에피소드 13: 머라야 하인즈 인터뷰 - "신뢰성과 자기 조절 가르치기"

So I wanted to ask how you got started and about that always-a-positive-trainer question. So I've not always been a positive trainer. Jada actually is my crossover dog. I started off, as most people do, assuming that dogs really just play dumb and choose to ignore us and that some coercion is really required for training. But the more that I worked with dogs, the more I realized that they're really trying their best to interpret our world, and I was what I would call a balance trainer until I took a Susan Garrett Recallers course and saw dogs of all breeds coming when called in really challenging situations. And that really started my journey. And I spent the next two years watching every competition dog training video, every generic training video, and attending as many online classes and seminars as I could. And all the while, I was training pet dogs for 30 hours a week doing private training sessions. And so I was able to try new things with those dogs as well. And I decided to commit to raising my middle dog with only positive training methods. And once watching her thrive and learn and become so precise using only those methods and incrementally setting her up to succeed really cemented my commitment to positive training methods. Like you talked a little bit there about kind of how you crossed over and training pet dogs. So what got you into competition obedience? Well, so my first experience with competition obedience was I worked at PetSmart as my first job. And I had this dog and we took this, I took this class from a PetSmart trainer named Barb. And she competed in obedience with her dog and invited me to go watch a competition obedience class. And immediately I was hooked and the dogs were all healing and paying attention to their handlers, even when they got close to other dogs. And it just really looked like a lot of fun. So when I got Jada, I knew that I wanted to do competition obedience. And when she was four years old, I finally found a place to train regularly. And she was entered in August that year. And she got her UD when she was four. And she really taught me a lot. And I'm really proud of her. Was getting a Doberman partly inspired by the obedience? I'm always curious because now you have border collies. So what led you to start out with a Doberman? So it's kind of interesting. So at the time, before I got my Doberman, I had a Santa Poodle that I was fostering. And I kept getting these comments from my pet people saying, oh, well, you know, it's a fluffy dog, you know, and you can't train a fluffy dog the same way as you train one of those hardcore breeds.

And so I was like, okay, well, I'll go get a Doberman because they're really pretty. And I like them. And so that's how I ended up getting a Doberman. I'd imagine that the border collies are very different to train. They are different, you know, and I never would have gotten them as my first dog. But really, I love border collies. I think that they're a lot of fun. You know, they're much easier to live with or mine are than most people think that they are. Interesting. And we were talking about that a little bit this weekend, just even the difference between the two that you have now, right? Yeah, they're definitely different. But they have a lot of similarities as well. And part of that is just how I raised them. Clever was my first border collie. And so I wanted to make sure that I didn't have the same issues with data, like the checking out. And so I really did a lot of focus on building drive. And with my young dog, I'm like, you know, I know that it'll come. And, you know, yes, we've done a little bit of drive building, but most of it is, all right, I'm going to get you excited. Then we're going to practice calming down afterwards. And so she's much better at that than my four-year-old dog. Most of your classes at FDSA kind of revolve around self-control on the part of the dog, like in one format or another, right? So just glancing over some of your upcoming classes, you have proof positive this session, a stay class in August, impulse control, and a greeting class in October. What is it really about that topic that's kind of drawn you to teach it and that fascinates you so much? Well, ultimately, I think that reliability is greatly affected by self-control. And not knowing how to teach impulse control and self-control positively to dogs initially is what held me back from crossing over to being a positive trainer, especially early in my career as a pet trainer. And so when I realized that I had this gap in my understanding, I really pursued learning about it as much as I could. I also feel like reliability or the lack of it is really frustrating to most of us. And we can greatly impact our relationships with our dogs by working on impulse control and building reliability. And I really enjoy seeing people understand their dogs, see their dog's point of view, and ultimately have a better relationship with their dogs. And I want to focus in on proofing for a moment there. So I wanted to ask how you define proofing and kind of how you approach it. Well, so I think that the traditional definition of proofing is to set the dog up to be wrong

