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Love that you brought him to that busy environment and work with him! Do you happen to have video? Would love the opportunity to give you feedback. đ
Start working on Sit-Stay training on the Cato board indoors. Please take video so that I can observe and give feedback. This is one of the tools we will use to build a solid sit-stay at the startline.
Did you happen to bring the Snuffle Mat with you to the big event?
Fantastic!! I thought your name looked familiar! đ
Yes, a ten-min video of relaxation works. 2-3 min-videos for everything else. đ
Ha! Yes, he will start to figure out the difference between the games. You can also practice them in different rooms of the house.
Looking forward to Part 2 of Find My Face!
You’re so very welcome! I am here for you.
You mentioned in an earlier post that a Veterinary Behaviorist shared a study to help you better understand Avery. Is Avery on medication? If not, would you consider medication for her?
Relaxation Conditioning-
I am not sure why you are standing. Sitting next to Avery, is less stimulating, which will eventually bring about relaxation. Relaxation Conditioning is different from RP. RP involves movement. If you prefer that method, that’s fine–I can coach you through it.Snuffle Mat question-
How we use the Snuffle Mat will help us build Avery’s confidence. The timing in which she receives it is key, including the context. You won’t be giving it to her in the middle of a run. Continue to use the Lotus ball or whatever works best for her to keep her in motion. The Snuffle Mat exercise is meant to do two things: create a structure that feels like a ritual (predictability); to help her come back down to her physiological baseline (HPA axis). So if there is any building anxiety while training, it can help reduce that by the act of duration sniffing. Does that make sense?We have to first build the ritual at home, where she typically does not feel anxious before we start bringing the ritual into environments that can be stressful for her.
Startline in class-
Do you have a few other fellow students in class? Perhaps they can stand behind her. Here is an exercise I wrote for another class on working Startline Pressure:Startline Games: Stay with Pressure
So now that youâve created a startline ritual, itâs time to build resiliency. Many dogs struggle with the startline because of the pressure they feel behind them. They are often left at the start on their own, with barking dogs behind them, and people lined up watching themâŚthey are expected to focus on you and not whatâs going on behind them. Oh, and someone might be walking behind them to pick up their leash. That is A LOT of pressure.Some of you might have already practiced this in your weekly classes. If so, then turn up the heat on these games! These games are designed to build resiliency while having fun! Your weekly group class is the perfect place to play these games. If you donât have access to a weekly class, then have a startline games party and invite friends and family over to help! Lure them with pizza! đ
How to play:
⢠Ask a few people to stand behind the first jump, several feet back. Depending on how sensitive your dog is, they might have to stand further back then it would typically look like at a trial. They can stand around, speaking quietly. If they stand totally still and silent, that might be even weirder for your dog!
⢠Walk your dog out to the line and ask him to line up. Be generous with rewarding your dog on the startline, using high value food items. I had to use steak and meatballs for Marvel!
⢠Take a few steps away to lead out, then return to your dog and reward. Make sure that you are looking over your shoulder at your dog the entire time you are walking out to lead out position. That connection will help your dog feel supported.
⢠Return and reward several times. After a few trials, return to your dog and release him.
⢠Depending on how your dog does, you might be able to turn up the heat in the same session, or you might need to practice this first step a few times before moving on.Here are some examples of how I turned up the heat with Marvel over the course of several weeks:
⢠The people standing behind Marvel in the class moved closer, spoke louder, did jumping jacks, pretended to be leash runners and ring gate stewards, and walked around.
⢠We set up a gate several feet behind Marvel and then had a dog and handler stand behind it as if they were next to go into the ring. We made sure to use a neutral dog that exuded calm energy. The gate acted as a barrier so that Marvel couldnât access him if he broke the sit-stay. We added pressure by having the dog tug with his handler, bark, spin, jump up, take treats, etc. All the while, I was leading out and then returning to Marvel to reward him generously.
⢠I let Marvel look whatever was behind him before focusing on me, if he wanted to, especially when we first started training this. It was important to give him the opportunity to SEE and process what was going on behind him.
⢠I never lead out any farther than I thought Marvel could handle. I figured this out by observing the point at which he could not focus forward on me. Early on in trialing, if I lead out and Marvel looked behind him to see what was going on, I moved closer to him. If he could focus on me and the game, I knew he was comfortable enough to start the game. Over time, and many games in classes and seminars, I no longer had to think about how far to lead out based on Marvelâs comfort levelâI just lead out based on what worked for the course.
⢠I rewarded Marvel in different ways to keep it interestingâremember, itâs a game! đ Here are the various ways I rewarded Marvel:
o I returned to Marvel to reward;
o I threw a reward back to him;
o I had the reward already set up behind him and released him to it; Someone from the âcrowdâ rewarded Marvel;
o I released him to take the jump and then gave him the reward.I look forward to your videos!
