E70: 도나 힐(Donna Hill) - "보호자 핸들러가 훈련한 도우미견 & 멋진 콜백"

file. So think about that. You've got the back feet of the dogs, and not only do they have to have back-end awareness, they have to have awareness of their nails, not just their pads scraping the area. So it's been a tough one. So the last couple of nights, well, for the last while, we've been bringing out the scratch board and trying something new, and it's actually been a fun process, and we're almost there. That's pretty neat. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Lucy is consistently digging with her one back paw, and Jessie's about halfway there. She'll do like half a scratch, so she's starting to get there. That's awesome. Yeah. So I know we didn't get to chat much about it last time, but you're very involved in the service dog world. I mentioned in the intro you run the Service Dog Training Institute. Can you just share a little bit about that? Oh, absolutely. So Service Dog Training Institute is an online community for people who are training their own service dogs, and we offer self-paced online classes that, of course, they can check out 24-7, and we have web-based coaching sessions. So get on their webcam, and they can chat face-to-face with me, and a few webinars. We haven't done a whole lot yet, and we also have a new program called Fast Track Training where people can get either daily help or twice-daily help for the period of a week. Wow. That's kind of awesome. Yeah. We also offer in-person training in Nanaimo, too, and that's fairly recent. I've actually added another trainer to help with those, and she also helps with the online Fast Track training, too. But the key thing people want to know is there's tons of free resources on my website. I've got over 300 training videos. I've got a blog. I've got general information, like laws and stuff about service dogs. So the best bet is to just check out the website and read through, you know, click on every link and just see what's there because there's tons of information there. So I know you mentioned kind of owner-trained service dogs there. Are there advantages and disadvantages to owner-trained service dogs? Would you be able to kind of share your perspective on that whole thing? Absolutely. There's both advantages and disadvantages. I feel a person needs to carefully consider if training their own service dog is right for them. It's a huge time and energy investment. And even though you are doing most of the training, it still costs money. You need to do group classes with other dogs. And every trainer, whether they're a professional trainer or an owner who's training, they still

need to get some help at some point in time, whether it's a fear period or they've run into a situation that sort of went south, those kinds of things. And one of the biggest problems for a lot of people, they do it because they want to save money. But lack of funds are a super common issue for owner-trained teams. The other thing that I find is tough for a lot of people is the lack of focus to take the actual time to do the job right and not rush the dog through the process. Because, of course, everyone wants their dog trained yesterday, but it can take up to two years or sometimes longer, depending on the dog that they've chosen. So the big advantage that you can train the dog of your choosing, so if there's a specific breed that you're interested in that you think would work better for you and your lifestyle, then that's a choice that you can make. You also get to learn the process of how to train. So when down the road your health changes and you need additional tasks, now you know how to do that, or at least you can figure it out, or you know where to get the help to do it. Whereas if you get a program-trained dog, some of the programs actually tell you not to train your own dog at all. They just want what the dog is already trained to do. So that can make a big difference. And, of course, one of the big bonuses of training your own dog is that the bond starts from the day you bring the dog or puppy home. So you don't have to wait for two or more years for the program-trained dog. Thinking on the disadvantages side, it takes a lot of time and energy and focus to do it. And not everyone's got that ability. So I always say, just like it takes a community to raise a child, so does it take a community to raise a service dog. And it's so true, because there's just all the pieces that need to come in. Your caregivers need to be on board with helping you in the way that you need help. You need to have trainers lined up for assistance. You need people to act as distractions. And you have to go get resources and all those kinds of things. So you have to know how to go out and get those resources. And finding the right dog is another huge barrier for many people. They'll go out. They'll find a dog that they immediately fall in love with. And it's not necessarily the best service dog candidate. So they have to be really careful. For that, I actually recommend them bringing in someone who's less emotionally related, someone like myself, who can help them assess and look at the weaknesses and strengths of that particular dog before they move forward.

