E37: 사라 스트레밍(Sarah Stremming) - "효과적인 행동 변화"

having some kind of behavioral issue, usually a behavior problem that's preventing their dog from being able to compete or being able to compete well. And we definitely do work on specific behavior change protocols. So we definitely do go through behavior modification. But I've just kind of found out that over the years, I've seen that if a dog's basic needs are not being met, you will not get where you want to get with the behavior modifications. So when we go through a lifestyle change, it is typically about meeting dogs' basic needs. I think a lot of people look at what I'm doing and they think I'm trying to give every single dog an exceptional life. Now, yes, I would like every dog and every person to have an exceptional life, but that's not necessarily the goal. The goal first is to meet basic needs. And I think that, unfortunately, very few people understand what some of those basic needs are. And so I think that's what shines through a lot of the time when I'm talking about my cases, is I always want to look through those four steps of behavioral wellness. And I want to look at what adjustments were made there. And then after that's done, we can then kind of get into the nitty gritty of the behavior modification work. So can you tell me just a little bit more about that? What are some of the common problems that you run into where those four steps can help? So some of the most common things that I deal with are things that people label as, quote unquote, over arousal issues. And they're usually in agility, though I've definitely worked with a few obedience clients and a couple other clients from other sports on these issues. The behaviors that we label as over arousal behaviors tend to be biting the handler during agility, oftentimes at the end of the run, but a lot of times during the run. Inability to hold start line or contacts in competition. And then things that I just call, you know, spinning, spitting, barking madness. The dog, you know, might spin, might bark, might also bite. These just basically explosive behaviors that occur on course or during work. Those are some of the biggest issues that I deal with. And some of the ways that the four steps can help those issues are that when I see these dogs that have these, you know, what we call over arousal issues, especially in agility, often this is because agility is the most fulfilling thing the dog experiences in their life. So if their agility time is the only time that they actually feel satisfied mentally and physically, they become what I think looks like desperate to do the sport.

So that anybody that has ever felt desperate for something understands that that's a yucky way to feel. And I think that I observe dogs feeling desperate to do agility when I'm at trials. Um, I've certainly seen it in my own dogs as well. And I think that some of the ways that we train them encourage that, but the ways that we can help them feel less desperate are through, um, exercise and enrichment. So those two steps out of the four with adequate exercise, the dog is going to feel more like its body has been worked adequately. Um, so that agility isn't the only time that the dog's body actually feels kind of physically satisfied. And then enrichment needs to be a part of environmental enrichment needs to be a part of every dog's daily life because they do have brains and they do get to use them and they are not a couch ornament for us. And, um, if that sounds a little harsh, I don't mean to say that most people think that way. I do think, unfortunately, it's very common in the agility world to feel like agility class is enough. You know, if we're going to agility class and I don't have to do anything else today, or if we had a trial all weekend, I don't have to do anything else this week, um, to fulfill my dog physically or mentally. And that's just not true. And that can definitely create problems. Um, a couple of the other, so just kind of hitting on the two other steps to behavioral wellness, anything that I deal with that has to do with the generalized anxiety. Um, so things like separation issues or, um, fear responses that keep dogs out of the ring. So anything that has to do with overall anxiety, my anecdotal experiences that diet can have an enormous effect on that. So when we feed the gut appropriately, and there is actually some cool research coming out about, um, cool research that exists. And then also more and more research coming out about the relationship between mental health and gut health. But what I have observed anecdotally is that when a dog has a healthy GI, its overall anxiety is reduced. And so diet is, um, is a place that we look at there. So nutrition, um, being the one of four steps that I emphasize on the anxiety front. And then there just isn't any behavior problem that isn't going to be helped with better communication. Communication helps everything. So that's, I mean, that's no matter what we're talking about, that definitely helps everything. Yeah. And to go back a little bit about the, the kind of couch potato bit. I mean, even if someone doesn't necessarily think that way, it can be, you know, hard to,

