Minnesota Animal Welfare Conference: Suzanne Hetts on The Differences Between Cats and Dogs

I swear I didn't stage this.

I don't write about him much, but I have a kitty. Nicky is a 13-year-old boy I've had since he was a kitten. Although I consider myself more of a dog person, I also can't imagine my life without at least one cat. This is probably why the last segment on of this conference was probably the most interesting and most useful for me: promoting successful relationships between dogs and cats.

Suzanne pointed out that about half of the pet owning households have both a cat and a dog, but unfortunately, very few are concerned about the quality of their cats' lives, and even fewer do anything to prevent problems and improve things after the fact. She believes this is because owners are too accepting of the cat feeling unsafe or scared, possibly because they don't recognize hiding behavior as abnormal.

Although cats and dogs can get along, they are very different species. This starts with domestication. Where dogs were likely domesticated around 14,000 years ago, domestication only happened in cats about 4,000 years ago. That 10,000 years of co-evolution means that dogs are more predisposed to social living with each other and with humans. Cats can and do exist without social groups. They don't really have friends, instead having what Suzanne called “preferred associates”- others that they spend time with. They don't really have packs and they don't have hierarchical social structures.

Body language is another huge difference, especially it comes to ritualized behaviors like greetings. While cats greet one another nose-to-nose, dogs... don't. They might be okay with it, but we all know their go-to place is at the other end. Cats also indicate that they are friendly and approachable by holding their tail up with a curve at the tip. In dogs, this is a threatening gesture. Cats also don't have a ritualized invitation to play. While dogs will play bow first, cats often just pounce. This can be misunderstood by dogs and lead to an unfortunate altercation.

Chemical communication, while poorly understood by researchers, is another area of believed difference. Not only does it seem to be more important to cats, but they use it as a distance increasing behavior, while dogs use it more of a “I was here!” thing. Rubbing and scent marking (which, to be honest, I'm not sure how to distinguish from chemical communication) plays a huge role in social attachment in cats, and dogs... don't seem to do this.

Finally, dogs have active and passive submission behaviors, and cats don't. When a dog rolls over on his back, it's a reconciliation gesture. When a cat does it, it's a defensive behavior that will likely culminate in an attack. What's more, cats do not “make up” with each other.

To have a harmonious home, you need to have good early socialization, complementary personalities, and good experiences as adults. Let's look at each of these.

First, he best bet lies in socialization, when an animal learns his species identity, who to hang out with, and who he should eat. Unfortunately, cats have a short socialization window which starts at about 2 weeks and has already ended by the time they come home at 8 weeks. What's more, kittens have an earlier fear period that happens right at that time. Fear periods mean that bad experiences during that time have a bigger impact.

Next, you need to have complementary personalities. Unfortunately, there aren't really temperament tests for cats... not that they're perfect in dogs. Beyond that, though, Suzanne doesn't think that meet-and-greets really give you any useful info.

Finally, you need to make sure that the animals have more good experiences than bad. You also need to be prepared to accept mutual tolerance over genuine affection. Keep in mind that individuals vary in their desire for social contact, and that minor conflicts are normal and can be ignored. Serious threats or frequent conflicts, no matter how minor, will erode quality of life for everyone.

Conflicts with cats are almost always about space. They rarely fight over social status or resources, so cats that are on the receiving end of resource guarding by a dog finds this unexpected and stressful. Cats who live with other living beings really thrive when there are plenty of spaces- especially vertical spaces- that they can retreat to. Conflicts between dogs and cats usually result from excessive curiosity from the dog, which can lead to predation. Dogs can also just start with a predatory response to the cat. Either way, the result is fear and a reduced quality of life for the cat.

Finally, forcing experiences for any animal never works. “Showing” the animal that the other won't hurt him does not work, and often backfires and makes things worse. Interactions need to be carefully managed until everyone is familiar with each other.

Bottom line: It is not okay for any individual to be afraid of or harassed by the other. Having a peaceable kingdom is possible, and the best way to accomplish this is by proper introductions. This is such an important (and lengthy) process that I will spend the next entire post on it. 

Minnesota Animal Welfare Conference: Suzanne Hetts on Punishment, Part 2

Punishment should rarely, if ever, be a trainer’s first choice. But Suzanne argues that it’s something we shouldn’t completely dismiss, either. By applying critical thinking skills instead of emotions, we can make better training decisions. And, though it makes me a tad uncomfortable to say it, sometimes those decisions will include punishment.

So how do we decide if punishment should be used? This flow chart, included in our handouts, and available online at this link (on page 19) is very helpful.

Punishment can only be used to eliminate a behavior you don’t like. That said, it’s best to create a reinforcement-based program to create a behavior you do like instead. However, when behaviors are dangerous, they need to be addressed immediately, and the benefits outweigh the risks of using punishment (and make no mistake- there are risks), a punishment-based program may be needed.

If you’ve found yourself in such a situation, Suzanne provided some criteria to ensure that the punishment is effective. The more of these conditions you meet, the more humane the punishment will be. It will still be punishment, of course, but it will reduce the risks of fallout.

Start with Response Prevention

“Response prevention” is where you prevent the unwanted behavior from happening. This is an excellent first step: if you can completely prevent a behavior by changing something, you may not even need a punishment-based solution. However, if you do need to use punishment, response prevention is equally important because…

Punishment Must Be Consistent

When it’s not, the dog may decide that the behavior is worth the risk. For example, if I got a ticket every time I was speeding, I probably would stay within the speed limit. As it stands, though, I’ve had one speeding ticket in the past ten years. Considering the frequency of speeding to being ticketed ratio, it seems worth it. To be effective, the dog must believe that the behavior will automatically trigger the punishment. This is why Suzanne says that…

Remote Punishment is Better Than Interactive Punishment

Dogs are excellent at picking up on discriminative cues that predict events. If you are always the one that delivers punishment, the dog will begin to associate you with the feeling of being punished. For this reason, “booby traps” that appear unrelated to your proximity or presence are preferable to punishments that involve you directly.

It Must Be Immediate

Punishment also must be immediate, and definitely no more than three seconds after the behavior happens. If it’s not, punishment simply becomes aversive: an unpleasant thing that happens randomly with no effect on the behavior.

Dogs Must be Able to “Turn Off” the Punishment

If the punishment must start immediately upon the behavior happening, it must also cease as soon as the behavior stops happening. If the punisher continues to happen after the behavior stops, it will be affecting all those subsequent behaviors. This unnecessarily muddies the waters, making it much harder for the dog to understand what he should and shouldn’t do.

Choose the Correct Intensity

Finally, punishment must be severe enough that it will stop the behavior within 3 to 5 applications, but not so strong that it creates unwanted side effects of fear or aggression. This is probably the hardest criteria to implement, since it requires some guesswork.

If it’s not clear by now, using punishment effectively and humanely requires quite a bit of knowledge, skill, and prior planning. It’s not something to be undertaken in the heat of the moment. The vast majority of the time, there are solutions other than punishment that will be equally effective if you take the time to figure it out.

Minnesota Animal Welfare Conference: Suzanne Hetts on Punishment, Part 1

Punishment is not the problem. So says Suzanne Hetts, PhD, CAAB, CVJ, who elaborates that it is the mis-use of punishment that is a problem. Well, that, and the way we talk about it, which is the subject of today’s post.

