Episode 231: The Social Lives of Dogs and What They Teach Us with Sindhoor Pangal

Sindhoor Pangal joins Victoria in a follow-up to her presentation at the 2026 Dog Behavior Conference to share research, observations, and practical advice for dog lovers and professionals. They explore the social health of dogs, insights from free living dogs in India, and how understanding their behavior can improve our relationships with our pets.

0:00 Introduction to Sindhoor Pangal

2:36 Insights from free living dogs in India

6:40 The impact of human influence on dog social skills

10:51 The environment and captivity's effects on dogs

17:17 The evolution of dog training and humane approaches

24:07 Humility, learning, and the importance of listening

37:24 Experiencing the present and joy with dogs

44:01 Dogs as mirrors and teachers of ourselves

57:46 Dog-to-dog communication and social learning

Transcript:

Victoria (00:00)
Welcome to the podcast. I'm here with the fabulous Sindhoor Pangal. She's been a guest on this podcast many times, but we are having her back here because again, like I said with other speakers from the Dog Behavior Conference, there were so many questions for her that she didn't have time to get to because there were too many questions. So she's here to answer many of them. don't worry if you didn't hear her at the Dog Behavior Conference.

You will still get a lot out of listening to this podcast. So Sindhoor is a canine behaviour consultant, she's a myotherapist, an anthrozoologist, and an engineer by qualification, and she researches free living dogs in Bangalore, India. Sindhoor, so glad that you can come back and join us.

Sindhoor (00:56)
I'm so happy to be here. I enjoy all my conversations with you. But like I mentioned, this one is particularly exciting for me because we get to continue the conversation. You rarely get to do it. Everything is so episodic these days that continuing a conversation really adds depth. And so it's just a testament to your commitment to generating knowledge and and I'm so grateful for it. So happy to be here.

Victoria (01:20)
Well, thank you so much for that. you were talking at the Dog Behavior Conference about the social health of dogs, examining this overlooked but critical aspect of wellbeing in our companion animals and why insights from free living dogs are essential. So for people who don't know you, w can you tell us a little first of all a little bit about you and what your focus is, what the work that you do

To help people like myself and other professionals and just general dog lovers understand free living dogs and how we can use what we learn from free living dogs to use with our dogs that are living in our homes.

Sindhoor (02:04)
Sure. I think I I find myself very blessed to be in a very privileged position in w in terms of learning about dogs from dogs, because I get to share my life and my reality with free living dogs. India is a country that has had free living dogs for the longest of time, going back many thousands of years. and so so it's an unbroken kind of history that we still get to experience.

And I live in a rural area in India w with a lot of space and the dogs really get to run around and I get to be a little detective snooping around and seeing what's going on. And so I I get to expose the hidden parts of their lives that people don't otherwise get to witness. I must say that some parts of it still remains hidden to me and that vexes me to no end. I have been trying to follow them.

To find more, find out more about what do their lives generally look like. And I think that combination of having access to that, having a thorough understanding of dog behavior and being able to read them. so it's not just following dogs making sort of nuanced observations and having the vocabulary to be able to express what I am witnessing.

I think that is the combination that is very unique to me. And that's that's kind of the privileged place that I'm in. And and and and also having access to so many professionals who want to learn about them, who want to see how they can take the lessons from there and incorporate it into different contexts, I think that's that's the added

The part of it, so so that's the constellation that I I I s have sort of inherited or have stumbled into and that is that is what I strive to bring repeatedly.

Victoria (04:08)
What I think is so wonderful about your presentations at the conference is that you show so much video. So we can see it. We can see that social the social interaction in real time. And I think that is for us we learn so much from that. So you go out with your camera. You have three dogs that live close to you.

Is it three or more?

Sindhoor (04:39)
Well, I think the right way to put it is there are three dogs who used to live here before I moved here, so I live on their land.

Victoria (04:47)
You live on their land.

Sindhoor (04:50)
And and I have my phone with me. I I I intentionally buy phones with really good cameras because I know this is what I do and and I capture these videos. And the reason I bring these videos and and I'm sure if you've seen the videos, Victoria, you've seen them and you know, and members of the audience who have

watch this talk. there are things that you notice in those videos that are distinctly different from what we see in companion dogs, in captive dogs, and in dogs in different parts of the world. And the same thing with urban India as well, the dogs that are that stay inside houses. There is such a quality of there's a difference in quality of movement, quality of presence, the way they present

To each other, this is so distinctly different. I see them being more mindful, more willful, more deliberate, more calm. But also they have and they're aware of choices. Like I said, I when I moved here, they were already here, and there was nothing here. There were no houses here, there was nothing here. So they have grown up here with complete freedom and agency. They have figured out how to survive here.

And navigate the space here very well. And that is in action. You see that in these videos. You that that's the reason why I bring these videos in to see how this looks different. And that has to strike a chord in us, right? It has to make us sit up and ask, what is different? Why is it different? What is the deeper story here? Is it possible that this is in some way indicative of.

an internal sort of well being that may be different, state of living that is different. and and these are not pleasant questions to ask and answer. Because quite honestly, when I started going down this rabbit hole, I started realizing that the more influence humans have on them, the poorer their communication skills, the poorer their social skills, the

The more dysregulated they seem to be. And this was not something that I was comfortable learning about, especially because I was learning more and more about dogs and seeing myself as more and more of an expert. And it this was not comfortable for me to watch, witness, and internalize. But that is the challenge I bring to the table. now that I've had some time to sit and lick my wounds and and feel better about this whole thing.

what I'm trying to do is bring it to an audience that I know is wants to be receptive and wants to be sensitive towards this, and to say, hey, I'm gonna sit beside you while you sort this out, but here are the difficult questions that you have to find answers to. and that is really the reason why I bring this this learning in as sensitive a way as possible, but also with as with as much humility as possible. because

It's so much of this is really very revealing about our species who I'm very much a member of. and and that is sort of my commitment to this process.

