에피소드 7 - '액티브 독(Active Dog)'

different way you're going to look at it differently right just like um you're GNA now you're going to looking at it because when you when I especially when I first you know we had the same homework um but when I was first watching like the movies I was just watching them not through the lens of like a dog trainer right I was just watching them because we had to watch them right after going to the school and then I went back and watched them again right and that's where now I started seeing everything through a dog training like a training lens right and how every part of the movies had to do with dog training right and what we were learning so and what has to do with nap po right it was it was that's the and I I encourage everybody to go back and and go through the homework again you will notice things differently after going to Silver than you did before yep at least that was for me I don't know if everybody will do the same but that was that was it for me yeah yeah it was really good and this is actually kind of a nice segue into our topic of uh conversation for today's episode um because again we found that there were students there having really dove into the homework it showed the fact that they were very engaged and prepared they had a lot of ignition right obviously taking from the Talent Code the focus on ignition as a requirement for Learning and creating Talent so that leads us to our conversation for today's uh or for for today's topic and and I want to kind of set the stage with asking you a question about what does it take to train a dog really well or and this could be simultaneously you can think about like how does learning take place right it could be a student in a in a lecture or a classroom or it could be a dog in a training a training situation like what is what's what is probably the biggest requirement for successful learning and behavioral acquisition well like one thing is that the dog the person they have to want to be there right they have to want to be there so that if you don't want to be there you're not going to learn anything right you know which kind of goes to dogs if their motivation is elsewhere they're not going to learn what you're trying to to teach them right but at the same time you don't want a going to dogs you don't want a dog where you are having to push it all the time right where what you want is an active dog yeah yeah so that it it's engaged it's active it's wanting to do things and then whatever you try to do after that point is going to be you know relatively easy as far as getting things done right yeah I think Bart had a good had an active dog at the silver school right

Kashi yeah you know he one of his sayings you know his examples of ignition activity an active dog he says don't expect to push your car to the racetrack and win right meaning if the tank is empty and you have to if you have to push your car to get to the racetrack you're not going to win the race right you have to have that full tank that that gasoline has to be present there has to be that ignition other trainers you know across the industry are going to refer to that as uh engagement they want engagement from the dog right they talk about the the need for engagement most people when they say engagement what they mean is they want I they want the the personal relationship with the dog they want to see the dog personally like engaging with you giving you eye contact saying that they're focused on you but top training goes deeper than than engagement because without motivation you have no engagement right like if you're not a source of reward or uh if you're not perceived as the gatekeeper for something that the dog wants or or or you know has value in there's no engagement so so a level deeper than engagement is motivation and that's where dog trainers need to focus and that's motivation or call it ignition right Bart and Michael are ignition trainers they teach you how to create the desire to just just come spilling out of the dog and when you have that then training can begin and and it can be very successful it can also be very fast right yeah yeah exactly I that's and it kind of goes to like like said active dog ignition they're kind of going together um they kind of go together the difference I think is ignition is just the desire like to do something right yep it's the desire um whereas activity or an active dog is the manifestation of a dog's level of ignition yeah and it going into wanting to do things right you know right for whatever reason it is so that that you know a natural followup to that question so it takes activity right active dog the saying goes active dog reactive Handler reactive trainer or reactive owner right that's that's the construct we want to find ourselves in before training begins so that we don't end up like you said pushing our dog and like forcing the dog into the box or into a cookie cutter system in order to get it trained yeah so first you need ignition the dog wants to do something and then you need an active dog and active dog to me means the dog is trying to figure things out so what what are signs of that like what what are signs that a dog is trying to figure something out or what are signs of an active dog to you so for nap po it's the dog that's trying to push you to get you

