There are lots of different approaches to dealing with reactivity — but how do you choose between them? How can you combine them? Can you combine them? Karen and I dig into that very question and more in this new episode. 

 Transcription

Melissa Breau: This is Melissa Breau and you're listening to the Fenzi Dog Sports Podcast, brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy, an online school dedicated to providing high quality instruction for competitive dog sports, using one of the most current and progressive training methods. Today I have Karen Deeds here with me to talk about her approach to treating reactivity and aggression in our dogs. Hi Karen! Welcome back to the podcast.

Karen Deeds: It is so good to be back. Melissa, I am super excited to talk to you about this. It's such a big topic.

Melissa Breau: To start us off, do you wanna just remind everybody a little bit about you, your current canine crew, maybe what you're working on with them? Well, we just relocated to Tennessee, which has been a challenge to say the least. If anybody follows me on Facebook, they pretty much know that if it could go wrong, it has gone wrong. But we're in the throes of getting things settled there. So that means I pretty much haven't been doing anything with my own dogs. I did do something very interesting the last couple of weeks.

I actually had a client that hired me to drive 750 miles back to West Texas and I spent a week there and I worked with her on kind of an immersion program training her actually her and her dog, her being the most, probably the most important. And we were working on reactivity towards other dogs as well as a lot of prey drive that her three-legged heeler mix had heeler, doberman, pit bull and hound of some sort, if I remember right. Quite a combo. Quite A combo. Little good old street dog. But that was an interesting idea, was to actually go and stay with a client and work with a dog multiple times throughout the day. And of course with a client a big deal of the day. And I have to admit, I loved it. I love the personal aspect of it and, and that, but haven't really been too busy in Tennessee yet. As far as my own clients, we did bring with us one client dog and we are working on him to become a diabetic alert or low sugar detection dog. Not sure he is gonna make it. He's actually a lovely little English spaniel, English springer spaniel and I like him a lot. He's probably got way more drive than he needs to have for a service dog, but he's still young and I love his enthusiasm, which might help with the detection part, not so sure it's gonna help with a lot of the public access work, but we'll see. It is, that is something that's in the works, but we're also looking at putting up a new training facility and getting a lake or a pond put in so that we can hopefully have a dock and start doing some practice for dock diving. And hopefully I'll get into some dock diving and continue with disc, work with my Border Collie and get back into Treibball with you.

Melissa Breau: So would love you to do that.

Karen Deeds: I would love to do it too, If only all the time in the world. Right?

Melissa Breau: Yes. I wanted to have you on today to talk about this idea of reactive integration. I know you did a webinar kind of on it for us a little while ago, and you've got a six week class in the June term kind of coming up on this topic. So just to kind of orient everybody, what is reactive integration? What is it that we're talking about?

Karen Deeds: That's a really great question, but really if you look at it's a combination of where I come from in my background cuz it's quite diverse. I mean, I've worked with rescue and shelter work. I've done assistance dogs, sport dogs, working dogs, and of course pet dogs. And I really started focusing on behavior in about 2005. And that's when I taught my very first reactive class. I don't even think I called it reactive integration back then, but back then there really wasn't a huge number of seminars and conferences to go to. But I went to as many as I can.

Obviously I soaked up all the information and in 2013 I became a certified dog behavior consultant through the IAABC. And really with the number of dogs I work with, it became apparent that it would be very beneficial to not try to pigeonhole every dog into every protocol. It just doesn't work that way. So it's very beneficial to have this big toolbox of knowledge and all these protocols to apply since not only are their dogs different, but the people are different as well as the environment in which they live. And that's a big factor right there is the environment. So where one protocol may work with one client, it might not with another, not only do I apply techniques differently depending on the client, but I might also integrate one protocol with another. Most of the protocols fall under the category of desensitization, counter conditioning or just desensitization. So being able to pick one which is best for a client is obviously my goal. What led you to kind of thinking about all this and like developing the concept and pulling all the pieces together and, well, Again, I think it's the, the, the number of of dogs I've worked with, we always wanna train the dog that's in front of us, right? But that applies to the handler as well and their environment. So the saying, jack of all trades, master of none, but oftentimes better than the master of one is one that applies to this concept, I guess. And it just, it's, it's grown as I've become more and more familiar with all of the presenters out there.

