E454: Shade Whitesel - "What's that Smell?"
FenziFenzi Dog Sports Podcast · 팟캐스트 · 36분
반려견은 후각에 강력하게 의존하는 생물학적 본능을 지니고 있어, 환경 속의 자극적인 냄새나 사냥감은 보호자가 제공하는 보상보다 훨씬 더 강렬하고 명확한 강화물로 작용한다. 훈련 중 발생하는 환경적 방해 요소에 대비하기 위해서는 무조건적인 차단보다는 통제 가능한 환경에서의 단계적인 훈련이 필수적이다. 개가 유전적으로 지닌 높은 동기 부여와 학습된 행동 이력을 이해하고, 보호자가 이를 통제하거나 대체 강화물로 전환하는 기술을 익히는 것이 중요하다. 특히 목표 대상으로부터 눈을 맞추며 주의를 돌리는 눈 맞추기 훈련과 강화물 전환 개념은 개가 스스로 흥분을 조절하도록 돕는 핵심 전략이다. 모든 환경에서 개에게 즉각적인 복종만을 요구하기보다, 훈련 시간과 자유 시간을 명확히 구분하여 개가 언제 집중해야 하는지 알게 한다. 보호자는 단순히 개를 제지하는 사람이 아니라, 사냥 본능을 충족시킬 수 있는 가치 있는 파트너로서 개와 소통해야 한다.
E454: Shade Whitesel - "What's that Smell?"
0:00
This is Melissa Brough and you're listening to the Fenzie Dog Sports Podcast brought to you by the Fenzie Dog Sports Academy, an online school dedicated to providing high quality instruction for competitive dog sports using only the most current and progressive training methods. Today I'll be talking to Shade White-Zell about training through environmental distractions, things like bitchin' season scent or chicken bones on the side of the road. Hi, Shade. Welcome back to the podcast. Thank you. Thanks for having me here. It's always a pleasure talking to you, Melissa. Back at you. To start us out, do you want to just take a minute and kind of remind everybody a little bit about you? Yes. I have been teaching at the academy since the beginning, so I think that's about 13 years now. And my own sports of choice are I do IGP, which was known as Schutzen, and I do AKC Obedience. And currently I have two dogs, two German Shepherds, an eight-year-old named Talik and a three-year-old named Ion. And both of them are wonderful and teaching me many, many things. I believe Ion's three already. I know. So he's actually, he's three and a half, and I looked at him and I'm like, you're kind of not a puppy anymore. He has this man weight. He has this huge size, and his neck has gotten big, and his face always used to be really long, and now he's like grown into his face. And everybody's like, oh, you're so handsome. And I'm like, oh, yeah, he kind of is. Like he wasn't, he was always cute, not handsome. And now he's kind of handsome. Yeah. That's so funny. So our topic today, right? So why are things like food scraps, wildlife scent, or garbage, you know, all those things dogs find so fascinating, so powerful compared to the reinforcers we typically bring to training? Well, I think that's a super complicated question, which we'll probably get into through the meat of this podcast. podcast. But it's, you know, a dog is a nose. And they're, you know, that's what a dog is. Like so much of their brain power is towards their nose. And those things are very, very relevant to them. All the, you know, appetizing smells that they can eat or hunt or chase or all that kind of stuff. It's really relevant and important to them. So, and very clear, clear and consistent. You know, the smell of yummy trash means, hey, something's good there. Uh, and I think that all our reinforcement that we give the dog, that can be awesome and powerful as well, but it's often muddy. You know, like, we give, we're not clear about when reinforcement from us is available, when it's not.
