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K9s & Warriors Beyond the Training Podcast Episode 1
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In the K9s and Warriors Beyond the Training Podcast, host Julie Westphal aims to help listeners with dog training goals in a fun way to reduce overwhelm and increase success. She emphasizes understanding each dog's individuality and finding what motivates them, such as using positive reinforcement. Julie advocates building trust through a reward system, teaching attention, and focusing on learning theory over mechanics like leashes and collars. By incorporating play and rewards tailored to each dog's preferences, training can be more effective and enjoyable. Julie encourages setting behavior goals and fostering a strong working relationship with your dog. Hello, and welcome to K9s and Warriors Beyond the Training Podcast. I'm your host, Julie Westphal, and my mission has always been to change the world one life at a time. Hopefully, through this podcast series, we'll be able to help you with your training goals and help you do them in more fun ways to help you be less overwhelmed and more successful in the long run. So let's get started. Did you know how hard it is to finish something that you haven't even started working on? Far too often, we get overwhelmed with just a simple thought of how much we want to teach our dogs, whether it's manners, or tasks, or even just tricks. And getting out in the environments that we need to do that in is also very overwhelming. So hopefully, I'll be able to help you with some tips and tricks on how to do that more effectively and have more fun while you're doing it. Ultimately, this is why I'm starting this podcast. It's going to be a little bit of a beta system tester, and I'm new to this, so please forgive me for any flubs that I might do along the way. But I would like to address you as I would address all of my students, first and foremost, with just getting them on board with a reward system program, getting them to break down into manageable steps, what their goals are, and then to hopefully help all of you who are listening to me do the same thing. I want you to move on with your programs and be very successful. So let's just start with the dog in front of you. In order to change any behavior, you first have to have a motivator. I happen to choose using positive reinforcement and being proactive in limiting options when I'm working with a dog. I teach them to do new things that are more acceptable in our human world, but ultimately know that everything that they do is normal dog behavior. They are genetically programmed different from us. So instead of thinking that training has to be this cookie-cutter way of doing things, I want you to look at your dog as an individual and find out what actually makes them tick. What is the reward system that they like? This means that every behavior that you see is normal for them, and it's just not necessarily acceptable sometimes in our human world. But this also means looking at them as, again, that individual of maybe they don't like peanut butter. Maybe they don't like to have cheese bits for treats. Maybe they don't like to play ball or fetch. But if you're going, hey, this should be their reward, and they're going, no, thank you, your training program is not going to be successful. So because every dog is different in what they find rewarding and because they are individual, I want you to find that reward system and take a few minutes to write down some of these ideas on a piece of paper, type them into your computer, but think about what makes your dog have fun. What do they find fun? Do they like to run around the backyard like a crazy lunatic? Well, that's freedom. That's an actual reward. Do they like to sniff? We can start doing little safaris with them, and we can have rewards with odors. That can be fun for them. That absolutely can be a reward. What are their favorite treats? Because ultimately, every dog does need food. So whether we use their kibble, and I'll tell you some things later about how to make that more rewarding, but we also can use higher value treats. Do they like dehydrated liver? Do they like string cheese? Do they like chicken bits? Maybe they just like, you know, just some cheap bowl of treats from the store, but find things that they like and find a variety of them because we're going to need a lot of different reward systems in place for the different distractions. But once you have their list, now we can go ahead and start moving on. So the next process that we actually want to do is we want to build a relationship based on trust and being able to have that reward system handy. I don't like to correct dogs for a lot of things. I rarely say no, and there is a time and place for no in my opinion. There's a lot of different methodologies out there, but I'm going to focus on what I've been utilizing for 25 years and what I have found to be successful from puppy to service dog training and almost everything in between from search and tracking and, you know, bite work sports and everything in between. So I'm going to just go over what I have used and hopefully that these tips and tricks will help you as well. So when we talk about behavior, I don't focus on the mechanics behind it, so the leashes and collars and things like that. I actually focus more on the learning theory and behavior. So there's a lot of dog trainers that focus just on the mechanics. I'm not going to say they're right or wrong, but relying only