat, but you never had a dog growing up.
Ilana:
I, to this day I have never owned a dog, and I have helped hundreds of people with their dogs. I've done board and trains where I spent even up to two weeks with people's dogs. I've lived in homes where other people's dogs were, but I've never actually owned my own dog, which is crazy.
Annie:
Well, which, did you go to college first or you went to the army first, right?
Ilana:
First was the army.
Annie:
And did you work with animals in any capacity in the army?
Ilana:
No, I didn't. I was essentially a welfare worker, kind of a military welfare worker, but on an air force base in the south in Israel.
Annie:
Then you came to to New York upstate, right? To go to college?
Ilana:
Yeah, via Norway. I did a little stint as an au pair for a severely autistic cousin, really. My aunt married a Norwegian man who's 18 year old was very severely autistic. And so they could hire an au pair for him. So they hired me, and I did that for six months. So there was some behavior exposure there as well, because my aunt herself, she had a child that had a form of autism. So she got into ABA, applied behavior analysis.
So that was my first introduction to the fact that it exists that you could break down behavior, just small pieces. But again, that just kind of stayed in the back of my mind and simmered. It didn't really go anywhere. Yeah. And then I came to the States.
Annie:
So how did you get to training then?
Ilana:
So I did my bachelors in the States. Basically Karen Pryor is how I got into it. I read Karen Pryor's book, but the way I got to her book was after getting my degree in international studies, I moved back to Norway to work for my aunt at her business. And I was there for a couple of years. And while I was there, my uncle read Temple Grandin’s book. I don't remember which one, but the one where she describes Karen Pryor and positive and negative reinforcement. And he said, You should read Don't Shoot the Dog because it's good.
And I remember I had like a couple of weeks I let by and then I just ordered it on Amazon. And when I read Karen Pryor’s Don't Shoot the Dog. It was truly that classic Helen Keller moment of like, Oh my God, I felt like a veil had lifted from my eyes that all the things that I kind of had intuitions about, it just gave it this clarity of you know, vision. Like it was just amazing for me. It really blew my mind.
So I really wanted to do, I just wish that Karen Pryor had a course of certification for animals, not just dogs, I don't know, zoo, sanctuary, something to do with other species. But the only one, the only program that she had was for dog trainer professionals, where you also work with a second species that's not a dog. So I thought, OK, I think I wanna do that. I wanna do that. I took that course
Annie:
For somebody who doesn't know what Don't Shoot the Dog is, how would you describe that book? And what in it spoke to you?
Ilana:
Don't Shoot the Dog is often referred to as the Bible of dog training, of animal training in general, it really just breaks down positive and negative reinforcement in really simple terms with good examples of, you know, real life. So it just… How can you change behavior? It's an introduction to the science of behavior change essentially is how I would see it.
Annie:
The only problem with Don't Shoot the Dog, I think, is that the title confuses people
Ilana:
Yeah. Apparently Karen did not like that title. She hated the title.
Annie:
I mean, I'm so used to it, I take it for granted, but I feel like if you heard the title without knowing anything about it, you'd think —
Ilana:
Strange choice.
Annie:
But it makes sense, I guess, once you read it. So I met you right before you started Karen Pryor Academy. Had you done any animal training then really before that point?
Ilana:
Yeah, not really. I read Don’t Shoot the Dogs when I was still living in Norway. I thought I'd maybe move to Norway actually at the time. And the dog that I was living with was the first dog that I ever trained, Tinka. I just taught her some basic, basic clicker training from just what I got at Don't Shoot the Dog.
Then I ended up moving back to the states to be with my now husband. And I really wanted to maybe take the Karen Pryor course. I wasn't so sure. That's actually a sister Michelle who told me, if you love what you do, you don't work a day in your life. You know, that saying that people say. That was that last little push that I needed and I decided to enroll in KPA.
But before I did that, I wanted to talk to an individual, a human being who had actually been through the program, and the only person that I could find through anything and the registries was you. So that's when I reached out to you and you told me, come over, help assist in a puppy class. And that’s when I came over. That's when I came to your studio for the first time.
And I was so starstruck in a way, I was just like, this is so amazing. I was really dazzled. And you gave me the whole insider view, the kind of complete picture of how you felt about the KPA program and what you got out of it and your ultimate recommendation was go for it, and I'm really glad I did. I think it's an exceptionally good program.
It kind of depends on what you put into it. I think that you can approach a program like KPA and get more out of it or less out of it, depending on your attitude and how you're approaching it. If you want to master a new skill or if you're there to just tick off some boxes, those are a lot of different ways to graduate KPA.
Annie:
Yeah. I mean, there's definitely people who go into it after having decades long careers as trainers, but you and I both went in knowing–
Ilana:
Absolutely fresh. Yes. I came in absolutely fresh and I actually, it's a six month program. And I think I'm still the record holder because I finished it in seven weeks, minus the assessments and all the hands-on stuff. But I finished all of it I was so obsessed with it. I was just, I dove right in. This was amazing. I just ate it all up. I was completely self-directed, self-motivated. I wanted to absorb it all. And for my second species, I chose a fish. Most people had a cat, you know. So I did, I trained–
So before I worked for you, I had actually trained Tinka the dog, a little Yorkie that I was doing dog walks for at one point and a fish. And the fish actually got me into an apprenticeship, not apprenticeship. What do you call it? Internship. Got me into an internship at a little zoo, a little AZA accredited zoo that was near me.
And I was at the zoo for a year almost. So that's when I got to have opportunity to work with a lot of different species. They were very kind with me, very generous with me. I just had keys. Like kind of, “You can't go to the wolves because they're potentially tagged for rerelease. And so they shouldn't be habituated to people, but you can pretty much do what you want.”
Annie:
Wow. You literally, you were given keys to the zoo. So I know some people listening are gonna have this question, so I'm gonna ask it. How and why do you train a fish, ot what do you train a fish to do?
Ilana:
In Don't Shoot the Dog. Karen describes how she trained a fish to swim through a hoop. And when I read that in the book, I was like, I have to try that. I had to try that. That has to be my species. And I had this complete innocence of, Well Karen says you can do it. And it says you can, so why not? You could train an earthworm. I just didn't come to it, I didn't approach it with any kinds of fears, so to me, training Erasmus was the same as training any other animal, you just had to cut your treats really small.
Why? Partly just to see how it's done, to learn how to train in general. Partly because it's really enriching, I think, for the animal's life, even if it's a fish. People underestimate the needs. I am convinced that fish have emotions, not just the sensitivity to pain, that they have some kind of form of emotion that I could really identify in my fish when I was working with him. So it does enrich a fish's life to do that. I've given several fish trainers and fish owners training advice with their own fish after this.
And how? Just using his food. I used a flashlight as a marker instead of a clicker. The way you use a clicker for a dog, I used a flashlight. And I just used his regular meal, his regular pellets cut up into really small pieces.
Annie:
Did you feel emotionally connected to him through training him?
Ilana:
I was in love with that fish.
