E153: 니콜 위부시(Nicole Wiebusch) - "보상 위치, 스테이, 그리고 랠리의 모든 것"

Thanks, Melissa. I'm glad to be here. Could you just start us out by reminding us who your dogs are? I know I talked about them a little bit there in the intro, and what you're working on with them? Sure. Yeah, definitely. So Toby is my oldest. He is 14 and a half. He's going to be 15 in July, and he's doing very well, despite his going deaf because he's old. He's still very happy and bouncy, and he loves to eat his food. Toby was my first dog that I trained positively, and so he was the dog I made all the mistakes on, and he forgave me for every single one, and he just put his heart into everything we did together. So I'm so fortunate to have had him. He taught me a lot. After he retired from normal obedience competitions, I showed him in the preferred classes because he didn't have to jump as high, and he continued showing in them, and he got nine legs of his PUDX. You need 10 to get it, but that was the time they changed the rules, and he went back to having to do a sit stay, which was hard for him due to his arthritis. He was about 13 when we completely retired. So he's really accomplished a lot. He's such a great dog. Strive is six and a half, and she's the one that I'm out with right now. We are working, as you said, on the UDX, and her Rally Advanced Excellent title as well, and I actually just signed up for our first official Rally Masters show. So in a couple weeks, we're going to go down and play in Rally Masters. I haven't done that yet, so I'm really excited to get out there in that class. Yeah, yeah, it looks like a lot of fun. And then Excel is Strive's son, and he is about two and a half, and he's kind of been in training for agility and obedience and rally. He's the demo dog in all my rally classes, which is really great because that's how he's learned everything is by me making the videos for classes. So that's kind of cool. And he's a really awesome dog, and he's really been growing up the last couple of months. I've really noticed a difference in the last six months in his maturity level. So I'm thinking that we might actually make it to a ring sometime this year. I'd like to get him out in something. Yeah. So he's a great dog, and he's taught me more about life skills and those sort of things. I've spent a lot of time working on life skills and reward markers and some of that foundation stuff. And I think it's really made his training a lot easier, and it's going to prepare him a lot better to his show career. That's so exciting. And it's so fun to be able to have a young dog that you're playing with all that

stuff with. Yeah. So you've kind of got a lot going on these days. So we're going to try and get to all of it, at least a little bit. So to start us out, reward placement. Your workshop on that is open for registration right now. It's actually happening, I think, this week, the week that we're recording this. And I think it's kind of a really important topic that often gets the short straw. It's one of those factors that can really make a huge difference in a training plan. And it often kind of sets apart those good trainers from those mediocre trainers. So I want to talk about it. So what kind of problems can poor choice of reward placement lead to? Yeah. So there's all kinds of issues. Because the dogs want to gravitate to where the treats are and where the treats are coming from, if you're not thoughtful in your reward placement, it can really create some problems. I think some of the more common things that we see are issues with the healing. Some people, you know, like if they reward across their body, they're going to cause their dog to come forward and start forging. And maybe their rear will be out and it'll cause crooked sits. That's probably one of the most common ones that I see is they're rewarding too far in front of their body. So they're causing the dog to come around the front and then the rear end goes out, which is not something that we want. I see a lot of novice trainers spitting food in the healing exercise. And I think for the majority of the dogs, that's going to cause kind of those same problems where the dog is going to forage, you know, their rear end is going to go wide, they're going to tend to be crooked, do some crabbing. So that's, you know, that's pretty common. I'm not a huge fan of spitting food in the healing because it does often cause those problems. Poor reward placement and choices when you're deciding how and when to reward your dog can definitely contribute to the dog's creeping on stays or waits, particularly with waits. Like if we're doing a drop on recall, for instance, and we have our dog wait, and then we reward the dog when the whole thing is over, we're putting so much value into coming to us. And that tends to be an issue. Everything is about coming to us, the handler, and that's where all the value is. And so if you're not careful, your dog is going to want to come to you more. So you're going to start to get creeping. Maybe you're going to get broken stays. Maybe you're going to get a slower drop because if the reward always comes from the handler in those types of

