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. Hey everyone. Today I want to share my thoughts on how trialing informs your training. Anytime that we set out to train, what happens in that training session should inform our next training session, and I think we are pretty good at that as trainers. And then also if [00:01:00] you. Are an instructor or a coach, you should be doing the same things with your students so that the previous week should inform a little bit of what the next week looks like so that you can build some consistency on what you're working on and seeing progress in the skills that you are putting your time into.
Trialing also needs to. Have a place within this feedback loop, right? So trialing is our version of testing our training. So we get to enter our competition in order to determine is our training holding up to the pressure of a competition? So I need to take the information that I gather from the trial and put that.
Back into my [00:02:00] training plans. What I see is that maybe some things get lost in this kind of feedback loop that we assume one thing or the other, and sometimes we don't actually training the things that we need to train. For example, do you have the exact same problem happen? Consistently in competition.
Uh, really common examples would be the dog isn't holding their start line and it's pretty consistent that they're not holding their start line in competition, but it rarely or never happens in training that they break their start line or it's a contact behavior or it's a weave pull, behav. So it's something that in the handler's mind is only happening in competition, but it's consistently the same mistake [00:03:00] when I get this question from my clients.
So the first thing that I ask is, have you asked the dog to do it in training under testing conditions? And I'm going to. Take just a quick moment to explain the difference between training versus sequencing versus testing. I wrote about this a little while ago, so I will for sure drop that link into the show notes.
But basically, if I am acquiring a new skill, whether it's a new dog skill or it's a new handling skill, I'm gonna call that the training phases or the learning phases. We've got a high rate of reinforcement. We're hyper focusing on that one specific skill. and we're not testing anything. We're trying to build up a reinforcement history for that skill.
And this can also be acquiring a new skill or generalizing that new skill, [00:04:00] but eventually generalizing turns into sequencing. And sequencing is where I may still have a high rate of reinforcement, but I'm now chaining other behaviors. with this new skill that I've acquired, and that is a part of the generalization process because in agility, we need to make sure that the behavior can happen no matter what comes before it or after it, right?
So we need to have a lot of variety when we get into sequencing. This is also when I start kind of, I get to a point where I'm going to also add discriminations. Like I said, the rate of reinforcement is still really, really high, but I am relying on the strength of the behavior that happens before and the behavior happens after to maintain the quality of the behavior that I'm training, right?
Cuz I'm not rewarding [00:05:00] each of those things in the sequence. I'm only rewarding the sequence at the end. So that means the things that I'm asking my dog to. one after the other need to be robust enough in their reinforcement history that it doesn't actually break anything else down. And then the third type of training is testing.
And most of the time when I talk to clients, this is the piece that's missing, is that they are only testing things at a competition. But most of the time when we apply the testing condit. To the training setup, we can actually find that the dog isn't prepared, hasn't generalized that behavior for those specific conditions.
The testing conditions don't have to be the entire dog show setup. It doesn't even have to be, uh, a dog sport facility. [00:06:00] It really just has to be the ring. So your beginning of run routine, your end of run routine, and the reinforcement contingency. So no food or toys on your body when you are asking for this type of work.
So these testing conditions can be added into the generalization phase and also the sequencing phase, right? So it might be that before I. Move on to sequencing. I'm going to ask if my dog can do their beginning of run routine, that one brand new behavior, their end of run routine, and then exit to their stashed reward.
That might be part of the generalization process, so that I feel comfortable knowing that my dog understands that every single behavior I teach. Also needs to be possible when I don't have [00:07:00] rewards on my body. And then once I have several behaviors that have all been through that generalization process, including these testing conditions, I can then sequence those behaviors together, both in a learning condition and also a testing condit.
back to the question at hand, if it only ever happens in a trial, have you asked the dog about this specific behavior in training under testing conditions? Okay. If you have, and it's again, you're like, yeah, I totally have. I've set up the ring routine. I've even taken it to novel places and done my ring routine.
I've invited friends over and done test conditions. I've really. Really am struggling. This only happens in a trial. I believe everyone when they tell me that their dog knows something. I [00:08:00] am really optimistic in most situations that the handler has done due diligence in training. They've done everything that they know to do and they're still struggling.