Annie:
[laughs]
Ilana:
Yeah. Karen describes this in her book too. She says that it's impossible to not become emotionally attached to an animal when you work with positive reinforcement. It's just part of our wiring. I do something for you, you do something for me, this kind of back and forth that creates this relationship. I really love this fish. Yeah.
Annie:
Yeah. I feel like, I mean, I had Amos for five years before I really started doing any training with him, and of course I loved him madly before the yeah. But I feel like…
Ilana:
The bond.
Annie:
Yeah. Our relationship became different after, I mean, for the better after we started training together.
Ilana:
Mmm-hmm.
Annie:
So tell me about some of the animals you worked with at the zoo, because I think one of the things that separates you from most dog trainers I know is that, kinda like you were saying, your interest is in behavior. And I feel like I see animal training all around us. I see how classical conditioning and operant conditioning is working on us. And I talk about that a lot on this podcast.
Ilana:
Yeah, you do.
Annie:
But I haven't worked with a whole lot of animals other than, I mean, I guess you could say I've worked with people, but mostly I've worked with dogs. I mean, I remember when one time you were helping me clean my closet and you were like, well, you know, one day I'm gonna put up a website, that's gonna be dog training other species, nonhuman, and then there's gonna be a section on human training if people wanna hire me to help them do things like clean their closet.
Ilana:
[laughs] That's still [inaudible] part of like one of my future mini careers. I love helping people organize their spaces.
Annie:
Yeah. Like, I feel like you don't shy away from it. I feel like I'm always a little bit embarrassed kind of when people are like, are you trying to dog train me? And like, Yeah. But I’m worried about talking about it.
Ilana:
People really do get offended.
Annie:
I think you really walk the walk in that you have worked with many different kinds of animals, which is why I'm curious to hear about what you did at the zoo. And, and of course, I know, and we can get to this now that dogs are not the main animal or zoo animals are not the main kind of animal you're working with now. But tell me a little bit about your zoo work.
Ilana:
Yeah. The zoo work was, I did a whole lot of things that are practical for the animals, like scale training. I did a lot of scale training for a lot of different animals, especially the ones that were fearful. For example–
Annie:
What's scale training?
Ilana:
One of the main ways — weighing an animal, just weighing an animal voluntarily.
Annie:
Oh, okay. So the scale they go on.
Ilana:
Yeah. And a lot of animals might be completely fine with it, but some animals are really fearful. So if you need to take, like the Ringtail lemur needed to go into a crate, and then you weigh them in the crate and then you take them out and you weigh the crate. And that's how you know how much the lemur weighs. And keeping track of an animal's weight is one of the basic ways that a zookeeper can assess any kind of trouble, medical issue that might happen if you suddenly see a little bit of a weight drop or something like that. So it is important to be able to keep a weight on an animal.
So there were, yeah, the Ringtail lemur was at one point real afraid, refused to get into the crate. And I did that. They had a guanaco, that's a type of a wild version of a llama. And you couldn't touch him, you couldn't approach him and they'd never had a weight on him. So I thought, Hmm, I love a challenge. And I used my feral cat strategies, including, and as well as the Karen Pryor stuff I learned, and I was able to get him into the barn to get weighed, and I was able to touch him and pet him after some training.
The Kia parrot that had some, eh, behavior issues, like just a lot of different practical things. I'd say that my passion in whatever animal that I work with, I really like to take a stressful situation, something that the animal would really want to avoid, sees the first cue of and becomes afraid and doesn't wanna do it. And then turn it into one of their favorite games.
And that's something that you can do easily, I think, relatively in a zoo because the environment is so controlled. Like they're pretty much there, and they have food. So you really can control lot of their reinforcers. And if you have like, okay, every week or every two weeks, I get weighed, and that's this big negative part or stressful part of my life that I just kind of go through, if instead it becomes, Oh, this exciting box of thrills and wonders that I get into and I get Craisins! And yeah, it just completely transforms, I think, their life in general, just gives them such a great experience, and the same with dogs too.
I never had a particular preference for dogs until I started training dogs. I always loved them just as much as I love any animal, I just think they're great. But as I work with dogs, I really did see that they're an exceptional animal. They have evolved to work really well with us. So I suddenly got it, like why people loved dogs, so I really, really love dogs now. I really got an appreciation for that.
And the same is true when I became a mother. Before, I really tended to approach each animal that I met as, Okay, who are you, let's see. I don't think I'm, you know, innately superior to this particular animal. I'm just a different species. I just really looked at them at eye level and saw all animals as basically have different strengths and weaknesses. And they're all fascinating and wonderful.
But it wasn't until I had a baby that I realized, oh, we are a really, really exceptional animal. Like, we are amazing. We learn so quickly. We are… I understand human exceptionalism more now than I did before being a mom.
Annie:
You went to Karen Pryor and you've done so much hands-on work yourself. Before we get to kind of what you're currently doing, what would you say has been…what kind of resources have you tapped into? What kind of…you know, your education has been very much self, what do you say?
Ilana:
Self propelled.
Annie:
Self propelled.
Ilana:
Self-directed.
Annie:
Self-directed, that's the word I was saying.
Ilana:
Oh, I did have another influence. So when I finished KPA, like I said, I was one of those students. I was really into KPA, like I told you before. And Steve, you had Steve Benjamin as your instructor too, and he's a very laid back guy. He's great. But I think he'd be the first to admit we're very different types when it comes to this type of thing. Like other students would come with post-it notes that they scribbled stuff on. And I had a folder with printed out colored charts with rates of reinforcement. Like I was really into KPA.
And when I finished KPA, I wrote Karen and I asked her what's next? Like, is there some kind of way that I can apprentice someone? Cause I felt that I really needed hands-on experience, seeing people. You know, told her, I did this year at the zoo, I finished KPA, what should I do next to really learn from someone?
And she said, you have everything you need, don’t look for more experts. Don't look for more gurus, you have the technology, just go and apply it. But she did say that if I do want a course, I could take Susan Friedman's Living and Learning with Animals, which she teaches online. And so I did that. And that was the second Whoa moment for me, because that was the very first time I ever encountered the idea of antecedent behavior consequence, that behavior science notation, I had never heard of that before. And so that was very eyeopening to me. I like the clarity of that as well. I felt that that was, that really gave me a lot of good tools.
Now she had two, you could listen in on the call, like two different, like Tuesdays or Thursdays. So I listened to both. And then I would listen to the recording again, of course at double speed because Susan Friedman talks very slowly. So I'd listen to Tuesday live and then listen to the recording, and then Thursday live and then listen to the recording.
So, but other than those two, I really I've done, you know, I've done some online courses, I read books on things, but that was really, I feel like I had the tools and it was just time to get experience.
Annie:
That's interesting cause I haven't done Susan Friedman's course, although I'd like to, and I feel like I've covered a lot of that information just in my own reading journey, whatever. But I sort of felt similarly after KPA, especially about apprenticing or figuring out like, okay, well I understand this now, but like how do I actually…I guess two things, one I felt like, how do I actually do this?
