In this Training Without Conflict® Podcast, I sit down with Dr. Ori Stollar, also known as Dr. Orion on YouTube, a veterinarian and board-certified veterinary behaviorist specialist. (Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists).Dr. Orion and I connected after he publicly responded to my critiques of the widespread use of SSRIs in dogs. To his credit, he agreed to come on the show for an open conversation.We cover big questions in this episode: • Is the “chemical imbalance” theory real science or outdated marketing? • Are SSRIs really making dogs better, or just easier to live with? • What’s the role of medication vs. training in resolving behavior problems?Whether you’re a trainer, a veterinarian, or a dog owner trying to make sense of the growing push for pharmaceuticals, you need to hear both sides.Enjoy listening . Share if you liked it or if it challenges what you’ve been toldFor more information about Dr. Orion, check out: https://www.youtube.com/@UC3eNQ33_H6sub78yVa1-6PwIvan Balabanov is a 2-time World Champion dog trainer, Ot Vitosha Malinois breeder, trainer of Premier Protection Dogs and founder of the revolutionary Training Without Conflict® dog training system.For more information about Ivan Balabanov's Dog Training School and information on how to train your dog using the Training Without Conflict® system, check out: https://trainingwithoutconflict.comhttps://malinois.comhttps://premierprotectiondogs.comPlease like, comment, and share with your dog friends💪🏼
Chapter 1: What is the main topic of this episode?
All right, everybody, welcome to Training Without Conflict, podcast number 59. Today we're going to have a conversation that I think is very important for the dog training and veterinary behavior communities. And it's kind of overdue. There is a lot of confusion, a lot of strong opinions, and frankly, a lot of marketing surrounding the use of psychiatric medications in dogs, especially the SSRIs.
My guest today is someone who has been very vocal on the other side of this conversation. And I think it's important to give both perspectives a real chance to be heard and challenged. I'm joined by Dr. Ori Stoller, also known as Dr. Orion on YouTube. He's a veterinarian and veterinary behavior specialist, a diplomat of American College, a veterinary behaviorist.
We connected after I posted some critiques about the overuse of SSRI in dogs and how they actually work. Ori responded publicly and to his credit. He agreed to come and have a direct and respectful conversation. So first of all, Ori, thank you for being here.
Chapter 2: Who is Dr. Orion and what is his background?
Before we jump into the meat of the conversation, can you give the audience a little bit about your background, how you became into the veterinary behaviors and what got you in dogs and all that good stuff?
Yeah, so first, allow me to thank you for having me on, you know, it's probably going to be a different audience that I usually talk to. And but you know, it's good. It's I think it's good for the exposure that everyone learns on. I don't even want to call it the other side, right? I mean, we all we're all actually all in the same field. So we try to understand each other.
But yes, so as you mentioned, I am a veterinary behavior specialist. We can talk a little bit later on what it actually means and what you need to do to become a behavior specialist. But I think like many other people in the field of behavior, either training or the veterinary side of things, It usually starts with one of your own pets, right?
So I had a dog that actually, because of medical issues, also basically led me into veterinary to begin with. And, you know, it was like one thing led to another. Because of her behavior issues, I started... learning a lot about behavior. I started with kind of what everyone does, YouTube, TV, a lot of Cesar Millan and all of that.
But the older that I got, I also learned that there's an actually field in veterinary medicine, kind of like in human medicine, right? We have psychiatry in human medicine, so we have the veterinary behavior field. in veterinary medicine. And because of all the behavior problems that my dog had, I got into the field after many years. And yeah, that's where I am nowadays.
Great. Great. Man, we have so much to talk and you're right. It's not the other side of the aisle. We just have different takes. We see things, we have disagreements and some are pretty strong. I highly doubt that we're going to convince each other today of anything. Yeah, probably not. Correct. But what we can do is we can at least present
the different sides and allow people to make their choices and hopefully do some research on their own. And if that's of interest, right? Because it's not everybody's dish. So how do you see, what is the connection between dog training and veterinary behaviorists?
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Chapter 3: What is the connection between dog training and veterinary behaviorists?
So as far as I know, and I can, you know, I can definitely speak for myself and speak for colleagues that I'm much more familiar with. I don't know every single Veterinary Behaviorist out there or more specifically Behavior Specialist, Veterinary Behavior Specialist, and maybe we should make this distinction between the terminology. Yes, please. Because I do think it's important.
A veterinary behaviorist is kind of like a more, or a behaviorist in general, right? It's a more general definition. I know that some will use that terminology for people with a PhD and not necessarily veterinarians, even if their PhD was about veterinary or animal behavior, but they're not veterinarians.
I think many years ago, the late Dr. Sophia Yin said that a behaviorist is either a diplomat of something like the American College of Veterinary Behavior, so a specialist. There's also a European and an Australian college. There are different colleges around the world. or is someone that is kind of like a PhD in the field.
But everyone technically, as far as I know, legally can say that they're a behaviorist. Even a dog trainer can say that he is a behaviorist.
