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[00:00:00] Hey, everyone. Welcome to fostering excellence. Inability the podcast. I'm your host competitor, coach and mentor Megan Foster. I help agility enthusiast focus on the small details of training and behavior while still having a clear understanding of their big picture goals. Join me as I take you through key elements of dog agility, training, competing, and teaching, and how you can take action today to start improving your skills within the sport.
Let's get into. Hi, everyone. You're listening to episode four, your mechanics matter today. I want to talk to you about how your training mechanics, your handling mechanics, your skills as the trainer, as the handler. Need to be practiced ahead of time without the dog to reduce the mistakes that you will make when you have the dog with you in the training space or [00:01:00] in the competition ring.
So first this is so important from a training aspect because our dogs are so. Amazing at taking in as much information as they possibly can. They have all of our cues that they're taking in the cues that we're aware of and the cues that we're not aware of, they have the environment giving them cues.
They have the props that we're working with, giving them cues. They've got a lot of things to filter out. And so if the information that we're giving them. Is hard for us to figure out for us to kind of pin down a name and decide what we're going to do when and where if we're having a hard time nailing those details down, then the dogs are going to have a hard time nailing those details.
So when I think of it from a training perspective, I want my mechanics and my cues to be clear and precise [00:02:00] and predictable, and very easy for them to pick out of a crowd, so to speak. So think about when you're training something, you're using a clicker or a marker, and then you are delivering a reinforced.
If that marker sound or marker word is happening at the exact same time that you are reaching for, or also delivering the reinforcer, whether it's food or toy, they aren't hearing what you're saying, because we know naturally based on the dog's hierarchy of cues, that our physical cues, what our bodies, how our bodies are moving.
And w where we're facing and which direction we're moving and what our hands are doing. Those things are more important than the words and the sounds that come out of our mouth, right? They're born naturally knowing how to follow our physical cues. They are not naturally inclined to [00:03:00] attaching actions, to words and noises.
We can train them through clean mechanics and. Understand this concept very, very easily when the mechanics are clean and when the cues are very clear and precise and predictable, but if they have to filter out a lot of things, they have to take a lot of reps to decide what is, and isn't relevant. It's going to take them a lot longer just to recognize what is the marker signal that tells them that reinforcement is available.
Much less learn, whatever. The skill is that you're asking them to learn. So when you are training, I like to instruct that the students should, if they're using a clicker, they would click, they would think to themselves banana, then they would reach for their treat and deliver their treat. However they were for that [00:04:00] specific training repetition.
So that is a good thing for you to practice. Without the dog ahead of time that you click banana in your head and then move your hand to deliver the reinforcer. So start there, especially in. Training with markers or even training with a clicker is new for you. Start with that and see how quickly your dog understands, which pieces of information are relevant and how, when they hear now the very relevant marker signal, the click or your marker marker word, they, that starts to predict that reinforcement is going to be available.
And you'll start to see, oh my gosh, they're moving towards the reinforcer. So practicing your mechanics without the dog ahead of time, makes it clear for you, what you will be doing when you go out to the training field and it will make it easier [00:05:00] for your dog to filter out that information. So those are just like training mechanics, right?
That click pause, deliver. And we want to be doing that anytime. Before and after we're kind of giving relevant information to the dog. So also when I'm teaching start line stays, I also want to help the dog kind of filter out the relevant piece of information by having brief pauses before and after the really, really important piece of information.
So if I'm leading out on the start line, whether I stop moving or don't stop moving. There's going to be a moment where I'm not looking at the dog and then I am looking at the dog and then there's still going to be a moment. Of silence between not looking and looking. And that's when the dog knows, oh, Hey, something important is really about to happen.
I need to pay attention. [00:06:00] And in that pause there, the dog is getting really, really ready to go and listen to for whatever release word I'm about to cue. And that gives me a good time to make sure that they are actually maintaining their. And give them that release cue. So now we have that same kind of structure of isolating the relevant information, so that it's easy for the dog to pick out a month.