exercises, they just want to go where the reward is. So that's going to make it harder for them to stay out there. And kind of similar stays, you know, it's really important that we put value into the stays that we reward our dogs when they're staying and, you know, kind of show them that, you know, you're doing a good job staying where you are. It's not always about, you know, being released and coming to me. So I think, I think part of the reason that this topic is more complex than most people give it credit for, right, is that the right answer to reward placement, even for the same behavior, can kind of be different based on what you're working on. So, you know, how does your choice of reward placement change depending on whether you're working on a new behavior or a known behavior? You know, can you kind of walk us through some examples? Sure. So I guess I don't look so much at whether it's a new behavior or a known behavior because it just varies so much. Um, I, there's, I'll talk about a little bit later, but there's so many times where a particular reward placement or particular, um, you know, decision on how we're going to reward our dog works great right now, but maybe in a month, it's not going to. So I don't so much look at whether the behavior is, is new or known. Um, I just kind of look at what the dog needs in that moment and in that training session. And so there's a little bit of confusion, I think, between like setting up your dog for a clean loop versus thinking about reward placement. And I think a lot of people think it's incompatible and I do tend to, to kind of combine them. I don't really keep them separately. So I'll explain how I do that. Um, so clean loops is where you would mark the behavior and then you reward the dog in such a way that they are set up to do the behavior again. So in other words, say you're working on sit. So the dog would sit, you would mark it, and then you reward the dog in the stand. So the dog could go ahead and sit and it's easier for them to offer it. Um, whereas reward placement tends to affects, affect the next repetition, um, based on where the dog earned the treat. Uh, so for instance, if you reward on the ground for a down stay, the dog is more likely going to be more likely to stay down because that's where the treat came from. So when I'm teaching a new behavior, I want to put value into the behavior. So I definitely want to mark and reward the actual behavior, but I also want to get, you know, the dog set up to, for the next drop as quickly as possible. So what I often do is use

two treats. So I will be able to reward the dog in position for the behavior. And then I'll use a second treat either thrown or, um, I'll lure them into a position that will set them up to do the behavior again. So I like to kind of combine them a little bit. Um, so for instance, if let's say I'm working on sit and it's a new behavior to my dog. So I definitely want to put some value into the actual behavior is I could mark the sit reward in the sit and then give a second, uh, give a second treat. So they stand up, uh, and then I could either cue the sit or wait for it to be offered, you know, wherever I'm at with that training. So I do like to, um, use, um, use two treats and, and kind of combine those two. And I think that helps, you know, it helps get the, the, um, rate of reinforcement up. Um, I think it's particularly helpful when you're teaching a new position. I like that kind of thinking about those two pieces that so often all of us are, are trying to shove into our training sessions. Um, and, and just, you know, kind of getting the both, both of best worlds just for the cost of an extra. Yeah, exactly. And the docs are great with that. They love extra cookies. Yeah. Um, so I know that like, we're talking about the, the problems that reward placement can fix. And we were talking, you mentioned healing, um, kind of in there. And so I want to talk about that just a little bit more using kind of healing as an example, how much you work on some of those common healing problems, things like lagging or crowding or forging, um, using reward placements. So when I'm thinking through that, what I would like to do is counter what the dog does naturally. So if the dog tends to be a lagger, I want to reward in a way that helps them get out front a little bit, you know, um, maybe I'll throw treats forward, or maybe I'll reward high kind of in front of me with like maybe high hand touch or something. If they tend to be a forging, then I want the rewards coming from behind. Um, so there's a couple of different ways. Actually, there's, there's more than a couple, there's several different ways that you can reward a forging dog. You know, you can just simply give them a treat from behind, or you could do, um, like a bounce type thing where they kind of target your, your armpit area and come up for the treat, or you can toss the treats behind you. Um, you can teach a dog to spin around and come up on your right side. So there's really a lot of ways that we can do it. But what I look for is countering what the dog naturally does. Um,

