개 훈련의 리듬과 세션을 끝내는 방법 #119

because training really needs to start with a plan. And the plan is going to have things like what equipment do you need? And what reinforcement are you going to be using? And where will you be training? And how can you control that dog's reinforcement so that it's very successful for them? I would refer to, if you have not done a deep, deep dive into podcast episode number 44, where I break down the levels of training and how we need to change the environment based on the levels. I'd say that's one of my, I hate to say my most important podcasts. I think I've got, there's a lot that are very important, but that podcast 44 explains my approach to training my own dogs. How I create clarity for something which grows confidence. And I do not add challenge or complexity until I get that clarity and confidence. Okay. So, that is all going to happen because you've started with a plan. If you're one of my online students, of course, we give you that plan. We have a training plan. You can look up on your tablet or your iPhone or whatever kind of phone you have, all you Android users. I apologize. It could be something that you might want to print out. So, if you're in one of our programs, you've got that plan. We give you that plan. For the rest of you, I hope that you intentionally select a plan that is proven to give amazing outcomes. Don't just jump around and go, yeah, I think that might work for my dog. No, no, don't waste your dog's time. Don't waste your time. All right. So, the middle. Now let's get into the middle, the actual training. Training for me always starts with engagement. And that's just so darn easy if you have a dog that tugs and it might look like something like this. It's not like a duration tug. It's like tug and then ask for behavior like sit down, spin back, whatever. And then another little tug. And then, you know, that tug session might last, I don't know, 20, 30 seconds. If your dog doesn't tug, what that beginning session looks like, it's a session of engagement with your dog where we're getting their arousal state up. Talked about arousal state here on the program, podcast episode number 57. You will see what I refer to as getting the dog's excitement in a peak state so they're ready to do their best in training. And so, if your dog doesn't yet find the joy in tugging, please don't use tugging because it's not a value. So, you're going to start your training off with a needle in the eye for the dog. Oh, I really don't like this part. Right. So, start with something that will get the dog engaged, that they love, and will build a

relationship between the two of you. Initially take 20, 30 seconds. And then you transition immediately into exercise number one in your training session. And that will be a behavior that your dog knows incredibly well, and it is incredibly easy for your dog. So, whatever that is. Now, if I'm doing, say I'm training my dog in agility, that would be their warm-up exercises. And it'll be warm-up exercises. It might be backup. It might be sidestepping. It might be any number of fitness exercises that my dogs know incredibly well. They're high value to them. They know how to do them so easily and they love, it keeps that flow from, remember the rhythm of training. We've just had a great engagement session. We go into something we really know. Then there's a little transition where you're not losing your dog. You're asking them to maybe hop it up on a hot zone while you prepare what your next training session is, or you keep them engaged on a tug toy. It's an easy transition. We go to the third behavior. So, we had our warm-up engagement. Then we had our first behavior, high rate of success. The third, that's where I put the brand new skill that I want to train my dog. Now it's brand new to both of us. Then I would have rehearsed it without my dog so that I'm not going to be clumsy and klutzy. And what do I do in referring to a page? Because that might be giving the dog a timeout. I'm going to be ready to try this with my dog the first step. So, it's brand new. So, guess what? Cut yourself some slack. You might not be perfect. And cut your dog some slack. It's highly unlikely they're going to be perfect. But if you're working from a really successful and proven training plan, the correct answer for the dog will be very obvious. So, even though it's new, it might still be really easy because it's built up in layers. There won't be the dog being frustrated because they don't know what you want. Okay. That is the second session. How long are each of these sessions? We'll get to that at the end. Then there's a nice transition now. We go into the next behavior and that's a behavior that is something that the dog, what I call, we're brushing up. So, it's a skill that they know that we've trained, but I just want to refocus the dog on their criteria. So, it's not something new. It's not something difficult. It's something they've done before, but maybe I need some reminders, right? So, maybe my dog wasn't really going into a down the way I wanted them to. So, I have to, let's just brush them up and let them know you have to wait till I say break before you can get out of that down.

And so, that's the rhythm of my training. And so, it starts with some engagement between the two of us, and then an easy behavior, then the new behavior, then the brush up behavior. And depending how the brush up behavior went, I might add a second or a final behavior that might be just something easy and fun that both of us really like. But that is optional at the end. Because if my session's gone on long and long, depends on the dog. That brings me to Susan, how long are each of these sessions? I remember training a rescue dog named Streaker. I actually wrote a journal about the Streaker journal. And I wrote a book about training this rescue dog. He was a little Jack Russell Terrier. My first few sessions, I remember having a 10 second session and I remember having 90 second sessions. So, how long your session should be is all dependent on this question. How long will your dog stay engaged with you without a big piece of cookie or a favorite toy dangling in front of them? How long will that dog stay engaged and say, okay, like, you know, I've done the tugging, I've taken it out of their mouth. Will they immediately disengage? Well, then you need to be strategically shaping behavior so they understand that reinforcement is earned. And that, let's say if you're brand new, it might be like, it's your choice. It's one of our foundation games. That might be, if this is brand new, that would be a perfect place to start with your dog. And so, you might do something that's engaging, something you know really well, and then it's your choice. And so that once you have, it's your choice, you'll find that that dog's tolerance to hanging around without reinforcement grows because we've taught them, you have to earn reinforcement with us. We're not going to dangle it like a carrot in front of a mule. You have to earn reinforcement. So, how long should your training sessions be? It should be as long as your dog is willing to hang around without you bribing them to stay there. So, if I have a brand new rescue dog, that will be a very, very short. With my own dogs, they would probably hang around and for like minutes or longer, but I wouldn't do that to them. So, my own dog, this is how I train with them. Depending on what we're working on this session might be three, probably two to three minutes. And if it's something like agility, it might be 30, maybe 40, 45 seconds. And then I swap them out. So, you can go into the hot zone and I'm going to bring in another dog and then I'll do 30 to 45 seconds with that dog. Now, if it's something that

