Berners with The Edge, Special Edition

I asked members of our online community to ponder the reasons one might show a dog who is not prepared or engaged. I realized through my own reflections that these are two questions. After all, a dog who is unprepared for the ring work may or may not also be a dog who is disengaged in said ring.

Sparkle’s early Novice B runs, for example, involved happily leaping up on me instead of fronting on the recall, and who could forget how she created confetti out of my armband on the stay at the 2017 Specialty?! Not quite ready to qualify — but she sure did have a great time in the ring and she was certainly engaged.

Not prepared doesn’t have to mean not engaged, and there is an important difference when we consider how to proceed.

I like to check my implicit biases to hopefully minimize the impact they have on others (and myself). Maybe there are reasons to show a disengaged dog that I am missing? I find the best way to explore bias and test out our thinking is in conversation with others.

I decided, therefore, to reach out to Alison Jaskiewicz, a wonderful trainer/handler of multiple OTCH and High in Trial Berners and an AKC Obedience Judge. I asked her specific questions to get her thoughts about showing an unprepared and/or a disengaged dog; in the interest of transparency, here is what I wrote to her:

My perception is that taking an "unprepared" dog in a ring is fine IF said dog is happy and engaged -- and handler expectations are reasonable. I guess what I mean is this -- unprepared in terms of precise skills probably won't ruin things. 

But unprepared in terms of the dog is not engaged and not having fun is a whole different thing -- I see zero value in taking that kind of unprepared into a ring.

Maybe I am missing something? Maybe my own biases are showing? Hence my question(s) to you, if you have time to answer:

When, if ever, is there value in taking a disengaged dog into an obedience ring at an actual show? In your experience, does doing that impact future performance -- positively or negatively? And if one finds one's self in the ring with a disengaged dog, what might one do?

Alison’s response, shared with permission, is as follows:

I would always prefer to NQ with a happy dog than Q with an unhappy one. After all, this is my friend and buddy by my side. I was the one who chose to enter a trial and if my dog is unhappy I am responsible.

I agree that showing a dog who is not engaged in the game makes no sense at all, particularly if the handler has longer term aspirations.  Everything a dog does in an obedience ring is a learning experience.

Occasionally a dog will disengage at an event or even in the ring and we have choices to make. We can subtly alter our handling and our own energy, we can engage more between exercises, we can opt to politely leave the ring. Those are learning experiences to be considered and thoroughly evaluated. If repeated often [showing a disengaged dog], I think the showing relationship will likely suffer.

As to any 'value' of taking a disengaged dog into the obedience ring - I suppose each of us gets to decide what we 'value' at any given time. Some people will choose to 'value' a quick and dirty CD [Editor’s Note: Also called the Git ‘er Done CD and yes, I have done couple of those 🤷🏼‍♀️😂]. 

I think you and I both believe that any showing should be an extension of a loving relationship with our dogs in everyday life and do our best to help people find the magic of a happy working connection with our dogs. We are seeking TEAM in an engaging, positive, loving way.”

Alison and Tristan on the occasion of one of their all-breed High in Trials. Tristan was the 2019 BMDCA National Specialty High in Trial dog, and is the BMDCA’s 2019 Top Novice B Obedience Dog and Top Open B Obedience Dog.

And so there you go, my Friend — additional Food for Thought.

Thanks to Alison for taking the time to answer — she also offered some great ideas for the Ring Nerves conversation that I will share this weekend.

As I see it, we seem to be circling back to Goals but with a new twist/question: Are your current choices supporting or hindering your Aspirational Goal(s)?

The question may be mine but the answers are all yours.

Berners with The Edge, Week Four

The kinds of things that we have focused on in the beginning weeks of our online community adventure are understanding the value of thinking micro, the value of reinforcement, and we have also offered specific ideas for training.

I started the first week with a video about Vulnerability because learning requires an ability to embrace and expose our imperfections; that is not easy, and especially for adults. Thank you to those who have shared videos — they are valuable learning opportunities for all, and your willingness to be vulnerable is honored and appreciated.

