EP 69: JAS WHITING - The Play Expert: This Is Why Your Dog’s Reactivity Isn’t Improving

Here we go, an absolute baller video from another a player in the dog training industry. I'm not going to waste your time with a long winded intro here. The next hour or so will be guaranteed to be filled with dog training gold. And if you can't sit down and learn about your dog for an hour or two, but you'll happily sit through Love is Blind for hours on end, then you should accept right now your dog will always be reactive. Let's get stuck in team, Right, Jaz Whiting. Today we're going to talk about play and I think a good place to start would be talking about why we play with dogs and maybe emphasizing the importance I think when we as dog trainers we say to people, hey, you need to play with your dog. Sometimes we're going to struggle convincing people why it's so important. Right. And so I think no better place to start than the why. Why are we playing with our dogs?

There are so many reasons. Where do I start?

So let's go top three.

Yeah. I'm going to say communication. You develop a communication system with the dog through play that's going to help with your relationship and just learning who that dog is, how they display themselves in different states of arousal, different states of emotion and those sort of things when they start to change their arousal, change their emotions throughout play because that happens through games. It gives you a chance to then practice drive channeling and toggling arousal and teaching them how to emotionally regulate. And then on top of that probably most commonly it's not necessarily maybe my top three or in favorites but commonly used as a reward. So aside from all the like benefits of relationship play in that rewards.

One, I forgot to write communication. Now you have to forgive me for my spelling. Two,

learning the dog learning

and it's super important to learn how your dog how their behavior shifts especially when they're in an over aroused state. Right. I think people neglect to teach and communicate with their dog in a hyper aroused state and then when the dog passes that threshold they lose or communication. Right?

Yeah. And number three, well, I'd say most commonly used as a reward which is why I wanted to add that in there because there's certainly benefits that's going to help do the work if you want to do that or do cool stuff.

Why? So it doesn't say you've not gone for tiring the dog out.

No, no, no. If they're biologically fulfilled they're going to be satisfied. It's not just about tiring them out.

Gotcha.

Yeah.

Alrighty. Okay. So that's why we're playing with our dog. Goes way beyond just exercise. Right. Goes way beyond just tiring the dog out. There's much more. There's more layers to it. And so, like, there's different ways we can play with the dog too.

Yeah, definitely. Like, there's three different types that I typically teach about. So we've got toy, or I try to more so refer to it as always object play, because it's not about the toy. I'll come back to that. Two would be food play and three would be personal play.

So, like rough house.

Yep. So, like, this is where any object doesn't have to be a toy. Right. This is why I try to emphasize the object. It could be a stick, it could be like a. A tea towel. If, you know they're in your house, you want to play a game with them or whatever. It doesn't have be an actual dog item or a cat toy as you

saw one of our yesterday.

Right. So it doesn't have to be a toy. It can be anything. I got a cool story about that, if you want to know. It's.

Tell the story.

Yep. Cool. It's not short, but. Nah. So I was out tracking with Frank, one of the first dogs that I sold. They've now gone to Vicpole. So we're out tracking and they're at the point we were using toys for rewards and I had it through my belt loop and tucked in. It always just sits there, no worries and walking along. And he was, like, really into it that morning. So I was like, kind of stepping out a bit further because I didn't want to have to slow him down yet. And as I'm stepping out, I didn't notice that I dropped that ball. So he was the type of dog he would work for the reward. The other one, the brother, he'd work just because you asked him to, and he just wants to do stuff. Right. I had the one that wanted that toy and he was tracking and I was like, sweet. We're also at the point where I'm actually marking as they're tracking, not just on indications. We're going, we're going. I was like, oh, man, he's smashing it. And I gave his marker. He turns on a dime, comes flying back. And I was like, oh, no. Check all the cargo pant pockets. Shit. He's not going to be able to see that at that height. Dandelion. Okay, here we go. And. Oh, you got it. And he was like, that was the best. Came For a quick fly in. And I was like, it's gone. We have from here to there to, like, wherever the ball is to play with all the little dandelions along the way. And then I was like, and we're close enough. Break. Go get it now. So, like, it doesn't matter about it being a toy. If you teach them to play for the sake of the interaction and the actual game and because they enjoy play, the object is all that matters. Like, it doesn't matter what it is, just that there is an object there.

Gotcha.

But that's what separates object play. With personal play. Personal play specifically, there's nothing.

Gotcha.

So there's no food or object. Food play is an object, but it is one that is actually consumable. So we'll talk about it soon. But they can simulate consumption with a toy or an object. But. Well, at least with the toys that are. And objects I play with, they shouldn't be actually consuming them. And if it was a stick, I wouldn't want them to. Gotcha. So then, yeah, food play is specifically something that they can consume. And yeah, personal play, like that could be hide and seek or it could be wrestling. Like, you know, it could be. There's a lot of different varieties. Do you ever play the doona game? I don't even know if you call them doers. What's the thing, the big thing, puffy thing you put on your bed? Quilt. Quilt. All right, quilt. There we go.

Blanket.

So do you ever play even just blanket. Do you play the blanket game where you put your hand under the blanket and the dog's there and then they try to pounce on it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's not necessarily a toy there. There's not necessarily an object. Right? Yes, the quilt is there, but it's more actually just about this thing moving, like, you know what I mean? So you can maybe count that as personal play.

Gotcha. Is there ever a time we wouldn't personal play with our dog? Like, what if we've got someone's maybe cultivated a relationship with their dog where their dog is a little bit, like, doesn't respect their personal boundaries enough? And maybe there's a pushy type of dog there. Maybe there's a little bit of resource guarding. Maybe there's a little bit of friction in the human dog relationship. Is there ever, ever a point we go like, actually, I think maybe object play is going to be more constructive for you guys or.

Yeah, so for sure. Like, one of the first things I consider. Because sometimes it can be Very quick to. To make a. Come to a conclusion is the handler's ability. So if I. So I've had some elderly people with mallees who were quite large and quite strong, didn't have the boundaries and everything. So for her, she definitely couldn't play with that dog because, like, if she just had a little fall in the home, she'd probably break a hip kind of. Right. But we also had to be careful with object play. And instead of doing hand in hand where a lot of tension is through her joints and for her physical ability, we can then go, all right, hey, how about we put this through a spring pole and then we can go, all right. The spring pole is doing most of the work, but you can somehow interact with your dog. You can attach a little rope so it looks like you're actually pulling it, but you're pulling a rope that's attached to the spring pole that's keeping them, you know, so, like, that sort of variety or that adaptability is easy to sometimes choose. That's the path based on the handler.

Gotcha.

And then if that's not a quick rule out, then I start to think about the capacity of the dog. Does the dog have the capacity to be able to moderate themselves or regulate their arousal and emotions and learn all that stuff? Most times, like, the answer is yes. It's just, how do we get there and teaching the dog boundaries. But obviously, if there's an impairment, maybe with the handler, that makes it a slower process, then it might not be worth going through all of it for that when we can play with something else.

Gotcha.

However, there is also benefit because that can be a really good way. If you have a good relationship with the dog where they care about you, but they don't understand boundaries, you can use that play to actually connect with them more, get a deeper connection through teaching them boundaries and more cooperative play. You know what I mean? So, like, it can be something to go. Like, you know what? Too difficult basket, not in your priorities and handler abilities. But then also, it can still be beneficial sometimes to just push it a little bit to help the dog. You know what I mean?

So, okay, so we got why play is important. We've got types of play. Just before we move on, I want to touch on just a little bit. What happens if we don't play with our dog? Like, what happens? What's the fallout if we neglect to do this?

Well, the dog trainers get called.

Yeah, true.

There you go. What a quick answer. There you go.

That's a good one. I wasn't expecting that. Okay.

Yeah.

The dog trainer gets a call. Why problems?

Like a lot of behavioral problems is probably the most common. I've been out of the pet sort of space for a while. I'm working more with sport dogs, working dogs. So, like, I'm more than happy to take other people's sort of opinions on this. But I think it's mostly the behavioral problems come from not being biologically fulfilled and not having a communication system in place to even really have the dog understand what it is you do and do not want. And when you do and do not want those things, which, for me, that. That equals, like teaching them windows. Windows of opportunity. But, yeah, not being biologically fulfilled tends to lead to a lot of the behavioral problems. But, like, they can show in so many different ways.

Like, it's just lack of expression, opportunity to express themselves. Right.

Yeah. And then they're left to either find a way to do it on their own or, like, they're just gonna go nuts, which can then lead to other problems, you know?

So I think when. When that dog is suppressed because they don't have the opportunity to do these sort of things, then it bottlenecks. And then we often see that come out as, like, reactivity. Right. Because it's the dog's.

Because they have arousal and drive, but they don't know what to do with it because they've never practiced it.

Yeah. And it only takes a couple of repetitions of, like, completely lining up towards another dog and going like, oh, that has made me feel better. I now feel relieved.

I just remembered something.

There you go. And then just a couple of repetitions. They're like, oh, got it. That's my fix now. That is my. That is my pleasure.