Oh, even a dog trainer was just going to say that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, because, you know, we all do behavior.
To some extent.
So we can say we're behaviorists. Yeah, no problem. Behavior specialists, or sorry, specifically veterinary behavior specialists, the only people that can use that term And it's a law, right? I mean, it's something that if someone is calling himself a veterinary behavior specialist and he's not, he's actually doing something against the law.
Those are only people that did a residency, studied and treated dogs for usually a minimum of three years and a minimum of something like 400 dogs that they treated. And of course, submitted, published a paper, a scientific paper, and case reports and pass the very long and hard test and only they are allowed to call themselves veterinary behaviorist.
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Chapter 4: How do SSRIs affect dogs?
Yeah, one of the most influenced people, board director. just looked at my Facebook or whatever social media. It's like, I don't think we can work together simply because... And I started, I didn't hide, of course. I mean, there's nothing, I'm not ashamed of who I am and what I do. I can argue with anybody that I love dogs and I'm passionate and I would do anything.
We just don't agree on certain things, but that's fine. But when I approached them, it was... very honest, I am like, this is who I am, this is what I do, but I'm willing, I want to help this dog, and I'm willing to do, like, exactly by, like, no, you will have no better client than me because I will do it exactly how you want. It's good for my experience. I want to experience that sight, for one,
And of course, if we're going to help the dog, why not? I mean, why not, right? I mean, that's the goal. That's what we all want. That was upsetting that didn't work out. Eventually, I have worked with local specialists again and, you know, Pretty good. But it's not the norm. There is a thing about, well, if you're using a Versaf, we cannot work with you. It lingers always around.
I mean, I'm not sure. I never did a survey, right? So I can't say that for sure. I mean, I can tell you that, again, most of the... behavior specialists that I know will not send away someone just because he's working with a trainer that works in a specific way. They might try to educate because again, even me, I'm saying that
my preference is the reward-based training, is the force-free training, positive reinforcement, whatever you want to call it. Yeah, that's my preference as well. But we try to educate. We try to see what works best and how we can actually be on the same page. I do admit that if I get a dog, again, let's say an example of an aggressive dog,
and he's fearful and that's the cause for the aggression and the owners are very adamant about shocking him every time he growls for example it concerns me because you know let's let's say kind of for a second i'm going to jump to something that we're going to discuss a bit later but let's say the dog we also thought that the dog needs some sort of
medication, some sort of behavioral medication, psychoactive medication, I want the owners to think that that's the treatment that it's like a magic drug that's going to fix everything. And because the behavior modification part, the environmental management is in most cases, so much more important than using those psycho psychoactive medications. And if
I have someone that does something that I really like, training wise that doing something that I really think is gonna basically prevent us from reaching correct. It was probably not a resolution and improvement of the problematic behavior. then not because I'm mad at them or anything like that, just because I think you're not the end result. Correct. Exactly.
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Chapter 5: Is the 'chemical imbalance' theory valid?
And it's going to be the way a waste of their time, a waste of their money. And then they're going to end up maybe even upset about me and might start saying, you see, we told you that that medication is BS medications don't work. Yeah, they don't. Again, it's not like a magic thing, right? It's not like a one and done. So
Yeah, even if it's the best, and it's the right medication, if we don't do the rest of the stuff correctly, not we're not going to get results. And that's very important to know about using medications.
Yeah, no, I'm very, very, very well put here. Okay, Ori, let's... I guess we can really start with pretty much with your reply to what I said on my channel as far as the difference of... For anybody that hasn't seen this, we will put links to those.
But in a nutshell, I was just saying that I do appreciate veterinary behaviorists, but there is a certain line that one industry knows more than the other. And I do have problems with SSRIs in particular in psychotropic and in mind altering medications. And so then Ori made a, I made a,
funny cartoon and of course it's a cartoon and i hope you understand that but there is even though it's a cartoon just like any comedy there is actually a lot of truth in it and what i mean by truth is my truth and you disagree with that and that's kind of how we came to talk about it and yes and so in your explanation and i really kind of
You know, I really appreciated how you did it, because I felt like you were talking, like you genuinely were talking to me. And I don't know if that was the case. But anyway, it was different for me. It was cool. Yeah, it was.
I mean, you did write there at the end that you would like to discuss it with someone who knows. Hopefully I am that someone. That's why also we're doing this.
So let's go, the first thing, and maybe not the first that you said, but one of the important things that you brought in is that the SSRIs bring serotonin level to normal and make the brain work normally. Yes. So my question that I hopefully we can unpack somehow is, Where is the scientific definition of what is a normal serotonin level in dogs or in humans?
Let's start there. It's a good question. I hope, because I'm trying to just pull out the studies from my head. Technically, we don't have tons of studies in animals. Usually, a lot of what we... deal with is kind of like used from the human side of things. But you mentioned Dr. Ilana Reisner, which is also a behavior specialist.
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