SPEAKER_02 0:00

It's not about kind of squashing their emotional responses. It's about them being able to choose which one's the right one for the moment.

Welcome And The Big Idea

SPEAKER_00 0:16

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.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Sexier Than a Squirrel podcast. Now, today Lauren is busy being a busy bee elsewhere. So today, myself and lovely Karen are going to be having a little chat and a discussion about one of the key concepts that you might hear us talk about in our games-based training, which is arousal up, arousal down, or sometimes known as the dimmer switch. So, Karen,

What Arousal Up Down Means

SPEAKER_02 0:59

any new listeners out there, what do we mean by training our dogs a dimmer switch?

SPEAKER_03 1:06

Really, I would say what we mean is teaching our dogs to be able to pitch their energy. When we say arousal, we really mean energy, don't we? Appropriately to whatever is happening around them. So, for example, a dog who struggles with this, which is maybe an easier place to start when we're describing it, is a dog who maybe reacts really quite extremely to really tiny triggers. So if you think about a dog in a household situation, that might be a knock on the door and dog's kind of running wall of death zoomies around the house, or somebody comes into the house and the dog's kind of peeing off the walls and barking and really struggling to kind of regulate how excited or worried, depending on how they feel about that particular person or that particular situation. Whereas a more appropriate level of arousal excitement in that situation might be, oh hi, you've just come into my house. Cool. I'll just carry on doing what I was doing. Thanks.

SPEAKER_02 2:03

Yeah, yeah. Bit of a sniff, you know, bit of a waggy tail, maybe, and crack on with whatever they were doing. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think, yeah, that that word regulate, and that was like that's it, that's really the kind of core of it, isn't it? That our dogs being able to actually regulate and have that control over their energy level, which like say can make so much difference in, I mean, every area of their life, or whether that's household harmony, whether that's our experiences when we're going out on walks together, you know, having visitors, having a dimmer switch or having that that regulation of arousal up, arousal down really, really, really helps. So

Training Regulation Through Play

SPEAKER_02 2:41

how do we go about training this? If we if if the if anyone's listening and they're thinking, oh yeah, I I I relate to that. I don't think my dog has a dimmer switch yet. That sounds a lot like things that might happen in my house, and sort of the doorbell going and everything going bananas. So, how can we help those people? How can we train a dimmer switch if a dog doesn't already have one?

SPEAKER_03 3:05

I think there are lots of different ways that we can do it, but obviously games-based training is what we're all about. And games are a brilliant way to do it. And it's not fancy games, it's not particular games. There are games which are kind of designed to do this, but really any game can be played at different speeds and paces, and you can tweak how your dog is playing a game to really manipulate this and to start to really unlock those levels. So, orientation game, I think you were saying before we started recording when you was a really useful one to be able to do because it's such a simple game, but you can really kind of tweak how you play it.

SPEAKER_02 3:42

Yeah, uh, this is it. Orientation game eyes have always been one of my favourites, and I I love it because all you need is you, your dog, some of their daily food allowance. You can play on or off lead, so it doesn't, you know, it doesn't matter, you can play inside or outside, so it's a really flexible, versatile game. And we're just talking about tossing one piece of food out to your left, and your dog goes and gets it, they check in with you, we can mark with a yes and then send them out to the right, and and so on and so forth. So they're kind of they're learning to check in with us, they're learning to enjoy having that close proximity to us. But like you say, this is a really nice game for playing a really good example of how any game can be played with different pace changes and different energy changes, so that we can simultaneously be sort of flexing that dimmer switch muscle at the same time. What are some ways that you that you might think about introducing some pace changes with something like orientation game?

SPEAKER_03 4:41

So you could think about the way you move the food or throw the food. So you could you could literally take a piece of food and fling it across the room and have your dog whipping across the room after it, and you could do multiple repetitions of that and really get your dog kind of speeding up. Equally, you could gently place a piece of food and then kind of saunter across the room and gently place another piece of food, and you've still got your dog doing that kind of orientation movement. There's still movement there, but much slower. And ideally, what you're wanting is a mix of that. Obviously, if you go right from pinging across from one side of the room to the other and then going really slowly, you are potentially reinforcing the on-off, the light switch rather than the dimmer switch. So it's really about kind of tweaking those energy levels and taking them kind of gently, incrementally up and down again, and really helping them find all of those levels that are between the really high arousal kind of flicky, flingy, speedy movements and the slow, gentle ones, or really the kind of snoozing, chilling and reacting, screaming, barking, hurling themselves around, which are those two extremes, really, aren't they?

unknown 5:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:55

Yeah, so yeah, about just kind of like say gradually increasing and gradually decreasing the speed or the energy with which we play any game, any game that you could find in Games Club, so that so that we are reinforcing those lovely in the middle sort of um energy levels that our dogs might otherwise not realise they have. Oh, that's really super. And and I love what you're saying about that actually any game can be can be played in a way that that flexes that dimmer switch muscle and and and actually kind of reinforces those lovely, nice in-between energy states.

