E82: 셰이드 화이트셀(Shade Whitesel) - 컴피티션을 위한 컨셉

So I'm really wanting Kellick to understand how to move his body in different directions, how to be two on, two off, hind feet. You know, I just want him to be really aware and really flexible and really supple. So I've been concentrating a lot on shaping skills like that. And he still does not know how to sit. And that's not a bad thing. He knows a lot of other words that mean reinforcement. But yeah, it's mainly about building the joy in what I can give him, because that's what I'm going to be using to teach all the behaviors like sit. And if I don't have the reinforcement, then I can't get the sit. So yeah. We see that pop up on the Facebook page every so often, right? Where people are like, well, I have a puppy and I just realized that he's however many months old and he doesn't actually have that many things on verbal. It's like, it'll come. It'll happen. As long as you've got the other pieces. Yeah. With new puppies, you know, one of the places people tend to struggle is kind of looking at those long-term goals, like you mentioned, Chipson's, that they have for that dog and kind of figuring out what to teach, you know, more immediately or in the short term. Can you talk a little bit about what your longer-term goals are with Talloc and how you're starting to prepare him for that? Well, short-term is basically the reinforcement, how to move his body and long-term would be Chipson and AKC. I really want him to be okay around other dogs, working in close quarters with other dogs. So I taught a seminar this weekend, a camp seminar with Amy Cook and Sarah Straming, and it was really busy. We had lots of dogs around, and I was really impressed with how Talloc handled himself in that environment. He was able to demo a couple times. He was able to eat. He was able to demo his little light toy skills. So that's so important to me because that's going to fit into his long-term, which is do the stuff around other dogs and be comfortable about it. So longer-term, the competition goals. And, you know, no one ever talks about it as much, but short-term and long-term is life skills. My dogs are in the house, and my short-term goal is to get along with everybody, including the cats. And that's my long-term goal as well, get along with everybody for all your life. Dogs mature, and they're at different stages. So sometimes that can be challenging when you've got a lot of dogs and when you've got, you know, highly motivated dogs too. So this session, obviously, you've got your crucial concepts of competition class back on the schedule, which kind of feels a little timely.

What crucial concepts does it address, and how do those skills eventually help prepare us and obviously our dogs for competition? Well, first of all, I think I might enter Talloc in the class, which means I'll run a gold spot showing what I'm working on with him, and he'll work through the class skills. I find a lot of people really gain a perspective seeing, you know, the trainers work the dog. So, you know, it's good being a student. So when I critique my own videos or when I realize how much homework we have to do, I have more empathy, you know? So that's a good thing. But anyway, so the class itself is really about different ways of getting behavior. Do you want to learn that? Do you want to shape it? And I just kind of go through, you know, the ways in which to get it, making sure people are knowledgeable about when do you add the cue? How do you name a lured behavior? How do you name a shape behavior? Not so much what's the best way. I don't really want to compare the ways. I just want to say, hey, here's how you do this. Here's how you do this. Just we go through offered behaviors. We go through getting clean behavior loops, clean movement cycles. How do you decide whether your learner is in the frame of mind to work? Things like that. So I love giving a class because I feel that it really covers a lot of different stuff. And so people can get an overall of what they're going to use to get behaviors. So, yeah. I mentioned, you know, in the intro that one of the things you tend to focus on is really clear communication when training, which I know obviously all of those bits and pieces kind of fall into that, right? So what are a few of the ways that we can, for lack of a better word, muddy things up when we're trying to train a new behavior? Yeah. The first and foremost thing is people's mechanics aren't clean. You know, it's basically click, pause, then treat. And that way the dog starts understanding to listen and not to watch your hands and not to watch where the treats are. And I see training get really muddy when there's not clear cues for what the dog's supposed to do. There's a lot of training sports that we do want the dog to watch us or to be on like inhaling. They need to be on one side of our body. So obviously they need to watch the left side of our body. But we really want the dog also to be listening to what you're saying as you're teaching them. In a lot of our sports, body language is not allowed. We just really want to be clear in those mechanics. Also, know what you're teaching. Have a clear idea of the steps to get there and what exactly you want to teach and what

