E64: 사라 브루스키(Sara Brueske) - "트릭에서 디스크까지"

My biggest one that I try to preach a lot is I treat tricks kind of like throwaway behaviors. And I don't mean that in a term that tricks aren't important to teach and they're not really cool to teach and they don't have their own purpose. But the behavior we can teach to get all the kinks out of our training. They can teach concepts. If I want to teach a head target for healing, for instance, and I want to shape that, I might start with some simple trick like a head target on a piece of glass. I can swish my dog's face up against it. I might do something really cool like a chin rest or the head down, are you sad trick where my dog looks super, super sad. If I want to train something like, for instance, a really nice flip finish for heel work, I might train my dogs to a background backwards around me first because that gives them really good hind end awareness as well. And so there's a whole bunch of really cool tricks out there that can help teach our dogs concepts for competition behaviors. And that way we're not really experimenting on the final behaviors that we want to have. I'm not going to work out the kinks on head targeting while teaching the actual head targeting my heel position. And for that reason, that's why I call them throwaway behaviors. They're also really cool because they teach us about our dogs and they teach our dogs about us. And they teach body awareness and balance and control. I mean, they're really pretty cute, too. I mean, there's a whole bunch of really cool tricks out there as well. So tons of reasons why we should do trick training with our dogs. So you kind of mentioned it a little bit there as you're talking about how, you know, you use one skill to kind of teach the concept for another skill. But are there foundations for tricks the same way there are for other sports? And I'm pretty sure you're going to say yes, but, you know, I don't want to go there all the way. If so, can you share maybe some examples of what that looks like? I feel like I should just say no now just to throw you off your track. No, there's no foundations. You treat the behavior just as it is. Actually, yes, there's always foundations for every behavior we teach our dogs. The way I kind of teach tricks and the way the upcoming tricks class is actually going to be situated is they're going to be broken up into concepts. So front paw targeting, rear paw targeting, behind an awareness, head targeting. And then there'll be some miscellaneous tricks as well. And so what I do is I teach the concept of that and then I can branch those into different tricks.

And then those tricks can turn into different tricks and so on and so forth. So I might start with something really cool like rear paw targeting and then teach back up from that. And then my favorite trick, the fake pee on something where you tell your dog to go pee on something. And they don't actually pee, obviously, but they look like they are. That all comes from the same place as rear paw targeting that's used for wall handstands and actual independent handstands later on. It's all the same idea, just branched up one off of another. So my next question was actually going to be how do you build on those foundation skills to create those more complex tricks later on? So do you want to just talk about that a little bit more, kind of how that progresses, I guess? Sure. So I'll use a different example here. Pivoting. We all know pivoting from heel work, but pivoting is a huge component of a whole bunch of tricks that I use as well. Pivoting is where your dog's front paws are stationary on like an upturned bowl or something along those lines. And their back end rotates around kind of like a circus elephant. They rotate around a pedestal using their hind end. So I actually use that for teaching my background and my reverse leg weaves and my scoot for disc. And then even to teach agility weave poles, I can teach that backwards using that same concept. So where I do that is I would start with the dog pivoting around on the bowl, fade that bowl, use it on a body cue on me, and then put it on the verbal cue from there. And then I'd be able to use it for the agility poles later on as well. So it's a whole process, but it's all that same behavior just kind of used in different ways. That's kind of interesting because those are pretty different end behaviors, right? Backing around you and reverse leg weaves and things. I mean, I can see how they have similar components, but they're definitely different end behaviors. They're very different concepts. Yeah. Yeah, they're definitely different in the final product. But if you look at what the dog's actually doing, they're just swinging their back end around in different ways. And so therefore, to the dog, it's the same trick. It's just where they're doing that trick in relation to you, where they stop that trick, where they start that trick. And then obviously with agility poles, I'm using that as a prop outside of just the handler. Is there maybe a particular trick that you usually teach first? Is that something that kind of differs depending on the dog? What are some examples of that maybe?

