E260: 카렌 디즈(Karen Deeds) - "반응형 통합: 반응형견을 위한 옵션 이야기"

our Appaloosas, had competed on the national and world level, had done pretty well for three little girls from Southwest Kansas. And when I moved in, I left home basically in the 80s, I got, got my first dog and I started doing a little bit of dog showing and it was a quiche hound. And that was my first show dog. Didn't get very far with that. Ended up moving to Texas then, got another quiche hound and then I got a chow chow. Oh, that was so fun. And he was a great dog. Oh my gosh, the best dog ever. But I started showing dogs in the late 80s, early 90s. So yes, I am that old. So you came over from the dog show world confirmation, I think is, is that what you're saying? No, no, actually not. I never did confirmation. That's a great question. I got into obedience. Gosh, this was long, long, long before there was rally and we didn't even have a clue what a clicker was for God's sakes. But, you know, choke chains, pinch collar were all the rage back then. Sometimes it still is. But it was, you know, it was quite the journey to go to dog shows. And of course, I didn't know what the heck I was doing. And I was the, I was the little virgin out there. And I remember I went to a show with my chow chow. And I think it was my CD. So it was, it was novice. And I think I got a, like a 194 for a chow. And I had one judge that came up to me and said, why don't you get a decent dog? That's a chow. You'll never do anything with it. And then the next day I had a judge that came up and said, it is so lovely to see you out here with an unconventional dog. Well, obviously I think that was the day that I got the 194. But we were high in trial chow chow that day. And he was, he was such a great dog. But that's, that's kind of how I got started in it, into dogs. So fun. Not even with a classic obedience breed. So you mentioned, you know, all the equipment stuff. What about today? Do you consider yourself a positive trainer? What kind of got you started that way? Oh yeah. I, I guess I always was. I remember going in the mid eighties, going to the, the dog obedience classes and I would have hot dogs in my pocket. And the, the instructor would say, nobody's got any food on them, do they? And I would say, Oh, no, no, not me. No, not me, sir. None, none. And of course my hot, my pockets were stained with gooey hot dog grease and stuff. And, uh, but I had, I had a choke chain on my dog or a pinch collar. I don't even really remember. Uh, but even back then I was, I was trying to be nice. Didn't know what I was doing, but I was, you know, trying to reward my dog for good behavior.

So, um, I guess I've always kind of been on the positive reinforcement journey before there was even a journey. So talk to me a little more about kind of where you are today. How would you describe your current training philosophy? Um, I would call myself a positive reinforcement trainer. Uh, I try to utilize not just specific quadrants, but, uh, I totally understand that they're all in play. I just don't purposefully add positive punishment. I just want to do what works for the dog within the least invasive, minimally aversive, uh, mantra that I follow through the IABC. Uh, I think I fit that mold pretty well. Gotcha. So, um, started with the quichens and the chow chow. So then what led you to get into behavior stuff and more specifically kind of that fearful reactive dog world? Actually, it was my chow chow. Yes. Yeah. My lovely. Yeah. My boy. Uh, I'll probably start crying. Gosh, his name was Shoney and it was January 9th, 1990. I was actually preparing for a dog show, was getting ready to get my CDX or start trying, uh, trialing for it and was out working on an out of sight down stay. We had those back then and was at a church parking lot and had left him on a down stay. And I walked behind the church. It was nighttime, January, Texas. So it wasn't that cold. And I backed up behind this corner and there was a guy back there who was either trying to break into the church or waiting on a drug deal. And he started to beat me up and I was assaulted and I yelled and I screamed and my dog broke his down stay and he came around the corner. And I remember seeing his little head peek around like, mommy, I know I'm not supposed to break my down stay, but you sound like you're in trouble. And by this time I was already on the ground getting pummeled and he saw what was going on and he took out after the guy and chased him away. Of course, he's a chow chow. So he's lazy as heck and took about 20, 20 yards out of barking and trying to scare the guy off, which it did. And he came back to me and we slowly made it back to the duplex together. I called an ambulance, went to the hospital, whole nine yards, torn ligaments in my neck, contusions, ended up with migraines for years. But two weeks later, I took him to be groomed and he'd been groomed, even though I did most of his grooming. He'd been to a groom shop a couple of times, many times before. This was a new one though. And they called me and they said, ma'am, you need to come get your dog. And I went, why? Well, he's trying to eat the bather. I said, what do you mean? He's being aggressive to the guy that bays the dogs.