3:06
You know, just by living with a dog 24-7, I think it makes us sometimes not as consistent and clear. And, you know, the trash over there is very consistent and clear to the dog. Plus all the learned history and all that kind of stuff. Lots and lots of stuff. But yeah, basically a dog is a nose and it's very, very important to them. Are some dogs more naturally kind of environmentally vulnerable or vulnerable to environmental distractions than, you know, other dogs? Yes, I think you've got dogs that genetically are very forward. They see something or they smell something. They like lunge forward and they want to grab it. Some dogs are more impulsive than others. And all that behavior that, hey, smell something, go forward and access it can make it super hard to train because there's a lot of learned history there too. Like a forward, highly motivated dog that lunges forward and gets something. That dog's going to be much harder to train to leave that stuff alone than a more steady dog or a more cautious dog that kind of smells and doesn't act. And then the handler has enough time to sort of make sure the dog doesn't access. So there's a lot of learned history there too. But genetics, yes, it's if the dog is quick, if they're highly motivated, if they're like, hey, rush forward. It's really easy for them to learn what we would look at as the wrong thing. And we want that rushing forward in many other things. You know, it's not like it's a bad, bad trait for the dog. Oftentimes we want that kind of trait in our sports dogs, but it can make it a little genetically harder for sure. It's so interesting. It's you mentioned learned history piece and all that came into my head is that counter surfing problem, right? Yeah. Once the dog has helped himself to the thing on the counter, you know, now it becomes a thing they've learned they can do. Right. It's way harder than if a dog isn't like a not athletic dog or a dog that isn't as inclined or doesn't have – it's much easier to teach a dog not to counter surf when they don't have a lot of food drive, you know? So there's a lot of genetics that come into the – eventually into the learned history. I was thinking about the typical – maybe not typical, but I have a lot of golden retrievers in my sphere that have learned to really yank their owners on the leash to go towards a bush or something, you know, like they smell something. And then all of a sudden they're like over there and the owner is like, you know, being yanked.
5:52
And I was always like – as a trainer, I was always like, oh, you know, anchor yourself, you know, all this stuff that we say. And now I have my own yanker. Ion is like, I smell something, I yank. And I'm like, yeah, it's way harder than when they offer that. My other shepherds have been a little bit slower to react to something. Ion is a very fast, flingy guy. And, yeah, it's much harder. They learn to access by yanking you, pulling strongly, and then that's much harder to retrain kind of thing. What does it look like, you know, kind of from a behavioral standpoint when a dog is starting to get maybe lured in by the environment towards some sort of environmental reinforcer? Can you talk about that a little bit? Yeah, I'm kind of really glad you asked this question because it's – I think it's – I think you have a lot less time, you know, like when a dog smells something. You know, maybe – anyway. But if a dog – like when you're thinking about reactivity and a dog kind of is unsure about stuff, oftentimes you'll get a dog – you've got time as a handler. So you'll get the dog like, you know, ears up, aligning themselves, staring at something. And then like either turning away or like, you know, getting more and more stiff as the trigger gets closer and closer. I feel like you have more time unless something like suddenly surprises the dog. For smells, oftentimes you get like one little sniff and then the dog is like gone. So I do feel like it's the same body language, you know, ears up, nose sniffing, kind of trying to figure out where it is with their eyeballs. But I do feel like you get a little – with a dog who's learned to access at least, you get a little less time because they kind of smell and then they go. So kind of back to that dogs are a nose. You know, it's so important. It's so relevant. And then, you know, so I feel like you don't get a lot of time. But it does look like, you know, ears up. Kind of weight forward can be something that I often see. They're definitely weight forward, nose forward, and lined up usually with what they want to smell. Whatever, you know, that is. Yeah. So we talked a little bit a couple minutes ago about like the natural versus kind of learned behavior, learned history piece of things. You know, how much do you see it as one versus the other? And maybe what does that tell us about motivation and, you know, competing reinforcers, what we have maybe versus the environment? I think that we really, like in many other things, we can't really separate the genetics and learned history.
8:40
And because I think just kind of like we said, you know, dogs are genetically, they might lunge forward, they might be a little more motivated. And so they're going to go for it. And then, wham, it turns into learned behavior. They're like, oh, I can access if I move fast and quick. And then I can go for that. I think about, I think this is kind of hopefully not a rabbit hole, but kind of like illustrating. Ion is a very bittable guy and he's very laser focused on me. So all good things, all great things for walking off leash. And I actually went to the FDSA ranch that happens to have a lot of bird life. Definitely when you're walking there at a certain time of year, I think it was last June, there was like a lot of birds flittering around. And I had never noticed it before, but he was very attracted to the birds. So I'm walking him off leash in the little ranch loop and it's fine. You know, like he's noticing them, blah, blah, blah. So genetically, he was at the age two and a half where he started to notice birds. And I came home and I noticed bird attraction and a little harder to walk him off leash because he's like, see bird go. And I hadn't noticed that when he was on unfamiliar territory at the ranch. He's like, oh, there's a bird there, but he stayed with me. And now on his familiar walks, he's like, there's a bird, see ya. So it was so funny just from a genetic point of view that he never noticed birds. Then he noticed them. Then he learned to be attracted to them. And now it's a challenge when I'm walking him in my neighborhood. So that's just kind of a going from genetic to learned history in the matter of five days. You know, and then I come home and I noticed that it was not a problem before and it is most definitely a problem now. So it happens that quickly. So it happens that quickly. And if it was unfamiliar territory, I mean, maybe he was starting to notice him at home. I just didn't notice it as extreme. And then he learned it. So anyway, I just thought that was so funny. Yeah. Yeah. How that location behavior changed in my dog. And it's not that I can't call him off a bird, but it's definitely something that is a lot more challenging than it used to be. So again, with that kind of learned behavior. So again, some dogs, I think we should bring up to like dogs that are genetically attracted to stuff, like they're motivated to stuff. We oftentimes like that in a sport dog, but also some dogs find it harder to control themselves around things they want. That's very much a genetic thing. Some dogs are more focused towards the environment. So that can be harder.