I started going, I remember my very first seminar I went to, I think I was working for a veterinarian and it was a Roland Trip. Oh my god. I actually met the man probably six years ago at an IWC conference. He was sitting in front of me and he turned around and I saw his name tag and I tapped him on the shoulder and I told him, sir, you're the reason I'm here right now. And he, he kind of blushed and he said, and I told him, I said, way back in probably 90 something, I went to one of your seminars for a veterinary conference and I learned about dog behavior and cat behavior and granted all the stuff that he taught back then, in fact he says, oh, I'm so sorry that you had to learn that stuff because I said, yeah, it's a little outdated now. I said, but you led me into that, that world of behavior. And of course as we learned more, we did things differently. And I remember sitting in at another seminar talking about, and it's probably him desensitization and counter conditioning.

I'm going, what the heck is that? I've never heard those words before. And I was a psych major for god's sakes. I should have known that stuff. And of course I kind of went back to that and went, oh yeah, that, that sounds familiar. And that's kind of how I got started in all of that. And as I started going through, I'd sit in these seminars and I'd go, oh, that's new to me. And then the next seminar I'd go to, I'd go, oh yeah, I remember that from the last time. That's familiar. And then the third time I'd hear that technique or that thing talked about, I'd go, oh shit, I know that I got that we're good.

And that's kind of how it has evolved. But I think you're not doing yourself or your clients any good if you don't continue to go to those seminars and those conferences and hear people talk and speak. Cuz you pick up little things all the time. You never know everything ever, ever, ever. You never know everything. And but sometimes it's just for confirmation.

You're like, yep, I knew that. Or affirmation, not just confirmation. And so I guess I started listening to all of these people that I went, oh my god, I like that and I like that and I like this and I like that and, and why can't we do it all? And so help, that's where it came from, I guess, right? Is integration. So there we are. So a little bit of this, a little bit of that. And then you have to kind of choose which pieces you wanted to use with whom and when, huh?

Melissa Breau: Yeah, Exactly. And and that's really what it's, right. Yeah. So what are some of the techniques that we're talking about here?

What, what have you kind of integrated into your work? Well, obviously what, what we teach is nothing new. I mean, the concept of learning theories been around since Plato before Christ John Block is, is 16 hundreds built on that. And of course we are very familiar, I hope with Ivan Pavlov and B of Skinner and Thorndyke, the hallmark of behavior modification desensitization and counter conditioning goes back to the fifties.

It's not all that long ago, right? That's 70 some years ago, almost 75 years ago. And differential reinforcement from Burgess and Acres was back in the sixties, mid to late sixties. So all of this stuff, we started figuring, figuring out that these things are how we change behavior. And obviously back then it wasn't about dogs, it was more about people.

So within that framework, I used the habitat adaptations that, I don't know Leslie McDevitt. I mean is there anybody any better control unleashed in all of our pattern games? I mean, how awesome is all of that stuff. And even with her stuff, what works for one client may not work for another. It's one of the reasons she has so many pattern games, I'm sure relaxation protocols that come from a lot of different people. I think I teach it a combination of, I don't know, I don't even know who's who I started out with, but for sure Shade Whitesel is where I get a lot of that stuff. Especially Shade's ready to work concept from sport dogs, you know, all of that stuff that I learned in the sport dog world, especially through FDSA. I mean really and truly, you, you guys are the leaders in all of that anyway, I think, cuz I never did agility, so, you know, I'm sure there's other, you know, people that are around. Susan Garrett has been around with agility and conferences and seminars and stuff. But I wasn't a part of that.

