Podcasts about karen pryor academy

In our third installment of the "Navigating the Dog Training Industry" series, we talk about how to find a trainer who is aligned with your ethics and values and has the necessary expertise to help you with your dog's struggles. Jesse and Verena are diving into training styles, certifications, and cutting through marketing strategies - so that you can do what's right for your dog. Our shoutout goes to the Karen Pryor Academy. We would appreciate your support for the Reward Your Dog Podcast by liking, rating, reviewing, and sharing. It helps us so much! You can also:Join the RYDP Patreon (no paywalls unless you *want* to subscribe)Buy us a coffeeMore info on Reward Your Dog Training can be found here:WebsiteBlue SkyFacebookInstagramMentioned in this episode:Enrollment for the Urban Dog Reactivity Online Program now open!Learn more at www.rewardyourdogtraining.com/udrop

The animal and behavior training world lost a true revolutionary recently with the passing of Karen Pryor. Prolific writer, scientist, trainer, lecturer, and business woman with an entertainer's spirit, she changed the exotic and domestic animal training world forever with her ever popular book, Don't Shoot the Dog. She followed up her writing successes with the launch of Clicker Training and legions of trainers, students and fans, workshops, Karen Pryor Academy, and much much more by advancing the use of those mechanical behavioral markers and reward-based operant conditioning across the globe.  Her longtime friend and colleague, Terry Ryan of Legacy Canine, shares her earliest memories of meeting, traveling, learning from, and working with Karen for decades. Animal Care Software 

Karen Pryor was a pioneer in modern positive reinforcement animal training practices. She was a mentor to thousands of trainers, whether they met her in person or just knew of her from her dozens of books, courses, and programs. If you know clicker training, you have Karen to thank. Karen passed away at the age of 92 on January 4, 2025. She will be greatly missed but her legacy will live on with every person who takes on the mantle of caring for animals. I'm honoring Karen today with a discussion of her book On Behavior, a collection of essays and articles from her decades of teaching others the way of positive reinforcement training. Listen to related Zoo-notables: Don't Shoot the Dog and Lads Before the Wind Want a copy of Karen's books? Check out Karen Pryor Academy. Connect with other animal trainers at ClickerExpo (January 24-25 online)

Send us a textBark! Fest gets off to a tail-wagging start with a conversation with one of the world's top dog trainers. Jean Donaldson's seminal book The Culture Clash reframed how we think about dogs and has inspired generations of dog trainers to use (or switch to) reward-based methods. Join us to talk about all things dog training, including positive reinforcement, fearful dogs, and education for dog owners and trainers alike.This recording is of a panel at Bark! Fest, the book festival for animal lovers, that took place in September 2024. Bark! Fest was organized to celebrate the launch of Zazie Todd's third book, Bark! The Science of Helping Your Anxious, Fearful, or Reactive Dog. Bark!.All of the Bark! Fest books are available from good bookstores, including from Bookshop (which supports independent bookstores): https://bookshop.org/lists/bark-fest-the-book-festival-for-animal-loversWe talked about:why Jean wrote her book The Culture Clashwhat the Transparency Challenge is and why it's so important for dog trainers to answer these questionsher advice to someone who is struggling with their dog's behaviourwhat is distinctive about the Academy for Dog Trainersa writing tipher favourite thing that's changed in the world of dog training over the yearsand she answered lots of questions from the audienceResources mentioned:Transparency in dog training https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=987644334623619 The Academy for Dog Trainers https://www.academyfordogtrainers.com/Find a PPG professional https://www.petprofessionalguild.com/find-a-ppg-professional/ Karen Pryor Academy https://karenpryoracademy.com/Victoria Stilwell Academy https://www.vsdogtrainingacademy.com/ The Great Courses Dog Training 101 https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/dog-training-101 The ultimate dog training tip https://www.companionanimalpsychology.com/2017/04/the-ultimate-dog-training-tip.html (Companion Animal Psychology)Emily Priestley Wild at Heart Dog Training and her book, Urban Sheepdog https://wildatheartdogs.com/ (see also our recent podcast with Emily, https://www.companionanimalpsychology.com/2024/11/what-you-need-to-know-about-herding.html )Cooperative Paws by Veronica Sanchez https://cooperativepaws.com/ More about Jean Donaldson: https://www.academyfordogAbout the co-hosts: Kristi Benson is an honours graduate of the prestigious Academy for Dog Trainers and has her PCBC-A from the Pet Professional Accreditation Board. She lives in beautiful northern British Columbia, where she helps dog guardians through online teaching and consultations. Kristi is on staff at the Academy for Dog Trainers, helping to shape the next generation of canine professionals. Kristi's dogs are rescue sled dogs, mostly retired and thoroughly enjoying a good snooze in front of the woodstove. Kristi Benson's website Facebook Zazie Todd, PhD, is the award-winning author of Wag: The Science of Making Your Dog Happy and Purr: The Science of Making Your Cat Happy. She is the creator of the popular blog, Companion Animal Psychology, and also has a column at Psychology Today. Todd lives in Maple Ridge, BC, with her husband, one dog, and one cat. Facebook Instagram BlueSky

Juliana DeWillems is a Certified Dog Trainer and Dog Behavior Consultant, and the owner of JW Dog Training in the Washington, D.C. area. She also serves as a Karen Pryor Academy faculty member, teaching trainers about the principles of behavior science and clicker training. When she is not training private clients or teaching her KPA students, Juliana works with brands and media outlets to educate the public about dog training and behavior. In the spirit of educating dog guardians, Juliana is the author of the book Manage It! Hacks for Improving Your Dog's Behavior. Legal Disclaimer: This podcast is intended for educational purposes only and does not constitute advice or professional services by either the host nor any of the guests.  www.jwdogtraining.com instagram.com/jwdogtraining https://www.dogwise.com/manage-it-hacks-for-improving-your-dogs-behavior/ If you want to work with me, Susan Light, you can find me at: www.doggydojopodcast.com The music was written by Mac Light, you can find him at: www.maclightsongwriter.com If you like the show, please Subscribe, Rate, Review, and Share to help others find the show! I'll see you in two weeks with a brand new episode of the Doggy Dojo!

In this episode, we are excited to welcome Rose Browne, a highly esteemed Karen Pryor Academy Certified Training Partner, Fear-Free Certified professional, and founder of Dynamic Canines. With over two decades of experience in canine behavior and development, Rose shares her journey and passion for helping dogs and their owners thrive. What You'll Discover in This Episode: Rose's philosophy on early intervention and the importance of addressing a puppy's emotional well-being from the start. Her innovative approach to integrating the latest scientific research in animal behavior into practical, everyday training for pet owners. The development and significance of the the new Puppy Start Right for Instructors Online Preschool, which Rose authored for the Karen Pryor Academy [the online integrative component for the original Puppy Start Right Preschool for Instructors]. Personal stories from Rose's experiences with her German Shepherds and how they shaped her understanding of canine behavior. How Rose continues to evolve as a lifelong student in the field, and her commitment to transferring her knowledge to others. Why This Episode Is a Must-Listen: Rose Browne's deep understanding of canine behavior and her commitment to positive, science-based training methods make this episode a treasure trove of insights for anyone interested in dog training. Whether you're a new puppy parent or a seasoned trainer, Rose's experiences and strategies offer valuable lessons on creating a harmonious relationship with your canine companion. Engage With Us: If Rose's story resonates with you, or if you have your own experiences to share, we'd love to hear from you. Subscribe to our podcast, share this episode with your network, and join our dedicated membership for more insightful discussions. Looking Ahead: Don't miss part two of our conversation with Rose Browne, where we dive deeper into her experiences and explore more advanced topics in dog training and behavior. Check out Rose Browne's website and get in touch here >>> https://www.dynamiccanines.ca/

Join Marissa Martino interview Juliana DeWillams of JW Dog Training talk about the critical skill of behavior management. Juliana and Marissa define management, share some examples of what active and passive management strategies look like with your dog, and how these strategies can help support your dog's behavior and your relationship.  Juliana is the Owner and Head Trainer at JW Dog Training. She has been training dogs since 2014 after she graduated with distinction from the Karen Pryor Academy. Juliana enjoys applying her knowledge of canine behavior and the science of learning when working closely with pet parents to improve their dog's behavior. Watching the training plan strengthen the bond between owner and dog -- whether it's a puppy, adolescent, or adult dog-- is her favorite part of the job. You can regularly catch Juliana on TV, radio, and online programs. She has shared her dog training expertise on WTOP and Good Day DC, and she was a regular guest on The Pet Show with Dr. Katy for many years.  Juliana currently co-hosts the Live from The Ranch online broadcast with Ken Ramirez. She has also provided quarterly free seminars and webinars for dog owners through the non-profit Your Dog's Friend.

Join Laura Cassiday and Joanna Wachowiak-Finlaison as they chat and chuckle with Laura Monaco Torelli about cooperative care with cats! Laura Monaco Torelli is the founder of Animal Behavior Training Concepts in Chicago, Illinois. Her career began in 1991 with Chicago's Shedd Aquarium, where she was part of the animal care team for beluga whales, dolphins, sea otters, seals, river otters, and penguins. After nearly a decade at the Shedd, she moved on to the San Diego Zoo and then Brookfield Zoo as a lead supervisory trainer. During her time in the zoo community, Laura worked with a wide variety of species, including primates, large cats, birds of prey, horses, parrots, tree kangaroos, giraffes, red pandas, and dogs.  Laura is a faculty instructor of Karen Pryor Academy for Animal Training & Behavior and serves as a teaching assistant for Dr. Susan G. Friedman's Living & Learning with Animals online course. She has presented at professional conferences and taught seminars across the United States, Italy, Sweden, United Kingdom, Singapore, Japan, and Caribbean. She has been an invited speaker for numerous conferences that include the American Veterinary Medical Association Convention, Midwest Veterinary Conference, Penn Vet Working Dog Conference, ClickerExpo, and the Aggression in Dogs Conference.  Laura has appeared on various broadcast media, including FOX 32, WGN, NBC 5 news, WGN Radio with Steve Dale, and WCIU's You & Me This Morning. She contributed training video content for the Fear Free Professional Trainer Certification program and the Karen Pryor Academy Better Vet Visits online course.

Join Tabitha and Dr. Linda Randall for part two of a two-part series, as they delve into the complex relationship between behavior and pain in animals. They highlight the importance of addressing both behavioral and medical aspects of animal care. This episode emphasizes the value of reinforcing client efforts, building trust, and the crucial role of communication and empathy in veterinary practice. Additionally, Tabitha and Dr. Randall explore pain management strategies, the importance of comprehensive diagnostics, and the benefits of a multimodal approach to animal welfare. Tune in for an insightful discussion on enhancing the quality of life for animals and supporting their caregivers.Linda Randall, DVM, is a certified professional dog trainer. She is committed to understanding the behavior of dogs and helping them and their people in the areas of dog sports and behavior. As a veterinarian, she focuses on the roles of physical and mental health in dogs and how these affect the ways in which they behave. Her passion is working with children and youth, as she has found that the skills they develop when working with their dogs can make a positive impact on how they move through the world and interact with others.Linda is certified through The Karen Pryor Academy and is a Level 3 certified TAG Teach trainer. She is an active member of the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants and the Animal Training Academy. She is an internationally sought presenter and has contributed to numerous professional training events, podcasts, and publications including One Mind Dogs, The Bitey End of the Dog, The Lemonade Conference, and the Association of Professional Dog Trainers annual conference. Her focus has been on the role of trauma-informed / trauma-assumed care in animals and people, Race, Positive Reinforcement, and Kids, and using Positive Reinforcement in the Juvenile Justice System. Linda is committed to continuing her education and regularly attends courses, conferences, and events to stay current on the latest advances in animal behavior, training, and veterinary medicine.Linda believes experience is a good teacher, and her many experiences in life have helped her understand how compassion, generosity, and a gentle sense of humor can help us navigate the world and create a positive impact on those around us.  She is committed to the community at One Smart Dog and supporting her exciting, experienced team of trainers as they deliver exceptional skills and service to people and their pets. Support LindaOne Smart Dog - Positive, Professional, Proven - Exceptional Dog TrainingOne Smart Dog on FaceBookOne Smart Dog on InstagramSupport Tabitha's work via social media: TikTok: @behaviorvettech Facebook and Instagram Support the podcast via social media: X: https://twitter.com/TailsFromRVT FB: https://www.facebook.com/TailsFromAVetTechPodcast IG: https://www.instagram.com/tailsfromavettech

Join Tabitha and Dr. Linda Randall in the first part of a two-part series exploring the complex relationship between behavior and pain in animals. They delve into trigger stacking and its impact on behavior, stress the importance of understanding pain's complexity, advocate for observing behavioral changes, discuss collaborative pain management approaches, and share strategies for addressing abnormal behaviors and chronic pain while dispelling common pain myths.Episode Resources: AAHA Pain Management Guidelines Toolkit2022 AAHA Pain Management Guidelines for Dogs and CatsWorld Small Veterinary Animals AssociationLinda Randall, DVM, is a certified professional dog trainer. She is committed to understanding the behavior of dogs and helping them and their people in the areas of dog sports and behavior. As a veterinarian, she focuses on the roles of physical and mental health in dogs and how these affect the ways in which they behave. Her passion is working with children and youth, as she has found that the skills they develop when working with their dogs can make a positive impact on how they move through the world and interact with others.Linda is certified through The Karen Pryor Academy and is a Level 3 certified TAG Teach trainer. She is an active member of the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants and the Animal Training Academy. She is an internationally sought presenter and has contributed to numerous professional training events, podcasts, and publications including One Mind Dogs, The Bitey End of the Dog, The Lemonade Conference, and the Association of Professional Dog Trainers annual conference. Her focus has been on the role of trauma-informed / trauma-assumed care in animals and people, Race, Positive Reinforcement, and Kids, and using Positive Reinforcement in the Juvenile Justice System. Linda is committed to continuing her education and regularly attends courses, conferences, and events to stay current on the latest advances in animal behavior, training, and veterinary medicine.Linda believes experience is a good teacher, and her many experiences in life have helped her understand how compassion, generosity, and a gentle sense of humor can help us navigate the world and create a positive impact on those around us.  She is committed to the community at One Smart Dog and supporting her exciting, experienced team of trainers as they deliver exceptional skills and service to people and their pets. Support LindaOne Smart Dog - Positive, Professional, Proven - Exceptional Dog TrainingOne Smart Dog on FaceBookOne Smart Dog on InstagramSupport Tabitha's work via social media: TikTok: @behaviorvettech Facebook and Instagram Support the podcast via social media: X: https://twitter.com/TailsFromRVT FB: https://www.facebook.com/TailsFromAVetTechPodcast IG: https://www.instagram.com/tailsfromavettech

In this episode of the Making Ripples podcast, we are delighted to welcome Robin Horemans, the owner of Parrot SOS, to share her expertise and passion for avian behavior and training. Robin has dedicated her career to improving the lives of pet bird owners and their feathered companions by providing quality education materials that enhance communication and bonding. Robin's journey began in 1998 at the Hagen's Avicultural Research Institute (HARI), and over the years, she has accumulated a wealth of knowledge and certifications, including being a Certified Parrot Behavior Consultant with the IAABC, a Certified Professional Bird Trainer with the IATCB, and a Certified Training Partner with the Karen Pryor Academy. She is also an Accredited Dog Trainer with IAABC. In this episode, Robin shares her fascinating story of growing up with animals, her early experiences with budgies, and her academic pursuit of a degree in biology. She discusses the challenges and rewards of working with birds, the importance of foundation skills in bird training, and how these skills can prevent behavioral issues and rehoming. Robin also delves into the specifics of her training methodology, including her innovative approach to online classes and private consultations, which have broadened her reach and impact. Robin's dedication to evidence-based behavior change shines through as she describes her work with both pet and foster birds, highlighting her problem-solving strategies and the unique needs of avian companions. This episode is packed with valuable insights for bird owners and trainers alike, emphasizing the importance of positive reinforcement and continuous learning. Join us as Robin Horemans shares her journey, expertise, and practical tips for building stronger relationships with your pet birds. Whether you are a seasoned bird owner or new to the avian world, this episode offers a wealth of knowledge and inspiration. Links Website >>> https://parrotsos.com FaceBook >>> http://facebook.com/parrotsos Instagram >>> https://www.instagram.com/ParrotSOS TikTok >>> https://www.tiktok.com/@parrotsos YouTube >>> https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZ_47iXLrXXdiyEWAMcF2Gw

Today's Topic:  When you adequately prepare your dog for a visit to the vet, it can reduce stress for all parties (dog, dog parent(s) & vet staff) and contribute to an overall smoother experience at the vet.But what is the best way to prepare, and how do you know you're doing all that you can to make the vet experience as positive as possible for your dog?That's why we invited the founder of Animal Behavior Training Concepts in Chicago, Illinois, Laura Monaco Torelli, to the podcast to discuss the differences between husbandry training and cooperative care, how dog parents can better advocate for their dogs at the vet clinic, specific proactive training tips to help your dog remain calm during vet visits, her advice on preparing dogs for common procedures like blood draws, vaccines, and nail trims, and so much more!Guest Bio: Laura Monaco Torelli is the founder of Animal Behavior Training Concepts in Chicago, Illinois. Her career began in 1991 with Chicago's Shedd Aquarium, where she was part of the animal care team for beluga whales, dolphins, sea otters, seals, river otters, and penguins. After nearly a decade at the Shedd, she moved on to the San Diego Zoo and then Brookfield Zoo as a lead supervisory trainer. During her time in the zoo community, Laura worked with a wide variety of species, including primates, large cats, birds of prey, horses, parrots, tree kangaroos, giraffes, red pandas, and dogs.Laura is a faculty instructor of Karen Pryor Academy for Animal Training & Behavior, and serves as a Teaching Assistant for Dr. Susan G. Friedman's Living & Learning with Animals online course. She has been an invited speaker for numerous conferences that include the American Veterinary Medical Association Convention, Midwest Veterinary Conference, Penn Vet Working Dog Conference, ClickerExpo, and the Aggression in Dogs Conference. Connect With Laura Monaco Torelli:WebsiteFacebookInstagramYouTubeOther Resources Mentioned In The Episode:Julie Benson (Made artwork on behalf of Laura's dog, Santino)Living & Learning with Animals: A Super Short Course in the Science and Practice of Behavior Change by Dr. Susan G. FriedmanLaura's Appearance on The Bitey End Of The Dog PodcastThe Spectrum of Fear, Anxiety and Stress - Fear Free WebsiteLow Stress Handling® University CE Online Courses 

In this episode, Victoria discusses the fascinating subject of "Functional Characters" with Heather Stevens.Heather Stevens is the author of "Beyond the Breed - the new way to know and understand your dog" and runs workshops around the UK on canine functional characters. She is also a registered Animal Training Instructor with the Animal Behaviour Training Council, a Certified Training Partner with the Karen Pryor Academy, and an accredited member of the Canine and Feline Behaviour Association.Heather set up her 5-star dog daycare, CentreBarks, in Richmond, North Yorkshire in April 2016 after more than 30 years of running dog training classes. She is a Reiki Master, and a Volunteer Assessor and Trainer for both Dog AID and Wag & Co.With a L3 diploma from the Academy of Canine Holistic Science in Canine Nutrition, Heather now specialises in how diet affects behaviour in dogs. Heather's contact details are:Email: woof@beyondthebreed.co.ukWebsite: www.BeyondtheBreed.co.ukFaceBook: @Beyond.the.Breed

Lynn Sehnert of Lance and Lili Photography covering the Washington, D.C., area takes the mic today and interviews Jessey Scheip, a licensed veterinary technician with a specialty in behavior. Jessey also has training certification from the Karen Pryor Academy and has worked with Dr. Amy Pike of the Animal Behavior Wellness Center in Fairfax, Virginia. That's where Lynn met Jessey, looking for help with her sweet boy Lance. Jessey enjoys teaching pet guardians how to understand their pets and how to use behavior principles to ensure they grow together and live their best lives together. Today, Lynn and Jessey have an in-depth discussion about canine cognitive disorder. What to listen for How Jessey fills a void between veterinary behaviorists and standard trainers What symptoms should pet guardians watch for to notice CCD Why pet guardians should track their pets' health changes Treatment options for canine cognitive dysfunction When to decide it's time to say goodbye Where to find Jessey Mindful Mentor Behavior Consulting Facebook Other episodes you may find interesting The Art of Balancing Behavior Issues, part 1, with Dr. Kyle Bohland The Art of Balancing Behavior Issues, part 2, with Dr. Kyle Bohland The Art of Aging Gracefully with Dr. Dennis Wormald --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/onelastnetwork/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/onelastnetwork/support

In this episode of our podcast, we sit down with Andre Yeu, a visionary in the dog training arena, whose journey from tech entrepreneur to a leading figure in animal training is both inspiring and instructive. As the founder of "When Hounds Fly Dog Training" and a distinguished faculty member at the Karen Pryor Academy, Andre brings a wealth of experience and insight into the world of positive reinforcement training. Andre opens up about his transition from a career in technology to launching a successful dog training business. This episode explores the challenges and triumphs of Andre's entrepreneurial journey, including his initial struggles in sales, his bold leap into entrepreneurship, and the eventual establishment of his dog training academy, "When Hounds Fly." His commitment to ethical training methods and his dedication to providing quality education for both dogs and their trainers helping to set a high standard in the industry. Listeners will be treated to Andre's personal stories, including his life with his partner Hyedie Hashimoto, and their shared passion for rescuing animals. He shares the touching story of their rescue dog, Duke, and the challenges they faced in adapting to life with a hunting dog. These experiences have deeply influenced Andre's understanding of dog behavior and training, enriching his approach to teaching and animal care. This episode also delves into the technical aspects of dog training, with Andre discussing the importance of classical conditioning, counter conditioning, and the simplification of training plans to achieve effective results. His insights provide invaluable lessons for trainers of all levels. Andre's journey from "Sales to Dog Training" is a testament to the power of resilience, innovation, and a profound love for animals. His story is not just about the success of "When Hounds Fly" but about the transformative impact of positive reinforcement training on the lives of countless dogs and their owners. Links - whenhoundsfly.com Instagram >>> https://www.instagram.com/whenhoundsfly TikTok >>> https://www.tiktok.com/@whenhoundsfly YouTube >>> https://www.youtube.com/@whenhoundsflyonline Links - Andre Yeu Linkedin >>> https://ca.linkedin.com/in/andreyeu Instagram >>> https://www.instagram.com/andre_yeu TikTok >>> https://www.tiktok.com/@andre_yeu/ Facebook >>> https://www.facebook.com/andreyeu

In this episode of our podcast, we sit down with Andre Yeu, a visionary in the dog training arena, whose journey from tech entrepreneur to a leading figure in animal training is both inspiring and instructive. As the founder of "When Hounds Fly Dog Training" and a distinguished faculty member at the Karen Pryor Academy, Andre brings a wealth of experience and insight into the world of positive reinforcement training. Andre opens up about his transition from a career in technology to launching a successful dog training business. This episode explores the challenges and triumphs of Andre's entrepreneurial journey, including his initial struggles in sales, his bold leap into entrepreneurship, and the eventual establishment of his dog training academy, "When Hounds Fly." His commitment to ethical training methods and his dedication to providing quality education for both dogs and their trainers helping to set a high standard in the industry. Listeners will be treated to Andre's personal stories, including his life with his partner Hyedie Hashimoto, and their shared passion for rescuing animals. He shares the touching story of their rescue dog, Duke, and the challenges they faced in adapting to life with a hunting dog. These experiences have deeply influenced Andre's understanding of dog behavior and training, enriching his approach to teaching and animal care. This episode also delves into the technical aspects of dog training, with Andre discussing the importance of classical conditioning, counter conditioning, and the simplification of training plans to achieve effective results. His insights provide invaluable lessons for trainers of all levels. Andre's journey from "Sales to Dog Training" is a testament to the power of resilience, innovation, and a profound love for animals. His story is not just about the success of "When Hounds Fly" but about the transformative impact of positive reinforcement training on the lives of countless dogs and their owners. Links - whenhoundsfly.com Instagram >>> https://www.instagram.com/whenhoundsfly TikTok >>> https://www.tiktok.com/@whenhoundsfly YouTube >>> https://www.youtube.com/@whenhoundsflyonline Links - Andre Yeu Linkedin >>> https://ca.linkedin.com/in/andreyeu Instagram >>> https://www.instagram.com/andre_yeu TikTok >>> https://www.tiktok.com/@andre_yeu/ Facebook >>> https://www.facebook.com/andreyeu

Dans ce nouvel épisode, je suis ravie de vous partager ma conversation avec Camila Richardt. Camila est consultante en comportement canin pour Camidogs, diplomée de la Karen Pryor Academy. Dans cette discussion, elle nous raconte son parcours avec Bella et comment les difficultés qu'elle a rencontré avec elle l'ont amené à devenir l'une des meilleures professionnelles de l'entrainement du chien qu'il m'ait été donné de cotoyer. Des bases de l'apprentissage, aux erreurs à éviter, en passant par l'apprentissage sans erreur et l'importance d'oser se lancer, vous saurez tout, ou presque de l'entrainement du chien.⭐ Soutien ce podcast en lui donnant de la force sur Tipeee ! Tu y trouveras de chouettes contreparties dont un super Ebook sur la balade avec son chien : https://fr.tipeee.com/la-niche-aventure ⭐

In this episode, Dr. Marsha Penner delves into the neuroscience behind impulse control, why adolescent dogs notoriously struggle with it, and what we can do about it. We discuss:How reconnecting with her Native American heritage reaffirmed the way she works with animalsDifferent types of impulse controlHow adolescent brains developFinding more compassion and patience for the unruly adolescent dogHow trust can improve impulse controlDr. Penner's bio:Dr. Marsha Penner is a behavioral neuroscientist, certified dog trainer (KPA-CTP), and owner of Learning to Dog Training & Enrichment. Marsha worked as a research scientist and award winning professor, focusing her attention on learning, memory, and effective teaching strategies. She turned her love of learning, behavior, and teaching into a full time career as a professional dog trainer after graduating from the the Karen Pryor Academy for Animal Training and Behavior in 2015. She is a proud Anishinaabe Kwe from Treaty One, but currently lives in Durham, NC with her husband and two dogs.Links:https://learningtodog.com/https://www.marshapenner.com/A collection of studies analyzing impulse control - this is really cool for those who want to dive deeper!https://saverezdogs.com/Asher L, England GCW, Sommerville R, Harvey ND. 2020. Teenage dogs? Evidence for adolescent-phase conflict behaviour and an association between attachment to humans and pubertal timing in the domestic dog. Biology Letters. 16: 20200097. Contact Behavior Vets tweet us @BehaviorVets follow us on Facebook email us at nyc@behaviorvets.com follow us on Instagram Online courses Webinars and seminars

The Business Side of Dog Training In this engaging episode, host Andre interviews a distinguished figure in the dog training industry. The guest shares his remarkable journey, beginning as a first-time dog owner at the age of 27, who transitioned into a pioneering dog trainer and entrepreneur. Raised in an immigrant family that discouraged pet ownership, his interest in dog training was ignited when he and his partner adopted a challenging ex-hunting beagle. This experience led him to explore various training methodologies, finding success with positive reinforcement techniques. The conversation explores the guest's shift from the tech industry to dog training during the 2008-2009 economic downturn, driven by his passion for addressing behavioral issues in dogs. He emphasizes the importance of proper training and early intervention in managing aggressive behaviors. The guest also discusses his educational journey through programs like the Karen Pryor Academy and his approach to building a successful dog training business. He stresses the significance of taking small, calculated steps in business growth, rather than making risky leaps. By 2021, his business expanded to multiple locations in Toronto, offering services from puppy classes to advanced agility training. The guest attributes his success to an analytical approach, continuous learning, and the willingness to adapt and grow from failures. This episode is a valuable resource for both aspiring and experienced dog trainers, showcasing the transformative power of passion, perseverance, and strategic thinking in turning a love for dogs into a thriving business.For more information email info@whenhoundsfly.com

What do you do when life happens? The fact is, things happen that are out of our control, and our only roll is in how we respond. When running a business, we set policies that match the flexibility many clients need, or adapt to their requests if we want. In our personal lives, we respond by stepping up and showing our true character. Jessica and Chris Milam, owners of Fur Services Fur Pets, discuss what it means to live a life full of the right amount of crazy, love, and passion. Main topics: Setting yourself apart Customer centric Taking on a leadership role Growing their family Main takeaway: Running a client centric company means meeting them where they are, but not trying to change them into something they're not. About our guests: Jessica founded Fur Services Fur Pets in 2013 with a desire to combine her pet care experience and her exceptional customer-driven mindset to create a personal mission to build a Customer-Centric Pet Care Company that focuses on quality over profit margins.  Her passion focuses on building a team of excellent Pet Companions that provide worry-free pet care for wag-worthy results.Jessica has 20 years in the pet care industry and holds a CPPS Certification from PSI and a Pet Sitter Certification through NAPPS.Jessica began attending conferences starting with the Texas Pet Sitters Conference in 2017 and has attended each year since.  She has also attended The NAPPS and PSI annual conferences since 2017.Jessica currently sits on the board of the Texas Pet Sitters Association and co-organizes their annual conference.Chris has 14 years in the pet industry and joined Fur Services Fur pets in 2015; going full-time in 2016.  Chris is the team lead and head trainer for the Fur Services Fur Pets team.  He is currently taking courses with the Karen Pryor Academy to become a Positive Reinforcement Dog Trainer.Chris has been attending the Texas Pet Sitting Conference since 2017 and has attended both NAPPS and PSI conferences since then.Both Jessica and Chris are Pet CPR/First Aid Certified, have completed all levels of FetchFind Pet Industry Training, are Elite Fear Free Certified and have undergone FBI Fingerprinting and Background Checks.Together, Jessica and Chris adopted a sibling set of human children in 2022 and have a menagerie of pets including a rescued street dog named Penelope, four rescued cats: Iris, Calliope, Cowboy and Cruella, two ball pythons; Nagini and Sully and a few fish in a freshwater tank.Chris and Jessica are also the proud owners of SignGypsies Aubrey, a yard greeting company dedicated to spreading joy and celebration through custom-curated yard signs. Links: https://www.furservicesfurpets.com https://txpetsitters.com Buy PSC Merch Give us a call! (636) 364-8260  Follow us on: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter Email us at: feedback@petsitterconfessional.com Full show notes and transcript   Sponsored by: ❤️ Our AMAZING Patreon Supporters Time to Pet Visit: https://timetopet.com/confessional Code: 50% off first 3 months National Association of Professional Pet Sitters www.petsitters.org

As a listener of the ATA podcast show, we understand how deeply you care about the well-being of the animals you work with. However, at times, your role as a positive reinforcement trainer can feel isolating, stressful, and overwhelming. At ATA, we don't want anyone to feel this way, especially knowing how diligently our listeners strive to make a positive impact on the lives of both animal and human learners they work with. Enter Dr. Kathie Nurena, a human physician and a certified dog trainer. Kathie deeply understands how learning theory and positive reinforcement principles can benefit both animals and humans. Having graduated from Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Karen Pryor Academy, Kathie's unique background blends medicine and dog training, providing her with a truly unique perspective on the challenges faced in caring roles. In this episode, together with Kathie, you'll learn about: Trauma-Informed Care: Discover the essence of trauma-informed care and how its principles can be integrated into your role as a trainer. Patient-Centred Care and Compassion Satisfaction: Explore the significance of shifting focus from compassion fatigue to compassion satisfaction. Learn how reframing your thoughts can play a pivotal role in your professional journey, both in preventing burnout and enhancing satisfaction. Emotions, Reinforcement, and Hope: Gain insights into the Maslow scale and pro qual questionnaires, and discover how "hope" (Healthy Outcomes through Positive Experiences) can benefit you. By the end of this episode, you'll be equipped with new knowledge and ideas to help avoid feelings of overwhelm and burnout. This will boost your confidence as a trainer, enabling you to have your biggest possible positive impact on the lives of both animal and human learners you work with. Links/references; The original Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) questionnaire >>> https://www.ncjfcj.org/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/Finding-Your-Ace-Score.pdf Maslach Burnout Inventory >>> https://pscentre.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Maslach-Burnout-Inventory-.pdf ProQol >>> https://proqol.org/proqol-measure Healthy Outcomes From Positive Experiences (HOPE) >>> https://positiveexperience.org/about-us/ Trauma informed care from CDC >>> https://www.cdc.gov/orr/infographics/6_principles_trauma_info.htm Crisis phone line in USA >>> https://988lifeline.org/ Crisis text line in USA >>> https://www.crisistextline.org/ Clicker Expo Live (Kathie & Linda present Sat Jan 27 8-10 am pacific time) >>> https://clickerexpo.clickertraining.com/clicker-expo-virtual/live-2024-conference-program/ Videos A talk by Dr Nadine Burke Harris (16 minutes) >>> https://youtu.be/95ovIJ3dsNk?si=nI_NtlOeN_0KUunv Three and a half minute video on trauma-informed care >>> https://youtu.be/fWken5DsJcw?si=pCZTrKe3Xgz9oujI

Zara Jackson began her animal training career in 2008 when she started a voluntary position in a local zoo in their sea lion and penguin section. Zara moved onto a full-time position as a sea lion trainer and was hooked on the science and art of animal training. She then set up and supervised animal training programmes for other species across the zoo including large carnivores, small mammals and birds. Having seen the welfare benefits for sea lions she was keen for other species to benefit from training for cooperative care too.In 2021 Zara opened her dog training business Tarka Dog Training based in Devon UK. She specialises in working with reactive dogs and dogs with a fear of grooming and vet visits.Zara sat down for a conversation with Victoria to share some of her cooperative training experiences.Resources and InformationZara Jackson, Tarka Dog Training, https://www.tarkadogtraining.co.uk, tarkadogtraining@gmail.com Zara carrying out oral exam training with Bob, her German Shepherd  https://youtu.be/MvJzVV8UkDEDental scaling training with Bob https://youtube.com/shorts/xqFA6qTKp5M?si=jRAOsuFNmgZ7v1tbZara's blog on cooperative care  https://www.tarkadogtraining.co.uk/blog/blog-post-title-one-rp9b7Other ResourcesTaking the Grrr out of Grooming Dogs: https://www.takingthegrrr.co.uk/Karen Pryor Academy for Animal Training and Behaviour: https://karenpryoracademy.com/ABTC: Animal Behaviour and Training Council: https://abtc.org.uk/

Join Adriana Milne on 'Zoomies' - a show about Dogs! Adriana is a Dog Trainer and shares training tips & special events involving Dogs. Adriana's guest is Jari Castle from 'Jai Castle Dog Training' who has been training dogs professionally since 2016. Jari has always been a strong advocate for using fear-free training methods with all animals. Her special interest is with helping reactive dogs – those that bark and lunge – and the humans holding the leash. Jari works at the RSPCA Educational Unit and is a Certified Training Partner with the Karen Pryor Academy. Links: https://www.pet-pals.net.au/ https://www.jaricastle.com.au/

Join Laura Cassiday and Joanna Wachowiak-Finlaison as they chat and chuckle with Alejandra López Irala of Rasca y Pica in Buenos Aires, Argentina, about how to make your cat behavior consulting business stand out. Alejandra is a Certified Cat Behavior Consultant, CCBC. She is the owner of Rasca y Pica, whose goal is to help everyone learn about cats and highlight their welfare.  Her life focuses on the domestic feline so she can help people better understand and relate to their pets, leading to a stronger bond and a more rewarding relationship between animal and human.  She loves teaching others through writing, behavior consulting on all things cat related, including feline behavior. She is an active member of Pet Professional Guild, Member of International Companion Animal Network, and Fear Free. Ale is passionate about continuing education and has completed university level veterinary extension courses, AVEPA, Karen Pryor Academy, NAC, Maddie's Fund. She has a degree in Management as well as being a Veterinary Assistant for over 8 years and has worked many times at the University of Florida at Operation Catnip. She has worked in organizations, rescues, and with pet owners throughout Argentina and part of the USA. She is currently completing her degree in Environmental Management. Ale never spends a day without a cat, and is still surprised every time she sees one. She loves to use all her time and resources to take classes, attend workshops and all kinds of topics related to animal welfare in Argentina and other countries. After 10 years of hard work, training and research, she is proud to have co-created the First Feline Festival exclusively in Spanish.

