E145: 메간 포스터(Megan Foster) - "컴피티션을 위한 시작 루틴과 종료 루틴"

So to start us out, what do you see as the advantage of having routines around pieces of your training and your trialing? So dogs are amazing at reading different contexts. So routines give us, the handlers, a little bit of control over that context, as it were. Through routines, you can teach the dogs how to act and even feel about the different things you're doing together. And so, like I said, by putting a routine in there, you get to choose which parts of the context they pick up on and how they respond to those different contexts. So what kind of routines do you have for your dogs? Can you kind of talk us through what they look like? Sure. You could even start with, say, a decompression walk, right? There's a routine to that. We get in the car. We get to a location. And there's usually not a whole lot of structure around it. I just let my dogs out of the car. I might put a harness. I put harnesses on some of them or a long line on one of them. But they pretty much know, based on all of that context, that they're going to just go for a run in the woods. And they're not going to be asked to actively engage with me or work with me. Or they don't need to be checking in with me and trying to get me to do stuff with them. And then from a training perspective, I do very specific things to tell them that we're going to be training. And I even sometimes have different ways of telling them if we're going to be training something new versus training something they already know. So practicing different types of skills. For instance, when I want to train something new and I want them to try stuff, I'm usually in my living room and I get down on the floor and I have a bowl of cookies in my lap. And I might have a clicker in my hand. But just that routine, my own routine, sets them up for a specific training session of trying new stuff. Don't throw known stuff at me. Versus when I pull out my ring gates and put their leash on them. That's a pretty clear clue that we're going to go into and work more competition behaviors. So don't try stuff. Wait for instructions. So your webinars, as I mentioned, are kind of broken up into two parts. Beginning of run routines and end of run routines. Let's kind of talk about the beginning first. So what problems can having a consistent beginning of run routine fix? So I thought a lot about this and I think it solves, I'm going to say this a lot during this episode, but it's going to solve energy problems.

So if your dog starts a little bit on the slow side or a little bit on the sluggish side or you're not or you see those dogs in competition that they start off the first maybe four or five or even half of the course, not at their full speed. And then they start going faster for the last half of the course. So I think it solves the dogs that start a little bit slower. But I also think it's going to help the dogs that kind of start off. Their heads are going faster than their bodies can go. So my goal is that a specific routine tailored to each dog can kind of bring that energy back down to what you actually need for the thing that you're going to ask the dog to do, whether it's agility or any sport really. So in the description, you sort of mentioned a few different pieces, like a warm up, a get ready to work, a wait your turn and enter the ring in an optimal state of arousal. You kind of broke it out really nicely. But can you talk us through each of those? So a warm up. A lot of this is for me and the dog. Because and I know we talked about this on the last episode that I was on that there are some things that we ask of the dog that we're not necessarily giving to ourselves. So a warm up gets get the blood flowing. Right. You're you're about to go run and the dogs are going to jump and climb and turn and the handler is running and turning. So more muscles work better. Again, I'm talking about energy. A dog that's not just pulled out of a crate, having just had a nap is going to perform better. And a person that kind of has the adrenaline up just a little bit is also going to perform better. So that's the warm up piece, right? Can you kind of talk us through some of the other other pieces there? Oh, yeah. Yeah. The get ready to work portion. For me, this is tell your dog what it is you'll be doing together. So I think all of the FDSA instructors have a specific way of doing this. And so it can be tailored however handler or dog needs it to be done. But it's a specific protocol that you go through with the dog that it tells them exactly what you're going to be doing. So, for example, with Shrek, after we warm up, I bring him into the agility, the building, and I put him on his cot. And we do a little bit of healing outside of the ring. And then I put him back on his cot. So the healing outside the ring just kind of lets him know that we're going to be working together. And usually the side of his toy means we're going to be doing agility. So I'll do some healing outside of the ring with his toy. And that gets him pretty amped up to go.