But I got into the sports stuff and including the bite sports and what I really started to see was that there's, there's a real similarity to those crazy ass biting dogs as there are to these crazy behavior cases. So I started realizing that a lot of the things that we do, especially Shade since that's what she focuses on, I saw such similarities and so I just kind of grabbed from that stuff and that's where I integrate not just, not just the protocols but and integrating them together, but also integrating the knowledge that has come from a variety of different places. Kind of all of the background stuff that you mentioned earlier, right? The shelter, world service dog world. Yeah. All that kind of stuff.

Melissa Breau: So if I understand it right, it all kind of starts with identifying the triggers for that particular dog, right? Do you, do you typically find that clients, the, the human handler rather has like a pretty good sense of what a dog's triggers are when you're starting out this kinda work?

Karen Deeds: Yes and no. Some triggers are very clear and specific and it may be very isolated, right? And those are easy. I mean, if you can identify it and it's very predictable, that's actually one of my factors for success is the predictability factor. And if you can do that, great, but sometimes people don't even realize that their dog is having an issue even with things in their own house. It could even be that the new baby that's crying is setting the dog off and they don't see that. And obviously this is all about the concept of trigger stacking, but so for a lot of people it's not just about, alright, we're gonna go outside and we're gonna take a walk and we're going to address the dog's trigger. And I'm like, yeah, but that's one trigger what's happening in the house and in the backyard that's playing a part in what's happening in the front yard and on a walk. So that's, that's really pretty much the focus a lot of the work that I do, especially the reducing the baseline webinar that's coming up. Oh, tomorrow. Sure.

Melissa Breau: Yeah. It's tomorrow for us when people are listening this, it'll happen yesterday. But yes, that's very true.

Karen Deeds: Oh gosh, Yes. The time. The time coming to you from the past.

Melissa Breau: Yeah. Coming to you from the future. No, something, something like that.

Karen Deeds: Don't confuse me anymore please, Melissa.

Melissa Breau: So it sounds like you're getting a little bit into the idea of management, kind of what you're talking about. So what role does management kind of play in this approach?

Karen Deeds: Big, that's pretty obvious a single word, but it can play a very big role and I really picked this up from Dr. Tim Lewis when he did the biology of aggression and he was talking about how rewards released dopamine, right? Well of course that's what the click we all, I think we all know, or maybe we should all know that once you have paired the click with a tree, the sound of the click is as rewarding as a tree, if not more so.

So let's take a dog that's barking at let's say the mailman, right? The dog barks at the mailman, they go away, woo, reward dopamine. Awesome. So now they see the mailman and dopamine. So yeah, the more we let them practice that, the more rewarding it is to be bad. It's good. It feels good to be bad, right? So that's kind of the way I look at it is, we're, if we allow these dogs to continue to practice all this stuff, they're going to, you know, practice makes perfect, it's almost like three steps forward, two steps back. I mean that's kind of our goal. And I do feel so sorry for those people that live in environments that they can't control.

I mean, and that's really for the most part, that's everybody to a certain extent. You know, I have painters at my house and I've got this little spaniel that's in my living room and they're throwing ladders up against the house and above the window. And he's like, what the heck is that? And I'm like, you're good dude.

And he goes, ok, I'm fine. So, he's being exposed to triggers, obviously not in a really great way, but I have been able to counter condition if necessary, which hopefully service dog shouldn't be much counter conditioning, but that's another story. So yeah.

Melissa Breau: Fair enough. Are there kind of skills in there that can actually be taught or activities that can kind of be done outside of the, you know, we typically think of as reactivity work, right? Those setups and, and kind of that piece of things, right, that ultimately kind of carry over or can help reduce the dog's reactivity, aggression, whatever. And the answer to that is obviously yes, because that's what I'm doing a webinar or did a webinar on whichever way you wanna look at it, Reducing The Baseline. That's really what I, what I'm teaching there is if we look at it from, let's say on a scale of one to 10, your dog goes over a threshold at a five, but day-to-day life keeps them at a four and a half or a four, well that's not much room to wiggle, right between four and a five.