you're going to reinforce. So I really like people to know what they're teaching and what they're going for. What are some of those common signs that our dogs give us that maybe we're not being clear? Right. Well, my puppy walked away from me today in his little training session. And we kind of want to stop before they do that. The walking away, that's not so good. Which one I should have noticed before. But basically lookaways, not reorientating to you right away, sniffing, leaving, vocalization, things like that are good signs that your training is going in a way you don't want it to. If you're using toy skills, dogs that are taking a little longer to come back to you or a little longer to give up the ball or the toy, you know things are going wrong or you know your learner is having a hard time with stuff when they stop reorientating to you for the next rep, if that's what you want. So if you have a training loop where the dog is doing something, getting its reinforcement, and then reorientating to you for the next behavior, then that reorientating to you, I call that a reset. When that starts to deteriorate, that's when you know your training session is getting a little harder for your learner. If you're doing something shaping and the dog is reorientating to like the mat when you're teaching to go to the mat, if they start arcing on their way to the mat or something, that would be another sign that the training is not going well. And dogs will do that before they leave, before they sniff. So those are the things you want to start noticing and adjust your training session for. A lot of time we miss those kind of early signals, right, where things are just taking a little bit longer. And it's good to know that, you know, that's kind of where we want to start to listen. Yeah. And more and more, I know that I, as a trainer, I start noticing it faster. It's the look away. It's the slow and the heal that we need to notice because those things come before the dog's like, I didn't, I don't know what heal means. So we kind of need to notice those really little things if that's how we're training. You know, if your dog normally looks away and heal, then that wouldn't be something that would give you information. But if normally they're healing along really well and then you heal up against a baby gate and the dog looks away, that's a real good sign that that's hard. Right. So, yeah. And it makes sense to go back and break it down. And obviously that's one of those places where video becomes super valuable because even if

you don't see it in the moment, when you look back at that video, sometimes it's a lot more obvious. Yeah, video is great because you don't always know. Or like if I videoed my session before, I'm sure the puppy did some stuff before he went, you know what, that's too hard. So if I videoed, I might be a little more knowledgeable about that. In fact, I will video our next session for that information. So, yeah. Often if communication is less than clear, it leads to mistakes or misunderstandings kind of about the behavior that we're trying to teach. I know that you have a specific protocol that you share for dealing with mistakes that happen during training. Can you talk us through that? You know, just having taught this camp seminar with Amy Cook and Sarah Stroming, we had Q&A session at the end of it and we talked about mistakes both days. I want us to think, I didn't know the woman who said this, but shout out to her because it's a really good way to put it. I want people to think of mistakes as information for the handler, not for the dog, for the handler, that whatever we're trying to teach, it's not getting through. So first of all, just knowing that, knowing that mistakes are information that we're not really communicating what we thought we did because the learner, the dog, they always think they're right. I mean, they do it and it's like they're doing what we're teaching them. So mistakes are not really that much mistakes. They're just kind of information that, huh, I need to get a little better about, you know, something in that training session. And we don't always know at the time. But so as far as specific protocols, I kind of have some stuff where it's like, okay, you know, dog makes one mistake, reset the circumstances that made that mistake. And then if they make two mistakes in a row, always, always go back, make it super easy. You know, make sure they get reinforced afterwards. Another thing I do is I might have like, if I'm working on like positions or something, I might feed a dog in position and then do a reset cookie. So basically the dog's getting two treats. They're getting one in position, then a reset cookie. And if they get the position wrong, then I might not feed them in position, but I would still get that reset treat out there. So if they understand what to do instead, the next time they'll do it. So they know they missed their opportunity for a cookie there. Everything I'm talking about, like the resetting or, you know, missing out on a cookie, that really depends a lot on the history of your learner, how old your learner is in the work.

Because you don't want to reset a young puppy. I might treat onesies mistakes as a six-year-old dog a little differently than I will treat calyx mistakes who are, you know, both of them being my own fault as their teacher. But one has six years of learning history where the little puppy just has, you know, a couple months of learning history. So treating those differently might be a possibility. So the big thing too is they made a mistake. They already made a mistake. There's nothing you can do. Don't worry about it. Give them another behavior they can do. You know, I find everyone so worried about the mistakes. And more and more, I just, I think we should sort of like go, we should note it in our minds. Wow, they came in, you know, 30 degrees off in heel position. You know, let's not do that again. Let's figure out and let's give them a behavior they can do that I can pay them for, get them reinforced as quick as possible. And then move on and try to evaluate why they didn't come in correctly to heel position. So, yeah. So those are just some things I'm thinking about off the top of my head about what we call mistakes, but really should be information for us. If that kind of stuff happens regularly, obviously it can lead to frustration on the dog's part, right? So let's say someone's seeing definite signs of frustration in their training, barking or leaving or any of those kind of obvious flags. How can they begin to figure out what's going on and kind of make a plan to fix it? Well, video is your friend. And we're all kind of talking about the same thing, you know, frustration, mistakes, training being muddy, not having clear reset behavior from the dog. It's all kind of the same thing. And frustration, I think we label frustration when the dog is barking or pushy at us, whereas it's probably the same reason as the dog that sniffs and leaves, okay? Both of it is that they're semi-confused over what we want or we're not communicating correctly. What I always look at is I look at my resets. Does my dog reorientate to me as fast as they can? You know, if that gets slow, then I always look. If my dog's barking, that's definitely I'm going to make sure my rate of reinforcement is up, make sure I'm communicating, make sure I'm breaking it down as little, as tiny steps as possible. I have working on German Shepherds. They love to bark. And I'm very, very careful about drilling very hard behaviors. Frustration-wise, a lot of Shepherds will bark when you ask them to back up or if you ask them to do a left finish.