Because it's satisfying. Like, they've got a bit of satisfaction, like, a little bit of fulfillment. They're gonna want to keep doing that. So that's. You get stuck in the cycle.

You saying reactivity isn't always out of fear?

I may be.

That's fucking crazy. Okay, guys, I just need a very quick 20 seconds of your time. Hope you're enjoying the video so far. If you're a dog trainer, I've put together a free webinar for you on how to correctly scale your business and click the link in the description and have access to that webinar for completely free. It will help. It's helped hundreds of others scale their business, get them out of the shit, and so on and so forth. And I'm. Hopefully it'll be as helpful for you as well. Enjoy the rest of the video. Talk to me about this. Then you just jumped across the board. We made an effort to write this email. Yeah, let's talk about it.

So another big thing is, I guess I. I talk about it. When I talk about it, I usually talk about it in terms of, like, learning the dog, but the dog is also learning. And through play, you create neural pathways that are going to assist, like, especially if you want to do, you know, obedience and stuff. Not everyone does. Right. But play with your dog still. It doesn't have to be a reward for obedience, but regardless, it's going to help develop certain neural pathways that are going to help the dog live in life. And, like, for example, emotional regulation. We're teaching them how to do these things. That's beneficial whether you're going to teach obedience or do sport or anything like that. Right. So the neural pathways that we can develop in play can be quite, quite useful. So, like, one of the first things, like, I teach early. That's not a command. It's just a lifestyle thing. I'll teach a dog, like, a weight, like, just to, like, weight their body. And this is when a dog has, like, no impulse. A little puppy has no impulse control. You. You put your hand there. As soon as you move it, they're gonna try to move over here. And now it might be because, like, I don't know, the ball's near something dangerous. The puppy wants it, but I obviously am not gonna let him get it. I'll just. I'll just tell them to wait, and then I'll be like, look, I'm getting it, buddy. And I'll just, like, sort of just balance them there a little bit where they're not coming forward, but they're just seeing what I'm doing where I'm like, just pause there, buddy. We're still in the game, but. All right, it's safe now. Go get the thing. We're on a team, like, we're cooperating. Not on a team, like, because, you know, we might be playing a competitive game, but that comes to different types of games. But it's like, they can start to learn impulse control from something like that, right. In a lifestyle setting or in a play setting. And when it's in a play setting, they're going to be enjoying the process of learning it because it's coming back to things, you know? So it also means, like, you can start to create movements in play where the dog doesn't realize. You just practice them getting into a sphinx drop because they're just like they're just doing the things, they're trying to get the ball and you know, or teaching them to go through obstacles or, you know, be environmentally stable. We can teach them through play that all the scary things or the attractive things in the environment are tricks. They're my tactics and strategies to win the, like win the game.

Gotcha.

Right?

Yeah.

So then we can develop neural pathways on staying engaged in the play, which can help then stay engaged in work through play and using things as tactics and strategies, you know, so that's also something that helps build confidence. I use that a lot for building confidence, not just building stability and, and things building confidence in the dogs as well. So changing neural pathways when maybe a dog is a little reactive or if they're fearful or things like that and, you know, maybe they want to run away. Building confidence, changing their neural pathways through play, it's a big thing. It's what I did with Genta. She, she was a big part of how I learned about play. She was a super fearful dog. Genta's my dog. She's back there on the beanbag. But yeah, she, she really came out of a shell when I started doing a lot more play and really using it properly with her.

What I find super interesting, within the short chat we've had so far, I think we've been able to. Or you've pinpointed what I've referred to in the past as the two most common drivers for reactivity, which was lack of expression, fulfillment, and then lack of impulse control. So we get dogs and we say, what you want, you can have it when you want. In terms of like, if I open the back door, you're going to fly out of it. You see a toy, you're going to get it. I go and get off the sofa and go to the fridge, you can come with me. And we teach them if you see anything of value, you've just got to travel towards it and you will get it. You will get to investigate, you might get access to the reward. You get access to interact with whatever that thing is. And you couple that with. With suppressed expression that has been bottlenecked. And we got this pressure cooker dog. You take them out, you put them on a leash, which by nature restricts them from that access. Then we've got a recipe for disaster. But just looking at this and what you've said so far and what we've talked about, we can combat a lot of that through play, right?

Yeah, a lot. It's it like I'm still Surprised sometimes when I'm coming across new. New things to add into play or a different way to play with the dog. So obviously, like, I'm raising and selling, right? So every new puppy I get, there's potential that they're going to play differently. And even with new puppies, like, I'm still learning new ways that they're. They're playing that I can then go, oh, this is a new thing. I can, like, just not a new thing, but, like, another thing I can work on with dogs that, you know, I just hadn't had the opportunity to before. And it seems like it's just never ending. There's so much you can do with it. It's like, I don't know. And plus, I just really enjoy it. So maybe I'm biased, but I enjoy playing games.

So. Yeah.

And I can get quite competitive, so I like to make you. Don't say, yeah, sorry, don't make me throw the ball at you. Yeah, I like to create quite a compet dog, but with a good mindset, with cooperation in mind. Even though we are competing against each other at times, there's still cooperation and there's still boundaries and rules. That's what makes a game different to an activity.

Right. I don't think people realize how competitive dogs are by nature. Right.

It's a little insulting. And I had a. I had someone at a seminar. They weren't trying hard enough for their dog. They were thinking their dog was less than and their dog was less than because they were getting treated that way. I went and played with the dog and go, hey, your dog's capable of much more. Do you trust me? And she's like, yes, can I play with the dog at a much higher intensity and really, like, steal it away and everything? You're happy with that? And she's like, yeah, but he's not going to engage. He had the best time.

He's like, yeah, I can imagine.

Then she did it and she was. I was like, you just got to trust it. Try hard to win. Don't fall for it. And it took the dog a little bit because he acted like, oh, no, you stole. I don't want to play. Like, you know, he acted like he was a bit put off by her and stuff. And then he was like, oh, she didn't stop her. Well, now, okay, I'm going to get into it then. And then like, she was like, oh, I really was just underestimating my dog. Like, underestim. Underestimating their capacity, maybe underestimating hers to be Able to read the dog as well. So it was helpful to see me demo that first. But, yeah, like, the dog wanted to be competitive.

It's like when people have kids and they just let the kid really easily win at shit. And you're like, hang on a minute. He doesn't believe that that was a real contest. You're gonna kill the motivation to contest. And it's like when people play tug, they're like, oh, oh, oh, look, boy, you won. And the dog's like, don't insult the dog. He can read you. He understands the game. He understands it's a legitimate win or not. And so, like, by allowing the dog to win too easy, you convince the dog that, yeah, we're not a genuine competitor. But also, like, you're gonna miss developing a sense of, like, almost like backbone in the dog. Right?

Yeah, it's. It's a. It's a hard thing to watch a dog be disheartened when they won. In the handler's eyes, they won the dog's eyes. They didn't. Like, that's hard to watch. But, man, when you help someone understand that and then they switch it. Oh, oh. That moment, just when they play that game properly with the not properly, it's not that they're doing it wrong, but in a way that they both then enjoyed it, that's a beautiful moment. And yeah, I definitely. That's probably one of the big things I enjoy about seminars at the moment, because I'm not working with clients privately at the moment. I'm doing seminars and stuff. But when I go there, that's always, like. It always makes me happy. So, like, day two is always play. So, like, day two is often like the. Yes, I'm excited for it.

Yeah, nice.

But, yeah, the biggest thing with that is timing and effort. So another thing with play, in terms of benefits and why people should do it, this is more so talking to maybe sport sport dog people, working dog people is in play. We, as the handler will also be improving our skills. We will be improving our timing. If we're not getting our timing right. Yeah, we're going to have a demotivated dog. If you're going to miss time when you let them win, or we're potentially going to teach them the wrong stuff because you, like, let go at the wrong time or you let them win at the wrong time. But then in terms of the timing, when do you want to do it? You want to typically above anything else. Like, there can be specific times in a play session or specific sessions that I Might go, oh, I'm going to be specifically rewarding this in the play today. No worries. That's. Every time he does this one thing, I'm going to make sure he wins there. Right. But overall, like, the overarching sort of thing is I will reward their effort. So even if their output, we'll say output is not the same as the day before, but I can see that they just put their, like, their heart on the line there, then I'm making sure I reward that effort, even if it is not the same result as the day before. Like, it might seem like we regressed in some way, like, in terms of a criteria for something. Right. If the effort was there, that's more important to me. That's going to keep the game going and allow them the capacity to then keep pushing through with play, and then you can start building more at whatever else you're working on. But effort's always got to be acknowledged eventually. Like, you don't have to necessarily let them win. So sometimes people want to release the toy to the dog to win, but some dogs are insulted by that because they don't like to celebrate with it or whatever. They like to the actual fight. So, like, at training, like, I do jiu jitsu, right? So if I'm rolling with someone and let's say I submit them, and then they go, cool, nice submission, and then they walk off, but there's three minutes left on the clock. I'm going to be kind of bummed.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm not going to want to submit them again because, like, I kind of want the six minutes, but, like, also I want to submit them, though, because that's what I'm training for. But where do I. Like, you know what I mean? So that would change how I train.