In this episode Susanne is talking with Amber Quann, owner and head trainer at Summit Dog Training about teaching our dogs manners and skills for life outside our homes, especially urban environments. Amber tells us about her current dog Jamison the Papillon and how she raised him to be a jet setting world traveler, how she built those skills incrementally as he grew up, and what she continues to teach him even as a mature adult dog. Amber is the owner and head trainer at Summit Dog Training (http://www.summitdogtraining.com). Amber has been training dogs since age 10. Through participation in a 4-H dog club, Amber grew up competing in various dog sports, including rally, agility, obedience, and conformation. Her current adventure partner is Jameson, a Papillon; together, they enjoy hiking, backpacking, walks in the park, hanging out at breweries, and nose work! Amber is fascinated by the bond that grows between dogs and their owners as they adventure together, and promoting this special connection is a significant part of Summit Dog Training's mission. Amber is a graduate and Certified Training Partner with the Karen Pryor Academy and a Certified Professional Dog Trainer - Knowledge & Skills Assessed through the Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers (CCPDT). Amber also has the TAGteach Level 1 certification, and is an evaluator for the American Kennel Club's Canine Good Citizen program. For online coaching you can reach Amber here: http://www.summitdogtraining.com/online-coaching and to learn more about classes available online: http://www.summitdogtraining.com/online-classes and to follow Amber on FB: www.Facebook.com/.summitdogtraining

What happens when a strange behavior your dog does becomes unhealthy and maladaptive to her quality of life? Strange animal behaviors (from a human perspective) can sometimes be funny or cute, but not in this case. This is the case of Maggie the border collie-golden retriever X who was determined to interact with almost every rock she came across. Learn how Megan Ramirez (KPA-CTP, CPDT-KA) approached this case with some out-of-the-box thinking and Dr. Karen Overall's Protocol for Relaxation in order to teach Maggie how to enjoy hiking. Megan's Bio:Megan Ramirez (KPA-CTP, CPDT-KA) has been training dogs for a little over 10 years now and is a 2018 graduate of the Karen Pryor Academy and also holds a certification from the Council of Certified Professional Dog Trainers.  Prior to working for Behavior Vets, Megan worked for a training facility in Alabama as well as Alabama's only veterinary behaviorist.  Megan lives with her husband, 2 Maine Coons: Pavlov and Skinner, Great Dane: Xaver, Mini Dachshund: Wiener Schnitzel and Whippets: Rim Shot and Legato.  In her spare time Megan enjoys hiking and competing in dog sports such as: flyball, dock diving, lure coursing and conformation. More about Megan Ramirez.Links:Dr. Karen Overall's Protocol for RelaxationMaggie's Training Journey VideoTheme music composed and performed by Andy SellsContact Behavior Vets tweet us @BehaviorVets follow us on Facebook email us at nyc@behaviorvets.com follow us on Instagram

Ness and Stacey speak with special guest,Tanya Lim, about preparing for one of the biggest routine changes - adding a baby to the family! We cover some strategies on how to prepare for the arrival of the baby and what to do once the baby is home. Tanya Lim is the Co-Founder and Head Trainer at Family Pupz, and she has worked with pets professionally for the last decade and is a certified professional dog trainer (CPDT-KA®) with the Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers® (CCPDT). She is also certified in Professional Dog Training Skills by the State-Approved Dog Trainer School: CATCH Canine Trainers Academy, certified in Dog Trainer Foundations by the Karen Pryor Academy for Animal Training & Behavior, and a graduate of the Family Paws® Parent Education (FPPE). You can find Tanya on her website: https://www.familypupz.com/

Alexis Davison - Bio Alexis has been a professional dog trainer since 2001 and began developing Un-Chase!® in 2012 to help clients and students seeking solutions to their dogs' chasing behaviours. Since then, she has helped countless dog lovers curb their dogs' chasing behaviours and shared her innovative approach with dog training professionals all over the world. Training Credentials Alexis is a nationally accredited Dog Behavioural Trainer with a Certificate IV in Dog Behavioural Training, a Karen Pryor Academy Certified Training Partner (KPA CTP), and an internationally Certified Professional Dog Trainer (CPDT-KA) through the Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers.  Trainer Educator & Speaker Alexis is a Karen Pryor Academy faculty member, charged with teaching the KPA Dog Trainer Professional Program in Australia and New Zealand.  In addition, she is a coach for KPA's Dog Trainer Comprehensive course and dog*biz business consultant. Alexis regularly speaks at dog training conferences, seminars, and workshops sharing her experience and unique Un-Chase!® program with fellow dog training professionals.  For links visit here >>> https://atamember.com/2023/02/27/alexis-davison-2/

Today's Topic:  In the first part of our 2-part series on Leash Reactivity, we discussed a whole host of topics with certified professional dog trainer, the founder of Perfect Pals Dog Training, and the co-creator of the most comprehensive digital dog training course on the subject, "Help! My Dog Is Reactive On Leash!", Erin Gianella, including how common leash reactivity is, how it's different than general reactivity,  what a dog wants when they are reacting, distance-increasing behaviors vs. distance-decreasing behaviors, being proactive vs. reactive, and perhaps most importantly, some management strategies people can use to prevent their dog's practicing of unwanted reactive behaviors, such as whining, growling, barking, lunging, etc.  In today's episode, we go a bit deeper and discuss alternative behaviors you can teach your dog, how training can differ if you've discovered that your dog is wanting to increase distance from vs. decrease distance to the trigger, what counterconditioning and desensitization are, whether a dog can be "cured" of leash reactivity, and much much more!Guest Bio: Erin Gianella's journey to become a dog trainer began in 2014 when she noticed her own dog, Gus, having separation anxiety issues. She became more and more curious and passionate that she decided to leave the corporate world and learn as much as she could about being a dog trainer. Erin studied at the Karen Pryor Academy and became a Karen Pryor Academy Certified Training Partner. Erin started Perfect Pals Dog Training in 2021 based in Denver, CO. She offers private training using positive reinforcement, science based methods. Along with training, Erin also incorporates enrichment and management into the training plan to ensure all needs are being met. She is passionate about helping people build a bond with their dog and having them become a part of the family.Connect With Erin Gianella:WebsiteInstagram"Help! My Dog Is Reactive On Leash!" Course (Use promo code "PODCAST10" for 10% off!

Alexis Davison - Bio Alexis has been a professional dog trainer since 2001 and began developing Un-Chase!® in 2012 to help clients and students seeking solutions to their dogs' chasing behaviours. Since then, she has helped countless dog lovers curb their dogs' chasing behaviours and shared her innovative approach with dog training professionals all over the world. Training Credentials Alexis is a nationally accredited Dog Behavioural Trainer with a Certificate IV in Dog Behavioural Training, a Karen Pryor Academy Certified Training Partner (KPA CTP), and an internationally Certified Professional Dog Trainer (CPDT-KA) through the Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers.  Trainer Educator & Speaker Alexis is a Karen Pryor Academy faculty member, charged with teaching the KPA Dog Trainer Professional Program in Australia and New Zealand.  In addition, she is a coach for KPA's Dog Trainer Comprehensive course and dog*biz business consultant. Alexis regularly speaks at dog training conferences, seminars, and workshops sharing her experience and unique Un-Chase!® program with fellow dog training professionals.  For links visit here >>> https://atamember.com/2023/02/13/alexis-davison/

Am letzten Januar-Wochenende findet die ClickerExpo LIVE statt. Sie wird von der Karen Pryor Academy organisiert und durchgeführt. Die Konferenz dauert 3 Tage und ist vollgepackt mit Webinare, Learning Labs, Panel Diskussionen und Netzwerken mit den besten Experten aus der R+ Community. In dieser Podcastfolge erfährst du die Key-Learnings aus jeder Veranstaltung, die ich während der ClickerExpo LIVE besucht habe. Hab viel Spass!

Visit us at shapedbydog.com    This episode is brought to you by YOU! I'm answering questions submitted on the DogsThat socials on wide ranging aspects of life with dogs – including how human personality types impact training and dog choice, perseverance when progress stalls, fixing broken recall words, over-aroused dogs, barking in hounds, my fitness regimen, living with littermates, ignoring wildlife, weave poles, handling the unexpected, and so much more.   In the episode you'll hear:   • Answers to your popular questions about dogs. • Does an owner's personality influence their dog training? • How to persevere in the midst of a dog training struggle. • How to fix a broken recall word and when to replace it. • What are dog instincts and over-arousal, and can they be inhibited or leveraged? • How do you get hounds to stop barking? • How do you physically train yourself? • Advice for training littermates - multiple dogs that are siblings with separation anxiety. • How to become an accredited reinforcement-based dog trainer in an unregulated industry. • When to start weave poles for agility dogs? • Thoughts on office dog behavior and training requirements? • Best car travel safety tips and products for dogs of all sizes? • What to do when another dog attacks yours? • How to react during sudden scares on walks and loud noises. • Is there any breed unfit for first-time dog owners? • Coping with cliques in dog sports. • How do you train a dog to ignore wildlife? Recallers Discover more and join our waitlist: https://recallers.com/   Resources   1. DogsThat on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/susangarrettdogsthat/ 2. DogsThat on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/susangarrettdogagility 3. YouTube Playlist: Dog Won't Listen or Ignores You? - https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLphRRSxcMHy0HiauCoyVrDAWr1VeAWPES 4. Podcast Episode 191: Get Your Dog To Calm Down With This Common Sense Protocol For Relaxation - https://dogsthat.com/podcast/191/ 5. Functional Patterns - https://functionalpatterns.com/pages/find-a-practitioner 6. Podcast Episode 181: Training Multiple Dogs to Wait Turns and Relax - https://dogsthat.com/podcast/181/ 7. Podcast Episode 37: Dog Training As a Career - https://dogsthat.com/podcast/37/ 8. The Academy for Dog Trainers (Jean Donaldson) - https://www.academyfordogtrainers.com/ 9. IAABC - https://m.iaabc.org/ 10. Karen Pryor Academy - https://karenpryoracademy.com/ 11. Susan Garrett's Playlists on our DogsThat YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/@DogsThat/playlists 12. Podcast Episode 164: The Danger Of Car Travel For Dogs: Evaluating Your Risk - https://dogsthat.com/podcast/164/ 13. Podcast Episode 45: My Dog Just Got Jumped, Now What? - https://dogsthat.com/podcast/45/ 14. YouTube Video: Should My Dog Be Off Leash Right Now? - https://youtu.be/CiygnLThS6Y 15. Podcast Episode 24: Help for Dogs who Chase Chipmunks, Bicycles, and Neighbor's Cats (Distraction IntensityIndex) - https://dogsthat.com/podcast/24/ 16. Watch this Episode of Shaped by Dog on YouTube - https://youtu.be/12oI1_gKwMs

Today's Topic: Leash reactivity, or reactivity in general, is one of the top dog behavioral issues that clients come to us for, and for good reason: here, in Denver, we're (almost) ALWAYS outside...and with our dogs.  So, for anyone who expects their outings with their dog to be fun, pleasant and peaceful experiences, they may quickly find themselves seeking behavioral solutions for their dog's reactive behaviors, as a dog that exhibits reactive behaviors can make those outings a tad less fun, a bit less pleasant, and a lot less peaceful.  That's why we've we've invited our first return guest, certified professional dog trainer, the founder of Perfect Pals Dog Training, and the co-creator of the most comprehensive digital dog training course on the subject, "Help! My Dog Is Reactive On Leash!", Erin Gianella, KPA CTP, to the pod, to discuss what reactivity is, the dangers of labeling your dog as reactive, practical management solutions you can use with your reactive dog today, and much much more!Guest Bio: Erin Gianella's journey to become a dog trainer began in 2014 when she noticed her own dog, Gus, having separation anxiety issues. She became more and more curious and passionate that she decided to leave the corporate world and learn as much as she could about being a dog trainer. Erin studied at the Karen Pryor Academy and became a Karen Pryor Academy Certified Training Partner. Erin started Perfect Pals Dog Training in 2021 based in Denver, CO. She offers private training using positive reinforcement, science based methods. Along with training, Erin also incorporates enrichment and management into the training plan to ensure all needs are being met. She is passionate about helping people build a bond with their dog and having them become a part of the family.Connect With Erin Gianella:WebsiteInstagram"Help! My Dog Is Reactive On Leash!" Course

In this episode, we are kicking off Season 3 of Enrichment for the Real World with our very own trainer and behavior consultant, Ellen Yoakum! Ellen is a Certified Separation Anxiety Pro Trainer and Certified Training Partner through the Karen Pryor Academy. Ellen joined the Pet Harmony team in 2020 after working in a variety of capacities within animal care. In this episode, you're going to hear Emily and Ellen talk about:Why separation anxiety isn't that different from other maladaptive behaviorsShould you use food when working on separation anxiety?How enrichment makes your SA training easierYou can find the full show notes here. 

For the debut of "The Behavior Files", a series of real life case studies shared by the Behavior Vets team, Fanna and her client Christina attempt to treat canine compulsive disorder (CCD) exhibited by Rigg, a 1.5 yo bull terrier. Rigg will compulsively chase his tail and chomp at it, to the point of injuring himself or anyone who attempts to interrupt him. According to Tufts University, up to 85% of bull terrier litters will exhibit some form of CCD. Find out the history of Rigg's CCD and how Fanna helps her client manage and treat the very serious disorder. What steps did they take? Will they be successful? What kind of effect does Rigg's CCD have on his quality of life with Christina? Fanna's bio:Fanna Easter is based in Lafayette, Louisiana and has a special focus on separation anxiety and compulsive behaviors. She is a Certified Separation Anxiety Dog Trainer, Certified Dog Behavior Consultant, Certified Professional Dog Trainer, Fear Free Animal Trainer and Karen Pryor Academy graduate. She has been instructing dog training group classes and behavior consults for over 30 years. Living with Bull Terriers, Fanna is fascinated by canine obsessive compulsive disorders. Fanna is well known throughout the Bull Terrier world for her extensive knowledge pertaining to CCD and skilled at creating behavior modification programs for extremely challenging CCD cases with great success. Fanna is an industry expert who has been quoted in VICE News, HGTV, Newsweek, Animal Wellness, Dogs Naturally, and Forbes. She is the current Chair for the Association of Professional Dog Trainers (APDT). Fanna spent 5 years as Petco's National Dog Training Expert where she and her team developed a new positive reinforcement training program that launched nationwide to over 2,000 stores. While at Petco she also created the Petco Dog Training Instructor Program and the Petco separation anxiety course. Additionally, Fanna developed the updated the dog trainer curriculum for Animal Behavior College. Fanna loves Bull Terriers and shares her home with a Miniature Bull Terrier, Eli. When she's not working with animals, Fanna enjoys attending festivals and conformation dog shows and is learning to appreciate yoga and meditation.Links:https://behaviorvets.com/Contact Behavior Vets tweet us @BehaviorVets follow us on Facebook email us at nyc@behaviorvets.com follow us on Instagram

While most of us have heard the term ‘therapy dog', what therapy dogs actually do remains a bit of a mystery to many! In this episode, I'll be interviewing Monica Callahan to help us all gain a true understanding of what therapy dogs really do and how they improve lives everywhere! MEET MONICA CALLAHAN Monica Callahan has been a professional dog trainer for over 10 years and graduated from the Karen Pryor Academy in 2012. She is currently serving on the Board of Directors for the Alliance of Therapy Dogs. She is a current rally judge for the C-WAGS organization. In 2021, she graduated from the prestigious licensing program, Family Paws. Family Paws is geared toward working with families who are welcoming babies into families with dogs or continuing to keep toddlers and children safe and dog aware. Monica also runs her own dog training business, Family Fido Dog Training. Monica helped start the MYR Airport P.E.T.S. therapy dog program in December of 2021. On top of all of that, The Hero Dogs was started by Monica and her husband to showcase the therapy work they do for first responders and crisis response. Learn more about Monica and her work here: https://familyfidotraining.com/ WHAT DOES THE THERAPY DOG CERTIFICATION PROCESS LOOK LIKE? Monica stressed that one reason she loves and believes so strongly in the Alliance of Therapy Dogs is because of their testing and certification process! Many other tests and certifications are strictly behavior based, but ATD's certification process chooses to focus on handler and dog relationship and temperament. Monica emphasized that this type of certification process helps to more effectively approve only the dogs that can truly handle therapy dog work. Of course, there are behaviors your dog should have a solid understanding of to become a therapy dog. Here are some things your dog should be able to do: -Loose leash walking -Responsiveness to handler, even in distracting situations -Not jumping when greeted -Not jumping when greeting someone sitting down (as is common in a therapy work situation) -Not being startled by people rushing by (ie, nurses down a busy hospital hall) Monica recommends ensuring that your dog could pass the Canine Good Citizen test as part of their therapy dog training! As part of the Alliance of Therapy Dogs' certification process, dogs are required to go through three different on-site (ie, senior citizens home, hospital, etc.) observations to ensure their capabilities. WHAT DOES A THERAPY DOG DO & WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS? While there isn't one specific task a therapy dog does, their general role is to provide affection, comfort, and support to people in need. This can be done in a variety of ways and in a variety of scenarios. Here are some places where therapy dogs often do their work. ⬇️ -Hospitals -Schools -Offices -Nursing homes -Disaster areas -Police & fire stations (more on that later) -Libraries and more Here are some of the specific things a therapy dog might do during their work. ⏬ -Be pet by people -Play simple games with people -Snuggle & cuddle with people -Be groomed by people (especially those in rehabilitative situations working to improve or re-learn motor skills) -Simply, be near people needing support and comfort --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/perfect-pup/message

Episode #73 with Steve White Over 40 years of mostly K9-centered law enforcement career, Steve White is the only person to have served as a handler, trainer, and supervisor for the Seattle Police Canine Unit. Accredited as a Master Trainer in 1993 by the Washington State Police Canine Association, Steve is also a past executive board member of that body. He served as vice president of the Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers, and is a consultant and instructor for the K9 Academy for Law Enforcement. Steve has instructed at seminars in the U.S., Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Finland, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Spain, and the United Kingdom. He has served as a primary instructor for Karen Pryor's ClickerExpo and the Karen Pryor Academy for Animal Training and Behavior. His articles have appeared in police K-9 and dog training publications in the U.S., Canada, Australia, Finland, and Japan. He specializes in teaching behavior modification, tracking, and scent work through the use of positive reinforcement-based operant conditioning. He provides consultation and training to K-9 units on administrative and legal issues, and has been recognized as an expert witness by Washington and federal courts in Police K-9 and dog behavior matters. Steve now has his business www.proactivek9.com email Steve@proactivek9.com CDTA URBAN TRACKING SEMINAR WITH STEVE WHITE, PROACTIVE K9 OCTOBER 8 & 9, 2022 Show Sponsors: Sci K9 Home of the TADD and NOTA http://www.scik9.com Getxent: Training absorbent tubes for all your odor needs http://www.getxent.com Precision Explosives: Get all your safe and REAL training odors (no permits needed) http://www.pre-exp.com Sheepdog Guardian: All your K9 Legal information and updates. http://www.sheepdogguardian.com Ford K9: All your Detection Dog learning needs at one spot. http://www.fordk9.com 

Whitney received his bachelor's degree from Iowa State University in Animal Ecology with a specialization in animal care and a minor in Biology in 2005.  From there he became lead animal keeper at the Kangaroo Conservation Center in Georgia. In 2009 he moved to Garden City, KS for a zookeeping job at Lee Richardson Zoo. He was then promoted to Manager of Distance Learning and Technology and then again to Curator of Education. In 2018 he left the zoo field to help pet owners in SW KS by starting Buchman Best Behaviors.  Currently he is finishing his Karen Pryor Academy certification. He recently moved into a new home with his wife Mary to accommodate their 5 dogs, 1 cat, 4 bunnies, and 2 fish tanks.  For links CLICK HERE >>> https://atamember.com/2022/09/01/whitney-buchman/ 

Karen Pryor turns ninety on May 14th! Annie is celebrating today and... plotting continued celebrations on this podcast in the coming year. If you're a Karen Pryor fan, join the celebration! If you're not, you'll enjoy learning why she is so worthy of it. In this episode, Annie interviews BF Skinner Foundation president Dr. Julie Vargas, about the importance of this incredible scientist, writer and entrepreneur who, over the last thirty years, has done more than probably anyone else alive to help show people how we can use operant conditioning and secondary reinforcers to train dogs with rewards: aka, clicker training. When her husband bought Sea Life Park in the 1960s, Pryor was tasked with training the dolphins to perform. She got her hands on a paper written by students who were working in BF Skinner's Harvard lab, and it outlined the basics of operant conditioning and how to use a secondary reinforcer, like a whistle, to pinpoint the moment a desired behavior occurred. It further described how to then use successive approximations to shape the behavior using reinforcement. She took what she had learned about dolphins and wrote a book about about using positive reinforcement in everyday life: Don't Shoot The Dog!, then started doing seminars on how to use a clicker with dogs in the 1990s. In the 2000s, she started running Clicker Expo, a conference which brings the worlds best positive-reinforcement trainers together several times a year, and began training dog trainers through her Karen Pryor Academy. Follow us on Instagram, @schoolforthedogs, where we are giving away her book Reaching The Animal Mind and a signed clicker this weekend. Learn more about Dr. Vargas: https://www.juliesvargas.com/ Learn more about Karen Pryor: https://karenwpryor.com/biography/ Learn more about the BF Skinner Foundation: http://bfskinner.org Books: Don't Shoot The Dog! https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Shoot-Dog-Teaching-Training/dp/1860542387 Reaching The Animal Mind https://www.amazon.com/Reaching-Animal-Mind-Clicker-Training/dp/0743297776 --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/dogs/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/dogs/support

This week pet trainer Mikkel Becker shares how she combined her passion for animals and serving people to create a business that teaches both pets and people how to communicate and understand fear, anxiety, and emotional issues. Listen in as we break down the pressures of continuing a family legacy, carving your own path through your passions, and why pets and their owners have more in common than you might think. “Pets communicate continually with us is through their body language. We need to not punish our pet for telling us how they feel, but give them coping strategies. Our mental and emotional health are very similar.” – Mikkel Becker About Mikkel: Mikkel Becker is a certified trainer, dog behavior counselor and the lead animal trainer for Fear Free. From early life it was undeniably clear that Mikkel’s number one focus was always going to be animals. Mikkel’s childhood consisted of two joys; horses and dogs. Her training career started early with help from her childhood dog, a Wire Haired Fox Terrier named Scooter, who delighted in fun games like running in the opposite direction when called, leading the neighborhood bark patrol and terrorizing other dogs in a blaze of terrier fueled fury. But, where frustration created what could have been rifts the size of the massive holes Scooter dug in the yard, pure love was able to bridge those gaps and create a wiser, more resilient child and dog who together became grand champions in 4-H obedience. Unlike many children her age, Mikkel traded sports and other hobbies to instead chase after blue ribbons at horse shows and memories on trail rides. Her special passion was taking horses who were deemed less suitable by others and revealing the true champion inside. In pursuit of formal animal training education, Mikkel graduated from the rigorous San Francisco SPCA Dog Training Academy with Jean Donaldson (earning a Certificate in Training and Counseling; CTC), the Karen Pryor Academy (becoming a Karen Pryor Certified Training Partner; KPA CTP), the Purdue Dogs and Cats Course, and Mikkel shadowed Dr. Nicolas Dodman at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine. Mikkel’s favorite educational experience was providing enrichment and positive reinforcement guidance to orangutans at Jungle Island in Miami. Along with her growing knowledge, Mikkel achieved other certifications, including becoming a Certified Behavior Consultant Canine (CBCC-KA), a Certified Professional Dog Trainer (CPDT-KA) and a Certified Dog Behavior Counselor (CDBC).Locally in the Seattle area Mikkel is the dog and cat behavior counselor at Homeward Pet Adoption Center, resident trainer for veterinary behaviorist, Dr. Wailani Sung, and a trainer at Doggy Haven Resort. When it comes to home life, Mikkel’s four legged pug kids were eventually joined by a now seven year old daughter, Reagan, who is blossoming into her own rights as a trainer (Reagan’s current passion project is taming farmyard chickens and goats and pursuing ambitions to run an animal rescue and become a veterinarian like her Papa, Marty). Today, Mikkel’s family lives in in a country getaway space outside of Seattle along with the family’s cherished pug genius, Willy who charms guests with his arsenal of tricks and delights in giving his version of wet willy’s with his surprisingly long, frog-like tongue. Mikkel recently co-authored “From Fearful to Fear Free: A Positive Program to Free Your Dog from Anxiety, Fears, and Phobias” with Dr. Marty Becker, Dr. Lisa Radosta and Wailani Sung. You can connect with Mikkel in the following ways: Twitter: https://twitter.com/fearfreepets Website: https://fearfreepets.com/ Stay focused on the mindset, skills, and habits it takes to Have It All with the following: Take the free Have It All Assessment here: https://bit.ly/haveitallquiz Learn the four pillars of performance by reading my book, The Making of a Maverick: https://amzn.to/3oQ7wji Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marlohiggins/ Share your story of Having It All. Apply to be a guest on the podcast: https://bit.ly/marloguestapp See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Before she became a dog trainer, Jenny Efimova was working human trauma survivors for a living. Her job involved being empathetic and meeting people where they were. It wasn't immediately obvious to her that a lot of the lessons she'd learned at work could be applied to someone in her home who was suffering: Her dog. Her young rescue, Larkin, was increasingly afraid to go out on walks in her neighborhood. The first professionals she worked with told her she was the issue: She wasn't “confident” enough with her puppy, and he thought he was the boss. It didn't feel right to her, and the suggested methods didn't work. In fact, they felt like they were making matters worse. Then she started working with a trainer who explained how to use positive reinforcement in training, and it was a behavioral game changer for her and her dog Larkin. This led her to become a certified dog trainer herself, through the Karen Pryor Academy. Today she trains online and in Brookline, MA. She also runs an Instagram account Annie and Jenny discuss the challenges that come with cultural expectations of how both dogs and dog owners should behave. They confront the popular idea that if you are not a stern leader with your dog, you are spoiling them, and consider whether there has been any cultural shift in changing the conversation about what it means to be a compassionate dog owner. They also discuss how interspecies relationships and examining our expectations of our pets can help us learn to be more humane and compassionate in general. Learn more about Jenny at: https://www.dogminded.training/ Follow Jenny on Instagram: @dogminded Follow School For The Dogs @schoolforthedogs --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/dogs/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/dogs/support

In today's episode, hosts Elissa Looney and Whitney Taylor talk all things obedience with Hannah Branigan, host of the podcast Drinking From the Toilet, and owner of Wonderpups Training. We get into what obedience looks like, the types of behaviors you and your dog must know, and some of the common mistakes people make in their training. About Hannah: Hannah is a long-time dog training instructor with an impressive resume. Her podcast, Drinking From the Toilet is a must-listen, weekly podcast. She's also an author, and a faculty member with Karen Pryor Academy, Clicker Expo and Fenzi Dog Sports Academy, and teaches through her own online training programs through her website, hannahbranigan.com. Hannah is involved in multiple dog sports with her own dogs, including Obedience, Agility, Conformation, IPO (Schutzhund), and Rally. If you'd like to find out more about Hannah, you can find her at https://hannahbranigan.dog/,. Her book Awesome Obedience can help you start in the sport, she's on Facebook, Instagram and has a great, all-encompassing training program called Zero to CD, which you can find on her website. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it! Help us grow our audience to like-minded people who want to have fun with their dogs!

In his work as a set designer, Saturday Night Life staffer Ken MacLeod had seen many well-trained dogs, and had even done commercial work with his own Jack Russell, Mac. But then he got a dog named Scooter and he realized that every dog has different needs. This realization led him to decide he wanted to become a certified dog trainer. Today, he splits his time: Part of every month, he can be found building sets for SNL, and the rest of the time, he is training out of his Hoboken, NJ-based studio, My Positive Pup. He talks to Annie about getting certified, the emotional nature of working with dog owners, behavior lessons learned learned on the ski slopes, and how the old saying "you catch more flies with honey than vinegar" can be true for both people and dogs. Learn more about My Positive Pup at https://mypositivepup.com/ Learn more about L.E.G.S.® Applied Ethology Family Dog Mediation® Professional Course (thinkific.com) https://kimbropheylegscourses.thinkific.com/courses/legs-applied-ethology-family-dog-mediation-professional-course Learn more about the Karen Pryor Academy at https://karenpryoracademy.com/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/dogs/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/dogs/support

After humble beginnings with Bob Bailey's chicken camps, Scotti Harvey has spent the last 15 years as a committed educator of applied animal behavior and learning science. Scotti is a graduate of the Karen Pryor Academy, a Certified Separation Anxiety Trainer, a Puppy Start Right Instructor and Fear Free Trainer, a City and Guilds Scent Detection Dog Handler, UKCSD Scent Instructor and the founder of the animal training and consulting service, Why Runamuck. Scotti's expertise is in the impact of early-life learning on later-life behavior. She has studied with trainers and behaviorists like Terry Ryan, Ken Ramirez, Susan Friedman, and Steve Martin, and she has attended a variety of national and international workshops and courses, like the University of Edinburgh's Animal Welfare Course, Dr. Susan Friedman's Learning and Living With Animals, the Behavior Adjustment Training Instructor's Course, the NEI's Contemporary Animal Training and Management program, Ken Ramirez's Advanced Animal Training, and Marie Fogelquist's Polar Bear Training at Orsa Bjornpark.  In 2014, Scotti participated in a collaborative training project between KPA and Guide Dogs for the Blind that sought new and innovative ways to incorporate positive training protocols into their puppy-raising curriculum. Scotti herself is a longtime breeder of Icelandic sheepdogs, and she has studied and observed 13 litters of puppies, learning from them while exploring avenues to mitigate behavioral issues through carefully crafted and deconstructed early-life experiences.  Scotti spends most of her professional life helping canine co-habitators navigate the hiccups and tricky bits of living alongside another species, as well as collaborating with canine caregivers—breeders, fosters, shelter workers, and veterinarians—to identify ways to improve puppy rearing strategies. She is currently writing a book on those early socialization strategies and the deconstruction of puppy exposures.

In this episode with Bobbie Lyons of Pawsitive Performance, we explore Canine Fitness. What is it? What is it not? And how can you get started with your dog? Our guest is Bobbie Lyons, CCFT, KPA CT, owner of Pawsitive Performance and Founder of Bobbie Lyons Canine Campus. Bobbie teaches dog training, fitness training and trick training across the globe, and has completed the certification program for Canine Fitness through the Companion Animal Sciences Institute. She is also a Faculty Member with the Karen Pryor Academy. If you'd like to find out about learning opportunities with Bobbie, you can find her web pages here: Home (pawsitive-performance.com) Homepage | BLCC (bobbielyonscaninecampus.com) If you liked this episode, please don't forget to rate, review and subscribe - and share it with your friends!

Today's Topic: As we all know, dogs are incredibly smart animals, therefore it is crucial that we provide them with plenty of mental stimulation to exercise their brains, which can come in the form of activities designed to meet their physical, behavioral and instinctual needs, or else they can quickly get bored and start to develop a wide range of problem behaviors!  In the dog training world, we call this providing enrichment, and we've invited certified professional dog trainer, and the founder of Perfect Pals Dog Training, Erin Gianella, to the pod, to discuss the wide variety of enrichment activities you can do with your dog, how to fit it into your busy schedule, how to know the type of enrichment your dog might prefer, and much much more!Guest Bio: Erin Gianella's journey to become a dog trainer began in 2014 when she noticed her own dog, Gus, having separation anxiety issues. She became more and more curious and passionate that she decided to leave the corporate world and learn as much as she could about being a dog trainer. Erin studied at the Karen Pryor Academy and became a Karen Pryor Academy Certified Training Partner. Erin started Perfect Pals Dog Training in 2021 based in Denver, CO. She offers private training using positive reinforcement, science based methods. Along with training, Erin also incorporates enrichment and management into the training plan to ensure all needs are being met. She is passionate about helping people build a bond with their dog and having them become a part of the family.Connect With Erin Gianella:Website: https://www.perfectpalsdogtraining.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/perfectpals_dogtraining

Our guest on Barking From The Wooftops today is https://twitter.com/kenkpct (Ken Ramirez). Ken Ramirez is the EVP and Chief Training Officer for https://www.clickertraining.com/ (Karen Pryor Clicker Training) where he helps to oversee the vision, development and implementation of training education programs. Previously, Ken served as EVP of animal care and training at Chicago's Shedd Aquarium. A nearly 50 year veteran of animal care and training, Ramirez is a biologist and behaviourist who has worked with many zoological organizations and dog programs throughout the world. He helped develop, and has been an instructor for AZA's Animal Training Applications course. He is past president of the International Marine Animal Trainers Association and has been active in various leadership positions within IMATA for over 30 years. He hosted two successful seasons of the TV series Talk to the Animals.  Ramirez authored the book https://www.amazon.co.uk/Animal-Training-Successful-Management-Reinforcement/dp/0961107499 (ANIMAL TRAINING: Successful Animal Management through Positive Reinforcement) in 1999 and most recently The Eye of the Trainer in 2020. He taught a graduate course on animal training at Western Illinois University for 20 years. He currently teaches at ClickerExpo every year, offers hands-on courses and seminars at the Karen Pryor National Training Center (the Ranch), and teaches online courses through Karen Pryor Academy. We would love to hear from you in terms of what specific areas you would like us to discuss in the future. Use the contact form https://quitethethingmedia.com/barking-from-the-wooftops/ (here) to get in contact, or find the show on https://www.facebook.com/BFTWpodcast (Facebook) and https://twitter.com/Barkingwooftops (Twitter). You can find video content from Barking From The Wooftops on https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCf7g3O0uXrM88uiH9Iy6NsA?fbclid=IwAR0M0xOHPkYgby1iBQCBnZVRph-nyB4TZxdft84i3WGm8_dsZs6VvOXqmec (Youtube) too. A member of https://quitethethingmedia.com/glasgower/ (Glasgower) This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy

Last month, the Wall Street Journal ran an opinion piece about how positive-reinforcement dog training is too much trouble, concluding that punishment-based training is faster and, overall, underrated. Quite a few dog trainers wrote to the Wall Street Journal, angry that such a major publication would run something with such spurious facts and no sources. Annie called up her long time friend Kiki Yablon to talk about why so much "journalism" about dog training goes wrong. Kiki, who is a Karen Pryor Academy faculty member and trains dogs in Chicago, was an editor for many years, and turned to a career in dog training around the same time as Annie quit the field of journalism as well. In this casual chat, the two discuss the errors reporters frequently make when writing about dogs, the traditional media's dismissiveness of pets as a serious subject, the general public's misunderstandings about behavior as a science, and the flubs they both made themselves when attempting to write about dog training before they set out to become trainers. Learn more about Kiki at https://kikiyablondogtraining.com/ Like this podcast? Please leave a review on iTunes! ------ I'm Disciplining My Dog, Not Torturing Her, Wall Street Journal 8/2/21 https://www.wsj.com/articles/dog-training-barking-puppy-ecollar-prong-collar-11627919661 Letters to the editor about the article https://www.wsj.com/articles/peta-train-your-dog-humane-shock-prong-collar-crating-11628546838?cx_testId=3&cx_testVariant=cx_4&cx_artPos=0&mod=WTRN#cxrecs_s Roald Dahl's The Sound Machine (1949) https://fleurmach.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/rdahl_screamingtrees.pdf Annie's 2007 article about people becoming dog trainers https://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/27/fashion/27DOGS.html Chicago Reader article Kiki edited about pitbulls https://chicagoreader.com/news-politics/born-bad/

Join Niki Tudge as she chats with Ken MacLeod. Ken MacLeod is an Emmy-honored set designer, a positive reinforcement dog trainer, and a major Bruce Springsteen fan. Throughout Ken's long career in the film industry, he designed sets for many iconic commercials, and worked on several television shows, such as Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and his decade-long residence at Saturday Night Live. Working alongside Hollywood's top talent, his love of animals has always been his primary passion. Ken graduated from the Karen Pryor Academy intending to learn skills to train his reactive puppy, Scooter. After graduating the course, Ken saw such incredible results with Scooter via positive reinforcement training that he was inspired to begin taking on clients and teaching others the methods he had learned and developed that so benefited his pup. MyPositivePup.com was founded 3 years ago. Ken, still working at Saturday Night Live, and can hardly keep up with the growth of his new business venture. You can follow Ken and Scooter's story at @mypositivepup on Instagram.

WAGGLES Academy for Dogs Inc. is owned and operated by Sharna “Shar” Mulligan and is central Alberta's positive Dog Training professional of choice! Learn with your pet in a force-free environment full of fun and support. There are many options: training at home privately, semi-private sessions, or in group classes. Training and behaviour solutions are planned specifically for each individual. Shar is a certified Canine Training & Behaviour professional. She earned her diplomas and certification through Canine Correspondence Studies, Waterloo, Ontario, along with her diploma in Comprehensive Canine Aggression Therapy.  Shar continuously furthers her education and keeps updated with dog behaviours and training methods by reading books and research papers, designing programs, and attending seminars and educational workshops. For example, Shar attended the one day seminar by Cesar Millan in Calgary, Alberta; a 3-day conference in Toronto, Ontario by Dr. Ian Dunbar; Learning Labs & Training Sessions by Karen Pryor Academy, in Portland Oregon; a 3 day seminar and audit by Suzanne Clothier; The Art & Science of Animal Behaviour with Sophia Yin in Edmonton, Alberta; a symposium and lab at the University of Calgary, Faculty of Veterinarian Medicine; a two-day workshop earning another Trick Training Certification from "Do More With Your Dog Association" presented by Kyra Sundance; as well as frequent webinars and workshops presented by positive professionals.  Shar is serious about her love for dogs, but is very laid back by nature. She's unbelievably dedicated, fun, and passionate about our best friends, our furry wonderful companions.  For more on Shar, visit Waggles' website, or follow her on Facebook and Instagram. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We're seeing more and more Reactive Dogs everywhere lately! It's one of the most common behavioral issues dog owners run into. We can do things to treat and prevent it though, if we strive to understand how our dogs see the world. Juliana Willems is the Owner and Head Trainer at JW Dog Training and Behavior Consulting in Washington, DC. She is a Certified Professional Dog Trainer (CPDT-KA), Karen Pryor Academy Certified Training Partner (KPA CTP), Certified Behavior Consultant Canine (CBCC-KA), and a Certified Dog Behavior Consultant (CDBC). Juliana is a faculty member at the Karen Pryor Academy and teaches the Dog Trainer Professional program. Juliana specializes in reactivity, anxiety, and aggression cases, and thanks to virtual training is able to help people and dogs all over the country. She enjoys applying her knowledge of canine behavior and the science of learning when working closely with owners to improve their dog's behavior. When she's not training with private clients, Juliana is sharing information about dog training and behavior with the public through webinars, TV appearances, and social media. For more about Reactive Dogs or other tips, you can find Juliana Website: www.jwdogtraining.com Instagram: @jwdogtraining Facebook: facebook.com/jwdogtrainingandbehavior If you'd like to work with me, Susan Light, you can find me at doggydojopodcast.com The music was written by Mac Light, you can find him at maclightsongwriter.com If you liked this episode, please Subscribe, Rate, Review, and Share with other Dog Lovers, and I'll see you next week with a brand new episode of the Doggy Dojo! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

In this episode, we talk about the basics of clicker training for family dogs with Mary Stompe, a Karen Pryor Academy graduate.  Mary talks about why clicker training is so effective and how the whole family can learn to use clickers, use the right timing, and help the dog to become a well behaved companion. You can learn more about Mary at MarysAngelsDogTraining.com.

