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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 enthusiasts 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 started. Hey, y'all welcome to episode 14, where today I wanna talk to you all about how I go about my technique training. And I refer to technique training as kind of introducing a new handling technique to my dog or practicing, uh, maybe even well known techniques with a more seasoned dog. And for the purpose of this podcast, we're going to assume that I am [00:01:00] asking the dog to follow.
physical cues, or if I am using verbal cues, those are already trained and fluent. So we're not gonna talk about how I go about. Training independent verbal cues though. I can put that on my list. If that's something my listeners are interested in. So let me know about that. But if I am introducing a puppy or a young dog to a new handling technique, here's how I'm gonna go about that.
First. I'm going to focus on handler fluency. Then I am going to start in appropriate. place for that. Dog's physical and mental abilities. And also based on that dog's previous experience with learning, handling techniques. Then I am going to begin applying it in short sequences that allow me to still focus [00:02:00] on the technique itself and not get distracted by.
Any additional things that might go wrong or anything that I might have to pivot and focus on in that one session. And then I'm going to put it into longer sequencing to really put it to the test at full speed for both myself and the dog. So let's unpack all of that just a little bit more. So first is handler fluency.
Always. I will. Try something with my dog that I am not 99% sure that I can queue correctly as well. And so this is not a surprise to anyone listening. That's that, that is why I developed agility. Handler mechanics is so that the handler can focus on their skills without the dog present. And while that class is split into.[00:03:00]
the kind of key movements and then kind of building up the most common techniques. I still apply all of those games that I teach my human learners. I apply them to more advanced techniques as well, and I expect my human learners to practice their new handling techniques without the dog, until they feel pretty fluent.
And let's talk about what fluency means in this situation. that might be helpful to some of you. It sometimes is suggested that we should be able to do, you know, 10. We should be able to do it correctly 10 times before we're fluent. And I want to clarify that that should be 10 times in a row or five times in a row.
So if, for example, you are. practicing a front [00:04:00] cross and you do one without the dog and it feels pretty good. Another, that feels pretty good. Another, and you looked over the wrong shoulder so effectively you completed a reverse spin instead of a front cross. So now in your brain, you've lit up the reverse spend pathway when you are meaning to light up the front cross pathway.
And your brain's going to remember that. So when we're talking about hand fluency, I would start myself over at one. So now I need to do five in a row. Without lighting up that other pathway, that to me is hitting that level of fluency. And I feel pretty fair in that I can ask myself of that level and I can put myself in a situation where my goal is to do five in a row flawlessly.
and [00:05:00] I'm okay. Asking myself for maybe 20 reps total. If that's how many it takes for me to get those five in a row flawless, I'm not okay. Putting my dog through 20 reps while I figure out how to make it possible for them to get five in a row flawlessly. But that still may be my goal in training is to have a training session of whatever I'm training that the dog can do something five in a.
but that's for me to figure out in between sessions. So what that looks like with the dog is a session of five. And I note that we did 1, 2, 3, right then the fourth one wrong. And then the fifth one, right again. So now I need to look at my training session to figure out how to. avoid that one error in the middle.
And so I should see that with every training session, that error is either going away or it's moving in a better direction. So maybe it's now the fifth one is the [00:06:00] problem. So can we do four in a row for two sessions? Great. Now can I do five in a row? So that's how it would look. Different. And I wanted to go on that side note of that tangent, just because I don't want you to think that you always have to hold your dog accountable for five in a row within that session or 10 in a row within that session.
But since we're talking about handler fluency, I do think that that's a fair ask of ourselves because we can talk to ourselves of, do you have energy to do five more right now? Do you need a break? Do you need water? So we're usually a lot more honest with ourselves. When we're talking about doing something that's hard versus with a dog, it can be really easy to gloss over or ignore some signs that is saying, Hey, the dog needs a little bit of a break.
So back to hand handler fluency, I think that. When you are practicing [00:07:00] your handling mechanics and making sure that your skills are fluent in that particular handling technique, I do really find that this is a great time for this blocked or repetitive practice. So this is when you want to repeat it.
Like I said five or 10 times in a row per side, and there's minimal distraction. And you're able to really focus on that one thing. There's no interruption. So this means that if my dog running around on the field with me while I do this is too much of a distraction, it's making it too hard for. to get that five in a row.
I need to put the dog away. I want my blocked or repetitive practice to be pretty easy for me to go through. And then if I'm finding that it's hard for me to tune out distractions while I'm rehearsing this. So if we look forward to maybe [00:08:00] walking longer courses and then walking courses at competition, where there's gonna be a lot of people around that might be a skill that you need to practice under more and more distractions so that you're able to use your walkthrough in the same way.
And so I know I was kind of skipping ahead to how this helps your competition, but it really does help immensely. If you are training yourself to be able to repeat physical movements. Five times in a row, 10 times in a row with a high level of precision, that's just gonna make your walkthroughs easier so that when you have your walkthrough at a competition, your walkthrough is very precise and it's very close to what it's going to look and feel like with the dog, which means you have to do it in training.
So now let's talk about adding the dog into the equation. Once the handler feels very fluent [00:09:00] with the physical cues that are needed for this handling technique, I'm going to start where the dog needs me based on the dog's age and the dog's experience level. So if they don't know a lot, these are maybe the very first techniques that they're learning.
I'm probably going to start those techniques on the flat with no. Right. And the techniques that can be done on the flat with no obstacles are like front cross blind cross. Um, if you can send them to a pre place toy, they can do a rear cross on the flat. Um, they can do lap turns and tandem turns and flicks on the flat.
So they can do a lot of different technique trainings on the flat with just a reinforcer and. You can, you can start rehearsing this kind of pattern, how technique training works with young docs, but from there some techniques you can't do on the flat, you need an obstacle. Some you absolutely need a wing.
[00:10:00] So you could at least start with a wing, like for teaching a reverse wrap. You don't need the bar to teach it, but you can from wing training, you might then do the training on one jump. You might do the training on a. Maybe it's a technique that's applicable to the tunnel as well, like front cross or rear cross or running on the dog's line or something like that, that you want to be able to start in a place where, you know, the dog will be successful and able to progress pretty quickly.
I don't want to stay. In one place for too long with my technique training with the dog, because I do not think repetitive or blocked practice is all that useful in handling. And I believe that because I don't want the dog falling into. A pattern where they are no longer actually [00:11:00] watching my handling cues or listening to my verbal cues.
I want them always assuming that my physical cues are very relevant and they need to always be paying attention to those physical cues. So I'm very aware that I don't want to repeat the exact same thing over and over and over again. So if I, for instance, I'm starting. Front cross training and I have a puppy and I do it on the flat and I will do it one or two times.
And then I will put that away unless that puppy does also have the prerequisite skills for doing it. on a wing and then I'll, so that means I'll do one or two on the flat and then one or two on the wing. So while the physical queue is staying the same and many parts of that training loop are going to stay the same.
Something is changing and keeping everything relevant. So I'm not gonna [00:12:00] do five or 10 front crosses on the, the same type of front cross on the wing. That's never gonna happen. I'm going to make sure that I can. Or I'm gonna keep the reps very low because I already put in my reps in the previous step of handler fluency.
So I don't need to practice it anymore. And if the dog is following the handling, they don't need to practice it in that context anymore. Either you can always go back to it. So if you progress and you realize, oh wow, this isn't as good as it was on the, on the winging. You can go back and do some reinforcement and then build up again.
but in that moment, in that session, I don't think that blocked practice is going to be your friend for all of those reasons that I said, we want the dog to always be watching and listening for their cues without assuming it's going to be something. Because when it, when they start just kind of falling into a [00:13:00] pattern.
and it starts feeling really easy and like, wow, I barely have to do anything. And they go around the wing and they wrap it really tight. Well, that's a big clue to me that they, if you're barely doing anything and they're still doing it right, then they probably aren't watching what you're queuing. Okay.
And so we want to be changing the technique training pretty rapidly if we can. And so I'm either going to, with the more basic techniques I'm going to progress. I'm gonna do a couple on the flat. I'm gonna do a couple on a wing couple on a jump, maybe a couple on a wing and a jump. So there's different speed coming into it.
Couple, maybe with a tunnel in a jump, maybe just the tunnel, things like that. I am probably not putting all of those reps in one session. That's maybe two sessions, but still the progression is pretty quick. And if I need a lot of repetitions, that's gonna be for me to do without the dog. , but for more [00:14:00] advanced techniques where we have to start at least on a jump, I'm usually back chaining this skill.
Um, for instance, a German turn, which is sending to the backside with an S line really tight S line for the exit and a head change is also included to change sides of the dog's. And that, so that includes a backside send, it includes a lead change over the bar and it includes elements of a blind cross.
So I can't do that on the flat and I can't do that on just a wing. I need to do that on the jump. And a lot of times I will back chain it. So I will start my dog already on the takeoff side of the jump so that I can make sure that the dog is going to. Jump while I'm moving in the opposite direction. So I'm just going to test that foundation skill of [00:15:00] keeping commitment, and then I'm going to progressively move my dog further and further back until they're on the landing side of the jump.
And now the backside send is included. Okay. So same thing, even if I have to do four or five reps on each side to get the back chaining complete, there's something changing. Every repetition, the dog's starting point is changing, which means my physical cues change just a little bit to support the new line that my dog is coming from.
Right. So when they're on the takeoff side, in the very beginning, There's no backside send, but as my dog gets further and further behind the wing, now there's more and more of a formal backside send. So as the dog's position changes, so does your physical cue and that's going to help you avoid that. Oh, they're just doing it.
You're also probably changing up where the reward is. Like perhaps you started with a lure to make [00:16:00] sure that. The dog's behavior matched up with your behavior and your cues perfectly, but after a couple of times of Luing the behavior, I'm gonna start moving that reward in a way that tests the understanding of that behavior.
Because if I find that when I move the lure, that I no longer have the behavior. There's probably some prerequisite skill that the dog needs something with commitment or keeping commitment, or maybe it's even a following the handling thing that they've forgotten or they didn't have. Um, and we always just wanna make sure that each element of the technique has been trained previously.
So sticking with the German turn example, um, has the dog done backside? Just on its own with no additional handling, has the dog done backside sends with serpentine handling or running on the dog's line before so that they are able to manage those lead changes are, have the, do they have the [00:17:00] jumping skills for that backside send and lead change over the bar?
Do they have that blind cross training so that they know when you turn your head from one shoulder to the other, that they should go to the side of you, that you're looking. So you wanna make sure that they have all those prerequisite skills. And usually back chaining tells me if they have that or not.
That's why I'm gonna start with just the jump and the head turn that confirms for me that the dog is able to maintain commitment and follow where my eyes are looking. And then. as I bring them backwards and give them more and more of a backside send, they're gonna tell me pretty early if they have those jumping skills or not.
So, like I said, when we're doing technique training with the dog, however, that progression looks like I want to make micro changes in every single repetition so that we both stay fresh progressing. That technique training is going to introduce. either or [00:18:00] training, which means introducing something that is kind of the opposite of what you're training.
So if I'm training front crosses, maybe my either, or is a reverse spin. Which is testing your handler fluency of, can you control where you're looking because in a front cross, your eyes move from one side of your body, to the other, and in a reverse spin, you turn the exact same way, but you maintain your eyes on the same side of your body.
So the only difference from the handler perspective. From a front cross to a reverse spin is where you're looking. So those are really good to put into an either or situation for yourself and also for your dog, because if your dog is anticipating a front cross, they might come up on the wrong side of you when you're queuing a reverse spin and vice versa.
So once I'm pretty solid with two techniques, I'm gonna [00:19:00] start putting them into that either or situation where I'm alternating between those. um, and then maybe an either, or for the German turn, since it's backside send serpentine then blind cross. Maybe my either, or is just backside send to blind cross.
So no S line, no tight lead change, just extension over the backside and continuing pretty straight after the backside. And those two, while not incredibly similar, they do share some similarities. And are usually when I'm teaching, they're easily confused from the handler's perspective. So those are good ones to have either or training with so that if the handler is learning to be really clear and really precise with their cues and the dog understands.
How to follow those cues. Everyone is going to stay really fresh and clear and predictable with their technique training. [00:20:00] so this either or training kind of happens pretty quickly. Maybe this is my second or third training session with that particular technique, but I'm still working on kind of smaller setups, two to three obstacles so that I can maintain my focus on the technique.
Because when I'm training and I have a specific objective, like a front cross, or like a German turn and I'm, and I'm sequencing it too soon and something else goes wrong in that sequence. It's really hard for me at least to try and let go of that other thing that went wrong and I have to be. Really, really hard on myself to stay on the agenda and stay with the objective.
Because if I pivot to that other thing, I'm that I haven't planned for, I'm probably not gonna make a great training choice. I'm probably going to drag the session on too long, especially if I pivot to [00:21:00] that other thing, that's going wrong. Fix it. And then go back to my original agenda. it's not gonna go well because now the session is getting longer and longer.
So we wanna just be aware of that, that when we start putting it into sequences, that we're taking a really good look at. Okay. Do I have all the skills required of the sequence and go from there? So the, as I. The number of obstacles I'm doing, I might only include the one or two techniques that I'm working on.
So it might be that can I do a sequence of eight obstacles with two or three front crosses in them? Can I do a series of 10 obstacles with four German turns in them? So you're, you're still only having to think about one T. , but you're increasing the speed and you're increasing the quantity of that one skill that you are executing, and [00:22:00] then I'm gonna do longer sequences with either.
Or if you follow me on Facebook, uh, last year I did a huge series of small space setups, and you can search for them on, on my Facebook page. but all of my small space setups had this kind of either or baked into the design, meaning that when you went through the sequence, the fir the first sequence, everything was good.
You got to see how it went. And then the second sequence provided, had some similarities, but some subtle differences as well, so that you were always kind of alternating. Your handling strategy and being really fresh and deliberate with the cues that you are giving. So I'll do the same thing with my technique training that I'll set up a sequence that can be broken into two.
So maybe the first. Half is a front cross sequence. And the second half is a reverse [00:23:00] spend sequence. And then I will connect those two so that I'm having to go back and forth between front cross reverse, spend front cross reverse spend, without stopping and having to think about it. And then finally, I'm looking for opportunities to practice those techniques on the courses that I intend to compete on.
So this. Something that I do kind of put out there for my students and put some pressure on my students to go look up course maps. You know, if you are thinking about competing in AKC, go look up some AKC, novice open course maps or. If you're, if you're currently competing in U S D a a, or UK or CPE or NAAC or wherever you're competing or hope to compete, go look at those course maps and see if you can find opportunities to use these techniques that you have found, because.
One that's just excellent practice anyways, for looking at a course map [00:24:00] and building your handling strategy two, you are going to have a easier time generalizing. If you go out and find course maps in the wild, rather than only working on setups that were designed for those particular techniques. I do find that there is kind of a gap sometimes when we.
Only train on like training setups, because I I'm completely admitting this, that when I build a setup for a specific technique, it means that that technique is gonna work for like 90% of the dogs and handlers that go through that. But it's going to be kind of a textbook application of that technique, where we have to put in the extra step to go out and find those course maps.
Is that the lines. Are similar, but the obstacles and how they're set up may not look anything like the sequences that you've been training on. [00:25:00] So going out and finding those course maps of the courses that you are going to be competing on, helps you with generalizing, where these techniques should go, where it's appropriate to use a front cross, where it's appropriate to use a reverse spin.
Where is it appropriate to use a German turn versus that backside blind cross? Having that extra kind of step of studying is really, really helpful. Then you can kind of take the pieces of that course and build. just the pieces. You don't have to be able to build the entire course, but if you can build like one or two obstacles into it and one or two obstacles out of it, maybe we're talking five to eight obstacles from a real life course, and you can go try it out and see was your hypothesis correct?
That is so. So valuable to your learning and your application of techniques. So that is how it goes for me. And then if I've done my [00:26:00] homework and I've done that, and I've practiced it in those trial, like situations, I'm gonna say, you know what, this technique it's ready for a trial. I'm go at the next trial.
I go to, I'm gonna look for an opportunity to use this and I'm gonna go for it. Committing to that plan is such a huge mental win. And then when it goes, well, technically double the mental win, because you are seeing the results of your hard work and your training in action. So to wrap this up, when I introduce a new technique to my dog, and I expect them to be able to follow my physical cues, I am.
Relying on handler fluency first. And I'm making sure that I am not asking my dog to follow cues that are not very clear yet. Second, I'm [00:27:00] making sure that they have the prerequisite skills needed. In order to complete that technique training, and that might include some foundations. I'm going to start at the place where it makes the most sense either on the flat or already on some obstacle, either progressing through the different from on the flat, to in sequencing or back training on one jump, I'm going to introduce either or training pretty early on.
I'm going to practice sequencing when I feel really confident. And I'm gonna go back to that kind of handler fluency piece and look at my overall training of that technique on one or two obstacles. W how many mistakes did I have within a session? If I can breeze through the technique training sessions in four or five reps with no mistakes, I'm gonna feel way more [00:28:00] confident.
Applying that technique in a sequence where I have to do two or three of them without stopping. Then if my, my training sessions were. good. Good. Eh, good. Eh, good. Right. So if my training session is not consistently clean, I'm probably not ready to move onto practicing it in a sequence. Then I'm going to go out and look for course, maps in the wild so that I can be better prepared for competing with those techniques and improve my generalization overall.
I hope this was super helpful. And bonus. I have a question from a community member that is really, really relevant to this conversation today. And Jennifer asks, what is the difference between training and practicing [00:29:00] and. You Jennifer is wondering if there are any nuances that she's missing, that she could make it easier.
Um, for, especially for explaining this to handlers that are used to doing a lot of practice and not a lot of training. And can you combine training and practicing in a session if there is a break in between? So I love this question and. in my mind training is where we're acquiring a skill. The rate of reinforcement is super high because we're breaking it into very small pieces and the, the dog and I are just getting acquainted and getting to know how it's going to work with this.
Practicing is piecing those skills together and rehearsing them as a whole rehearsing the performance as a whole. And just [00:30:00] by the nature of sequencing, the rate of reinforcement is going to be lower. It's gonna start looking more and more like competition, right? Because we're not rewarding. After one obstacle now we're, you know, rewarding after five or six obstacles or 10 or 12 obstacles.
So that's basically the difference. just on the surface. We can definitely take this further. And I plan to in future podcast episodes, because I do want to break down good and bad practice habits. So we're gonna put a small pin in this question, but don't you worry, identify, I am gonna roll back into this with a, probably a series.
Of episodes, but to answer the second half of your question of, can you combine training and practicing in a session if there is a break in between? And the answer is absolutely when I am doing some course training. So I have lots of [00:31:00] handling techniques under my belt. and I am now looking at longer courses to practice with my dog and I grab a map or I find a map and I look at the course and I go, Ooh, there's a few pieces here that I need to train.
So I will break those pieces out and just train those. And it should be pretty. Like sometimes they're just simple things like, eh, I'm not really sure. I wanna give this a try to make sure that it's exactly the way I think it should go. I'm gonna train that piece once or twice and then I'm gonna move. if it's something then that it only required a couple of reps trained a couple of pieces, and then I want to now run this whole course and kind of swap into practice.
That's totally okay. Especially with a, with a break in between, or if I have the opportunity to set a course and it's available to me all day. [00:32:00] Sure. I could have a normal length training session and then come back later in the day and do it. Um, most of the time though, if I do set a course and there are multiple things on that course that I need to train first, I will just plan my normal training session, do those few things.
And then I'll try to come back to the whole course the next day or the day after that, if that's possible. The biggest thing here is that I don't want to overdo it or do too many reps or do too many reps of the same. So again, I want to continue unpacking practice habits. And so those episodes might be coming sooner rather than later.
But in general, I want to think of training as acquiring a skill high rate of reinforcement focusing on basically one agenda and then practice. Several skills and you are doing a bit of testing and making sure that your [00:33:00] skill acquisition is holding up in the context that you're going to need it in at a trial and practicing can or cannot include all of the trial pieces, but it is a different feeling and a different objective than training.
so I hope that helps clear some things up Jennifer and I really look forward to unpacking that question further in future episodes. That's all for today. Talk more next week.
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