Anyone who has been around the dog world for more than, oh, five minutes knows that discussing punishment is “politically sensitive.” Some people refuse to talk about it. Others refuse to listen to people talk about it. Some label anyone who talks about the topic as an animal abuser (or worse- comparing folks to Nazis or child molesters).

There are two big problems with a categorical refusal to discuss punishment. First, Suzanne says that we undermine the profession when we do so. If we don’t talk about it, we lose credibility. Whether we like it or not, punishment exists, and the general public knows that. Refusing to acknowledge that makes us appear willfully ignorant. Worse yet, some trainers don’t talk about punishment accurately or scientifically. For example, some will state that punishment doesn’t work. That’s just a blatant lie. Punishment can and does suppress behavior (that’s sort of the definition of punishment in operant conditioning).

The second problem that Suzanne identifies is that when we refuse to discuss or consider punishment, we miss out on possibly useful options. While Suzanne would rarely use punishment as a first resort, she says there are times it can be helpful. And even if a trainer doesn’t use punishment, she does need to understand it.

A big reason for this is the fact that the general public often defaults to punishment-based solutions. I can’t imagine there are any dog trainers out there that haven’t had a client ask, “How can I get my dog to stop…” Scientifically, stopping behavior requires punishment. Of course, most of us know that the best solution is to reframe the question in terms of what the client wants the dog to do.

And anyway, even if we are opposed to punishment in theory, Suzanne argues that many of the solutions that positive trainers use or recommend are punishing or aversive. For example, the use of a head collars or body blocks are punishing to some dogs, while withholding reinforcement can cause frustration. Still, these are commonly used techniques.

In the end, what it seems to come down to is that humans (trainers and clients alike) have a negative reaction just to the word “punishment.” Think about it; the words “corrections” or “discipline” are far more pervasive, and pack a much smaller emotional punch. Semantics aside, Suzanne encouraged us to consider if we’re really opposed to punishment in and of itself, or if we are actually opposed to confrontational methods.

I find this distinction to be a useful one. I will not use pain or fear to train my dog, but I have no problem telling her she can’t do something, or enforcing a time-out if needed. I will not engage in power struggles, especially with larger, stronger dogs, but I sure will use tools like head halters that give me an advantage. While punishment can become confrontational, it doesn’t have to be. Punishment is not one-dimensional. It’s not all-or-nothing, and our conversations about it shouldn’t be, either.

So what should we discuss when talking about punishment? Ah, you’ll have to tune in next week to find out.

Steve White Seminar: Get To or Got To?

 As a crossover trainer, Steve naturally had some interesting things to say about the comparison between primarily reinforcement-based training and mostly punishment-based training. The cool thing is that he’s not dogmatic about it. As a current K9 cop, he really can’t be. If he gets preachy or holier-than-thou, he’s not going to be able to reach anyone.

He even showed us a few hard-to-watch videos of “training.” He always warned us before he did so (there’s no shame in not wanting to watch someone abusing an animal), but felt it was important that we understand the reality of the world out there.

Despite his willingness to watch and discuss punishment-based methods, he believes that it is not suitable as a teaching tool. People and dogs alike do not learn what to do through punishment; by its very definition, it’s suppressive. Because of that, punishment should only be used as an emergency brake. (It’s not clear to me how much or how often he uses punishment, nor under what circumstances.)

For him, using primarily positive methods comes down to a very simple fact: he wants to work with dogs who believe they get to do things instead of dogs who think they’ve got to. In his opinion (and he stressed that there is no science behind this, just anecdotes), with positive training, you have to put a lot of effort in up front, but down the road things get much easier. In contrast, traditional training starts out fairly easy, but over time, the “got to” component makes it so that the trainer has to work harder and harder. In his estimation, “get to” dogs require about 80% less training over the course of their lifetimes than “got to” dogs.

Interestingly, Steve sees training as a continuum of force. At one end, the traditional end, there is a lot of coercion. The dog has to do things, or else. The trainer uses pain to get compliance. At the other end of that continuum, we have the so-called positive training methods. But even this, Steve said, is inherently manipulative. Think about it: we trainers control access to resources, forcing our dogs to earn things they want. This isn’t necessarily bad, but we do need to acknowledge that our actions are not all sunshine and rainbows.

Despite this, I think it’s so much better to create a dog that gets to work in order to earn what he wants than a dog who’s got to work in order to avoid unpleasant things. The former tends to create dogs who are willing, while the latter can create dogs who perform grudgingly. Steve himself experienced that- he crossed over because he was tired of constantly fighting with his canine partners.

I love my “get to” dog. I may be manipulative, but it’s benevolent manipulation, and I somehow doubt that Maisy experiences it as force. But what do you think?

Steve White Seminar: Training to the Power of Three

Steve is big on what he calls “Training Triads,” which are teams of three people per dog. This might sound like overkill at first, but he thinks it’s valuable to have so many sets of eyes on the dog. No one person can see everything, and after experiencing training triads, I agree that it’s a valuable experience. All of our working sessions took place in triads, and each person on the team had a specific role.

The trainer is the person who works directly with the dog. They do the hands-on implementation of the training plan. Their most important job is to be fully present. They should not try to talk and train at the same time as multitasking does not truly exist. What we think of as multitasking is actually rapid task switching; most of us are not good enough to do this while working with an animal.

The coach works with the trainer. They help facilitate the design and execution of the training plan. After the training session, they provide either affirming feedback (that looked great!) or adjusting feedback (this time, let’s change this…). The most important thing the coach does is nail down the specifics of the training plan; exactly what the criteria are, the number of reps, the amount of distance, etc.

The observer probably has the hardest job because they work with the coach. They watch the interactions between trainer and coach and help clarify miscommunication. The do not provide any dog training advice except when necessary to prevent a complete train wreck. This is so hard! Before each training session, the coach and observer clearly state to one another what they are about to see the trainer do.

Roles should be traded regularly, and done so in a manner that everyone performs each role in relation to one another. In other words, both of the trainer’s teammates should act as the coach at some point.

Training sessions are structured as pre-brief, be brief, and debrief periods. During the pre-brief, the trainer and coach create the plan and define criteria. The training phase should be brief; Steve recommended a maximum of 60 seconds or five reps, etc. During the debrief, the coach and trainer discuss if the plan worked, and how to change things for the next rep. This naturally leads into the next pre-brief.

Before we ever brought our dogs out, Steve insisted that we work on our mechanical skills. During the first round of doing the triad, I worked on treat delivery in heel position. My teammates refined hand signals and heeling footwork. Only after we had done this were we allowed to bring our dogs out to train. It really made a difference.

In fact, I was so impressed with this that I’ve decided to change the way I teach Growl Class (reactive dog class). Currently, the class is structured so that the first week is held with people only- no dogs. We do a LOT of talking, and while I think there is a lot of value in that, I think we could use that time better. Two things that I see my students struggling with, especially during the first week with dogs, is mat relaxation with slow treats and the humans continuing to breathe! Although we manage things well, the dogs are amped up the first week, which makes the humans tense.

Each week, we have people come in and set up their stations first, and then bring in their dogs. I’m thinking that it might be nice to have a little human-session before dogs come in (weather permitting, of course). Otherwise, the use of crates or second handlers might be helpful… it will be interesting to play with these concepts and see if they help my students be more successful sooner.

Do you use training partners? How have you done it? What about practicing mechanical skills separately? Is that something you’ve done? I’d love to hear about your experiences with either of these things.