if you've worked all day for eight hours and then come home and you have agility class, it can be hard to fit something else in. So even if it's not intentional, sometimes it can be totally easy to deprioritize those things. It is. It's easy for us to go, okay, the dog box is checked because I have agility class tonight, right? Where, you know, I want to encourage people to at least provide environmental enrichment for the dogs during the day when you're gone. So feeding them out of puzzle toys or Kong as opposed to out of a bowl is a really simple, easy way to do that. Um, and then, you know, just basically enrich their environment, take a page out of the zoo keeper's book, um, and provide them with things in their environment that they have to forge through or rip apart or something, even if they're crated during the day, give them stuff in the crate, um, so that they literally aren't just left to lay around with a bowl of water and maybe a Nylabone that they've had for five years. Oh, I know that you recently published a series of podcasts on behavior change, talking about things like replacement behaviors. How can someone decide if what they need is just to teach a dog not to jump all over them or if they have a stress problem? And when is it time to look at things like nutrition and exercise? I mean, you got into this a little bit, but versus going back to foundations to prevent frustration and stress through clear communication, um, in that sport? The answer is yes. The answer is you should always be doing all of the above. Okay. Trying to look at behavior as one thing or trying to look at a problem behavior as one thing, um, meaning a behavior is always serving a function for the animal, right? So it doesn't exist if there isn't reinforcement present for it. It doesn't exist if it doesn't serve a function. So you always want to look at it like that first, and you always want to make a plan to change it that way first, but you have to understand that if the dog's needs are not being adequately met, that you may not be able to get anywhere with that plan. And then as far as deciding between, you know, do I just need a training program or do I also need a lifestyle change? Um, I think when most people get down to it and examine their dog's lifestyle, they will see the answer. I have certainly had clients who showed up and they were pretty much doing everything right. I just needed to tweak some training stuff that is rare, but that has happened. Um, so I think to try to make it a simpler answer, I think we should always, always assess the functionality of the behavior you'd like to change.

So if it's jumping all over you, try to look at what the dog is getting out of that and try to help them to get that a different way. Um, and make, you know, make a plan to do that. And then also be sure that the dog's needs are being adequately met because if you make a plan to solve this problem behavior, so like, let's say it is jumping all over you. Um, what do they need? You know, is it that they are, you know, missing you all day long and feeling lonely a little bit of, you know, assigning some human emotions here, but you know, is it, is it that, I mean, I do think that my dogs can feel lonely, but who knows? We can't have them. So, um. It's a dog podcast. You can absolutely do that. Right. Sure. So if it is that they're missing out on that human connection, you know, can we address that as well as making this behavior change plan and not just saying, I want to change this behavior, therefore I will, but also respecting that that behavior has a function and that behavior came from a need that this dog has. And it's up to us to fulfill it always. Most of our listeners are probably pretty familiar with the idea of stressing up versus stressing down. Um, that is having a dog that's easily over aroused versus one that completely shuts down. And I know that you have classes for both ends of the spectrum. So I wanted to ask a little bit about, um, you know, now that we've talked about these four steps and kind of the, a little bit about behavior change, how are the solutions to the problems different depending on which end of the spectrum the dog kind of falls on? Um, can you talk about that a bit? Sure. And the two classes are, I've got worked up, which is the dogs that are worked up just as it sounds. And then I call the other class hidden potential, um, which is about more of those stressed down types of dogs. And I get this question probably every time I teach a seminar on one or the other. So if I'm teaching a seminar on worked up type of types of dogs, the hidden potential dogs come up and vice versa. Um, and the reason that that's okay. And the reason that that should be kind of expected is because the solutions are similar. Both dogs are dealing with states of arousal that are not optimal, right? So if we've got a dog that is in a hyper aroused state, he's not able to do his job because his adrenaline is off the chart. And if we have a dog in a kind of suboptimal arousal state, he can't do his job either because he would rather go back in his crate and sleep, um, and his maybe board. If we are talking about anxiety or stress, then that's where things start to change.

So if we're talking about almost a temperament difference, um, we, we've all kind of seen dogs that movement for them is cheap. They move a lot and they move quickly versus dogs that, you know, if you're training a border collie versus a basset hound, right, you've got the border collie movement is cheap to them. They will jump a bunch of times. They can heal a bunch of times and that's, that's cheap for them. They have a lot of energy versus, you know, maybe your basset hound has less energy than that. And movement is more expensive for him. And so, um, then we're just dealing with differences in arousal states. And what we would do is play games to either bring the arousal up or bring the arousal back down. When we're dealing with anxiety or stress, um, that's where I might deal with it. And that's where I see most of the dogs that fall into the hidden potential category are, it's usually more of an anxiety based or a stress based, or maybe a fear based issue. Um, and that's where I would address it in a different way. So if we can identify what the stressor is, I would actually want to tackle that head on, um, with a kind of specific treatment protocol for whatever the stressor is. A lot of those dogs are worried about other dogs. Um, and then we go to a dog show where there's tons of them. And then a lot of them are worried about people and we go to a dog show and there's tons of them, but the good news is they can be helped with those, with those things. Certainly some of the worked up dogs are experiencing environmental arousal or environmental anxiety. And if they are, then we want to go down that path as well. And again, address it the same way. So a lot of the times the same solution exists. It's just that we're looking at a different picture in the beginning, um, and still trying to get to the same picture in the end. What are some of maybe the misconceptions people have about those kinds of issues or what, what do people commonly, you know, think about that maybe isn't a hundred percent accurate, uh, when it comes to stressing up or stressing down and managing that? And can you set the record straight? I think that, um, for the worked up types of dogs, the most common misconception that, um, I hear about is that these dogs lack impulse control. Um, that a lack of impulse control is the problem or that a lack of, you know, if we're going to be very accurate, we would be saying the lack of impulse control training is a problem. Just the, the phrase impulse control makes my eye twitch just a little bit, because I think

