E146: 헬렌 로울러(Helene Lawler) - "파운데이션랜드를 탈출하는 방법"

we'll be competing with, uh, starting this spring, I hope. So that's my group. So you've been talking a bit on the alumni list lately, kind of about this idea of foundation land. So I wanted to have you on and kind of get into that a little bit more to kind of start us out. Just what is it? What is foundation land? Okay. So I had this idea of what foundation land is, and I think there's a difference between kind of what I, I think it should be, um, and what it often ends up being. And so what I think it should be is a place that we visit with our new puppy or dog, um, when, or when we start training a new sport, um, it's a place that we take our dogs and we work on the key pieces that we need for the end goals that we, uh, want to achieve with that dog, whatever that might be. It could be a sport. It could be a family pet. It could be, um, you know, uh, a working dog. There are many different reasons we have dogs. And depending on the reason we have them, they're going to need some different basics in place to get us there. And so I see foundation land is as the place that we take that dog to get those pieces. Um, and we, uh, we can, we, we may need to pop back and forth into foundation land as we progress towards those end goals. So it's a place that we, uh, that we visit that we maybe see fairly regularly at the start and then less frequently as we go along. Um, and foundation land is going to look different for every team, um, uh, every, every, every handler and every handler dog team. So it can vary quite a bit. Um, so for example, um, I have my, some of my herding dogs and my end goal. So let's take Raven. My end goal with Raven is she is going to be my number one working dog on the farm. And she almost didn't spend any time in foundation land because she basically needed to have a lie down. And then I just put her to work. She's been working since she was seven months old and, um, is she's just been a very naturally easy dog to work with her litter mate, brother Griffin, his whole experience in foundation land has been very different. He's almost four. They're both almost four and he's still working on some foundations. Um, so it really depends on the dog and what they need, uh, and what we're going to do with them. So that's what I see foundation land as being sort of optimally. Now, what it looks like for many people is a place that they get stuck in. And that's where I'm, I've been really wanting to dig more deeply into what it's all about for people. Mm-hmm. So what, what got you thinking about that concept?

Well, it came up after my sensitive dogs webinar and I got into conversation with quite a few people who were really struggling with their dogs, particularly their sensitive dogs. And, um, what kept coming up was this issue of this need to work on foundations. And one conversation I had in particular with, with, uh, with someone was she was expressing her, her sort of dismay at being stuck in. And I think she actually used the word foundation land. I think, I don't think it's my original thought. Uh, I just took it and ran with it because I just had this huge aha moment when she just said, I'm, I'm stuck in, in, in foundations or foundation land. And I thought, wow, I totally get that because so many people I see are stuck there as well. And I've been there too. So I get, I totally understand, um, how this is, this is becoming a thing. And so that's what got me really thinking about this idea. So to kind of dig into that a little more, break it down a little more. Are we, like, when we look at it, what are we talking about? Are we talking about making criteria shifts? Are we talking about, you know, this kind of failure to generalize behaviors or, or to train them to fluency? You know, all of those things, what is it that people aren't doing when they get stuck in foundation land? That's a great question. Um, it's a little bit of all of those things. It's getting, it's getting stuck in perfectionism. I think a lot of foundation land is this need to be kind of perfect. Uh, this need to make sure that we have all the bases covered. It's this belief that often happens that, that we need to, you know, I have to teach X, but before I can teach X, I, I need to teach Y. And before I can teach Y, I need to teach A, B, and C. And A, B, and C have to be totally fluent. Um, but I can't teach A, B, and C because I first have to teach, you know, Q and, and onward down the rabbit hole. Right. And, and there's all these little pieces and we just, you know, I know we promote splitting and I'm a big fan of splitting when I'm teaching a new behavior, but we split our overall end goals into so many tiny little pieces that it becomes that sort of like infinite split and we never get to the end goal. Um, and so I think that's one of the big challenges, uh, you know, not long ago, a few years ago, people were, um, doing the opposite. So I would go to agility and I would see people like running their dogs around an agility course with no foundations. The dogs had no idea how to do the obstacles. The handlers didn't have any handling skills.