I'm excited to share this wonderful conversation with Ryan Cartlidge of Animal Training Academy with you guys! In this episode we discuss...  ✦ What throwing spaghetti at the wall has to do with brave and resilient learning ✦ How our feedback towards other may directly impact their motivation to go out and train ✦ Flow charts and being a confident trainer ✦ Generalizing and trigger stacking ✦ And how we are not so very different from our horses! → Here is a little more information about Ryan  "Ryan Cartlidge is a certified professional dog trainer through the Karen Pryor Academy & the founder of Animal Training Academy & Kapiti Dog Trainer! He has been working internationally as a professional trainer since 2007, including in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and the US. Ryan has trained teams, developed animal training programs, been published in leading industry magazines, spoken at international conferences, and delivered presentations in a university on animal behaviour. And now through the Animal Training Academy, he connects hundreds of animal behavior & training enthusiasts with a large (and growing) library of lessons and tutorials delivered by renowned animal experts." To find out more about Ryan check out the Animal Training Academy at www.animaltrainingacademy.com --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thewillingequine/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/thewillingequine/support

Teaching your dog to greet people politely is all about practicing before the situation occurs! It can be really embarrassing when your dog jumps up on people while out on walks or in your home. In this episode, we sat down with Holly Ovington (certified dog trainer) to discuss ways you can teach your dog to greet people politely whether inside or outside. We discuss how to handle your dog when they start jumping, and also, how you can explain to people how you want them to act when greeting your dog. Connect With Holly Ovington Holly has been passionate about dogs from the get-go! Holly was part of 4-H dog clubs from a young age, learning to train and show her own dogs. Holly is certified with the Karen Pryor Academy, a Fear-Free Certified Trainer, an Instructor for Dog Biz Dog Walking Academy, and Walks N' Wags First Aid Certified and runs Positive Paws Training in the Vancouver area. Holly's next goal is to complete a certification in separation anxiety (which she is working on now!). Connect with Holly via her website here: https://positivepaws.ca/ Connect with Holly on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/positivepawstraining/ Please review and subscribe!! Thanks for listening

I failed the first time I took the certification exam. I was not in a good headspace. Plus, I needed to study a bit more. Here's why I tried again. Cited in the episode: * Karen Pryor Academy: https://karenpryoracademy.com/ * Ken Ramirez: https://www.amazon.com/Better-Together-Collected-Wisdom-Trainers/dp/1890948500 * Association of Professional Dog Trainers: https://apdt.com/ * APDT Career Resource Center: https://apdt.com/resource-center/career/ * International Association of Canine Professionals: https://www.canineprofessionals.com/ * Animal Behavior College: https://www.animalbehaviorcollege.com/dog-trainer/ * Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers: http://www.ccpdt.org/ * Trainers vs. Behaviorists: https://www.thesprucepets.com/dog-trainers-versus-behaviorists-1118258 More from Telltail Dog Training: http://telltaildogtraining.com/ https://www.instagram.com/telltaildog/ https://www.facebook.com/telltaildog/ https://twitter.com/telltaildog

Many people wonder if (and how) they should use a clicker for their dog's training! In this episode, we sat down with Holly Ovington to break down the benefits and drawbacks of using a clicker to train. And of course, Holly teaches us how to use a clicker effectively when training our dogs. Connect With Holly Ovington Holly has been passionate about dogs from the get-go! Holly was part of 4-H dog clubs from a young age, learning to train and show her own dogs. Holly is certified with the Karen Pryor Academy, a Fear-Free Certified Trainer, an Instructor for Dog Biz Dog Walking Academy, and Walks N' Wags First Aid Certified and runs Positive Paws Training in the Vancouver area. Holly's next goal is to complete a certification in separation anxiety (which she is working on now!). Connect with Holly via her website here: https://positivepaws.ca/ Connect with Holly on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/positivepawstraining/ Please review and subscribe!! Thanks for listening

Wondering how long you should train your dog each day? In this episode we sat down with Holly (certified trainer) to discuss how long you should be training your pup every day (hint... it's not what you're expecting). Remember, short bursts of training are often better than long, drawn-out sessions! Connect With Holly Ovington Holly has been passionate about dogs from the get-go! Holly was part of 4-H dog clubs from a young age, learning to train and show her own dogs. Holly is certified with the Karen Pryor Academy, a Fear-Free Certified Trainer, an Instructor for Dog Biz Dog Walking Academy, and Walks N' Wags First Aid Certified and runs Positive Paws Training in the Vancouver area. Holly's next goal is to complete a certification in separation anxiety. Connect with Holly via her website here: https://positivepaws.ca/ Connect with Holly on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/positivepawstraining/ Please review and subscribe!! Thanks for listening

A lot of people wonder if positive reinforcement training actually works... And many of those people also wonder if they can get away with just some punishment-based methods (looking at you e-collars). In this episode, we sat down with Holly to help clarify just how effective positive reinforcement can be when training your dog. AND we talk about some of the seriously frightening things that can happen to your dog if you choose to use punishment and fear-based methods... Tune in! Connect With Holly Ovington Holly has been passionate about dogs from the get-go! Holly was part of 4-H dog clubs from a young age, learning to train and show her own dogs. Holly is certified with the Karen Pryor Academy, a Fear-Free Certified Trainer, an Instructor for Dog Biz Dog Walking Academy, and Walks N' Wags First Aid Certified and runs Positive Paws Training in the Vancouver area. Holly's next goal is to complete a certification in separation anxiety. Connect with Holly via her website here: https://positivepaws.ca/ Connect with Holly on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/positivepawstraining/ Please review and subscribe!! Thanks for listening

Join Annie Grossman for a live Q and A most Thursdays. Sign up at http://schoolforthedogs.com/qanda. Have a question? Visit AnnieGrossman.com/ask or upload a recording at anchor.fm/dogs. In this episode, Annie answers questions about attending the Karen Pryor Academy. She suggests how you can deal with someone who seems to be needlessly yelling at their dog. A listener asks about Temple Grandin's use of e-collars and prey drive, and also asks about training using the beeping and vibrating function of a shock collar. Also: Can you train a dog to not pee near a water source? And can you pay the neighbor's kid to train your dog?

Join Niki Tudge where she Chats and Chuckles with Judy Luther. Niki and Judy chat equine, canine and captive animals. Their discussion ranges into the great programs the PPG Canine Committee are working on such as Project Trade, Boundary SOP's and so much more. Judy is based in the St. Louis, Missouri metro area and Branson, Missouri and has provided training and behavior consulting services for a variety of species, both domestic and exotic, for over 27 years. She is a board certified pet dog trainer through the Certification Council of Professional Trainers, a certified nose work instructor, a graduate of the Karen Pryor Academy, a certified canine massage therapist, a Canine Good Citizen evaluator, an AKC Puppy S.T.A.R. evaluator, an APDT C.L.A.S.S. instructor and evaluator, and works with the American Humane Educators Association. She is also the creator of Trust Centered Training™, which utilizes the latest scientific research, and runs her own training business. In addition, Judy is the chair of PPG's Canine Division, sits on the Advisory Board for St. Louis County Animal Control, and has volunteered for the Missouri Puppies for Patrol program.

Are you ready to talk behavior?  Grab that cup of coffee and join us for our conversation with Tabitha Kucera, RVT, CCBC, KPA-CPT.  It was such a joy to chat with her-she's so passionate about behavior you can't help but be drawn in by her excitement.  She drops some serious knowledge in this one, and will hopefully inspire you to look at your own clinic environments and patient interactions to be more mindful of patient well-being.  We'll talk all about training and certifications, CE, patient visits, home consultations, pain scales, and so much more!  We just know you're going to enjoy this episode as much as we did!   Links: (SO MANY LINKS!) Tabitha's behavior consultating - https://www.chirrupsandchatter.com/ Fear Free certification - https://fearfreepets.com/ Fear Free Happy Homes - https://fearfreehappyhomes.com/ Karen Pryor Academy - https://karenpryoracademy.com/ American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior - https://avsab.org/ Society of Veterinary Behavior Technicians - https://svbt.org/ Karen Pryor's Book "Don't Shoot the Dog" - https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Shoot-Dog-Teaching-Training/dp/0553380397 Debbie Martin and Julie Shaw's Book "Canine and Feline Behavior for Veterinary Technicians" - https://www.amazon.com/Canine-Feline-Behavior-Veterinary-Technicians/dp/0813813182

Since 2003, Cara has been trained by the American Red Cross as well as several veterinarians in Pet First Aid and CPR. In 2011 she completed an instructor training course and became a certified pet 1st Aid and CPR instructor. In 2015 she co-founded an online pet first aid and CPR company and now works as a product manager for ProPetHero , the pet first aid and CPR division of ProTrainings. She also is will become a certified professional dog trainer from the prestigious Karen Pryor Academy and a Certified Canine Fitness Trainer. She plans to use these skill to help pet parents with good manners, great conditioning and to have fun exercising in sports like agility. Cara also volunteered for The Boxer Rescue, is a health-conscious breeder of Boxers (Sinnott Boxers ), as well as a member of the Middlesex Boxer Club and Wachusett Kennel Clubs. She serves as a mentor to many in the pet industry as well as those in the small business world.She spends her free time training dogs and traveling to agility, lure coursing and conformation trials. When not at a trial or finding a good home for a Boxer through the rescue, she's training with her pups or playing in her garden. ​The founding dogs of Active Paws' Inc. were two beautiful Boxers father and son, Tank and Dozer. She and her husband lost Dozer to a devastating genetic disease in late December 2011, followed by Tank in May 2013. Cara is very active in the prevention of Degenerative Myelopathy, the paralyzing disease that took her foundation dogs from her before their time. She and her husband breed health conscious Boxers with good temperaments with the goal of improving the breed they love so dearly. For more information about their involvement with Boxers, check out their site Sinnott Boxers.

When Ken Ramirez is not training elephants to avoid poachers, teaching dogs to count, coaxing polar bears out of suburban garbage cans or getting butterflies to fly on cue, he is mentoring and educating dog trainers. Ken is the Executive Vice President and public face of Karen Pryor Clicker Training, which operates the Karen Pryor Academy, among other things. In this episode, he and Annie discussed his new book of essays, how he almost got The Dog Whisperer's time slot, the existence of free will, sleep training a baby and more. Notes: The Eye Of The Trainer: Animal Training, Transformation and Trust, by Ken Ramirez - On My Mind: Reflections on Animal Behavior and Learning, by Karen Pryor - Ken Ramirez on Hannah Brannigan's Drinking From The Toilet Podcast - Ken Ramirez on Ryan Cartlidge's Animal Training Academy Podcast - KenRamirezTraining.com - Ken's Letters - Training Lessons From Pokemon Go - Talk To The Animals clip - Find the ukulele-duo Toast Garden on Youtube! If you're enjoying this podcast, please subscribe, rate, and review! --- Partial Transcript: *Intro* Annie: So if you are a professional animal trainer or aspiring to be a professional animal trainer, I'm guessing that you've probably heard of my guest today. If you're not, you probably haven't. Whether you're in one of those categories or the other, I am really excited to get to share this conversation with you with this pretty remarkable man. Now, I normally like to ask people how they first got into the field of animal training or dog training in particular, but I didn't go into that with my guests today only because there were so many things I wanted to talk to him about, and you can also get his backstory on a couple other great podcasts, including the Animal Training Academy Podcast with Ryan Cartlidge and Hannah Brannigans podcast, Drinking from the Toilet. The short version is he grew up on a ranch, began volunteering, working with a guide dog organization when he was still a teenager, and then kind of lucked into a job working with exotic animals, which then helped mold his choices of what to study in college. He then spent more than two decades working at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, where he eventually was the Executive Vice President of Animal Care. And well, I'm just gonna let him introduce himself and talk about what he's doing now. Ken Ramirez: My name is Ken Ramirez and I am the executive vice president and chief trading officer for Karen Pryor Clicker Training. And I have been training, gosh, for over 40 years now. Worked in the zoological field. I work as a consultant for zoos and aquariums. I work as a consultant for search and rescue dogs and law enforcement and guide dogs. And I do a lot of work in the conservation arena, so I have a lot of interests and I keep very busy. Full transcript available at SchoolfortheDogs.com/Podcasts

On this episode we’re talking with Carie Grant, a dog trainer who opened her own pet boarding and training business. Carie graduated from the prestigious Karen Pryor Academy for Animal Training and Behavior, where she learned positive training methods, including clicker training. But Carie’s world wasn’t always filled with wagging tails. Listen as she explains her transition from a career in mortgage lending to the world of dog training.

Laura VanArendonk Baugh was born at a very early age and never looked back. She overcame childhood deficiencies of having been born without teeth and unable to walk, and in time she became a behavior analyst, an internationally-recognized animal trainer, a costumer/cosplayer, a chocolate addict, and of course a writer. Now she is an award-winning author of speculative fiction, mystery, and non-fiction. Laura's works have earned numerous accolades, including 3-star (the highest possible) ratings on Tangent‘s “Recommended Reading” list and a Realm Award, as well as a Pushcart Prize nomination and other awards. Laura has been writing for fun and profit since elementary school, and she credits this hobby with keeping her off the streets and out of worse trouble. This month, she’s participating in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) yet again and that’s the main subject of this conversation.  Laura also owns Canines In Action, Inc. where she particularly enjoys working with crazy, over-the-top dogs and arousal/aggression cases. She is also a faculty member of the highly-regarded Karen Pryor Academy for Animal Training & Behavior and is certified in TAGteach for human behavior. Laura speaks professionally on a variety of topics throughout the year, sessions often filling months in advance. Laura's website Intro music by Moby Outro by Dan-o-Songs

Today we are talking about an industry that is booming: the pet industry. According to the American Pet Products Association, consumers in the U.S. spend $70 billion on our pets. There are many pet professionals that are tapping into this boom by providing services such as training, grooming, boarding, and walking. In this episode we focus on dog trainers as independent service professionals:- How do people become dog trainers? What is the typical career path for dog trainers?- What’s the scope of services that dog trainers provide?- How much do dog trainers typically charge?- Do you need to be licensed or certified?- How does the Association of Professional Dog Trainers (APDT) help dog trainers?- Is there a consensus in the industry about the right and wrong way to train a dog?- Are there any major changes happening in the industry that anyone considering a career in dog training should be aware of?Our guest is Nick Hof who has been a dog trainer for over ten years and holds several nationally recognized certifications from the Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers, the Karen Pryor Academy, and more. He is also the Chair for the Association of Professional Dog Trainers, the largest trade organization for dog training. He owns Paws Look Listen, LLC in Cincinnati, OH which offers private dog training services to busy families.

Welcome to the 14th episode of The Dog Real Talk! My name is Agnieszka Janarek and I am your host! My guest today is Aileen Stevenson! We had a very important conversation about dogs and kids. "The arrival of a new baby is a huge lifestyle change for humans….and also for the dogs we live with. In the UK behavioural problems related to the addition of a new baby to a family is one of the top 3 reasons that dogs are surrendered for rehoming." Aileen Stevenson is a Graduate and Certified Training Partner of the Karen Pryor Academy for Animal Training & Behaviour and a member of the Institute of Modern Dog Trainers. Aileen is also Scotland's first, and currently only, Family Paws licensed trainer, working to support & prepare families with dogs for life with children. Aileen is passionate about working with families, particularly, families with young children, to help them understand their dogs more deeply and so help them create safe, respectful, harmonious & mutually beneficial relationships. She is based in Glasgow, Scotland, where she specialises in family dog training and, in particular, helping families with dogs prepare for life with children. Find out more about Aileen at www.theperfectpuppycompany.co.uk Check out Aileen's course at Tromplo: https://tromplo.com/course/preparing-your-dog-for-life-with-your-baby-5/ WE would love to hear your feedback about this episode! Let us know in comments, emails, regular mails (yes they still work ;) ), Facebook messages or any other way you want!

Lindsay Wood Brown Bio Lindsay Wood Brown is a board-certified Associate Applied Animal Behaviourist (ACAAB) with a master’s degree in Animal Behavior.  She specializes in finding solutions for behavioural challenges and consults for animal shelters on the design and implementation of behavior programs, effective behavior modification methods, and the development of robust operational strategies to achieve behavioral health for animals within the shelter environment. Lindsay teaches seminars and workshops around the country and serves as a faculty member for Karen Pryor Academy and Clicker Expo.  She offers coaching and 1:1 mentorship opportunity for behavior consultants. Lindsay has a long history of leadership and building high functioning teams within animal shelters.  She served as the Director of Operations for Lynchburg Humane Society (LHS), an open-admission animal shelter located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.  Her role at Lynchburg Humane included the oversight of all shelter operations, with a strong focus on behavior and behavior modification to increase the number of animal lives saved and successfully rehomed. Lindsay served for 8 years as the Director of Animal Training and Behavior for the Humane Society of Boulder Valley in Boulder, Colorado.  She developed Boulder Humane’s Training and Behavior Department, including their comprehensive behavior modification program, which focuses on rehabilitating dogs with specific behavior conditions, including resource-guarding, fearful behavior, body-handling sensitivities, separation anxiety, and dog-dog aggression.  Lindsay also developed the Humane Society of Boulder Valley’s curricula for a wide array of positive reinforcement, clicker training classes for community members.

CLICK HERE for the podcast outline Ken Ramirez Bio Ken Ramirez is the Executive Vice-President and Chief Training Officer of Karen Pryor Clicker Training where he oversees the vision, development, and implementation of training education programs for the organization, including ClickerExpo, Karen Pryor Academy, and The Ranch. This allows Ken to help bring positive reinforcement training to all corners of the animal training world. Previously, Ken served as the Executive Vice-President of animal care and animal training at Chicago's Shedd Aquarium, where he developed and supervised animal care and animal health programs, staff training and development as well as public presentation programs for a collection of more than 32,000 animals. He worked at Shedd Aquarium for over 25 years. A 40+ year veteran of animal care and training, Ramirez is a biologist and animal behaviorist who served nine years at Marineworld of Texas.  He also was a trainer and coordinator at Ocean Safari in South Padre Island, Texas, as well as acting as a consultant to many zoo and aquarium programs throughout the world.  He began his training career working with guide dogs for the visually impaired and has maintained a close affiliation to pet training throughout his career.  He hosted two successful seasons of the pet training television series Talk to the Animals that compared pet training to the important work done with training and caring for animals in zoological facilities.  He also works closely with several search and rescue dog organizations, service dog groups, as well as with bomb and narcotic dogs. Since 2005, Ken has brought his experience as a trainer of many cognitive projects with marine mammals and primates to the dog arena.  Most notable has been his work with modifier cues, adduction, matching to sample, mimicry, and counting. The latter two projects: teaching dogs to mimic or imitate other dogs, and to learn the concept of counting are in the process of being prepared for scientific publication.  Both of these projects have documented cognitive abilities in dogs that have not been previously well reported or understood. Ken has also pioneered groundbreaking conservation training projects with chimpanzees, polar bears, elephants, butterflies, and other animals. Conservation training applies behavior science in the field with free-ranging animals and uses remote training to facilitate learning to assist wildlife biologists in a wide range of projects. Ramirez has been active in several professional organizations, including the International Marine Animal Trainer’s Association (IMATA), of which he is a past president.  Ken has been actively involved in the creation of a certification process for animal trainers in zoological settings. Ramirez has written for numerous scientific publications and authored countless popular articles.  He authored the book ANIMAL TRAINING: Successful Animal Management through Positive Reinforcement, published in 1999 and Better Together: The Collected Wisdom of Modern Dog Trainers, published in 2017.  Ken taught a graduate course on animal training at Western Illinois University for 20 years and currently offers several online courses through the Karen Pryor Academy. In 2017 Ken moved to Washington state where he created a series of immersive hands-on training courses at The Ranch, the Karen Pryor National Training Center. CLICK HERE for Ken Ramirez's website CLICK HERE for the Karen Pryor Clicker Training website CLICK HERE to learn more about - The Ranch - mentioned in the website CLICK HERE for Ken's letters

You might consider your dog your "baby," but what happens if you decide to add an actual infant to your family? Jessica Jacobson, owner of NYC's Dapper Dog Training, has spent years coaching families on prepping their dogs for the arrival of a tiny non-furry new family member. Annie and she discuss how she built her career, and go over some key things to consider when training a dog for interspecies sibling-hood. Notes: Dapper Dog Training - Marilyn Ullman of the "Discover Your Dream Career" course - Association of Professional Dog Trainers' annual conference - Nursing Your Baby by Karen Pryor - Snuggle Puppies - Annie's baby! - Music: "Hello Ma Baby" ukulele cover by The Channel Drifters --- Partial Transcript: **music** Annie: Hi everyone. Thank you so much for listening. Before we get into the meat of today's show, I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has left reviews on iTunes. It's a really great way to let people know about this podcast. If you're enjoying it, please do leave a review. And Instagram stories has also been a fun way that people have let others know about the podcast. If you take a screenshot and share in stories and tag School for the Dogs on Instagram, we will reshare it. And it really feels good to know that we're reaching people. So today I am talking to my friend, fellow dog trainer, Jessica Jacobson, who has her own dog training business in New York City. And I wanted to talk to her both to just find out how she got into dog training and built her business, but also specifically because she has something of an expertise on preparing dogs for the arrival of a baby. And I have a baby on the way so I was hoping she might be able to give me some tips on getting Amos, my Yorkiepoo ready for this life event. Jessica: Hello? Hi. My name is Jessica and my company is called Dapper Dog training and I'm stoked to be here. Annie: And we've known each other actually for a long time now. Jessica: Yeah Annie: We met in Atlanta at the APDT dog conference dog conference. Jessica: 30000 years ago. Annie: 2010 it was. I remember it was 2010, cause it was right after I finished Karen Pryor Academy. Jessica: Oh yeah. Annie: Was that the first time you'd ever been to the association? APDT is the Association for Professional Dog Training? Jessica; Yes. I think it was my second conference or maybe my first. I don't remember, but I remember when I saw you and we had gotten together because I think I was listed on the APDT website as having a dog trainer meetup. Annie: Yeah, yeah. Which is actually also, I think how I met Kate was through your meetup. But that was like a real seminal moment for me because it was the first time that I was sort of immersed in a group of dog trainers outside of the two other people in my class at KPA. Jessica: It's like social crack. Annie: Yeah. It was a bit. It was also, it was just so interesting to meet people doing it, like all people from all over the country and also meeting different kinds of dog trainers and cause Association Professional Dog Training is not strictly, um... Full Transcript available at SchoolfortheDogs.com/Podcasts/

Joan Orr is a scientist and internationally recognized clicker trainer. Along with Theresa McKeon, Joan is one of the co-founders of TAGteach International, a company that promotes the application of marker-based positive reinforcement training for humans. Joan was a member of the Karen Pryor Clickertraining Clicker Expo Faculty for 9 years and content creator and advisor to the Karen Pryor Academy for Animal Training and Behavior. She is a pioneer in the field of clicker training rabbits and co-author of a book on the subject. Joan and Teresa Lewin are co-founders of Doggone Crazy Inc, a company dedicated to dog bite prevention through education. They created the board game Doggone Crazy!, the “Doggie Detective”  bite prevention education program for elementary school children and the Clicker Puppy training DVD. Joan has published many articles on dog bite prevention, positive training methods and the importance of understanding dog body language and has received many awards for her work. Most recently Joan has teamed up with behavior analyst Ryan O’Donnell to put on the annual conference: The Convergence of Human & Animal Training and Technology.

CLICK HERE for the podcast outline. Lynn Webb (M.A., KPA CTP, CTMT) Bio Lynn Webb is a dog trainer and canine massage therapist who lives in Escondido, California, in North San Diego County. She is certified as a dog trainer through the Karen Pryor Academy and as a massage therapist through the Rocky Mountain School […] The post Lynn Webb – The proficient pup; Avoiding snake avoidance training… appeared first on Animal Training Academy.

Terry Ryan has been training dogs and their owners from all over the world for 50 years. A self-described "crossover" trainer, Terry has witnessed and helped lead the ongoing transformation of companion animal training from the old days of relying heavily on behavior corrections using aversive methods to today's focus on animal behavior success using positive reinforcement. In addition to operating her own training facility, Legacy Canine, in the Pacific Northwest, she is an instructor for the Karen Pryor Academy, an author of several books and other training materials, and she is particularly fond of her chicken training workshops because they allow participants to set aside any baggage they may have acquired by training dogs!    www.legacycanine.com https://karenpryoracademy.com www.iReinforce.com      

Here is a shocker for you: dog training is a rather polarized activity. It is common for everyone to retreat to their respective camps, defensive, backs up, lips curled back with their teeth showing. In my opinion, this is the wrong way to go about things. Do I have preferences on how I will train my dog and my client's dogs? Yes. Are there certain techniques and tools I simply will not use in my training program? Yes. Does that mean the people who use those techniques or tools are inherently evil and incapable of having any value in their overall knoweldge about dogs or dog training? No. In this podcast we will discuss how, as your dog's advocate, you owe it to them to always have an open mind, so you will be able to pick out the diamonds among the poop piles. ----more---- Want to learn more about Dog Sport University? Check out our website and look over our Dog Sport Skills courses. You may also be interested in our informative webinars as well as the Dog Sport University blog.  Have you heard about Scent Work and want to delve deeper into that activity? Perfect, we have just the thing! Check out our sister online dog training platform, Scent Work University where you will find courses and webinars suited for both those dog owners who simply want to have fun, and those who are seriously competing with their dogs. Maybe you're looking to help your puppy or dog in the manners department. Then your need to check out Family Dog University where we provide a variety of programs to help your dog be the best canine family companion they can be! PODCAST TRANSCRIPT Welcome to the All About Dog Training and Dog Sports Podcast. In this podcast, we'll be talking about all things dog training. We'll also be giving you a behind the scenes look as far as what your instructor may be going through, a variety of dog training tips, how you can succeed in various dog sports, and much more. In this episode, we'll be talking about finding diamonds in poop piles. Now, I don't mean this literally, but rather we'll be discussing how it is that we can go about approaching dog training in a way that we are not discounting valuable information, and that valuable information could actually be hiding in some pretty obscure places. Before we get started in the podcast, let me just do a very quick introduction for myself. My name is Dianna Santos. I'm the owner and lead instructor for Dog Sport University. Dog Sport University is an online dog training platform where we cover everything from good manners training to helping you succeed within a variety of dog sports. We provide online courses, webinars, and seminars. So, we urge you to check that out if you do have any dog training needs. But without any further ado, let's get started in the podcast. The whole purpose behind this podcast episode is to talk about finding diamonds in poop piles, and no, I don't want you running out and actually going through all of your dog's poop piles to see whether or not there's a diamond in there and you could retire. This is a metaphor. So, the one thing that I'm hoping that we can achieve with this podcast is an understanding that knowledge is knowledge. It can always help us regardless of where it may have come from. One of the themes that I'm noticing within the dog training community as a whole is that we can be very cliquey and we can also blind ourselves to potentially good information simply because of who is saying that information. So, there's a couple of topics within this general idea that I'd like to cover. The first is the fact that it would be helpful for anyone involved in dog training, whether they be handler, a dog owner, a competitor, or an instructor, or a trainer, to just be open-minded, and that someone may have a completely different approach to training than you do, but they may also have something valuable within their bag of tricks that will be valuable for both you and your dog. It could even just simply be looking at things through a different lens. Or you may discount everything else that they do, but that one thing, that one different perspective, may be able to help you and your dog. It's also taking away some of the portrayal that we are all displaying all too often in our conversations about other types of training. So, for me, personally, I am a proud member of Karen Pryor Academy. I'm a Karen Pryor-approved instructor. I use positive reinforcement training and I adore clicker training, but that doesn't mean that if someone is a balanced trainer or if someone uses corrections that by default, I think that they're evil. I don't. I simply disagree with how it is they go about training. That also doesn't mean that if those people are doing those things, that there is absolutely nothing that I couldn't learn from them. There very well could be. There could be things that they're doing intertwined within their approach that could actually be valuable, not that I'm suddenly going to start using corrections. I'm not. But there could be something of value in there. But I'm also going to be valuing them as a fellow dog lover. Just because someone uses corrections doesn't mean they don't love dogs. They just have a different approach than I do, and that's okay. And for anyone else who is a positive reinforcement trainer, just a word from someone within your community, make sure you're not looking down on anyone else, and this is very hard to do because, quite frankly, positive reinforcement training is still on the newer side. It's been a revolution within the dog training community, but it hasn't been around that long in the grand scheme of things, so there are a lot of people who are making a transition into positive reinforcement training, and that can be a very painful process for that person because they're almost shamed during the process. "Oh, well, you finally saw the light. What took you so long?" That's terrible. I would never wanna talk to someone who talks to me like that. That's not helpful in any way, shape, or form. So, we all can do better, and the same applies for those who are balanced trainers or are using corrections who say, "Ah, those stupid cookie feeders," and, "Oh, they do their little click, click, click, and ... What's next? They're just going to throw some essential oils on the dog and we're all gonna sing Kumbaya and everything's gonna be great?" There's, again, a level of just venom of how people talk about each other that just isn't helpful at all 'cause at the end of the day, I'm pretty sure everyone just wants their dogs to be better behaved, so that we can all have a better life co-existing with these little aliens who share our homes with us. That's the whole point of all this stuff. So, if we can bring the temperature down a little bit as far as how we talk about one another and we start seeing each other as dog lovers first who just simply disagree on how you can get to the same point, then that's a much better approach than what, typically, is happening out in the community right now. The other thing to be mindful of is the fact that there are many different ways to achieve the same goal in dog training, even within the same method of training. So, what I mean by that is, for myself, I use positive reinforcement, I use reward-based training, I use clicker training. If I'm trying to train a dog how to sit, there's multiple ways that I can do that, even under that umbrella. There is no 100,000% way, everyone must do it this way, and there's no other way that you can do it. Of course not. That's not the way that dog training works because every single dog is different. Teaching a standard poodle how to sit may not be an issue. Teaching a greyhound who's off the racetrack how to sit could take you a little bit more time. You have to be mindful of those things and be careful not to think that your way is the only way. Always be open-minded. Someone may have a suggestion for you. It could even just simply be something easy that you do with your body as far as how you hold yourself, maybe with where you look, maybe with where you step, maybe if you're using treats, where you hold the treat, when you deliver the treat. There's all these little intricacies that if you have an open-minded and an open approach to training, if you go to a lot of seminars, if you watch a lot of videos, if you talk with other professionals, even as colleagues, you can pick things up. Always be learning. Don't ever think, "Oh, I know how to do that. I don't ever need to know about that ever again." The second that you do that, that's the second that you're basically turning your back on you being a better professional or a better trainer, and I'm not just speaking to professionals. I'm speaking, also, to dog owners. The second that you think you know everything, your dogs have a very good way of humbling you, so make certain that you are figuring out ways that can help you and your dog be successful. The other big thing that I really want to ensure that we understand, hopefully, by the end of this podcast is that simply because you do not agree with someone, even within your camp of training ... So, let's say that you are talking with another positive reinforcement trainer and you are also a positive reinforcement trainer, but you start talking about training a particular behavior, and you simply have a disagreement on how you can do that, you both have completely different approaches, doesn't mean that either of them is better than the other, they're just different. That doesn't mean that that person is now somehow lesser than you are or that you are lesser than they are. It's just, simply, different. Instead, honestly listen to the person as they're giving what their approach would be and see how that may be able to apply to either your personal dog or your clients or your future students. Is this an approach that maybe you could have in your back pocket and take out if your normal go-to approach doesn't work? Again, the more tools you have in your toolbox, the better, but you're only gonna be able to develop those tools if you can learn them, and the best way of learning them is from other people. The other thing I really wanna nail down this podcast is a need for everyone to really understand that just because you disagree with someone, even if it's something as touchy as training methodology, so positive reinforcement versus balanced training as an example, just because you disagree with them doesn't mean that you have to hate them. Those are two completely different things. Again, just because someone wants to train differently than you doesn't make them inherently evil, it doesn't make them inherently hate dogs or want to hurt dogs or want to do terrible things to the owners or steal the owner's money or waste their time or whatever other outlandish thing that people may think. That's not the case. They simply train differently than you do. Nothing more, nothing less. On the flip side of that, if you happen to agree with someone 'cause they do the same type of training that you do or they would approach a problem the same way that you do, that doesn't mean that you have to love or idolize them. Be very, very careful about idolizing anyone. This can be almost more detrimental than if you despise someone because if you idolize someone, then you're basically going to be looking at everything that they do through these rosy glasses where, in reality, maybe there are things that they do that don't make sense or they wouldn't apply well to you or your dog, but then you're trying to emulate what you see, and lo and behold, it doesn't work. So, you have to be careful with both of these extremes. Just because you disagree with someone doesn't mean that they're the devil incarnate, and just because you agree with someone doesn't mean that they're a saint. We have to be realistic about these things, and the dog world is a very passionate one, and we're all very passionate about dog training, and that doesn't mean that I want you to be less passionate, I just want you to be rational in your passion and see these people as for who they are. They are people. Take everything with a grain of salt. Just because someone has a lot of accolades and a lot of achievements, whether it be certifications with different organizations for training, whether it be titles and ribbons if they're doing dog sports, that doesn't mean that's going to translate into them being a good teacher. So, a better way of thinking about it is this. If you have someone who is an instructor, my opinion of an instructor is someone who can actually take knowledge they have and then teach it to a handler who can then train it to their dog. That's really hard. You then have a trainer, which, again, from my definition is someone who primarily is working directly with dogs, so they can take the knowledge that they have on how they can manipulate behavior and they can train the dog. You then have people who are competitors or trainer competitors, who are working, primarily, with their own personal dogs, so they're campaigning out with a variety of different dog sports and things, so they have the knowledge of how they can manipulate the behavior of their own individual dog. So, from these three different categories, those are three completely different skill-sets. Can I, for the trainer competitor, can I actually communicate to my own personal dogs, so we can achieve our goals? For the trainer who's working with other people's dogs, can I take my knowledge and then relay that to these dogs that I may or may not know. And then for the instructor, can I take the knowledge that I have, translate it into human terms, so another human being can understand it enough to train their dog? Those are all really super complicated, and quite honestly, there's very few people who have all three all bundled up into one. For instance, there are people who are excellent trainer competitors, meaning that they have achieved the highest accolades within their given sport. They're amazing. They and their dogs are an incredible team. At the same point, they would never in a million years be able to translate that to anyone else. They wouldn't be able to share that knowledge in a helpful way to someone else. There's also some times where you may be able to have all the accolades and titles in the world, but if somewhere else were to watch that team work, go like, "I can't learn anything from you. That handling is not very helpful. Nothing you're doing is helpful to anyone else but you." and there's nothing wrong with that. But we have to be mindful of these things. So, as consumers, even if you are a professional trainer, even if you are a professional instructor, if you are taking any classes, seminars, webinars, whatever else with anybody, be mindful of who it is. Know what they're saying and see what is valuable and then leave behind the rest, and that's okay. That doesn't mean the person giving the information is bad and that doesn't mean that you're not loyal enough 'cause you're not taking it hook, line, and sinker. Just look at things through a critical lens. What is valuable to you and what isn't? The big thing that I'm hoping that everyone can walk away from this podcast understanding is that there really is an art to all this dog training business. I say it a lot in my classes for both Dog Sport University and Scent Work University, but it's true. You have to be an artist when it comes to training dogs, but it also applies to how you understand dog training and how you're able to internalize that, really understand it, and then apply it to whatever dog is in front of you, and if you're an instructor, to another human being, who can then translate it to their dog. This is hard stuff. This isn't easy. So, we have to learn how to take in information so that it's helpful to us and it's useful and then how we can customize it so that it's even more helpful in the end, and that can be really challenging because there's all these other things that are attached to it. There are personalities, there are allegiances, there are groups, and cliques, and all kinds of stuff. Try to ignore all that stuff. Even if there's someone who you vehemently disagree with 99.9% of the things that they do, there may be that 1% of things that either they do, they talk about, or concepts that they at least bring to light that could be extraordinarily beneficial. Use those to your advantage. That will help you in the end. I hope that these concepts make sense. The big thing is that the way that, in my opinion, we should be approaching dog training is how it is that we can get the most information that we can so that we can better help our dogs. For me, personally, I learn a lot about what not to do in a situation. So, even if there is someone that I don't agree with as far as how they train, I'm not looking only for what I could do in a given situation, I'm also gonna be looking for what not to do. That's still just information. It's still learning. So, having an open mind and approaching this without all the emotion attached to it, that you are simply just learning, that you are trying to be the best trainer that you can be to help either your own personal dog or to help your clients. It takes some of the pressure off to join into these camps, and the more that we can get away from that really negative association of the other, "You don't do it the way that I do it; therefore, you are bad," the better it would be for our community. It can be challenging, particularly if people vehemently disagree on things, but if you can just remind yourself that the person on the other side of that topic or that stance more likely than not also loves their dog, you can still see them as a fellow dog lover, and it can help prevent a lot of issues down the line, and particularly if you are in your own journey of training. If you have more of an open mind, you will be more open-minded to other ways of training, of other ways of achieving that goal, but if you're very steadfast in how you approach things, you may actually be limiting yourself as far as any potential options or solutions that are out there for both you and your dog, which could cause issues down the line. So, again, the whole point of this podcast is to just try to remind everyone that we're all dog lovers. At the end of the day, we are just trying to figure out the best way to live with a completely separate species within our homes and to maybe do some other fun things that are dog sport specific and how it is we can achieve our goals, whether it simply be just living at home peacefully without us pulling our hair out or it's achieving the highest title and accolade, and again, in dog sport. But we're all in this, typically, for the same reason, that we love dogs, and if we could look at one another in that lens, it can really help. So, I hope this podcast was helpful. Happy training. We look forward to seeing you soon.

