E429: 헤더 로슨(Heather Lawson) - "CGC & 테라피 독 활동"

being approached and touched by strangers odd sounds and speaker systems equipment like wheelchairs walkers walkers and those little boxes called elevators that go up and down and make the floor feel like it's falling out from underneath them um things they might not experience in an at-home situation or even in their everyday life with their humans i mean some dogs have never ever stepped into an elevator and then now uh you think you want to do therapy work but guess what the floor that you got to go to it needs an elevator um you can certainly take stairs but um you got to make sure that you're in shape for that um so you want to make sure that when you're considering therapy work or even uh going to take the the canine good citizen test for that matter you have to think outside the box and where your dog will actually be working and who they'll be visiting and then train for those little unexpected things and usually most programs um if you go to pursue them um like therapy work they'll have specific do's and don'ts that um the organizations will allow so that will give you some direction as to what your dogs have to be um conditioned for um canine good citizen it's basic things that you would want to do with your dog anyways just for simpler um everyday living with your dog and being able to take them wherever you want to go so let's dive into that a little more can you talk a little more about kind of what the canine good citizen program is and um a little more on kind of why folks might want to consider earning it sure um i'll probably for me for canada it's a canine good neighbor so um i apologize if i might say say cgn or instead of cgc it gets a little bit tongue-tied but in the u.s the cgc stands for canine good citizen in canada it's canine good neighbor um and the programs in the u.s is basically a two-part uh program and it's designed to help people and their dogs navigate life together so by two-part program i mean that there are the basic canine good citizen and then they do have um additional classes and more advanced um skills like really truly going out in public um and those programs would guide you right into therapy dog work if you decided to go the next steps i believe in the u.s it started in 1989 and they have actually a good response to over a million dollar dog owners participating um the cgc has 10 basic skills cgn canadian um has 12 basic skills and these are designed to instill confidence and basic good manners both in and out of the home environment and it just helps the owners to the program was

hoped uh developed and hope and under the hope that it would encourage um owners to be good neighbors to those who surround them not have your dogs run wild not leave your dogs out in the back and you know yard unattended to actually give them the the companionship that they that they need and um make sure that you know they're not a nuisance um it's a great starting point as it lays a foundation for a lot of other dog related sports and activities like obedience agility tracking and other performance events because it sets your dog up to learn just the very very basics um that they can then fall back on in these new situations um it's a program that really if people take it seriously it does protect the safety of the dogs and their owners because you get educated in the process um and you're spreading the word to others around you that your animals are are worth it that they need that companionship because every i mean i look on my block and you know around me there's probably four or five dogs just within the three houses around me and you know everybody's got a dog everybody has companions they they seem to be a little bit of a change up um you know for people who um you know would like a companion but they you know they're single they don't have kids or anything like that but they need a they want a companion they can um participate in in real life with so this is where the cgc or cgn uh brings that stepping point into it right if you're if you don't happen to be able to take classes around you or there's you know something else that you want to pursue pursue this gives you a really good foundation for it and best of all with these programs um with the cgc cgn um anyone can participate so that means big small you know mutt or not everybody can participate and it's a great way to help ensure your dog is truly truly equipped to handle life with you no matter what you decide to do so i think um probably one of the the trickier skills is lucy's walking right so like i think it often feels like it's a foundational skill but it's really hard it's something people struggle with um why do you think it's so tricky and what makes it work when we've got it um in those real world settings well at the expense of being blunt it's inconsistency of the human okay is what makes it tricky what makes it work consistency of the human okay in other words um you know of course it includes you know building skills that you can use to educate your dog about what you need when the leash is attached okay it's not just a uh putting the leash on and going for a