This is the week in which I want us begin to more explicitly consider the parallel tracks of training dogs and the whole human side of things. Yep—we are going to start tackling the monster that is Ring Nerves.

The name is misleading even as it gives us a shared concept to discuss. It isn’t really nerves nor is it limited to a ring — rather, it is a physiological response to a perceived or real threat that happens to so many at dog events.

Why do people experience this response at dog events? Are dog events dangerous?

Note that the threat can be real or perceived. Therefore, it doesn’t matter if a dog event is actually dangerous or not. If a person perceives a threat, the response is activated and it is real (and unpleasant).

But that response does more than make humans sweat, tremble, and need to run to the facilities — our fight-flight-freeze response distracts dogs.

Keenly attuned to us because of eons spent evolving the hard-wiring to be that way, our stress response triggers dogs to be on high alert for the threat. I bet you can imagine that when sirens are screaming about impending attack, it is hard to focus on anything else — like heeling.

Dogs do not understand the concept of perceived threat and we cannot simply explain, “Never mind that I am a Hot Mess of Screaming Stress Hormones right now. There is not actually not a lion, tiger, or bear — I just perceive a threat to my self-image.”

And so the dog is on alert for the danger, scanning the environment to be ready for the imminent attack and preparing to get the heck out of Dodge — and the human cannot understand why the dog is not happily engaged in the ring.

I left my camera in Boise — sigh. Therefore, I am photo-deficient these days.

This week’s video invites consideration about both the impact of perceived threats at dog events AND how to figure out what those perceived threats are; they are not the same for everyone. If we understand the perceived threat(s), we can change things — I promise.

In addition, I pose what I think is an important question — what are we practicing when we continue to show a dog whose ring performance is disengaged and/or not what we want to see?

This is an honest question and not asked with judgment — I really want to know what drives people to continue to show a dog who does not seem ready to achieve the human’s hopes and dreams. If we understand what drives such decisions, maybe we can be helpful.

More Interesting Than Dirt: Harder Than It Seems

Dogs have evolved with humans, and therefore are very, very keen on what works with their two-legged companions. Not in an evil, manipulative way but just in ways that are effective.

For example, many dogs have learned that the way to get their humans to be fun and engaging is to sag. I do not mean literally, of course, but rather a general sag of attitude and attention. I imagine the conversation at Dog Class goes like this:

Dog 1: How do you get your human to play so much and to hand over all those great cookies?!

Dog 2: Easy Peasy Liver Squeezy. You can head off to sniff — that works well. Or you can just stop looking like you care — you know, look around, don’t make eye contact, look all sad.

Dog 1: Wait — what?! Are you serious???!!!

Dog 2: Yep. Just act disinterested and the toys and cookies will rain down on you. Humans are so trainable!

Oh Dear.

We train dogs to disengage when we provide rewards for disengagement behavior.

That said, sometimes the dog disengages because of external factors, including handler anxiety, and even internal-to-the-dog factors that we may not understand. Nothing is really black-and-white, except maybe zebras.

We should, however, be aware that we may have inadvertently trained our dog to disengage, and we should definitely stop reinforcing disengaged behavior.

Personally, I do not believe in adding anything mean when a dog disengages. Instead, I am a fan of training what I want to see in the future — and that does not include a disengaged dog.

Unless we are intentionally using food or toys to lure during a training phase, cookies and play should happen ONLY when we have desired behavior. And even when luring, one should not release the reward when the dog is disinterested!

So what to do if we have failed to be more interesting than dirt? Here are some options — I would save #3 and use only as really needed.

1. Wait. Say nothing and see if the dog will engage. If she does, have a verbal praise party and ask for a couple of easy behaviors before the reward. You do not want to set up: sniff, look at human, get cookie. How does the dog understand that the sniff is not actually part of the behavior chain?

2. Walk away and do as above if the dog finds you.

3. End the train session — even for just a few minutes.

But I need to say this — prevention is better than intervention.

If a dog has a disengagement issue, the human needs to work harder to keep the dog engaged by being more interesting, consistently rewarding engaged behavior with play and treats, and quit training sessions before the dog has a chance to disengage.

Happy Training!