E110: 헬렌 로울러(Helene Lawler) - 각성, 충동 조절, 그리고 압박

now. She's a really good little farm dog. So that's her main thing. And we might do some hobby agility, but I don't know if she'll do anything else because she really has a full-time job. And then Griffin, her brother is taking his time growing up as boys often do. So at three, he's showing me some glimpses of wonderful talent. And then I have days when I think he might be happier being a house pet. So we'll see. So we focus on, we're doing rally. And I might actually try formal obedience with him, which I have never done formal obedience, but we've done some rally before it. And I think, and he's really good at it. So that's going to be our thing. And I'll let him grow up a little bit more and see whether the sheepdog stuff just comes with time. And then I have Desiree and Clayton who are also their litter mates, brother and sister. And Desi is my agility dog and she does herding, but agility is her first sport. And Clayton is my second worker on the farm after Raven. So he's mostly a, um, mostly a farm dog as well. And then I have Holly, my Kelpie and she's, we sort of do a bunch of things. We dabble in nose work. She's got some foundations in herding. Um, she's the one who put me on the R plus herding path and, uh, yeah, she's been having some health problems this year. So we're kind of taking VZ and trying to figure that out. And then I have Hannah who is 13 and a half. Um, she is my wonderful girl who is fully retired and just enjoying hikes and she gets to herd the poultry and we're actually exploring canine fitness to keep her in good shape. So that's the crew doing all the things, man. Yeah, I know. I love it. I wish I had 48 hours a day. I do even more things. I know you've got, um, a webinar coming up on living with intact dogs. So to kind of get us into that, how many of yours are currently intact and kind of what led you to that decision? Well, all of mine are currently intact. So I managed 10 intact dogs. I have, um, six bitches and four dogs and they do require a little bit of management, but really for the most part, um, I've got a good system in place and it's going pretty well. So I have no real urge to have to do any surgical alterations to that setup. It's, um, yeah, yeah. I, uh, I was a little bit intimidated at first, but now that I've, you know, understand the routine and know how to manage hormone cycles, um, and understand their personalities, it's, uh, it's going pretty smoothly. So it's going well. And what led me to that decision? Well, it's a bit of a, um, a long story, but the short of it is that I wanted to get into breeding. So I kept Hannah

intact because I thought that I would, um, like to breed her someday if she turned out to be the dog that I thought she was going to be. And she did. So she was my, my actually my second dog that I kept intact. Um, but the first one, um, I, I, that's a long story. She, uh, I ended up, she ended up, um, being rehomed. So that was a few years before. So that was my first venture into having an intact dog and it had nothing to do with her being intact, why she was rehomed. And she just, we just weren't the best fit together, but Hannah. Um, yeah, so I, I got Hannah and I decided to, uh, to try breeding. And so that got me started on the path and, uh, teaching me some things that I needed to know. And once I started to become used to the concept, uh, there were a lot of things about it that I really liked. So I kept moving forward in that direction. I know I kind of mentioned in the beginning that you've got, um, you know, a bit of a rescue background and I know a lot of that world or that culture really heavily pushes spaying and neutering. So first of all, was that your experience? Was that kind of what was pushed when you were in that world? And then how did you kind of make that mental mind shift yourself? Was it, was it the dog you mentioned that was the first dog you kept intact? Was it Hannah? No. Can you get into that a little bit? Sure. Okay. So the, yes, I was very active in the rescue world for a long time. And the standard procedure was absolutely, as soon as they come in, like you immediately, as quickly as possible, book them in for their spay and neuter and any vaccines they need and so on and so forth. Um, and, and I was totally on board with that. That was just part of the process, but something I, I, I started to observe over time was that a lot of the dogs were developing a lot of behavior problems that were settling in a number of weeks after they came into rescue. And I started to feel like maybe there was some pressure we were putting on their bodies with all of that surgery and everything happening when they were under state of stress. So I started to do some research into the health impacts of spay neuter among other things. And I kind of decided, well, let's see what would happen if we don't do that. And I was fostering dogs and not immediately having them altered. And I started to notice that they were settling in better. I felt like they, and this is just, this is just my anecdotal evidence and I have no scientific background at all to support this is just what I observed,