11:34
So all those genetics definitely go in there versus dogs that sort of are like a little more thoughtful about what they're attracted to. And those dogs can be a little easier to train, basically, to leave that stuff alone. Do you think about it as like birds as one reinforcer and you as the other reinforcer? Are we thinking about those as competing reinforcers? Like in the... In the bird example with Ion? Am I thinking of birds as a reinforcer? Yeah. So like getting to chase them or getting to go check them out versus like, are you thinking of that as, you know, being with you as one reinforcer, reinforcing in some ways and chasing or checking out or, you know, whatever behavior he's performing around the birds? Like are those competing from a reinforcement? Like, can you talk about that just a little more? Yes. I think they're really competing. I think that, I think even the noticing of the birds is reinforcing for the dog. And we're not talking, and in this case, we're talking sight distractions, not smell distractions, but I think they're pretty interchangeable. Or you can definitely, you know, the same stuff works on them. Um, I think that, I think it's worth mentioning here too. Um, one of the things that I do let my dog do is I let them sniff all the stuff they want. I don't, I don't, I mean, maybe because they're such a nose, maybe because sniffing is a healthy thing for the dog. I really want the dog sniffing all the things, including stuff that I don't want them to sniff when I'm training them. Okay. So in their, in their everyday life, you can sniff everything. You can do whatever, like we're on a walk. You can sniff unless I'm like running. In which case you can sniff at various times, not when we're running, you know? Yeah. Um, but so I never deny my dogs like sniffing stuff unless we're actually working. In which case I want you to be attracted to me. There's a time for it and a place for it. But I don't want my dog. So this goes back to the bird example. I actually don't want my dog. And I do deny them opportunities to chase like sight chase. So like, I don't want my dog to chase the birds. I don't want them to chase the deer. I do find those chase instincts are harder to train away from once the dog has practiced them. Um, that's just been my own experience. It could be the dogs I have. Um, cause I'm not talking like I don't have hunting dogs that really are into the smells. Um, so it could just be the herding dogs. I have to be super careful of them rehearsing the behavior. So I do deny them chasing deer. And I don't particularly want Ion to chase the birds.
14:30
Now, let's, let me kind of backtrack on that a little bit and go, you might be able to chase the bird if you give me eye contact first, or if you, because he's so, ah, what's the word I'm looking for? He's, he's attracted and he's trying to hold himself so back so well that I almost want to reinforce that. And giving him a piece of food right there is not going to reinforce it. So allowing him to do what, eh, it's okay, you do it. Yeah. So I might be inclined to explore that with a dog that's already had like a lot of, uh, chasing opportunities. But I just kind of wanted to point that out because I never really think about denying the dog smell opportunities while I definitely deny them chasing opportunities. So that's a difference there. Yeah. Interesting. Super, super interesting. Yeah. So when trainers are kind of in the early stages, right, how can they begin preparing their dogs for these kinds of distractions before some distractions become a problem, right? Is it, is it, we talked a little bit about management. Like, is that the answer? Is it more about like choosing the right level of challenge for where a dog is in their training? You talked about locations. Can you, can you expand on that a little more? Like, where do we start? I think there are so many skills that you can train. Um, all the time you can be refreshing them, but definitely there's foundation skills that you need to be training your pups. And the competing reinforcers concept is a huge one. Like you want something, you get this instead. Okay. So there's so many skills that I think can be super helpful that dogs get used to as concepts. So it even goes down to, you know, if you know anything about me as a trainer, I oftentimes will, uh, I'll always be about the eye contact. And one of the reasons that I want to teach the dog, the eye contact is that how I teach it is with a treat in my hand. And I want the dog to look away and do a concrete behavior and offered behavior away from something they want. So assuming they really want the treat, I want them to look at me and then I kind of give them access to that or, um, permission to access that. So that's huge because if they can't look away from you holding a treat right under their nose, then of course they can't look away from something that they smell that's right there under their nose. So those concepts of kind of give me eye contact to get what you want. Um, that's just huge in terms of kind of control yourself. You want something. First thing is control yourself. Second thing is really give me a concrete behavior that I as a handler recognize.
