Speaker 1: 0:09

Welcome to the Absolute Dog Sex in a Squirrel podcast. I'm Lauren Langman. I'm one of the world's leading dog trainers and it's my mission to help owners become their dog's top priority. In each episode, you'll discover how to gain trust and communicate with your dog like never before, creating unbreakable bonds that make you the most exciting part of their world. Welcome to the Sex and the Squirrel podcast, the podcast that gives you real life, dog training and sometimes human results too. Now, today I'm joined by the wonderful Dave and I've been told we're learning our ABCs and I have to say I see this as maybe a step back, or maybe a step where I'm going to really reflect on my use of language or maybe it's my spelling, or maybe it's. I kind of want to sing that song, the whole like ABC song, and maybe go from there. But tell me, dave, what on earth are the ABCs of dog training?

Speaker 2: 1:03

Well, we're definitely not going back to nursery, so don't worry too much about that, and I definitely won't get you singing, because I know what that's like as well. So let's stick to dog training. So yeah, the ABCs is and for you know, people who've seen me speak and trained with me before will know I place a great emphasis on the ABCs of dog training and it's something that I've picked up in, you know, a 20-year career working with working dogs, and I was grateful for the people who shared kind of information with me and I've been able to adapt that to basically simplify a little bit the ABCs, to make it more kind of understandable for dog handlers, dog owners, and it was something that underpinned a lot of our train, the trainer courses and future instructor courses. So it's essentially the antecedent behavior consequence model, but we like to break it down and keep it simple. Um, because that's the the ethos of my training is uh, let's just keep it simple and I love I think I say it so frequently go on your training.

Speaker 1: 2:17

Training is it's always, I like to hear in day to day. Training is simple but not easy, like it really is, like such a great way, um to put it, isn't it? Because actually it really is. Training is very simple, isn't it? But it is.

Speaker 2: 2:31

It is at times, difficult yeah, 100, and I think this you know that's a great saying I stole off um another world renowned dog trainer as well, and I think this is what's great about dog training is we can all take things from different people. We can all take things, uh, and learn from everybody, and what's really important is that you, you take all of this information and um skills that you build up over time and actually create something that's a little bit unique to to you, because ultimately, it's you that's delivering the training to, to either dogs, handlers, um, or certainly in my case, when we were doing instructor courses that you need to be able to put your own spin on things to make yourself authentic but actually make it understandable for the people or the dogs that you're working with in front of you.

Speaker 1: 3:18

And that is vital, isn't it? If the people that are in front of you, they don't understand it, then it's not very accessible, which means that the long-term result of what you're doing isn't going to get anywhere, like it's just not going to get to where you want it to to go. So I think that's really um great great learning. If it's not tangible, you might think you're training dogs, but if you're not able to train the handler, then you're not really going to ever get to the dog yeah, 100.

Speaker 2: 3:40

And ultimately you, in my working dog capacity as an instructor, you know you only spend short amounts of time with the students who are the dog handlers and ultimately you've got to be able to impart as much knowledge as you can onto them in the simplest way as you can, so that they can go away and you know practice themselves and ultimately, they're the ones training their dogs and working their dogs day in, day out.

Speaker 2: 4:05

So, yeah, I like to keep, although it's a little bit behaviorally and a little bit behavior based and is backed up by science. Um, you know, the way we talk about the abcs and the way we implement them is actually underpins everything we do with dogs. Um, and and that's what's key, I think, is is making it simple, making it understandable, so that those people who are taking on board the information can go away and do it themselves. And I think that's the key to be a really good instructor and a really good trainer is to actually empower people to go and, you know, experience things themselves and develop their own dogs and so let's dive into these ab.

Speaker 1: 4:47

No, I'm not going to say um these abcs. Uh, so we've talked antecedent behavior consequence. So please, please, please, please, please, enlighten sex in the squirrel podcast listeners. What on earth are you talking about?

Speaker 2: 5:01

well, as I say, I like to keep things simple. So, um, we we start off when we're talking about the abcs and we start off with the b? Um because behavior is is really important. So when we're teaching the abcs, we focus on making sure that we're really specific around what it is we're talking about, um, and I do lots of um kind of presentations and seminars on communication and leadership, which also falls into the ABCs, not just about dog training. And I always say to people, when we're describing something, and in this case when we're describing dog behavior, we really need to be specific around what it is we're actually describing and exactly what we're expecting or not expecting the dog to do. So it's really important that we are specific around the behavior. So that's the starting point of of kind of the abcs.

Speaker 2: 5:54

And then when we talk about the a's, we're talking about antecedents. So um, you know, for a lot of people antecedents could seem quite a complicated word or quite a behaviorally type word. But we're just going to make it really simple and ultimately, an antecedent is something that happens before a behavior. So when we're describing antecedents, there can be hundreds, if not thousands, of antecedents to behavior, and this is where it can start to get a little bit heavy and a little bit, um, you know, complex from a behavior perspective.

Speaker 2: 6:28

But what I like to do is just focus on three and I call them the three a's. So the three a's within the antecedents are arousal area and actions, and what I've found, um having worked in this industry for, you know, close to two decades, is, generally speaking now I know this is a very general statement, but generally speaking, when we're looking at a dog's behavior, very often, certainly in the working dog community you could probably say those three A's are one of the main reasons why the dog's behavior is either getting us results or holding us back from results, um, and very often I see the dog's arousal level is too high. Um, or the dog's arousal level is too low, um, the area we're training in is a really big one. So, again, without getting too complex, but if the dog constantly goes to an area where it's doing bite work and then all of a sudden we take it to the same area and expect it to do, you know, a really nice round of heel work in the behavior acquisition stage just that in my head.

Speaker 1: 7:38

I was like god, I can't imagine going from like crazed, possessed bite work to super, like neat heel work, like it's a lot of an ask. And it's funny I'm thinking that because today I was with our lovely friend Linda. Dave, when I work with you and when I work with Linda, both top instructors in your field and I obviously teach um instructors all over the world, I teach agility, obviously as a, as a top game um, but also instructors, just life skills and actually day in, day out and you obviously you're sent and real expertise areas, um, throughout really all of your operational dogs. And then obviously linda with her um obedience, actually all of these being major topics. Now her dog today was struggling slightly.

Speaker 1: 8:12

We had a, we had a student in the group who who liked to look at her a lot and the student was very intense with the way she was looking and so when our student was intensely looking at the dog, the dog didn't like it.

Speaker 1: 8:22

The dog got a bit quirky, to be honest, and so straight away with linda we were like right, go play with some toy over there. So go in a distance and play with the toy and like, go over somewhere else and play and be exciting and do other things. What we don't want you to do, and we really don't want you to do in this environment, is actually let her focus on that. So we don't want her to focus on the fact she's scared of the person staring her or the fact that she's um worried and like let's not give her a long time, let's change the arousal, change your house. She's actually too low. So the reason she's too low and we need to actually take her out of that and make her a little bit more like reactive with her own and not so aware of the environment and low-key stuff going on yeah, and that's what we find.

Speaker 2: 9:02

Actually, all these three a's interlink with each other. So the third one, when we're talking about actions, is, you know, the actions of the handler, the actions of the instructor, the actions of the dogs around, um, and again, generally speaking, if you know, certainly in the police dog world, we could have, you know, five or six handlers on a training course all on the same van together, um, and so there's lots of kind of complexities around who's doing what in a training exercise, um, but, like I say, generally speaking, what I found is one of those three things or a mixture of those three things. If we alter them and we manipulate them and we change them in training, we can actually get the behavior we're specifically looking for from our dogs. Um. But what is also really interesting is that, you know, science tells us, um, the antecedent behavior consequence model works across the vast majority of living organisms. So you think um and I use this example a lot If I take my eight-year-old son to Wacky Warehouse and I sit at a table right next to where all the other kids playing in the ball pit, and obviously the actions of all those other children and then also the actions of me as a, as a parent, I'll start to get stressed because he's not behaving and all of these things now start to impact on his behavior.

Speaker 2: 10:35

So, as I say it it's. It's something I actually use, not just in dog training but in that wider kind of leadership and people management space, because it's really really um, important, um. But when you start to break it down in the way we've just described and we're only kind of skimming the surface, I hope people can start to see I've got a problem with my dog. Maybe if I alter the dog's arousal, or maybe if we change the area we're training in, or maybe if I'm a bit more relaxed as a handler, then I'm going to get a better outcome and I'm going to be more likely to get that specific behavior I'm looking for.

Speaker 1: 11:15

So give us an example, dave and myself and our listeners here at Sex in School podcast. Give us an example of maybe something in dog training where the arousal, the area or the actions have been potentially just not quite right for the dog and that something you might have changed to get a better outcome yeah, I think there's some.

Speaker 2: 11:33

There's some really good um examples and certainly, you know, working with um Malinois, german Shepherds in in bite work is probably the the biggest one because very often, um, you know, the dogs are very aroused once the they see a bite suit or a bite sleeve or something like that. So you know lots of things uh can happen. So if you always do for example, we always go to the same field to do bite work, as I say what happens is the dog. You know we pull up onto the car park and the dog already knows where we are, he already has an expectation that he's going to do bike work and that's then starting to increase his arousal before he's even got out of the van. And so, for example, if we were setting up an exercise where I don't know we were trying to get a better leave or a better out off the bite suit, then actually if we go to the same place where the dog gets over aroused and the dog knows it's doing bite work, and then the handler gets stressed because he knows the dog never lets go of the bite suit when we're at this particular area, quite quickly you can alter a dog's behavior simply by do you know what? Actually let's go to somewhere completely new. Let let's um, you know, calm the dog down before it does some bite work by doing some heel work around the field, um, and in turn that then also alters the handler, because then they're getting a bit more relaxed, because it's a new environment and whilst they might be expecting the dog to still have problems, actually hopefully, by manipulating all of those a's and all of those antecedents, we'll hopefully get a better outcome from our training exercise. And this is what's really key, because when we're training and when we're trying to teach the dog new skills as instructors and trainers and handlers, actually we can control a lot of those antecedents. So we can control the arousal.

Speaker 2: 13:27

There's things we can do to manipulate the dog's arousal. So as owners, we know we can manipulate arousal up or down. You know you talk about the dimmer switch. We know we can pick different areas to train in. So what's really important is that we're aware of what's happening. And obviously actually being able to manage people's actions is a little bit more easy in a, in a training environment, because, you know, certainly as an instructor I can tell people to leave the room, I can tell people to keep their dogs in the car.

Speaker 2: 13:56

Um, so when we're training it's really really important we're considering these three a's and we're manipulating them and controlling them in a way that we can teach our dogs the behaviors we want. And this is where it gets. Then, you know, really really important, because we all know in training all of those things are controllable. However, in the real world most of those things are uncontrollable and so what happens very often is and certainly this is a big thing in the, you know, the working dog community is that the dog will get taught a load of behaviors in a training environment and then all of a sudden is thrust up into the big wide world as a licensed dog. But actually all of those antecedents have changed and we know from the science that when we change an antecedent, it's highly likely that the behavior is going to change as well. So you know, for example, we'd have dogs apprehending people with bite suits all the time in training.

Speaker 2: 14:56

But then when they go and chase somebody for the first time in real life, it's so different to training that there's going to be a difference in in the behavior, and we know that from the science.

Speaker 2: 15:07

So what's really important when we're training is, if we're considering the abcs, that once we know the dog can perform the behavior really well. We need to start altering those antecedents and this is where I see a lot of training failing because people just keep playing it safe, people keep replaying the same scenarios, going to the same places to train. But actually what we need to do, whether it's a working dog or a pet dog, is now start to manipulate those antecedents to say, hey, okay, we, we've taught the dog in this environment with these controllable antecedents. Now we need to start tweaking them to make sure that when the dog goes out into the real world whether it's walking down the road to the train station or walking to the park or as a service dog, police dog, chasing after somebody in real life that we've done enough in training to manipulate those antecedents to give us a greater chance of success with that behavior so get the baddie, can you still do it?

Speaker 1: 16:07

so I suppose I've given you a question here. So obviously I do agility. Some of our listeners have their dogs, do different dog sports. So if I want to change the antecedents, just wanting to to check in on some of my areas I'm not going to change the area, largely because I've got one of the nicest facilities in the UK so I often do train at home. However, I can train in lots of different venues and I will push to train in more. But let's say I'm training at home and I'm in my normal area. I've already got the dog in high arousal, so I'm pushing arousal. What action might you change? What examples of actions could you change to make it very like, tangible for people?