Boundaries Sniffing And Softer Releases

SPEAKER_02 6:33

Because um another one might be boundary games. Yeah, uh-huh. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:37

Yeah, probably on a boundary, you've got the kind of baseline chill there, haven't you? The the calm, usually on a boundary, you should have calm. And then you can even think about how you release your dog off the bed. So do you throw a piece of food and get them jumping off? Do you place a piece of food? You can even place a kind of scatter cat scatter of food and kind of have them coming off, and then their movement away from the bed is is slowed down by that kind of like if you think what am I thinking? I was gonna say hungry hippos, that's not really what I'm thinking. That's quite yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:13

Well, what you've mentioned is actually kind of something I do quite often with my dog Bunny, which is often I'll kind of release her into a kind of scent type game. So she'll kind of be snuffling out some of her food. So it's that little bit of that energy increase from her resting on a boundary, but we're not going into a kind of running jumping type of game. It's just a nice kind of sniffy game, uh, which gets her brain working, but isn't actually requiring a huge spike in energy. Yeah, so it's it's great. So depending on it doesn't matter kind of what other concepts somebody might be focusing on or training, dimmer switch or arousal up, arousal down is something that can kind of just be like a little side salad served with it, whatever it might be.

SPEAKER_03 7:56

Really build up into every training session, can't you? And and it doesn't even have to be a training session. If you think about going for a walk, pace changes, it's such an easy way to do it. And we're not talking crazy pace changes here, we're talking a gentle meander on the lead and then slightly lift your pace and then slightly slow down your pace again. And you might your dog might find that easy, they might really struggle with that. Some dogs do really struggle with that. It's it's that ability to kind of gently take your your energy and your arousal up a little bit and then bring it down again. And some dogs find it really easy to go up and then a lot harder to come down. I think that's the other thing to maybe chat through a bit. I know my own dog, he's very good at going up in arousal if if something has happened that he thinks is important. And then he may struggle a bit more to come back down to a kind of baseline of calmness again.

SPEAKER_02 8:54

But I I do love that this is whenever there's some kind of training where it's like a no extra time training, like say if you're if you're gonna be on a walk anyway, this is something you can just do as you're going along that doesn't require any setup, doesn't require any extra thought really. It's just uh getting more value out of what you were already going to be doing anyway.

When Spikes Become A Problem

SPEAKER_02 9:16

So, yeah, let let's let's talk about how why this is such an important skill then. Because you sort of touched on it there with uh how how some dogs can find it quite easy to go up in their energy or their arousal, and then find it quite difficult to kind of then regulate themselves back down again. What kind of trouble can that get a dog into potentially?

SPEAKER_03 9:37

I think it can probably get them into quite a lot of trouble. Yeah, so if we think about maybe we've touched on it a bit already, haven't we? Potential struggles in the house. So a dog who maybe spikes in arousal a little too much if something happens, somebody walks past, somebody knocks on the door, somebody comes into the house, whether that's somebody who lives in the house or a visitor. For some dogs, that's a fairly innocuous event. They can handle that pretty calmly and just kind of crack on with life. And other dogs really do find that quite a trigger for a spike of arousal. That could be because they find whatever that thing is exciting. They might have learned through experience that visitors are really exciting, they get loads of fuss, they get interaction, they get treats potentially, or they could have learned that somebody coming into the house is quite worrying because they they're not that sure about visitors. So there could be a kind of positive or a negative element to that arousal, but either way, if it's arousal which is going higher than is really warranted for what's happening, then that's potentially a problem, both for everybody in that situation. A dog who can is kind of barking, jumping, bouncing off visitors, that's not a situation that anybody's particularly wanting to be in. Visitors probably aren't going to enjoy that. Realistically, the dog's probably not enjoying that. And even if they are enjoying that because they're excited, that's not a kind of level of adrenaline and arousal and an anticipation that we want them to be practicing a lot of the time. It's not that good for them.