And so I get there and the guy's the spitting image of the guy who had assaulted me. So of course I was like in disbelief. And, you know, I think I probably took a little hard breath there. And I said, is there any else, anybody else that can take him out of the kennel? Because he couldn't even get him out of the kennel to give him a bath. And this little blonde girl raises her hand. She goes, I'll try. So she runs back there and she gets Shoney and he starts to come up. And I see him. I'm like, Shoney Pony, what are you doing? And he wags his tail and he sees this kid again. And he goes, and he lowers his head and he lowers his tail. And I went, oh my. And I was a psychology major in junior college. So I went, what should I do? Hmm. I just happen to remember this, this dude Pavlov, right? So I, I went home and I had called back and I talked to the groomer or the bather. And I said, hey, what are you doing after work? And he says, I don't know. What do you want? And I said, well, will you help me? And I said, I'll pay you if you'll stay after work and I'll come up with my dog and we'll see if we can't do some training. And so I think I paid him a six pack of beer and took a bunch of hot dogs for my dog. And I stood out in the parking lot and this kid stood behind a pillar. And every time he came out, I gave my dog hot dogs, even though Shoney was grumble, grumble, grumble, grumble. You know, every time the kid was there, I was just turning it on, right? Here's cookies, cookies, cookies, hot dogs, hot dogs, hot dogs. And then I'd nod my head and the kid would go behind the pillar and I would say, all done. And I'd show him my empty hands. Then the kid would come out and I'd feed him again. He'd go back behind the pillar. I'd say, all done, no more food. And we did that about three or four or five times. And about the fifth time he came out, my dog looks at the kid and goes, looks at me and goes, hey, mom, pay up. So I went, ah, there it is. So what I, what I did, unbeknownst to me at the time was just simple classical counter conditioning and had developed a different emotional response. So that's probably what led me into that. So that was in 1990. Long time ago. Yeah. I mean, you know, but in a good way, it means you've got lots of experience with this stuff now. Sadly. That's so very true. Sadly. Yes. Lots of experience. So, um, I think most of us kind of have a picture in our head when we talk about reactive dogs, but I do want to kind of like make sure we're all on the same page. So, um, can you, can you describe kind of what behaviors you're referring to or kind of

how you use that term, um, when you talk about the label reactive? Yeah. I think if you ask five different trainers, the difference between reactivity and aggression, you'll probably get five different answers. Uh, but I tend to call any kind of a reaction, whether it's barking and lunging distance increasing type behavior, or if it's, uh, whining and screaming and jumping at the end of the leash, which might just be frustration. You know, nothing about that. Right. Um, you know, you know, those frustrated dogs, um, it, it can even be a little bit more subtle than that, especially with the dogs that are doing it for distance increasing reasons. And that might just be the lip licks, the eye averts, the, the head turns, the sniffing. Some of those behaviors, uh, to me are all parts of the reactive sequence. Um, but for the most part, I think we all look at barking, lunging, growling, snarling, snapping, um, squealing, jumping, um, you know, trying to get out of your harness or your collar. All of those things are some sort of reactivity. Um, it's just a reaction, you know, typically it's a reaction that we want to change. Either we want to change the emotional response to it, or we want to change the physical response, or maybe we need to change both just depends on the dog. So talk to me a little more about that. So there are obviously lots of ways to approach rehabbing reactive dogs. Um, so, so tell me a little about kind of the approach or the approaches that you tend to use when you're looking at a dog like that. All of them, all of them. Um, and I guess that's, maybe I've just gone to too many seminars over the course of my many, many years. I've been to everybody, uh, and I owe all of them a great deal of thanks. And I don't even know where to start. Um, trying to think probably the very first seminar I went to was when I was in the vet profession when I just 1992, probably maybe it's 93, uh, that I was working at a vet clinic and I went to my first vet conference and Dr. Roland Tripp was there. And this is when we were even talking about if a dog sat on your foot, it was because they were dominant. Oh boy. Oh boy. Yeah. Yeah. That's the, that's the journey I've been on and that, you know, we still, we had to show them who was the boss and the alpha and all that. So because we hadn't really decided at that point yet that dogs were pack animals. I mean, that was, that was a great start. Um, and what's ironic, it's probably been about, it was, it been five years ago. Maybe I saw Dr. Tripp at an IAA BC conference.