And the other sort of disadvantage is that, while owner trained or not, just sort of an educational component here, is that the handlers in general need to take on an educational role at any time. Because the public really doesn't know much about service dogs. So many people want to interact with all dogs they see, and including your service dog, whether it's in training, whether it's professional, they don't care. And of course, you're doing all of this while you're living with a chronic medical condition that requires the need for the service dog. So that can certainly slow the process. It can throw some glitches into the gears. So it's a real balancing act. And you have to seriously look at, is it a good thing for you? It is a bad thing for you? Would a program-trained dog be better? Maybe there's even other alternatives. Some people just jump immediately to the dog aspect, when sometimes there's actually assistive technology that might be a better choice for them, and they don't have a responsibility of maintaining a dog or keeping the dog. So it's a big-picture thing. You'd have to sit back and look at your lifestyle, look at your family, and see whether that would all work out. And if you can, in fact, wait approximately two years until the dog would technically be ready for public access and be able to go out with you into places. Right. You kind of talked a little bit in there about evaluating a dog. So what are some of the important traits that, you know, people really need to objectively evaluate their dog for if they're considering training it as a service animal? Okay. So, and this applies to whether you already have a dog in your home or whether you're going to look for a dog. The first and foremost is a known health history of both the dog and his parents, if he can at all possibly get that. And also looking at getting the pups, the parents, and also your dog at two years of age, medically tested for the common diseases that their breed suffers from. Oftentimes they'll take it to the vet and the vet goes, yeah, it looks fine. Well, there's a lot that the vets can't see unless they take the proper tests and the proper scan. Right? Right. You know, yeah, the vet says it's good, but, you know, two years down the road, three years down the road, this hip dysplasia appears, quote, unquote, out of nowhere. Well, probably there, but they just didn't look for it. So hip dysplasia, epilepsy, cancer, heart conditions, those are common health reasons that a dog is pulled from service after it's been trained. And, I mean, it's heartbreaking.

You spend your two years or whatever it is to train this dog, and then you get maybe a year and a half or if you're lucky, two or three years, and then suddenly, oh, sorry, can't use that dog anymore because of health conditions. So that's one thing. Another characteristic you look for is a calm temperament. Basically a dog that's unflappable, meaning nothing phases them. And you really, really want a dog like that because things like a sheet metal, it dropped in the next aisle or a baby screams on the plane in the seat right next to you. You know, your dog should be aware of it, but not really worried about. And both of those things, a lot of dogs will react to, and it may take them a while to calm down from. So we want a dog that, you know, would notice that certainly and be aware that it's happening. We just go, oh, yeah, no worries. I've seen it, done it, been there. We also know that there's a number of things that affect temperament. So if you, the more you know about the history of a dog, the better. So, for example, genetics has an important role to play in both fear and aggression, as well as a solid temperament too. You've got a solid tempered mum, more likely you're going to have a solid tempered puppy. The mum's stress level during carrying the puppies, how good a parent the dog mum is, and also the physical and emotional environment the puppy is raised in, as well as the physical and emotional environment the adolescent dog is raised in. So you're kind of seeing, you know, so before the puppies are even born, and then you're seeing while the puppies are being with the litter, and then what happens to the puppies after they've left the litter. So those are all really three key components that can really affect the future of this dog. There's a couple other things. People-oriented. We want a dog that has the ability to bond strongly with the handler, and yet be friendly with strangers. And that can be a tough one if you're looking at some of the protection breeds. Some of them are very protective by nature, and their family is very highly regarded, but strangers are not. So, you know, that's a safety issue for emergency personnel and things like that, that are dealing with them in public. You want an animal that's good with other animals, so dogs, cats, birds, prey species, ideally ignoring them when in public. So it just makes your life a whole lot easier if you don't have a dog with really high prey drive, like Lucy does. Trust me, been there, done that for a lot of different things. So I have to be on guard.

And as a service dog, you don't want to have to be on guard to protect other people or other animals from your dog, and likewise from your dog doing damage to someone else's animal. So, I mean, that can be a real stressor in itself. So that's one of the key things you look for as well. And the sensitivity level is a real interesting thing. You want a dog that has a sensitivity level appropriate for the person that they are helping. We want them to be sensitive enough that they notice changes in their handler, but not so sensitive that the dog mirrors their motions of the handler like anxiety. And this is a common issue that I find with people with PTSD and anxiety, is they tend to pick dogs that are very sensitive, and then they end up with an emotional mess that they can't use as a service dog, right? So that's a toughie. A dog that's food motivated slash willing to learn, those kind of come together. It's much easier to teach complex behaviors, we know, to a dog that's food motivated, of course, using clicker training, marker-based training, whatever you want to call it. And medium to low need for exercise. And that's assuming this fits the lifestyle of the handler. And the vast majority of people out there really don't want to take the time and energy, or they don't have the energy to take a really high exercise need dog out for, you know, an hour or two a day for exercise. So you really want to make sure that that's going to meet your needs. Unless you, you know, want a dog for competition, and you want an active dog, if you're out and about, and your disability doesn't stop you from hiking, you know, two hours a day or whatever it is, then that would be fine, as long as the dog can learn to calm down in public. Right. And the last one I'm going to kind of leave you with is a quiet dog. If a dog barks or causes a disturbance in public, a team can be asked to leave. So you want to make sure you're not choosing a breed that tends to be on the barky side, because then you're fighting a losing battle, because the dog is going to really want to bark. And it's harder to inhibit something that's, you know, a genetic kind of trait. Once it's brought out. One of the other things that I do want to just mention is that the breed of dog can be important, because public perception plays a huge role in how some service dogs are accepted. So for example, any dog that's not a typical service dog breed tends to draw more attention to the team. So if you're out and about in public, and somebody keeps approaching you, Oh, you have such a wonderful, Oh, isn't that unusual?

