Give this episode a listen to learn a bit more about Jessica, her background, what Circle Work is and what led her to develop it!
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 only the most current and progressive training methods. Today, I'll be talking to Jessica Wheatcraft about her journey in dog training and circle work. Her method for working on reactivity. Hi, Jessica. Welcome to the podcast.
Jessica Wheatcraft: Hi. Thank you for having me.
Melissa Breau: Absolutely. To start us out, do you want to just share a little bit kind of about you, your dogs, maybe what you're working on with them?
Jessica Wheatcraft: Sure. So I have been working with dogs for going on 19 years, and I have primarily worked with pet dogs, but I also have a background in sheltering, so I've done a lot of work with shelter dogs and working with various rescue groups as well.
I currently have three dogs, they're all rescues, mixed breeds, and my newest one actually just turned a year this month, so she was six months when I adopted her. And so we are smack dab in the middle of our adolescence phase.
Melissa Breau: So fun.
Jessica Wheatcraft: Yeah. But you know what? I have to say, she's probably much easier than your typical adolescent. I think I'm lucky in that regard. But what's been really interesting, which leads into your other question of what have I been working on recently, is we went from living in more of like, maybe suburban type area, and now we are living on a farm, and it's 200 acres and there's no fences and there is a significant amount of distractions with the farm animals and anything you can think of that happens here.
And so to take an adolescent dog and then plop them into an environment, which not only gives them a lot of freedom, which is really great, you know, because they really enjoy their autonomy, but. But it's forced me to really think a lot about, hmm, how can I be more interesting to my dog? Because how do I compete with a farm? And so in terms of what we've been working on, I would say I've been doing mostly just a lot of work with my dog, her name is Tilly, and just building value and spending time with me.
And I have found that for her, that involves a lot of play, especially first thing in the morning. I found that if we wake up and we do play, whether it's flirt pole, some structured game of fetch, oh my gosh, I just said the F word. And some other games, and then I incorporate her into the farm chores that I do, that really helps set the stage for the whole rest of the day.
And she's far more likely to want to be near me, whereas if I'm busy or I just. We don't have as much time to dedicate in the morning, it really starts our day off differently. And that has been really interesting to me to experience this with her. So I'm really focused on a lot of those types of things.
Melissa Breau: Awesome. And what about your other two?
Jessica Wheatcraft: My other two. So Scout is a little Chihuahua, dachshund, papillon, Shih Tzu mix. He's just a cute little dude. He is seven, probably going on eight again. He's the rescue. I'm not entirely sure. And gosh, you know, I've had that dog for six years now. He's, I would say, pretty darn solid. I can bring him on a farm. He's not going anywhere. He's. He listens, hangs on to my every word.
He loves, you know, he only weighs 13 pounds, but he thinks he's, you know, wants to do all the farm chores as well. And so he comes and he does that sort of stuff, which is fun. And then I have a special needs dog named Finn and he is probably again another rescue, seven or eight years old. And he's a tripod. And he's a tripod because he got hit by a car on the freeway in San Diego and then wound up at the shelter where they amputated his leg.
And so he's very, very skittish because of. I mean, I can't say exactly why, but I think the accident really had had a really big impact on him. And so I call him my special needs dog because, you know, physically he's very vulnerable, but it also presents that way behaviorally. He feels very vulnerable in the world and so I have to do my best to make him feel safe.
Melissa Breau: Yeah. So I know you mentioned you've been doing this for a little while, but do you. But how did you kind of originally get into dog training? What kind of pulled you in?
Jesica Wheatcraft: Ah, well, I adopted a dog. And at the time I was looking for a, like a lab mix and I go up to LA to adopt this dog and she ended up being a pit bull mix.
And this sounds really interesting when I say it now, but I had never met a pit bull before that point because where I grew up in Temecula, California and none of my family, friends, nobody had one. And so she started me on this whole journey of getting into dog training, but then also learning a lot more about pit bull type dogs. That's how I got into sheltering and rescues Because I did so much work with different types of pit bull rescues and working with them in the shelters and so forth in San Diego.
And so with that dog, I was searching for help for her because she was reactive on leash. And I would say there was. I was also doing things like taking her to the dog park, which, you know, now I would not do that with a dog like her. But at the time, I'm wondering, why is she getting into some scuffles at the dog park? And so it led me down this journey of wanting to seek out help.
And this. This journey helped me really empathize with where my clients like their experience. Because I went searching for a dog trainer, I had no idea there was a such thing as certifications. I had no idea that the industry was unregulated. I had no idea about anything. And so initially, I actually went to sit means sit, because I didn't know anything. And we were there. And fortunately, my boyfriend at the time said, you know what?
