E183: 에이미 쿡(Amy Cook) - "반려견에게 감정을 느끼는 법 가르치기"

There are so many. No, all my listeners know I have two wonderful, amazing, head cockingly adorable dogs who are the best. And they are Marzipan and Caper. And Marzipan is my nine-year-old Whippet. And Caper is my, oh my God, you're four years old now, Chihuahua Terrier thing. And, you know, I was thinking about what, you know, what I'm working on with them because, you know, in pandemic times, a lot of your schedules just shift or your goals or your habits. And I was thinking about that in relation to our episode today. And it occurred to me that I could highlight that what I'm really doing, aside from what I think a lot of us are doing, which is, you know, selling the time with them, maybe just bringing up some tricks or running through their fun light stuff. I've realized that because of the change of the world these days, that Marzipan is feeling a little more pressed when we're out and walking. Gang. I have for a long time just walked them together. And I don't even usually walk in the neighborhood. I drive somewhere and go somewhere that they can decompress more. But now I'm more in the neighborhood. And Marzipan's not used to seeing quite so many other dogs out and quite so many other dogs who might be reactive out and being surprised more by sudden things than she used to. And also not getting other things in her life that were pretty typical before. So she's had a bit of an uptick in feeling the pressure outside, a couple of reactive moments I don't really love seeing. And so really for her, we've gone back to solo walks so that I can pay attention to how she's feeling. And I can do a little bit of management when need be and help her kind of restore, you know, the way she used to feel pre-pressured times, pre-pandemic times. So I've been doing management with Marzipan, which, you know, wasn't planned. But, you know, your dog tells you what they need and you have to do those things. And for caper, agility has started up again, which I'm super excited about. I have a, I'm very fortunate that my instructor has an outdoor space with, you know, that she can have with very few people and that we can be super socially responsible with. So I'm really glad to have agility back for her because that's a really fun thing for me. And that's it. Otherwise, she's perfect. A little barky, but perfect. So to kind of ease us into this topic of well-adjusted dogs, do you consider Marzipan and Keeper to be well-adjusted? Such an interesting question. I would, you know, without much thought go, oh, sure, of course. And then to think deeply on the topic. Okay.

Are they, or are there places where I would have, you know, where I either still work or would have made different choices in the beginning to get different results now? And I got to tell you, Marzipan's nine now. Um, just happy birthday. And I wasn't giving a lot of thought to this as a topic really deeply when she was a baby and, and thinking about who she has become now, right? She's now at the last, you know, third of her life and thinking about who she is and what she, what I, you know, I was gonna say made her to be, I mean, it's a, it's obviously a combination of forces, but the choices I made early on, I'm, I'm seeing. And I think I would have made different choices for her. I think she's well adjusted, but I think she feels certain pressures in certain social situations that I would have loved to have predicted better and paid different attention to than the attention I paid to it, like made different choices. So, you know, I'm, you know, they, both my dogs, you know, behave well in public and do just fine, but I can see where some of the choices I made, um, I've learned from now. And that's kind of why I, you know, think about this a lot and want to pass it on. I think both of my dogs are, um, they both enjoy people. They both enjoy dogs, but they both feel, I think a little pressured by them. Sometimes caper is hyper social. And while I'd like to think that that's all friendliness, I think some of it is a little bit of like, Hey, let me fix this relationship and make sure I really understand it before I let it go. And I always suspect there's a little bit of pressure in there. Um, which also led me to, to some choices around the well-adjusted dog material that I have. So I think they're well-adjusted. I think they're mentally healthy, but I think I've learned from raising both of them, uh, as, as hope, as I hope every dog trainer does, you get, every time you get your next dog, you're like, I got it. I figured stuff out with my last ones. And then, you know, you make your different mistakes, right? Um, you know, I think, I think I did a good job, but I think I've learned from it and, and want to pass on things that I hope I can do better with, uh, for the next time. Always to kind of dig in a little more there. How do you actually define the term if we're talking about well-adjusted dog? Right. So I asked a lot of people this, um, because it's, you know, a struggle with terminology. I think about us socializing dogs and how that, that word sometimes lands on people, um, a little too literally. And they think the entire goal of socialization is to be social. Right.

And in thinking more deeply about that topic, um, I'm thinking like, well, you know, what, what, what is it that we really want out of our, our pets? What is it we want from the animals we live with? And so I started asking a lot of people, what would it mean if you're to have your dog be well-adjusted? What kind of words would you, would you put to it? And to a one, they all said it a little differently, of course, but to a one, what people wanted were essentially three kinds of things. Um, people friendly, dog friendly, people, social dog, social, but without being super obsessed with that and without being super frantic about that or agitated, you know, someone, a dog who can be calm in different situations, both social and non-social dogs who are just resilient and can take whatever life has to offer without going really off, you know, off balance with that, neither shy nor overly focused on social situations. And I was a little surprised by that. I thought they would all say, I want my dogs to be friendly or friendly and confident or friendly and confident. And, you know, I don't know what I thought the third variable would be. And most people said, I want friendly, but I don't want like overtly over the top in your face friendly. And I get it. It's because that can be as hard to manage as a dog who is not because it's not particularly mannerly. Right. And it's hard to take a dog to someone else's house. If they're, they're so excited by the chance to be social that they're, you know, they can't hold on to a lot of their manners. So I think of well-adjustedness as I'm able to be easygoing when the situation is not directly stimulating for me. Like I don't need to perform a sport. You know, if I'm just coming somewhere to be a good citizen, I can handle that without any rough edges, no particular shyness in any, any areas, um, fears in any areas and, and just able to not need a lot of management. So a person who owns them can just make sure their needs are met, check that everything is okay. And mostly not super hyper managed, take responsibility for every behavior the dog performs. The dog can perform those behaviors and is trustworthy. That's what I would aim for. That's what I would hope that, that, that I could create, um, when raising a dog. I don't know. Do you, do you, uh, have any thoughts on whether you think that fits well-adjustedness? I mean, it certainly kind of meets my, uh, concept of it, right? I think, like you said, a lot of it is about being capable of handling whatever kind of life throws at them. And I think that's hard. I think it is hard.

I think we, we don't particularly breed dogs for that. Not that they, individuals aren't already like that, but it's not a job that is bred for a lot, right? So we're kind of asking dogs to, to be able to do that and working with whatever they came with. It's a, it's a, it's a goal rather than just a kind of a default or neutral state that dogs just give us. Yeah. So what goes into actually, you know, maybe raising a dog to be that way? Right. I think, you know, my, if anyone, anyone who works with me in person for certainly in the last several years has probably heard this more times than they need to, they need to tattoo it on themselves. But my, my mantra these days is predict and prevent maybe because it's alliterative, that's helpful, but predict and prevent, predict and prevent because most of us and, you know, trainers to when we're being dog owners, trainers to when we're being, you know, not on the ball, which is normal for daily life. Um, react to the thing that happened, see it happen and then do something about it, you know, and what we do about it, of course, is going to vary by, by system we have, but we're still sometimes behind the ball on that one instead of ahead. And when we stop and think about it, we of course all realize that you have to predict it's going to be a problem before it is. I know my dog typically is pretty bad at X. So since X is coming in an hour or around that corner or whatever, I need to predict that we're about to have a problem with my, my dog and I, um, and then prevent it. Now prevent doesn't mean avoid it exactly. Although avoiding is fine when that's, when it's right to do. Um, and you, you know, you're not going to be able to handle the situation or whatever, but preventing it is, is maybe, Oh, look, I'm going to connect some food to my dog's face and lure him, you know, away from the situation to prevent what he's about to do. Right. So if you can predict and prevent things, um, you are not letting problems be rehearsed. So, so where this, where this fits your, your question is if, if we're thinking about raising a dog to be well-adjusted, to be, you know, easygoing, if, as, if you want to broaden the scope of the word easygoing, it's not too narrow, you have to predict the kinds of things that dogs have trouble with almost universally, or at least could your dog could have this problem because dogs tend to have these problems, see them, predict them, and then put in training effort to prevent them from ever developing in the first place. Instead of finding out you have a problem, right.