but I did feel like the dogs were start, were more resilient. We were seeing fewer behavior issues popping up and so on. So I started to get into the practice of saying, okay, let's just let them come in and work them through whatever they've dealt with, get them rehomed, have them stabilized, and then consider going for surgeries if that made sense for the adoptive home to do so. And I just felt like what I was observing was that it was a little bit less of an impact on their, their overall wellbeing in a negative way. So it ended up, they ended up doing better is the bottom line. At least in my observation, in the small number of dogs at that point that I was working with. So that really got me thinking and researching. And, and then I also had one of my own dogs come in and he had just been neutered. And again, I saw that same pattern. And I'm not saying the spay neuter changes the behavior, but I don't know that the timing with all the stress when they're under the pressure and the upheaval and everything. And, and it really, you know, that's just, I don't think it's a, the best time to do that type of a major surgery because it really does have a significant impact overall on how their bodies function. So that's what got me into the door of looking down this road. And then the more research I did and the more work I did with dogs, the more I just decided to keep going in this direction. And now I'm quite happy with, with the results with my dogs today. You mentioned, you know, there is some management involved with having 10 intact dogs in the house. And I'd like to just kind of talk about that a little bit, you know, are there things that are more difficult because you've got that many intact dogs or their downsides? Um, yes, absolutely. There is management involved. Um, I've been, you know, I'm quite diligent. I'm very cautious with, uh, with, um, making sure that I don't have unwanted litters. Um, it does happen. I've been very lucky that I have not had any problems and I'm part of that is because I have a good system in place. I've studied their, their cycles. I understand the fertility windows and so on and so forth. Um, I have a few policies in my house. For example, if I have a bitch in heat, there's, there are always two barriers between the girl and the boy. Um, so if one barrier fails, there's a second barrier. So for example, they would both be in crates or a crate and a door or, um, yeah, mostly those two things, or one will be outside and one will be inside and in a crate so that if

somebody opens a door, I don't have to worry about, you know, uh, the one outside running in and then wham, bam, thank you, ma'am. So, um, I know people it's happened to. So there are some simple things that you can do in your management like that, that policy. And I just always keep that policy in place, always two barriers. Um, and sometimes the barrier has failed, but I've never actually had both barriers fail. So things like that, um, can, can go a long way to making, um, making the process easy, but it is a matter of awareness. It's a matter of programming yourself and educating yourself. And I think the more knowledge you have, um, the easier it is to manage the dogs. So the downsides, I would say you do have to put some time and energy into management. Sometimes you'll have some behavior changes and my dogs, I have, um, the young males, usually their first couple of years when they, the girls go through their cycles, they can get a little bit worked up. Um, so I've sometimes been kept up at night with some singing, um, and some, you know, wailing and gnashing of teeth. I feel very lucky that my boys are easygoing. They get along. Um, I don't even have to separate them when I have a girl in season. I know some people do because the boys can get a little testy, but, um, they've grown up together and they've been fine. And once they've been through a couple of cycles of living with girls with C that come into season, they stop being all wound up. And like my boys really don't even pay attention to the girls, except for when they're in actual standing heat, which is a small window of three to five days, depending on the girl twice a year. So, um, yeah, so I feel like it's really not that big a deal to manage them. Now that said my guardian dog outside, he's gets a lot more worked up, um, with the girls. So I do observe, uh, again, this is a small scale. I have 10 dogs and I have three different breeds. So I can't say this as a kind of a widespread generalization, but I'm definitely seeing a difference in my guardian dogs than my border colleagues and my Kelpie in terms of, um, their, their whole patterns and cycles. So I'm going to talk about that, uh, sort of thing as well in the webinar. Awesome. So I wanted, that was actually going to be a nice question. So what else do you, do you plan to kind of dive into in the webinar, you know, kind of give a picture of who maybe you should, should join, should sign up and, uh, and watch. Yeah. So in the webinar, um, what I want to do is share my insights and my management systems