to uh give it reward food ball to better its own situation right yeah exactly so that's a dog that's looking how can I better my own situation how can I get you the Handler the trainer to do what I want so I can better my own situation right that's that's an active dog yep um but the the difference I mean a lot of people will have active dogs and there's a difference with an active dog that has been shaped first and an active dog that has only been lured and what you see in the difference is the the Lord dog will only offer behaviors that it has learned and it will cycle through those behaviors and people can do that just go out and just go out wherever you're going to train with your dog if you've only had a lur dog right go out give it a reward for nothing if it's ball food whatever and then get the reward if it's a ball get the ball back if it's food you don't have to but and then just stop and do nothing just sit there and watch your dog most dogs that have been lured they'll start offering the behaviors that they've been lured in to a sit a down a stand they may come close to you in the front right if you've taught that whatever they've learned already they will start offering and they'll just cycle through those behaviors because they're like they they are trying to push you too right they are an active dog but there's no creativity right all they can offer is what they've learned you know so that makes me think of so I've got a dog and and its owner Handler in my sits in club and the dog is phenomenal the dog has a super protection routine the dog's a super tracker and uh the one thing we've always struggled with is uh it can be hit or miss in obedience meaning the level of activity right that sometimes the dog comes out really strong with the motion other days it's a little tempered and a little bit more moderate in its in its ignition or the level of drive that it shows in The Obedience and we've been you know trying to get consistency because that's what we need before we commit to going to a trial is we need to have a level of confidence knowing that this dog will be where we want it to be in its obedience phase and so in training we we've really thrown the kitchen sink at the situation trying to come up with new ways to do it and and I was like you know what look Behavioral Science says that reward behaviors you want you know provide consequences for unwanted behaviors however when it comes to like the drive the ignition the the temperament the the emotion of the dog just like what you were saying is I'm like okay we're GNA take a step back from formal training this dog and we're

just going to break a we're just going to break a bunch of rules here we're just going to go out and reward this dog for free right we're going to have no Corrections no consequences when it looks away no consequences when it does doesn't do perfectly and we're going to just pump this dog up with good feelings right and in a matter of a couple weeks you know like I we started doing that like you know a few weeks ago and then I saw the dog you know maybe last week and the dog's emotion had changed now there's a lot that we need to tighten up now but the dog is really feeling itself and is really powerful and and I said look this is we're moving the needle in the right direction let's keep going and they're like you sure I'm like yeah like it'll be easier to squeeze a lemon you know you can juice lemon when there's juice in it but you can't squeeze the lemon if there's no juice in it um and so it's worked really well but it it does go against some of the Behavioral Science constructs where it's like oh reward what you want provide consequences for what you don't want you you kind of got to step outside of that um and it's dealing with this active dog situation and I like that you brought that up because you know rewarding for no reason gives the dog a lot of Hope and that's what that's that's what it does yes and uh I mean some people just might say that's engagement but there's a difference between engagement usually when people say engagement they reward their dog for engaging with them right right whereas the difference for what you're saying is you're just giving it I don't care if you engage with me like I'm just gonna reward you out of nowhere exactly and that's what that's what we've been doing with the dog it's like even if the dog is not correct in the behavior we're still rewarding the dog and it's like the dog is like surprised by it and it's actually lift you can see a noticeable lift in the in the spirit of the dog yeah but that's where they're going back to like aart saying where he said just oh if you want to make something stronger right a behavior just all the rewards go to that behavior right it doesn't matter if it's shitty if it's good if it's perfect if it's not just reward it for anything it does with that behavior and you will see that the dog starts loving that behavior and that's the key right right is loving what you're doing and loving the behaviors right it's all about creating love for the behavior and there's nothing again we've had a a lot of comments about different methodologies and different camps and schools and things like that um there's nothing wrong with

like a dog who loves to work for its owner there's nothing wrong with that there's and again a byproduct of good dog training is a good relationship so if you're doing if the if the method is good you'll have the byproduct will be a good relationship with your dog right but I think you can go beyond you don't have to make that the the relationship with the dog does not need to be the end all be all because you can still have the relationship and go beyond that and get love of behavior without sacrificing the dog's view of the relationship it has with you yeah but I think we talked about that before was does the dog love doing behaviors for you or does it love doing the behaviors in general you know so that's if because if I if I uh train a dog to love the behaviors and then we do have a relationship right there's no way we can't okay if I hand that dog off to you he's going to want to work for you because now you are having him do the behaviors he loves doing anyway right you know whereas I think the other way it's like the dog is like no I only want to work for you agreed so yeah you you can do train either way I think you just have to look at the the end outcome right if you're training say if you're training a dog for other people you don't need the relationship with you as much the relationship will come but you want the dog loving the behavior so when then when their owners are giving the commands they're going to they're going to do them because they love them right they love and the same thing correct yes the a dog trained through a relational construct it's a very difficult it's not a transferable dog because the relationship can't be transferred and projected onto somebody else right um and that that also that goes for reinforcement and creating good behaviors it also goes for punishment right you can't transfer reliable behaviors that have been punished if they've done been done so using the relationship to punish the behavior right if the dog doesn't find other reasons to keep itself in check the same can be said of punishment right it's an interesting conversation but we've already kind of hashed that out but I I I did want to ask you these are all signs of an active dog like the dog that's acting on its ignition a dog that's like making trying to find things make things happen shows creativity like how do you develop that how do you develop that in a dog that doesn't have that well go let me take a step back because we we talked about a lord dog right that's going to be offering the behaviors it has learned right the difference with a shaped dog is that it will be offering other

