E203: 셰이드 화이트셀(Shade Whitesel) - "포즈를 취해봐: 자세 가르치기"

So I invite you on today, so you have a new class happening this term at FDSA on positions. So when we're talking about positions, kind of just start us out, what is it that we're talking about? What is it the dog's learning? So basically, you're thinking of the transitions. Most people are thinking of the transitions between like sit and stand, down and stand, sit and down. So the handler kind of walks a little bit away from the dog and asks them to do the transitions. So that's what we think of as positions. In reality, I think we should think of it also as more of a stay, because a lot of people are trying to do positions at distance where they don't have a dog that knows how to stay in a particular position. So I'm going to concentrate a lot on stillness and staying, and that'll be its good foundation. And also, I think really what's relevant for the dog is also what cue, what should they be paying attention to. And that also becomes very apparent when the handler moves at distance, because there's things behind the handler, there's things behind the dog, there's all these distractions. And those distractions become a lot more relevant when we're at distance. And also, of course, when we go to the trial. So yeah, so that's kind of little basics of what the dog is actually learning. To stay, to be attentive, to transition from one position to another. Awesome. Can you describe kind of the picture or pictures, I guess, that we're trying to create and that you kind of cover in the class? What are we looking for? So I want a dog that is really attentive to the handler and is really concentrating on the handler and not looking around at all. I also want no foot movement or as minimum foot movement as possible. So I want a dog knowing exactly how to move from like a stand to a down without a lot of foot movement. I mean, there can be some and it's dog dependent, but I really think that we as their teachers need to be concentrating on how they get from one position to another rather than are they staying in one place, which traditionally has been the way that I was taught. Let's concentrate on getting them to stay in one place, like on a platform, instead of now the way I look at it is how does the dog actually get from a stand to a down? So yeah. Did I answer that question? Yeah. Yeah. So that's kind of what I want the dog learning and the handler concentrating on. So you mentioned feet, stillness, kind of those pieces in there. So what do we do to get that? What's kind of the secret to getting a position change that doesn't come with all this extra foot movement?

Well, first of all, the dog really needs the strength to be able to do it. I don't think this comes for free. I think the dog needs to develop the core strengths and the ability of the shoulders to either push back or pull forward, depending on what you're teaching them. And I think that's a much bigger deal, the physicality of it than we teachers or that I actually realized is the dog really, really needs the physical strength. They need the flexibility to do it. They need the knowledge, of course, of how to move and then the communication from the handler. And then the handler needs to know the exact criteria of what they're actually teaching and how to communicate that. So I'm not giving like any recipe here, but it really is the dog being physically able to do it. And then the handler having the teaching ability to communicate the specific criteria that they're looking for. And also, this is dog and team dependent. So I'm not going to expect everyone to have no foot movement at all. I don't want to like totally concentrate on that because some dogs can't do it. And some handlers aren't going to be able to, like some dogs aren't going to be able to do it, but also some handlers aren't going to be able to concentrate enough on it in order to keep the joy and the motivation as well that the dog needs. So it's always a thing as, it's always a thing as well, is that we need joy and we need confidence and we need sureness, we need motivation, and we need the ability to convey that to the dog and the handler team. Hopefully that makes sense. Yeah. So kind of without getting too nitpicky, in other words, like to the point where it comes demotivating, that's what you mean. Right. Exactly. So yeah. So we want to be picky and I want us to have criteria, but I don't want us to suck all the joy out of it if we get totally demotivating to the dog. That's not fun either. So hopefully in this class, we're going to be able to kind of get that nice balance for the dog and handler teams. So we talked about the foot stillness piece. What are some of the other pieces of teaching positions that, you know, handlers and their dogs tend to struggle with? Handlers really struggle with fading props. And if I think about my own learning in this, you know, we get too reliant. In my opinion, we get too reliant on the prop. And then we have this false sense that the dog, if they can do it on their platform, you know, with us 20 steps away, we get this false sense that they can do it off their platform 20 steps away when really the dog has a much harder time. And it's a, it might be a totally different thing for the dog.