Steve White Seminar: The J-Curve of Change

I absolutely loved the slide Steve showed us of the J-Curve of Change. So much so that even though it was only one, single powerpoint slide, I’m making it into an entire post. It is not an idea unique to Steve; a quick google search will show it being used to explain everything from the economy to political change to psychological progress. Still, it’s an amazing way to explain dog training skills of both the people and the dogs.

Simply put, the J-Curve of Change shows that any time there is a change, there is a natural dip in progress. Here’s a great graphic I found on this website (and then modified slightly to remove confusing bits) that helps illustrate the concept:

Before you start something new, such as a person crossing over to more positive methods, there is a certain level of mastery. You might be getting results you like using a prong collar. When you step out of your comfort zone to try something new- in this case, clicker training- there is often a decline in performance. Steve attributes this to the intense concentration needed to learn new skills. All that thinking often makes it hard to be successful.

Since we expect that progress will go up, not down, we often give up at the deepest part of the J-Curve. This happens either because we don’t believe in the method, or because we begin to assign harmful labels to ourselves or the process (“I’m stupid,” for example). This really is unfortunate as recovery and improvement will happen if the new procedure is better and if we stick with it. Steve recommended that we have a coach that can help us maintain faith in the change and encourage us to keep moving forward.

I definitely think this is something I see with my students who are working on reactivity. Not only is the dog learning new skills, but the handler is, too. I sometimes hear people say in the first few weeks of class that their dog is getting worse. Of course, by the end of the class, they have both made so much progress! I’m really excited to have a way to explain this to my students.

I also really appreciate that Steve showed us the J-Curve of Change before we started working dogs. “Failing” was seen not only as useful information, but also as an expected part of the seminar! Well, then! No pressure on us to be shining stars. I really felt like I could learn without worrying about judgment.

But what do you think of the J-Curve of Change? Is it something you’ve seen in your life, either in dog training or not? I’d love to hear some examples of how others have experienced it!

Steve White Seminar: Dog Training is Like Mapquest

Dog training, Steve told us, is like MapQuest. There are really only two things you need to know: where you are now, and where you want to go.

It’s important to know where you are because if you don’t, you might just go in the wrong direction. While a dog’s past can give you some insight into his behavior, it can also color your perceptions. It’s important to know where your dog really is, not where you think he is.

This is why baselining is so important. It gives you an objective way to know where you and your dog currently are. For each training task that a dog/person team worked on, we took a baseline. We found that Steve was right when he said the easiest way to get a useful baseline was by doing one rep of the behavior. This one rep could be done cold or it could be done after the dog was warmed up with other behaviors. Either way, we would quickly know where the dog was.

We used a really cool chart, which I have recreated in Excel for illustrative purposes, to take the baseline:

As you can see, this actually measures six different components of that single repetition of the behavior. The first three have to do with the fluency of the behavior. (Fluency means that the dog can perform without thought. However, this may only happen in a single environment or with a particular person.) Accuracy refers to what the behavior looks like. Did the dog do the behavior correctly? Latency means how quickly your dog responds to the cue. Speed/Intensity refers to, well, how fast or intense the behavior is.

The next three have to do with generalization. (Generalization is when the behavior is fluent in any environment with any person, and despite competing environmental demands.) Is the dog able to do it with duration? From a distance? When there are distractions?

For each component, you choose whether the dog’s response was unacceptable, needs improvement, met the standard you set, exceeded expectations, or was considered excellent. If your dog scores all 3s or above, then you can increase criteria.

The really tricky part of baselining is making sure that you are very clear in what you’re looking at. A sit is not just a sit. To one person, a sit may mean that the dog’s butt hits the ground within 5 seconds or so. To another, a sit may been that the dog’s elbows are straight and the hips square, that the dog did a tuck sit (where the back legs come under him rather than the dog rocking backwards into the sit), that the response happens within a second of being cues with a single verbal cue, and that the dog remains in the sit until told otherwise.

Pretty big difference in those two descriptions, isn’t there? During the working sessions, we spent a lot of time nailing down exactly what we were looking at. I was sometimes surprised to discover that I envisioned the behavior looking completely different from the way my teammates had envisioned it. We got quite good at describing what we were about to do very clearly: I am going to stand in front of my dog while she’s standing at a distance of 3 feet, then give her a single hand signal to sit. I expect that her but will be on the ground within 2 seconds; I don’t care what the sit looks like.

This might seem picky and pedantic, but not only will it help you get an accurate baseline, it’s also important to do this when you start your training sessions. Remember, part of MapQuest is both knowing where you currently are and knowing where you want to go. Just as there is a big difference between Madison, Wisconsin and Madison, South Dakota, there is a big difference between a competition sit and a puppy sit.

Now, I’ll be honest. All of this seems like a lot of work. I probably won’t be busting out the forms any time in the future. I’ve tried record keeping in the past and honestly, I’m just lazy. But I do want to play with the idea of a single-rep baseline and I will definitely be better about articulating my criteria before I start training.

What about you? Will you incorporate any of this information in your training?

Steve White Seminar: Introduction

In July, I attended a two-day seminar with Steve White. For those of you who aren’t familiar with him, he’s a seasoned K9 handler who has worked for both the Army and the Seattle Police Department. As such, he learned about training using the old school Koehler methods. As time went on, though, he grew tired of always having to fight with his dog. In the early 90s, he decided to find a better way.

Enter the clicker movement. He got in contact with Karen Pryor, and began reading, watching videos, participating in online discussions, and attending conferences. He applied what he learned and began having successes. At one point, he actually left a job because his boss didn’t want the unit divided by training methods and forbid him to train using more modern methods.

Now, closing in on 40 years of training dogs, he’s an in-demand speaker for both the law enforcement community and for positive dog trainers. I was very excited to see him; I’d previously heard recordings of his presentations and thought he had a lot to offer.

And he does. I enjoyed the seminar, and I enjoyed getting to know him. He’s actually a pretty neat guy beyond the dog stuff; he’s a whiz at accents, owns a kilt, and has a great sense of humor. Oh, did I have fun laughing and joking with him, and he even let me take a ridiculous picture of him and Maisy.

You gotta watch out for those Midwest Muppet Dogs, man. They'll turn on you.

Maisy was there because we had a working spot. I’m definitely glad we did (it was kind of a last-minute decision, to be honest) because I do learn best by doing. Being able to try out what we were learning was much more useful than simply watching others do.

But more than that, I gained some very valuable information about Maisy: she’s still reactive. Now, I knew that. Although I tend to call her normal these days, I am well aware of the fact that the reactivity neural pathways will always be there.

Steve acknowledged that as well, and said that a huge part of his behavior consulting business is about helping his clients accept reality. This is not always easy; how often do we humans rewrite history to better suit us? But the truth is, what has happened has happened, and no many times we revise the story, that doesn’t change the truth. Similarly, when it comes to behavior, you can’t erase a reinforcement history.

Instead, the only solution to pollution is dilution. Steve used an awesome example to illustrate this: Imagine that he has a cup of arsenic and drank it. He would probably die if he did this. Now imagine that he took that same cup of arsenic, mixed it into a bathtub full of water, and then drank it. He would definitely get sick, but he probably wouldn’t die. Now imagine that that same cup of arsenic was mixed into a swimming pool full of water before he drank it. This time he might not even get sick, but the arsenic is still there, and is still probably affecting his body, albeit in minute ways.