because I want to change that tendency over time. And if the treats are for, you know, a good length the time, if the treats are coming from a particular area, I can, you know, I know that the dog's going to go there where the treat is. And so I will, um, start to see those tendencies, uh, shift a little bit. Um, and it's really quite cool because all you do is, is you just change how you reward the dog and you can fix some things like, you know, uh, forging for instance. Um, and so it's, it's a neat thing to see how, where you treat the dog and how you treat the dog can really affect what their tendencies are. To kind of get at the heart of it. Why, why does it work? What is it about reward placement that can let it have that kind of an impact? Because dogs are smart and efficient. So they, I mean, they don't want to waste extra energy, right? And they want that cookie or that toy or whatever it happens to be. So they're going to go where that is. Um, you know, where, where they're pretty sure that treat's going to come from, that's where they're going to go. And that's what they're going to anticipate. And that can be really good for us if we're smart about it. And it can also be really bad for us if we're not, sorry, if we're not thinking about, oh, you know, if we're rewarding across our body and the dog, you're looking at your dog and you're like, why is there a butt out? I don't understand. Um, you know, and you keep doing it that way. Well, then you're going to create a problem pretty quickly. Uh, so it's important that we really think through this and this is for, I mean, really any sport, um, the, the workshop that I'm working that that's going live this week, uh, is, is mostly focused on obedience and rally and those sorts of behaviors, but it's applicable to other things too, like agility and hunting. And, you know, there's a lot that this is really important for. So it's important for any trainer that, um, is doing something with their dog to really think through this and think about what can I change in my reward placement that so that it can be more effective for my dog. I just want to walk through kind of one more example of this and, and, uh, to, to pull on something that you were talking about earlier with stays, how, how do you think through that reward placement piece when we're talking about stays? So with the stays, I want to make sure that I'm putting value in the stay. And one thing that I see, um, that a lot of people do is they do a stay, they release their dog and they give the dog a treat.

And when that happens over and over and over, you're not putting any value into the stay behavior. You're putting all the value into the release behavior. Um, so of course, dogs are going to be more likely to release more likely to make mistakes. And so when you're first start, when, when you're first teaching the stays, you want to make sure that you are rewarding the dog in this day. Um, whether that's a sit or down or even a stand, uh, it doesn't matter. But if you, you know, like I said, if you keep, if you keep rewarding the dog for, for getting up for the release, then they're going to really struggle with the stay part. So that's the important thing is making sure you're putting value into the stay. As it happens, you also have a workshop on the schedule specifically on stays, um, not until next month, but it's right there kind of at the start of March. So I want to talk about that a bit too. Um, a lot of people kind of really struggle with, with teaching a solid stay. You know, they struggle with the duration or maybe their dog stays, but they do that melty thing where, you know, they're in a sit and then they kind of melt into a down or, or they decide to like, okay, we're in a down, we're going to go up and do a sit. Um, or maybe their dogs just kind of, you know, fall apart when they start to add distance. There's a lot of pieces there. So where is it that people tend to go wrong when they're trying to teach their dog, like a competition level stay? I think the short answer for that is they lump things together. Um, just like with anything else, splitting out things is really important. Uh, I mentioned a moment ago how people don't often reward in this day, they just reward the release. So that's really important, but you need to realize that, you know, we talk about the three Ds. So distractions, duration, and distance, and each one of those are a challenge for the dog. And we need to be very systematic and thoughtful about how we increase each challenge. Um, so that the dogs can be successful. I tell my clients that stays are a behavior where the dogs have to learn on success. It's really important. If they're not successful, you're not going to get anywhere. You're going to really have trouble teaching a stay. And so when you start this day, you want to put some value into it. You want to, you know, get a little bit of duration, but really build that slowly, making sure the dog's getting a lot of reinforcement for staying in position. And then what I typically do when I have a few seconds of duration is I'll, I'll do some really mild distraction work. And I think

that, um, I used to teach distance before distractions, but I find that teaching distractions first just makes it easier for the dog. It helps the understanding. And so I save distance for last. And whenever I add another challenge, I make sure I back down the other one. So when I'm starting to add distance, I am not in a super distracting area and I'm not going to do a two minute stay. I'm going to keep it short, sweet, not very distracting. Um, and then, you know, that way I can work on that specific challenge of distance. Um, some dogs, they, they do, they really struggle with distance a lot. And you get to the point where you're trying to take one step backwards and the dog is, is getting up. And that's one of those situations where I talk about splitting it out more. And so I'll actually start with just a weight shift from side to side. Um, so I'm not actually going any further from the dog. I'm just moving my weight from side to side, and then I'll take a sideways step versus a backward step and I'll reward for that. And then eventually I will shift my weight weight from back to front or front to back, um, before I even take a step away from the dog. So I'm doing all kinds of things that have to do with me moving, but I'm not quite adding distance from the dog yet. And so if you really think about how to break down this days and how much you can really split these behaviors, uh, I just think a lot of people don't necessarily think that through to the extent that it needs to be. They just try to lump it together and they're like, Oh yeah, dog did a 10 second stay. Now we're going to do a 20 second stay at 20 feet apart or 20 feet away or whatever. Um, and then the dog struggles and they get up and then the handler has to put them back and you know, that dogs don't like to be wrong. So, um, I think that, you know, that that's the long and short answer, just really splitting out everything. Do you approach it any differently for like a sit stay versus a down stay? What about, you know, kind of for some of the different sports you do like agility or obedience? Well, in the last couple of years, um, the, I show an AKC obedience and, um, they used to have the long sit and the long down, uh, in open and they no longer do. They, they've kind of changed how they do their stays. And so that's, um, it's kind of affected how I think about stays a little bit, um, in terms of, you know, I used to teach sit stays and down stays as more what I call active stays. So stays where the dog is paying attention to what's going on and kind of remembering what