Your lead out on those, on the start line of an agility course, right? There's a lot of things going on. There's a leash runner behind them. There's a judge out in the center. There's obstacles in front of them. You are moving. Maybe you're a little nervous and you, you know, I like, I, my nervous thing is like sticking my hair behind my ears.
I don't want them to think any of that is relevant because I've not singled out. The moment of looking at you. And then having that brief moment of, okay, we're we're here. You're [00:07:00] still sitting. I'm going to release you now and give that whatever the release cue is in that moment, those mechanics are so incredibly hard.
It is very human of us to let our dogs rush us. And so it's very, very fast. I see handlers start to believe that release into the, looking back into the, the hair being tucked behind the ears. We let the arousal of the situation and the dog on the start line. Just, I am so ready to go right now. We be, feel all of that energy and we tend to rush those mechanics.
And so then if it's all happening at the same time, The dog is going to start attaching the release to something else that they have found. Well, this is the most relevant thing. The, when she tucks her hair [00:08:00] behind her ears, definitely that means let's go because when they're having to do the heavy lifting of filtering out information, They are likely to guess more.
And generally when dogs, guests wavy, we only like it some of the time. Right. Because that it does mean that they're going to guess wrong. And so, again, going back to practicing your start line mechanics of, okay, I've just, I've set the dog up there in a sit. I'm going to walk away. I'm going to look away from.
I'm going to tuck my hair behind my ears. I can see myself on the start line during this. I'm going to look back, I'm going to have a brief pause. I'm going to assess this. She's still in her sit. And then I'm going to cue the first obstacle and really exaggerating that all of those pieces in draining [00:09:00] without the dog.
All right. So I'm going to make that super slow. Maybe I'll make those pauses five seconds long, seven seconds long. I'll really make myself. Take a breath. Take two breaths, really exaggerate those mechanics when I don't have the dog with me, so that I have half a chance of putting in a one to two second pause to highlight the relevant information.
So that's my number one tip is exaggerating your handler mechanics when you are practicing them without. The dog and trust me, even when you feel really, really good at this, your mechanics, like any other skill that you learn or that you teach, it needs to be maintained. You have to continue practicing that behavior and getting some reinforcement in your own bank account for those [00:10:00] behaviors, for them to uphold and.
This particular one, especially on the start line. So it was released mechanics. Those are my fastest to go down the toilet. So I get really excited when we're doing handling sequences and they go from those five seconds of exaggerated pauses to a millisecond in real life. And I'm always reminded that I need to go back and practice those mechanics when my dog makes a mistake, when they guess wrong.
Okay. So that might also be something for you to look at. If your dog is kind of randomly breaking one or two start lions per training session, perhaps look at your video. Are those pauses really clear? Are they having to guess when the releases take a look, those are the big eats where we really trying to take a pause before and after highlighting the most relevant piece, [00:11:00] because a lot of times.
When we're talking about marker Q mechanics or start lines, we're trying to filter out the one specific verbal cue that is the most. It is the acute to move or the cute to eat food or the cue to grab the toy. And we need to have that clarity of isolating that verbal cue so that the continues to listen for that verbal.
And not just watch for a physical cue. So what about our handling? Because we have verbal cues and physical cues in dog agility. And so the same thing goes when I'm training in independent verbal cue. And when I say independent, I mean, I do not have to support it with my motion and my position and the behavior will still happen now in the perfect world.
I am supporting it with my [00:12:00] motion and my position, but by training the additional independence of the verbal cue, it means that in the absence of ideal motion and ideal. The verbal cue can override those things. And I can still give that information to the dog and the dog can still respond. So when I'm training specific verbal cues to attach that verbal cue to the behavior, I need to have those same clean mechanics isolating the verbal cue.
