E191: 줄리 플래너리(Julie Flanery) - "그걸 어떻게 훈련하나요?"

And she is really starting to kind of come into her own now. Uh, her, uh, name is Phoenix, but I think I'm going to change her name to, phenomenal, uh, because she's been doing so great lately and I'm just really pleased with how she's been working. Uh, she is, she just earned her first skills test title for Rally Free and we're going to go ahead and start to compete with her this next month. So I'm really excited about how she's doing. How exciting. That's so fun. I'm, I'm, uh, excited for you that you're going to start, um, entering her and stuff. Yeah, I'm excited too. Uh, so, um, to kind of transition here to our topic for today, let's say that you've decided to teach one of your girls a new behavior. So where do you start? What options are we talking about, um, as kind of being on the table? Well, a couple of things. Um, I want to look at the behavior. I want to look at what are the components or parts of the behavior. I have a lot of options on how to go about training it in terms of methodology. I can shape it. I can lure it. I can use capturing or targeting. I can prompt it. I can use props or not use props. And so I do have a lot of options, but in terms of trying to figure out exactly how to get started and how to choose how to train that particular behavior, I want to look at the behavior itself, um, and try to break out what the actual pieces are. Not on, I mean, I train like everybody else. I look at the behavior. I want to see what the parts and pieces are and how am I going to convey the information to the dog that they're going to need to, to actually do the pieces and then put the pieces back together again. Uh, I have to look at the dog also because they're for my dogs, for example, are more skilled, I would say at certain, um, methods than others. And myself as a handler, I'm more skilled at certain methods over others. And I have a preference for certain methods. And so obviously I, I tend to go to my preferred methods, but I also, I like to look at maybe how other people are training them because I think as trainers, we have a tendency to kind of stay in our own comfort zone. And so for example, things that I trained with Kashi, she's 10 now, but, uh, these only two. So things I trained with Kashi, I might've trained her a certain way then. And over the years now, as I learn more and I get to see some of the ways it's trained by other trainers, I might change that for fee. Fee is a different learner as well. She doesn't learn the same way that Kashi does. And so I might choose different options for her based on her learning style.

So I think all of those things kind of, uh, go into that. Um, what is the behavior? What are the components of the behavior? What is the dog's learning style? What are their, uh, I guess weaknesses and strengths in terms of what are they going to actually be able to put into this process? And then what are my weaknesses and strengths? How am I going to approach this based on my experiences and what has been successful for me in the past and what new cool way I might see and say, oh, you know, I think I'm going to give that a try this time and just see where that takes me. I think most of our audience is probably, um, familiar with shaping and capturing and learning. But can you maybe, can you maybe kind of talk a little bit about the differences between learning and prompting and then maybe talk a little bit about what you mean by modeling? Sure. So, um, when I use the term prompting, just so you know, this is my definition of prompting. There might be dozens of other definitions out there. There might be a definition that another trainer might use that word differently. So, and I think, like you said, with shaping and luring and capturing all of those types of methods, trainers were, as trainers, we're pretty familiar with those. And we have a grasp of kind of what that means. Uh, I think there's some other methods that maybe we put our own definitions on. And even I think with something like, um, shaping, there is a scientific definition. There's the lay person's definition. There's the common definition between trainers. And so I do think it's important. I think this was a really good question that you asked, because I think it's important that as teachers and instructors, that we are conveying what we mean by these terms. I don't want to make assumptions that what I define these terms as meaning is the same thing that you might define these terms as meaning. So I think that was a really great question. Uh, so prompting for me is a way to get behavior that doesn't really fit into, for example, luring. So for luring, uh, I want the dog to follow something. I'm going to lead the dog, uh, by having him follow food or a toy. So luring has to do with getting the dog moving through following something. Whereas prompting is more about either maybe using a previously trained behavior to prompt the dog. So maybe targeting might be considered a prompt. Platforms might be considered a prompt because it prompts the dog into action to get up on the platform. Even though we may have used shaping to train the platform, or we may have shaped a target, the actual target itself acts as a prompt.