things it will start looking around and saying how what do I have to do to impress you get to get you to react to me right so the dog is saying what can I do to make my Handler active because that's what it is right we react to the dog and they may offer some behaviors they know depending on the picture but they will quickly go to offering new things depending on the environment they're in right they may go try to touch stuff they may try to climb on stuff go under stuff but they're they're thinking they're creative you know and I think that's where the difference in activity goes um like between the two dogs uh now going to what was what was the question you said again how how do you how do you develop an active dog like what what things do you do to develop that activity in a dog who maybe maybe you find yourself um so we've kind of talked about the signs of an active dog what it looks like how to identify an active dog if the dog is truly active or not but what if you identify that the dog you're working with is not as active as you need for the training that you're about to set set out to do or the goals that you have for the dog what can you do to Dev that two things you can do one is that you can like kind of like what you did with the other dog but like you can go out with a dog and just reward it for um trying to like trying to push you right like I go out to a field go to our training area and just like keep walking away from the dog keep walking away from the dog and when the dog comes around is like hey what are you doing reward right then you walk away from the dog the dog comes back to you reward um so the dog is becoming active and trying to make you give the reward reward to them okay the other way was just introduce shaping but not shaping necessarily for specific behaviors you know like sit down stand whatever just shaping in general put have a you know your aquarium which like if people don't know what aquarium is it's just an area that is your classroom yeah a classroom an area that doesn't have much to interact in you can make it Terra right and put something in that area that's different new and let reward the dog for starting to interact with that thing you know and then you will see the dog when they start getting it they start getting creative and there's there's ways to shape you know you don't want to stay on uh one thing for too long if it's something that you're not going to keep anyway uh but it's that's how you create that active dog trying to figure things out so creating value in interacting with its environment right correct that's a good way to put it teaching the dog that

there's value in the environment so it's worth exploring its environment instead of just sitting and minding its own business you want it to explore the world what comes to mind for me like I mean in young puppies like sometimes people have brought puppies and I'm like look this dog's not ready to train because he's so just he's either timid or he's not he's just not interested he's not motivated for anything and so what you know the things that you should do like a list of dos and don'ts about developing active an active dog well first of all make sure that you're not punishing a puppy you know for things you kind of got to let the dog like you said create that confidence in its environment that it has to be willing to explore right you know and what's the first puppies do when they get home they start chewing on rugs they start you know scratching you know jumping on furniture and people jump to no no no no right they want to tell the dog no yes and that's that's the thing is like when you put too much control at a young age you kill that creativity right you kill that activity too yeah it's it's you're telling you're punishing the dog for being active when that's the key ingredient for good training yep exactly right but that's where like uh with a puppy you want to control its environment so that you don't always have to keep telling it no you know exactly that's the way you get away from it is you control the environment you put it in a place where you won't have to say no and it can still be happy go-lucky it's a padded room of sorts you know um where hey man knock yourself out be as active as you want because I know you're not going to hurt yourself you're not going to damage anything and I'm not going to care about your level of activity so I don't have to tell you no so exactly that's why kennels become so effective is like if you can't supervise the dog put him in the kennel and then when you can supervise the dog you can take him to appropriate locations where he can have that outlet and not have to worry about you know being yeah yeah curbing that curbing that level of activity and a young dog can can really just kill their Drive yeah with puppies like the be careful about punishing a puppy for being too active right A lot of people like oh my puppy's crazy right like and your your advice is the best advice it's like make sure you control the environment that they're in so that you can avoid having to tell them no right or punishing punishing their activity because a dog's not going to know they're just being a dog what I tell people too is like your dog when it first comes into your home it does not know the

