E29: 카시아 투르코트(Cassia Turcotte) - "본능과 드라이브 채널링하기"

How did you get started in dog sports and training? Oh, gosh. Originally, let's see, I was involved with helping the sheriff's department with laying tracks, and I think I was about 16, and they were kind enough to let me tag along on their training because I think I annoyed my parents to death training our Cocker Spaniel. So they let me volunteer, and eventually I did some decoy training with them, and I got really involved in search and rescue and ended up getting my own dog. And the dog I got at the time was a problem dog. So he had quite a few issues in terms of he was nervous with people, and so we did a search and rescue training just as kind of a fun thing to do with him, and he ended up becoming certified later down the road, which was kind of a pretty cool thing. So it sparked my interest in both behavior modification and how that works as well as, you know, performance sports and working dogs. I don't think there are many people who can say they got their start working with, you know, police dogs. So that's a pretty neat start. It was a small town. So what got you started? I mean, maybe it was right from the start, but what got you started on positive training specifically? Well, it was a little bit right from the start. I think I was fortunate to be part of a program that, while they certainly weren't purely positive, they were really exploring, you know, newer methods. And so I would say it was more of a balanced program that I started out in. But the first dog that I started with, I had the grandeur that he was going to be a great retrieving dog, and I still remember taking the ball out and throwing the ball, and he took off after it, and it was going to be this great moment, and then he just sniffed the ball and kept on running. And he had zero retrieve desire whatsoever. And so I ended up having to look for alternative methods to teach his retrieve. And that ended up being with Karen. I think with Karen Pryor's Don't Shoot the Dog. And we learned how to shape a retrieve. And it was all downhill from there. So if you were to describe your philosophy now and kind of how you train, how would you describe that for people? I think it's really about living with and being with dogs. You know, I love teaching. I like breaking things down, and I like for them to have a purpose. But I'm okay if they pick their purpose. You know, I have Chesapeake, so generally retrieving is something that they enjoy. But, you know, my philosophy is really about, you know, let's find what the dog's good at and expand on it and teach them games and things that they really seem to naturally want to do.

And, you know, every dog has strengths and weaknesses, and it's about, you know, finding balance and making them enjoy doing the things that are their weakness and how that works. So it's really just living and playing with dogs. I know I mentioned in your bio that you believe dog training should be a form of structured play. It sounds like that's a little bit what you're talking about. But can you explain a little more kind of what that phrase means, or at least what it means to you, and what it looks like in practice, like within a training session? Sure. I think that I'm trying to think where I actually first heard that term. And it may have been Stephen Lindsay that said it. But really it's, you know, I don't want the dog to feel like what we're doing is work. You know, if you feel like you're being dragged to work every day, it's mentally hard. But if they go out and they go, oh, my gosh, this is the coolest thing ever. I can't wait to do more of it. You know, then the attitude's up, the motivation's up, and you don't have any trouble with compliance. You know, they're really willing to play the game. And it's fun. And it's fun for me, and it's fun for them. So, you know, it's one of the things, you know, how would it look in a training session? You know, one of the things that we do in field work is called a walk-up. And all that is is, you know, a bumper's thrown in the air as you're healing with the dog. And it's thrown in front of the dog. And the point of it is to challenge the dog to stay healing and stay steady with you. So, you know, and the traditional way would be to correct them for not doing that. So, in our way, you know, we jackpot with a chuck-it ball or tug or food as, you know, a reinforcement for being steady. You know, so they see the bumper go up, and they sit, and we say, oh, my gosh, that's awesome. And we throw a chuck-it ball in the opposite direction. You know, and so it's all a game, and it's about keeping them guessing and mentally challenging them and getting it so that they really understand what they're being asked to do and they're not just corrected for not understanding. So I think that's pretty much what it would look like in an average day. So I know that you've got a new class on the schedule for October called Instinct Games, Leadership, and Drive. So I was really – I want to dig into that a little bit and find out what that means and then kind of what you'll cover in the class. Well, Instinct Games, the way I initially thought of it was all different types of dogs have different natural instincts,