So what does this mean? Simply, that once a behavior is in there, it’s in there. Although Maisy is more like a swimming pool these days, reactivity is always a part of who she is. It will come out sometimes.

All of which is to say that yes, she had some reactivity over the weekend. I want to say that I was disappointed, but in truth, I’m really not. I felt bad for Maisy; she was clearly stressed and not feeling so hot. But Steve also spent a lot of time telling us that failure is just information. Which is what Maisy’s reactivity was: information.

The information Maisy gave me was that I have not adequately taught her how to cope with prolonged stress that happens in a situation where there are lots of dogs in a small area, and that happens in spaces where she feels trapped by a leash or a crate. Although I can expect her to be fine at friends’ houses, on camping trips, on walks, at the pet store, or even at a dog park, it’s because I’ve spent a lot of time teaching her how to act in those situations. I haven’t done that with seminars.

I have two options: I can work on this with her, or I can stop expecting her to be “perfect” at seminars. I’m not really sure which option I want to choose, but either way, this is entirely my responsibility. As Steve said, dogs do not fail. They perform as we have trained them to, or what we have prepared them for.

Besides, as Steve said, perfect is the enemy of good. We should focus on progress, not perfection. So, while Maisy had a very hard time over the weekend, I’m pleased that she was able to relax in her crate at times. I’m thrilled that she didn’t seem to have a “stress hangover” and that she bounced back quickly. I’m very happy that she remained responsive throughout the seminar. I’m absolutely ecstatic that she would calm down when I verbally told her “Mais, it’s okay. You’re fine.”

Anyway, the seminar was awesome, and I had a good time. I’ll talk more about the specifics in the future, but for now, just know this: you should go see Steve White if you get the chance.

Denise Fenzi Seminar: Working Spot

Apparently I didn't take any pictures at the seminar, so here.
Have a photo of dogs in party hats for no reason other than it's funny.

Once again, Maisy and I had a working spot in Denise’s seminar. We worked on heeling (because heeling always needs work!) and scent articles. I was just getting sick at this seminar, so mostly I was out of breath, dizzy, and coughing up an almost literal lung. (I promptly went home and needed a week off from work because pneumonia.)

Soooo… I don’t remember things too well, but I am pretty sure that Denise said that Maisy is the cutest dog she’s ever ever ever met in her entire life, and would I take a million dollars for her. I was like hell no! and then she cried. It was pretty sad.

(Note: that probably didn’t happen.)

She also said that Maisy is not a dog that can come straight out of her crate and go into the ring. I already knew this, but it was nice to have it confirmed. I have a pretty heavy warm up routine that involves a lot of heeling and pivoting and cookies, and only one or two reps of the trickier things like a moving down or whatever.

The other thing is that I really need to adjust my style for the situation. The way I play and get Maisy excited during training at home just does not work for her in a public setting. My excitement level actually made her disconnect, so Denise had me sit with her quietly instead. Oh, Maisy, you complicated dog, you. I’m not surprised by this information, but the confirmation that I need to adjust my style based on circumstances was helpful.

Maisy’s biggest heeling problem is lagging, so we did a lot of work with the invisible dog. Basically, I heeled in big circles, and every so often, I would offer a treat to the dog at my side. If Maisy was there, she got the treat. If she wasn’t, the invisible dog did. Let me tell you, she was a bit miffed when she realized that! She definitely drives up into heel position when the invisible dog is out with us.

We started from scratch with the scent articles; I hadn’t done much with them. I had five metal tins (small Altoid tins), and we put food in one of them. Then we set them out and waited for Maisy to check out the tins. When she showed interest in a tin, we would open it and show her what was inside. If she found the right tin, she would get the food! If she didn’t, we simply shrugged and told her we were sorry (and then removed the tin from the pile because we’d touched it).

This is all we did in the seminar, but the advice going forward was to not worry about the retrieve (that can be taught separately and added in later, although at home Maisy is usually bringing me the tin when she’s interested in it). Then, once she is very certain about the food 100% of the time, we are to put a cookie in the tin every other time to fade out the use of food. We haven’t done this yet.

Honestly, we haven’t done a ton of training since the seminar, though we’ve done bits and pieces here. It’s been a long year, what with the divorce and all, so Maisy and I have mostly just hung out together and done easy stuff like hiking. But in the last few weeks, I’ve started working on Open stuff again, because I really would like to get her CDX and maybe even the UD. I know that the things we worked on with Denise will help us with that! So, stay tuned!  

Denise Fenzi Seminar: Rewarding Your Dog

When Denise talks about rewards in dog training, they seem to fall into one of two categories: things or activities.

Rewarding with things is very common in the dog training world; these are the ones that require that you plan ahead and have food or toys available for the reward process. Both food and toys are important rewards. Denise prefers to use toys when she working on happy, enthusiastic performances and food when she’s working on precision, but when it comes down to it, she believes attitude is more important than precision.

Where Denise really shines, though, is rewarding with activities. These rewards are ones that don’t come with something tangible, but instead in doing something. For example, Denise does a lot of personal play with her dogs. This is different than toy play. Instead, it’s about the dog and handler interacting together in a fun way.

You know what's fun? Running!

Denise also talks a lot about making activities in and of themselves rewarding. She told us about a study (sorry Science Geeks, I don’t have a citation) where researchers split kids into two groups. Both groups were told that they were studying some new puzzles, and they wanted the kids to play with them and then answer some questions. The first group was told they would be paid at the end, and the other was not paid. After the kids played with the puzzle for a specified period of time, they were told the researcher would be in to ask them some questions. While the kids were waiting, the group of kids who were not paid continued to play with the puzzles, while the paid group did not.

What does this have to do with dog training? Well, as this study demonstrated (and as many of us know from experience), activities done as volunteers often yield more satisfaction than those done for pay. In other words: we enjoy work more when we find it intrinsically rewarding. Dogs are the same. We shouldn’t need to pay them for things that are fun… and training can be fun! Many dogs naturally enjoy retrieving or jumping or running.

Of course, you have to make the work interesting for the dog. Make it an exciting privilege for your dog, like a child getting to go to DisneyWorld. Teach your dog that if he’s going to work, it needs to be at his full capacity. Or, to paraphrase Master Yoda: Work or or don’t work. There is no halfway.

Be sure that your dog receives one unit of reward for one unit of effort. Denise and Deb talk quite a bit about this in their upcoming book, but basically, if your dog tries to do something that is very difficult for him, compensate him fairly for it- kind of like hazard pay. As your dog gets better at that same thing, you can reduce the amount of reward he receives because it doesn’t require as much effort any more. Doing so often naturally leads to the reduced reward schedule so necessary in trials.

Finally, don’t be afraid of making mistakes. Denise told us that the more things your dog does wrong, the better. Mistakes help a dog understand what won’t be rewarded, meaning that in the long run, he will have a better idea of what will. If you feed your dog so much that he never fails, all he learns to do is to eat, not work. Teach your dog to work.

How do you reward your dog? Personally, I tend to be a bit dependent on things. A lot of this is because I compete mainly in venues that allow me to take food in the ring, so I don’t have a ton of incentive to develop activity rewards. For the few times I do compete somewhere I can’t use food, I’m fortunate enough that Maisy does find my smiles and praise rewarding.