Victoria (08:13)
The issue of captivity is an awkward one. We see in where I live and I split time between Atlanta and New York City and then also London. I do a lot of work in London. So I'm living in big cities. My daily interaction is with dogs in houses.

They are confined in y in yards, gardens. They are walked most of the time, especially in Manhattan and in the US on leads. There are less dogs that need to be walked on leads in the UK, as in there are more green spaces in the UK where dogs can run off the lead. But I see a lot of issues, separation anxiety, aggressive behavior, reactive behavior.

I see dogs that have complex issues, maybe some kind of compulsive compulsive disorder, repetitive behavior, dogs that are very anxious, very stressed. That's what I'm that's kind of you know what my business has evolved into. And and I ask the question, as many are asking the question,

These seem to be people problems, they shouldn't be dog problems. And is it because, obviously, of the environment that we're bringing these essentially predators up in that results in captivity? As much as we love them and are doing what we can for them and giving them what we can in our human way, trying to understand them, trying to enrich their lives, trying to understand their needs. Yet

Essentially we are still bringing up these predators in captivity. With very little choice. We are making all the choices for them. That is awkward.

Sindhoor (10:16)
Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Yep. And it's not just awkward. I think it's it's more than that. It is showing in terms of the kind of issues that the dogs are presenting. Like you said, so many of these issues are issues that human beings themselves are presenting in growing numbers and at alarming rates, even in even in some of the wealthiest countries in the world. And I say that because

There's something that we're quite not doing right about ourselves. And so this is the compounded problem of having animals in captivity. and in addition, having these issues with our own lifestyle that we haven't sorted out, we don't know the full picture yet. We are struggling ourselves, and with this broken knowledge system that we have, we're then trying to support another species.

That's a bridge, that's a gap that we can't cross yet. And so that is where it gets very challenging. I would add a caveat here. what I see here is not as much them acting as predators, but really acting as scavengers. That's something that they do very well. and they are they're also beggars, for a lack of a better word.

so I I was noticing the other day I've been following them and going on walks and they've they've tried to hunt before my eyes several times, but they've had zero success with it. Zero. And and I'm looking at them hunter and wondering, okay, that is a very dumb move. Like you're never going to land anything with that. But having said

Victoria (12:04)
These

dogs that are supposed to they they and these have never lived inside a home, so it's not like they started in a home and now they're out and they don't know how to hunt. So I

Sindhoor (12:14)
Don't know how to hand.

Victoria (12:14)
what you're saying these dogs are s more scavengers than they are.

Sindhoor (12:18)
Scavengers,

yeah. Because while I've witnessed no success in terms of them being able to hunt, I have witnessed them on multiple occasions knowing how to scavenge, where to scavenge. They have a very good radar for where they're likely to find food. They have developed a map in their head that food is usually available where there are humans. So there's a lot of interest around where there are humans. they they actually look for things around humans.

one of the dogs here, Yaya, has also figured out which are the there are lots of orchards around here. So figured out what are the fruits that she can eat. so she she looks for very ripe fruit, which I suspect may also be turning a little alcoholic. Yeah, and and she loves those, you know, extreme I mean, this is the tropics, right? So we have extremely sweet fruit and in summer they can start fermenting.

And so sh she knows how to consume those. But the most impressive is their ability to beg. their ability and and for for them to be able to beg, they have to know that you beg from humans, and this is you build relationships, you maintain long-term relationships, and you capitalize on that. And that they're so good at. I have discovered many friends that they have made, and they go visit them.

They take the trouble to maintain their social connection with them. It's absolutely fascinating what they're doing. And so their social skills are mind-blowing. Their scavenging skills are on point. Their hunting skills are. I I don't even want to use words to describe those. They're that terrible. And the reason I bring it up is I think we should we should not think of them as wild animals that we have put in our homes. They're not wolves that we have put in our homes.

I think dogs evolved to be able to work with us. And that's the good news, right? They are so good at one thing, which is working with human beings. So there is that little part of the guilt that I park aside to say that they do belong very close to us and they can tolerate us to a great extent. They can communicate with us to a remarkable degree. And I think that is where the opportunity lies. That is where we can include them in the conversation.

see them as active agents who who can control you know the way their story unravels. and we can be part of that. We do not have to take every decision for them. There is somebody that we can consult on what is right for them and it is them. And therefore so much of what we do in my school for instance is our our logo is learning to learn from dogs because

I teach and the emphasis here is learn to read them. Learn to read the the the subtle ways in which they they communicate their needs. learn to read what are the ti learn to understand what are the the times when they are able to get in touch with their own needs and the times when they get so dysregulated that they're not able to get in touch with their own needs. And so they're taking bad judgments, bad decisions. and if we sort that kind of foundational element out, which is

Find a way to get them calmer, find a way to get them regulated and read them really well. I think part of the the puzzle starts solving itself. We may not have figured out how to live lives better to not give ourselves anxiety disorders, but they may be able to show us a way where they can do it for themselves. And in in the process, there's a lot we can learn too. So you'll see all my students repeatedly say that.

That has been their journey. and so that would really be my appeal, which is that the answers don't lie in a podcast, the answers don't lie with me or anyone else. The answers really lie with your dog. And if you're not getting it from there, the there is an unlocking that needs to happen. And that's where you need to be investing your energy and your attention to figure out why are you not getting those answers? Why are you not getting good answers? Why are you not having aha moments?

and and and and explore that, I guarantee you that there is something to figure out there.