whether, you know, it's sight hounds who see things or scent hounds who smell things or retrievers who, you know, as in my breed, they tend to pick things up. They don't necessarily want to give it back, but they tend to want to carry things in their mouth. So there's a lot of different natural instincts that are governed by the dog's senses, and I think that's the piece that as trainers we frequently miss. We miss that moment where the dog is – there's a change in arousal or a change in stimulation based on the initial sensory response. So, you know, all of a sudden your dog's toddling through the woods, and, oh, you know, their body language changes because they've smelled something. You know, certainly search and rescue handlers notice those really minor alerts that a dog when they first start getting whiff of something, but they haven't gotten fully into a scent cone. You know, I notice with my dogs the second they're watching, you know, a bird or a bumper fly through the air, they're visually watching it. You know, there's a change in that body language, and there's a change in their stimulation. And I think that in general in dog training, if you miss those initial moments, it's really hard to stay ahead of the dog and to be the, you know, the leader in the relationship and to kind of drive where you want the training to go. If you miss that first moment, you're always reacting, and you're behind the eight ball. And I think a lot of people struggle with that. So what I started doing with all of my puppies is just developing games that were meant to not only work on self-control and impulse control and, you know, all those things that we need for a functional adult dog, but they also work on developing the handler's awareness of, oh, there's that moment that I need to respond to, and how do you get that moment in increased arousal levels? So, you know, when you're dealing with a high-drive dog, you know, your reaction time has to be really fast. And to be able to, you know, really stop them out of motion, you have to be able to read them. And so it's all about developing the team based on little games that mean nothing to any sport, but they can be applied to, you know, pretty much any sport you do with your dogs. I kind of mentioned that you've done a number of different dog sports, but I'd imagine that something like hunt skills are very different than something like agility. So how does teaching those different skills kind of involve a different process for you, or how is it maybe it's very similar and just you kind of figure out a secret, I don't know.

Oh, I think there's a lot of vast similarities, and then, you know, there's differences. I think the biggest difference, you know, between, say, agility and obedience or the breed ring for us would be that you're generally within a confined space, whereas in field work, the distance and the environment is such a big factor. So, you know, even when I do other sports, you know, going to a big venue where there's big loudspeakers, that's something I have to generalize, but we're still generally in a similar-looking ring. When we do field work, you know, especially when we travel around the country, there are so many, there's different plants, there's different smells, there's different animals, and there's so many factors, and I think that's the big thing. The generalization factor itself is the biggest difference. So it's really just about people have to get out there and do it, and they have to do it in a number of different environments until their dog feels really confident doing it anywhere, and I think that's one of the challenging aspects. But I think the underlying teaching, you know, I teach my dogs to go over the hay bale the same way I would teach them to go over an agility jump, and in fact, you know, I use a lot of the skills that I learned from agility instructors years ago to teach that stuff, you know, look for the obstacle to jump over, you know. So it's a lot of that foundation stuff is going to be the same. I teach my obedience jumps the same way, you know. So the underlying methodology is the same. It's the, I think it's the generalization that really is different. Now, kind of to pull those two questions together, I guess, is it possible to take the dog's natural instincts and their drives, things like those things from herding or that nose work or, you know, kind of those things that are in them instinctually and channel them for all sports, or is it kind of more specific to the sports, you know, some sports are a better fit than others for those types of skills? Is it possible to kind of harness those things for everything? I mean, it sounded like a little bit from your class description. It can be if it's done well. Yeah. Well, absolutely. I mean, I think the way to look at it is every dog is an individual, and, you know, Denise has a great class on that. She says, you know, train the dog in front of you, and I can't emphasize how important that is to me, too. You know, it really is about each dog is an individual, and, yes, they have these natural instincts. First of all, you know, knowing your dog and what are their natural instincts.

You know, I talked about the dog that has no natural birdiness, and she also has very little to just hunt for things. Is she better suited to be a retriever or be a hunting dog? Maybe, maybe not, you know, but she's doing fantastic right now, and what we did was we just, you know, we developed those things that she doesn't have naturally. We developed those, and then the things that she does have naturally, we tried to put some, you know, stimulus control on them so that she doesn't just do it all by herself. Understanding how your dogs, you know, how they sense those things, first of all, how they sense those things that are natural to them and how they react to them, and then being able to harness them and use them as part of your training system, regardless of what sports you're doing. So, you know, if you've got a dog that's really interested in scent, sometimes, you know, obedience trials can be painful because they want to sniff the whole, you know, 100 yards of the floor. And I have my, one of my older males is very interested in dog smells. So to get his head up and to get him connected in new environments was really challenging, and we had to use, you know, his natural desire to sniff as part of his reinforcement program for obedience work. So it's just, you know, it absolutely works for every sport. It's just how you learn your relationship with your dog, how you learn your dog, and how you utilize those things that are naturally reinforcing to them to begin with. Mm-hmm. So I don't have the syllabus up in front of me for the class, but it sounds like it'll be part observation skills, part games, part kind of figuring out training plan. Is that accurate? I mean... Yeah, I think what it does is the first six weeks is really about learning to observe your dog, learning to develop some basic game skills, and then within those games, we can take those games, you know, for a team that's more advanced and that, you know, has done a lot of work, we can apply that game to their sport. You know, or if somebody's just starting out, you know, you can learn how to put just the basics, how to teach the game step by step, you know, and maybe you only get through the first part of the game, but it'll give you that foundation of teaching, you know, whatever you need to teach in your sport. So mostly it's about learning to read your dog, learning how to teach the games and what the games are, different games to play. We'll do a couple different games each week. And then how those games can apply to your sport. How can you use this thing that you've learned to, you know,