Speaker 2: 16:42

um, listening here from uh for the podcast yeah, I think, certainly from an agility perspective it's, it's.

Speaker 2: 16:50

You know there's lots of variables you can change.

Speaker 2: 16:52

So, for example, um, and you know we've, we've worked on some real basic weaves happen where you've you've got me moving and just something as as silly as actually send the dog from the other side of your body into the weaves and what you'll see is that if you always send your dog I don't know, let's say, from the left-hand side of your body into the weave poles and you do that loads and loads of times, so the dog's really good at it, and then all of a sudden you change the dog to the right-hand side, very often you'll see a dip in the dog's behavior because we've changed an antecedent and it might not mean that the dog completely fails to do the weave poles, but they might be slower, they might hit a few weave poles, they might not be as slick as they would be if we constantly change those actions.

Speaker 2: 17:39

And it's something. It's quite funny actually, because I always when I'm working my so when I was working my explosive search dog, I always set her up on the left-hand side of my body and when I was going through my training course the instructor was we were doing some sendaways down the left-hand side of a route, and then we had to do some sendaways down the right-hand side of the route over route, and then we had to do some sendaways down the right hand side of the route.

Speaker 1: 18:06

I just couldn't get to grips with having the dog on the right hand side and pointing with my right hand yeah, I remember you said that to me. You like to point on one side, right?

Speaker 2: 18:12

yeah, yeah, and and that's because, like, the same thing with my behavior is so rigid because I've got this set of actions that actually then when someone tries to change it, I can feel really, really uncomfortable trying to get the dog to do what I wanted them to do. And again, that's just an example of how these ABCs don't just relate to dog training. They relate to pretty much everything we come across in life, and what I always say when we're running kind of instructor courses and trainer courses is that the ABCs are a really, really good tool for managing people and managing students, because they work in exactly the the same way. So, um, you know, we are all creatures of habit, so the actions kind of antecedent is a really, really important one, certainly when you're working with, with people.

Speaker 1: 19:02

I think it's brilliant and I think it's just knowing what those things are, and I'm thinking with agility, for example. One of mine that I would often change is just the speed that I'm moving. So the speed that I'm moving. If I move slowly, my dogs find it easier. If I start to move faster, they don't necessarily get it. Or if I move past something, when I've asked for behavior, they often associate the behavior with my visual cue of my body, but I often think it's the verbal or the actual cue of the behavior, uh, the the object cueing the behavior, but often it is my body cueing it. So my actions, if they're not consistent and and they're not in the same place and my dog might not do the behavior I was expecting. So if my actions change, then then yeah, for sure that would.

Speaker 2: 19:39

That would if normally, if I'm faster or slower yeah, and I think I think that's the important thing, isn't it?

Speaker 2: 19:44

When you talk about agility, the difference between winning and losing could be a hundredth of a second.

Speaker 2: 19:52

And so something as simple, as if you're on a course, for example, you've never run before and your body position isn't quite the same as it would be in your training area, then actually you don't want the dog's behavior to change. You want the dog to still be running at the same speed and and completing everything at that same level as they do in training. So, and that's why it's really important, you know the difference between um. You know, a hundredth of a second might be just conditioning your dog, a different style to you, to your body, um, and then, certainly in the you know the working dog world, you know it's vitally important that we implement these changes in our training program, because it is literally, in some cases, life or death. And so actually, if we just stick to the same antecedents and we stick to the same training methods and protocols and we stick to the same you know we've always done it this way type approach, then you know that's when you start to get problems yeah, and it's massive, isn't it?

Speaker 1: 21:33

because often we do stick to the same, because it's just so much easier. Right, it feels easier and to do it, so you're right. Also, when you're out and about, there's a lot you can't control, so whereas at home you can say to max, max, if you're eating, you need to sit there while I'm training. When you're out and about, you can't tell someone else's five-year-old to sit where you need him to sit behaviors right yeah, and it is.

