Join me and Dr. Amy Cook for a conversation on where her ideas for The Play Way came from, the science that inspired it, and how it's evolved (and continues to evolve). We also discuss the one letter that Amy thinks every trainer should add to their conversations about reactivity and thresholds.

 Transcript

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 only the most current and progressive training methods. Today I have Amy Cook here with me to talk about her signature method for helping dogs the play way. Hi Amy, welcome back to the podcast.

Amy Cook: Hey Melissa, thanks for having me back. You know, I love to be here.

Melissa Breau: I love to have you here. So do you want to just start us off with maybe sharing or reminding folks a little bit kind of about you and your dogs and what's going on with them?

Amy Cook: Yeah, absolutely. So I'm Dr. Amy Cook, I am the developer of the Play Way and I'm a dog trainer and all around dog enthusiast and I've been training for more, more years than I actually am remembering to keep track of anymore.

I have, I've forgotten the number. I think I just rounded to 30 but now it's way over that. And about, I don't know, 20 years into being a doctor and I went back to get my doctorate in all things dog. I studied the co evolutionary story and I studied stress and how that impacts them and the way they make decisions, you know, related to that. And through that I got to combine a whole lot of fun things together.

Stuff from grad school, stuff from Denise, stuff from Grisha. I stand on the shoulders of many incredible people and I kind of combined it into this play therapy and so that's what I, I spend much if not most, if not all of my time both developing and then also trying to kind of get out there and teach people. I just got back in fact from a lovely weekend in the Boston area which was really fun.

It's so good to be back on the road again and back out and teaching people. We can get pretty isolated teaching in our own houses for sure. And I have two dogs. I have the probably world famous Marzipan. No, that's not true. She's my, oh my gosh, 13 and a half year old whippet who is, who is still here and living her best life, blind and old, but in that great old dog way where she's naughty in the most beautiful ways possible.

And I have a, you will be shocked to hear an almost nine year old Chihuahua terrier that you Melissa helped name. Hey everyone. She actually my dog and our spirit sport is, is agility. We've done all the things but I have a love for agility but you know, as both of us age, I'm looking for. I'm looking to see what else there is. I'm looking. Maybe we're, maybe we're nose work people.

Maybe we're going to spend some time doing rally. I don't know. I don't know. Melissa, me book mentioned.

Melissa Breau: Come try Treibball.

Amy Cook: Right. Like tiny, tiny little balls for caper. Do they make little, tiny, little, little blow up balls? Do they? For Chihuahuas? Really? Okay, I'm, I, we're, we're having a private conversation. I want to do that.

Melissa Breau: So I know it's been a while since I had you on to talk specifically about the Play Way.

You've been on the podcast since then, but I don't think the last time we really did a episode specifically about the Play Way was all the way back in episode 269. And we've probably gained a couple listeners since then. So do you want to share a little bit more about what the playway is and kind of what's unique about your approach?

Amy Cook: Yeah, happy to. That's a lot of episodes from back.

And also congratulations on the success of your podcast with this many episodes. Yeah, let's talk about what the playway is. So the class actually just opened, you know, we just opened term. And so my favorite part is watching people really think about what the play relationship is and what we can do with it in the very beginning of hearing about it or thinking about it for their own dog.

For me, the short version is that the Play Way is using the social interaction, the silly sort of goofy side of play as a way to help dogs improve their lives, really. So to be less stressed, to potentially be less reactive. And that's a catch all term, but sort of expressing all of those pressures to, to feel just better about the way their lives are going to give them some control.

And that might sound a little strange, but in play, you know, we're collaborating, we're taking turns, and that's not something that always happens in the rest of their lives or that happens in training. And so I can emphasize it in the play way and kind of let them explore that. Playing with dogs in this system is about being a dog. Sort of in a way it means, you know, getting on the floor.

Yeah. You know, and we can modify that for people whose bodies don't do that so much anymore. But getting on your dog's level and saying, let's create a thing together, you and I, that you really like and that you think is hilarious and great fun. And in that way, can we laugh together? Can we reduce our stress together? Can I read you better. Can I build a language with you more?

And can I do all of this without relying on the tried and true, the tug toy we usually have to have between us? Right. I'm not saying in any way that there's anything wrong with tug toys. And in the room I'm in, I can look around and I think I see five of them. You know, they're great, but I think sometimes we get into a rut and it becomes the only way, or with a ball or, you know, something similar, the only way we can playfully interact.

And I think that there's. I think it's an. At the time I was trying to put it together, I thought it was an untapped, entirely untapped way of interacting. It's now been. Are we at 13 years now? I think we're at 13 years at the school. And that's when I started, you know, considering these ideas and putting them together. And so I've come away since then. We all have.

We all play a lot more with our dogs, I think, thanks to the influences around us. But I really think that there's a lot to collaborative social interaction. And although training has gone that way more in this decade, I think we're still in the very beginnings of asking these kinds of social questions of dogs. And I. I know I still have a lot to learn about it. As we plumb these with every new group of people I teach, I learn new things, for sure.

So it's all about playing with your dog and seeing where that takes us and seeing what magic can come from it.

Melissa Breau: Can you talk a little bit about what we know from human psychology and how you've applied it in the playway to help our dogs? Sure. So Play Way came about from me having space and time to kind of look at human literature. By being in grad school, I otherwise wouldn't really have had access to so much of it or.

Or really the time to, I don't know, read as much as I did and consider all these things. And that in. In combination with, you know, Denise's vocabulary around play, she had different ways of thinking about. About the different games that come up and how they cluster in different ways to please dogs and to mesh with dogs. But what grad school is sort of teaching me, at least on its surface, is that, I don't know, I was a dog trainer before going to grad school, and I thought in terms of operant and classical and just the things I knew.

And when I started to look at things like child and adolescent psychology, you know, the abnormal psychology, meaning the ways we help people in the different challenges we have. I think I expected to see things that were more familiar, although I don't know that I would have articulated it that way at the time. But in reading it, I'm like, hey, where's all the classical conditioning? I mean, I guess that was a little naive sort of, but I'm reading about how we help children with stress issues.

And so much of it was play therapy. So much of it was getting them to feel safe in communication and often with very young children, that is them interacting with toys and objects and interacting socially with their people and watching the choices that they make. And I thought that was just. It was. It was profound for me because I wasn't considering this avenue. I'm not going to speak for dog training as a whole.

Maybe all kinds of people knew all of that, but I certainly didn't. I had been focusing on. On food as the way to do most of the behavioral therapies with dogs. And there wasn't really an analog in that way for people. People aren't paid. People aren't people. There's a few exceptions. Sometimes with certain conditions, there. There's more classical approach, of course, but. But it's. As we all know, it's really.

It's talk therapy. When you go to a therapist, you're talking about stuff. And. And what would be the analog of that if you wanted to do talk therapy with your dog? Well, what would be an analog of that? And I had to really give that a lot of thought. I'm like, well, what is it to talk with a dog where it's not just you talking? Right. Your training is mostly us talking a whole lot.

So I looked at that literature. I also looked at. And not. Not deeply. So I'm not a. I'm not. I'm not a medical person. I'm not a neuroscientist. But I looked at oxytocin's role in stress for us and how what we can do chemically to help ourselves when we are stressed. And so much of that revolves around social connection with people that we love and. And to, to some degree, of course, a social connection with dogs that we love and.

And even biophilia, being out in nature, being out and sort of thinking wider thoughts than. Than. Than just, you know, kind of your own self. And. And that was inspiring to me. Like, I had been using food to help them de stress. And I'm like, I feel like that was a little narrow, at least in my version of it and looking at how people de stress and looking at how clinicians help people de stress really opened a lot of doors for me.

And then lastly, I think the other, the other literature that has an impact on this is, and I think more people are familiar with this, but the role of control, sort of self control or agency or the ability to make choices for yourself and that's impact on, on stress. We know through all sorts of human literature that the more control people have over their lives, the more they can manage their stress levels.

And we know that, you know, as you rise up in like organizations and start to, you know, control the business or own the business and that comes with its own stressors. But certainly when you can make your own schedule and when you can make decisions about, you know, what you do in your life, you generally have less measurable stress than someone whose life is not exactly under their control.

And they can't choose their schedule and they can't choose, you know, whether they can quit and go find a different job or move somewhere, those sort of things. So we know that that control of self, control of a large percentage of the decisions in your life is a, it has an impact on stress, is a stress reducer. So, and I think people, with people are thinking about that in training right now because giving dogs agency is something that you can find in a lot of places.

And I think that's really, really, really great. It's really impactful. And so folding that into play, I try to think of it as well, can I give you a lot of control of this play? As long as we're staying safe, Can I communicate to you that you have agency here, that I'm not just going to play at you and we're not just going to play as an assignment and we're not just going to play like we do training, where I run the whole show.

But do you have a voice? Can I give you a chance to make choices? Can I take feedback from you? Can I, can I take your leadership in this, in this way? And in which case, you know, kind of flipping the script a little bit. And so I don't know that that reduces their stress in the same exact way as it does with people. But it's, it's the kind of thing I want to lean on when I, when I see human literature, it's like, how can I adapt this?

How can I explore this? How can I see if it helps? And then measured in the dogs we get. So I looked at child literature for play therapy. I looked at oxytocin and its role on just reducing cortisol, reducing kind of biochemical markers of stress. And then I looked at primary control and whether that, you know, how much of an impact that can have and whether we can start exploring it.

And I just try my best to combine them and ask the dog if I've combined them well and ask the people if it feels natural to them because I don't know, we're a playful species. We should be able to do this if we can unlock it. So that's where I'm at now. And if anyone out there is listening and you think of another literature that would be really a good intersection here, please talk about it out on social media or talk to me about it because I think that this has, it's really only in its infancy as far as, as far as intersecting with the stuff we know from humans and bringing it to dogs.

Melissa Breau: So you kind of talked a little bit in there about, you know, the idea of social play. And I know that a lot of time, you know, in dog training we're thinking play meaning toys and you know, balls, tugs, that kind of thing. Can you get a little more descriptive and talk about what type of play it is that you like to use and I don't know, kind of why it's so important to tap into that particular type of play?

Amy Cook: Yeah, I think that certainly there's nothing wrong with playing with toys. And I guess what I started to try to explore in the beginning was can we just separate that out as a specific kind of thing we do that has very specific skills that come from it? Like there, there are skills that come from playing. Dogs learn all sorts of ways of interacting with us through the use of, of tug toys.

And they, the rules around what we do there are very different from the rules that we have when we interact socially. Right. In fact, interacting socially is, is not, if you think about it, not a particularly rules based kind of interaction. You know, conversation isn't rules based. Other. Let's not hurt each other's feelings. Yeah. And then outside of that, we can craft our sentences how we like, we can joke how we like.

Right. But tug, like basketball has rules, has expectations, has, you know, it has collaboration in it. And if you don't think so, I encourage you out there to really try to collaborate with your dog on how you play with your toys. A lot of dogs don't like how we tug with them and maybe aren't saying so, and some of them are. And then you wonder why you don't have much tug.

Right. Let's look to your own skills and the rules you're breaking. But it has rules. And I think social play is a more expectation, free space. It's like, let's just create how we do this. Let's goof around in a way that's kind of free form and improvisational. And I don't know that tug is all that improvisational. And secondly, there's. There's a higher energy to tug typically. I realize there's some wiggle room in that.

You can have, of course, a lazier tug and there's some overlap. But I can feel that there's a distinction where when you're playing fetch and tug, you generally have a much higher energy level. And I think a higher energy level of play has a very different function. I think that that has the potential to reinforce behaviors. You can offer it after dogs do, you know well at something, it has the ability to divert other really high energies that are coming up.

If you're starting to feel a little stressed about a thing, can you dump those potentially almost negative feelings into something that feels better and is more positive but takes the same energy level? Like you can just divert it into something else. Right. I think that's really, really, really helpful when we're trying to help our dogs. I think high energy or highly magnetic sort of play can help you stay focused.

Like you're out in a big park and other dogs and other people are doing other things and you want to really dial in with your partner and do your things. I think high energy play has that function, but in the play way. My version of it is that all of the play is much quieter, much softer because it's focusing on the silly and the laughter bit, not focusing on the rawr intensity.

This is great. I love it. Rawr. It's not football play, right? It's play you might have with your toddler or your baby that has just a lot more laughter and lower energy in it. And there's room for everything and each thing has a function. But what I find is that people who are pretty good at the higher energy stuff with their higher energy dogs, a lot of times there's a rut that gets developed and both people and dogs don't exactly know how to sustain a lower energy interaction.

Like it peters out or it ramps way up and there's this sweet spot that doesn't get developed. A lot of dogs can go all the way up really easily. And as long as it stays safe, people can join them up there and play those high energy games. It's Wonderful. But when you both, if one of you wants to come down and the other of you can't do it, I tend to think, hey, that's a temporary situation.

Can't do it. That sounds temporary to me. Let's find a way to make that possible. So sort of there's that. Now, why do I want that? Well, it's not just purely because you can't and you can't do it, therefore you should. It's not as simple as that. Although. Although, I'll admit that does call to me. I don't like limitations that, you know, that come from, well, we just can't do it.

It's like, well, that sounds temporary to me. Let's fix that. It's not slowly that, though, you know, like people who say, well, my dog has to eat at 5 or he makes my life hell. It's like, well, let's. Let's work on that. It doesn't have to be. You don't have to be so rigid. Let's have possibilities. But what I really want out of this sort of play is that there's a lot of consideration of the dog's perspective and feedback and their ideas and how it feels to them.

And that's a tough thing for a human to do at high speed. It's not impossible, but there's not as much listening time when everything is kind of going raucously and intensely and you just kind of. You're almost both playing at the same time at each other, and the turn taking isn't as obvious or as emphasized as it can be when you're going a lot slower and asking questions that might need to be thought through.

So, like, maybe you want to say to a dog, oh, you know what? You know what? I'm gonna. I'm gonna get you. And right before you say get you, they maybe get you first because there was a space there for them to consider what action to take or what action you're about to take. And when play is faster, there's not as much suspense in it. In fact, maybe there's almost no suspense in it.

But the suspense bit is that, oh, what, what do you want? Do you want me to do this? Do you want me to act like I'm about to get you in that moment? Many times the dog will say, actually, not really. And they look away or look down or do something to turn that energy off a little. And if you're going pretty quickly, both of you, that moment is lost or is kind of wallpapered over.

When we go slowly we get to ask, do you want me actually touching you in this way? Do you like that I'm frontal right now? Do you want me to change anything in the way that I play with you? And to be able to ask that question of your dog, you have to go more slowly and leave room for their feedback. I don't know how many of you out there are used to talking to children, but if you talk to children as quickly as I'm talking to Melissa right now, Melissa knows if she wants to get a word in, she gets a word in.

She just talking, right? But children don't do that. Or they can, but it can be hard for some of them. And so talking with children means speaking more slowly so they can process everything and leaving a lot of room, especially when you stop talking, just letting that linger. So they can now formulate their answer and maybe say what they're going to say. Giving over control to somebody who's not used to having it or who is unsure how to take it means slowing way down, being very patient, leaving somebody permission to jump in, things like that.

So that's what I kind of explore with slower play. And then from there, kind of the last bit of it is that when, when a dog is having a behavior issue and if we're trying to apply playway to a behavior issue instead of maybe just exploring play because it's great to do, the thing I like them having room to do is to look around and have their own private thoughts about stuff.

I want them to tell me to stop for a minute so they can think something on their own or sniff something or deal with their body or look at the environment, or eventually look at a person or dog that they might otherwise have been, you know, having a big reaction to and to enable that through quicker or higher energy play. I don't even know where to go with that sentence.

I don't think you can enable that with really high energy play. You might have to toss your toy away so a dog gets a chance to leave you and look at the environment. Right? But they're so interested in what you're doing, they might glance and come right back because they want to keep going. With the smaller play, you can take a break and sniff the ground a little bit and look around some and then resume play.

It's a lot more like chit chat and light jokes and, you know, light socializing where you can let your mind wander a little bit than it is, you know, playing basketball or playing a board game where you, you concentrate and you and you pay attention and you take your turn and you, you know, maybe it's Pictionary, right? It's really fun. But you're, you're not daydreaming during Pictionary. You're playing Pictionary.

You know, you're. You. You're involved and room to think your own thoughts. I think is. Is why play can help dogs with behavior issues. So all of that combined is why I want the play to be a lot slower, a lot sillier for the. For the emotion for that. And then so that a human can. Can take more feedback from a dog in this and, and getting people to take feedback from dogs, that can be heretical.

I mean, that could be, you know, not to everybody, probably, who's listening to me right now, but sometimes that can be a tough sell. You. I put a post up recently on, you know, do you take feedback from your dog? Do you take correction from your dog? You know, do you let a dog lead and follow? And then I said, you know, if the answers are no, essentially, what do you think about people who can't take a correction, who never take feedback, who can't be led anywhere?

What do you think about people like that? Right. We don't want to be those people, but sometimes we don't explore that with dogs. So that's kind of the direction I like to take all of this stuff. Like, I think play gives us a chance to ask new questions and get new answers. And when you're in charge of a dog and do make all the choices, I think having some space where you can kind of explore the rest of that space is mentally healthy for both, both the dog and the human.

So you may or may not know this, but our last episode we had Denise and Crystal on, and they were talking about play, and I asked them about the, you know, the role of play in their relationship with their. Their dogs. So, you know, things get trickier. Like they're talking about, you know, mentally pretty healthy working dogs. Right. Like, things get trickier once we're talking about dogs who maybe have some reactivity or we've got some unwanted behaviors kind of in the mix.

And, you know, those yucky feelings on one side can cause yucky feelings on another side. It can impact our relationship with our own dog. So, right. When. When we get those big reactions or when we get something that's obviously not what we had intended, the reason we got our dog.

Melissa Breau: Right, Right. So what role, if any, does this kind of like soft social play have in, you know, our relationship with our dog? Or a handler's relationship with their dog. Does it, does it impact the relationship? Do you see it kind of carry over into things other than just exploring it for the sake of exploring it? Is it, you know, impact the day to day relationship, their working relationship?

Amy Cook: I mean, it, you know, it really so often does, but I think the ways in which it does it are both idiosyncratic to the team and esoteric in that, in that it's not the space we're used to exploring and it's not the effects we're used to having.

I think that play in all of its registers, all of its, you know, low end high versions, gives gifts, you know, at each, at each one of those levels. Right. So, so the, the reinforcement play, the raucous play, the, the really big fun stuff that we get to do with working dogs. And, and I don't know that that's all they spoke about, but I do know that both Denise and Crystal are really good at the big.

Yay. This is awesome. You know, let's go, let's go play. That brings just so much joy to the relationship, I think, I think both dogs and people when, when they're in alignment in that interaction are having just the best time. Right. And, and you have the potential to kind of reinforce particular behaviors, but also to, to say, hey, work is really fun. I mean, I challenge you to distinguish between work and play.

When play is that high, because work is that high and then play is that high and then it all blends together and that's the goal. Yep. And you know, work, work is the ornament you hang on, the play tree fits there because you just, you're all blended together. And dogs love that kind of thing. They're animals after all. Right. They don't have jobs. And that's all well and good for improving your training and for really enjoying your situation.

I think that does impact trainer. If you watch a trainer who's used to training very, I don't know, rigidly or doesn't have play in it, when they start playing that way, I think they would report that training is not really fun, but when dogs are also bringing to us a behavior problem, and that's a, that's a big bucket, right? What's a behavior problem? And I don't mean that they're not healing well.

I mean that they are afraid of people, they're afraid of other dogs. They are, you know, separation anxious. They are, you know, anxious about new environments. They, they bring to the table a problem that maybe you don't know how to solve or maybe you think you do, but you're in the middle of this long now really flat curve where everybody who knows about dog behavior knows that it's going to be, it's going to be work for a while before there's going to be, you know, changes and you might be in it for the long haul.

Right. And if you're just a, maybe a first time dog owner or maybe this is your first dog that's ever challenged you behaviorally. Like this is the first scared dog you've ever had or the first reactive dog you've ever had. Whatever reactivity means. I know other things come in that you maybe aren't either admitting to other people or aren't admitting to yourself. And I see this all the time.

So these would be things like I regret maybe getting this particular dog or I'm really burdened by how hard working with behavior is. I wanted to just go on a walk, but this dog can't go on a walk. Why did I get a dog if. Except to take the dog out to go do some stuff? My dog can't do any of the sports I had in mind. My dog can't let my family come visit my own house.

And nobody, nobody got a dog to have that happen to them. You know, some of us are more, you know, tolerant and able to handle it than others for sure. And some behavior problems are worse than others. But I really feel that it's common to have that impact of. I regret, I regret maybe the choice I made or I regret, I think I, maybe I caused some of this.

I socialized my dog wrong. Now that I have all this new information, I didn't know it was probably me. The guilt that can settle on a person, the regret that can settle on a person, the anger that can settle. What did I do to deserve this? I didn't, I don't want any of this. This is not what I, what I wanted. I want a different life now. Most of which will be hidden, right?

And we'll hide it from ourselves. We don't want to think those things. None of us want to actually be angry at our dogs or resent them for being who they are. We know our dogs are having a problem not giving us one. No one's giving us a problem to deal with. But tell that to your emotional system which feels cheated or regretful or sad, just deeply sad. This is not what you wanted.

Maybe you're on your last dog. You've picked the last one that you're gonna ride. The last 15 years out with maybe, maybe you're brand new and wanted to get really into sports now. And this dog is not going to take you there. There can be so much built up regret and built up anger and built up guilt. I know it's my fault is what I hear a lot.

I know that I did this. I just need you to help me get out of this. And it's like, no, no, no, you didn't do this. There's a lot of factors that go on. And so with all of that burden, whether it's admitted or not, and I don't even mean admitted to me, but even admitted to yourself, like, first of all, I just do want to say that it's okay to have all of those feelings.

It's okay to regret, it's okay to be angry, it's okay to be grieving. What you, what you envisioned, let yourself feel the things away from your dog, but let just be honest inside yourself with how it feels. Because it's very true that working with dogs who have aggression, who have reactivity, who have anxiety, it is a, it is a tax on the system. And first of all, know that you're not alone.

It's okay to feel what you feel. And no, you didn't cause your dog's problems there. Everything is multifactorial and certain. And honestly, I just also want to say if you did, I don't know, let's, let's pretend you did. Let's pretend you fully caused it. No one did that on purpose. You literally did the best you could at every turn. I know you did. I know everyone within the sound of my voice just did the best with what they know or with what their personal skills are.

And that is always all we can ask. Literally do the best. We'll give you new information. Do your best with that. So after you've kind of gone through, yes, I'm allowed to feel this way, even if I'm not telling other people, I know that that's absolutely impacting the relationship you're having with your dog. You're doing your best out there on those walks and for your dog in the house, inside yourself, those thoughts can be primary.

I didn't want to do this. I don't want to have to. I'm frustrated with you. Why can't you just. Why can't you just. Dog, please. Why can't you just. And I think it's really hard to, to keep going when those are your primary thoughts. Well, doctors out there will know that there's lots of ways to, to impact that and the ways I used to, which may seem sound very familiar to trainers out there, is when you go in someone's house and this is what you suspect is impacting them, try to have.

Try to teach the dog to do something really cute. You know, teach us sit pretty, right? Or, or teach a trick that looks like it would be really hard, like some simple nose work. Like, can you find this cookie hidden under different couches, couch cushions, or under different toys. And have people see, wow, my dog's a lot smarter than I thought, or, wow, look how cute my dog really is.

And we do that because I really need you on the best page you can be on to do the harder work. Well, with play, I feel like I get to do that same thing and even more, because what happens in play is number one, it's an expectation, free space. It's not about your training, and it's not outside where your dog is struggling, and it's not amongst other people that your dog might be struggling with.

You get to just put you, yourself and your dog in the best place you have together, the safest, most fun place there is in your life. And you get to do silly things and laugh. You get to laugh together. You get to make your dog laugh. You get to laugh because the silly, stupid thing your dog just did is adorable to you. And I think that re taps us back into why we got dogs in the first place or why we got that dog in the first place.

We picked that dog because of a reason, and I want people to reconnect to that. Why did you pick this dog? Why do you like this breed? Why do you like this dog's personality? Your dog has a lot of redeeming features, and you need to connect to them and kind of re. Fall in love again, if you will. For some people, that's the profound step that has to be taken to do this.

And any marital counselor out there will tell you the same. If you're going through hard times, let's also focus on some of the really good stuff you love about each other, because it can't all be doom and gloom, you know, so play in this expectation. Free space says it doesn't have to go a certain way. And so therefore, you can't fail. You can't fail at it. You're just having a conversation and you're seeing what the feedback is, and you're.

You're enjoying each other. And the number of people I've had that I even have on video sometimes in my seminars, but that have Just come to me privately and said these things of like, it's been hard but, but I love my dog again, you know, and I did. I wouldn't have wanted to say to you that I was struggling with that because of course, who doesn't? It feels, it feels terrible to say about a dog, I don't love my dog or I'm angry with my dog.

We don't want to say that. But play, I think lets you put aside your goals, which you can be failing at. Your dog can not do right and, and say, I don't care how we do this. I just want to goof around and be dumb. And to watch your dog kind of bring out that side of themselves to be silly, to, to be cute, I think can be incredibly restorative and I think it's an under underutilized aspect.

I think I wish more trainers out there would look at, let's find things that heal this broken relationship. Even if I'm not certain it's broken because you're not telling me. I'm only suspect because I know how hard it is to work with dogs who have behavior issues. So I'm going to privately assume that you have some challenges and I, as a trainer, I'm going to give you some fun stuff to do that enable you to just win and like it and see your dog in a new light.

I think it's, I think the impact on the day to day with a dog could be. Not could be is because I see it too often. So it could be for you, but is for a lot of people restorative and profoundly so. And if you've got to go, you know, a long way toward your solution with a dog, you've got to think about this as a longer trip.

Not just, you know, something you can weather and stay strong through, but something you can enjoy. I want people to enjoy their behavioral therapy. I want people to enjoy what's great about their dog so that it's not all about what's wrong with their dog. I mean, I mean, you know what it's like. If you're only thinking about what your dog can't do well, then that's the model you have in your mind.

Right. Even if it's just in training, if you're always working on all the stuff that's hard, you know, I want you to work on the stuff that's great. I know you like Triebball and I think, I think there's some intersection there in that you can tap into what your dog, I mean, of course you're training some of it. Right. You're training how to do the skill, but you're also watching your dog do something they know how to do.

And I think people really admire that. I mean, you must relate to that because, you know, you also do nose work. Right. And things that dogs. Or the things with their nose, things that dogs just kind of can bring some of their own expertise into. Right. We can admire that. So I hope that people can explore that and play. And I don't get to say it too often, so I'm really glad you asked that question because I think that people aren't admitting that it's tough, right?

It's tough. It is tough. It's super easy to be frustrated when things aren't going the way that you thought they should or when you think you followed all the steps and things just aren't going directionally where you thought they should be by now. Like, even without, you know, major big feelings on either end, it's just. Yeah. And. And stuff like mismatch of personality, maybe. It's like you. You were getting one kind of dog, and you got this other kind of dog, and they don't like your sport.

You know, if there's resentments building up, I think play can really can dissipate that. And you can lean into what's really cute and cute and silly about your. Your dog. I don't know. I think that play has more power to restore things than even I understand yet. And I look forward to knowing more. I look forward to telling you about this in 200 more episodes with new stuff that I might have learned since then.

Melissa Breau: Speaking of, you know, it's been a while since we talked about this stuff, so is there anything new or anything you've tweaked or updated or changed kind of in your approach to the playway in the last couple years?

Amy Cook: Yeah, a little bit. I think about it a little differently now. I'm collaborating with another trainer currently on something we're calling the social approach. And what I'm trying to do there is look at.

I want to look at exactly what it is in play that's doing the stuff it's doing. How is it helping dogs? Is it the play itself? Is it some element in the play itself? Right. Like the things I just mentioned of, like, maybe having, you know, better, you know, emotion between the two of you, is that. Is that what actually is driving the. The effect of play? And I can say that I have.

I have disliked that there's kind of a subset of dogs that. That are right for the playway because I, you know, we can't, I can't ask you to play socially with a dog that is afraid of you or is, you know, given to telling you about it when you break the rules by, you know, aggressing towards you in some way or even threatening you even a little in some way.

I wouldn't want you to have some free form, improvisational social stuff around a dog who's like, hey, that's a, that's a whole lot that I don't, I don't. Can we just have rules? I need to. Right. And I've been a little sad that I can't. That I have to say, actually, it's not really for those dogs. I want to, I want to have something for those dogs too.

And the ideas are not exactly ready for prime time. We're testing them and working on them. But I think that the secret sauce is less about the laughter, although I'm willing to be wrong. I used to think it was mostly about the relaxation and the laughter bit and the impact that has on your body. But I think that either co responsible or primarily responsible could be the being on the same page part, the connection part, and the successful communication part.

In playway, if you have an idea and you make a play move and your dog says, I don't, I don't love that. That, that doesn't make me laugh. I don't love it, your job should be, oh, absolutely, I'll edit that. I'll try a different one. I won't do that one. Because you are collaborating and you want your partner to like the choices you're making. So if they don't, you just change it.

I think what happens from that is that dogs go, huh, well, that's interesting because usually when I tell you I want you to change stuff, that's not actually what you take away from it. Or like maybe you don't hear me the first ten times I ask you. I suspect that being able to communicate successfully puts you on, you know, a more intimate level. Like I, I said a thing, you listened, you, you changed.

That's great. Wow. We're, we're saying the same thing to each other. We're on the same page. So I, I'm suspecting more and more these days that being able to say that is, is a lot of the secret sauce. And that certainly doesn't have to happen through touchy, you know, silly, tactile based play. It can, it can happen in a lot of different interactions. You don't have to touch each other physically and pet your dog, to take their feedback and to see that they said, no, thank you, or to see that they made a different suggestion.

I think there are other ways that people can interact, but still exploring them now, but different ways to have. To build their curiosity about us, to have them ask questions about us, get curious about what we're doing and then return the favor. Be curious about what they're doing, ask questions about them. What are you. What do you find interesting about sniffing this tree? Perhaps I could come also look at the tree.

Would you like me to do that? That's what other dogs do. When a dog sniffs a tree and moves on, another dog goes over to the tree to see what was going on. We don't do that. Right. Does that have an impact on them having some, you know, extending to them some social curiosity? So right now I'm exploring ways in which we can improve our social interaction that doesn't actually have to have a whole bunch of goofy play in it.

And I think that also serves certain people. And not everybody is goofy. And some people think they've got to do it the way I do it, you know, and like, you don't. I'm just doing it the way I do it because I'm me and you should do it the way you're, you know, you would do it. I want play to work for the introvert. I want play to work for the person who isn't exactly silly but might be very, very sensitive and connected in conversation.

I'm right now exploring ways we can have conversation that is not exactly play based to give us a chance to take their feedback. I'm also exploring with my training partner, Josephine Linderstrom. She's in Sweden. She and I are talking about how to make petting your dog a more conscious and collaborative and communicative and conversational act. I don't know if we all are paying as much attention to that as we could.

Are we petting our dogs in the way that they actually want us to be petting them? Or are we petting them the way we like to pet dogs? And I know it's not only the way we like, or at least for some people it will be. But mostly we think, well, I. I'm looking for signs you like it, right? But that's a bare minimum level of like, hey, you didn't walk away, you didn't hate it good enough.

I don't. I don't know. I don't know about that. How about. How about I get real sensitive with. Do you. Do you like my hand doing this exact motion or is it too stimulating? Do you. Do you want me to pay attention to a certain part of your body and definitely not the other one. But you only told me via a light lip lick and I missed it.

We can have a conversation that's more respectful around their bodies as well. So I'm seeing if there's some, some of the same sort of magic in joining dogs in their hobbies, being more curious about what they are curious about, leaning into curiosity and leaning into conversations that don't have to be quite so floor based and goofy to work. Because I know that has its limitations, right? Certain bodies can't do it, certain people it doesn't lean into and then they just feel like they're a failure and that playway isn't right for them.

I want to find out what's actually the secret sauce of magic of all of this and make sure I can go kind of wider with it and ask new questions. So that's where I've been going in these last couple of years and I hope to narrow down exactly what's functional about it to be able to have more people explore it with their dogs. Awesome. I can't wait to have it be ready for prime time and hopefully have both of you on and we can chat more in detail about what you guys are playing with.

Melissa Breau: So. Absolutely. All right, so I'm going to shift gears on you a little bit. I know you recently posted over on Facebook kind of asking dog trainers to make a small change to their language when talking about thresholds in particular. So just before we kind of wrap things up, I was hoping you could chat a bit about that and what change you're asking people to make and then maybe why you want to see it happen.

Amy Cook: Yeah, I think we should, I think we should change the way we say something, which I say cheekily on social media this week, change the way we say something. So things take a while with me and sometimes a problem has just, just stick in my brain for. I just have to be unsatisfied with something in a vague way before I can, you know, come up with what's really bothering me.

And, and when it comes to thresholds, you know, as trainers and as people who own dogs who have been anywhere near a trainer or a training forum has ever heard, we all talk about threshold. Your dog needs to be under threshold for X reason. Your dog needs to be under threshold for this technique I'm going to use because the trainer who invented it said it's only for under threshold dogs.

Or my dog needs to be under threshold because when he's over threshold, I can't manage him. I can't do X. We all talk about it, but very few people have a consistent and highly specialized definition of it. It's this wiggly concept where, you know, when I ask it in seminars, I say, you know, what is, when is a dog over threshold for you? And many people will say, well, when he stops eating or when I can't impact his behavior anymore.

Like, I can't lead him away because he's now not collaborating with that leading away thing. Now he's over threshold. And other people will be more conservative, like he can't do his ready to work. So maybe he's over threshold. He can't hear different cues, so he's over threshold. And that's all well and good. It's great to have an individual definition of it. But we still just say he's over threshold.

And anyone hearing that is then just using their definition for that. Like, oh, that must mean X. We don't always have a lot of time to say, I say I think he's over threshold. And by that I mean, and then just go on for a paragraph that that can't happen. So it's always bothered me, and I lecture on asking people which threshold do they really care most about?

You know, do you really care about how far over threshold a duck is? Like, is there only one threshold or do you have 10 thresholds? And how do you think of it? And it occurred to me, just literally the other day, it occurred to me that when we pronounce it the threshold, you are over threshold. We are inadvertently implying that there's only one and you're over it. But in practice, we don't think there's only one because we all have a different definition for it.

So I proposed the other day that people should add the article, the article A in front of threshold and say that a dog is over a threshold instead of the dog is over threshold. Just say your dog is over a threshold, or this dog is about to go over a threshold and I need to change what I'm doing or ask her a new question. And I posed it and I.

Well, I first posed it in my own head and I thought, can I. Is this something I could say? Is this something that makes enough sense? And honestly, it just clicks clicked really hard. Because as soon as you say a threshold, you immediately communicate that you're just speaking about one in particular and that there are plenty of other ones you could be mentioning and are not. You're just saying it's over a threshold.

It's over a particular threshold that I'm thinking of right now. I'm not going to say all of the information about it unless you ask, but I have implied through that one article that there isn't just one, that there's plenty of them. And I'm thinking of one right now and I'm seeing your dog over that particular one right now without having to go into explanation. Now we know as dog trainers we can't go into a lot of explanation with people.

It's a work stopping moment if you have to start defining and talking and paragraphs come out of your mouth. So I thought, well that's elegant, just one small change to imply that threshold is not static moment. It's, it's a, it's a moving piece with, with many definitions to it. And I put it out there and so far people are like, oh my God. Yeah, that actually does communicate it.

So I feel like I did it on the thing I meant to say, you know, that a dog is over a threshold and, and if you, when you're hearing that phrase, think, you know, like a trainer told you that and you don't know what it was. Well, that's your time to say, oh, over, over what threshold? You can certainly ask. And then that trainer now has the chance to say oh, by that I meant he's over the particular threshold that means he can't hear what cues I'm giving.

He seems to have crossed. You know, it opens the conversation, but it doesn't have to. You could just hear, oh, your dog is over a threshold and therefore you should change. Great, let's just make the change and move on. You don't have to understand all of the pieces. Right. So I really hope that this actually catches on. Please, if you see, if you see any of my posts on social media about it, share it around somewhere, get it in front of somebody else who can take it into a new place.

I know Karen already said she's changed some of her PowerPoints with it. Right, right. And you know, it's just a, it's a way to normalize that one that we're not all talking about the same thing. Instead of trying to make everybody talk about the same thing, which is never going to work, just normalize the language that says I have an idiosyncratic way of thinking about it or a highly individualized way of thinking about it for your dog.

So I'm going to say he's over a threshold. He's over a specific threshold right now that we need to change. I hope that it catches. I think when something feels right, right away you're like, oh, yeah, that actually explains what I've been thinking then it has the potential to kind of go out there and land in people's vocabulary. So I hope so. And if people have different feedback about it, about what it means to them or what it might imply, I'd love to hear it.

Because it's just something I had in my. And is now out of my head, is in other people's heads. And so if there's feedback about it, I'd love to hear it. But I think that anything that tiny linguistic changes can accomplish tend to be right. Cause paragraphs have not been able to do it. We don't have the room for paragraphs in all of our conversations. Unless you're Amy and you're given free reign on a podcast to talk endlessly.

Question. You are asked to take 10 minutes to explain one concept. But mostly we can't do that. So. So I'm hoping this catches and I want to hear people's thoughts. So please feel free to reach out. Absolutely. I. I really quite like it. It's a simple change. It's a small change, it's an easy change to make, but I think it does communicate a lot with a single letter. So, yeah, pretty cool.

Melissa Breau: Yeah. All right. Any final thoughts or key points you kind of want to leave folks with here?

Amy Cook: Yeah. I think that the more we slow down and consider a dog's opinions, their perspective and their strengths, I think we're unused to asking them what they're experiencing and if they have a better idea for how something could go or if they understand something the way we think they do.

And the more information we get from them, the more collaboration, the more ability they have to tell us something, the better fine tuned our responses to them and our therapies for them and our reinforcement of them and our training of them. Get. There's no downside to asking your dog their opinion and considering their feedback. And to be able to do that, you need to be in a sensitive place, A place where you're okay asking a question, you're okay taking what the answer is.

And if your dog is not sure how to tell you those things, you can go down a journey of giving them their voice and the way they can tell you things and staying sensitive enough to what they already naturally tell us. They're already so good at so many things that we don't slow down enough to maybe take in the thing I think I'd like people to, to go away with is to, to slow down, to speak less ironically and, and to, and that's how I know.

And to listen more and to listen to somebody who might need a little space to be able to tell you something because you might have been taking up most of the conversation. Slow it down. Ask them a question if they don't know exactly how to answer it. Perhaps you need to learn their language, or perhaps they need a little more permission to feel like they can tell you some new stuff.

Don't be afraid to take leadership from your dog. Don't be afraid to take feedback from a dog. They are your partner, you know, not your, not your race car to drive around. So collaborate more with your dog. And I think that the gifts that come from that will make it so you never want to go back to any other way of interacting with animals. That's what I wish for for listeners today.

Melissa Breau: Awesome. All right, well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Amy.

Amy Cook: Thank you for having me back again. Can I come back tomorrow?

Melissa Breau: Maybe. All right, well, thank you for coming on the podcast and thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back again next week, probably not with Amy again quite yet, but the plan is with Sarah Bruesky to catch up with her coming home from Updog's national event for those who compete in Frisbee with their dog.

She's there this week and we're hoping to chat with her about it next week. So if you haven't already, subscribe to the 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 Academies. 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 Ling. 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!