After it's already happening or, or not assuming your dog would have a problem with this at all, because they are this kind of breed or this kind of dog. And then realizing you didn't put any foundation for that. So for me, what goes into raising the well-adjusted dog is, is predicting very common areas of stress for dogs. Um, and I can tell you what those are. And if, and, you know, anyone listening could, you know, take those general categories and then add to them ones that are really germane to either their own situation or their own dog breed situation. Right. Uh, if you have, have, uh, you know, a golden, you should add to your predict and prevent list, um, anti resource guarding exercises, because a great many golden retrievers happen to be also, you know, sometimes struggle with resource guarding. And, and so instead of waiting to see if yours is going to have that, you can just put all the prevention stuff, right, right in place and make resource sharing and, and, you know, not the non guarding of resources in your plan, therefore contributing to well-adjustedness because it might be that your dog is going to do that. And if you, you know, are with a breed who, where that almost never shows, then maybe you're going to put your efforts into something else. Um, I think all social scenarios for dogs are potential stressful, potentially stressful situations, um, either because they're pressed, they don't, you know, have the skills, they don't feel always very comfortable, or it's just so stimulating and exciting. And I think you can just across the board say meeting a brand new person or meeting a brand new dog, you can predict right away that there's, that they're going to need your guidance. They're going to need some kind of training for this. And if you can predict, that's going to be a problem and prevent it by training before, before that's ever really getting practiced, um, you are contributing to well-adjustedness because they're going to meet dogs and people for the entirety of their life, right? Most of them. And, and starting out right on the right foot there, I think contributes just, I don't know what percentage is going to say 90%, but most statistics are made up on the spot, right? 97% of statistics in fact are made up. Not like that one though. I didn't make that one up. I researched that one. Um, but it'll take, it'll take, you know, a huge percentage of the behavioral problems that people tend to, to face at least pet people when they call a dog trainer. They're saying my dog can't greet anybody.

My dog can't see a dog without flipping out or see a person without jumping all over them. And, and we think about that as a jumping behavior or a barking behavior, but I don't think of it that way. I think it's a much, much broader scope. It makes sense. I think if anybody who's been on Facebook knows that this is true, that everybody and their sister kind of got a pandemic puppy, um, in the last couple months. Uh, I know I've definitely suffered a little bit from puppy fever lately. Uh, all those pictures are hard to look at and not. I know, it's killing me. Everyone has a new dog. Um, but obviously right now that, that brings up some, uh, some difficulties, right? And, and, and it makes the process of raising a young dog for normal life. Um, if we ever go back to that more difficult. So what kind of thoughts do you have on what folks can do these days? Um, yeah, to raise your pandemic puppy, right? Um, Hey, alliterative again, predicting, predict and prevent for pandemic puppies. There you go. Say that a million times. Um, definitely challenging. Right. But I got to tell you a lot of us, we trainers, the, the, the trainers, uh, of the world kind of discovered or already knew and, and, and heaved a sigh of relief that actually raising a dog without everybody having comfort and just running up close to you and touching your stuff and touching your, your, your personal dog, um, is actually a real boon. It's a, it's a kindness. It, it helps raise your dog in a lot of ways. So I, I find it to be a little bit of a silver lining to the, to the pandemic that you can raise a dog well, um, and socialize him if you will. Well, during this, because it's really setting your dog up to succeed. And I'll, I'll say more about that in a second, but it's, it's not all just, you know, you know, rainbows and roses and such, because it, there's also the pandemic also gives us specific challenges around getting people inside houses. I think dogs later on, and this is not the scope of what we're talking about, but later on, when we go back to normal, I think we're going to have trouble with guests in the home. And I think you're going to have trouble with some separation anxiety. And I think that those are worth delving into all on their own. Right. But for getting your dog out, um, especially, you know, considering this is silver lining, I'll tell you why I think it's such, um, I love that I can say very quickly, social distancing and have absolutely every human being understand what I mean by that. So give me a wider berth, stay further away from me, right?

The further away you are, the easier it is for my dog to handle, uh, your presence as my dog is always a work in progress. Your, your new puppy is a work in progress for greeting people or walking past people. And, and your dog has to have two skills when it comes to all social situations, all potential social situations with either a new person or a known person or a dog. There's two possible ways it could go. One is we're going to greet. And the other is I'm going to be asked to completely ignore this situation and walk right on by without involving myself. Right. And, and both of those things have to be trained. Both of those things have to be prepared for. Um, in our times now, we're getting a lot more than usual practice in what it is to walk on by a person because people aren't as likely to come up and squeal and, and not ask you if it's okay to say hi and just touch your puppy and, you know, think of them as public property. So you're, if you're, if you think about it as a new owner, you're getting a chance to learn to walk on by people, which is a skill that is undersung and under explained and, and makes a dog a really good citizen walking through the world. Don't bother every single human being you walk past, right? Say hi only to select ones. That's what it is to be socialized. Say hi to the right people to select people and to just not be afraid of anybody else. Um, and so same with dogs, you can walk on by and you should. So this is, this is a great opportunity here during pandemic times. And then because we will be greeting, and of course, because you are greeting some of the people, um, new, new dog owners, I think should focus on keeping arousal down about the opportunity to greet. And in my material on raising a well-adjusted dog, I go into detail on each of the steps of those things. But the, the framework of it is I don't really want an excited dog taking that extreme excitement into the social situation. So I don't want a dog who is jumping up and down and straining at the leash to then go directly up to a dog and say, hi, it's not going to get a good reception. Probably. I shouldn't get a good reception. Somebody should school that dog. Rarf, don't do that to my back or whatever. Um, and I could list a long list of reasons why we don't want any of that to happen. But we don't want dogs, you know, released when they're excited because then that, that, that's how they're going to do next time too. And, and all this. And, and because you have such time for social distance right now, and people are not right

one foot away from your dog, you can be rehearsing and then therefore making habitual and making much more steady in them. And this sense of, I'm not straining to see them. I'm not dying to see these people. And so when I get a chance to see them, I'm not bringing in this hyper spiked up out of controlness. I am bringing in thoughtfulness. I can say hi in a way that is acceptable to both parties. Like dogs need to greet each other in an acceptable manner. Dogs need to greet people in an acceptable manner. Don't jump all over them. Don't, you know, rip at their clothing, whatever. There's many ways we can, they can do it wrong. And, and, and getting that, that over the top excitement that comes a lot of the time, not only, not always, but comes a lot of the time from how excited people are to see your dog when you're out there, kind of fostering that excitement in them. They don't create it. No dogs are often just excited all on their own. People are amazing to, to greet, but that's kind of shooting you in the foot. So having all this space to work on quieter greeting skills, to staying calm as you walk past people, to saying hi very briefly and then moving on, which is supported, you know, which is what we need to do in social distancing. I think, I think people, I think it's a great time to get a puppy, which is sad because everyone's getting them and I'm not. So it's a great time to get a puppy and I don't have one. You know what I want? I just want, I want to be like the world's puppy raiser. I want someone to give me a puppy and then I'll raise it like they, you know, like, like the service dog orgs, I will raise it for a year and I will give you back the puppy. I just want to keep raising dogs and giving them back because it's so much fun to create a dog and then like, no, I created you. Okay. Go have a life with the next person. So people getting dogs now are, please take heart. You, you may have some trouble later on with getting people in your house. You may have some trouble later on with separation and we can help you with that. But all the walking you're taking out there, if it's supported by predicting that it's difficult to greet people and preventing any kind of real focus on those people and, and unbridled excitement about that possibility, you know, if you're not greeting anybody, then you're not going to be hyper excited about the possibility of greeting anybody. And it takes it down a notch that therefore, when you do greet someone, it's like, well, at least I'm bringing in a steady energy level and I won't overreact.