Otherwise the dog is learning a physical cue and sometimes you chatter over. But full-stop dogs are going to prefer to attach something to a physical cue. And when we're training, we tend to be in an ideal position. So not only do you, but you have to train for all the positions. So usually when we're training a verbal cue, getting rid of our [00:13:00] motion, not a problem because we're doing it on one obstacle.
Typically. But like I was saying, our position tends to still support the behavior that we are training. So it's very important for you to practice without the dog, giving this cue in no motion, in a variety of positions and filming those positions without the dog so that you can check and make sure.
Even though your position has changed your chest orientation, where you're looking are your arms doing, what are your feet doing? All of that looks the same regardless of the position. And then when you attach the verbal cue, the dog can then generalize the verbal cue to all of the handler position. And then when you add in motion, it's easy for them to filter out what is the relevant piece of information here and what they will learn over time is that the relevant information was the verbal cue [00:14:00] with that specific physical orientation, rather than the physical position or motion cue.
But really most of our handling and agility is on physical. And that's a huge component of my training program is that agility handling has been broken down for the human learner. So everything that I've mentioned before is kind of simple in terms of oh yeah. Practice that without the dog. Do that a few times and then go get.
How I address teaching handling two handlers, both new and experience is a complete program of breaking down agility, behaviors, agility, handling behavior. So maintaining connection, where to look on course, [00:15:00] timing of cues, what to do with your upper body cues, what to do with your lower body cues, how to do a front cross broken down.
Each component and then built up together. So splitting apart, all of agility handling the same way we would split apart agility obstacles. When we teach our dogs, I teach agility this way, because based on my values as a trainer and as a coach, This is the only way that feels fair often in dog sports and especially agility.
We are trying to train both the human and the dog at the same time. And unfortunately that goes back to what I was saying in the very beginning of this is that means that the dog is having to do a lot of filtering and a lot of guests. But also the handler is having to do a lot of filtering and a lot of guessing.
So if you are unsure of what your eyes should be [00:16:00] doing and what your feet should be doing and what your arms should be doing, you'll probably end up giving a lot of conflicting information that the dog doesn't, isn't sure what to filter out and what to keep in and then what to respond to. So generally what that leads to later on is a lot of frustration and a lot of confusion.
We can eliminate all of that by learning agility without the dog first. So for me, this comes from a place of fairness that the handlers are always set up for success. And that agility handling is built in small pieces at a time. And then when the handler skills are fluent and the handler understands.
Which pieces of a front cross are the most relevant and which pieces of the front cross is actually telling the dog how to turn and which pieces of the front cross is telling the dog where to go after the term, when the handler is fluent on those things. And [00:17:00] then we add the dog. Now the dog has all of the relevant information is getting reinforced for the correct behavior and never has to do any filtering or guessing.
This also means that if a mistake does occur, the handler has a higher probability of being able to focus on what the issue is because if the dog. Went behind the handlers back, the handler can check their video for, well, where was I looking if I was looking in the wrong place and my dog went behind my back?
Well, that's great. They were following where I was looking, but if they check the video and they were looking in the correct place and the dog still went behind that. Well, maybe we just need to swap into some more dog training and pull out foundation skills for that specific movement. So again, it's just feels more fair to train everyone in this way.
So [00:18:00] anytime that I'm teaching a new handling technique or. Walking a new sequence or walking a course in competition. I'm thinking about rehearsing my mechanics so that I understand. Every cue that I will be asking the dog to do. And I know the relevant pieces of information and that there's nothing extra.
This also gives me the ability to check. When do I need a verbal cue? What will the verbal QB, when will I be giving the verbal cue in what will my body look like when I'm giving that verbal cue? Because I see a lot of times when. Handlers give a verbal cue and the dog doesn't respond to that verbal cue and they can do it again with less speed.