Speaker 2: 21:55

It's important and that's why, like I say, in training, whilst we can control everything, our job as owners and trainers is to equip our dogs with as many skills as we can to enable them to live in the real world. So when we're training our dogs, and whilst we can control the controller balls, actually we need to vary them and make sure we're working the dog. You know, as soon as the dog's got the behavior we want that's when we start to mix the you know let's push the dog into a higher arousal. Can he still do what we want him to do? Okay, now we'll push him into really low arousal. Can he still do what we want him to do? Okay, now we'll push him into really low arousal. Can he still do what we want him to do?

Speaker 2: 22:31

If we've only ever trained at the same park every day, can we now go to a different part of the park to start? And all of these changes will be very, very small, because alongside the ABCs, we implement our SILS program, which is the Small Incremental Learning System, and that's where the two really join together, because when we start to change those antecedents, we follow the SILS process, which means we're only changing very, very, very small, tiny components, but making sure they're incremental so that the dog is learning to be able to cope with whatever faces them in real life.

Speaker 1: 23:09

So give me an example with your ABCs. Give me an example faces them in real life. So give me an example with your abcs. Give me an example of behavior you're looking for. Give me an example of how you might adjust it to get it. And I'm going to give you a dog that is searching a building but has the potential to go off on we, um, if not in the right headspace yeah, so I think this is quite common one.

Speaker 2: 23:30

Sometimes because that causes, because there's a big problem in the in the working dog world, when I was with you.

Speaker 1: 23:36

That is definitely something I saw as a potential and you could see it as a real problem if people weren't acknowledging it or changing something, because you can't be searching the queen's funeral or the g7 summit with with dogs weeing everywhere, right, like it's just not. He's going to get kicked. You're going to get kicks off those spaces quite quickly 100.

Speaker 2: 23:51

Yeah, so so, and that's a really good example. So, um, again, a lot of that will come down to the area. So, again, what you generally find is, obviously, if one dog has cocked his leg or weed somewhere and you've got a van full of six dogs that are all going into the same building, then actually, you know, the second dog, the third dog, the fourth dog, the fifth dog, the sixth dog is probably likely to want to mark over where that first dog has marked. And so, as an instructor, as annoying as that might be, then actually it might be that you have to quickly change your, your location of hides or route you're planning on taking through the building to actually exclude an area where a dog has, you know, potentially urinated before. Um, because if you don't change the area that you're going to be searching in a training environment, then it's highly likely the other dogs are going to go and want to mark in the same place. So, like I say, as an instructor, you'd want to change the area quite quickly so that the other dogs don't go to mark in the same place.

Speaker 2: 24:50

So, like I say, as an instructor, you'd want to change the area quite quickly so that the other dogs don't go to the, whether the room it's in or the area is in um, and it's all these things you've got to constantly think about, certainly when you're a trainer, instructor is. Think about those a's, the area, the arousal and the actions, because it might be that when we exclude a certain area of that search again the handler might be put off because their normal search pattern might be affected because we've now suddenly excluded an area because the dog's urinated in it, and so you've got to understand the the implications. Every time you change an antecedent the behavior will change, and when you're dealing with dogs and owners, there's two lots of antecedents there's the dog's behavioral antecedents and the handler's behavioral antecedents. So you've always got to be spinning these plates to get the best out of your training and give us an example of where um the owner may struggle.

Speaker 2: 25:48

So something the owner may struggle on, like changing um within their um session with you I can probably talk from personal experience, because I think I drove my own instructors like mad because I um, like I say that that particular one with the sender way, I just couldn't. I couldn't physically like work out putting the dog onto the other side because I was so conditioned to to doing it, um, whereas in the end it was affecting the dog's behavior so much that actually I just had to stick with doing what I did. And and that's what's really important, because you've got to recognize, is it worth it? Is it worth pushing and squeezing? Are you going to get the result you want?

Speaker 1: 26:32

um. There's a nice saying, isn't it? Is the juice um worth the squeeze? Yeah, absolutely. Is the juice worth the squeeze?

Speaker 2: 26:38

no, it's probably not yeah, and that's what's important in dog training as well. I think some people get so fixated on a methodology or a regime or something. It might be that they're not. No, you've got to do this, we need to be able to do this. But whereas actually you know it might be that the student, as a handler, can't get their head around it, or the dog can't get their head around it, and that's why you know we impress upon this a lot when we're doing instructor courses is that you've got to look at the dog in front of you and realize what part of those antecedents can you change? Which is then going to modify the behavior?