Sarah Owings is a speaker at ClickerExpo and a Karen Pryor Academy faculty member. She competes regularly in the sport of nose work at an elite level and is an instructor for CyberDog online. She's also written for Clean Run Magazine on cues and stimulus control.  In this podcast we discuss how to get your dog to engage with you more and when and why we should give dogs choice in training. This podcast is sponsored by Butternut Box. To get 75% off your first order go to www.butternutbox.com/nickbenger

This episode covers the topic of separation anxiety. Terrie Hayward of Positive Animal Wellness   shares her experience on how to work with a dachshund to eliminate Separation Anxiety. Terrie has attended numerous workshops and works with Karen Pryor Academy. Books written by Terrie can be found here  Ways to contact us Instagram-Wiener_dog_lover_ Facebook-Wiener Dog Lover Twitter-@lovingwienerdog email-bark@wienerdoglover.com  

Dr. Elinor Karlsson Here are the links mentioned in the podcast: muttmix.org where you can now take a "Pup Test" that measures your ability to determine the various mixed breeds that are part of 31 example dogs. The answers are now displayed immediately and you can see how well the original Muttmix study participants did. I stopped even guessing after about six animals. Their citizen science site is darwinsark.org Animal behaviorist Marjie Alonso CDBC, CPDT-KA, KPA CTP and geneticist Dr. Elinor Karlsson, who managed the MuttMix Project for the International Association of Animal Behavioral Consultants tell trainer Laura Pakis that almost everything I think I know about the links between breed, genetics, and behavior is wrong. A very fun segment! Marjie was a professional dog trainer and behavior consultant and owner of City Dog Training in Somerville, MA. for decades, during which time she also served as Training Director, and then behavioral consultant for the New England Dog Training Club, the oldest AKC club in the US, and as a member of the America Humane Association's Advisory Board for Companion Animal Behavior and Training. Marjie is the co-founder of the Somerville Foundation for Animals, which hosts the Somerville Dog Festival each year. Marjie is a Certified Dog Behavior Consultant (CDBC) with the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants; a Certified Training Partner of Karen Pryor Academy; a Certified Pet Dog Trainer, Knowledge Assessed (CPDT-KA) of the Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers; an AKC Canine Good Citizen evaluator, and a Professional Member of the Association of Professional Dog Trainers (APDT) Elinor is the director of the Vertebrate Genomics Group at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. She is also an assistant professor in bioinformatics and integrative biology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. She is excited by the potential for using our own evolutionary history to understand how the human genome works, and in how that knowledge can lead to advances in healthcare. Karlsson’s current projects include the 200 Mammals Genome Project, an international effort led by the Vertebrate Genomics group at the Broad to compare hundreds of different mammalian genomes and identify critically important segments of DNA. She is also studying recent human evolution to find the genetic variation that makes some people resistant to ancient infectious diseases, like cholera. Karlsson has a special interest in diseases shared between humans and dogs. She recently launched the citizen science-driven Darwin’s Dogs project, which invites all dog owners to participate directly in research exploring the genetic basis of dog behavior, as well as diseases such as OCD and cancer. Karlsson received her B.A. in biochemistry/cell biology from Rice University, and earned her Ph.D. in bioinformatics from Boston University. She was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University before starting her own research group at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in 2014.

Dr. Elinor Karlsson Animal behavioralist Marjie Alonso CDBC, CPDT-KA, KPA CTP and geneticist Dr. Elinor Karlsson, who managed the MuttMix Project for the International Association of Animal Behavioral Consultants will be here this week to discuss whether those home DNA tests can really identify the breed of your dog. And what is the impact of genetics on behavior? Expert trainer Laura Pakis and I will do the interview in the "Ask Us Anything" format (please call!) for the entire first hour of the program, 12:08-1pm PT. Please tell your friends! Marjie was a professional dog trainer and behavior consultant and owner of City Dog Training in Somerville, MA. for decades, during which time she also served as Training Director, and then behavioral consultant for the New England Dog Training Club, the oldest AKC club in the US, and as a member of the America Humane Association's Advisory Board for Companion Animal Behavior and Training. Marjie is the co-founder of the Somerville Foundation for Animals, which hosts the Somerville Dog Festival each year. Marjie is a Certified Dog Behavior Consultant (CDBC) with the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants; a Certified Training Partner of Karen Pryor Academy; a Certified Pet Dog Trainer, Knowledge Assessed (CPDT-KA) of the Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers; an AKC Canine Good Citizen evaluator, and a Professional Member of the Association of Professional Dog Trainers (APDT) Elinor is the director of the Vertebrate Genomics Group at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. She is also an assistant professor in bioinformatics and integrative biology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. She is excited by the potential for using our own evolutionary history to understand how the human genome works, and in how that knowledge can lead to advances in healthcare. Karlsson’s current projects include the 200 Mammals Genome Project, an international effort led by the Vertebrate Genomics group at the Broad to compare hundreds of different mammalian genomes and identify critically important segments of DNA. She is also studying recent human evolution to find the genetic variation that makes some people resistant to ancient infectious diseases, like cholera. Karlsson has a special interest in diseases shared between humans and dogs. She recently launched the citizen science-driven Darwin’s Dogs project, which invites all dog owners to participate directly in research exploring the genetic basis of dog behavior, as well as diseases such as OCD and cancer. Karlsson received her B.A. in biochemistry/cell biology from Rice University, and earned her Ph.D. in bioinformatics from Boston University. She was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University before starting her own research group at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in 2014.  

Do you own a dog walking business and you're thinking about becoming a dog trainer, but don't know where to start? Have you always dreamed of working with dogs and becoming an expert? In this episode of Handling Business, we sit down with Kim Sauer of Sit n’ Stay Professional Pet Services who is a true expert and leader in the pet care industry. Kim Sauer's fascination with dog training took off in 1997 when she started assisting a local trainer using a clicker in exchange for helping her with her own aggressive dog. Her interest grew as she learned how much she loved working with animals and enjoyed seeing the transformation in both the dogs and the owners. Kim opened her pet sitting and dog walking business, Sit n' Stay Pet Services in hopes that the fields would complement each other. Kim hired her first employee in 2005 and has steadily increased in size over the years to now have 30 pet sitters and dog walks, an office manager and 5 trainers on her team. Kim first earned her certificate from Animal Behavior College in January 2002 becoming an ABC Certified Dog Trainer and then later became a Certified Professional Dog Trainer (CPDT-KA) in March of 2006. She is also an AKC Canine Good Citizen (CGC) and AKC STAR Puppy Evaluator. In 2006 Kim became an ABC Mentor Trainer and also a CATCH Dog Training Program Mentor Trainer and is now helping others to realize their dream of becoming a dog trainer! Kim became a PetTech Pet First Aid Instructor back in 2006 and in 2012 became a Mentor Trainer with PetTech, helping others to become PetTech Instructors as well. Kim's specialty is working with families owning pets who plan to bring a baby into the household. She was the trainer for the SPCA serving Erie County's Baby Ready Pets Program for 7 years, the the trainer for the SPCA serving Erie County's Teaching Love and Compassion Program (TLC) to inner city at-risk youth program for 5 years, and the trainer for the SPCA Serving Erie County's Paws for Love Therapy Dog Program Evaluator. Kim is also a current Licensed Educator for the Dogs & Storks Program and the Dog and Toddlers Program. Kim credits most of her education to her own dogs- Blaze, Nigel, Greta, Coop and the many cats and sugar gliders she has shared her home with. Kim believes that every animal (and human), come into your life to teach you something. In this episode you’ll learn how to... -Become a certified trainer and develop a solid program or partner with other programs who already have great resources, handouts and outlines -Enroll in a dog training program with CATCH Dog Trainers Academy, Karen Pryor Academy or Animal Behavior College, and work towards becoming a Certified Professional Dog Trainer which is a separate certification from a dog training program -Become a mentor trainer through CATCH or PetTech as a way to give back to your community and bring in a good flow of potential dog trainers for your growing dog training business -Find great employees and motivate them to be dedicated to your team long term Books that Kim loves… -Entreleadership by Dave Ramsey -The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks Favorite takeaway… “You can’t train people to be friendly, you need to hire friendly people. You can teach people how to take great care of animals, but you can’t always train people to have a certain personality type."

In this podcast, we will discuss the battle many dog trainers, instructors, handlers and owners will encounter at some point: keeping their ego in check when it comes to training and competing with their dog. We will discuss how this applies specifically to Scent Work, some of the common pitfalls and how you can set your dog and YOURSELF up to succeed.  Be certain to also check out the Scent Work University blog. ----more---- Looking to build some skills that will help you become a better Scent Work handler? Take a look at our Handler Scent Work Skills courses.  Know your dog needs to work on a particular skill or aspect of their Scent Work training? Our Advanced Scent Work courses have what you need.  Need tips on how to succeed in a particular Scent Work competition organization? Find what you are looking for with our Competition Venue courses. PODCAST TRANSCRIPT Welcome to the Scent Work University all about Scent Work Podcast. We're so delighted that you're here. The purpose of this podcast is to discuss what the title says all things Scent Work. We're hoping that you'll find this podcast helpful. We'll answer some of the questions you may have about the activity of Scent Work. In some of our series, we're also going to be giving you a behind-the-curtain look as far as what happens at trials, what your instructor may be going through, as well as some tips that you may have as both a competitor as well as an owner of a dog where you just want to broaden their horizons. All right. Let's get started. I wanted to take a quick second just to introduce myself. My name is Dianna Santos. I am the Owner and the Lead Instructor for Scent Work University as well as Dog Sport University. I've been training dogs professionally since 2011. I am certified through the Karen Pryor Academy of dog training. I'm also a certified Nose Work instructor through NACSW. In addition to training dogs professionally for a number of years, I am also privileged to be the judge and CSD coordinator with United States Canine Scent Sports which is a Scent Work competition organization that was started in 2016. We are growing very rapidly in the United States and looking to grow internationally as well. In addition to that, I am also an AKC fully approved judge for Scent Work. I also participate in a AKC Scent Work trials as a score room person as well as a competitor. I come at this from a variety of different standpoints as not only an instructor and a professional trainer, but also as an official and a coordinator of officials and also one of the backstage people for competitions. I view Scent Work from a variety of different viewpoints. I think that it can help me in helping you have a very well-rounded approach to Scent Work. It's just a really quick rundown for me. All right. Let's get started with our podcast. In today's podcast, we're going to be talking about a very important topic. That relates to battling your ego. This will be in the context of Scent Work and Scent Work competitions. We're coming at this from the standpoint of not only a competitor but also an instructor and even an official. This is, hopefully, going to be helpful to all those different categories of people who may be involved in the activity of Scent Work and the competition element as well. The first thing that I wanted to really underline when we're talking about this really important topic that's almost an elephant in the room is it's crucially important for us as handlers to understand that when we are doing Scent Work competitions, we are doing this on behalf of our dogs meaning that we are the ones who sign the checks, we are the ones who bring them to the trial site, we are the ones who signed them up. Your dog isn't the one making these decisions. You are. As such, it's really important for us to understand that we hold a lot of responsibility as the teammate in how we conduct ourselves and how we hold ourselves together mentally and how we cope with the competition stressors overall. This is why battling your ego is a really important thing that I don't think too many people give enough credence to. The fact of the matter is almost everyone is going to reach this point at some point in their competition career where you may have been very lucky in the beginning parts of your training. This is pretty common where in the lower levels, you're getting guesses left and right, you're getting lots of cues and lots of pretty ribbons and everything is fabulous. Then, suddenly, it all comes to a screeching halt. You get your first no or maybe you get a couple of no's. Now, you're not getting cues. Particularly, if you're working with a group of friends or if you're working with classmates who may also be trialing at the same time, maybe they got a yes where you got a no or you happen to see colleagues or friends going out and saying like, "Oh, I got this awesome title and, oh, we did this." Then, you see other posts like I got the first ever yada-yada. This is where the human brain starts getting involved in really negative ways. It starts weaving in all these insecurities, self-worth issues, and questions about, well, now, I need to get this cue not because I'm trying to make memories with my dog, not because I'm trying to test my training, not because I'm trying to have a good time with my dog because I need this because this shows that I'm a good person. This shows that I'm a good trainer. This shows that I'm a good competitor. This shows that I'm a good dog honor. That shift is something that almost everyone will go through in some point of their competition career. It's crucial that you recognize it as early as you can. Then, get the car back on the road because if you stay on that path, it's going to diminish the quality and the fun of the activity. You are going to diminish your ability to be a very good teammate to your dog. You could actually be putting both of you into situations that you're not ready for. You could be discounting the importance of actually training and practicing. You could just be taking away all the fun. You could actually be making it miserable for both yourself and dog. The point of this podcast is to touch upon some of these hot topic issues that can be really uncomfortable for some of us to talk about, but is very crucial for us to realize and to understand that if you're going through this, I've been through it. Almost every competitor at some point has. You just have to recognize it and then figure out how you can get back on track. One of the ways that we can help ourselves as competitors is we can have a really honest discussion as to why it is that we're competing in the first place. For me, personally, I am a horrible sore loser. It's really bad. When I was a child, I would play a lot of card games with my family. I was very young. They were all experienced and more often than not, I would lose. In the beginning, I would throw fits. I mean it was terrible. It's really bad. I didn't like the way that felt. I completely swapped it. I put it on its head. I would throw games on purpose because I felt like I had a little element of control. Then, it didn't make me feel so bad. That's not really a great coping mechanism for it. It would have just been better to learn not to be a sore loser, but that's how I dealt with it. Knowing that when I came into the dog sport realm, I avoided it as long as I could. I really did. I was a professional trainer for a while. I would just say, "Oh, my dog isn't appropriate and whatever." My first Doberman was fairly ... he was dog aggressive. He was not dog reactive. He was dog aggressive. They're like, "Oh, we can have you. We could lend you our dog." I was like, "Oh, no. That's okay." But in the back of my mind, I was like, "I don't want to do this, because I don't want to feel that way." I know at some point I'm not going to do well. I don't want to feel a little gross about it. It did fall into it with my new Dobie who is wonderful. He's extraordinarily talented. He makes me look like I know what I'm doing. I remember our first real competition thing that we were doing consistently was Barn Hunt. He was fabulous. I mean he was just spectacular. As with most sports, the lower levels, it's not that they're easy, but you're able to go along. You're able to accrue a lot of Q's fairly quickly. We did that. It felt great. I was like, "Oh, look at the pretty little ribbon and oh look he gets a little couple letters after his name." How exciting. But I was just thinking, "Oh it's not that big of a deal like, oh, we're just having fun." That's what I would try to convince myself where in the back of my mind, I was waiting for that ever-present this was all going to fall apart at some point. Sure enough, we entered into a senior class. It was the first time that we got it a "No". I came out of the ring. We held our party. Everything was fine. I was like, "Okay." Well, just no biggie. Whatever else, also realizing that senior for barn hunt is one of the hardest elements to go into from the lower levels. It's a big jump from open to senior basically. Then we went back for our second run. We got another "No". I can honestly tell you that second run I was so stuck in my head about that first run. I wasn't reading my dog. I wasn't going along the ring the way that was supposed to. I was distracted. I was so stressed. It affected our ability to do it. Then, I just started making mistakes left and right. I wouldn't practice anymore. Then, we just show up for trial. Then, lo and behold, we would get another no. It was a nightmare. It was just awful. The whole time I'm sitting there going I can't believe this. I teach barn hunt. I can't have "No's" which is a ridiculous statement because the last time I checked I'm not a robot. I am a person who has flaws, who makes mistakes. I am not perfect by any stretch. It started snowballing from there. I finally caught myself when I wasn't going to practice anymore. I wasn't able to teach because my neck and my back issues acted up, but I wasn't even taking him just to have fun. We went for months, almost six months, without doing any Barn Hunt, one of his favorite activities ever, simply because I was all caught up in the, ,well, we don't have our senior title. I was like, "Who cares?" Last time I checked, like no one's knocking on my door saying, "Santos, why don't you have your senior title?" No one cares. It was something I had to go through. I just had to really sit down and evaluate and say, "Okay. Look. My dog loves this activity." It's a very big jump from open to senior. You have to be more present as a teammate when you're doing this. I need to not be all hung up. The fact that we got some "No's", "No's" that we earned really. I earned. He did his job. He found all the rats. I just never called them. While this isn't specifically for Scent Work, I'm hoping that I can demonstrate that this happens to everyone that at some point in your competition career, you're going to get a no. Particularly in the realm of Scent Work, a lot of times when we call false alerts, it's because of us. It's because of the handler. We convinced the dog of, "Oh, look, I'm staring at this chair." The dog is like, "Well, there's no odor there." But maybe when I play this of a game, I don't know, maybe you change your game, but you really like it when I sit. I'm going to sit here. I'm going to look for my cookie. Then, we get all flustered and mad. Then, we try to blame the dog when actually they were just cuing off of us. It's really crucially important for us as handlers to understand the importance and the weight that we hold as a teammate. That means we have to have our head screwed on right when we are actually going in to compete. Now, I can hear you saying, "Okay. Well, that's all fine and dandy." But what about what other people think? I don't want to readily admit it, but I really do care what other people think. Particularly all the instructors and the other officials out there raising their hands like, yeah, there's no way that I can show my face if my dog can't get X title. No one's going to want to learn with me anymore. No one's going to take my classes. No one's going to be at my business. I need to be up on my game. I need to be perfect at all times. I understand the concern. I truly do. There were times where I was like, "Oh, I just …" It's a good thing that my neck and my back went out because I can't teach barn hunt anymore. One of my students are like, "What?" I'm like, "Well, I haven't gotten these titles. Clearly, I have no idea what I'm doing." She's like, "Of course. You do. What are you talking about?" We saw your run. He was having so much fun. He found the rats. Then, we learned from you that we need to not do that, that we need to understand our importance as handlers. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't be an instructor anymore, but that's something that a lot of people go through where they're pushing themselves and they're pushing their dogs in this attempt to be perfect so that they can maintain their ability to hold on to their clients because they feel as though if I falter even a little bit, then, everyone's going to leave me. A shout out to all of my fellow instructors and officials. Your students more often than not are not just with you because of what you achieve. That may have been how they found you, to be blunt, but it's really the connection that you make with them. By showing that you aren't perfect, you're actually helping them because it's setting realistic expectations. I cannot tell you how heartbreaking it is to see students come to me for brand-new, never had them before. They've been struggling and really falling apart as a team with them and themselves in their dog because they see all these posts. They're always so lofty on social media. We've only been training for two seconds, but now, we have the highest title and blah-blah-blah-blah. They're trying to emulate that as much as they can. Sure enough, it doesn't work. Sure enough, there's a lot of problems that come along with it. Now, they're just at their wit's end. They go, "I don't know what to do. I don't know what's wrong with me. I don't know what's wrong with my dog," which is heartbreaking. There's nothing wrong with either one of them. Everyone learns differently, and everyone has a different way of approaching things which is fine. There's nothing wrong with that. For my fellow instructors and officials, if you have a student who's with you right now and they are showing progress, they actually can see that paying you their money and you are helping them and they're happy with that, it's the human connection that you're making with them. They're not just going to abandon you because you went to a trial and maybe didn't queue and everything. It feels like that at the time, I understand, but it's not true. We need to as professionals remind ourselves of that because we're putting all the undue pressure on ourselves, but I can tell you that that does bleed over to our students that if we're putting that high almost unattainable expectation on ourselves, we are then transferring that to our students which is entirely unfair. On the same wavelength is the idea of always wanting to be the first. Now that AKC Scent Work is available for people to enter into trials which is fabulous, more trialing opportunities, more opportunities people play is great, but now, there's this mad rush. I want to be the first to get this title. I want to be the first to get that title. Personally, I think that is a fool's errand. It's not to talk down on people who do that. If you do that, but you do it consciously and you recognize that if something was happening in your training that you needed to address first. If it wasn't going along the way that you wanted to, then, it's not going to be the end of the world than I guess. But, often times, none of those considerations are being made. I would urge people instead to always ask themselves why are you competing. Why are you doing this in the first place? Why are you spending your money? Why are you getting up so early on a weekend? Why are you calling around all this stuff in your car so you can have it set up at the trial site? Why are you doing all this training in preparation? Why are you travelling to the trial site? Why are you going through all the stress that just comes along with trialing? What is the purpose? At the end of the day, you really should include I like doing this with my dog. If that's not part of the equation, then, maybe you want to re-evaluate things and figure out where things went awry, and how you might be able to fix it. One of the biggest ways that the ego can really get in the way of you as a competitor is trying to keep up appearances that everything that you do is perfect. This is where you can get into a competition of keeping up with the Jones'. This is where you will see trends spread like a wildfire. It doesn't mean necessarily that that trend was good, but someone sees someone else do something. Then, they start doing it. It just goes from there. This is where we have the show-me thing went from coast to coast in record time. It is the bane of almost every single official's existence like stop your dog has already told you where it is. Why are you saying show me? The same thing where you may have someone who is watching an official maybe do a debrief at a trial where they're going over, well, this was a particular owner problem. This is what we were expecting. This is what we saw. Here, I'll give you this small little tip that is extraordinarily contextual to this type of odor problem, but now the everyone is doing it for everything. It's something that we really want to be mindful of that just because someone else does it doesn't mean that that applies to you and your dog. It doesn't mean that if you don't do it, that you're somehow wrong. In the same vein of trying to keep up appearance as an appearing as though everything is perfect. All that's going to do is cause you to get really stressed out when things do go left. For anyone who has competed at any period of time at a summer trial, you know that things go left all the time. Our trials are notorious for having things happen. I give a lot of props to the people who host and the people who officiate and the people who volunteer who keep things running so smoothly for the competitors, but, oftentimes, in the back-end, there's a lot stuff going on that was not planned. But even for yourself as a competitor, how many times have one of you walked up to the start line? You have this whole plan. Maybe, it's a venue where they allow walk first. You're like, "Okay. I know that this is the way this search area is all designed. We're going to come up to the start line. We're going to be there for X number of seconds. I'm going to check my little wind flag. I have taped to my belt. Then, we are going to go left. Then, we're going to do a pattern over here. Then, if he doesn't check this out of this, I'll make sure we go there." That's your plan. You have it down to a science. You've read all the articles. You've listened to all the podcast. You're like, "This is what we're going to do. It's going to be great." You walk up to the start line. You look down. There is no flag on your belt. It's blown off in the wind. You didn't even realize. Great. You don't know where the wind is going. Okay. Fine. Well, we'll figure it out. Then, you are getting yourself all ready. You realize that your long line is horrendously tangled. I mean it is a knot. Now, you're sitting there and you're scrambling and trying to get your long line all out of knots. You're all frazzled. Now, you don't remember was I going to go left or was I going to go right? That whole time your dog is standing there at the start line going, "Yeah, the height is right across from us, whenever you're ready." But you're not paying attention to your dog. You're thinking about how you can keep appearances. You can look like the awesome handler that you know that you are. You get your long line all untangled. You give your cue for your dog to search. They try to go straight. You decide to go right. You're dragging your dog along with you. They're like, "Okay. Then, maybe we don't want to today." You're doing a pattern and the dog is like, "It's not here. I told you it's way over there." You're asking them to check over and over again. They're like, "I'm telling you, man, it's not over here. Whenever you're ready for me to tell you where it is, you just let me know." You skip the whole part across from the start line because you want to do a pattern on the other side. You're doing your pattern over there. You're doing all these lovely Vanna White's. You're doing all these movements. You're giving your dog line. You're stepping back in. You're doing all this wonderful stuff. The whole time, your dog is like, "I mean I can sniff this if you want, but there's nothing here." Then, finally, you get across from the start line and the dog gives you a beautiful alert. Now, you are circling behind them. You're checking their line. You're doing all this stuff. The dog as you're standing like, "I don't know how many times I need to tell you this." They walk off. They gave you this beautiful indication. Now, you're doing all this to check. They leave. They're like, "Oh no." Today, you're going through your mind I don't know if they showed any interest anywhere else. They really showed interest there, but I wasn't done checking. Oh, maybe we didn’t check their thresholds. Now, you go over to the threshold. Now, you get your 30-second warning. Now, you're really stressed out. It's like, "Oh my goodness." Your dog is really investigating in this corner. Lo and behold, that's where another dog had peed before. This is an exterior search. You're looking at it. You're like, "Oh wow. They're looking really hard at it. Okay. Okay." Then, you start seeing the back-end swinging, like oh that's not that kind of looking. You urge them back on. You have like 10 seconds to find this thing now. You urge your dog to go back to where the hide really is. They go. They give it a very slight indication. They're like "Yeah. For the 15th time, here it is. Do you want to maybe give me a cookie now?" You go, "Alert." The judge who is like losing their mind on the inside goes, "Yes." You go in in your reward. That's best case scenario. That whole time you are sitting there stuck in your head going, "Why is this so hard?" Then, you get the scoresheet back from the judge. It's ticked off trust your dog. Give your dog more space. Don't direct your dog so much. I mean I want to talk about how you being stuck in your head has negatively affected your search and on the feedback that you get which is totally fair is now only going to feed into your need to try to control the search even more. This is really bad cycle that just goes on and on and on. Let's take the same exact scenario. You do a walk-through. You have an idea. Then, you just take a breath. You're like, "Okay." This is what I think that we should do if my dog has not shown any signs that they've actually found the odor yet. Then, we will need to do these things, but my dog is the lead dancer They're the ones with the no's. You come up. You realize that your wind flag is gone. Don't worry. If it's windy enough, just hold out a part of your long line and see which way it goes. If you have longer hair, just take a piece of your hair out and see which way it goes. If you're really that worried about it, close your eyes and just try to figure out where the wind is going if you can. Breathe through untangling your long line. Chitchat with the judge or yourself to actually talk because talking will actually force you to breathe which is a good thing. Once it's all untangled, take a nice deep breath. Hold your dog at the start line. Then, watch their head. See where their head is actually pointed. You may have thought, "Oh, well, this whole part of the search area looks really super interesting. They must have put a hide over there." But the dog's head is pointing ahead of you, then, let them go straight. When your dog has actually shown an indication, know that even if you've trained a final alert response, it's very common for dogs to not give that final response behavior at a trial because you're stressed which they can detect which can cause them to be a little stressed, but if you know from reading your dog that they're in odor, don't ask them to confirm it 20 times because they're probably going to leave. Then, what are you going to do? For me, personally, I would rather call alert and trust my dog and get the ever dreaded no than to not trust my dog and force them to fall somewhere else. It's just a consideration for people to keep in mind as far as a possibility. But I'm hoping that you can see the difference between those two examples. Their real-life examples, they happen all the time. I've been in that situation where I walk up to a start line and everything is cool as a cucumber. I'm getting ready to switch my long way over. It is just a ball in my hand. I'm like, "Oh, it's like extension cord." You look at them wrong and they're tangled. In that moment, I feel as an instructor, well, I'm just a complete failure as a human being because my line is tangled. Now, I'm holding up the whole trial and, oh, everyone's going to hate me. It's just terrible. None of that is true. My long line is tangled. Who cares? Just take two seconds and untangle it and go from there, but these are the kinds of things that we have to keep in mind as competitors. There is a definite added stressor when you are either an instructor or an official. It just comes as a nature of the beast which means you have to be even more conscious of it. You have to work that much harder against it. One of the things that I noticed with competitors, myself included, is they are getting wrapped up in trying to be perfect. They don't have to be. There is an absolute desire to meet all the requirements and a need to meet all the requirements for the level that you're competing in. As you go up the levels, there's an expectation that handlers are going to clean up their handling such as you won't be dropping treats in the search area, such as you won't drop your leash in the search area, such as you'll have good leash handling skills at that point. You won't pull your dog inadvertently off of odor. Those sorts of things are tests of precision of being able to have some tact and skills under your belt. That's a whole purpose of having those in the upper levels of competition, but that doesn't mean that if you were to go feed your dog and little known to you, you fed one treat to their mouths, but there was another little piece stuck on your finger and you fell on the ground that you were now a failure as a person. These things happen. For me, personally, I was at a trial recently with my dog, I think, the last couple of months. He was working his exterior space. Everything was great. He found his hide. Wonderful. I called alert. They said yes. Fabulous. I feed him. As I'm going to put my hand into the treat pouch and out, it flings the treat right at the hide. I'm an official with this organization. I'm like just give me a, picked up my treat. I gave it to my dog. It happens. Being human and not being perfect is okay. Having a good sense of humor helps a lot. It's just something that I really had to improve my motor skills. I had to maybe look at the type of treats I was feeding. Maybe, the types of treats I was feeding were more prone to getting stuck on my hands and then falling out as I was trying to rush into feed. That's where being truly prepared comes into play. I find it to be extraordinarily unfair to the dogs, a level of expectation on them when we are trying to reach a certain pinnacle of our training. If we haven't put in the preparation for ourselves, that's a really convoluted way of saying if I'm not putting in the time to improve my leash handling skills to ensure that my motor skills are good, to ensure that I could actually read my dog, to ensure that I can actually break down a search area to know, okay, we have gone here, here and here, but not there, to know that, okay, what is it that I need to do as the team meet of this partnership to help my dog if they need it? When do I need to step in? When do we need to step out? All those different factors as far as being a handler is entirely unfair if I haven't practiced any of that. If I don't possess any of those skills and I'm putting 100% of the onus on the dog where I could actually be inhibiting their ability to do their job, that's just not fair. That's coupled with the fact that you're putting so much weight on your need to get this cue, need the title. Then, you have to put the time in. You have to put the preparation in. I've talked about this in my blog previously where there needs to be a balance with how often you're competing and how much you're actually practicing. I know firsthand lives are crazy. There's so few hours in the day. All of us are doing a million things at once, but if you're going to be competing particularly regularly, that means that you should be practicing regularly. I'm not talking about hours a day, but you should be doing this fairly regularly. You should be honing your skills. It's not you can't then be upset if your dog doesn't perform well, if you're not putting in the time to improve yourself. This is where having the realization that you don't have to be perfect, but that still means that you do have to practice. That's a hard thing for a lot of people to comprehend that if you realize that there are things that your dog is doing in their training that you need to work on, such as let's say that they are having difficulty with corner highs or they're having difficulty with threshold highs. We're very easy to go into dog trainer like, "Okay. Well, , we can do this and that and the other thing in order to practice for that. Perfect. But, then, if you're also viewing your videos and you notice that you're crowding your dog or you're constantly fiddling with your leash or you're never getting to the entire search area because you're not covering the whole search area, that means that you also need to do things as the handler to improve your skills. I hope that makes sense that while you do not need to weave in your own self-worth with the fact of whether you cue or not because you shouldn't do that. If you don't cue, it's simply information on what you need to do with your training going forward. That being said, that information more likely than not is going to apply not only to your dog but to yourself as a handler as well. If you do notice that there's something you need to work on, that doesn't mean that you're terrible. It doesn’t mean that you're the worst. It doesn't mean you should give it up. It doesn't mean that you should quit if you're an instructor or an official. It just means you have to work on something which isn't bad. It's the practicing and the playing of the game at home which should be the most important part to the whole thing. You are having this opportunity to play this really great game with your dog. If you can improve your relationship with them by improving your skills along the way, that's a win-win. That's not a bad thing. I hope that makes sense that while I don't want anyone wrapping up their self-worth as far as whether they get a cue or not at a trial, that doesn't mean that you then get to throw away your responsibility as the handler. You do still need to have your skills as fine-tuned as you can at the level that you're competing with. If you're brand-new as a novice, I do not expect you to have the same handling skills as someone who's competing at the elite level. It's just not. The same thing goes for all dog sports. You're not expecting someone at rally novice A to do the same thing as someone who's doing their arch competition for competition obedience. It's just not the same, but that doesn't mean also that the person who's competing at the highest level then just gets to use an excuse why they shouldn't also hone their skills. I hope that makes sense and understanding that if you're really hitting up a wall for your training where you're frustrated all the time, the dog seems really losing their enthusiasm for the game, everything seems just monumentally difficult, it very well could be that your ego is getting in the way that it is clouding your judgment as far as viewing what actually needs to be worked on both on the dog side and your own. Then, it could be causing you to destroy the reason why you want to compete in the first place. I'll end by sharing a wonderful thought that a colleague shared with me which I can't take any credit for. This is not mine at any point, but it is brilliant. She said that she goes into every single trial when she goes into it and when she leaves. How am I going to have fun today is how she goes into it. Then, when she ends did I have fun today. How brilliant is that because that is the whole point of doing this. This is a game. While earning titles and earning ribbons is fabulous and the accomplishments can be really quite amazing and really someone to be respected, that's not the end all and be all of everything. It's the fun that you're having with your dog. It's the memories that you're creating with them because they're not with us long enough. That's the more important piece to this. Make sure that when you are doing any type of competition, but particularly with Scent Work that you are doing it for the right reasons and that you are having fun. How are you going to have fun at this trial? When the trial is over, did you actually have fun? Those are two really great tests that you can give yourself to make sure that you're just on the right track. I hope you find this podcast helpful. It's touching upon some really hot button topics that I don't think are talked about enough, but I'm hoping that they can help you as you continue in your Scent Work career particularly if you're competing. Thank you so much for listening. Happy training. We look forward to seeing you soon.

