E173: Petra Ford - "Keeping Heeling Fun + New Puppies!"
FenziFenzi Dog Sports Podcast · 팟캐스트 · 33분
강아지와 함께하는 복종 훈련은 단순히 명령을 수행하는 기계적인 과정을 넘어, 핸들러와 반려견 간의 긴밀한 유대감을 형성하고 소통 방식을 확립하는 과정이다. 강아지 개별 성격에 맞춘 훈련 방식의 조정은 학습 효율을 높이고 개가 훈련을 즐거움으로 인식하게 만드는 핵심 요인이다. 강아지가 무엇을 선호하는지, 문제를 어떤 방식으로 해결하려 하는지, 그리고 좌절을 느끼는 한계점은 어디인지 등을 면밀히 관찰하면 최적의 훈련 전략을 수립할 수 있다. 힐링(Heeling) 훈련의 경우, 정확성만을 강조하며 반복적인 패턴을 수행하는 것은 개의 의욕을 저하시킬 수 있으므로, 훈련의 단위를 작게 나누고 게임이나 트릭을 병행하여 활기를 유지해야 한다. 과학적 훈련 이론을 바탕으로 직관적인 경험을 결합할 때 더 명확한 소통이 가능해지며, 역방향 훈련(back-chaining)과 같은 다양한 기법은 힐링 동작의 완성도를 높이는 데 효과적이다. 자신감과 회복탄력성이 높은 개를 선택하는 것이 대회 준비에 유리하지만, 매번 개별 상황에 따라 즉흥적이고 유연하게 훈련을 수정하는 태도가 반려견과의 조화로운 성장에 필수적이다. 훈련 경력이 쌓일수록 반려견으로부터 배워야 할 점이 끊임없이 발견되며, 훈련 과정 자체를 정답이 없는 도전적인 배움의 과정으로 인식할 때 핸들러와 개 모두가 건강하게 성장할 수 있다.
E173: Petra Ford - "Keeping Heeling Fun + New Puppies!"
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This is Melissa Brough and you're listening to the Fensi Dog Sports Podcast brought to you by the Fensi Dog Sports Academy, an online school dedicated to providing high quality instruction for competitive dog sports using only the most current and progressive training methods. So I've been talking to Petra Ford. Petra graduated from Rutgers School of Health-Related Professions 17 years ago with a degree in physical therapy. She attended the Canine Rehabilitation Institute in 2007 and is a certified canine rehabilitation therapist. She trains and trials her own Labrador retrievers in obedience, agility, and field. Her black lab retriever, Tyler, had the distinction of being the 2008 and 2009 National Obedience Champion and first runner-up in 2010. In 2012, Petra and Tyler became the first American team to win the Obedience World Cup. She's written several articles on canine conditioning, canine injury prevention, competing with your dog, and more. She's been published in a number of magazines, including Clean Run, Front and Finish, and Whole Dog Journal. Hi, Petra. Welcome back to the podcast. Hi, Melissa. Thank you for having me. So to kind of start us out, do you want to just share a little bit about your own dogs and what you're working on with them? Okay. So Zayden is my retired agility dog. Zeal is my fairly seasoned obedience competition dog. And Zayna is my up and coming dog. We were working on our obedience trial championship until the pandemic hit and everything was put on hold. So I'm looking forward to getting her back in the ring. And then I have a little puppy that I just picked up Sunday, who's the newest member of the family. So now there's four, which is crazy, but... Does he have a name yet? He does. He finally got a name today. The kennel he comes from breeds primarily for scent detection, search and rescue, FEMA, those kinds of dogs. And all those working dogs have P names. My dogs have Z names. So I came up with possessed and I'm going to call him zest. Love it. That's super cute. So I'd love to talk about the new puppy for a little bit. I know obedience is, you know, your main sport. Are you planning to train him for competition obedience? I am. Yes, I am. I guess kind of at this age, where do you start? I mean, I think you told me before we got started, he's seven weeks. So what are you planning kind of to focus on for those first few weeks home? For the first few weeks, primarily, I just, I want to bond with him, give him as many, a variety of experiences as possible without doing anything too crazy because I don't want to overwhelm
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him. Um, and then all the little training sessions I do with him, my primary focus is not, um, yes, I teach him little skills, but my goal really is just to, um, figure him out, right. Um, to learn about him. How does he learn? How does he process? Um, what's his, uh, tolerance, just little things about his personality, um, and to get him familiar with my communication system. Um, just so basically kind of establish that relationship with him. So why this puppy? I know, you know, a lot of people really kind of stress and stress about a witch puppy and a litter. Um, they try really hard to find the dog who's going to be the right fit for their goals, but obviously, you know, some things, you know, and some things you don't know when they're that age. Um, so as somebody who's kind of managed to successfully compete at a high level with several dogs in a