Oftentimes our, uh, props that we use, such as a pivot platform, it prompts the dog to start to move his rear end. We haven't really lured it. And there is some shaping involved there, but the platform itself actually becomes a prompt for the dog or a cue for the dog. Other types of prompts might be more, um, organic and not previously trained. So if I pat my legs, I know my dog is going to move to me. So I'm prompting my dog to move to me. Uh, if I pat my chest, I'm prompting my dog to jump up on my, on my body. There are other types of prompts. I think, for example, maybe, um, maybe you put on a particular harness and that prompts the dog to start pulling as opposed to a different type of collar that might prompt the dog to not pull. Um, there's a method that I use sometimes to teach a dog to do a paw lift. Uh, actually there are a couple that might be considered prompting. So for example, you could tickle the back of the dog's pad and that will prompt his paw to lift. You could also place food under their chin and that actually will prompt the dog to lift his paw. It's not a lure and I'm not shaping it and I'm not really targeting it. And so all of those things that maybe don't fit into one of those other categories, but, uh, prompts the dog into action are what I term as prompts. Did that help? Did that make sense? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And, uh, I think that, that they can be really useful and really valuable. Sometimes we don't think of them because we are so tied into shaping, luring, targeting, capturing that we don't think of a prompt as an actual means of getting behavior and training the behavior, going through the process of training. So in some ways is prompting almost a visual cue? It can be, but it doesn't have to be. So like if I tickle the back of the dog's foot, that's, you know, not a visual cue. But so it could be tactile. It could be auditory. It could be visual. But it's something that causes the dog to go into action. That isn't something he's following. It's not something he's doing based off of his reward history, such as shaping. Uh, and it's, we're not presenting an actual target for him to follow like a lure, though targets certainly prompt behavior. So there is some overlap. All of these methods, you're going to find some overlap. Oftentimes when we want to use targets, we teach the dog to move to or touch the target through shaping. So are we using shaping to train a behavior that uses targeting? Or are we using targeting to train that behavior? And I think that's good. I think that's a really good thing.

I think the more ways that we find to communicate to the dog the same criteria, the quicker they're going to learn that criteria. We don't always know what's going to actually make sense to the dog. And so that's part of why it's really good to have all of these different options because some are going to make more sense to the dog than others. And sometimes it takes a combination of these methods to, for the dog to get the full picture. And then what about modeling? Modeling is literally physically moving the dog into position. So let's take the paw lift example again. If I lift up the dog's paw, I have modeled a paw lift. If I pick up the dog and put them into a crate and then reward them afterwards, I basically have modeled that behavior. So modeling is just when we are going to physically move the dog into the positions we want them to move into. Okay. So then how do you kind of decide which method you're going to use for any given behavior? Yeah. So in general, modeling, for example, is going to be one of my last choices only because not all dogs are going to be comfortable with it. It's something that you do have to condition your dog to accept and understand. Animals have a bit of a resistance reflex and opposition reflex. And when we try to move the body, there will be some resistance there. So modeling can be a really difficult method to utilize. And so I don't often use it. Paw lifts modeling is probably one of the easiest ways, however, to train a paw lift unless you have a dog that is sensitive to his feet being picked up or held. So I want to look to how difficult is this going to be for me, the handler, to apply? How difficult is it going to be for the dog to accept? And what is his experience at that? So modeling is probably pretty low down on my list of how I'm going to train behaviors. It's not it's not my first go to by any stretch of the imagination. The types of methods that I personally prefer and that I'm going to go to are the ones where the dog has a vested interest, where the dog is initiating behavior. So shaping is going to be one of my go to methods in training behavior. I think that when a dog is shaped, he is an active participant. It's not like he's simply following food. He is actively initiating the behavior that then earns reinforcement. And so I think that internalizes in the dog more quickly. I think that makes a behavior much more robust. Shaping is also going to, for me, have a much higher rate of reward. And so that's another component of shaping that's going to make the behavior a little more solid.