I'm not really comfortable putting a shock collar on my dog. And I never even really thought about it because the trainers were like, oh, yeah, we just put this collar on and this is what we do, and this is how it works. And I'm thinking, okay, yeah, that makes sense, you know, but again, I'm young. I'm 19 years old, by the way. You know, what do I know about this type of stuff?
And so, fortunately, what ended up happening was later, through some connections with the shelter in San Diego, I got in touch with Nan Arthur. And she was somebody that I came in and I hired, and she introduced me to positive reinforcement based training. And with her, everything made sense. I thought, oh, okay, wow, you are actually trying to get to know my dog, really understand her behaviors. Here's how we're going to modify these behaviors.
Here's how we're going to teach her, you know, these new things. And from there, I was completely hooked. And Nan had asked me, have you ever considered being a dog trainer? And I said, no. Like, I volunteer with them. But, I mean, never crossed my mind. And I ended up working with her for seven years. So she hired me, and she was my mentor for seven years. And, yeah, I would not be where I am today without that.
Melissa Breau: That's awesome. So my next question was going to be, have you always been a positive trainer? But it sounds, you know, maybe not right at the beginning, but kind of pretty soon after you got into the dog world, kind of met the right person and had the right connections to kind of go down that path. Is that fair?
Jessica Wheatcraft: I would say so. Especially when it came to me being a trainer and learning how to like training professionally, working with clients. Yes, I was always a positive reinforcement based trainer.
Melissa Breau: So what led you kind of from just, I mean, obviously you had your own kind of case study there, but led you to want to work specifically with reactive dogs?
Jessica Wheatcraft: Well, some of it was because of my own experience, you know, with my own dogs. So of course, you know, that helps there. I was doing a lot of work with pitbull type dogs because I was the director of behavior and training of Pit Bull Rescue San Diego.
And you know, pit bulls are they, they are very fast acting. I like to describe them as being very enthusiastic about life, why we love them so much. And yet sometimes that translates to them being really unmanageable on leash. And so between that and also just working in the shelters with the pitbull type dogs, you know, there was a lot of just trying to get the dogs out of the kennel and going down the aisle to get them out.
There was a lot of times where I was faced with how do I manage or even work with this dog who, who is displaying a lot of these behaviors that are, you know, very, very loud on leash and, and, or just putting a lot of pressure on the leash. So that was one area that I started. But I really, I will say that while I was taking some leash reactivity cases, it wasn't until about probably 2011, 2012, where I really started picking up steam, where the majority of the clients I was taking in were reactive unleashed.
And then 2013 comes around and at that point I decided to start my own training company and I started to really think about, okay, what's missing here with my reactive dog clients in the sense of I'm helping them with some private lessons. At the time when I was working for this other company and we were doing some reactive rover classes, I will admit I wasn't really thrilled with the progress that the dogs made in those classes.
I felt that were putting dogs who are reactive to one another in a building and they have to kind of stay in their little sections. And some of the dogs did okay. But I would say most of them experienced a much higher level of stress than I was really comfortable with. And as the instructor, I'm thinking these people and their dogs are here to learn and I don't think this is the environment that's helping them learn.
So when I started my own company, I thought, what could I do to help these dogs and specifically with the owners who want to get out and about in public with their dogs. How do I do this? In a sense, also from the sense of thinking from the human end and also the services that I was offering my clients. So I started to do. I switched my criteria for my classes, which was you had to do private lessons with me first before you can enroll in my reactive classes.
Or I did group walks, and I did kind of a variety of different classes, all for reactive dogs. And that worked really, really well. And from there, it also. Because so much of my caseload was reactive dogs, and I was really trying to help my clients reach more real world scenarios. I wanted them to feel confident being out in the world with their dog. I want you to take your dog to the neighborhood park.
I want you to be able to do those types of things as long as. Right. They felt good about it and the dog felt good about it and so forth. You know, of course there's limitations. Not every reactive dog can have as big of a world as the next. Um, but I also found that there was this little bit of. There was a gap between just doing some private lessons and calling it a day versus really walking your clients through this whole process and bringing in helper dogs and doing setups and expanding that to other environments, expanding it to dogs that you tend to see in public, and just getting to what I would just describe as more of like a real world scenario.
And once I started doing all of these processes with my clients, I saw them reach so much success that I thought, okay, like, this is what they need. And. And then I just kind of got hooked on it because it was so fun for me too, because like a. I love teaching small classes. I love teaching classes outdoors. I love coming up with kind of creative ways to just make it more interesting, you know, so it's not the same old thing every week.
And. But I think most of all, it's that these people and their dogs live in these very small worlds. And then when you can give them the right help, their worlds expand and they're so much happier and they get to go do more fun things with their dogs. And that is what really drove me.
Melissa Breau: So how did kind of circle work come into this? Can you tell us a little bit maybe first about what circle work kind of is and then what it looks like, and then maybe we can dive further into, you know, kind of how one turned into the other.