walk expecting your dog to tag along and always do the right thing they don't they you know we humans um if you think about it we're pretty much the only species that travels in a straight line and so you know this is loosely walking or or you know walking on a slack lead is really really hard for you know a dog they got four legs so they're having to adjust their stride and do all these different kind of things so you have to kind of have your skills and how you're going to communicate with your dog and what you're going to allow or not allow um in place right so for instance in my house loose leash walking actually begins without a leash um and it starts with me having cookies in my pockets all the time uh and walking around doing my everyday chores uh and rewarding my puppy and their dog okay if they're out you know i got shepherds so they naturally follow you around no matter where you go uh and so every time they happen to make the choice to show up by their by themselves uh on my walking side the side that i'm going to prefer to walk them on on a regular basis when i'm out in public um uh they get a cookie i don't say anything i don't do anything i just reach in my pocket give a cookie and continue on with what i'm doing and walk away um so what i'm doing there is i'm building a reason for being with me so when the leash is attached um it's they're used to being there they're used to showing up i'm creating that reinforcement history so already i've got something that's going to draw them to to me um so when the leash is attached um i also mainly maintain the criteria of no pulling allowed when uh when i'm out and in wandering the streets you can the dogs can explore they can sniff but the absolute no-no is no pulling i don't tolerate pulling and it sounds harsh but if you tolerate pulling even for the small things such as pulling to greet someone or pulling to get inside a class because they're so excited to be there yep you guessed it you'll get more and more pulling because after all it worked they got to where they wanted to go right so that's kind of a little bit of the basics and why things work or don't work but what makes things work in the real world once you get you know you've got some skills out is having those few basic skills under your belt and communication between you and your dog giving them for instance giving them a heads up if you're going in a different direction when i say you know if i'm turning around a corner if i'm stopping to look at a window i don't just stop and expect my dog to to know what's happening because they're they might be looking

somewhere else i'll give them a heads up say here piper i want you over here and i'll stop and i'll look at the thing and then when i'm ready to go i say okay let's go so she understands what's happening and what's going she's not getting um you know jerked on the leash um so i talk to them as i'm walking along i don't just walk along militaristically with my head you know facing forward i'm checking in with my dog to make sure that they're okay that they're enjoying themselves if they need to stop and have a little bit of a sniff that's fine then we keep walking but i want to make sure that i'm i'm communicating it back and forth just similar to what you would do if you're walking with your best friend that you haven't seen in six months you wouldn't just kind of walk them along in silence you'd be chatting back and forth and things like that and if you want to look at something in a store window you'd say hey come on i want to take a look at this for a second you give them that communication and that's what is oftentimes lacking um with the human between the human and the dog so by talking to them even if you just have to tell them about the crappy day you just had that's enough to keep them interested in you um and paying attention to you and when i start out in training i start out my loose leash walking in low distraction areas and i work my skills and so by just low distraction areas i'll take the dogs to the school parking lot after hours and plunk myself in the middle of the parking lot in the middle of the pavement where there's not much to smell or sniff and i'll work most skills left turns right turns walking turning around in a circle navigating pretending i'm navigating through people all those different types of things to see to teach my dog how to connect with me then gradually i'll add more and more distractions such as you know maybe going for a walk down in in our neighborhood we're lucky we have um back alley entrances right so i'll go down the back alley and there's lots and tons of things for the dogs to sniff but so it gives me that little bit of added distraction there's people coming and going with their cars and and such so it's not over the top for them and then gradually i add more and more distractions but when you do that make sure when you're adding the distractions that you have a plan for redirection don't just let the train wreck happen okay be prepared proactive and preemptive so things don't go sideways and you end up undoing all the good work that you've been doing so if you've

been having successes and now you're increasing uh distractions or you're bringing your dog out to a more enticing environment don't let all the rules just go sideways right have your plan of action as to how you're going to help your dog maintain their loose leash skills right if not pulling um and and make the right choices so i think the other obviously walking is like one of the big skills that people struggle with but i think another uh common sticking point um are polite greetings right especially for dogs who maybe tend to be a little more excitable um so what's your approach to helping dogs be social but still kind of appropriate in public well this will this will be kind of maybe against some people's considerations but for me personally um i used to be one of those that would just you know oh we got to meet and greet every tom dick and harry that we see two foot or four foot and it was just an absolute disaster so i learned very early on that that is not the road i want to go down so now i personally don't let my puppies or dogs meet and greet every tom dick and harry two foot or four foot um as i've said and i will actually um say no to people quite often because i want to build the excitement for myself between me and my dog i don't want my dog highly magnetized to other people and other dogs i don't want them to think that the party is always with other people um and so i become and encourage my students as well to be very particular about the circumstances of greetings and when they happen if my dogs are on leash we don't meet and greet other dogs we do that sort of if you want to call it that hi turn the head nod type thing and keep going right it's kind of like hi frank hi rocky and you keep going right we don't stop there's no need to to stop and and chat because more often than not you're going to be walking past the dogs anyways you're not going to be one of those who walks through the mall saying hello hello how are you how's it going to everybody they think you are nuts and they'd come and take you away but we expect that from our dogs and what that does it just teaches them that better things happen away from them so when they're off leash um i say yeah have at it go play if they want to my reason for this is that i do take my dogs everywhere with me conferences training um seminars etc and i don't want them making the assumption they can greet indiscriminately on their own terms especially in the obedience scenario or dog sport scenario i want my dogs focused and attentive