So I think that we as handlers and teachers struggle with fading the props in a way that the dog understands. And then we always struggle with distance. We struggle with distance. And I think all of our criteria stuff comes out when we move distance. And then it also, as far as what the dog thinks is the cue, I think distance really magnifies that and makes all the other cues that are competing. This doesn't have anything to do with positions, but I was tracking my dog yesterday, Talek, and I laid an article, which he knows how to do his article indication really well. And there was a piece of dog poop, like two feet past the article. And then I, and I saw that. So I laid the article. There's a dog poop thing about two feet away from the article, not where I walked. And so I saw that. And then I walked a couple more steps and I put down a piece of food and he literally could not do his article indication. The competing cues of, I want to sniff that dog poop. And, oh yes, there's a piece of food two feet beyond that. He like mentally couldn't do his article indication. It was hysterical, but it made me think of how many things that happened, like in the positions, because I'm giving this class, so it's on my mind all the time, of all those competing things like the dog poop or the, where the dog peed, okay. Doesn't come into account to the dog when you're right in front of them. But when you're 20 steps away, that dog poop or pee spot becomes so much more relevant to them. So I think that we struggle as handlers of how to teach that piece and how to split it down for our dogs. So that's kind of a long answer of basically that's where we struggle is the competing cues element, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I'd imagine, especially because I know, I didn't necessarily include this in the questions, but I know that when I was looking over your syllabus, you talk a little bit about like the difference between the verbal cue and the physical cue because different sports pull on those different elements. Yeah. And I'd imagine that adds a whole nother level of complexity to it as if you're teaching multiple cues. Yeah. And I think we all get really attracted to the physical cues because they're easier for the dog to see and respond to close up. But, you know, I'm going to let students decide for their own. I'm with this class. I'm trying to present the info. And then because I have a meaning as a foundation for different sports, I'm trying to go, okay, here's the info. Here's how to teach it. But you are absolutely okay to concentrate on physical cues or concentrate on verbals and

decide for your own self and your own sport what you want to concentrate on. So a lot of our sports allow both. Like AKC allows a verbal and a physical. I just don't want us to have this false sense of when the dog is responding to the physical that they actually know the verbal. So, yeah. But I'm just going to present the information in the class and allow students to figure out for themselves what is most relevant to them and their dog. At least I hope. Yeah. Yeah. So to kind of elaborate on that a little bit more, you know, when we're talking about kind of getting the behaviors really clean and making sure the dog really understands, you know, either verbal or physical cue, what does kind of that clarity of understanding or kind of working on it the way you approach it, how does that really benefit the dog and presumably also the team and their score in competition? Well, I think anytime we can really make sure the dog is confident in what they're exactly supposed to do. And if we've done our job at making sure that all the trial distractions and distance, if we've done our job at teaching it and then we're very clear and the dog really, really understands that job and we've added all those distractions in, all that kind of stuff, I think it makes the trialing so much less confusing for the dog, so much less scary. I think we sometimes are like, okay, well, I'm not sure he'll do it. And then we enter a trial. And I want to be careful about putting the dog in that situation where they're unsure because the trial environment is incredibly hard to replicate. And I want to make sure that my dog feels really confident in his or their job in that situation before I put them into it. I think trialing can be really not fun for a dog. And my job as their teacher is to make sure they're understanding exactly as much of what they're supposed to do so that I can trial again and not have them be like, oh my gosh, I'm in this scary situation. And so making sure that all of our skills are trained to the best of our ability and all the distractions are brought in is really, really important in my job as a teacher. And also I've had, so Onesie has challenges with other dogs and I don't want him to be thinking about other dogs as he's thinking about his needing to pay attention to me for cues and things like that. So I think for our dogs that are a little bit nervous about the environment or a little bit challenged by all the activity, it's super, super important for us to be absolutely clear about all this. So yeah, again, me and my long neighbors. To have it super, super fluent, in other words, right?

