Lauren Langman: 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. Okay, we're talking confidence circuits. This is something that both Linda and I do. I do them on a very regular basis. Linda, how often do you do confidence circuits?

Linda Hughes: 0:40

Probably once a week, because I don't have, particularly in the winter. I don't have space to do them when it's not very nice outside, but in the summer I'll do them maybe a couple of times a week really nice and I think, confident circuits for me.

Lauren Langman: 0:56

Why do I teach them and why do I think everyone should teach them? And actually, what even are they so? So for me, confident Circuits allowing your dog to effectively solve a problem through movement, and I love that. Effectively, we allow our dogs to understand how to move and understand where to move and to become problem solvers through different equipment. And what I really like is you can use I mean you can use complete junk, like you can use cardboard boxes that you find at the supermarket. You can use.

Lauren Langman: 1:26

This morning, eliza wait for this. She threw away or she wanted to throw away this like bobble mat. That was like a fidget child thing, but it was big. It was like this big and I was like, oh my God, it's perfect. It's rainbow coloured as well, perfect for a confidence circuit. I was like, just brilliant, and you can use. Someone sent me some flowers last week. The box for the flowers is great because the cockers are small enough to go through the boxes and hula hoops so many different things. And if you haven't already check out on our Absolute Dogs store absolute-dogscom, we've got the Confidence Circuit badge. It's a very, very nice course and basically it teaches your dog to problem solve through movement. Now I love it for naughty but nice dogs and, linda, I know you train it for naughty but nice dogs when you're doing any of your training, and even your own dog's training for confidence and movement. Why do you think it's particularly nice for naughty dogs or naughty but nice dogs?

Linda Hughes: 2:19

Well, one of the big things, I think, is it's like a combination of several other games, isn't it? Because it's got balanced paths and cavaletti and a bit of cardboard chaos you can put in there. There's so many other things that come into Confident Circus. So once you've taught the dog the rules of it, you know one station to another and you've built their confidence in being able to work out the puzzle that you've set them, then you can really. It really is a combination of lots of other games that we already do.

Linda Hughes: 2:55

And because Ulla you sleep in the background if anybody watching this um is is actually proprioceptively pretty good but actually very poor at gait management. So changing how she walks or moves according to the speed she needs to go at she needs a lot of competent circuits and particularly she needs sort of cavaletties on the curve. So she has to change her gait. So I try at least to give her one competent circuit a week and to mix it up, but it can be like novelty party stuff as well, because she's not got a lot of confidence. So just putting something a bit different into the circuit that she's maybe already done just ups the ante a bit. It's a great, great exercise to keep them fit, healthy and thinking for themselves.

Lauren Langman: 3:54

Now I met a lady yesterday who I know really really well lovely, lovely lady and she's struggling. She's actually got Blink's sister and she said that Blink's sister's got quite extreme cognitive decline. Now Blink's got no cognitive decline to date. Blink is on Calm Senior from AOK9. If you haven't checked out Calm Senior from AOK9 helping with cognitive decline and dogs who have, um, that sort of age and stage of life, and I think it's preventative too for me, blink. Blink was on it after being seven years old. Really, she was on it from seven onwards.

Lauren Langman: 4:27

Blinky is almost 12 and I would say that games like this help to keep them cognitively active too. And you watch when you go to homes where you've got elderly people and they're doing puzzles and they're doing knitting and they're doing things that keep them active and doing and thinking and maybe playing different puzzle, problem solving games or sudoku or all of the things that keep you active and doing. And I think it's really really important that we think about this for our dogs. So I also think for dogs in cognitive decline, for older dogs, for dogs who are post-injury and coming back to work, there's a really nice fitness element mental fitness and physical fitness. What do you think, linda?

Linda Hughes: 5:09

I, I totally agree. But also it's. I've used it a lot with people who are limited in their mobility, because if they've got a dog that they can't walk, for instance, very well, or whatever, then doing confidence circuits with their dog while they sit in a chair and drop a piece of food at each station works an absolute dream. So it challenges the dog, it gives the dog a job to do and it enables the people to feel good about helping their dog to have a fruitful day. Really nice.