And you get stopped every five seconds, just because you have this stunning Dalmatian, or you have, you know, just something that causes people to notice more than usual. Absolutely. And so that that can play a role as well. So tiny breeds is another example. They may be commonly dismissed as fakes. Or if you've got a protection breed dog, people are fearful, and they'll give you wider birth. So yeah, those kinds of things are really important when you're choosing the actual breed of the dog as well, or breed mix. What the dog looks like has an important impact on the public. That's really interesting. I think a lot of people probably don't think about that piece of it. They think about suitability, maybe for the tasks, and don't always think that extra step to do they really want to deal with, you know, the public's reaction to that specific dog or that specific breed. So I think that's a great thing to bring up. Well, and there is a lot of prejudice as well around certain breeds. There's a lot of gray lines with service dogs on when you need permission to get to bring your dog to work, for example. And so if an employer decides that they don't like the look of your dog, or they feel that your dog is an aggressive dog, or aggressive breed, they can do a lot of things to make sure that your dog can't come to work with you. They can put a lot of barriers in place that you, it just happens, unfortunately. I mean, people are really creative when they don't want something to happen. So and I've had that happen with kids taking dogs to school. I've seen that happen with at a government level where a person was taking a service dog to their government agency, and they end up getting isolated, just because of the breed of dog. But the minute that they get another more accepted breed, suddenly they're allowed access everywhere. So yeah, it can make a huge, huge difference. And so I always recommend to people, you know, think really hard about the breed and the look of your dog. And, you know, you know, your dog is a soft, mushy, but people look and they make snap judgments. And those judgments can last for a long time. Moving from traits or temperament and those kind of things to the core skills. You know, what core skills do service animals need that owner handlers or just, you know, anybody really training a service dog will need to train? In addition, you know, to those special behaviors that are kind of medically necessary for whatever their condition may be. The two most common I tell everybody is loose leash walking and settle. And that's because service dogs spend most of their time,

hurry up and wait mode. It is, it's seriously. So loose leash walking, it's, it, that gets them from point A to point B. And it's a critical skill. So the, the handler doesn't have to focus on them all the time as they're loose leash walking from point A to point B. It's not a formal competition heel. It's a loose leash walking. They can walk within 18 inches to two feet of the handler. The leash is at a loopy, you know, U-shaped kind of thing. And the dog can be ahead or behind or beside. It doesn't really matter. Well, a lot of people mistake that and think, oh, the dog has to have this formal competition heel. Well, we at FDSA know that dogs can only maintain that focus heel for a very short period of time. You know, it takes a lot of concentration to keep that desired precision. So a loose leash walking is acceptable. You know, we don't have to ask for 95% of precision all the time. It can be, you know, 80%, which is more reasonable to expect a dog to stay within a zone within the handler. So it's really the distractions that are the tough thing. You know, the dog's not going to the end of the leash to pull, to go see another dog, for example. It's ignoring that dog and moving on. So with loose leash walking, that's kind of the focus, is learning to ignore distractions. Now, the settle or relax, which is the other main skill, it's not the same as the Sphinx down that's also used in competition. It is a settle. It's a relax. Let the dog chill out. As long as they're staying on a single spot, maybe it's a mat or maybe it's a defined space under your table, the dog needs to be able to get up and move and turn around if you're going to be sitting there for an hour and a half to two hours. Right? So it's not fair to have the dog just hold that Sphinx down. So we want to give them a bit of latitude that, yeah, it's okay for you to get up and move around. As long as you're right here close to me and you're not getting up and walking away, that's close enough. The other kind of key things is that a service dog needs to learn to assess the situation. Because we don't want, as handlers, you don't want to have to give your dog a cue for every single behavior. The dog starts to learn to recognize, oh, in this situation, oh, I know we're going to go sit. I'm going to lay under the table. Okay, no biggie. They start using the environment as the cue for what behavior is expected. So we end up getting a lot of default behaviors. Sits and downs, leave-its and eye contact are kind of the important ones in general. You know, if the dog's uncertain what to do, what does he do?

