. [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 talk about how your outside the ring behaviors are impacting your inside the ring behaviors. All the time, when a team is struggling with something specifically inside the course, whether it is a start line or an obstacle performance, or even following the handling,, , it's so common to hyper focus on that one behavior.
And last week I kind of unpacked how we can look a little bit beyond just what's happening in the ring and determine if this truly is a skill that you need to continue building fluency for? Or is [00:01:00] this something bigger like the environment? And so this week I want to bring in a completely different set of behaviors, and those are the ones that are happening before you go into the ring.
So your beginning of run routine and also your end of run routine and how over time, those routines or the lack of those routines are going to impact your performance. Okay, so we know that reinforcement drives behavior, and I'm going to link in the show notes to an episode of Cog Dog Radio where Sarah talks about, um, just some myths and confusions surrounding reinforcement and how
everything about reinforcement does eventually get packed into the behaviors that you're teaching and your routines both beginning and end of run [00:02:00] routines work similarly to that in that how our dogs engage in those routines and how we engage in those routines are going to impact the performance inside the ring as well.
Okay, so the point of the outside the ring behaviors for me is that I'm entering the ring with a dog that's in the optimal state of arousal, right? So some dogs are hitting this optimal state of arousal when they're in the car, and so by the time they get to the ring, they are over threshold and they can no longer make good choices.
And these are the dogs that struggle to stay on the start line, hold their contacts, keep the bars up, follow the handling. Maybe they zoom, maybe they even, they're just so excited they [00:03:00] can't do anything and they freeze, right? They can't come off the start line. We just don't know if they are getting into the optimal state of arousal too soon,
they're not going to be able to perform in the ring. They're going to be mentally and possibly physically exhausted by the time you get them into the ring. Some dogs, if they are hitting the optimal state of arousal too soon, they're going to just be flat. They're gonna be like, right, they're gonna be tired by the time they get in, and so they don't have any more energy to give that performance,
and then there's also the dogs that hit the optimal state of arousal too late. So this is that they start off kind of slow or they start off a little bit distracted, but as the run goes on, they get into it and they get a little bit faster as they get closer to the end. Uh, [00:04:00] maybe you've seen this or experienced this, that the last line of obstacles headed towards the exit gate, they are zooming, they are flying to that exit.
So we can take a look at that and build our beginning of run routine so that we are hitting that optimal state of arousal at the right time. And also build a ritual around exiting the ring and going to reinforcement so that the dog understands when, where, and how that reinforcement is going to be accesible,
and you won't just see the dog get faster. In those last few obstacles, you will start to see that the dog is having those anticipatory feelings of that end of run routine throughout the entire performance. So they're going to kind of snap into that optimal state of arousal and perform at their best much earlier in the run.
And then [00:05:00] when these things start to combine together, Now you have the optimal state of arousal throughout the entire run. But this does take time. And we also have to understand the reinforcer skills need to be trained, and we have to understand our dog's motivations for performing in the ring. For instance, my border Collies, I know that
just moving their bodies and completing the obstacles and getting to run really fast is motivating to them. If they never got another piece of food or a toy ever again, they would probably still perform. I'm not saying that their performance would be spectacular, but I'm pretty sure that they could still go in there and do some obstacles[00:06:00]
right versus my terrier. It turns out that there's not a whole lot I do have in life that's worth it to him to perform, right? Sure. If it's on my body or very, very obvious to him that he's going to get this type of payout, it's much easier for him, but letting go of the reinforcement. Being outside the ring and performing inside the ring basically is very difficult for him.
I'm not going to say impossible, but it is something that I have chosen in where I am in my own journey and his journey and his life, and my life, that it's not something that I'm going to dump a lot of resources into because I don't think he gets. Of enjoyment out of it for it to be worth either of our time.
So he gets to train where the reinforcers [00:07:00] are easily accessible to him. They're on my body and everything is fine, and we like each other a lot more because of that decision. So that tangent aside, I have to know that about the dogs that I'm taking into the. so that I can prepare their outside behaviors accordingly.