Now what the handler's body is doing is completely different at the time of giving the verbal cue. So [00:19:00] that's valuable information to have before you ever get the dog out of the crate is really having an understanding of when the dog is landing obstacle a what will my body be? What will my verbal QB, if I'm going to use one and how will I know that the dog is following it gives you a lot more power into understanding why your dogs do what they do and how to fix it when something does go wrong.
This is a huge piece, such a huge piece of fostering excellence and agility that my first. 15 or 16 Hendler mechanics exercises are in the essential skills module so that the handler is practicing their handling mechanics while the dog is still learning their reinforcer skills. So while the dog is learning their reinforcer skills and their leash skills and their [00:20:00] stationing skills, we're not even talking about agility.
With the dogs, but we are giving the handler this skills that they need to be a great agility handler so that when we get into agility foundations and we start working on commitment and keeping commitment, the handler already knows where to look. The handler already feels fluent and confident and how to run in one direction and look in another direction.
Whereas if we just. Did it all at the same time, we have that ability to create a lot of frustration because the dogs are so often following our handling. But if we don't know what handling is or how our handling impacts our dogs, it doesn't feel like they're following our handling. So a lot of times what I hear when clients come to me is that they feel.
Like they're fighting with their dog on course, or that their dog doesn't collect or their dog net, [00:21:00] you know, it's just grabbing tunnels. A lot of times it comes down to this lack of fluency. The handler thinks that they're cuing one thing, but the dog is pretty sure that they're queuing another. And they're just not on the same page.
It's either that or the dog has learned to filter certain information and is no longer paying attention to. To certain handler cues. And I see this a lot of times with new handlers that have gotten a ton better, they have learned and grown and gotten a ton of experience and they are truly, truly, really, really nice handler.
You know, two or three years into this training project, but we don't get to wipe the slate clean. The dog still has that two or three years of, or longer of learning history of Welwyn that handler uses their arm in that way. It never means that. So they've just learned to ignore that our movement, or they've learned it learned to ignore [00:22:00] that movement.
They've learned to ignore that handler position. And so we can't erase that. So if we have that fluency before we ever get the dogs onto the agility field, we don't run that risk because we have a very clear understanding of what we will be queuing and how we will be queuing it and what we expect the dog to do when we give that cue, whether it's physical or verbal.
So, obviously I've been talking for 20 minutes about how this helps us in training. How does this help us as competitors? Well, folks, every competition you have to go out and rehearse your mechanics. That's what a walkthrough is. You learn the course. You decide how you're going to handle the course from point a to point B and then you get those precious, precious minutes to rehearse.
Your [00:23:00] performance and precise, walk-throughs leads to a precise performance. And if you've already been doing this and training, how you give yourself a very precise walkthrough of any sequence you do in training or any course that you do in training, you are very, very well-rehearsed at predicting. Where your dog will be when you're giving certain information and what you'll be doing and how you're going to be cuing the turn from four to five.
And where are you going to be when they're exiting the weave poles at number eight, if you were practicing this, and this is so fluent in your mind to working without the dog and practicing without the dog, a lot walk throughs are just that with a little bit of distractions, right? You know, you're 20 to 50 closest friends out there walking the course.
But when you can go out into the competition ring and walk a course and rehearse it down to the smallest detail of, you know, [00:24:00] where your dog is going to be looking as they land every single obstacle and where you will be in relation to every obstacle as they land gives you some extreme power over how you will make it around that course.
So I am a hundred percent in favor of already having that, that skill very, very fluent. So that means I need to do it in training. So it all goes back to being comfortable with rehearsing your mechanics and rehearsing your cues and understanding the predictability of it in training. And then you bring that to competition.
So, so powerful and. As a coach, as a mentor, obviously, if you are a coach or just a competitor or just a student that is modeling this type of behavior for their friends, they will notice, uh, when I started really, truly using my walkthrough as a [00:25:00] rehearsal. Walking the course as if I had my dog with me. So I was always looking at the dogs line.