Denise Fenzi Seminar: Ring Ready

A lot of people think that if their dog knows all the exercises, he’s ready to compete. Denise would argue that not only is this not true, but also that you’ve failed to prepare him for the most important part: dealing with the stress inevitable in a new environment. I touched on this a little in my last seminar post, but today let’s explore this idea just a little more.

To recap, to be successful in a trial environment, your dog should either be confident with chaos going on around you or he should be willing to take your word for it when you tell him he’s safe. Either way, you’re going to have to do some work, whether that’s doing planned exposure to a trial site or developing a trusting relationship. The latter requires that you actually step up and protect your dog, both at trials and in the rest of his life.

But the environment isn’t the only stress inherent in competition. For most dogs, the sudden cessation of classic rewards (food, toys, etc.) is frustrating. Dogs who think the lack of reward means they’re wrong can start to worry. Others will become demotivated and not see the point of working that hard. Because of this, you should both build up playful interactions that can be used as a reward in the ring and practice using these during trainings. Your dog needs to be able to work for long periods of time without toys or food.

Another stress is the sudden change in the way you’re acting. This is especially important if you tend to do most of your training alone. Most people act differently by merely having an audience, but you will also go from having your sole focus on your dog to needing to split attention between dog and the judge. At the very least, have an “invisible judge” in training with you. Look at and listen to the invisible judge. Take directions from the invisible judge. Talk out loud. Bonus points if you can play trial sounds while training. (You can totally get these free, by the way. Most smart phones will allow you to record and playback audio. Set your phone down at a trial and let it run for ten minutes or so.)

You will also need to find a way to recreate stress in yourself so that your dog learns that it’s no big deal if you tense up. I’ve heard many suggestions for this over the years, but I liked Denise’s: get a metronome (again, smart phones are awesome; download a free app), set it for between 125-135 beats per minute, and heel to that beat. This will force you to concentrate on something external, which will replicate that face you’re going to be making when listening for a judge to call instructions during a trial.

Finally, teach your dog to learn how to wait. Most people never do this in training, but dude. We do it all the time at trials. You wait for your turn. You wait for runoffs. You wait for awards. It’s helpful to practice by watching another team, but if you train alone, simply practice standing around for 5 or so minutes at a time. Denise recommended using “squishing” during this time. She recently wrote about this on her blog far better than I could, so go read about it here. 

Once your dog knows how to wait, how to work for long periods without food or toys, is comfortable with you acting weird, and trusts that you’ll protect him, then you can consider competing. What do you do to prepare your dog for the ring? Do you have other suggestions? Please let us know in the comments!

Denise Fenzi Seminar: Stress and Your Competition Dog

Be a safe person. (It helps to have more than one safe person!)

Last December, Denise Fenzi came to town. Ya’ll know I love this woman’s training style, right? And that she’s a pretty cool person on top of that? Yeah. You should definitely go to a Fenzi seminar if you get the chance. This was actually my second time seeing Denise, and even though the topics were the same, I still got a ton out of it.

My favorite bits were when she talked about stress in competition dogs. Of course, this is a topic near and dear to my heart because Maisy is a nervy little thing in competition venues. I have accepted the fact that I will probably never achieve the same level of success in the ring as Denise; I am simply not interested enough to train to those standards. Still, I enjoy a few weekends in the ring every year, so I definitely appreciated Denise’s wisdom. Today I’m going to share it with you.

First and foremost, from the moment you bring your dog home, you need to be a safe and trustworthy person. I think we all want to be this person for our dogs, but we don’t think through how our actions might undermine our goal. If we want our dogs to know that we will protect them, we need to actually, you know, protect them. They need to learn that we won’t abandon them.

This starts when we are socializing a new puppy. Denise explained that socialization is about exposure and desensitization to new things. It does not necessarily mean interaction. In fact, forcing a puppy to interact with something he’s wary of is not only likely to make him more nervous around that thing, it’s also going to teach him that you can’t be trusted to keep him safe. In fact, Denise prefers her performance dogs to treat strangers more like statues: they are boring objects that aren’t worth interacting with.

As much as possible, you should be very clear in your expectations. If you’ve ever been in a situation where you didn’t know what was expected of you, you’ll understand why. It’s stressful to have to guess about how you should be acting. It’s even worse when the rules seem to be inconsistent or constantly changing. I once left a job because my boss was so unclear! But our dogs don’t have that option.

If your dog starts throwing behaviors at you (outside a shaping session where he’s supposed to!) consider if you’re being unclear. Denise finds that dogs who do this are often frustrated and don’t know what you want, so they just start cycling through things they know, hoping to find some clarity.

Keep in mind that softer dogs are more sensitive to pressure, both physical and social. While some dogs enjoy rough-and-tumble interaction, others prefer that you interact with them in a quieter manner. This will change the way you reward your dog both in and out of the ring, as well as how train him. For example, during heeling, turning to the left (towards your dog) will be more demotivating for a softer dog as it puts pressure on him. Likewise, be careful about how and when you lean over him or otherwise get in his space.

Clear expectations are important for training, but also for trialing. Even more important than teaching your dog the behaviors needed for competition, you need to teach him what to expect at a show site. Dogs that can take your word for it if you say it’s safe will be able to focus on you, not the environment. Make sure that you prevent other dogs or people from visiting him unnecessarily at a trail. Teach him how to enter the ring, what to expect from the stewards and judge, and so on.

Denise actually had a ton more to say about trial preparation, and we’ll talk more about that in my next recap of her seminar. For now, though, I’d love to hear what you do for your stressy competition dog.

Kathy Sdao Seminar: Working Spot!

The seminar was set up as a series of mini-lectures, and between each one, we were paired up with another dog/handler team and several auditors. The working dogs would make a plan and then train, while the observers would help with data collection and then have a small group discussion on how things went, what to change on the next round, etc.

As the title implies, Maisy and I had one of the working spots. Although she was amazing, I was not. Sigh. I was so frustrated by the tasks set to us. Truthfully, it had very little to do with Maisy, the tasks, or the seminar. Remember: the seminar happened back in early October, which was about two months after I had separated from my (now ex-) husband. There were a lot of adjustments to be made during that time, and honestly, I probably wasn’t in the right mind-space to be training a dog.

Each day had a separate training task. The first day had to do with targeting; to be honest, I forget exactly what we were supposed to be doing now, but I remember trying to get her back feet on a piece of carpet. Utter failure. (Short legged dogs are hard!) The second day was a bit better; Kathy showed us a commercial of a dog who took a chicken strip from his owner, held it until given some sauce, then dipped it in the sauce and ate it. We were to work on this in whatever form we wanted. This went better; I worked on having Maisy hold a dog biscuit without eating it.

Here are some of the things that really hit home with me. I’m not sure that these were new things, exactly, but they were things that I understood in a new way after the seminar.

Train in Short Sets

I’ve heard this about a billion times before, but somehow I never do it. You get on a roll and don’t want to stop, or just lose track of time. We got around that in the seminar by deciding how long we were going to train (usually between 30 and 90 seconds), and then having someone time us. And even then, some of us had a tendency to do “just one more rep.”

Training in short sets is important, though. Part of this is because you can only concentrate for so long; good dog training requires you to both SEE what the dog is doing and then to MARK it with good timing. This is hard work, and something people often underestimate. Taking regular and frequent breaks allows you to rest between sets, and thus keep your eyes (and thumb!) fresh.

