E395: 줄리 플래너리(Julie Flanery) - "반려견을 위한 게임화된 훈련"

So what concepts do you try to instill or try to teach your sports dogs? Right. So I think when we think of concept training, we often think of things like mimicry or match to sample or those types of concepts where the dog is learning a broader picture and then taking that broader picture to use it in more finite ways. But when I'm talking about concepts and how they relate to my sport dog training, I'm thinking about it in a different way. I'm thinking about it in how can I take that broad concept, that piece of information that I can then use to teach my dog not just a finite thing, but a lot of other things that are going to benefit my sport training. So for example, we might not think of attention to the handler as a concept. We might think of it more as a behavior. But overall, attention, and especially attention and focus when combined together, that is a concept that we want to teach the dogs how to use under a variety of different circumstances and in a variety of different ways. Attention to the handler. Yes, we all get that. We understand what that means. And I think that we all understand as well that focus is more of a concept than a behavior. And I don't think that as trainers, we're very good at teaching broad concepts to our dogs. We tend to drill down to the specifics. And what I think is important for handlers to understand is that when we're teaching a concept like focus, and this won't be a surprise to anybody, I'm sure, but teaching the concept of focus actually allows us to teach things like duration in any behavior. If the dog doesn't have the ability to maintain focus on a task, then they're going to really struggle with building duration in any tasks. If the dog struggles with focus or attention on the handler, then they're really going to struggle working around distractions or in difficult settings. Impulse control is another concept that sometimes we struggle in how to help the dog understand when they need to learn to control themselves and when it's okay for them to, if it were my dog, for example, just become reckless abandon. And I think that, again, people know they want impulse control, but why do we want impulse control? We want impulse control because it allows the dog to work around distractions, to work in difficult settings. It allows the dog to learn how to wait for cues rather than just throw behaviors at us. So those are a couple of examples of concepts that I want my dogs to learn in a broader sense rather than just learning look at my eyes as in terms of attention as a behavior.

I want that too, but I want them to understand the broader concept of attention and focus and how that relates to other behaviors I'm going to be working with them. Proximity is another one that I think we don't, we know that we want certain things from our dogs in terms of a nice heel position. We want a front where they're up close and personal. But having a dog that chooses to remain in proximity to us under difficult settings or learning that a distraction might be the cue to come in closer proximity to us is a concept that the dog has to learn. And it's broader than just teaching the dog to come when called. It's broader than just teaching the dog to heal in a tight proximity because we don't always want those specific tasks, those specific behaviors. We want the dog to understand the broader concept of here is the radius I want you to remain when we are moving, for example. Does that make sense? Yeah, I think so. Um, so I know that you kind of approach these or teaching these through games. So can you talk a little more about why you want to kind of use a gamified approach? What does that look like? Yeah, the answer is really, really easy because it's really fun. And sometimes when we're drilling down on those really precise and accurate behaviors that we have to have in our sports, it's not always that fun, to be honest. It's not fun for us and it's not fun for the dog all the time. So in addition to being fun, I think that if we look at something like it's a game or, um, like, like the activity is going to be a little bit more relaxed, then that relieves a lot of the pressure that we have a tendency to carry into the ring because we've applied that pressure in our training. So by, and it's an interesting term you used, I haven't really used the term gamify, but you're right, it is gamifying the training. I think, I think, um, some other, uh, instructors have used that term quite a bit, which is, which is great. But by, quote, gamifying these skills and these concepts, it removes all of the pressure, um, from the training. And that means that we're not taking that pressure with us into the ring. We're not, and I know we, we're not meaning to provide pressure in our training. That's not what I'm saying. I'm not saying that training is bad and drilling down in those specifics is bad because I do it. I have to do it for my sport. And I get very, um, uh, specific in the skills and the behaviors and the criteria that I want in the things that I'm training. But that in and of itself can create some pressure on the dog.