Where I see a lot of people go wrong is they. Let's imagine this is the toy, this is the dog, and they're playing tug with the toy. And the dog goes, pull.

Yep.

And then, like, real big pull. And then like, puts loads of effort in and then goes like, oh, it didn't work. And then the owner then goes, hey, one.

Yeah.

And I'm like.

Because they felt sorry for the dog.

Yeah.

Or they thought that, oh, no, you're going to give up. No, no, quick, have it back.

Yeah, yeah.

Like, you know when you're arguing with sibling and then they call out, dad, and you're like, no, no, no, no, no, have it back, have it back. It's fine, it's fine. Yeah. That's kind of what they're doing. And the kid's already like, nah, nah, you screwed it up. Nope, not happening. Right. So sometimes that's what pushes your dog out of the game. You want to reward them at the effort point. If you get to that point, try to get them back into the game a little bit more, to try that little bit harder, and then reward them. Because coming back into the game is still effort.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Don't make a cycle, though, because otherwise they will act like they're giving up just to get you to try a little bit just so they can then get it. So it's like you always got to be careful of the. The cycles you're creating, the sequences. You know, if things start to repeat all the time, just maybe review and then adapt. Yeah, the effort would prevent that. Like, if that's the point that you're rewarding. But as I said, there's other times I want to reward specifically. Like, say if I was working with fear like a fearful dog. Let's say I was playing magenta. She didn't want to go near the buckets over there that are catching the water. That's going to be my tactic. I'm going to play. So we'll do it so people can see. Realize people are not in the room with us. Let's say there's the buckets are over here and I'm going to play with her in this area out here.

Gotcha.

The main game is going to be happening here. All right. So we're going to be doing a lot of our tug in this area away from that. So when we play here, we are outside her threshold. We're beyond her threshold. But let's say if I go past this point, she's gonna let go of the toy and wanna run away. Cause she's scared of it. Right. Okay.

So the desire to stay the game is outweighed by the worry of the buckets. And she goes, I'm no longer. It's no longer worth me to stay playing with you because of this as a pressure. This is a problem to me.

Exactly right. And that's like, just for sake of the explanation, this is her literal line in the sand. So we're going to be playing. I'm going to make sure that she's in a good mindset and that like, yep, today is still the day. I planned it yesterday that this is what we're going to do. Looking at you today, no worries. It still looks like you're in the right mindset for it. You've got the Right. Energy levels, because that's the first thing. I'm not going to start challenging her if she's already having a challenging day in some other way. Right, gotcha. So we play in this circle and then at some point I'm going to be like, man, I haven't won in a while. I'm going to start moving over here. Now if I play here, no worries. I'll play, play, play.

Reward.

And for her, she likes to celebrate. So I will be like, as she's pulling, I'll be like, oh, my goodness. And I'll try to get it back, but really I'm scrambling for it, but I'm acting. And I'm like, oh, no, come back. And she's like, ahaha, I got it. And she runs off, does hot lapse.

Funny note on that is one of my friends to get his dog to take tablets and medicine. He'll like, walk to the kitchen, drop it on the floor and then go, oh, God, no you don't. And the dog will pick it up and eat it and then run. Be like, gotcha.

I'm seeing a video, actually.

I got you.

Yeah, got you.

So we're getting over here. You've realized, okay, I've not won in a while. She likes to parade it. We're getting close to our threshold.

Yep. So I'm just before the threshold because I want to make sure that that threshold is where I think it is. So I go just where before it. Right. And then she's good. No worries. I let her win. She runs back over here, maybe does some hot laps, whatever. I come back and I meet her over here. We play, play, play. Maybe let her win again. Maybe I steal it. No worries. That's all happening here. Eventually I'm going to go back over here this time. Last time we stopped here and we rewarded. I'm going to cross the line and it might be one or two reps here or something.

Within the game.

Yep, within the game. While she's on the tug, I'm going to be dragging her back and she's going to be like, no, no, no. We're getting closer to the thing. We're getting closer to the thing. And I'm like, yeah, I'm dragging you forward. When I cross and she lets go, I run away and I go, I have the thing.

Gotcha, gotcha. So you take her favorite part of the game and you, you have it yourself.

And she's like, God damn it, I want that. So then I eventually, like, I dangle it down or whatever and make sure it's at a suitable height that she can kind of get it and not where she's going to dive into something and, you know, have an aversive response. I just want her to be able to try to steal it back. Sometimes I might let her steal it from my hand and take it and be like, oh, my God, come back here. Right? We play like that. Or she gets it and I'm like, no, I've got that. Oh, my gosh. And we're back into tug. So then we're tugging again in this circle. I take her back over. If she lets go again, no worries. Come back over, do the hot lapse, repeat the process. Eventually enough reps, I'm going to go over there. She's going to be like, no. Every time you keep stealing it, she's going to hold on that extra little bit, Just an extra little bit. And then I'm going to be like, oh, my gosh. My. My grip slipped. But you have to prep. As I'm going over, I'm like, down my knuckles so she can feel it, right? This is how detailed I'll get in place. I'll be like, oh, no. Because if you're holding a rope, you can tell when someone's slipping, right? She feels it. It's in her mouth, right? So I want to give that feedback. She's going towards the threshold already thinking, I'm slipping grip. She holds on a little bit longer past her threshold. I let her win it. And she's like, goddamn right, I want it. And she goes and parades it. Now when I start to go over more and more, she's then going to go, no, no, I can do this. I'm going to hold. So now the threshold moves. We're no longer there. The threshold moves further up. Now we go to here. Not every rep will go over, though. We still play majority of the game over here. This is where we talk about ratios. Like, if we go, yeah, gotcha. At first, it might be only one rep in 10 in a game. One rep, I'll go near it, or one rep, I'll go over or something like that. Eventually that ratio is going to change, you know, and it'll go to eventually, like 5. I did not do that. Right. It's kind of what I was looking at. And then, you know, eventually it'll be like nine times. I can go over and you hold on. And then, like, I'll give you a win over here, too. But, like, we've got to change the balance of the game on how much we're actually going to push you, you know, to your limits, to really challenge you and work through that fear. The fun part is when you actually get to the point of. This happened with Genta. She was scared of a particular type of fence in my backyard. So when I moved to my new house, she only wanted to stay in the center of the yard. Right. So I did this with her. And let's say this is the fence. Same concept. Right. Originally, she wouldn't even go near it. Like, beyond that. She then eventually got to the point playing the game, she would take me over to the fence because she was like, well, every time we're near the fence, you lose. Yeah, you seem to be pretty shit near that fence.

So now she's manipulating the game.

Yes. And at that point, then I go, cool, it no longer works. And I'm like, now we can just play an extra fence and it's fine. Right? Gotcha. But to have a dog not want to go near that thing and then deliberately take you there because she thinks it's valuable and she can win. Like, how powerful is that? Like, we are changing some. Some shit in there.

I think, like, what people often neglect is when the dog believes they're orchestrating the situation. There's some serious learning that goes on there when they start, like. And this can work against us too. Right. And dogs do this in everyday pet life.

Yeah.

And they orchestrate things to kind of manipulate us. I recently met a dog that.

What's his name?

I can't remember his name. I met an owner. They had a couple of dogs. They had a second dog. It was a cockapoo. I think he must be called Buddy.

I like dogs with old man names. That's why I call mine old man names.

We've got a Kevin.

Oh, I do like Kevin. What about a Dave?

We've had a Dave. Yeah. A couple of days. That's a good one. Anyway, so this dog, every time his owner strokes another dog, he starts limping. He puts a limp on, and they're like, oh, because this must have worked once upon a time. And they've obviously gone like, right, I'm gonna. I'm worried about my dog. I'm gonna come back to my dog. And he's like, huh, Gotcha.

Have you been around Sydney much since you've been in here?

No.

So go. Go out to, like, some. Some places where there's a whole bunch of, like, I don't know, seagulls or whatever. I don't know if they. I don't know if they do it everywhere else but here. At least they'll act like they're injured and lay on the floor. No, they'll lay on the floor and be like, hey, give me some food. Feel sorry for me. And then they'll get food and they'll be like, all right, off they go. They just walk off.

That's amazing.

Or they'll act like. Or sometimes they do stand just with one leg up.

Right.

For whatever reason. But some of them will be like, oh, I'm all hobbly. You give them a chip, and then they're like, thanks, man. Can I have another one? And you're like, no, you blew it for yourself now. So. But yeah, when. When they feel like they're orchestrating it, it's. Yeah, it's a very powerful thing. Self empowerment is something that we can't give to them. Like, we can. A ball. We can only give them the opportunities to overcome things and to work through stresses, to. To be able to feel that sense of empowerment. Right. So when my dog overcame that threshold, like, she went over it and was like, I'm a bit fearful here. I'm a lot fearful here, but I'm gonna do it anyway. That's courage.

Yeah.

Like, it's. It's. Courage isn't not having fear. Courage isn't. Is working through that, like, doing it anyway. You know, Courage is in the absence of fear. It's the. What's that quote?

Oh, here's a trick for you.