And I'm very, very careful about training those in a calm way so that I don't get any extra whines, things like that, and making sure that I don't ask for 10 of them so that my dog isn't frustrated like, I just did that, whereas a lot of times where the dog is moving forward, that's not too frustrating for them. So look at your training. Make sure everything's clear so that your dog isn't frustrated, but also look at what you're asking them to do. And if they're trying to inhibit themselves and do a lot of start-stop, that can be extra frustrating for dogs that really like to move and go forward. So that's just an extra thing to think about. The other thing about frustration is, did your dog expect reinforcement? And have you made this association of your dog wanting reinforcement? And now all of a sudden you're not giving them reinforcement, so they get frustrated at you. So it's about associations. And I see a lot of times, and myself included, because I'm far from a perfect trainer, where we may stay too long at one step in eventually what's going to be a behavior chain. And then the dog is, when we try to move beyond that step of training, the dog is like, but wait a minute, you've paid me 20 times. And, you know, now this 21st time, aren't you paying me? So we have to make sure that we kind of up the criteria as fast as our learner is able to so we don't create that frustration of being at one step and then the dog thinking that that's where they're supposed to, that's the end product. I usually describe it if we're like teaching go to the mat, because it's a really easy way to describe it. And if we click, let's say it's five steps to go to the mat, and if we click it step two, three times, and then we expect step three, maybe our specific learner thought, I only moved two steps to the mat, because you click that three times, so that's all I do. And then they don't understand when two steps doesn't get a click. I always describe it that way because that seems to make sense to people where we're thinking we're waiting for the next step, where their learner's like, hey, wait a minute, you just taught me steps, you know. So that's often a thing that we can figure out in video when we watch stuff and think about in our training sessions. So lots of stuff to think about. And there's no, like, recipe for this, which makes it a little hard sometimes. Yeah. Another endorsement for the value of video for sure. Totally. It's made me a better trainer. So looking at the syllabus for crucial concepts, it lists a lot of, obviously, a lot of concepts. Do you have specific skills?

I know you've mentioned mat work a couple of times. The students will work through to apply those concepts, or are they kind of picking their own behaviors to work on? How does that work? I do show behaviors that I want them to do, and I know I really – they can pick their own if they know those. So, for instance, you know, one of the behaviors we show is go to a mat. That's real simple for the shaping part of it. You can shape – you can choose to shape something else. But I'd really rather people pick non-trial behaviors so they aren't so worried about stuff. So I don't want them to, like, try to lure a perfect fit because they're worried about, you know, having that perfect fit for healing and things like that. I just want nonsense behaviors for them to practice these concepts on. So I really want people to kind of do it on tricks. And so I have suggested behaviors, but they can also – instructor approval takes their own. Fair enough. Yeah. Fair enough. Yeah. So either. So I think for a lot of folks that kind of look at a class like this, they aren't really sure how to tell if it's a good fit for them and their dog. Can you talk a little bit about just who the class is for? Is it for beginners, folks with young dogs, experienced competitors? I mean, where's the focus? All the things. All the people. Okay. I don't think people realize it is not just for beginners. It's a great class for beginners because I start really basic and then I work up. But it's also – I can guarantee you there's stuff in there that you don't know, even if you've been training dogs a lot. We're always learning. And as instructors, we're always learning. And I want this class to show you the basic stuff of, like, how to learn, how to shape, and how to get offered behaviors. But I'll also talk about how to get clean loops in your training. By far, I see people, like, not doing what we consider the foundation behaviors, the foundation mechanics. And it really, really helps to go back and work on that. And it's going to really help your training. I've had a couple people say after they took the class that they just got so much out of it that they thought it was an elementary class, but they got a lot out of it that they didn't realize. So I really think that a lot of people should take that. It's going to be really helpful. You've also got your retrieve class on the schedule this term. So can you share a little bit about that class too, just kind of what approach you use and maybe who should consider that class? So I shape the retrieve, specifically shape the hold.