And so teaching these concepts as part of games and including a lot of fun and movement and being relaxed about it and not worrying about or caring whether or not the dog is doing it exactly right. That's not what these games are about. These games are about teaching the dog important concepts that will then trickle down into, uh, the enjoyment and engagement and the feelings that we want our dogs to have when we are training for our particular sports. So I think that this concept here, we're talking concepts again, this concept of gamifying our training is relatively new to a lot of people. Um, I know a lot of the instructors at FENCY here have been using that type of training for a while. And, and we're now just learning to get better and better at it, I think. But to some people, this is a new concept on how to use games and play and, uh, relaxation and tricks and enjoyment to build the skills and the concepts that we want in order for our dogs to succeed in that sport, which is very, um, finite in what we want to train. It is very, very precise and accurate and becomes, um, uh, I guess I would say it becomes very tedious if that's the only way that we're training those skills. And I think that contributes to some of the pressure that our dogs feel in the ring, that we take that with us from our training sessions. Can you just talk us through kind of an example of what those games look like? Yeah. So let's, let's consider proximity games. Okay. So there are a lot of things that our dogs enjoy. They enjoy movement. They enjoy eating. They enjoy jumping and running and dissecting and chasing and, you know, all of the things that dogs love. Right. And when we're talking about proximity, oftentimes we're talking about, I want you to be close to me. I want you to be tight to me. I want you to be, um, within a certain proximity of me. And when you get out of that proximity, I want you to choose to come back into that little bubble with me. And so we have a tendency to train that with a lot of tight, close proximity work where in reality, proximity work is, yes, it's about staying in close, but it's about when you are out there, choose to be in here. And we can use that distance as a means to create the desire to be in closer to you. We can do proximity games where there is no pressure whatsoever for the dog to be close to you simply by walking away from the dog. And as the dog joins up, we make that very reinforcing. And we aren't, we aren't focusing on like criteria of staying close. We're focusing on the criteria of when I move away, you move with me. So there's still movement

involved. There's still a reinforcement involved, but we aren't hung up on the exactness of where the dog is. Yes. Did that help? Yes. I think that's interesting. Let's take it. Oh, you can take another one like recalls, for example. In, in obedience, we have very structured recalls. A recall is a set of very specific criteria. Okay. And the dog has to meet that very specific criteria. And we have a tendency to be a little bit looser in our everyday training, right? We don't, but I think what often happens then is that we have really good obedience recalls maybe because we set up a set of circumstances there for the dog to follow instead of criteria for the dog to follow. And we're very specific about how and when we reinforce and where we reinforce and how that reinforcement is delivered to create that very specific criteria. Whereas if we look at, and in that obedience recall, let's say, the, the, I think that we focus on the distance part of it. Okay. We focus that a recall is a distance behavior and we have a tendency to add that layer of difficulty in too soon. Okay. So if we're building proximity value through our proximity games, and we're also teaching some, there are specifics in even a, um, a casual recall. So if I'm in my home and I'm outside with my dogs and I call them to come, I don't expect them to do an obedience front. I may not even expect them to run super fast to me though. I would like that, but it, what is the expected expectation that we often have at home is a lot more lax and loose than what we might have in our performance ring. And yet I think somewhere in our head, we kind of expect the same level of energy and desire for both of those. Right. But when we're training a recall, again, the focus is put on distance. Oftentimes many people don't even start training. Don't, don't call their dog unless they are already far away. Right. That's when they start training a recall is when the dog is far away. There are 101 different ways to teach a dog to move to you and have all of the criteria that you're going to want when you call your dog to come in a casual setting, right? Because it's not a formal obedience front. And while it's not a formal obedience front, we still want to look at the pieces involved with it, but in a much more fun and relaxed and I don't know, no pressure kind of way. Right. So when I say there's 101 ways to teach a recall, I think of all of the different things that I want involved in that recall, right? If they're, if they are at a distance, I want them to stop what they're doing. I want them to look back at me. I