Speaker 1: 27:12

yeah, no, absolutely. I think that's. That's really key there. So, and before we, I know you've mentioned sales, so before we head out, I think our next podcast has to be on sales. Are you up for it, dave?

Speaker 2: 27:25

we can definitely do a sales podcast and I think that just that's the natural incremental step from the ABCs, right, so it's like perfect.

Speaker 1: 27:34

Smooth, smooth, smooth and smooth. So, before we head out of here, anything else you'd want to add to the ABCs and what people are going to take away with them today, so any final top tips, hacks, learning points, anything that you think people should leave with today I think you just I think we leave on the sea.

Speaker 2: 27:51

Um, because the consequences is the another really key part.

Speaker 2: 27:56

So when we talk about consequence, realistically we're talking about operant conditioning and classical condition and and that's a whole new topic on its own, um, but what I would, what I would always say, with the consequence is that the the certainly in dog training will tell you whether your consequence and your antecedents are working.

Speaker 2: 28:16

And so if something is going wrong and you're not getting that specific behavior you're looking for, you either need to go back to changing the consequence or you need to go right to the start and change the antecedent consequence, or you need to go right to the start and change the antecedent, because if you're not getting what you want, it's either the antecedent or the consequence which is holding you back.

Speaker 2: 28:36

And when we talk about consequences, I think it's just really important to say that when we positively reinforce our dog or if people choose to positively punish a dog, ideally you want to be in the positive reinforcement space. So we've given the dog lots of good things when they get the behaviour we want. And the only way you'll get the dog to do the behaviour you want is if you've got your antecedents right, and so very often one of the things people very quickly do is go to positive punishment when things aren't working, and what we really really impress upon and certainly when we're working with instructors and trainers and owners is that go back and consider those antecedents. So, before you even do anything, go back to those antecedents and make sure your arousal is right, make sure your area is right and make sure your actions are right, so that you can get the behavior you want and positively reinforce the dog.

Speaker 1: 29:35

And so, when you think on consequences, can you give some examples some good examples and some bad examples that you've seen over your time of working with operational police dogs?

Speaker 2: 29:44

I think there's stacks and stacks of really good examples. There's there's stacks and stacks of really good examples. So I think what's really important is um. You know, I was part of a steering group that actually wrote um. You know, a national protocol on on training police dogs and within that protocol, we've really heavily focused on, you know, making sure people understood the abcs and actually thought about the way they they trained um, and so really good examples of people being really creative in terms of of how they reinforce behaviors and, and what I've seen is a real shift of people really understanding behavior. So the use of, you know, pre-map principle, um, the use of um toys, food, being really creative in in what they do, and I think that's the positive thing. I think there's a lot of really good stuff out there that people people are um using and adapting in their dog training because they're starting to understand things like these abcs, things like the sills program as well, and then any consequences that you've seen over the past few years.

Speaker 1: 30:46

That for you they don't work for you, that at the same time, then any consequences that you've seen over the past few years that for you they don't work, for you, that at the same time, they're consequences that people can be aware of yeah, I think there's there's, there's lots of different consequences.

Speaker 2: 30:58

I mean, I've, you know, two decades worth of working with police dogs. I've I've seen some pretty barbaric um stuff which is probably not worth giving air time to, but but I, I think it's really. I think it's really important that as we, as we go through these training protocols, and we we consider it that the the bad stuff you know, people have done in the past is through a lack of education, and I think that's the big thing, which is why I'm so passionate about, you know, these podcasts and sharing as much information as I've been lucky enough to be given. It is to actually empower people to, you know, think about different options within that consequence space and also think about different options within that antecedent space as well.

Speaker 1: 31:49

I'm thinking about a behavior when I was working with a dog that continued and continued and continued and continued. To kind of tell you that whether you think you're rewarding or not, it's probably being rewarded because it's getting stronger and stronger and stronger. And this behavior was a leave it and a tug sort of behavior. So the dog was tugging and tugging and tugging. The leave it got louder and louder and louder. Leave it, leave it, leave it. Ragging the dog's head and smacking the dog's head around and trying to get the toy out the dog's mouth and fries into it. This dog just was having a great time. Like it was just a great game for this dog. So actually it just sort of is a bit of a rough and tumble Like this. Was that happening, being reinforced all the time for it?