Ilana:
Mm-hmm.
Annie:
Cause I mean, really the only criticisms I have of KPA is like, you don't really, or I, at least when I was doing it, which was a while ago now, I didn't feel like I got a whole lot of time actually watching other people work with clients.
Ilana:
Right. I would agree.
Annie:
I mean like I knew how to train my dog. But how to communicate that in a way to other dog owners to work with their dog. Like that was really something I, for me, I had just had to figure out on my own.
Ilana:
Yeah. And that's what I love about our apprenticeship program. When we collaborated on that, I was teaching the theory and creating the course, and then the students in New York would do the hands on and actually shadow real trainers. Cause it's one thing to understand the principle, and then you're tackled, you know, like I said, I never owned a dog and someone says, well, my puppy's barking. So like, okay, I can analyze this. I can do my research and kind of come up with an idea. But if I could sit in on a consultation with a trainer who just articulates a really good way of doing it, like that's so much easier than having to reinvent the wheel yourself.
Annie:
Yeah. Oh my God, I really felt like I had to reinvent the wheel. And I didn't feel like — at least in New York, I mean, I have to think it's different in different places, but at least in New York at the time, I did not feel like there were dogs 0–
Ilana:
There was nothing, it's all you. At the time.
Annie:
People weren't like come learn with us!
Ilana:
Right.
Annie:
It just seemed like there was no one to like there was no one to apprentice with. And the other thing which you, I think, also hungered for was like — I mean, I think you're more of a school nerd than I am. Like, I definitely did not go to my sessions with Steve Benjamin with like folders of notes or post-it notes. [laughs] Not my style, but I felt like I left sort of feeling like, okay, I want more of the nerdy stuff. Like I want more…
Ilana:
Yeah. More rigorous kinda bite.
Annie:
Cause a lot of the reading for KPA, it was kind of like highlighting the most important things we needed to know. But I was like, but I wanna know the origins of this stuff and I wanna know about the exceptions, and I wanted meaty books to dig into.
Ilana:
Yeah. Yeah, I would say another common criticism I heard of KPA, which actually, I wanna defend KPA a little bit with that, is that it doesn't go into behavior problems. And when you're a dog trainer, 50% of the time, it's a puppy who just needs the most simple handholding to be an amazing dog, and 50% of the time it's severe fear and aggression. And so in KPA they say send them to a behaviorist.
But to defend that as well, is that if you really go into KPA with that hunger that I described, there's so much, you're really primed. Like, there's a little bit of learning that you can do outside to supplement that little bit of the aggression and fear, but the tools that they give you, how to break something down into approximations and train it properly in a sort of clicker training way. That's the same, that really does apply to a lot of the fear and aggression as well.
Annie:
Yeah, absolutely. You just need to put in the years of like, how do I apply this? Before you can feel good about working with the other —
Ilana:
With the behavior issues. Yeah. And they don't pretend that they're preparing you to be able to deal with fear and aggression.
Annie:
So you graduated KPA. What happened next?
Ilana:
I'd say pretty almost immediately. I started working for you. I had some clients locally that I started working with upstate New York, but mostly I would just take the train to New York, New York City that is, and do in homes for you for School for the Dogs.
Annie:
Those were good times.
Ilana:
They were really good times. They were, I got very familiar with the subway system.
Annie:
[laughs] And then you broke all of our hearts and decided to move to Boulder. Can we talk about your baby mouse? I just remember, during that period, one time I visited you when you were living upstate, coming into the city to train, and you were wearing this tiny mouse that was literally the size of like my thumbnail in a little pouch around your neck. Could you explain? [laughs]
Ilana:
Yeah, my friend showed up at my doorstep was two dying baby mice that he found in his car. And I was like, No, I don't think I can do anything about this. But I couldn't resist. I tried to help them. And there wasn't, I don't remember why I couldn't give them to a rehab. but one died right away. And the other one, I managed to keep her alive for, I think it was like 10 days. No, could it have been?
I just know that I was up every 30 to 90 minutes feeding this baby mouse and I started to have auditory hallucinations. It was great preparation for having a baby. And then she died and it was really sad.
Annie:
But it was pretty wild that, and even to me, that somebody would take on the task of trying to be a mommy mouse, which is basically what you were trying to do.
Ilana:
I felt sorry for the, I just, yeah, I wanted to try. I really don't remember. I think I had contact with a rehab that told me what to do. I just, it was a long time ago.
Annie:
And you were like, I remember you were like agitating the mouse’s tummy with a Q-tip and it's anus with a Q-tip, right?
Ilana:
Yeah. Like to imitate the mother licking. Yeah. To stimulate —
Annie:
We're only telling this story cause I want to illustrate what a incredible animal person you are, with the extents that you go to.
Ilana:
At the time I was also volunteering at a bird sanctuary, like a Audubon type of, well it's an Audubon. And over there, there were a lot of baby birds that we would kind of stimulate as well, and feed, and did some work with their birds of prey as well.
Annie:
And then when you moved to Colorado, I know you were training the squirrels outside your door, right?
Ilana:
Yes. So, caveat is we should not feed or, you know, befriend wildlife for their own benefits. But these squirrels were already extremely sassy. Like when I moved there like the next day, we're still putting things in the apartment. A squirrel just walked into my apartment. Like they clearly had been fed since they were babies by humans and even taught to get into the apartment. And I found out that one of the neighbors had been letting the squirrels in. So I felt that that gave me permission since they were already super habituated.
I had three that I focused my attention on. And one of the fun things I trained them to do was to ring a doggy doorbell. I put the doorbell outside, closed the door, and if they rang the doorbell, I would open the door and toss them a nut.
And it would just made me laugh so much. Like I would hear Ding-Dong! And I’d open the door and it's like a little squirrel and they have attitude, but they're just, I always imagine their inner voice being kind of like cussing at you, like where is my freaking nut?! Bring it fast!
Annie:
[laughs]
Ilana:
You know? Like they had such an attitude, it would just make me laugh so much. And I taught them to jump into a box and out of a box. And one of them actually really hurt on his leg and they looked really bad. So I trained him to get into a crate all the way to door closing and exiting the same way you would do with the dog. And that took some time. Just in case he needed it. And then he just disappeared. And he came back like a month later, almost a hundred percent healed. So it sorted itself out.
Annie:
He went to, maybe the squirrels have their own hospital that he went to.
Ilana:
Yeah. He just went there. He checked himself in. There are a bunch of fun things I did with the squirrels. It was so much fun. The time that you have before you have a baby is like an infinite ocean of…
Annie:
It seems like an infinite ocean of time. I know what you mean.
Well, you didn't just have some mice, you had like a mouse condo.
Ilana:
It was not a condo. It was, it was bigger than that.
Annie:
[laughs]
Ilana:
We called it Mouse-Topia. And I would just build all these creations out of cardboard tubes. It's on like, it's on my YouTube at Born to Behave. Like you could still dig back and see it.