want them to run to me quickly. And I want them to, to allow me to take physical control if I need to, because oftentimes if I'm calling my dog, especially if I'm calling my dog off of something that I'm not, you know, I don't want them to go back as soon as they get to me and get their cookie, you know, you see that come, they run back, they get the cookie and they shoot away again. Right. So I don't really want my dog to do that. So part of my criteria has to be, my dog allows me to take physical control if I need to. So I can take all of those little pieces and I can teach and play train all of those little pieces and then bring them together, creating really fun games. So the end result, number one, isn't always the same in terms of, for example, the end result of an obedience front is you're always coming and sitting in front of me and you're like almost plastered to my front, right? There's a lot of pressure there, but I can use different ways, different games, different activities to have my dog really drive into me so that my end result is so that I can take physical control if I need to, and that you choose to remain in the proximity that I want you to stay. Okay. These are like, these are basically real life skills that for those of us that our goal is performance sports, we have a tendency to want to train the performance sports skill and we gloss over the real life skill. Yeah. We reward our dog when they come to us. Yeah. We call them back if they get too far ahead and we give them a cookie there. And, and I think what people will take away from these games is that these games are going to positively impact your sport performance skills because they build the desire and the enjoyment and the patterning and the, oh, just the, I guess I'm not quite sure what to call it, but the enjoyment of doing these things outside of that pressure cooker of the ring in a way where the criteria isn't as set in stone that the dog has some leeway and that the dog has a huge measure of enjoyment in these games because they're fun, because they're relaxed, because there's no pressure, because they're reinforcing while there are certainly goals to the games, all the games have a goal. Every single game in this class, there is a specific end goal to that game, but the games can be combined. The games, there are multiple uses for each game and there are multiple games for each specific use. And so it becomes, all of these become almost second nature to the dog that this is how we move through life. And then when we take these same games and start integrating

them into our sport training, now that same enjoyment, relaxed feeling and, uh, engagement goes right into our sport training as well. Wow. I said a lot and I'm not sure. I hope that all made sense. It made sense in my head as I was saying it. I think it made sense. And I think there's a lot there. So, um, let's, there is a lot there. Let's, let's pull it apart a little more. So, okay. So there are a lot of concepts that you work on. There are a couple of different ones you mentioned in there, but I know there are even more that we haven't necessarily specifically talked about. Then there are games for each of those concepts. So do you, do you like work through all of this with every single dog that you work with? Do you pick and choose kind of based on what the dog needs? How much is, you know, the dog in front of you? How much of it is like, let's lay good foundation for every, you know what I mean? Like you talked to us about that a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, I try to cover as many of them as I can with all of my dogs. That doesn't always happen, but there is value in every single one of these games. And some games I play more than other games, but I do try to touch on pretty much all of them. There are some games that are going to have more value in my sport training as well. And so, you know, I will move to those more. If I see that my dog, maybe my dog, for example, um, will, who you just heard, uh, adolescent male struggles with focus, right? So I want to play a lot of focus games with him, but focus games that can also allow him to move a lot as well. Because if I try to do a lot of stationary focus games with him, that will only frustrate him and it won't help to build, it won't help to allow him to practice that focus. We really, we want our dogs to practice focus. Focus is not, I don't consider focus a behavior. Focus is a state of mind. And so we can't reinforce focus like we can say eye contact. So attention, I consider a behavior. It's eye contact and I can reinforce that focus is a state of mind. So I want my dogs to be able to be in that state of mind and be able to practice that state of mind and build skill in that state of mind. So for Will, I like to do a lot of fun focus games that also include movement because he's a moving kind of guy guy. And he is not the kind of dog right now that is able to build lots of duration and behaviors. But by building those focus games, when I start to add that duration, it's going to be much easier for him to do that. So if I have a dog like Will, who is, um, you know, I call him an ants in his pants kind