Ahhh, evil axe murders are hard to hold sit-stays next to.
When the environment feels safe, she can perform at a high level. When she feels insecure or unsafe, that’s when you see the behavior deteriorate.
I encourage you to practice the assignments and take video. Lets dive in! I look forward to viewing them!
I understand why the instructor asked you to place the toy in the grid in those spots. Because of her body structure, I would place it further away from the bar so that she can take the bar without needing to crash into it in order to land where the toy was placed in that video. I would also give her a little more room between the jumps. Topper is shaped like Sprite and he just doesn’t jump the way my other terrier jumps–Marvel can wrap and bend in ways Topper cannot. I personally found that when I stopped trying to control how Topper wanted to take jumps, his resilience improved–less frustration and less bandwidth being used for jumping, resulting in more bandwidth for the environment.
Sprite is getting there when it comes to relaxation.
You don’t have to practice the Pattern Game with toys if toys are not her jam. đ
Hi Mary! It’s in the same section of the website where the assignments are posted. Here you go:
Management and Agility
Now, how does all of this fit in with agility? Or for that matter, any performance sport that you may be participating in. When I first started focusing on behavior modification with Marvel, I made some crucial changes to our lives. I recommend these same changes to my clients with dogs doing agility:
Stop trialing: This can be a hard pill to swallow, but if you can commit to stopping competition for a few weeks or months, it can make all the difference in your dogâs long-term agility career. Remember trigger stacking? There are too many variables to manage at agility trials when youâre getting started with behavior modification. You want to work on your dogâs anxieties in situations where you can better control the environment, thereby minimizing the likelihood of your dog being triggered. Until your dog feels comfortable and secure, and you fully understand how to help him manage his stress, hold off on trialing. Accept it, and find peace in the fact that this decision is just for now, not forever.
Change your agility training focus: With all of the challenges in internationally influenced courses and the âfancyâ handling moves available to meet those challenges, it can be tempting to want to focus on sexy agility behaviors. But running full courses or setting up difficult weave challenges, for example, should not be your training focus for now. All of that will come once your dog feels more comfortable and secure. I once spent an entire handling seminar focusing on Marvelâs anxiety about people and dogs in close proximity. I was frustrated that I couldnât play with everyone else and practice the fancy handling moves, but I had to think about the big picture. Also, Marvel wasnât having fun, so my focus had to be about helping him to have fun again. Again, this is a temporary situation.
Realize that itâs not just about agility: Look at the other 23 hours in the day. When you are working to change a dogâs behavior in agility, you have to address the behavior across the board. You donât want the dog practicing the unwanted behavior in any situation. I had a client whose dog barked and lunged at other dogs while on leash walks. In looking at how to modify the behavior, I asked if there were other situations in the dogâs world where she barked at other dogs. It turned out she was spending the entire day while her owners were at work scanning the neighborhood through their giant picture windows and barking at every dog that walked by. We couldnât be as effective in modifying the leash behavior if we didnât also address her barking behavior in the house. We managed the behavior (thereby decreasing the dogâs ability to rehearse barking at dogs) by closing the curtains when the owners were at work. With Marvel, because I wanted to compete with him in agility, I also had to reduce his anxiety about other dogs while walking around our neighborhoodânot just in agility class.For our agility classes, here are some of the things I implemented to manage the training environment so that Marvel stayed sub-threshold:
I crated Marvel in the car.
Created a visual barrier. Once I had to crate in the building. I set up an x-pen around our area and draped a blanket over it so that Marvel couldnât see what was going on beyond his space. I also set up the x-pen in a corner, away from traffic areas.
I brought him into the training building only a few minutes before his turn so that he didnât have too much time to notice what was going on around him.
I warmed him up with a few connections and focus games away from the people and other dogs. I then set us up in a quiet corner until it was our turn to run.
After our turn, I immediately took Marvel outside and cooled him down. Then I put him back into his crate in the car. By removing him from the environment, he didnât have time to start worrying about a dog racing past him in the weaves or people going past him as they walked the course.I still manage Marvel in this same way today, but now Marvel can hang out for several minutes in the building watching other dogs run. But it took a long time for him not to be worried about it. To reduce stress during agility training, I recommend the following:
Keep your sessions short and sweet: Training your dog for a few minutes (or less!) at a time, with a high rate of reinforcement, will help keep your dog focused on you. You will also be building value for your dog working with you instead of thinking about whatâs going on around him.
Quit while youâre ahead: A session is going well if your dog is working with you and not worrying about the environment; donât judge the session based on whether you are progressing toward your agility training goal or not. It doesnât matter whether your dog is rocking a sequence or youâre trying to work through a handling move, and itâs not going as plannedâ if your dog is not reacting to the environment or whatever it is that normally triggers him, then it is doing great! Stop training or take a break before he stops working with you.