Yeah, super fluent. Us knowing that we've taught exactly what the cues are, like don't pay attention to what's behind me. Pay attention to, you know, my hands and my voice. And all this stuff is not relevant as the cue. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So why class? Why class on this specifically? Because I think it's a really hard skill. And I don't think that we had anything that was really about this, at least specifically targeted to this. I think that I covered a little bit of stuff in my drives and controls classes, which are now retired. So I really kind of thought there was a need for this. And I'm all about teaching and educating. So I will be the first to say I'm actually not perfect. My dog's positions are absolutely not perfect. Okay. I'm not going to claim they are, but I can help. I, they're not perfect, but they're good enough. And I can help a lot of people clear up their positions or teach better positions than what they have or what they have the knowledge. And I always love sharing like how to do it. Um, that's reinforcing for me and to see other people, uh, get gains and clarity and how to teach it. And also, um, T, since I'm doing ring, French ring with him, there's an exercise where they have to do, I'm actually forgetting why there's three or six. I think it's six changes of positions and you have to be 10 meters away. Uh, and since I'm doing that with TELIC, uh, it did make me think about, um, whenever I'm teaching my own dog to do something, I'm breaking down exactly what I'm doing. Uh, and then I kind of just wanted to pass that on in a class. So, yeah. Awesome. Yeah. Um, we covered this a little bit already, but kind of to call it out, you know, what, what sports does, do these skills and does this class kind of apply to? Um, I'm trying to make it a foundation for all the sports. So any sport that you need, uh, positions for position changes, I'm trying to make that this will be a good foundation for that. So AKC, we've got, uh, positions actually added into the open, um, which is quite a change. I mean, that's a hard exercise to add. And I know there was a lot of angst about that. Um, so we've got open, we've got utility positions. Um, any of the FCI obedience sports oftentimes have a lot of positions, whether they're at a distance or whether they're in motion, uh, the ring sports, Mondo and French ring definitely have their positions. Um, and I would say that this is less about Schutzen positions because Schutzen, uh, they're oftentimes they're only at movement and that's a different, I do cover that, but that's a

different, uh, emphasis than kind of what I'm concentrating on in this class. So I'm trying to make it that it's a foundation, um, for all the sports. And then you take your specific sport rules and apply, uh, so that hopefully any of those sports you can come in, get a good basis and then go sports specific as to what your actual rules, uh, entail. Folks are listening and they're like, Oh, this is definitely a thing that like I need to work on. Um, you know, kind of who should consider signing up for the class or actually take the plunge? What skills do they need before signing up? Like what level of experience do they need? What, what should that picture look like kind of heading into the class? Um, so I actually don't think you should take a gold spot if you have a really young puppy because oftentimes puppies bodies can't do the actual, um, movements we want them to do. Now there's exceptions out there, uh, but most puppies are still trying to get their little legs under them and they've got a lot of foot movement or it's really hard. I mean, I'm just thinking my own German shepherds, big dogs, they, they gotta be like a year old before you can ask them to do precise stuff. Uh, you know, Oh, I've got a front paw. Uh, so I, I think while it's important to imprint good movements in good form, uh, in young dogs, I think that, that people with young puppies will be best served by having a bronze spot. Uh, but other people who've got like, uh, uh, a dog who has all their, all their muscles and all their body, they're at the height they should be. Um, I'm okay with any of that. Um, I also think that, uh, I would like to see, so I have no idea. It's the first time I'm giving this class. So I have no idea what people are going to be attracted to, but I'm kind of trying to make it so that people who have different, uh, different experience already. So more advanced people who want to clean up their positions and then people who don't have positions at all, all of those, I'm trying to make the class inclusive to that. I'm also trying not to be absolute. Uh, and this is a challenge for me as a teacher, trying really hard not to be absolute about how we get there. So if you come in with a learning background and you want to learn the positions, uh, I'm going to try very hard to work with that, even though my preference is to get them shaped or offered. Okay. So I'm trying to say, Hey, here's how I do it, but here's how we get there. And if you've already got there, this is what we should be concentrating on for that particular dog.