So this does come up a lot if it truly, truly never happens in training. An environmental issue and other behaviors are likely suffering as well, just maybe not as, obviously our human brains are hardwired to look for the things that are wrong, and we tend to fixate on the things that are. really wrong.
So they're blocking us from accessing the outcome. This is not a surprise, right? So we tend to hyper-focus on behaviors when they stop allowing us to qualify, right? So this is generally how behaviors break down in trials in [00:09:00] the first place, is that they might be a little bit weak. They might be just a little bit less than what we get in training.
but we're still able to qualify. So our brains don't draw our focus to them. We have to go looking for it. When we're, we are watching our videos, we have to keep an open mind of, you know, how different are these two behaviors and keep, uh, you know, a good look on all of our behaviors over time so that we're not kind of hit in the face when it truly falls apart.
Okay? Because what happens? Is now your dog has this habit of not doing it correctly in this environment, and so that even if you fix the environmental issue or you fix the technical issue, you could still have this habit and those are more difficult to break. So back to it being an environmental issue, now we need to be focusing on, okay, what in the environ.
Kind [00:10:00] of keeps the dog from being able to focus on the task at hand because that's what, that's what I mean when I say environmental. So imagine your dog's brain is your desktop. If you have a lot of tabs open and the computer's having to use bandwidth to kind of keep all of those tabs running in the background, you are processing speed is going to go down.
And that's what we're seeing in the dogs is that if they have something in the environment that's a little bit bothersome to them or. Are very curious about it or they're very excited about it, and they have all of those tabs open. They have less bandwidth to be able to process the cues that they are receiving on course.
So when we're talking about environmental issues, we're talking about giving them the skills to be able to close those tabs down to be able to, as part of their ring routines and being at a dog show is being able to not be concerned. The floating heads that they see outside the ring when the [00:11:00] arena is completely walled off and all they see are people walking by, they only see their heads.
Um, we need to be able to give them the skills that they can hear, agility, and watch agility without getting so excited that they can no longer focus on the cues. That you are giving them. We need to be able to give them the skills that even though they are very social and they wanna go say hi to their human friends and their dog friends, that they aren't thinking about that when they enter the ring and you take their leash off.
We want to give them the skills that they can close all of that down and they can focus on the task at hand. So almost always, if the same exact issue is happen, , and it's always great in training. Even under testing conditions, you are probably looking at an environmental issue, okay? And there's a lot that goes into fixing that, but it's one thing at a time, one layer of training at a [00:12:00] time.
But you do first need to look. Which tabs your dog is keeping open and then start making a plan for giving them the skills that they can close those tabs. Okay. Environment work in general needs to be about layering in challenges over time. So it might not be that you need to work your problem behavior first.
You might need to be looking for the behaviors that are just a little bit broken. So perhaps maybe your dog's just a little bit slower. In competition than they are in training, and that's not a big deal to you, but they're also not able to weave and that's what your issue is. My issue, the one that I wanna really focus on is their speed.
I want to introduce novelty and different types of pressure and lots of variety into that dog's training to make sure that I still have the same speed that [00:13:00] I'm used to. It's. , finding the smallest little difference and building up their fluency in that small difference. And then tackling, uh, more and more.
And then you go to the behavior that they can't do in competition. But now you've given them a lot more tools to deal with that thing, and now you can. Thinking about, okay, the weave poles, how am I gonna make weave poles novel? How am I gonna introduce different pressure to the weave pole? How am I going to introduce lots of variety to the picture of weaving?
Okay, but don't start there. Start with something that's just a little bit broken. Try not to start with the thing that is most broken. So what if the trial is informing you that you are having very inconsistent. But it's, it's like one, just one little thing every single time, but it's very inconsistent.
There's not [00:14:00] any pattern that you can see. It's not well in standard. It's always this and it's jumpers. It's always this, or first run of the day is always this second run, run as this. Sometimes those patterns can be useful to find. Usually when it's in this like random bit, you are likely looking at a mindset issue.
So this is important to know the difference because if you're having this, you know, random mistake, just one little thing that happens, you might be spending your weekly time focusing on trying to train each of those little things. And of course they're going fine in training because you don't have a training issue.
You. a mindset issue. And so really you have to put the dog away and dig into what's going on in your head. Things that I want you to think about as when you're competing and in even in training to have some comparison of the [00:15:00] data is how do you feel before the run? Right? Do you, are you, uh, are you relaxed?