I kind of compare shaping and luring to being a passenger or driver, that if you're in a car and you're a passenger, then you're not really paying a lot of attention to the route. And so to me, that's a little bit like what luring is. We can get the behavior, but the dog doesn't fully understand how he got there. Whereas with shaping, the dog is the driver. He's the one making decisions on which turn to take, how to speed up, how to slow down. And so the next time you get in the car to drive that route, if you're the driver, you're going to be much better at finding your way. If you're the passenger, you may have a much more difficult time at driving that exact same route. So those things are going to kind of play a part in that. It's not to say that I don't use luring. I think luring is a really, really effective and valuable tool to have. But I want to make sure that I understand the process and that I understand its purpose. Because I think far too often we use luring as a means to get behavior, which it's very good at. You have early success with luring. But we all aren't always really good at following through on the process to actually fully train that behavior. And so I want to be really, really careful if I choose to use luring that I'm truly falling through on the process and I'm not getting stuck at any one place, specifically having food in my hand too long, maintaining a hand signal for too long, that I'm actually moving through the process fairly quickly. The other methods, you know, targeting for a lot of behaviors, targeting might be my go-to. Targeting to me is a bit of a foundation skill. All my dogs learn how to target. Whether I use it very much or not, it is a skill that allows me to teach my dogs other methods. So for example, if I teach my dog how to get on a platform, how to target a platform or how to target a target stick or a target on the floor or a target on a vertical surface, I'm also teaching my dog how to shape because I teach targeting through shaping. So then my dog has two skills now that I've kind of been able to double up on a little bit. He understands the shaping process. He understands that targets are good things. And that gives me a little bit more full application of both of those methods. What did I miss? I did targeting, shaping, prompting. Did I miss any? Capturing. We didn't talk about capturing much. Capturing is not one. So modeling is pretty low down on the list. Capturing is pretty low down on the list as well. Partly because when you're capturing something as opposed to shaping something, you're getting the full behavior.

You're waiting until you see the whole behavior before you're marking and rewarding. That can be really, really difficult with most of the things that we are training. We're not going to be able to capture those things. Some might argue that within shaping, we're capturing little bits. But I think of capturing as my dog does the full behavior. I mark it, reward it. And when he does it again, I mark it and reward it again. An example might be if you want to teach the dog how to bow and you know they're going to stretch every time they come out of the crate, then they would come out of the crate. You would be ready with your clicker and your food and you would mark that. And the problem with capturing is that the dog doesn't always know what they just did. It's outside of a training context. So they aren't really focusing on their own behavior. And oftentimes these things that we're capturing are unconscious in the mind of the dog. They're just doing it reflexively. They're coming out of the crate and they're stretching. They aren't really thinking about stretching. And then all of a sudden click and they're like, whoa, what was that for? What do we do? And now you've lost that. You can't get the amount of repetition that we normally need in order for the dog to fully understand the behavior enough to be able to repeat the behavior. And so repetition is an issue with capturing. There are some things that can be jumpstarted certainly through capturing. So I might get that bow initially out of the crate and click that. And then maybe I can shape it a little bit from there. I can watch for a head drop or, you know, a lean back in their posture, a drop of the elbows. But in general, modeling's at the bottom. Capturing comes next up on top of that. I would say luring and targeting are next up from the bottom, though I do use a lot of luring if I want to control the head specifically. I will use luring because that piece of food close to the dog's nose gives me control. So primarily, I'm going to use some combination of shaping and targeting with some luring that can be used to jumpstart behaviors to help the dog see where we're going with this. I think that's a really valuable component of luring is that it shows the dog where are we going with this. In shaping, the dog has no idea. We're the only one that knows what the behavior is that we're training. The dog doesn't start to shape and go, oh, I know where we're going. We'll just follow this path down to the end result. They don't know that. So each little click is a behavior in and of itself to the dog. They are completing that behavior.

And it's up to us to kind of continue to move that process forward. So, you know, all of the methods are going to have some benefits and, you know, some not so good benefits. But and I've got a webinar coming up that I'm going to talk a lot about that. But I think it's important that we know kind of what these benefits are and what the detriments are, because if we don't understand that going in, if we're not fully aware of how to effectively use that method, then it's not going to be a very effective method for us at all. So it's we have to be able to apply it, apply it fully and apply it to completion. And if we need to combine them, we need to be able to know how to do that as well for the most amount of benefit to get to our whole behavior. So how important is it then to, you know, kind of sit down and plan all this out and write out a formal plan, you know, before you even jump in, before you grab your clicker or your cookies or whatever and do anything with your dog? Formal? Like write it down, the steps and everything. I think it can be really, really beneficial. I think that it depends a little bit about on how what type of trainer you are. I definitely think you need to have a couple of things, whether you write it down formally or not. There's information that you have to have before you start to train a behavior. Obviously, you need to know what the end goal behavior looks like. What is the full end behavior? Not just what the acquisition stage is. What does it look like in its early stages when you first start training it? But what does it look like in a new environment? What does it look like in the context that you're going to be using it? What is the duration that you're going to need of this eventually? So all of those things you're going to want to really have a good handle on before you start to train it, because those components of the behavior are going to affect what you do early on in the acquisition stage. So I want to know what are the components of the behavior? How am I going to use it? Where am I going to use it? What am I going to use it? I'm also, like I said earlier, I wanted to be given those components. Is it a complex behavior? Does it have multiple parts? Is it a simple behavior? Those things are going to help me determine whether I use shaping or whether I use targeting or lowering or a combination of things. Something like, let's say, about, training about. And I'm talking about mostly trick behaviors, because I think all of us can kind of, we all train tricks at some point or another. We have experience training tricks.