rules if you you don't set any rules to for it to follow it's going to make up its own rules right so it doesn't know it's not allowed to choose something that's Furniture it doesn't know the difference right that's where your management comes in to show them no you cannot chew on this but not by you know applying any punishment it's just by managing them and saying just you know not letting them start in in the first place avoid yeah avoiding the battle is the best way to win yeah but then going the opposite of the active dog right if you're a pet owner and you don't want that active dog right right now you're going to do the opposite you're going to actually is is not let the dog be active not reward it for being active you know you're going to reward it for the opposite yeah Cal from being calm yeah so it just it goes like whatever you want do you want your activity yeah that's for everything correct you have to know the advantages and disadvantages of everything because the same thing can be used to make a dog active and it can also be used to calm them down right so another thought that comes to mind about like again because creating activity is really difficult uh the the kind of activity that we're talking about and you know so another another way to do that is you know waiting till the dog is ready to train that's one of the hardest things for owners or handlers or trainers to do is wait till the dog is ready before you start training because most of the time we take a dog into the program and if we're training we want to start training immediately because half the time that's what we're getting paid for and then also it's the dopamine rush for the for the human involved in that scenario because we like training we want to train right so we want to be going through the motions of Click pay or yes hey good boy Rah RW the dog all that stuff it gives us that dopamine release right um but if the dog isn't ready for that and showing that hey I want to be part of this like he he he like if he doesn't show that he understands his actions influence his environment the time is not right or as B and Michael say the water is not boiling and you you shouldn't begin to cook spaghetti correct yeah that's that's perfect and I think everybody at some point falls into that trap that you just get the dog and just start training and then it's not as strong the dog doesn't actually want to train you know and you're that goes back to what we said in the beginning where now you're pushing now you're pushing the dog you know whereas you create that activity first well through ignition first create ignition and then create

the activity and then the dog is wanting to figure out things so that learning comes easy yeah so an example of waiting till the dog is ready to train is okay so maybe you get up in the morning you let the dog out dog goes potty comes in has breakfast um and then maybe you have to get on a morning work call do some meetings or or whatever and then you come back midday and that's when you have like a chunk of time maybe during lunch or something to train the dog but by then it's like snooze time for the dog and the dog's not ready and you but you're like well this is the only time I have the train you go outside with the dog and the dog is still sleepy maybe it's not interested in training and you start going through the motions of you know whatever it is that you're working on you might need to consider training at a different time where the dog is actually ready a lot of times for most dogs they're always happy and energetic first thing in the morning so like taking advantage of that activity level first thing in the morning maybe adjusting your schedule waking up a little bit earlier to train a dog one of so my malinoa when I first had him right I really wanted an explosive dog so I trained first thing in the morning he I mean he's always ready to go but he was even more so after a night in the kennel and he just wouldn't stop and even putting him away after 30 20 20 to 30 minutes of you know some of some training he was still like trying to pull me back to the to the yard to go back and keep working you know so managing your time is going to be important finding out when is your dog most active and take advantage of that time and let him think he's in control of you yes right yeah that's that's the thing is and people fall into that because they feel like okay I have to get so many repetitions in you know I have to get this dog train trained I have to get the repetitions in but if the dog doesn't is not really you know engaged or whatever then you're not getting any repetitions in any way that's what thing came to mind was when you create an an active dog they are every time you're ready to go they're ready to go right they're always like active because now they control they feel like they control things and for you it's what you just said is super important because it's it's the quality over quantity and I had to go through that I had to go through several years before I even arrived at that understanding where nowadays I'll take a couple quality repetitions and end the training there over thinking that the number of reps matters right I would take five excellent repetitions of performance of behavior over 25

mediocre repetitions because my mindset has changed the quality sticks better with the dog right repetition does not have what I thought it the value it had before and now I now I prioritize quality over quantity and seeing better results training in in L of time but to take that as step further what it is is when when the dog is First Learning okay you have to do less repetitions you do less and you increase repetitions as the dog learns say a particular behavior and once the dog knows the behavior and you've created love for the Behavior now you can do as many repetitions as you want because the dog loves doing it just like if you love doing something you will do it all day long right if you don't love doing something you get bored right away or you're like you move on to something else and it's the same thing do shorter repetitions less repetitions as the dog is learning and then once the dog knows and the key thing loves the Behavior now you can just ask for it all day long and it'll keep doing it right and that's the difference in numbers of repetitions when you're training is where the dog is in the learning process you know um and the other thing you can do is just go out and like push your dog away like no leave me alone leave me alone leave me just keep pushing away until it's like hey let's do something right right and that's that that active dog always be pushing you right so that's uh that's that's good what you said yeah it's interesting the evolution we take in our personal Journeys and and finding these things out because you hear them in and now it really sinks in and I I hear it differently even though I've been told this for so long you know yeah well there's truth in that where you can hear the same thing you know 10 times but then the 11th time when you hear it even though it's the same thing it it you're finally in a position to understand it and to let it like when I think about an active dog right what are another sign of an active dog is a dog that anticipates good things in its life right so like that that shows itself and manifests itself in a dog who maybe before you even grab the leash off of the wall to go for the walk maybe he comes and sits right next to you in anticipation of you putting the collar on or the harness or whatever you're using anticipation is a really good thing a lot of people have problems with anticipation and and they look at it but they look at it as a bad thing anticipation is a good problem to have right because what it means is that the dog has value in the reward event whether that's a behavior whether that's an opportunity or whether it's some form

