Denise Fenzi

If you want to think like a dog trainer, get in the habit of asking yourself (or your trainer) two questions.

First, when learning a new training technique,  ask, “Why does this work?”

When you train a dog to use a foot target before teaching positions, why does the foot target prevent creeping?

(Answer:  Short term:  Dog is conscious of their feet. Long term: Muscle memory).

When you train a dog to back up after each position, why does backing up prevent creeping forwards?

(Answer:  Dog is anticipating backing which is incompatible with moving forwards.)

When you use pocket hand, why does the dog move their rear when you are manipulating the front?

(Answer:  Your hand creates a pivot point; the dog can’t get to the food without moving their rear).

When you’re unsure of how to use a technique correctly, the question, “Why does this work?” will allow you to become a problem solver for your specific situation.  The reality is, the odds that any given training technique will work perfectly for all dogs without modifications isn’t that good!  If you don’t understand why you are using a technique and how it works, you’ll  have a terrible time problem solving effectively when you run into a slightly different situation.

Let’s use pocket hand as an example since I wrote about it last week.  Here are some of the responses that I read:

“This technique challenges me!  My dog is…

Big, small, rough about taking the food, frantic personality, nervous about my body pressure, not food driven, just stands there and licks the food, etc.”  And of course, my personal favorite,

“I tried it and it doesn’t work.”  Which appears to be the generic response when the trainer prefers to blame the technique rather analyzing where they’ve gone wrong in the application.

Let’s consider why Pocket Hand works and, from there, how one might address challenges.

It works because your back three fingers create a block and your pinkie finger becomes the pivot point.  The food in on the other side of the block in your thumb-forefinger combination, just a few inches away.  The dog wants the food but can’t get past the block. To get around the block the dog must work their muzzle around the pivot point – your pinkie.  Because the dog cannot bend their muzzle in the middle, they move their rear to come in from a new angle and get closer to the food.  If the dog tries to reach around without moving their rear, the handler rotates the hand a bit more – so the dog still cannot reach the food as their head gets twisted at a weirder and weirder angle.  Finally, they move their rear to get a better position to reach the food….Voila, rear end movement.

It’s worth pointing out that if the dog can reach the food and if you did it correctly – you should be giving the dog the food instantly.  If the dog has reached the food and you have not released it….why not?

If you attempt to use the pocket hand technique without understanding how it works, then you’re going to struggle, because very few methods are done exactly the same way with every dog.

For example, in the video I showed, I asked the handler to wrap her hands under her dog’s muzzle just a bit.  I rarely do this BUT this handler has tiny hands so it was a necessary accommodation to prevent the dog from simply going under her hand for the cookie and avoiding the pivot point altogether.

I used this technique with a Papillon early in the day.  The Papillon was  pressure sensitive, so we didn’t even touch the side of the dog’s head – just placed the block and the dog worked around the pivot point to avoid handler personal pressure – no reason to touch the dog’s head at all – the visual block was enough.

The papillon was introduced to pocket hand on the handler’s knees – it’s the movement that matters, not the handler’s position.  What if the handler can’t get down on their knees?  How about bending at the waist?  What is the handler can’t bend or kneel?  Try a chair.  I’ve used this technique with handler’s in wheelchairs – you can figure it out IF you understand why it works.

And the lab?  That dog had a big head and a lot of resistance to movement!  Why not work your pivot point  at the back skull and use the whole side of your hand to create the block?

Dog is quick and grabs for the food?  If the dog moves a step, GIVE THE DOG THE FOOD. There is never a time when the dog can reach the food that it is not released instantly.

What if you don’t have any fingers?  Or no hand at all?

Fine – shape it!  Place what you have of your hand/arm on the outside of the dog’s head and train your dog to target the side of their head to whatever you have.  And then rotate your body on a spot.  The dog will pivot to keep their head against your hand/arm.

Ok – handler is in a wheelchair, has no left side mobility, and the dog is tiny.

Ah!  That brings us to the second question a dog trainer should ask:

“Is this the best method for my circumstance?”

Sometimes, after looking at how a method works, you might decide that rather than attempting to modify it for your situation that you’d like to try something else altogether. It doesn’t even matter why – it could be a highly uncoordinated handler with a fast dog.  It could be an extremely talented handler who dislikes luring.  It could be a dog that is so tall that the position is not comfortable for the handler, or will not give the desired end picture.  It could just be that you’re doing it completely wrong.  Who cares?