The thing with pet mice is, people buy them for their kids, cause they're so docile in a lot of ways, like they won't bite you unless they're absolutely thinking that you're gonna kill them. Cause they're very fearful animals. And so, you know, people give them to their kids and then they pet them and kind of scare them I think.
But I just loved observing them. So I created this big, I don't know what you would call it.
Annie:
Well it was like a Billy bookcase, right?
Ilana:
It was big. Yeah. Well that, that was later.
Annie:
Like an Ikea bookcase. Oh, that was later? Cause I remember you had this Ikea bookshelf and every shelf was like its own floor of a building.
Ilana:
Yes. With holes in between and yes, passageways. They had went through through several iterations, but, and before it was just essentially like a closet. And so every week really, or sometimes it was every three weeks, depending on how many mice I had, I'd just take everything out and put new. So I'd save all my toilet paper rolls and build things with hot glue gun. And then you just watch them. And every day I'd put different treats all around the enclosure so that they could really forage and use their bodies. And yeah, it was really, really fun to observe and watch them.
I wanted to train them. I just was working so much. I didn't really make that happen. I taught a couple of them to station or come when called, but I really didn't do a whole lot of training that I'd wanted to.
Annie:
So you worked with squirrels and mice in Boulder, and then also goats.
Ilana:
Yeah. Yep. When I first moved to Boulder, there was one of those new to Boulder things. And I met Becca, who's the farm director at the Boulder JCC goat co-op. And I started — I wasn't interested in being a part of a goat co-op. I didn't really want the goat milk, but I started to training there. And then they ended up hiring me to do some basic training. And then after, now I volunteer at it really.
But I was doing hoof trimming, voluntary hoof trimming. I trained goats to trailer load, go into a trailer in like seven seconds flat. They would all run in and you could close the door it was like completely voluntary. And then also teaching goats to be comfortable being milked for the first time. It's even in the most docile, easygoing goat, like the first couple times it's kind of weird for them. And some of them are much more spirited. Like the goat herd that we have there now, they're mostly genetically Nubian. And if anybody knows about goats, like they are a little bit more spirited.
Annie:
I don't know what that means. Genetically Nubian.
Ilana:
Nubians, they're much more vocal. They have the big floppy ears that look like bunnies. And they're more opinionated. They’re just less docile, what you would call, you know, submissive. So there were some issues with some goats. One goat refused to jump on a stand, cause she didn't wanna be hobbled and milked. And then I worked with her, Vashti, and she ended up being the best milker that we had there.
It’s very difficult, training goats in a co-op, because you have like 25 different hands putting their hands on the goats. So you have to go to the least common denominator and like really work it. And so depending on how much availability I had in my schedule was kind of how much success I had, really. But I do a lot of work with goats.
Annie:
You also took some dogs — You have taken dog clients in Colorado.
Ilana:
Oh yeah. I worked full-time for the first, I don't know. However long before I got pregnant, I worked until I was eight months pregnant.
Annie:
And how would you say your Colorado dog clients differed from your New York clients? If at all?
Ilana:
Ah, that's an excellent question. I would say that the human beings were very similar, but the dogs are just so much happier here. I had a hard time in New York because I've come to think that big cities are just not appropriate for dogs. That's a terrible thing to say, because of course you can, you know, maybe small apartment dogs, like the little small breeds that they have more in Asia, or here too. But like the smaller breeds that if they're well socialized, you can exercise them well and you can give them mental simulation. There's a lot of substituting that you need to do in order to satisfy a lot.
And here, here, you just take him to a trail. You don't need to create food puzzles. Of course you can. And you do. And I tell them to, but you don't need to. The dog can sniff things and run and play, and do all these very natural things. You can't take him to a dog park and expect to have that same…When you walk around the streets as a dog trainer who understands behavior and body language, it can be really hard, cause you see dogs that are just unhappy or stressed. They're sniffing the floor.
You'll see the occasional bombproof like happy little pit bull. Who's just like Woohoo! I'm walking around the street. I don't care about all the noises. I'm just a happy go lucky, like a kind of dog who will be happy anywhere will be happy in New York City. But I'd say that it's hard. It's really hard. If you are a dog owner in New York City, you have to proactively create stimulations that would substitute for your dog would naturally get if he was a country dog.
Annie:
Yeah. Yeah. It's like you, in some ways you have to become a dog trainer, I think, for a lot of dogs, in order to give a lot of urban dogs a good life. It’s not so easy.’
Ilana:
Well, I'm not saying don't own a dog, you shouldn't have a dog in the city. I'm saying you should know what you are taking on, the responsibility of the kind of thing you need to do. Like don't get a hunting dog. Don't get a working breed. Cause they're gonna go insane. There are really happy hunting dogs in New York City, but their owners have done so much work to make that happen.
Actually I think the same is true for children and babies as well. I think it is harder in dense urban areas. Some things are unnatural in both locations. Just part of our modern lifestyle I think is unnatural. Like the fact that most of us are just a mother-father, or just a mother and a small child, where I think the natural way for human child to grow up is with that lead 15 adults that really love them that have known them since baby, you know, close kin. And we don't have that, I think, for most children growing up, whether they're in the city or not. So like that's an area that I think is a real deficit today.
Annie:
Well, you know, BF Skinner in Walden Two, he's like pro-teen pregnancy.
Ilana:
I know.
Annie:
But the argument, which is interesting is if like we didn't judge it in every 15 year old coupled up and had a baby, then that baby's grandparents would be 30 and their great grandparents would be 45 and their great-great grandparents would be 60 and there'd be so many people invested in that child's welfare and happiness and there to care and help. Whereas now, if you're like me and you wait till, basically you're 40 to have kids and yeah, the grandparents aren't necessarily around that long. And the great grandparents, forget it.
Ilana:
I think that it is better to have children much younger. But we are in a time culturally where you can't afford to do that. Most people don't have the means to do that.
Annie:
Well, things would have to be set up very differently, I guess. Probably won't happen in our lifetimes. But I mean, if it was set up that you could have a child at 15 and it would basically be the responsibility of your parents to deal with the child.
Ilana:
Yeah. Well that’s to address like the emotional social needs of a child. Like I really look at child raising, like the way I see child raising is super informed by my behavior and animal experience. Like you bring your history with you everywhere you go, that's just my bias and —
Annie:
Yeah, of course. Well, so you had Eytan two and a half years ago. I know exactly, cause it was one month after I had Magnolia. And it's been interesting for me as a dog trainer to watch you parent Eytan, causeI feel like you epitomize the dog trainer or I should really say animal trainer approach to parenting using positive reinforcement and success of approximations, and go to lengths that honestly I feel like I haven't gone to? Partially just cause I’m running a business, where you've been able to give it more time.
So yeah. Talk to me about what it was like sort of starting out with this new, tiny animal to take care of it. Did you think from the get go, like this is gonna be kind of like animal training that I've done for work except in my own home with my own child, or?