Look back up at his handler and say, hey, what do you want me to do? They look back and they might just sort of point to the ground. Well, guess what? That means settle. So it keeps it simple and the communication is really clear. And the dog's always looking to the person for guidance. You know, those are all also skills that even if we only have a pet dog, they would be fantastic skills to have well-taught for a good pet dog, right? They're not necessarily, you know, unusual skills to try and teach, but it's really important as a, you know, if you're training a service dog, that they're taught to a high fluency. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And it is a fluency difference between a well-trained pet dog and a service dog. So the other topic I was hoping to chat about today for a bit is recalls, since you have a class coming up on it. I think recalls are often touted as perhaps the most important behavior we can teach our dogs. So first, I mean, do you agree? And second, you know, why are they an important skill? That's a great question. I'm not sure if I agree or disagree. Hmm. Okay. I think it depends on the living situation the dog is in and how often she or he finds herself off leash. For example, a recall for a service dog is actually pretty low on the importance scale, since in public, the dog is rarely, if ever, off leash. So why would you need a recall if the dog is not off, you know, not off leash? So if they are off leash, usually it's only to perform a trained task. And when dogs get to that level, they're so focused on the task that a recall is not important. Or the recall may be part of the whole behavior, like in a retrieve. So you've sent your dog off to get something. He's got to come back to bring it to you, right? So if it's trained really well, there's your recall right there. Or if he's trained to go get somebody, they go get the person and they bring the person back. So there's sort of a recall in there as well. So for pet or sport dogs, absolutely, a recall can be critical, especially if the dog is given a lot of freedom on a regular basis. So you want to know that your dog's going to reliably respond when you call. If she does respond, there's a potential for so much more freedom for the dog, for one thing. And also, if the dog is going to be in environments like agility trials, you don't want the dog taken off after distraction. Or if he happens to, then you know that he's going to come running back to you. Once you realize that he's taken off, you give the cue and he comes bolting back to you. So, you know, you really kind of need that.

But the more freedom you give them, the more freedom that they can have as well. So it's kind of a hand-in-hand kind of thing. And there's also alternative behaviors that can be taught that might be more appropriate in some situations as well than a recall. So something like a sit or a down at a distance. You know, your dog's taken off across the street after a rabbit. And when he finally comes back, you want him to sit on the other side of the street because there's a car coming. You don't want him come dashing across in front of the car. So if you can sit or down your dog at a distance in that situation, that would actually be a better than a recall. So I guess my answer is, it depends. Fair enough. Which is kind of funny coming from someone who's training a recall class, right? Right. But hey, hey, it's honest. So I'll take it. So I think that obviously FDSA, we see lots of sports dog handlers specifically. Um, so in competition obedience, they have a formal recall with the front, you know, and all that. For those who compete, how would you handle that and training that recall? Okay. Um, well, distance is a real distinction between a competition recall and a real life recall. For most competitions, there is a limited finite distance within the ring that the dog will be doing the recall. And there is relatively few distractions, um, in that ring. And I know some would beg to differ because there's some nightmare situations been seen. And I've, I've been in the ring and seen that as well. Um, but in real life, when your dog is at even a greater distance that you can, you may or may not be able to control depending on the dog. Lucy is another classic example. She will happily run, um, a 500 yards away and not think twice about it. Whereas Jesse is, stays much closer. So Lucy is the one that I have to keep an eye on and I have to make sure I interrupt her running that far away because at that distance, I don't have as much control as I do if she say a hundred yards away, right? The distance can make her break a dog's recall success. So if a cyclist rides between you and your dog at a junction or a rabbit pops up and runs across the trail, that, that definitely can make a difference. So that in real life, distractions happen between you and the dog, um, not necessarily around the outside of between you and the dog. So while a recall is a recall, the dogs do distinguish between different working environments. And because the competition ring tends to be pretty consistent looking, you know, there's rings around or, or the, you know, there's the, um, fences around the outside and there's