Oh, here we go. Buckle up.

Yeah. So if you ever need anything, you ever need anything, fact checked. All you need to do is poppy ping, and then Poppy in post will pop it up there. So I'll show you.

All right, so where do we cut that back to? Courage is not the absence of fear. Oh. Courage is not the absence of fear. It's the willingness to act in spite of fear. There you go.

We don't need Poppy. Screw you, Poppy. So we can create more courageous dogs. And would this thing work here? Which you rubbed out now with our buckets and our threshold and our game and our dog. Not going to draw one if this was a person that they were scared of.

Well, you can. I typically first will do reactivity through low arousal and then also bring in high arousal.

Gotcha.

But low arousal is going to help me make sure I've got all my communication in order, make sure that they can handle themselves in low arousal. Even though. Yes, some dogs can actually be more reactive in a low arousal state. And maybe in a high arousal state, they don't care you know, we've seen some sport dogs that are more fearful when they're out of drive. Right. So I am aware of that. But more often than not I want to check the, the communication, make sure the relationship's there, gauge where they're at. What I tend to do is work on their commitment to the game despite the person.

Gotcha.

So that way they can develop commitment to the behaviors rather than paying attention to the human. But I still want to address that. I like to address things. If there's four components to something, I'm going to address each component individually where possible, then join two of them, then maybe join two of them and then join like either all four or join three and you know, work through like that. So. But yes, I do then bring play into like reactivity work at some stage because I think it's important to work them through that in a high arousal as well, not just in low arousal. So I'll do both. But yeah, I think more often than not I probably start in low arousal.

I've got a question for you.

Shoot.

Would you present the argument that the concept of working around the boxes in this situation whereby it's a lower stakes situation, it's not a person, you know, something goes wrong with the boxes, not a big deal.

Yep.

Would you argue ever that that resilience in which we've built in the dog could be generalized? Or is it only this case that we've got the dog not braver overall? Gotcha.

Yes.

Okay, talk to me about that. That's a really important concept to touch on.

So again, sort of neural pathways, we're developing the skills to be able to manage stresses of some kind. Like it, it really to begin with, doesn't matter what the stresses are. We're just teaching them to be able to adjust how they feel about things. You know, developing some neural pathways, teaching them what, what they can do instead of blowing up their how to stay engaged. So, you know, you can't just say to someone who struggles to pay attention to watch this video and don't think about anything else. Like, no, you're probably going to start with like a three minute meditation or mindfulness practice or something. You know, you don't expect the big things at the beginning. You've got to build up to that. So again, like, you know, we're developing communication, we're learning about the dog and the dog is learning how to learn as well. Right. And obviously developing the whole reward system that we're going to use down the track, should you choose to. But the Neural pathways are playing amongst all of that, you know, so it doesn't matter if it's. If it's the boxes, if it's because we don't just do things that they want to go away from, but also do the things that they want to be attracted to as well. And again, building commitment to the game, despite what's going on around, is going to. Is going to help them down the track with obedience, but that is also then going to help them down the track with reactivity because you're developing all of that, the emotional regulation, the arousal control, the channel, the drive channeling and everything. So, yeah, I think answer to the

question, yes, certainly does. Before we move on, are we ever going to make progress with this dog if we don't pass this line?

You've got to push that line up. That's the thing. So if you're not constantly pushing the boundary, you're not going to expand it.

Are you trying to say to me, Jaz, that if we always keep the dog under threshold, we won't see improvements in their behavior?

I believe so.

That's fucking better.

When I prepared earlier.

Okay, okay. I think that's all that needs to be said on that, I think. You fucking idiots.

Oh, dear.

Okay, so one could argue that there's certain things we do whilst playing with our dog that is a little bit counterintuitive to what we want out of a pet dog. Right. In terms of, like, they're stealing things, we're chasing them round a little bit, we're getting into contests. That's not something we want to really be doing over a tea towel. And so is there a way we can cue to our dog that, hey, we're going to get a bit silly now and is there a way to cue to our dog that, okay, the fun and games have momentarily stopped and we need to go back into a more constructive way of living?

Yes, yes, there is. I'm teasing, man. Hey, you want short answers? I can give a yes or a no.

Gotcha.

Windows of opportunity.

All righty.

All right. I personally have five windows that I teach all of the. All of the dogs that come to me, which includes the foster dogs that I had before. So, like, they were going back into pet homes, they were problems and couldn't, well, couldn't live in society, basically. So now they've. They've adapted and they've gone into homes. So even with pets, it's not just for sport dogs, it's not just for working dogs, but it definitely will benefit all of them. So I have five windows, and they are calm, liberty, free, liberty, play, work, and shaping. Right, okay.

These are like modes for a dog then.

Yeah, yeah. So it's. It's where they're. For each one of these, these are each a window. Right. For each window, there is a set of rules, a set of boundaries, things that you can and cannot do that have been communicated to you. Right. You can't have windows, not properly, unless you've communicated it to the dog. Now, not all is you actually teaching, because there's plenty of dogs in the world that have figured out their humans windows of opportunity and just live a great life to their. Their handler, their owner. All right, gotcha. So whether you're talking to your dog and trying to teach them or not, you might be communicating the correct or incorrect things. Right. So each one of these is a window. There's. There's rules, there's boundaries, there's certain things that you can and cannot do. And I also will make sure they understand, like their arousal level. So for this one, I think it's.

This is like different behavioral criteria for each one of these things. Yeah.

Yes. Not in terms of like, sit down, stand behavior, how they behave. Yes. So less than. I think that's the less than thing. Less than 40% arousal. You know, this could be less than 70% arousal. This could be. Let's go between probably, I'd say maybe 50 to 80.

Do we ever see 100?

I say no, because I really don't think we see the full potential of dogs.

Okay.

That would be the only reason.

Surely we see a couple of bite work dogs up in the 90s though, right?

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Which is why I just changed that. I just am always hesitant to say whether I've seen the actual max capacity of a dog in anything that I do, because I don't think that, like, I think that might be something that they show in real natural situations, like chasing prey, you know, like. And yes, we can simulate it and stuff, and we can simulate the fight and everything like that. But I'm like, I just feel like there's. There's more that we. We won't see. That's why I don't say to 100, you know, but let's say the max you can get out of the dog work. Now, that depends on how well your dog can think and function in an effective and an efficient way and at what arousal that starts to drop off, you know, higher arousal, they can lose focus and stuff. So if your dog doesn't have the skills like Sometimes I like there's, you know, genetic components and stuff. There's a lot you can do to teach them the skills on how to regulate and toggle their arousal and everything like that. But if you have a dog that really struggles to concentrate with high arousal, you need to do more high arousal stuff in the play. So it'll help with the work. So if this is struggling to go up in percent, this one I wouldn't want to go above it because if I can't have cooperation in play, I'm probably going to be struggling for cooperation instead. I'm just going to be like more compulsive, you know what I mean? Like I want cooperation. So usually this one is in correlation to this and shaping again depends. Depends what I'm shaping, depends why I'm shaping different dogs and I do different things and stuff. But mostly I want to, I want the dog to be exploring. I want them to try to just like be open minded about things. Develop some neural pathways on being creative and those sort of things. But also teaching like I'll teach very specific things like a specific away behavior and a specific near me behavior that could be like I'm holding a muzzle, teaching you to put a muzzle on and I'm sending you to a marker board. But then I'm also going to teach them. Okay, this is to do with your muzzle going in your mouth, going in something that's to do with standing on something. I'm going to teach you maybe a hold because that's opening your mouth. I'm going to teach you maybe to go through a tunnel over a jump around something because now that's a spatial thing. I'm going to teach a shaping exercise maybe something to do with me. So then they learn maybe a position that's relative to me or like so these are all little neural pathways and like unimportant behaviors. But if they know how to send away and if they know how to do a behavior close to you and they can learn all these things. Again, we're learning the dog, but the dog's also learning through play. We're developing all the neural pathways that. And this is through shaping but also play that. Then help us do the work. But then help us do the lifestyle stuff because again, everything relates back to the lifestyle. Like work is just the icing on the cake for anyone who wants to do it for whatever reason. It doesn't matter whether it's for the dog or for you. If you want to do it and the dog's having a great time, cool but not everyone wants to. But it helps with all of the lifestyle stuff, which is why I put so much effort into teaching the windows of opportunity. Opportunity and not actually teaching much formal obedience until closer to 12 months old. I just play with dogs, and I get them used to all the environments. I teach them all the tactics, all the strategies. Because if I teach dogs how to work with tactics and strategies in play, then that means when I go, cool, the dog's in a down, and I'm like, oh, I'm gonna fake throw the ball. That's a tactic. So the dog already understands tactics from play, though.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So it's like, oh, it's a trick. So then when the decoy runs past, they're, like, not falling for that. Nope. I'm the goodest dog over here. Like, so it helps with everything. Right. So with the shaping, that depends on the dog's level of arousal and how they can focus and things. Right. But again, if you want to be improving, you've got to be pushing that threshold and going beyond it. So with the windows of opportunity, these a lot of the time, for people who have dogs that understand this, these will be learned by the dog observing. And if they're. If they've got an owner that's really consistent, it's gonna be really easy for a dog to pick up on these things. And they're the dogs that we never hear about because we don't get calls. They're like, they're not calling a trainer. Cause shit's working well for them. Yeah, yeah, Right. So if you don't have that or if you just want to improve a bunch of stuff, like actually having your dog calm down when you need them to so they can play and work at the maximum that they can, having that on a verbal cue is going to be helpful. So I put all of these on a verbal cue. For me, it's finished. Free kickoff. I immediately just went to go, shit. I said it. Do I have a dog? No, not that one. Who's different on the table? Yeah. Yes. Well, they would immediately go, where's. Where's the toy? What are we doing? So this is the thing. When I turn on the play window, it doesn't mean they can take the toy yet. That's like the ref calling the players onto the field.