So, um, yeah, so I'm trying to kind of be super inclusive with training methods and things like that. Um, one of my first, uh, lectures is really about that. Uh, and then, but I am expecting people to come in with a little bit of training knowledge, training chops. I, I want, I don't necessarily want total beginning trainers, even though I think they would totally benefit. Um, but I am expecting a little bit of training communication language with your dog already. Um, hopefully that sort of makes sense. So in other words, the dog doesn't, doesn't necessarily need any specific skills, but just kind of having a little bit of having had the dog for more than like a week or two and having built a little bit of relationship there. So you have a communication system. Yeah. Whatever works for you. Cause like, you know, a 12 week old puppy, we're still working on like, Hey, take the food, you know, take the food without biting me, take the food here, take the food there. And so for, which is awesome. But I, I really think that, um, this class will be best served for people who already kind of have some reinforcement strategies under their belt. They already have some skills. They already have some training language with their dogs. Um, and I mean, I love puppies. They're such awesome. They're so blank slate, but telec being two and a half is so awesome because it's just like, it's just like, we know all our stuff and now we can just train. And it's just like, now we can actually work on the stuff, the, the sport related things. And it's really fun. So, yeah, so I want my, my, my perfect student would have not much experience with the positions themselves, but they would have some training language. Okay. Uh, so anything else you kind of want to share about or talk about for the class? Um, there are recalls in this as well. Uh, we kind of glossed over that, right? Yeah. I skipped that question. We can go back and talk about that. So why did you decide to include recalls in this class? Um, I'm going to totally blame that one on Denise because when I floated this class to her, I was like, I just want to do positions. She's like, that's not enough material. So I was like, okay, I'll include fronts and recalls in there. And believe me, there's enough material in there. Uh, I didn't have to include it because I can, I can break things down. Uh, but anyway, um, recalls are in there. Fronts are in there. Uh, so it does add another dimension. Um, and you know, recall wise, I kind of separate the recalls from the fronts. So fronts are going to be really precise. We of course want the dog to be in perfect position.

Uh, but recalls should be fun and explosive and not as precise. So hopefully we can kind of put that in so that trainers aren't concentrated on foot movement for six weeks, which has got to be really hard for everybody. So, so that, um, so yeah, I'm hard at work on the, the recall in the front, uh, part portion of the class right now. So it's definitely on my brain. Yeah. Sorry for skipping that one. That was a important one to talk about. Okay. Um, and yeah, uh, so hopefully it breaks it up, but yeah, that's, that's also what I want to share about the class. Yeah. Anything else since I skipped that one, kind of went back, but anything other than the recalls that, um, we didn't get into that you want to talk about? No, you mean class wise or just? Yeah. Um, yeah. Class wise. Class wise. I think we hit it. Um, I'm looking, I, I'm really looking forward to seeing how the class develops. I always leave sort of time in my schedule, uh, or not, um, I have to carve out time, but new classes are always really neat because you're not quite sure. Like as an instructor forming a class, um, it's, you're, you're always for, it's really great because you, you break stuff down in a way to teach it. Okay. But it always is interesting to me because I always end up going in the middle of class. Oh, I skipped that part. Um, that is, I didn't include that and that's a necessary foundation skill. So I'm looking forward to figuring out what I didn't include already. Um, so, so that I can be like, oh, okay, that is an integral piece of it because as a teacher, I'm always learning just as much as the students and how to break it down. Um, and it makes my teaching and my own dogs, uh, that much stronger and better for my own dogs. So actually I should be thanking everybody for allowing me to teach a class on this because my own dog's positions are going to be much better, uh, because it forces me to really, you know, think about it. So yeah, yeah, that's all. Uh, all right. So last question for you. Um, what is something that you've learned or been reminded of recently when it comes to training? Um, I had to actually really think about this question and, um, so it comes back to physicality. I mentioned it earlier, but, um, I've recently, well, for the past year, I've been, uh, strength training with a personal trainer and I've, I weight lifted a little bit when I was younger, but now as an older person, I'm realizing I kind of need to do it to move. And, but what has really been challenging for me, learning a new skill and learning new movements, uh, and new things is how hard it is. Um, how hard it is form wise. Okay.