So I think, um, I think it's, it's more than a silver lining. It's a good thick gold lining all around this cloud of cloud. It's a great time to get a dog. Please go out and get one. At FTSA, you obviously have two classes that run really regularly. You've got your management class and your boogeyman class. Um, I happen to have taken both of them, but it's been a while. So I want to kind of pull out some bits and pieces and talk about both kind of application and theory here. I think, you know, I think a lot of people kind of fail to realize the value of some of the pieces in the management class. Um, so I'd love to kind of have you share a little bit about what kind of skills the class teaches. Yeah. I think that that class, I really love that class. I'm super proud of that class. And it was a, it was a fluke because I kind of thought before giving real deep thought to it, I kind of thought, well, I don't know. Most people kind of get through. They sort of know how to manage, right? They know all the things one kind of has to do. And when I really looked at it, I thought, no, no, these are skills I have because I have a lot of experience with this. A brand new person isn't predicting or preventing anything. They're reacting after the fact. And management to me, management to other people is often, oh, you see a problem, manage your way through it, get through it. Management to me is predicting that this is going to be tough and taking over. Um, management is being the manager of the situation. Um, you know, a lot of people, you know, when we, when we think about buzzwords in dog training and people think, well, should we call it? It's not called dominance anymore. Should we call it leadership? What should we call it? My replacement word for that is, is to be a director. Like you're on the movie set, you're the boss of things, but you're just in the role of being the director and you're directing everybody where they need to go, what needs to happen. Um, and it's, it's sort of like being a manager. I just don't like thinking of myself as a manager. So I picked director, but in that frame, when your dog is going to have, be in a tight situation, a sticky situation, passing a dog, and they're not ready to do that yet because your training hasn't, you know, progressed that far or, uh, you know, seeing, uh, something that's worrisome for them and you need to move away from that. But your dog is a little stuck, that kind of thing. Yet that's your turn to take over. You see that there's a problem or you're predicting you're going to have one and you take over.

Instead of seeing what your dog's going to do and then responding to it or cueing your dog to do something and hoping they can follow a cue. If your dog could follow a cue really well and handle the situation, you wouldn't be in a situation that needed your management. You're just going to just live your life and tell your dog what to do if need be and move on. And it's, it's because your dog's having, having some trouble in these situations that you need your management system. And so, and so what management is to me, it means that you are taking over because your dog cannot do any of these things that you need them to do right now. Now, like all training, none of that is going to happen if you don't practice it ever, right? None of that is going to work if you only pull it out, um, in rough times when your dog's already pressed, your dog's already stuck, uh, your dog's already barking, um, your dog's already, you know, needing your help and is well beyond being able to, to follow anything you, you say. Um, so it takes, it needs practice and this is where people fall down. They don't manage their dog when they don't need to, and they manage their dog when they do need to, and then it doesn't work. So in my classes, I teach, in that one class, I teach skills that can be practiced when you don't have a problem that become very sharp for when you do have a problem and can use them. And one of the, and, and they, they range around how to get your dog to come with you without pulling on them on their, on their equipment and how to get them to hold steady in one place. Let's say while a difficult situation that's happening passes you by and you're not leaving, the situation is leaving. I'm had to keep them in one place and keep them busy and not focused on, on the problem. So it's, it's two pronged. It's how to move your dog really positively in a really fun way and how to keep your dog stationary, but not sitting and staring at the problem, actually having some fun and, you know, doing some find it's and doing a whole variety of, of different skills. I don't know if I should go and go more into the skills or. I mean, I think we can kind of, we can talk through some of them. I mean, I think, I don't know what the right word is. Overlooked feels so like not, not enough somehow. You know what I mean? Like, I think that, that like for somebody who's actually living with a reactive dog, having good management skills on board has the potential to really change your relationship with your dog. It has the potential to like change your life with that dog because it takes situations that

cause fear and trepidation and anxiety in the human half of the team and give them the tools to deal. Right. But also it prevents the things, if you do it well, like it can prevent the things that make you feel bad about and yucky about your dog. And you get out more, right? These dogs are getting out. A dog who is well managed, even if not well trained. And I guess I should parse that apart because everything's training, right? Um, it is going to get out more. The dog who is easy to walk is a dog who gets walked. The dog who's difficult to walk is staying home. And the person who's not walking them feels terrible, um, or takes them out and feels terrible. And it's my, you know, job in life to make people not feel terrible, um, with, with their dogs and have their dogs not feel terrible. Right. That's, that's the entire reason I'm sitting here. And so, um, having good management skills, uh, gives your dog the freedom to get out and gives you less frustration about getting them out. And, and sneakily really is training. I don't bill it as training. I don't talk about it as training, but it's honestly the kind of stuff I would do early on in my career as the training for reactivity. Um, teaching dogs to come along, teaching dogs to find it, teaching dogs to focus on you when things are difficult. These are the things I would do to train dogs who were having struggles with reactivity. And now I moved that all into the management piece because I, I treat reactivity differently through the playway. Um, and I, I took all the skills I used before to get dogs to, to get dogs to move through the world, uh, and put it in the management side because, and, and just added the piece, added the tone that has the person taking a lot of charge person, taking a lot of responsibility for how it goes and not just cuing dogs. I think people get stuck in that sense of, I asked him to sit so that he wouldn't lunge and bark, but he couldn't follow the city. I said, sit, but he couldn't do it. It's like, well, he, yeah, you can't follow a cue right now. This is why he needs you. Um, but the things that we do in management, uh, the, the kind of the biggest one that takes the most practice is the, is the magnet walking. And it's, it's distinct from what people tend to do. But the reason why it works is because it's really hard for a dog to ignore. It's easy for a dog to not hear you said, hear you say sit or be able to follow it because like, yeah, whatever I have, there's, don't you see the dog over there? Oh my God. Why would I sit? Uh, it's harder for them to ignore food going in their mouth.

Um, it's harder for them to ignore really good food at a, at a clip, at a rate that is not usual for them happening. And I know people out there saying, yeah, my dog ignores it. I'm like, yeah, but if you did six weeks of practice without the dog across the street, pulling on your dog's, um, attention, it would be a lot better. So, uh, what I have people do is learn magnet feeding and how, what's distinct about it is that it's not one at a time food. It's not give your dog a, uh, uh, deliver a cookie to your dog's mouth and then go back and reload your hand and deliver that one again to your dog's mouth. That leaves too much space for your dog to in the, in the time you're reloading, it's too much space where your dog can, can still blow up or still need you to structure them. So I take an entire fistful of food. I put that entire fistful right on their nose and I unfurl those fingers as they're eating that entire fistful, like a magnet is stuck. Your hand and their nose are magnetically connected and you're walking together. And I tell you, when people first try that it's food all over the floor, it's bitten hands, not bitten, but you know, hands that are like, ow, it hurts too much. Um, it's, uh, a fist that empties too quickly. Cause you just open your hand and then gulp and now what, um, or people lure, they put the food there, but then they don't let the dog get any of it until they're past the situation. Then they can have the cookie and all of those things don't work. So we take all the time to practice how to actually move a dog from A to B while that face is entirely busy. And then I add kind of like, I think this is a little distinct from other, other, um, programs I've seen. I also add kind of an acting component and a human component. Um, most people, when they're luring their dog or feeding their dog or looking at their dog, but you can't get through a tight management situation looking only at your dog's face. You have to be able to look around. You have to be able to see where you're walking or look behind you to see where the trigger went or, you know, not trip or any of that. So when I have my hand, my, my magnet hand full of food on my dog's nose, I can feel him eating. And as I'm feeling him eating, I'm actually free to look around and not look at my dog because I can tell that my dog is busy and, and on the food. Um, if you're not touching your dog, you have to look at them to make sure they're not staring at the wrong thing, but if you can feel your, their hand with your, feel their, their, their nose with your hand, you have the freedom to look around.