And then we go back to the cot because that's the wait your turn portion. And I think this is the most difficult piece that I know I struggled with it. And I think a lot of teams struggle with it because we get our dogs out. We get ready. We get ourselves ready. And then something happens in agility. Maybe they have to restake a tunnel down or the timer batteries need to be changed. Or, you know, maybe the dog just vomited in the ring. I don't know. Things happen. And you're perfectly well-timed, warm up and get ready to work. And it's still not ready. Still not your turn. A lot of agility is hurry up and wait. Some dogs do really well with that. Some people do really well with that. Some dogs don't do really well with that. Some people don't do really well with that. Um, so this is where knowing your dog is really important because for my, my older Border Collie smack, it's about keeping him calm because just being in an agility building makes him too excited for life. And on the other hand, for Shrek, I have to make sure that he's not wasting his energy during his wait your turn. So for him, it's about really setting up that it's soon, but I don't need you on right now. And that last piece, optimal state of arousal, everything that we did leading up to this point should get you the energy that you're looking for. It should, like I said, it should calm smack down or it should build Shrek up so that when we go in there, they're capable of doing what we're going to be asking them to do. In terms of like their brain space and in terms of like their bodies are ready and all that, right? Yeah, their, their brains and their bodies are ready. So for, for smack, if I didn't have a routine that kind of calms him down, he wouldn't hold a start line stay and I just shouldn't bother running. Right? Like I know if you can't do a sit and maybe this is a bad example because he's 11 and I've since let the start line stay go, but when he was young and I cared, um, if he couldn't hold a start line stay, the run wasn't going to be worth it because that meant he also wasn't going to hit his contacts. He probably wasn't going to hit the super hard weave pole entry and all the other things. And, um, actually jumping was his hardest thing to do when he was too excited. So keeping bars up was really hard for him. And then on the Shrek side of things, um, if, if he's not amped up enough, he gets distracted. He's like, he, he looks, I don't want to say bored because that's, uh, it's not the right word, but he just looks like underwhelmed.

So his routine has to be, has to put him into the space where he wants to run and wants to climb things and wants to jump. I really kind of love how you broke those things out because they're four pieces, but they're very distinct steps. And I think a lot of people maybe haven't thought of them that way. Yeah, maybe not, but that, that's what I think we should be better at is splitting it down even more and thinking about what everything we do with our dog, what does it mean to them? So to go back to that, um, beginning of run description, right? Another thing that you mentioned is just how important it is to know what works for each individual team. And you, you kind of mentioned that in that last answer too, right? The idea that, um, you have to know what works for your dog. Can you just talk a bit more about that? Kind of how that's what's best can differ and maybe a little bit on how people can actually start to figure that out. Um, yeah, it mostly, I think it's going to be trial and error, but, um, I'm going to go right back into energy. So if you have a dog that's more like smack, who's overexcited, then you're probably going to try a routine that includes some more soothing things. So maybe you are using food instead of toys, and maybe instead of doing a lot of tricks outside of the ring, which might get the dog more excited. Maybe you're using that food in a pattern feeding type way. So that's usually what I do with smack is I warm them up and I make sure his body's good to go. But then I use pattern feeding to help keep his brain kind of quiet. Um, when, when he would rather be watching agility TV and getting more and more excited versus Shrek, where I'm trying to bring that energy up, I'm using less food, but I'm also careful to not give him too many rewards outside of the ring, because what I'm going to ask him to do inside the ring is very difficult. And it's not going to have a high rate of reinforcement once I'm in the ring. So I want him to want to go in the ring. And if outside the ring, I'm Pez dispensing food into his mouth, he's not going to want to bother going in the ring. He says, it's great. He says, it's great outside the ring. The paychecks here. She's great. She's giving me like a one to one ratio. So while I'm using tricks and things to get him excited, I'm not, I'm still not using very much food with him. So things like that. So you mentioned pattern feeding in there. And I just want to quickly see if you can explain it. I'm guessing it's sort of what it sounds like, right? Which is just feeding in a pattern. But do you want to just describe it a little bit?