Yeah, Gotcha.

Everybody steps on, and they're like, what are we doing? Like, and they're like, are you going to throw a Frisbee? Are you going to. Are you going to pull out a tug? What are we going to do. So they're waiting for the play. And that's part of the criteria of the window of play.

That was free. Yep, that was.

Oh, finished.

Finished.

Free. Kickoff. Work is the command itself. So if I say sit, you are now in the work window. If I say heal, you are in the work window. If I, you know, whatever it is,

does that mean you reserve those words exclusively for work and you're not particularly using them?

Yeah, I don't say them anywhere else. But the thing is, though, like, I can give commands, and it doesn't mean we're about to do a whole session. Gotcha. Right. So I'll come back to why it doesn't mean that. And then shaping is shaping.

Right?

That's the word that I use to start shaping. Yep. Just that with each of these, you can jump from one to another in any order at any time.

Gotcha.

As long as you've trained it. If your dog struggles with the transition, then it's not trained fully yet. That's. It's as simple as that. Right. So once it's conditioned and they understand now, obviously, if they're super high, like zero to 90, and you're going to ask them to go below 40, like, that might take a short amount of time, but I'm not talking 20 minutes. I'm talking, like, maybe three. Like, so when I say I've done it here, you might have seen video. Actually, Pat and I were doing a session. Bite work session. And then I needed to stretch the dog out after because they were going through a huge growth burn and their solas was tired and blah, blah, blah. Anyway, so they've just finished biting Pat. And then I was like, cool, we're done. They trotted the suit around for a bit, and I was like, all right, finished. And then he was like, all right, I'll go get a drink. And then he laid down on the floor because he knows what's happening. He was like, stretch me. And then Pat was just there and hanging out, and the dog's not trying to bite him, like, very clearly and relaxed enough for me to be able to stretch him. So that was a very quick, like, from bite work, let's say 90, down to lower than 40.

Gotcha.

But, like, very low because he really did relax and let me stretch him out. So. And that was in a matter of minutes, you know, and with the switch on, that's. That's immediate, you know, you'll see the dog turn on a dime, and then, like, you can see they're aroused.

Their.

Their drive State has changed, you know, so you can basically get everything that is like suitable or applicable within that window within one mark, you know, just like anything else. Just like a sit, just like, you know, downhill, whatever. But it's not in the same like, kind of mindset because they have to hold that for, well, we don't know how long. It depends. Right. What's the max you would ask for an obedience command? Just give me, like, could you imagine, imagine a down stay. What's the maximum time you reckon you've ever asked a dog to down and stay there and not move in obedience? Yep.

Three minutes. Not long.

Not long, right?

No.

So what happens if you were in a, like a small space here and. Well, okay, Genta's over on the couch on the, on the beanbag, right. She's in Calm Liberty. What did I last say? Actually, she might be in free. No, she's in, she's in free Liberty. But because it's lower than 70%, she's just displaying as if she's in calm Liberty.

Gotcha.

I had to think about that and was like, what was the last thing? No, she's in free liberty, right? So she could get up and do zoomies. She can go and greet someone at the door.

Gotcha.

If they arrive and she can be a bit excited for her, she's allowed to pick up a toy and carry that round. But she's not trying to initiate play. Most of the time if someone tries to take it, she's like, I don't want pats from you anymore. She'll go to someone else. Right? So she's in free Liberty. She, she meets all those criteria. Criterion, whatever that we, that we set. If I was to switch her on, she's old and she's probably going to have to stretch out a little bit, you know, but her, her desire to play is immediately there and her, her drive state's changed. You know, if I was to say, you know, middle and in the way that I actually say it to her, because I say it in a specific way, she's immediately in the work, right? So she's in free. Now if I said middle, she's straight into the work window. Let's say someone was delivering something, no worries, she's here. They disappear. I'll be like, okay, free now she's straight back to free Liberty. Gotcha now. Because I'm at a point in, in training that when she does a middle, I don't have to reward every repetition. That's fine. I would not ask for an obedience command. That still needs every rep rewarded. Unless I was prepared to reward, in which case, if I had to, I would grab a toy from there, I would play with it, and that then as soon as I give my marker, we're in the play. As soon as I'm finished playing, I might say free or finished. And she's back to free.

So you don't turn one off, you just switch to another.

Exactly. It's not. You're not really closing, like, the window.

Yeah.

It's just you're climbing through the window to something else gone the other side. Yep. You know. Good girl. Oh,

mama. What you doing?

Excuse the brief interruption. We're having a visitor.

Come here.

Hey, girl. How you doing?

Can you be in the. Oh, she's.

She's just like.

She's probably looking for free liberty.

Hey, girl. This one? Yeah. There you go. Go.

There you go. That's nice. They're nice.

Does the. Does the camera pan down? This is my old girl, Genta.

She cute. All right, come on, then.

All right, so, yeah, back into it. So I'll take my pen back now, please. Genta, release. Thank you. Free. So that. Actually, I didn't tell her to hold it. Right. But I knew she was looking for something to hold. I gave it to her, but now I deliberate, like, I specifically wanted it back. She has to hold that accountable. Right. So I said release. Technically, that's an obedience command. So that's work. Right. And the expectation is that when I say release, you stay there and engaged. Right. You're waiting.

Work mode.

Yeah.

So use the work command.

Exactly. So it's not necessarily like an out. Well, for. For me. And like, for some people in certain sports and stuff, when you say out, out doesn't mean to let go. Out means to sit in front of that person and guide them. So even with a pet dog, it's like you stay focused on that thing until given further instructions. So I then said. I think I said free to us. You said freeze free. Yep. So she's now into free liberty, right? And she's just waiting for permission to get up or she can see your phone up. She'll. She'll more often than not, like, stop if there's something on it and just kind of wait. Anyway, so I leave my laptop on my couch and stuff, and she doesn't step on it. So. Except now she's over your phone.

I don't have my phone.

But anyway, so I just went from, like, the. The out, the work straight into free living. And now she can run around. Do Zoomies if she wanted up to 70% of arousal or less, as long as it's less than 70% of arousal. But if she chooses to lay down, she's still in free liberty, even though it's simulating Calm liberty.

Yep.

You know, so this window here is where I want my dogs to spend most of their time. I want them to make good choices and lay down and chill out like that when it's time to do that, but also have the flexibility to. To show drive and do things. I don't always want to have to tell them, you must be calm. They can read the situation. She'll still get up and do zoomies and stuff. At some point, like, someone comes in, she'll get all excited. That's cool. I want them to then be able to switch themselves and down, regulate, downshift, go back to being calm, but without me needing to put them in that window. They are starting to learn. But I always still want the control to put them into the play and the work and the shaping because I don't want them offering that at any other time. If she wants to show a low level of arousal, like calm liberty and that, that's cool. You do that. But yeah, otherwise you. You need to stay in the window until I tell you to go into another one.

Gotcha.

If it's command after command after command, that's work, work, work. The second you give a marker, you're into the play. As soon as you say out, you're back into the work. If you're playing tug and then you just say free, let's say finished. If we're playing and. And I say finish, dog should let go and just go chill out somewhere.

Go and chill.

Doesn't matter if I was still tugging. That's the level you want to get them to. Same as, like, you could be playing tug with a dog and you say out, they should still let go even if you're tugging. Right. Same sort of concept.

What happens if we neglect to be consistent with these windows of opportunity?

Yeah. So like, this is where again, a lot of. I didn't want to repeat what I said earlier, but, like, behavioral problems outlets are sometimes not met because when the dog offers play, the person's like, no, I'm watching tv. I want calm liberty. I'm prepping to go to bed. And you want to do midnight zoomies or something, or post. Post dinner zoomies. You have a dog that does that? I've had some dogs. Oh, my gosh. It's like, come on, guys, I just

got Two sausage dogs.

Of course I did. Well, like I said, some dogs can. Can figure it out really easily, and maybe that's. Genetically, they're really good at learning to adapt, right. Others maybe just they're the normal level of adaptation and they have a really consistent owner and they're easy to predict, easy to anticipate, know what it is that that person wants and when they want it and they comply with that, they're cooperating. So it just happens a little bit more naturally for others. You have to put in the hard work. You have to be very diligent in your communication. You have to be. So for me, I think about it like communication plus consistency equals clarity, right? And dogs don't necessarily always need. What did I say?