Are you nervous? Are you. Feeling tight in your body. Like even if you can't put an emotion to it, what does it feel in your body? Are you like, is your stomach getting into knots? Is your heart racing? Are your hands a little shaky? Do you get, you know, are you hot before you run? Are you cold before you run?
So what does it feel like before you compete and what does it feel like before you train and is. , any way that we can meet in the middle with these things and how that might look like. How does it feel during your run when things are going well? Right? Can you recall what was awake in your head? Are you awake in your head?
But do you have this feeling [00:16:00] when it's going well and does it change? after you've had a fault that disqualifies you, is there some shift in how you feel before and after you get to that obstacle that might be causing you problems? Is there a shift in your ability to handle, in your ability to give timely cues?
Do you see a huge difference when you've now had. of the qual, the qualifying run on the line. Okay. And also, what do you carry with you into the next round when you finish a run, regardless of the paper outcome? How are you talking about it to yourself? How are you talking about it to your dog? Cuz you, I know we all talk to our dogs.
How are you talking about it to your friends? , what are you choosing to talk [00:17:00] about? Are you seeking out people to talk about the run? And if you are, which things are you bringing up? And then what are you thinking about during the next walkthrough? So what are you bringing from the previous run into the next run?
And are those things helping you? Okay. Mindset skills are not about being soft and fluffy with yourself. They're about being realistic and also fair, which does include being kind. And like I said before, we are hardwired to focus on what went wrong and a huge mindset shift is to be able to, in the moment actually.
Look for and pick out the things that went well and to bring those things with you into the next run rather than bringing your bucket of bad into the next run. Okay. And things that we can think about [00:18:00] when it's a mindset issue in training is, again, are you running clean in training and. , are you running clean and training under testing conditions?
So if you have the access, whether it's your group class or it's a group training, I like to do this about once a month that you set up a situation where you are going to walk the course and run the course with your ring routines and your reinforcement contingencies outside the. And can you run clean?
And the part about being fair with this is that it needs to be within your skillset and the things that you are currently working on and the courses that you're practicing clear round training on, need to look like the courses you want to run clear on in competition. So that being said, [00:19:00] you want to be able to practice your optimal state of arousal.
As well because if your only time that you are practicing under pressure is in competition, it's going to take you longer to be able to produce those results In competition. You have to be able to set up situations in training that you are handling under a little bit of pressure. Um, there have been times where I have.
encourage students to, if they're doing clean run training by themselves, maybe they're filming it, so that's a little bit of pressure. But if filming your running is not no longer a big deal, then maybe it's going live to do your clear round training. So now you can't delete it if it goes wrong. It's just being streamed.
And you can create a small group of people [00:20:00] you trust to stream this too. You don't have to start with the entire internet. Um, but it is a way to add a little bit of pressure, right? You can put a reward on the line for your. Yourself just to give yourself a bit of pressure. So what I wanted to focus on today, hopefully, is that are we taking the data from competition and analyzing it correctly?
Are we using it correctly to inform what we should be focusing on? And are we using our training? To practice those testing conditions. So whether you are training by yourself or training others, I think this is an important part to add into our training plans that we have, [00:21:00] testing conditions at all phases of the, of learning, a new skill that we have, testing phases of the entire run.
And that we work together within our communities and our friends and groups of peers to help put some of these situations together so that we can continue practicing all of our skills with a little bit more pressure and novelty and. Tons of variety because I think that's generally the piece we are missing.
If we are always training in the same place or going to the class at the same place, at the same time with the same people, we can get a little bit stagnant with our training. So we need to be able to come together and produce a little bit more variety in our training and then enter [00:22:00] competitions with all of that evidence that we have prepared.
Ourselves and our dogs for the novelty and variety that they are going to see in competition. And then keep an close eye on the data that the competition is giving you and bring that back to training and either continue to build the generalization or make sure that you're focusing on your mindset and.
Everyone's going to need to do a little bit of both. It just depends on where you are at in your training. Okay, that's it for this week. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, there are several ways you can leave me. Positive reinforcement one, leave me a five star review. Two, share with your fellow agility nerds, or three, share your thoughts with me on social media.
Be sure to follow at FX [00:23:00] agility on Facebook or Instagram.