Victoria (16:46)
So training, especially amongst I call the progressive training, right? The positive trainers. It's it seems to be entering a new wave. first of all, scientists say that we are entering a third phase of evolution with our dogs. So the first phase obviously was the dogs living in the wild, for want of a better word. The second is that they start to

Form a relationship with humans and they become very useful to humans for jobs, for and that is a great symbiotic relationship. This third phase now is where the dog is becoming more of the emotional support system, more of the companion. That is what is required of them. So that is what scientists are saying right now. Where training seems to be evolving too.

is obviously started off in the nineteen tens, nineteen twenties, very militaristic with Cola and Conrad Most. And now during the seventies, eighties, we had Karen Pryor and training became much more, for want of a better word, positive. and it started to move in a direction that we thought was better, more humane, more understanding, more understanding of their needs. And then moved into very much almost

Every aspect of their lives, they had to ask for something. The nothing in life is free. They're like, you have to sit before you get this. You have to do this before you get this. It was a very sort of transactional relationship and a one way relationship. Now we are moving into this new phase where it is very much trying to understand what confinement does to dogs, how we can train less.

And be more and like we're doing it positively with the zones approach, taking a more environmental look at the environments that we create and that the behavior problems aren't inside the dog, they're the friction between the dog and the environment. And how can we, without that traditional training of teaching them to do stuff, how can we make their experience better so that they don't

have to feel uncomfortable or over aroused or whatever it is, whatever the term you want to use. The other thing that I would say is on this journey, where certainly we are positively in VSAR, is that the labels that we've given to dogs of being reactive dogs I think have done a a huge disservice. And it seems like are we on the right path? That's my question to you.

If an if animals now are becoming more of our companions, they are fulfilling an emotional role in our lives, can we serve them the best by understanding their experience and trying to make the environment we create around them better without just putting too much on them?

Sindhoor (19:58)
Yeah. I I I think it's it's it's both without putting too much on them and too much on ourselves, because I think part of the problem is so so so the whole hierarchy of control is an interesting one, right? The more we feel controlled, the more we want to control what's sort of in the world around us. And so I see so many people and I think this may be true for parenting. I'm not a parent, but

I see similarities when I talk to my friends who are parents. there is this extraordinary pressure on people on the right way of doing things, and that it's a it's so it's a reflection of who you are, how perfect you are and how responsible you are. There's some kind of a social scorecard in our minds that is slapped on our backs and follows us everywhere. And we feel s and and

People who are learning about dogs will probably be so much of your audience and mine are people who absolutely are invested in knowing more. And we do f for those of us who have been wanting to learn more about dogs, I think we've picked up a very bad habit along the way, which is to take extraordinary pride in our expertise. and that is kind of a it's it's a double-edged thing.

Thing, right? No, not even a double edge. It's a trap. It's a trap that we we are walking into. Because if we want to take so much pride in our expertise, that has to show in a way so much of the outrage that we express towards people who know differently from us, who know less than us, who we perceive know less than us, so much of that outrage is just a nasty trap for ourselves.

If you're going to wag your finger at somebody and say, hey, you've got it all wrong, somewhere you're taking on the pressure to say, but I've got it all right. And in order to show that, now comes the huge pressure that you have taken on. And now you need to control your dog every movement so that you get this perfectly orchestrated, perfectly curated. not just behavior, but a way of existing. This dog has to.

exist in this perfect way, just so pristine and and and and textbook like because we have to demonstrate to the world that hey, you know, I know better than you and that gives me the right to, you know, point my finger at you and say, well, you've got it all wrong. So I I think giving yourself freedom from that way of thinking, giving yourself freedom to say, I don't have to see myself as an expert. I'm learning because I like learning.

That's a different thing. But I don't have to see myself an as an expert. I don't have to prove myself as an expert. I think has really been a game changer for me. And so then what with what authority do I then go in and say, hey, I can help you if I'm not an expert? So that's really where it gets interesting. And this is the mind shift or the the a paradigm shift that I'm kind of pushing for, which is

The expertise that we need is to be able to listen to the dog. I don't know. I'm not an expert, but I am pretty damn good at slowing down and paying attention and translating what the dog is saying to you. And you and you are, at the end of the day, the actor. You are the person who's going to be creating the space for the dog or the client or whoever.

And so I do not undermine you and your expertise because you know how to live with your dog. You know, I am an expert in knowing how to live with my partner. Nobody else is. I am the expert on how I can live well with my partner. Nobody else is me. Nobody else is with my partner. I think that recognition that they are experts in their own rights. And then the dogs themselves. I think another nasty habit that we have picked up.

Somewhere around the the the the whole introduction of operant conditioning is reducing animals to machines and applying sort of machine learning kind of concepts to control them. And in the process, and it's not the control that I think is the problem, it's it's the the thought process, reducing them to machine like beings that are incapable of any form of decision making.

incapable of any deliberation. there's no concept of animal intelligence, animal wisdom, any and I know it's changing now, but you know, these kind of phrases, if I had spoken about them 10 years ago, you know very well that you know I would just have been dismissed of as somebody who's cuckoo, right? Like absolutely.

Victoria (24:58)
A hundred percent. Yeah. Absolutely.

Sindhoor (25:01)
Yeah. So I think this is this is the turn. This is the sort of animal cognition or animal wisdom turn where we're beginning to slowly accept that yes, they may know things that we don't know. You know, and and and and I'll give you a simple story for that. and this is why I like doing the podcast because they can throw in stories.

So Chaita and Itti and Nyaya are the dogs here that I share my life with. Chaita as the mother, Itti and Yaya are the daughters. And I saw them having they found some dead animal that they were trying to eat. And I was like, No, no, no, you shouldn't eat the animal. Come back in and I'm trying to tempt them in. I'm worried that, you know, these animals outside can carry disease or be poisoned and so on and so forth. And and the dogs come in, but they have this look on their face that says, You know, we're gonna go right out and eat it, right? Like

You know, we're gonna do this anyways. And then Chaita has this look on her face that says, You know, I I survived before you arrived. I was a bag of bones, but I still survived. I gave birth to two and I kept them alive and I've taught them life lessons. I have done better than you. I know this place better than you. I know this landscape better than you. In fact, I have things to teach you. She knows what are the venomous snakes that you do not go near.