They were, you know, like luring dogs through weave poles with a piece of cheese or, you know, or, or having them run over, uh, you know, contact equipment with no training and the dogs are like flying off. So we sort of that one extreme. And then now, um, we've swung to the other extreme where people are spending so much time getting the foundations in place that, um, they don't ever even set foot on the trial field. So I think it's the pendulum just swinging the other way from where we've been for a long time. And I mean, there's definitely still people out there, right. Who fall into that other end of the pendulum. Absolutely. Yeah. Especially in our kind of community. I think we're seeing more and more people who are, who are on this end of the extreme. Yes. Yeah. And I think part of that is, um, is, is the result of online training. And so we, we, we see all the things, right. There's so many classes and so much to learn. And, and, and then we get stuck with, you know, FOMO, fear of missing out. And, uh, we end up having to, you know, maybe believing we need to learn all the things. And the other thing I think with a lot of online training is, and I, I'm a huge proponent, obviously it's like what I do full time. I love it. And I think it's just changed the world of dog training for the better in so many ways. But the one, one, one challenge, one of the challenges that we have to overcome is that we see all the things other people are doing and we compare ourselves and then we can get ourselves into paralysis that way. And I think there's, there's that contributing factor as well. So you have a webinar on this stuff coming up and you mentioned the description that you were trialing at an advanced level, recognized you kind of had some holes in your foundation and you went back to foundation land and then you kind of stayed there for three years. So I wanted you to kind of share that story. Yes. So he said a lot of the stuff I'm talking about, I'm talking about from personal experience. Um, so I've been training dogs for, I got my first dog a little over 30 years ago now. And I've been, you know, I knew nothing about training. I took him to a couple of obedience classes way back then, but I basically, I was a border collie, very high energy, working, full working bread border collie. And, um, I learned how to train him basically through complete intuition. And I had a great communication system with this dog. He and I just totally clicked. And I always said, you know, this dog taught me everything that I knew about dog training. And so for the first, I had him for 14 years.

Um, I learned everything from my dog and, um, we did all, we did, we never did any formal sports, but we did tons of things and, and I had them very well trained and we had lots of fun together and I used to teach other people what I did and so on and so forth. And then, um, I got another couple of dogs over the years. And again, I was, I took lessons and I got into some more formal structured training, but then I started, I discovered the world of online training. And as I said, I started discovering like all the things and I came across, you know, the science of learning. I was like, Whoa, what is that? And, you know, ABA and all, all of this, you know, very technical, very scientific approach to training. And, and I had this complete existential crisis. I was like, Oh my goodness, I don't know anything about dog training. I mean, I've been training dogs for like over 20 years at this point and teaching other people. And I just had this big, you know, crisis of conscience of like, Oh, there's so much I don't know. And, and how can I teach other people? And how can I even train my own dogs? And how did I ever even like train a dog out of a paper bag all these years? You know, not knowing all these things, I know nothing. And so I just went into complete paralysis mode of overwhelm of all the things that I didn't know. And I felt like I have to learn everything before I can take even one more step. And so it took me about three years of taking all the things, just, you know, studying and taking courses and going to seminars. And, and I mean, I was still training my dogs, but I was not taking them out of my living room. I was like working and everything I would train, I would realize, Oh, wait a minute. I'm missing these four pieces. I have to go and fix those first. So like I said, everything I'm talking about here, I personally went through. And I feel like I've come out solidly come out the other side of that now. And with a lot of insight into the struggle and a lot of ideas on how to get through it. So that's what I want to share with people. Mm hmm. So you, you kind of got into this a little bit, um, you know, a little while ago, but what is it that really kind of leads people to get stuck there? Okay. So I think I talk about foundation land as a place to visit. And I think that that's a really useful way to look at it. But what I think foundation land effectively tends to be is a mindset for people when they get stuck. So people who are stuck in foundations are stuck in a mindset of the novice. And that is a big challenge to overcome.

Um, getting a new puppy or, you know, starting a new sport can sort of feel like being dumped into Oz by a tornado. Right. I had this like, you know, and all of a sudden you're just like, we're not in Kansas anymore, like you're like completely overwhelmed and you don't know what to do. And then you have like flying monkeys chasing you. And, and you think the solution is to like, follow the yellow brick road, which is like a path somebody else created that you need to follow to the guru who's going to help you. And so that's kind of like this, this image that I have in my head now. Um, and, and if we want to extend that metaphor, we actually have it within us to actually escape the foundation land anytime we want. Um, so what we need to do is kind of recognize that. So the first step in, if, for, if you're, if someone is feeling stuck in foundation land is to work on the mindset because our dogs actually, they like foundation land doesn't really exist for them. It just only exists for us for them. They're just being dogs and they're just behaving and they're just doing dog things. And so it's all about what's going on in our heads and how we're approaching training. And so if we can compartmentalize things like, okay, these are some foundation pieces, um, but how are we going to apply them and get them into a more practical sense? And if we can always stay in the mindset of where is this going and how are we going to apply it, then that can help us from being stuck, uh, in foundation land. Um, and I think also developing, um, the, the confidence in self. So for me, when I was stuck there, um, I, as I said, I had this total, uh, feeling of like inadequacy that I just didn't know enough to move, move forward. And I think that that's easy for people to feel that way. Again, especially when you can compare yourself to so many people and you can see all the stuff that maybe you don't know about, but the thing is, is always going to be more learning and it's always going to be more to learn. Um, and the other thing that I've realized with all the people that I've now studied with is that, you know, most people are, they're all learning too. And it's just this constant process of evolution. It's never going to end. And that's exciting. And that's really great. Um, and it's not something to be intimidated by, but something we should embrace and look forward to and then go, okay, well, where I'm at right now, this is how I can apply it and let me put it into practice. And then as I need to learn more, I will, I will learn more and, and go forward that way,

as opposed to thinking I have to learn everything before I can take that first step. So as a, as a, as a handler focusing on that and just saying, okay, I know this much, I can do stuff with it. Let me do stuff with it. Um, and, um, as opposed to feeling like you have to know everything first. Um, so I think that's, that's a, as I said, it's a mind, it's a real mindset thing for, for many people. And it certainly was for me and working on that aspect of the, um, of training in general is, is really critical. I think that's, uh, it's going to be an important piece for sure. I love the, uh, the Oz metaphor. Sure. And, um, and you know, I think there's another piece there, right. Where you've mentioned that, uh, you visit, right. So I think there's something a little bit reassuring, at least for me about this idea that you can also always come back to foundation land. So if you move on and you get out of foundation land and you find that you need something else, you can always come back and visit and then leave again. Right. Absolutely. We all have the ruby slippers. All we have to do is click our heels and we're right back there and then we can pop right back out again. Right. So if we, yeah. Yeah. And we just have to recognize that we have it in us to do that. Nobody else has to tell us. Nobody else has to give us permission. We don't need the wizard behind the screen, right? Like behind the curtain. It's, it's, it's, it's completely within our power to just go in and out of foundation land as we need. So if we have worked on some foundations and then we take them, we start moving into practice with them and then we go, Oh, whoops. Right. There's a hole here. I could go, well, you know what? I'm just going to like pop in for a day or two and fix that hole. And then I'm going to come back. And, and we could absolutely, it's very fluid. It's, it's like I said, foundation land is not actually a place. It's, it's not a physical destination in any way it's in our heads. And so we can just make that mental shift back and forth as we need to. Mm-hmm. So someone's listening and they're slowly realizing that they recognize themselves in a lot of what we've been talking about. What can they do about it? What's the first step? If they have been stuck and they want to, they want to move on. Okay. So great question. As I said, the, the first, the first step is to recognize that it's, it really is in our heads and that we have complete ability, the absolute ability to make the decision to just take that next step. And so, um, I would say we, you know, that's important. Just recognize it. Just do it.

Uh, I know that sounds way easier than it is. It's, um, but, but exercising constraint over overwhelm. Another thing that, um, I have kind of recently learned myself is that overwhelm is a choice. It's not an actual state. We can choose to be overwhelmed or we can choose not to be. And so if we just say, you know what, I'm not going to be overwhelmed by this. I'm going to just take this one step at a time and it's fine. So that's the very first step. Um, and then there are a couple of other, uh, very practical things that we can do, um, to help move out of foundation land. And one of the things is that we can always picture the end goal. Where are we going to go with this behavior? Know where that is and try and build it into, um, into the picture right from the start, uh, as much as possible. So let me give you an example of husbandry behavior. And this is, this comes from a student I worked with recently who did a fantastic job with her, with her dog and she wanted to teach, um, uh, the dog to hold, um, a chin rest on a, on a prop so that you could, she could do husbandry work. And she was struggling with having, um, duration. So the dog would go over and put his chin on the, on the prop, but she wanted to build the duration, uh, to, to know. And she was like, well, how long do we need duration for to be able to start doing the husbandry work? I said, well, just start doing the husbandry work now because the dog will then have the bigger picture. And the dog will understand, oh, I'm, I'm not just randomly putting my chin on something. There's a purpose for this. So if we, if we see the end goal and we build it into our training right from the start at whatever capacity we can, then, so with this dog, for example, um, so immediately what she would do is have the dog put his chin on the prop and then touch an ear and then release him or, you know, um, touch, touch the dog somewhere else or, or hold a brush near him or something like that. So the dog could see, oh, there's, there's a purpose to this. There's an end goal. And I do this in herding as well. So for example, my, um, Raven, who I mentioned earlier, who's going to run my farm, uh, as soon as I had a stop on her, which she kind of came almost, I don't even remember teaching her. Apparently I did at some point, but I feel like she just came with it built in. She's, she's one of these really natural, easy dogs, which I'm so grateful for. Um, but as soon as she had a stop, I started using her for work immediately. Like she was seven months old and she was helping me move sheep around the farm.

And, and then as we developed, I'd be like, oh man, her flanks are really not very good. So then I took her out of the work and I would work on her flanks a little bit, but we kept working. I didn't stop working with her, um, because she was still able to do the work, simple jobs, um, while I was putting in her foundation pieces. So in that context, this was a dog who was able to learn most of her foundation work while actually doing things practically. And that's one of the, the, the working with the, like doing training with working dogs, um, has really taught me a lot about just how important it is for the dog to see the big picture and understand the purpose of what we're doing so that the foundation pieces make sense to them. And they will learn a lot. They, it'll sort of click for them a lot faster. And then when we see them clicking, we'll be encouraged to move forward. So there's this nice feedback thing that happens. So I want to, um, ask too, just about this idea of kind of keeping ourselves accountable, right? So, I mean, this is all fantastic. And I'm sure there are a lot of people who are listening, kind of nodding along, right? Um, but, and they're like, yes, I'm going to do this. But then how do we kind of make sure that we're keeping ourselves accountable and not just repeating the same things over and over again, and that we're really continuing to make that progress? That's a great question because it's so easy to just repeat over and over again. Um, what, uh, what, what's going on? Um, sorry, does the same behaviors over and over. And one of the reasons, actually, I'm going to just digress briefly. Um, because one of the reasons people stay in foundation land, which, which has brought to my attention through some of the chat on the alumni list is that it's a place of higher reinforcement for the handler, right? Because we have success. We know, you know what you're doing and you can do it well. I love starting new puppies. I am so good at starting puppies. Let me tell you, I can start puppies in my sleep. I've raised so many puppies. I mean, I breed, so I've like started, you know, several litters of puppies and then all the puppies I've purchased over the years and everything. I can do that stuff so well. It's highly reinforcing. So what do I do? I keep buying puppies. Um, and so I realized that I'm like, you know what? I really actually need to train my dogs like all the way to the end, not just keep buying new puppies because now I have a house full of half trained dogs. Um, and cause I know how to do that. I can get them all to this certain level really easily.

And, and it's so reinforcing for me. Now, what happens when we drop the rate of reinforcement on a behavior that previously earned reinforcement, we get extinction, right? We, we, we can slide into extinction. So what happens with extinction? We end up with often we have extinction bursts. Well, what is an extinction burst? It's going, it's doing that behavior over and over and over again that used to get us the reinforcement. So I would say that we could take an ABA perspective on this and say that foundation getting, when we get stuck in foundation land, it could actually be an extinction burst because we've stepped out of it and we're not getting the rate of reinforcement that we want. And so we go right back in. So, um, what we need to do to help ourselves through that is to, uh, record keep and I'm like video and write down what we're doing and what, and, and focus on the successes and just keep writing down the things that are going well. And we can go back and look and not just record keep, but periodically check what you've done. Look at, so if you look back and you're like, oh, okay, look at, I actually have made all this progress or, oh, look, I've been training, you know, exercise B for three months now. Maybe, you know, like that's a problem. So if we record keep, you know, what we're training and, and it doesn't have to be very, uh, um, detailed because record keeping, I know it's hard. I struggle with it myself, but you can just like make, um, uh, a list of the exercises and put a check mark next to every time you train it, even to something simple like that. And you can be like, okay, I trained. And when you do that, you can see like, wow, these like four exercises, I trained them like 27 times. I must really, really find that reinforcing. And, oh, look, there's what I've done like once. Obviously I, right. So if you, I, I do that and I can really see the path, my own patterning and see where I am, um, doing a lot of things over and over and over again. And you know what? Dogs get bored with this and they also end up developing glass ceilings and then it's hard to move on. So we need to, we really need to be aware of it, both for our own confidence building and to keep our dogs fully engaged in the training. So, so definitely record keeping. And the other thing I think is that's really critical is to, um, to create a lesson plan or a training plan that brings you right to the end of your end goal. So you can see where you're going and you can really track your progress against it. Um, and you know, develop a flow chart or however you want to set this up.