certain equipment that are in the dogs get to know, Oh, okay. I know which kind of recall you want. So they start quickly start learning. Okay. It's that formal recall that you want me to, um, run to you and stop, sit in front of you and then wait for a release to go back to heal. And then the final release at the end of the exercise. So they definitely know the difference between, you know, an informal recall that you would do out the field versus a formal recall that you would do in the ring for sure. And honestly, most people are just happy enough, um, in a real life recall, just to be able to have their dog close enough to grab the harness and then otherwise tell the dog what to do. Right. So yeah, you don't have that whole longer chain. So for somebody who is working on their recall, um, and they work on, you know, that real life kind of situation, would you expect to see some carryover that might strengthen their more formal performance? For sure. Um, the distraction levels are key. I mean, in any environment that you're training, doesn't matter what it is that you're doing, whether it's a recall, teaching your dog to ignore distractions is absolutely the important thing. So because any chain of behaviors, and of course a recall is a chain of behaviors, um, that can be broken into smaller bits. Each part of the chain can be isolated. So that's the approach that I take in my recall class. If your dog returns to you slowly, you can work on speeding up just that part of the chain, or maybe the missing piece is the dog doesn't reorient you to you in the face of distraction. You can work on just that too with little games and in using, um, control distractions. So once you have those improved, then you can add the pieces back together for either the competition recall or the real life one, but it definitely would benefit both types of recall. I know you get pretty into the science of training and I've heard a lot of talk about a, what they're calling a classically conditioned recall. That's the phrase that you're kind of all over. Can you explain it for us? Um, I'll try. Okay. So, uh, a classically conditioned recall is when the dog reacts to a cue without thinking. So, um, so classical condition, think of a cat that comes to the kitchen when he hears the can opener. That's a classically conditioned behavior. The cat's not thinking about hearing the can opener. He just hears it and he runs for it because he knows it means food. So, or maybe the dog that hears the scrape of the spoon on the bottom of the bowl and he just

suddenly appears at your feet, even though he's not supposed to be looking, right? That's a classical conditioned reaction. So he hears the sound and it triggers a behavior. He's not even thinking about it. Um, I remember years ago with a previous dog and he was, and I mean, this was long before I knew much about training dogs. Um, certainly not as much as I know today. And he was walking ahead of me on the trail and out of the blue, for some reason, I don't even remember why I decided just to call out to him and say, sit. And I mean, he was probably about 50 feet in front of me. If that, he didn't go very far. And I told him to sit. And as soon as I did his bum plunk down and he kind of looked around, like he was started going, Hey, who did that? It was just bizarre. Like he just had to start a look on his face. And I, and that would be an example of a classically conditioned sit. I must've been practicing in that time period so much that it just was sit, bum, go down, sit, bum, go down. He wasn't even thinking about it. It was just sit, bum, go down. So even he was surprised. That's kind of awesome. Yeah, I was, I was pretty enthralled. And of course, when I got these two dogs, I thought, okay, that's my goal. I have to be able to teach these dogs. Well, of course, now I know how to do it much, much better and much more effectively. And it comes much faster, but I'm still thrilled when it happens anyway. We want the recall to happen that way. Ultimately, right? We want the dog not to think we just want him to automatically respond when he hears the cue or sees the hand signal. Cause it could be both. It could be a hand signal. It could be a verbal sound that the dog hears. Um, so for dogs, they were in a really, really high state of arousal and who have had a chance to practice chasing or catching prey. That can be a really hard level of training to get to. So the level of the level of adrenaline overrides everything else. And they really go into that tunnel vision mode where they can't, they literally go deaf. Um, and they can't see anything other than a really narrow vision right in front of them. But if we stick to the training and we keep doing it and doing it and vary how we do it and add different distractions and work the dog around higher and higher level distractions, we can actually increase their threshold. So that while they still are under the effects of adrenaline, they can still function at higher arousal levels. So that tunnel vision will, you know, be further open, perhaps like the tunnel that they see would be a bigger tunnel.