So why don't we, that's why I call it reducing the baseline. If their baseline is a four then why don't we reduce that so that there's a bigger buffer between where they are naturally and where their threshold is. And what I often find is that in doing so, it actually increases the threshold as well. It even without working on specific setups and and behavior modification protocols, I do find that I have a stupid little saying, knowledge is power, power creates confidence and confidence reduces anxiety. I don't know if anybody other than me came up with that. But that's what I see with the dogs a lot that once they understand their job and actually this comes from sport dogs, right? My dog is like, yeah, I kind of sort of know that in this environment but I haven't generalized it so I'm gonna kind of, I don't know, suck in this new environment. So I get them more prepared and they're like, yeah, I know this skill, I know this behavior, I rock at it, I can pretty much do it anywhere. And that's, that's kind of that concept. We don't have to generalize it as much if they know it really, really, really well, obviously you do have to do some, but that once they know it, that gives them the confidence and we don't have to do so much of the, the, the work on the end, which is the behavior modification. So yes, I think it's very important to do work upfront and I know a lot of people think it's really sexy to go out and do that and you know, my husband being in search and rescue like he was everybody who wanted to go hunt for little Timmy, well they forgot to teach their dogs how to tell them they found little Timmy some, there's something about an indication that's really pretty valuable when you're doing search and rescue. Just really pretty valuable. So and so they always wanna get to the, the, the stuff that they think is gonna be fun.

But if you can look at your dog and spend time on the front end, I think not only is it good for the dog, but it's certainly good for the handler because not only are we giving the dog the confidence, but we're giving the handler the confidence now they know what it feels like and what it looks like for the dog to be successful in their living room.

So now they can, and then their backyard and then their front yard and then maybe we go to the park, but they, they already have that knowledge and so guess what, they take it out into the real world and they go, yeah, I know how to respond to this cuz I've been practicing it inside and it feels good. So yeah, it's much more fluent.

Melissa Breau: Yes. Amazing. We kinda mentioned the webinar a couple of times and this'll air, you know, the day after the webinar, but do you wanna just talk a little bit more about what you covered will cover in the webinar kind of that topic for just a second?

Karen Deeds: Boy, a lot of it will, the reducing the baseline is number one, reinforcement strategies, right? Do you have something to reward your dog with? Play personal play, toys, food, that's a biggie. I think reinforcement strategies are a biggie and I think we might get late, get into that in greater detail in a, in a little bit. But the reinforcement strategies I think is probably one of the first things. And what starts to happen when you start building reinforcement strategies and a desire for the dog to be with you is you build, I don't know, focus the dog's like, hey, can we do that thing? Remember that thing? I like doing that thing because I get stuff from you and it's really kind of fun to hang with you. And guess what, when they're having that kind of fun, their emotion starts to change, right? And that's really what reactivity is all about is emotions, the kind we don't like. So we wanna change the dog into having the emotions that we do like, so reinforcement strategies first and foremost, focus incompatible behaviors or alternative behaviors, impulse control. Gosh, I think those are some of the main things. Oh, more just really creating a dog who knows how to think. I even like to do some physical exercise.

Oh my god, taboo, right? I mean it's so funny. Oh, mental exercises. And don't get me wrong, I love mental exercise, but doing it in lieu of all physical exercise is not the best. I mean I do understand that there's a lot of dogs that can't go out for a walk or run because of their reactivity.

I get that. But you know what, there's a lot of stuff we can do in your living room to get that blood pump, get that heart pumping because you know what? That heart actually helps filter out the good and the bad in the bloodstream, you know, the good and blood bad hormones. So we need that, that heart pumping going on.

So anyway, so that's some of the stuff we'll talk about. So you mentioned those marker cues, those reinforcement cues. We talked a little bit about it earlier too, right? Like that's part of what you've integrated in here is that piece from dog sports into the reactivity work. Can you share just a little more about that and why you think it's so helpful?