apply it to your sport or to real life or, you know, whatever you need from your dog, how does this actually carry over? So it sounds like all ages are okay. All skill levels are okay. It's a good fit for anybody who's looking to just really understand that piece of it a little bit more, right? Absolutely. Yes. Cool. So I wanted to, we talked kind of about general training a bunch, and I want to dig a little bit more into some of the hunt stuff specifically, because I think that while most people in our audience, and probably at this point even the general public, are pretty familiar with agility and maybe even obedience, hunt tests are a little less publicized on TV and in the media. Just a little bit. Understandably. So can you share a little bit about what a hunt test actually involves and what skills they demand of the dogs? I think, you know, originally hunt tests were developed to really identify quality breeding stock. And over the years, we've gotten away from that a little bit. And particularly with the retrievers, I think the pointing breeds and spaniel breeds, I think are a little bit more true to what they started out as. But, you know, in the retriever world, we've gone into a completely different game nowadays. But ideally, it's about retrieving game, regardless of what type of hunting dog you have. It's when you're a hunter, you don't want, you're also concerned about preservation. So you don't want a bird that has been shot to get away. And that's what the dogs are for. You don't want to injure things unnecessarily. And that's the dog's job is to make sure that the game is retrieved. So, you know, your upland breeds also do, they help you locate the game. So if there's a field, there's birds, you don't know where they are. And you can walk through the field. But if it's 500 yards by 500 yards, one person walking through that field is going to take a really long time to find any birds potentially. So the dogs are obviously much more efficient at that by smelling them out. So in the hunt test, it's really, you know, your upland breeds, it's about how they hunt the field, how they look for birds, you know, and as they go up in the levels, it's about steadiness under gunfire. So there's a lot of arousal that goes into the sport in terms of, you know, you get multiple dogs out in the field. You get people yelling. You get gunshots. You get, you know, live game birds. And then at the uppermost levels, there's usually an honor, which means that somebody else's dog runs right in front of your dog with all this arousal going on, and your dog has to sit and watch them get the retrieve.

And that's a pretty challenging aspect. So there's a lot of development of natural abilities and independent work on the dog, but then they have to come under immediate control and be able to respond to whistle signals and be, we call it handling, which is basically hand signals to control where they go in the field. And then first and foremost, they can't hurt the game, so they've got to bring it back intact. So some people definitely say that doing all of that while trading positively, it just isn't possible. But you're kind of proving that it is. So why is that so hard for some people to believe? Like why are so many people saying that it isn't? And how do you kind of overcome those obstacles, those skills that most people really struggle to teach positively? How are you kind of approaching those things? I think part of it stems from our mentality as a society in general. You break the speed limit, you get a speeding ticket. You break the law, you go to jail. There's a consequence-based mentality. And I think we really fail at teaching in general. And it's not that I've never said no to my dogs. I'm human. I've certainly done it. But I focus a lot more on just teaching them the job and finding what's reinforcing to them. And basically, if you do it my way, you can have what you want. You know, if you want your chuck-it ball, you can, you know, go get this bird in this beautiful straight line and come back and give it to me. And then you can have your chuck-it ball. You know, and a lot of my dogs, I think the thing that's fortunate about field work is a lot of the dogs find the bird work. And going back to those natural reinforcers, you know, natural senses, I think a lot of them find, you know, hunting for birds naturally reinforcing. It's self-reinforcing. So once you teach them the rules of the game and then they get out there and they're like, oh, you mean I get to do this with things that I really like doing it with, then the game itself, there's pieces of the game that are naturally reinforcing. So, you know, I think the pieces that people say you can't train are partially the pieces that we've put into the game. It's particularly for retriever work, but, you know, you can't teach a retrieve without force. And going back decades and decades, we bred dogs to retrieve game, and they did it naturally. And now you read every gun dog magazine and say, oh, you can't train a reliable retrieve without force. Well, I think we're failing in our breeding programs. You know, there's a problem there.