Yeah, this is one of Sarah Strimming's soothing techniques as part of her worked up protocol. And it's giving slow food in a like a rhythmic pattern. So for example, smack could be lying down in front of me and I'm kind of kneeled down next to him and I deliver one cookie next to his left paw and he eats it. And then I slowly deliver another cookie to his right paw. And it takes quite a long time to go through a small handful of treats because we're just going slowly. But it's something we can both kind of rely on and breathe to, so to speak. And then he kind of forgets that there's agility going on behind him. And that's hard for him to forget. It gives him something else to focus on. Exactly. And that's calming. So you kind of explained why it can be helpful to have a beginning of run routine. So I want to flip the script. What about the end of run routine? What problems can having an end of run routine solve? End of run routines are about solving the frustration and confusion around the reward. In training, the dogs usually know right from the start where the reward is and where it's coming from. And almost always in training, we don't insert putting the leash on and leaving the ring before that reinforcement comes. So then we get to the trial and you've got a certain amount of dogs who just figure it out. They're just happy. They're easygoing. They're like, yeah, we don't know what we're doing. You don't know what we're doing. Just put my leash on. We'll be fine. And then you have this other group of dogs that avoids going towards the exit gate. They don't want their leash on because they're determined that the food or the toy should be happening right now. There are the dogs that maybe, depending on the situation, maybe they're not even waiting for their handlers. They're just running straight out of the ring and going where they know their toy is. And that may or may not be okay, depending on the agility rules in the organization you're competing in or the country you're competing in. Or you may not like it, even if it's okay. You might not like that your dog's just ditching you at the end of the run and getting himself into trouble. There's the types of dogs that they learn to just grab their leash instead. And then you can't get the leash on them. And if you play in organizations that need you to have that leash on before you exit, it's really frustrating for the human. So now the dog is upset and just wants to tug on its leash. The human is upset because the dog won't let the leash go. And so there's just a lot of frustration on both ends that an end-of-run routine can solve.

Is an end-of-run routine also something that should kind of be customized based on the team in question? I mean, it's kind of really about getting the dog on leash and out of the ring. So, I mean, I would assume there's a little bit less variety there? A little. I'm not going to ask my 40-pound border collie to jump in my arms after he lands the last jump. But I might ask my 20-pound terrier to do it. So there's a little bit you can do. Smaller dog owners can ask their dog to jump up in their arms and they can just be carried to their leash. Other dogs can be taught to target the leash and tug on it if that's what the handler wants. And then I do work with some clients that it's absolutely not okay for the dog to drag them out of the ring just for... Because the dog's so much bigger than they are, so much stronger than they are. So they actually need a lot more calmness centered around exiting the ring than, say, I do with my dogs. My dogs drag me all around. But the weight difference isn't so much that it's dangerous with me and my dogs. So I've had to guess, just kind of from knowing the things that you advocate for in dog training, I would assume or I would guess that you recommend training all these pieces well before you're ever ready to compete. So am I right? And how do you go about teaching these things before you're at a trial? Of course you're right. All of these things, these are things that you can teach tiny little baby puppies to do in case you don't have anything else to teach them. I don't know. These are things, they're just, they're really concepts. So you break everything down. So we talked already a lot about the beginning of run routines, but you would just train each of those individually first and decide what it's going to look like and then practice it as a ritual and then kind of follow it up with a little bit of agility training. And then they would get that concept of, okay, when my mom does all of these things, I'm probably going to do some sort of agility. And for end of run routines, since we haven't broken those apart as much yet, to me, the pieces are take the last obstacle and go to your handler. And go to your handler could be physically go to them, go to their side, or we can teach the dogs to target the chair. So once the handler kind of decides or the chair where the leash is held or the bucket or something, you could teach the dog to go wait by their leash and then put the leash on and then go to the reinforcement that has been stashed outside the ring. So all of those pieces, you break apart and you teach them.