Well, I presented about this, about the multiple marker system in the dogs with big feelings conference and how I have utilized them for behavior work. And again, I go back to, you know, some of those crazy sport dogs are also very similar in behavior. Even though their emotions may be different or their reasoning may be different, it, it can look a lot alike. And I remember actually I heard from, well I did a podcast with Chrissy Schranz and we talked about the multiple markers and she said she heard me talk about it at the conference and she's like, Hmm, didn't know. And she has a dog that I guess, or a friend's dogs or a client dog who had some high prey drive.

And I used the example of my own Border Collie mix who was crazy, crazy, crazy car chasing dog. He had spent his first 10 months in a pen chasing cars and playing with a tennis ball by himself. So he had no use for human beings, actually he didn't like us at all and he loved to chase cars. And so I thought, God, how, how can I compete with that? Well I didn't have toy play on cue yet, so I knew I couldn't compete with him that way. So I thought, well you know, the old adage of you know, the whole engaged, disengaged, you look at that, I mark it, I feed you, look mark feed, look mark, feed. And yeah, I did that. I was about a hundred yards away. Car went by, my dog looked, I clicked and he said, ha, I don't think so lady. I'm not eating that stupid piece of food outta your hand that is just, no, it's not gonna hurt happen. And I went, okay, well that didn't work very well. And so I went, okay, well maybe I should try something else. So he looks and I went scatter and he went, I ain't got time to eat all that. Are you kidding? I got things to chase. So I went, okay, he looked and I went toss and that's his cue to chase food.

And he went, chase, yeah, if I can't chase the car, I'll chase the food and that feels good. So that's where I went, oh wow, if I can't chase the car, I can chase the food and from chasing food I can then build eating food, which then means I can start to titrate that down. And I do remember Sara Brueske, I can't claim credit for this. Heck I can't claim credit for pretty much anything we all teach, right? Somebody else thought of it first. And I remember Sara Brueske talking about stairs, stepping it down cuz she works with some pretty crazy dogs in her sports. And I remember her talking about that. And here I was living and breathing that very thing where he looked, I said toss, he chased food, he looked tossed, chased food, looked tossed, chased food, looked tossed, chased food, looked at me and says he got some more. And I gotcha, gotcha.

But I can take it the other way as well. If I have that dog that's just, you know, deer in the headlights, I can't move, I can't move, I can't move. Maybe I start with a lower arousing, can you eat food? Yes I can eat food. Maybe if you hand it to me, I might be able to. Okay, so now you feel a little bit better. You can eat food, can you eat food on the ground maybe? And then, okay, can you chase food? Oh yeah, I feel good enough that I can chase food. So, and this is very simplistic, so I take those hot dogs and I bring them down and I bring those dead dogs and I bring 'em up. So that's just, that's as simple as it gets. I'm sure there's a lot more going on and I'm sure there's far more qualified people to answer what exactly is going on.

But that's the way I see it, that's the way my clients see it and it works for us. Yeah. Awesome. So we've only kind of touched on what all you go into in the class. Do you wanna talk a little more about what other pieces you're covering in the full class and maybe who should consider joining it? Yes. So the full class is a lot of the reducing baseline stuff because I think it's really important that we have a strong foundation to build on.

And the people that take my class, I may already have that great, wonderful fine, but anybody who takes the class will obviously get customized feedback, right? But I do spend a lot of time building those reinforcement strategies and then generalizing those reinforcement strategies and then I build, do some impulse control because your dog has to and, and I know there's been some talk about, oh my god we don't need to make our dog sit still to go out the door. And I said, you know what? If that helps a dog to go, I understand my job so to speak, or this is what I do to get what I want, I keep going right back to that. Knowledge is power, power builds confidence. Confidence reduces anxiety.

And I think I've mentioned it before the podcast with Hannah Branigan and Dr. Chris Pack. Talk about that type of predictability. And I think it's very important, and I do work with a lot of dogs that are what I would call those pushy dogs. And a lot of people would call them a dominant dog. But most of the time with a dog that's like that, that's reactive, I call that more false bravado. And so they need that. All right, tone your stuff down dude, that's my Border Collie, right? Tone your stuff down. And although he's not really reactive unless he's contained, unless he's very frustrated, he's definitely got that. But that predictability, that structure just makes him go, got it.