But having, um, having it written out so that you can, remember I was saying earlier, it's really important to know where you're going with this so that you can build that in from the start. It's also good to know where you're going so that you can see where you've progressed along that route. So you mentioned two things in there that I just want to stop and, um, have you explain real quick in case, uh, listeners aren't familiar with them. The, the first is the, you mentioned an ABA perspective. So can you just take a second and just explain what you meant by that? Okay. So, um, applied behavior analysis. So that's just using a lot of the, um, oh boy, can I explain that? Um, the science of learning in a nutshell. So a lot of the techniques that we're using for, through, um, uh, with positive reinforcement training and understanding how to apply them in a, uh, in a fairly rigorous way of understanding how reinforcement works and putting that into practice. Um, does that help? Yeah, that's a good, quick, quick explanation. Um, and then you mentioned, you kind of reused by this idea of a glass ceiling. So do you want to just, cause I know that's, that's a custom term. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. What's meant for that? So, yeah. So, um, we, we reach, I call it a glass ceiling. I don't think that's my original term, but I, I, I'm not sure where I picked it up from, but it's definitely become part of my vernacular. And, um, a glass ceiling is when the dog gets stuck at a certain level of training or doing a certain behavior. So if we, so basically very, very briefly, if you, um, if we practice a behavior over and over again, it becomes stronger and stronger and stronger, but then it becomes really hard. And then we're going to move on to the next step. So if we're at the end behavior, if we've trained, so let's say we we've trained, um, I don't know, a beautiful tuck sit and that's what we want. We want to practice that over and over again to really get that movement, uh, precise and, and, and durable. Um, then, then, then, then it's kind of okay to have a glass ceiling. Cause you're not going to progress that set beyond the tuck set. But if you, if you're working on the little pieces of it, then you don't want to get stuck at any of those little pieces. And if we, so if we train it too, too often, if we do repeat the behavior too often, the dog will get stuck on that behavior. And that's where we get into some trouble with potential of extinction. So if the dog is reinforced over and over and over and over and over for that one piece,

and then we want to progress to the next step and we withhold reinforcement to be able to see if we can get the dog to take that next step. And they, the dog will be like, wait a minute. Like, Hey, I was getting cookies for this, like for the last 27 times, where's my cookie? And then we can end up with some frustration and extinction behaviors as opposed to the dog going, okay, I know when, uh, you know, if there's a little pause here that I'm supposed to try something else because they're used to the progression. So we, we can, we can end up creating this glass ceiling. That's hard to break through. It's not impossible, but then we have to work at breaking through. And so that's something that we want to avoid in our training. That's really easy to happen. If we, if we keep doing the behaviors that we personally find really reinforcing and we don't practice other ones or progress them. I happen to have a personal example, so I'm going to share real quick, just in case anybody's still wondering. So, um, so with Levi, we now have some frustration behaviors when it comes to pivoting on a disc because it was hard for me to get him with his front feet up on that disc. So we stayed at that step for a really long time. And then when it was time where I wanted him to rotate his little rear end around it, well, now we've been, he'd been paid for getting those front feet on that disc and standing still for so long that, um, that that movement was really, really hard to kind of get jump started. So yeah, kind of a, that's exactly it. It's exactly it. So, and all that pivoting, I don't know, like I can, I can train my dogs to do so many things and that was like the bane of my existence, but that's a whole other conversation. Independent pivots on a pivot disc. I'm working on a man. Um, but, uh, but I want to talk about the webinar for a minute. So for those listening, it'll be January 2nd at 6 PM Pacific time. Um, can you just share a little bit about what you plan to cover during the webinar? Kind of how it ties into all the stuff we've been talking about? Yeah, absolutely. So in the webinar, I plan to, so we're going to talk, I'll, I'll be talking about some of the things that we've talked about here by going into a little bit more in depth. And, uh, in particular, I'm going to really tease apart some of the mindset stuff and some exercises that people can do to work on that. And I'm going to give some practical examples about how to build performance in from the start, uh, as one of the ways of not getting stuck in, in foundation land.