Speaker 2: 32:19

100%. I think it's a really good example and this happens a lot in police dog training because certainly with the dogs that are biting dogs, they are so highly aroused. And you know, we've either bred the dogs or bought the dogs for a very specific purpose, because we want them to go out and detain bad people. And yeah, you know there's a really good example. I was watching a training exercise where a dog wouldn't leave the bite suit and so the dog was on a check chain and every time they said leave, they pulled the check chain. But you know, like your example, the, the dog actually started fighting more, the dog was more determined to hang on the. The dog was actually getting worse in terms of not letting go of of the toy.

Speaker 2: 33:04

And I remember having this conversation saying um, you know, what do we think is is happening here? Because actually the behavior, the specific behavior we're looking for, isn't, isn't there and the behavior we're trying to avoid is actually getting stronger. So what is the dog telling us? Um, and in that particular instance, the dog was actually saying to us that he enjoyed the, the consequence, which was the check chain. But in everyone's mind they thought they were punishing the dog, but actually the only thing that tells you whether you're punishing or reinforcing is the dog. And in this case the dog was telling us, because its behavior was getting stronger, that we were actually reinforcing the dog because the dog was thriving on the fight because of the type of dog it was.

Speaker 2: 33:55

But what was really good is, you know, having that conversation and kind of looking at it in conjunction with the ABCs actually took us back to the drawing board where we went okay, well, how are we going to reconstruct this exercise to get success? And it all went back to the dog's arousal was too high. The dog was always trained in the same field and the handler instructor was always the same. So we changed the instructors. And this is the beauty of instructors courses when you've got four or five people on that, you can start to really have these conversations with the students to say, okay, what are you going to do to overcome this, because this a isn't working and b is starting to get a bit cruel yeah, amazing.

Speaker 1: 34:34

I mean amazing because you, you also know not only you like this is massive education and at the same time, like you said, the dog actually was quite enjoying the experience. But you know what? I'm guessing you're working with a malinois it was a malinois, yeah and some are just on that sort of wired space, aren't they?

Speaker 1: 34:52

But yeah, no, I definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely think that's a really nice example and nice space to think about. Well, dave, I think it's been amazing. I think consequences for sure that everybody needs to be aware of, certainly, certainly, certainly a lot of learning, and I think when anybody's struggling, um, they definitely can leave now feeling like have I considered these three things? Have I actually worked through them? Have I considered even what I'm doing? I think sometimes people don't consider what they're doing. They just consider what the dog's doing and they forget about your own actions. Like that's a real common one. I think, from from my point of view anyway, that the owners I work with don't think at all about what they're doing or what might have changed in the environment. They purely think about the dog, right?

Speaker 2: 35:31

yeah, 100% and, like I say, I can only speak from the experiences I've had. But the vast majority of dogs we've dealt with um I don't know this is really generalistic, but actually that the the problems will be either arousal area or actions um, in the vast majority of cases, and the majority of those.

Speaker 1: 35:51

They're pretty easy to sort right once you're aware of them. And I think I think you hit the nail on the head when you said aware, like, is the owner or the person handling even awake to it? I think I underlined that part of my um, my notes, to ask you questions back on again that actually if you're not even aware of it, then you don't even stand a chance to control it. So if you're not even like acknowledging, okay, this dog gets wired when he hears this siren or this helicopter go up, or he's wired the second that happens, then actually if you're not aware of it, then you're not. Really. It's that whole fail to prepare, prepare to fail, isn't it so, henry ford? And and prepare to fail, off you go into that failure unless, unless you've even acknowledged what's potentially happening.

Speaker 2: 36:31

Yeah, definitely, and I think that's the beauty of these podcasts, isn't it? Because we're only scratching the surface of a really big topic, but hopefully people can take something away and go do you know what? Let's just look at those three things and maybe, if I change them, I might get a better result with my dog.

Speaker 1: 36:48

Thank you, dave. It's been incredible. That was this episode of the Sex and the Squirrel podcast, and we'll join you next week for some surprises, although I think, by the sounds of it, small incremental learning is also on the plan.