E131: 재니스 건(Janice Gunn) - 오비디언스 링을 위한 긍정 훈련

And he is a just-turned four-year-old golden retriever intact male. He was an Archdog at three years old. And he also competes in master hunt test. And then I have, last but not least, his son, who is a golden retriever male. And he is just 14 weeks old right now. Aw, it's a baby. Yeah. And he's ready to take on everything. I know you've kind of been doing this stuff for a while, but how did you originally end up in dog training? What was it that pulled you in? Yeah. So when I was young, early on, I always showed interest that I wanted a dog. But fortunately, my parents were not dog people, but they got me cats. So I would train the cats and put a leash on them and teach them how to walk on a leash and how to shake a paw, that kind of thing. And then when we moved out of the city into a little bit, still residential, but a little bit more rural area, I still didn't have a dog. But I would go around and borrow the neighbor's dogs. Any dogs that I could find, they would allow me to take them, and I would train them and take them for walks. And then my parents would take me to different, I wanted to do, even back then, I wanted to do competition with them. So they would take me to the different fairs, the SPCA-type competitions, and I would go into the best trick dog category, that kind of thing. And so when this continued on, my parents realized that this was not just a passing phase, that it really was a passion and something that I really wanted to do. So at, I guess it was about 13, 12, 13 years old, I did get my very first dog, and that was a Dalmatian. What I wanted to do was I did confirmation with the dog and got the championship title, and then it was, what else? You know, there's got to be something more I can do. So I started to get involved in the competition training, but how I started was just at the, and then we're going back 46 years. So all they had available for training were the classes at the local school. So we would be in a gymnasium, and there would be like 30 students, and we were all required to come with a choke chain and a six-foot leather leash. And that was, you know, 46 years ago, that's all that was available. So we were allowed to give praise, but there was no food or there were no toys. So amazingly, I guess I had a pretty good relationship with my first Dalmatian, and at 14 years old, I did enter her in the novice A-ring. Didn't really know what I was doing, but we managed to get a 198, and then I was just hooked on. I was hooked on the sport from that moment forth, and I still am in it today.

Wow. That's a pretty impressive score for your first time in the ring with your first dog. Yeah, it was amazing. I think I was really blessed with a great dog, you know. I really was. And sometimes that's just the way it goes, and that's the dog that, you know, just gives you the, lets you continue on with your passion and gives you faith that you can do this. So you mentioned, you know, kind of getting started, it was very much a traditional style classroom? And teaching method. So what got you started on kind of that R-plus journey in positive training? Well, actually how it started was my Dalmatian breeder gave me a video of these dogs that were working on the video. It was by a trainer. Her name was Anne-Marie Silverton. And these dogs were doing attention healing like that I've never seen before. They looked so happy. They looked quite joyous in their work. I mean, it was just totally different than anything that was any, how any of the dogs worked in my area. And so I'm like, I want, you know, I want to learn how to do that. And so I tracked down at the end of the video, I tracked down who the school was. And she was in California. And I got on the phone and I phoned her up. And I live in British Columbia, so it's not an easy commute. And I asked if I could come for some lessons. And she said yes. And so I ended up on her doorstep with my Dalmatian and my choke chain and my six-foot leather leash. And she did use food in training. She did use toys. She did use motivation. And I mentored with her for a number of years, got a lot of great, great skills. But it was still compulsion-based training, not just in a light way, but it was still there. When she retired, then I was, you know, had enough base that I'm on my own. And I'm starting to get more involved with when I got Mighty, you know, going back eight years ago. He was so brilliant. And I started getting involved with tricks. And the tricks are what taught me how to use the clicker and really got me into using shaping and positive reinforcement. And I really liked that journey that I was on. And so I no longer was a balance trainer. I was definitely loving my R-plus journey and staying with it. If you were to kind of think about your training philosophy these days and, you know, your approach to dog training, how would you describe that? So how I feel today, of course, positive reinforcement training combined with the drive building. And that keeps my dog actively engaged with me rather than the environment and surrounding distractions. So I find drive building in my training is very important.