of dog. If I started building duration to trying to build duration really early with him, he would just get frustrated. He wouldn't enjoy the training process. But if I can create focus games that allow for movement as well as for him to practice focus and build duration in those games, now I can transfer the concept of duration because that too is a concept. I can transfer that concept into some of the other behaviors that I'm going to need him to focus. It sounds to me, and certainly correct me if I'm misinterpreting your words, but it sounds like you try to cover all of the games with all of the dogs, but there are certain games that certain dogs need more of and other games that maybe they need less of. You want to introduce them to all the concepts, but some will be naturally stronger at some things you can focus on just where they need help. Exactly. And that's just like any other training that we do, right? There are some skills that our dogs are going to be naturals at. And so maybe we don't need to spend as much time on those particular skills. And then there are some games that our dogs are really, really going to struggle with where, yes, we want to spend time on them, but we need to spend the right kind of time on them. We don't want to be drilling them. We need to find ways that are going to motivate them to build strength in those skills that are lacking. But Julie, it's much more fun to just practice the things our dogs are good at and never ever think about the things. Well, you know, that's what's really cool about these games is that, yeah, it is really fun to train the things a dog is good at. And then we never get better at our weaker skills. But the cool thing is that all of these games are really fun. And if I have five games for one concept, maybe you and your dog find two or three of them are not very fun, but two or three of them are really fun. Then you practice those games and it's not like, you know, you're just practicing the same thing over and over again, right? Which is often what we tend to do because why we're very reinforced by our dogs doing well, right? So we tend to practice the things our dogs do well over and over again. So very reinforcing. But I think with these games, the fun thing about these games is that there's enough variety in them, that neither the dog or handler are going to get tired of them. If you get tired, that's the other thing with Will, like I can't stay on a single exercise for very long with him. So I have to give him a lot of variety in

these things. He has a very finite period of time that he's willing to give me his all. And that's because his all is a lot. And so he runs out of his all quickly. So by getting these little games in there, I can really actually build a lot of skill in terms of teaching him these concepts so that when he, as he matures, he already has groundwork there to build off of. So, and, and the fact that, you know, dogs find this fun and enjoyable and most important engaging with the handler. They can't do these games without the handler. And so we become an integral part of their enjoyment, which I think is huge. All right. So we kind of talked around it a little bit, but we haven't talked directly about the class itself. So let's do that. So in the February term, you have a new class that you've called Game Changer. Tell me a little more about the class. So what does it cover? Who should consider joining you? So this is going to be a really, really fun class. It's one I've thought about for a long time, putting on the schedule, and I just hadn't gotten around to compiling it until this term. And so what it does is it takes all these concepts that you and I've been talking about that I feel are really important for all dogs, not just sport dogs, but any dog. I think it's important for them to understand these concepts and using games and different activities to teach these concepts in a really fun, enjoyable, low pressure kind of way. So the games fall into several different categories. We talked about a few of them, tension and focus, engagement, proximity, recall, impulse control. We do some, a little bit of games for healing and loose leash walking. And all of these games also have the capacity to be a relief from pressure as well. So we're going to use games to teach foundation and concepts. So it doesn't matter if you are currently competing in a sport and maybe you just want to add a little more fun into your training. You need a little less pressure. You're at a point in your, in your sport career where things are getting kind of intense for you. And so you want to relieve some that pressure, but still maintain the skills and concepts. So this is a great class for that. Maybe you're new to training and maybe you have a pet dog and you really just want your dog to be a nice pet dog and be able to take him out and off leash and stay engaged with you in distracting settings. This is a great class for that. If, if maybe I've talked to a couple of handlers recently who have said, you know, I've really just lost interest in training a little bit. My dog seems bored with