Communication.

Communication, yeah. I like how I just ask you

what I said plus consistency. I'm listening. You can spell. I'm fucking impressed. It must be the only dog trainer on the planet that can spell.

But yeah, so communication plus consistency equals clarity. So dogs don't necessarily need, like, structure, but, like, structure brings clarity. So to me, structure is communication and consistency. That, for that forms structure, right? And that equals clarity. So like with puppies, I micromanage them, like, a lot. But then as they adapt and they can start to have that little bit of impulse control or just make those little decisions on, like, yeah, I think we're going to the car and I'm meant to chill out now. And then they start heading that way, right? Then I start to give them more responsibility, and then we start, like, expanding what we're doing. I'm giving them more flexibility, but they're making right decisions, they're making right choices. Or I'm giving them choice points and they're making right decisions. And then I'm able to give them more choice points because they're capable of more. Again, we're always pushing that threshold, but I have to give them the opportunity. I can't stay in the micromanagement. But first, it starts with a bit of micromanagement with communication and consistency being, like, so diligent with everything that I'm doing to be as clear as possible. So then when there's the clarity, like, everything after, that's easier, you know, like, obviously there's. There's relationship and other things, learning the dog, and the dog's learning how to learn and everything like that. But yeah, that's a. That's a huge thing.

And you make a very interesting point there in that, like, structure brings about these two components, which gives us clarity, which is what we're after for the dog. And I think where people go wrong with puppies especially, they gift liberty too early. They lack that structure. They don't offer the choice points where the dog is gonna be molded into a good choice maker, right? And then what do they have to do later on? More structure to compensate from the lack of structure, to reshape that dog into a dog that can make choice at liberty. So I always say to people, like, there's an element of, like, things being a little bit boring around puppyhood. It doesn't mean, like, everything's boring, but, like, there should be periods of boredom for, like, you and the dog just to make sure that when he does have liberty, because that's what we don't like, that's what we want, right? The end goal is we have a dog that is at liberty making good choices, can greet people at the door, can make the right choices out of their own regard. They're autonomous. But seldom are we going to achieve that by having a, like, gifting a puppy too much liberty. And I think that's what people struggle with a lot of the time, right, Is to structure the puppy's life.

I feel like both ends of the spectrum, either giving them too much liberty or micromanaging and never going beyond that. I got bit by a dog in Canada, actually, like, five years ago at a seminar. The. The lady came in and I said, like, you know, your dog doesn't have to be under command or anything when they come in. Like, I don't expect anything. We're going to bring them in and see how they feel about the environment. And I do it a little bit differently now. But anyway, they came in and we're talking and we're standing, like, not. Not even this close, but, like, a little bit close. And as she was like, okay, so this is the blah, blah, blah. And I looked at the dog and I was like, he's gonna bite me. Okay. No, I shouldn't tell the lady right now because she's not gonna be able to stop it. And that's gonna. Like, what dog is it? White Shepherd.

Yeah.

Anyway, so, like. And he was. He was. He was weak. Like, he. He just bit the knee, backed up, like, when he realized I wasn't reacting and then bit the knee again and then backed up and then was like, I'm freaking out. And it was like. Like just blowing up and. But trying to back out, but then trying to come forward. And I was like, hey, so you're gonna pass me that leash? And she's like, I don't know what to do. You're gonna pass me the leash, right? I'll just take that from you. And we're just gonna stand here. And now I'm just gonna face this way so it's not awkward. Guys. Hey, what do you wanna talk about today? And I just turned to the audience, right, And I was like, all right, what coffee do you drink? Tell me, like. And I just started conversations with people and then worked into, like, just general conversation, maybe some Q and A's. And this was all just to stand there and not have the. The owner feel awkward or think about her dog anymore. So her dog was still, like, blowing up and trying to, like, figure out what to do there. And I was like, hey, we just have to. Now just go. We're just going to work through this, right? Because she also couldn't tell me why it was happening. Yeah, like, she was like. That was the absolute. Like, the dog's so social, blah, blah, blah, like, never a problem. And then throughout the seminar, but it took until private lessons when I could really sit down proper, I realized that that dog had never not been under a command.

Gotcha.

So the dog was freaking the fuck out. So, like, walked in, had no guidance on what to do or what to expect or anything, and the dog just freaked out and was like, mum's lost the plot. I got this. I don't got this. Yeah, I don't know what to do. And then eventually got to the point where the dog was fine, having cuddles with me, everything like that. We worked through it, but then I had to go, like, yes, micromanagement maybe to begin with, but you've got to expand past that because otherwise the dog needs that all the time.

That's why I say to people, obedience only fixes it, like, strengthens obedience. And sometimes we can use that to.

To work through situations.

Yeah, for sure.

Management and help keep things safe.

For sure. And kind of get us from A to B in terms of choice points, as you referred to. Yeah, but, like, we've seen it a million times. You can have sport dogs, they're exceptionally obedient, don't look like they're going to bite anyone. But when the handler's putting them back in the kennel or into the. The truck or whatever, and they're out of a command, they're looking to smoke everyone and smash everyone up. Right?

Yeah, exactly.

So it doesn't necessarily mean a dog that is really good is really obedient. Is a dog that behaves or is

like a. Yeah, exactly. Citizen Right, exactly.

Did you notice in America? Like, how. Did you notice how obedience focused they are in America? So when I went over there, I was just like, all these dogs are constantly being barked at in terms of, like, what to do at all times.

I kind of noticed that, like, most places that I go to seminars, but. But then once I go, like, for the first time anyway, but then when I start to go back, I. I feel like I'm seeing it less.

Gotcha.

And it's not necessarily because they're all the same people coming back to the events. They're different people, but I feel like that's maybe globally slowly changing, maybe. And that's my. Hopefully, like, I mean, I. I do hope that that's happening, but yeah, it's. It's an interesting thing. And the hardest question is, well, how do you. How do you know when to give them that next choice point? And it's like, well, you gotta. You gotta learn the dog. You have to know how the dog learns. You have to know the dog's drive arousal state. You need to know where they are on the lsm. You need to. LSM is Jjack's layered stress model. Yeah. You know about that? Yeah. So knowing where. Where they are on that, how they are on that day, what they can handle, and those sort of things, which then comes to, like, session planning. For me, when I teach session planning, though, like, yes, it can be very detailed in terms of, like, okay, this rep and this rep and this. These need to be the successes. But we need a difficult rep here. We need him, like, really trying to push that threshold, blah, blah, blah. Like, we can break down to that. And I do do that with some people. But then session planning is also, hey, you're walking out with your dog. That's training. Even in your house, that's training. How do we know when to push the dog and when not to, you know, so. And part of my knowledge about that comes from, you know, human strength and conditioning training and, you know, human psychology and stuff still. But, like, understanding reps and intensity and max capacity and those sort of things. And that's part of what I. What I teach. Yes. Progressive overload. But there's multiple kinds. Gold star. Do we have a little gold star we can ping on here somewhere? Just on his little chest. Oh, gosh. But yes. So I'm bringing some of that into. Into what I talk about when I'm teaching people how to plan. But it's not just planning for, like, a working dog training session. Very specific with. We're teaching Sit down, stand here or whatever. Like, it's, it's with lifestyle stuff as well in general, just like how to read your dog. But a lot of it is play with your dog and learn how to read them, learn what they're showing you in play, and also teach them how to receive your lesson, how to receive your communication and everything like that. So, yeah, play.

I want to touch on two more things. Even if this is a really long video, we can do an extended, like, director's cut version if you want. We got an average dog. Our metaphorical dog in front of us is a Labrador. He's interested in play.

I do love Labrador. He's.

He's a black lab. He's interested in play. He's a little bit dog reactive. But we know now from diagnosing the situation, it might be because he hasn't got the adequate outlets. And maybe we've not been clear enough with the dog. And so I want you to, in steps, step by step, as best as you can. Down. Jaz. Give us, like, a perfect play sequence for that dog, like, in terms of how we play the game or the

components of how we play the game. All right, so, like, I'll talk about.

We need to give the people something.

The choice points on what I make. Right? So. And, like, a little bit of the reasons why. I'll create a bit of a scenario as well, though, so. So I first of all want to know, like, how. What the dog's into, like, what, what motivates them.

He likes a tennis ball, but we're just like, we've got a flinger and we're just flinging it up and down the hill to tire him out.

All right, sweet.

So he likes a tennis ball, but

does that satisfy him? Like, is it just a matter of.

His name is Bus. Capan.

Buscapan.

Yeah.

Okay. All right, I'm just going to leave that one. So that tennis ball, is it just that he's not getting enough of fetch, or is it that that game is actually not satisfying him?

No, they're doing a lot of fetch.

They're doing a lot of fetch every day. Because otherwise it was a very quick answer. Plain wolf fetch, if that was the thing that met his needs and he's just not getting enough of it. You just do more of it, like, if you know what I mean? If there was that one thing. Right. So that would be a boring answer.

Remember the thing that went on Instagram, though, that, like, fetch is going to make your dog a fucking terrorist or something.