they're doing. And now with, uh, with the obedience regulations change and with everything else, I tend to think as the sit stay in the down stay more as the act of, or I'm sorry, excuse me, the sit stay in the stand stay as more of the active stays. And when I put my dog in a down stay, I want them to relax and I don't want them to pay attention to me. I just want them to kind of hang out. Um, and so I do treat them very differently. So what the active stays, um, which would be like a weight. So if you're doing a drop on recall or, you know, whatever, whatever exercise you use a weight for, um, that would be what I consider an active stay. So the dog needs to be ready to hear an additional cue that will tell them what to do. And in those types of stays, I reward in the stays. Um, and I keep doing that. I want the dog to be very attentive in the stay. And so I tend to reward them. You know, I go back and I'll, I'll either reward him in this day or I'll do, um, one thing I talk about a lot in the reward placement exercise or, um, workshop is rewarding from behind. So I talked earlier about how there's all this value in coming to the handler. And so I do a lot of, a lot of rewarding for behind. And I use that on the weights as well. Um, so instead of, uh, cue to come, I might say my reward marker for behind, which is B, and then the dog will be able to turn around and get the treat. So they're getting that reward for staying in the position for staying there. With the down stays, I want my dogs relaxed. And once the dog has value for the stay, um, you still reward during the stay to teach it. But once the dog understands what a stay is, if you keep rewarding them, they end up just working for food. And I actually have a really good video in my workshop about, or that shows my, my lab, um, who is my husband's dog. And so I kind of use her as my experimental dog and we're working on some down stays and I'm just sitting in a chair, completely ignoring her. And she is offering every behavior in the book. She is like flipping over on her back and she's whining and she's just doing all these things because she wants me to give her a treat. She is working for food and I think she's staying. And so there's a little bit of, of a difference there and what, what, you know, we think each other, you know, what she should be doing. Um, and so once the dogs understand the stay, I stop rewarding it because when you keep rewarding in the down stay, they keep working for you and they're, they're just looking for treats. And what I want the dog to do is relax. So Excel really taught me that,

that, um, cause he used to, I used to reward Excel for relaxation behaviors. So I would reward when he laid his head down or when he sighed or when he flipped on a hip. And pretty soon I was noticing that he was doing this stuff like on purpose to get a treat. So he would do this big, huge sigh. And then he'd look at me like, where's my cookie? Or he would flip from hip to hip, you know, and I realized, okay, I'm kind of creating a monster here. So at that point, you know, with the help of shade and shades, awesome glasses, a huge shout out to shade. Um, I realized, no, I need to stop rewarding in this day and just teach the dog to relax. And the different, the difference that I have now in his down stay is incredible. Like he will actually lay down and go to sleep. Whereas before he would watch every single move that I made. So that was a really long answer to your question, but yes, I definitely teach the down stays in this. It stays differently. Um, as far as different types of sports, uh, my agility weight, like my start line, I'm going to teach that pretty much the same way that I would in obedience weight. Um, keeping in mind that moving forward in agility, doing the obstacles, that's a huge, huge reward for the dog. And so you have to remember that you need to make sure you're putting some value into that stay, or you're going to lose it. Um, because it's, there's so much incentive for them to break their stay because then they get to run and running is really fun. So I just keep that in mind, you know, what's reinforcing my dog in this environment and how can I balance that a little bit to teach them that the stay is reinforcing as well. So, um, you know, in addition to the workshops we've been talking about, you've got two classes on the schedule this session. Uh, like I said, you, you've been pretty busy. So, um, I know in get ready to rally, you cover a lot of the skills that go kind of well beyond just rally skills. So sits down stands and heel position, fronts and finishes, short healing segments, turns. Um, I'm sure a lot of the dogs kind of coming into the class have some basic understanding of those behaviors, but how do you kind of work within the class to improve that understanding and, um, and improve precision? So that's a good question. And that is the beauty of the gold spots because we can work with what exactly that team needs. Um, you know, everybody, of course, has their, their difficulties or their weaknesses, uh, with these different skills. And so by, by, um, getting a gold spot, you can really, you know, we can pick out what exactly you