Can you just describe what you mean by that a little more? And this will go into part of my how I build, you know, the relationship with my dog. So I like for my dog to see me as his squirrel. So most dogs find squirrels very interesting. And it's something that catches their attention. So I want to be that squirrel to my dog. So I build a strong relationship with my dog to become his squirrel. And how I do that is, number one, is through using positive reinforcement so that my dog trusts me and wants to train with me. I tend to play a lot of active games with them. So such as, you know, I might tag their butt and run away and they chase me. And when they catch me, we have a party. I like to teach them tricks through shaping, which allows the dog to express his personality and how he learns and catches on. And I like to give my dogs lots of tactile attention. So many handlers forget to actually physically interact with their dogs, which I find really helps to build the bond with them. And I tend to drive build through the use of food chase games and also with playing tug with my dog, using the flirt pole. Also, a lot of it's your choice games, letting the dog make the choice rather than me controlling them. I find this really, really helps with impulse control. When you start to do that type of training, the impulse control just falls right into place. So those are just some of the examples that I use in my training today. And another thing that's really important is I also ensure that it's very clear to my dog when they are on task and when they are not. And that's really important if you want an attentive dog in training and in the ring. I find quite often too many handlers are letting their dog hang at the end of the leash and the dog isn't paying attention to them. And then when they go in the ring, they can't understand, you know, why the dog, it just doesn't have the same. And so if you want them to pay attention to you, you have to pay attention to them as well. So if they're not busy doing something, then I will put them on an off switch. You kind of said in there that, you know, it gets a little bit into the word relationship and kind of how you use that. I know that's a big thing for you. Is there more to it or is it really pretty closely tied to what you're just talking about in terms of drive building? Yeah. So it's all those things that I talked about that my dog needs, like if I'm going to build a relationship with my dog, he needs to enjoy the training. I want my dog to have as much fun as I'm having. So it's my job to make the training interesting.

So I don't know whoever this is saying. I don't know whoever said it. I can't quote them. But, you know, is that drive comes from the handler. So the more engaged you are in your training and the more sincere you are, the more your dog is going to believe and want to do the tasks that you're asking him to do. So I'd love to kind of talk through how you approach that journey from the very beginning, right? So when you're looking for a performance dog, you mentioned you have a baby puppy at home right now. What are you looking for? How do you choose a puppy? First off, it's going to depend on what I want to do with my puppy. What are the skills I'm going to need from my future dog? So for me, initially it was Dalmatians because at the time I was also into horses. And Dalmatians and horses kind of go hand in hand. Back in the day in England, the Dalmatians used to guard the coaches as they would travel down the roads and keep predators away and thieves away. So when I was with horses, when I would go out and take my horse for a ride, a trail ride, my dals would be like literally right behind my horse, right at their tail. And so they didn't have any instinct that they wanted to herd my horse or anything like that. It was just a really, really natural combination. And that's actually how I started with Dalmatian. And then I wanted to, like I did tracking, I got tracking titles on my Dalmatians, but I found that I was an outdoors person and I wanted to do more outdoor activities with my dog. And that's how I got into retrievers. So I had seen this thing called the working certificate and these hunt tests. And I was thinking, well, I really want to do that. But I also, of course, obedience is my number one love. So I looked for pedigrees that I would first go to the stud dog and see that they had accomplishments that bonded with what I wanted to do. So they had titles in the field or they had good, you know, arch titles and that this went back a few generations. And then I would check the female side as well. So I just wanted to make sure that these dogs were accomplished in the sports that I wanted to do and that their pedigree supported it as well. So that's how I kind of start with it is just make sure that it's got the pedigree that will do what I want to do. And then I'm going to seek out a breeder that exposes their puppy to a lot of different objects, surfaces. You know, nowadays a lot of people are doing, have like little agility tunnels and they have the bottle pools. So they're seeing, walking on different surfaces, hearing different sounds, meeting lots of people.