And so in the class, I have people, all kinds of things. They'll, they'll look up, they'll look around. They'll, um, I have them saying things like talking to fake people. Cause they might in real life say something like, could you call your dog, please? I, you know, I, I can't come that direction or no, thanks. He doesn't want to say hi. You might actually talk to people when you're trying to manage your dog and your dog knows when you are not paying attention to them. And that's exactly when they're going to bark. So, um, I have people practice and like get an Oscar in this class. You can do it. Pretend there's a person there. Um, and we really practice as if there's really stuff going on. The dogs are like, oh, this is just so fake. Give me the cookies. It's just put, put your, put your cookies on my nose. Let's go. I want to walk. And they just get so much easier to move places. People need to put the practice in, but once they do. Um, boy, it's like, it's like, uh, it, it sort of like how training works. It just kind of seems like, well, I just practiced it. Now my dog knows how to do it. How crazy is that? Yeah. How crazy is that? You know, we, once we put in the time, all of a sudden you can walk your dog past anything because, because a good habit is just as hard to break as a bad one. And if they have a good habit of sticking their face in your fist and really trying to get those pieces of food out, uh, it'll, it'll get you past the really rough spots. And that's just one of the skills. There's, you know, three skills a week, uh, in that class that a lot of them are variations on the magnet, but, but then there's also the stationary skills to, to keep dogs in one place while the parade of children across the street are, you know, that's, I, I say that, uh, that seems like a joke, but it's actually in one of the videos in the class where I was just filming myself. Myself, I put my camera on my front yard and then I was across the street and I was going to just show myself walking up and down. And right as I started to walk, I was looking at my dog. I look up and a parade of children, a literal parade of children, like four or five children with their, their jump ropes and their hula hoops and their tutus were coming down the streets. And I'm like management right now, real time. Here I go. And I show that video in the class. It's like, I didn't, I didn't set those children up. They came out of nowhere. You never know when a parade of children will, will be, you know, coming your way. So you better get your magnet skills together, but it's fine.

And you know, and when you take a walk with your dog often, I know you want to just either look at your phone, which frankly you're doing all day anyways to stop or meditate or have, you know, have your own thoughts be lost in your thoughts. And while I get that, I think it's really good for you and your dog to go on a walk where you are both engaged with each other and where you're watching your dog and you're saying things to your dog and you're giving them cookies for things. So these, these management skills are, um, you're, when, when you're having the, the opportunity to practice them, you can practice them on all of your walks, whether or not anything showed up that required management, you're getting to practice it all the time. And it makes the walks interactive and, and fun. And while that's not everyone's idea of fun, sometimes you have to do it because your dog's reactive. And so you're going to have to, I suggest everyone do it because it is fun and you should adopt my definition of fun. No, because, because it just is to have a nice conversation while you're walking every couple of blocks, you stop and you do a fun thing. It's a nice way to spend time with your dog. So I just put that out there for you listeners, get out there and manage for fun, not just for purpose. Yes. Yeah. Why not? Really? What we're talking about here is building fluency, right? Yeah. Building fluency, but you know, in the human half. And, and we often think about fluency being a dog, you know, dog getting good at what they do, but you have, if, if you're going to, your job is not to cue behaviors. You don't have to get very fluent in cueing stuff. Come here, sit, let's go. You already speak those things. You don't need fluency there. But if you're going to manage, you have a half to this dance. You are, who was it? Is it, is it leading the dance? Is that, that's one of, that's. I don't know. Who is that? Some listeners. It is somebody. Yeah. Into it. Is it Alesby? No. Is it, is it Trish King? It's somebody. It's like that. It's like, you have a half to and getting to fluency for your dog is only half the story. You have to get to fluency. And I'm telling you, you connect a magnet and you start picking up your face to look somewhere else and say, no, thanks. I don't want to say hi right now. You're dropping food all over the place. You've walked into your dog. Now you, your dog left you to go find the food that you dropped. Like the whole thing can be crazy. So you need to practice this too. And I tell you walking a reactive dog, and I know this isn't only for reactive dogs, but

when you're walking a reactive dog or a fearful dog, you are stressed too, because you don't know when it's going to happen. You don't know. You're not that good at predicting yet. And when you're stressed, you're not having a great time on this walk and you're going to do it less. But if you have a fluent, fluid management system, if you know that if X happens right now, I'm doing Y and I've already practiced Y. So I just know I'm going to do this and it's fine. You have a, you are calmer. You're like, well, I can handle anything that comes up. I'll just do this. And we both pop into management. Dog does their half. I do my half. We're at a dodge and the problem's over and it wasn't even a problem. And you just feel so confident in yourself. And that kind of bleeds back to your dog. And now we've got a positive feedback loop going and there's really just not a downside. I mean, any dog needs management. It's not just for the reactive ones, but, but it's really good for the people to, to feel like they're competent and know what they're going to do if something happens. Right. I mean, we all do disaster preparedness. We're certainly doing a lot of that now. There's no reason why you should disaster preparedness for your dog. It's not disaster, but you know. Yeah. Confidence comes from, from practice. So obviously those things are awesome for reactive dogs, but I can totally see, you know, other opportunities to use those things, even for non-reactive dogs. And maybe especially as we kind of start to go back to the normal world with dogs who maybe haven't had a lot of exposure to large crowds of people and things like that in the near future. Transports at a dog show, getting an over-friendly greeter, pass the easy to knock over a six-year-old out on a walk, like, you know, that kind of stuff. So what other types of scenarios can you think of where those skills, you know, they come in handy? They come in handy. They come in handy everywhere. They come in there. It is not just for reactive dogs. And I, I, you know, it's, it's tough to title a class, I title it, Manager for Reactive Dogs, because I want people who have reactive dogs to come to it. If I titled it Management for Everyday Dogs, maybe the reactive dog owners wouldn't come. Right. But I, I'd like everyone to understand that it's really just a dog skill. Um, there will never be a time in your life where you have a dog who never is unprepared for a situation. Every dog is bested by something. Um, every dog is unprepared for something they've never seen. Every dog needs a little help somewhere, or at least most of them do.

And maybe doubly so now that we are a little strange right now. And one day we will go back to being not so strange for us, but that will be strange for your dog, especially if he was just born. He was just born now, right? During, during this, and there's been no other reality. So assume that no matter how your dog feels about things that you see currently, assume that in your lifetime with them, you will see things that they're unprepared for, or you will be closer to something than they're prepared for that you just didn't see coming. Um, so, you know, classic examples are walking past, past people that, you know, uh, are going to be too close to you now. They weren't so close before, but now they are walking past more rambunctious children that maybe weren't playing outside before or so much or able to get, you know, you weren't passing on the same sidewalk. Um, and, and really like marzipan is the example. Uh, there's so many other dogs out there now. And a lot of them are only getting leash walks now. Maybe there's no more, you know, park for them to go to. Um, so maybe, you know, dogs are, you know, maybe your dog is perfectly fine with other dogs, but how long do you think it'll take with other dogs barking at your dogs over and over again for your dog to start going, Hey, you know, I don't so much love this, right? You can prevent a problem and you're already easy going. Well, it's just a dog by feeding them magnet style past things that they're okay with right now, but might not be okay with by next year. And then certainly when everything gets much bigger by next year or whenever that is, um, they won't have seen it or won't remember it. So, you know, I manage my dogs past other dogs all the time. I want my dogs to think passing other dogs is about an opportunity with mom every time so that they have a big buffer, a nice thick ice that they're skating on for when that dog inevitably at some point one day lunges or barks at them. They'll have some, you know, hundreds and hundreds of times of walking past dogs and going like, yeah, this one's fine. And this one's fine. It's a, it's a preventative for, for, um, for problems. And then, um, being able to keep your dog from kind of blowing up kind of over, being overexcited and whatever the tone of the excitement is, whether it's kind of agitation from being a little unsure or a little fearful or stressed from something or being overexcited because of the wonderful opportunity that has, that has just prevented itself. Either of those things is just difficult to handle.