to me i want them concentrating on me i don't want them or somebody else getting them into trouble um and you know i i want i don't want to be known as that person who can't you know keep their dog's face out of my dog's face and you know get grumbly um so i don't want them to be magnetized um to people in the name of socialization um or i don't want them magnetized to other dogs i want party time as i've said to happen with me and this is where i find so many people say well my dog doesn't focus on me i can't get my dog's attention um they're so they just want to meet and greet everybody and the first question i ask is do you meet and greet everybody and everybody says yeah and i said well there's your problem right there just meeting and greeting doesn't mean that you're you're being social you're meeting and greeting and that you're saying to your dog anything goes right so we want them to look to us um for direction um to see if it's permissible and appropriate to do so um in my classes we practice a lot of what i call neutral ned and nelly's um and it's out it's the name that um a little boy who was taking class so he's a neutral ned i put the name to it so it's stuck and these are setups that we do um with the human and their dog and to teach them to just to chill and hang out and wait for their humans to finish talking um there's a little bit more to the whole exercise i won't go into the whole thing but we teach the dog that it's not always all about them that they need to be um sometimes just neutral and just part of the background and i found for my own dogs especially and some of the dogs that we were having difficulties with in class this is what they needed they didn't know how to have an off switch they didn't know how to just chill and be um kind of like the old saying seen and not heard um so we taught them how to be seen but not heard and not felt and that's part of how we work to um getting the good greetings and it used to be the old style was that you would have um the dog sitting and somebody approaching uh and all you would get was you know a little rocket booster sitting on rock you know you ask a dog to sit they're they're on rocket boosters they're gonna they're gonna lift off at any time so now what we what i do is um we have the dog the person is standing there and we teach the dog how to approach quietly and properly if they can't approach quietly and properly we go back and we start again and they only get to go forward and then finally do the meet and greet when everything has been calm

in the whole process and that has worked superbly well because you don't have that build up of oh the person's coming closer closer closer closer you lift off right um and then the dogs don't get uh you know unnecessary corrections in the process so that's in in addition to our neutral net and nelly setups is uh the two options that we use for those um appropriate greetings in public and we teach the dogs also too to say say hi right um and one other final little exercise we can do for some people is um have the dog put their paw on the say hi with a paw tap on the foot and then that way the focus is down and a foot is easy to put a paw tap to versus a hand or anything like that and it discourages the dog from you know coming up at the at the human i like that i think that's a neat idea kind of on that note of like having an off switch um i think maybe one of the challenges for some folks with you know therapy or cgc prep or cgn i suppose uh prep is that the test often feels like it's about how calm and consistent the dog can be um what advice do you have for helping dogs succeed without kind of getting bored or like ending up with a dog who's a little bit shut down okay um great questions i like this again it's um for me i think it's about communication whether it's to set up for an exercise or at the end of an exercise and moving to the next point talk to your dogs encourage them don't become an alien to them uh in other words you know your natural human response often is oh i'm being tested i'm being tested i i better just do it and hopefully the dog will do it etc help each other through it right it's not it's not a disaster right it's it's not it's not going to be the end of the world so if you function under the premise of making your trading a game then use that same uh format as a way to keep your dogs connected um and either encourage them if they're shutting down or maybe a way to calm them down tone them down a little bit more so if you um have a dog that's that's shutting down a little whisper of good dog you know that's it patting on the side and getting them a little bit excited getting that little back going is enough to keep them in the game and if you have a dog that's like you know just amping up and up and up sometimes just bringing them in close and just giving a slight hug or press against your leg is enough to just calm down chill and then they're ready to go again and set up and there's no there's no timing on these on these tests they want you to run through and to

get because usually they have a lot of people wanting to do the test but if you're communicating with your dog and you're helping them be successful as a tester i'm looking at that side of it because then i know that you understand what your dogs require and you're willing to do it and you're willing to abort if necessary so you want to make sure that there's that communication between um the dog and the handler and don't worry i mean it's just one day or one test and if you don't pass it you can come back another time tack it under your belt as a little bit of experience so you know what to expect right and you know not always do we do we get and pass everything all all at the same time so yeah um again just a little bit more on kind of the the ideas behind some of this uh what what type of distractions do we expect or do we need our dogs to be able to handle both kind of for their test for like cgc type stuff and then if we actually want to progress into therapy work what distractions do kind of prep for and how do you like build the dog's ability to stay focused and stay composed you know around those distractions um well i think that um probably answer the back half of the question first um the whether how they how you build their ability to stay focused composed is just with um the training and moving forward and adding more difficulty as they get as they get better and better um but the types of distract going back to the types of distractions um they can be anything from a stranger just saying hello to um stopping and having a short chat with a person and their dog to navigating a crowd for cgc um it can be um something uh navigating through a crowd of mingling people um you know so you're gonna have noises you're gonna have maybe bags dropped or things like that for therapy work it can be um a crowd approaching like converging on the dog um i know and some some of the the therapy dog teams have mentioned to me they get off the elevator and their people are waiting for them and they just crowd the dogs so you have to have a dog that that can accept that convergence of of people and that again it's it's part of the training you've got to kind of think of like um what kind of strange things would my dog you know come across in these situations what's the facility like that i'm going to be working with am i going to be working um as a reading buddy with kids right um kids move fast kids are loud or sometimes they're small and quiet and they just need that a little extra reassurance but um you know people could have mobility aids um things falling off the

floor like stainless steel bowls even loud speakers if you're in a school or if you're in a hospital i mean some dogs they hear loudspeaker and it's like they're out they're out they're out the door like a shot it could even be people running to attend to someone you know code blue code blue or whatever code red or whatever they they say you know and so you know people have to have to move fast and so you don't want your dog being completely startled by that so those are all the things that you train in your distraction work right the dog is sitting or lying quietly down you practice running past them you practice somebody else running past them or any of those kind of situations um in all instances we need our dogs to remain calm and hopefully look to their humans for direction so if something falls off and you and you startle and then your dog looks to you and you're frazzled well chances are they're going to be frazzled too but if you if your dog looks to you and you're calm and you remain calm and you tell them it's okay then chances are they're going to remain calm as well um on top of their their training um we we don't want the dog to initiate contact or interaction um with people but rather accept it when it comes their way or be able to wait for permission to have that interaction um and or in the case of other situations ignore something when it does come their way that they're not they understand that they're not supposed to interact i.e somebody coming up to them uh with food and giving them food you don't want your dog to interact with that so you need them to be able to to turn away and look at look towards you for direction and so it's all about training and thinking outside of the box and making sure that you're not overdoing it right from the start i have a sort of like a little thing that i do in my head abc training and that is step by step gradually increasing the difficulty for your dog so that at every step of the way they are successful because if you go from from not from maybe possibly being afraid of a bowl dropping on the floor to then tumbling a whole bunch of bowls on the floor uh without any kind of graduating sounds from there your dog's going to spook the moment something falls off of that so um i taught um piper how to make her own noises so and that's one of the exercises that we have in in class is you make noise so a dog that's you know something thumps over uh like a book or something falls off a table and your dog startles and goes into a barking fit we teach them that these noises do happen that

they're not a big deal and that when they learn that they can make noise they kind of accept it a little bit easier if that makes a little bit of sense so it um i've only had one dog that was um loudspeaker sensitive and um i didn't know at the time that she might have been and i didn't support her enough as i should have um and but as she got older and older she was able to handle it a bit and all of my other dogs i did all this types of sound work and making noise and things like that and my dogs have never had a problem with thunderstorms or firework sounds off in the distance i never take my dogs to the fireworks that's not a good thing to do but um some dogs if they hear them in a distance they get spooked or thunder in the distance they get spooked so by doing all these different sound things the dogs learn that yeah sound happens i don't always have to know where it comes from it's not going to hurt me so a little more on the therapy dog front uh what factors do you usually want to think about or consider when you're trying to decide if a dog is suitable for therapy work kind of beyond just you know do they have the skills they need to earn a cgc title um and then do you maybe have a favorite first step for somebody who's considering therapy work with their dog like but they're not really sure yet if their dog is ready um yeah what um what i first look at um just to in my view as to what i'm looking at when i'm considering whether or not a dog might be suitable is i look at the connection between the dog and the handler are they communicating with each other and working together is the handler of aware of and guiding their dog um because there's nothing worse than somebody walks in and they're not even paying any attention to their dog they're just the dog is just along for the ride and they're more focused on what i have to say or what else is going on in the room i want that person when they come in to make sure that their dog is ready to to move forward and that they're they're aware of where they are what they're doing at all times and i really it's funny but i really like it when people will pay more attention to their dog than they will to me i know that they can hear me but they're also watching their dog and that's what i'm looking for is that connection um i encourage handlers who are wondering if their dog is ready to uh either take the cgc test or do therapy work is to get a copy of the cg test exercises and these exercises are available on online on the various kennel clubs um you can get at the