Not everybody does the same sport, but I think all of us like to train tricks. So take a bow, for example. For me, luring is going to be one of the easiest ways to train a bow. I don't particularly shape a bow. You can, and that can be really, really effective. I think that that takes a skilled handler and a skilled shaping dog to shape a bow. It can be done, but it just depends on your skill level. And for me, I can get the same results really, really fast through lure reward. So that's a behavior that I would probably choose to lure rather than shape. I might target it. I might use a target stick instead of an actual food lure. But I'm going to have the dog follow something into the bow. If it's got a lot of complex pieces, I might use a number of those methods. So for example, in freestyle, we have a behavior where the dog is standing in a front position, and then he does a precise about turn. So he's now faced away from you. And then he backs through your legs. So that has multiple components to it, and all of them are trained separately before they are put together. So I might train the backup in a different method than I would train the face away from me. So in that regard, it's going to depend on how many different pieces, what are the methods that are going to be best suited to that particular piece of the behavior, and then how am I going to bring all of those pieces together to put it on a single cue. So there I have several parts. Several things have to happen. The dog has to do one, two, three, four things, and yet I want it on a single cue. So what those four things are and what are the best ways to train each one of those four things might be different. Gotcha. That sounds kind of complex. It sounds more complicated than it really is. I'm listening to myself. I'm going, that sounds really complicated. And if anybody's thinking whether or not they want to train different methods, they're going to be like running and screaming right now. But I just wanted to point out that not all methods are suited to all behaviors necessarily. And even if the method is great for that behavior, now you kind of need to take into account the dog's skills and experience and the handler's skills and experience. And so it is kind of like a little bit of a puzzle piece that you have to kind of find the pieces that fit together best. That leads, of course, into my next question, right? Which is how do you kind of factor in your strengths and weaknesses as a trainer? Well, boy. Okay. So this is hard because it's like talking about myself. But I'm trying to think of it like, you know, any trainer.

If let's take the method of shaping. In shaping, the skills that a trainer has to have are going to be good observation skills. Because you have to see what those small approximations are towards the end behavior. You need to have, along with that observation, you have to have actually, and this is going to sound a little odd, but I'll explain further. You have to have good anticipation skills. So you have to be able to see what the dog is doing. And then you have to be able to anticipate what the dog is about to do based on what he's been doing. Because the timing of your marker, if you're using a marker for shaping, and you don't always have to use a marker for shaping. Markers are occurring. But if you can't anticipate what the dog is about to do based on what he just did, then your timing of your marker is going to be off. And then we're not actually communicating to the dog what we want to communicate. And that will hinder your progress in shaping. So good observation skills, good anticipation skills, those two things lead to good timing skills. And then good reward delivery skills. So if you are weak in those areas, then shaping may not be the best tool for you to use. Or you may want to increase your skill in those areas before you use a lot of shaping in your training. If, let's say, you are really, this is going to sound really weird, but I'm just trying to think of things that what might make a method not such a good choice for a trainer. I taught pet classes for many, many, many years. And in pet classes, we often taught using lure reward, because it's fairly simple to apply. But if you have a 14-week-old puppy with really sharp teeth, and you are a handler with sensitive or aging skin, then maybe luring isn't the best option right now. Those types of things, while it has nothing to do with the weakness or strength of the trainer, they're things you want to take into account. If you have strong mechanical skills, you might choose luring over shaping. If you have a tendency to talk to your dog a lot, move around a lot, you might use prompting. So it really just depends on what you're going to do. And what I have really found, actually, though, is that almost all the people I've worked with, trainers can learn all the skills they need to apply all of these methods. Just because you don't have the skills or you're weak in one area, doesn't mean that you can't be strong in that area. And in the long run, taking the time and making the effort to increase your skills in that area are actually going to benefit the learning process for your dog, for both you and your dog.