Lauren Langman: 5:44

Yeah, so almost a level of chair games, like actually they can do it sat in their chair. I know that you play lots of different chair games. I imagine that's a podcast in itself, so there are lots of different games that we can play in a chair. But actually, yeah, confident circuits and solving problems with movement is just brilliant, like absolutely brilliant. And again, yeah, it helps with the owner that can't maybe move too. Now, ages and stages and what dogs would play and why. I'm just going to talk through why my dogs do it, play it and why I'm just going to talk through why my dogs do it. And I'm going to say that skittles does confident circuits to allow her to stay um, aware of where her feet are. So proprioception in where she has to concentrate, because she just wants to move fast everywhere. So, because she's a bit of a skill in the sense that her energy is everywhere, she it's almost like a controlling, the lemming sort of potential, because she acts like a lemming in most of her life, so she wants to kamikaze and jump over everything. This kind of makes her control a movement, because if she's not controlling a movement she can't do it. And then for wild, I use it so that she splits her back end. So when she's doing running, contacts and agility, she's got the ability to split her legs apart, which actually she she didn't before. She used to always bounce everything. Now she strides, which is where I think Senzi needs to go, because it allows her now to do this instead of this. So she does that instead of that. And then for a dog like Blink, she has really really really quite advanced. Well, her knee has always been a problem, quite advanced um sort of well, her knee, her knee's always been a problem um, so her slipping patella is is is constantly um, something we try and look at and take care of, and for her it's fitness. So I do lots of fitness and then when I look at a dog like brave, it's actually the fact that she's got neurological deficits and so while she's on um her cognitive support with aok9 senior, she also does have neurological deficits from an accident. So we play it for those reasons.

Lauren Langman: 7:37

How about yours? What do you play it for what? The main reasons that you do confidence circuits. And, like I said, for those that don't know, it's kind of like extreme cavaletti with different like. I love how you described it, linda, with you've got some confidence circuits mixed with cardboard chaos and it's kind of. It's a nice amalgamation of novelty party and Cavaletti and confidence circuits, cardboard chaos Like it's, it's all of the, the mix of everything. It's a blend, isn't it? But why do you play it, or what do you do it specifically for, with each of your dogs?

Linda Hughes: 8:08

So I've got at the moment not three, so we'll start with the youngest, as you've just mentioned. Maybe not three, so we'll start with the youngest. As you've just mentioned, she needs to learn to use her back end more effectively. So she tends to find it really hard to coordinate her back end with what her front end is doing. So she has got a lot of cavaletti in her confidence circuits that I alter the spacing so that she goes from a longer stride to a slightly closer stride. So that's her.

Linda Hughes: 8:42

And then proprioceptive, so going over different surfaces. And sometimes I put in a bit of bravery, so I'll put a hula hoop up with something hanging off it. So she has to go through something up with something hanging off it, um. So she has to go go through something um, senzi, the middle one, her deficit, people would call it that is over arousal. So competent circuits for her are about impulse control.

Linda Hughes: 9:07

So can she wait on the station? I use a kato board for her at each end, so a platform at each end. She has to wait on her station while I tend, I tend to bait the circuit for her, and then she must do it in a controlled and thoughtful way, looking where she's going, otherwise she has a tendency to charge like a volume of china shop and knock it all flying. So that's senzi, and then king, who's my oldest one. He's over 10 now and he's got a bad back. So his is about keeping him as mobile as possible, so giving him straight lines, not curves, so he'll go from one station to another, but in a straight line through cavalettis, over different surfaces, so that he gets to use his feet and place his feet in a managed way and just exercise his back a little bit.

Lauren Langman: 10:01

So that's, that's my three nice, really nice, and and for all of them it gives different purpose, different meaning and all of them have an opportunity to do it. And what I also love I don't know about you, linda, but I love that every time is different. So each time I train a confidence circuit, it's never the same confidence circuit. Again and again and again and again, it's actually always a different confidence circuit, and that for me I I don't know. They say that, uh, each human has um many different basic needs, but but one of our basic needs is to have some certainty. So my certainty is that when we're doing this, it's great for my dogs, but the variety is that every time it's different and so it's never going to be the same and I really, I really personally enjoy that.

Lauren Langman: 10:39

I don't know what you think, but I really enjoy that.

Linda Hughes: 10:41

I love setting them. I love setting them up. I love sort of thinking about what what to do for each dog and what variety I can put in. So I'm like you've always got my eyes open for oh, don't throw that away.

Linda Hughes: 10:52

I can use that and that will go into a conference, certainly in my hallway or in my living room or somewhere. You don't have to have a huge big space to be able to do them. So they can certainly be done in your living room because you can do sort of like a horseshoe shape, um out and back, and that's sufficient for a lot of dogs, but it gives them a huge amount of thinking to do and physical exercise um. So, uh, you know it's, it is fun for us. Um, I can't. I get a bit disappointed sometimes because I set them up and the dogs do them and of course I can't have them doing them very long because it's quite tiring for them.