isn't requiring them to run as fast as they can, it's something more, you know, stationary and cognitively asking a tough question, then it might be three minutes. It could be five minutes. I can't think of maybe with some scent work, I would work for five minutes. That's probably really long too. And then they just hop it up. I really like to break my sessions up. Three minutes is probably the average that I will work a dog outside of something that is sprint work related. Okay. But that is dependent on your dog. If you try to take a dog whose attention and focus and engagement with you without the lure of food or a toy is really only 10 seconds and you try to go to an hour-long class, that's a recipe for utter disaster. Absolutely. And then what happens, the dog will then give you feedback. I'm overwhelmed. And then instead of focusing on building strategic layers of understanding and clarity and confidence, the focus of your training turns to get that dog, correct that dog, let that dog know he can't leave work. Let that dog know he shouldn't be eating sheep poop. Let that dog know he shouldn't be chasing other dogs. Let that dog, the focus moves away from what you should be working on until what the dog's trying to help you with. I'm overwhelmed. Okay. But that again is another story. All right. So, how long should it be? It really depends on each dog. But this is probably the most important thing about your beginning, your middle, your ending of your training. And this is the question that people have asked, Susan, how do we end that training? So, after that last behavior is the end of the training. Now for my dogs, the reason why I thought this question was kind of crazy is it's obvious because there's a rhythm to my training. And it starts when they're puppies. We get out of the crate, we go outside, we relieve ourselves. Well, when I say we, I actually don't. The puppy does. And then we come inside and I start the training session with the game of engagement. I work through, depending on the age of the puppy, it might be that 10 second training. There won't be three behaviors. There might only be one or two. And then when I've decided the training is over, I trigger that in the rhythm of the training by changing the environment. Most of the time I'll take the puppy back outside and see if they want to relieve themselves. And then we might come back in and I'll put the puppy in an X-pen and they'll be, you know, they'll have their own toys in the X-pen. I might, with young puppies, I always throw a few

cookies on the ground when I put them in an X-pen or in a crate. I might, if it's their free time, we'll come back from outside and I'll take their leash off and they have free time running around wherever I am. But there's that rhythm. So, here's what my puppies grow up learning. That when we are in the midst of training and we move to a new location, like we go outside, or I might just be training, let's say my puppy's six months old now. We don't need to go outside after every training session. So, I might be training downstairs. And then after the last behavior that I've trained, I'll pick up my equipment and we'll go upstairs. I'll go to my office and my puppy chills. What I don't want is for the puppy to think that they can initiate the training. Hey, I think it's time for a game. Because then you become a babysitter with the Energizer bunny that thinks that it needs to be entertained all day long. Okay. If I have a rescue dog, my rhythm is the same. Because my rescue dog likely is going to be in an X-pen or a crate. I'm not giving them that freedom without me supervising them until they've showed me that they're going to make really good choices. Think of Tater Salad who came in as a 15-month-old puppy who had I just said, okay, you're done. I'm going to go to work now. He would have re-wallpapered my house and not in a really pleasant way. So, I don't ever give a new puppy or a rescue dog freedom. But what about, and this is where I had this epiphany. We have students coming into like homeschool the dog or recallers with older dogs, three years old, eight years old, 10 years old, 12 years old. They're starting these games from scratch. They don't need to go in a crate or an X-pen after a training session. So, how do you end a session without it being a punishment? I apologize. There would not be an established rhythm to your training. Or there may be, but there may not be. And so, what I want you to do is to start establishing a rhythm that you've trained your dog. Now you might consider using a phrase. I never have because that rhythm is established from the time my dogs come into my home. But I'm okay with you playing a game, your final game in your training plan, and then gathering up your things and saying, all done, or that's all to your dog. And then walking to a new location. I think it's very unfair for you to say you're playing in your living room and you're on the living room floor, and then you put the stuff away and you say, all done, and you stay on the living room floor.

That's a little confusing. It might be a tad weird too. Like, what are you doing on the living room floor? That's a judgment. I apologize. Like three apologies in one podcast. What's going on? So, if you're training on the living room floor, just get up and go somewhere else. If you live in a one-room apartment, that room is your bedroom, it's your living room, and it's your kitchen. Get up and take your dog to the bathroom. Say, all done. Come on, let's go to the bathroom. Wash your hands and then come out. And it's a new day. Dogs have a very short attention span. But here's the most important thing. I want you to remember, as I mentioned in podcast number 83, the training that you do in that little 30 second, three minutes, five minute training session is either eroded or reinforced over the next 24 hours. So, what you do in that training session cannot compete with what happens outside of that training session. And so, I beg you to look at the habits that your dog is reinforcing in your everyday life and ask yourself, is this a rehearsal that I really want my dog to have? And start looking at your everyday life because that's far more important than the little bit of training that you do in an hour at class, if you're going to a class or five minutes at home in a training session. And so, if you're doing those five minute training sessions, please try to get in three or four of them throughout the day. That would be ideal. I know unrealistic for a lot of you. If you can get in one or two, you are going to notice a massive change in your dog's behavior if you couple that with being aware of what's going on outside of training. That's it for today. I'll see you next time here on Shaped by Dog.