So for example, back to the border Collies, who they are more likely to be reaching optimal state of arousal when I pull up to the agility facility, right? They're in the car, they know where we're at. They are so pumped. That's not useful to me. It's also not useful to me for them to be having those supercharged feelings outside the ring in close quarters with other dogs and other people that are also supercharged.
It's just not going to be fun for anyone. In fact, I know this [00:08:00] because I managed Smack's outside the ring behaviors for his entire career of over 10 years, and even though he and I were very successful, On paper. It was exhausting for both of us, and I know that it kept us from being even more successful.
Right. So by management I mean that. Yeah. He was this dog. He was in the car. I got him outta the car and he was like, already, his eyes are a little bit too big. He's a little bit too excited. He's ready to go, and I just really wanna take him for a walk, right? , meaning he's expecting agility long before agility was actually happening.
So of course, walking him around even the parking lot was sometimes difficult because walking around the parking lot at an agility trial doesn't require a very high state of arousal. In fact, I would like him to be basically not [00:09:00] aroused when I'm trying to just walk him around. . And then of course if I tried to go into the building or stand ring side and see, or, you know, approach the gate to see when it's my turn.
All of those things would just increase his arousal more and more because we're getting closer and closer and closer to actually doing the thing and keeping him from completely just, you know, boiling over, required a lot of management. And this looked like basically consistent and constant pattern games and scatter feeding and keeping him engaged with tricks and attempting to not let him watch the ring and keeping him in a downstay with food and slow feeding patterns and just like stuffing him with tons and tons of food before the run.
All to [00:10:00] try and keep him from completely losing any number of good choices that he may have left before going into the ring. And it did impact his performance at the end of his career. He basically had no start line, and that was something that I dealt with most of his career. Same with his beautifully trained, stopped contacts.
I lost those very quickly, and it was one bandaid after. The next, his entire career, um, things like bar knocking would happen. Um, or just like in general. He, he followed the handling really well. He was nice in there. But all of these things I can a thousand percent tie back to the fact that he was always on the brink of being over threshold or trying to perform completely over threshold.
And like I said, we did very well. But I also know that this held us back [00:11:00] tremendously, so fast forward . When I got Sprint, I knew that I was likely getting a dog with these same big feelings about moving her body and doing agility and things like that. So I made it very clear early on in her training that managing these
outside the ring behaviors was not something that I wanted to do again, and so I put a ton of time into training what I actually want from her ringside. This means getting out of the crate is not when I want you to spike in arousal. Just getting out of the crate means that you're going on a walk, and even if I put your agility leash on, We're still not to the point where I want you to have that arousal spike, so it's okay.
I will tell you when it's coming and I will let you know. [00:12:00] So loose leash walking was a huge part of that, that you need to be able to walk with me regardless of what hardware you're wearing, whether it's your harness and long line, or your buckle collar and leash , or your agility. martinegale Slip Leash.
Preparing her in a variety of situations that regardless of what she's wearing or where she is at that loose leash, walking is still the criteria. The next bit is being able to enter the building and still know this is not the time for that arousal spike that we're still relaxed because we're just getting ready to run;
it's soon, but not quite yet. And that means being able to offer a relaxed downstay, and turn your back to the ring of running dogs and not [00:13:00] just get stuck fixated watching them getting more and more amped up by watching other dogs run. Because as talked about in a previous episode about sprint. Uh, this, it was the interview with Sarah a couple episodes back, and I will make sure to link that in the show notes as well if you haven't already listened to it.
That I don't want her having feelings of chasing another dog when I'm trying to get her to perform very precise behaviors at a very, very, very fast pace. I don't want her having feelings of chasing other dogs when I'm trying to get her in the ring while another dog is running. That's not good for anyone.
right. And that was another thing that I had to manage a lot with Smack, that if I did have to go into the ring a little bit too early, I would just have to tug with him. Otherwise he would be completely fixated on that other dog. And again, just increasing the arousal way too much.[00:14:00]
The biggest thing here with the outside the ring behaviors is that I am aiming for trained skills versus management. And this goes even further because I, this, I always have to, because I'm always aiming for that next level of excellence. Trained skills to me means that it's not being maintained or managed with food.