I know exactly what to do. Again, knowledge is power. Power builds confidence. Confidence reduces anxiety. So there we have it. And then we have those dogs that are, oh my god, I don't know what to do. And we teach 'em what to do and they go, thanks, I know what to do now I feel so much better.

So the impulse control, it's what I call impulse control actually is probably more about predictability and structure than it is impulse control. But I do want the dogs to realize that good things come through us and if they want something that they should look towards to us for that. I do use, and I didn't mention this earlier, I do use a lot of premack and I work with a lot of dogs that won't eat, a lot of dogs that won't eat. And as I was driving up to my sister's vet clinic where I am sitting doing this podcast with you, I was thinking about the very first thing I remember Denise Fenzi talking about in, I just got goosebumps in, I think it was 2014, I think it was the first, no before that. Oh shoot, I can't remember. Long time ago I went to a seminar and she was talking about those dogs that sniff. She says, put it on cue. And I went, what? And I remember her, you know, the dog would be in front of me, she'd take a break and she'd literally turn her back on the dog. And I don't know if she does this anymore, but I remember that, I remember that driving up here and I remember going, holy smokes, that was Premack, wasn't it? Shit. Ha. That was just premack principle. And so I do find that if we can find something, the dog wants it, whether it's just going back inside, we can build on that.

So I do talk about Premack principle and of course we need to teach some skills really and truly, when I teach my reactive integration classes, I think I teach four actual skills: eye contact offered and cued, a hand target, maybe a settle, which is different than a down. It starts out a lot differently than a, than a down. It's not, it's not operant. I don't want it operant to start with. It obviously comes, that becomes that and oh shoot, what's the first, oh an offered sit. I don't care if you ever get your dog to sit on cue. Could care less. In fact, my puppy, who's no longer my puppy, cuz he is over three, he didn't know what the word sit was until he was probably, I don't know, six months. But he knew sit got him out of the crate, got him out of the, got his food bowl or his food toy, it got him to go into the training room where he got to play with mommy. It got him to go out of the play, the training room so he could go run in the fields. It got him everything.

So he knew to put his little butt on the ground, but he didn't know what it was called. It was just all context cues. So again, I don't care if you ever put that on cue, but there's that. And of course we will go through some of the behavior mod protocols, you know, desensitization, counter conditioning and all the things that fall under that, in my opinion. The engaged, disengaged, look at that, all the pattern games down left, right, 1, 2, 3, super Bowls. I will probably, and now I just realized, I don't even think it was in my syllabus. I probably will do some that or some CAT if necessary if I have those dogs. So again, it's a very customized approach and it is like throwing spaghetti on the wall and seeing what sticks.

I just throw the whole damn pot. I don't throw one or two things, it's a whole pot. And as I'm going through and writing up my lectures, I'm going, God, that was stupid. Why couldn't I have broken this down in the smaller pieces? But it is what it's so, It's a whole lot another way. It is A whole lot.

It's a whole lot. But, and I do have a lot of videos obviously that I'll share with everybody in that as well. So I hope nobody gets too bored with it, but it ought to be fun. Ought to be fun. I can't imagine. No.

Melissa Breau: Yeah. Alright, so on that note, any kind of final thoughts or kind of things you wanna circle back on and just kinda leave listeners with round things out?

Karen Deeds: I don't really think so. I do think that the class will be very helpful for anybody. I mean, whether they've been, I mean, cuz let's face it, FDSA has a plethora of amazing instructors who teach all sorts of things. So I'm sure some of them are familiar with all the things that I've, I'm teaching. Some of you may be brand new and v you've never heard about some of this stuff.

That's great too. I'll spend more time with you on that and less time with the others on, on that. So, but I do know I've actually had quite a few FDSA members that have taken my online class that I did through Facebook. When, when the pandemic shut us down, I went, oh Jesus, how am I gonna pay the bills?