training. He's not interested in the reinforcement anymore. So maybe you want to just spice that up again. Maybe you want to get that desire back into, you know, your training and, and have a little more fun with it where it's not, even I think sometimes now when we say, well, go train some tricks. Well, tricks are fun. I'm the first one to say that tricks are fun, but you know, we can get just as intense training our tricks as we can about training our sports skills, especially when you're in a sport where tricks are your sports skills. So having these games, uh, that maintain and build the skills, the same skills that you're going to want, but doing it in a fun, enjoyable, engaging, low pressure, uh, format is going to help you and your dog find that, I don't know, find that spark again, I guess, and just have fun with your dog again, just have fun doing the things your dog enjoys doing. Awesome. So you mentioned in there kind of those categories that you're bringing things up to, right? So I'm just reading from the syllabus here for a second. We've got construct games, attention games, proximity games, recall games, focus and impulse control games, engagement games, healing, loosely walking and distraction games. Okay. Wow. I feel, well, yes, there's a lot there. And also I feel like some of those are obvious, right? But some of those are maybe a little bit less. So can you just kind of touch on each one and kind of what we're talking with what they mean, like, right? Construct games. I'm not entirely sure what that means. Right. So construct games are fairly simple games and they're probably games that a lot of people are already aware of and already using in their training. And that's part of why they're called construct games. Construct game is a game that you can build off of and that will be used in a lot of the other games in a variety of ways. So for example, food bowling is what I consider a construct game because we can use it in a lot of different ways. We can use it in our recalls. We can use it in our resets. We can use it as a fun reinforcement. We can use it to work around distractions. And so that one simple game can be utilized in a lot of different ways to build other skills or concepts. So that's a construct game. Teaching the dog to go out and around a cone is a construct game because we can use it in combination with other games to create a lot of different skills. Hand touch is a construct game. To me, the hand touch is probably one of the most valuable games that I will ever use. And I think that while

people are aware of it, they don't use it to its full potential. So we're going to go over some of those ways that they can be used. Like you said, I think a lot of the games are fairly obvious. The engagement games, people struggle sometimes with what the heck? Engagement? Well, my dog is interacting with me. Isn't that engagement? Yes, but is the dog interacting with you? Or is the dog interacting with the food? Or is the dog interacting with the toys? And so I have a lot of different games that that dog is truly interacting and engaging with the handler. Some of the focus games that I have are actually engagement games, kind of, you know, hidden within there that the dog needs to engage heavily with the handler in order to play certain focus games. So we'll be getting into that a little bit. Let's see, what other games are, do you feel like maybe are not easily described here? We've got proximity, recall games, pretty obvious. Focus and impulse control, I think we have a general idea of. Healing and loose loose walking, I think that that maybe feels more like a sports behavior sometimes, but I believe you that there are fun games there. They are fun games there. And I think, especially with loose leash walking, I think that, well, both of them, you already know, I have a course called Joy of Healing, and it's all about healing games, specific healing games for the criteria that we want in healing. But not just the physical criteria of proximity and position and head carriage and all of that, but also the emotional criteria that we want. We want our dogs to feel joy when they're healing with us and not working so hard that we've sucked the joy out of that really beautiful skill. Loose leash walking games, I think that I'm going to give you a, I'm going to tell you a secret that now the whole world will know. My very first dog that I had as an adult, as hard as I tried, and this dog was a brilliant, this dog was a border collie. And as hard as I tried, I could not teach that dog to walk on a loose leash. And the reason I never taught that dog to walk on a loose leash, and that I just cussed every inch of every step of every walk I ever took with that dog, was because I didn't understand how to create scenarios where the dog wanted to walk with me on a loose leash. And we can say, yeah, well, that's great. All you have to do is just reward, reward, reward, reward, reward. Well, yes. And that will teach the dog to a certain extent. But if we really want a dog to choose to move with us, choose to move with me,