And so the breeder, I feel as well, has a lot to do with building a confident puppy right from the start. And so with my puppy, that's what I was, my dog was a stud dog, Sparks, but I also, it was important to me that the breeder, you know, was doing these things. And they did. And so he comes home and he pops onto, you know, something that's wobbly and it doesn't even faze him. That's awesome. Once you bring a puppy home or, you know, breed a new puppy, that is a competition prospect. Now, what are kind of some of the first skills you build or the first things that you kind of work on together? So when I do get a new puppy, I like to start them right away. It's really hard for me after the first day not to do something. And I get my puppies at seven weeks old. So what I'm doing is usually I'll start with something like hand touch. Doing the hand touch is a fun shaping exercise. Shaping as well is pivot work. I'll start them on a little disc. I like to teach a few tricks. And again, I'm using with the tricks, I'm using shaping. And then I'll teach because I am going to move on to competition. When I do a sit down and a stand, I make sure that those are technically correct. So I don't want to be inadvertently teaching my puppy a rock back sit where they come in to sit, but then they go backwards because that will fault me later on fronts. And when they do a halt and sit beside me, they'll go backwards. So I want to make sure that the sit is technical. It's a nice tuck-up sit. The same with the down. I want to make sure that when they go down, their hips are square. And when they come up into a stand, everything is just nice, up in place, no moving forward. And I do this all right in front of me. It's very easy, but I just want to make sure that I'm doing those properly. And then I'll teach some early healing games. One thing that is really important, which I advocate at all my workshops, because I find that as I go across country, a lot of people just simply are not doing that. And this is, and I start this on day one, and that's teaching name game. So I will say my puppy's name. And it's a great way to charge the clicker as well. So I will say the name, click, and treat. So name, click, treat. Name, click, treat. And I will do it like 20 times in a row just to get it started. And then when I have a puppy, I always have treats in my pocket all the time, so that every time I say his name, we'll use Sparks. So I'll say Sparks, and he looks at me, and I say, yes, mark it, and I give him a treat.

So when he goes outside to potty and he has to come back in, I say his name, I give him a treat, we go back in. So I am really, really building that his name means look at me, come to me. And so this transitions really, really nicely into their recall work. So then when I go to say their name, they're getting a little bit further away from me, and I say their name, they turn on a dime, and they come running to me, and they get a treat. So name game is really, really important for all puppies to learn. Then when I give seminars, I find that when people are training their dogs, they rarely use their dog's name. And it's a great attention getter. I am trying to really advocate and get people to do this so that they have a great recall. It's a great way to get your dog coming back faster to you, and you can all start this when they're like seven weeks old. I know you have like a full step-by-step training program kind of via DVD that walks people through training from novice to utility. So can you just share a little bit about the program, just your approach for kind of the bigger picture there of training for obedience competition specifically? I really like to share. Like that's one thing that I've always wanted to do is share with others, and that's why I do give seminars. I have a lot of free YouTube videos, but I've also produced, I'm up to six DVDs now. But when I very first started, it was my first video that I produced was called Step-by-Step Training for Competition Obedience. And that was back in 2009, so it was like 10 years ago. So going back a lot of years. So at that time, I was still a balanced trainer, and so I've changed since then. But it is an excellent DVD on how to teach competition obedience exercises from start to finish for puppy novice open-end utility. However, there's one thing that I'd like to take out if I could, and it was in the retrieve section back in the day. For the retrieve, I was doing an ear squeeze for the dumbbell. So I, of course, no longer do or advocate this method. In fact, I now even have a video out on how to help people teach a click, hold, and retrieve. But that's pretty much the only thing in the video. Otherwise, my methods, they have evolved so much in 10 years. And fortunately, in my first DVD, the teaching skills are still, you know, perfect for today's training. Just that one little section I'd like to take out. Fair enough. I mean, after all, if you're not involving, right, then that's a problem. Exactly. Exactly. That's so true. Yes.