row, can you share a little bit about how you decide on a puppy? Sure. So first, um, I go by breeding, um, because I think, you know, uh, father and mother are super important. Um, some people like to go even further back in the pedigree. I think the parents are super important. So, um, this puppy has the same father as my Zaina. Um, as far as traits go, I'm actually pretty specific. I feel super confident that between what they show you, um, from ages week, um, five to seven is what you're going to get when they're adults. And it's pretty amazing. Like how much you can, um, how much information you could get just by observing them. So I always want to take them away from their litter mates one by one, just to a spot they haven't been before. Um, I used to do all this testing and stuff like that. Now really it's just observation and you'll see so many personality traits right away. Um, for me, the last couple of dogs, I find, I think the most important thing I look for is, um, confidence and resilience because those are things that I can improve upon in a dog. But if a dog doesn't innately have it, you cannot put it in the dog. Um, we can train dogs to do just about anything, but if they are innately, um, nervous dogs or, um, insecure dogs, we can't ever put that in there. Um, and I think that because obedience is inherently not at all self-rewarding, um, and that the dogs deal with an enormous amount of pressure. And I don't mean from the handler, just like there's so much environmental pressure, um, pressure in the ring from the judge that, um, I think it's almost not fair to get a dog that I plan to do competition with that isn't confident and somewhat resilient. Kind of trying to stack the deck in your favor a little bit.
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Yeah. But also just because, you know, like the more years, the more dogs I go through, sometimes I just feel like it's not fair. Like it's, um, like zeal at a high, high level. There are a number of times when he struggles, he digs deep and does it for me. Um, but I feel a little bit bad. So maybe I'm just, maybe I'm getting soft, but yeah, I feel bad. So I feel like, um, it's just Zaina doesn't get bothered by things. So, you know, I just don't usually really feel bad if she makes a mistake. It's because it's a legit mistake or sometimes because she's being naughty, but never because, um, she feels pressure. Um, and so I just think that's more fair for the dog, you know? So, so with this guy, did, did you basically get to pick a puppy from the litter or did you kind of have the breeder pick one for you? I'm just curious. Um, yeah, so both I'm super lucky. I mean, I, you know, the breeders I've gone to are super, super, um, supportive. So I go there, um, and I do look at the puppies. I get a snapshot. So I do, I tell them what I've seen. I tell them exactly what I want. And then they kind of, um, you know, confirm like with him. I really, I really, really wanted a girl. I wanted another girl. So I did. And, uh, there was one girl in the litter and I was like, she's going to be the girl, you know? And after I saw her and then the breeder, uh, did some testing with her and the boy I have now, she's basically was like, yeah, you don't want the girl. You want the boy. So there you go. I have, I have you. He's awful cute. Everybody's listening. Can't see him, but, uh, but I can, um, rolling around your lap occasionally and whatnot. Well, there's stuff. Um, I'm posting like, uh, free videos and pictures and stuff with him on Facebook. So on your personal Facebook or on the business? Yeah. On my personal page. Cause that's where most of the people are. So, um, I did a Facebook live and I would have done more lives, but my schedule is so crazy. Like when I have time to tape, he like, I did it on Monday. I was like, okay, we're doing it. And he was dead exhausted. So today when he was perky, um, I just did it and put it to YouTube and posted the YouTube link. So I think that might be the easier way to do it. Um, at least until he's a little bit older. Yeah. You mentioned kind of, you use these first couple of weeks really to get to know a new puppy. So I'm just kind of curious what that looks like for you. What do you, like, how do you try to get to know him? What are you looking for? What are you kind of doing to kind of figure him out a little bit?
