Join us for a conversation on how pattern games can benefit dogs with big feelings — whether those feelings are positive or negative! Kim is a certified Control Unleashed instructor and shares insights into why the program was developed and how it can help. 

 Transcription

Melissa Breau: This is Melissa Breaux 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 only the most current and progressive training methods. Today, I have Kim Palermo here with me to talk about Control Unleashed and Pattern Games. Hi Kim, welcome back to the podcast.

Kim Palermo: Hi, thanks for having me.

Melissa Breau: Excited to chat. Do you want to start us off and just kind of remind folks a little bit about you, your dogs and kind of what you work on with them? Yeah, sure. So I'm a certified professional dog trainer and also a Certified Control Unleashed Instructor. Also soon I hope to be an ACE practitioner, which is animal centered Care, which is free work. I'm just waiting on my case studies to be reviewed.

I teach online at FDSA and also in person. I have a dog training facility and dog walking company that I've owned with my husband for 17 years in Massachusetts called Blue Dog. So I do that as well. So let's see, for my dogs, I have five dogs. I have two, let's say family dogs, so I don't do sports with them. We have a male collie named Lincoln and then a golden retriever who my husband uses as like as demo and helping dog for our business.

I have a 12 year old mini poodle. His name is Walt and he's essentially retired because of some health challenges. But he's, he's the kind of dog where. So I started with him in obedience and rally obedience and once in a while just throw him into a rally trial because he loves it and he just makes me look so good. Like I just love bringing him into the ring.

And we also recently did an agility class. Like we're still dabbling but just for fun. And then I'd say the two dogs that I'm really focusing on are my two collies. So I have a five year old rough collie named Jane and then a one year old named Sunday. I have recently begun the scary world of confirmation with them. It's been fun and challenging and of course a big old learning experience.

I also rally was my first sport, so we do that. You know, I'm training them both for obedience. I've been also trying herding. I don't know, I guess I just like the hard things. So we've been working on that as well. And then I do, you know, we dabble in nose work. I'm hoping to do agility with my puppy so that we can get a versatility title someday.

So, yeah, I kind of do a whole lot of things with, well, a whole lot of dogs. Oh, and I also have a clicker trained cat named Feg. And I'm, you know, I have been known to clicker train my flock of chickens and turkeys and ducks as well. So fair enough. A little bit of everything, in other words. Yes, absolutely. So as I kind of mentioned in the intro, I want to have you on to talk about pattern games in particular, for the uninitiated.

Do you want to just give us a little bit of an explanation kind of on what pattern games are? Yeah, of course. So pattern games were created by Leslie McDevitt. So they're part of like the Control Unleashed program. Leslie started her program, I think it's probably best known for the Look At That Game. And she kind of developed the patterns as she went. In addition to that, it was originally created to help sports dogs.

So she noticed dogs were over aroused, you know, in trial environments and created it for them. But then of course, we recognized that it also benefited pet dogs. So it kind of became a really big thing. So to summarize, patterns allow our dog to use voluntary behaviors to initiate a simple repetitive chain that creates a predictable pattern. Okay. So this will help to normalize the environment and allows the dog to process information within the safety of the pattern.

For me, I find that understanding that patterns create predictability in our world that is incredibly unpredictable for our dogs is where it really benefits us. So this could be when my dog goes to a trial environment, they don't know what other dogs are going to be there. Is someone going to be shouting while they run through a tunnel, what it might be? But it's also our dogs, when we walk them down the street, they don't know what to expect. So it creates that predictability to them. So I would say that's my elevator pitch for pattern games. I know you kind of mentioned in there that pet dogs and sports dogs.

Melissa Breau: Can you go into a little more detail on the types of dogs that pattern games help the most? Maybe what behaviors they tend to help dogs with?

Kim Palermo: Yeah, sure. So I mean, I guess my blanket statement is that all dogs are going to benefit from pattern games.

You know, the obvious answer is that our big feelings dogs are going to benefit from pattern games and any sort of control unleashed skill because it helps with over arousal. So we teach group classes at my training facility in Massachusetts. And so these are just our average pet dog, you know, group classes. We also teach specific control unleashed classes. I have so many Patterns that are incorporated into the curriculum of our basic pet program.