Maybe they can actually still hear you rather than not being able to hear you. So, so that's a big part of it is just learning to increase that arousal level, but lowering, or I guess increasing the threshold so that the dog can still function at that higher arousal level, I guess would be a better way of putting it. And I've got a funny little story about Jesse, my current little dog here. She has a funny, um, combination of an operant and a classical conditioned recall. She actually does both. And they're, one of them is very conscious. She actually sets me up for operant recalls. I mean, she's a dog that will stay quite close. She's actually in general, well, until we got Lucy, she was quite fearful of being out in the bush or out in the woods just by herself with us. She's very much a city dog and very comfortable in the city. So she actually learned, um, I, I, I taught her by starting the capturing of the eye contact, which is one of the things we do in class. And so she would run ahead and she actually stops. And she's facing away. And you know, she's waiting for something just by her body position and posture. She's waiting for something. And sure enough, I give the cue. So that's what she's waiting for. And as soon as she hears it, she takes off like a rocket towards me. She just does this turn on a dime and bolts right back to me. So she set me up for a recall. And she does this a lot. And I thought, you know, this is good for a dog that's so fearful. And she, you know, she just couldn't respond because her level of fear was so high. I'm just thrilled that she would do that. Right. And she's actually setting me up. So finally, in the last, I would say, year or so, we've finally done enough of the operant recalls that it actually has become classically conditioned. So I've actually been able to call her off chasing a deer in a classical conditioned response. So I'm pretty happy with that. Yeah, that's excellent. I mean, that's kind of everybody's goal, right? To be able to have their dog in the middle of a chase and call and have the dog say, okay, I'd prefer to come back to you. Yeah, well, and it wasn't even a preference. It was just a reaction. It was just a response. She heard that and she just turned on that dime. And it's because we've practiced and practiced. And I've kind of stacked my helping because she likes high-pitched sounds. She's very much into squeaky toys. She likes movement. So I actually stack my success by throwing all of those things together. And I guess it was enough that she was not thinking anymore. It was like, yay, mom's calling me. It's woohoo, right?

So it just becomes a classically conditioned response rather than a thinking or operant response. So the tough thing, though, is is it a reliable? Could I repeat that? I honestly can't say because we don't have enough situations where we encounter deer on a regular basis to purposely test that out. I do know that I can now collar off mice. I can collar off squirrels. And I can collar off grouse. Those are much more controllable situations. And we do run into those a lot more often on our walks, on the logging roads. So, so far, both dogs have stopped when any of those situations arrive. And lucky for me, they've also stopped when we see bears. And I can cue the recall after they stop. So, so far, cross our fingers, no bear chasing. So I don't know whether they stop and they go, oh, that's a big black animal. And I'm not sure if I want to interact with it or not. Oh, mom's calling. Okay, the good distraction. Right, right. Definitely do not want the dog taking off after the bear. Yeah, so I wouldn't say that's necessarily classical. I would say it's probably more operant. They're actually thinking about it and going, okay, this is the better choice. So, but I'm still happy with that, too. I don't want them bringing a bear back to us. Right, right. I think often people start working a recall. They do it at home. They do it in class. And then they kind of just expect it to work everywhere. You know, they, you know, most of us just probably get that that's unrealistic. You know, especially if you're a sports trainer, you know that there's a little bit more involved to any, to making any cue kind of that reliable. But I think even pretty sophisticated handlers may really struggle to build up distractions in a systematic way. You know, when it comes to recalls, how do you simulate things like motion from prey animals or those really good smells that the dog just can't seem to come away from when you're training? You have to get really creative and you use what you have in your environment. So you have to think about what triggers your dog. Is it the scent? Is it the scent? Is it motion? How can you replicate those? Or maybe even not to the degree that happens in real life, but certainly at a lower level that you can start building up to that in real life. Um, so I start thinking along things like, okay, for scents, um, think about, uh, how can I get a sample of something similar that my dog might be really interested in? Or can I recreate it in a controlled setting with a helper or a decoy animal or a toy that moves? Um, so those are actually the kinds of secrets that we will be exploring in part two of the

recall. Um, but I'll give you an example just to sort of get your juices going. Okay. So start where your dog is at. Um, if your dog can't turn away from rabbit poop, for example, and I know both of my dogs, when we started, rabbit poop was pretty high on their interest list because it smells like rabbits. It's something that they can eat. So it's self-reinforcing. Yuck. So, um, what I did was I went and I found some fresh stuff somewhere in the city. I literally went hunting and we collected some, I wore some rubber gloves, I scooped it up, I put it in a container and I used that sample to train a leave it at home to the point of a default leave it. So they smelled the rabbit poop. Oh, look at mom. What's going on here? So I had a nice little default, um, behavior and that's kind of the starting point to get your dogs. If they learn that they can call off of it, that's where you need to start from. And of course, this is not asking for any distance. This is literally, um, the, the treat or the treat. Okay. Rabbit raisins were in a container on the ground, right in front of me and right in front of the dog. So all the dogs literally had to do was look at it and look back at me. So I'm not asking for any distance. It's just look at me after you sniff the rabbit poop. So that's, that's the kind of small detail where we start. And then we can add motion. Maybe we get the dog to make the choice that to have to turn around back to us. Then the dog has to turn around and take two steps to us. And we slowly build it back up until we actually have a recall where the dog might be walking around the yard. And unbeknownst to him, I've planted my sample in the yard earlier and he comes across it. And as soon as he smells it, he does a quick head check-in and the check-ins as well are another piece. Um, and then I happen to see that and I give my recall and the dog comes flying at me. So yeah, it's just about, uh, focusing again on the one piece of the, one piece of the chain at a time and build them up. Yeah. And I have to admit some of us are actually that dedicated to our dogs to go and search out things like rabbit poop and bring it home. That's funny. I like that you called it rabbit raisins. Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot more palatable. Ha ha ha. Oh, goodness. So don't worry. But for those of you listeners, the other ideas in class are not as gross as that. I just thought I'd like that one. It's not required. It's just a good example. Fair enough. Um, so I was looking over your syllabus for, for the class for August. Um, and I noticed that you had acclimating on your list of skills for recall.

And I don't know, I guess it caught me a little by surprise. Can you kind of explain how that fits in to the, to the picture of a recall? Yeah, absolutely. So acclimation is the process a dog goes through to become comfortable with the environment. Um, you give them a chance to go into the environment and you anchor yourself and they have six feet of leash. So technically they can probably actually move about a 14 foot circle diameter, um, and check out that environment. And sometimes we may want to acclimate them by letting them lead us around a certain space. We usually define that space. But what we find is once they've acclimated to that space, then they can focus on what we were asking them to do. So by giving them time to acclimate, when they first arrive at a location, we're giving them a chance to satisfy their natural curiosity that might otherwise distract them from being able to pay attention to us. Right? I mean, that's pretty standard what we do for sport dog and for service dogs and all of that kind of thing. So what I find is that the more we allow them to acclimate in each new location, the more they come to realize that the environment is actually less interesting than interactions with us. So by giving them the chance to go check it out, then they go, okay, I've checked everything out. They look back at us and go, what now, mom? Um, so it always, they learn that it always pays for them to orient to us whether or not, um, we asked for it or whether they just give it as a default behavior. So that, that's one piece of it. So that orientation is something we work on. So we can't get the orientation until the dog is acclimated, right? So that's the first step again, um, as well, giving them time to acclimate allows us to identify what they find interesting. And we can use those interesting things to our collection of reinforcers. So by watching our dog sniff a rabbit trail or, um, look up the tree at the squirrel, I mean, those are obvious ones, but we can actually go, ah, that's something that I can use as a reinforcer because that's something that I can control. So we might send them over to sniff a very interesting mole hole that they saw earlier, um, as part of the recall. Um, or maybe they can go greet the person that's standing over there if they're a really people oriented dog. So we can give them more meaningful reinforcers that they really want rather than what we think they want. And they start to see us as a gateway to the reinforcers. So that's a part of the process of building the bond that's strong enough to be able to call them away from things like deer.

So you have the class broken into two parts right now, part one and a part two. I know you mentioned earlier kind of, you know, some things are in part two that aren't in part one. Can you, can you just talk a little bit about how you've broken that down? Okay. So part one focuses on the basic recall with low to medium distractions in the form of games. So, you know, here's the basic structure of the recall. Let's add some distractions in. Um, and that is a really important piece because if your dog doesn't have that fundamental foundation, it certainly isn't going to be able to do a recall off of higher level distractions. So part two ups the ante to adding a higher level distraction in controlled settings so that the dog learns. Yes. In fact, I can call away from those exciting things. Um, I actually previously offered it as a single class, but it was too overwhelming for me. And I think for some of the students, um, because there's just so much involved in those two levels. So I've split them into the two parts to make it easier to really focus on the pieces that are needed. Like I know some of the classes have a lot of material and it's like, there's no way you're actually going to get through this in six weeks. It makes it a little bit more, uh, real time, I guess, for lack of a better phrase. So people can actually work kind of through the class as you're releasing stuff. Is that, yeah, absolutely. Cause the first time I ran it, it just felt too rushed. And while it was, it was fine in that it offered some, um, support for people who were not as far along in the recall, those who already had it were able to zoom ahead, but then it became really confusing to try and watch both ends of the scale. So, yeah, so this just simplifies it that, okay, we've got to focus. It's on the basic recall. And then we're going to add the higher level distractions in part two. I wanted to ask if you'd be willing to share a game that listeners might be able to play to work on their recall to kind of give them a taste of the things you'll be doing in the class. Okay. Um, one of my favorite ones that has come over time is I have a game that's a building speed game because of course we want the dog, not only to come to us, we want the dog to come to us really fast. And I've seen this develop with my girl, Lucy, the border calling mix. And it's so awesome to be able to see her just run as hard as she possibly can to come back to me. Like, it's just awesome to see that eagerness and that enthusiasm. And, you know, there's literally dust flying up behind her when she comes back to me.