of reinforcement they value what is about to happen and and it's a good thing well well yeah and they're telling you you that they understand they're starting to understand what's going to happen you know and how to influence what happens how to make it happen so like for example let's talk about igp right dogs who maybe they're you're walking and they sit before you tell them to sit because you always reward them to sit you know like in the sit out of motion exercise um and the dog like sits before you tell it to sit people like oh H they they think of as as a bad problem and maybe they go to correct the dog for sitting before they told it to sit but really that's not the correct way to deal with that that problem correcting the anticipated behavior is only going to make you worse off yes and that's where it it's you have to differentiate with the anticipation is and that's where uh the thing that comes to mind is what I heard from Bart too is if your dog anticipates to reward it stop training and figure out why he anticipated right is it because he's excited like you said he's like I know what this is and I want to get to it faster right or is it the picture you've you've shown him is it something you've shown him where he's like oh I think I know what's coming because of the picture so what I've done in the past with dogs that anticipate and again when they do anticipate I'm happy because I'm like oh they really they know that this behavior is it influences their environment it makes it increases their advantage in their in their life right what I've done to solve the problems and what works really well is you reward the dog before they anticipate before the dog sits from a heel I reward in the heel and the dog gets value and you balance the skills maybe there's too much weight on the sit and not enough weight on the heel and then you bring into balance and now the dog is just going to wait until you tell it to do the thing you want it to do maybe that's continue healing maybe that's a sit a down a stand or maybe it's a send out but the solution to anticipation is rewarding before the dog anticipates and then they think to themselves oh I was wrong maybe that's not because you're you're disrupting the pattern so the usually uh well not usually a lot of times anticipation comes because you've created pattern right yeah for like in igp if you always say sit at your 12th step sure right your dog is gonna anticipate that they're counting and then they're just gonna sit because they that's the that's the routine is I sit on my 12th Pace yeah and maybe they can't count but they're going by where you are on the

field and maybe this second this time you started a little bit fur you know uh further back than where you normally start so the dog is looking at the picture of the field be like oh we always sit when you get to about this point right so instead of him counting they're just looking at the picture and that's where in your training that's why you have to stop and think and say why did my dog anticipate is it a pattern I created yeah you know or is it something else and then you can go and say okay I will pay I will sit at Step 11 next time I'll sit at 14 next time at 12 next time at 13 just so that the dog doesn't know when it's coming but has an idea so he'll still kind of be ready to sit but he won't sit without you saying the word sit but this goes back to and back to n poo is like we don't want the dog queuing off of visuals I mean there's there's times when you do want that but the goal of good dog training is verbal Q listen to my words do it on Q every time with heart and soul right do it on Q don't do it until you're queed to do it right so don't even though anticipation is not a bad thing don't we don't want him to anticipate because maybe there's a reason we want to walk further for the igp People Too say you always want to do the sit out of motion on step 12 right that's where in training you always do it on Step 13 so so what happens in the and then in the trial is the only time you do it on 12 right whereas the dog is it's anticipating it's coming and then it comes right I I don't know if if that would work or not I think it would depend on the dog but that's an idea yeah because it's always the dog knows it's coming because it's getting close and he's ready to do it and you go boom right that would stop you from uh from them anticipating and sitting before you said sit which I don't know how many points do you lose for that if you lose any I mean if the dog doesn't sit if it sits before you say sit oh well if you see the dog well here's here's the thing if you see the dog starting to sit before you say you better quickly say sit because if you say it before the dog goes down I think there you might be able to get away with it if the judge isn't really paying too much attention but if the dog sits and you're like a pace away from it and you're like oh sit that now you're losing points right um but that's why then you have to look you have to be looking down a little bit too well I mean keep it in your peripheral vision but if you see your dogs start to sit even if you haven't gone the required Paces I would rather say sit you know really fast and loud then and get get commented on oh you you you made