So really any dog, whether it's a puppy or an adult dog, one that's kind of struggling with the environment, it's going to benefit them. I think for puppies, it's wonderful. My puppy, Sunday, she's a year old now, I started teaching her patterns and the look at that game, like that was all I taught her when she came home. And it's been amazing to me how much it's helped her as she's progressed through adolescence.

So it's kind of, I was proactive in giving her that tool. But of course that doesn't mean once, if your dog is past adolescence, you can still use the tool of pattern games. I also, if you think of like a dog who doesn't really have any like real blatant challenges. So my 12 year old miniature poodle, I ended up taking, one of, you know, my colleagues was teaching a CU class, so I took it with him.

And so he's 12 year old, 12 years old. So when I first got him like free shaping was like the thing to do, right. So that's what I did with him. And, and so he's extremely operant. So whenever I would stop doing something, he would either offer behaviors or whine. So one or the other. And by going through the CU class with him, I found that the whining went away and the offering behaviors went away because I was able to kind of just break down the idea of predictability and relaxation and, and it made such a difference for him.

So it can really benefit any dog. Reactivity is a big one where our patterns could help. But really any dog that's gonna either stress up or stress down, I would say the patterns are great for. And then anyone in between too.

Melissa Breau: Can you integrate pattern games into other systems for some of that? So other methods for confidence building or other methods for kind of working on reactivity or for distract distraction proofing, you know, do they integrate well with other systems or they kind of like follow this, this program or this, you know, series of exercises instead.

They totally integrate. So yeah, the patterns can be used in so many different ways. So I, you know, there's other, there's definitely other, other protocols that I'll follow and you know, play around with. The biggest one I'd say is like ace free work. So I have integrated that into my CU, you know, techniques with my dogs so much. I think they correspond really nicely. But even we could look at like Amy's Playway.

Like, I love the idea of kind of going from using some of our, you know, maybe using personal play to see if my dog is ready, and then once I see that they're ready, then we'll move into some patterns or something along those lines. I also, in my last class, I had this student and her dog was getting a little over aroused with food, which we can work through with cu, and I love working through that.

But what we found was that if we could go from relaxation without food into some. She had taken Amy's class, so into some personal play and then back to relaxation. It was like magic. So I love being creative and I love incorporating games together and learning different protocols. I even, I think Laura's Ring Confidence class, like the acclimation portion, I was so accustomed to using CU for acclimation, and I was able to kind of mix a little bit of what I learned from her with the cu and it just worked so, so nicely.

So absolutely, yeah, play around with it. It's what I love so much about CU is that you can be creative with it. You kind of mentioned earlier on that, you know, Control Unleashed was originally developed for sports dogs and kind of working through high arousal in particular.

Melissa Breau: Can you talk a little more about kind of the way that patterns can be used for our sports dogs? Kind of how you'd help them with competition performance?

Kim Palermo: Yeah. So if we think of, like our average, you know, what our sports dog is going into, like in a trial environment, there is a lot of lack of predictability there. So, you know, if we're at a new location or even if we're at the place that we normally train, but now there's like lots of people and other dogs, you know, so there's such a lack of unpredictability in our trialing, and our patterns allow us to bring predictability into that environment.

So I can tell you that the first time I took Jane, so Jane's my big feelings girl. She's. She's how I learned cu. And anyone who takes my class is going to see, like, all the tutorial videos on her. When I went to our first rally obedience trial, we had the challenge of, you walk into the building, you go through this little hallway, and then you kind of have to go through this room where, like, a lot of dogs are crated.

And I was so worried about it, but I used patterns the entire way. So I started with patterns from the car. I used them before we walked into the building, as we walked through that crate area, and then all the way up to our, you know, where we were waiting to go into the ring. And even from there, I was doing some take a breath, which is like, I think that skill alone, not only does it help our dogs in a trial environment, but it helps us.

Like, I'm taking deep breaths as I'm cueing Jane to take deep breaths. So it helps so much. We did, like, we literally used CU up until the point when we went into the ring, and then we both did phenomenal. You know, it just went so smoothly. So we're able to use those CU patterns to help our dogs in that environment, I would say, more than anything outside the ring, but inside the ring as well, there's also, like, there's different games and, you know, if you were to take the class, you would understand, you know, what these games really mean.

But with, Give me a break, that was one of the original patterns that Leslie created. And what I love about that pattern is that it allows our dog to ask us to engage in training. And I have worked on that a lot with dogs who might not want to, you know, either start working or, you know, we're fading reinforcement or whatever it might be, and we're giving the dog, like, if we go back to that original description I gave of what a pattern is, it's voluntary.

So we're, we're giving the dog agency to say, I'm ready to work. And the more we can kind of build that agency into our work routine, the more often our dog is going to opt in. And CU helps with that as well. And then that we can then start to apply that into, you know, once we start getting into the ring. Um, I've used it a ton with herding because herding is a very over arousing sport.

I would say sheep come first over anything when it comes to actually, no, maybe ducks. I think the ducks come first over anything when it comes to both my collies. But we've played patterns. I went to a herding clinic and I literally just played patterns outside of the ring with the sheep the whole time just to see that my dog could work in that environment and be able to focus on me with the sheep there, it created predictability.

So instead of just saying like, oh my gosh, they're sheep, I, you know, must chase them or whatever it might be. I use the comfort and the predictability of the patterns to help her in that environment. And I also, for anyone who knows the look at that game, I play where's the Sheep all the time. So when I'm out hiking, if we see sheep, we'll talk about the sheep and you know, we'll play look at that with them and that just changes the conversation.

So instead of sheep being this thing where like my dog is just going to focus on now it's something she can converse with me about and then that's going to help us when, if we ever eventually get to the point where we're doing a lot of real work when it comes to the sheep. I've even also, I recently. So like I said, I've recently gotten into confirmation and it is a very challenging sport for those of you who have never done that before.

But my girl Sunday, she tends to kind of just have some. I would say her big feelings are more based on just frustration and wanting to have agency over a situation. And so in the ring she really can't. Right. She's got to just stand there and stare at a cookie and she thinks that's boring. So we use patterns in the ring or I use patterns with her in the ring.

The nice thing about confirmation is that you actually can bring food in with you and feed them as much as you'd like. So we'll play patterns. If a dog is being gated, we'll play the look at that game. So I use CU a ton for her. Um, so there, there's, I mean there's just, there's endless ways that we can incorporate CU into our sports dog's life.

Melissa Breau: You mentioned in there, the Give Me a Break game. Do you want to. I know you can't go into it in great amount of detail, but you want to give us kind of a quick overview of kind of what it is just so folks can kind of follow along?

Kim Palermo: Yeah, sure. So the Give Me a Break game, the way it works is normally you'd have like a chair that you're returning to. So let's say there's a chair or some sort of like home base.

So you would start by placing a treat, a food reward out in the environment. And now I feel like right now I should mention that when we're teaching any sort of our CU pattern games, we're doing it where there's no distractions. So this is where it's nice and easy. My dog is calm and focused. I'm setting them up for success, right? So I'm placing food down into the environment and then I'm turning my back on the dog and walking back to the chair.

My dog's gonna eat that food. And then ideally, because you've set your dog up to, you know, just be working with you, they're gonna walk over to you and be like, hey, I kind of liked that. What do you say we do it again? And I'm just gonna stand up and walk out into the environment, put food down, and then return to the chair, and we just build it that way.

So basically what's happening is, and I love Leslie puts a lot of focus on turning our back to the dog in that we're disengaging, engaging with them. And I notice that when I work with a lot of my students, they, like, put the food down and then slowly walk backwards to the chair, right? They're just, like, waiting for their dog to look at them. But we want to disengage and allow our dog to make the option, make the choice to then re engage with us.

And that's simply coming to us. So that's how we would start it. But then the cool thing about it for a sports dog is that then we can start using it as a ready to work cue. So that would look like I would put food down in the environment, walk back to the chair, My dog would come over to me, and rather than just getting up and putting food down in the environment, I'm going to get up and cue my dog to do something.

So it could be as simple as a sit, right? Then I'm going to walk out, put food down, and return to my chair. Now I'm starting to get my dog to come and ask me to do a little bit of work before we do our next rep of the pattern, and then we can just build from there. And I mean, just so many different ways.

Melissa Breau: Awesome. Are there any dogs or behaviors or situations where you basically be like, well, maybe pattern games aren't the answer here?

Kim Palermo: No, I would say no. I'm going to say all dogs are going to benefit from patterns. What we do want to keep in mind with our pattern games, though, is if our dog becomes over threshold, it's ideal not to rely on your patterns in those situations. And instead we would rely on management tools. So whatever you have for management tools, you would take care of that when your dog goes over threshold.

One thing that I see a lot with control unleashed is that the patterns are used often when a dog is over threshold. And what starts to happen is we incorporate those, like, big feelings into the pattern. So I think a really good example is the 1, 2, 3 game. You're just counting out loud to 3, and at the number 3, you give your dog a treat and then you repeat.

So it's a pattern. So, 1, 2, 3, my dog gets a treat. 1, 2, 3. My dog gets a treat if I do that. Only when, let's say I see another dog, which triggers my dog. Then after a while, what's going to start to happen is I'm going to say 1, 2, 3, and my dog is going to start scanning the environment for another dog. So we're using it to help our dogs in unpredictable situations, but we also have to be very cautious not to overuse them in over threshold situations.

That's when we want to pull out our management tools, get them out of the situation where they're over threshold. And then I think patterns are a great way to measure how our dog is feeling. Then we can say like, hey, can you play a pattern right now? And pay attention to. So because patterns are voluntary, we're relying on, in most cases, eye contact as our dog's request to go on to the next rep.

So I'm looking for latency in my eye contact. So if my dog is slow to give me eye contact, that's information for me. Either I need to move so that they're below threshold or I'll do a few more reps to see if I can change that latency and get faster eye contact. Because we do want them to be able to use the patterns to look around. We just don't want it to be like, you know, I look around for 10 seconds, my tail goes up, my hackles go up, I let out a little growl and then I turn back to you.

You know, we gotta be mindful about how we're using the patterns in that way. So. So yeah, I would say that's the only time. The only other time I would say a pattern wouldn't be appropriate, would be if your dog is in a situation where they might end up kind of engaging with whatever the trigger or the stimuli is in the environment. So an example of this would be like I hike my dogs off leash all the time.

If I'm in the middle of a pattern and I see that someone doesn't have control over their dog and they're coming over to me and you know, this is a scenario where I know the dog is going to be safe, right? I'm just going to release my dogs out of the pattern because I don't want them to be in a pattern and then suddenly there's a dog right there that they don't know.

So I am mindful of those situations as well. But otherwise I cannot think of a dog that wouldn't benefit from patterns. I think a lot of people think that if my Dog isn't very foodie. I wouldn't want to do patterns, but I do think that, I mean, they do rely on food. We often, most often don't use toys during patterns as a reward just because they build arousal.

But I love to troubleshoot why my dog isn't eating. And I also find that patterns help our dogs eat because they do create predictability and we're creating comfort for our dogs. So, yeah, I think they're for everyone.

Melissa Breau: Are there. I think, you know, despite the, you know, question at the beginning about for those, you know, that aren't familiar with pattern games, I think a lot of people maybe have heard a short description or maybe just a little bit of information about them, which can lead itself to maybe some misconceptions or some misunderstandings of kind of what's happening or how something's done. Are there any maybe that you want to talk about and debunk?

Kim Palermo: Yeah, I think. Well, I think I debunked them a little bit with the previous question because we are working under a threshold. We're not so much using them as management. Definitely the big one is the look at that game. Look at that Game. I love this game. And it's something that I learned with Jane. I taught Sunday as a puppy.

And then even my. Actually, I'd say four out of my five dogs know it. And now that I'm thinking about it, I'm wondering if I could teach my cat this game. I think I could, so I will do that. But I would say that's the game where we have the most misconceptions with the look at that Game. It's common for people to say, well, I'm just going to click when my dog looks at the trigger and then feed them.

And that's how we teach the game. There's so much to it. If anyone attended the Barky Lungey conference and listened to my presentation on the Look at That Game, you'll see how much of a kind of there's a process to teaching it so that we can ensure that our dog is staying under threshold and fully understands the idea of the game. And for those of you who aren't familiar with the look at that game, we're essentially creating a conversation with our dog so that rather than having a big reaction to a trigger in the environment, that trigger becomes an opportunity for them to report to us and just have a conversation with us calmly.