and tell the dog that he or she is wrong and hope that the dog can bounce back from corrections time and time again. And what we're going to do in proofing is set the dog up to succeed time and time again with tiny little increases in the difficulty level. And so what I find is that that really builds confidence by showing the dogs that they are indeed correct and they have earned a reward for their efforts. And so that's really the big thing of, you know, building their confidence and helping them understand that it's the same behavior, even if it's slightly more challenging with a distraction. And I've heard a rumor about something about costumes in this class. Is that right? Yes. One of the games we're going to be playing is about having handler dress up and making sure that the dogs can do the behaviors, even with the handler dressed up or with the helper dressed up. And I find that a lot of times that really impacts, you know, the dog because our body language is different. So really helping to, again, build that reliability. So the other thing that we're going to go over and prove positive is we're going to go over covering maintaining criteria. And oftentimes I find that we build these really beautiful behaviors that are really crisp and clean and fast. And when we want to add distractions, then our criteria drifts and we lose some of that beautiful criteria. So we're going to go over how to maintain that while we're adding more levels of difficulty. I definitely think that's something a lot of people struggle with, just like figuring out how to do that and keep that really pretty behavior that they can get, you know, in their living room when they're out in the real world and then eventually in a show ring. So. Yeah, it's, you know, it's, it's definitely, it can be done. So I wanted to make sure students got something or, you know, listeners got something that they could kind of take away and act on as part of this. So I wanted to ask you if there was a common piece of proofing or if there's something else, you know, that jumps out to you, that's fine too, where you feel that students like usually struggle. And if so, kind of how you recommend working through it. Well, I think that most people struggle with seeing the benefits of systematically helping their dog overcome distractions, which is my definition of proofing. I think that a lot of people see it as mean or unnecessary. And personally, I think that if we're going to enter a dog in a trial at some point, then they're going to need to be able to, to do the behaviors with distractions and not systematically

helping the dog become reliable with distractions is a really kind thing to do to help them prepare for that environment. I think that the second most common struggle with proofing is really over facing our dogs. So we pick a distraction that's too challenging for the dog and the dog struggles to make the desired choice. And then we get upset or disappointed in the dog, even if it's just a tiny bit. And then we're building stress into our behaviors and that's not the goal. So when a dog struggles with the distraction, then really distance is our friend. You know, we can always go further away from the distraction. And then the dog is like, oh, okay, I can do it now. Alternatively, we can dissect the distraction into its simplest parts and build back up from there once the dog is successful with the individual components. So for example, if a dog struggles with a judge in the ring, then we want to work just on, you know, a judge being far away and not work on it being a new location and having sounds and having food on the table and all those other things. And the bottom line is that we really want to build confidence with proofing and not add stress. So do you want to talk just for a minute about, you know, how you can kind of tell when the dog is over faced versus kind of working through something or trying to make a choice? Like how do you walk that line? Can you just talk to that for a minute? So a big part of that is body language. Um, the other thing that I really make sure that I practice with my own dogs is that the 50, 60, 80 rule. And that rule to me is if they're 80% reliable and you've done it about five times, then we can make it slightly more challenging. If they're between 60 and 80% reliable and you practice it five times, then really we're doing okay. We can keep practicing at that level. Um, and the dog will, will, will figure it out. Um, we might want to help them a tiny bit if they're leaning towards the 60%. And again, we still want to look at, at stress signals. So if the dog is checking out or if they're looking worried, then definitely we need to make it easier. And if they're below 60% successful, then we most definitely need to make it easier. And if they failed to make the desired choice twice in a row, then again, we definitely need to back up and help them understand because they're not going to miraculously figure out that, Oh, I should be doing this behavior instead of that. You mean they can't actually read our minds? No, they can't. If they could, then they would do it already. All right.