Ilana:
I wasn't sure what to expect. I just kind of kept an open mind and was hoping that some of my experience would come in handy. I just had, I was surprised how much it applied and how handy it was. And you look at a baby and, and even a toddler who's pre-verbal up to that. It's very similar. Because you need to be able to read their body language and listen to them in a way that's nonverbal.
There are a lot of people who become very confident and comfortable parents as soon as the children start speaking. Cause suddenly they’re like, oh, your tummy hurts. Oh, you want — like it's just everything kind of evens out for them. Whereas before, I have feedback from some friends that have babies around the same age, are like, I just don't know what he wants. I don't know why he's crying. I don't know how to stop it. I don't know what he wants.
And I think that I had an advantage there because I could really read the body language. Like I never wondered what he wanted. Sometimes I couldn't give it to him, sometimes he was just uncomfortable. But I, I really can't say that I didn't know what was expected, what he was hoping for, what he want, what his little consciousness desired.
Annie:
Do you think that's because you're just so tuned into reading body language?
Ilana:
Yeah, I do think so, I do think it has to do with emotional states and body language, and behavior, and really seeing the connection between the context of what's going on, what happened and before what happened after. For me, it was a bit complicated, the situation with Eytan because, thank goodness it's not severe, but he's had a number of medical issues that I've had to deal with and still have to deal with. And so it has affected the way I parent him.
Eytan suffers from, well there's no real — doctors really don't really know what it is, but they call it involuntary breath holding spells, which is just a term for, we don't know why this happens, but it's probably harmless where he experiences sudden physical or emotional pain. His nervous system kind of lie glitches cause the signal’s too intense and it just glitches and he stops breathing. And eventually it's grown to the point where he'll pass out. The nervous system will just have him pass out.
So if he gets really upset over something, which toddlers get upset, he can just lose consciousness. And lately it's turned to seizures as well. So have a seizure, yeah, it's really, really horrible. So the first few times, you're holding your baby and your arms and they're blue in the face, and they literally look like having a heart attack and dying. And I've had that happen hundreds of times and it's just really traumatic. It's traumatic. There've been a lot of really traumatic situations with it. Plus he was premature. There were just a lot of issues.
So for me the, as a trainer, I felt like I had a bit of an advantage, at least with the emotional part. Like for physical, I can't always control, is he gonna bang his head on something and have a spell. But I can set up the environment to have fewer meltdowns, tantrums. And like the discipline side of things, I've only had him have a spell twice from emotional reasons, and that's it. And, and I know he's close sometimes, but that's given me a lot of strategies.
So that it has informed the way I do things. I've always wanted to be the kind of parent who we'll brush the child's teeth with zero stress, without pinning them down. without forcing it. But I think if he hadn't had the issues where the stakes are so high, I probably would've pinned him down and just done it, because you're so overwhelmed, especially as a first time mother with so many things to do, that you, you’re just like, you know what, I just have to get this done. Now. And you're frustrated.
But for me, like, am I willing to have him potentially have a seizure right now? No. Is it good? Is it worth it? No. So, I'm much more careful about certain things, and because of it, I'm in some ways more successful with certain things.
Annie:
Mm-hmm. That's interesting. Interesting thing that life has handed you a situation where
Ilana:
You have to do positive reinforcement or —
Annie:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, tell me about I think before you were doing cooperative care, you were first focusing on enrichment.
Ilana:
Yes. That's one of my passions for every animal. And so it was very natural for me to immediately do that. I also was so in love with my baby and I just wanted to teach him and share with him the world, so anything I did is an enrichment opportunity.
Like I ate an orange and he was, I remember this vivid moment with the orange. I let him smell the orange as I was peeling it when he was a really small baby, just like three or four months old. It was definitely three months, before he could eat, and his like expressions on his face when he would experience the new scent. And I just love, I love enrichment.
I think we can define enrichment somewhat. I like to think of enrichment as providing species-appropriate stimulus that can result in, first, natural development and also natural behaviors that that particular species would normally experience for a normal development and just for a normal life.
So if you're looking at a dog, like a dog would naturally have, I guess, two main ways of having enrichment. One is to forage for food on his own, which is sniffing, searching, solving problems, digging, working in order to get food.
And then the other one would be how to get my human to gimme food since they co-evolved with us, figuring out how to get my person to gimme a piece of the sandwich. I think that's actually an evolved kind of need. I like to use that as, if you were doing some clicker training or trick training or something like that with your dog, and you're giving him tiny pieces of food, that is actually a strong mental enrichment for your dog, because they've kind evolved to try and get that from you.
So when I look at his dog, how do I enrich a dog's life who is in, say in an apartment in a city, I try to create those kind of simulations. Food puzzles and food searches and clicker training. And all of those things are there to substitute for what a dog would naturally, if you just lived your normal life, living in some village or some, you know, nomadic situation. This is what your dog would normally do.
And the same thing I think with a baby or a child, like they've, there's social needs definitely that we kind of touched on. So really trying to have him have exposure and create relationships with people of all ages, not just babies his age, but you know, watching social interaction, creating social bonds.
But then physical stuff. They love to forage, little kids love to forage. They love to pick things and sort things. And so we have food puzzles. I know you did that with Magnolia, too, just kind of create food puzzles for him.
And I think for a baby human, at first it's observing. So everything I did in my life, I just usually would just for him so he could see what I was doing. So he loved to watch me cook. And then as he got older, he participated in the cooking. Like he would crack the egg, he would beat something.
So all of these things, the kind of apprenticeship type of learning that children love. Like I was sweeping the floor, I got him a little broom and he would sweep the floor. He loves physical — I find that, it's enriching, it's kind of an enrichment. So it's really fun for me to create enrichment opportunities. My Instagram has a lot of examples @baby_enrichment. Things I've done with him from probably four months old, I don't remember maybe eight months old.
Annie:
You're also just so good at, you're good at seeing enrichment opportunities, I think where I wouldn't. I mean, for instance, it looks like, from your Instagram at least, it looks like every box that gets delivered to you, you're able to figure out some way to make that into some kind of interesting toy for him.
Ilana:
My favorite go-to, super easy enrichment idea for a parent would be any kind of treasure hunt searches appropriate to whatever age that the baby child toddler is. I only have experience with age zero to two and a half since my son is two and a half. So that's the only real expertise-ish answer I could give you.
But I'd say, you could start with a very simple food puzzle for a baby who's just starting to eat. Something with like little, you know, even if it's a Cheerio, and you can use a food puzzle like you and I have done, or any kind of way that the baby needs to kind of forage, to do some kind of action in order to receive food.
So you could just take like a towel, put a Cheerio on it, show it to the six month old or eight month old, nine month old, and then cover, fold over the towel. And then the Cheerio disappeared. Open it up, close it again, show it a few times like that. And then the baby tries to get that Cheerio. For example. That's like the cheapest, easiest way that you could create some kind of action for them to get food. I find that toddlers love to pick their own and get their own food. It's really fun.