How long do you plan to smash that square peg into a round hole?

If I have twelve students in front of me, I will make twelve different decisions, based on the behavior of the dog, the skill of the handler, and with an eye to any particular quirks present in the team.  I spend no energy trying to pound square pegs into round holes – what a waste of time!  In my mind, the great pleasure of dog training is figuring it all out; encountering challenges unique to each team and creating an effective route to success.

The faster you ditch the cookie cutter approach the more success you’ll have.

Starting April 1st, I will co-teach a class at Fenzi Dog Sports Academy called “Train the Dog In Front of You”.  For three weeks, I will look at how I evaluate a dog’s temperament and behavior in order to try and balance that specific dog for the best possible training outcome.  Soft dog?  What can I do to make the dog stronger?  Driven dog?  How can I avoid whining or stressing up through my training set-ups and trial preparation?  When I encounter a  dog in a seminar situation, how do I quickly evaluate the team, and make a plan to proceed in real time?

How do you learn your dog?

And then Deb Jones will take over for the second three weeks of class for the “applied” portion – helping the students think about applying training choices to create behaviors to accommodate their particular dog, based on whatever conclusions the student has drawn in the first three weeks.

This is a “thinking” class followed by a “doing” class.  Should be interesting.  If you’d like to join us, registration starts on March 22nd!   Gold spots were already filled by lottery, but bronze is unlimited, and at $65 it’s a pretty good deal!  Hope you’ll join us:

Train the Dog in Front of You.

“Pocket hand” is a way of teaching heeling that emphasizes rear end movement from Day One.  It involves placing the hand on the outside of the dog’s muzzle with a cookie, and rotating your wrist (not your arm or shoulder!) to move the dog wherever you might want them.

A lot of students have learned this technique, either online with me in my Precision Heeling class, or in seminars, or from instructors around the country who are now teaching it on their own.

It falls in the category of things that look easy when you watch someone else do it, but maybe not so easy when it’s your turn.

This weekend I taught a seminar and one of the students videotaped her lesson – part of it included introducing pocket hand to her dog.  She has graciously agreed to let me use that video to help other people learn the technique.

If you do not have some prior training or knowledge of pocket hand then this video probably will not be enough to do it for you, because each dog requires subtle differences.  If you really want to learn it, keep an eye on the classes at Fenzi Dog Sports Academy and take Precision Heeling when it comes around (currently on the schedule for the June session).  Or join me for a seminar somewhere (see my seminar schedule on this blog)

For those of you who have been introduced to the technique somewhere, this video is very likely to give you the finishing bits just in case you got stuck somewhere in the process.   Obviously you need to take it further…but this will get you started.

I love pocket hand.  It teaches precision without a leash, works well with 99% of dogs, and allows the handler to help the dog at anytime.  It can also be used to solve a multitude of heeling challenges, from heeling wide, to crabbing to forging, etc.

First lesson in pocket hand

And on another note, if you live in the Purina Farms area of the country (St. Louis, MO), you’ll want to attend our second annual 3.5 day FDSA Dog Sports Conference.  Last year we sold out and people raved about the quality of the event.  Currently, we have seven full auditing spots left and we’ve sold six in the past four days, so if you want to attend – and you do (you really do) then don’t wait any longer.

This is the only national conference that focuses on training for competition dog sports.  We’ll have ten instructors, teaching everything from obedience to rally to agility and nosework.  As an auditor, you can watch whatever you want.  At $225, you won’t find another conference that offers what we do at such an incredible price.  That’s because FDSA is about education.  We WANT you there.  We want you to see what you can accomplish with your dog when you train with affection and respect.

The conference takes place June 19th through June 22nd.  You can learn more here:

FDSA Dog Sports Conference

Good luck with it!

I got the following response to last week’s blog:

“I’m pretty sure I’ve heard YOU use No Reward Markers in your training.”

I have no idea how to respond to that.

You should see what I do when a squirrel cuts across the front of my house and all three dogs go careening and screaming from window to window.  I yell something along the lines of, “DAMN IT STOP THAT!”  Two out of three generally take note and settle – for that moment anyway.

But I’m not training; I’m being irritable.  I’m interrupting the behavior at that moment so I can finish my conversation in peace.  The fact that the careening behavior happens again for the next squirrel strongly suggests I’m accomplishing nothing, and if I really wanted to change that behavior then I’d need to commit to a training plan.  Right now that’s not a priority so I yell, two dogs care that I’m annoyed so they stop, and the third will quit on his own when he realizes his cohorts have abandoned him.