So part of. , this beginning of run routine that I'm building with Sprint is that once I move into the building and show her where her reward stash is going to be, that is a part of her end of run routine. How we exit the ring on leash and move to a reward. Once I place that I will not be feeding her anymore.
So the quality of her ringside behaviors truly does depend on the quality of my training before I've gotten to the trial. [00:15:00] And of course, she's not debuted yet, and this is primarily why, because these skills aren't ready yet. And I know that if I take the time to make sure these skills are ready, the in the ring skills will be even more ready and they will stay sustainable.
Whereas if I let some of these outside the ring behavior slide, I'm risking that arousal level to go up too soon, and that's going to leak into her ability or inability to perform those precise behaviors inside the ring. So I am aiming for loose leash walking into the building, stashing her rewards outside the ring.
moving away from those rewards into a wait, your turn behavior where, I might be talking to her and I might be petting her, [00:16:00] that's fine, but I'm not Pez dispensing her with food. She can just be in a relaxed downstay, or she can sit in my lap because she likes that. Um, and then we enter the ring together and she.
automatically orientates to me. So she's also able to look away from the dog that is finishing, and then when I unclip her leash or take her leash off of her head, since when we're competing, it will be that martingale slip. As I'm taking that leash off, that's what I want to condition the arousal spike to.
so far in training and in the seminar situations and other testing conditions that I've put her into, this has been really, really helpful and is working out really well for me so that she's [00:17:00] self-regulating the entire time. The drive there, sitting in the car waiting, walking around the trial site, waiting in line.
She's self-regulating and saving all of that energy and arousal for the run. And then when I take that leash off, she is allowed to go as high as she wants because. She's not exhausted at this point. She's not mentally drained because the outside the ring stuff was, I'm not gonna say easy for her, but she knows how to control all of those big feelings that she has. So it has never been my goal to teach Sprint to not have feelings. It has been my goal since the day that I met her to teach her. How to use her feelings appropriately and how best to manage [00:18:00] her big feelings. And everything in training is an experiment.
I am certain that this will have ups and downs and need for adjustment and tons of maintenance, but it is something that I want you to start thinking about is that, are you. covering up some hidden things in your performance with management. So with food, if you are keeping your dog busy outside the ring, keeping them engaged because they can't relax outside the ring without you constantly telling them what to do or if you can't keep them focused on you
unless you are stuffing them with food the entire time, and then you also have a problem behavior that is [00:19:00] persistent in competition. I'm going to bet that taking a step outside the ring and building some reliable skills that are not maintained by food is going to help you inside the ring longterm. Let's also talk about the dogs like Shrek, my Terrier that are maybe also getting amped up too soon, but for the wrong reasons.
You know, maybe were thinking these dogs, they're just not quite as fast in the ring. , and you're not really sure why they're much faster in training and they're just not giving us their full speed and competition. So outside the ring, you are using food and tricks and lots of energy outside the ring to get them amped up.
I want you to ask yourself, [00:20:00] are you also getting them to their optimal state of arousal by amping them up too early. So you conditioning the arousal spike outside the ring where there's food available. So remember motivations. What is your dog's motivation to do the thing? So if you're using food and giving them that arousal spike outside the ring, and then as soon as you cross that threshold, none of that exists anymore.
You take the leash off and the dog's like, "eh"! Now you've kind of, you've done this too soon. You've put it, you've put that arousal spike too early in the routine. I still wanna look at those same things about, can I just let my dog kind of be relaxed and self-regulated? Because that's easy for them outside the ring without food, so that it's very clear to them that, Hey, we're working now.
There's not gonna be any food for a bit. . But remember, we've trained that end of run routine and [00:21:00] we have conditioned it so that as soon as you get your leash on, we're gonna run to that stash and we're gonna have a party. Right? So you're getting that anticipatory response based on that end of run routine ritual.
But what if you also conditioned that they can be. Kind of flat outside the ring, but as soon as you cross that threshold and you go for their leash, that's when you're exciting and you're engaged. The best example I have of this is when I got my second Sheltie, Ty, in 2003, I was his second owner. I.