So I don't know if it's a matter of what strengths and weaknesses as a trainer that, you know, make a difference, because really, truly, we know as trainers that behavior can be learned. And if we're weak in an area and we want to be able to utilize and apply a particular method, then we build that skill for ourselves. Is some of it harder than others? Yeah. If you have a really long history of clicking and reaching for the bait bag at the exact same time, then that's going to be a much harder skill to develop, separating those two out. Click, then reach for the bait bag. Because that has become patterned and has such a strong history, it will be hard. But just because something's hard doesn't mean that we can't do it, that we can't learn new habits to the benefit of our future training. So what about the dog strengths and weaknesses, right? So, for example, like I know that Levi learns better with luring than with shaping, even though I've previously had dogs who are the opposite, right? So, like, how do you kind of take that type of thing into consideration? Well, you look at, I mean, like, you know that because you've seen Levi's history. You have a history with Levi and you've noted that, wow, he gets that pretty quick. When I use allure, when I go through the process, he can do that. Shaping is more difficult for him. So you look at the dog and generally the dog will tell you. I think, too, though, that, you know, you have a lot of experience as a trainer and your skills are probably pretty good at both of those, at whatever method you're going to apply. Then, you know, we have to assume that if we say the dog is better at this than he is at this, we're assuming that the handler skills are excellent at both. Does that make sense? So sometimes it can appear like the dog is a better learner this way because that's what we are good at applying. And so, yes, they're going to learn better at any method we use that we are good at applying. And when we start into some newer methods or we don't aren't as practiced at it or we need to increase our skill at it, our dogs are not going to be as good at learning at that particular method. And there's nothing wrong with sticking with a method that that you are more comfortable with and your dog therefore learns faster with. There's nothing wrong with that. But I also don't want to make the assumption that because the dog is showing a quote preference for this particular method, that it's because that's how he is a better learner. It may be that the other methods aren't being as applied as proficiently as the one that you're using.

Does that make sense? Absolutely. Yeah. I think I and I see that quite a bit. I shaping, for example, is when I see handlers that are struggling with shaping and their dog is not learning as quickly, quote unquote. Often what I look at is a handler that is not applying it as effectively as they could be. The rate of reward is too low. The mark, the timing of the marker is not correct. The the they're observing, they aren't seeing the smaller bits of behavior that could lead the dog along the path much more quickly or more efficiently. So. I think that the the wording of that is a little bit, you know, both of the wording of those, the strength or weaknesses of a handler or the strength or weaknesses of the dog. Now, having said that, I totally agree that different dogs have different learning styles. Both of my dogs are totally different in their learning styles. And. For fee, certain methods take a little bit longer for her, for Kashi, certain methods are a little faster for her. But who am I to say that it's because of my application? Well, I have two dogs. I have different learning styles. Now I can kind of say, well, I think I'm applying both of these methods the same for both of these dogs. And yet I'm seeing a difference in how long it might take them to learn behaviors. They both learn the behaviors. But fee, I could be working at working at working. I could be using actually a combination of methods, which I normally do with all my dogs. I combine a lot of these methods. It's not any single behavior, any single method. But I can work the skill, work the skill. And I think she's just not getting this. She's just not getting this. What am I doing wrong? I need to. Well, she's just not getting this. And all of a sudden, boom, it's like there. It's like, yeah, sure, mom. See, of course I know how to do this. I'm like, where did that come from? I haven't done this in a month because I was so frustrated with what was happening. And now you have it. Whereas with Kashi, you know, I can work at a few sessions and she's like ready to add the cue right away. She has an understanding of the process. I think that's a really interesting point, too, that we don't always think about. And maybe this does fall into dog's weaknesses and strengths is that if a dog has a lot of experience with a certain method, that's a strength. Experience is a strength. Kashi has a lot of experience with shaping and she has a lot of experience with getting behaviors on cue. Whereas Fee doesn't have as much experience. And so she's still learning how to learn.