I'm Hardly on social media. So no idea.

All right, there was, like, a fad where every dog trainer was, like, playing too much fetch with your dog is going to create an adrenaline junkie.

Oh, my gosh. Well, look, there are. There are downfalls, but, like, hey, that wasn't the question. All right, so yes, there are downfalls to playing. Maybe too much of one thing, but. So I'd find out what motivates them. And let's say that that ball game is not enough, because fetch. What is it? Fetch you. The sportive game. It's not a competitive game. You are a ball dispenser.

Yeah.

When you're, say, playing tug, what's the goal of tug?

To win.

Right, exactly. It's a possession game. So that means when I'm holding one end of the tug and the dog's holding the other end of the tug, we are competing for that object, which means we are competing against each other. We are two football sides, like, competing against each other, but supportive. That's like, instead of playing the game of football, we're kicking the ball between each other.

Yeah.

Like, we're not scoring points or whatever. Unless you play an activity with me, and then I'm like, hey, how many do you think we could get while we each take a step back each time?

Yeah.

No, I want to turn it into a game. Right?

Yeah.

So like I said, I'm competitive, but, like, at a deeper level. So if they play this game, they may like supportive games, but they may love competitive games. And maybe if they haven't been given the opportunity to experiment with competitive games, maybe that's why they're not being fulfilled and everything. Right. So let's just assume he will like competitive games more. We're going with that. So once I find out what he. What motivates him on, let's say he likes competitive games. I'm going to then start to. Somewhere in here, I'd be talking to the people, finding out, hey, what does your dog know? Do they have windows? Do they have communication? If they don't have any of that, we're going to a communication system. And, like, we need to develop that. Now. Part of that, yes, happens in a game, but some of that, like markers. So I'd want a no reward marker, and I'd teach that lifestyle in lifestyle situations first. And for me, a no reward marker is that's not gonna succeed. You're not in trouble. That's not gonna succeed, though. So try something else.

Pick something else. Okay.

Right. Imagine you're trying to pick up this table. Cause you've done so much weights with progressive overload, and you're trying to pick up this table. And then I go, nay, it's bolted to the floor. And you're like, oh, thanks. Thank you.

Gotcha. And I'll go get.

Well, either move on or go get the tool. Right. So you're kind of grateful for being told that. Right. But also, you're not going to spend the next three hours trying to pick this thing up because you're getting so mad. So sometimes a bit of communication can actually just like, help everything. Right. Doesn't mean I'm going to do it for you, but, like, I'm giving you an opportunity to. To try to figure it out still for yourself. So, again, kind of shaping, right. I want dogs thinking. I want them figuring things out and feeling empowered by that. So I'll teach some of it in lifestyle. All right. But then it comes into the actual play. Once we've got communication, then I want to start building a little bit more framework with the windows of opportunity as well, because these all tie in. The dog wants something that we can give them. We need to be able to communicate them right from wrong and what we want and what we do not want. Windows of opportunity. Right. I did. Yeah, I did a peanut. No. So these kind of tie in together because to develop windows of opportunity, you need to have communication, but, like, you need. They. They're both happening at the same time. Make sense. So. But I have to know what motivates the dog and what we're kind of working towards. And that I often get by observing the dog. But if the dog can play fetch, I'm going to watch them do that. Maybe I'm going to watch the dog. Not this one. Because he fights with other dogs. I was about to say watch how he plays with other dogs. But it doesn't even have to be watching with just that person. Watch how he interacts in life. Watch how he interacts with other people. He might start to show certain things. You've seen a dog that, like, just tries to herd the kid around the park or something. Cool. That's going to show me that he likes that kind of aspect in play, you know, because there's six main aspects in the pro play sequence. You know, the. You're trying to observe what things they like and then develop all the communication and the framework around separating play from everything else in life. Even if all you have is a play window, because we're working on that. And a free window. Right. Let's say you can't get calm liberty until the dog finally conks out. But you can get free. Now, the reason I'd say go from play to free. This is engage with me

me.

And that is like on your own gauge solo. Right. So that's find your own fun. And this is have fun with me. So they're. They're opposites, you know, so much like you might teach a recall when you teach a send away because you want to balance things out. Same sort of thing. So as long as you can differentiate when it's time to play from at least one other window, which I would say either free or calm. But free also means your dog gets more flexibility in liberty. That's then going to help show the dog when I offer play. You should probably take me up on that. Even if it's a bit weird and you're not quite sure what's going on. And like, we're still trying to teach what play is, how to play what the game is. You know that now's the time. If you choose not to, that's cool. But I'm not gonna let you open the play window somewhere else at the wrong time.

Yeah.

You know, so just having a bit of a. It's not about control, but having a contrast between the two can then help more arousal come into. This is having a bit of trouble. But once you get in, once they understand when you. You present a toy. Let's say we're going with object play. You present a toy they know to switch on. When you put the toy away, they. That helps them go into free. Eventually we're not putting the toy away. We just say you're free. And they don't care that the toy's out. They walk away.

Gotcha.

So the hiding the toy can just help in the early stages, create the sequencing and things like that. So I would at least work on those windows. But I do think there's value in all of them. And then when it comes to actually developing the play. Right. Then you need to explore more about. Let's. Like we did say we're going with object play. Right. So we've got the object. That's the type of play play. And then you've got the prey play sequence. Right. Which is the six phases. Prey, let's go play sequence. And there's six aspects in that. And then phases of possession. So even within each of the six aspects, there's four phases of possession that you can mess around with. Right. So this is exploring the actual game and understanding what the dog likes. It is Part of the motivation. So this is why I said these all tie in, right? Because let's say the dog wants competitive games, but what aspects, what phases of possessions? Because there's competitive games, but then there's so many different variations within it, right? So with this, the prey play sequence is depending who you talk to, they might add their own in, like different ones because they're important for what they do, like sport and things like that. But there's, if you think about, a lion is hungry, it needs to eat its dinner, it needs to search for its food, it needs to stalk it to get as close as possible. That looks slow and maybe boring some people, but it doesn't mean that it's a low arousal or low drive. It is just a slower moving thing thing. But it does not mean lower arousal. So search, stalk. And then once they're close enough, or maybe it gets a bit spooked and all right, now we've got to go into chase, right? However that happens, you've got to go into chase. And then once, once you're chasing, there's gonna either be a point that you miss or you have to actually strike and fight, AKA kill that. I don't know, gazelle. All right, so you've got the strike and the fight. They can be tied into one. Now, the. The reason I say the strike is because some dogs just love the strike, but they don't want to be holding on. They just love to punch into things or whatever, right? Or body check you. But then shitty group because they're like, I had the fun part right? After the fight, you then have celebrate, which is what I talked about, about before, when my dog would celebrate, she'd run hot laps being like, I got the toy. That's like the line, maybe not lion, but cheetah might take that gazelle up a tree and eat it, right? So, but on the way home, he's gonna trot home like Pepe Le Pew and he's all proud of himself, right? And then you go into the consumption dial. Once up in that tree, eating that thing. So that's the full play prey sequence. You do not have to go in order like 1 to 6. You can go much like Windows. You can switch at any point from one to the other. And for a lot of dogs, the more variety, the less bored they're going to be. Now, some dogs genetically are hardwired to enjoy certain, certain aspects more than others. You know, like imagine a typical, like a stereotypical border collie. They're going to. They're going to love the stalking. But you don't necessarily want. Want like for working dogs. I would like for actual on the farm a whole lot of enjoyment for the fight and strike. They need to do it maybe when like they really do need to, but we don't want them to enjoy it so much that they're going to do it when they don't need to.

Yep.

So they're going to have a lot of stalk, but they might not want to fight a lot. But what they might want to do is just do a lot of variations of stalking, which is then when we come into like phases of possession. There's four phases of possession. I have it, the dog has it, we have it or no one has it.

Yep.

So talking about stalk, right, Phases of possession, I have it, the dog can be stalking me. You have it, the dog can be stalking you. Now if we have it, debatable, because we are in the fight, because we're both fighting for it. But if you have got that point where you're like, you're both still and you're both like, who's going to make the next play? Like, or am I going to boop your nose? Am I going to slap your side? That's a little bit of stalk there. Even though we're still fighting for it. But there's that brief like, hey, we've just switched a little bit here. And then if no one has it, it's between us. We can then both stalk the thing and then it goes into probably the chase where it's like, who's going to make the first move? Shit, they moved. And then you race them. So you can get even with one aspect, multiple phases of possession. However, you can't get some phases of possession with certain prey place aspects. So like chase. If we're both holding the toy, we're not chasing like, because, you know. So you get three of the four there. Yeah, right. So you go through the sequence, you find out which phases you can get. You know, draw up a little graph if you want. But they're the things you want to play around with. So we're assuming. Yep. He loves the competition. That's kind of what we just assumed from the start. And we're going with object play. We could have chosen food play or personal play, but let's go with object. And you want to, you want to learn what the dog likes, observe them, try all the different play play aspects and then also wind in the work in the phases of possession. And again, all of this is you're learning your dog you can then start to use that for things that you need, but by, like, for rewards and stuff. But by biologically, that's fulfilling. And if you're assessing and actually watching your dog and learning them, you're going to give them what they need because you can see it. So when you don't observe the dog in the right ways, you're missing some of the things that they're trying to tell you.