I dunno, 11 years old, uh, . Yeah, that sounds right. I was 11 years old and I was Ty's second home and his first home loved him dearly, but through [00:22:00] miscommunications and just, you know, novice dog, novice handler type things, Ty came to me a little bit crushed. Right. His spirit for agility was just a little bit broken and this resulted in him being very, very, um, careful and slow in competition.
And he could get around the course clean, but all of his open titles, all of his open clear rounds with me had time faults. Okay. Just as a comparison, two years later, this dog was placing in the steeplechase finals at the U S D A A Nationals. So we went from time faults in open to placing in a very prestigious 16 inch class with amazing dogs.[00:23:00]
Just a couple of years later, and what I ended up working on with him is changing his c e R to the ring entry and also conditioning the arousal spike to the leash removal. So I'm not saying this is gonna work for every dog because everything has to be kind of pulled apart and
determined what it is that's going to be the motivator and what's going to change the feelings. But remember, I was 11. This is what I tried. I knew that Ty would start barking and bouncing and just like being an obnoxious Sheltie if you sneezed, right? So in trust me, it was obnoxious and annoying throughout life to know that every time you sneezed, He was going to start barking at you.
It was something [00:24:00] that he learned from the other dogs in his previous home, and he doesn't have any feelings about it whatsoever. He just had a habit.
Either way I used it. I would condition that as I walked into the ring with him, I would start sneezing and as I'm taking his leash off, I was sneezing at him so that as the leash is coming off, he's not thinking about anything else except for barking and bouncing up and and like being, I don't wanna call it angry, but being angry.
It's not the right word. I think it draws a nice picture about my sneezing, and I did this consistently, and I didn't know about doing this in training or setting up testing conditions and training. I didn't know any of this, so I only did this at a trial and. I got to the point where I [00:25:00] didn't have to sneeze at him anymore, that he was pretty calm outside the ring.
I was also still feeding him outside the ring because I didn't know not to. I didn't know that that might even make it better. I was feeding him outside the ring. He's pretty chill, but as we got closer to the ring entry, he would get a little bit brighter. His eyes would open up a little bit more. His face was soften a little bit.
He's you. Feet are getting dancy. And then when I would enter the ring and I would start to take the leash off, he would immediately start barking. Just now we have this habit of when the leash comes off, I get amped up. Okay. I would do this a little bit differently now, but that baseline condition of leash off leads to a specific emotional response - that plan.
Is still the basis of my leash off work today with clients that I want [00:26:00] to pair the, all right, let's do this feelings to kind of the ring entry and the leash removal and not so much the while we're waiting. Agility is a lot of waiting, and then I need the dog and the person for that matter, to pour all of their energy into this, you know, 30 45.
Minute long performance. And so I want to make sure that as a team, we're both able to direct all of that energy into that very, very short timeframe and that we're not wasting any of it outside the ring. Okay. So that's going to help if you are looking at maybe dogs. That they're not completely motivated by the running and you're trying to get them amped up outside the ring.
I think we need [00:27:00] to focus more on attaching the arousal spike to the leash coming off, regardless of if your dog tends to go over threshold or if your dog tends to be under threshold when they're running agility. We can also use this conditioned emotional response to the leash coming off with the dogs That kind of hit it too late.
Maybe we're trying to amp them up on the start line, but we're not doing it any anywhere else. We're not, it's not familiar to them, so they might even think is a little bit weird, right? If we're trying to do what I did with Ty and just do it in trials, You know, that could be why it took me quite some time for it to work.
And also, his obstacle performance did also suffer because he didn't know [00:28:00] how to complete the behaviors at this higher state of arousal. So it had a lot of flaws, what I did with Ty. But that is the beauty of learning and growing and developing, is that now I know. that can look all the time, because if I'm training my dogs like this all the time, and every time I take my dog's leash off at work and in a training or working situation, I'm conditioning that optimal state of arousal and putting them in that optimal state of arousal.
When the leash comes off, it means that I'm training them in the optimal state of arousal all the time. So they're learning their behaviors , their precision, their fluency. Their generalization. They're learning it when they're in the same head space that they're going to be at a trial. And I think that's really important to do in order for us to have ring sustainability.