What are the non-venomous snakes that they can go and entertain themselves with and harass? They there is a rat's non-venomous rat snake here, and they have a blast harassing the snake. And I feel bad for the snake, but I think that's just me. but the point is, now that I I mean I go for walks now, and there are paths that are a little iffy, and I watch the dogs to say, you know, if they are looking cautious, I'm going to be cautious. I'm going to back off. So I'm.

I am using them to navigate the space. I'm using their wisdom to navigate the space. That is the mental space I'd like people to start getting into, which is there are things that your dog knows, particularly about things that matter to them and their internal state, their in interoceptive input, their their you know, how how their insides feel, how their mind feels, how their body feels, all of that. There

They are custodians of something that we do not know and don't have access to. And we will never get access to it if we do not recognize that that exists. They may not be expressing it yet, and that may be either because they are not regulated enough to feel it and express it. Their relationship with you is not at a point where they are able to express it, their expression has not been received in the past, or

We've not gotten good enough yet to read it. It could be any of this. Most of this is very uncomfortable when I talk to people and I say, Well, that could be what's going on. I get a pushback saying, No, I know my dog very well. Well, you know what? If you start from there, there's nowhere to go. Because there is no way to know the internal state of another being. You don't know your dog that well, you don't know your partner that well. Heck, most of us don't know ourselves that well. That is the bottom line.

Having a little bit of humility to say there is room for things that I don't know and I need to pay attention and get, you know, and if I pay enough attention and if I have enough humility, I will be gifted some additional knowledge that I didn't have access to. And you have to wait for that gift. Those are things that I think modern way of living have taken away from us. We've gotten very, very arrogant with ourselves that we don't want to think like this. We don't want to have

The humility to wait for the gift. We don't, we are unwilling to say that some things may not be under our control. It's scary for us to think that some things may not be under our control. But that is that is the shift that I'm thinking of, which is let go of the pressure that you are putting on yourselves. You've trapped yourselves in this, in this whole space. Let it go. Surprising things will start revealing to you.

Victoria (29:05)
When I st looked at dogs, began looking at dogs in a different way, because yes, they are our greatest teachers. It did open up a whole new world to me. And for the first time I was really looking at them. Not what I had to do with them. Not at not what I had what clients expected of me to do with them, to fix them, to make them better.

To stop them barking, to stop them jumping, to stop, stop, stop. It was all, you know, with people that do have dogs that are having these behaviours, they are embarrassed, they are scared, they are worried, they are nervous, and they just want the behaviour to stop. So you spend your life trying to stop animals doing something, reframing that, obviously understanding the why of it.

And reframing it and helping people understand what that dog particularly needs and learning from that dog. Yes. And Sarah Fisher said, dogs are our greatest teachers. There's no better teacher than our dogs. But you're right, Sindhoor, because we are so and and living both in Europe for until I was 30 and then moving to America after that, even in these two different cultures, we speak the same language, but they're very different cultures. I I could see that.

certainly sort of the the American culture of you go to school and you go to high school and then you go to university and that is your path. And then at university you go out, you get your job. I mean it's pressure, pressure, pressure, pressure. You apply to 15 s colleges, that that's the certain path. I thought this is crazy. In Europe, you know, you apply to five, but you don't have to go to college if you don't want to. There's other professions that you can do.

And by the way, when it gets to five o'clock, we're stopping work and we're going to the pub and we're gonna drink and we're gonna socialize. And there's there was there was in just and I'm talking about my own experience, right? There was two very different ways of living life, and I could see that one was had its drawbacks, but seemed to embrace life a bit more and embrace community, and the other just created pressure. You have to succeed.

You have to be this, you have to make money, you have to be the best. You have to be in control. And and I can absolutely see that, you know, that causes people is not good for their mental health. and it's causing disease. It's causing illness. So and I know there's obviously other factors, but it it is a harsh realization to

To see that the way you're living life is putting so much pressure on, well, I've got to do better. I've got to see succeed more. I've got to make more and and because if not, then I'm not relevant. And I think a lot of people, especially here in the United States, think that because that's what they are bought up to think.

Sindhoor (32:19)
Yeah. Yeah.

Victoria (32:20)
To be something, they have to have lots of followers on social media. They have to be, there are lots of likes. They ha they have to be that.

When really life is not about that.

Sindhoor (32:30)
Yeah. Yeah. So there are a few interesting kind of phrases to think about and and and the way we deal with things. So so of course there is pressure of of working a lot. I know American culture encourages very a lot of hard work and that in itself is seen as great value. And now we're beginning to learn, you know, the way it's pressuring our nervous system, the way it's stressing our nervous system.

But there are a lot of other associated issues. For instance, community. Now, community, you know, you said you stop work at five and you go spend time with friends and community. We are social beings. And this is something that I did touch upon in my talk as well. A big part of being social beings is that we thrive within societies. We thrive within social structures that include people. And one of that happens to be that we are very adept and very good at

Co-regulation. So when we are stressed out, being in the company of others, not partying, but help where others are helping us co-regulate and and the way we talk, talk it out, you know, it might be it might take the form of gossip, it might take the form of you know venting session. The all of these have been kind of demonized with with sort of loading these words with value.

But at the end of the day, what they were is or or even just hanging out, you know. I I mentioned this, the sense of belonging that can come from just sitting and grooming each other. It could be painting each other's nails. I you know, in the villages here we see the women sit and braid each other's hair. and many cultures have this where they're sort of in there are practices of grooming each other, of sharing stories. And what we don't realize is in doing so, we are helping each other regulate.