She's still learning what is going to be the most effective and efficient method for me to apply for her. In general, I really think it's a good idea to use a combination of methods, like I said, because we just don't know what will make sense to the dog. And as long as the constant, the one constant, the one thing that is consistent through all the methods is the criteria in which we are reinforcing, then the dog will get it. The dog will get it. We just aren't always sure which one is the one that made it go click with the dog. So what if you start training something, right? You've got a behavior, you're working on it, and things are just not going quite the way you planned. At what point do you kind of decide, okay, this isn't working. I need to reevaluate my plan. I need to change up how I'm teaching this. I need to, you know, do something differently. Can you just talk a little bit about how you kind of evaluate that, how you kind of handle things from there? Yes. For me, I want to see some measure of improvement in the skill fairly quickly, some change in the skill. So if I'm shaping it, then really by the end of the first session, I need to be farther along than I was at the beginning of the session. If I'm at the exact same place at the end of a session than I was at the beginning of a session, even if it's just minuscule improvement or maybe it's just, you know, okay, so I got 66 out of 10 reps were better. Then I can move forward with the method I'm using. If I'm not seeing any improvement, I have to look at how I'm applying it. I always look at that first because I think the method is only as good as the person applying it. And if I'm not applying it correctly, then that's going to show in my dog's lack of understanding. All of these methods, they're methods, they're available to us because they work, because we have seen our dogs progress using these methods. So within a fairly short period of time, maybe not the very first session, but really within your first three sessions, you want to see some decent improvement. How you measure improvement, that depends on the behavior, depends on the dog. But if I'm not seeing some type of forward momentum within my first few sessions of 10 to 12 reps each session, then I need to assess something. Either I have to assess my criteria, I have to assess my rate of reward, which is virtually the same thing there, or I have to assess the value of my reinforcement. I think that's a biggie. I think sometimes we have a tendency to reward by rote. We reward the same thing the same way, give them a cookie.

So a lot of times I have to assess my reinforcement based on the difficulty of the task. Maybe the environment, there's something in the environment. It's not always the method. So I want to, when I do assess, there's a variety of things that I have to look at, not just the method I'm using. Once we kind of have the behavior, right? So the behavior is happening. And it's happening fairly consistently. What next? How do we get from, you know, the behavior that is in training to a finished behavior that is actually on cue? So like, what are, like the steps or? Yeah. You know, so let's say, you know, we're working on a, oh goodness, I need a behavior as an example. I don't know, a spin or a, you know, kind of, any behavior thing. Yeah, how about moving to heal because I've got a healing class right now and a positions class. So we're doing a lot of moving to heal position behavior. So, so there's, I think of training as being in phases or steps. Okay. So we have the acquisition phase. That's the very beginning. That's how do I get the behavior to occur so that I can reinforce, reward this behavior so the dog wants to do it again. I need to get repetition in order for understanding to start to take place. And so that acquisition phase is how do I get some repetition? How do I show the dog what has to happen? How do I get reward into this dog? Once I have the, the essential and primary parts of the behavior. So for me, moving into heal position would be the dog move. I generally use a prop or platform to train this. So dog is moving up onto the platform and he understands through shaping to the platform and my marking and rewarding correct responses, that this is the behavior we want. The actual behavior doesn't include the platform, but I'm getting the piece, the primary and essential piece, which is stand next to me in this exact location. Okay. So once I have that, I need to look at what other components am I going to need here other than stand next to me in this exact location. Well, I need my dog to look up at me and I need to have duration here. So I'm going to add those little components as well before I do anything else. My next step after I, I have acquisition of the behavior is the, if I'm using props, I have to make my plan of how to remove the prop. The prop is a cue. If I just remove the cue, I won't have the behavior. So generally for that particular behavior, I'm going to put it on cue. So once I've acquired the behavior, I'm going to add the cue. Once I add the cue, I can continue with removing other context cues like the platform or like my hand signal, those types of things.

So acquisition, add the cue. Then I'm going to start looking at generalization and fluency, taking it to new locations, lowering the rate of reward so I can get the behavior without having to give a cookie each and every single time, those types of things. So I think of behavior in those terms, acquisition, add the cue, generalization, and then fluency. I'm going to add in there with the adding the cue, the piece is cue discrimination. So that's part of adding the cue to me. So acquisition, cue, cue discrimination, generalization, and fluency. Did that make sense? Did that answer your question? Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Okay, so now we've talked through kind of the steps of getting the behavior all the way through to having it on cue. You talked a little bit about fluency. How much emphasis do you put on or how do you kind of think about what you need to do once a behavior is at that point to kind of maintain it over time? You know, obviously if we train a behavior and then we ignore it for a year and a half, when we go back to it, it's not going to still be on cue. So ask me how I know. No, no. So, you know, what do we have to do to kind of maintain a behavior? And does it really matter, you know, if it's an easy behavior for the dog? Is it going to be easier to maintain than if it's a harder behavior for that dog? Oh, easier or harder? That's a really good question. The maintenance is certainly a phase that I would include as part of that fluency because behavior is not stagnant. Behavior changes all the time. Behavior that is not reinforced will diminish and it will eventually extinguish if you don't reinforce it. So you do have to have maintenance as part of your training plan. So for me, maintenance also includes going back to earlier versions of the behavior. Does that make sense? So I might go back to using a prop. It makes it easier for the dog to actually execute that behavior. And it also builds a lot of confidence in the dog because he can't be wrong. So part of my maintenance is actually going back to an earlier, easier version of the behavior. Much like when we shape a behavior and we're reinforcing those increments along the path toward behavior, we're building strength in each one of those little pieces. And that makes the end behavior stronger. That's the same way with maintenance, I think, that if we're just rewarding the whole behavior again, behavior can break down in a variety of ways. The whole behavior might break down. But also there are little pieces or components of a behavior that might break down that you have to separate out again as part of your training.