In order to get to that, it takes quite a lot of work. The results are worth it. What I like is that the Pattern Games kind of support the look at that game because look at that can be kind of a process to teach. I find that the patterns are really a nice way to kind of build some predictability and consistency for our dogs in the environment before we really start to build into like the meat and bones of the Control Unleash program.

And that's why with this class, I'm really focusing on the patterns so that we can create that foundation before we start to move into the, you know, the look at that game and some of the other games, I think. So I'm going to say the one other misconception that I have heard is with Control Unleashed in general, some people just think it's about dogs learning to be off leash. It's not. Has nothing to do with the leash or no leash or any of that. But I have gotten that question before.

Melissa Breau: That's really funny. So you mentioned the class you're going to offer a. I think it's a new class. Right. It's the first time. It'll run in April, specifically with a deep dive kind of into pattern games. Can you share a little more on kind of what you're going to cover in the class and maybe who might want to join you?

Kim Palermo: Yeah. So. Oh my gosh, I love geeking out about this stuff and that's what I do in this class. So we're going to like really dive deep into how to teach the patterns, but also like the little nuances of each pattern and why they're beneficial and what we can do to tweak them based on our dog's needs and personalities. I love to get into that stuff. I'm also a stickler for like clean mechanics, clean loops.

So I really focus on that when we create our patterns and then, you know, creating just good feelings in general when we're incorporating these games into our dog's lives. So there's a lot of that. For those of you who have, you know, taken my webinars or anything, you know, I have a ton of tutorial videos and then I do also do I write out step by step instructions, which I like doing the tutorial videos.

The writing out is not as fun for me, but I know that it helps some people. So that's what I do. But I also have taken some time. I've written out some lectures on just kind of different concepts and different ideas of Control Unleashed and patterns in general. So when we're going to use our patterns or why our patterns are beneficial and why, you know, one pattern might be more useful for a dog than another.

So we're, we're not just going to learn the how to teach the patterns, but also really get into the benefit of each and every one. And then I'm probably also, even though it is a patterns class, I probably will teach take a breath because I just love teaching that game. So that might be like, I don't know, bonus lecture or something in there. But, but, so yeah, I would say that's kind of the what the class is about.

I would say for it really. You know, like I said before, with patterns, they help any dog. So whether it's a dog with big feelings, it's a puppy, it's, you know, something in between, the class is going to be beneficial. My hope is that it's going to kind of just benefit people in their overall, you know, training skills as well. So it should be fun for that. I also, I would love to encourage other dog trainers to take this, whether they're looking to learn more about Control Unleashed.

My hope is that this is kind of a nice foundation to get a better understanding of the Control Unleashed program and patterns and then how they can help, you know, trainers, clients or in their group classes. So I think it could be a good thing for that as well. Leslie does have a certified, I mean, I'm a certified Control Unleash Instructor. So she obviously has a certification program.

And this is something that could give a trainer a really nice foundation if they wanted to eventually become certified in Control Unleashed. Awesome. I love that. Any final thoughts or key points you kind of want to leave folks with? I don't think so. I think just like, if you're looking to geek out, let's geek out. I think CU is great for that, actually. Okay, I have a thought.

I used to be very goal oriented as a trainer, so get my dog into the trial, do all the obedience skills, right? Like whatever skill it is you need to teach your dog. Those were what I really focused on. And I didn't focus on helping my dog with the environment. CU has helped me change what I enjoy training. Now. I still enjoy training the sports skills. Right. I always enjoy that.

But CU has helped me look more at the progress or the process of getting my dog either trial ready or really just like life ready. Like I have. Okay, I'm going to say this out loud. My puppy, Sunday is 13 months old and she does not have a sit on cue. Okay. But she does the look at that game and she has like a whole bunch of CU patterns.

You know that she can do fluently so it has changed the way I look at how I raise my dogs and how I train them and I enjoy it. I find it really fun. And it has changed also how I look at our end goal and I enjoy the whole thing so much more now than I ever used to. I love that.

Melissa Breau: All right, well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Kim, and thanks to our listeners for tuning in.

Kim Palermo: Thanks for having me. Absolutely. We'll be back next week. Don't miss it. If you haven't already, subscribe to our podcast in itunes or the podcast app of your choice to have our 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 BenSound.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!