And then it can advance. So when Eytan was a little bit older, I started doing food searches for him, where he'd have maybe five blueberries locked up in a tin box and then he'd have to unlock it with a key. And then I start to hide the key in another bag. So he has to open the bag to get the key to unlock the box. Which, you know, obviously you can't do something like that with a dog. This is the advantage, an exciting thing about working with a human that they're so smart.
And you just go at the level of your baby or child. You don't wanna frustrate them. You want them to be able to succeed 99% certainty. Like, I know he's gonna get this. But then you can add, increase the difficulty level. So I would have two different box, and bag inside of the box and a bag inside of the bag, and different snaps that you have to work to open to get the key to get to another bag that you open to then unlock the box and get to the blueberries.
And you could see it in my Instagram. Like he loved those. He would get so excited to be able to do those. And now I'm starting to do a thing where I'll draw a map, like say, I'll draw an area of the room that has certain stuffed animals in it. And in the drawing I'll draw the treats, usually some kind of chewable supplement he has to take anyway, and I'll draw the treat, say under the lion. And I show him, look, there's a candy over here under the lion. He's thinking about it so hard. And he goes to the wrong place. And then he figures out to go from the mapto the candy or to the key.
So as you can see, you can make it as straightforward and simple as you like, or you can go ahead and make it more and more complicated depending on the age of the child. Any kind of foraging, any kind of looking for food, or looking for a toy. A special, like let's hide, I used to have [inaudible], his little baby monkey, that is the baby of his bigger monkey. And he would get hidden and stuff like in a cup, a transparent cup. And I would put the monkey in there so he could see the monkey, but he couldn't get it. And so the big puzzle was to get [inaudible] out of the cup. Like that was one.
And then once he could do that, I would put a little piece of cloth on top. Look, he's there. Nope, no, he's not there anymore. Look, he's there. And it's like, you're looking at really young baby age. And that's fun for me. If you could hear my excitement, like, I really like creating that sort of thing. But it's so easy to do. Like once you figured hide it, find it. Babies love those games.
Annie:
Yeah. I think a lot of like the dog puzzle toys, the work to eat toys could really be marketed towards toddlers.
Ilana:
We need to create a new version that’s baby safe and baby appropriate. Cause we both have used a number of food puzzles. And it, when I would take out those food puzzles, oh man, I bought them brand new. They didn't have any dog saliva on them or anything. And I would put, say three or four on the floor with Cheerios, blueberries. If I needed to just keep him contained while I was making breakfast for him. I just didn't wanna wear him that day or for whatever reason.
And so it would keep him busy. Also before lunch, if he was getting a little bit too hungry, close to lunch and I didn't plan my day, right. I would plop three or four on the floor and he would be really excited looking for just a small amount of food that wouldn't spoil his appetite, but he could manipulate and move the wedges. And yeah, I really like those when he was very small.
I delight in creating ways — I think that one of the mistakes we sometimes make as modern parents is we just let kids, like, here's a toy. You go play. I'm gonna do my grown up thing because I have to get my grownup thing done. And when I'm done…you know, so basically kind of separate.
And I'd say, okay, I have to do my grownup thing, which is, say, I need to do the laundry. Instead of doing the laundry in five minutes, I'll do the laundry in 15 minutes with him for the first like 30 times that I do it. And then he loses interest in it. So he may wander off and do something else. But getting the kids involved in your actual, like just slowing down and letting him get involved in what I'm actually doing is, I don't know. I think that that's something that we don't always think to do.
Annie:
Any quick enrichment ideas you can give to busy working parents like me, who want to be better at being engaged with their child? I find it hard sometimes when it's just the two of us, me and Magnolia, as she's a toddler. I mean, she's so sweet and she's so much fun. But I do often have this feeling of like, where animals that are meant to be in groups and she should be with other kids and I should have other adults around. And I actually find, I do feel like I'm more engaged and have more fun with her often when it's not just the two of us. Like when there is one other kid over or one other adult there. Whether it's my husband or a friend or whatever.
Ilana:
I agree with you. And I think that multi-generation is what a child needs around them. Like they need that child that's two years older and that's six years older and the granny and like everybody. We always wanna think, oh, they need more kids. Let's put them with more kids. And they can't really learn good social skills from a two year old who doesn't have good social skills yet, who's also learning.
You end up kind of with this, you know, you have a lot of classrooms like that, both in daycare, preschool school, where it's just a bunch of kids the same age. And they adapt to each other and they learn from each other, like they're each other's main social group, but they're learning from immature creatures, how to be mature. So I really think there's so much value in having them be in a multi-generational situation. Like if you're in a playground and you see a group, sometimes there are families like that, that are out there. I always, you know, encourage him. He kind of joins those groups.
To answer your question about a quick enrichment that you could do with a child if you’re one on one. I think the first thing to do is put your own phone away. Like truly put your phone away, disconnect completely. And then just be there, like you don't need to come up with something cool. Like they just want to connect with you. And that is, if you're looking at a modern working parent who has limited resources, you don't have a whole lot of time just being together. Then when you are, you are the enrichment. You're good. You don't need to bring any toys to the equation.
Now people are worrying so much about screen time with their toddlers. Like, “My kid watches too much TV.” Worry about your own screen time when you have your child next to you. Put your phone fully away and then just kind of “Yes, and…” them, you know, like improv. Lke they're there and they wanna climb on you. They wanna hide. Like the kids are pretty easy to play with. Like it's, it's peekaboo, it's tickles. It's pretend. Just go with the flow. And then when you're really present, you will play.
Another one of my mental mottos that I always tell myself is how can I enjoy my child today instead of “Ugh.” Like I've had mornings when I was just so exhausted, difficult nights sleep, especially when he is younger. And it's like, how do I face the day today? Like, I'm just so burnt out today. And then I would take a moment and say, okay, how can I enjoy my beautiful baby today? How can I enjoy him? And then the answer was kind of come to me. And sometimes it means cancel the plans that you made and just be there, play at home whatever that means.
Children, I think they want to be enjoyed and they need to be enjoyed. So if you're kind of, I'm doing this to be a good mom, I'm going to tick off the box of “play with child.” I need to do this. It's my duty. You, you're not gonna do as good, you're not gonna enjoy it. They're not gonna enjoy it as much as if you're like, when do enjoy my child best? Do I wanna just take him outside together? Is that something I really enjoy? How can I connect? Do I wanna have him sit on my lap and play with a book? Like find ways that you enjoy, I think.
Annie:
So sort of almost take a more selfish approach thinking about like what you will enjoy in order to bring that to your time with your kid?
Ilana:
Yeah. And some of the housework kind of started like that, where I thought, you know, I wanna be engaged, but I also really wanna have dinner ready later. So I would think about that and like, can I make this into a game? Can I make that into an activity? And I of course I'm very lucky that I'm able to stay at home with Eytan. I thought that I would only do it for a year, but because of the health situation, like I actually can't put him in a preschool at this point, not yet.