Good training? Of course not. Since training requires change, I think it’s fair to say it’s no training at all.  It’s just me being crabby and too lazy to deal with the dogs properly.

Being a positive reinforcement trainer doesn’t mean I’m some kind of Buddha.  I’m just not there as a person.  My husband has to put up with the fact that sometimes I’m grumpy and irrational.  My kids have to put up with the fact that sometimes I’m grumpy and irrational.  And the dogs?  Same deal.

If I take a five minute video of my training, within that five minutes I will easily be able to pick out good decisions, bad decisions and everything in between.  Since I put my training videos on my blog and I often train in public, anyone is welcome to watch a five minute video and pull apart the good from the bad.  Have I used NRM’s?  All the time!  Do I think that they are helping my training?  No, but that’s a different question.  It’s just me being human; being a bit frustrated at the moment. And the dogs aren’t freaking out, so they’ll have to keep putting up with me as I evolve as a trainer.

I follow a philosophy of training.  I test variables and I refine my training all the time. But as often as not, I’m muddling along.  Maybe I’m muddling at a higher level than many other trainers, but muddle I do.

It’s good enough for me.  If you’re looking for the perfect trainer, keep looking.

I often hear it said that avoiding correction is “withholding half of the information that dogs needs to succeed.”  The idea is that by telling the dog both when when they are right AND when they are wrong, that they can learn with more clarity, and therefore be happier dogs who understand exactly what we want from them.  You can define correction however you wish.

Is this true?

Not really.

If you teach a dog with clear criteria for success (what you want) then your dog will automatically learn what is wrong, and since being wrong is perfectly fine and is part of the learning process, there’s no reason to avoid it.

Let’s consider it more closely.

On a scale of -10 to +10, with -10 as the most awful thing that you can do to a dog and +10 as being the most amazing reward, what does a dog, or a human for that matter, need to learn?

They need change.  A difference.  That is all.

So, if you go from a +5 to a +8, then your dog will try to figure out what caused that improvement.  Both the 5 and the 8 are positive for the dog, but the dog would still prefer the 8, and will try to figure out what it takes to get more “8’s” from you.

Most of the time, people use “0′ to indicate neutral – the handler will neither reward nor punish, and then a +reward for “Yes, that’s what I want!”

My approach is a bit more positive – I tend to be actively involved in training at all times- whether the dog is correct or not, because I see it as part of the game of training and I believe that it builds our training relationship. So I try to keep all training in the range of about a +2 to +10.

Let’s consider teaching a dog to hold the dumbbell tightly with the following video.  How can I teach what is right without telling the dog that munching or dropping it is wrong?

By rewarding what is right at a higher level than what is wrong.  I simply need a higher value reward for better work.

Offer the dumbbell and start easy!  (that piece is already trained here).  Then start moving that dumbbell.  If Brito does not clamp down it will come out of his mouth – no cookie.  If it stays in his mouth – cookie.  Cookie is positive and no cookie is less positive.  In the video you’ll see that even when Brito fails I still talk and interact and his tail never stops wagging, so I believe the whole experience is on the positive side of the scale regardless of his success or failure on any particular repetition.  He enjoys the game of learning, even when he’s not getting a cookie.  That is exactly what I want; no fear of failure.

So how does Brito learn right from wrong?  What gets the best reward is right and is most likely to be repeated.  What gets a lesser reward (possibly my personal interaction without a cookie) is wrong.  No big deal.  No need to add a No Reward Marker or any other correction.  Just try again.

Three failures in a row?  Make it easier.  You can see that here, and you can see that this approach allows for success immediately afterwards.

Soon enough,  Brito will have learned to clamp down tightly until I request that he release, and soon after that the behavior will simply become a habit – he will clamp down without really thinking about it.

And if sometime down the road he makes an error in a full behavior chain?  That’s fine – I’ll hand it right back to him. Because “handing it back” is not the normal flow of the behavior chain, he’ll know that means something wasn’t quite right and he’ll do it correctly on the next attempt.  And if he doesn’t?  Then I’ll remove that piece from the chain and work on it.

How about under the pressure of proofing?  Maybe Brito wants a yummy cookie on the floor so he drops the dumbbell to get the cookie.  THEN do we need a punisher?

No.  Just pick up both the cookie and the dumbbell.  Picking up the cookie prevents self reinforcing and picking up the dumbbell communicates that he blew it, and his chance to earn reinforcement is now being delayed.  You can be as cheerful as you wish throughout this entire process.