the dog sit too early you might not lose points for that versus if the dog sits before you sold a sit then then you've got a problem which is that's that's a whole conversation you see that in the blind search that the dog before the person says rever right it's already turning towards the other blind right because of that anticipation right because they know the drill is just go to Blind blind blind blind but really it's go to the blind search come back to the Handler and then the Handler directs you to which blind you're supposed to go to but the dog just gets the because they know that they've run six blinds 100 times in their life leading up to that trial so they just go on autopilot but what what you should see is the dog that returns in the direction of the Handler and then gets redirected to the next blind and so you should it should be straight blind blind to Blind it should be blind Handler blind correct right yep um and same thing for hunting dogs like the dog needs to come back to the hunter to receive further instruction right y or the service dog or the service dog so yeah don't don't punish a young dog's activity level or for being too active work around the time where the dog is most active and utilize that to capitalize and then the dog's start going to start understanding like you said his influence his ability when he wants something from his environment the environment responds in in kind right so active dog reactive environment active dog reactive Handler the I think the reason this and this actually this concept of an active dog was really difficult for me personally to wrap my head around when I was first getting into dog training and I heard about the active dog reactive Handler because I think everyone's perception at least in the pet side of things as an owner you think oh I want to tell my dog something and I want him to react to what I'm telling him right so so they have that mentality and they think oh a good trained dog should respond or React to what the Handler is doing but it's it and that's what you get that's what I got really I got stuck on that I was like how can how is the dog gonna be obedient if he's active right and and I'm reacting to my dog how can I get an obedient dog it's not about the response to the cues it's about the the dog always being willing to perform the behavior he's told to perform and you only get that with a dog who thinks that they are the active one and they're environment is reactive yeah right but I think everyone for the same reason like when they hear active dog reactive Handler it's hard for them to grasp that concept because in their mind they want

their dog to listen to them which we do too I mean we can't go to trial and tell our dog to sit and the dog doesn't sit we lose points right we can't tell the dog to out and the dog doesn't out and it loses points right um so we do need to have that level of control but we we want the in desire of the dog to we want the dog to think it's his idea and he's getting we're giving him the opportunity because he's bullying us saying hey tell me to bite tell me to bark tell me to retrieve this duck tell me to you know touch the the elevator button or tell me to bring you a backpack right yeah yeah and then also the thing is you also don't want that all the time with certain dogs absolutely you can put that activity on Q you know either with like say igp putting on the the first saer right right or some the Ring Sports taking off a collar M uh or a que like uh in free shaping like I I did before I would say are you ready to go to work right or even for training a verbal cue like that or you WR it at work um something that tells the dog now I want you to be or as Bart said in this last school and I've heard him say it before but he he just reminded me of it again in this last silver School putting on a certain cologne to cue the dog into a certain that they're about to you know only train wearing a certain cologne and then go to trial wearing that same cologne yeah but he he talked about that I heard that from him I don't know I think it was the first time I heard him speak was 2015 but you put have three different for igp sure right you have tracking obedience and protection you have to be disciplined but what you do is you put a different say Cologne you have three different colar three different F saers or whatever and you put a different cologne on for each collar that has to do with tracking one cologne for tracking one cologne for obedience one cologne for protection and because in igp you can do it because they're all separated right you don't go from one to the other so you can have a Ziploc bag Ziploc bags with your tracking collar your obedience collar your protection collar and they have the scent because we know scent is like very strong for a dog right it it they probably the strongest of all the senses um and now but you have to do it in training before you go out to track to train you put on that collar with that scent and then when you're done you take it off and then when you before you go on the field for obedience you put on that collar right or it's not just in the trial but in training but that's the the hardest part is the discipline to do it in training so if you do any obedience here comes the caller right