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So when I train them, I just kind of look to see, do they prefer to be Lord? Um, so do they want me to show them exactly what to do or do they like to problem solve? So zeal that cannot abide being wrong. So he wants me to just show him exactly what to do. Zayna hated that. She was like, I can figure it out on my own. She likes to problem solve. Sometimes dogs have different frustration levels. Like how long can they focus before they get tired? You know, I don't like to overdo it also with life. Like for instance, he's a mad, crazy tugger, which I love, but if he tugs for too long or if he's overtired and I go to take the tug, he actually gets super fresh and growls at me and tells me off. Um, so I already decided that, yeah, I'm going to keep tugging with him, but I'm definitely going to be careful about pushing him over his threshold. Um, cause I don't, you know, I don't want to get there with him. Just general personality traits. Like wherever he goes, I watch his body. Um, is he nervous? Is he unsure? Is he confident? Is he curious? If something startles him, um, does he then, you know, struggle for a while or does he recover immediately? So if he gets startled by something within seconds, he recovers and it's like nothing ever happened. Like, uh, my one dog was teaching him how to use the dog door. So when you're outside coming in through the one dog door, it's super high. So I was inside, I see him trying to come in and I know his back feet aren't even touching the ground, but he was like, he was coming in no matter what. And somehow he hauled himself in through the dog door and I never showed him how to do it. So he's like super determined when he puts his mind to something, look out, you know, and, and the breeder said that about him. So those are all like important pieces of information that I need to have when I train him. Because when I train, I train all my dogs differently. I'm always experimenting and, you know, I feel like I have to adapt my training to the dog. Right. So I have to pick the method that's best for him. Um, and then the traits that I like, I'm going to really foster them and build those up and traits that could potentially be problematic, like him getting too way to arouse with tugging. I'm going to manage those like right from the get go. And, uh, so then kind of shape them into the best little guy he could be. In kind of these early training sessions, um, what do you, what are you working on as kind of foundation skills or as the essential kind of skills early on? And at what point do you kind of
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begin to introduce those more formal obedience skills? I mean, everything I do, I guess, technically, you know, is, is a foundation skill, right? So I teach them certain tricks that I use a lot. So one of the first tricks is hand touches, because I use hand touches for finishes, I use hand touches for different exercises, twist and spin, I teach them to turn on the bucket because I like to teach them hind end awareness right away. I do a little puppy healing, which is basically just luring, just getting him used to walking with his little head up for a little bit. Um, one of the thing, a couple of things I like to do early on is I like to send them to a target and I like to send them to a platform because obedience dogs get really heavily reinforced around us really close to us. And some of the exercises they tend to struggle with, especially down the road or the exercises that are away from us. So I, um, like to start sending them away from me, um, as soon as possible. And then, uh, I'm going to try a few different things with this puppy. Um, like, I think I'm going to like send him to, to a platform, maybe like in a corner, right? Cause those things put pressure on the dog. I feel like I want to start exposing my dog very mindfully and very carefully and slowly to some of that early on so that it's just a game for them. And it's a non issue, you know? Um, I don't know. I do a bunch of, I don't even know what I, what do I even do? I don't know. Sometimes I just wing it and make it up as I go along. What about, uh, what about kind of socialization? You know, obviously that's a big topic right now with everybody with pandemic puppies and kind of the realities of the world right now. Yeah. So I'm super fortunate because, um, so I have the rehab business. So people are coming in for doggy rehab and they're all dog people. Um, cause personally, I don't feel like my dogs need to be exposed to tons of people in the sense that as long as people are relatively neutral or some people are nice. You know, I spend a lot of their career teaching them to ignore people, right? Cause when they're working, they're supposed to be ignoring people. Um, so my dogs, his temperament sounds, he's already met two little kids, which if you can survive that, you can apply socialization. Um, and, uh, so yeah, he's meeting people at the rehab, which is fine. Um, I can take him. I took him to the cherry bro, like the pet store the other day. Um, I could take him, I'm not going to do it now, but I can take him like to the home Depot and tractor supply. So I'm kind of not that worried