Um, we actually, and I tried to get it on videotape last night and I'm going to try and get it before the class. So I can actually show a clip of it. I might even use it as part of the promo for the class, but it's just hilarious because it's such a, it's been so dry and the road we're on one of these logging roads and it's a really new dusty road. So she's running. I mean, literally there's these plumes of dust every time she hits the ground that pop up. So, I mean, it just, it's, it's, I don't know, heart rendering, I guess, to see your dog do that. But anyway, so this game we play between two people and we start close up and, uh, we're once we start adding distance, we can actually start capturing speed because we can select only the fastest responses we're getting from the dog. So if the dog sort of meanders towards us, okay, you know, not a big deal. We're not actually recalling. So we don't actually have to click and treat. But as we're playing this back and forth game, it sort of turns into intermittent reinforcement so that we can choose the faster responses, get the click and the treat. And so what the dog quickly does is starts to offer us faster and faster recalls. So it's, it's really cool. Now, in combination with where we happen to live, there's a lot of hiking trails, biking trails. And, um, what I like is finding a narrow trail that looks like a roller coaster. You know, they go up and down, they go side to side. And sometimes you can even find ones that zigzag back and forth down the side of a hill. So once the dogs really have built up some good speed for recalls, you can have a person at the top and a person at the bottom. And even going up the hill, which by the way, is a really good cardio for your dogs. Um, they build up some pretty good speed and you watch them and they do look like a cart from a roller coaster, you know, going back and forth, going up and down. And you can just watch their bodies as they're flying towards you. It's really cool to watch. That's my favorite thing. So, and I mean, they're learning foot placement, they're weight shifting to allow them to careen off the trail banks. You know, you can see they're having fun with it. I'm having fun with it. I'm not sure if it'd be considered agility or parkour, but you know, it uses the skills of both. Right, right. And everybody's having a good time and you're working on those skills. That's the important part. That's what it's all about. So one last question. And it's, uh, you know, slightly on a different topic because I've taken to, to asking it kind

of at the end of all of my interviews for guests that have already been on once and done the traditional three questions already. And that way I don't have to repeat them. Um, but so the new question is what is a lesson you've learned or been reminded of recently when it comes to dog training? Okay. Um, but it's not about the dogs. It's about the people. So, um, I'll give you an example. I recently had a client make the realization that her service dog is not a robot. She come to, had come to work with us because her dog was fearful working in public. She had told, told us, you know, my dog is, is fearful about working with public. She's scared of people. She's even scared of strangers coming in her own home. And what we had seen was a dog that had been shut down and was robotically walking through life when working. And this lady didn't see that. She, that's what she had been told that the dog should be working like. She sort of felt something was off, but she wasn't sure. And she'd never had a service dog before. So she just trusted what she had been told. And after working with her for about four weeks, we were so thrilled when she came to us and she said, Oh my God, she doesn't have to be a robot. And that's literally the words that she used. That's why I use those words. She's changed what she does significantly. We've helped her learn to reinforce the dog when the dog is doing what she wants her to do, help build confidence in the dog. And it's going to be a long haul because this dog has a long history of being like this. But the handler now has joy in interacting with her dog. And the dog now has joy at interacting with her human. And that's not what we were seeing when we first had her come to the classes. So we were both giving them their life back, basically. How awesome is that? That's got to feel so good. Yeah. So if we can teach the people that dogs have needs and emotions, just like we do, and those needs have to be met for the dog to be comfortable, I think that we go a long way to strengthening the bond and improving the life of both the people and the dogs. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming back on the podcast, Donna. This has been great. Well, you're very welcome. You really got me thinking. That's a good thing, I think. Absolutely. Okay. Don't forget to check out the Build the Bond Recall classes coming up. Absolutely. And thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week with Stacey Barnett to talk about tailoring your nose work training to your specific dog's strengths and weaknesses. Don't miss it.

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