The tricks I teach first, I kind of teach my core concept behaviors all at one time, obviously in different sessions. And that kind of goes into my little puppy foundation program that I've developed. So the big ones that I want to knock out right away so that I can start using them in different ways and teaching behaviors off of them is head targeting. That one's really, really important for me. So chin rest, nose targeting, extended moving, nose touches, because all that stuff turns into holds and stuff later on. And then the pivot, like I talked about earlier, I want those puppies really working their hind end as soon as possible so they get used to it. And then teaching them just to shape with different objects is a huge thing. It's one of the first things I teach them to do. And so behaviors like all four paws in a box is super important. It's something that most dogs catch within a session, and then we can work it from there. So I think those are the important ones. The other thing that I really try to knock out with my young dogs, my new dogs right away, is three different concepts as far as shaping. So these aren't really tricks, but I want them to learn to shape in relation to me, the handler. So using a chin rest or a hand touch, for example, for that, I want them to learn to shape with an object. So all four in a box or the pivot work. And then I want them to learn to shape by themselves. So something like shaping a down or a spin. That way, those are really the three concepts I need my dogs to know right away, regardless of what tricks or behaviors I'm teaching them later on. And that's really interesting because it teaches them both to operate independently, to operate with an object, and operate with you. Having a dog that's learned one really strongly before learning any of the others, it's very hard to get those mindsets if they don't learn the three kind of simultaneously. Yeah. So kind of going back to that point of what I teach first, I really look at the concepts I need first, and those are the three ones. And then I basically pick my behavior based on that. It might be a different behavior from the dog previous to this one, but it teaches that same concept. So I kind of look at that rather than which behaviors I'm actually teaching. So you mentioned this earlier, but it's also in the description for your upcoming class, that tricks not only teach our dogs how to learn, but they teach us how our dogs learn as well. Can you explain that a little bit more? Just kind of what do you mean by that? Maybe with an example? Sure. So I'll start with the first part of that.

Tricks teach our dogs how to learn. And so that comes to that whole conceptual learning that I was talking about. Things like luring, teaching our dogs to lure. Dogs have to learn to lure. Not all of them just follow that cookie in your hand, and not all of them know how to fade that lure. That's a training tool that we have to teach our dogs. Same with shaping. I've already touched on that. Things like reverse luring or Zen hand, all of those things need to be taught to our dogs. And tricks are a great way to teach those tools to our dogs. And that way, we can take those tools and teach a different behavior later on. As far as us learning about our dogs, every time we teach our dog a new behavior, we're learning something about them. We're learning about their frustration. We learn what they enjoy as far as rewards go. How they want that reward delivered. We learn how the signs that teach us that our dogs are getting pushed too far. Are they hitting their end point in that session? And how far can I actually push that dog? Do they do better with short sessions, like 15-second sessions, you know, a couple of reps here, and then switching to something else? Or do they do better working out for six, seven minutes straight, which I don't typically recommend. But some dogs are okay with that. And so tricks, again, because they are that throwaway behavior, typically they're not things that we win ribbons or anything like that for. Or other than, obviously, they can see the trick dog titles and the do more with your dog trick dog titles. But typically, they're not behaviors that need to be done with such precision that we're worried about screwing them up. And so that's why I like using tricks to be able to learn from my dog and figure out how they like to learn. Do you have any examples of something that, you know, maybe a trick that you taught one of your guys that really taught you something about how one of them tends to learn? I want to use Brilliant, my coolie, as an example, because I've learned so much from working with her. She was the keeper from my litter, my first litter I bred. She has a wonderful work ethic, but she doesn't work like her mom does. Her mom is very, very fidgety, very, very fast, very, very crazy, and has a very low frustration tolerance as far as being right and getting that reward. Brilliant is methodical. She is very thoughtful with her process. She's slow, but not in a bad way, just slow as in she thinks things out before she does it. Duration is her favorite thing to work on.

And so instead of really talking about a trick that taught me that about her, I want to talk about the type of tricks that I learned that she enjoys the most. So I tried teaching her fun, fast things with food like wraparound to cone, spins and leg weaves, things that, you know, other dogs enjoy and they get them moving and stuff like that. And then it was always kind of slow and, and it was getting me kind of frustrated with her. Like, why aren't you more like your mom? And so then I started playing around with other tricks, tricks that her mom isn't really good at, things that make her think. So stacking bowls, putting this inside that, nose work, all of those things that require a little bit more of a thoughtful process. Brilliant was really excelling at. And so as she was becoming, you know, older and her repertoire is getting larger and larger, it's filled with all of these other tricks that I didn't teach her mom. And that's because her mom didn't enjoy learning them. And so it was kind of a cool insight to her. Like she knows all of the stuff her mom does, but she doesn't really enjoy doing those in the same way. But she enjoys the more methodical tricks. And so that's kind of a cool thing I've learned about her. That's really actually kind of neat because it really shows how different personalities come with different dogs. And it doesn't even matter if they're blood relations. You know, each dog's different. Yeah, exactly. So I know you do a lot with your dogs. You do a lot of different skills and train a bunch of different sports. How does the trick training that you do benefit or carry over into teaching them some of those other skills? There's a lot of ways. Like I've already talked about the conceptual theory on teaching head targeting with this behavior, teaching pivots and all that stuff. But I think that the more broad answer to this question is about our relationship. Because I haven't experimented in the behaviors I need for other sports or anything like that. Those behaviors, my dog's emotional response to those behaviors and their enjoyment of those behaviors is always higher. So because my dog comes with the tools ready to learn things like healing or ready to learn things like sequencing for agility, because we've done behavior change with tricks first before fading out rewards and everything else like that. And agility. I feel like that is the biggest benefit with tricks. Being able to use those to prep my dogs for the skills they need for other sports and helping our relationship that way.