Training, just because we say we're working towards and have fluency, I personally, and I may be totally wrong and off base here, but I'm just going to throw that out there. I don't know that fluency, permanent fluency is attainable because behavior changes, because reinforcement isn't always consistent. So fluency is what we're all working towards. And we want all of our efforts in training, no matter how we train behavior, our efforts are all pointing towards fluent behavior. That's our goal. But fluent behavior isn't the destination, meaning you don't end your trip there. You sometimes have to go back along the path and you sometimes have to strengthen, restrengthen, reinforce, build more confidence in that behavior. So there's those steps that we just outlined that I just talked about. Step one, step two, step three, step four, you get to fluency. That doesn't mean you're done with all of those steps. It just means that's the progression. But we can also go backwards in that progression. There's an ebb and flow to training, I think. And I think that can be frustrating for people that don't fully understand and accept that. They want to go along a path and then have a fluent behavior that they can count on. And for the most part, when we've gone along that path and we've done all those steps and we've made sure the behavior is reinforced and understood and strengthened and generalized and cue discrimination, all those things, then we can bet that we can count on it. We can have a really, really strong behavior that we can pretty much call fluent meaning. There's that definition thing. And for me, fluent means that I can count on it with reasonable certainty in a variety of situations and contexts under a variety of circumstances. Okay. But these are not robots. We can't program it in and count on it being there. Unless we maintain the strength in that behavior, unless we maintain the reward history in that behavior, unless we continue to challenge that behavior a little bit, to allow the dog to work hard at that behavior and build, I'm sorry, and receive stronger reinforcement. Fluency is fragile. It's easy to lose. And so I think it's important that while fluency is our goal, that we also understand that behavior is not stagnant, even fluent behavior. And then as soon as we start to assume it is and drop our reinforcement or add difficulty in which the dog has not been practiced in or reinforced in, then that fluency will dwindle and we'll start to lose it. So maintenance and training is all the same to me.

So we have all those phases, acquisition, cueing, cue discrimination, generalization to fluency. But I'm going to go back and I'm going to do cue discrimination again and reward at a high rate for that. I'm going to go back and I'm going to throw my props in once in a while to build confidence in the dog and get a nice high rate of reward for the exact behavior I want. So it's not as linear as you might think. Yes, training is linear, but be willing. And actually, I enjoy the time that I get to go back and reward the easier things. I think my dog enjoys going back and enjoying the easier things and going through those steps again a little bit sometimes. I think that is what is going to really build strength and longevity and fluency is the fact that we're willing to go back and we're willing to shape it again from nothing. Maybe say, how long can it take you to get to position if I shape it as if you don't know it at all? Once a dog knows something, we have a tendency to wait for it to happen rather than to reinforce the steps along the way. So that's an example of my maintenance is nothing more than revisiting all of your foundation and the process that took you to fluency. So you kind of mentioned earlier the webinar that you've got coming up next week. I'd like to just kind of have you share for a minute kind of what it's about and what you're going to go into. Can you share kind of what you'll cover and what folks can look forward to if they join us? Yeah, I'm actually really excited about this workshop. It's a webinar. It's not a workshop. It is a webinar. And I think it's something that we all think that not that we think we know we all use these methods, but we may not fully understand them or fully use them to their greatest benefit. But the webinar is called Destination, Know Your GPS to Training Behaviors. And really, it's an overview of all of these different methods, how to apply them, what skills you and your dog are going to need to have them be effective, what are the pros and cons of each method. And it just kind of outlines the map, I guess, so that you can make better choices on what route you're going to take. As you said, I think we tend to sometimes stick with the things we're comfortable with and the things that we seem to have success with. But we don't always know how much more success we might have if we tried it a little differently, if we went to a different method. We always base our future choices on what's working for us now. But I think that's a limited vision because you may think it's working,