Training in short sets also allows you to think in between. This is incredibly important when it comes to…

Criteria and When to Change It

First, keep your criteria the same throughout each set. Since your sets are going to be short, it should be easier to resist the temptation to change it midstream. The problem with trying to change it on the fly is that it tends to throw off your timing. In addition to seeing and marking, you’re now analyzing performance and deciding what to click. I don’t know about you, but my brain just cannot do that much at once!

Raising criteria can be done based on the rate of reinforcement (Kathy recommends doing so when you get into the double digits per minute), the percentage correct (most people do so at around 80%), or by the density of reinforcement. This last one comes in to play with duration behaviors where you can’t get reinforcement rates in the double digits. Instead of giving one treat per click, you give a larger amount so that the dog would end up with roughly the same amount per minute.

Once you’re ready to raise criteria, do so by looking at the responses you are currently accepting. You’ll have “technically meets expectations, but nothing special” on one end of the continuum, “average responses” in the middle, and “outstanding!” at the other end. Raise criteria by clicking only average-to-outstanding behaviors, and drop the “technically meets standards.”

If something unexpected happens- either super good or super bad- STOP. End the set and think because…

Planning is Important

Perhaps the most important thing I learned was how specific you should be in order to train well. Many of us had the tendency to state “I am going to work on duration now,” but that really doesn’t say a whole lot. Instead, Kathy challenged us to be very specific in what we mean by duration. Much better to say “I’m going to click when she holds the dog biscuit centered and lengthwise in her mouth without mouthing it for a minimum of two seconds.”

In other words, know what you’re going to click. There should be no guesswork about whether or not something meets criteria.

So, even though I felt sad and frustrated the entire weekend, I learned enough to make it worthwhile. I am fortunate to have a dog who will keep working for me even when I’m not feeling up to par. So, it was a great seminar, and I’m so glad I got to have a working spot with Kathy!

Kathy Sdao Seminar: Letting Reactive Dogs Choose

The overall theme of this seminar was choices. Early on in this series, I talked about how our dogs need to have choices. I also alluded to the fact that this can be hard to do when you have a reactive dog who might make dangerous decisions. Thankfully, Kathy talked about this! Her acronym SMART (See Mark And Reward Training) actually includes a sneaky second S: Set up.

Setting up means that you control the environment and not the dog, and refers to both training sessions and life outside training. Kathy told us that so much good training can be undone if the dog practices bad behavior outside training sessions. She gave us the example of a dog who barks at windows when people pass the house. Even if you train for an hour every evening, the eight hours your dog spends barking out the window while you’re at work will have a stronger and longer-lasting impact on his behavior.

Good set ups mean that you limit the dog’s activities so that he can’t rehearse the very behavior you’re trying to change. It’s kind of like a bucket of water: if you don’t plug the holes, the water will leak out. No matter how much water you add, you simply won’t make progress.

Not drowning!

This is especially important with reactive dogs. We talk about keeping them “under threshold,” and again, this applies to both training and life. Kathy used a drowning analogy. If a child can’t swim and falls in the deep end of the pool, you not only want to pull him out of the pool but you also want to prevent him from going near the deep end again. This means that reactive dogs often need to be heavily managed or even confined early on during their training.

With a controlled environment, we can help our reactive dogs make good choices, making the neural pathways for the desirable behavior stronger. Then we can slowly add in distractions, which can become cues to perform the behavior we want. This allows us to “retire from the full-time job of cueing!”

Having lived with a reactive dog and as a result been very vigilant about possible problems, I love that phrase. In fact, this is why I eventually stopped taking Maisy to trials for awhile. As hard as it was, I couldn’t control the environment and was exhausted trying to constantly prevent her from going over threshold. Worse, I failed, meaning that the reactive neural pathway in her brain was constantly activated. Truly, going slow was actually much faster in the long run.

What have you done to set up your dog’s environment- and his life- so that he could be successful?  

Kathy Sdao Seminar: 10 Ways to Get Behavior

As presented by Kathy Sdao.

Picture is unrelated. But beautiful!

1. Physical Pressure

Also known as “molding,” this method involves the trainer physically putting the dog into the position you want. To do this, the dog needs to yield to your action. Although this method can work (it’s how I taught Maisy to shake/give me her paw, and how many people teach sit), it does require a cooperative animal. Since the dog is passively allowing the behavior to happen, it can be tricky to get the dog to understand that he needs to offer the behavior.

2. Prompting

Similar to using physical pressure, in this method, the trainer elicits the response by doing something that prompts the dog to take action. For example, if you walk towards a dog that is facing you, he is likely to step backwards. This is a common way to teach the dog to back up. This tends to be used mostly with reflexive instincts.

3. Luring

Kathy actually listed this as 2b because it is a subset of prompting. In luring, we prompt the dog to do a behavior by using food to get the dog to do what we want. Although it is widely used among positive trainers, the dog is acting more passively than some people would want.

4. Targeting

This requires the animal to place a body part against an item. This does require some pre-teaching so that the dog understands what he’s supposed to do when the target item is presented, but once the dog has learned that, it can be used to elicit a variety of behaviors. It can be used in a similar way to luring, although it doesn’t have to be. It’s a great technique for people who want the dog to be an active participant because the dog has to think through the options and make choices.

5. Capturing

In capturing, the trainer can be quite lazy. Instead of figuring out how to elicit a behavior, the trainer simply watches for what she wants and then rewards it. This makes capturing great for behaviors that are already in the dog’s repertoire and that he’s likely to do (such as sitting or lying down). Capturing doesn’t work for behaviors the dog doesn’t innately do.

6. Shaping

This is what many people think of when they think of “clicker training.” In shaping, we allow the dog to offer behaviors and then click/reward small steps towards the goal behavior. It requires the dog to be an active participant in his training, and can often result in very creative behaviors.

7. Classical Conditioning

First discovered and studied by Pavlov, classical conditioning is a method of getting behavior that relies on creating associations between two things to create automatic responses. In Pavlov’s case, he could get the behavior of drooling by ringing a bell. Classical conditioning is used most often in behavior modification, but can also be used for developing strong recalls.

8. Removal of Inhibitors

If something is preventing a dog from performing a behavior, removing that thing will often allow you to get the behavior. Often, the thing that is inhibiting the behavior is something scary, so this is really about allowing the dog to feel safe enough to perform.

9. Modeling or Mimicry

This method of getting behavior involves demonstrating what you want, and then having the dog copy what you’re doing. Although it is possible for dogs to do this, they are not naturally good at it. It’s really more useful for primates.

10. Verbal Instructions

This one isn’t used for animals at all as it requires a shared understanding of verbal language. In other words, it’s only for humans, and only for those who speak and understand the same language! Still, it is a way to get behavior, so I’ve included it here!

Kathy Sdao Seminar: See and Mark the Behavior You Like!

If reinforcing behavior is the most important thing you can do when training a dog, then marking that behavior probably is the second most important. But then, the trainer’s ability to see behavior is also important. Honestly, it almost feels like a chicken-and-egg argument; you could make an argument that they are equally important.

Kathy thinks that teaching people how to mark behavior takes precedence over sharpening their observational skills. Of course, marking behavior does require seeing it, but she likes to backchain when training humans as well as animals, so let’s talk about marking first.

Kathy works with a small group on their skills!