for, to help people, you know, give them, you know, people some tips and tricks to make this an easier process, things to look for. I'll help with some education around, uh, understanding reproductive cycles, um, the care of your bitch and your dog. If there's anything that needs to be done specifically with an intact dog. Um, I'm not going to really get into medical stuff. That's not my area. And I think we've already had a wonderful webinar on that, but I'll mention a few things that people get worried about like Pyo Mitra and so on and how I deal with my concerns about that. So the other thing that I want to do is address people's fears and concerns. And I have a list of those and I invite people to contact me or I'll probably put up a poll in the, in the, on the website to, for people to let me know if they have questions that I can address. I want to find out what, um, what people are really concerned about, because I know there are a lot of fears and a lot of that is myth. A lot of things that people worry about like excessive aggression or, um, the possibility of unwanted puppies and how easily or more difficult that is to have happen and so on. So I know when I had my very first dog who was in season, the very, very first time I was petrified. I really was, I was like expecting male dogs to like break down my door. Um, I was terrified to take her outside to pee in a fenced yard on a leash, you know, and I've come a long way since then. So I know that it can be a bit intimidating and scary for people who are first going in this direction with their dog. And so I want to just give some information and insight and share some stories to help make it an easier process. In addition to the upcoming webinar, right? Uh, you've got like a, I mentioned kind of at the beginning, you've got a lot of different things come down the line here. So you've got your herding class back on the schedule for June and then a workshop coming up, um, on downs specifically for herding. I want to kind of talk about those. I'd imagine getting a solid down for herding is pretty difficult. It seems like everything is stacked against you. You're dealing with probably a high arousal level because you've got sheep or stock or whatever nearby, um, you know, high distraction level, sometimes ridiculous amount of distance, uh, you know, competition herding that I've seen is often a lot, a lot of distance. Um, so break it down for me, kind of what goes into teaching that? Okay. So the, the down can be very difficult or it can actually be really easy. And a lot of that

has to do, some of it is, is the dog and the genetics and how naturally they will down or stop and how calm headed they are. Um, if they're like more of a forward, intense, hothead, pushy dog versus a calm or thoughtful dog. So, so the, so it's going to vary across the dogs that, you know, depending on the genetics and the breed and how they were selected. So that aside, um, in the training process, the, the down can actually be very reinforcing for the dog. If we do it correctly, if we ask for the down, when the dog is in a place where it would naturally want to stop and down. So when it's on balance, when everything's under control, um, there's some things we want to look for and learn how to read in the sheep and the situation. And if we are careful when we first start teaching the down to only ask the dog to down when it's in a situation where it would naturally be downing anyway, then it's reinforcing to them. So we can use positive reinforcement to our benefit. The other thing is, is we have this incredible reinforcer in the livestock. So when you ask for the down, you can then let the dog get back up and move onto the sheep as its reinforcement, which is, like I said, hugely reinforcing for a dog that has been genetically selected to want to do this. So if you're, if you're strategic and, and, and thoughtful about teaching the down, you can actually do it, um, very, uh, very effectively and, um, and relatively easily. So it seems counterintuitive, but it actually can be a very straightforward behavior to teach. If you think it through and know what to look for. Um, the other thing is, is I like to teach the behavior off stock as well so that my dog has it on a verbal cue. And then I have both aspects going. So I like to go to livestock with a young dog already knowing how to lie down. You can teach them on stock from scratch if you want, but I think it's, if you want to follow, like, as I do, as we all do here, um, you know, positive reinforcement approach to training our dogs, I think we can go a lot further if we have the behavior split off away from the distraction and taught and, and, and really established fluency before we take it to stock. And so I teach it in two components that way. Awesome. So kind of pull it apart and teach it off the stock. And then kind of when you're adding it, you're really using the tools in the situation that make it reinforcing to kind of, kind of help you along. Is that exactly. So I've, I've taught a nice down off stock, um, under a variety of different situations and contexts so that the dog is pretty fluent in the behavior.

And then when I take them to the stock, um, I'm very careful about only asking for the down in situations where it will be reinforcing. Now, eventually when the dog is trained to a higher degree, you're going to have to ask for downs when it's not reinforcing, the sheep might be running away. The dog might be off balance. There are lots and lots of situations where you're going to just need that dog to stop regardless of what's going on, but that's a dog who's got a lot of training and you have a lot of reinforcement already in the bank accounts, you know, as we say for, for downs. And so you just make a couple of withdrawals. And then if you're careful, most of the time, then you can really, you can really maintain your down, um, just by being thoughtful and aware of when you're asking for it. I imagine that kind of, you know, you used, you know, coming at it from an R plus approach in there. And I imagine it was not an easy thing to kind of learn to teach this concept, you know, using positive training methods, especially in a sport where, you know, we've talked before that's not traditionally where the sport often comes from. Um, can you share a little bit about how you learned to, to split those things apart, um, to build a down strong app for your sport? Sure. So I was doing a lot of agility training, um, as my second sport while I was, um, getting into herding when I first started doing herding. And so I learned a lot of skills through agility and that's what got me thinking differently. And I, I'm a such a big fan of multidisciplinary training because I think the cross pollination is fantastic. Like I am looking forward to studying some, you know, learning about gun dog training, because I think you can learn so much from how different sports train dogs. And then you bring it across, um, into your sport and you could come at things with new ideas and, and new angles. So there was a lot of stuff that was going on in agility that I was just like, wow, you know, that would translate really well to teaching a dog on stock. And so that's how I got started. And then the more I've learned about training in general, um, the more ideas I've come up with. So, you know, using a platform for teaching you're down at a distance, um, and using errorless learning for building this up in a really positive way. So you have a strong positive conditioned emotional response to the cue of down. So there, there, it was, it's been a long evolution and, um, and it's probably an ongoing one. I'm sure there's still more for me to learn, but I'm having a lot of fun with it. So it's all good.