Take brain breaks: It is essential to give the dog a break from the mental work that comes with training. You can play tug, let him hang out and sniff, or go for a runâwhatever works for your dog. If you continue to train without giving the dog breaks, he might become mentally fatigued or less enthusiastic about playing, and he might even quit the game. With a dog that is dealing with stress and anxiety, you will have to be creative with your brain breaks because itâs not just about giving your dog a break from training; he also needs a break from the pressures of the environment.
Correct no more: Say goodbye to corrections; this includes verbal corrections, not just physical ones. Science has proved that using punishment to address behavior problems can have potential adverse effects which include but are not limited to inhibition of learning, increased fear-related and aggressive behaviors, and injury to animals and people interacting with animals. Even relatively mild corrections can increase your dogâs stress. We have the tools to reduce stress and anxiety in dogs in ways that promote learning and increase confidence while facilitating trust in people and dogs. Letâs just do that.Itâs Not a Checklist
Dog training and behavior work is not a checklist where once you mark something off, youâre done with it. Just like training agility, you must regularly work with your dog to maintain his skills and build his confidence. Marvel and I had a setback about two years after I started working to address his anxiety. We were at a local trial. Marvel was fast and focused in the ring and had no problem moving around the trial site on leash. But I was playing fetch off leash in a fenced-in area with Marvel and the rest of my canine crew when Marvel charged after a dog walking by us. Because he is so small, he was able to slip under the fence, and I was slow to react. Again, Marvel is small and did not make contact with the dog, but I felt terrible that the handler was startled. Thankfully, nothing happened.
Although it was a personal blow and I felt terrible, I learned from the experience. I realized that while I had worked hard with Marvel to teach him to have self-control in specific contexts, the only way to generalize his self-control was to work it in different contexts. But I also recognized that Marvel was using all of his brain-power to play agility with me, so why ask him to do one more thing. Now, Marvel stays on leash at trials and seminars unless we are in the ring to run the course.
Why am I sharing this? To help you understand how the canine brain works. If your dog understands his job in one context, it doesnât mean he will understand it in a different contextâ especially if you havenât trained him to. I believe this is even more significant when you add a dogâs anxiety to the equation.
I ran at a trial two weekends ago with Topper. We had two dogs ahead of us so I was playing quietly in a small space with Topper and his tennis ball. Another larger dog was walking by and lunged for Topperâs ballâTopper, of course, did not appreciate that and growled at the dog while lunging. I had him on a short leash and was able to instantly refocus him on me. I could tell Topper was rattled after that. When he ran, he was a bit slower than he typically would be. This is another example of how bandwidth can be affected. Setbacks will happen. They are part of the journey. Be kind to yourself and learn from them.
No worries! I am glad you have someone in Florida to work with.
Also, OMG you’re in Florida!! Are you guys ok?
Sometimes that “early take-off” is a result of arousal shifts and multi-sensory processing issues. So it likely isn’t a training issue in regards to jumping. Around the point of takeoff, not only does the brain have to take in visual information and audio information, but it also has to calculate where the body is in the air, height, etc. Then the brain has to predict where to take off and where to land. If it’s too much for the brain to process, it takes a shortcut and predicts the easiest decision, sometimes resulting in what we see in this video with Sprite.
How is Sprite’s vision? Is her vision the reason she struggles with early takeoff?
If it’s not a vision issue, then it is a multi-sensory processing issue. This is common with young dogs learning how to process a ton of information. Plus, she is in adolescence so she is still learning about her body, how to organize, etc. while her brain is changing.
Why was the Lotus ball placed on the front foot landing spot? By placing it there, Sprite has to either land on the bar or has to torque.
Regarding RC video-
You aren’t necessarily rewarding a behavior, but rather using the entire experience of the exercise to shift her physiological state into relaxation. This happens over multiple sessions.When you are done, you can say her release word and then toss a treat off the mat. It’s okay if she is looking at your hands. It’s her choice. Relaxation will come with time. đ
I am so glad you are getting so much from this course! đ
Yes, it is important to acclimate your dog to the space. You can do so by coming into the building, and letting them explore while also managing them in such a way that they are not triggered. You can practice Relaxation Conditioning in a far corner, away from the activity, once your dog understands how to relax. You can also practice Pattern Games in the building, working your way closer to the activity. I would say a few minutes in the building, then some time out, then a few minutes in the building, and then some time out is a solid process.
I will be posting a handout today on management that might help clarify some things as well.
Apologies! I did respond but it looks like it didn’t post.
You can absolutely use kibble. Practicing during mealtime is fine. And yes, stop at 10 min no matter what. She will get there.
So I LOVE that you allowed her to receive her reinforcement even though she crashed into the bar. That is an arousal and focus issue–likely thinking about the Lotus ball on the ground and not the bar. And I LOVE that you adjusted the exercise by placing the Lotus ball before the jump. It’s these kinds of actions while training that build resilience. đ