And we have gotten rid of that through all of these kind of language that we use and and and and being discouraged to to engage in these as being seen as bad. But I think it's time to and that was what I was hoping would happen with with the conversation that we had about during the conference, which is when we look at animals and they're doing it, it's worth thinking about, okay, if they're doing it.

Should we not be doing the same? Should we not be considering reintroducing some of these concepts in? And so that's an interesting way of learning where I'm not giving you an idea that you go and then say, How do I do this with my dog? No, a better way to do this is can I observe this in other animals? And how do I do this for myself? How do I actually try this out, taste this, see how it feels, see where the tensions are, see what I struggle with, see what I benefit from.

And when I internalize it this way, I'm able to apply it for dogs. And that's really the full journey of it. So don't do this in a hurry. It's never gonna happen. Don't look for steps and say, I will put it into practice for my dogs. How can you do that? If your own social circle is completely broken, how on earth can you appreciate what another living being needs? Communication is about empathy. You look at a dog, the dog says, Hey, I need to do this.

But if you haven't recognized your need to do the same thing, you're never going to really understand the value of what the dog is asking. I need to do this, or understand what the dog is even asking. And then there is the other aspect of it, which I think you also mentioned, you know, we need to achieve things. So being very goal-oriented, and I think that's another huge stressor that we have taken upon ourselves and translated it to our dogs and the interaction that we have with our dogs.

So when we interact with our dogs, we're I I I encourage my students to do this. Don't make it performative, make it experiential. You're not out to show this. You know, please put that camera away. Please put your social media away. Take yourself off the world's gaze and allow yourself to just experience it. And do you experience joy? If you're not, there's something going wrong. So start experiencing the wonderful moments of it away from the eyes of the others.

So that you're doing it in private and have the non-judgmental space, a safe space that you've created for you and your dog to exist and slowly learn things. And don't make it goal-oriented. Don't have a set of things. I need to achieve this. A lot of people who come through my doors come in with you know, a dog that is biting, and you know, they say, you know, we've been trying this method for so many weeks and so many months, and you know, but but the dog's still not better. You know, that's never gonna happen because.

If you're going to continue to remain goal-oriented, if your eyes are on the prize constantly, that's where you want to be, what are you doing in the process? You're missing out the now. And if you miss out the now, a relational approach to handling dogs will never kick in. If you're not going to learn to experience the now with your dog and allow the dog to experience the joy of that, the release of pressure, you're going to be if you are bottled up and and cooking like a pressure cooker.

wanting that, you know, that end goal, you are transferring that pressure over to the dog. The dog is dysregulated. This is never going to fix itself. So you have to let that go. It's it's like I talk about with my late husband, my relationship with him. I carry a lot of anxiety. I have an anxiety disorder. I carry issues with me. But he never waited for me to be the perfect version of me or, you know, some social version of me. He enjoyed

The broken, messed up version of me, that was, you know, there was still something extremely enjoyable, no matter how broken this other individual is, and no matter how broken I am, there is something that we can enjoy here in this mess. And if we don't do that, what's the point? I mean, I lost him, he passed away, and I would have never had great memories if we were just waiting for me to.

You know, or him to become this perfect version of each other. And I think that's the same thing, same space we need to create for our animals and for our dogs, which is you know, stop wanting the dog. You know, how do I fix the dog? No. How do I enjoy the dog now? That's the question we need to be asking, right? And I think when we start thinking in this way, how do I and the the enjoying of the dog?

It's not just the company and the touch and and the the feeding or you know I so so that's the other thing, right? Like what are the things that you enjoy with your dog? Right? Make a list of that. So many people don't have too much of it outside of public life. They don't know. Do you know how to enjoy food with your dog? Do you know how to enjoy touch with your dog? Do you know how to enjoy presence with your dog? Do you know how to co-regulate with your dog? These are things that you have to ask and answer for yourselves.

And in addition to all of this, there is another beautiful aspect that dogs bring in. They hold a mirror up to us. So there are things that we can learn about our mental health, our social health, our emotional health, that dogs can can be very, they can be very uninhibited about this. They can tell you the truth about these things that you can then turn around and say, okay, they're not colored by society. So they're giving you something more raw and fundamental.

That you can then say, okay, maybe, maybe we I am like that too. Maybe I should ask that about myself. Now that is where the journey gets remarkable and beautiful. And if you're not if you're not there and you're not enjoying it, that's that's really where you need to be.

Victoria (40:22)
I'll be back with Sindhoor Pangal after this message. We will continue this incredible conversation and finally I will get to your questions. Okay, we'll be back in a second.

I'm back with Sindhoor Pengal. This is just the most incredible conversation. Each time I talk to you, Sindhoor, my mind is a enriched, but also just going to like, where can I be better? What can I do to improve? and and this is just it's given me so many, even now, you know, and I've been doing this for so long, even now I get enriched and excited about

the prospect of being able to stay curious, understand more, and be more what my dogs want me to be. I don't have dogs right now, the moment. but when I do, eventually. Yeah. But as a teacher, it just it's very enriching. okay, so I'm getting to these questions. One of the questions was

Many pet dogs in dense urban environments like New York City have limited opportunities for free social interaction. In my work I empathise I emphasize increasing the dog's agency in everyday life. Would you consider agency a meaningful component of social health or even a partial substitute for sociability in these contexts?

Sindhoor (41:55)
So agency is everything. It's it's not a component, it is the underlying thing that makes everything else happen. So I think that's the right track and that has to be the foundation for everything. It's only when they have agency when they can be active agents of their life, we get to know about their internal state. And they're not they're not going to send you a text or a report or a PDF saying, you know, this is what I need, right?

