[00:00:00] Hey there, if you're an agility nerd, you're in the right place. You're listening to fostering excellence in agility. I'm Megan, your resident agility competitor, coach, and mentor. And this podcast is where I break down all things agility and guide you on your path to excellence. Are you ready? Let's go.
Welcome back. Today's episode is about adjusting criteria in your training. This question probably comes up in most of my group coaching meetings, and there is a lot of nuance to this topic in general. So I want to do a brief overview and. Lightly unpack some of the ideas that I'm going to put out there [00:01:00] today.
In order to be able to adjust the criteria appropriately, I do need to plan for a few things, and I need to do a little research in advance before I ever even begin. First, I'm going to ask, what does the finished product look like, or what do I need it to look like? Second, I'm going to ask myself, What are the natural splits in this behavior?
So what are the natural pieces that I can break this behavior into? Either as concepts or other skills that I can bring into it. And I'm also going to just throw out there that the harder that the end behavior is, so the more complex, the more taxing the final task is, the smaller the splits probably need to be.
For every session that I'm going to work on this behavior, I need to know what my main agenda is of that training [00:02:00] session. I need to know which piece of the behavior, which concept, which variable, I need to know what I'm actually focusing on every time I go out to train. So let's go into a few examples and try and answer these questions.
The first example that I have is when I am teaching the concept of stay put versus go, which is my active stay training versus my passive calm stationing behavior. So we're actively aiming towards that. Very, uh, excited and pressed and ready to go start line stay. It's very active. All of the dog's muscles are tensed and they're just waiting intently for that release cue so that they can start the agility course.
It's a very active behavior and everyone has [00:03:00] probably a different image in their head about what they would like their dog's start line stay to look like. The natural splits in this behavior that come to mind are going to be how far away did I go from the dog? Did I walk away from the dog? Did I jog away or run away?
Did I release while I was moving? Did I stop before I was releasing? What obstacle is in front of them? How long did I take before releasing them? So All of those variables that could happen, I do need to split down into different training sessions to teach those concepts to the dog before I can piece them all together.
So each session I can choose to focus on one of those variables. And the way that I do that, especially in the beginning, [00:04:00] is I have the dog on a Short platform, usually a Cato board or a mat or something helps keep them in place so that I don't have to fuss about. Did you move a foot here? Did you move a foot there?
While I'm working on all of those other variables. So in this case. I'm not looking for a specific criteria in the position, and a lot of times this gets referred to as lowering the criteria because I'm using a station, so I'm not worried about position. And I don't want to think about it this way because I I am maintaining a high level of criteria by introducing all of these other concepts and different variables, but I'm choosing to set aside that one [00:05:00] piece of the final behavior.
So it doesn't feel like lowering the criteria to me. It feels like focusing on a different piece of the finished product. Another example of this. Is when I was retraining my dog Sprint's teeter behavior after she developed a very big fear and avoidance behavior of it. I had to start very, very small where the teeter barely moved at all.
And my. Intention of the retrain was to develop confidence and maintain her speed and enthusiasm that I see in all of her other behaviors. So during the retrain, I made the decision to not ask her for her previously trained criteria. of stopping and waiting for that release. I [00:06:00] allowed her to move off of the teeter as soon as it hit the ground, and I kept a really good eye on it so that as soon as I did start to see that maybe she was thinking about leaving early, I would remind her about how to stop.
Either in an easier teeter training session or in a different context altogether. So not using a teeter at all, just reminding her how to stop out of motion. Again, don't view it as lowering criteria. But shifting my focus to another one that was significantly more important. And as I saw that I was going to be able to build her confidence and have her fall in love with a teeter and maintain her speed and enthusiasm, I could reintroduce the variable of [00:07:00] stopping and waiting for a release.
without any fallout. The fallout that I was trying to avoid was her getting stressed out or skeptical of being able to win the game of doing the Dieter. So, if I had been picky about the stop and I had withheld reward when she didn't stop, but she went across confidently with speed and enthusiasm, I would essentially be punishing the confidence and the speed and the enthusiasm and introducing some conflict into the training that I was very, it was very, very critical that didn't happen.
That everything about the training was clear to her and easy for her to win the game. So by shifting my focus away from that, [00:08:00] that one piece of the entire behavior, I was able to achieve the results that I was looking for. So those first two examples were about. Adjusting the criteria or pivoting to focus on one agenda at a time, and then as you progress, those concepts should be able to link together, and sometimes this just sort of happens without you actively doing it, but the dog is able to start putting those pieces together, and that's Kind of the training that I love the most is when I start to see the dog put multiple concepts together and I can get to the finished product that much more quickly because I took the time to focus on those concepts separately.
Now I do want to talk about instances where. I might be tempted to [00:09:00] lower the criteria, but maybe that's not the best solution. So let's take relaxing in different environments as the example. If I've been taking my dog to A specific location to work on relaxing, and they have been progressing in a way and showing me that they can maintain their downstay for 30 seconds or 45 seconds or even a minute without reinforcement, and they can move back and forth between relaxing and a little bit of movement and some more relaxing and then.
One day I go and they just can't, they can't do something that they have previously shown me that they can do. I think that it's well intended [00:10:00] to shift the criteria to something less, well I'm just going to reward them more. And I don't think this is necessarily the best option because the dog has already shown you that they do know how to do it at a much higher level of fluency.
As unsatisfying as it sounds, it would probably do you more good to pack up that session and end it for that day. Because as the criteria of something increases, the contingency for not doing it also has to increase. If my dog could previously relax in an environment with a set number of seconds in their down stay, and then they [00:11:00] suddenly can't, by moving backwards to something that they were doing a month ago, what message am I potentially sending them?