If your dog understands the process of proofing away from your brand new dumbbell hold then you may well discover that you have single incident learning.  One time he’ll drop the dumbbell because of the cookie.  You respond by picking up the cookie and the dumbbell.  He remembers how proofing works.  And that’s that.

Would it be faster to add a correction to really make your point?

No, because dogs that anticipate correction for errors are more reluctant students.  It’s not much fun to be told you’re wrong, so the dog’s willingness to engage goes down.  And since full engagement is the most important factor for ease of learning, that will not help your long term training at all.  Give me a dog that lives to work with me, and training will be a breeze.

There’s no need to add a punisher at all.  Not in the teaching phase, not in the behavior chain phase, and not in the proofing phase.

When I was teaching my kids their multiplication tables we did the same thing. First I helped them learn each one individually; we did that by rote.  Then I quizzed them; success earned “good!” or moving on to the next one to indicate all was well (maintaining the flow of work is a reward).  Errors earned raised eyebrows and a smile to keep them in the game, but the stopping of flow would cause them to reconsider with more effort.  Multiple failures in a row?  We quizzed too soon; start over and work the individual pieces!  Eventually, reduce the amount of verbal interaction for routine success as a matter of the natural raising of criteria -what it takes to get a positive reaction out of me.  And finally, stop working on them individually and add them back into their more advanced math that requires the skill of multiplication.  And if a problem arises down the road that indicates a lack of fluency?  Find the problem area – maybe the 7’s were weak.  Work on those separately and then add them back into the whole.  Move on.

Train what you want.  That’s it.

Why were the Obedience finals at Westminster so successful?  Why is everyone talking about that event?

If you’re not aware of how Westminster structured the final round, go ahead and see it for yourself here.

Westminster obedience – final round

I was impressed by the joy I saw in everyone from the judge to the exhibitors to the crowds!  And of course, I want to see more of that!  I saw a future of our sport – and it looked like a lot of fun!

What elements caused people to enjoy this event so much more than traditional obedience?

Was it the tricks?  The props?  The variety?  The creativity?

If I had to pick just one thing that stood out for me, I’d say this:

The judge did not direct the team, leaving only the interaction between the dog and the handler.  That is enormous.

That detail might seem like a small matter, but really – it’s huge.  It means that the audience focuses only on the team – the dog and handler – and their relationship.  The handler directs the dog.  The handlers do not need to be told what to do and when to do it – that part is obvious.  Even if they had been instructed to include every obedience exercise in Open and Utility, there is no need for a judge to say “throw it, send your dog, take it, and finish.”  We know that part just fine – and it’s a lot more fun to do it without splitting your attention between a judge and your dog.  That means you have more of “yourself” available to your dog. What a gift!

Yes, there was a whole lot more going on than that, and I found the event really exciting to watch.  I’d love to see AKC open up a program where all of the elements need to be performed (for example, in Open you’d have to show heeling off leash, a figure eight around something, a retrieve of something, a retrieve over a jump of some type, and a broad jump) but the order of those events could be left up to the exhibitor, along with what they chose to do between exercises.  You give each team a set period of time, say seven minutes for open.  If they don’t finish in seven minutes, then the exercises that were not completed don’t get scored.  If the team is fast, they can play all sorts of fun games and show training tricks in between exercises; if they are slower, then they might need to concentrate more on the scored variables.

Then leave the team alone to show what they can do.

What happens when the handler controls the ring instead of the judge?  They relax.  They stay connected with their dogs on a much deeper level. They interact as they do in training; a totally different experience than when we add a judge and start doing run throughs to prepare for competition.

There is no reason for a judge to direct each exercise in AKC; it’s not like they’re going to say something unexpected.

When I was competing in IPO I found the obedience much easier on both me and my dog for exactly this reason; the judge does not direct the handler.  I knew what I had to do – but I also felt like I could breathe without the judge constantly interacting with me.

I’m not suggesting that IPO be the model, but I am suggesting that the judge can stay quietly out of the picture and get the focus where it needs to be; a routine between a handler and their dog.

Anyway, that is where I’d start; a manageable piece that requires very little change from what is currently known and understood.  Heck, make it part of the “preferred” classes and leave the regular classes alone.  See what happens.

In addition to learning specific skills, Brito is learning to accept, or even look forwards to, the “pressure”  that is inherent in competition dog sports.