In our very first podcast, we will answer the age-old question: why on Earth is Scent Work so popular?! We will also dive into answering some other intriguing questions that were posed by our students, as well as give you some ideas on how you can get started in this activity, if you haven't already. And yes, we will also go into how online dog training really DOES work. This is going to be fun, and we thank you for listening. ----more---- Want to learn more about Scent Work University? Check out our website and look over the various Skills and Competition Venue Courses we offer. You may also find our Webinars to be interesting, as well as our Scent Work-specific Blog.  Looking to know more about dog sports in general, get tips on basic manners training or want to see if clicker training is for you? Check out our sister online dog training platform, Dog Sport University. You, and your dog, will be happy you did.  Happy Training! PODCAST TRANSCRIPT Welcome to the Scent Work University All About Scent Work Podcast. We're so delighted that you're here. The purpose of this podcast is to discuss what the title says, all things that work. So we're hoping that you'll find this podcast helpful and we'll answer some of the questions that you may have about the activity of Scent Work. And in some of our series, we're also going to be giving you a behind the curtain look as far as what happens at trials, what your instructor may be going through, as well as some tips that you may have as both a competitor as well as an owner of a dog where you just want to broaden their horizons. All right, let's get started. I want to take a quick second just to introduce myself. My name is Dianna Santos. I am the Owner and the Lead Instructor for Scent Work University, as well as Dog Sport University. I've been training dogs professionally since 2011. I am certified through the Karen Pryor Academy of dog training. I'm also a certified Nose Work Instructor through NACSW. In addition to training dogs professionally for a number of years, I am also privileged to be the judge and CSD coordinator with United States Canine Scent Sports, which is a Scent Work competition organization that was started in 2016 and we are growing very rapidly in the United States and looking to grow internationally as well. In addition to that, I am also an AKC fully approved judge for Scent Work. and I also participate in AKC Scent Work trials as a scoring person as well as a competitor. So I come at this from a variety of different standpoints as not only an instructor and a professional trainer but also as an official and a coordinator of officials and also one of the backstage people for competitions. So I've used Scent Work from a variety of different viewpoints, and I think that it can help me in helping you have a very well rounded approach to Scent Work. So it's just a really quick rundown from me. All right, let's get started with our podcast. So in our very first podcast, what I wanted to do was to put out a question to several of my students and just see what it is when they first got involved with Scent Work, what were some of the questions that they had? And the very first topic that came up was, why is it then I should choose Scent Work in the first place? And then we had a couple of derivative questions that came from that. So in this podcast, that's exactly what we're going to be talking about. Why is it that someone would want to choose Scent Work, in all the various things you now have available to you to choose to do with your dog? Well, the benefits of it, and why is it that you would want to continue playing the game maybe beyond the four walls of your home and maybe actually venturing out into competition? So that's the purpose of our podcast today. We're going to be diving right in. So the first main question is, why is it that Scent Work is so popular? And there's actually several reasons for this. The first is the reason why Scent Work was created in the first place was to provide an outlet for dogs and for all dogs. So when it was first created as a sport by the National Association of Canine Scent Work, otherwise known as NACSW, it was started with the idea that all dogs would be able to do this activity. So right out of the gate you have an opening to dogs who may be reactive to other dogs, who may be environmentally sensitive, who may be blind, who may be deaf, who may have ambulatory limitations, whether they be amputees, whether they be using carts, and also that the handler themselves may have limitations, but they can actually still play in the sport. So that within itself is a very big reason why Scent Work is so popular. It's oftentimes why people start getting involved in it in the first place, is they have a reactive dog for instance. And they find out, oh, there's this activity that I can do that actually welcomes my dog. Where there are some other activities, they're just for safety purposes and for the well-being of everyone, the reactive dogs are told, “You know what? This may not be the best activity for you. It could actually make the condition worse and it could just put everyone else in danger.” So that's one of the biggest reasons why Scent Work is so popular and why people start going into it in the first place. From that jumping off point, as far as why you may get in the door, the ability to actually watch your dog be a dog is really addicting. Having our dogs actually tap into something that is so naturally innate to them, such as sniffing and hunting is an amazing thing and it can have such wonderful benefits on behalf of the dog, but it can also improve the relationship that the owner or the handler has with the dog as well. Again, just to reiterate, people oftentimes will come into Scent Work because they're looking for something for their dog to do, or it could just be that I have reactive dog and I'm looking for something, or it could just be I live in a state of the United States or wherever where I need to hibernate out of eight months of the year because the weather is really crappy. There's winter and all kinds of things. We can't go outside play ball at the time. My dog is bouncing off the walls, I need something to give them to do that will help work them out mentally and physically. And so, we can absolutely do that. Once they realize how great the activity is, they stay in it and it stays so popular because you're tapping into something that your dog is very good at anyway. Which is very addicting on behalf of the dog, obviously, but also on behalf of the handler and the owner. Because you are improving your relationship with your dog, 'cause you're watching them be a dog. And it also is that shift of when your dog is actually doing hunting, they're the one who has to take the lead. They're the one with the nose, so they're the one who has to tell you, oh, the hide is over there. You could try to detail every single inch of your house or your search area. That's not going to work really well. It's an amazing activity. There's so many reasons why it's popular, but again, people oftentimes get involved with it because they're looking for something for their doctor do. Specifically, they may be looking for something for the reactive dog, they're special needs dog, they're sensitive dog or just their dog who needs a job. And then they start really getting engaged in the activity because of all the benefits of it in addition to the fact that it allows your dog to be a dog, it helps improve your relationship with your dog and it gives you a better appreciation for just how brilliant they really are. The next question that I got from one of my students was, why is it that I personally got involved in Scent Work? And is a question that I oftentimes will ask potential officials who were interested in becoming officials with United States Canine Scent Sports, where I will be doing interviews with them as the Judge and CSD Coordinator. Is one of the first questions that I ask, how is it that you got involved with Scent Work? But I can honestly say that very few people have ever asked me. So the reason why I got involved in Scent Work is quite honestly, I had my first Doberman, Zeus, who is the reason why I became a professional dog trainer in the first place, who was not dog reactive. He was dog aggressive. If he could go and murder every dog in the world, he would, and he was wonderful with me. He taught me so much and he was my baby boy and I left him. However, I was looking for things to help improve his quality of life because our life was very sheltered. In order to keep everybody safe, he had to stay home a lot and we couldn't go for walks. We couldn't go for hikes. It just wasn't safe. And then I found out about Scent Work, so I started doing it on my own little bit. I was actually interning at a training facility, so we were involved in a class where he was in a crate surrounded by X pens and we were in literally a closet. That's where he stayed and it was very locked down and we let everybody know, don't let your dog anywhere near this area. And he would come and he had a great time. I can tell you from a personal account that it made an enormous difference in his behavior modification program where you could see that this provided him with the mental and physical outlet that he desperately needed because he was a very smart dog that we weren't able to do in other ways just because it wasn't safe. And he was calmer, he was more relaxed, he was more fulfilled. It helped improve the quality of life that he had for the five years that I had him, and it was wonderful. It had such a huge impact on his life and I became addicted right away because being able to see him work out some really complicated problems and also to learn what not to do. He taught me lots. How not to set hides, how maybe not to do training and things like that. I made mistakes with him and he was very, very forgiving with me, and that's how I got started. I got started like many people, I was looking desperately for something for my dog to do and I fell into it. I fell in love with it and I never looked back. The third question that I got from my students was, why is it that I should choose Scent Work over other dog sports? And this is a tricky question because there's two potential answers, right? The first answer is, well, why do you have to choose? You should be able to do as many dog sports as you like. And then there's reality, right? There is not only finances and time, but there's also how much head space and how many pressures you're trying to put on your own dog. I happen to have a second Doberman, Zeus passed, which was very, very sad and heartbreaking for me and at the very right time I brought in my new boy Valor who I have now. And he is bred and his whole lineage is filled with versatility dogs where they have been able to do a whole number and slew of dog sports and activities and do them very well. It's basically what they're bred to do. We do a little bit of everything together and he's totally fine with that. He can do agility one day Scent Work the next, barn hunt the next, and he could do several in the same day and he's totally fine with that. There are other dogs where if you were to try to throw that many things at them, they would become very stressed. Because everything, it's just so much pressure on one little dog. So this question is a little tricky because you have to ascertain whether or not you and your dog want to do multiple things. And if you don't want to do multiple things then it gets right to the crux of it is like, well, if I can only choose one, why is it that I should choose Scent Work? And I don't want this to become a Scent Work is better than everything else and I despise a lot of the dog sports in blue to them cause that's not true. I prefer Scent Work. I think that Scent Work is something that all dogs should participate in. Whether it just before the game or the activity itself or competition, either/or. But at the same point I do know that there are people who prefer to do other activities such as agility or obedience or dis dog or fly ball or any number of things, and that they want their dogs to do those other activities with them as well. My answer to the question basically would be, this is a very round about way of getting there. Is the thing about Scent Work that's so nice, is it can actually help improve your dog's performance in other dog sports. So if you're in a category where you could still do multiple things with your dogs and there are plenty of people who can. There are plenty of dogs would be able to do that as well. You may actually see that your dog's performance and abilities in those other sports will actually improve because they are doing Scent Work, which is a really great park. If however you're in the category or if it's just the stage of your dog's life where you have to choose one thing to do, my argument for Scent Work would be that it can improve your dog's confidence because they are basically tapping into their own abilities to work out problems. It can improve your relationship with your dog because you learn to read your dog, trust your dog, and allow your dog to take the lead. It can also give your dog both the mental and the physical outlet that they need without overly stressing their bodies. So if they are extraordinarily young, they're very young puppy or if they're senior, this can still be a really great thing for them. So if they're very young, they're very young as young puppies where they're not physically able to do some of the other things yet without you potentially hurting their growth plates or anything like that, they can still do Scent Work and not hurt anything. On the flip side, if you have a senior dog who may have done a number of different dog sports before, but now they physically cannot do those things anymore without hurting themselves. They never have to age out of Scent Work. They can do this for ever. So I'm hoping that makes a little bit of sense. I'm trying, I don't like dodging questions, but this is one word and really is tricky. It depends on what the situation is you have with your dog. Personally, if I got to a point with my boy where it wasn't safe for him physically anymore to do agility, even if he jumps really well, or he wasn't enjoying competition obedience as much or lure coursing was out or anything like that, I would still always place at work. It just wouldn't be something that would always be in our repertoire of things that we did. And I think he would be very sad if we took it out because he gets so excited when we're about to play. I mean, granted, my dog is really excited about everything, but he really gets excited about Scent Work. And if I were to take that out, I think he would be really remiss. I think he would be very upset about it. So when you're evaluating whether or not you're going to do a certain activity, personally, I would try to ascertain how long can I actually do this throughout my dog's life? Is there only a specific period of time I'd be able to do it before becomes too physically challenging for them, before it may become just too difficult, where it could actually be negatively affecting our relationship because everything is just so hard and challenging. Particularly if you're doing competition, where constantly getting harder as you go up the levels, that's when you can start seeing dogs losing their enthusiasm, losing their drive, losing their joy for it 'cause it's no longer a game, it's more of a job. For me personally, I'm trying to figure that out with my dog when I'm trying to pick what it is that we're going to do. So it's a very personal answer to a question. For me from what I've seen as an instructor, but also as a dog owner myself, Scent Work is something that you can do forever throughout the entire life of the dog. So if I had only to choose one thing, I would pick Scent Work. But again that is really a personal thing and you just have to figure out whether or not that would fit into what the lifestyles that you and your dog have. The next question I received was a really interesting one and it wasn't a question from a student myself. It was a question from one of their family members who had heard about Scent Work and had heard about the student like going on and on about it. And they just said a very typical question that I would hear when I was teaching basic obedience classes or family dog classes or things like that when I was teaching in-person classes. And the question was, I just want a well behaved dog, and you're going on and on about this whole sniffing thing. What the Scent Work do that's going to help my dog be well behaved? And it's a very fair question. If you have someone who just lets say adopted a dog, just adopted it earlier this week, their view of having a dog is, I come home, the dog is there, they haven't destroyed my house, hopefully. I will maybe let them out to go potty, I was just working all day. Maybe we throw the ball a couple of times, maybe we take a walk. They're there for bats. They're there for companionship and that's about it. It's not that this dog's life is any less wonderful than anyone else's, but that's their view of what having a dog is. A very traditional view of a pet. They hear about all his other dog sport stuff that we're talking about and they're like, I have no idea what you mean? What's all this thing like you get together on weekends and have easy ups and there's tent cities and parking lots and you travel the country and what? They just don't understand what any of that it's about. So in that view, the question is, all right, you seem to think this whole sniffing thing is great. How is that going to help my dog be better behaved? It's a very fair question. The answer is that it can help give your dog, once again, those mental and physical outlets they desperately need. Even if you are only looking for your dog to be a very well behaved pet and companion. You don't want to do all the competition stuff, you don't want to know about all the dog sports stuff, you don't want to have to study dog behavior forever in a day, you don't want this to become your entire life. You have other hobbies, you have other interests. You're looking for a companion and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. By playing very simple Scent Work games, where even you could just use food, you are allowing your dog to tap into one of the most innate instincts that they have, which is hunting. In a controlled and safe way, you can spend 10 to 15 minutes a day doing this, just using some boxes. It's totally fine, and your dog will be satisfied. It will actually take the edge off. It could prevent them from doing other destructive behaviors and things you don't want them to do, such as destroying your house, chewing up your shoes, stealing stuff, trying to make other activities to entertain their little selves because they're just as smart. When I go out and I look at Doberman puppies, I'm looking for a sport prospect. That doesn't mean that the other puppies in that litter, if they were to go with a pet person who's just looking for our companion that those puppies or any dumber, they're not. They are the same. They have the same needs. They want to be able to use their brain. They're problem solvers. They're very smart little beings, so you want to give them controlled outlets so that they don't do all the things you don't want them to do in the first place. Dog training overall can really help with that problem solving, teaching them how to learn, giving them little problems to solve that are good problems to solve. Things where they're not making up their own games such as, oh look, I steal a shoe and then I play keep away. It is really fun. The great thing about Scent Work is, it's a really simple thing that you can do as the person that can also help the dog. So to answer the question, Scent Work can help your dog become more well behaved because it can provide them with their physical and mental outlet where they are no longer acting out because they don't feel as fulfilled. And you also will change the way that you look at your dog, where you'll notice when they may need something. So as an example, one of the things I would hear from clients was, okay, I come home from work, I let the dog outside. They have to go potty. No problem. They come in, we get all ready, I get their dinner ready, I get my dinner ready, they eat, I eat, fine. Now, I just want to vegetate. I just want to watch some TV or movie. I just want to relax and the dog is bouncing off of the walls, driving me crazy. What do I do? And the great thing about Scent Work is that you could, before you start watching your TV show or your movie, you could do a really quick 10 to 15 minute Scent Work session with your dog. You could even get the kids involved. It's a safe activity for children to do as well. They could hide some things around, the dog does that then maybe end it by giving them a stuffed Kong or a bone and the dog is set, the dog is good. You can watch your movie. The dog is satisfied, everybody's happy. I just want everyone to understand even for people who have been involved in dog training for a very long time, even people who'd done competitions for a very long time, the value of Scent Work is the activity, is the game. Yes, the titles and the ribbons are fabulous. Yes, the competitions are really good. Yes, the competition organizations and the community at large for the most part is very supportive and wonderful and fabulous. All that is true. However, the bigger, better, more important aspect is the activity itself. So if every single dog on the planet, and I do mean this literally, played the game of Scent Work, things will be a lot better. So again, just to answer the question again, Scent Work can help your dog become more well behaved if you're simply looking for your dog to be a good companion because it can provide them with those mental and physical outlets that they need so they're not acting out instead. Another question I received was from a student and I thought it was a very honest question. I appreciate this question, and I think they were a little worried about submitting this question, but I think it's a good one. So the question is, I like the partnership that I experience in agility. Does Scent Work actually offer that same level of partnership? And this is something that dog trainers and dog competitors, I think I've been talking about for a while, for a number of years. Particularly, people who are coming from agility, which is an awesome activity where you really can feel a partnership with your dog. But it is entirely different from the animal that is Scent Work. And the main reason is with agility, you are telling your dog where to go. That's the whole purpose. You know the course, your dog doesn't. You're going to tell them to take the jump and do the weaves and do the A frame and so on and so forth. With Scent Work that's entirely reversed where now it's your dog is taking the lead. That's a very difficult shift for some handlers to do because they're so used to leading to being the lead dancer. It's very difficult for them to take the backseat to allow the dog to go ahead, and they perceive that as a lack of partnership. And also the way that a lot of Scent Work is advertised is that you don't even have to be in the room. You just set the dog loose. You can go be on your computer and doing something else. The dog will figure it out. They don't even need you. And that's not entirely true. Particularly as you continue going up the levels, if you are interested in competition or even if you're just interested in making things a little bit more challenging, it is a partnership sport. You do have to work together. The beauty of it is that as the handler, you actually can learn what it is that your dog has been saying all along. No longer are you requiring your dog to learn human, which they try really, really hard how to do. With Scent Work, if you want to be successful, you have to learn at least a little bit how to speak and read dog. That will only cause you to become a better handler. Any better trainer across the board, regardless of what it is you're trying to do. Because of that, you can see your dog working a space once you understand what their signals are and what everything means. And see, okay, I know that they're in odor but they can't get to it, but I also know they haven't worked the corner on the opposite side of the room and there's a window of it. So I think the odor is getting trapped over where they are, but it may actually be coming from this other corner. How do I as the handler get them over there? That's the partnership piece, where your dog is the one painting the picture and you're there going, well, what about this and what about that and what about this other thing? You can marvel at the masterpiece, but you can also help fill in these little tiny details so that it is perfect. It really is a true partnership if you allow it, and that's the tricky part. So particularly handlers who are coming from the world of agility or competition obedience or rally obedience where the whole point is for you to be the lead person. That is what's supposed to be, it's a test. Can the dog do as I direct them to do? That's the whole point of it. It's a very big shift to completely put that on it's head. Can you follow what your dog is telling you the odor is doing? Can you then read what they're reading as far as where they think the odor is going and what the odor picture may be. And can you then ascertain from a human standpoint all the different factors that could be affecting that and can you help your dog if they need it? So there's long short of it is, in case you haven't realized. I'm very good at giving very long answers. There is indeed partnership in Scent Work. It's just different. That doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. It does. In my opinion, I think it is a higher level of partnership because it's more equal where you are listening to your dog and your dog also listens to you. It's not just a one way communication, which can be really nice. So if I've kept your attention, what you may be asking yourself now if you aren't already involved in Scent Work is, how is it exactly that I would to get started in the sniffing thing that you speak of? And there's actually a number of different ways you can do that. Obviously, Scent Work University is an online dog training platform. So we have foundations at our courses that we offer that are completely online and the way that that works is you would choose an enrollment option that works best for you, either student auditor or watcher. We have them split up in those three categories so you get to decide what works best with your schedule. Students is going to be an intensive learning option that's closely resembling an in-person group class experience. What that means is that you'll have homework assignments that you will have to submit on a weekly basis. Those will be reviewed by your instructor and you will have an interaction with them that is very similar to what you would have in an in-person course. You may also have scheduled chats or other types of online interactions with your instructor and just a more intensive experience. So if you're really gung-ho about it and you have a lot of time and you have a lot of interest, the Student option is for you. If you don't want to have to worry about all that stuff or your schedule simply won't allow it or you're just not too sure yet, a middle of the road option as the Auditor option. And with that, you have still access to all the course material as well as all the course forum. You can even post to the course forum, but you're not required to submit any homework assignments and you won't have the same level of interaction with the instructor. You can still ask questions and you will also receive not only feedback from the instructor but also from your fellow course participants, which can be really helpful. The final category are Watchers and the whole purpose a watcher, why it is you'd want choose that option is if you want to have more of a self taught approach where you didn't have to worry about time at all. If you know that your life is really crazy and super hectic or if you just want a more laid back approach. Every single option has access to all the course material for a full year. Even if there are updates made to the lessons themselves or there's change to handouts or videos or anything else, you have access to all that stuff for a full year. As a Watcher you can come and go as you please. You can see everything including the forum, but you can post to it. So if you're brand new to online dog training, I would urge you to maybe start as a watcher in a course that you're somewhat interested in to see if it's going to fit with your learning style. To see if it's something that you would actually be interested in. To see whether or not you'd be able to apply what we're showing you to, what you actually need to do with your dog. Now that being said, we try our best with how we have designed Scent Work University to apply to every single learning style possible. So people who learn by seeing people who learn by doing, people who learn by a combination. We offer videos and schematics and handouts and text and narration and we try to really give our learners as much information as possible. So that's one option, is where you would be able to start with Scent Work by signing up for our introduction to Scent Work course as a student, an auditor, or a watcher. Now, if you happen to have a Scent Work constructor in your area, you're absolutely more than welcome to take a look at an in-person group training course. The great thing about in-person group training courses is it gives your dog at opportunity to work in that kind of space. Now, personally, I prefer the courses that are set up where the dogs are all within crates and they all have their own turn in the space individually. I prefer that approach because again, this activity is open to reactive dogs. So if you have all the dogs visible to one another and they're all out waiting for their turn, it can get really stressful for the dogs. And I'm also a really big person. I'm all in to safety, so the more safe that we can set things up, the better it can be. However, there are those people and dogs who just wouldn't do well in a group class environment and there's a whole slew of reasons why that can happen. You can be worried about self esteem issues, you can just be worried within the group, you could be coming at it from a totally different standpoint as far as your experience level and doing dog training. And your dog could just be like, yeah, no, I'm not going to work in this kind of space. Whether it is because they're reactive or they're environmentally sensitive or they just don't want to. They're like, yeah, no. There are other dogs here, I don't feel like playing today. So there's a bunch of different things that you can do. You can do online, you can do, in-group classes and if you happen to have instructor in your area, they may also be able to do in-person private classes with you as well where they can come to your house, show you how to set it up and then maybe they can come once a month or something just to see how you're doing. There's a lot of different ways you can get started. What you want to figure out is what it is that you want to do at the end of the day. If you're just interested in figuring out the game, an introduction is that recourse really can be the end all and be all. You can just keep doing those types of exercises for now into ever and that's totally fine. If you wanted to branch out a little bit, you still weren't interested in competition but you wanted your dog to try some other things, they may be doing something like an introduction to set our course and then for Scent Work University, we offer exterior's and vehicles with primary. Meaning that we're still just using food or he can use a novel odor such as birch, anise or clove. If you still wanted to go further than that, then for Scent Work University we offer our advanced skills just using primary, meaning food or you can start going into, well now my dog is going to find birch. Now my dog is going to find anise and now my daughter's is going to find clove. And we start introducing more complicated problems for them to try. It's all about what you want to do, what is your goals are and what is it that you want your dog to do? So there's a lot of different options and things that you can try. Now I know that I talk a lot about Scent Work University because that is our business. That is the whole platform that we're trying to talk about and also promote. But with that, I think a common question that people ask is as soon as you tell them, “Oh yeah, no, all of our courses are online.” They kind of look at you and go, “Hmm, does online dog training really work?” And it's a really fair question, right? Because when you think about dog training, you think about someone either coming to your house or you going to a class and doing it. The great thing about online dog training is that yes, it does indeed work. Anyone can have access to it. So for myself personally, I'm originally from the East Coast of the United States. I've recently, over the last couple of years, moved to the West Coast of the United States. That's thousands of miles apart from one another from the two places that I used to live in where I live now. There are really great trainers on both coasts. I obviously only have access to one group of those trainers at any given time and that's really super frustrating. There are days where I want to work with an east coast trainer and I'm on the west coast and vice versa. It's really super frustrating. With online dog training, I can tap into all those really great instructors and I can work with them at any given point. I can have them put together a course and I can tap into that amazing knowledge that they have and apply it right then and there, even if they're thousands of miles away, which is fabulous. In regard to Scent Work itself, there aren't Scent Work instructors in every single town in every single state or in every single country. This is becoming an international activity, which is wonderful, but it is still growing and there's no instructors everywhere. So if you're in an area where there isn't an instructor online dog training gives you access to those people where they could actually get you started. As far as whether or not online dog training works at all, it all depends on how you approach it. With Scent Work University, our goal when I created it was to provide an opportunity to do as much learning with their dogs as possible. I no longer can teach in person because I have very serious neck and back issues. I literally had to retire from training, but I didn't want to give it up. That's why I started this. I started this because I still want it to be able to teach and I still want to be able to have people learn and improve their relationship with their dogs, but it couldn't do it in person. There are days when I never can get out of bed, so that's where all of this is starting from. It's not starting from just, oh we'll give you a little bit of information, hope for the best. We're trying to quite literally transfer what we've done in-person and making that into a virtual experience. Some of the advantages of online dog training is you're able to go through the material at your own pace. For things that I teach, as you can tell with this podcast, I'm pretty long winded. I try to give as much information as I can and I oftentimes will just go over. I will provide more information that anyone could ever want. The great thing about online training is that you can go through it once, you can go through a 20 times, you can pause it, think about it for a little bit and go back. You can watch a video 20 times if you have to. You'll have handouts, you'll have links to helpful resources. You can build off of the core lessons as much as you want to or as little as you want to. The other great thing about online dog training is that it doesn't have the same kind of competitive nature that an in-person dog training class can sometimes cause. And this isn't something that happens on purpose, it's just human nature and I would see it in every single course that I would teach where people and dogs will progress at different rates. Just like with people, dogs learn differently. They all have strengths, they all have weaknesses. But in every single class there would be at least one or two people who'd be really upset because their dogs weren't doing as well as some other dog, even though that other dog wasn't doing as well in another completely different skill that their dog was. They wouldn't recognize that fact. They just all like, “Oh, my dog isn't doing it as fast that dog, what's wrong with us?” And then they would try to rush and then they would try to get into this whole competitive spirit that can really cause you a lot of trouble later on. The great thing about online dog training is you don't have to fall into that trap. You can focus on you and your dog and what you both need and if you have to modify an exercise 20 different ways to Sunday to make it work, you can do that and not feel as though, oh no, I'm the only one doing that. I would still commend people for doing that in class. But there's a whole peer pressure thing, right? So there's a whole slew of advantages to using online dog training and it does indeed work. I have students who have improved tremendously in only taking one course. It's all about how much you put into it and what is you're looking to get out of it. So I hope this inaugural podcast was a little helpful. I know we covered a lot of different topics in a really short period of time, but the whole purpose of this is just to teach everyone a little bit about what Scent Work is all about. And as we go forward, as I discussed before, we are going to be getting into the nitty gritty of tips on how you can tackle certain aspects of Scent Work. We'll also be giving you a behind the curtain look as far as what happens at trials, what happens as far as being an official at a trial. And then I'll also give you some feedback as far as being a instructor. And I just, I think it's helpful for everyone to see the activity of Scent Work from as many different perspectives as possible, just so that we can have a really well rounded view. Thank you so much for listening to us today. I really appreciate it. Happy training and we look forward to seeing you soon.  