on leashes and collars and corrections doesn't ever tell the dog what they should be doing or help them necessarily with impulse control or problem solving ability. I teach dogs coping skills and problem solving ability so that they don't need that leash or collar ultimately. Leash laws apply, but they won't need it to be able to hold still next to you or follow you or be able to pay attention to you. And again, I create working dogs, so I don't do just pet dog behavior. I do working dog behavior, and I want them to have fun working for me. I want them to enjoy being on my team. So let's build a working relationship based on trust, and we can help the dog become more body aware, paying attention to us, learn how to earn their paychecks just like we do, and we can go ahead and move forward. So the best example I can usually give when I start to talk about a learn to earn type program is how many kibbles in one cup of food and how many cups of food are you feeding every day out of the dish? That's as many repetitions as you are actually giving away for free. So instead of putting it in the dish, why don't you put it in your pocket or a treat bag and we'll add in some treats, we'll add in some fun stuff, or maybe even one of my tips is pour a little tuna juice or chicken juice on it, mix it in, flavor it a little bit more, make it a little bit more higher value. But instead of giving it to them in a dish, have them earn it a little bit. You don't have to be mean about having them earn it. It can be simple as focus or playing the yes game or playing a touch game, and we'll talk about all that stuff moving forward in the different podcasts that we have planned. But most dogs don't go and just grab a dish and ask for their kibble. They're opportunistic. They're going to forage in the garbage. They're going to grab things off the counter. They're going to find something that they enjoy and they're going to do it. That's opportunity knocking and they go, yep, thank you. You opened the door. I'm going to go ahead and walk through it. So whatever they find rewarding is what they're going to have as a good reward system. And I tend to go ahead and use what I do for free already, which a lot of that is kibble from a dish. So do they have to do this forever? No, not at all. My dogs eat from dishes. In fact, they bring me their dish. I fill it. They bring me the dish when they're done so I can clean it. It's a great system. However, when they learn something new, I don't put it in the dish anymore. I go ahead and put it back in my pocket. We learn the new things. We get good muscle memory. We get good habits. And then we move forward and we go back to the dish system. So it's just like temporary, but it's going to help them build work ethic and food drive so that we can go ahead and utilize what they already are, what you're already given away for free. But we can do it in a manner that helps teach them new things so that they can be successful in our human world. So going from there, ultimately, I want you to also write down all of your goals for your training plan so that we can add to this list as we go. But what are some of your behavior goals? What are some of your concerns? And let's address those. You can find me actually through school and I can give you that link, I believe, in the comment section or the description section. And you can find me through school if you have other ultimate questions or might be addressed in a future podcast. So one of the first things that we need to focus on and to build that developing and building that working relationship is where the dog starts to actually find you more exciting than the world around them, which means we have to start to teach attention. If you're not paying attention, you won't learn anything either. So that means if they're outside going la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, until you drag them back in on leash, they haven't really learned to pay attention to you. But instead, we can go ahead and develop attention and learn how to balance having them be free and come back in and pay attention and still be a dog, but also really teach them how to focus on you. So, again, not that it means that you can't let them be a dog sometimes. We can. We tell them, free, liberty, go play, all that good stuff. But right now, I'm going to encourage you to have them work for you a little bit more so that they can develop that work relationship with you. So one of the very first things that I teach is the yes game, and the yes game is paired with focus, which is attention or eye contact. You can say whatever word or phrase you want. Vocabulary is going to be all the way up to you. But I teach the yes game paired with eye contact from in front of me, on the left of me, on the right of me, and we make this just a fun game of if you look at me in the eyes, you hear the word focus, you hear yes, and you get paid. So let's talk about that game. It's a very simple reward system, where if the dog is going to go ahead and do a good behavior that you like, and right now, we're going to focus on the eye contact or the focus, but ultimately, if they're chilling on the floor, you could be like, yes, and paying them. If they're just standing there looking cute and going, hi, you can say yes and pay them because they're calm. So all of this is just a reward system of marking a behavior as correct and teaching them that they actually get paid for it. So instead, we're going to go ahead and start to collect all our food and our treats and maybe