An Engaged Student – What Influences a Dog’s Motivation to Work with Its Handler? part 2.

6. For Your Dog to Want to Work with You, They Must Be Focused

During the motivation-building phase, I never "beg" a dog to work if they're mentally absent 😉 If the dog is focused on everything but me, even though I'm standing in the middle of a big lawn with all kinds of food and toys around me… there’s no chance for a successful sports training session or for teaching difficult behaviors. What do I train then? Focus! I want my dog to be 100% present in the training. If, at first, this "training" is just responding to their name and chasing a human (and food) for 30 seconds (yes, THIRTY SECONDS!!!!), that’s still training. For me, that’s work well done!

The dog doesn’t know that a year from now, I’ll need their full attention for 15 minutes while teaching advanced freestyle moves. Dogs live in the present, with their past experiences and learning. So, if I need to train focus on the handler, food, or toys in the beginning, and the whole session lasts, say, ONE minute, that’s okay. That’s how ready my dog is today.

Remember, when working with puppies or young dogs, their nervous system may not be ready for long training sessions! Physiologically, they won’t be able to stay focused with distractions for longer. So today, you can teach them that, during training, they need to resist distractions and frustration, or you can teach them that training is actually a fun time with their beloved handler for just a minute 🙃 And that’s why I always say I train with my dogs from the very beginning. But... training is not equal to training.

Focus on the task is essential for drawing conclusions from the learning process. So, if the previous points haven’t convinced you, consider this: your dog won’t learn anything if they’re constantly distracted. Then, it’s much better to teach them at least (or rather, especially!!) to respond to their name 😏

7. For Your Dog to Want to Work with You, You Can’t Overwhelm Them and Do the Work "For Them"

I like active dogs when working. I love when they show initiative, are a little cheeky, and… give signs of life, decision-making, and their own opinions 🤣 I appreciate the calm handler and the smiling dog sitting in front of them, staring proudly as if they were the first student in class saying, "Pick me, pick me, I know the answer!!!" 🥰 To achieve this result, in most cases, you have to take this element into account in the training process. I appreciate active, singing, and dancing handlers. When I had a Boxer 15 years ago and decided he would do agility (an exotic sport back then 🤣), I was a very loud and motivating handler (if you think I’m loud and motivating now, let me tell you that I’m actually VERY CALM now 🤭). But now, I prefer to channel all that energy and drive to motivate the dog into planning the training and taking a mindful approach to each session. The "loving mommy" instinct and "cuddling the dog" are phrases I often use in workshops (right after "wild flounder"…). And don’t get me wrong – I still use my voice and body language a lot, but I try not to overuse them. My additional support should help, speed things up, and reward, not be a guarantee of any work. Take this into consideration, especially with sensitive or slightly withdrawn dogs – such a dog can feel very overwhelmed by your constant narration, dancing, and cuddling during a session 😉 Give your dog space to just be a dog. I love using my voice and expression to reward dogs, but... to REWARD them. This means I must first think about what actually rewards my dog and motivates them, and what overwhelms them and "pins them to the ground." I do a lot of things by offering—like starting to work with food when dealing with dogs with extreme motivational problems. Through offering or shaping, I also teach difficult and sports-related behaviors. I don’t avoid prompting, but I don’t limit myself to that technique in training, because I want to give the dog space to figure things out and have an influence on how our training looks 🙂

8. For Your Dog to Want to Work with You, You Must Have a Toolbox

Another groundbreaking thought, but I’d like to elaborate on it. You can’t fix various car issues comprehensively if you only have one screwdriver in your workshop. Very often during workshops, training sessions, or my spontaneous posts online, I get asked, “What would you do if [insert name of my dog] did [insert unwanted behavior during a training session]?” Trust me, these are the questions I always have to think the longest about. The first thing that comes to my mind is: I don’t know, because my dogs don’t do that 🙃 but when I start to think about it, I realize that I have so many amazing screwdrivers, wrenches, and other quirky tools in my workshop that when a problem arises during a session, I just grab the right tool off the shelf and... get to work! For example – what would I do if my dog ran off with a toy and I couldn’t retrieve it? (Of course, first of all... none of them would do that now 😈). So, what tools do I have in my workshop?

1. Recall – I could call them with my solid recall, which can’t be ignored and works everywhere, so it should work here too.

2. Help with my movement – I spent several MONTHS working with Bułka and Ravka on following the handler and choosing to follow in various conditions and distractions, so why not use that?

3. Release command to a bowl of food/food on the ground – I’ve built a whole communication system (or at least I think I have 🤭), so why not use a signal for such a specific reward and direct the dog in the right direction?

4. Command for a fun trick close to the body – I’ve spent months working on various tricks close to the handler, I teach them, make them more engaging, and build their value, so maybe I’ll lure the dog to me with the idea of a fun trick they know?

5... alright, I’ll stop before you fall asleep from boredom 🥳 But I wanted to show you how many tools I have in my workshop, with which I can "fix" a single "issue" in our training!

9. For Your Dog to Want to Work with You, You Must Only Expect What You’ve Taught Them

The shortcut way, uhhhh… my training nightmare. In Poznań, we take the longer way, not shortcuts 🤨

So unfortunately, I assure you, that if you’ve gotten away with shortcuts with your second or third dog, you will eventually encounter a dog (pffff, such a dog, hehe) where this won't work. These are the dogs that perform all the tasks they’ve been taught beautifully, but when you try to skip a few steps and expect something that hasn’t been clearly explained, well… you can wave them goodbye! This teaches you conscious management of the training process so clearly that I wish everyone could experience this with a dog like that! An example? Here you go. I taught Bułka to work beautifully around other dogs. She traveled with me all over Poland, worked beautifully around other dogs at numerous training grounds, and responded to them. In fact, she didn’t need to glance at them during the work (many people saw this and can confirm 😉).

I thought we’d passed that stage long ago! Then, we started working more seriously on agility at OUR TRAINING GROUND, just 10 minutes from home, where she’d been since she was a puppy. And what happened? Well, during one session, when a dog appeared at the fence, instead of running through the tunnel, she ran to the fence to sniff the intruder and then playfully approach it! HA!!! But we’d trained around other dogs in unfamiliar places, not on our ground 10 minutes from home, right? Since it’s our ground, how dare any strange dogs come here?! 🤯 And again... I could multiply these examples, both in life and in sports (e.g., I know how to do an "out" from different angles and large distances on a jump, but noooooo, from a different jump, on a short course, I can’t do it!!

Only after ONE training session on "outs" from a different jump do I accept that I actually know it 🤓 say hi to the fans, Bułka).

10. For Your Dog to Want to Work with You, You Need to Like Each Other a Little Bit 🙂

And again, a dreadful cliché, but I refer you to my post about building a "trendy relationship" with your dog:

https://www.facebook.com/.../a.276022…/786135438406709/....

I truly believe that a mismatch between the handler and the dog is often a big problem and a barrier to working together. You then have two options: either you write off your work together (officially apologizing to Mr. JJ 😗🤣), or you bow your head, accept the dog, and learn each other’s ways... 🧐

Thank you for your attention and the push to write this post. Without your suggestions and voting, I probably wouldn’t have dared to summarize such a difficult topic in ten points 🤭