And when you, you know, when you, you should certainly put training into that, which we talked about in the well-adjusted portion, but, but if you didn't and, you know, something just kind of surprised you, you want to have management skills, very easy to, to completely pull out to every dog say, well, I guess I'm being managed here. I know what to do. I do my half. I'm going to perch on this wall and I'm going to eat my food. And this opportunity that I thought was an opportunity is just not one. Okay. I can handle it. You know, I don't like it when dogs think that being thwarted is a huge problem. You know, we, we, we all learn how to be thwarted. We all learn how to not get our way and not have that be the end of the world, right? That is what, that's what separates your childhood from adulthood is like, you don't get what you want, but you don't have to make it be the worst thing ever. You just go, well, I didn't get what I wanted. Okay. Let me see what comes next. Right. And if a dog doesn't get a lot of practice in disengaging from stuff that they thought they were going to get, or really, really want to have, um, you have a bigger problem on your hands than, than if you're walking a dog who really wanted something and you said, yeah, not this time, buddy, here's some cookies. Let's go. And they said, all right, that's fine. That dog you can take anywhere and know you could handle even something unexpected because they have practice at not just walking with you, but wanting something and having you veto it and say, sorry, this isn't going to happen. And then just going, all right, then I guess I'm okay with that. Right. That, that is a, that's not, that's not something you get out of the box. That's something you have to culture in them. That's something you have to help them come to step-by-step, you know, with, you know, with realistic steps, but you know, puppies are exuberant about everything. And by the time you have a well-seasoned older dog, they're like, yeah, I can handle all this stuff. Well, that's not by accident, right? That's with experience and with you handling them in a way that supports that. So management is for every dog because you just, you, you never know. And you want a dog to let go when you say we can't do that. You want them to go, all right, that's fine. I'll, we'll just get it next time. Right. That's, that's a dog that's easy to live with and easy to take anywhere. And, and one day we'll be able to take all our dogs everywhere. And one day I'll see a person in real life and shake your hand and have a hug one day. Yeah. You said in there, uh, you know, next year.

And I was thinking, I know, I just keep saying that as if that's true. It's not true. I'm sorry, people. I won't be next year, but one day. We can hope. One day. For those, you know, for those dogs who kind of opposite of what we just talked about, those dogs who really do have big feelings, as Sarah Stroming likes to say, um, for that, you know, there's your boogeyman class, which, you know, if management is about the skills for kind of getting through it, then, um, boogeyman, which is where you teach your signature playway method, um, is for actually kind of doing something about those yucky feelings or those big feelings. Right. Those feelings are so big. Can you kind of talk us through the concept? Yeah, I can. And especially in combination with, that's not the word I want in contrast to, uh, management. Um, I see them just completely separately. I see them as separate, very separate things with just almost no overlap as a, as concept. But of course they overlap in real life because you might flip into management at any given point. So all things yin and yang overlap all over the place. Um, but, but the issue with management, so it says that the human needs to be the manager here. The human needs to be the director here because your dog can't do it. Your dog is pressed. Your dog is bested. Your dog can't do it. Needs your help. Needs your support. You have to take over. Um, well, that's all well and good that you can do that. But ideally you would like to be in situations that your dog didn't feel bested by and didn't particularly need your help to handle. You want your dog to just be like, yeah, that's a thing. And, and so what? Right. Um, a great many dogs can walk right through the city streets and have cars and buses and all, all manner of all sorts of stuff just going on by. And they're like, yeah, that's just how the world is. Right. Whereas other dogs would be, what the hell is all this chaos? Um, and so you don't want to have to manage is, is the ideal. So how do you, what do you, how do you get there? If your dog needs management, they need management. And if they don't need management, they're not having a problem. What's that in between place? Well, um, the, the, the thing that started me on this path was that often we flip into some kind of management or support role. When a dog has looked at a trigger, my dog has looked at, has noticed, has seen, has registered the thing that makes them upset. Let's just call it a new dog. Right. And, um, my dog's using the loudest toy in the house right now. Thanks. Nobody can hear it, but if you hear a loud toy, well, there you go.

So you, your dog sees the thing, sees the dog. And upon seeing the dog, maybe immediately has these big feelings. Thank you, Sarah. And can't handle staring at that dog, can't handle looking at that dog. And you know that. And so you help them through that. You break that focus with the cookie. You move them away. You predict it was going to be a problem and you never let it start. All of that. But the problem that's really happening there is that your dog is very close to the thing that they're looking at, because if they could have looked at that thing from a much greater distance, they very likely would not have had the same problem. When you are much farther away from scary things, you are less scared. That's just kind of one of those truisms, right? It usually applies. It applies to almost all situations. I'm sure someone will find me an exception. But I am much better a mile away from a spider than I am an inch away from a spider. I just am. And so when your dog sees a thing and starts to react, yes, you need to help. But you should also infer that they're just too close and can't handle the pressure, the fear, the trigger of the situation. What the playway does is says, well, we're going to use really enormous distances. Really enormous distances. The distance determined by whether you can look or not and not be interrupted by me and not be managed by me at all. So I place the dog, let's say, really far. And that is, I'm saying that highly specifically. You just put it really far, like far, like over there. That's where it is. Over, far over there. If you could see my hand now, I'd be making the far over there gesture. I don't know, 300 feet, 20 feet. It depends on the dog. Far away. And then you say, go ahead and look, dog. I'm not going to interrupt you. I'm not going to try to break your focus. I'm not going to pull your nose away from that. I'm not going to reward you for not looking at it. I'm not going to reward you for looking at it. I'm just going to let you look at this thing. And what that should do, what that actually does in all sorts of real life fear situations with all sorts of species studied, ourselves included, is it lets real information get in. So if you're scared of something unknown in the distance and you look at it long enough, you will come to comfort about it. Oh, I see what it is actually. Oh, it's really that thing. Or, oh, it doesn't mean any harm. Or, oh, it's just a dog out there. It's not coming over here. It's not doing anything. It exists 300 yards away. Okay. I guess that's okay for now. That's fine. And you're kind of hands off about it.

Now, what the play part of it is, is that I think people are not particularly very good at knowing that their dog is okay. I think dogs look okay when they're not. I think dogs aren't going to show the early levels of feeling stressed by something. And when you're picking how far away something needs to go for therapy to let them look at it, you also are honor bound to make sure inside themselves they are feeling okay. Now, it's hard to know how an animal is feeling, right? We can't know how an animal is feeling. But what we can do is engage in behaviors with them that give us good information, that put us on more solid ground. And for me and for the testing I've done and the exploring I've done, the best behavior I can find to ensure that I've got a good sense of how they feel and that they're under threshold and doing okay in this looking behavior is play. And it's specifically not play with, it doesn't have food in it and it doesn't have toys in it because each of those might hide how my dog is feeling. A dog will eat food when they feel stressed, some of them. A dog will play with toys when they feel stressed, some of them. But I have yet to see a dog who will play lazily with a silly, you know, tone to it, kind of floppy upside down, like how we do jaw wrestling with puppies and how they are. I haven't yet seen a dog who can do that while they are scared and stressed by something in the environment. And so I teach my students to play in that manner, in that specific manner, so that they can use that as a bit of a litmus, use that as a barometer of sorts, while their dog is engaged in looking at things that otherwise might have upset them if they were up close. So the thing is really far, the dog is looking, but it's like, meh, it's not really that bad. Hey mom, hey dad, what are we doing here? What are you doing? And you're like, I'd love to just play with you right now. What do you think about it? And the dog says, you know, I'd like to play, but I'm not so sure about that thing over there. Well, if that's what your dog says to you, that's good information because now you know you need to add another hundred feet to that before your dog is comfortable. But if they said, yeah, there's a thing over there, but I don't really care about it because it's really far and it's not doing anything scary to me. So I would love to play with you, right? It keeps people honest. It keeps us much more accurate. I believe about whether our dog is or is not over threshold and facilitates the kind of the good relaxing feelings that, that brings up the therapy.