I was never looking forward at the obstacles. I was always walking this course as if the dog were with me and watching the people around me, kind, they were noticing. And they were moving out of my way without me even asking. And I was. Rude about it. I don't think I don't recall being rude, but if I noticed that someone was going to be in my path because they were working out something part of their own rehearsal, I would just pause and wait.
I would kind of mentally see a pause button in my head so I could look around if I needed to or shift my position. Move to a new position, hit play and resume my rehearsal. I was fine, but the more I did this, the more I started seeing that people were kind of moving around me. They were also noticing, so people will notice and they will ask you about it.
And [00:26:00] that is so cool. So when you get good at it, and people start to notice that, wow, you're having very precise walkthroughs and they are leading to some very precise runs. Can you talk to me about that? If you want, you can take the time to talk to them about that, but as a coach, whether you're coaching people in training or coaching people in competition, you have the ability.
To show that team in front of you, the greatest kindness of separating those two learners at any level of training and experience, the most relief I have ever seen on a student's face is when I have said, Hey, let's put the dog away for a minute and let's just practice this together. You and me. The biggest amount of relief I've ever seen, and I am not joking.
So when we start training this way, [00:27:00] and this is a normal way of teaching agility and learning agility, not only will the students have a better time, the dogs will have a better time. I'm and it sounds like it takes longer, but I promise you, it does. There I'm remembering one day and I was teaching in-person classes.
And so I decided to only coach the walkthroughs. It was a 90 minute class and we used 75 minutes just coaching the walk-throughs that now the students were all very, very good at rehearsing their. There runs via the walkthrough. So they were very fluent at walking the courses with their imaginary dogs and understanding how that works.
So I took the class to just do that. I gave them an eight minute walk through just as they would at a dog show. And then I said, okay, I'm going to, [00:28:00] you know, I want you to run this as if you have your dog and I'm going to just coach you without the dog. And like I said, we. You know, 90% of the class time on just that.
And then we got the dogs and all of them like very, if not all, it was very, very, very, very, very high, clear round rate on the first go, the dogs got one or two quick runs. It was like three minutes max per dog at that point. And I'm sure the dogs felt gypped, but. The handlers were so excited that by practicing the mechanics and getting critiqued on just their mechanics, they brought that over into their runs and the dogs were flawless.
Right? It was, it was very powerful. And then when you're training, if a student needs 20 repetitions to get that rear cross, right. Or to get that reversed spin, right. [00:29:00] There's no need for the dog to do all 20 with. Humans don't need the distraction of the dog to work out their mechanics because the dog is a distraction.
So keep that in mind as well. Like I said, it is a kindness. You can offer your students to give them that ability to take away the distraction of the dog. Take away the pressure of the dog, because we, we love them so much. We love our dogs so much and we want them to. So well, and we always want them to succeed and we want to be able to reward them for everything that we do.
It can be too much to. Much pressure to do everything correctly for the dog when we don't even know what correct is yet. So please give them that kindness. Let them practice it 20 times without the dog. Now the dog is not having to do any guesswork. They're not having to [00:30:00] filter out any unnecessary information.
They're not having to waste their physical and mental energy. And then when the handler like truly like they, they get it, they can't get it wrong. They've done it five or six times in a row now. And it's just spot on now. Let's add the dog in your classes will go smoother. It's very easy to put in just a little bit of handler.
Only time when you're teaching them something new or when you're walking courses together. And then they become, they expect it and they get really good at it and you need it less. And I also mentioned it in the book. These skills need to be maintained. So make it part of every class that they do. Just a little bit of handler only training, or they can run each other.
I love working with human dogs because we can talk to each other in English. So there's lots of ways to kind of build this into your curriculum without taking away from the dog training. [00:31:00] Because that's important too, but I really, really feel like you will get more progress at a faster rate, especially the less experienced the students are.
I would love to hear about how you are using handler only training either when you're training yourself at home or in your classes, or also how your walkthroughs are going and company. Let me know, and I'll talk more next week.
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