So yeah, I have all this time that someone who is a full-time working mom, especially during pandemic, you just can't. You do don't have the same amount of resources. So I think that you need to also just be patient with your own situation. You can't expect to be peaceful and baking cookies with your child when you're just barely scraping by to feed yourself with your time allotments that you have. So I know that I'm very lucky there.
Annie:
Have you worked with him then with a clicker?
Ilana:
I have. Not as much as I would want to, but I did find the clicker to be really useful when he was absolutely not verbal. Because I was, I needed to train him for, well, I didn't need to train him, but I chose to train him. He had to do an an EKG where it's not very invasive. You just take the shirt off and glue a bunch of stickers and then attach electrodes to that, while being restrained in my lap. So it's not a very challenging behavior. I found actually training the nasal spray a lot more difficult. That's why I made a blog post about how to train the nasal nasal spray with your toddler.
But I still had to do that because he was only one, and it would've been really stressful for him and it could have triggered a spell, also. “What is happening to me here?” So, I did use a clicker for that. And I'm so glad I did. And I do wanna make a point also that I barely did any training, even though I am a trainer. The day to day life just like sweeps you by like a big wave. And you're just swept by, And working on medical behaviors is not something that I, it was something I kind of put off or didn't really wanna deal with.
And yet the little bit that I did do made such a huge difference for his experience, whether it's at the dentist or the EKG, or going to the pediatrician, getting vaccinated. All those little things. The little bit of training that I did get done has given me, I think, such a big improvement in his experience that that's what kind of bring me the passion to try and create or get started creating a blog to share those methods with other parents.
Annie:
Tell me about training him for the EKG stuff.
Ilana:
Mm-hmm. I just started with restraint on the lap. And I used food. I used treats. Mini chocolate chips was a really good one. And I would kind of restrain him and let him go and restrain him, put the chocolate chip, let him go. Then he would come to me. He always came to me. If he wanted to leave, he was allowed to leave at any point.
Annie:
Mm-hmm. And did you give it some kind of cue?
Ilana:
No. No. Well, just the situational cue of being on my arms. Maybe I would tap my lap. And then I started using stickers, like easy stickers and put regular stickers. He like stickers. So I'd let him explore the stickers. And then I would put the sticker on him, and I would put a sticker and treat him, sticker, treat him, and then it was done. The EKG was mostly restraint. And then putting on, taking the shirts off, restraint, stickers, and then add slowly add to it.
And at first you could see some of the early videos. I have them all on my Instagram. If you dig back enough, you could see that the duration was shorter in the beginning. Like he couldn't do longer. And I was able to get him to be just relaxed with it.
I also used his monkey Papasange, and that we would put stickers on Papasange, and, you know, restrain Papasange. There are a lot of things that it didn't initially occur to me to do, because I'm used to animals who don't care about their stuffed animals. But yeah, I was able to do some modeling and pretend or have him do it to me. And then I do it to him. So it's mutual.
I think that children, babies they really like if you were doing something to them that is removing away their choice and removing away their freedom. Like they just, there's a natural resistance to that. So by doing it more of an interactive back and forth, you do it to me and now I do it to you, then it's okay. It's easier for them to accept it emotionally,
Annie:
The, you do it and then I do it thing is something so different and working with dogs though, isn't it?
Ilana:
It really is very different.
Annie:
What are some of your other, like, highlights of what you're calling child cooperative care, that's your website, right?
Ilana:
The toothbrushing, and teaching nasal spray. Cause it's something that kids really don't like and he really, really needed it. And now we do it every day. He needs allergy medication up his nose. So we do that every day.
Annie:
So, what are your tips on that? Because I haven't tried that with Magnolia since she was quite little, but it did not go over very well.
Ilana:
Oh yeah. Yeah. Maybe you could put in the show notes, the link to the toddler to tolerate nasal spray because I have all my tips in there. But for nasal spray, I started it out where you put the nozzle in the nose, but you don't actually spray. You're just reinforcing that, for seeing the nasal spray bottle, and then slowly approximating the nose in. And every like 10th or so insertion does result in a spray. And then yeah, you just kind of break it down, reward it.
And I also incorporated with Eytan a song. We have a song in Hebrew where with the little bunny that forgot to close the door got a cold, and now he has cold. And so he sneezes. And the moment of la-la-la-Hachiee! La-la-la-Hachie! Oh, that's so funny for an eight month old, you know, and so I would do it to myself with the nasal spray and then Hachie! And do it to his dad and do it to him. So it was a bit more of a game, like get him in that playful mood or a goofy mood. That was a good one.
And the trouble with a lot of medical things, but definitely with nasal spray, is that it, first of all, it's never fully trained because there's something inherently unpleasant about having something up your nose. And then also, I had to force. Like I didn't have, okay, here you go. You have six months or you have three weeks, whatever it is, to train this the way you would want to in an ideal world. But what if after day three, I actually have to put the nasal spray in so that he can breathe at night, that night. Cause I have to.
And so your training constantly gets sabotaged by real life coming in. And what if in the timing in between when you needed it, you just avoided doing any of the training, cause you don't wanna think about those things. You wanna have fun and go do things and, and then all of a sudden you need it the next day. That's my life. I really haven’t done the training that I want to get done.
So I just created a difference between a fun consent type of situation, versus I'm sorry, I'm going to do this to you now. So you know the difference. So I would sometimes pin him down and put the nasal sprain, cause he couldn't breathe. I had to do it. And it would was heartbreaking for me. It was hard. But then if it's a training situation, if it's a play situation. I do not force it. Absolutely not.
And I'm just, I am amazed how much it worked, even though the training wasn't good. Like the training was incomplete, and not as gradual and consensual, every step of the way, the way I would want it. It's still worked. It's still to this day worked.
I think the cooperative care, it's like a, a framework, a mental framework in general of your attitude towards parenting in general, where you are looking at the long term versus the short term. So like even if it was for a very, very small baby there, I'm always waiting to see the feedback from the baby. I'm not just doing things to you. I'm listening also.
So if I was gonna dress him, I would kind of wait for him to push his arm through himself. Or if I was interacting with him and making him laugh, I would pay attention to his eye contact. So if he was like disengaging and looking to the side for a minute, I would just wait, I would wait 10 seconds, 30 seconds. And then when he reengaged and gave me eye contact, I would continue. And that gives him control over the stimulation.
Cause sometimes we're very stimulating with our baby talk, and our “Ooh,” you know? So a baby goes from giggling to all of a sudden he's crying and you don't know why. And I could, I can see the situation like, Ooh, he gave you several cues here. He turned his head away and you continued with the, baby talk, like the intensity. And it was just too much for that baby, for example. And that, I think that is part of cooperation. It’s listening to, are you okay with this? Is this good?