If a dog doesn't want to retrieve things naturally, I'm going to be, in terms of a retriever, you know, I'm going to be concerned. You know, I don't expect my pointing breeds necessarily to retrieve naturally. But, you know, the force-breaking came about as ways to train difficult dogs. And then because it was systematic, it gained so much popularity because it was a system. It was a teaching system that the dogs could follow. It was effective. And so people were having quick results. And so it gained popularity because of that. The dogs were reliable because they'd been taught. And, yes, there were harsh methods, but at least, you know, they were systematic. And no one really just came behind and said, hey, we can do systematic without all the force. And I do think, to the credit of the trainers today, there are a lot of trainers, professionals now, who are really dialing back on the amount of force that they do use in their teaching processes. But, really, I think that nobody has just done the teaching and reinforced the dogs otherwise. So if everybody says you can't do it, then who's going to argue with me? Say, oh, it can't be done that way. But then somebody comes along and says, well, let me just try. You know, I'm okay with failing. I can fail big. But, you know, we're having quite a bit of success and, you know, proving that it can be done over and over again. So I think that's really the key is people just seeing that it can be done and that we're having fun doing it, you know. Right, right. Well, congratulations on, you know, the success that you've been having and for doing well in that sphere. So I want to kind of round things out with the three questions that I always ask at the end of the interview. So the first one is what is the dog-related accomplishment that you are proudest of? The one of all time that has been the dog that I got with all the behavior issues. And, you know, I just started doing search and rescue work with him as a way to boost his confidence. And he went on to be a certified dog. And he just taught me so many things. And his confidence just bloomed. And I think that was a big thing for me. Not so much the fact that he got certified, but the fact that they were able to change so much in his life, you know. And he really ended up having a purpose. Whereas before he wasn't adoptable, he was scheduled to be euthanized. They didn't feel safe putting him out with just anyone, you know. So that to me is a big accomplishment. And then probably my second biggest is having people ask for our dogs now.

So the retrievers that we're working with now that, you know, none of our dogs are force-fetched. None of them use electronic collars. And we're getting to travel all over the country because our dogs are being requested. People want to hunt over them. You know, they like what they're seeing. They like the dogs. And that's all just word of mouth and people actually seeing the dogs work. And, you know, as much as I like the ribbons and I like the accomplishments, I like the fact that people who've been hunting for a long time are seeing that these dogs are reliable and they're consistent and they're talented. And that to me is a pretty big accomplishment. That's excellent. So my second stumper question is what is the best piece of training advice that you have ever heard? Relax. Honestly, though, it really is. It's for me, you know, it's easy to get serious about training and to want to go faster and do more and be better. And really what I need to do is relax and play with my dog and teach and have fun. And when I relax and breathe, everything goes much better. You know, the dogs learn faster. They do better. They do all those things that I want to do when I'm not pushing. So, you know, that honestly, my husband says it's me all the time, which doesn't actually help me relax, ironically. But it is good advice. He just has poor timing. So my last one here for you is who is somebody else in the dog world that you look up to? I look up to the people that are brave enough to just try stuff, you know, try new methods that, you know, they think are fair to the dog. And, you know, even if somebody tells you not to try it, you know, Denise has obviously given us all a chance to come together and do that through FDSA. You know, I think Ken Ramirez, back when I was first getting started, I loved listening to his lectures and teaching on environmental enrichment. You know, it changed how I do things not only for my dogs, but for my farm animals who are spoiled rotten, thanks to him. And I'm sure they send a big shout out. And, you know, in the field world, Robert Milner was a longtime traditional trainer, long time, back when the electronics were much more barbaric than they are now. And he came out and was brave enough to say, hey, we screwed up. You know, we shouldn't do this. He wrote an article on it and he's gone the other way now. And, you know, I think in terms of field work, that's one of the people that I really look up to as well. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Kasia. No, thank you for having me. And thanks to our listeners for tuning in.

We'll be back next week with Donna Hill to talk about training service dogs, perfecting the retrieve, and cue concepts. Don't miss it. If you haven't already, subscribe 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 and transcription written by CLK Transcription Services. Thanks again for tuning in and happy training.