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about it. Um, maybe if I had a different breed, I would be, but, um, I don't really think it's going to be a problem and I can, you know, I can do things like take them. I train my dogs like outside in front of the supermarket anyway, and people walk by. So if I want them to meet people, all I have to do is stand there and I'm sure people will be like, Oh, can I pet your puppy? So, um, but yeah, I, I, I'm not worried about it. All right. I guess kind of enough about the new puppy. We should talk about some other stuff too. Um, so the other reason, in addition to the puppy that I invited you on is cause you have a workshop coming up, um, starting July 19th on keeping healing, exciting, fresh, and fun. Can you just share a little bit about the workshop? Yeah. So I think that, um, we spent a lot of time teaching our dogs to heal and then our dogs learn how to heal and then we start doing healing patterns and then we keep doing healing patterns. And, uh, I think it's super important. I think healing is the hardest obedience exercise in my mind. It's super complex, right? So the dogs have to think about, have to do multiple things at once. They have to maintain position, a focal point and engagement. Um, so I think the dogs can get flat really quickly. So I think it's important to always, um, throw in games and tricks and, uh, make, you know, just keep things exciting and fun for them because otherwise I just, they're going to get stale. And I mean, like I'll take zeal. He loves to heal. Um, but even him, if I just do healing pattern after healing pattern, he just, you know, he's not as bouncy. It gets a little flat. So I think it's important to, um, keep it fun. Um, and then it's fun for us too, you know, for us and the dogs, I think people, a lot of times in obedience, they get too serious. Kind of, as you mentioned, a lot of people struggle after they teach healing to kind of keep things fun and they end up with a flat dog or a dog that's maybe getting a little demotivated. I mean, what are, what are some of the mistakes there? What are the things that people are doing that kind of lead to that outcome? Well, I think, well, a couple of things, one for sure is clarity, right? Um, so I'm super, super clear on my criteria and on my communication system. Um, so that helps my dogs really understand healing. But, um, I also, I just do pieces of healing all the time. Um, little pieces, little pieces to keep each of the pieces really, um, animated, not just accurate. So, you know, the problem with obedience is there's so much emphasis on accuracy and obviously accuracy is
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important, but I, for me, you know, having attitude and animation is just as important. So, I have to constantly mix it up and, uh, put games in there and tricks in there so that the dog thinks it's fun as well. I, you know, I tug a lot. Um, you know, I, depends on the dog. Again, that too. So, what I did in this, I put a bunch of options in this workshop because every dog, um, is not, so I have a dog that's motivated by food primarily and I have another dog that's way more motivated by a toy, right? So, I don't do the same thing for each dog. Um, so I put in a huge variety of things so that people can pick and choose what will work best for their individual dog and can kind of experiment a little bit and play around with that. If a dog has gotten to the point where they are starting to think that healing is hard and maybe they're losing some of that motivation, is it possible to kind of change their mind, convince them it's fun again, or is it basically a poison cue at that point? No, I think they, uh, I think that you can, um, definitely improve it. I think the biggest issue I see when I watch, um, when I get students is lack of clarity. So, you make things more clear and you'll see a huge change in the dog, right? And because then they're more confident, they know their job and they're right a lot. Um, and then again, like I said, if you break it into small pieces and, um, what I've been doing lately, a lot of, which is like working phenomenal and super fun is I've been back chaining sections of the healing. I think you're doing something for us a little bit about that at some point, right? No, because I'm so excited. So like, because I'm totally, I have, um, and I, you know, when Denise way back asked me, um, first asked me to do a webinar for her, I'm like, you guys are so scientific. I'm like, I am not like that at all. I fly by the seat of my pants. I do things on instinct. Um, I read my dogs. I'm trying to analyze, I make things up. Uh, so, but with so much access to so many awesome, like webinars and workshops and like Hannah Brannigan's podcast, I like about, I would say maybe a year or so ago, I forced, I was like, come on, like, just listen, maybe you'll learn something. And now it did because honestly, like in competitive obedience land, it is not scientific at all. I mean, trainers have a method and that's their method that they use. And they may tweak it a little bit here and there, but it is just based on experience. It's not based on science and that's not all bad, but I think, um, the perfect world is kind of right in the middle,