but you don't know how much better it could be if you don't venture into some of those other options. You know, you don't realize what the scenery might be on this route. It might be so you love the scenery taking this route. Wow, look, isn't that beautiful? I love this. I want to take this route every single time. And then you get a little lost and you take this other route and you go, oh, my God, look at that gorgeous scenery. It's so much better than that other route. But you have no way of knowing that unless you stray from that path. So, yeah, it's just a nice big overview that gives definitions, how to apply it, what are the skills you're going to need and the pros and cons. Lots of examples of behaviors. And I think I actually have I'm taking a single behavior. I have a variety of behaviors, but then I also have a single behavior that I'm taking through each of the methods. So you can see how that single behavior is trained with all of the different methods. Very cool. Yeah. So I've got one last question here. And this question I'm asking all of my guests kind of at the end lately. I hate that question. Well, I'm going to ask you anyway. I always ask it, but I never think about it in advance. And then I'm like, oh, my God, I've got to answer that question. Well, I'm going to ask you anyway. So what's something that you've learned or something you've been reminded of recently when it comes to training? Oh, geez, Melissa. You know, you always remember it in the moment. And then when somebody asks you like, I don't know. So I think the biggest actually. OK, I know something. This is actually a good one. So. And this this is a real personal experience for me is Fee, my newest dog. She's two years old now. And I don't know if people know this story or not, but I got Fee from Sarah Bruschi, who did a fabulous job of fostering her for several weeks before I got her. But when I got her, my expectation was one thing. And what actually was true was a different thing. I thought I was getting a Border Collie Poodle Cross. And so I'm looking for dogs with Border Collie traits, poodle traits, the athleticism, the workability, the quick learning curve, all those things that we think about with those breeds. And I brought her home and a week later find out there is no Border Collie in her. There is no poodle in her. The DNA test came back and she is none of those things. Her primary breeds, as I said, is Australian Shepherd Shih Tzu Cross with some other, you know, breed. Odds and ends. I know. It's like, okay, she's a mixed breed. She's a mixed breed, really. She's a mixed breed with herding tendencies.

I'll say that. But my expectation was such that I really, at that point, I thought of returning her back to Sarah, even though I had only had her a few weeks. I just, that expectation was so strong. And to find out that that was not my reality was really, really difficult for me. I named her Phoenix because once I decided to keep her, I was going to bring her out of the ashes. And I was just, I was talking to someone today, as a matter of fact, that I am now going to change the name of my dog from Fee to Phenomenal because the growth that she and I have had together and what I see in her now, the reality of what I have is so much greater than what my expectation was. And so I think sometimes we look at a situation and this might be a behavior we're training. It might be a dog that you're, that you have. It might be a relationship that you have, but we look at a situation and our, our expectation isn't met. And now that situation has negative emotional feelings. And I think if we can get beyond that, you will find that the reality of the situation in very many ways, in a, in a lot of ways, is probably much better than it could have been. And I'm, I'm just thrilled with, with her at this point and how she's doing and how she's working. And I do that sometimes with behaviors. I'll look at it and it's like, yeah, no, this is not working at all. And I don't even want to train this. I don't even want to go out and work this anymore. But if we actually just sit down and look at what we have, now we have something we can build on. Now we have something we can grow from. And a lot of it starts with our mindset. And so that's something that I've learned recently through her is that how I look at something and how, what my expectations were affect both my emotional response and my ability to actually work through that and come out on the other side where I, I actually am in a much better place, a far better place than, than what, where I thought I would be. So what a cool story. Thank you for sharing. Sure. Sure. And Hey, I came up with that on the fly. I mean, it's true. It's true. But it's like, Oh, I always know you're going to ask that question. I'm like, Oh, I don't know. And then it like hits you. Wow. This is this like literally just the last few days has hit me in that way. So that's kind of fun. Awesome. Well, thank you for coming on the podcast, Julie. It's been great. I have really thoroughly enjoyed it. I always enjoy it when you ask me to come on. So thank you very much. Absolutely. And thank you to our listeners for tuning in.

We'll be back next week with Lynn Lawler to talk about loopy listening. If you haven't already subscribed to our podcast in iTunes or the podcast app of your choice, then our next episode automatically downloaded to your phone as soon as it becomes available. Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzie Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzie for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty free by benson.com. The track featured here is called Buddy. Audio editing provided by Chris Lang. Thanks again for tuning in and happy training. Today's show iso. Thank you.