And I tried to get creative and I just started using Facebook social learning platform. And I did a couple of classes and one of them was the Reactive Integration class. And I loved it. I absolutely loved it. For starters, I got to see my students multiple times a day, or at least multiple times a week. It depends on, of course how much they actually are good at videotaping and, and posting and all that kind of stuff. And I do know one of my very favorites has a Doberman and a Doberman with some pretty severe medical as well as as behavioral issues. And she's taken my class twice and it has been eye-opening for me. We, we actually stay in touch. It's been very eye-opening for me to get her feedback and for her to have feedback one-on-one.

And that is one of the things I absolutely love about the whole FDSA approach and their class structure and things like that. It is a lot of work for us, the instructors, but it's a lot of work for the handlers too. I've taken a few, few of those classes, some of 'em I did better at than others in fulfilling.

But a lot of times, even though you, you know, somebody signs up for a class and they get through the first three weeks and then you don't see 'em for the next three weeks. Maybe they've gotten all they needed to in those first three weeks or all they could handle. And they're like, okay, I gotta work on this stuff now and then all at least I have that stuff for the future, but my dog's not ready for that. And that's cool. You know, I had a client, one of my very first reactive classes that I taught, taught live many years ago. And at one point in time, oh, I also teach obviously management techniques. I had one called just an Emergency U Tour. Again, nothing, you know, nothing I came up with, but just get the heck out of Dodge. Right? And she was a little British gal and her name, I think her name was Stephanie. And she had a dog that at this point had, she'd taken him to the dog park the first time and he got attacked by another dog. She'd taken him to a dog park a second time and he got attacked by a dog and she took him a third time and he attacked a dog and did $600 worth of damage.

So she was terrified of her dog being anywhere near another dog. And so I taught the emergency U-turn and of course I normally use the words uh-oh or whatever, I don't care. And she was this little British girl and she says, every time I see a dog, the only thing I can do is say, and I, if you have to bleep this out, you can was oh shit. And say it in that little English tone, right? And she says, I, that's all, it's all I can do. That's the only thing that comes out. And I say, well, it'll work. So we taught that and you know, I think I presented that like week five. Normally my in-person classes are eight weeks and that week five, and she didn't show for week six, she came for week six and she didn't come back for seven or eight. And I messaged her and I said, Hey Steph, how's it going? She says, oh, we're good. You know that, oh shit thing. Yeah. My dog has now learned that when we see another dog, we're just gonna turn around and throw the other way so I don't even have to say anything.

Cause she, the dog had done a cue transfer, right? Oh my God. Mom. Mom sees we see another dog. Mom says those words, we go the opposite direction. So guess what? We see another dog, we go the opposite direction. Simple cue transfer. She was elated. She never even went through desensitization and counter conditioning and behavior adjustment training.

She didn't learn any of that. She said, I don't need it. I'm good. She got what she needed. Yeah, She got what she needed. So anyway, I think it, it will be for a, anybody who's struggling with her own dog or a instructor who works with dogs like this, or a consultant or a trainer who works for dog with dogs like this, I know of just a couple of other colleagues that have signed up. So I'm very excited.

Melissa Breau: Yeah, yeah. Awesome. We're very excited to have you. So thank you. Well, on that note, we will call it, and I encourage people to go check out the syllabus. I know you just got it up, so thank you for coming on the podcast, Karen.

Karen Deeds: You're welcome. I appreciate it.

Melissa Breau: Awesome. And thank you to all our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week to talk about a not totally unrelated topic, teenagers with Sharon Carol and Julie Daniels, and we're gonna talk about what you need to know about Canine Adolescence. If you haven't already subscribed to the podcast in iTunes or the podcast app of your choice to have the next episode automatically downloaded to your phone as soon as it becomes available. Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzi for supporting this podcast, music provided royalty free by ben sound.com. The track featured here is called Buddy Audio Editing provided by Chris Lang. Thanks again for tuning in and happy training.

 Credits

Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzi for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty-free by BenSound.com; the track featured here is called "Buddy." Audio editing provided by Chris Lang.

Thanks again for tuning in -- and happy training!