So all [00:29:00] of this can be wrapped up into a couple of action steps. You need to define your routine. What does it look like when you get the dog out? and you are getting ready to train and re ready to run. So even if it's just training or if it's just running, can you define those routines and rituals and what they look like?
Then can you define when your dog has that arousal spike and decide? Is that a helpful time for you? because if it's too soon and your dog tends to go over threshold, then my advice to you is to look at training and incorporating more self-regulating behaviors into your routine. And if [00:30:00] they are having that arousal spike too soon, but then they.
A little bit flat in the ring. You need to consider why the dog is amping up, like what's motivating them to be amped up outside the ring and see if you can re ritualize that to being, how they can amp up inside the ring and attach that to your end of run routine that then gets attached to the performance.
So you kind of want to. Move things around so that your arousal spike ends up at the beginning of the run, just as you're taking that leash off. And then also if you're noticing that through your routine, your dog doesn't have that arousal spike until, I don't know, halfway through the course or even four or five obstacles in, you could have it sooner if the reinforcement is [00:31:00] very clear,
and they aren't having such a strong contrast between, there's Pez dispensers of food outside the ring, and then you put me inside the ring and it's no food or toys until 20 obstacles later, a leash being put on me and then a. Walk back to the table or crate or car or wherever those rewards are stashed.
That's a huge difference for dogs and that can be really difficult for them to work through at a trial. So those are all things to look at in your rituals, both beginning of run routine and end of run routine. And consider if you need to. Rearrange some of these things, change some things about these rituals, and also [00:32:00] give your dog some new skills.
And I know that this is a commitment and that this is not something that's talked about enough in my opinion, and it is difficult, right? Especially if we are kind of installing these things after the fact or trying to change these things. I say it myself about Smack versus Sprint I manage Smack's outside the ring behaviors for over 10 years, so I made the commitment to take two years of Sprint's life to make sure that they are solid and well trained and pretty fluent before I allow her to compete so that even if competing
Starts to ruin these outside the rink behaviors. I still have a solid foundation to fall back on because it will always be easier to kind of fix and [00:33:00] maintain than to completely install these skills after she's already experienced not being able to self-regulate, right? So everything is always going to be a bit easier.
when you're doing it the first time, rather than retraining and fighting against history and habits. So I am here for you all if you are trying to install some of these things after the fact because it is going to be a process. And also I am honest that some dogs are not going to have the motivations to compete in the way that we want, and that is for everyone to decide that we can either change our expectations or take competing off the table.
So like I have done with Shrek, I can't change my expectations. When I do [00:34:00] agility, I want to go in there with a dog that is pushing me as much as I'm pushing them. I want a dog that wants to be there as much as I want to be there, and Shrek has made it clear that in competition he's not going to, and the steps that I would've had to take in order to get him there, I don't think.
were possible for me at the time of his prime. He's now seven and I don't think that they're still, that they are available to me yet. The conditions that I would need and the access to the resources that I would need to get him there, I just don't have for him. So rather than change my expectations and take him into the ring where he's gonna be a bit distracted and a little bit slow, and honestly, I don't know if he's even gonna enjoy himsef.
I just took it off the table for him. He still trains not as much agility, [00:35:00] but he trains in team obedience and kind of working through some novice obedience. And do I ever think that he'll compete? No, I do not. But his life hasn't actually changed because of that. So like I said before, I think we actually enjoy each other a lot more now.
That the expectation of him enjoying competing as much as I do, that expectation is gone and we just enjoy training together. So all of that is okay. Everyone here gets to decide what their version of agility looks like. So if anything that I've said today makes you uncomfortable, I want you to dig into that.
If it sounds like too much work, I want you to make sure that. , you are not setting expectations that are too high then, because if you're [00:36:00] not willing to put in this effort to do this, but then you expect the results to be better than what they are now, well, we have to reconcile that. So dig into those feelings, dig into your routines and see if there's anything that you might be missing in your outside the ring behaviors, because they are definitely impacting your inside the ring behaviors.
That's all for this week.
Thanks for listening. If you enjoy 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 agility on Facebook or Instagram.