Linda Hughes: 11:34

But they do them and then I'm like, oh, it's finished, now I've got to put it all together.

Lauren Langman: 11:39

They love it, don't they? And they've managed to do it, and I mean they will go over and over, but, like you said, it is tiring. So I really, before we head, head out of here, I really want to go through just some of my favorite bits about Confident Circuits and I want you to um say any of yours. But one of my favorite things for Confident Circuits is the amount of like crazy I can add in, like you can add um a hula hoop with like party stuff coming off it. You can, you can hang stuff in. You can, you can, you can be very creative. So, whereas I'm not someone who'd sit and draw art so I can look at this gorgeous piece of art behind me, whereas you can create art like that, I'm not doing that, but I'm having my own level of fun like I. I think it's quite a creative game and, um, the puzzles that you can create through the confidence circuit and and the movement is I just love it. I think it's really really nice. So, for me, creativity what's one of your favorite things?

Linda Hughes: 12:34

like little winnie tunnels in, yeah, and then you can make them a bit of a challenge, so they they become like magic caves or whatever, um, depending on the dog's ability to go through things like that. Um, and then you can have a party with them when they've achieved it.

Lauren Langman: 12:49

I love that. I love that. And then one of my other favorite things is anyone that's been to devon here at bowerland, it's absolutely gorgeous, and then it can be torrential with weather, and so for me, it allows me and enables me to train my dogs in the house, no matter what, because it doesn't always have to be a big confident circuit. I can set a small one and I can use the dog training room, or I could go over to the arena, and for me, I love that. I can set up something. I don't have to take them out where it's wet, slippy and they're potentially going to cause themselves some harm. Um, owning sports dogs and agility dogs, I don't want to put them in a position where they're going to hurt themselves, and so I think it's really really important, important that we do not in any way put our dogs at a place where they're going to injure themselves, but at the same time, I still want to condition and strengthen them. So I love confident circuits from that point of view. What about you, linda?

Linda Hughes: 13:40

Well, it's very mucky and horrible here today. Ola's training for today has been she's been for a little bit of socialisation in the local car park and up into the town centre, Just a walk around, nothing sort of like let's go and challenge it, just a walk around the town centre and then a sniffy walk and then this afternoon, when we've finished, they will all be doing some sort of competence circuit. I love that. I love that and it will be in the hallway.

Lauren Langman: 14:10

I love that. So I love the variety. So they've had some focus on you in new environments. They've had some general like snippy walk-dog time and actually you're adding in and obviously you can see from the long stretch and the sigh from her that she's certainly enjoying it too. I also have to say it's strange, but devon is looking very nice. It's not raining at all here, which is how on earth is that like? I mean, it really is pretty darn sunny out. It's actually it's sunny and it's a blue sky for devon. So blue skies devon, blue skies in devon.

Lauren Langman: 14:46

Uh, my last and final thing about confident but confident circuits I'm gonna say for everybody is that everyone can do a level of them so you can differentiate it really nicely.

Lauren Langman: 14:54

So if you're a pro dog trainer or if you're a games clubber with us and you want to make it really really easy for our new poodle puppy, linda bobble could do them, or you can make it really really hard for a dog like wild, my little spaniel. She's a pro at them. She's like I do these eat, sleep, brave, repeat. So you want to put in something really hard for her where she's got to pick her legs up or she's got a wiggle different, like you're going to put something different in for her, and so I think that's really nice that you get to like really vary it. That's that's a good thing for me. I like differentiated learning, where I can push my student to do whatever they can do, but I don't want to miss out someone who's at this level. So I like the differentiated learning, so you can make it as easy as you like and you can make it as hard as you like.

Linda Hughes: 15:35

Um, any final tips from you, linda, the the one that I love it for, which is for a dog sport, is impulse control, the ability to just wait until they're allowed to go, and then they go, and then they wait until they're allowed to go. That, for me, is such a gem, because I don't want them deciding in a dog sport, that they know what they're doing. Thank you very much. I'll go and do it on my own such a big.

Lauren Langman: 16:06

It's such a big part of it, isn't it? Yeah, really nice, really nice. Well, that was this episode of the sex in squirrel podcast. We've talked confidence circuits. I hope that you get to do some confidence circuits with your dog. Most importantly, remember you can level them up or you can play them right down. You can do them at a real base level or you can do them at a real extreme level. The choice is yours. If you haven't already seen them, head to absolute-dogscom, and I know that you're going to have so much fun with confidence circuits. Enjoy, and we'll see you next week for another episode of.