whether I have a leash on or not, choose to move with me, then that's where your proximity games come in and your loose leash walking games come in. Your recall games even come in with that. Because again, your recall is an up close personal behavior. It's not a distance behavior. So that's some of the ways that the different games can be used together, and how we might think of one game as a loose leash walking game or a proximity game when it's actually both. So it sounds like things in terms of integrating sounds like they kind of build on each other and weave in and out of some of these buckets as things come together. Totally. Totally weave in and out of them. And again, they can be combined with other games. They can be combined with games within the same category. So for example, in the class, I debated whether to do the coursework each week by category. For example, in week two, we focus on focus and impulse control games. Or do I do one from each category each week. But I really felt like in order to see the most amount of improvement in the shortest period of time, I want people to use the same category games in the same time period, so the dog gets the most amount of education from them and reinforcement from them. So you can really see a difference that week. This is the difference this set of games will make for you at this skill level, or this particular skill, rather than kind of bouncing around a little bit. Because I find that if you bounce around too much, then you're only going to get little bits and pieces of that skill. And you may not take it to fruition. We all are enamored with that acquisition phase of training, that first phase where the dog starts to get it. And we're like, woohoo, this is really fun. And there's a high rate of reward. But as soon as we start to increase our criteria and move to the next stage of that behavior, we kind of lose momentum because our dogs aren't doing as well as they were in that initial phase, because it was easy and it was heavily reinforcing. And now we're asking for a little bit more. And so a lot of times, when we are, when we train, when we're in training, we're training behaviors, the more skilled our dog gets at that behavior, the less we tend to focus on it. The more we move through the process of training that behavior, the less we tend to focus on it. So that when we get to the point where we need to generalize it with distractions or other difficulties, we don't want to work that part, because we see failures a lot, right? So with the games, here's the cool thing about the games is that we can work all of

the pieces of a behavior and not ever see failure. We don't see failure in games. We don't see a struggle with increasing criteria. It just doesn't happen when we're playing the games this way. So it's almost like every time you start a new game, you're at the acquisition phase again. But you're building on the same skill and that skill continues to improve, even though you've just started a new game with it. Awesome. I hope that made sense. You know, people when people start the class are going to go like, Oh, I get it now. This is what she was talking about. No, I think you've described it well. And I think I think it makes sense to me. So hopefully it makes sense to everybody listening. Yeah. Any kind of final thoughts on all this? Or maybe key points you kind of want to leave folks with? Um, boy, final thoughts on this is number one, I hope that you were able to muddle through my explanation here on this podcast. Number two, as you can tell, I'm pretty passionate about these games, I really enjoy playing them with my dogs. I enjoy seeing my dogs engage, choosing to engage in these games. And I enjoy the results that I get from these games without having to seemingly work at getting those particular skills. So I want people to come into this. Number one, the only expectation you should have coming into class is that you and your dog are going to have a great time. And you're going to your dog is going to look to you and try to get you to play these games with them. They are going to drive the process. And know that in the end, every single one of these games is going to benefit whatever sports skills you are currently working on, or whatever pet skills you are currently working on. I think the most important part of this particular class is getting both dogs and handlers that have maybe, I don't know, felt a little lacking in their training, like, I got to go work my dog today. Yeah, I don't want you to feel that way. I don't want your dog to feel that way. I don't, I don't want to feel that way. And I think that this class will get you to, man, I can't wait to get out and play that game today. And I can't wait to see what that game is going to do for us. Awesome. It brings that joy back. It's all about that joy. It does. I mean, isn't that why we all started training our dogs? Because it was super fun. And as we continue to train new skills, and our dogs continue to learn, it became more fun. And for some people, me included, I've been through bouts of this, sometimes it can become a chore, a little bit of a chore. And so we take a break. It's not unusual for many

trainers. I think I need to take a break from training for a while. I just need to go have some fun with my dog. Well, this one, you don't need to take a break from training because it's all training. And number two, you are totally going to have some fun with your dog in this class. Sweet. All right. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Julie. You bet. It was fun. It is fun. And thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week. 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. Today's show is brought to you by the Fendi Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fendi for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty-free by bensound.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 is brought to you by the Fendi Dog Sports Academy. Today's show is brought to you by the Fendi Dog Sports Academy. Thank you.