So instead of the big feelings now, they've been able to engage with the trigger from a place of safety where it's really far away. And they're proving that they feel safe and okay by engaging with you in play that we all know would disappear if they didn't feel safe. So you have something to lean on instead of just your guess that they're under or over threshold. And your dog gets to look openly at something that otherwise has scared him before and gather all the information he might need to, to realize that he actually is safe. Now you're doing this with things that are safe, right? You're picking dogs that are, that are legitimately safe for your dog and they're really far away. So they are safe. They're on leash and everything. But increasing your dog's feelings of safety is always our goal. And in the play way, I'm trying to say, Hey dog, you can discover that you're safe. You can look at things and feel safe. And I will use play to make sure I'm setting this up successfully so that you will be successful. Play is not just for them to feel good. Play is also to keep a trainer honest. And, and these things are hard to do every single, like you can't do that on every walk. Like these things are special setups. You practice play at home. You practice play in all kinds of different environments. And then you set up things to teach your dog that he is safe. And that's not happening on walks. It doesn't happen ad hoc. It doesn't happen like in an impromptu session until your dog is well down the path of doing this. I mean, my dogs could, could play an impromptu session if I was a little worried about how they might feel, but that's their advanced dogs in the system. So since you're going to be also walking your dog, you know, not just doing therapy every single minute of the time that you're out there, you need a management system to be able to just walk and get through things. And when your dog can't handle it, you use management. When your dog can handle it, you go ahead and you let them look and you leave that decision to them using play only to check that you've made good choices and that your dog is still okay and doesn't need your help. So that's not a nutshell. I was going to say that's it in a nutshell, but I'm impressed to ever put anything in a nutshell. If anything ever listened to me talk, if anyone's still listening to me talk right now, I don't know what the word nutshell means. I can't compare me where I asked is a dissertation for me, but yeah, we were talking about names for the episode earlier and, you know, we could just call it not in a nutshell. Not in a nutshell.

Amy, I can't keep her in a nutshell. Come listen to her. Come listen to her. Just out of her nutshell. Yeah, I'm in a nutshell, right? I'm so contained. I'm so self-encompassing. Obviously, like I think even from just that description, it's pretty obvious that playway is not like a lot of the other methods out there, right, for working on reactivity. You kind of mentioned in there, you called it therapy at one point. You know, I know I've heard you relate it more to human therapy than traditional like counter conditioning or desensitization stuff. And I know a lot of time people kind of get wrapped up in the quadrants when talking about this stuff. But I was kind of curious just thinking about it while I was putting questions together. And, you know, does the playway even fall kind of into the quadrants? Is it are we really reinforcing behavior? Right. You know, this one's fun for me because I like to deal in concepts. And I don't mean in training concepts that too, but in concepts for making humans understand stuff better. I like analogies and I like people talking about concepts themselves so that they are in the mental space I need them to be in to do the work. And I don't I specifically don't want that confused with truth of what's actually maybe happening under the surface because I don't know what's happening under any surface for real. Right. We only have behavioral measures and and we only have techniques we can apply and reasonable guesses, reasonable predictions that we see if they bear out or they don't. Right. And so when I talk about it as outside of these normal concepts we use in training, it is not to say and therefore none of those concepts are happening. And opera conditioning isn't here and there's no classical going on. Right. Which is not what it is at all. That's always happening. And I stipulated I believe it to the depths of my soul. Those are always happening. But to get a person to do this well, I need them thinking a little bit less, in fact, entirely less about the quadrants and entirely less about classical conditioning. Because when we think about those things, when we bring up the skills we've learned that are connected to those models and we react in ways that are very much that is consistent with dog training. And I don't want you doing any of those. Now, just because I've stopped you from doing those in the playway doesn't mean they aren't happening. They can be happening. They probably are happening. I don't know. But I want you not to think about doing that on purpose. And then therefore what happens not on purpose? Fantastic.

So to put a finer point on that, a good example is in the engagement, disengagement portions. When they look at things and then they dismiss that. I call that look and dismiss when they look at something in the environment and then they dismiss it. Say, like, I'm done looking at that. Anyway, what were we talking about, mom? And they want to engage with you. In that portion, most people want to reward. They want to reward the looking behavior or reward the disengagement. Either one. Reward something regarding looking with the dog. Or if they're in the classical frame of mind or thinking about the forces there, they want to make an association for the dog when the dog is looking at the trigger. Or right after the trigger is presented, they want to do something fun or play right then, right? And therefore make an association for the dog. And that would be the wrong place to put play in the system. So if I can get people to stop thinking about rewarding their dogs for this, doesn't mean reward isn't happening. Doesn't mean underlying forces are like I'm not commenting on those. They're probably happening. They're happening all over the place. Maybe probably. They're happening. But you're not directly trying to insert yourself in the model by rewarding a thing on purpose. Nor are you trying to specifically follow one stimulus with another stimulus on purpose to connect them in the dog's mind. Neither of those things are your aim in the playway. You need to play out of that model. Play in a timing. Your timing of play is in neither of those places. It's not going to happen right after the trigger presentation at all. First of all, your dog's busy looking at it. So mind your own business. Let your dog do his own thing. And secondly, when your dog disengages and looks at you, most trainers are going to want to play right then or reward right then or have a reaction right then. And when I was starting doing this, starting developing this, I did too. And I just kind of thought of it. I'll play instead of rewarding here, instead of rewarding with a cookie here. And then it has evolved through the thinking and through the practice to where if you play right then, if you try to do something right then as your dog disengaged, what I saw happening was, think of this as a person. When you, so there's somebody across the street, somebody down the block, and you're concerned about them for some reason. They look dangerous to you in some fashion. And you're looking at them. And then you look away to say something to your friend, look at your friend or whatever.

But you know how part of you is still thinking about that person. And you're still attending to that person. And you haven't really wrapped up your thoughts and your feelings or really dismissed it. You haven't changed the channel in your head to something new. You're kind of still lingering in your thoughts there. But you're looking at your friend, right? I think, now I'm not saying I know what dogs are thinking. I'm saying that if, when they looked away from it, they were still having an ear toward that. They were still thinking. They were still processing. Still busy with whatever the effect was of looking at that thing. If you jumped in with a big response, you might shortcut that whatever process they're in. And so to experiment with that, I decided, well, we're not going to play right then. We're just going to connect then. I just say, hello. Hi. How are you doing? And I read if they have full attention on me with like full expectation face and ears forward and happy body. Or if there's still one ear still looking over back where they were looking with their eyes before. Or something like they're just glancing at me, but they're not really connected to me at the glance. And then they sniff and then they look at me. And then they look back. Like if you give it a space of time, you'll see whether your dog who looks at you is actually really engaged. Or looks at you, but is just about to plan to look away from you. But you usurped that by playing all of a sudden. Right? If you let the process unfold a little bit and play only when your dog says, you know what? I am done with that actually. What were we doing? Do you want to do something? Well, now they've instigated the play. They've told you they'd like to do something. And you can, I guess, reward that if you like to think of it that way. You can play right then. And it won't be directly connected to the disengagement that they did. Now, by chain of events, it certainly could be rewarding that. Right? But I'm asking the person to not act like they are so that they feel a little more, that they can stretch that time and not feel the pressure of making sure they mark or reward something in real time when it's happening. Give it space. Let your dog do the thing. Let your dog drive. When we are rewarding and building classical associations, we feel like we're driving. We are the managers again. We are the directors of the show. And we're driving all of this. And I ask people in the playway to let the dog do more of that. Let the dog make more decisions. And you listen. And you offer play when it seems like play would be welcome between both of you.