SPEAKER_02 11:12

Yeah, like certainly like when it's not necessary, because we we obviously in our human world and our human brains, we know that someone popping around for a cup of tea is is actually basically a non-event. It's kind of nothing to get excited or frightened about. And so we're kind of giving the that gift of sort of mellowness to our dogs and kind of be able to kind of take those kind of events in their stride and react proportionately is really going to be helpful for them. I guess it's a little bit like if we're thinking about like appropriate responses to different distractions. It's like if the smoke alarm was going off in my house and it was just because you know the toaster's been in the toaster too long, well, I'd just kind of, you know, sort that out and get on with my day. But if the smoke alarm was going off my house and we discovered a fire, we would probably respond quite differently. And that would be appropriate. And and and I guess this is it, it's it's that helping our dogs to to sort of uh respond proportionately to things that are kind of just everyday distractions that are nothing to worry about or nothing to get excited about, but knowing that actually if the there was some sort of genuine need for them to move very quickly away from something like a yeah, firework going off nearby or or or some some kind of legitimate danger that you know we would want them to be able to do that. So it's not about kind of squashing their emotional responses, it's about them being able to choose which one's the right one for the moment.

SPEAKER_03 12:41

Is that kind of absolutely there are definitely occasions where arousal, excitement, adrenaline are all entirely appropriate. We were chatting when we were before we started about the kind of human example of this. So if you and I ran into each other in the street and you said hi and I screamed in your face, that really would not be that appropriate. That would be my arousal spiking way unnecessarily. Whereas if I went round the corner and you or some other weird person was kind of waving an axe in my face and and screaming kind of banshee calls at me, then it would be entirely appropriate for me to be a little worried by that and potentially scream back at them and run away. And it's that same kind of is it appropriate to be getting that excited or worried by something? And and how can we help our dogs kind of respond more appropriately to things?

SPEAKER_02 13:38

Yeah, because this is it, and it's not really just in the case of any any particular like emergency or danger. If we're thinking about excitement or that those kind of you know, spikes in energy, this could be in the kind of sports world, whether that's for people or for or for dogs who are like competing in agility or flyball or something like that. You know, those dogs really need to kind of reach some high energy levels in a focused way and be able to apply that appropriately and recover sort of when they're not performing in sports, just like you know, if we were gonna run a race, we wouldn't be very successful if we just continued to saunter down the racetrack. Whereas if we really tried to kind of, you know, go as fast as we could, then that would be appropriate in that kind of that kind of scenario.

SPEAKER_03 14:20

So yeah,

Thinking Clearly Under Excitement

SPEAKER_03 14:21

it's yeah, it's uh there's uh and then almost to kind of flip into another concept, which I'm sure we will chat about in another podcast at some time, the ability to think in arousal comes in here, doesn't it? Because when we're talking about behavior struggles, a dog who has got this inability to kind of regulate their arousal appropriately and who who flips up into kind of a hundred level a hundred at a small small trigger is probably the dog who then struggles to kind of think and respond and react appropriately to that situation once they're in that high state of arousal as well, because their ability to kind of hear what you're saying and and think and rationalise and use all of the skills that they've got when they're kind of more emotionally regulated is potentially compromised as well.

SPEAKER_02 15:14

Yeah, that's that's absolutely right. And I can see that actually when we think about dog-dog interactions, having a dog who can be in a kind of quite a level-headed, kind of moderate sort of energy kind of space and make good choices and think is going to make all the difference between potentially an interaction with another dog going really well and maybe it not going so well. And and I think that there'll be a lot of listeners who can really relate to that or for whom that might be a bit of a worry for them. So, you know, I think I think it's really great that actually that we have these games-based ways of teaching this skill, even if it's something that somebody's dog is lacking at the moment.

Find The Games In Games Club

SPEAKER_02 15:56

So, where where do people find these games, Karen? How can people access all this learning and start paving the way to their dog having a fantastic dimmer switch? Um, if they if they're sitting at home listening to this or in the car or wherever they're listening to this podcast and thinking, crikey, I need a bit of this. My dog has no dimmer switch, but this sounds great.

SPEAKER_03 16:15

Where can they find out more? They can find all of our games in Games Club. And I mean, as we've been talking about, the majority of games can be used to kind of flex this muscle to to help a dog to tweak that dimmer switch and to access those different levels. But there are also games that are specifically categorized within Games Club for building this skill. So pop in there, filter it on arousal up, arousal down, and away you go. And really any game that you're going to play within that kind of group of games is going to help your dog flex that skill. And if you're not already part of Games Club, why not? Get yourself in there, you can try it for a pound for a week. Jump in, find the games, have a play. And obviously, we hope you stay after that. But you are very welcome to just have a poke around and see what it's all about.

SPEAKER_02 17:08

Amazing. So, yeah, try it out for a pound. Get into Games Club. Within minutes, you can be finding the right games to help your dog build a dimmer switch and just start playing those games, having fun with your dog and seeing those real life results. Right,

Quick Recap And Goodbye

SPEAKER_02 17:23

that has been this episode of the Sexier Than a Squirrel podcast. Join us next time where we'll be diving into more games based learning and uh and having fun with your dog.