1분 훈련 세션을 통해 명확성, 자신감, 차분한 사고를 반려견에게 심어주는 방법 #274

And by that, I mean they might get invigorated and get more frantic and frustrated in the training environment. So, it could be the environment. It could be the criteria you've set. It could be the way that you're holding the props that you have included in your training. Maybe you're a little awkward and uncomfortable with that and you're dropping things. It could be the way that you're delivering the reinforcement you're giving. It could be the use of or the improper use of the location-specific markers that you've chose to use. So, those are five key things. Now, there's probably a lot of other things, but if you focus on those five key things, how you've manipulated the environment, the criteria that you've selected, the reinforcement you have decided to use, the location-specific marker, how you're holding your tools and what tools you're using. Now, that might be six things, but you get my point. If you consider all of those things, now you can identify why your dog is failing in that one minute evaluation. So, I set a timer, I get my dog, I play with my dog. That is to change my dog's emotional state. That's a given. If I can't do that, get my dog focused and engaged, I'm not moving on to the training. My one minute starts when I've decided my dog is in the right zone of genius. They're emotionally ready to go. Then I set my timer and we move right into the training. Now, you might be training something like backup or retrieve. It could be even something as simple as crate games or hot zone. Whatever it is you're training, you're evaluating those areas of dog training that may be limiting your dog's ability to learn. Sometimes I set my timer for one minute and after 10 seconds, I stop the timer, give my dog a toy. We stop that session. I put the dog up, then I go back to the lesson plan that I've set up for that session and I go, well, I have to change these things. And so, the, oh, I have to change these things have led to lesson plans in my Homeschool the Dog Recallers and Handling 360 programs that have limited mistakes for my students that have brought clarity to those dogs. Because if the correct choice is obvious to the dog, then guess what? They're going to get more reinforcement every time they work with you. If they get more reinforcement every time they work with you, guess what else? They are choosing correct, which means their confidence about that skill is going to grow, which means they're going to love training with you because they're getting a transfer of value to the whole training game. And the opposite is true.

If you're not using that 60 second evaluation period, then you may not have clued in that you've created too much challenge by the vastness of the environment that you're training in. Or your criteria may include how many dogs are in the environment that you're training in and what time of day is it? And what other distractions are there for the dog? So, you've overwhelmed the dog and therefore they're failing. Now, if you aren't intentional about this one minute session, here's what might happen. You just jump into a training session and your dog is not successful. Maybe they're distracted and you might get a little frustrated and you might try to help with some verbal coaching. Hey, hey, hey, come on over here. Come on over here. What are you doing? What are you doing over there? That's crazy. That's not like you. And then you get the dog back in. Remember, your dog's behavior is just feedback for you. But if you choose to ignore that feedback, you're more likely to go into a verbal lure. Hey, hey, hey, get back over here. Leave it, leave it. Come on, we're doing something. And so, you ignore that feedback and you try to coax the dog or coach the dog back to the training. And then when they don't jump in and offer something because they've tried something a few times and it didn't work, you might then start to body lure, clap your hands, slap your legs, say, push the object you want them to interact with. Hey, look at what's this, what's this? You might even put a cookie on top of it to lure them towards the correct answer. If you had just done a one-minute evaluation, you could have stopped and said, there was too much failure. Is it the environment? Did I not set up an environment that created success? Was it the criteria? Was I lumping? Was I waiting for the dog to do too much? Or were the distractions in the environment too tempting? Was it the reinforcement I chose to use? Was it how I was holding all of these tools and trying to get to the dog? Or was it my location specific markers the dog really didn't have an understanding of, therefore it added more confusion to the dog? Anything could be possible, but if you have set a timer and if you also have videoed your training, you can stop the timer, grab the video, look at what happened in that session, and you're going to go, wow, I didn't even notice how many times my dog tried something and they got it wrong and they didn't get reinforcement. Now for some dogs, they might keep trying and trying and trying. For others, they might just stop and walk off and sniff. And yet others might just get more

frantic and start tearing the place apart. Your one-minute evaluation will avoid any of those possibilities. Because when that timer goes off, you're going to stop the timer. You're going to play with your dog. You're going to put the dog up. You might look at your video. You might not. I might not. I might go, that was a freaking awesome session. My dog nailed it. It was amazing. I'm going to jump back in, set my timer for two or three minutes, and I'm going to go back and do it again. You might say that. Or you might say, I think I could tweak one thing. I think I could help make just this one thing a little clearer. Or after one-minute evaluation, you may say, I made that way too easy. He got like 12 reinforcement in one minute. And that's never a bad thing, giving the dog a lot of extra reinforcement. But you might put them up and say, what's another layer that I can add to this? It's just going to give my dog a little bit of an extra challenge. One-minute evaluation. Now I mentioned, there will be a time when I will choose not to use my one-minute evaluation. What does that look like? If I am just practicing a skill my dog really knows, I will obviously set a timer, but I won't set a timer to evaluate the setup. Because if it's a skill my dog already knows, my lesson plan will include how many distractions I've had before, how many I have now. So, I'll just go out and rehearse what we've done in the past. It's highly unlikely I'll need a one-minute timer for that. I'm not saying don't do it. If you want to get into a good dog training habit and set a one-minute timer every time, I don't see the harm in that with one little asterisk. Dogs are brilliant at figuring out ends of sessions if you use a timer. What I like to do is either stop my timer before the alarm goes off, or stop it when the alarm goes off, but keep training for a random amount of time. It might be five seconds. It might be 20 seconds. It might be 10 seconds. So that the dog's hearing alarm doesn't predict a terminal end to their fun. Now with a one-minute evaluation, it shouldn't be a terminal end. You should just be evaluating what's going on and making an adjustment and getting back to training. However, if it was a bit of a disaster one minute, well, ideally if it was a bit of a disaster, you would have stopped it long before one minute. But if it wasn't a really good evaluation in one minute, you might have to put the dog up, reconstruct your environment, set the antecedents so that the dog does have success,

so that your training does grow their confidence, so that the dog does learn to love to train with you. And look, I get it. For more years in my life, I've been a professional dog trainer than I have been alive and not been a professional dog trainer. So for me, this is natural and it's just something I do automatically. And it might not feel natural to you, but why not take a page out of a successful professional dog trainer's book and just try this for two weeks. I bet after two weeks, you will have created a new habit that you will stick to. Remember, you don't have to do it every time. Don't see the harm in maybe not doing it every time, but you really need to do it, especially when you're teaching a new skill or if you're a relatively new trainer. Because I promise there will be something you will need to tweak about your mechanics, the way you deliver reinforcement, the rate of the reinforcement, the placement of the reinforcement, there will be something that you can get better at by doing the one-minute evaluation. If you're a relatively new trainer, or you're a trainer that you feel has the potential for a lot of growth ahead of you as a dog trainer. One-minute evaluations, 60 seconds that will change your life as a dog trainer. Now, I would love to hear from you. I would love it if you will go and whatever you were training yesterday, the last thing you trained, go back, set the environment, set a timer, do a one-minute evaluation, jump over to my YouTube channel, and let me know what that looked like for you. Did it feel awkward and uncomfortable? Did it improve your dog's ability to get more reinforcement and grow more confidence? If so, I hope you're proving it to yourself. 60 seconds is a worthy investment. I'll see you next time right here on Shaped by Dog. Tang Tang