need to work on and how to best help your dog. Um, the class I'm running right now, which is RA 270, um, kind of focuses a little bit on the signs, uh, which is so important. Um, I think a lot of people underestimate the importance of really knowing those signs and being able to glance at the sign and know exactly what you're supposed to do. Um, that's one of the biggest mistakes in rally out, out in the class or in the trials is seeing, uh, or is the handler not knowing what the sign means, you know, putting in an extra sit or not putting in an extra sit or forgetting to pause. And so that's why I do a whole class on these are the signs and this is how you do the sign. This is what it looks like. And here's some really helpful tips when you're training the sign. Um, so the lectures tend to, uh, in this particular class tend to, um, kind of, they're about the signs. And then we have extra things to like, um, acclimating to the signs and staying connected to your dog and that sort of thing as well. Um, one way that I really like to improve precision and understanding is to use different types of props. Uh, I, the reason that I like the prop so much is that it allows our body to stay quiet. And I think it's much easier to fade a prop than it is to fade these huge hand signals and all this luring stuff. Um, and so for instance, if I'm trying to, you know, make a front a little more bit more precise, if I'm working on the front, I could lure them into the front and I could use all these big hand motions and try to get them really close to me. But if I can just put a sit platform there and they understand that it's much easier and allows me to be quiet. And it also allows me to keep my hands down on my sides, which is the final picture that I'm looking for. Um, so I do that with a lot of teams. Um, if they're game for it, I bring in some props. A lot of them have the skills. Some of them don't and they learn it. Um, but then there's other things that we can do too. Um, reward placement is super important. Um, I was chatting with someone the other day and I said, I think 40% of the advice that I give my students is about reward placement. I mean, it's seriously, it's really a big thing. So if you're working on those fronts, you can reward between your legs, you know, whatever, there's different ways that you can help the fronts get a little bit better. And then just like everything else in dog training, splitting behaviors, um, you know, splitting it down. People want to take a whole sign and just do the whole thing. And if you are able to really split

down these behaviors and teach them everything separately, then combining them is really easy. That's kind of what I do. Um, it's just so individual, you know, what each team needs, but I really enjoy the problem solving aspect of it. And even more, I enjoy when I can see how much they're progressing. I mean, we're only what halfway through week two for this session. And it's amazing how much, um, you know, how much better I've seen some of these teams get already. So it's really exciting to see that progress. Awesome. So kind of when I think about rally, one of the things that, um, that kind of comes to mind in terms of skills is just how much it kind of takes these different pieces and kind of mixes them up in different ways for different signs, kind of really forcing us to teach the dog, you know, to split it down and teach the dog those under the, a strong understanding of those individual pieces. Um, so I, I kind of wanted to get into that a little bit. How do you approach that? So I think you hit the nail on the head when you said splitting it down. That's like, you know, the ultimate answer in dog training is split it down. Um, rally consists of the same or very similar cues used over and over and over and over again. And so if your dog has a really good understanding of what that particular cue means, what, whether it's a verbal or hand signal or whatever, um, it's very easy to combine them and to put them together. And in fact, the advanced rally classes, you don't really learn a whole lot more skills. You basically just combine them together. They're like, they're taking different skills and they're just combining them. So it's nice though, that rally reuses behaviors. Cause you're not teaching, you know, 530 different behaviors. You're just learning 530 different ways to put them together. So when I'm focusing on, you know, teaching all these things, I split everything out and I teach it till it's fluent. So my dog knows what a front is. My dog understands what a finished left versus a finish right is. And then as they're showing me all the individual pieces and that they're starting to get that, then I will slowly start combining skills. So maybe I'll do a front and then do a finish and then reward. Um, and I'll just start combining them in different ways. Uh, and I just continue down that road until the dog is showing me that, you know, Oh, yep, I got it. And they're able to, to take different skills and combine them, um, and still be very successful and precise. Awesome. So in the, the advanced class, um, you know, the one you're doing on rally advanced and