Which leads really naturally into what I was going to ask you next, which is, you know, with seven OJ titles from AKC and the CKC OJ titles, too, you know, you've been through this process a few times at this point. So can you talk a little more maybe about the things that you do differently today than you did when you first started? And, you know, kind of how you've continued to evolve since crossing over? Yeah. Yeah. So it's actually, I have eight AKC OJ titles now. Oh, I missed one. Yeah. Got one up on you there. Yeah. Well, one thing for sure would be how I teach the dumbbell hold and retrieve. So I've definitely changed that. But, you know, that's how I learned it. Like back in the day, that's what they did. And that's what I was taught. But, you know, you can always change your training. I know there's still a lot of people out there today. I would love to get them to change. But that's, you know, people have a choice. And hopefully they'll see the dogs. My dogs have so much enthusiasm with the click, hold, and retrieve that, you know, that will move forward their decision someday. But for me, I never stop learning and trying new things. I'm not someone to say I know it all and I can't learn anything new because I think once you feel that way, you're done. There's always new stuff out there to grasp or come up with your own techniques that can keep evolving. Over the years, I've focused more on relationship building, drive building, and positive reinforcement. And I'm also using more shaping techniques for certain exercises. So that's how I've sort of changed my training up a little bit as well as with the positive reinforcement. So I've got three last questions here, and they're questions I usually ask every time I have somebody new on the podcast. So the first one is what's the dog-related accomplishment that you're proudest of? Okay. Well, there are so many that I've had a lot of success in my long career, so many that I'm very proud of. But I'm going to say the most recent is that I just got home on this past Monday from competing at a Retriever Master National. And my just-turned four-year-old Golden Retriever Sparks became a finalist and is now a National Master Champion. Congrats. Which also gave him his final leg. Yeah. Thank you. It also gave him his final leg for his Grand Master title. And at his very young age, he's also got his OCH titles, his UDX, his Obedience Master II. He's still so very young, and I'm just thrilled at what a team we are and the incredible relationship that I built with him. That's fantastic. Congratulations. That's such a huge accomplishment. Thank you.

So my next one here is what is the best piece of training advice that you've ever heard? Well, one of my early mentors was Patty Russo. And Patty would always say, if you had a problem with something, put a cookie on it. So we're going back at least 15 years, but this still holds true today. Absolutely. I like that. Put a cookie on it. So last one. Who is somebody else in the dog world that you look up to? Well, my very first mentor was Amory Silverton. She was a brilliant dog trainer, and she taught me the armband method of healing, which was really a very innovative technique. It's a positive technique, and it has just allowed me to have some great healing dogs and also to be able to share this method with so many other people and, in turn, really helps them with one of the hardest things, I think, to teach in obedience, which is healing. I also look up to Patty Russo, who was well before her time when it came to positive reinforcement. Sylvia Bishop has given me many fun training ideas. There's also many other trainers whose seminars or workshops I have attended, and they have all offered their own valuable insight and style, including Denise Fenzie. I recognize what Denise had. She had so much to offer well before she started FDSA, and I invited her to come and give a workshop at my facility, and we're going back to 2012. So there's been a lot of influence from so many wonderful people. Okay, so I can't let that one sneak by without at least asking. The armband method of healing? Can you give us just a short idea of what that is? Yeah, so one thing that when Anne-Marie was teaching her students that she got really frustrated with was they would move. If they were holding a lure or a food in their hand, they would be moving it, or if the food was placed in their mouth, the dogs were wrapping around the handler's body, and so she wanted to develop a very clear focal point for the dog. So something for them to look at that was on the side of the body, so that if it was on the side of the body, then the dog didn't have the want to have to wrap around and look at the dog's face or look at the handler's face, which in turn creates a lot of problems. So she created this armband method, and it's very smart because there's many steps to teaching it, but the final ending step is where it's looking at the armband holder, and the armband is actually something that you can wear in the ring. So that focal point is something that you can actually bring into the ring with you, and it just really helps to clarify heel position for a lot of dogs. That's awesome. I like that. Thank you. You bet.

So thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Jen. This has been great. I think you shared a lot, and I appreciate it. Thank you very much, Melissa. Appreciate it. And thanks to our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week, this time with Sarah Bruschi, to talk about marker cues and foundation skills for performance dogs. If you haven't already, subscribe to our podcast in iTunes or the podcast app of your choice to have our next episode automatically downloaded to your phone as soon as it becomes available. Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzie Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzie for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty-free by bensound.com. The track featured here is called Buddy. Audio editing provided by Chris Lang. Thanks again for tuning in, and happy training. Today's show is brought to you by the Fen pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense