Megan: [00:00:00] Hey everyone. Welcome to Fostering Excellence in Agility, 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 all. For today's episode, we have special guest Sarah Strumming, cog dog coach, who is a dog behavior consultant and spends her time working with her clients and mentoring colleagues. You may already know her from her, her own podcast, cog Dog Radio. But if you aren't familiar with Sarah, here is a little bit more about her.
Sarah has been in the field of dog behavior for nearly two decades [00:01:00] and has competed in dog sports for even longer. Her educational background includes a Bachelor's of Science degree in Psychology from Colorado State University, the Living and Learning with Animals Course with Dr. Susan Friedman. A decade of conference attendance, endless reading online courses, and more.
Her extensive hands-on experience with a variety of dogs and their people in training, sports, veterinary daycare, shelter, and boarding settings is truly what sets her apart from so many others. Sarah shares her life lucky for me in the Pacific Northwest with her two border Collies and Icelandic sheep dog.
Today, Sarah and I talk about how our youngest dogs Sprint and Raya could not be more different from each other. And yet at the core, Our training STA strategies were fairly similar and I cannot wait for you all to hear this conversation. We really dove into pretty much as much as we could and I [00:02:00] hope you enjoy it.
Here it is. Hey Sarah, welcome to the podcast. Hey Megan. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, I am excited to have you here. I am used to being on the other side of this situation, so happy to finally have you here. And today I want us to talk about our two youngest dogs, sprint and Raya, who are about six months apart in age.
And somehow we are finding them to be turning out into these fabulous little sports dogs. And
Sarah: I wanna talk about that. . Yeah, for sure. Because they are, they literally couldn't be more different.
Megan: Absolutely not. Um, for those of you listening that may not know, sprint is a 19 month old border [00:03:00] Colly. And Reya is
Sarah: a 25 ish month old, uh, Icelandic sheep dog.
Yeah.
Megan: So in every way possible, they are different. .
Sarah: I think just that they're both girls is the only thing they have in common. Oh, right. Yes,
Megan: they do. And they have pointy ears.
Sarah: Yeah. Okay. Pointy ear , pointy eared bitches. That's what they've gotten.
Megan: Very, very cute. .
Sarah: Yes.
Megan: Okay. So with everything about them that is so different, but we obviously train together and we train pretty similarly.
Mm-hmm. what? is the common denominator here, and I think that does kind of start with our goals
Sarah: for these dogs. Yeah. Yeah. So we have different like competitive aspirations [00:04:00] for these dogs, but we have this overarching common goal that we'd both like a nice agility dog and what a nice agility dog is, is one that is really capable in the environments that we need to do agility in.
So they're not, they don't require, you know, special treatment or management like, you know, nobody wants to be that person who is really sweating the entire time they're trying to just get their dog through. Place that we compete in, right? So we want them comfortable in that place, but we also want them to be fast, enthusiastic, sporty, fun dogs.
Like we want the same things in a general sense from our dogs. Definitely.
Megan: We want to be able to go to the competitions that are going to be enjoyable [00:05:00] and we want them to also enjoy that with us. Mm-hmm. and yeah, the paper goals are probably really different just based on where each of us is in our own competitive journey and also who they are as a dog and what is going to be enjoyable for them.
That is always going to look different. But I totally agree that nice agility dog is the bottom line. None of those paper goals matter if we aren't starting off with that. Fast, enthusiastic, sporty partner that handles the environment.
Sarah: Yes, for sure. And we started with such different play that the fact that we're getting really similar, um, a really similar end structure as far [00:06:00] as both the dogs are fast and enthusiastic and both the dogs are really comfortable.
And for one of them, one of those things came really easy. And for the other one, , the other thing came really easy. .
Megan: Exactly. So everything of course is a trade off. And so let's just like dive in, let's tackle handling the environ.
Sarah: Handling the environment. That's the easy one for Raya. Yes.
Megan: And this was not the easy one for Sprint.
Spoiler alert. .
Sarah: Easy one for sprint. Spoiler alert. And gosh, isn't that just, that's how it always goes, right? Almost always. One, you're gonna have a trade off here. One of those things is gonna be easy and not the other one. Almost always. Exactly. And Freya certainly, I, I provided her with an education for navigating those environments, but that education was not hard to give and it was easy for her.
[00:07:00] And it did not involve, you know, it didn't involve me putting too much of my thinking brain on. Right, right. It was, I think those people could have achieved comfort for Raya in these environments.
Megan: Right. Whereas I spent the majority. of sprint's, early puppyhood, building comfort and skills around the environment.
Mm-hmm. . And even now, while she can focus more on the sporty things and the agility behaviors, I still find myself needing to shift those scales towards the environment training. Right.
Sarah: You will always be, you know, that pendulum is always gonna swing more towards needing to work on the environment stuff versus the sports stuff.
The sports stuff for Sprint is the easy [00:08:00] part. And navigating the noise and chaos and hubub of, and, and weird things that people do, um, of an agility environment does not come easy to her. And so you will. , you continue to have to go back to the drawing board on that front, whereas I don't have to go back to the drawing board on that front in a, in most cases.
Right. With Raya,
Megan: it's almost like the, again, the, how they are so different is that the more Raya learns about being fast and enthusiastic, the environment almost gets easier for her. Mm-hmm. . Whereas the more Sprint learns about agility and being fast and enthusiastic that those environmental pieces can, can get easier for her, but they can also get more challenging for her.
So, and [00:09:00] I would like the more she wants it.
Sarah: Yeah. Well, because I think that a lot of people listening are gonna go, wait, that doesn't make sense because my, my super high drive dog. does better if they are tugging a toy or running agility. And what this comes back to is you and I having a higher standard for what quote unquote, better looks like.
Right? And you aren't going to simply over face her with a tug toy. You aren't simply going to say, ignore everything, have your blinders on due agility to her. You would like her to acknowledge and know what the environment is and still also be able to compete. And those high arousal feelings, um, if we're gonna call them that, or basically just big feelings that she has about sports don't help to put her in a mindset to cope with the environment.
And I would say that's generally speaking true across the board. Yeah. It's just that border collies in general, [00:10:00] um, border collies and, and dogs like them are, I'm just gonna say the words, they're easy to exploit because we can. Say to them, Hey, you have, hey, here's this thing that's super, super important to you.
Oh, also, by the way, um, you're gonna do it in a snake pit. Is that okay? ? Exactly. Um, right. Like, I mean, that's just, that's how that is. And there are things that are important enough to me that if you said, oh, but you can only do it, um, in a room full of spiders, I'd be like, oh God, okay. All right. Mm-hmm. , let me figure that out.
Right? Like, because the, those things are important enough to me that I would figure it out. Um, and so we, we do that to them a lot. And you're not gonna do it to sprint. And that's why you have to keep paying very close attention to what her subtle responses are, um, when you're putting her in those higher arousal thinking states.
Exactly.
Megan: [00:11:00] And so everything you just said, and also makes always everything. That even if she were completely unaffected by the environment mm-hmm. for those people that have those dogs, let's just pretend Right. The more they want the thing, the harder it is to wait outside the ring. Right. Like sooner they're, yeah.
Right. Even if they're not, they're not, they're not, they're not concerned. They're not looking around, they're not having, you know, any other feeling other than let me in there. All of that, that frustration of not being able to get into the ring is going to leak out into the performance and so I also have to avoid that in the same way that we are not even allowing Raya to scream and go [00:12:00] crazy and bark in lunge outside the ring.
Right. Because we don't want her wasting our energy outside the
Sarah: ring. Right. It's for a different reason. But it's Yes. It's like, um, yeah. Even if they're not environmentally concerned, the bigger deal the game is to them, the harder it's gonna be for them to be relaxed. Um, ringside. And we want them relaxed ringside for a variety of reasons.
Like you said for Raya. The reason is I don't want her using up any of her juice, cuz it's limited juice on screaming and wanting to go in. Right. And then in the case of Sprint or like my border Colly Felix, um, he, his good decisions will be spent. Yes. Like if he, if he, if he is allowed to crank himself into such a state, then it will be hard for me to bring him back to good decision mode.
Megan: Yes. I spent. [00:13:00] Smacks entire career managing his outside the ring skills. Mm-hmm. and I always felt like going into some runs, he was already so exhausted from just the mental gymnastics he was having to do outside the ring because he had no truly trained skills that anything I got inside the ring was a little bit of a miracle.
Any sort of smart choices that he made were just a testament to that. What a great dog he was, . Right. And that he could overcome that. And when I got Sprint, I promised myself that I would never do that to myself or a dog ever again. . So here we are.
Sarah: Um, so here we're, and you're having to walk the miles Yes.
Of teaching her highly unsexy things like. a [00:14:00] downs stay and loose leash walking. Yeah. That was, I would argue are the sexy things, but just people need, they need a shit know. I'm
Megan: so pleased about it now and obsessed about it now that it is very, very sexy in my opinion. Uh, so we of course balanced with these two girls what we were training.
So at any given moment, uh, if we looked at our training plans, sprints kind of skill card was full of all these outside the ring behaviors and dealing with the environment behaviors and Ray's card was filled with all this fun stuff of going fast and chasing and getting happy about her reinforcers and things like that.
Yeah. ,
Sarah: big energy reinforcement, stress scenarios like That's right. So that's the long skill card for Raya. Yeah.
Megan: And, [00:15:00] and but then also within each training session, how different that balance is between precision and speed.
Sarah: It's so different. . So we even have the rule that if Rea is fast, she's not
Megan: wrong.
Exactly. Because that's such a big priority in convincing this Icelandic sheep dog that going fast is, is worth it. And that going fast is possible. And that going fast is super cool because that was in our requirement of a nice agility dog. Whereas Sprint came knowing how to go fast and that going fast was cool.
That is, How she got her name y'all. Her name was not Sprint. When I picked her up at the airport, that was not the name I was gonna give her. And then the very next morning I put her down on the ground and she is [00:16:00] just running .
Sarah: I'm like, what? We're
Megan: here it is Sprint. It is. And that's just who she is. So I never needed to focus on that piece.
And that is heavily what we focus on
Sarah: with Rea. So much so that like Sprint is banned from running with your other dogs. And Rey's like one of Ray's number one things that I did from the beginning was go chase some border Collies and figure out how fast you are.
Megan: Exactly and. Yeah. So it, it's, it's her entire life and it's their entire life because w we don't live in this bubble where they are pet dogs.
And then we go to the agility field and now they're sport [00:17:00] dogs. They are the same dog a hundred percent of the time. And so we have to look for these behaviors that we want in that nice agility dog. We're looking for them everywhere. Yeah, and
Sarah: that meant what? Honestly, that's probably like a whole other podcast all in it probably.
Um, so we'll just put a pin in that. But yeah, like looking at, gosh, everything all the time and thinking about how it relates back to sports as well as looking at everything in sports and thinking, how does this relate back to life?
Megan: Yes. And that's really my only point about like, sprint isn't running.
Free with my other dogs in the field at the moment because once she doesn't need to be chasing anything. The girl is running on her own. She's how to run. Yeah. And I don't think she has the maturity or the skills [00:18:00] to deal with that if she were to start chasing. And we'll revisit that when she's capable of having those feelings.
But I want her to be able to be ringside and not have those chasy feelings when dogs are running so I don't reinforce
Sarah: them
Yeah. And with right now And totally opposite. Yeah. Well,
Megan: right. We, we show her that she can and the situations that she can and then we also give her the ringside skills of Yeah, but not
Sarah: here. Yes. Always with everything, there's a time and a place for it. And there's the here not there. . Right, exactly. With everything that we do, and with some of them, it doesn't ever need to be
It doesn't need to happen here because it doesn't need to happen ever. Like it's sometimes some [00:19:00] behaviors don't benefit us anywhere, and so we shape other behaviors in their absence. Um, you know, example would be watching other dogs run agility or trying, like getting excited about that. Like Rea or Sprint would be excited about that.
Yes. And have unhelpful feelings about that. Like Rey's Rea might again just waste her energy on that. Mm-hmm. and then Sprint, like we're back to that ringside management situation. We're back to not wanting, not needing to, not wanting to do that forever. Not wanting to need that forever.
Megan: Right. Because it's not useful.
Sarah: it's
Megan: not useful. That's not, it's not useful in this case. It's a little bit useful for Raya, but only if it's like, well, Ray, if it's well managed, because I do think that if [00:20:00] we wanted to, if that was the route that you wanted to take, we could just use Raya watching a dog or two to amp her up Sure. Before running rather than relying on our training.
Sarah: We could, and that kind of circles back to like we've, there are so many different strategies that we can employ in training to get the most out of Raya. and something that we actually do is build some anticipation for her by, I will usually train another dog first. Yes. I will usually not have her go first.
Here's why. I just happen to have, I'm training two dogs actively, so I've got Felix and Raya. Felix is more, is closer to a sprint spectrum. Um, and he, anticipation for him is bad. Waiting his turn puts him in a less helpful [00:21:00] mental state, whereas Rea building some anticipation is good. She brings more energy to the table.
Then. So it comes down to all of these little choices that we make, um, and always just kind of paying attention to. And what was the outcome on. rather than like, okay, the rule is Felix goes first, REA goes second. It doesn't work like that. Right. It's pay attention to what the outcome is. Think about what we need today from both of them and go forward.
Yeah.
Megan: And just recently Rea did get to train first, but she had a training partner. She had a training friend.
Sarah: Yeah, she had a . It was a very cute little double Icelandic day. And they both benefited from having really brief. Yeah. That worked so well. It worked beautifully for them.
Megan: And it wasn't [00:22:00] until we were just talking that I realized that Rayo went first before Felix and.
she rocked it. Like that was just
Sarah: totally rocked it. She didn't. And I think that we are at a place now where I pull up to the field and she knows what we're there for, and I don't need to leverage that anticipation with her anymore. Um, at all. Yeah. And that
Megan: is, but I don't so much more sustainable than relying on the trial environment or dogs running ahead of you to get her going.
Right.
Sarah: And if you're smart and you're doing what we're doing, like we just said, watching for our outcomes, making adjustments based on what the outcomes are and what the desired outcomes are, then you're actually teaching them a response rather than relying on the environment to provoke a response. Yes.
This
Megan: is.[00:23:00]
Probably in, in another podcast completely, but it is one of these, I'm
Sarah: just say there's another rabbit hole that we could really go
Megan: deep. we Well, and we might as well because I think this is what the people are here for. Yeah. About, I, I always tell my students, I don't want the exactly what you just said, I don't want the environment or the location or the activity necessarily to produce the condition, emotional response or the arousal level or the behaviors.
I want the routine to inform my dog what's gonna happen so that I can go to a place. And maybe sometimes that place is the obedience competition and maybe sometimes that place is the agility competition. And maybe sometimes this place is just a hiking spot or. , I'm teaching here and you're going to be in a crate all day.
I'm [00:24:00] sorry. There's no reason to get yourself worked up. I don't want them to just get in the car and start having
Sarah: feelings. Right. No, and I
Megan: want, I personally, I want them to wait until we've like the threshold of the ring and their leash is coming off. And now you can go as crazy as you want to because now you know exactly where I want it funneled.
Sarah: Yes. And I think, um, we can do that strategically again with all of our training. And so that comes down to, oh, and also by the way, I'm not gonna take the leash off unless you are showing me the behavior that I wanna see in this particular situation. Yes. So, Sprint doesn't get to drag you into the ring screaming and then have her leash come off.
Correct. , [00:25:00] um, ,
Megan: does Raya get to drag you into the ring and
Sarah: No. Also true also, no. Also not super worthwhile, but it would be a little bit different if it looked like that. Yes,
Megan: I Right, I agree completely because, um, I really struggled with this with Shrek, my Parson Russell Terrier, because n the environment in itself didn't produce any sort of heightened arousal level.
It was really, really difficult to get him into a space where, right. He was at an optimal working point where he could focus and zone in and be that really, really worky. Dog, we know he can be .
Sarah: And circling back you saying that Ray has never tried to drag me into the ring screaming Ray. And I'm gonna tell you [00:26:00] that if she did though, I'd still let her run.
Like I wouldn't stop her. Mm-hmm. And I would probably, and I'd be excited about it. I'd be like, look at this monster I created. And then for my own, you know, satisfaction and benefit, I would probably then teach her a few things, um, and teach her some, some additional skills so that, that's not necessarily what she was doing.
Um, mostly because again, they need to be in sports the same that they are in life. And that's not a behavior I wanna see in her life. Right. So therefore it's not one that I would probably lay a lot of reinforcement in for sports, but, um, if she did that, I would actually be excited that we did that. Yes, because,
Megan: so this is, this is really like the point.
of today, I think is the timeline that they are on and when they get those skills. Yeah. So Sprint came out of the gate, she's running, she's going [00:27:00] fast. We know that she's going to be, we've got fast and enthusiastic and sporty. We got that for free based on genetics and reading. Got it. Right. So she had those, for lack of a better word, those control behaviors, those self-regulating behaviors added to her scorecard
Sarah: early, early, early,
Megan: before she even had those big feelings about what agility
Sarah: could be.
Megan: Right. But it would've been pointless for you to start those things with Rea Absolutely. Before she had ideas about agility.
Sarah: Absolutely. The first thing I want her to know is, This agility thing is really good stuff. It rocks for me. Yeah. And, and it's always gonna be fun for you. It is a guaranteed good time.
Like those [00:28:00] are the things that I want her to know first. We are sure Sprint will feel that way about agility. You've b like there's very little doubt about that when you buy a dog like her Yes , that's not gonna be the question. And therefore you may as well start laying your money in the bank for those skills that you can pretty much guarantee are gonna be harder for her.
Like loosely walking to the start line. Um, that's just simply smart to do. And so what if you're listening to this and you're like, well I don't know cuz my puppies of unknown origin, or maybe it's kind of a 50 50 situation. I have no idea. That's where you are keeping everything in balance all the time.
So that's where, you know, we could make really good guesses about what Sprint and Raya would grow up to be like. But nobody knows. So you're still always observing and responding. You're still always [00:29:00] saying, you know, are you really hot for this game now? Okay, you are. Okay, so now I'm gonna respond this way.
Um, and honestly, REA continues to hit different speed levels and she continues to, um, show up with more excitement and enthusiasm, like basically every time we go train. And so we continue to adjust based on that. And Sprint also continues to prove that she, she continues to show us what environmental pressures are gonna be hard for her, and which ones are surprisingly gonna be easy.
and we just, we just keep adjusting. Yeah. And
Megan: they're going to both even out at the, at their version of nice agility dog for us. [00:30:00] Yeah. And even like little things, um, like our start line. Hmm. When did we start training Reyes's start
Sarah: line? I mean, does she have one yet? Could we even say that? Well, ,
Megan: I'm not sure.
Good point. She wasn't gonna out
Sarah: me. She wasn't gonna say, for instance, REA doesn't even have one. .
Megan: I think Sprint started learning stay like the day I brought her home. And or stillness very early on. And Raya, we are very loosely just now starting to talk about,
Sarah: yeah. Like I did your foundation. Stay v go.
Yes.
Megan: Process and right. So that's just cue discrimination of your reinforcers. Stay put on the station versus move off the station. So
Sarah: that's kind of what she's got. And um, still, if I use a station, if I use a cable board or something on the [00:31:00] line, I can get a more, you know, she's got kind of, that's kind of the, um, stimulus that prompts the stay response for her better than other stuff.
So I'm actively building a start line stay. Now, I have always trained it when I needed it. Yes. But with my border collies, I always needed it sooner than this. Right. And
Megan: this is, this is the question. This is the, well, how do I know? And when I'm building a program for someone, I tend to. Start with all of the same essential skills and core agility foundations, and then we decide what's next based on how the dog feels about those foundations.
So if, if as a six month old puppy staying put was very easy for [00:32:00] Raya, so we're not going to put any more time into that because it's our, it's easy for her, which means the speed stuff is probably more difficult. And so that's where we need to put our focus and put our energy into building the speed and then, you know, check again, is this still really easy for you?
Yeah. Okay. And revisiting those things as they're needed, just like you said. But it's not just do this, then do this, then do this, then do this. And now you have a dog that trots around but knows everything.
Sarah: Right. There is no, um, listen, , you and I more than anybody, wish there was a perfect formula because you, for agility specifically, would've already sold it and would be rich.
And not doing any of this [00:33:00] in anymore. I would love to
Megan: give everyone just a straightforward roadmap checklist.
Sarah: I would love that too. For a lot of different routes in the behavior realm, it doesn't exist. And the reason is there's too much nuance there. Too many moving parts. You are still training a, you're still teaching and educating a living, breathing creature with a brain and with desires and thoughts.
And you are also a living, breathing creature with a brain, with desires and thoughts. And so bringing those two things together, there will always be. Lots of different forks in the road that can't be necessarily anticipated. What can be, what can be done about it is recognizing when you're at a fork rather than just staying on the well beaten path.
So when you see that you're at a fork, so like if, if Raya were in, um, an agility training program where, I don't know, it [00:34:00] was pretty, you know, where dogs were being like led over equipment on a leash and then given a cookie, right? Like stuff like that. Like yeah, there are still these classes that exist, um, which, you know, what we all like maybe got into agility in one of those classes to like no shade thrown to totally these very pet owner friendly, nice agility classes.
If she were my first dog and that's the kind of class we were in, there's the, the end product could not be the same as the one that I'm getting right now. That's correct. And that's okay when like all you know is the well worn path in front of you that somebody is telling you the right one. When you are able to think critically and look critically at the things that you're getting and then make different choices, is when you can get the results that you're really, really interested in.
And that's the beauty of you and I training [00:35:00] together is that if I see something, if I see a fork in that road and I see something maybe going away that I don't want it to go, you and I can discuss it and figure out how to get back on back on the right path. And that's true for Sprint and True for Rea?
Correct.
Megan: So then we do have those situations and I know that agility instructors are listening, so there is always some baseline formula. I have my baseline outline. of what I'm gonna teach and which weeks I'm going to teach it. Beyond that kind of first couple of weeks, it never goes that each dog is on the same path at the same pace.
Right. I maybe get two easy weeks where everyone's doing about the same thing, and then I immediately have to branch out and account for the different schedules that these people have [00:36:00] outside of class, the different experience levels of those handlers, the different access to equipment that they have at home, and then the different dogs.
So everyone is doing the same things, but they're all doing a different variation of those same things. And it's up to the instructor to tweak that formula accordingly.
Sarah: Yes. And when, you know, back in the day pre, was it, I feel like it was pre covid that, um,
Megan: That's now back in the day. That's,
Sarah: I'm gonna say right.
You were like, where's she going with this? Um, back in the day, it was not an appropriate way to start this sentence, but pre covid, I understand now
Megan: it
Sarah: just feels like it was a hundred. Yeah. Well it feels like it was a long time ago. Um, I was in some kind of group class situation with you, with Felix. Yes.
And that was absolutely true. You had the lesson plan for the day, [00:37:00] but like what Felix was doing and what the whip it was doing were always really different. And I even think there might have been like an Afghan, cuz you were the
Megan: Afghan House person. Yes. . Um, um, you had that class,
Sarah: Afghan house owner,
Megan: Afghan, um, , right.
Speak or
Sarah: so like your
Megan: classes.
Sarah: But yeah, so like. Felix was, and, and, and the same thing can happen today, like Rea and Sprint can both work on their running dog walk. This is actually a great example.
Megan: Yes. I'm glad we're Ray and
Sarah: Sprint on the same day, on any given training day when we meet up, both of them are doing their freaking dog walk because it is the project that never ends.
Right? And, and it's not for fun. So , um, they can both work on their dog walk and it'll look so different. And we, but like, yes, [00:38:00] those bones are the same. The bones of, I want you to hit this target. I want you to do it as fast as you can, and I want you to do it reliably, regardless of what else I'm asking you to do.
Like those bones are the same and the foundation was the same. Yes. But what happened is never once did we sit down and go. You know, sprint just doesn't have enough comfort running across the boards, so we're gonna need to just let her run. , no criteria. , no criteria like that never happened with Sprint.
Megan: No, that's for a while.
Exactly. We took the target off. We,
Sarah: and it wasn't, I'm gonna say it wasn't no criteria. It was the criteria. The criterion we care about is your fast today. Yes, that
Megan: is true. We did not focus on precision. Uh, whereas [00:39:00] every session of sprints running dog work training, the only focus is precision.
Sarah: Because why?
Because she's bringing speed to the table to every single session. You don't ever need to. swing, the pendulum towards speed. Cuz that's the, that's, there's a magnet over there that the pendulum is stuck to. Like you can't Yes. You're pining the pendulum off of that magnet and trying to bring it towards the bo the, the precision side.
And that is, you know, with Ray it's more of a true pendulum.
Megan: Yes, I agree. And we see that a lot with her, that when we do focus on speed for a little bit too long, we do lose it. Yep. We lose our, and we have to ask ourselves, okay, how are we gonna start swinging back towards precision without losing Right.
The speed. Because if we just swing it back,
Sarah: We are gonna lose, we lose everything. We're just gonna wind up swinging [00:40:00] back and forth, and we're never gonna hum in the middle, which is exactly what exactly we're doing. And what's fascinating for me that's happened with Rea, and this again comes back to, and I think this is probably even another podcast, but, um, the, those high energy reinforcement strategies and how what we've done is that we didn't utilize the preferred reinforcement strategy for this behavior.
For me and you, and I think like a lot of people is using a food robot. Mm-hmm. . Um, so using a manages mind or something like that, that's what I wanna use to train this behavior. And Raya would only ever trot up to it and then slow to a walk and then eat it. And that's not, that's not gonna work for us.
Like I, that, that's not fast enough. That is, Too far on the precision side, but the cool thing is that we swung our pendulum over to the speed side [00:41:00] and now she's going much faster to the manners minder. Yes. In the dog walk context because yes, she has learned that the dog walk is a fun thing to do fast.
And so then how cool that we can swing back and forth in such a way that even reinforcement strategies that we thought were not gonna produce the right behavior for us, still maintain the right behavior for us. because we taught that behavior with a reinforcement strategy that did produce that behavior like throwing a toy.
Megan: Oh my word. Okay, so this is a chicken of the egg situation, is it not like Yes.
Sarah: Yes. such a chicken of the ation.
Megan: Yes. Because she did come with some really, like when she came to agility and she was like really, really ready to go beyond foundations and like really start training agility. She had [00:42:00] clear reinforcer skills and she had a clear hierarchy of, I like this type of food better than this type of food and I like this toy better than this.
Like, it was very, very clear and her rules were very black and white about those things. And her behavior surrounding reinforcement acquisition was pretty. even across the board, like we knew what we were gonna get when we used the ball. We knew what we were gonna get when we used duck jerky. We knew what we were gonna get.
When you use Thewe Peak, all of those things. I see.
Sarah: I ver I could have written Yes, yes.
Megan: Written it all out. Yes. We can't write that anymore. No. She is more even across the board for whatever you have because of predictability of, and so it's like consistency of clarity of, Ooh, I like moving my body. Like it's all What came first?
Sarah did her. Was it her? Would you say that she was [00:43:00] ridiculously food motivated or ridiculously toy motivated? Absolutely not. No. But, but I wouldn't somehow you got there because somehow she's, she's now,
Sarah: yes. . I would never tell somebody that agility will teach their dogs to like food better. .
Megan: But it wasn't, I mean, it would've been anything, however, or, or
Sarah: toys better any, and it didn't.
I don't even think it did. I think it's that. And you know, I do talk about this a lot because people ask me constantly in one of my, like, it, it is a question that irritates me, which is why, which I'm working on it. Like what that means is that, what that means is that I need to understand better the motivation for people asking the question and have more empathy.
But anyway, um, the question is what value food do you use for this? Yes. Like, whatever it, see, it irritates you too. I just heard it in your voice. Um, ,
Megan: like whatever I have in my car, literally. Cause I can't be
Sarah: responsible. I literally can't be responsible for perishables. And also like [00:44:00] when I do, it does not go well.
And also
Megan: like winter's, the only time I can, I have,
Sarah: and you've seen me. , I have prepped hierarchies of food for Rea.
Megan: Yes. And I have thought about this extensively.
Sarah: I use hierarchies for of reinforcement really intentionally all the time. And also I really rely on my dogs working for whatever it happens to be that I have.
And that comes through this really consistent me, me keeping my promise that whatever this is, it will be great for you. If you and I are doing a thing together, I promise it will be great for you.
Megan: And exactly
Sarah: enough time of me keeping that promise. Rea shows up and she's like, you didn't even have, like, you just had some random cookies that fit in the Manners minder.
Cuz that's one of the problems with the manners minder is that if your dog gets cookie, [00:45:00] you're a little bit screwed.
Megan: Um, she was fine with it. She was like, okay, yeah, sure, okay, I'll do
Sarah: this. And she's. Freaking running. Yeah. To the robot, which she, she's
Megan: connecting those two pieces, right? She doesn't have that.
She didn't come with that far from it.
Sarah: She wasn't scared of it. Like most of my border collies are when they first see it. Um,
Megan: but I thank my lucky stars. This sprint was okay with
Sarah: it. I, yeah, that's, you can just put that on the short list of easy stuff, um, that you had. Yes. Um, but like the first time she saw it, the first time she learned it, I've got videos of her as a tiny baby walking up to it and crunching a kibble out of it and being like, okay.
Mm-hmm. . But like nothing, it's not
Megan: exciting. It's not great.
Sarah: Um, we had better speed running to a dish than the manners mine. So we used that. But it's not super practical. Um, for a variety of reasons. Because for precision, for precision, it's not super practical. Um, it [00:46:00] also, she was starting to target you cuz you would act as the robot when we used a dish.
Yes. and that's, that's an issue. And so, you know, there, there were things with it, but what's fascinating here is that I think I could pull up and I have to the field and have like a he whatever toy and a whatever treat, and I would still get the same speed that I used to need to like have Costco Rich Rotis Chicken for Right.
And latex squeaky pigs were the only toy that was gonna produce like sweet and like or
Megan: chicken heads, uh, freeze-dried chicken heads. We have
Sarah: given her freeze-dried chicken head Yes. Before. And don't be alarmed if you see her carrying one around a trial right near in the spring. So ,
Megan: I, I think it's just been amazing watching how that has changed for her.
Mm-hmm. , because we've also seen pretty similar changes in [00:47:00] Sprint. Not that we ever were worried about it. because she was always gung ho for toys. She likes food. But I ha I've seen a little bit of the same thing that her intensity for food and training has increased. She yes. Can swap between food and toys.
Sure. Can energy like in any point in the session. And she can do both as long as I am paying attention and making sure that she is swallowing the food . Even though that there is more running and more toy biting to be had,
Sarah: still have to eat the food if I
Megan: give it to you. Yeah. Because I would lose it if I, you know, so there's the , the balance here is that I don't think we're gonna
Sarah: lose Ray's
Megan: ability to eat right?
No, but I could lose sprint's ability to eat if I'm not paying attention. Sense
Sarah: that I could lose [00:48:00] Ray's toy, toy skills. Yes. Toy plan and do so. Like we did a seminar recently, you and I, with both of them. It was both of their first seminars. Um, and I used a toy with Rea really sparingly, and we had discussed it ahead of time and the plan was actually not to use it at all.
Right. Uh, there
Megan: was some big concerns that, you know, a different, it was a new place, it was a dirty arena. Some big concerns that the toy would not be desirable in those conditions.
Sarah: Lots of concerns that the toy would not be desirable and I don't wanna practice. There are two things I don't wanna practice.
One is obviously, um, poor toy skills or kind of lack of toy skills. I don't wanna practice that, but I also don't wanna practice me delivering a reinforcer to her that isn't, that doesn't hold up that promise that this will be great for you. Yeah. . And that's the big deal to me [00:49:00] is that I hate it when I give her something And I, and she has disappointment cuz she wanted something else.
Mm-hmm. . Um, but she was like jumping up and biting my arm and sleeve and I was like, okay, you can bite something else. . So I .
Megan: Right. So she was showing you that she wanted to bite and tug saying
Sarah: tugging would be, would work for her right now? So I used a toy. I still used it really carefully and sparingly because I know that I don't have, you know, our turns with the instructor were like eight or nine minutes long and I know that I don't have eight or nine minutes of work for a toy with Raya.
Right.
Megan: And coming up and coming down, that is exhausting. Right. You run for a little bit and then you're rewarding and then you're going to have a little quick chat. So should the dog stay up? Should the dog come back down? Right. That's. not an easy skill [00:50:00] for them to bring themselves up and bring themselves down over and over again in a nine minute period.
Right. So you A competition is so much easier in comparison. Oh gosh. So
Sarah: much easier. So much easier. And I think, you know, with Ray, cuz the other thing we talked about was, I might ask for shorter turns, like it just depends on what Raya is looking like. Mm-hmm. , one of the big wins of that day is that I didn't need shorter turns.
That's right. Raya was there and was working and was into the game and there was a lot going on. There was like a barn hunt class adjacent. Oh my gosh. It was so loud. , there were dogs screaming about rats. It was, it was alarming to me. Like there was just a ring gate, like between us. Yeah. There, you know, there's people, there's dogs, like there's horses not that far away, which is a thing for
Megan: Raya, like Right.
It was getting dark outside. I sprinting, like I don't train in the dark. I'm usually in bed by that time. So
Sarah: much going on. And [00:51:00] the girl hung out for the eight half minute turns each time and gave me a couple reps of doing it for a toy. And like, I mean, but it's paying attention to what are you giving me?
What are you capable of? And not asking for more than that.
Yeah. Easy. . Easy, no big deal. . Okay.
Megan: That was complete sarcasm. Uh, we are not, we are not painting this in an easy light. We absolutely, so tough a hundred percent know how difficult. it is to, to do everything that we are talking about today.
Sarah: And just in the interest of full disclosure here, you and I do get it right a lot of the time, especially when we talk about it during, you and I both had one turn at the seminar that [00:52:00] we did not like.
That's correct. , we both had one turn that we made mistakes and we didn't like it. Yeah. And the brilliance of that is that then we discu, we both wanted to cry in our cars and leave, but we didn't. We discussed that was
Megan: when number one is that we stuck it out. Yeah. , we discussed all that. Therapy is really paying off.
Sarah: We made a plan for the next round and we had better turns. . And so we're not saying we get it right all the time. We're saying when we get it wrong, we recognize that we got it wrong. Rather than it'd be really easy to just make a bunch of excuses and be like, mm-hmm . Well, she's a baby dog. This is hard.
Megan: I was just about to say that.
they're babies. They're just babies. This
Sarah: is so hard. No, actually it
Megan: is hard. It is
Sarah: hard. And they're not babies and they're well trained. Nobody babies. But this is hard. And I can make better choices for her [00:53:00] on my next turn. That's on me. Yes. All the time. And if I just go, well, she's a baby. That excuses me for making those better choices.
That's, and that's why that's not a phrase. You're gonna hear me say
Megan: same. They are young, but they are well prepared. Yes. And they will continue to be prepared so that. They can show up in the variety of situations that we will ask them to show up in and they will nail it. And if they don't, that tells us where we will be focusing our next set of preparations.
Sarah: And that's just, I think that's it is like you're not gonna nail it every time.
Megan: Nope. Plenty of training sessions where we go, well that was a terrible idea. Why did we
Sarah: do that? , plenty of training sessions that were like, okay, so should we just go [00:54:00] drink because
Megan: this, right? So that did not go how I anticipated it at all.
And now I feel like I know nothing about dog training. And you know, the next time we train we're like, yes, we are still in the game. We got this. All right. Yeah. Feeling smart today. This
Sarah: is really, I think it's important and valuable to note that like this is high stakes for both of us. Yeah. , this is really high stakes for both of us.
Neither of us do this quote unquote for fun, ,
Megan: right? We want to be competitive. I want to do well, and I also want Sarah to do well , right?
Sarah: And I want you to do well. Right? And it's. So it's really high stakes across the board and it's really important then that we are, you know, that's why so much care and discussion has gone into all of [00:55:00] this because we recognize that there's just, there's so much at stake here and that we can be successful.
We aren't gonna be successful if we are not paying attention to all the variables. Letting the pendulum swing when it needs to, recognizing when it has done so and trying to bring it back to the
Megan: other side. Yes. And even though we've spent, I don't know how long comparing Rea to Sprint, I hope that it was not lost, that there was not a comparison of they're six months apart, but they're at the same point or.
right? Because I feel like agility culture pushes us in that direction and that if we weren't good friends, there might be some [00:56:00] angst about that.
Sarah: Yeah, sure. Like,
Megan: um, or that they're both like Raya is to Sprints going to be too bef before she debuts, like how much older they are than the typical dog that's debuting in competition.
That, that those feelings of comparison aren't relevant because Rea is Rea and Rea with Sarah is Rea with Sarah and Sprint to Sprint. And Sprint with Megan is Sprint with Megan. End of,
Sarah: yeah, because I, yeah, I mean, I, here I am asked every time I go to a trial if Ray's running and when she's running. Yes.
Um, and you are too. Where, where's Sprint? When is Sprint? Aren't you running her? Um, how old is she? How old is she? . Um, and the truth is that they [00:57:00] are, they will be well prepared. And the value here is that I don't enter a dog that's not extremely perfect prepared. Very well prepared, right? Um,
Megan: you know, and that's the whole thing with their timeline and training on the dog's timeline, is that we're not asking them to do anything that they're not prepared to do.
Right? If
Sarah: Raya says, if, if we had busted out the Manners minder for the dog walk the other day, and Raya had started walking down that plan, we would've said, all right, well that's not happening today.
Megan: Right? You're not ready for that. . Okay. Not right now. We tried it. Exactly. It's all right. It we're not quite there yet.
We need to put a little bit more money in the speed bank so that the next time we offer you this manner's reminder, you are running to it.
Sarah: Yeah. [00:58:00] And like she's showed us that if the course is made of contact equipment and tunnels, she's gonna give us all the speed she's got.
Megan: Yeah. And that's an excellent point.
Yeah. Jumps
Sarah: are harder for her. And so what are we doing? We're now saying, okay, you're ready now to be asked to do more jumping between those obstacles that you think are a little more fun. Yes. And,
Megan: but we needed those obstacles that she does. We need to run s and run over
Sarah: have. You have to have some easy obstacles.
You have to have easy wins. Um, and it's not, I think people only think of their reinforcement procedure as the easy win. Like, okay, do all the hard things. Here's your payment. Right. You gotta have parts of your job that feel easy to you. If your entire job feels way too hard, it doesn't matter what that paycheck is,
Megan: especially when the end goal is competition.
The payout for [00:59:00] a competition run is never truly going to
Sarah: so delayed. It's not reinforcing Exactly.
Megan: It's not, it's never really going to impact their performance in that way. You might get a little bit of anticipation where they run really fast for the last few obstacles, but relying solely on that, that's probably where it's going to end.
So there does need to be obstacles that they Right. Have more desire for,
Sarah: or they're
Megan: just able to run more on them? Yeah.
Sarah: Yeah. And it's, and using them, we've even started to layer it in using it intentionally. In training of like Rea gives us really fast weave poles. She gets some reps of a straight tunnel.
Yeah. And she's getting fed for everything she's doing. When she gives me her fastest poles, she gets a break from the poles and she gets to go to tunnels. That's right. And [01:00:00] that's layering in to eventual reinforcement for each obstacle is gonna be the obstacle that you just did. And so recognizing which obstacles are mentally or physically taxing for your dog and making sure that they, that they have easy obstacles to do so, like she didn't know what an A-Frame was.
Now she knows what it is. think it's the best thing in the world. She sure does.
Megan: We're gonna use that. It's funny
Sarah: how much she loves it. And we're gonna use that. We're We're
Megan: using it. Yeah, exactly. We're using it to. transfer value to the things that she finds hard. And what that looks like in Sprints world is that we're using the easy things for her, which is running to reinforce the hard things like start life days or collection [01:01:00] or very precise movements on the dog walk target for tighter turns, things like that, that it's not just food and toys.
Everything is so much more complex than
Sarah: that. Yeah. And, and knowing, you know, yeah, we're still using food and toys for everything, but knowing that reinforcement is just so much more multi-layered than, and then she got a cookie for that. Yeah.
Megan: everything goes. And that's going to be another
Sarah: podcast. Yeah.
Yes. because excellent. ,
Megan: we
Sarah: have four more to do. Yeah, for sure. So I think that, I mean, yes, we, we have, we've, God knows we have enough to talk about you and I, but, um, it's, it's just this, it can [01:02:00] be this really fun, interesting, um, project to say, this is what I want. This is what I'm getting and this is how I'm going to adjust based on what's happening in front of me to get there.
Versus like Sprint and Rea in the exact same program would not both turn out. In fact, neither of them probably would turn
Megan: out No, because Raya would be trotting and Sprint. A drooling hot mess on the floor, like just melted. And I know what it looks like and it's not great. I don't even wanna think about it so much.
Trauma . Um, yeah, it
Sarah: so the, the others program is not right for, for the one and a status quo program that we did doesn't serve anyone. We could take Yeah. That we could take from any online [01:03:00] course and not adjust it based on what's going on. Wouldn't serve either of them either.
Megan: Right. Everything has to be adjusted.
You take your baseline recipe and then you have to adjust the ingredients based on what you have on hand, what type of equipment you have. All those things, if you like an analogy. . Right. . Luckily, I don't think we needed analogies too much today. , but Okay. I can hold it. We, we control. , we, we did a, I think we did a good job.
Mm-hmm. of breaking down who these two dogs are, and I do think that they're pretty representative of the sport. They are. You could be, if we had to split the
Sarah: sport world into two buckets. These are your buckets. These are the buckets. The
Megan: right bucket and the sprint bucket. And [01:04:00] yeah, we pool tools from the same toolbox, but different things land in different buckets.
Sarah: yes. We're throwing tools in buckets. ,
Megan: we're making things. Okay. We should stop because the analogies have started and
Sarah: I, I think we get it. I think we get it. Okay.
Megan: Thank you so much, Sarah, for joining me today and doing our favorite thing, which is talk about our lovely little girls. It was my pleasure. If you are not already following Sarah online, you can find all of the relevant information on her website at the cognitive k nine.com.
Sarah offers online classes and online membership program and a wide variety of free resources as well, including her blog and podcast, and [01:05:00] she is active on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. All of these links will be in the show notes, so if you are not already subscribed in all of the places, please check out those links and give Sarah a follow.
Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, there are several ways you can leave me positive reinforcement. One, leave me a five star. Two, share with your fellow agility nerds, or three, share your thoughts with me on social media. Be sure to follow at FX agility on Facebook or Instagram.