excellent, which is also running this term. I know that you, you talk about transitioning from on leash to off leash in the ring and about, you know, reducing reinforcers. So those are clearly skills that you need in most dog sports. Um, how do you, how do you approach that? How do you approach transitioning to off lead behaviors? Well, the simple answer is don't rely on the leash to begin with, um, which sounds so basic, right? But it's totally not because people, I swear, sometimes it's totally, and they don't know what they're doing. They they're guiding the dog with the leash inadvertently, and they have no idea they're doing it. Um, so for my students that are able to train in a safe environment, I tell them, take off the leash, just don't even train with it. If the dog is leaving you, then there's another issue there. That's not a leash problem. That's a training problem. That's something we need to figure out. Um, you know, I'm fortunate that I have a training building, right? So my dogs are off leash all the time. And if they would wander away, then I would be like, wow, what did I just do wrong? Cause I must've really messed up something for my dog to leave me while we're working. So when you don't have the leash on, it's much easier to, for you to see the issues. Um, the leash kind of will cover up those issues a little bit cause it all can't leave you. Um, and again, you know, some people, they accidentally use it. They don't even know they're using it. I tell people all the time, look how tight your leash is and you're guiding the dog and they just don't get that. Um, they don't see it. So, you know, sometimes you're in a class situation or you're working outside and it's not a safe area and you need to have the leash on and that's totally okay, but you need to make sure that that leash is very loose. Um, that you're not accidentally, you know, guiding your dog through things by using the leash. You don't want the leash to affect their behavior at all. You only want the leash to prevent them from leaving you. So one thing I like to do is, you know, take their leash and loop it through their, their belt buckle or their, um, belt loop on their pants or loosely tied to their waist or whatever and see what happens. Um, I remember when I used to do more classes many, many years ago, in-person classes, I would take my leash and I would just, I just put it through my belt loop, just a tiny bit. And if the leash fell out, then I knew I had a problem. I knew that they were not staying in position as closely as they needed to. So we, um, you know, I definitely have students go

through and make sure that that leash can stay loose through the whole thing, through the whole, whatever their training sequence or the course that they're doing or whatever it is. Um, and then realizing that if the dog can't keep a loose leash, then the behaviors need to be broken down more. Um, maybe you have a connection problem. Maybe they have a lack of understanding what heel position actually is. Maybe there's an engagement problem. Um, so there's other, other issues that everybody thinks is because the leash is off, but it was really there the whole time. They just didn't see it. So, uh, to kind of look at the other piece there that I mentioned, reducing reinforcement, you know, how does the class work through that piece? And can you kind of talk us through an example? Sure. Um, so this again is pretty individual. Uh, and what I'm really wanting the people to do in this class is think through a plan because obviously at some point you can't bring reinforcement into the ring. And so I want them thinking about it. Cause I think a lot of people, they give the dogs treats during the run-throughs and during, you know, whenever they're practicing and then they go into the ring and they never really have a plan. They never really reduced reinforcement. They just walk in and, Oh, let's see what happens. And that's not usually the best strategy. So when I'm teaching dogs, when I'm working with young dogs, when I'm starting to put all these behaviors together and sequencing them, I have rewards on my body. Um, and in fact, a lot of times, even with my advanced dogs, I have rewards on my body. It doesn't necessarily mean they're going to get anything from me. Um, in particular, like versus, you know, going out of the ring and getting something, but the rewards are in my pocket or, um, you know, wherever. And, um, once the dog is fluent in behaviors and they really understand, so we're not at the learning stage anymore. Um, I will start using some sort of reinforced remote reinforcement. So that could be maybe a dish. Um, it's one of my common ways that I tend to reward, um, is I'll put a dish either on the ground or on the chair. Um, and then, then, and then, excuse me, then instead of marking with a yes, which means come to my hand and get the treat, I'll mark with the dish, which means go to the dish and get the treat. Um, I'll put treats on the counter, uh, or maybe a chair. And so the treats are still close to where we're working, but they're not coming from my body. What I want to do is teach