I think I was in California and I saw his name tag and I stopped him and I said, I want you to know you're the reason I'm here. And he and his lovely wife were there and he went, what? And I told him this little story and I, I'm not sure who cried first, him or me, because we have both seen the progression over the years. And, you know, I, there's just been so many people that have influenced me. I can't name them all obviously, because I think I've been to everybody's stuff over the years. Yeah. I've just, I, and maybe that, that's why I use all of this stuff is because I know all this stuff, or at least I know bits and pieces of it probably enough just to be dangerous. But sometimes, but sometimes just that simple Pavlovian to a much more structured approach, like some of the lovely stuff with Leslie McDevitt with the pattern games and the bats and the cat and the, the structured approaches. I have to admit when I first got my, my border collie Dempsey, he'd lived in a 10 foot by 10 foot pen and had never lived, never seen the world. Right. And it wasn't like he was an overly fearful or reactive dog at all. He had just never seen anything. And I remember taking him places and just sitting outside the store, or I remember being at, with Sarah Bruschi in Michigan, in Missouri, and they were doing a little seminar type thing. And I'm walking around the field when my dog looks around. And so I just did a lot of desensitization, right? Just, just do, just look at the environment and not be worried about it. And that's really, I mean, that's really where I started with him was that simple process. And obviously I know that some dogs, some dogs have to have to have a little bit more than that, but I was very fortunate with him. Yeah. Yeah. So, so you said some dogs have to have a little bit more of that. So how do you kind of integrate, implement, decide which approaches you want to use, pick and choose based on the dog. I mean, that's just it. That's, you got to look at the dog in front of you, right? I mean, we, we've never heard that saying before, have we? Look at the dog in front of you. I think somebody wrote a book about that once, didn't they? Somebody. Somebody, yeah. And that's really what it is because some of these dogs, when they leave the house, they can't take food. So maybe my approach with them is a little bit different. Maybe I need to get them to the point that they can take food. Some of these dogs are, are food whores, right? And if they, if you've got food on them, they don't even know that there's, there's anything out there that should bother them.

So every dog has to be taken at, as a case by case basis. But I tend to have specific things or things in mind when I'm working with that, that fearful dog, I'm going to probably try to take them a little bit more in the operant direction if possible versus the very operant outgoing. And I kind of use the terms introvert and extrovert. And I know that's probably not right, but that's, but I'm not a scientist and, you know, I don't have any degrees or anything like that. I'm just, I'm just a, and somebody who's been around a lot. And so I, I use the things that I think make sense to me and I think make sense to my learners as well. And so when I talk about somebody or their dog being an introvert, they go, oh yeah, I get that. And then, wow, your dog's quite the extrovert. And they're like, oh yeah, you betcha. And normally it means, you know, we're more shut down or we're more outgoing. And, and of course, that's why I love the whole concept of integrating the stuff that I learned from the sport dog and the working dog world is because I don't know, they're a little bit on the extroverted side. And that's probably why I like the reactive dogs more than the fearfully introverted dogs a little bit more than I do. Uh, or I like the reactive ones more than I like the, the fearful ones. Um, because I like that. That's go, go, go feeling, and I can funnel it a little bit easier. Um, I remember, I'm pretty sure it was shade. When I was, one of shades, shade Weitzel's, uh, seminars I went to, oh God, how many years ago, uh, her talking about if you have a dog that's got a lot of go, go, go, you want to counter that tendency with more relaxation. If you have a dog that's more withdrawn, you want to counter that with more thinking stuff. And duh, that makes so much sense even with dogs with behavior problems. Right. Right. So, yeah. So I tend to implement that based on the dog in front of me. I like that. And it's so funny because you were like, uh, you like kind of the more extroverted dogs. And it's, it's almost like you might be a little bit extroverted yourself there, Karen. You think? Maybe. Maybe. I, I, I, I seem to think I've heard that before. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Yeah. Um, so the reason I wanted to have you on is you're doing a webinar for us on, uh, March 10th called reactive integration, putting the pieces together. Um, so can you share a little bit on kind of what you'll cover during the webinar? All of it. A lot. You did cram a lot in there. I did. And, and, you know, and that's, um, I guess it's because I just, I, I have worked with so many clients that have been to another trainer before, let's say.