So it's only when they have agency and through their actions, their actions are communication. Behavior is communication. So by behaving in a certain way, by acting in a certain way, they are giving you a wealth of information. So absolutely, agency is what we need. But having said that, I understand that there are limitations of living in certain spaces. urban India is also extremely dense. The cities here are just chaotic and and it's it's we're living on top of each other.

But but that does not mean that we we can't you know at least meet these needs partially. So understanding them, internalizing them and having these conversations matter. A great example of that is re just today I was having a conversation with one of my students who's working with a dog in a shelter in India. Shelters in India are just horrible, horrible places. And there was a dog.

Kept in a cage for two years and not let out of that cage for the last two years because he was considered very dangerous and everybody is just terrified. And she went to meet him and she sent me a video of the first meeting with him. And he's just running around her looking, you know, left and right, and absolutely she was like, Where is the danger? You know, this is the first time I'm meeting, I've not done any work, I've not done any training.

This is my first meeting with a dog that nobody he was a he's a Doberman. So you know people are terrified of this dog. And so much of the work was just figuring out how do you give agency to a dog in a shelter there where there is no space, where there are no resources. She was ambushed into working with this dog. She didn't go there with the intention of meeting this dog, she went there for something else. So she said, you know, I had nothing on me, I had nothing prepared, no script.

No tools, no treats, nothing. I just walked in and I observed the dog. I walked up and down, I observed the dog. I felt the dog was ready. I let the dog out. And I'm just observing what the dog is terrified of and reacting to that and giving space. Now, just in the act of letting the dog out of the cage and allowing him to walk up and down, you've g restored a little bit of agency. And while he was doing that, he noticed another dog.

In another corner of the canal. And my my student was telling me that I realized that there is a potential for a friendship there.

Victoria (44:59)
Huh.

Sindhoor (45:00)
Right? And so she's trying to figure out how do I slowly start introducing them because if he's going to be confined to the shelter for life, let him at least have a friend.

Now, you see, even in the most impoverished and tight space and absolutely no resources, she managed to find a way to infuse a little sense of belonging, a little social interaction. and that's really how easy it can be if you're paying attention to it. So be in that moment and there is some powerful things that can start emerging, and agency is everything.

Victoria (45:45)
Thank you so much for your answer on that. do here's the next one. Do non-free living dogs still recognize the social cues and engage in respectful disagreements? So you can you tell us a little bit about your free living dogs respectfully disagreeing with each other? What you notice, what that is, and can we allow our

domestic dogs to respectfully disagree with each other or with us.

Sindhoor (46:19)
Yeah, yeah. so dogs are social beings. Now what does that mean? It means fundamentally that their ability for sociality is is inherent in them. but again, a very bad habit that a lot of animal professionals have is that when we talk about inherent ability, we get very hung up on what comes down with the genes, we forget.

That there's an ontological aspect to behaviors, which is things that you learn. so so we human beings, an example of this is we human beings inherently have the ability for language. We that this is in our genes, we inherit it, but we don't inherit language itself. You're not born speaking English. If you're born, if you're born to a mother or a father who's English speaking, you are not speaking English the second

You're born, that isn't there. You have the ability for language. That is what you're born with, which means you have the ability to learn and pick up language. That machinery is in you. But the learning needs to happen too. And the combination of it is what results in language at the end of the day. And the use of it, the repeated use of it, and the repeated refinement of it is what gives you proficiency in language. It's the same mechanism that we're going to see in dogs.

They have the tools. They have not lost it. It's very much there in every single dog. But what they have been missing is the learning opportunity, which you can recreate. And the more they learn, the more they use it, the more proficient they're going to get at this language the language of disagreement, the language of agreement, the language of love, collaboration, negotiation, and all of that. But

if they haven't had the opportunity to learn early and they're learning late, it may be some form of stunted learning. It may be that they struggle with certain aspects of it, but they are extremely resilient animals. They are extremely resilient animals. So they they will learn in their context. The context that applies to me, if I am meeting only A, B, and C dogs in these three contexts, I may not be very good at communicating with all the dogs, but

I can start getting good at communicating with these three dogs. That is something that they can pick up. And those opportunities are what we can create for them. How do we safely give them opportunities to meet the same set of individuals repeatedly so that they pick up skill and confidence? This is something that I talk about repeatedly when it comes to socializing dogs, which is that it is not about meeting a hundred dogs.

It's not about, you know, go meet this dog and and not rapid and it's not about perfect behavior. It's about meeting in a safe space, slowly, repeatedly the same set of dogs, so that over multiple meetings, they're learning to negotiate that space with each other, which happens b through communication. And so they pick up that skill.

Victoria (49:29)
So when you're so when dogs respectfully disagree with each other, what does that mean? What does that look like with your free living dogs?

Sindhoor (49:37)
So this can take many different forms. There's a lot of communication that can happen. It could be a little growl that happens. It could be a little showing of the teeth that happens. And what I find with and what I mean by respectful is it's never excessive. what can be achieved with just a showing of the teeth does not have to escalate to a bite. I don't have to go from, you know, zero to a hundred miles in like a snap of a second. I'm able to say what I have to say with just a growl.

And on the other side, the recipient is able to receive that. They're not tone-deaf to it. They're able to see that and recognize it and say, All right, I'm gonna give you a wide birth here, I'm gonna walk away, I'm gonna curve away. So the ability to communicate elegantly with little, and the ability to respect the need for space and say, Okay, I can negotiate that. I want that too, but you want that too, but we're going to negotiate. I think that is

That is that is really what I mean by respectful.

Victoria (50:37)
So when your dog has a little growl at you or shows their teeth at you, we in our society we're gonna tell them I don't do this, but I say thank you. I got it. Thank you for communicating. So I don't know exactly what it is yet. I think I have an idea, but I got you. but people inherently kind of wanna say no.

stop or punish them. Yeah. And a certain, you know, certain types of trainers will punish.