the dog that treats are always available, no matter what. Um, I always have the ability to run and get you a treat and I want them to think that. And so when I started doing run-throughs and I worked to where the treats are outside of the ring in the middle of a move, sometimes I will cue my remote reinforcement cue and run out there and give them a cookie. So I want them to really know that it's, once you're in the ring, it doesn't mean the treats are gone. You can still get them, but you're not going to get them handed, you know, to, to the dog from, from me, from my body. Um, I'm also watching during this entire training of reducing the reinforcement that the dog is performing to criteria. I want to just kind of keep an eye on that and make sure that I'm not losing that at all. Um, and then I just, you know, I keep working towards, you know, going, going outside the ring to reward, um, you know, having the treats starting, you know, fairly close, but then just, uh, systematically working so that the treats are further and further away until, until they're out the ring. Um, it's a huge topic and it is definitely something that we talk about, but I do suggest that people check out some of the other classes. There are a couple of six week classes on reducing reinforcement and they spend the entire six weeks on that. Um, there's a cookie jar and bye-bye cookies, I believe are the two that I'm thinking of. Um, and there's probably other ones that touch on it as well, but it really is a big topic, but at the very least in my classes, I want people to kind of verbally come up with some sort of a plan, you know, type it out, um, so that they have some plan on, on how they can start reducing reinforcement. Mm-hmm. And, um, just for folks who are listening who maybe want to dig into that a little bit more, you did do a blog post for us on the FTSA site. Um, so if anybody wants to kind of read through that, if that's something that you are problem solving or want to get a headstart on, Nicole did a really nice blog post on the FTSA blog, um, on starting to get reinforcers off your body and how you can kind of start that really early on in the training process. Yeah, definitely. Um, so they should go check that out. One last question that I kind of ask everyone these days, um, what's something that you've learned or that you've been reminded of recently when it comes to dog training? Well, because of the workshop that I'm doing, um, the placement of reward workshop, that's kind of been on my brain. And as I was thinking through, um, you know, kind of how I

was going to organize a workshop, what I really wanted to do is to show people some before and after videos. So I went to my students in the last session, the December session, and there were three people that I really wanted to showcase what progress they had made, um, simply by changing their reinforcement. Um, and so that led me to start thinking about this one particular dog named Chili. Chili is a super, super awesome dog. And I actually had two dogs. I had Chili and I had Tilly and both of these dogs had the exact same problem. They both tended to forge. They tended to wrap. They tended to be a little bit rear end out. And my first go-to for that problem is to reward from behind the back. So you keep your treats in your right hand, you pass them behind your back to your left hand and you reward the dog and heel position. And most of the time it helps a lot of forging. So I did this with Tilly and it made all the difference in the world with Tilly. Her, her healing got really nice. It got really straight. Her sits were straight. It was an amazing difference. Um, and there is a before and after video of both of these dogs actually in that workshop. And so I went back to Chili and I said, yep, this is what we're going to do. I want you to reward from behind. And she said, okay. And she showed me a session and I'm like, wait a second, this isn't working at all for this dog. And so even though we use the exact same philosophy, the exact same reward placement with these two different dogs with Tilly, it worked beautifully. And with Chili, it caused all sorts of issues. Like her butt went what, or excuse me, his butt, his butt went way out. He got really crooked. Um, you know, he was coming around. It just, it didn't work at all. He was trying to duck behind her to get the treat, which caused him to almost move at a 90 degree angle away from her. Um, so, you know, it was interesting. It's like, okay, yep. We're scrapping this idea. Let's go to plan B. So we, um, came up with another, um, reinforcement. And if you want to know what that is, you'll have to see the workshop, but it worked beautifully for him. And so it was great. It was perfect. So I really, uh, you know, one thing I've really been reminded of lately is that what works for one dog, isn't necessarily going to work for another dog, even though the problem might be exactly the same. They both had the same problem, but the fix that I used on Tilly did not work on Chili and not only didn't work, it made things way worse. So I was really glad that she

showed me how it was going so I could like nix it right away and say, yep, let's not do that anymore. Um, so yeah, just, just remembering that all dogs are so individual and handlers as well. The team as a whole is so individual and you need to be able to access many different tools to help them and not just always go back to that same one. And I feel like there's an extra lesson in there, right? About just when you're trying something new, make sure you stop and evaluate how well it's working. Absolutely. And when your FDSA instructor tells you to do something and to change it, then video that and show it to them to make sure it's working. Right. Right. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. Very important. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Nicole. This has been great. Thank you so much, Melissa. It was a lot of fun. And thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week with Stacey Barnett to talk about the evolution of training and how training tends to evolve as our skills do. Don't miss it. If you haven't already, subscribe to our podcast in iTunes or the podcast app of your choice. Do our next episode automatically download it 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 benson.com. The track featured here is called Buddy. Audio editing provided by Chris Lang. Thanks again for tuning in. Happy training.

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