So I wanted to, uh, kind of round out things the way I normally round up the conversation, which is asking about the dog related accomplishment that you're proudest of. So last year when I lived in Florida, we had this competition called Doc Off. And what it is, is that every year, although obedience clubs in Florida put together teams and then all those teams compete against each other in this one day event. And so last year we were entered in open and live one first place in open with a score of one 99 and a half. And so I was very proud of that. Um, there were a hundred dogs in that class and she beat several dogs who are really expected to win who were taught with traditional methods. And those trainers had told me in the past that dogs who are only positively trained can't win, but we did. So that was really exciting. So we tied for, I was just going to say, you've, you've had a lot of success with her, right? I mean, you guys have done a lot of really cool things. We have done a lot of cool things. She's a really fun dog, you know? Yeah. She was a lot of fun. Um, we, she loves to train. So we train a lot. And we tied for high in trial with my friend and we did a runoff and we finished up in second place out of the 300 dogs that were entered. Um, and then in addition to our individual successes, our team was really supportive of each other and we celebrated each dog and handler's big and little successes. And we didn't let each other worry about the tiny, tiny baubles. So really overall, it was a really great day. That's awesome. It sounds like a lot of fun. Maybe you have to start something like that here in NC. I know that it would be fun. I really, it's one of the big things that I'm going to miss about Florida. Not the heat, but I'll miss that. I'll miss that. And what is the best piece of training advice that you've ever heard? Well, I think there was a ton of really great pieces of training advice that I've heard. My favorite piece of training advice is that training really should look like play. So my goal in my unedited training videos is that it really looks like play with just a tiny bit of training mixed in. Um, but for me, the most impactful piece of training advice is that you don't have to end training on a success. And when I embraced that, it was really pivotal for me with Jada and my journey to positive training methods. Um, originally when, when a training session was going horribly, I, you know, I would just keep going and build more and more frustration and anger with our repetitions instead of just calling it a day.

And so once I was able to end a training session that wasn't going well and go back to the training board, then our relationship really improved a lot. So I guess ultimately it's play a lot and don't be afraid to give your dog a cookie and end a training session when it's not going in the right direction. So I'm really curious there. You mentioned, you know, your unedited videos kind of look like a play session with a little bit of training mixed in. And I mean, your dogs are pretty drivey, just kind of knowing them and watching you work with them. What, what ratio are you actually talking about? Are you thinking like five minutes of play, two minutes of work? Are you like, what do you, can you break that out for me a little more and just talk a little more about it? So I, I do, I do a lot of focusing on tiny pieces of behavior. Um, I know that a lot of people really work on sequences, but I don't focus on that really with my, with my dogs. I focus on just tiny pieces of, of behavior, like five steps of healing with some proofing or five steps of, of, you know, doing left turns and right turns and then, you know, rewarding that and making sure that each tiny piece is really crisp. Um, and so that's what I aim for in a training session. And so, you know, we do three minutes of work and they get, you know, table with that. And then we do after our three minutes, then we do a little bit of play and then we do it again. That's kind of what it looks like. I don't really do a lot of, of five minutes of training in one duration. So for our final question, someone else in the dog world that you look up to? Well, I really look up to Sylvia Turkman. I love how she teaches healing, which is now how FDSA teaches healing. I have no clue if that's related or not. Um, but I think that she's really an expert in shaping and she teaches her dogs some really fun tricks and the reliability that she gets with her dogs in really big events is awe inspiring. And she does smell with positive training methods. So I also really like learning from Bob Bailey. He has some really important things to share regarding training, such as matching law, reward placement, and rewarding more substantially for duration behaviors. And I think that these things really impact precision and reliability. So I love taking things that I've learned from him and thinking about how I can apply that to 10 different behaviors or scenarios. All right. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Mariah. And thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in. Thanks for having me. Absolutely.

It was, it was good to finally get to talk to you, uh, while the recording was running instead of just for fun. Um, um, so in case you missed it last week for all of us, you'll no longer have to wait two weeks between episodes. That's right. We're taking the podcast weekly, which is why you're hearing this episode now, even though we just published the interview with Julie last week. And that means we'll be back next Friday. This time with Deb Jones to talk performance fundamentals, cooperative canine care, shaping, and that all important topic, focus. If you haven't already subscribed to our podcast and 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. Music Thank you.