Another one that you wouldn't maybe think of as cooperative care would be like tickling. Eytan loves to be tickled, but it's a fine line. Cause you could tickle torture a child or a baby. And I hate that. So I would show him I'm about to tickle him and then he puts his arm out and when he puts his arm out, I go and tickle, tickle, tickle. And if he takes arm back in, I stop. So he has full control over stopping the tickle. And if you can stop the tickle, you tolerate more of it and you get to enjoy it without that fear of overwhelm. and that's just a small example, but yeah. do you think,
Annie:
Do you plan on taking this beyond your blog, like to actually help people in their homes with their children? I mean, did you become a cooperative care professional in-home trainer?
Ilana:
I don't know. I'm kind of leaving that open. I'm not sure. I have so much stuff recorded, and pictures and things during from baby to now, but I haven't really had as much time to sit down and I feel like I have so much content that I just want to — here's what I know now. It may not be perfect. It may not be the best, but it's probably two steps ahead of someone who's pregnant right now and trying to prepare. Like I have enough, I think, value that I wish I had been able to read about.
So the first thing I think would be to just put down what's in my head into the world just to provide value that way. And then for actual training, like the sky's the limit, I mean he is only two and a half, and there's going to be a lot of situations that he still has to face. He's probably gonna have to face, you know, get more dental work. Vaccines. I need to train for that.
And there are kids out there who need really intense medical things. And there isn't that, like, I have a feeling that in five years, 10 years, you're gonna have dozens of blogs and videos that can really, really help parents who have babies, children who have to go through medical procedures, but I don't really see that exists quite yet. So I think there's a real need for that.
Cause you're so helpless when you're terrified for your little child's life or for their health. Even just for having a good night's sleep for them. Like you're so afraid for your child. And so you really defer to the doctor. And the doctors, a lot of times are very desensitized to anything that has to do with consent. Like they're really much like, get it done, get it done. I'm the professional, go with it.
And so you end up going with it, and then you feel terrible. I should have stopped that, that wasn't a, that was good. Of course that's necessary. But some things, if you are a little bit more of an empowered parent, you could say, no, I'm gonna leave this dentist, which is what I did. I did not like one dentist. And I switched to another dentist who was willing to go with my crazy ideas.
Annie:
[Laughs] What do mean?
Ilana:
So I had, Eytan had two fillings. They're not technically fillings cuz she didn't drill, but he had two cavities, probably because he's a mouth breather, especially at night. And so there's not saliva. Anyway, and I came to a dentist and I said, look, I don't want you to force him to open his mouth. Like he needs to open his mouth for you. Even if it takes a couple of visits, I'm willing to pay and come a couple of times to get him comfortable. And she just wasn't able to do it. She wasn't, she just, you could see that she's like, okay, you’re a crazy mom.
Annie:
Didn't you, I feel like I remember didn't you have some questions like that you were asking dentists before you went?
Ilana:
Yeah. And that's another thing that you, that a dog trainer would also tell you, like, if you're gonna go find a dog trainer, you have a few questions to say, okay, what if my dog does something wrong? How should, what will you do in a session? And then the answers that the trainer will give you will kind of clue you in. Do I wanna hire this person? Right?
So I called a couple of places, and at one place I asked, okay, what if my son doesn't wanna use — the dentist says open your mouth. I wanna look in your teeth. And he refuses to open his mouth and turns his head. What will the dentist do? And so she answered, the receptionist answered, well, you know, try to get him to open their mouth. But if he can't, then we'll just ask the parent to kind of like hold the child and like hold their head in place. And we'll just kind of pry their mouth open and basically force it. Which if it's an emergency, absolutely. You gotta do what you gotta do. But we're, this is just like a one year old first visit, like take a look in your mouth.
So then I called another office. This is Dr. Jen at rock pediatrics in Boulder. And the receptionist said, we know she has a really good way with children. If she can't get him to open his mouth, they'll just do a friendly visit. Then try again next time.
Annie:
And you were like, that's the right answer!
Ilana:
Thank you! Right? It's an attitude difference. I totally understand the dentist who just like, doesn't get it. And there's a very big difference between a four year old and a one year old. Because they can't express their fear. When you leave the office, they look perfectly happy go lucky. So they just got over it. You are still doing something when you are scaring a child or forcing them to do a restraint that they're just not comfortable with.
There is an impact, I think. It just depends. It really depends on the situation, but if you can do it in a way that's force free, you know, do it.
Annie:
Wen it comes to behavior in kids, of course there's like applied behavior analysts, but I think it's usually brought up more with kids when there are developmental issues with the kids and not usually thought of as just an approach to parenting that can be as natural as, you know, as breathing.
Ilana:
I think it's coming. I think it's inevitably going to come. And when you're talking about behavior science, like they're looking at, here's a behavior problem, let's fix this. Right? But I think it goes beyond pure behaviorism, like to a full whole child, kind of the way we approach a dog, right?
Like it's not, “Okay. The dog is doing a nuisance behavior. Here are ways to stop the nuisance behavior.” That's like one type of dog trainer, but you could be deeper than that. You could look at the whole picture of what's going on in the dog's life. What are their emotional needs and physical needs. Like, we always addressed that with a client too.
And the same thing with a child. Like talking about tantrums, for example, I know we're kind of digressing here, but if you're looking at toddler’s tantrums, you have basically endless numbers of triggers. You can't really train them all, you know. “I wanted the blue cup, not the yellow cup” meltdown, right that kind of thing.
Annie:
Oh, I don't know about that. [laughs]
Ilana:
[laughs] And so people are thinking like, okay, here are some tactics. When she wants the blue cup, then I'll do this, a kind of a re-direct or whatever. But like, for me, it's more like, what is the state in which little triggers make him meltdown make Eytan meltdown? And how do I avoid that to begin with?
So like sleep. I don't wake him up. I'm very good with naps. Like I make sure he gets a lot of sleep. When he doesn't have enough sleep, or when he's had to be frustrated multiple times in a row, like have to go somewhere he didn't wanna go and be told no many, many times, and he's tired. Then every little thing could be a trigger.
So I just change my schedule or cancel things, or make a point of setting him up for success in the first place so that he's well rested. He's had a lot of yeses, he has a lot of opportunities to do his natural behaviors. And then he's so much more resilient in situations that would otherwise in another state, make him meltdown and be upset, you know?
So I think that that's also a behavior, like a dog trainer's perspective on having a child, is like setting them up for success is such a big part of our training when we work with animals. And I think that really informs it. It’s more than just, okay, let's let's clicker train a behavior, let's clicker train an open mouth.
Annie:
Alright. I'm being herded by my tiny person. Can you say hi to Ilana? Can you say hi Ilana? Say hi, Ilana.
Magnolia:
Hi Ilana.
Ilana:
Hi Magnolia, hi sweetheart.
Annie:
You're such a sweetie pie. You're gonna meet Ilana soon. Ilana and Eytan are gonna come play. We're gonna hang out all the time. Right? All right. Well I love you. I'm so happy to know you and I can't wait to see you continue to be an amazing parent trainer, let's call it, to Eytan. And I can’t wait to hang out with you soon.
Ilana:
Thank you so much, Annie. I always feel like I could talk with you for hours. Thank you so much for having me.
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