And it's a subtle one. It's a hard one. It's not always an easy one to teach people. It's why I take the whole six weeks and I really build that sensitivity in people to slow it all down. Don't keep rewarding. Now, again, that said, it doesn't mean that reward isn't happening entirely. It could be what's underneath all of it. But I can't get people to change if I have them focusing on quadrants and on classical conditioning. They put their techniques in too early in the process. And they're looking for specific behaviors to mark and to say, yes, that behavior I liked. And I want the dog to kind of have a little more space to do whatever it is they're doing on the inside that I can't see. And that's how we do it with people. So that's what I want to apply to dogs. Not to stick an analogy on it, but to kind of stick an analogy on it. It's, you know, the difference between having somebody ask you how you are and knowing that they expect you to say good and move on with the conversation. And having somebody ask you how you are. And listen to the answer. And they're going to listen to you. Right. And to, you know, to jump in too early in a conversation, someone's telling you something difficult and they pause. They're probably still in that thought and are maybe reframing the sentence for a second and maybe want to say the next thing they're thinking. But if you took that pause to be like, oh, the same thing happened to me. Oh, my God. Let me tell you. It's like, yeah, okay, humans do these things. But when a person is in a place trying to get through something emotionally a little difficult, giving them space to process as long as they're not losing that, as long as they're not struggling and need you to step in and help them. Well, that's why you have 300 yards or whatever it is. Please don't write that down. But, you know, that's why the thing is far away so that the dog who's thinking about it can take a breath and kind of go, okay, what is happening here? And do I am I actually under threat? Do I really feel unsafe? Because why dogs are reacting? I don't know why they're reacting for sure. But I think a speculation about why they're fearful and why they're reacting is a misunderstanding of a real situation. I mean, you know, people, dogs are afraid of people. Dogs are afraid of strange people. Dogs are afraid of strange men. And the vast, overwhelming majority of strange men in the world are not a threat to your dog. Your dog thinks they are. Your dog is in a real situation. But your dog is not correct because those people are not actually dangerous. So your dog is in a misconception place.

And your dog is the one who needs to come to a new understanding. And I know most of the time when we've trained this, we've said, I'll teach you that that man is safe by following it with good things, following his presentation with really good things, right? And I'm not saying that's wrong. I use it all the time in certain situations. But what the play way is doing is saying, you can discover that these things are safe if I make sure that they are safe and then make sure to give you a large distance so that you can also feel safe. And then I let you explore this space. And I'll be here supportively to make sure you're still feeling safe in your body, still feeling floppy, still feeling connected to me, still feeling like I'm here. All these soft concepts, right? And I mean, I took a flyer on it. It just seemed like a theory that could hang together and not work at all. So I just started to see what it would do. And I really like what I see. So I encourage people to take the pieces of it and think about what it is to give your dog a chance to discover those things rather than being only treated through classical conditioning. Although all of this is classical, right? They discover that they feel better. They have now relief. And that relief is, you know, paired with the situation. So really, I do know that underneath all of this is all classical. Underneath all of this is all operant. I absolutely know it. But I can't teach it to people if I don't separate the concepts so that people can slow down. Because, you know, you and I, you mentioned the conversation and you and I or you and a friend aren't thinking classical or operant concepts when you're talking about their divorce. They're telling you how it feels. And you're not thinking about rewarding their great sentences that explain well how they're really feeling. You're in a different space. It doesn't mean you're not rewarding it, but you're not thinking about doing it that way. And I think at least that's the way I've learned to teach it to people. If I learn another way to teach it to people or if someone else out there takes it in another direction, I'm all for it. But letting someone finish their sentence and letting someone, which I know you're thinking, is Amy ever going to finish a sentence? That's what you think. But I just keep sentencing. Just letting someone finish their sentence and then have a space of thought about the next sentence is a kindness we rarely extend, I think, to dogs. I think we rarely extend it to children.

And a lot of this work comes from my studies of children, my work with children, and how to demonstrate respect for someone else's process. And that's kind of what fed into some of this. And I keep developing it at least as much as I can. I stopped. That was the end of my thinking. You didn't jump in fast enough, so I talked again. Now you're punished. Now you're punished. Now you're already heading in the right direction for the next question. So the next thing I wanted to ask you was kind of where you started to go with that, which, you know, how is it? It's been around for a while now, right? You've been kind of working with it and playing with it and testing it and whatever for a while now. So how has it evolved? Has it changed it all over time? Are there bits and pieces that you've changed your thinking on? Can you talk about that a little bit? Yeah, I first started at History of Playway is really more like, wow, Denise is really influencing me on how to play with dogs. She knows how to play with them without toys in a way that just seems like it has thought and structure. She can put words to it. She has models, predator, prey. I was blown away by the complexity that you could have in something I just felt was, I don't know, just playing with the dog. Whatever. Done. Now back to training, right? And I didn't give it a lot of thought. And Denise had. And it shut me up. That's something I really need to know. That's amazing. And then, so I just, in the beginning of Boogeyman, I just added kind of play stuff to the same structure of classical and operant. So we interrupt your dog or if your dog interrupts themselves, we give cookies or toys or maybe this play stuff. I just put it in the model because the model is all I really was thinking about. That was the first iteration. That's a number of years ago. And I know some people who are listening were in that class. They're like, yeah, that's kind of all we did, right? Yeah. You were the guinea pigs. You were not even the guinea pigs. I was just throwing play in because play is fun. And I just thought it would work classically. But it evolved. It evolved a lot. It evolved toward that stuff I was just saying before where respect for somebody else's process and letting them finish it or letting them come to their own discoveries. That came from me learning about how we deal with fear in people. When I went to grad school, learning how we help reframe stuff in our own heads, discovering new information in our own heads and integrating it.

Now, I, of course, can't see what's in a dog's head, but I thought, can I put them in situations where that might happen to them? And can I make sure that what's around them is supportive of that process and just see if that's how they do it and see if it helps the situation? So I started giving little adjustments to that to the class and getting better results and getting faster results and getting more connection from the dog and getting more relaxation from the dog. And I'm like, okay, well, what if I do this? What if I do this? What if I have people not play so quickly after the dog disengages? Because I would see people, because I would see it. You know, once something's on video, and honestly, all of you out there in the sound of my voice, video all of your training, I know. You're looking at your hair. You're looking at your butt. You're looking at your house now because it's a mess because of pandemic. Don't look at it. Look at your training. Because that's how I discovered stuff to help the playway evolve. What I saw was, let's say, in an example, a field. They're sitting on a blanket. The dog looks at the trigger, looks away from the trigger, looks at the owner, and the owner does play quickly. And I see a dog not play with them and kind of disengage and go back to looking at the trigger. And then the person stops because I told them to stop. And I'm like, oh, wait, that dog wasn't ready to play at all. That dog was not looking away from the owner because the owner played. The dog was still doing. The dog hadn't disengaged. The dog just looked around to see what mom was doing to make sure all was well and was going to go back anyway to that trigger. And I thought, what if we don't play right then? What if we wait until the dog's done instead of jumping in so soon, right? And I started giving that out. So it evolved piece at a time and is where it is now. And where I'm thinking of it now is kind of twofold. I'm partly trying to see if it works in behavior problems I haven't expanded to for it. I've really just used it for fear, for stress, for anxiety, for things that have triggers that are either visible or just omnipresent in the environment. I haven't done it for things like separation anxiety. I've never done it for resource guarding. And I'm not sure how one would. I feel suspicious that it would. I think it wouldn't work at all. But that's not the way you go forward and find stuff. You try things, right? So I'm thinking about if it could apply to places I haven't explored. And also my exploration in the playway is in finding ways to be better at explaining more briefly.