that it implies that there's like this intrinsic flaw in these dogs that if they can't control themselves, um, that there's something wrong with them or that T or that, you know, teaching them to control their impulses is something that we can do. I don't think that we can control their impulses one way or another. We can certainly control their behaviors with reinforcement. Um, whether or not we're controlling their impulses is probably one of those things that we would have to ask them about, kind of like asking them if they were lonely. Um, and if that was why they were jumping all over the person coming home. So I like to stay away from stating that lack of impulse control is the problem. Um, and I also think that in agility specifically, we accept that our dogs will be in extremely high states of arousal and absolute and be kind of losing their mind. Um, and we almost kind of want them that way. And any kind of calmness is kind of frowned upon, um, the dogs that are selected to breed for the sport tend to be the, you know, frantic, loud, fast ones. And looking at behaviors, you know, there's just, there's just kind of a distaste in agility. I feel, and I'm going to get a million emails about this. Um, I love agility people. I love agility. I'm just going to put that out there, but there is a distaste for calm and methodical behaviors in agility. We push for speed, speed, speed from the beginning. And we forget that sometimes maybe we should shut up and let the dog sink through the problem. Um, so I think to get back to your original question, what's the misconception? I think the misconception is that, um, we need to put them in a highly aroused state to create a good sport dog. And that impulse control is the be all end all of these things. And then for the hidden potential dogs, I think the misconception is just that they lack work ethic. You know, they say, you know, these dogs, they lack work ethic. They give you nothing. Um, they don't want to try their low drive, yada, yada. I think all, I think that's all misconceptions. Everything comes back to reinforcement. When you realize that reinforcement is the solution to everything, you can start to solve your problems and quit slapping labels on the dogs that you're working with. To kind of be clear, it's not that, you know, people who have a dog that's shutting down the ring aren't rewarding their dog enough. It's that there is a kind of misstructure there somewhere, right? Yes. Okay. Thank you, Melissa. And actually, I'm really glad that you said the word reward instead of reinforce because,

um, they probably are rewarding their dogs plenty. They're not reinforcing their dogs enough. And the difference is that a reward is just a nice thing that doesn't necessarily affect behavior. Reinforcement by definition affects behavior. So if behavior is not increasing, improving, et cetera, reinforcement is not present, though rewards well may be present. Um, so, you know, if you get a Christmas bonus at work, that's nice, but that's not why you showed up the rest of the year. Well, maybe, but. It's, I'm going to argue, it's not, I'm going to argue the paycheck that you got every other week, why you showed up the rest of the year. And then the reward might've affected your feelings about the job might've made you feel nicer about it might've made you feel nicer about, um, your boss. Um, or, you know, it could have the total opposite effect and be, you know, a $20 Starbucks card and you're like, thanks a lot. Um, but my point being, there's so many lovely, kind people who are rewarding frequently, who don't have enough understanding of the reinforcement procedures, um, that they could be utilizing to actually kind of increase the dog's behavior or change the dog's behavior. So I think, you know, I don't mean to apply that those people are not training well or train training nicely and training kindly and being generous. I think they probably are. In fact, they're probably a lot more generous than a lot of the people I see training the super high dogs. I see a lot of super high dogs that do not get a high rate, high enough rate of reinforcement in training, which is, that's just amping them up. Whereas the other end of the spectrum is that the other dogs are kind of shutting down. So thank you. Thank you for bringing that up. And I think, yeah, it's about the fact that, um, understanding that if reinforcement is present, then the behavior will be present as well. I am glad that, uh, that we went into that a little bit more because I think that was, that was good information that people maybe don't hear often enough. Um, yeah, so good question. Thank you. Thanks for answering it. So before I let you go, I mentioned earlier that you have, um, a series that you've been publishing on effective behavior change. And I wanted to ask a little bit about that. Um, so first, what led you to explore that topic? And I'm just excited about the topic constantly. But to be honest with you, um, I decided to explore the topic based on that dog trainers on the internet. So dog trainers on social media, um, talking about behavior change as a kind of mystical