Summary: Over her 40 years of dog training, Michele Pouliot has presented scores of seminars and has been responsible for bringing science-based clicker training to guide dog training around the world. In her "hobby world," she has actively competed in both horse and dog sports since 1970. In dog sports alone that includes A.K.C. dog obedience, attaining three OTCHes, agility, tracking, and then, starting in 2006, the sport of canine musical freestyle. A short time later, in 2007, Karen Pryor invited Michele to join her faculty for Clicker Expo conferences, where Michele presents on the application of clicker training techniques for a variety of dog sports, general training, and for the training of guide dogs for the blind. Karen Pryor and Michele collaborated for the development of Michele's online freestyle course, which is available from the Karen Pryor Academy. Links www.michelepouliot.com Next Episode:  To be released 5/11/2018, featuring Amy Cook, talking about thresholds and managing reactivity while you work on changing how your dog actually feels. TRANSCRIPTION: Melissa Breau: This is Melissa Breau and you're listening to the Fenzi Dog Sports Podcast brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy, an online school dedicated to providing high-quality instruction for competitive dog sports using only the most current and progressive training methods. Today we'll be talking to Michele Pouliot. Over her 40 years of dog training, Michele has presented scores of seminars and has been responsible for bringing science-based clicker training to guide dog training around the world. In her "hobby world," she has actively competed in both horse and dog sports since 1970. In dog sports alone that includes A.K.C. dog obedience, attaining three OTCHes, agility, tracking, and then, starting in 2006, the sport of canine musical freestyle. A short time later, in 2007, Karen Pryor invited Michele to join her faculty for Clicker Expo conferences, where Michele presents on the application of clicker training techniques for a variety of dog sports, general training, and for the training of guide dogs for the blind. Karen Pryor and Michele collaborated for the development of Michele's online freestyle course, which is available from the Karen Pryor Academy. I'm incredibly thrilled to have her here today! Hi Michele! Welcome to the podcast! Michele Pouliot: Hi Melissa, and thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here, and I want to thank Fenzi Dog Sports for having me here. Melissa Breau: Absolutely. So thrilled to talk to you. To get us started out, do you want to just share a little bit about your own dogs and what you're working on? Michele Pouliot: My current dogs are two. One is my English Springer Spaniel Déjà Vu, who is 8-and-a-half years old now, and I have a 4-and-a-half-year-old Australian Shepherd, Saki. They are both continually working on coming up with new ideas for tricks. It's what canine freestyle pushes you to do is always trying to come up with new moves and new behaviors to make your next routine interesting. So other than that, they're having fun just being dogs, running around the property. Melissa Breau: I know that you got started training horses. Do you mind sharing a little bit about how you originally got into training, and what led you then from horses to dogs? Just a little bit on your background? Michele Pouliot: Sure. We're going to go way back now. Straight out of high school, I really wanted to have a career in horses. I'm an Air Force brat, so my father, our family, moved all over the world as I was growing up, and in high school we landed on an Air Force base in Louisiana. My entire life I'd wanted a dog, couldn't have a dog, my mother was not a dog person and used the excuse of us moving so much as to why we couldn't have one. And I also wanted a horse. My father had always promised me that if we ever got to an Air Force base that had a stable, that I could have a horse. Well, we did, when we were stationed in the Philippines when I was in junior high school. I just fell in love with working with my horse, and I thought, This is what I want to do for the rest of my life. My father was very supportive when we came back to the States and ended up in Louisiana. In high school I got another horse, and he went ahead and allowed me to skip college and use the money to go to the Pacific Coast Equestrian Research Farm, which was run by Linda Tellington and her husband at that time, Wentworth Tellington, very well-known equestrian professionals. My whole goal was to be a professional horse trainer and instructor. After spending a year there with Linda and Went, I got my first job, which was running a new equestrian program in Fargo, North Dakota. What happened there was I was giving riding lessons to a woman who was a dog trainer. I got my first dog as soon as I got there, so I had a yellow Labrador. As soon as I got away from home on my own, I got my first dog. So I had this dog, loved it, didn't know what I was doing. But one of the gals I taught riding to was a dog trainer locally, and I look back on that experience realizing how lucky I was that the person I ran into about training dogs was such a good dog trainer. She was a traditional trainer, of course, back in those times, but she was a really good traditional trainer. So she taught me, in exchange for riding lessons, all about how to work with this young Labrador puppy that I had and make it a nice, mannerly pet. I was intrigued with how easy it was to train the dog versus the horses, so it got me interested more in training the dog versus just training it for being a nice pet. That is how I slowly started shifting my focus for my profession towards dogs, yet I always kept horses, so I haven't ever been without a horse since then. I just slowly, when I left North Dakota after my first winter — that was a sign that I never wanted to stay in North Dakota for another winter — but when I came back to the West Coast, I just decided, You know what, I really like this dog thing, so let me start that. And that's how I ended up going into dogs. Melissa Breau: That's really quite interesting, and I know you started to touch on a little bit there the similarities and differences in training the species, that dogs were a little easier. Do you mind sharing a little more about what you learned, compare and contrast a little bit for us? Michele Pouliot: Sure. Of course, when you're thinking that we're talking back in 1970 -'71, there was no positive training that was known of, so everything was traditional. We were training horses in traditional techniques, training dogs in traditional techniques, and when you're training traditionally, the gap between training a dog and a horse was huge, because what you had with this dog was a species that really wants to please in general. So not only are they maybe more domesticated than a horse, but they surely love to work with people. That was what stuck out so much to me. Whereas horses, being traditionally trained, it isn't like they're all excited to go out and work with you. It was good traditional training, they weren't afraid, but they certainly weren't the way horses can be nowadays when they are positively trained. So I think my first realization in that frame of reference, when you think of the times of training at that point in time, was just how much easier the dog was to train because they were so much more like, “What can I do for you?” The horse took so much longer to train because you didn't seem to have that automatic impulse from a horse you're working with to say, “What can I do to please you?” That was the big difference then. There's still a big difference, so even though my horses are clicker trained, as my dogs are, you're dealing with a big animal, so the difference in your safety is a big one. Even though we're not talking about an aggressive horse, it's still a big animal. If you think about dogs that will mug people and get in their bait pouches and jump up and want rewards, well, imagine a 1200-pound horse doing that to you. You have to be much more thoughtful about every step of the training process with a horse to make sure that you're not inadvertently creating an excitement or an energy in your positive training that can actually be dangerous for a human on the ground. Whereas with dogs, we don't really think about it that much as far as something that's going to be dangerous. If I teach a dog to leg kick and he happens to clock my leg, yeah, that's not great, but it's not life-threatening. Melissa Breau: Right. You talked a little bit about the fact that back then everything was traditional training, that approach. What led you to become a positive trainer and to clicker training? Michele Pouliot: When I got into dogs, first I kind of got my foot in the door with that first dog I had. Once I had him trained, I heard something about AKC and obedience, and I entered him in local obedience trials, and for some reason I was winning. People would meet me outside of the ring and say, “Ooh, do you give lessons?” and I felt weird because I didn't think I knew anything yet. But I started giving lessons and I was really enjoying that aspect. I ended up working at a kennel, figuring, You know, Michele, you've really got to learn more about dogs. So I took this entry-level position at a kennel in Long Beach, California. I was cleaning kennels and all that, but in the afternoon I would be giving some training lessons to the public, which was a great experience for me. But I wasn't there very long before I read an article about guide dogs and training dogs for blind people. Remember, there's no Internet back then. This is a magazine, and in the magazine was this article, and in the end were addresses of three guide dog schools in the country. The article was fascinating to me, and all I could think of is, Oh my god, what an amazing combination: the love of training dogs, and I'm also helping people. This is what I want to do. It just hit me like a thunderbolt that I had to do this work. We're in 1973 now, and I write all three schools. One of the schools never responded. Another one, I still have the letter framed on my wall today. The letter reads, “I'm sorry, but women are not emotionally or physically capable of training guide dogs.” Melissa Breau: Oh dear! Michele Pouliot: Understand that in 1973, that was not an affrontive letter. My reaction, as this naïve young woman, was, Oh, I didn't know that, in my head. Whereas ten years later, my hackles would have gone up reading something like that. Anyway, I got a letter from Guide Dogs for the Blind that invited me to fill out an application. I filled out the application, sent it in, and they had me come for an interview. Everything was great, I got the job, I was so excited. I found out later, when I arrived, I was the only woman besides one other woman who had just started working six months prior. It was not an easy place for a woman to step into, because there was a belief system that women can't do this. It's way too rigorous physically, and emotionally it's very difficult. So this woman and myself were like the pioneers of trying to get our feet in the door for proving ourselves that we could do it. When I first got my job at Guide Dogs, which was really my first serious, in my head, dog training assignment, I also was always focused on trying to do so good that I was paving the way for other women to come and do this work. That was the first goal. A part of that —which you're probably wondering, Is she ever going to get to answer my question? — a part of that is that I knew that I could do better what they were doing. I was so surprised when I showed up and realized that I was a darn good dog trainer when I was watching some of the techniques that I saw being used. What I saw was some very harsh traditional training. Very harsh. And I just knew I could do better than that. So, from the day I arrived, I started putting this subtle pressure from demonstrating that you don't really have to do it that way. My focus was always to be the best trainer I could be, the kindest, the gentlest, even though I was totally understanding of traditional training and that's what you do, there was no other option. But because that was my background in the 1970s, when I started hearing in the 1990s about this new, modern training, I was fascinated. Through those twenty years, before I heard about positive training, I had helped the program get better, better, better, and I mean in the early 1990s, our school was doing really good traditional training. I was so happy that the program had come so far that no dogs were being treated really unfairly. Even though it was traditional, it was good traditional training. I always have this flavor in my heart of, How can I be kind and gentle and still get the job done? Even when you're a good traditional trainer, you might be focusing on that, but you also inherited the belief that using a lot of punishment to teach is OK. It's a belief system that you are born into. So as I started opening my mind to looking at this new positive training thing I was seeing, I was so excited that, oh my gosh, there's other possibilities, and that's really what led me to start looking at videos and going to seminars and going to conferences and trying to figure out how this fits into my world, especially how does it fit into guide dog work. Melissa Breau: So, I'd love to hear a little bit more about some of what you did with the guide dog program, if you don't mind. I know that you spent a large chunk of your career focused there. How did that evolve? Can you share a little more? Michele Pouliot: Sure. I retired two years ago with forty-two years, so I've been doing it a long time. When I chose to introduce positive reinforcement training to my school, my guide dog school, my intent at that time was just, can we even make this better, kinder, gentler, and overall more positive for everybody, including the trainer. Because it was a very physical type of training when you're doing traditional training, too, so we had injuries. We had people coming in and being injured. By the way, by this time the staff was majority of women, so over the twenty years a lot changed. The men were in the minority, and I'm not really saying I even know why that is, because it's kind of true in the guide dog industry and in the cane mobility industry — meaning instructors who teach blind people how to travel with canes — it's interesting how through the last several decades the majority are women. I think it has to do with being nurturers and wanting to help is why we have more people in there now that are women versus men. Anyway, back to guide dogs. When I first brought the idea to my supervisor, my supervisor had a lot of faith in me. I had already done a lot for the program and had everyone training so much better than they used to train, so I had a good relationship with my supervisor, but he looked at me like I was crazy. Now, you have to understand that in the guide dog world, guide dogs have been trained since World War I. That's when it started. The techniques used for guide dog training were from World War I, meaning war dogs. How do you train a dog to be a war dog? And you know those dogs were hardy, hardy, tough, courageous dogs. So all the guide dog work that started was with very heavy-duty traditional training, and the thought process was you have to be tough to make the dog reliable. No matter how weird that sounds today in the positive training world, it's a reality for when it started. It was such a unique idea that somebody had in World War I to do this, and they were doing it successfully. So imagine if you say, “Can we train a guide dog to help a blind person get around safely and keep them from being injured?” and it worked, what does that do for your ego? It pushes it up there pretty big. So when you join a guide dog school and you are in awe of what they do, I was in awe of what they did. It's like, oh my god, this is like miracles. Those dogs are saving people's lives. So when somebody tells you that you can't use food when you train guide dogs, and the reason is the handler's blind and there's food all over the environment, everywhere you go, there's food, because of that, you believe it. I believed it. I was totally brainwashed. And I brainwashed so many of my blind clients over the years, like we all did, because we didn't want them hand-feeding their dogs. It was about food only comes in their food pan two times a day when they get fed. So the first thing that we had to tackle, we were the first school in the world that tackled this whole belief system, which was, believe me, very deeply entrenched worldwide that you can't use food in training guide dogs. There are still some outliers now that are holding to that, and their programs probably won't change until there's a few individuals that retire or leave the program, just because they're so entrenched in the belief system, and I understand that because I was there too. Thank God I had an open enough mind to say, “Maybe there's a way.” So the first task at hand was to show that we could teach the dogs, with food, how to not take food in the environment, and how to avoid offered food in the environment. If you picture that you've got this handsome, cute little dog out in harness and you're blind, how many people do you think a day come up and say, “Oh, he's so pretty. Can I give him this cookie? I have a little piece of meat.” You have all sorts of people doing that and not even asking. Guide dogs actually are offered food a lot. And imagine how many restaurants that you would go sit in, and your dog goes under the table, and guess what they find under the table that somebody previously dropped on the floor. There's food all over the place. So we thought — ha ha — we were doing this great job of teaching food avoidance through correction. The dog, of course, if they went for food, would be corrected. The comical part about that is although the response we trained looked really good at the end of guide dog training, because that means the professional was handling the dog, and the professional has sight, so the professional can do what? Time a correction. They can see what the dog's about to do. Well, hand the dog over to a blind client, and guess how long it takes a guide dog who's been trained that way to figure out that the blind person isn't responding at all when they head toward some food. We had ourselves brainwashed that we were doing a good job. The really cool thing about coming up with “How do we teach them with food to leave food?” was incredibly rewarding for us to go, “Oh my gosh, we just blew that belief system out of water.” The dogs are so much better now than they ever were with environmental food. And it's because they're choosing. It's their choice. They're not being threatened. They know that, If I leave this food alone and if I refuse this food from this person offering it, I know at some point in the near future I'm going to get a reward too. That was the huge hurdle to get over because of how entrenched that belief system is in the world. From that point on it was saying, OK, let's look at this clicker training thing, and look at all the skills we teach, and what can we teach with clicker training? I'm really glad my school took it really slow. At the time I felt like I was dragging them forward — “Please, let's do more, let's do more” — but the reality is traditional trainers have to learn these skills, it's totally new skills. So for us to just overnight decide we were going to change would not have been a good idea. We took it really slow. I look back at 2006, when all of our instructors were using clicker training, and it's comical to me to think that we thought we were so advanced, because it's come so far. Things that we transfer over to clicker training, it was clicker training, but now it's been improved to where it's really good clicker training. So it was a very long haul. The good news was that when we made this change, we had a couple schools that had heard through the grapevine that we were doing this who asked if we could help them out. Management made a decision then that really changed the course of the entire industry, because the industry could be very protective over what they did and their information, not necessarily willing to share “secrets.” Our management at that time decided that we're going to share this. We're not going to keep it quiet. And so at that time, around 2007, they started sending me out on the road to any school that wanted help. That is what kind of started the road to changing the industry, because the word started spreading. And then we started presenting at the International Guide Dog Conference, which happens every two years. That was like an international community, and presenting and showing video of all that we're doing, showing them data on success rates that skyrocketed higher than ever historically from the day we started clicker training. There was so much information that our school made available to the guide dog industry besides us actually personally helping. I mean, it's just wonderful. Let me give you an idea. There's about a hundred-plus guide dog schools in the world that belong to this International Guide Dog Federation. In 2006, there were three guide dog schools out of that group that were using positive reinforcement. Now it's over sixty-five. That's a big deal in ten years. It's a really cool thing to see it happening, and it's a really cool thing that I get to still do. I'm a consultant. I just got back from South Africa in February, helping a South African school, and it's just wonderful to see the excitement, because most of the staff are younger people now. There are always still some staff that are more senior, and traditional trainers who are learning new skills, but everyone has gotten to the point where they realize this is really a better way to go. So it's rare for me to run into people now that haven't realized, because we proved it. Basically our school proved it. Melissa Breau: That's fantastic. That's got to be such a good feeling to know that you've had such a huge impact on that field, and to really be able to look at the numbers and see how much change you've really created. Michele Pouliot: It is. It's an extremely satisfying time in my life to go ahead and retire. Melissa Breau:  Fair enough. Michele Pouliot: It was about five or six years ago now I was considering retiring, and I just had a funny feeling that I needed to give it a few more years to make sure that my program that I was leaving was really set to still move forward and not slide back if they didn't have me bugging the heck out of them all the time, for instance. Melissa Breau: Right. It's fantastic you've created this change, but I know there are still some fields that are, for lack of a better word, struggling to make the switch, or fields where traditional methods are still the norm. Do you have any advice for people who are maybe positive trainers in those situations, or positive trainers who are surrounded by others who aren't, when they're trying to maybe create change or inspire change in others? Michele Pouliot:  Over the past ten years — I guess more than that now, actually — I feel like I've done this so many times with so many different people and organizations, at least in the guide dog and service dog industry, I've been involved with so many now that I've learned the hard way what not to do. Even when somebody acts like they're open-minded and ready to listen, you have to be very careful that you respect them and avoid criticizing then, because the tendency in positive reinforcement trainers is to look down on traditional trainers as if they're being mean or even abusive or harsh or whatever. So when they're talking at a traditional trainer, they have that attitude of, “You need to change because da-da-da-da-da.” Well, the reality is traditional trainers love their dogs, too, and if you think they're doing it because they want to be meaner than they need to, that's not so. They inherited that. That's what they learned. I never thought I was being mean or harsh or too rough. I was a good traditional trainer and I used techniques that worked. My dogs were happy, they worked happy, they weren't cowering. But when I look back now, of course I realize, wow, there's so much of a better way to do this, and the animal is so much more joyous in its work. But people approach, if you want to call it the other side of the fence, they approach that with criticism, even if it's not direct criticism. You need to give a person respect for what they've done, what they've accomplished, and not in any way punish them. The comical part, to me, is if you're truly a positive reinforcement trainer, then why are you punishing these people? Are you going to punish them long enough that you think they're going to change? You should know that punishment isn't very effective. It only works with threat, so are you going to threaten them? No. The way you get them to change is reinforce them for their efforts, support them when they're having trouble, and sometimes that means you have to ignore something that's still happening and just go, “That will come in time. Leave it alone.” Right now, give them something you can actually help them with, because that reinforces them. When you solve a problem for someone or some organization with positive reinforcement and it's a problem they continue to have, you are now God. Now it's like, “Wow, we were never able to solve that with traditional training, and they just solved it.” That's all about reinforcement, so it's no different than applying positive reinforcement to animal training. It's how do I get this animal, which happens to be human, I have to want and get them inspired and motivated, don't I? I have to have something they want. So I have to give them the feeling of reinforcement, and usually that comes in the shape of showing them how it works. Don't just tell them. Show them. There are a lot of people in the horse barns, for instance, that are certainly surrounded by traditional horse trainers, and they're the one person in their barn that wants to do clicker training with their horse, so they day in and day out feel like they are one against a hundred. The best thing they can do is just smile and say, “Thank you. That's really cool that you're doing that, but I want to do it this way. I'm really enjoying this. This is really fun.” And then, on the side, you're showing them, from them noticing, that it really works. There's no sense in having a war, because the war never gets you anywhere. I've been at those wars. I've been the positive reinforcement and the traditional trainer wars. It doesn't work. It just makes the traditional trainers dig their trenches deeper because you're making them feel they have to defend themselves. The last thing you want to do is make a traditional trainer feel like they have to defend themselves. You have to get them curious so that they're really interested in how that works. The good news is in the guide dog world it's been proven now. We were on new ground when we did it, and when we did it, we didn't have anything telling us it's going to work, so we were just hoping we'd get the same quality of response at the end of training, and what wowed us was how much better all the responses were. We were just hoping that going to this new positive thing would be kinder-gentler and we'd still get what we had. We never, never imagined we would get better and better responses than historically the school had ever had. Melissa Breau: That's fantastic. I know there are a lot of people out there who are in that exact position, and they're surrounded by so many trainers who are doing things other ways. They feel like they're fighting that battle, so I think that's really useful for folks to hear. What about for those folks that are out there, maybe they're on the edge, or maybe they're in the process of crossing over, I think anyone who has done that knows it's not easy. Do you have any advice for those folks? Michele Pouliot: The best advice I can give for someone who wants to cross over, they're in the process, is realize that learning never goes away. I think in the traditional training world you get to a point — and I say this not just from my experience, but being around so many traditional trainers for so many years in the '70s and '80s — you get to a point where you think you've learned everything. It's a little phenomenon. It's like, I'm there, I've got it, I've done my thing, and now I just keep practicing it. As a positive reinforcement trainer I quickly realized that I didn't know anything about training. It was like, wow, I might be good at actually doing some certain things with animals, but I had never even thought about how the science would affect everything that I'm doing. So realizing that it doesn't end. When I first joined the faculty of Clicker Expo, Karen Pryor's faculty, I was totally intimidated by being on the faculty. It's like, Oh my god, all these people, they are so much better than me. And then I started getting more comfortable after a few years, but every time I went, I realized I still feel like a novice. Every single time I go to an Expo, I'm learning something else from a faculty member, or two or three of them, that I went, wow, I never even looked at it that way. That has not ended, so I realized it's an open book. It's an open end that never stops. And if you do stop and you say, “I've learned enough, this is all I need to know,” that's sad to me because there's so much more available to you, even within your own little world and how you're using it, because it's constantly got the ability to give you more information and make you even better and better at training both the animal and the student, the person. Melissa Breau: Even if you've learned, say, everything that was out up to a year ago, when you really talk to some of the leading trainers out there, there are always new ideas that they're trying and they're testing and they're playing with, and then going out there and sharing. Michele Pouliot: Exactly, exactly. Even through things like this, a podcast. You're listening to a podcast and you go, “Oh, well, that's interesting. I never quite heard that before.” Or you hear it said a different way, and even if all that gives you is ooh, when I teach that next time, I have another way to say that that might make more sense to that individual person who I'm having trouble getting that concept across to. Melissa Breau: Absolutely. I know that that, for me, was a big, big thing when I was teaching pet dog people was that I'd often sit in the class, or listen to somebody talk, and you just come away with, “Oh, well, that was a really great analogy. That was a really good way of phrasing that,” that you can reuse or turn around. Michele Pouliot: For sure, for sure. And to me, I really always look at myself as when I'm working with somebody, an individual and their animal, I'm never really teaching the animal. I'm teaching them. So it's my job to be able to be a hugely successful communicator and adjust on the fly when it's not working, because obviously the way I'm explaining it is not working, so I've got to find another way. Melissa Breau: I know that I mentioned in the intro you've done competitive obedience and agility, and that today you mostly compete in musical freestyle. For those who maybe aren't super-familiar with the sport, can you share a little bit about what it is and how it's judged? Michele Pouliot: Most everybody has at some point in the Winter Olympics watched the ice-skating. If you look at that event, the Olympic ice skating, and the short program, long program — years ago they also had the figures that they don't do anymore because it wasn't very interesting to watch — but it's very similar in that you have a piece of music, and what you're doing is you and your dog are performing certain behaviors and you're interpreting the music. So freestyle, in its own right, is meaning anything you want to do. Anything goes, so it gives you the open ability to choose a lot of interesting things to do. Most organizations that you can compete under, and there's about four or five organizations worldwide, do have some limit in freestyle for safety. In other words, the one limit can be as long as it looks safe for human and dog. Other than that, there really isn't a limit, other than don't do something in really bad taste, for instance. But if you look at the Olympic ice-skating, in that they are judged both technical and artistic, it's the same thing. In most organizations you have two basic element types you're being judged on, which is the technical aspect of the performance, including the precision, including how things flowed, and then you have the artistic, which is the creative part, how unique was this, how emotional was it, was it funny, was it dramatic, was it just really amazingly entertaining. If you look at it with that ice skating analogy, I think you'll realize, yeah, that's an easy to understand sport. It is still a bit of a subjective sport, meaning you could have the exact same performance in front of two different judges and they may judge it a little differently. But that's not really any different than if you get in a high level of competitive obedience. You're looking at who's going to win the classes a half-point ahead of the other, and that could be a subjective judgment between judges, so one judge saw it as a perfect sit and one judge saw it as a half-point-off sit. So no matter what, the subjectivity comes into most sports, agility being one that probably not. The dog either does the … but you still have some judgments about did he make the contact point, did he miss it, so it is a subjective sport. The cool thing about the sport is everyone going in the ring is doing something different, so you're not watching the same routine, like an obedience routine or the agility course. You're not seeing the same thing again and again. Every single person that goes in the ring is doing something different, even if you — by horrors — happen to have the same music as somebody else, which has happened to me. It happened to me. But they're still totally different routines because you have a different person and a different dog interpreting it. So it's very cool that it's your own creation. I have tons of video of my dogs doing competitive obedience at way back Games Nationals, really cool stuff, and agility runs. Do I ever pull that footage out and watch it? Not really. But do I pull out my old freestyle routines and watch those? I do. It's more like you created art yourself, you and your dog together created this thing, and nobody else has done that thing. It's something that you did, and when you are in freestyle long enough that you're losing dogs, obviously they die, I mean, that was the first time that hit me was when I was watching my Springer Spaniel Cabo's performance to Phantom of the Opera at a seminar. Somebody wanted to see it, and I showed it for the first time after he had passed, and I mean I got really emotional because it wasn't just seeing him on the screen as much as all that we put into that routine to make it an entertaining routine. The cool thing to me about freestyle, which is why I got so excited about it when I discovered it, is everything keeps changing. It isn't that you get to this high level and then you're doing the same skills and maintaining those same skills. You're always trying to do something new, inventive, because of the piece of music you've picked. It brings out the creativity and it really pushes you as a dog trainer. So it's been wonderful for me because it keeps pushing me to what is the next thing I'm going to clicker train — not necessarily that I'm going to use it in the next routine, but maybe the routine after that. So it really does help me, personally, get inspired and motivated to train, because my goal is to come up with some sort of performance that is entertaining to the audience. I just love that. Melissa Breau: You obviously bring it to the sport. You're very passionate about it. Is there anything, in your opinion, in particular that has led to your success? Michele Pouliot: I think for anyone's success, you have to say you're obviously doing good training. Again, it's motivating to me to keep pushing myself to become a better and better trainer for that reason, because it's going to come out in the performance. Creativity is something that I think I probably was born with, because I always had a wild imagination, and my brother is a very creative person too. I actually don't know how to teach people creativity, but you can get a lot of great ideas from just watching Broadway plays, movies, shows, you can get some great ideas for what might make a very cool routine. I would have to say that I entered this sport at a point in my career when I'd only been clicker training on my own with my own animals for maybe four or five years when I got into freestyle. But I had already learned the power of it for teaching really great behaviors, entertaining-type behaviors, so that really inspired me to, like, what else can I do? When you envision something in a routine that might seem a little up there — meaning, well, maybe I shouldn't really expect that I can make it look that great by teaching a dog to do something like that — and then you actually do it, that's really rewarding for yourself as a trainer, but rewarding in that you were able to show the audience something. It also is a really good ambassador for clicker training, because when you see a good freestyle performance, the one thing you know is there are behaviors you just watch that you know you couldn't train any other way except with clicker training because it wouldn't work. There's no way you could teach that traditional. It just wouldn't happen. Melissa Breau: I know we're getting close to the end here, and there are three questions I always ask at the end of my first interview with someone. The first one is what's the dog-related accomplishment that you're proudest of — and I feel like you probably have some good ones. Michele Pouliot: I kind of feel like I have two different worlds that I've been in. One is a very serious type of work with the guide dog world and the other is my hobby in the sports. I have to say that being able to look back on my career with the guide dog industry, knowing that I've made a big change, now I am one of the catalysts that's really helped to move that whole industry forward, certainly is something I'm extremely proud of and makes me feel really content that I left that career, officially left the career, when everything was really moving along. That would be the guide dog side. The dog-related side would probably be just individual great performances I've had with my wonderful canine partners. When you said it, I probably had to think of my first Aussie in freestyle, Listo, who passed in 2014. But we've had some incredible performances. I don't know if I can pick one out. But one thing that he did do that no other dog has done is he — I know I should say “he and I together,” but I think of him as such an amazing dog performer. He was like an actor. He was so good at this that I felt like he was carrying me through some of the performances. He not only scored perfect scores from judges once, he did it twenty-four times. It is incredible, and a few of those were at international competitions where there was a judging panel of three judges, and all three judges gave him perfect scores. And I realize gave us perfect scores. But I would have to say that probably is one of the highlights of my hobby career. Just a couple of weekends ago, my young Aussie, we debuted a brand-new routine, and it's a very cool routine. I'm very, very proud of this routine. In fact, we dedicated it to Listo. It's a very cool routine, and he did it so well for his first time. I was totally blown away with how well he did, and he got a perfect score. Melissa Breau: That's awesome. Michele Pouliot: For my young boy to get a perfect score was a really cool thing. So there I gave you the serious side of dog training and the fun side. Melissa Breau: Congrats on the new perfect score. That's awesome. Michele Pouliot: Thank you. Melissa Breau: The second question on my list is about training advice, and I wanted to ask what the best piece of training advice you've ever heard is. Michele Pouliot: Oh, so many to choose from. I am going to reach down deep to the first one I ever remember hearing that changed my life, and that was Linda Tellington. In 1970, I was having trouble working with a horse. She stopped me, and she walked over and very quietly said, “Listen to him.” And ever since then, I listen so hard to my learners, and that includes horses, dogs, people that I'm teaching. It's listening, paying attention to what's happening, because they're giving you so much information that so many people ignore. So I think that would be the first one, because it has affected me, it's so much a part of who I am when I train is really noticing what's happening quickly, not waiting until we get five minutes into it to go, “Oh, I guess that's not working.” Then the other one would be Dr. Phil's mantra, “How's that working for you?” Melissa Breau: I like that. Michele Pouliot: I say that at seminars all the time. I say it to myself. It's like somebody comes up with all these questions, “Why is he doing that? Well, I've been doing it this way.” And I go, “Well, how's that working for you?” It's a great mantra, so I find myself going back to that. It actually is usually quite appropriate for most situations to ask yourself that, or to ask someone else, so I'll just stick with those two for now. Melissa Breau: Absolutely, and it relates back to the first one. If you're not listening and you ask yourself, “How's that working for you?” it's going to remind you... My last question here: Who is somebody else in the training world that you look up to? Michele Pouliot: That would probably be Ken Ramirez and Kathy Sdao, both. They have been my lights in the distance when I started this guide dog movement to change to positive reinforcement training. Both of them … without them, I don't know if I could have made it happen, because they again were so supportive of what we were doing, and yet knowing a lot of what we were doing they did not like at that time. They were able to put blinders on and ignore some of what they were looking at, and focus on the stuff we were getting better at, knowing that when more time went, we'd be ready for the next step to improve. And then, on a personal note, when I joined the faculty, just to have them be so wonderfully friendly and open and warm, and so interested in the way I think about training and what I do. They've just always been really dear to me. Melissa Breau: That's awesome. Thank you so much for coming on, Michele! This has been great. Michele Pouliot: You're welcome, and I thank you for having me. I enjoyed every bit of it. Melissa Breau: And thanks to our listeners for tuning in! We'll be back next week, this time with Amy Cook to talk about the true meaning of a threshold and how to manage your activity while you work on changing your dog's feelings about the thing. Credits: Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzi for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty-free by BenSound.com; the track featured here is called “Buddy.” Audio editing provided by Chris Lang.

Dr. Elinor Karlsson Animal behavioralist Marjie Alonso CDBC, CPDT-KA, KPA CTP and geneticist Dr. Elinor Karlsson, who managed the MuttMix Project for the International Association of Animal Behavioral Consultants will be here this week to discuss whether those home DNA tests can really identify the breed of your dog. And what is the impact of genetics on behavior? Expert trainer Laura Pakis and I will do the interview in the "Ask Us Anything" format (please call!) for the entire first hour of the program, 12:08-1pm PT. Please tell your friends! Marjie was a professional dog trainer and behavior consultant and owner of City Dog Training in Somerville, MA. for decades, during which time she also served as Training Director, and then behavioral consultant for the New England Dog Training Club, the oldest AKC club in the US, and as a member of the America Humane Association's Advisory Board for Companion Animal Behavior and Training. Marjie is the co-founder of the Somerville Foundation for Animals, which hosts the Somerville Dog Festival each year. Marjie is a Certified Dog Behavior Consultant (CDBC) with the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants; a Certified Training Partner of Karen Pryor Academy; a Certified Pet Dog Trainer, Knowledge Assessed (CPDT-KA) of the Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers; an AKC Canine Good Citizen evaluator, and a Professional Member of the Association of Professional Dog Trainers (APDT) Elinor is the director of the Vertebrate Genomics Group at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. She is also an assistant professor in bioinformatics and integrative biology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. She is excited by the potential for using our own evolutionary history to understand how the human genome works, and in how that knowledge can lead to advances in healthcare. Karlsson’s current projects include the 200 Mammals Genome Project, an international effort led by the Vertebrate Genomics group at the Broad to compare hundreds of different mammalian genomes and identify critically important segments of DNA. She is also studying recent human evolution to find the genetic variation that makes some people resistant to ancient infectious diseases, like cholera. Karlsson has a special interest in diseases shared between humans and dogs. She recently launched the citizen science-driven Darwin’s Dogs project, which invites all dog owners to participate directly in research exploring the genetic basis of dog behavior, as well as diseases such as OCD and cancer. Karlsson received her B.A. in biochemistry/cell biology from Rice University, and earned her Ph.D. in bioinformatics from Boston University. She was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University before starting her own research group at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in 2014.    

Sherrie Yuschak, RVT and faculty member of the Karen Pryor Academy, talked with Colleen Pelar about having some flexibility in our responses can make us feel happier, healthier, and more in control of our lives. www.colleenpelar.com/12

SUMMARY: Laura began training professionally in 1999, and is author of the best-selling book Fired Up, Frantic, and Freaked Out: Training Crazy Dogs from Over-the-top to Under Control and her newest book, released earlier this year, Social, Civil and Savvy: Training and Socializing puppies to become the best possible dogs. She owns Canines In Action, Inc. in Indianapolis, speaks at workshops and seminars, and is also a Karen Pryor Academy faculty member. Links Fired Up, Frantic, and Freaked Out: Training Crazy Dogs from Over-the-top to Under Control Social, Civil and Savvy: Training and Socializing puppies to become the best possible dogs Canines in Action, Inc. Next Episode:  To be released 10/27/2017, featuring Denise Fenzi to talk about the Fenzi TEAM Titling program and her upcoming book. TRANSCRIPTION: Melissa Breau: This is Melissa Breau and you're listening to the Fenzi Dog Sports Podcast brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy, an online school dedicated to providing high-quality instruction for competitive dog sports using only the most current and progressive training methods. Today we will be talking to Laura VanArendonk Baugh. If that name isn't familiar to you, no worries. Laura is actually our first non FDSP instructor to be on the show. Laura began training professionally in 1999 and is author of the best-selling book Fired Up, Frantic, and Freaked Out, training crazy dogs from over-the-top to under control. And her newest book, released earlier this year, Social, Civil, and Savvy: Training and socializing puppies to become the best possible dogs. She owns Canines in Action Inc. in Indianapolis and speaks at workshops and seminars. She is also a Karen Pryor Academy faculty member. Hi, Laura, welcome to the podcast. Laura VanArendonk Baugh: Hi, Melissa. I am thrilled to be here. Melissa Breau: Good. I'm looking forward to chatting with you. To get us started out, do you want to just tell us a little bit about your dogs and what you're working on with them? Laura VanArendonk Baugh: I have two dogs at this time. Penny is a Labrador who was raised as part of a Clicker training research project with guide dogs for the blind, and she actually ended up coming back to me. As a trainer, it's important for me to say her training was great. She did not come back to me for a training reason, which would've been fine too, but that's always like, my little, “No, I'm a trainer. She was good.” So anyway, so she now has very important tasks at home. She has to hold my couch down, she has to check my ponds daily to see if it's wet, so that's Penny's life right now. Melissa Breau: Critical. Laura: VanArendonk Baugh: Yeah, Yeah. Those are important tasks. I also have Undómiel, who is my young Doberman, and she's Danish, so she has ears and a tail and all the extra bits, and she's pretty high-energy, and pretty fun, and I actually have some guilt because you ask what I'm doing with them right now. Right now, they both are just dogs, which is a little weird for me because they spent so long in the dog sport world. And I took some time off mostly with Undómiel because she loves to work, but she wasn't loving mondioring, which is what we were doing with her as a puppy, and I think that was in part physical. I needed…she had some fairly loose joints and I think it just wasn't comfortable for her, so we could go back and do it now, but she's matured a little bit, but I've scheduled my life poorly so that's why we're in a holding pattern still, so yeah. Melissa Breau: Far enough. So I know I kind of mentioned you've been in personal training since 1999, but I wanted to ask a little bit about how you got into it. So how did you originally get into training professionally? Laura VanArendonk Baugh: I didn't want to do what I went to school for is the short answer to that question, so I graduated with a couple of degrees in, you know, mass communications, and a foreign language, and all these things that, you know, I'm like oh, okay, those are nice, but I don't want to do that. I ended up getting into…I'd done some obedience training and such previously. I ended up getting a job doing that actually at a big box store, so that kind of thing. I worked up there, became a regional manager for the training program, and it was actually while I was there that I went… I'm a crossover trainer and I was originally trained in more the Koehler approach and kind of encountered clicker training and was like oh, this makes sense, oh, this works really well, and then so I had my crossover experience, and yeah, just kind of never looked back after that, which is funny because for so many years I was like oh, food and toys are stupid, we don't bribe dogs, and that's totally not where I am now, so. Well, I'm still in the we don't bribe dogs, but toys and food are not necessarily bribing, so. Melissa Breau: Right. So is there anything in particular that got you started on that journey? What was kind of the switch or was there a particular experience, or anything kind of that you can point to? Laura VanArendonk Baugh: There were several things. I mean, I kept seeing people doing interesting things with Clicker training. That was nice.They were doing cute tricks and stuff. And then the kind of the clincher for me was one of my dogs at that time, her name was Chaucer, she was a brilliant little dog, and she was mildly reactive, and the longer we worked the more and more reactive she became, and nothing that I knew how to do was working, and in fact, everything was getting worse, so clearly the dog was stupid. It couldn't possibly be me. And so I ended up talking with someone about Clicker training and the nugget that I got from that was to click for the behavior that you want the dog to do, and I thought okay, I want her to be around other dogs without barking and launching, so I will wait until she looks at another dog and then I will click before she barks. So this actually makes great sense and we do it all the time now, and Leslie McDevitt called it the “look at that” game, so it sounds hilarious to say that I invested the look at that game as my first Clicked behavior, which in no way am I taking credit for that because I had no freaking clue what I was doing. It was one of those things that was very logical and I accidentally got it right, but was amazing about that is it worked, like, within seconds, and I guess that she was a brilliant dog, she made this work for me despite my absolute ignorance. And so I clicked her, she turned around and got her treat, and I clicked her again and she turned around, and I was like, oh, wow. Like, we're 10 seconds in and this is working, and you know, the effect of prompt reinforcement, it changed my behavior, and so that's where I started doing more research and saying oh, this is really cool. Melissa Breau: Yeah. I mean, especially since you've been trying other things for so long and probably got really frustrated, at that point, with the lack of results. Laura VanArendonk Baugh: Oh, there was a lot of frustration. Yeah. I was so ready for something to work and I think if you look at the dogs…a lot of the dogs that we work with, a lot of the reactive dogs, you know, they're very frustrated, they're ready for something to work, and just having that really powerful instance of positive reinforcement for a different behavior, it can be massively effective because, you know, I lived that, I'm not just making that up because that's the way the theory goes, that was my experience is I was so frustrated, I got something that worked so well, and I was like okay, tell me more. Like, I'm in now. Melissa Breau: Right. So I want to talk a little bit about your first book, and maybe…you just kind of share a little bit about this. What led you to write Fired up Frantic and Freaked out? Laura VanArendonk Baugh: I was... with Canines in Action. I do a lot of in-home sessions. I work with a lot of dogs that aren't equipped, for whatever reason, to come into a group class and I realized that about 70 percent of my cases were anxiety or reactivity, and I just kept saying the same thing over, and over, and over. I'm like oh my gosh, I should just write this down, save time, so I did so. So that's honestly kind of where that came out of was I was seeing so much of it, and doing so much of it. It was made partly as a reference guide for clients if they wanted a homework sheet, you know, here's a book to follow along with, and partly so that I would maybe not have to say it quite as so often in the future, which would be fantastic. Melissa Breau: So for those not familiar with the book, can you explain a little bit kind of about the main focus and what you talk about? Laura VanArendonk Baugh: The focus there is really on teaching dogs to think and to kind of be cognitive in the moment. One of the things I talk about is if you have a fear reaction or just a pure joyous, excitement reaction, those can frequently result in the same behavior patterns and problems because what you have is a dog who is just way too excited to think, you know, whether he sees eustress or distress, he's still stressed and aroused and not processing. So it's about teaching the dog to think in the moment, it's about reducing threshold, and it's especially about teaching the human end of the leash to develop a good splitting technique and utilize that to make it much easier for the dog to focus in a new situation. Melissa Breau: I definitely read your first book and one of the things that really stood out to me was the nice balance you managed to strike between the what and kind of the why, so it covers both the approach to training and kind of the science behind what's going on in the dog's brain, and I think you managed to do that in a pretty accessible way. You know, when I picked up the book I definitely did not have the background that I do now, and it really kind of helped build a base understanding for me. Can you talk a little bit about how you approach training for a dog that tends to overreact, like the approach that you use in the book? Laura VanArendonk Baugh: Well, first, I'm just so happy to hear you say that because I'm such a science nerd and I wanted to make that science very user-friendly, so thank you, that's awesome. So the mat is…and definitely, I am not the only person to use a mat in this way. I want to be up front. I don't want to claim credit where it's not due. There's a lot of really great matwork protocols out there, but what they all have in common is it's a really handy visual crutch for the dog and it certainly doesn't have to be a mat. There's a lot of just kind of physical or mental touchstones that could be used, but a mat is just so convenient and so easy for the human to use in that way... but what you're doing is you're building a fluency, you're building some patterns of behavior that a stressed animal can fall back on, but you're also building some patterns that they can work through, I guess on a more cognitive level. “Oh, when my mat is presented I should think about going to my mat, I should think about doing these behaviors on it.” And you can use it both as an emotional crutch. “Oh, I'm on my mat, nothing bad can happen to me,” or as a actual behavior prompt, you go through these physical actions and you can earn reinforcement for it. And then the big thing that the mat does so well, and this is why think it so useful, is it's so easy to split behaviors in a situation using that mat, so I can take it, obviously, from looking at the mat, touching the mat, going to the mat, down on the mat, chin down on the mat. But then I also have a nearly infinite number of positions that, that mat can be in, in or around a trigger, or whatever. So it's a very flexible tool, I can fade it, or not fade it based on necessity, it's just a really easy way for people to do that, and for me as an instructor. So I'm working with clients who aren't coming in with a huge skill set and a lot of background. It's easy for me to manipulate the mat and they can focus on the dog or their patterns, and it just takes some of the load off them. There's a lot of flexibility to it. I like it. Melissa Breau: It makes the criteria clear for the person as well as the dog. It's kind of neat looking at it. Laura VanArendonk Baugh: Absolutely, Yeah. Melissa Breau: Yeah. So I knew you mentioned you like to nerd out a little bit on that stuff and I'm going to give you full approval to go ahead and do that. So I wanted to have you share a little bit about kind of why it works and what's going on in the dog's brain, kind of what you're teaching when you introduce the mat work and begin to introduce triggers and all of that. Laura VanArendonk Baugh: Awesome. There's a lot going on in the brain, but what I'm specifically…what I think is great about these kinds of approaches is if I have a stressed dog and an anxious dog, and let's be honest, that's where almost all of aggression or reactivity comes from, and so I've got a dog who is not in a happy place in his head, and every time I click with a Clicker-conditioned dog there's a tiny little shot of dopamine that's going on, so if I'm bringing a dog into what could potentially be a trigger situation, and we start with low criteria and we're building up at a rate that he can be successful at, with a high rate of reinforcement, you know, constant reinforcement going on, and this dog is getting dozens or hundreds of little dopamine shots... It's free drugs. Legal. That you don't have to wrestle down his throat in a pill form. It's great. And so I think that's a really key thing that…you know, it's just built into the system. There's no way to mess that up if we've set up our Clicker and our training situation right that's going to work for us a hundred percent of the time, so I think that's great. And so yeah, a lot of it's just taking the dog…the visual I use, and I always tell my clients, you know, if this works for you, great. If this doesn't work for you, flush it. There will not be a quiz at the end of the day. But the visual I use is there's a continuum and the dog is limbic and reactive at one end, and he's very cognitive and rational, and analytical at the other, and he can't be both at once, so we're asking the dog to move away from reactive and toward proactive, and we do that by making him…that's why I love Clicker training, specifically shaping and capturing as opposed to luring, which there's nothing…you know, it's not a moral problem to lure, but it's less useful in this particular context because I want that dog being analytical, and kind of really just crunching down on what behaviors should I try next, and he can't do that while he's being reactive, so if I'm reinforcing being analytical it's going to change not only what he's doing, but it's going to change the chemistry in his brain. I've had this happen a number of times, but I'm thinking of one particular incident. I was working with a client and their dog for the first time. We're in their living room, we're in the front room and we've just been introducing the mat. The dogs not even fully down on the mat yet. He's experimenting with a number of things, but he really hasn't grokked yet that down is what we're after, and while we were working a FedEx delivery guy showed up at the front door, which is the dogs worse trigger, from what I've been told, and they're knocking at the door, he's leaning in, and he's 10 feet away from this dog and the dogs looks up from the mat and he just gets like…his forehead is creased, his little eyebrows are pushed together, and you could almost just see him be like, “dude, I'm busy,” and he looks back at the mat, and I am just clicking and treating, like shot gunning rapid fire because the dog's staying on the mat. And you could see he was just really tempted to… “there's a pattern that I'm supposed to go to, but I'm really concentrating on this right now,” and it's a physically different mode that they had to get into and just like it's hard for them to get out of that…you know, if you've ever tried to talk to dog out of that reactive burst when they're lunging and barking, and they can't snap back into rational thought. It's just as hard to go the other way. So we just put them in the rational thought and then it's harder for them to fall into limbic. Melissa Breau: Interesting. I love that example just because it really kind of illustrates what the purpose and kind of the effect. I have a change in brain space. Laura VanArendonk Baugh: I loved it because it was their first session and I was like, man, if I could have set this up any better to get client buy in, you know? This was great. Melissa Breau: I bet they followed through. Laura VanArendonk Baugh: Yeah. Melissa Breau: So I want to switch gears and talk a little bit about your new book. It's a fairly different topic, so what led you to write Social Civil and Savvy? Laura VanArendonk Baugh: I think it's really interesting that you say it's a different topic because I'm looking at it as these are the same things. For me, socialization is kind of the prequel, it's getting your dog to think proactively in a novel situation, potentially triggered situation, before we develop a problem, which of course is my idea. I think most trainers would love to put themselves out of business. You can always go and train, fun stuff, but you know, if we're working with reactivity and aggression and all of that we would love to put ourselves out of business there. But yeah, socialization is all about teaching young brains to look at a situation and go, “this is interesting, what can I do here to get what results,” so. Melissa Breau: So how do you actually define socialization, either for yourself, or you know, kind of in the book? Laura VanArendonk Baugh: That's a much wigglier concept than you would think. There should be a six-word definition that would be easy to apply, but you know, even when you get into psychology texts and stuff it's not that simple even in our own species. The way…I'm going to do this as a truly practical application, I want socialization to mean I am aware of my environment, I am making proactive decisions about my environment, and I'm still thinking about the environment, so even if something is new I can compare to things I've seen before, I can say, “huh, this is interesting, what happens if I try this.” You know, I want an animal whose thinking proactively is my ultimate goal there. Melissa Breau: Is there one place where people often kind of go wrong, or you know, kind of a misconception you think people have when it comes to socializing puppies that maybe sometimes causes more harm than good? Laura VanArendonk Baugh: Yeah, I think there's actually two. I think…and it's two ends of a spectrum where you have, you know, the I don't socialize at all, and a lot of times you hear trainers talk about…depending on what part of the country, but you'll hear trainers talk about winter puppy syndrome. The puppies come home in November or December, and the weather is horrible and nobody takes them out to do anything until spring, and by then you have dogs who are like no, no, the world looks like my living room, and then anything outside of that is scary. And in the other extreme is doing too much in the name of socialization and just really overwhelming a dog in teaching them that they don't necessarily have control of their environment and the world is a scary place, and I've seen a few articles circulating lately on the dangers of socialization, and you shouldn't socialize because it's bad for your dog, and on the one hand I was like hey, guys, you know. Several years ago I wrote an article called Don't Socialize the Dog, this isn't new, but the point is not that we don't socialize, the point is not to socialize badly, and I think if I take a dog to a situation that's overwhelming and I don't give him agency, choice and a way to affect his environment, yeah, I'm going to get myself in trouble. I'm teaching the dog that reactivity is his only choice, but that's not a fault of socialization. That's a fault of bad socialization. Melissa Breau: So I've kind of heard it expressed as, you know, it's not just that you want them exposed to things it's that you actually want to them to have positive experiences with things. Is that kind of… Laura VanArendonk Baugh: Absolutely. Melissa Breau: Okay. Laura VanArendonk Baugh: Yeah. I want every socialization experience, if I have perfect control of things, which we rarely do, but this is my goal. I want every socialization experience to end with “I win! What's next?” and that's…even if the dog starts off with a little bit of worry about something, or whatever, like, work through it, let the dog know that everything was a puzzle and he solved it, he's awesome. And you know, I want positive experiences and I specifically want positive experience where the dog felt like he had some control in that environment. So one of the big things…and this is why I think the socialization book and the fired up and frantic book are the same topic. Predictability and a sense of control are the two things that I tell my clients that we crave in order to feel safe, and you know, I want to know what's coming, and I want to have some say in what happens to me, and that is what socialization is. It's teaching the dog hey, this is how the world works, this is what you can expect to see, and this is what you do to manipulate your environment and get what you want. And manipulate is not a dirty word, it's just agency, so if you want people to pet you this is what you do, if you want people to leave you alone this is what you do, and giving them that sense of control, now there's nothing to fear. Hooray. We're done. It's awesome. Melissa Breau: So if people were to pick up the book, read through it, and only walk away with kind of one thing, or one message. What kind of key piece of information would you want them to learn? Laura VanArendonk Baugh: Give your dog a happy sense of control. I think. Is that a good…I don't know. That kind of condemns everything I just said. I want a happy puppy feeling he has choice, and yeah. Melissa Breau: I normally and every episode with kind of the same three questions, so I wanted to give you a chance to answer the same questions, and I'm actually really excited to post under somebody who isn't just an FDSA person, so this will be fun. So to start out, what is the dog related accomplishment that you are proudest of? Laura VanArendonk Baugh: I might have to say that's actually the first book just because I've gotten so many emails and stories about how that was really helpful not just to people and their dogs, which was the goal, but I've had people tell me that they used the techniques for themselves in their own personal human lives, and that's really awesome, so yeah. I mean, I feel some guilt because that doesn't even involve my own personal dog, but there's…you know, my dogs probably don't need that specific achievement to feel happy. They're having awesome lives hanging out with me. So let's just pretend that they didn't hear that question. Yeah. I'm going to say finding out that it was really helpful to people, so yeah, that's it. Melissa Breau: Okay. And then what is the best piece of training advice that you've ever heard? Laura VanArendonk Baugh: Oh, there's no way I can pick a single one. There are …can I choose two? Melissa Breau: Absolutely. Go for it. Laura VanArendonk Baugh: Bob Bailey once said…and I'm sure he said it to many people, but he did say to me also, you know, “Timing, criteria, rate of reinforcement. Those are your three things. If anything is going wrong it's in one of those three,” and I have never found that not to be true. So anytime I'm looking at a problem it's going to be in my timing, it's going I've set the wrong criteria, or my rate of reinforcement is wrong. Melissa Breau: Want to repeat those one more time for people just so that they can really get them down if they're listening? Laura VanArendonk Baugh: Sure. Sure. Because trust me, this is tattooed on the inside of my skull for easy reference. Timing, criteria, rate of reinforcement. Any problem you have it's going to be one of those, or maybe two, but it's something in there; don't go looking for weird esoteric stuff. It's going to be timing, criteria, rate of reinforcement. And then the other one…and I have to credit Steve White for this one because I'm one of those people who can get…let's say “focused.” Focused sounds like a nice way to put this, or you can get really intense on solving a particular problem or working a particular session, and Steve said, “The one to quit is the one before you say just one more,” and I was like oh, that's me. Melissa Breau: I don't think you're alone there. I think that's a common problem. Laura VanArendonk Baugh: Yeah. We should have membership cards, yeah. Melissa Breau: So my last question for you is who is someone else in the dog world that you look up to? Laura VanArendonk Baugh: There's a lot and I'm really hesitant to pick one because that's like picking favorite dogs, but probably Hannah Branigan. I would like to be Hannah when I grow up. That sounds like a good plan. Melissa Breau: Wouldn't we all? Laura VanArendonk Baugh: Yeah, yeah. She's got a lot of good stuff going on and she's got a lot of fantastic techniques, so I'm going to say Hannah, yeah. Melissa Breau: Excellent. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Laura. It was great to talk to you. Laura VanArendonk Baugh: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. I really enjoyed it. Melissa Breau: And thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week with Denise Fenzi to talk about the TEAM program and her new book, which will be out later this month. Don't miss it. If you haven't already, subscribe to our podcast in iTunes or the podcast app of your choice to have our next episode automatically downloaded to your phone as soon as it becomes available. CREDITS: Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzi for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty-free by BenSound.com; the track featured here is called “Buddy.” Audio editing provided by Chris Lang and transcription written by CLK Transcription Services.