Versus, if I say, wow, you really can't do this today, then I guess we're not doing this today, what message does that send? Especially in the context of that type of behavior. Now, the caveat is, is if you show up to your normal location and it is obviously not normal that day, I will proactively bring my criteria back down to something that is a little bit easier.
Maybe something that they were doing about two weeks ago. But I definitely want to avoid having to start completely over. And that is where we Have to put in some time and thoughtfulness into the situations that we put [00:12:00] our dogs in, because I don't want to keep going into situations that they can't access the ideal behaviors so that I'm forced to continue going back and starting over because So let's think about lowering the criteria or raising the criteria and also kind of circle back to that adjusting the criteria.
If I understand all of the variables that I need, especially in the final product, I can absolutely increase the criteria or make one of the concepts more difficult, but then Not worry about the other concepts or the other variables, or I can make those other variables less taxing. So this means that [00:13:00] when I'm layering in distractions, I am potentially going to only focus on one variable of the behavior because the added distraction is already taxing the behavior, and so I'm going to Let that other piece go in that moment.
So a really good example would be going back to those active stays, those start line stays. If I'm adding in the distraction of a leash runner walking behind the dog, I can choose to use the prop so that I don't have to worry about the dog's position. I only have to worry about the dog's reaction to the, to the distraction and their response to the release cue.
And then once they prove to me that they can do that with that same distraction, I can [00:14:00] remove the prop. So I'm adjusting the criteria and If I'm not sure that the dog will be successful, now that I've added in the wait, waiting for a position and waiting in the correct position, I might decrease the distraction.
I might ask my helper to just stand behind the dog instead of walk behind the dog. So I'm always adjusting criteria in that way, controlling each of the elements. But I'm not going to start all the way over. With, okay, I'm going to layer in someone's walking behind you, so I'm not going to lead out at all.
I'm going to stand right next to you. I'm not going to start all the way over in that situation. I might have introduced that concept to my dog when they were a puppy as part of their training. I'm standing next to you, you're in a sit, and there's a person [00:15:00] walking behind you. So I want to be sure that I'm not.
Lowering any of those dials too much. Otherwise, I'm not going to be able to put those pieces together quickly enough. So I want to make sure that I'm. Starting at a place that I know that the dog can be successful and then just pushing one variable at a time, just a little bit past what they're capable of and by focusing on one variable at a time.
I'm more likely to have success and then I can shift my focus to another variable, push that one along a little bit at a time. And like I said earlier, the dogs really do start to put these pieces together and the behavior kind of works itself forward much more quickly this way. So to keep this episode short and sweet, but to also give you some actionable steps, I [00:16:00] want you to look at the behaviors that you're currently training and ask yourself.
If you are focusing on one main objective at a time, or if you are focusing too much on the entire behavior, see if this uncovers any potential problem areas that you've missed, or maybe it explains why that behavior isn't progressing the way that you'd like it to. Ask yourself if there's a different variable that you should be looking at in order to adjust.
the training session and adjust your dog's success rate. Ask yourself if there are any missing variables that you haven't been putting your attention to with regards to this training process.
There are a lot of reasons why a behavior can kind of plateau [00:17:00] or lack progress, but the first line of defense with all of this is taking a hard look at our training videos and breaking that behavior down. Some more and making sure that we're accounting for all of the variables within that training session So I hope that helps you start looking at your training and adjusting criteria in a slightly different way But before we go I do have a question from a member of the train station Liz asks I listened to your recent podcast.
Are you ready to compete? I'm an agility instructor, and our agility school is helping novice A students with their debut strategy. I want to forward your podcast link to them since much of what you say is what we recommend. And you mentioned goals and setting some of them for three, five, or 10 years.
But for many of these first time teams, I really don't think they have goals beyond [00:18:00] testing their training in a competition environment. What kind of advice in terms of goals would you advise newbies? Well, this is a really excellent question. And for people just getting started in the sport, I wouldn't adjust the goals beyond that, except I would at least encourage them to give some thought into how they feel about agility, even if that can be difficult because they don't have any experience or, um, anything to relate to.
But they have a sense of who they are as a competitor. They have a sense of if, if they want to be competitive, even if it doesn't feel like they can be at this time. Because I, I mostly would love for new people to kind of already [00:19:00] start down. Owning their competitiveness before ignoring it can get them into trouble.
Um, so I think just having them have, take some time from themselves to think about, okay, if, if I knew everything about agility, what would I want to do? Or what kind of person they are? Some people are just more competitive naturally than others. So then if you kind of get a sense of who they are and what they might want to do.
That might help instructors kind of guide them through this next process, but otherwise, for that specific dog that's right in front of them, their goal is to gain experience because regardless of what their answer is about how competitive they want to be, gaining experience is [00:20:00] the next step. Testing their training is the next step.
Why I think it's important for them to understand how competitive that they want to be. Before they get too deep into it is so that they don't just dive into competing every weekend without doing something with that information. I think it's important for everyone to be able to go into a train, compete.
review, train kind of loop, so understanding where they might want to go in the sport in the future might help them kind of realize how much effort they need to be putting into the training side of the equation and not just the competing and testing side of the equation. So I think I would start there with just.
Putting these questions in their heads [00:21:00] and letting them start to have a think about it, especially as they do enter their first few competitions they Will I think they'll have an easier time kind of sorting through their own Feelings about the sport if they have those questions in their heads beforehand, even if they can't answer them right away So I hope this helps liz and best of luck to you and your students Thanks for listening.
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