thing when I'm very passionate about training as an applied science and understanding training as an applied science. And that certainly does not mean that I discount the art side of training because there certainly is an artistic side to it. Um, and before I ever knew anything about the science, the artistic side to it is what kept me in it. And so I think that's very, very important, but I do think that our industry would be better if all trainers recognize training as an applied science. Um, and when I say better, I mean, just serving the people and the dogs better. I, you know, just, I think that all, all dog trainers, no matter what kind of training they do or what kind of training background they have are in this because that's what they want to do. They want to serve the people in the dogs. They love dogs and they hopefully like the people who own them and they want to, they want to help, um, people to have better connections with their dogs. I think all dog trainers are after that, no matter what kind of dog training they do. But I do see a general kind of lack of recognition of dog training as an applied science. Um, and specifically, I think that a lot of positive reinforcement based trainers, especially on the internet can be very unkind to each other. Um, and I know this seems like, how did you come up with this podcast series based on that? This has nothing to do with it. Um, where, where I came to it and where I wanted to talk about it was because we really all should be generally training generally the same way. And we all kind of should understand some general basic principles. And I just don't see that as being reality. Um, we should all be able to talk to each other about the effects of reinforcement and punishment and, you know, what makes for effective behavior change instead of, I think what we talk about instead on the internet is how that one over that person's over there is doing it wrong. Um, and I, and this is how I would do it. And that's the right way to do it. When in reality, the right way to do it is treating it like an applied science. Um, and then there are certainly variations within that, but I'm basically talking about it because we need to be talking about it as an applied science. And I think, you know, we do that over at FDSA and Hannah does that on her, Hannah Branigan does that on her podcast really, really beautifully. And the more I think we talk about it as an applied science, I think the, the further we can get and the more kind of undivided we can become, and then the more dogs we can help.

So not to ask you to take these three episodes and kind of condense them into, uh, you know, one tiny short little blurb, but to do exactly that, I wanted to kind of talk a little bit about what you cover in them. Um, and I definitely fully recommend people go listen to all three if they haven't already. The first two have been out and I've listened to them and they're absolutely excellent. Um, and by the time this comes out, I know that you're planning on a third one and hopefully that'll be available. Um, but I did want to ask you to just share a couple of the key points or, um, major takeaways that you really want people to walk away from after they listen to those episodes. Definitely. Um, thanks for the plug there. Absolutely. I think you liked them and the all three should be available. Um, two of them are as we record this and I just recorded the other one today, so should be up soon. Um, the first one I did was just talked about replacement behaviors. So if we are trying to modify a problem behavior, we want to use a replacement behavior kind of to come in instead of that behavior. So what that means is that instead of squashing a behavior, getting rid of a behavior, we just kind of want to swap it out something else. And so we generally think about incompatible behaviors. So an incompatible behavior, an example of that would be the dog is dashing out the front door. That's the problem behavior we want to solve. And we can train the dog to go lie on a mat when the door opens instead. And that would be an incompatible behavior because the two behaviors cannot happen at once. But I also talked about the concept of alternative behaviors, um, which are not necessarily incompatible. And I think that's a really interesting concept that you can actually train the dog to sit. Um, let's say at the front window, let's say the dog is barking at, um, passersby. You can train the dog to sit instead. Now that's an alternative behavior. My dog, Iggy, can tell you she can bark while sitting just fine. Um, she doesn't need to be standing to be barking. So it's alternative because both the behaviors can still happen at once. But what's really nice about it is that if you're reinforcing that alternative behavior, the problematic behavior still does decrease. So in the first episode, we talk about, you know, what are some good qualities of incompatible or alternative behaviors? So basically what makes a good replacement behavior? And to really sum it up in short, what makes a good replacement behavior is that, A, it's incompatible or alternative. And B, it's already fluent.

So it's something that the dog already knows how to do. So there's a little bit more to it than that, but you'll have to go listen to it. So in the next one, I talked about antecedent arrangements or basically just the principle of manipulating the environment in which the behavior occurs, as opposed to attempting to manipulate the behavior itself. I think a lot of times as dog trainers, we really focus on trying to manipulate behaviors when we should be thinking more about manipulating environments. The third one that I recorded today is kind of the other end of the spectrum of the second one. So you can manipulate the environment and then you can manipulate the reinforcement. You can manipulate the consequences to the behavior. So the third episode is about reinforcement and specifically building what I call reinforcement strategies so that you have a huge toolbox of reinforcement from which to draw from. So the more ways that you can reinforce an animal's behavior, the more effective you are likely to be in attempting to change its behavior. So those are the three that I've got. I'm curious now and looking forward to hearing that third one and kind of rounding out the series. I'm really, I'm glad that you kind of tackled it. And I think it's been a great series so far. So cool. Thank you. Well, thank you so much for coming back on the podcast, Sarah. I know that you're in the middle of a long drive. So I will let you get back to that. But thank you. Thank you. Thanks so much. And thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in. We'll actually be back next week with Hannah Brannigan, who Sarah mentioned. Hannah and I will be talking about detail-oriented training, things like getting that miraculous tuck sit or the perfect fold back down. Don't miss it. If you haven't already, subscribe to our podcast in iTunes or the podcast app of your choice and 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 Sydney Spenzie 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. Music Thank you.