That way, when I go out there and I start doing our 20-minute monitoring routine without any rewards, my dog's ready to go. Our relationship is stronger. They love and enjoy those behaviors without any failures or errors that come with teaching our dogs new things. 20 minutes is a really long time. I mean, that's a long time to be showing. Mondi rings hard. So the Tricks with Purpose class, what led you to create the class? Can you share a little bit about it? Yeah, I love training tricks. It's definitely one of my favorite things. When I was 11 years old and I had my first Border Collie, he got washed out of agility because he ended up with a shoulder injury that ended his career before he was even two years old. And so, you know, me, I was 11, stuck at home. I trained my dog to do tricks. And it's so something that I've always enjoyed. It's something that's always part of my relationship with my dogs, always in the back of my mind. What else can I get this dog to do? Like, what cool thing, you know, can we play around with? And so that's kind of why I wanted to share the enjoyment I get from training tricks. And I wanted to show people the other side of trick training, the purpose behind it. And, you know, coming from, I just spent the weekend with a whole bunch of protection sport people. People don't train in protection sports. They typically don't cross train. They don't train tricks for sure. And so showing them that there is a purpose. There is a thing to be gained from training tricks. It's something I wanted to share with the community as much as I can. And then did you just want to talk a little bit about what skills you're going to cover in the class, maybe? So like I said, we're breaking it down into concepts. And then we're going to branch tricks off of there. So kind of my vision for this class is to spend each week. So each of the six weeks on a concept. So I think the first week is something like front pot targeting. And then I'll show a couple of the tricks that you can do along with those things. And that way, students aren't required to train a certain trick or anything like that. They can kind of pick and choose those tricks, cover as many as they want. If they want to do all four of them, go for it. If you only want to do one, that's cool, too. As long as you get that concept of it done. And then so we do front pot targeting. We do rear pot targeting, head targeting. There's some miscellaneous fun ones in there. Like we do this really cool trick in our shows. It's math. So you ask your dog a question like, what is two plus two? And then the dog barks out the answer.

And so I thought that'd be a really cool one to share because it's a crowd pleaser. And it works really well for a bark and hold and IPO or monitoring, too, by the way. That's actually kind of neat. It's a crossover that most people probably have not thought about. Yes. My Malinois are the ones that do that trick because they have bark and holds. So the other class that you have on the schedule is a disc dog class. Just to give people a little bit of background, how did you originally get into disc? So I got into disc in kind of a funny little way. I was an agility girl. I did agility. I loved agility with some of my heart. I tried to make Great Danes in it. I finally got this little border collie mix, a little rescue dog. And for some reason, I was looking on Craigslist. This is the weirdest story ever. I don't know if I've shared it a lot. But I was looking on Craigslist. And somebody was selling a box of dog Frisbees from the local club, Minnesota Disc Dog Club. I'm like, hey, that seems kind of cool. I should probably go check that out. I always wanted a disc dog. And so I went and I met up with this lady. And she sold me her box of dog Frisbees for like $30. And so I just started throwing them for my dog. And I'm like, oh, this is pretty cool. And I watched a couple of videos on how to train different tricks. I'm like, yeah, my dog's really enjoying this. This was Zuma. Eight years ago, this was Zuma. And so then I'm like, this is really cool. So I posted on Facebook a photo of her all happy after a session. Her tongue's hanging out. And there's the disc with Minnesota Tin's Dog logo on it. And apparently, I was friends with some members. And so they commented. And I'm like, hey, we have a competition this weekend. Come on out. It's Raspberry Fest in Hopkins, Minnesota. It's a UFO local. I'm like, all right, I'll go check it out. And then I went. And we won first place in novice freestyle and novice toss and catch. And I met some of the coolest people I've ever met in my life that are still my really great friends today. And that's what started my addiction. That's awesome. Yeah. That's fantastic. It's kind of like random. And there's nothing more reinforcing than to go to your first competition and walk away with those kind of placements. Yes. It was a lot of fun. For anybody who's never been to a disc competition and isn't super familiar with the sport, can you share a little bit about what some of the competition skills and games and stuff kind of look like? So the traditional disc dog format, and there's a few different organizations that have it, is they have freestyle.