And I will give people some examples and things to work on at home or, or some grand as well as like some practical tips, as well as, um, overarching strategies for, for building this in right from the start. Because even at the very simplest levels, even if you're just raising a dog to be a good family companion and active companion and pet, um, there are still things that we can build in right from the start that will help make that happen a lot faster. Um, and then I will go into more detail about the tools that I mentioned about how to evaluate your own progress to keep you, you know, as a handler, keep you honest and keep you focused on, um, on making that progression and how to, how to sort of check in with yourself regularly to make sure that you are making, uh, making, making these steps in and out of foundation land on an as needed basis so that you're really in charge and in control of the, of when you're there and when you're not there, rather than feeling like you have to go find that wizard behind the, behind the curtain. And, uh, and if I understand it right, you've also been writing quite a bit lately, right? So you're sending out regular articles via email for subscribers. Um, I, can you just share a little more about that and where folks can go to kind of get on your list? Yeah, absolutely. So I used to blog a lot and, um, I, I've been wanting to get back into it and, and, uh, what I've been doing is, uh, writing newsletters instead of, uh, blog posts these days because I feel like I have a really great connection with my email community and I love having conversations with them. So I've been focusing on getting a newsletter out, uh, roughly once a week. I try to send something out every Friday about training, about what I'm working on, about, um, my thoughts on particular issues. I have a theme that I work on where I'll have several issues out on the one theme and then we'll switch themes and, uh, I answer people's questions and so on. So it's really fun. I really, I really enjoyed a lot. So one last question here, um, that I'm asking all my guests lately, what's something you've learned or been reminded of recently when it comes to dog training? Okay. So tying in with everything we've been talking about with foundation land, that's buffing this, how to get out of foundation land. That's been so, um, amazing for me, uh, that I just, I, so this fall I attended chicken camp and if anybody here is interested in really upping their training skills, if you have the opportunity to attend a chicken camp, do so.

So very briefly, chicken camp is basically you clicker train chickens to do things. Um, and it was a four, three day intensive, like nine to five, you are training a chicken intensive, um, uh, experience. And we went through all of the details on how to train the chickens. And so I had this chicken that I trained for like two days to pack the red circle amongst different types of shapes and different color objects. And so I spent two days training my chicken to do this. And she got really, really good at packing the red circle. And then I was told that my test is to train the chicken to pack the yellow circle. Um, and so I'm standing there with the instructor. Anybody in the class was welcome to watch. Fortunately, most people were busy training their own chickens and a stopwatch. And she's like, ready, set, go. And so I was told that the, like the fastest time anybody done it in was like three minutes and change. And then some people took like 30 minutes and some people never got it. So I'm a little bit competitive with myself. So I was like, okay, let's see how fast I can teach this chicken to do this, uh, reversal of the, of the object, the stimulus reversal. And so I worked my butt off to explain to this chicken that I wanted her to pack the yellow object and not the red object that I've been paying for her, her to pack for two days. And I was very proud of myself because I did it and four minutes and I don't know how many seconds. Um, I was really, I was really amazed. I was absolutely, honestly, honestly, uh, astounded because I thought going into that, I thought this will take me two or three days to train. I'll have to set up a training plan and I'm going to have to like figure all this stuff out. And it's gonna take me like three days of multiple sessions, blah, blah, blah, to get this behavior. I did it in four minutes and change. And then when I, when I watched the video back, I could see that my chicken understood in just over three minutes. It was amazing. Wow. So, yeah, I know. I was like, wow, this is incredible. My chicken, like this is a chicken. Um, I, she understood what I was trying to tell her in under three minutes, despite any mistakes I made and everything. And it took me about a minute and a half to even realize that she knew what I was wanting her to do. So that's how kind of behind I was and how much faster my learner was figuring things out than I was even, first of all, aware that she was learning and second, um, aware that she was capable of learning. So that's my, that's what I have had this big aha moment ever since then.

I'm like, wow, our learners can learn so much faster than we, we give them credit for, and they are not the ones holding us back. So we need to embrace this and really work with it. And we can, we can accomplish so much more than we realize we can. If we just have some faith in ourselves, because our learners, they're right there with us. They can keep up and go as fast as we can and faster. So that's, that's my recent learning. I like that. Um, well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. This has been great. Thank you. It's been wonderful to be back. And thank you to our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week with Andrea Harrison to talk about starting the new year off right. If you haven't already subscribed to our podcast in iTunes or the podcast app of your choice. We'll 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.