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right? So I'm still going to use my instincts. I'm still going to read my dog and really figure out exactly what's happening. But, um, there's so much stuff in the science that I haven't been using because I'd never been exposed to it. So, um, like in competitive obedience, like, and I'm not saying there isn't a person out there, but I've never been exposed to a person that back chain. Like it was a foreign concept to me. I'd like, and I mean, talk about a mind bender, like it was so hard. Like, and if I explain it to my students now, they have that same look I had, like, wait, because we don't think backwards. We forward chain dominantly. So, um, anyway, so now I'm having tons of fun with this back chaining, using it on fronts, using it in healing and, uh, and some of the other scientific concepts that I'm learning. So it's fun. It's super fun. Yeah. More things to play with, right? Yeah. I just rambled. I don't even know what the question was anymore. Sorry. No, no, you're fine. Um, I had, I had asked about, um, you know, just kind of changing if a dog's, uh, gotten to a point where it's no, they're no longer thinking about things as fun. Yeah. So you can just totally change it up, right? Like you can completely change how, so for example, um, like I started back chain, like Zaina was totally forward chained on her healing. And, um, I started back chaining with her, which is totally changed it up for her. And back chaining makes a lot of sense to her. Uh, so it's, her healing got really way more animated and she got quicker and she got more confident. So I think, um, if that was a case with a dog that wasn't, I would, there, I would try just a bunch of different things. And there's, I'm guaranteed got to be one or two things that resonate. Cause I think there are so many choices. Um, so if you just break it down into pieces, motivate the pieces and make sure you're super clear with your information, then I absolutely think the dog can learn to be, you know, animated and enjoy it and have fun with it. So to kind of dive in just a little bit deeper, do you want to just maybe share a little bit of a peek into some of the games or some of the options that you use to keep things fun after the dog kind of has those basics down? Um, so what do I do? Well, I use, I use tricks a fair amount, um, because my dogs really like them. Um, and then I put them on a verbal cue and then eventually I put them on no cue. So, um, my, uh, my dog's default in the absence of information for zeal is to offer
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a behavior when healing and he'll offer a bounce. So if I'm healing slow, he should be bouncing in training. Um, and then in the ring when there's environmental pressure on him, he doesn't actually bounce, but he comes up to me. So that's pretty cool. Um, so I use tricks, I use toys, I use food, um, back chaining now. And, uh, who knows, I might be, I might learn something else from another podcast or, uh, webinar workshop. Yeah. If kind of the, the theory or the idea behind this, um, is, you know, that, that once a dog is trained, you start to do patterns and you kind of, maybe you're drilling a little bit, um, are there things that trainers can do to avoid that problem in the first place? Like before, maybe even before they have healing strongly trained or well-trained or before they're even in the ring, are there things that they can do early on as they teach healing to keep it from ever feeling dull or boring, um, getting to that place? Correct. Yeah. So, and I think, I think it's a mindset. Like I love healing. I think it's fun. Um, and I like precision. However, I think I'm super empathetic to my dogs. Like I can't, I like when I first teach a young dog how to heal, if I'm really doing it right, I get a headache because I have to be so focused, right? To give them the right information. So if I'm getting a headache, how must they feel? Um, I think it's so I'm really empathetic to them and I am in no rush. So it will take me four years to get a dog to heal the way I want them to heal because I just do pieces and pieces and pieces