Marking is important, Kathy told us, because figuring out which behaviors are correct is harder for the animal if the reward is functioning as both information and the reinforcer. It’s just not as clear. And of course, a marker like a clicker has a number of other benefits. Kathy identified four: the clicker acts as information (yes! That is the behavior I want!), a secondary reinforcer (which strengthens the behavior), a bridge (making a promise that reinforcement is coming), and also as a cue (to eat).

Good markers are SURE:

Short, preferably only a fraction of a second.

Unique and unlike any other signal the animal will recognize.

Reliable or consistent across trainers, contexts, and times, and

Evident and easily distinguished from other stimuli.

Once you have an effective marker, you need to protect it. Markers become weak when they don’t provide information, have become poisoned or infected by use during anxious situations more often than calm ones, or don’t actually mark anything. They can also become weak if the trainer requires the dog to do more behavior after the marker has been given.

But marking a behavior is only worthwhile when the timing is good, which requires us to clearly see what it is we are marking. Good timing is essential because otherwise you run the risk of inadvertently mark and reward the wrong thing! It’s also challenging to have good timing because there is an inevitable time lag between seeing the behavior and the physical action of clicking. Assuming absolutely no cognitive processing time, the nerve impulses needed to travel from the eye to the brain and then the brain to the fingers is about 125 milliseconds. It may not sound like much, but remember that you will need time to think and then your animal will need time to process the sound.

Which means that good timing requires you to be able to see a behavior before it happens; you’re clicking the earliest precursor to the behavior. You also need to pay attention, which is, let’s face it, harder than it sounds. You need to be very clear about what you’re looking for and give your full brain power to the act of seeing even the tiniest of changes.

You’ll need to get past your judgment and analysis, past talking and prompting, past labels and preconceptions, and past the audience effect (people watching you) if you are to see clearly. Really, seeing requires you to be fully, completely present, something that is far more difficult to do than it sounds.

See- Mark- Reward. All important, all dependent on one another. And all skills that you can not only learn but also improve. So, what do you do to improve your ability to train effectively?

Kathy Sdao Seminar: The R in Dog Training

To Kathy, the most essential thing to understand about dog training is that consequences drive behavior. Period, end of story. What happens after a behavior happens is the best predictor of whether or not that behavior happens again. There are other important things, of course, and in fact, Kathy has an acronym for them: “Get SMART,” which stands for See, Mark, and Reward/Reinforce Training. (There’s actually a second S- set up- which I’ll talk about in a separate post because there’s a lot of great material there to apply to reactivity.) But the most important is the “R,” so that’s what I’m going to write about today.

The camera caught me mid-reinforcement!

Let’s start with the difference between reinforcement and rewards. Although it might appear that she’s using the two words interchangeably, she’s not. They aren’t the same thing. Rewards are given to an animal; it’s something he earned. Rewards don’t necessarily affect behavior (although they can create good will and enthusiasm). On the other hand, behaviors are reinforced. Reinforcement both causes the behavior to be repeated or occur more often and are contingent on that behavior happening. Reinforcement, Kathy says, is the trainer’s responsibility, not the animal’s.

Obviously, the more reinforcers you have, the better, and the amount of things you can use as a reinforcer is really limited by your own creativity. Classical conditioning will allow you to create a reinforcer. Or, you can use things your dog is distracted by as a reinforcer (this is basically the Premack Principle, and it’s very potent). And, as I’ve discussed on this blog before, cues can also be reinforcing.

I’ve always found this last bit fascinating, if a bit confusing. The truth is, while it’s awesome that cues as reinforcers gives you a lot more options, there are some downsides. You have to put a bit of work into cues-as-reinforcers; the cue must be familiar and the behavior must be fluent. It also needs to have been taught with positive reinforcement only. And then, if you’ve been lucky enough to create reinforcing cues, you need to be careful. If you give them simultaneously with bad behavior- such as when we try to redirect a behavior we dislike- it can reinforce that bad behavior. Oops.

This isn’t the only way reinforcement can go wrong. Remember how Pavlov’s dogs were conditioned to feel happy when they heard a bell that was followed by food? This can happen to anything. So if there are two events that happen sequentially, the way the dog feels about the second event can go backwards in time and contaminate the first. Sometimes this is awesome; dogs learn to love their clickers because they’ve been followed by treats. Sometimes, not so much. Kathy told us that if you reinforce a dog immediately after you’ve punished him, that punishment will become a reinforcer.

Say what? But… yeah, it can happen. It’s just two events getting associated with one another. For example, if you yell at your dog and then immediately praise him for making a better choice, the dog can learn to anticipate being praised after you yell. Or if you give him a collar correction for pulling on leash and then click and treat for heeling, collar corrections can become an opportunity to earn food. If this happens, every time you try to punish your dog by yelling at him or using a collar correction, you’ll actually be reinforcing the behavior and therefore causing it to happen more often!

This also works the other way around. If something bad happens immediately after you’ve offered your dog a toy or some food, then the bad thing can contaminate the good one. This can create a dog that “isn’t food motivated”- not because he doesn’t like food, but rather, because he’s afraid of what it predicts. And this doesn’t have to be punishment. If you try to help a dog get over his fears by luring him into the situation (for example, luring him to you to get a nail trim or to step on a wobble board), you’ll actually make things worse.

But don’t let all this scare you away from using reinforcement! For one thing, even if you aren’t a clicker trainer, it is impossible to avoid (anything that increases a behavior is reinforcement). Instead, avoid the pitfalls by simply separating reinforcement (good things) and punishment (anything scary or bad) with a pause long enough that the dog doesn’t associate the two.

Okay, so you’re ready to reinforce behaviors. You know how to avoid poisoning your treats. So… how do you give them? Experienced trainers know that the way you deliver reinforcement influences the final behavior. Using a marker (like a clicker) will reduce the impact of food delivery because the marker says that’s the behavior. Even so, that marker becomes a sort of cue in itself: it tells the dog that he has earned his reinforcer and that he should go to the location it will likely be delivered. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that only a clicker will tell the dog this; my Maisy has discovered that praise or even just a smile from me means that she should look for her treat. This is why, whether you use a marker or not, the place you give the treat matters so much.

There are three main places to give the treat: in position (while lying down, in heel position, etc.), in order to set up the next repetition of the behavior (for example, tossing the treat away from the dog’s mat when teaching “go to bed”), or “direction sliding” (where you move the dog to the correct location in order to fix a problem such as forging in heel or to further the dog’s learning such as teaching a spin). The option you choose will depend on both the stage of learning your dog is in as well as your final goal. And you may even switch back and forth between locations!

So that’s the down and dirty on reinforcement, AKA, the most important part of dog training. What have you learned about reinforcement? Worse yet, what did you learn the hard way?

Kathy Sdao Seminar: So Many Choices!

As trainers, we make lots of choices. We talk a lot about what behaviors we want to teach, and how we are going to get those behaviors. We talk about our criteria, when to raise it, and the best way to set a dog up for success. We talk about how often and how long we should train. We talk about whether or not we will choose to use punishment at any point in this process.

What we often overlook, though, is that we aren’t the only one making choices. There are two living, thinking beings involved in training, and it’s important to realize that our dogs have “agency.” This means that they have the ability to act independently and make their own choices. In fact, our dogs encounter dozens of “choice points” every day, and Kathy argues that we should not prevent them from making decisions when they arise. If we do, our dogs might become overly dependent on us, or worse yet, they might learn that their behavior doesn’t make a difference in the world, which can lead to anxiety or learned helplessness.