And so that's what most people think of when they think of disc dog competitions. The dogs are folding off the handlers. They're doing flips. They're doing this crazy routine set to music. That's my favorite thing. But there is so much more to disc dog than just that component. And you can be super successful in the sport without ever even doing freestyle. So then there's the other traditional game. It's called toss and catch or toss and fetch or distance and accuracy, depending on the organization. And this is a distance and speed and accuracy game. So you're throwing one frisbee down the field to your dog, and they're bringing it back. It's a timed event. You get extra points for distance and for accuracy. And that's toss and catch. And so typically there's a champion for both, for toss and catch. And then there's a champion for freestyle combined with toss and catch for an overall champion. So that's really cool. Then there's, yeah, that's the main traditional format. Then there's a whole bunch of distance competition. So who can throw the frisbee the furthest? And it's not timed. It's just the longest throw wins, typically. Generally in a tournament style format. And then after that, there's this whole group of strategy games. So Skyhounds Disc Dogathon started this whole idea of strategy games. You have to get this catch in this zone, that catch in this zone, or it's a time trial. How fast do you get three catches? And then this organization that really rocks called Up Dog Challenge started. A couple of friends of mine and some other people created this organization. And it's all strategy games. They also have toss and catch and they have freestyle. And there's personal achievements you can win. It's really cool. There's different world championships and stuff like that. It's really beginner friendly and it's a ton of fun. It sounds that way. For people just kind of getting interested, what skills does a dog need to compete in some of the different games? Or what skills could they be working on as maybe beginner skills for all of this? Yeah, definitely. So the big one, obviously, is they need to have toy drive. Frisbee drive is obviously what they need to have. There are some organizations like Up Dog that allow you to use any Frisbee as long as it doesn't have a hole in the center. So soft, floppy fabric Frisbees work just fine or whatever you would normally use for any of the other competitions. So Frisbee drive is really, really important, obviously, since that's a sport. We want the dog to catch the Frisbee in the air and that actually is a taught skill.

Up Dog allows you to actually throw rollers, which is a throw that's along the ground. It rolls on the ground. And so it's a little bit easier depending on the game. Sometimes it's harder. We also want a handoff. So we want our dogs to bring the Frisbee back to our hand. And we want the dog to drop the Frisbee at a distance as well. Interesting. Because those are definitely different skills, bringing it back and dropping it where it is. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of technical. And then there's a few other behaviors like go-arounds where you send your dog around behind you so that you can kind of get a head start throwing the disc and time a little bit better and little skills like that as well. So in the class that you're offering, is it for beginners? Is it for people who are a little more advanced? What are you kind of covering in the class or how is the class formatted? I know it's a little different than maybe a typical class. It's a little bit of a hybrid class. I wanted to offer a handler's choice disc dog class just because I know I've run the foundation class a few times and there's some students sitting in limbo. We don't ever quite have enough people to do a level two all the way. But I know there's that group of people that want a little bit more. And so I wanted to do a handler's choice. That way they can come out. They can work on whatever they need to work on with their dog. But at the same time, I always want to grow the sport. And so I wanted to add a little bit of a foundation curriculum. So it'll be more of a bare bones curriculum based on the foundation class. It won't include all of the things that we work on in that class. But it'll be definitely enough for new teams to come in, have a good idea of what to work on using that curriculum and then kind of personalize their class based on that stuff. So it won't be a class where you have to do everything on the curriculum. In fact, I'm expecting you not to. I'm expecting you to pick things that you want to work on based on what you need. That way you can utilize the time in the best way you can and hopefully get more out of the class that way. Awesome. It sounds like a lot of fun. And I know at least a couple of people who are looking forward to it. So yeah, it should be a good one. Well, thank you so much for coming back on the podcast, Sarah. This has been great. Thank you so much for having me. And thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week with Heather Lawson. And we'll be chatting about breaking down foundation skills and using them as building blocks to teach multiple useful behaviors.

If you haven't already, subscribe to our podcast in iTunes or the podcast app of your choice to have our next episode automatically downloaded to your phone as soon as it becomes available. Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzie Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzie for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty free by bensound.com. The track featured here is called Buddy. Audio editing provided by Chris Lang. Thanks again for tuning in and happy training. Music by Ben. Music by Ben. Thank you.