17:18
And then I'll either tell you, you can access that thing that you want really bad, or I'll give a, or, and then another concept would be switching reinforcement. Or you can't have that, but you can have this. Okay. You can't have the a hundred dollar bill thing that you want. Like I hear everyone use that example, but you can have this $50 bill, you know? Um, and it's not even a denial at that. It's more like, that's just not accessible to you. You can have this instead. Um, so those are, those are two concepts that I really, really want the dog to learn. So yes, management, um, choosing the right level of challenge. Something I'll be covering in the class. I'm about to teach is that a ready to work, uh, protocol that's easily accessible on my blog, but basically, um, kind of excess, you know, seeing whether having a protocol to see whether your dog can kind of work in that situation. So like, if they can't come away from a crop, from a toss treat, then yes, it's going to be hard to like do agility in that situation or something else, um, or obedience. So it is important to be able to have a protocol and choose the right level of challenge for your dog when, and not set your dog up for not being successful and you, you know, being frustrated with your dog sniffing and things like that. So teaching concepts, teaching away from distractions, teaching competing motivators, uh, and then also having kind of a protocol to figure out what the right level of challenge is for your dog. So yeah. Um, but all those things and probably many more that I haven't mentioned. Yeah. So I was going to ask separately kind of about foundation skills in particular. So can you just go kind of through that list one more time, the foundation skills that, that you think it's important to kind of teach, to keep the dog, to teach the dog how to stay engaged with the handler, even, you know, what interesting things are happening. So just one more time. Well, just kind of like, okay, you want something, look at me and then I'm the gateway to get it. Okay. So you really want something, you got to look at me first. So that eye contact. And then another concept would be, um, you can't always get what you want. Okay. Sometimes things are in sight and you're going to get what I give you instead. And that, that thing that you want is completely unavailable. So, um, so it's kind of like those two concepts I'm finding as I'm hearing myself say it are like completely contradictory. You know, one is you want that, look at me and then you get it.
19:53
And the other one is you want that, look at me and you get something else that oftentimes is not as valuable as whatever. Uh, but those are some, but the first thing would be, the second thing would be what we call switching reinforcement where you can't always get what you want. You, you kind of do this. And when dogs are kind of raised and know that concept, they don't get as frustrated about being denied what they see that isn't in sight. And then, you know, owners have to be really clear with their, this is the reinforcement you get, um, consistent with it. Like all those are kind of some handler skills too. It's not all about teaching the dog. It's all about us being really consistent and clear about what reinforcer the dogs get. So it kind of gets into like location specific marker cues, kind of being extra clear to those dogs that really need it. So those would be some foundation skills. Um, oftentimes one thing that I always bring up is like when you have dogs that really like toys and really like food, having different marker cues for those teaches the dog the concept that they don't always get what's in sight. So for instance, you can have a toy in your hand and food in your hand and X would be my marker cue for food and bit would be the marker cue for toy. And so I might have a little game where it's like X, you get the, you get the treat. You don't get the toy, even though it's in sight or vice versa. Um, and when dogs really care about a lot of stuff and they have lots of reinforcement, that concept of you don't always get what you think is in sight is super important to them. And there's other ways you can do this. Like, for instance, one thing I do with my dogs, like we get in the trailhead, the dog's like, yay, hiking. And I recognize this place and they want to be all, you know, excited and pulling and things like that. And it's like, okay, X, you don't get hiking right now. You get a piece of food and kind of a down stay until you settle down. But, um, just those kinds of concepts, the dog's expectations that get this. Yes, you can eventually have what you want, what you, you see, you know, in the hiking case, but also like right now hiking's unavailable. This is those concepts are kind of huge in teaching the dog to lower its arousal, but also teaching them how to not yank you to every smell that they want. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You totally see that. I kind of get the switching between a treat and a toy, right?