And not really that. That was a joke. But finding ways to get people to the space they need to be to be this kind of partner. And every person gives me a different puzzle. Every person is bringing their own history and their own freedom to play and their own body. Can it get on the ground? And their own ability to be light or laugh or be silly or not self-conscious. Everyone brings something different to the team. And trying to find ways to get to universal analogies, universal human experiences so that it's easy to inspire people to be able to do it. Because it's not just the skill of playing. It's the skill of respecting somebody that you're used to directing more and taking over for more. So thinking about being a better teacher is where it goes for me now. But also I hope it can apply to other behavior problems I don't know about. And what I want to do is get enough people who are skilled in this out there so that it lands in other hands and those people start experimenting with it and seeing what they can get. Because I might be too myopic. I might just be seeing what I see and not as able to be outside of my nutshell. To use our nutshell analogy. I might have Playway in a nutshell. Not verbally, but conceptually. I don't know. But hopefully. I mean, the future is bright with it. I can't, you know, I'm continually excited about this. And I want to see, you know, more people's thoughts on it and see how it, you know, where it can go in the future for sure. To kind of, you know, kind of pull everything together because I think you've covered a lot of ground in the last roughly an hour. It was like five minutes. There's a quote from you from a while ago. You said something like, every time you teach your dog what to do, you teach her how to feel. And I think there's a lot of threads of that that kind of run through everything we've been talking about. And so I just wanted to kind of end with that. And you have one more question after this. But to kind of end with that and kind of what did you mean by that? You know, I think that I love hearing people hear that because it often means different things for everyone who, you know, lands on. And I like hearing what it might mean to them. It's like I'm not an artist, but I imagine it's like what people describe when they draw something, paint something, whatever. And they had a feeling for what it meant for them or what it was depicting. But someone else looks at it and goes, ooh, that looks like anger or whatever. And they're like, oh, okay, that's neat. You see my work differently, right?

I think that phrase when I said it, and I said it at our conference. What do we call our conference, Melissa? Camp. Camp. I said it at Fensi Camp at Purina because I was talking about classical conditioning and how we can be using it well. And what I firmly had in mind was that every time you're training anything, every time you are about to teach your dog to do something like sit and you've got your cookie out or you've got your tools out, whatever your tools are going to be. And you're going to teach your dog to do it, to do that thing. You never get to divorce from the procedure how your dog feels about being taught and how your dog feels about the behavior and how your dog feels, what your dog's opinions, what your dog's, all the collateral stuff that goes on inside a living being is not stuff you get to pretend isn't there. So, you know, the simple example is if you teach your dog to sit by correcting him for not sitting, right, whatever feelings come along from being corrected are folded into the behavior or the procedure or school or you or the room you're in or who knows what, because thank you, classical conditioning, it can pair up with all manner of stuff, right? So you're teaching your dog and that should help guide you toward kind methods because if I'm going to teach you to sit, I'm also going to teach you how you should feel about sitting around me and sitting with me and sitting for me. I want you to feel happy about that. I want you to feel excited about that. I want you to feel like you want to do that. And so that's where it started. But your dog feels things all the time, just like you do. And it's not just a part of the choices you make in training where will I use a cookie or will I be using, you know, a leash and a collar to explain something. It's also happening when you're not intending to train either, like when you're going out on your walk and your dog is having all kinds of feelings out there on the walk. And every time you go out on a walk, you're teaching your dog how to feel about the walks. And it might not be a new feeling every time because maybe it's the same walk. But lately it hasn't been the same walk. Lately it hasn't been the same walk for Marzipan. Lately she's had to feel different feelings. She has felt different feelings out on the walk. And by the time I saw them in her behavior, I was like, oh, you have had a feelings shift. I have taught you that your walks are now different. I've taught you that your walks might have a little more pressure in them than they used to have.

Um, and I don't, I didn't give that enough, uh, you know, thought. I didn't just didn't see it coming till it was there for me. And so, you know, it's, it's, it's something you can always keep in mind that every time you're doing a thing with your dog, your dog is doing a behavior and your dog is also drawing opinions, having feelings about it, having reactions about it on the inside. And, and even if you can't know what they are or read them, I mean, read them before they're in display, um, you can reasonably predict that it might show up. You can give it some thought. You can look for the subtleties when, if you weren't giving it any thought or looking for it, you'd miss them. You can, you can assume that maybe right now walks are hard for your dog because everybody's walking their dog all the time, not even just at five o'clock. So maybe just assume it's a little harder and do some things that are really fun as a prophylactic. And, you know, if you were wrong, your dog was still feeling fine the whole time. Well, you did fun things. There's certainly no downside to it. So every time you teach your dog what to do, you teach her how to feel. And every time you do things with your dog, even if you're not intending to be teaching, well, your dog is still a feeling being. So paying attention to the emotional life of your dog, um, to tie it back up. Thank you very much. Callback can really contribute to their well-adjustedness as you raise them. There you go. Callback went all the way to the beginning. Look at me go. Huh? So my actual question. Oh no, one more question. One more. Um, and it's the one that I kind of round out all of the interviews with these days. Um, what's something that you have learned or been reminded of recently when it comes to training? That you get absolutely nowhere if you don't have a plan and make yourself do stuff. You cannot wish your way out of a problem. You cannot, um, avoid a situation by thinking you're not going to have it. And I, as much as I teach people to make plans and teach people to predict and prevent, um, I will continually learn, relearn this lesson. I will continue to relearn the lesson in my own life. That behavior is fluid and it will not stay static and things will change. And if you don't, if you don't proactively decide about what you want and, and really make your plans to get there, it's, it's not going to complaining. Isn't going to do it. I have, you know, failed to predict behavior problems. You know, it's not much of a problem. She just, you know, occasionally barks on the walk, but I failed to predict it.

Right. And I've been doing a lot more training in my yard during pandemic, um, because I can invite people over for social distancing. And my dogs weren't adequately prepared for the stimulation of people being in our, in our yard so often. And could have predicted that one too. And instead of making a plan for it, I just kind of got sad, you know, like, like, now I have a problem. Like, you know, you know, just because I'm not working as much and sitting in my house a lot doesn't mean I don't still have to train my dogs. I have to prepare them for the life that I'm going to show them. And I can rest on my laurels as much as anybody else and, and get a kick in the pants that says, you're not going to get it. If you don't actually work, you can't expect your dogs to understand changes if you're not going to prepare them. And so everyone understand out there that, that just because you are, you know, a lot about dog training or you teach other people about dog training doesn't mean you aren't also just a person who needs to hear the same lesson again. And that's what I learned in pandemic is like, you, you know, you can't lay around. You have to actually get, still get it done. Behavior devolves as much as, as, um, as evolves when you put pressure on it. And the lack of pressure in the pandemic can create, you know, frustrations and sadnesses in your dogs. And, um, my dogs are fine. I don't mean to end on such a sad note. They're fine. They're lovely. They're having the time of their life, but they're a little too excited about how, how great my yard is now. People coming over and doing dog training and social distancing out there and raising puppies. I had a couple of pandemic puppies come out and, you know, have a fenced area. My dogs are like, but I want to join. And I'm like, you can't. And they're like, no, but the answer is always yes. And I'm like, oh shit, you're right. I told you the answer was always yes about this. And now I have to teach the answer is sometimes no. And so that's what I've learned in the pandemic is that I got lazy. Sorry, everybody. I'm a real person. You're allowed to be. I'm allowed to be a real person. Do I have to be in a nutshell? No. Okay. Not even in a nutshell. Okay. I'm a real person. I'm a real person outside of a nutshell. I'd love to hear. I haven't, I haven't heard too recently what other people have learned or been reminded of recently when it comes to dog training.

And I hope, I hope that some of the people who answered the question learned something profound and spiritual and, and deep and amazing and didn't learn that they were lazy and didn't do enough work during the pandemic. I look forward to everyone else's answer. A surprising number of us learned the same lessons over and over again, though. No. No. No. No. Is that true? Is everyone saying, God, I learned that I didn't train my dogs enough for the pandemic? No, but a lot of people do say, you know, this is a lesson I had to learn early on and I've had to learn it again and I've had to be reminded of it. Totally. It's like, wait a minute. You're well adjusted. Why are you frustrated right now? Dang it. Oh, because I didn't teach you this contingency. I didn't teach you anything about yard visitors. Dang it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's just the way it is. It's the way human beings work. It's the human being stuff. All right. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Amy. As always, it's been a joy. Oh, pleasure. Again, do it weekly and just pretend I'm going to get on the air, right? Just miss you. Miss you guys. Love it. Bye to everybody. This was awesome. All right. Well, thank you, Amy. And thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in. We will be back next week with Shade Whitesell to talk about Ready to Work and toy games from her foundation class. So if you haven't already, subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, 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 Fensy Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fensy 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