I let Maisy decide to explore this tree branch.

So we need to let our dogs make decisions. Because they live in a human world, most of us will train our dogs so that they make decisions we like. This is really fairly simple; all we need to do is notice when our dogs make choices and reinforce the ones we like. As Kathy pointed out, we have to feed our dogs anyway, so we might as well take advantage of it! Even better, Kathy urged us to become “choice architects.” This fun term means that finding clever ways to get our dogs to choose the option we want.

Choice architects typically manipulate the environment so that when a dog comes to a “choice point”- a situation in which the trainer will allow him to make a decision- he makes the correct decision. Sometimes this is done by making the behavior that the dog prefers (and that trainer dislikes) harder for him to do. Sometimes it’s done by making the choice that the trainer would prefer easier for the dog. Often, it’s best to do a combination of these; using just the first choice is often inefficient or unsuccessful.

A choice architect will set things up so that when the dog comes to a choice point between a good choice and a bad one, the bad one is harder to engage in than the good one is. A really good choice architect will not only create this situation, but also pay close attention to the dog and reinforce him as frequently and generously as possible when he makes a good decision.

This is different from management; we aren’t preventing bad behavior. Management effectively takes the choice away from the dog so that the trainer is the only one making decisions. And while it’s important to allow dogs to learn that their choices and their behavior matters, management does have a place in training.

For example, untreated, my dog’s anxiety and reactivity could have become dangerous; she threatened to bite children on several occasions. I used management to prevent her from doing so. At the same time, I set up very controlled situations (read: safe) so that Maisy could learn to make good decisions when she was feeling scared or anxious.

Over the years, Maisy has gone from heavily managed to being allowed to make many decisions on her own. Because I built these new skills up slowly, gradually generalizing them to more and more difficult situations, she was able to develop confidence her in ability to make good decisions. These days, I allow her a lot of latitude; I will ask if she wants to meet someone or not, which direction she wants to go on walks, and what she wants to eat at mealtimes. I am a choice architect.

But I’m getting off-topic. Kathy was talking about training in general, not the specifics of working with reactive dogs. That’s just my area of interest! Anyway, reactive or not, how do you act as a choice architect? What do you do to make the behaviors you want from your dog the most attractive option?  

Kathy Sdao Seminar: Introduction/Outside the Seminar

Author’s Note: This post was written shortly after I attended the seminar. I knew I could wait until later to write about the content of the seminar because I take excellent notes, but because this post is about how Maisy did while we were there, I wrote it right away because I wanted to be sure I remembered all the details. Maisy has blossomed over the last year, so some of the things that I was amazed by back then are things I take for granted now! Still… this was an important step in our journey, so while it’s much belated, I want to preserve it.

In October, I saw Kathy Sdao for the third time (assuming you count the sessions at Clicker Expo as one). This meant that much of what she presented was review for me, so I probably won’t post as comprehensively as a result. But even if I’d heard it before, I had a great time anyway. She is such an amazing, energetic, intelligent, dynamic speaker that I think I could listen to her read from the phone book and still enjoy it.

This time was even more exciting because Maisy and I had a working spot. I was very excited for Maisy to meet Kathy (although Maisy seemed to prefer Dorothy Turley, Kathy’s assistant. Seriously, Dorothy took this picture of Kathy, Maisy, and I. It didn’t turn out well because Maisy was so squirmy, trying to get to Dorothy).

Because the seminar was held in Urbandale, Iowa, a five hour drive away, today I'm going to tell you about our traveling experiences, as well as how Maisy handled the whole thing in general. While this isn't technically about the seminar, I'm so proud of her that I just have to share.

We left just before noon on Friday afternoon because I have an Iowan friend whose house was on the way that I wanted to visit. Maisy and I spent about two hours with my friend and her 11-year-old daughter who decided Maisy was the best thing ever. Which means that Maisy spent two hours repeating the same three or four behaviors over and over and over and over again... for like five Cheerios total.

I watched Maisy pretty closely, and she was surprisingly happy throughout the visit. I did enforce a few breaks even though Maisy didn't really seem to need them. It just seemed prudent. Maisy was relaxed and responsive the entire time, which is a far cry from the dog who threatened to bite kids a few years ago. Like I said: proud.

We drove down to our hotel, checked in, and then found a park to walk in. We were surprised by an off-leash dog, and Maisy just wiggled at it, excited to say hello. Seriously? Who is this dog? Note: Ha. This behavior has become very typical of Maisy. It doesn’t surprise me at all anymore.

At the hotel that first night, Maisy barked once at the door. I decided to give her some clonidine, but I don't think she really needed it. Honestly, she did a lovely job handling all the strange noises (including another dog down the hall that barked all night long), and slept through the night soundly.

The seminar was a bit more difficult. I'd guess that there were around fifteen working teams, and probably thirty or forty people there in all. We were supposed to crate at our training stations, but I set Maisy's crate up next to me in the seating area so I could keep an eye on her. There were a few dogs who might have benefited from something similar; one barked quite frequently throughout the day- when people walked past, or there was a loud noise- in turn setting off nearby dogs.

Despite all the noise, Maisy settled in and ate her trachea treat (she won't eat chewies if she's too stressed), and then stretched out on her side and fell asleep. That's right: she slept in her crate at a dog event. I don't think that had ever happened before. Yeah, I was proud.

Still, it did take its toll on her, and she did a small bark and hop (not really a lunge, but not nothing, either) at a Golden at lunch, and later in the afternoon, growled and lunged at an adorable prick-eared dog. Although I found this disappointing, I was able to quickly redirect her back to the task at hand.

That night at the hotel was a bit more difficult; she probably barked a total of three or four times. Most were in the evening, but one was in the middle of the night. Still, she did sleep quite well. Interestingly, during the most difficult part of the evening, she chose to sleep in the bathroom away from me, returning after she had rested up to spend the rest of the night closely pressed up to me. Note: I’ve noticed this trend over and over again since. When Maisy has had a hard day, she needs space to decompress. It’s been a great way for me to gauge if I’ve pushed her too hard.

Sunday at the seminar was surprisingly good. She was quite clear that she needed to be crated in the car instead of the building (she couldn't chew or rest inside but could in the car). Still, she was eager and happy to come in to work, and didn't have any reactivity during the day. It probably helped that Sunday's training task was easier for us both, meaning that my attitude was more upbeat. Maisy feeds off emotional energy from me like crazy. Note: Okay, yes, I was frustrated during the Saturday training task, but I think there was more to it. My close friends will know what I mean when I say that this is about the same time that the fall started to get hard for me. For everyone else, suffice it to say that getting divorced is emotionally hard. Maisy reacted to that.

We drove home that night, arriving home around 10pm. Although I worried that she'd have difficulty settling in, she really didn't. She barked once, and then slept solidly until 10am the next morning, when I forced her to go out for a walk (which was really more of a stagger). I didn't see any residual stress, which is so different from the days where she needed five days to recover. Of course, I kept things low-key for several days anyway.

So she wasn't perfect, but I was so proud of how well she did. It was a really difficult situation for her to adjust to, and she did a really lovely job. Maisy will never be a “normal” dog, but she fakes it pretty well. Note: Ha. I pretty much think of her as normal now.