22:26
But when you're starting to introduce environmental rewards or environmental distractions, depending on which word we want to use, you know, how do you help teach the dog to disengage from those things? And maybe how do you set that up? So I'm super, so this kind of goes into like, I want you to disengage. I want to be super clear to dogs when I want your attention, when it's a training thing and when it's kind of your free time when we're on a walk. So, um, so I'm kind of distinguishing between those things and I will, I want these dogs to have the foundation concepts I mentioned, but I also want them to be super clear at this time. I want you to ignore everything around you. So, yes, I'm going to teach specific skills, uh, teaching the dog how to get away from that, um, or how to disengage and turn their attention back to the handler. And then I'm going to teach the handler the skills of one, how to do that, but also how to be more clear. Because sometimes I feel like some of these things are due to expectations of the dog. And I think that by making it clear and not by denying the dog all the sniffing opportunities, I think it becomes much clearer for your dog when they're supposed to pay attention to you and disengage from all the interesting stuff around them and when they're allowed to. Um, and I'm not a, again, I'm not a big deny the dog. Like if a dog has a problem sniffing, I'm not a big deny the dog sniffing opportunities, but I am very clear about you are allowed to smell now. And right now it's work time and that work time is not about sniffing that exciting smell right there. So I'm super clear about that. Um, and that's how, um, I would definitely teach skills about how to teach them to disengage and kind of going further into that. Um, in class, we're going to be using like, um, stuff we control. So one of the things that is super hard about like environmental smells is that you don't always know what's there and you can't piece it together because you got, you know, it's exciting all over the place for the dog. So hopefully you have a more sterile place like your yard or something like that, or something you can find that's a little more sterile that you can actually work on one spot in particular that you know is there that you can teach the dog how to disengage from that. So definitely that's a skill. And in that case, when you're teaching that you can kind of distance as your friend as it is with any kind of distraction and you get further away. Um, you can get closer as the dog shows you there, they can do, do the stuff.
25:15
Um, but yeah, so depth, so kind of looking at that, uh, piecing out those distraction odors, having a situation that you control and then actually training the skill of when I say it, or when you give me offered attention away from that, all that kind of stuff. So like one thing, um, that we are going to be covering is bitch and season smell. And it's super easy if you have people around you with intact females for you to get like a swab and actually teach the dog how to, um, disengage from that actual smell. And that helps them when they're going out and about, oh, I have done this before. This is super attractive, but I can, you know, the dog and the handler understands that it's not a big deal. They can get the dog to, to disengage and come back. So, yeah. A lot of times when we're talking about this stuff, there are kind of some, you know, phrases that get thrown around about like being more interesting than dirt or being sexier than a squirrel. So can you talk a little bit about how, you know, your approaches may be different from that? Yeah. That advice. Right. And, you know, I don't think all that advice is, is bad because I do think that sometimes handlers need help knowing how to be active, knowing how to do things other than just kind of hand their dog a treat and the sit. Um, there are ways that handlers can be a little more active in the way they, the reinforcement procedure. Okay. Um, which kind of also leads me down into, well, I have a couple of thoughts about this. One, I'm not sexier than a squirrel to my dogs. Like, I don't think I'm all that. I'm not better than the birds with Ion. Um, so sometimes it's like impossible to be there. And when we kind of, not that people are saying there was no absolutes, but sometimes those kinds of phrases, um, you know, handlers can try and try and try. And then they're like, Oh, my dog is not paying attention to me. And, and so I kind of don't want to like make handlers feel bad, I guess, that they're not more interesting than dirt. I want to instead give them recipes that they can train, skills that they can train and, and attainable, achievable steps rather than phrases like, um, you know, be sexier than a squirrel. Um, also, I mean, yeah, any of those phrases, I, I kind of just want to give the dog a recipe. I also want to tell people like, one of the things that oftentimes was said to me is, you know, have a good relationship with your dog. Like that comes down to relationship. You know, if your dog isn't paying attention to you, that comes down to relationship.