So.

But it's also like, they get to look at you as well. They learn a lot about you. So it's valuable both ways.

Intricate topic, right?

Yeah, there's. There's a lot to.

It goes way beyond fetching a bull, huh?

Yes, definitely. But, yeah, recognizing a difference between supportive and competitive is also really important at start. I mean, all of it is. But that's. Yeah, that's kind of got to be first, I guess. What's next?

One last thing.

Shoot.

What do we do when we get a dog that doesn't play?

Play with it.

How do we get that dog?

That's my experience. Nah. So, whoa, like, what do you see

when you're doing your seminars?

So my first thing is like, I want to observe the. The dog and the handler, if I can, and just to see. Even if they're not going to succeed and actually play, I need to observe them to see what's going on, because I can ask them. But if they don't know what they're seeing or they don't even know what they're doing that's causing anything, they're not going to be telling me the things that I need to see. So I'll still ask some questions. But then I'm going to want to watch them with their dog trying to play. And I do tell them, I don't suddenly expect you to be able to play with your dog. I'm not expecting that. But I need to know. I need to see how you are trying to. So then I can, like, more quickly assess. Okay, that's clearly not working. And this is why you're trying to force the toy into the dog's mouth. And. No, no, if this is a game of possession, you got to play keepaways. So, like, it could be something as simple as that. You're not trying to steal the toy.

They're like, what's this? You want this?

Yeah, exactly.

Have this.

So it's like, I want to assess that, but then also I'm. I'm watching the dog. So then when I. If I'm going to then pick up a toy or coach Them. I've watched the dog as well, and I'm like, okay, you're doing this. No worries. I found the problem there. But the dogs showing me they specifically want this aspect, and I think they like that phase of possession. Right. Or there's a particular role. It's another thing roles. So offense and defense.

Yep.

And I'm not talking defenses in defensive drive state, just pure, like, game format, offense and defense. So some dogs will not like certain roles. Like my, When I used to play soccer or you call football, the, the keeper, she could play striker, but she would never want to. That's not her thing. Like, she would for the team if she needed to. I, I, I was a mid, I'd gone and played keeper before. I've played striker before. Like, I'll do it. I don't do the greatest in goalkeeping because I get bored and then I kind of wander off out of my, out of the, and I'm like, oh, I'm not near the goal anymore. Right. That's not my thing, but I can make it work. But the striker, she would never want to go play keeper. Like it. She prefers offense and the other one prefers defense. Right. That's just how they want to work. So some dogs can have their, their favorites as well. So a good example of that is actually Genta story time. So she doesn't really like puppies. These are assholes. Because, yeah, they have, they don't know the rules, the boundaries and respect and things like that. Spatial awareness and whatever. So she wants nothing to do with them. She just tolerates them. And I'm bringing two or three Malleys in there, like, into my yard and living with us at a time, and she's like, again, Are you serious? I came home with Remy and Peter the other night because I was looking after him while the guys were away, and she was like, oh, my boyfriends are here. Puppies, though. No, but they're the only two dogs she likes. Right. She doesn't like a whole lot of other dogs. She's excited by dogs, but she's like, no, don't touch me. Don't come near me. No, I just want to, like, flirt with you and then run away. Right. That's her. But what she does is once they're at the point where I can say nay and the dogs will go, oh, not to harass her. That's not going to work. Oh, okay, I'll walk over here. Right. They can respond on verbals. She starts to go, all right, I can be around them a little bit. More because she knows I'll keep them in check. Right. And I don't have to be as close as what I did in the start. Right. So when she sees that happening, she can then be like, all right, I'm going to go lay down over here in the sun. Oh, they're going to harass me. She looks at them, I then say nay. So then the dogs learn. Okay. She looked at you in that way that means go away. So eventually I don't have to play a role. Then she wants to play a game. The only game she wants to play is chase. But she is the prey. Which to me was very confusing though, because she doesn't like being chased.

Okay?

Yeah, Right. She doesn't want them to chase her. And she doesn't know how to tell them not to because she tries to flee, which then induces more prey. Right. She's not very good at that. So I was like, why, out of all the games, why do you want to play that game? And I realized it's because she knows the layout of my backyard. The puppies do not. She can run through the tiny gap over by the shed and then back, zip through this gap. And then she needs to turn here. So that means she needs to slow down there. She knows the layout.

Gotcha.

She knows the truck, which means they can't catch her. They're too busy sliding into the fence. Sliding off the little thing. Oh, oh, oh. No brakes. Oh, no. And then, you know, so she can actually keep a distance, which means she wins. They can't. The second they can reach her, she's like, no, not playing anymore. Right. So she's like, okay, I don't want to play that game anymore. And she will only start to play with them when they're much older and they're a lot more skilled at down regulating and actually playing to her level. If they can't do that, she won't play with them. Now with Parker, he was still too highly aroused. He did down regulate a little bit, but still too much for her. PETA down regulated way better for her and has a more suited game. So she plays well with Peter. I limit it. Cause she's older, she's got sore legs and whatever. But that's much later that she wanted to play. You know what I mean? So that role has a huge impact on her and how she plays with other dogs. But I thought it was interesting. She puts herself into a position she doesn't actually want to necessarily be in. Yeah. Definitely impacted her play. So that's always something to consider.

And just back to the dogs that don't play.

Yes.

We get a lot of owners coming to us and saying, hey, I've tried everything. My dog doesn't play. And we get a lot of owners saying that, right?

Yeah.

What percentage of dogs do you think actually, like, as hard as we try and we implement everything and we get things right, what percentage of dogs do you think won't actually ever get to the point of enjoying a game? Do you think it's less than, like, what is presented to us by owners? A hell of a lot less, yes.

So I haven't had.

I want to deliver hope into people's hearts here that their dog probably can play.

Yeah, that. That's what I was going to say. I don't think I've really worked with anyone who hasn't been able to get it for some. It's taken longer because more. So there was like, essentially kind of like not trauma. Like, you know, there's a dog with beaten or anything, but, like, trauma where the dog couldn't open themselves up to play. So it was more about opening up the seeking system, not actually experimenting with this. Once that seeking system was open and there was the. The relationship and everything was really going well and everything, the communication was there. They learned the dog. The dog was learning how to learn everything. Like, that seeking system was open. The play then became easy, but it was working through all of that first. So sometimes there's some of that groundwork to do before you can get to this, but it's all part of it. You could just. You gotta be persistent. You gotta be persistent and keep trying. But sometimes you don't want to switch up what you're trying too much because your dog can't actually then get used to something and then try to join in with it.

Yeah, gotcha.

You know, like, you know, sometimes, like, if I am staying at someone's house or no, let's say with. With the gym, I went to another gym, and I was staying there for like a week. So on the first night, I went in, and then I was like, no worries. I watched how they cleaned the gym. I put my stuff away slowly and I, you know, whatever. I was putting my shoes on. I was like, okay, that's where they keep the mop. That's where they keep that thing. Okay, that's where they fill up the thing. No worries. I can then see the order that, like, the sequence that they cleaned the mats and everything like that. Next time I went in. No worries. All right, I'm going to Help you clean the mats. But I observed how they did it right.

And change changed every single day. And they did things in different order then. Like your rate of learning and integrated into that system is going to take a lot longer.

Right, Exactly. So.

So it might not be a good idea with our pet dog to go like, okay, I'm going to try ball and rope and I'm going to try flirt pole. I'm going to change the game. We're going to try. See if you like this. See if you like this. If you like this.

Especially if they're fearful or like this. That sort of underlying, like maybe on that side of the fence. Not. Not like reactive or lack of boundaries or anything like that. Maybe just a little bit timid or whatever. Like sometimes they just need a bit of time to adjust with. Yeah. What you're playing with, where you're playing or, you know, so this where all the groundwork comes in. But yeah, if you can sometimes stick with it just a little bit before changing it, gives them a bit more time to adapt to it, you know, and be willing to open up.

So there's hope. Yes, there is certainly more hope than people probably think. And I know people will be commenting and they'll be saying, but what if my dog doesn't play? Right now we're saying, don't play with them. They probably can.

Yeah. No, there's hope for sure.

Thank you so much. That has been certainly one for the dog training geeks, I think it's fair to say. And hopefully that people will look past their inability to concentrate on anything longer than 15 seconds and do right by their dog and listen to what we've talked about today. Anything you want to say to sign off?

Let's draw a picture. Okay, you draw yours.

What are you drawing? Or is it like a surprise?

Yeah, just draw a picture.

Okay. What. What are you drawing? Any particular theme?

You see? You see?

Oh, God. I'm done changing it.

That's. That's me gone. You done?

All right.

Okay. I was just drawing an elephant's butt.

Oh, okay. I drew a very short person. Did you?

Looks like you.

Yeah. Kind of too much hair.

Yeah, I think you're. Zoom in. All right. Awesome. Thank you. Appreciate it.