To concentrate on that, how hard it is the next day when you're sore, um, to do the things that you could do before. And I think of it with our dogs and I think of it, how I don't have enough empathy to my dogs to realize how physical it is for them to do healing or positions or whatever. They can't tell us that, Oh, my stomach is sore because we did a lot of healing yesterday. And that's why I can't keep my foot feet, not moving when I draw myself in from a down to a sit. Okay. Which requires a lot of shoulder strength and core strength as the dog pulls itself up. Does that make sense? And so actually teach actually taking, um, and learning new physical skills myself is giving me way more empathy into the physical precise skills that I'm teaching my own dog and how they may be fatigued or sore or unable to do that. And then they need a couple of days rest to be able to do it the next day. Um, so it's really influencing my training. Plus Talek is absolutely awesome. He's an awesome puppy, but he definitely has a harder time healing in the way that I want him to heal. Uh, and just in training in general, it does again, it just, it shows me how physical that is and how a dog's flexibility, confirmation, knowledge, all that kind of stuff is way more important than I think we mentioned in our, uh, sport behaviors, you know, so pet behaviors. We don't think about how a dog gets into a sit, but if we're really going to get nitty and gritty, we were thinking about how a dog gets into a sit and that, that matters. Um, and knowing how physical challenging that is for our dog, uh, is something we need to be thinking about. So, yeah. Yeah. So that's, that's my big revelation for the year. Uh, more empathy for my own dogs in, Oh, you might be sore. I'm sore. I don't really want to play dog with you on my shoulder, you know, you're hurting. Yep. Actually I did. I started, uh, lifting weights because Talek was hurting me. Uh, and he's so powerful in the tugging. He was hurting me. And I was like, I'm not ready not to play tug with my dog yet. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of interesting. So you're talking about that and I'm thinking it kind of puts a different spin on the idea of latent learning of like, maybe the dog has learned the thing the first time. And then you give them a while. And part of it is that maybe they understood it and they couldn't do it. Yes. They couldn't do it physically. Yeah. I just, I, you know, I don't know about everybody else, but I don't think about that part. And literally, you know, I'll be sore from working out.

I'll go out, I'll play tug with T and he'll like do his little kill thrash and my shoulder will twinge. And I'm like, I'm not doing any more of that today. And that's the thing I do with him every day. We play tug every day. And so just think about the actions we want from our dog. We want them, you know, going from a sit to a, or a stand to a down. And the dog is like, well, we did, you know, five of these yesterday and I'm kind of sore in the stomach from that. Yeah. So it could be that they totally understand what we're trying to do and physically it's really hard for them. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Such a great reminder and such a good thing to kind of add to our consciousness, right? Sort of thinking about all the bits and pieces and pulling things together. Yeah. I think it's really hard for them to tell us. And, and it's really hard for us to think about. We all, I know, and I'm just going to speak for myself. I always think about things in terms of why am I not teaching you to do that fast? You know, what is missing in our communication? And I also, I have two dogs that are very different physically. Talek is very fast and able to do things very fast. And one is not able to do things very fast. He's kind of a, he's, he's a big guy, a big guy with back problems. And so sitting fast has never been a thing that he is able to accomplish. And now that I'm training Talek to sit fast, I realize it has nothing to do with my training and everything to do about those two dogs physicality. Cause I'm training in the exact same way. And I've got, you know, much faster behaviors out of Talek because he can physically do them much easier. So, yeah. Yeah. So that's definitely on my mind teaching wise. Cause I have that with my own two dogs kind of in front of me. So that's why we should have millions of dogs to train because each one of them teaches us a new, a new thing that we haven't given enough importance to. Sure. Go ahead. Give us all excuses to go get new puppies. I know, right? Oh, it's going to be a while for me. Three, having three dogs is wonderful. All right. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast, Jade. I really appreciate it. Thanks so much for having me and allowing me to talk about my new class. That's great. Yeah, absolutely. 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 Fendi Dog Sports Academy.

Special thanks to Denise Fendi for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty free by bensound.com. The track featured here is called Body. Audio editing provided by Chris Lang. Thanks again for tuning in and happy training. o o