Summary: Heather Lawson is a Certified Professional Dog Trainer, a Karen Pryor Academy Certified Training Partner (KPA-CTP), a CGN Evaluator and a Free-style judge. She has been training dogs and their humans for more than 20 years after deciding that the corporate world just wasn't cutting it anymore. She is the owner of dogWISE Training & Behaviour Center Inc., where she teaches group classes for companion pets, competitive obedience, and rally in addition to providing behaviour consults and private lessons.   At FDSA, she teaches several classes focused on life skills, including the upcoming Loose Leash Walkers Anonymous and Hounds About Town; she'll also be teaching a new class on “Match to Sample.” Links Mentioned: www.dogwise.ca Next Episode:  To be released 9/1/2017, featuring Nancy Tucker talking about the roles of emotions in training, and how to modify behaviors when they are tied to strong emotions in our dogs. TRANSCRIPTION: Melissa Breau: This is Melissa Breau, and you're listening to the Fenzi Dog Sports podcast brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy an online school dedicated to providing high quality instruction for competitive dog sports using only the most current and progressive training methods. Today we'll be talking to Heather Lawson. Heather is a certified professional dog trainer, and Karen Pryor Academy certified training partner, a CGN evaluator and a free style judge. She's been training dogs and their humans for more than 20 years after deciding that the corporate world just wasn't cutting it anymore. She's the owner of dogWISE Training & Behavior Center where she teaches group classes for companion pets, competitive obedience, and rally in addition to providing behavior consults and private lessons. At FCSA she teaches several classes focused on life skills, including the upcoming Loose Leash Walkers Anonymous and Hounds About Town. She'll also be teaching a new class on Match to Sample. Hi, Heather, welcome to the podcast. Heather Lawson: Hi, Melissa, glad to be here. Melissa Breau: Looking forward to chatting. SO to start us out, I know we talked about this a little bit before turning on the recording, but do you want to just tell me a little bit about your own dogs, who they are and what you're working on with them? Heather Lawson: Okay. Well, my breed of choice, who happens to be currently rumbling in their crate at the moment, is German Shepard. I have two, one a male by the name of Tag, who is 11 years old and he's retired from active working. He's just a family companion and does everything else that Piper does but on a lower schedule, and then I have Piper who is a 2-year-old female, and she's my current work in progress, and I hope to be taking her into the competitive obedience ring, rally, and anything else that I can wrap my head around with her. Melissa Breau: How did you get your start in the dog sports world? Heather Lawson: Well, as you mentioned in my bio I was in the corporate world, in human resources, retail management, and after about three downsizings consecutively in a row, it was just that time of the ‘90s and so forth, I just decided that I didn't want to go back to work and I'd rather stay home and do things with my dogs, and believe it or not I ended up working at a school, an obedience school back east in Ontario and got competing with my own dogs, and then from there just went all over the place wanting to develop my education and just become a better trainer, and I've had so much fun doing this that I've never looked back on the corporate world since. It's just been so enjoyable because I get to meet so many new dogs and so many lovely people. Melissa Breau: I wanted to ask you a little bit about your training philosophy. How do you approach training? Heather Lawson: For me personally I like to approach it as a teamwork situation. I want to look at the dog that's in front of me and work with what they are giving me, and work at the level that they're capable of at that particular moment I guess you could say. My philosophy, you get the old, ‘Well, I want to do positive,' and everything like that. It just never occurs to me to do anything but positive and I want to make sure that I'm consistent, that I'm fair. I give my animals the better side of me at all times. Above all else my animals are family companions so not only do I have to worry about what I'm doing in training, but I have to worry about what we're doing when we're not training, and so everything has to mesh and come together, and it's just basically a family unit. Melissa Breau: I wanted to talk a little bit about the classes that you're going to be offering coming up in October, so let's start with the Loose Leash Walkers Anonymous class, and I am sure at least once, if not more than that, I will somehow manage to jumble those words because Loose Leash Walkers Anonymous is almost a tongue twister, but why are life skills like that, like leash walking, such an important skill for sports dogs and why is it such an incredibly difficult thing to teach? Heather Lawson: Well, like most people who do dog sports we travel, so we go to competitions, we do things with our dogs, we have to stay in hotels, we have to be out in the public, and having a dog with good manners, including loose leash walking skills I think is very important because your dog is only working and doing those activities for a very short period of time. The rest of it, if they're like most people…my dogs, as I said, are part of my family so when I'm not doing those skills or competitions, or anything like that I'm taking my dogs out into the community. I don't want to be dragged all over the place. I want to be able to take them on the sea bus that goes from one side of the inlet to the other, I want to be able to take them up and down elevators or into stores and do all of those types of things with them without people turning around and saying, ‘Look at that. The dogs out of control,' and I think it's important too even when you're competing that you have your dogs under control, that they're not going in every different direction, they're not dragging you to and from whatever it is that you're doing, whether it's conformation, or obedience, or even agility, or nose work. I mean, sure the dogs get excited but at the same time, it's still nice to have a little bit of management and manners in place, and that's my own personal view, and I think it's important. The other side of it, why is it so hard to teach, simply because we aren't consistent enough, I think, and we don't think of it as a priority, and by priority I mean I picked up on something a long, long time ago from Sue Ailsby, who's also teaching at Fenzi, and that was when the leash goes on that is your only priority of teaching loose leash walking, so getting from A to B is your only priority on a loose leash, and that has never, ever steered me wrong. If we put the leash on at one point and then we go and we let the dog pull us to their favorite friend, or we let them pull us to go and sniff to something, or pull us to go to the dog park. If we're inconsistent in our requirements then we never get that loose leash walking as part of regular manners skill, and you know what…and it's true. If I don't have the time to work on that, if I haven't given myself enough time, if my dogs are going to be excited, and the dogs get excited, and with a little bit of a reset okay. Yeah, okay mom, we remember. If I don't have that time I just will take them and use a muzzle magnet, which is basically a fistful of food, let them nibble on it as I go from point a to b so that I don't get that loose leash pulling, but I get the loose leash, so I try to be consistent with everything that I'm doing, and I think that's why the dogs don't get as far ahead in their loose leash walking because we're also very concerned about teaching them all of these other behaviors that one of the most important things is the loose leash walking because if they don't have that loose leash walking they don't get out into the community, they don't get out to socialize, they're not much a pleasure to be around because they're hard on your shoulder, they're hard on your elbow, hard on your back and so they end up only doing certain things and they don't have a well-rounded life, and especially with pet dogs they end up getting stuck in the backyard so they don't get the exercise. They don't get the exercise then they have problem behaviors, they have the problem behaviors then they get surrendered, so loose leash walking, whether it's for your competitive dogs or for your family companions is one of the most important skills, at least in my view anyways. Melissa Breau: And I think you hit on that, like that consistency point. It's so common to see somebody go into a class, trach loose leash walking, and then the moment they leave the room suddenly they forget everything that they have learned. Heather Lawson: Oh yeah. Yeah, and if I catch my students, my in person students coming up the walkway and the dog is dragging them up they know, they look at me and they immediately turn right around and go down to the back, and they do their leash walking all the way up, so now it's actually a running joke in class, is that oh, she caught us. Uh-oh we've got to go back, and now they've almost…almost every single person who's been there by about week three they all know that they've got to practice their skills coming and going because that's the whole point of it, right. You've got to practice it 24/7 in order for it to stick, and if you don't then it's not going to happen and you're giving the dog an inconsistent message, and dogs don't work in grey they work a little bit better in black and white. Melissa Breau: And I think that kind of leads really well into the next thing I wanted to talk about, which is this idea of the dogs being able to go out and about with you and do things. So I know you also teach the Hounds About Town class, which I'm assuming kind of touches on that a little bit. What are the actual skills that you teach in that class, and how do you approach it? Heather Lawson: Okay. With the Hound About Town, again, we teach loose leash walking, not as in depth as in the Loose Leash Walking Walkers Anonymous, but we teach some loose leash walking. We teach leave it, okay. We don't need hoovers because there's so much garbage, and things like that, and bad things that the dogs could pick up, as well as we don't need them going after that little child in the stroller that's coming towards them with that ice cream cone that's right at their level, so a good leave it comes in handy. Many of the dogs live in condominiums now, so we teach elevator etiquette, which also transfers nicely into riding on transit for those people who are lucky enough to travel on transit. We work on chill and settle on the mat, a little bit of recalls, grooming and touch for the veterinary care, door manners, and some of the other things that we do is we consider etiquette for when you are traveling and staying in hotels, or staying in other locations, and how to manage your dog in busy situations, just the basics, what would you do in your everyday life when you're out and how to make it easier to take your dog with you more places. The other thing that we do is we also encourage people to take their dogs more places, don't just leave them at home all the time, of course weather permitting, because it's good social interaction for our dogs. They don't necessarily have to be always just going to the dog park. They need to be with you and be out and about, and part of the community, and the better behaved animals we have in the community the more access we're going to have for them, and that's the key thing. People say that there isn't that much access for animals, but that's because there's been perhaps maybe some inconvenient encounters that haven't gone so well because the dogs haven't been well-trained. Also too, all of the things that we cover in here can be applied to the…I think in your end of the woods it says CGC, which is the Canine Good Citizen. In our area it's Canine Good Neighbor and then you also have…then there are other levels. The urban K9 title as well. If you were to go through the Hound About Town you would be able to go and take your test and get your certificate, so it's just another way to promote responsible dog ownership, right. Getting them out, getting them trained, and getting them part of the family. Melissa Breau: Now, you didn't touch on two of the things that stood out to me when I was looking at the syllabus, which were the Do Nothing training, and Coffee Anyone, so what are those and obviously how do you address them in class? Heather Lawson: Yeah. I always get kind of weird sideways looks when I talk about do nothing training, because it's kind of like…people say, ‘What do you mean do nothing training,' and I say well, how often do you just work on having your dog do nothing, and everybody looks at me, well, you don't work on having the dog do nothing, and I say oh yeah, you do. That's what we call settle on the mat, chill, learn how to not bug me every time I sit down at the computer to do some work, not bark at me every time I stop to chat with the neighbor, stop pulling me in all different ways, so it's kind of like just do nothing, because if you think about it the first maybe six months of your dog's life it's all about the dog and the puppy. Then when they get to look a little bit more adult all of a sudden they're no longer the center of attention, but because they've been the center of attention for that first eight weeks to six months, and there's been all this excitement whenever they're out and people stop, and you chat or you do anything it's very hard for the dog all of a sudden now to have this cut off and just not be acknowledged, and this is where you then get the demand barking, or the jumping on the owner, or the jumping on other people to get that attention, whereas if you teach that right in the very beginning, okay, and teach your puppies how to settle, whether it be in an x pen, or in a crate, or even on a mat beside you while you're watching your favorite TV show. If you teach them to settle, and how to turn it off then you're going to not have that much of a problem going forward as they get older. The other thing too is that by teaching the dogs all of these different things that we want to teach them that's great, and that's fabulous, and we should be doing that, but most dogs aren't active 100 percent of the time, they're active maybe 10 percent of the time. The other 90 percent they're chilling out, they're sleeping, they're…while their owners are away working if they're not luck enough to be taken out for a daily hike then they've got to learn how to turn it off, and if we can teach them that in the early stages you don't end up with severe behavior problems going forward and I've done that with all of my puppies, and my favorite place to train the do nothing training is actually in the bathroom. What I do with that is my puppies, they get out first thing in the morning, they go their potty, they come back in, we get a chewy or a bully stick, or a Kong filled with food, and puppy goes into the bathroom with me and there's a mat, they get to lay down on the mat and that's when I get to take my shower, and all of my dogs, even to this day, even my 11-year-old, if I'm showering and the door's open they come in and they go right to their mat and they go to sleep, and they wait for me, and that's that do nothing training right, and that actually even follows into loose leash walking. If you take that do nothing training how often are you out in your loose leash walking and you stop and chat to the neighbor or you stop and you are window shopping or anything else that you when you're out and about. If your dog won't even connect with you at the end of the line then just…they won't even pay attention to you while you're standing there, or they create a fuss then the chances of you getting successful loose leash walking going forward is going to be fairly slim, okay.   The other thing that you mentioned was the coffee shop training, and that is nowadays people go and they meet at the coffee shop or they go for lunch and more and more people are able to take their dogs to lunch, providing they sit out on a patio, and on the occasion where the dog is allowed to stay close to you we teach the dogs to either go under the table and chill or go and lay beside the chair and chill, and teach them how to lay there, switch off, watch the world go by. Even if the waiter comes up you just chill out and just relax and that allows the dog, again because they've got good manners, to be welcomed even more places. Melissa Breau: Right. It makes it so that you feel comfortable taking them with you to lunch or out. Heather Lawson: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. There's lots of places that dogs can go providing, and they're welcome, providing they do have those good manners, and if we can keep those good manners going then regardless of whether or not your dog sports or not it just opens up the avenues for so much more of us to do…more things to do with our dogs. Melissa Breau: I know the Match to Sample class is new, so I wanted to make sure we talk about that too. For those not familiar with the concept I have to admit I wasn't initially and then you kind of explained it, I think, on one of the Facebook lists, so for those who don't know what it is can you kind of explain what that means, Match to Sample? Heather Lawson: The Match to Sample is a type of concept training, so concept think of it as the concept of mathematics. For us we know that if you add one and one you get two. We're thinking you can conceptually see that if somebody asks me for this I can also get that, or we have the idea of big versus small. There's whole different types of varieties of concepts, but match to sample in this particular case is a visual match to sample, so this is where the dog learns to look at an item that the trainer is holding and then find the object on a table that matches the one that the trainer is holding. It sounds a little complicated but it's not really, because of the different things that we…the stages that we go through in order to get them there, so for instance I might hold up a Kong and I might have a Kong, and I might have maybe a treat bag, and I might have a cone, and I might have a ball all in a row in front of me, so I hold up my Kong and I say, ‘Match it,' and the dog looks at that Kong and then has to pick the right item out of that line of items on that table. I'm not saying get the Kong or get the toy, I'm just saying match it. Once they've learned on things they know then we start introducing things that they maybe have never seen before, or they don't normally interact with, and so we teach them that whatever I'm holding look at it and then figure out which one best matches that item and pick it out for me, either by a retrieve, or a nose touch, or targeting it, and it's…actually if you think about it, it's kind of the same thing that they use with nose work, that's a match to sample. Here's this sample, this smell. Now go find it for me. It's sort of what they use with search and rescue. Here's the smell of the person, I need you to find this person. Now go out into the world and match that smell to what I just gave you, and the concept training is neat because it uses most of what we teach our dogs, like shaping. It uses targeting. It uses problem solving and creativity on the dogs' part and it also utilizes behavior change, so it's kind of a fun different thing to do with the dogs and it allows you to really expand and take your thinking past what the dog…you ever thought, maybe, the dog could learn. Even with you're doing a match to sample with a nose in cancer. I'm sure you've heard of them matching cancer cells to see whether or not an individual has cancer cells. It's all match to sample, it's that concept training, right. There are other types of other concepts, which are things such as adduction, where we take one behavior, add it to another behavior and you end up with a third behaviors. That's called adduction, so it's one plus one equals three. It doesn't make sense but it's what it is, so it's one behavior, another behavior, and you make a third behavior, that's where the one plus one equals three comes from. There's actually counting that the dogs are…has been out there now. I think Ken Ramirez is doing counting with dogs. Also learning about mimicry, which is Julie Flannery's class at FDFA, can the dogs copy what you actually do. It's really kind of mind bending and that's what is really interesting me right now, and that's what I'm doing with my youngest dog Piper. I'm teaching her the match to sample as well as we're going to work on…to see whether or not she actually can read, if you will, and I've got flashcards, and so I'm teaching her what this word means and teaching her to see whether or not she can put the two together. You can teach the concepts of big and small, up or down, go back, go forward. It's just really cool stuff. Melissa Breau: That sounds really neat. It sounds like it's a very different, I guess, way of teaching your dog to look at the world, and I'd imagine at least the Match to Sample class would be a really…it would be a good skill to use a dogs' brain, especially if they're on medical for something, they could still do some of that stuff. Stuff like that. It would be just a great training tool to have in your kit. Heather Lawson: Yes, you absolutely hit it on the mark. It's a really good tool because it doesn't require a whole lot of activity, but you do have to have the basics in place. It's not something that you would normally do with a dog that is maybe…doesn't have any idea on shaping, or targeting or playing creative games. It does require a little bit of basics, but it's definitely a great tool for the dog that maybe is not just on medical rest but maybe can't interact with a lot of other dogs, right. Maybe they for some reason…they just need a brain teaser that's going to keep them from going stir crazy, because the more the brain is worked, it's a balance right. Everybody thinks the dogs need exercise, but at the same time they need to have that little brain tingled a little bit, and if you don't balance that off then you get a dog that kind of goes stir crazy, and again, it harkens back to not being able to shut off when needed, right, so it definitely is because it's…you train all different kinds of new behaviors and it's just another thing to draw on that trainers toolbox, if you will, to sort of expand and see just what your dog can do. We often forget and we start to label our dogs as they can only do this, right. I think they can do way more than we give them credit for, and that's what kind of tweaks my interest a little bit, aside from the competitive obedience stuff that I do with them as well. Melissa Breau: I do want to talk for just a second more about that, about the idea of how maybe somebody could use those skills to teak some of the other things that they might want to teach. We talked a little bit about how you could teach it as a brain teaser, and as concepts. You mentioned nose work a little bit in there and kind of this idea of teaching a bigger picture. Are there other ways that that skill can be used and other behaviors that you can use those skills in, is it about communication? Heather Lawson: It's about communication, so say for instance if we harken back to, say, search and rescue. The dog has to make sometimes independent because they're out searching and they've been sent out, and they're searching, and they're going back and they're searching and what are they supposed to do. I've found the person, do I stick with the person, do I come back, so that training aspect of it is that they come back, they tell you that they're there and then they go back to that person that's lost. I guess you could sort of put it down to it teaches your dogs to be creative. Now I don't know if that's a good thing or not. I've had a situation with my own dog when I was competing a number of years ago where I threw the dumbbell and it went outside the ring but there was access for her to go around a gate and get it and then come back, and rather than stick her head through and get caught at it, she looked at it, she looked down either side of it and then she backed up and went around got the dumbbell and came back and completed her exercise, so had I just taught it in basic format, go out, get it, come back, whatever, and I hadn't taught her how to be creative we might've failed that whole class, but she did it. She started to think on her own, and that's what I appreciate in the dogs is that they can figure it out, they can problem solve and I don't think that we really truly understand just how much problem solving ability that our dogs really do have, and I'm constantly amazed at how they develop that problem solving, and we sometimes forget because we're teaching them all of these specific behaviors that we want them to do and we don't let them sometimes expand on those, and I think that is the role it plays for me in my larger training toolbox, is it allows me to just sit back and say okay, so what if we did this? Can you do that, and the dog goes, yeah, sure I can do that and then you're off on a different tangent, so it does definitely take your training in different ways, but it also really expands your training and your appreciation for the dog and their capabilities. Melissa Breau: So it sounds like there are kind of two pieces there, right, to kind of distill that down a little bit. There's the idea of helping your dog be the best they can be, in terms of as smart they can be, as capable as they can be, and then there's this piece about teaching them how to be creative problem solvers, which I'd assume also makes things like proofing and fluency much easier. Heather Lawson: Yeah, exactly because they grasp the concepts much quicker, and I know for…this isn't really on the match to sample side of it, but if you consider, say, the…I taught her the chin rest, okay, and it's one of the nest things I ever taught this dog because the chin rest taught her how to be just still, and that stillness transferred into my dumbbell, it transferred into her being examined by a judge in the confirmation ring, and it transferred into her stays, so just that simple thing of a chin rest with duration, or even a duration of the nose touch transferred in and taught her the concept of holding still and waiting until she was released, and it was such an easy transfer of that one single skill of holding skill went to so many different other behaviors, and I'd never taught it that way before, but I'm so glad I did with Piper because it just sort of went oh, that transfers into all kinds of things, and it really made me go you really get this, and so there's a concept there but in a different way than the match to sample, so it's what are we teaching them?It's not just a sit there and hold that position until I tell you otherwise it's just the concept of can you transfer this, oh you understand it, so that's why I like the concept training, such as the adduction, the mimicry, the copy behaviors, the match to sample. All of those things are really kind of mind benders. Melissa Breau: I wanted to wrap things up by asking you the three questions that I usually ask at the end of the podcast. Heather Lawson: Okay. Melissa Breau: The first one is what is the dog related accomplishment that you are proudest of? Heather Lawson: The biggest and best accomplishment was with my dog Micha, who's long gone, but she was a dog, German Shepherd, that had a few demons inside, just that she was very sensitive and very aware of sound, and so she was a little concerned when things…even the crack of a bat at a baseball game, or tennis, or things like that, loud speakers God help us, was an issue, and she was also sometimes concerned about people as well. She was a friendly dog, there's nothing in that issue, but everybody told me you'll never get this dog in the ring. You'll never be able to compete with her, and I sat down one day and I was really kind of in tears and I said okay, this isn't working. What are we going to do? How can I help you through this, and the moment I switched that in myself we just were away to the races. It wasn't about getting her to do it, it was how can I help her through it, and I ended up taking her Top 10 Obedience Dogs in Canada twice, two years straight, and she ended up being the top obedience driven Shepard in Canada five years straight. It was nice to be able to do that but at the same time it was, I guess, just sort of really in my heart that wow, when you don't give up and you don't listen to everybody and you just listen to the dog amazing things can happen, and I think that's my proudest accomplishment, I guess, is working with Micha. She taught me so very much and I really appreciate her allowing me the gift of making all my mistakes with her, but we ended up on a high and I'll never forget that dog ever, but that's my proudest accomplishment so far. Melissa Breau: I think that's a pretty good one. Heather Lawson: Yeah. Melissa Breau: All right, so my next question is what is the best piece of training advice that you've ever heard? Heather Lawson: Oh geez, there's been so many different pieces. I guess the best is work with your dog, be a team, and don't label your dog because you'll limit their abilities. So you know how people will sometimes oh, it's the breed. They just do that because they do that? I never try to label or limit what my dogs can do. I always assume that they're going to rise to the occasion, that they're going to do the best that they can, and I think that's probably been the best advice because it's taken me into different types of sports that I might not have ventured into with my dogs. One of my dogs I did nose work with, that was her thing, so if I had labeled her and said no, you're going to do this, you're not going to do that it might not have been the best thing for her but because I let her lead me where she wanted to go and I took what she had to give me we had loads of fun doing nose work and I learned new sport, so I always think of that as work with your dog and be a team, and then don't label your dog because you'll limit them and yourself. Melissa Breau: My last question. You're in a great position because I know you mentioned Sue earlier and you've been good friends with the Fenzi crew for a while now, I know you're pretty involved, so who is someone else in the dog world that you look up to? Heather Lawson: Somebody else in the dog world. Well, I'm not going to name names because I think…but what I find is that there's no one specific individual. What I have done is I've been able to meet many different people, many fabulous trainers that I just go wow. Now that's interesting, and that's…what I do is I pick up all the little tidbits from all of these different trainers and I think that's what's the most important thing, because I don't want to get caught up in a recipe because there is no recipe. I could name different kinds of people but I think it's better to say that I just pick up all the little tidbits along the way that pertain to me and my dogs at that particular time, and that way…and what works for me, because not one single dog trainer will have everything that I'm going to need, and so if I keep my mind open I'm going to get those little tidbits that's going to make me and my dog better. Melissa Breau: All right. Well, thank you, so much, for coming on the podcast, Heather. Heather Lawson: You're more than welcome. This was fun, a little bit nervous, but fun, exciting. I could talk dogs for hours. Melissa Breau: Hey, me too. Heather Lawson: I've had fun doing this. This was very enjoyable. Thanks for asking me on. Melissa Breau: Thanks so much for coming on the podcast Heather -- and thanks to our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week with Nancy Tucker to discuss greetings, separation anxiety, and behavior modification techniques that work for both parts of the human-canine team. If you haven't already, subscribe to our podcast in iTunes or the podcast app of your choice to have our next episode automatically downloaded to your phone as soon as it becomes available. CREDITS: Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzi for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty-free by BenSound.com; the track featured here is called “Buddy.” Audio editing provided by Chris Lang and transcription written by CLK Transcription Services.

Summary:   Sara Brueske has been training dogs for over 15 years; she became a Karen Pryor Academy Certified Training Partner in 2011 and jumped into the world of professional dog training. Sara and her dogs work at Purina Farms in Missouri where they demonstrate the sports of disc, agility, and dock diving for the public in over 400 shows each year. She and her dogs also compete nationwide. Currently, she is active in the sports of disc dog, agility, mondioring and dock diving -- plus, she's a trick dog enthusiast. Sara has recently re-entered the world of competitive Disc Dog and is the 2016 overall UpDog International Champion as well as the 2017 UpDog Freestyle Champion. Sara believes in positive reinforcement not only for dogs, but for their handlers as well.  Her biggest joy in training is watching a handler and dog become partners and grow as a team. Links mentioned: Disc Dog Discussions Facebook Group Heeling is just another Trick DVD Drinking from the Toilet, What to do when you get stuck (full episode) Next Episode:  To be released 7/7/2017, featuring Laura Waudby. TRANSCRIPTION: Melissa Breau: This is Melissa Breau and you're listening to the Fenzi Dog Sports Podcast brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy, an online school dedicated to providing high-quality instruction for competitive dog sports using only the most current and progressive training methods. Today we'll be talking to Sara Brueske. Sara Brueske has been training dogs for over 15 years; she became a Karen Pryor Academy Certified Training Partner in 2011 and jumped into the world of professional dog training. Sara and her dogs work at Purina Farms in Missouri where they demonstrate the sports of disc, agility, and dock diving for the public in over 400 shows each year. She and her dogs also compete nationwide. Currently, she is active in the sports of disc dog, agility, mondioring and dock diving -- plus, she's a trick dog enthusiast. Sara has recently re-entered the world of competitive Disc Dog and is the 2016 overall UpDog International Champion as well as the 2017 UpDog Freestyle Champion. Sara believes in positive reinforcement not only for dogs, but for their handlers as well.  Her biggest joy in training is watching a handler and dog become partners and grow as a team. Hi Sara! Welcome to the podcast. Sara Brueske: Hi Melissa, thank you for having me! Melissa Breau: Absolutely. I'm excited to chat a little bit.   Sara Brueske: Definitely. Melissa Breau: So, to start us out, can you tell us a bit about your dogs and what you're working on with them? Sara Brueske: I have a whole bunch of dogs. My job kinda dictates that i have more dogs than the average owner. I have 14 current in my household. So all 14 of them are either in training or participate in my job, which is doing shows at Purina Farms. I compete with a handful of them outside of that job as well. So it depends on the dog, what I'm working on with them. My main sports that i do with all of my dogs is agility, disc, and dock diving. And my malinois i compete and train in mondioring as well.   Melissa Breau: Do you want to give us a little bit of an idea of who you have in the household? I know you've got a mix of breeds and all sorts of stuff. Sara Brueske: Yeah, Sure! I'll do the run down. I have a whole bunch - I really like variety. I have 3 australian koolies, which is a little bit of a rare herding breed here in the United States. I imported 2 of them from Australia and I had my very first litter this year, so I have their daughter, too. She's about 11 weeks old now. And then I have 2 border collies, both of them are rescues. I have a border staffy, who is a rescue as well, and a whippet -- a rescue actually from the same house as the border staffy. I have 4 malinois, one of those is actually a permanent foster through the malinois ranch rescue in Tennessee. And I have a boston terrier mix, a papillion, and a labrador. Melissa Breau: Wow, some of those I actually hadn't seen pictures of before; it's definitely a household, huh? Sara Brueske: It's a full household, they're all very very active dogs other than the elderly foster; she's a little bit slow these days, but… Melissa Breau: How did you get started with all of this? Obviously, where you are today -- it probably took a little while to get there, but how did you first get started in dog sports? Sara Brueske: I was actually 11 years old when I begged my parents to let me buy my very first sport dog. I wanted a border collie and i wanted to compete in agility and that was because I watched the Purina Incredible Dog Challenge on TV. So I saved up all my money, and I found a border collie in a newspaper, which is the worst place to get a dog, and we went out and i bought my border collie. And so then I did my backyard training -- we had stick-in-the-ground weave poles made out of PVC, my tunnel was actually a construction drainage pipe that my dad found and gave me, and that's how I trained all my agility and I started competing as a junior handler. He actually got injured, and so I had to stop training him in sports and that's when I figured out about trick training. When he was 7 years old, he knew about 50 different tricks. Melissa Breau: wow. Sara Brueske: So like, high five and wave and spin, and other ones were throwing away my empty soda cans, and turning off the light because by then i was a lazy teenager. Melissa Breau: That's awesome. So I think that just goes to prove that anybody… people don't have an excuse if you could do it in your backyard with sticks and PVC pipe… Sara Brueske: Exactly! And I think my parents always were hoping that I'd outgrow this, go to school and maybe be a veterinarian, but here I am, with 14 dogs and training is my career. Melissa Breau: So agility is generally thought of as pretty positive -- same with trick dog training. Have you always been a positive trainer? Sara Brueske: I actually wasn't -- I was kind of what you'd consider a balanced trainer back then. All my agility training and trick training, that was all done with clickers, so I had read up on clickers and learned how to do that, kind of a self-study, but my parents were very much punishment based and they should be dogs and they should behave as dogs. And so that's kind of the background I have with that. I didn't have any formal dog training, so it's a mish-mash of everything you can imagine… and I actually was that way until I had a great dane and he was not the most balanced - mentally - dog, he was a little bit reactive and he was a big dog, and everyone told me I had to show him who's boss, and everything else and alpha roll him, and come-to-jesus moments and all that. Well, the dog out weighed me and it wasn't working. So that was when I switched and I became a positive-only trainer. That helped him tremendously. Melissa Breau: And I know that now you've done the Karen Pryor Academy, and everything else -- it sounds like that was kind of your pivot moment there… but it sounds like then you went that next step with it, right? Sara Brueske: Absolutely. So when i had that great dane i also actually on the path to becoming a professional dog trainer. I was looking for ways to enhance my education, looking for places to teach group classes, and that's where the Karen Pryor Academy came into place - it was a formal education that I could put on my resume and show people that I was serious about becoming a dog trainer. Melissa Breau: So, I think most dog trainers -- at least professional dog trainers -- would say their dogs are both their life and their work, right? Because of the nature of what you do at Purina, it seems like it takes that to a whole other level. Do you want to just talk for a few minutes about what you do a Purina and what that's like? Sara Brueske: Sure. So my job at Purina is to promote pet ownership and Purina believes that your life is really enhanced by owning a pet, so my job at Purina, at Purina Farms is to talk to the public, promote pet ownership by putting on shows every single day. So my shows are three times a day, 6 days a week. And I bring my dogs with me to work everyday and we show them what you can do with rescue dogs, what you can do with your dog at home, which is really why i like to have a variety of dogs. So my goal at Purina is to hear the audience go, “We should go home and train Sparky to do that.” That's my favorite thing ever to hear. It means they're going to go home and play with their dog -- and that's huge to me. And so, because we do so many shows a day I actually bring between 11 and 13 dogs with me every single day to work. And that means my dogs are with me from the time I wake up, I feed them, we get ready, we all go to work - I work with them all day long, I come home, I unload them, I feed them, and they're with me all evening. My dogs are literally with me 24/7. Melissa Breau: When do you find time to train, if you're working with them so much? Sara Brueske: To train? So that's my job at Purina, is to train them -- between the shows that's the time that I have to train my dogs and work them and make sure they're getting what they get. Melissa Breau: Wow - that's a very full day. Sara Brueske: It's a very, very full day - yes. Melissa Breau: You're basically relying on your dogs for your livelihood; I'm sure that's had a lot of impact -- and like you said, you're with them 24/7 -- on the actual relationship that you have with them. Do you want to just talk for a minute about how you think that's impacted things for you? Sara Brueske: Sure. It's really… you hear a lot of the time people in my line of profession looking at their dogs like they're just part of their paycheck. They have their job - they're tools of the trade. That's very much NOT how I view them. The reason why i have so many dogs is that i don't want my dogs to be burnt out; I don't want my dogs to hate their job. I want my dogs to have fun, just as much fun as I have working with them. You can't do this job and have that many shows to perform in and only have 6 dogs… you'll end up ruining your relationship with your dog. You'll end up hurting your dog. And really their well-being in the long run is the most important part. That's what I care about the most and that's why i have so many dogs. But, I mean, it is what it is. My dogs pour their heart out for me every single day. And I appreciate that so much. But they also really love what we're doing. So I have dogs that love frisbee, i have dogs that love dock diving, I have dogs that love working with me, and that's a big part of it as well. Melissa Breau: I know you mentioned you typically bring up to 13 of the dogs with you each day… how many tend to compete in any given show? Sara Brueske: So we run 5-6 dog shows. And I rotate through those. So I don't like my dogs to do more than 3 shows a day, and I actually rotate days. So for instance, yesterday it was Zip Tie, Nowie and Taboo and Zuma's day to work. I rotated through those dogs for the show, the other trainer covered the rest of the dogs in the show. And then tomorrow, since today was my day off, I'll have 4 different dogs that I'll put in the show again.   Melissa Breau: It's so interesting, just kind of juggling all of it, and managing schedules. Sara Brueske: Yeah, we count a lot of shows. We tally it all up and make sure everybody's not working too much all the time, and it's helpful having other trainers there because we each pull equal weight on any given day. Melissa Breau: So I want to switch gears and talk a little more specifically about disc -- I know that's kind of what you teach at FDSA. I think, like you were talking about having watched agility on TV, I think a lot of people have seen some of the cool tricks disc dogs can do and I think that some people probably look at it and go, “my dog couldn't do that.” So, I was curious what skills a dog actually needs to be able to learn some of those disc tricks. Sara Brueske: Sure. So freestyle is what you always see on TV and in the incredible dog challenge and really, in reality, that's just a tiny little aspect of the frisbee dog community and the competitions. It's actually not even the most competitive, you could argue. There's a ton of different games you can play with your dog in each competition, in each venue. Just like there's AKC agility, NADAC agility, USDAA and they all have different rules and different games, the same thing applies to disc dog. So your tradition frisbee dog competition will have freestyle and a toss-and-catch competition. And the toss-and-catch competition is just like it sounds -- it's a game of fetch, a timed game of fetch where you get extra points for distance and accuracy, so you want to throw in a certain zone, and how many throws you can get off in a minute or the 90 seconds that you have. So really, to compete in toss and catch at the novice level all you have to do is have a dog that loves to play fetch. I mean, whose dog doesn't really like to go out there in the backyard and catch a frisbee, right? So that's pretty applicable to any dog. Oh so you also have your handler, who has to be able to throw… but lucky in like the novice competition you just have to throw 20 yards, which isn't very far. Then there's other venues, such as UpDog, which is my preferred venue, it's just come out in the last 3 years or so. And they really cater to new disc players -- they do something that's called a roller, which is you throw the disc on it's edge on the ground and it rolls and the dog has to grab that. So you don't even have to be able to throw a frisbee to be able to compete in novice. And they have a bunch of strategy games, each kind of tailoring to each dog's individual strength and each handler's individual strength. So that's kind of cool; they're really starting to incorporate the idea that anybody can play frisbee with their dog, which is really interesting. Melissa Breau: So, in your classes at the academy, what are some of the common things or tricks that you wind up teaching? Sara Brueske: So all the tricks that we wind up teaching in the academy classes, the tricks themselves, are for freestyle. There are some that apply to the other games, such as the flatwork and stuff like that -- and that's just moving your dog around the field and connecting with your dog. That's where I really like to lay my emphasis with my classes, it comes from my agility roots - it's a lot like handing in agility. But the tricks themselves, for freestyle, we teach a whole bunch of different things. We do dog catches - which is where you literally catch your dog, with or without a disc. We do rebounds, which is where… it's kind of like a flyball box turn, but on your body, so the dog hits you and then jumps off. And then leg weaves, which is really good for any sport because it's a nice warm up, and then we also teach things like stalls, where they actually jump up onto a part of your body, and hang out there for a while. Melissa Breau: That's kind of neat. Sara Brueske: Yes, it's very exciting. Melissa Breau: So If somebody's trying to decide if they should take the class, are their any skills they need or their dog needs to start to do some of those tricks? Sara Brueske: We teach all those tricks actually with food, first. So if your dog has food drive, then you're pretty much golden for it. You can actually wind up taking the class and teaching those tricks for food and not ever touching a frisbee if you want to. But ideally, if you want the whole frisbee aspect of the class then your dog should have some sort of toy drive or disc drive, because I don't hit on that a whole lot in the classes. There are plenty of other Fenzi classes that build on toy drive, and I want to make sure that mine focuses just on the frisbee aspect of it. Melissa Breau: If someone was just interested in getting started, what's that first step -- where should they start out? Sara Brueske: The first step, which is what i always recommend to anyone looking at any sport, find a local club, find some local help that can give you hands on help because that hands on help is going to be priceless. And hopefully there's somebody there that's actively competing, and who has gone to the world's level to help you out. That's where I would start. There are a whole bunch of places on facebook that you can look - disc dog discussions is a group that you can check out and they have a whole bunch of different clubs that participate in that discussion group, so you can always post where you are and somebody will chime in to give you some contact information. After that, the online class at Fenzi is a pretty good one for foundation, and there are other online classes as well for disc dog foundations currently. Melissa Breau: Awesome. And kind of the way that we end every episode -- our big three questions -- what's the dog-related accomplishment you're proudest of? Sara Brueske: So I thought long and hard about this question. I have a whole lot of accomplishments that I'm very, very proud of. But the reality of that is that I get to experience something that a lot of people don't get to experience -- forming a new relationship with a whole bunch of different dogs. So in the last 4 years I've had 14 different dogs plus many fosters and dogs I've raised come through my house. And all of those dogs I've started in training and formed relationships with. My most favorite accomplishment i've ever had is with each of those dogs is when that dog really kind of has that light bulb moment and goes, “I really do enjoy working with you. This is fun, this is a game!” That's what I'm most proud of. Melissa Breau: That's definitely like that golden moment, that everybody is looking for, right? To form a relationship. Sara Brueske: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Melissa Breau: So, what's the best piece of training advice you've ever heard? Sara Brueske: That everything's a trick. From my history -- when I couldn't do agility anymore, I just did tricks with my dog. So when I actually started looking into IPO and Mondioring, and looking at these very complicated obedience maneuvers, and precision things it was really kind of eye opening to remember that everything is a trick. And that kind of came from Sylvia Turkman's DVD, Heeling is just another Trick. And that was kind of a light bulb moment for me -- this is just like teaching all those other things I teach. Melissa Breau: I think that's really interesting, because you mentioned it specifically in relation to Mondioring, which is not a sport people look at usually and go, “oh it's just tricks!” Sara Brueske: No they definitely don't. Melissa Breau: And then finally, who is someone else in the dog world that you look up to? Sara Brueske: So Sylvia Turkman. And the reason for that is that when i first started my dog training career she was the one i went to for online classes, i watched all the DVDs, and it was her upbeat attitude and her relationship with her dogs that really inspired me to be that kind of trainer. I wanted [my students] to be happy - i wanted to think that they're still going to come out the other side and they're still going to enjoy their dog and they're sitll going to be having fun. Melissa Breau: Thanks so much for coming on the podcast Sara -- and thanks to our listeners for tuning in! This week have a special treat -- FDSA's own Hannah Branigan Also runs a podcast, called Drinking from the Toilet - and today we're sharing an excerpt from her most popular episode, “What to do when you get stuck.” Enjoy! Hannah Branigan: Hey there - you're listening to Drinking from the Toilet and I'm Hannah Branigan. Today we're going to talk about what you can do when you get stuck. Why are we even talking about this? Well mostly because I was sitting here trying to think what topic i should make my next podcast be about, and I got stuck. I couldn't think of anything to talk about. So I kind of sat here, I looked at a few things on the internet, facebook, took a few pictures of my dog with my phone, and pondered on how many other places in my life I feel stuck, maybe feel like a failure. And at least one of those places in my life where i feel stuck is when I'm training a dog. So I thought, well, let's do a podcast about getting stuck when you're training because I think that's a fairly ubiquitous experience. There's probably people out there that sometimes get stuck when they're trying to train a behavior. And so in my previous life, when I would run into a problem, it really was almost a pattern, really… so I'm working on training a behavior or maybe untraining a behavior problem and I would get so far; I would make a certain amount of progress and then I would get stuck and i would revert to punishment. Maybe intentionally, as a training choice, or unintentionally as an emotional expression of frustration. But either way I would often fall back on these old habits -- after feeling like I was running out of choices. And so as my journey continues, i continue to improve my understanding of behavior, i have a better picture of the behaviors I'm trying to train. My knowledge in that area increases and I think clarity in your goal of your behavior is always helpful. And I learned more and my skill set improved. I had better tools for manipulating behavior and for manipulating contingencies, particularly those using reinforcement. Better understanding of how reinforcement works --  both in general, in concept and in theory, and then also in practical application. And so overtime, i can get a lot further before i would resort to that old habit. So eventually, maybe about 10 years ago at this point, I made a conscious decision to just take punishment totally off the table. So aversives are no longer an option for my training. So I still have frustration attacks occasionally - I am human - but i do try to recognize them for what they are. They're just emotional expressions, they have nothing to do with training the dog and i don't have any expectation that they're going to change either of our behaviors for the better in the long run. But I still have a lot of situations where I still get stuck. And now there's a vacuum. I'll still get training to the same point -- a little further each time because I'm learning more -- but when I get stuck, there's a place where I would punish or I would use an aversive in some way, which may or may not solve the problem because we know that simply bringing in punishment is no guarantee of getting the results that we want. And so now I'll get about 80% of the way there -- I'll get about 80% of the behavior trained that I want -- and then I'm stuck. And simply not punishing doesn't give me any information about what i should do instead to continue making forward progress. I end up with a kind of vacuum. So sometimes I quit. I don't have all the answers. And I know that's disappointing to hear, because frankly it disappoints no one more than i disappoint myself when i don't know the answer to a problem, when i don't know the solution…. Well, maybe my father. He has pretty high standards so he might be more disappointed but I learned it from somewhere. And I'm willing to bet that you get frustrated sometimes too. And your stuckness may not manifest in quite the same way that mine does, maybe instead of frustration, anger, and potentially aggression you turn to other defensive strategies. Maybe like rationalization. Sometimes I find myself thinking thoughts like, “Maybe my dog just doesn't like to do obedience. Maybe my dog actually can't do this -- it's not possible. You know, maybe he has a health problem! Maybe it's his thyroid -- he could have a thyroid, he could have low thyroid! So if my training plan didn't pay out the way that I expected it to, clearly the problem is caused by his thyroid and no protocol would have worked. He needs medication! This dog needs pills to fix this problem, and it has to be just the right medication, and it might take weeks or even months, or years, to find what that medication could be and so none of this is actually a training problem, it's not in my control. It's not me, it's the dog, right?” Okay. Now, to be clear, I'm not trivializing endocrine disorders in any way. They're very real and certainly having a health problem does throw a wrench into the works and can add contingencies beyond those that we can realistically control within the context of a training session. So if you're worried or suspicious that your dog has a physical or medical problem, it's always a good idea to consult with your vet. Get that physical problem ruled out. Make sure your dog is healthy and sound. I know I certainly have no problem paying my vet $100 -- sometimes maybe more -- to be told I'm crazy and there's absolutely nothing wrong with my dog. But just to be clear again, every now and then I'm actually right. And so I have that long interval of random reinforcement effect that maintains my behavior on dog after dog, year after year. Anyways, okay. Let's assume that we've ruled out any physical issue. What can we do when we get stuck trying to train something? So it is a training problem, we're stuck with the training, we need to change something about the training to get past this obstacle. Ok. So here's a pretty common scenario. You're trying to train some behavior. Maybe you're following a training plan or a recipe that you found on the internet -- or you saw on youtube, or maybe you've just been to a seminar and this is now Monday morning and you're trying to apply the technique you learned at that seminar to your training in real life and now the powerpoint slides aren't there and the presenter isn't there, and so you're on your own. And so maybe you get through the first couple of steps --  you're shaping and things seem to be going ok. You think you're doing it right; you think you're doing it the same way as you learned in that seminar. And then all of a sudden you hit a plateau. And the dog keeps doing the same version of the behavior over and over again without progressing to the next step. So maybe you've made it through steps 1 and 2, and step 3 - instead of performing step 3 a couple of times and then moving on to step 4 your dog keeps doing step 3 over and over and over again. You can't see why you're not able to make the leap to that next step. This is a common problem that I run into with different behaviors with different dogs and certainly see it in my own students periodically. Maybe you're trying to teach your dog to retrieve an object and your shaping plan is I'm going to start by clicking when the dog looks at the object and then click him for sniffing it and then I'll click him for touching it with his nose or targeting it. And then the next thing I'll click is for him to open his mouth and bite the object… but instead of biting the object he just keeps touching it with his nose over and over again and he never opens his mouth. What do I do then? Another common place where we'll run into this situation would be adding duration or distance to an existing behavior. So you can get the dog to hold the sit for 8 seconds -- as soon as you reach for 9 seconds the behavior falls apart. Or you can get your dog to respond to a cue -- maybe he'll lay down if you give him the cue at 6 feet but one more step back and the behavior disappears or starts to degrade. And it's really frustrating - and then it's easy to think this isn't working, something's wrong with this technique, this method is ineffective, or we can continue to spiral down and think about what might be wrong with the dog, and then the world in general. And so obviously continuing to repeat the thing that's not working isn't the right choice; that brings to mind that quote that I know i've seen lots of different places… I often see it attributed to Einstein but I don't know if that's true or if it's just internet-true. So, to paraphrase, the idea that repeating the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. So, I may still be crazy, but this totally applies here. Even if we just look at the A-B-C operant contingency, repeating that same A-B-C … the same Antecedent or A, the same Behavior or B, and the same Consequence - “C” - then yes, we're probably going to continue to get the same result. So, we need to change something. I like thinking about it this way because it gives me three solid categories of things to look at -- and three is my favorite number, also it's a prime number so a lot of things to recommend it. Three categories is a very achievable way to start putting stuff in buckets and structure our thinking. So let's start with A -- antecedent. So the Antecedent, this is the cue. It's what's inducing or causing the behavior, what's associated with the behavior. And when we're thinking about this in terms of cues from us -- so I say sit and the dog sits --  well that's easy to recognize and understand. In active training, when we're learning, the antecedent really is much bigger than that. It's a bigger idea; it's more than just the cue you're deliberately giving, but it's that whole picture, all of the stimulus and all the pieces of the picture. So it's the whole set up that the dog is associating with a particular behavior. It's your body, your body position, where you're situated in space, your dog's position, any props that you might be using, if you're using a platform or a target or if you're using an object in the case of that retrieve. And it's the environment in general -- where the dog is, where you're training, all of the sounds, smells, feels, tastes maybe, all of those things are in that big stimulus picture and that whole picture functions as the cue when the dog is learning the behavior.   Melissa Breau: Thanks to Hannah for letting us share that with you -- I hope you'll consider subscribing to both our podcast and hers if you haven't already, in itunes or the podcast app of your choice. We'll be back next week, this time with Laura Waudby to talk Fenzi TEAM training and training service dogs. CREDITS: Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzi for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty-free by BenSound.com; the track featured here is called “Buddy.” Audio editing provided by Chris Lang and transcription written by CLK Transcription Services. Thanks again for tuning in -- and happy training!