So how can we how can we help people understand living with their domestic dogs that this is important feedback?

Sindhoor (51:25)
Yeah. Yeah.

Victoria (51:28)
Insulted

by it or punished back.

Sindhoor (51:31)
Yeah. Don't personalize it, right? Don't personalize it. This is a boundary, their own boundary that they're expressing. There's no need for you to make it about yourself, your ego. You know, the dog is not not putting you down in some way. They're expressing something that they are struggling with, a boundary that they have, and they're expressing it at a point where it is healthy to be expressed. And when we talk about respect, this is what it is. They get to say no to us.

They get to say, no, I don't want to do that. I don't like this. And that doesn't have to we don't have to be so insecure about our place in our house that we don't we can't handle a no. It's okay. It's still your house. You're the you you you know, you're the boss of this house, you're running it. You don't lose your status in any way. You just because somebody said, Hey, no, I don't want to do that.

So I think being comfortable in your skin to say, okay, you are allowed to say no. And I I usually say sorry if that happens, because you know, I should have known better and I didn't. But also, my my late husband used to say something really nice. He would say, I feel very proud of myself when the dog does that because I know that I have made myself

Such a safe space for the dog that the dog has the courage to say no. The dog that I had. Yeah, exactly. Right. So Tiru, the dog that we adopted, she came from a shelter and she was so shut down with the horrible experiences that she had that she didn't know how to say no for a very long time. So when she started saying no, he took such pride in it because he was like, you know, I made her feel comfortable enough with me.

That she has now started to say, No, my girl's gotten sassy. That's what he said.

Victoria (53:22)
There's a little confidence in that sassiness. Yeah. They're now knowing their own mind and they have that freedom to be able to express it. It's like with kids as well, who are so controlled and dominated and have to do X, Y, and Z all the time, you know? And when they grow up into teenagers, or even when they're younger, and they're like, Yeah, yeah, sometimes you have to go, well, sorry, mate, because you've got to do this right now. There's no other. So and sometimes, yeah, it can be

But but a a lot of the times when when your kid first of all s tells you, no. okay, instead of reacting back of like, How dare you? You little three year old, maybe just take a second and try and try and understand why.

And don't take it personally. I really love that. I don't think I think so many people take things personally that their dogs do. But okay. thank you for that answer. right. I was always taught this is another question, not to let dogs correct each other in play or not let puppies do that whilst they're socializing. What are your thoughts on allowing dog-to-dog communication purposes and social learning purposes

For your for dogs when they are with each other to correct each other.

Sindhoor (54:48)
So first thing is I think these blanket rules are highly problematic because these are social beings and you're gonna see variation. And I think the trick to really looking at if if you want a new perspective and a new way of doing things, then you have to be flexible about things. And you need to say, I might be surprised by what comes out of this situation and I'm I'm I'm secure enough in myself to be able to handle that and not be thrown by it. So there are no golden rules, right?

having said that, especially amongst captive and pet dogs and companion dogs, I think there is a huge problem in that we don't have great role model dogs. The dogs that I mean, they have not had a chance to to learn from good dogs. So they're not necessarily not every dog is going to be able to teach other dogs great social skills and and mentor them. And so I think there is value in looking for

the right kind of mentor dog, especially when you start these this kind of work, is what are the dogs that have the natural temperament to be great mentors? They're, you know, they're very gentle with the way they teach. Nishi was, you know, this painting on the back it was Nishi. She was very good at this. She was she had this extraordinary patience around puppies and puppies would just be all over her and she had

Such a great mom energy. She was so tolerant. And and that's the negotiated space, right? That you were talking about. It comes back to that question when kids say, Hey, no, I want to do this. You know, at some point, sometimes we have to draw a boundary and say, sorry, buddy, you gotta do this. But there are a lot of times we don't have to. We can say, I'm so glad that you you said no. It's I mean, this conversation happens a lot, especially around bringing up girls in India now, right?

With mothers, parents learning to teach girls to say it's okay to say no, because if you learn this within my house, you will learn it in the world outside. So I'm proud of you that you said no. So this is also something valuable. And no, and a good parent is one who knows how to strike that balance. And that's the same thing that we need in a mentor dog. A mentor dog, a good mentor dog is one who knows how to strike that balance. Be permissive enough.

But at the same time, know when to negotiate and say, sorry, that's a boundary that I have to draw, but I'm drawing it gently without scarring you for life, without terrifying you. It's just a gentle boundary that I'm going to draw. So I think the first step would be to look for dogs like that and look for opportunities where more dogs can learn from that and they can become mentors in the future. So I'm doing the series of workshops with with Latin America right now, and we were having similar conversations there.

And I said, you know, so much of what we do is about interconnectedness, and so is the learning. The kind of lessons I teach are not lessons for individuals to carry as badges. This is not it. These lessons only become powerful if they're learned collectively. So what we need to do, especially people in Europe and the and the US who don't necessarily have access to mentor dogs, is you have to collectively build that. You have to build it with one two, you know.

One dog mentor dog teaches mentors five dogs. Next generation, you have, you know, at least three mentor dogs. From there, you have 15 mentor dogs. This is it's a generational collective thing that you have to build together. It is not knowledge that you an individual can take and start applying it and feel great about themselves. And if you do this together, I think it becomes far more powerful. So you have to you have to get out of your bubble and talk to people.

Victoria (58:38)
Lovely, thank you so much. okay. Do these free living dogs have any natural predators? And what is the lifespan of free living dogs versus our pet dogs? So in India, do they have predators? What are those predators predators, sorry, and how how long do they normally live?