And, and of course, then I look at the foundation of the sport dog. And of course I am married to a guy that used to do disaster search and rescue. And I remember him telling me when I first met him that everybody wants to do the sexy stuff. And I went, what do you mean? He says, they all want to go, just go hunt for lost Timmy, little Timmy. And I went, what do you mean? He says, and I says, he said, they, they just never have the foundation. And then, like I say, I got into sport world. And of course, what did we, what do we spend years on? Foundation, foundation, foundation. And I went, you know what? All of these behavior cases I am seeing from that are referred from another trainer or have trained with somebody before. And of course, all those that haven't. One of the things that I think they're missing is foundation. So I do think that building a foundation, even just, can your dog eat on cue? Eating is a behavior. And I, oh my God, I was so ecstatic in, I think it was Orca 2020, right before the world ended when COVID hit. And not only did Hannah Branigan get up there and talk about eating being a behavior and how marker cues were a cue to eat, but so did Barbara Heidenreich and talking about eating being a behavior and how we, the world has finally admitted that eating is a behavior. And I think that's one of the things that I love about training the reactive dog or the sport dog for that matter, is to get that stuff on cue. And I just love the multiple marker system for behavior cases for so many reasons. So there, there might be a little lead into a future webinar, maybe. I don't know. Could be. Could be. We'll see. We'll see. We'll see. Yeah. All right. So is there any guidance you can kind of share for folks on kind of who might want to consider signing up kind of who the kind of target audience is here? I honestly think trainers, behavior people that are maybe thinking they might be missing something in what they're doing. The pet dog people or the dog owners with reactive dogs themselves will certainly get a good snippet of things to do. Nothing is done in great detail. It's a one hour webinar. I mean, I literally crammed 16 weeks into one hour. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of stuff there. And as I'm writing videos though, I do have a lot of demo videos and there's, as I was going through there, I was teaching class just last Monday night. One of my students said, Oh my God, the leash pressure stuff that I've been practicing just made the biggest difference with my dog. When she hit the end of the leash, when she was thinking about barking in another dog, she

hit the end of the leash and immediately turned around and came back to me. And I don't even have that in my webinar. I'm like, Oh my God, that's something else I forgot. So there's, and I thought, do I, do I redo it? And no, I didn't redo it. Um, so there's, there's lots in there. Um, and there's some stuff that's not, but I think it would be beneficial just maybe to see something that you might, might be missing out on that might want to know more, more about. Um, and you know, if you're already doing all the things then great, but I mean, I'm not doing all the things. God knows I'm doing a lot of the things. Uh, and it's a matter of being able to determine, you know, when to do what things is that's the, you know, we talk about the art and science of dog training. To me, that's the art part. So you kind of have to be an artist when you're working with behavior cases for sure. A little bit at least. Yeah. Um, is there anything else you'd want to kind of share about the webinar that you want folks to know about it? Uh, nothing other than be kind. I'm a newbie to this, I guess. And, um, I've been doing this, like I say, this started in 1992 for the most part. And it's been a journey I've been traveling and there's a lot of stuff in the webinar and there's probably some stuff that some people would never do. And that's okay. Um, because I think there's, there's something you can take away from it. And if it's what, and something you would never do, then that's what you take away from it. Um, and that's kind of something to think about. All the bits and pieces. Yeah. Excellent. All right. So I want to kind of round things out, um, with one last question, which is if we're to kind of drill down, uh, all the bits and pieces we talked about today, if you, and there was one key takeaway or one kind of key piece of information you want to leave people with or have them understand, what would that be? Foundation, foundation, foundation. I think, I think somebody else has said that once and I can't remember if it was Sue Elsby or I think it, I think there was somebody else who, who's ended kind of on that note of like, are you serious? That's funny. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I just, it's, it's keep it simple to start with. It doesn't have to be extravagant. And yes, I talk about a lot of things, but in the end it goes to the basics of foundation to me. Yeah. Sometimes taking the simple things and just like really teaching them well makes a big difference. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Eating. Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Karen, for coming on the podcast. It's been a pleasure. Thank you. Nice to talk with you, Melissa.

Excellent. All right. And thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week. 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. Thanks. Thank you.