You mentioned kind of the idea of multiple disciplinary stuff kind of carrying over. So I imagine that strong down would be really beneficial well beyond hurting. You mentioned agility in there, um, with the methods you'll cover in the workshop carry over for those other sports. I would say yes. Um, I think absolutely the teaching the down off stock, uh, will be good for anybody who needs a down off, you know, a down at a distance. So that's what I'm going to be focusing on is how, cause, cause there's one thing to teach your dog to lie down. And we often see dogs who do a lovely lie down at our feet beside us. But when they're at a distance, we ask them for down. They either don't, or they run over to us and they lie down. So we, you know, and, and to my understanding, it's because the way it's been explained to me or the way I've sort of interpreted what's going on here is that dogs see in pictures. And when we train the dog to lie down, let's say, because they're standing next to us or beside us and they can down for them, the, the cue down takes on this, this picture of where they are in relation to us. And so we have to figure out a way to translate to them to sort of uncouple the cue, the, the, the behavior of going into a down of belly on the ground, that, that, that belly on the ground behavior needs to be uncoupled from proximity to us and other contexts that might be included in what the dog is thinking of, um, as what, for, for what down means. So we have to, I go through a step-by-step process. Like I said, I'll use a platform and I will use a variety of other kind of steps where I'm first teaching the dog the down, and then I'm separating out the behavior of belly on ground from all these other factors that might be, um, initially kind of lumped in, um, to our dog's understanding of, of the behavior. So that's, that's what I need to look, uh, to, that's what we go through to teach the down at a distance in preparation for stock work. And that will translate to any, um, discipline that needs a down at a distance, I think. Well, anyway, I kind of love that description of generalization, you know, the idea that dogs train in pictures, that's a really nice way to, uh, to kind of phrase it. And it really kind of creates a, it's a good metaphor for it. It really kind of explains it well in your own mind, you know? Yeah. I find that's really helpful for me just to kind of like take a picture in my mind of what, what the whole context is and that, what does that mean for the dog? And then we need to keep changing that up so that we can separate that out for them.

Cause we don't think in pictures, we think in words and dogs don't think in words. Beyond, beyond just the down, you know, what other skills do you consider to be important foundation behaviors for herding? Okay. So I have a very simple list of key skills. I want my dog to have when I take them to livestock and that is a down at a distance and a recall. Um, that said, I like to have a much broader foundation that is not necessarily stock related in terms of my relationship with my dog. So I'm, I'm going to take my time getting my dog started on stock work, like just as 14 months and he's been on stocks maybe five or six times in his life for five minutes each time, just so I could see what he was doing. I have my own sheep and I don't take my dog out to him. I really want him to grow up. In the meantime, I'm focusing on building my relationship, um, with him through play. We go on hikes together. I do all the foundation training that I would do for any sport. So I do all my, you know, targeting behavior and basic manners and, um, as I said, the toy play and so on and so forth. So I, I, I don't raise them any differently than I would if I was going to be teaching agility or, or rally, et cetera. Um, I sort of had a, have a set of foundations and, uh, foundation skills that are really about building my communication with my dog. So my dog really starts to understand, I, I guess the, I guess I can summarize it by saying I build a communication system with my dog through play and through, you know, these toy games, you know, games we play with toys and through, um, simple behaviors that I teach them. So by the time we go to stock, we have a strong relationship and we have an ability to communicate. Um, I've learned my dog. I, I understand, you know, when they're happy, when they're not, they show me signs of stress. I, they show me signs of joy and I can really feel like I can read my dog pretty well. And that gives me a lot of feedback when we go to stock. So I want all of that in place before I start doing formal herding training. But in terms of actual hard skills, the down and the recall is really all that I particularly want, um, in that sense. So in the class, I know there are a couple of other concepts you, you dive into. Can you talk a little bit about the concept of pressure, both in terms of, you know, how herding dogs use it to move stock and I guess how it's kind of used in training? Sure. Okay. This is a little bit of a controversial subject. Um, and, um, I'm just going to explain, uh, how I understand it. Um, I'm not the authority.