a toy and stuff, we're going to get that handy, and then you're going to go ahead and just stop, take a deep breath, and stare lovingly at their eyeballs. They're probably going to be in front of you at this point, and that's okay. You want to eventually move them to the left and the right side and things like that, but right now, just stare lovingly at their eyeballs. They're probably going to be staring at your hands or your pockets or wherever those snacks were. Wait for them to look up. Do not prompt them. Do not say their name. Do not tell them what to do. Do not make a kissy noise. Do not sniff your nose. Do not whistle. Do not bring your hands up to your face. Just stand there. Look lovingly into their eyeballs. Take a deep breath and wait. This is the hardest thing for most people to do. I want the dog to problem solve being able to look you in the eye. I don't want you having to prompt them all the time. So we also have to teach that prompt, which is what we're doing. They will eventually go pocket, pocket, hand, hand, treat, treat, and then eventually look up and you go, geez, can I have it? And when they look at you and go, can I have it, and they stare at you, you have to remain calm. I'm going to tell you that right now, that most people just get so excited that they're finally doing it, that they move their hand and their feet, and then you've lost the dog's eye contact. Once you move your hand, where does the dog's eyes go? Right to your hand, and they're not listening anymore. So I promise you, once they look at your eyeballs, hold still, be excited, but hold still, and then tell them as they're looking at you in the eyeballs, you have to maintain that eye contact. Focus, and then yes, your yes means that now you can pay, so after you say yes, you can deliver that treat, no problem, but you have to wait until after you say yes to move your hand. So again, we're going to wait for them to look at our eyes, we're going to go focus, and then yes, and then pay them. Now this is where the training session comes in. You're going to set a phone timer for three minutes, or a cooking timer for three minutes, and you're only going to do focus and the yes game for three minutes. That means you might only get a couple repetitions the first time, and that's okay. Then you give them a break, a couple minutes, give them a break, and then reset it for three minutes and do it again. But you want to play this multiple times, you do not want to play it more than three minutes typically. I don't recommend more than three minutes in the beginning. You want to keep it fun and rewarding, and you want to let them think. That might mean they only do it a couple times the first time, but they'll do it more and more each subsequent session, and you keep it where you're just letting them problem solve, looking at your eyeballs. Now, once they start to look up and stare at you, now you're going to start to count to three. So once they look at you and they're staring at you, it's 1, 1,000, 2, 1,000, 3, 1,000, focus, yes, and then pay. So you're going to level up to three seconds once they really get the game in front of you on the left side, on the right side, and that's usually going to be a couple sessions. Then go ahead and level up to three seconds of focus, and then focus, yes, and pay. So play the yes game, start playing the focus game, and get them all in tune to you. Try it in the house first. Once they get really good in the house, take it out in the backyard, and then take it out in the front yard on leash or in the driveway. Put them in the car. Bring it to the park. You can utilize it along your walks, maybe at the crosswalk before you cross the street. Play the focus game a couple times, left side, right side, and in front, and then cross the street. Really just start utilizing that they look at you, they hear focus, they hear yes, and they get paid by just paying attention. They're going to teach an automatic check-in. This is very, very important. We're going to teach the attention that they need, also very important, and then as we move on, it's going to be critical for almost everything else that we teach because if you don't have attention, you can't be learning anything. So the other part of the yes game is going to be actually just saying yes for any other behavior they like. You cannot reward too many good behaviors, so every time your dog is doing something well, they're just laying on the floor settling, I will just settle, yes, and they get paid and I go back to doing what I was doing. Or if they're just standing there, you know, next to the counter, off, yes, and they get paid and I go back to doing what I was doing. They're just watching out the backyard, check it out, yes, and they get paid, so that they're like, whoa, okay, just looking out in the backyard, not barking, right, or just if they are not barking, quiet, yes, and they get paid. The point is you are capturing behavior, you are focusing on what they are doing right, and you are telling them in that moment of them doing that behavior, this is what it means, this is the yes, you did it right, and you get paid. There are four steps I teach, there are four steps, it's my four-step program into getting any behavior. You want to get the definition first, and then you want to cue it, so that's that word or phrase, then you want to mark it with the yes, which means you did it right and you're getting paid, and then step four is to pay. So step one is to get the definition, step two is to cue it, step three is to