There are four basic sources of pressure: people, dogs, places and things.  Some dogs will have no issues with any of these factors and other dogs will have issues with all of them.  It just depends!  Because most of us do not have unlimited time to train our dogs, it makes sense to take a moment to figure out what your dog needs, and then focus on those specific elements.

Brito is fine in new places and he’s generally comfortable with people.  He struggles with dogs (he’s afraid of them) and with the pressure of “things” like walls, baby gates, people as objects, etc.

In today’s lesson on pressure, I focus on two of Brito’s issues – dogs and things.  To do this, I systematically expose him to SMALL doses of pressure – allow him to adjust, and then release the pressure by either moving away or asking the source of the stress to leave (if it’s a person).

When the pressure is released Brito gets two rewards – I move away from the pressure (first reward) and he gets a high value cookie (second reward).  Note that I do NOT give him the cookie when he’s experiencing the pressure.  The reason is that I want him to be well aware of what is happening, focus on succeeding with the task, and then accept his classic reward (food or toys) when the pressure is reducing.

Brito has been working on these lessons his entire life.

If you select the right amount of pressure, your dog should show little or no reaction to the stressor.  If your dog responds in a negative fashion (ears go back, depressed attitude, leaves the situation etc.) then you went too far – ask for an easier version of the same behavior.  For example, if heeling up to a baby gate in order to perform an about turn 6″ from the gate stresses your dog, then start at 3′.  Work up to almost touching the gates during that about turn, but take your time!

Here’s a video:

Brito working on pressure

Learning to accept pressure is part of Trial Preparation.  I am teaching a class on this topic now at Fenzi Dog Sports Academy.  The class is titled Bridging the Gap; Reducing Reinforcers, Proofing and Generalization.  I’d love to see some of you join me!  Be aware that today (February 15th) is the last day to register, and class started two weeks ago so…you’ll be playing catch up!

Today one of my students asked me, “At what point would their dog be trained to be perfect?”

The answer is “Never.”

Your dog will never be trained to be consistently perfect.  What will happen is that you, the handler, will learn to respond quickly and reliably at all times to each of your dog’s actions within training.  In effect, your dog will improve as you become a more consistent trainer.  Your responses will occur almost unconsciously, removing the traces of error before they are visible.  Your dog will then respond by developing new tendencies and habits,  but these too are always open to deviation.

If your dog forges just the tiniest bit in heeling, a highly skilled trainer will respond instantly so that the forging is addressed before anyone else can even see it.  If your dog goes wide after a jump then a highly skilled trainer will make sure that their next few training decisions counteract that behavior – possibly altering reward placement or pulling the behavior out of sequences altogether for remedial work.

Training for precision is different than training a dog to simply respond to a cue with low criteria.  For example, if “sit” means get your butt down, anywhere, anyway, and at any speed, then you might go weeks or months with no real failure, because tolerance for deviation is built into your cue.  But if sit includes criteria of placement, speed and exact position, then you will not have this good fortune.  The more criteria that you include in your definition, the more maintenance that cue will require.  This reality will be true of every single precision behavior that you teach. More criteria? More maintenance.

Over time, you will learn which behaviors are most at risk for your particular dog’s temperament and training history, and you will learn to pay special attention to those weaker areas.  Forever.  It makes no sense to get frustrated with your dog over these natural variations in behavior.  Your dog is no different than the next one.  If you can accept that natural variation is a law of nature then you’ll stay in a much happier place with your dog.

If your dog’s tendencies are against what we want to see in competition, for example, your dog prefers to sit with a leg sticking out, then you will constantly battle that tendency – every single time you see the most beginning indications of that leg sticking out, you will respond quietly and unconsciously.

Great training skill develops over time as the handler becomes faster, more responsive, and more aware of who their dog is and what their dog needs to perform at their best in competition.  More games with flow and movement or more precision with drills and foundation skills?  Shorter or longer sessions?  The list goes on and on, and the answers will depend on your team.

And then you will compete.  If you’ve done an excellent job and if it is a good day, then perfect will happen in the ring.  And as soon as you leave the ring and return to training then you will go back to what you always do – addressing every deviation.  Instantly.

If you believe that this is not correct, then hand a fully trained, truly beautiful worker from any sport to a novice handler for one month.  At the end of the month, you will see the results; the dog’s natural tendencies will begin to re-emerge, blending with whatever the novice handler’s tendencies contribute. Your perfect dog will be gone.

Perfection as a permanent condition?  That is not possible.