canadian kennel club and the american kennel club websites and try them out with a critical eye see where your dog currently is did each of the exercises go off without a hitch wonderful then as long as your loose leash walking skills are in place okay don't forget those because those are really really important um you could probably consider the next step of checking out um either doing a cgc test because oftentimes um therapy organizations uh will take dogs uh who have their cgc over dogs that might not just depends on the organization but they may even require that the dogs already have their cgc so um if your dog you know could pass those little tests and then great um and you then want to take a look at the therapy organizations within your your region or your location and ask them what the requirements are they're happy to to give you you know the the requirements um and and or they might direct you for further additional specialized training um depending on on where you want to to go um if when you do the cgc testing on your own you're not up to snuff then that's okay it just means that there's a little bit more work needed in the maybe the specific areas that you have difficulties you spend a little bit more time on those and then you try again with a critical eye um and make sure that you know your dog is meeting the parameters and if they are then you shouldn't have any problem in determining whether your dog is ready to go or not because they've already demonstrated that they can do the very basics um and that's that's where i would go with it if somebody's interested in that awesome so part of the reason we're talking about all this is because you do have a new class on the schedule at fdsa this term um specifically about training for the canine good citizen programs and um becoming a therapy dog so do you want to just talk a little more for us kind of about the class specifically and who might want to join you sure um anybody and everybody would want to join me no i'm actually i just um if you've got a puppy or dog or young dog and have aspirations of possible theory therapy work then this is a great start um because we work on a lot of the basics and we stretch them a little bit more than what you might um think of doing initially and um not only um will it improve your everyday home manners but your public face and it gives your dogs the tools to begin making correct choices um you know like i said earlier on everybody seems to have a dog a lot of couples have dogs um and they like to travel the young

generation they like to go camping they go hiking they travel all over the place and so this kind of a class sets your dog up for successes whether or not you're staying in hotels or you're staying in campgrounds or you know you maybe you're got your own trailer that you stay in your tent um if your dog has all of these sort of etiquette behaviors then they're going to be welcomed and it makes it easier than for the rest of us who want to do things with our dogs to to be able to have that opportunity as well we want to make sure that we're always setting a good example for those coming up behind us um and you know i when i look at raising my puppies or my dogs i'm not actually training a puppy what i'm training to is what i want my dog to be when they are grown up um because if i treat them like a puppy yes i can only do so much because they're only a certain size and there's certain brain width bandwidth in their heads but i'm always looking ahead to what i want them to be like when they grow up so that means that if i don't want them jumping on me now um because i don't want them jumping on me when they're 70 or 80 pounds it's going to hurt a lot more right so i'm always catching and molding and doing all those things right from the start so you know if you're having any problems or issues this is a place to revisit and see whether or not your foundation behaviors got skipped over a bit see if there's something missing yeah and generally there is okay and and generally you know i mean they're not big misses but they can sometimes be really important misses right and they can really affect other areas of a dog's lifestyle you know i mean they're they've got it really hard um navigating the human way because you know they're way ahead of us they they understand our body language even better than we understand our human body language they understand all the the nuances and the sounds and the and the little signals that we give and yet we we don't even pay attention to you know sometimes what they need and how they're having a difficulty and navigating and this kind of look at it and and teaching them the basics and the manners and how to react and what to expect from us gives them that that just that balance that they need um and eliminates the stress any uh final thoughts or maybe key points you kind of want to leave folks with on this topic um yeah i think i probably already said it but don't think of the cgn cgc or therapy dog skills as basic pet dog skills they ain't their lifestyle skills that help to set our dogs up for additional life experiences whether that

be dog sports or the simple pleasures of being your companion okay a dog who has life skills under their belt or in this um and since their collar is much more likely to be able to transfer the calmness and acceptance of different situations to the dog sport ring so they'll be easier to live with and travel with and accept change and unusual circumstances much easier if they have a chance to learn what it's all about too often we get caught up in teaching them all the things that they need for their dog sport we got to do this we got to make sure it's a tuxit or a perfectly straight stand or you know heads up heel and come straight front and all these kind of things and we forget that that's only a very small small portion of their life and what it's going to be like and if we can give them the basic foundation of how to function and how to move and who to look to for direction it takes a lot of stress off of the dogs awesome all right well thank you so much heather for coming on the podcast to talk about all this thank you for inviting me again it's fun i love chatting i could go on for hours awesome all right and thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in we'll be back next week 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 fenzy dog sports academy special thanks to denise fenzy for supporting this podcast music provided royalty free by bensan.com the track featured here is called buddy audio editing provided by chris lang thanks again for tuning in and happy training you