I'm sure other people have different understandings, but this is how I understand it. So we have pressure can be a couple of, um, technically pressure is pressure can be used as a guide or it can be used as an aversive. So we can use pressure to kind of threaten our dogs into doing things. Um, so that is a common way of using pressure on dogs, uh, in particular in herding where you're adding pressure and, um, and then when the dog does what you want, you take the pressure off and then that's how you get the behavior that you want. And they are trying to avoid something. So now if you're using pressure as a guide, they are also trying to avoid something, but they're not necessarily to my mind and it's up to the dog and my ability to read the dog, but I don't want the dog to feel like it's an aversive. So what this would look like would be, um, the dog I'm sending the dog around the sheep and the dog is coming in a little bit tight. I might step into the dog's path and the pressure of my body's moving into the dog's path is going to bend the dog out a little bit. So I would call that guiding pressure as opposed to aversive pressure. Now, if I came at my dog angrily with a stick or a flag and I'm flapping and making a lot of noise and I'm scaring them out of the path, then, um, then that would be aversive pressure. And that's what I'm trying to avoid. So if we look at say agility, guiding pressure would be if your dog's going towards a jump and you just kind of step into their path to get them to go around and take the backside, your dog's probably not going to see that as aversive. Um, some dogs will, right. So we have to really let the dog tell us, but generally speaking, we'll say that that just gives them some information. Oh, you want the backside, not the front side. Um, and I think we can very effectively use pressure that way in herding where we cross the line is when we're actually evoking a negative emotion in the dog to achieve our end. And that's what I don't, that's the line I don't want to cross. So that's how I would differentiate too. You also kind of mentioned this concept of dynamic versus static impulse control, which I thought was kind of an interesting, uh, an interesting line that I caught in the syllabus. Can you explain that a bit, you know, what they are, how are they different? Sure. Okay. So again, this is like my version of the world, how I understand behaviors. And one of the things that I really noticed a lot, and this is something that I learned through doing both agility and herding. Um, but I, I saw it in people who brought

me sport dogs to work on stock and they have these dogs who are beautifully trained to hold still. And then you release them to work and they explode into action and lose their minds. And I realized what these, what, what, or my, my understanding of what was going on there was these dogs didn't really know how to stay thoughtful in motion. Um, so I call static impulse control. And we do so much of this in sport training where the dog has to hold still, and then we want them to explode after a toy or explode into an agility run or, or whatever we're wanting them to do. So we, they have to hold still and we do, we do tons and tons and tons of work on having our dogs stay perfectly still, while we throw toys and hoop and holler and run around and so on and so far. So the dog can hold a stay now dynamic. I call that static impulse control. And I know the word, the term impulse control is actually becoming questionable, but that's a whole other podcast. So we won't go there. I'll just stick with these terms. Cause that's what people were using mostly. So, um, yeah, the static impulse control to me is when the dog is holding its stationary position around distraction. Um, dynamic impulse control is when the dog is maintaining its, its behavior to criteria while in motion. And that is what you need in hurting. Um, I'm going to say that's what you need in agility. And that's what you need in, in pretty much any sport where the dog is half is moving, which is all of them. So, um, so it's pretty important and it's a difference. I'm, I argue it's a different skillset. So just because your dog can sit still around things that might get it into a high state of arousal, um, doesn't mean, doesn't translate to the dog's ability to respond to your cues in motion around those same stimuli. So that's what I want to work on with dynamic impulse control. I want to teach the dog how to stay level headed and thoughtful and be able to respond to me and stay focused on the job while in motion and not just explode and go nuts. Um, and, and that's, that is a skill that has to be developed in a lot of dogs. I'd imagine, I imagine it's a very hard thing to, uh, for a lot of dogs to, to understand. It is, it is. Cause they're so, they're so responsive to motion. So we have to just build it in layers and, um, uh, and be thoughtful about it just like with everything else. And then not to kind of open up a third can of worms here at the end, but, um, I was also hoping we could talk for a moment about, uh, arousal. You kind of mentioned it in there.