Sindhoor (59:03)
so it shouldn't come as a surprise. The the largest fatality for free living dogs is comes from humans. It's simple. Megafauna, we are we are the biggest threat to them. Seventy percent of free living dog mortality comes from human beings. It's anthropogenic. how long they live is hugely dependent on the care they receive. So dogs

Street dogs who have caregivers who, you know, give them medical intervention when required. I have known of dogs telling me that their dogs, they have 20 year old dogs, 25 year old dogs, which is shocking. that and and given that they are on they can eat anything on the road, they are on a limited budget most of the time. They're not necessarily getting access to the most expensive stuff. They are very hardy dogs.

They're meant to be. They survive for a reason. and so their lifespan can go that high. But like I said, it can be very low as well. Seventy percent of puppy mortality is anthropogenic. So they die very seventy percent of the puppies that are born don't even make it.

Victoria (1:00:19)
into adulthood. Wow. Okay. Yeah, we are the biggest threat, aren't we? We're pretty much the biggest threat to everything. But Yeah. Okay. There you showed videos of splitting. and somebody said, well A, number one, what is splitting? For people who didn't come to the D B C. But do you have to have three dogs in order to split an escalation? Can there be more than one or multiple multiple dogs? So first of all, what is splitting? And

Do you have to have three dogs in order to split an escalation?

Sindhoor (1:00:53)
Yeah. Splitting is a terminology that I've seen used by Turi Droogas in her book where she talks about communication between dogs. basically dogs dog communication is embodied communication. They use their bodies to communicate. And so when they are trying to de-escalate tension between two individuals, they put their body on the line between the two.

so it could be getting the dogs to calm down or getting the dogs to disengage from each other. And so the videos that I showed were examples of two dogs getting very hyperactive and there was a third dog walking in between to say, okay, guys, break this up enough already. and I think I had multiple examples of those. And that can happen with it's not just with dogs. I've seen the dogs do that to humans too. How many people come and report, you know,

I used to have clients with, you know, young couples who are like, you know, if we're sitting on the couch together and we're getting a little too cozy with each other and then the dog comes in between and they're very worried about this, like, you know, what is going on? Why does the dog want to participate in what we're doing on the couch? No, the dog isn't part trying to participate. The dog is simply trying to reduce the tension by splitting because he's a little worried about the tension that he's witnessing and proximity when when two individuals get too close, that can they can

preemptively try to split too because that kind of proximity can be problematic. Having said that, if there are multiple dogs, like many, many dogs, that is almost always a recipe for disaster. I would never put dogs in a situation where there are many, many dogs. Even here with free living dogs, three is a crowd, more than three, and it starts getting the whole situation is getting a little out of hand. By the time you reach five, it is really out of hand.

And and with dogs that are urban dogs who have not seen those numbers can't if they're not extremely socially adept, that those numbers are a disaster. It's like children, right? If you have enough children in a room, suddenly they're playing and then suddenly one starts crying and then all of them are crying. They're they're not able to you know, we're emotions are very contagious among social beings. So it can turn into something like a mob. And so we

with with more and more dogs that contagious emotions can get like it can really escalate and spiral out of control. And then you will not see things like splitting. And an effort to split is also misread. Communication is misunderstood if the individuals are dysregulated. And it's true of human beings, it's true of language, it's true of dogs. and so splitting can turn what looks like splitting can end up resulting in a massive fight.

and so y you may have seen it, but you may have seen it in the wrong flavour of it and simply not recognized it for what it is or what it can be.

Victoria (1:03:43)
Okay, thank you. All right, this is going to be the last question. well everyone says you need to have a television series, which I absolutely agree with. and do you know of a resource that has a twenty four seven webcam on street dogs?

Sindhoor (1:04:00)
No, not really. And that would be very hard to do because it's they're not like they stay put in a certain place. and in a country like India, best of luck having webcams and not getting stolen. in fact, even yeah, I mean, these are practical. So so when I was studying these dogs and I first started studying, somebody said, Why don't you put a GPS collar on them? they are extremely good at taking the collars off. And I have seen these dogs.

So, you know, they feel so encumbered by the collars, they hate it, especially the three of mine. I've not managed to keep even a single ribbon on them. They take it off. And I have seen these dogs go up to other human beings, go show their neck and say, Hey, you want a shiny collar? Why don't you take this one off my neck and keep it? And so they recruit human beings into their effort to take the collars off. So using equipment like this.

And imagine there's a little device there on top of it. They literally go sell it, right? Like they earn their freedom back. You know, you take this fancy gadget, sell it and make some money, and I get my freedom in return. You, you want to try this? So it's just brilliant what they do. So so no, that's not that's not I've not seen anybody pull that off. the best I have seen is us bringing bits and pieces of it like this, and we try to piece it together.

Victoria (1:05:23)
Sindhoor, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us. If people want to get in contact with you, learn more, I know you have courses, you have a great book. How how would they do that?

Sindhoor (1:05:37)
best way to do it would be our website. That's a great starting point, www.box.com, b-harc s dot com. So our courses are there. There's a free course that you can enroll and try it out and see if you like the way we do things and start learning from there. There's also a book, Dognos is my book. I don't know how easily available it is in all parts of the world. I think there's a Kindle edition if you want.

we are on social media, on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook, but fair warning, I'm not very good at those and I have a blog as well. I'm a little better with my blog

Victoria (1:06:12)
Yeah.

Sindhoor (1:06:14)
So so so yeah, the blog may be the better way to go, but my courses would be the best way to go because I that's really where I give all my heart and soul.

Victoria (1:06:23)
Lindor, thank you so much for joining us.

Sindhoor (1:06:26)
My pleasure. Thank you so much for inviting me.

Victoria (1:06:29)
And thanks everybody for listening. I hope that you got out a a lot out of this podcast. Even if you didn't come to the the Dog Behavior Conference, I mean this is why you should, because you have incredible speakers like Sindhoor giving you amazing information. That truly does change the way that you view the dogs in your own life. Take care everybody and I'll see you on another podcast.