And we're going to dive into this in the webinar a lot. But once I teach them individually as pieces, then when I put it together into a routine, I actually backchain it. I backchain the routine so that the dog kind of builds up this anticipation for getting ready to run or exiting the ring. But both should be kind of exciting things that they're looking forward to, not things that are just so-so. I kind of love that. The idea that you're intentionally building that as part of the thing the dog's looking forward to rather than – it kind of flips in its head that perspective of, okay, now the fun's over, right? Exactly. And I do think that that's how a lot of people feel. Like, why would we train this? It means the fun is over. I mean, I certainly feel that way because I would – I really wish I could run more competition runs than I get to. I love competing. But if I feel that way, if the handler feels that way, I can't imagine that that's what's being relayed to the dog. So I want – I want really the dog to love putting their leash on and exiting the ring as much as they love going into the ring or doing the obstacles or things like that. Once you kind of have that routine, do you do it every time you train agility then? For the most part, yes. There are a few things that I do differently. When I'm just training agility skills, I might not be so formal with their leash skills or their start line behaviors. But everything before that is the same. And, of course, if I'm training specific skills, I'm not thinking about leaving a ring and going to reinforcement that is stashed somewhere else. But I definitely do have training sessions that I set up that I call working sessions. And that is where I practice my competition routines start to finish. So while we're kind of specifically talking about agility, I would imagine there's a fair amount of carryover here for other sports. What are kind of the differences you take into account for agility versus, you know, somebody who wants to do team or who wants to do competition obedience or rally or, you know, whatever? I would definitely say the biggest difference is the energy that you want the dog to have. I have not competed in rally or obedience in a very long time. But I do remember. But, you know, who knows? I won't say never again. I'm getting there. Getting used to the idea. But I could not imagine trying to take either of my border collies into an obedience ring if they were thinking agility thoughts. Not only do I think they would be incredibly disappointed, but they would be pulling into their leash, right?

Because of the agility beginning of run routine that I have, my dogs usually drag me into the ring. So, spoiler alert, students, if that's not something you want, we need to discuss it. Um, so my dogs kind of just like push the gate open themselves and they're like, let me at it sort of thing. And I don't think that would work for competition obedience. So their routine would have to be much calmer, much more structured in that you have to be, you kind of have to heal. You can't drag me into the ring sort of things. So I think all of the steps will apply to any sport and all of the different pieces should apply to any sport. But your overall goal and how you train it might be a little bit different for each sport. So the pieces that you're picking in the individual routine and that kind of thing. Yeah. And then there's some sports where, or there's sometimes where the leash doesn't come off at all. So you don't have to train that piece. Like, um, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think nose work, you do a lot of that on leash. I don't compete in nose work, but I do think it's possible to search on leash and nose work. Right. So, so those things or the lower levels and rally and obedience. So that's a piece that needs to be different. So I might do something specifically with my leash to tell my dog, hey, we're competing in obedience now. We're not just walking through the crating area now, but I don't have to actually worry about taking it off or putting it back on. Things like that. So the end of run routine webinar actually comes first before the beginning of run routine, since it's happening next week. The end of run routine is December 26th at 6 p.m. PT. And then the beginning of run routine will actually be in February. So any particular reason for covering them in that order? Nope. Nothing scientific, really. I had the idea to do end of run routines first. And so it got submitted first and on the calendar first. Hey, it works. Yeah. Anything else that folks should know if they're considering the end of run routine for next week? Don't discount it even if you don't think this is your problem. I'm finding that the quality is different. You're getting better results in training and it's not quite showing up in competition. Sometimes a routine solves a little bit of that. So even if you don't think it's your issue, don't discount it just yet. That makes sense. So last question, which I'm asking all of my guests lately. What's something that you've learned or that you've been reminded of recently when it comes to dog training?

Yeah, this is actually really good because I've been thinking about this a lot lately. But what I've been reminded of is to try to not solve problems in the context. And what I mean by that is that if you're having a problem in a competition, you're very unlikely to solve it in a competition. You need to pull it back to a place where the problem isn't happening and build up that behavior based on success. Because when we try to solve something while it's happening, our brains tend to go to corrections. And when we take it back to training, we tend to solve our problems with positive reinforcement. So I think that really kind of lends itself to these two webinars too. Well, thank you so much for coming back on the podcast, Megan. Thank you for having me. This was great. It was. And thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week with Ellen Lawler to talk about the concept of foundation land and why we tend to get stuck there. 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. Music by Chris Lang. Thank you.