And to clarify, this class, the retrieve is on, like, retrieving a dumbbell or mainly, like, an obedience retrieve where you're going to send the dog out for a dumbbell. And they're either going to come to heel if they're, like, hunting or I think FCI, they come to a heel position they don't do front, or we'll teach the basic AKC or CKC dumbbell retrieve where the dog comes to front. So to clarify, we're using, this is a formal. So the dog goes out, gets the dumbbell, comes back. I'm not playing with the dumbbell. Well, I'm not getting the dumbbell to be very exciting. I'm using what the dog already is reinforced by, which is normally toy stuff, to shape the hold and the dumbbell. So basically they're retrieving the dumbbell for their toy. It's preferable and ideal if people already have the toy class in their libraries, if they already have some toy skills, because I really, really like to use the toy marker cue of switch, which is switching grip to grip, so, like, toy to toy. But it's not necessary for them to do class. We can do a lot of the stuff with food or if they already have some toy skills, but they don't have switch. We can also have got a couple clients who are students who have used just the basic toy skills they already had. So ideally I'd love people to have the relevant toy skill of switch to shape the hold, but it's not totally necessary. I'll work with you, especially at the gold spot if you just have food. But really we're shaping it. And we, in the past, have given this class back-to-back because I think it takes six weeks to get a really good hold on the object that you're going to have to get, and then the next six weeks to get a really nice retrieve. So I've given the class back-to-back terms. I'm not going to this time. I'm probably going to start teaching this class twice a year. And so ideally be realistic and realize you're not going to usually be able to teach a retrieve in six weeks. That's really a three-month project. You mean people can't get at their final formal retrieve ready to walk into an obedience ring in six weeks? No way. No. It's like healing. It takes a little longer. Yeah. That's so funny. But I'm going to give it more often. People can work on it and then work on it again in a couple months. But, yeah, so they should really get a good hold out of a hold in front or a hold in heel for this. And I, too, think this class might be good for people who kind of need to work on dogs that chew and hold. This might be a good class for that. To help problem solve that a little bit. Yeah.

I will say, while I have absolutely shaped a bring the object to me, I have no hold on my retrieve. So it's interesting. Maybe that's a class I should look at. Yeah, it is the most important part because we often can convince a dog to go get something for us. It's the sitting in front holding it calmly that's so weird to dogs. I mean, boy, who dreamed up that? You know, for the dogs, they're like, why would I sit here in perfect front and hold this calmly? I want to chew it. I want to fling it at you. You know, all the things that they want to do. So I enjoy it. But it's a behavior that probably doesn't make sense to dogs, which makes it hard for us. Right. Yeah. So I've got one last question here. So my last question is the one I've taken to asking everyone kind of when they come on. What's a lesson that you've learned or been reminded of recently when it comes to dog training? You know what? Listen to your dog. I think I said that before, too. But just over and over, listen to your learner. Listen to what they're saying. My little puppy, a couple days ago, I was like, I'm trying to teach him a chin rest. And I would stick my little hand and he would do one perfect chin rest and then he'd leave. He's like, and he's a lever. And I haven't had a lever in a while. Normally, I have dogs that just sort of bark at me. He'd do this perfect chin rest and I'd give him his little marker cue and give him his little treat. And then he'd be like, nope, not doing it again. And I was like, why not? Because he's doing it perfectly. Well, obviously, I'm not reinforcing it enough. So I switched to like five treats in a row and he was like, oh, okay, I'll do more than one. And I was just like, so, you know, I think it's easy for us, not that I did, but I think it's easy for us to go, well, you know how to do it because he just did it. And he's choosing not to. And he was. He was like, you're not paying me enough for that hard behavior. And I don't tend to think of a chin rest as a hard behavior. Because my other dogs are like, sure, we'll chin rest all day. But for him as a young, active puppy, it's a really hard, expensive behavior. And he was telling me that. And once I started paying it with more food, he was happy to do it again and again. And he's got a beautiful chin rest now. And now it's an easier behavior for him and I don't have to pay him five treats at once. But it's just over and over in my training sessions, listen to what your dog's telling you. Listen to what your learner's telling you. Is your reinforcement up there? Do they like it?

I love that way of training, just listening to what they're saying and their opinion about it. So I just think that's cool. That's so interesting because it's something I was talking to Hannah about. She was on last week and we chatted quite a bit about this idea that dogs really are each unique. And they really do have different things that are hard for them than other dogs. And it's important to recognize that. And some things are going to be an expensive behavior. And some things are going to be a cheap behavior. And they're not going to be the same as the other dog that you trained before this one. So, yeah, it's really interesting. Yeah. And it's, you know, in a way, of course. I mean, of course. Because, you know, I don't like the same things that my brother and sister like. You know, we all have different interests. So, of course, dogs, even if they're related to each other, even if they're the same breed, they're going to have different likes. But I think we just, I don't automatically, I mean, I do automatically think of that. But I need to be reminded by my listener or by my learner that, you know, this behavior, even though your other dogs know it really well and it was easy, this behavior is hard for me, you know. So, yeah, they're all individuals. Now, that's what makes them pretty darn fascinating. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Jade. I really appreciate you coming back on the podcast. Yeah. Thanks for having me. It's good to talk about this stuff. I enjoy it. And thanks to our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week with Stacey Barnett to take a deeper dive into scent work than we previously have here on the podcast, talking about everything from start line routines to scent cones and converging odor. 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 Fenzie Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzie 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. Thank you.