right then if you're going to switch to protection in that same training session you take off that collar put on the protection collar so now that emotion for that particular uh phase is there because of the smell of the collar right right yeah um and the the the last thing about you know developing an active dog is you know dogs that have good motivation in either food or toy or something as long as you have their focus on you and they're like willing to interact with you the withholding of something of value can also be a good motivator right it can it can make them more active right it's like if my dog knows I have the ball and I haven't brought it out or I haven't told him to do something he's like spinning up like a his the turbo in his engine is you know it's like spooling up yeah because you're creating the frustration right right and that frustration gets their blood going in everybody dogs and people yeah yep perfect um you know those hopefully those are helpful to the viewers and you know the people watching this hopefully that's gives you some ideas and ways to think about active dog you just mentioned why why an active dog may not be necessary like you mentioned comp companionship dogs dogs trained for service work where you can't have a an Innovative dog you just need a very rot dog a dog going through certain motions or certain routines you know seeing eye dogs like you know can't be too creative you know um that would be a disaster yeah they have to not necessarily be creative but they have to be able to think in certain instances right totally uh but I'm I'm going to see a dog today it's a puppy and and the one of the owners is in a wheelchair so yeah we're going to train him differently than if we're training a sport dog you know because we don't want certain things from that dog and that's other thing with shaping right to create that activity for somebody that's in a wheelchair they're not able to lure certain things right right so they can still go and a dog with that's where the shaping comes in where they can sit in their chair you know they don't have to get up if if they can even get up uh and they can have the dog learn things away from them you know which is kind of what you're going to need for service dog when you're in a chair because you're going to have to have the dog go away from you to do certain things from being it from opening a door to picking things up right to um uh getting new things right that you may need um medicine for diabetic alert dog sure right so uh yeah there's a lot of lot of times you want an active dog and a lot of times you don't want a completely

active dog so I'm just trying to think is there is there a style of training where active dog is not required when you say style like method um I don't know I think a lot of igp people they just do the routines right they only train the routine and that's it there's nothing else I think with with that you don't need an active dog like it's just you the dog is going to know what's coming and doesn't have to think even it just knows what's coming you've created is that best is that best for the outcome of going to trial where there's less control over the dog do you can you can you confidently move to that stage and feel good about what you're about to go on the field and do if that's been the case um I don't know I think it leads I think that leads to problems because it kind of creates a little bit I think it may create a little bit flatter dog and now because the person sees the dog is flat now they try to inject that you know more energy in the dog and now you get conflict and problems instead of from the beginning just creating that active dog uh and you know then going in not it it knows everything to do and it's waiting for you to tell it what to do instead of anticipating everything you know right yeah so what are your takeaways what what what what what would you say are your biggest takeaways for people listening in and it's know what you're trying to accomplish you know and if you have um too much of an active dog it can be a headache if you don't have it on Q right if you don't have a a time where you can tell your dog to relax then going to always be trying to do something right it's always it's going to try to be active because it thinks it controls everything right you know so it's it's no what you're trying to accomplish and use that um as the starting point meaning do you want a more active dog or less active you know do you want the dog to only follow directions or you want the dog to be thinking yeah and being creative uh and that's all it is I mean in general for all training is just figure out where you want to be at the end and that's you start with that in mind y you know um it's a shorter one today but yeah it doesn't downplay the significance of this topic um I don't think there's it's not a lot covered there's there's clearly a lot covered about ignition but like active dog is is really the key to success in dog training when you want heart and soul as the outcome you need that you need that component for sure and hopefully this has you know given people some new ideas uh some things to think about as always subscribe share this with your friends leave us a comment tell us you know if

there's some some questions or things you want to listen to uh topic topic wise forward we have a long list of topics but we're always always interested to hear what our viewers want to to know about yes um and then you have uh some gold schools coming up right uh yeah I've got one in a couple weeks I'm gearing up for it's with um arapo County Sheriff's Department in Colorado so I'll be there the end of the month um and then I've got a couple uh in spring and summer and then um looking forward to ours in Texas but that's a ways away that's October yeah and um then I've got a bunch of other events I've got some seminars some workshops of people that are coming in to do some stuff with my club but yeah looking forward to a to a fun year um and we'll see where that takes us yep I'm looking forward to coming up there uh at the end of May yeah it's gonna be a good time we have marcoo coming out for um protection Workshop three-day protection Workshop should be awesome I mean if youve worked with Marco you know the the work is always incredible it's poetry in motion um and uh I've got a lot of dogs in my club that are gearing up for going to trial so it's a great time to um get trial ready and you know kind of test out their skills on on a new a new helper so really looking forward to it and having you out as well is going to be a lot of fun it's always a good time nice awesome so um are you planning on bringing both dogs I will bring a buvan con yeah okay cool all right awesome perect that was great hey again all right we'll talk to you have a good one see you