and little pieces. It takes me a really long time before I put it all together. And even when I put together a healing pet pattern, I typically don't do a full healing pattern more than once a week with a, even with a fully trained dog, the rest of the time I'm doing it in pieces and I'm rewarding them and playing games and I'm doing tricks and, um, just keeping it fun. So if you just have that mindset from the beginning, you know, there is no rush to put the healing pattern together. Um, it will come in time, you know, and once, and even then, like, I don't just one day put the whole thing together. I'll put two or three pieces together. And then when my dog can do those, maybe I'll put a few more pieces together. Um, but never multiple days a week, even really. Um, you know, because I feel like if my dog's doing it, my dog's doing it well, then why beat a dead horse, right? Like, um, then I'll just work on the pieces and keep them fun. For the workshop specifically, are there skills that
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working teams need to kind of have in place before they sign up? Are there things, um, you know, folks need to know to kind of help decide if they're a good candidate for working spot or to take the workshop? Yeah. So for this one, um, actually it's for dogs that already know how to heal. I, I have one coming up. I don't know when, but, uh, where it's for dogs learning how to heal. So this one, uh, theoretically your dog knows how to heal, which isn't to say you couldn't use some of it if your dog's learning it. Um, but the, the basis for this one should be that your dog knows how to heal. And now you want to just keep it fun, um, and exciting over the long haul, right? Because over time, like I said, once a dog knows how to heal, people tend to just do patterns and just practice healing and emphasize precision, precision. And then the dogs just kind of get blah about it over time. All right. Last question. What's something that you've learned or been reminded of recently when it comes to dog training? Uh, what I've learned recently about dog training is that I still don't know anything. I did this. Um, it was, I don't know how many weeks ago. So I did a little, I don't know if it was a Facebook live or a recording anyway. So I said, okay, so today's the first day I'm introducing my two dogs to a mask. And I said, so here's my prediction. Um, zeal, who's really insecure and really relies on my face is going to really struggle when I have the mask on and Zaina, who's really confident is not going to care at all. So then I put the mask on and I took zeal out and zeal could have cared less, acted like as if I didn't even have the mask on. And I was like, well, isn't that interesting. So then I took Zaina out and she didn't really like that. I had the mask on it annoyed her. So I pretty much was like, there you go. I know nothing. Cause all along, I thought that zeal was relying on my face and clearly he's not relying on my face. And, but yeah, I think that I, I've always said this, like the longer I train, the more I realize, like how much more I have to learn. And I just, I'm having so much fun right now. Like just from, like I mentioned all the podcasts and, um, learning all the scientific stuff. I'm like, oh my God, there's so much that I'm learning that I don't know. So I think we could be learning like forever and ever and ever. And I think that's really important. I think that, um, everybody should always, you know, go to different trainers, go to different resources, just learn as much as you
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can, because we can think we've like learned everything and our dogs will still tell us that, you know, we don't, we still have a ways to go. Um, I don't know how my dogs understand me in hindsight. I think we've all felt that way. I didn't think that's a great, like lesson to learn to end on too. Right. The idea that we all, um, can be a little surprised by our dogs, even when we've trained them for a while and they're high level competition dogs already. And theoretically, you kind of know what you're doing. And then you're like, yeah, no, I didn't know what I was doing. So, but that's what I like about it. Right. Cause if it was easy, I'd be bored. Um, I love that it's challenging and that every dog is different and that no matter how much I learn, I realized there's still so much more to learn. So that's what I love about it. All right. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I know this was a little last minute of throwing everything together to get it to happen tonight, but I appreciate your flexibility. Thank you. Jump it on as always. And thank you to our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week. Don't miss it. If you haven't already subscribed 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. Thank you. Thank you.