Founder of Smart Dog University and Faculty member at Karen Pryor Academy, Laurie chats with me about mistakes we made when first learning to teach people how to train their own dogs, why we really CAN teach pet owners to use a clicker successfully and how we break down the necessary skills to make good training accessible. Also- do scientific theories really matter? Tune in to find out!

Did you know Laurie Luck was my instructor when I went through the Karen Pryor Academy as a student? She was! In fact, she is largely to blame for my current situation, particularly my existence on social media and even this blog! Even after graduation, she just couldn't shake me. And here we are several years later, sharing a drink and talking about dogs. An entrepreneur and social media enthusiast, Laurie delights in sharing her knowledge and experience with dog owners across the country. She is committed to helping improve the lives of dogs through education of the humans at the end of the leash. Laurie's YouTube channel offers free dog training videos, and her blog details training experiences and ideas that every dog owner will find helpful. During this conversation we discuss: What's so hard about living a positive reinforcement lifestyle How being prepared for what might happen is usually the hardest part of that How societal pressure can interfere with even the best-laid training plans What training skills are necessary to jog safely with an on-leash Great Dane

SHOW NOTES:  Summary: Hannah Branigan has been training dogs and teaching people for more than 12 years. In addition to being a Karen Pryor Academy Certified Training Partner, she is a faculty member for Karen Pryor Academy and a teacher at the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. Hannah is a Professional Member of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers, and a Certified Professional Dog Trainer. She has presented at APDT and Clicker Expo and teaches workshops all over the USA. Owner of Wonderpups, LLC, Hannah is committed to training both dogs and people with positive reinforcement methods. She has titled her dogs in Conformation, Obedience, IPO (Schutzhund), Agility, and Rally. Links mentioned: Wonderpups, LLC Leslie Nelson, Tails-U-Win Next Episode:  To be released 2/3/2017, featuring Shade Whitesel.   TRANSCRIPTION: Melissa Breau: This is Melissa Breau, and you're listening to the Fenzi Dog Sports Podcast, brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy, an online school dedicated to providing high-quality instruction for competitive dog sports, using only the most current and progressive training methods. Today, we'll be talking to Hannah Branigan. Hannah has been training dogs and teaching people for more than 12 years. In addition to being a Karen Pryor Academy-Certified Training Partner, she's a faculty member for Karen Pryor Academy and a teacher at the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. Hannah is a professional member of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers, and a certified professional dog trainer. She has presented at APDT and Clicker Expo, and teachers workshops all over the US. Owner of Wonderpups LLC, Hannah is committed to training both dogs and people with positive reinforcement methods. She has titled her dogs in conformation, obedience, IPO, agility, and rally. Welcome, Hannah. Hannah Branigan: Thank you for having me. Melissa Breau:  Thanks for joining us. To get started, can you just tell us a bit about the dogs you have now and what you're working on with them? Hannah Branigan: We're actually down to four right now, which is kind of weird. I still keep getting out five bully sticks, and then I wonder why I still have one left in my hand. Right now, I have…Stormy is my oldest and she's pretty much retired from anything competitive. She acts as sort of my guinea pig if I have a new, crazy idea that I want to try out on something. So, I'll often try it out on her because I figure, hey, she's 14, she's not going to be in a dog show again, and so if I completely ruin her heeling, then that's not a big deal. So, she will often show up in some of my videos that you'll see in class or on YouTube. So, she still stays busy and still likes to stay active that way. And then there's Gambit. So he's an AKC Champion. We finished his UDX. He's got an OM--something, I don't even remember which number we're on at this point, finished his CDSP OCH last year. We tinkered a little bit in Nose Work. I think this year we're going to go ahead and finish up his RAE, and he's still showing in CDSP, mostly for fun. He's older and he's had a knee injury when he was younger that's starting to kind of catch up with him, so that we appreciate the lower-jump heights of the CDSP Obedience, and we're still hitting the occasional AKC trial locally, depending on how he's feeling, but that's sort of where he is right now, and also, again, guinea pig and often video star. And then the next one down, in order of age, would be Spark. She's also an AKC Champion. In AKC, she's finished her UD and she has I want to say 25 or 30 OCH points, all in Utility. She has some personal space issues with other dogs that have caused me to be a little reticent to put her back in the open stay ring situation. So, I haven't quite decided what I'm going to do with her in that area yet, and we may just kind of rest on our laurels there. She did, this year, just finished her CDSP OCH, where of course there is no group stay. Right now, our main focus with her  -- with me and her together -- is in expanding our agility skills. So, we've been doing a lot of playing in agility and doing some trials in that. And then the baby of the family is Rugby, who I think everyone on the internet knows, and he is, let's see, he's currently training in obedience and of course also rally and then also cross-trains in agility and flyball. This past year, he debuted in CDSP Novice and picked up his first High-in-Trial and was basically awesome, so I was really, really happy with how he's working there, and I think we're going to set our eyes on going into the AKC Novice Ring this coming year. I need to look at my schedule and actually see when I have a weekend available to aim for, but he likes to do a little bit of everything. So, we're hopefully going to be competing, eventually, in all four of those sports and maybe a little barn hunt, maybe a little nose work. He's a terrier, so I feel like I feel compelled to at least… Melissa Breau: ...Honor that side? Hannah Branigan: Show up. Yeah, exactly, take advantage of that, those instincts, rather than always working against them. I think he would definitely enjoy barn hunt. Melissa Breau: Congrats on the High-in-Trial. That's very exciting, especially with your baby dog. Hannah Branigan: Thank you. Yes. Melissa Breau: Now, I'm lucky because you're here in North Carolina, not too far from me, and I had the pleasure of actually attending one of your workshops…I think it was at Lap it Up, and you tend to describe yourself as a dog-training geek, and I think you started the workshop out by kind of mentioning that. So, I wanted to ask you to tell us a little bit about what you mean by that. Hannah Branigan: Yeah. I usually apologize in advance when people have me in person. There's no editing involved. You know, honestly, it's more in the more modern sense of the word geek, really, rather than the original definition, but well, all I really mean by that is just that I'm sort of inordinately fascinated with dogs and behavior and learning, possibly to the point of obsession, and I really love, you know, like I love really digging into those sort of like microcosmic details of the behavior and really looking at how things can be broken apart atomically and how they're all interconnected, and that's really sort of what I spend my Friday nights doing, watching videos in slow motion and trying out stuff and just really, yeah, okay, obsession is probably the right word. Yeah. Melissa Breau: So, I'm guessing you didn't start out that way. How did you get into dog sports and training and kind of into being interested in all this? Hannah Branigan: Yeah. I'm not even really sure. That was kind of a complete accident. I think, like a lot of trainers, I had a pet dog, who was a rescue, and he turned out to have more challenges than I knew how to handle, and so through the process of learning more about training and learning more about dogs to figure out how to help him, so that he would stop biting me, I got kind of like hooked on this concept of training, and then somehow that turned into, once I had the dog that I could take for walks around the neighborhood and be relatively safe with, then I had to teach him to retrieve beer from a fridge. That one, in all honesty, was also to impress a boy, who I then married, so it turned out to be worth it. So, after the beer retrieve, then it was like well, what can I teach him next, and so we tried a little bit of agility, but that was going to be a lot for him, behaviorally, to manage, to handle that environment, and we kind of just ended up finding our way into a UKC Obedience Trial, and I still don't even really remember exactly how that happened, but there we were, and then I thought, well, that was kind of fun, what if I got a registered dog? And I started from scratch, because of course if you buy a purebred dog or, in my case, were given a purebred dog, it's absolutely a guarantee that they'll be easy to train for sports, right? Melissa Breau: Absolutely. That's everybody's favorite line. I think that may be the first time I've ever heard somebody get into dogs to impress a boy, though. Hannah Branigan: Well, I mean I did get the dog on his own merits, but it was the beer retrieve that was… Melissa Breau: That was to impress the boy? Hannah Branigan: Was really, yeah, to show him up. That's how I impress boys, I prove that I'm better than them at whatever the thing is, and it's actually kind of a funny story because, so, my husband, who I was dating at the time, was a computer engineer, and for his project in college, his team was making a beer robot, a robot that would basically retrieve a beer, and I said that I could train my dog to do that faster than he could make a robot do it, and so I did, and I was right. Melissa Breau: That's awesome. Hannah Branigan: I know, right? Exactly. So, and that's how it happened. Melissa Breau: I mean, I think that's a great story to tell. Now, I know that at FDSA, one of like your big series is the skill-building series, the obedience skill-building series, so I wanted to make sure we talk a little bit about that and the role of foundation skills overall. So, do you mind talking for a moment kind of how foundation skills turn into obedience exercises and kind of why they're so important to start out with? Hannah Branigan: Sure, and I think the skill-building series is kind of a…it's an interesting place to start because it's not structured the way most people who are used to competition obedience training expect. So, your average obedience club will typically have, they'll have, you know, maybe some kind of introductory class, if you're lucky, or they may start right out with novice, but they'll have a novice class where you learn how to do novice, and then you go to the dog show and you get your novice title, and then you start attending the open class, and you go to the open classes and learn how to teach that, and you get your open title, and then you go to the Utility class and you learn how to do those exercises, and that's really what most people are expecting when they're thinking about sort of a training progression, but that's not how the experienced elite dog trainers actually train their own dogs. Nobody who is really successful in obedience teaches that way, so, or trains their dogs that way, at any rate. So, when we designed the skill-building series, the goal was really, or our priority was let's set up a series of training progressions that actually mirror the way we would actually train our own dogs. So, you know, when I get a young dog and I intend to compete with that dog in obedience, I don't start with novice. I actually start with most of Utility, so, you know one of the first things that I teach a puppy is scent discrimination and we get started with some of the beginning steps that are going to become go-outs and directed jumping, and also there are things that will lead into heeling, but I don't wait until I have the novice title. We're actually, you know, mostly almost teaching it in reverse, right? So, with the skill-building series, we've very much done that. So, like the skill building one class, we're giving you the building blocks for scent discrimination, for directed jumping and go-outs, for the retrieve, for signals, drop on recall, all of the jumping-related exercises, all of the retrieving-related exercises, and getting those first steps trained, and then as we move through the progression of the classes, we build on those and we start to put them together and form sequences that become the exercises. So, it's a much more logical progression from a behavior standpoint, assuming that you're planning to take that dog into Utility at some point. The way that I think about it is really, like, well it's sort of like Legos, right? So, if you open up a box of Legos, which I was just playing with a minute ago, so that's where my mind is, there's really only like 5 or 6 different types of Lego blocks, right? So, they come in lots of different colors, but there's really only a couple of different shapes. There's the ones with like the 2 dots, and then there's the ones with the 4 dots that are kind of square, and then there's the 6 and then 8 and 12, and using just those blocks, you can really build almost anything, right, like anything from a Millennium Falcon to a dining room table, and it's just by putting those blocks together in different orders and repeating different ones, and I'm kind of getting lost with this metaphor. I don't remember where I was going with it, but…yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, so my point is that all of these exercises really only break down into kind of a handful of behavioral units that we can then sort of change the colors of, right, like we can put them together in different ways and we can modify them in kind of cosmetic ways, but there's not that much, really, to teach, and so if we concentrate on building these really strong, ubiquitous units of behavior that go into all of these advanced exercises, well, the exercises don't turn out to be quite that hard, right? So, the challenge is in getting those really strong little individual units, and then I can build lots of different things out of those, so, a dog that really understands concepts of targeting, that really understands the concept of stimulus control. I can teach a new behavior with a target, fade the target, get a cue on it really, really fast, and it's a strong behavior because they really understand how it works and how we're communicating that way. So, a large part of what we're doing, when we're talking about those foundation skills, is establishing these kind of, you know, we're looking at kind of two categories, right? There's the movement skills that I need the dog to know how to use his body in a certain way, so I need him to be able to shift his weight back and forth and I need him to be able to control his body and then use that to form these positions and understand the communication strategies that we're going to use to communicate with each other, and once I have those things, I can build so much out of it, and I get very excited, so, sorry. Melissa Breau: No. Absolutely. Hannah Branigan: So, yeah, so that's my goal. I want to take this like really mystical, challenging Utility exercise or any of the obedience exercises — I think heeling is more mystical than scent discrimination, really, but that's just me —and how can I break that down into its atomic units, like what are the things that the dog needs to know that then I put together that makes that heeling pictures, makes that scent discrimination picture? Those blocks, those little, individual Lego blocks, are really very achievable for anybody, and that makes it…it takes away that mysticism element, right, and it makes it very actionable, very practical training, and then it also then makes it easy to put them together, and then when they break, take them back apart and fix it and put it back together again. Melissa Breau: I think that leads really naturally into the next question, which is how does having strong foundation skills really help when it comes to proofing and problem solving, when you get to that point where you're starting to prep for competition? Hannah Branigan: First off, I don't love the word proofing, but I know why you're using it and I'm okay with that. I like words like fluency enhancement, just because it puts us in a little bit more of a positive reinforcement mindset, but I understand what you're saying. So, yeah, so having those really strong units of behavior, what I love about that is when I think about training an exercise in sort of a modular way, then if something does break, it's really easy for me to separate out the broken piece and figure out what's wrong here, what does he not understand, because the problem with teaching, and it's just as much of a problem while working human-to-human as gosh, well working between species, human-to-dog, is are they actually learning what I'm teaching, and the answer is not always yes. So, when we start putting together more increasingly-complex behaviors and chains of behaviors and sequences, we'll often find out that no, actually what I was laying down is not what he was picking up, and I need to figure out where that miscommunication happened and what I need to do to clarify that, or is there a legitimately missing skill here, you know, just from a mechanic standpoint, my dog can't do the thing. When I've gone through the thought process, the mental process, of breaking that complex sequence into individual behavioral components, then that really saves a lot of time when I need to go back and kind of debug, right? So, like what is wrong here, and I can check. I can pull it out and I can say okay, is it Unit A? No, looks great. Unit B? Looks great. Unit C? Absolutely perfect. Unit D? Oh gosh, oh, this isn't right. So, all right, this is where I need to spend my time. So, it really saves a lot of time because I've done all of that thinking in advance, right, during the original training process. I mean the behaviors are always functioning as behavioral sequences. That's not something that we've invented. It has a lot more to do with our approach for how we're thinking about it and how we go about teaching it that have the advantage. Melissa Breau: So, to take that and kind of, I don't want to take it from conceptual to practical, but kind of to take that idea just to that next step. Is there a common problem that students run into again and again where maybe you can kind of talk us through having strong foundation skills might help? Hannah Branigan: Like so the vast majority of problem-solving issues that people bring to me come down to exactly that thing, right? There's a piece, there's one of those components that was not well-understood, that the human part of the team thought they had taught, and the dog was not learning exactly what the human thought that they were teaching, and in fact I've dropped the term problem-solving or troubleshooting from my workshop materials just because, again, it so often puts us into that mind-space, which then makes it really hard to take a proactive approach to the training when we're trying to come up with a training plan, but so a really common example that I'll get all the time, and I get it online, I get it in person, so it's the drop on recall. It's a really common one. It's, you know, relatively easy to squeak through your novice, and you get into open and there's a really big monster on that drop on recall, and it catches a lot of teams, and a lot of teams struggle with it, and so people come to me that the dog is, you know, classically they're not dropping when I call him or he's dropping very slowly or he's creeping forward or he sits or he just stands and stares at me, and it is a complex exercise. There's a lot going on there, both bio-mechanically and behaviorally, with that exercise. We give a cue 'come,' and then we interrupt that behavior with a cue to do something completely different, suddenly stop and lay down, which is weird, and so there's a lot of stuff that can go on there, and it's a fairly complex training process, and when we have that kind of complexity, that opens a window for a lot of emotional problems when the people get frustrated, and the dog gets frustrated and confused, and so there can be a whole lot of baggage there, and what often it comes down to is that, you know, we start peeling away the layers and digging. Now, what's actually broken here is, well, it turned out the dog didn't actually have stimulus control on the down itself, right? So, the handler thought when I say down, the dog understands to lay down, and of course we're kind of on thin ice for a cognitive science standpoint when we talk about what dogs know and what dogs understand, but we're going to go with it, and what frequently has turned out to be the case, like, we could write a book about it, is the handler has taught the down with some kind of lure or prompt, nothing wrong with that. That's often how I teach it myself, right? But as part of the training process, if we're using some kind of physical gesture to teach the dog to lay down, and it's assuming that it's not a legal one that we can use in the ring, which in the case of food lure, of course you can't, and under no circumstances, for the drop on recall, can you step towards the dog, put your hand in front of his nose, and point towards the ground, right? That's not a valid cue at any venue that I compete in.  So most of the time we transfer that either to a hand signal, and the classic hand signal, of course, is the one-hand-straight-over-head like a traffic cop, or verbal, down, plotz, whatever, and so we have to do some kind of fading of the prompt or lure, that extra, illegal physical gesture, which often involves some amount of dropping of the head and shoulders towards the ground and/or into the dog's personal space, which is a really common way to teach a drop is we use a little bit of that spatial pressure to push into the dog's space, which causes the dog to lay down, and then we go through the steps of fading that, and then hopefully, we're now completely still and quiet with our body language. We can stand completely neutral, say "down," and the dog hits the dirt, right? What often happens is the handler thinks that's the process that's happened, but what's actually occurred is that the handler's continuing to do some amount of gesturing with the upper body, either at the same time as they say down or even just before it, and then they get in the ring, they say come when the dog is 25 feet away, they say down without that little ducking movement of the head and shoulders that has become the functional cue for the dog, and then, of course, there is no down because you did not give the same cue that you've been giving in training, and classic way to solve that is while you call the dog, and while they're coming towards you, you say down. If they don't down right away, you lean forward, step into them, with or without some amount of intimidation, and then perhaps the dog downs, and then you can say good boy and you can repeat it. Well, we can't do that in the ring, so it still doesn't solve the problem in the ring, and what the problem really is, is that original piece of the behavior, the down, is not actually on the cue that the handler thinks that the dog should be responding to. Melissa Breau: So, for problem-solving that, you then break that piece out and go back and work on just that piece, right? Hannah Branigan: Right. So, you know, what we would do to test it, then, is well, let's try just stand there and give your cue for down, and so, like 99 percent of the time, if we have the hander cross their arms, look at the ceiling, and say down, the dog just looks at them hopefully and wags his tail, right? So, "I know you're talking to me but I've never seen that cue before," and if you have them, you know, how would you normally handle this, and they will often drop their shoulders, lean forward, maybe point at the ground and gesture down, there's some upper-body movement, and the dog goes, "Oh, right, right, right!" and lays down, with or without emotional baggage, depending on what the last six months of that dog's life have looked like, right? My standard protocol is, okay, so now we know this is the situation. Let's just walk through the progression that you used to teach it originally, and so, you know, a lot of the time it's a food lure, which is fine, so we'll lure them down, great, that looks fantastic, fade the lure, now it's a gesture, dog's still dropping really nicely, start fading the gesture, the dog's continuing to drop, and then we'll get to some point in that progression where something's not quite right, like either there's a little bit of a hesitation on the part of the dog or the behavior starts to degrade. Great. That's where we want to act, right? We don't want to wait until we're at a complete failure. We're looking for that first glimmer that there's a question mark. Is it a down? Did you still want me to lay down? And then we shore that up and then continue through the progression from there. Melissa Breau: So, that kind of covers what my next question was going to be, which is what would your recommendation be to a student struggling with this issue. Is there anything you'd want to add there? I just want to make sure that, since I sent you the questions in advance, you get a chance to say anything else that you may have wanted to say. Hannah Branigan: I know. I cheated. They sent me the questions in advance. I think the main thing is kind of my visualization that I would love to share with people is when you use words like foundation, and I think that's a completely valid word to use because we are building our exercises out of these critical supporting concepts — but we often kind of think of it as like, it's like a one and done, like once I've trained these foundation skills, whatever you consider…you know you put these particular items in the foundation box, and you're done, and you tape it closed, and then you keep going.  And I think that that doesn't really do us any favors, and I really kind of prefer the learning model that we'll run across a lot in human learning and human sports, which is really more of a spiral staircase, rather than like the house, right, with the bricks, and then you just start building the house on top of the foundation, but it's more like the spiral staircase because we're never done with these behaviors. Behaviors, always, are dynamic. They're always changing, and they're always responding to their environment and processes of reinforcement and punishment and everything else, and so when I'm thinking about it in the way that I approach training and I think the way that a lot of people do, whether it's conscious or not, is I'm always moving up, I'm always moving forward, and we're always progressing, but we're always also circling past these same concepts and refining them and strengthening them and building on them, and sometimes yes, picking up gaps and filling them in as we discover them, because dogs are really good at letting us know when we've left a gap in our training, and so that's, you know, I think that spiral staircase is a really good visualization for me because I do spend a lot of time, so, you know, working on maybe positions, like the mechanics or the positions. Well, all of my dogs have sit down and stand on cue, I think, and then it's not a done thing. So, we periodically, you know, we're circling back around, and now what does my sit down and stand look like? Oh, how could I sharpen that up? What if I improve the latency on this one a little bit, or those mechanics are slipping, I need to make sure that my dog is really planting his rear end before he pushes into that drop, before we get into the drop on recall, and there's always little things that we can keep improving and refining and strengthening as we continue to build on these behaviors and make bigger, more complex exercises out of them. Melissa Breau: Awesome, and I think that that spiral staircase, I actually haven't heard it used quite that way before and I think that's really interesting and really helpful, even for me to just kind of think through training in that way. Hannah Branigan: Yeah. I invented it myself. I just thought of it. You can call it the Branigan Spiral Staircase Method. Melissa Breau: Deal. Done. I'll name the whole episode that. Hannah Branigan: Perfect. Melissa Breau: So, to round things out, I just have three more short questions for you. So, to start, what's the dog-related accomplishment that you are proudest of? Hannah Branigan: Yeah, so now we're into the beauty pageant section of the interview. Okay. So, it's not dog-related, but it's kind of fresh in my mind since we've been out of school and home for a whole week…I mean it's dog related, but not the dogs themselves. I would say that right now, at this stage, life stage that I find myself in, I am most proud of how my daughter Harper has learned to invite the dogs for petting and attention, rather than reaching out for them or grabbing them. That was something that we've worked really, really hard on for, well, four years now, and it's so awesome to watch it starting to solidify into this interaction that they have, and it started out…it's something we still coach her in, and it was very, very coached. We used a lot of tag teach to initiate it, because as a toddler, she's very grabby because she's a small primate infant person, and so I was like okay, we have to invite dogs to be petted. We don't reach out for the dog. She learned to pat her knee, pat-pat, clap her hands, clap-clap, and then she opens up her hands, palms up, and invites the dogs to come and greet her, and what is so cool is she pats pat and they're like okay, and when she opens her hands, they clearly make a choice of yes, and they come push their neck and chest into her hands and she can start petting them, or they'll just do a beautiful, smooth head-turn away, very canine, thank you, not right now, and we're still working on handling disappointment. That's, of course, that's something I, as an adult, continue to struggle with, but watching them communicate that smoothly when I'm cooking dinner and she's sitting there, and she sees Gambit and she really wants to pet him because, of course, who wouldn't? He's gorgeous. And she pat-pat, clap-clap, opens her hands, and he says oh, yes, please, finally someone to rub me, and he just melts into her hands, and she pets him, and it's so smooth and just seamless and natural, and that's another thing that, you know, when I see it, even though it's just one of those little daily miracles that kind of makes me like, oh, I get chills. Melissa Breau: That's awesome. You share lots of parenting and dog stories online, on Facebook and in other forums, so it's kind of neat. Hannah Branigan: It's all the same thing, completely the same. Melissa Breau: So, what is the best piece of training advice that you've ever heard? Hannah Branigan: Oh, that one's easy. So, Leslie Nelson: "When in doubt, throw food." And I fall back on that all the time. Whenever there's a question, something weird comes up in a training session or even at home, I don't know what to do right now, that was a very weird behavior and I have no idea how I should handle it, throw a handful of food on the ground, and while they're gobbling the food, I can think about my solution, and it turns out that there's a whole lot of behavior problems out there in the world that we can solve in very practical ways by throwing a handful of food at them. Melissa Breau: Both to give ourselves five minutes to think and to give them something else to do? Hannah Branigan: Exactly. Melissa Breau: All right. So, the last one, who is someone else in the dog world that you look up to? Hannah Branigan: Oh, okay. So, well, of course, you know I really admire Denise and Deb and Shade and all the other folks in the FDSA community. Outside of that, Ken Ramirez is really somebody that I admire a lot, well, basically because he's perfect in every way. So, I'm definitely a member of the Ken fan club. We're going to get t-shirts, maybe to share. Melissa Breau: I hope he listens to this, just so he can hear you call him perfect in every way. Hannah Branigan: He knows. I've told him. Melissa Breau: That's awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Hannah, and thank you everybody else for tuning in. We'll be back in two weeks with Shade Whitesel to talk about location-specific markers and being a top IPO competitor, using R+ philosophies. If you haven't already, please subscribe on iTunes or the podcast app of your choice, and our next episode will automatically be downloaded to your phone as soon as it becomes available. CREDITS: Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzi for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty-free by BenSound.com; the track featured here is called “Buddy.” Audio editing provided by Chris Lang and transcription written by CLK Transcription Services. Thanks again for tuning in -- and happy training!

What We Can Learn from Animals with Cydney Peterson – 9-26-15 | Mind Body Spirit Living As we explore the ways that we can learn about ourselves from others, we also must consider the non-human energies that are present in our life that can also teach us.  Pets in our home help us learn about patience and compassion, but what else can our pets and other animals teach us about life and ourselves?  This week we speak with a person who has devoted her life to understanding and connecting with animals, and she’ll share with us how we too can learn more for the animals in our life. Cydney Peterson was born in Eau Claire, Wisconsin and has spent a lifetime building relationships with animals.  She has always felt a special connection with them. She views the human-animal relationship as a gift and that it is humanity’s responsibility to care for Mother Nature’s creatures with kindness and love. During her studies in biology and studio art at St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN, Cydney began exploring animal care and behavior. She completed a general internship at Irvine Park in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, then a specialized internship in primate care at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago, IL. In 2003, she began working as a zookeeper at the Houston Zoo in Houston, TX. In 2005 she then moved to Racine, Wisconsin where she worked as the Primary Rhino Care Specialist and Behavior Management Coordinator. Cydney believes in positive reinforcement training to shape animal behavior and has attained exceptional results using this technique among a broad-spectrum of species. She has successfully built trusting relationships with dogs, zebras, capybaras, giraffes, tapirs, orangutans, wolves, fennec fox, bears, large cats, and rhinoceros, among many other species. Most notably, Cydney taught the black rhinos at the Racine Zoo to participate in unrestrained, non-sedated blood draws, a wide variety of husbandry behaviors, and painting with their prehensile lip. Through her studies with the Karen Pryor Academy of Animal Training and Behavior, Cydney has developed additional insight into shaping animal behavior and clarified her understanding of canine communication. This has enhanced her relationship with her own dogs and helped her to communicate these techniques with pet owners. She believes that a clear understanding of animal body language and communication is essential for a successful training program with any species; and that building trust with the animal promotes a harmonious human-animal relationship. Cydney’s current endeavors include dog training, dog walking, and pet sitting. She enjoys continuously cultivating her knowledge of behavior and motivation and will be adding to that knowledge base by exploring the world of human psychology and behavior; studying people’s relationships with food, body image and self fulfillment through the Institute for the Psychology of Eating. Cydney currently lives in Mount Pleasant with her husband, Adam, and two dogs, Cooper and Roscoe.