mark it, and step four is to pay it, and if you do those four steps, they learn very quickly that this behavior is this word, which equals yes, which equals a paycheck. This behavior is this word, which equals yes, which equals a paycheck. They now know what they're supposed to do, which means if you really have taught them to be quiet, then as soon as they bark, you'll say quiet in the future, and they'll just stop because they'll know what it means. You don't have to pay them at that point because they made a mistake, you know, they barked, but you have taught them what quiet means, so you're not going to get frustrated with them anymore. But the whole point is to capture the behaviors that you're doing right, so this is the yes game paired with the second part of just capturing all good behaviors with yes, and being able to teach them what they're supposed to do, not just what they're not supposed to do. So dogs do what works, whether they are getting reinforced because they snatched that treat faster than you could grab it, or they grabbed that ball before you could grab it, they were very impulsive, so therefore it works, and they're going to repeat it, or simply because we don't know what to do, so we're inadvertently reinforcing it. They're jumping up on you, and you're staring at them, and you're going, no, get down, stop it, but you're still paying attention to them. They're going, hey, cool, this works, they jumped on them, and they got eye contact, and they're talking to me, this is great, I love this. So instead, we have to limit that behavior. The next game, so the yes game that you can practice with the focus, the next game and the next challenge that I have for you is actually called my three-day challenge. You probably will not be able to complete this in just three days. I challenge you to do so, but most people, 99% of them, have to repeat it several times in order to try to get to that third day, but the three-day challenge is going three days without saying no. That means, it doesn't mean you can't ever talk to them if they know, and for sure if it's an emergency. If they're going for a chicken wing, if they're going for a pill, if they're going to be in a dangerous situation, then by absolutely no, leave it, stop them from doing it, make sure that they can't get to anything, and then go from there. But I want to, if they're, say, jumping on the counter, they're not actively grabbing something, I'm going to go over, I'm going to take a piece of food, or a treat, or just even just clap my hands, whistle, and once their forepaws are back on the ground, I'm going to wait at least three to five seconds, because I'm not going to reward them right away. Take my breath, forepaws are on the ground, looking at the counter, I want to look at the counter, and then I'm going to look back at them. They're not thinking they jumped anymore, they're thinking, what are we doing, what are we playing? I'm going to go, off, yes, and then I'm going to pay them. So I'm not going to pay them immediately, because I don't want them jumping up to get down to hear off to get paid, but I want to redirect them into an off behavior, wait enough time in between so they're not thinking of what they just did, and then I'm going, off, yes, that's how you get paid, there you go. And so, same thing would be going if they're, you know, if they're trying to get into the trash, again, we've got to prevent that, we don't want any dangerous situations, but I'm going to take food in front of them or clap my hands, get them to redirect away, and then once they redirect away, oh, hi, nice to see you again, take my breath, wait three to five seconds, and then go, good job, and then maybe, all right, focus, yes, and pay them for that. They're not thinking, I just got into the trash, they're going to focus, they're like, whoa, hey, mom, what are you doing? Okay, now what? And then they're thinking. Okay, now what? Again, like, no, okay, I'm just staring, oh, I'm staring at you, that's the focus game. It's focus, yes, that is the focus game. So, redirecting them away from something to show them that they're supposed to do this instead and they get paid to do this. The more you pay them to do the opposite of what they want to do, they will stop doing the bad behavior, the unwanted behavior, because you're paying them to do the opposite. It's called an incompatible behavior. We want to create so many incompatible behaviors with the behavior that we don't like that they have no even thought process of doing that behavior. It's why I don't mind feeding human food, but I'm never going to feed it when they're drooling next to me on my lap when I'm at the table. They're going to be curled up under the table or over on their bed and I'll be like, settle, yes, and I'll pay them, toss them a green bean from the table. If they're in the settle position, I will settle, yes, and toss them a green bean or a carrot or a piece of meat. And they're like, oh, wow, food rains from the sky if I'm over here on the bed. Yep, when people are eating and you're away, you get paid. So, dogs learn very quickly. The incompatible behavior, they don't drool and beg, I actually go lay down on my place and I get paid for that. So, teach them the behavior you want by cueing it, marking it, and paying it when it's occurring. If it's not occurring, something unwanted is occurring, redirect it into something that you want. Wait a couple seconds to make sure they're not immediately going, hey, I just get paid for doing something naughty. But wait a couple seconds, their now thought process has changed into what are we doing? And then you tell them what they're doing and then, yes, and pay them for that. You will stop the whole impulsivity by teaching them what they should be doing, which is the whole point. That's why I'm not an aversive trainer. You can correct them, but you're still not teaching them what they should be doing. So, I tend to use learning theory and positive reinforcement to really teach them what they should be doing. But ultimately, they do what works. So, whether it gets attention, food, treats, freedom, praise, if it works, they're going to continue to do it. So, while you're doing the three-day challenge and the yes game and the focus game, you're working on training relationships. You're building trust. You're teaching them learn to earn. You're developing work ethics. This work ethic can then be utilized to teach any new behavior in any environment under any distraction. And because this foundation has been laid, you'll have a really solid foundation to build from. Just like a house, if the foundation is poured incorrectly, the walls come crumbling down. Same for this. I want a good working relationship built on trust, built on fun games, built on our food system, our reward system, but also on just teaching them what they should be doing right, focusing on what they should be doing right. The psychology behind it is also going to teach you to look for the good things, not just always be reactive. So, I want you to be proactive looking for what they're doing right and not reactive always trying to correct what they're doing wrong. So, that's what I want you to work on. And the human example I like to give, too, is like a speeding ticket. If you speed, you know the possibility of getting a speeding ticket is there. If you've gotten a speeding ticket, did that stop you from ever speeding again? And you don't have to answer that. But that system is not necessarily working because even that sign or those points off is not stopping most people from speeding. Now, the inverse would be true. If you got pulled over and were given $100 for not speeding, for going under the speed limit by like three miles an hour, let's just say you were pulled over and given $100 for going to speed limit. And then somebody else was pulled over and given $100 for going to speed limit. How quickly do you think everybody would be going to speed limit? Because the chance of getting pulled over and getting $100 would go up. So, thinking correctively or thinking positive reinforcement. Now, we can't necessarily do that in the human world, and we're very complex thinkers in the human world, so we can understand our consequences. Dogs briefly can understand consequences and things like that. I won't go into the whole methodology behind that right now or the learning experience behind that. But ultimately, if you focus on the positive stuff, you're going to get the positive behavior change. And that happens across all species. So, you're going to go ahead and do your Learn to Earn program. You're going to prepare all your tasty snacks. You're going to go ahead and teach them to focus in the yes game. And you're going to go ahead and practice that three-day challenge so that you can go ahead and teach them that, hey, instead of doing the unwanted stuff, you can do the good stuff instead. And all the while you're paying for all those good things, you're developing a work relationship. Now, say your dog gets into trouble when you're not watching. My recommendations would be, you know, they're either tethered to you, which we can talk about again in a future episode, what means the leash is just attached to you, or they're kenneled. You know, hey, go to your room, play in D and S, DS rather. You know, sending the dog to the crate to chew on a Kong while you can't watch them is more appropriate or, you know, a little playpen, expand puppy footprint area, just so they can't get into trouble. But if you can't watch them and help them, then them getting into trouble is actually your fault. So, we have to look in the mirror for a lot of the behaviors that we don't like because they're somehow getting reinforced. If you're not paying attention and your dog goes and gets into trouble and is chewing something up, that's opportunity knocking. And if you prevent that, if you're proactive in preventing that with the tether system or the crating system or, you know, even, like I said, NexPen, then you're going to prevent it, be proactive. They're not even going to think about chewing something up because they're going to learn how to settle. And then when they settle, you can go settle, yes, and pay them for it, and you're going to set them up for success. So, ultimately, again, this is helping you learn to be more proactive versus reactive and helping them just by all of the stuff that we just talked about. Let's start with just that focus game and the yes game. Let's start with the three-day challenge of not saying no for three days and instead redirecting in the yesables and being able to develop that working relationship. So, now that you know where to start and what to start working on, I'm going to leave you with the final thought that I like to say everywhere I go. So, as always, happy training. I hope to work with you soon on the next episode. And if you have questions, just let me know. But thank you once again. My name is Julie Westhold, and thank you for joining us on Canines and Warriors Beyond the Training podcast. Have a great day.