28:10
And I kind of don't find that helpful because people go, Oh, I don't have a good relationship with my dog. Oh, my dog doesn't love me or things like that. And it's like, well, your dog just doesn't have the skills that we can train the skills, you know, and it doesn't mean your dog doesn't love you. And relationship actually encompasses all the bad stuff that happens to dogs around us just as much as the good stuff. Relationship is not just good stuff. So anyway, I like giving, uh, dogs and handlers special things or steps basically. So, um, one other thing that those phrases make me think of is we do need to, and this is totally different, but we do need to make sure that if a dog is showing us that they're really interested in things, that we somehow insert ourselves into those instincts. That we fulfill the dog with those instincts. So if a dog is really into hunting critters, then how can we fulfill that hunting need in a way that they're not hunting critters? Okay. So how can we, you know, fulfill the hunting need? And maybe that's nose work. Maybe that's more interesting hides. Maybe, you know, that's hiding food around the house. Maybe that's hiding food in your yard. But I am really big on taking those instincts that the dog is showing us. They have an instinctual, they need to. And instead of putting on the brakes on all the hunting behavior on the dog, I want to go, hey, I'm valuable. Let's hunt this. Okay. So, um, that can be really valuable because you're not always putting the brakes on the dog. Um, you're putting on the brakes, you're putting the brakes on the dog and saying, no, you can't hunt gophers here, but I will. I'm a part of your hunting. Hunting is fun. Let's go hunt nose work odor or something like that. I am really into that. And so that comes down to like toy dogs, the birds. Um, if I can make, you know, see bird play with ball, chase ball instead, then I'm fulfilling Ion's instincts to chase, his need to chase stuff by something that I control more than the birds. And while it doesn't necessarily, it's not a necessarily equal exchange because like hunting real critters, chasing real critters is so fun for the dog. It at least makes me valuable in a way that instinctually the, the, to fulfill those instinctual needs. So that's also a thing, um, that I kind of bring up in this class is that we need to not be the handler that's like, no, you can never sniff. No, you can never hunt. No, you can never do this.
31:01
Instead, we want to teach skills that allow us to have the dogs in those environments and those locations and then make value for us in those situations as well, or in other situations that look similar to the dog. So, yeah, I think I totally went down the rabbit hole. That's right. It's a good rabbit hole. Um, so we're talking about all of this because you do have a class on this coming up in April. So do you want to talk a little more about the class more specifically? Maybe who might want to sign up? So I confess I have only made the first week. Um, so I have a lot of ideas floating around in my dog, in my head, um, for the next five weeks. Uh, a lot of what I've talked about in this podcast. So, so not, I don't have a very, so basically we teach a lot of skills that we've mentioned. And then we put them into real life, you know, circumstances because you want to do some out and about practice with things like this. I don't just want you teaching skills in your yard. I want to make sure that we can problem solve things that happen out and about. So dogs, so ability to go into other locations, at least in the latter half of the, um, latter half of the class and be able to video. Um, those are the kind of students that will get the most out of it. Uh, of course, dogs that have a lot of reinforcement and care about things that their handler has. Like if you already have, you know, reinforcement cues for toys, reinforcement cues for food, those kinds of dogs will have an easier time in this. When we have those clear, consistent reinforcement procedures for our dog, um, rather than dogs that don't care anything about stuff you have and just care about hunting down and killing things. Um, those kinds of dogs are going to be harder to deal with in like the group class setting where I'm, I'm doing, but we can still, you know, work with those kinds of dogs. Um, but yeah, dogs that have a lot of food drive, a lot of toy drive, those are going to be dogs that have the most success. Um, but every dog's going to benefit from teaching some of these prereq skills and things like that. Um, who, uh, also kind of one of the things I kind of want to bring up is that I'm considering this more of a life thing, a life skills thing where you've got things that the dog is attracted to. So can I give you steps achievable, attainable steps to be able to walk your dog without them yanking you towards things? You know, can I do that? But a lot of people have what I'm looking at is sports skills where they've got a dog that disengages in, uh, sports skills that they're teaching.
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And I want to be able to have like, um, a way to sort of, those two things are not necessarily totally, um, separate from each other. Uh, but I definitely want to have a way of covering them in class of, is this a sniffing skill? Can my dog not do anything in the presence of, you know, a female in season that just peed there? They're not capable. And do they need to learn that skill or is my dog disengaging in nose work or agility because they need to have more success and more motivation in the sport itself? So I look at those two things as kind of separate kind of situations, but you're also going to be, um, by doing class, you're going to get, you're going to discover whether it's a foundation skill or not of being able to ignore that female in season, pea spot that all the male dogs like, or the chicken bones net that somebody dropped. You know, I mean, those are like some unsafe situations. So yeah. Anyway, hopefully that kind of comes together. Any, uh, final thoughts or maybe key points you want to kind of leave folks with? I think I might've covered it. So I hope, um, I hope this class brings up some stuff, uh, that maybe I haven't thought of that I'm going to have to be creative about. So that can be a good thing. All right. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast to talk about all this shade. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. And thanks to our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week. Don't miss it. If you haven't already subscribed to our podcast in iTunes or the podcast app of your choice to have our next episode automatically downloaded to your phone as soon as it becomes available. Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzie Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzie for supporting this podcast. We'll see you in the end. The track featured here is called Buddy. Audio editing provided by Chris Lang. Thanks again for tuning in, and happy training!