And I think we hear that term thrown around so much lately. I'm sure it's a very big deal when it comes to herding. Um, what are you looking for in terms of arousal levels when it comes to herding? What does that look like? How do you, how do you actually achieve it? Okay. Yes. Can of worms. I think that's becoming my specialty these days. Um, so arousal, that's another thing that I have become so aware of because of my work, my cross disciplinary work with sport dogs and, and herding dogs. And one of the, again, the other thing that I really noticed in, um, when I work with dogs who have a lot of sport foundation training and I bring them, um, into a herding context is that they really struggle with their arousal levels. Um, and in herding, we want a dog who can stay calm, cool, and collected. We do not want dogs to get crazy and wild because when they're, when they go into high states of arousal, they go like over, we call it over threshold. I don't know exactly how to define threshold, but when they, when they cross that point of being able to go from calm thinking into not being able to think bad things happen. Right. I mean, in, in agility, they go off course, they knock down bars, they run around, they might do some unwanted behaviors like nip a judge, but in herding, they can, you know, deaths can come from it. So you have to be really, really careful with this. And so I really want to do a lot of work with keeping my dogs in a state of calm thinking at all times. And that has led me to move away from a lot of the high arousal work I do with my dogs across the board. Like I actually just don't do it anymore, no matter what I'm training for. Um, and in my, in my research into arousal, I've been discovering some really interesting things. For example, in human athletes, we never push them into high states of arousal and ask them to perform. There's actually an enormous amount of work done on mindset in human athletes to stay calm and thoughtful, even if they're moving fast, even if they're doing really intense stuff, even if they're in a very high intensity, um, high arousal environment, they have to keep their heads calm and cool, or they don't perform, um, optimally. And so that's what we want to see in herding dogs, um, and, and really in any dog sport. So that's what I've been putting a lot of emphasis on lately, uh, in my training is just really working on keeping my dogs thoughtful and, and in a calm mental state, no matter how much intensity is happening around them and how fast I need them to move. I still need

them to think. I think it'd be fascinating to, uh, to have you back on and talk more about that. Human athlete bit. And we could, we could do a whole podcast on arousal. I'm sure. Absolutely. I'd love that. And I'm going to do some more research, so I'll have more to say on it in a little while so we can talk more. Awesome. You'll have to let me know when you feel like you're at, you're good and prepped. Um, all right. So it's a very last question. Um, what's something you've learned recently or been reminded of when it comes to dog training? Okay. Um, always a few things, but just recently, um, okay. I'm going to just say a couple of things. One of them is trust your gut with your dog. Just when your intuition tells you what the right thing is to do with your dog, trust that, learn, listen to your dog rather than the voices around you that maybe don't know your dog as well as you do. So that's a really important lesson that I just keep learning over and over again. So I'll put it out there because when I don't, then I'm reminded that I should. Um, the other thing is that, um, when you train your dog, good things happen, right? Like I feel sometimes that I get worked up in my head about how long it's going to take me to do something and how much work it's going to be and how difficult it's going to be to achieve that thing. And I get myself into analysis paralysis, especially with all this, you know, all the R2, uh, sorry, R plus 2.0 stuff with loopy training and this and that, and the other thing, which I love, and it's so fun and interesting. And I could just immerse myself in that and never train my dogs. Um, which is the danger. And when I actually get out the clicker and get out the treats and work with my dogs, I'm continually blown away by how fast we progress and something that I think is going to take me months to train. I can sometimes do in like two sessions. Um, so especially with clean, you know, careful, thoughtful planning and good training, um, you can achieve so much so quickly that all of that work up in my head around how long something is going to take me, um, is just in my head. So I have to constantly remind myself that if I actually train my dog, they will get trained and it will happen so much faster than I ever expect. And I just have to train them. Um, they're not going to train themselves. Um, but if I put the work in, it's, I'm going to come back to me tenfold very quickly. So I love that. The idea that, you know, um, sometimes you have to remember that the biggest part in order to get a trained dog

is actually doing the training. Exactly. I know. And I, I, I think I know I really struggle with that. I don't think I'm alone either. So I don't think you're alone at all. Uh, all right. Well, thank you so much for coming back on the podcast. This has been great. Thank you. It's really great being here again. And thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week with Petra Ford to talk about competitive obedience and getting ready for the ring. Don't miss it. If you haven't already subscribed 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.