Jessica Wheatcraft: Exactly. Well, it's. I'm going to call it. It's a process, the circle work. Or sometimes, because I couldn't really come up with a better name. I would just also call it Course Circles, because technically it's a course that's placed in a circle shape. And I will, I'll share a little bit kind of where it inspired me to do this. One of them was when I was working at these other dog training company.
We had a facility there. We did a. A not Tag Teach, T touch. It's like there's this two T's in both of those T touch, like seminar the whole weekend. And the instructor had a lot of things for the dogs to walk over very thoughtfully, A lot of PVC pipes, lots of different things to, like, step over and do things. And I had one of my, I took one of my clients dogs through this workshop and I was, by the end of this workshop thought, wow, there's really something to this for these dogs in an environment that is more stressful than what they were used to, and they're using their bodies differently and look at the result.
They're much calmer, they're able to think. I thought, huh, there is something to this. And then, same thing. We also would do some rally classes, which I just think is fun. You have the signs and you go around and just seems like, again, kind of like a obstacle course, but without the obstacles. But it just is like a fun game. Almost like, okay, we're here, now we're going to do this.
And then, okay, now we're going to go to the next one and it's going to be this. And so when I started designing my classes, I thought, wouldn't it be so cool if I can incorporate some elements of that? So initially I didn't necessarily have all of these things set up in a circle the way that I do now. But what I did do is set up the equipment in the classes because I would have these reactive dogs who we were building their skill set in public.
So we would be at park. It would be a quiet park, but there were, you know, people from the general public around. Occasionally there'd be dogs around, but of course I would have some of my other clients there and their dogs. And I felt that especially for some of the dogs who just struggle being in those environments, I was thinking, what could I do to put in this environment to add to this class that would just make it more engaging?
So I started just coming up with my own things. I made a bunch of stuff out of PVC pipes. I, um, you know, got platforms. I would do snuffle mats. And I started finding, wow, okay, this is actually working really well. The Dogs are way more engaged, and the humans look like they're having a lot more fun too. So I thought, okay, well, there's something to this. And then the way that it just gradually progressed is that I began to see that not only do.
Just having the. The stations, so to speak, right, with the different pieces of equipment, not only was that helpful, but then I started to think, hmm, I wonder if I could assign different behaviors at these stations. Kind of like in rally, right, where you have, like, it's the cone and it says, you know, do. It's this behavior. And so I thought, wouldn't it. I wonder if I were to assign behaviors at the stations and then grow those behaviors.
And what I mean by that is, for example, let's say I have four stations and I have. One of them is a climb platform. And let's say I have a dog who has never been on a platform before. And that's not uncommon, actually. This. I do this with dogs who've never even touched a platform. I've done it with dogs who are really comfortable jumping on and off of things.
And on the very first round, let's say they're not comfortable getting on the platform because they don't know what it is. So we're just going to lower our criteria. And maybe the first round is just going to be eating some treats off the platform. And that's it. Like, really low pressure. Just create an association of, hey, something has to do with the top of this platform and then moving on, on.
And what I mean by rounds is that they cycle through the different stations, and every station I have something assigned to it. So, for example, most of the time when I'm doing platforms, I would like to eventually have that dog get up on that platform and probably just sit. Can you do that? Just sit and hold it for a little bit. That's all that behaviors. That's going to be the end goal for the end of that particular session.
And then I have some other stations where. Where I like to build, I like to pull in and add in what I would call maybe more functional behaviors or behaviors that for reactive dogs, they're gonna. They're gonna use in real life. So I like to set up a station that involves something that has to do with your leash skills. And I usually have some cones and we might just practice some figure eights or we could do maybe a little bit more of some.
Some heel work, which is for my pet dog clients can be something just as simple as a treat magnet, you know, right at your side or Sometimes we pattern games like the 1, 2, 3 game. Maybe we're going to do that there. And it depends on the client, which I'll also get into a little bit later when I do some of these classes. They can have a very diverse background of behaviors.
And so you can customize it to the client. Like this is the leash walking area. If the way that you teach your leash walking to your dog looks this way, then do that. If the way it looks for this dog is to do a treat magnet, then great. All we're going to do is just do that. Doesn't matter. Just the goal is I just want your dog to be walking next to you, um, and be relatively relaxed and focused.
That's all I care about. And then we go to another station, which I usually have some sort of body awareness exercise, something that the dog doesn't usually do. And that could be some cavaletti poles. It could be a little bit of a balance beam. Um, it could be trying to do two front paw targets and two back paw targets. So I have a platform that I can separate and I just kind of show my clients to try to get the front paws on one and the back paws on the.
And again, it's a very low platform, so it's, it's easy. Um, and then I have a fourth station, which I always describe as being a very easy pathway to reinforcement. It's a snuffle mat. It's a treat scatter. It's something where the dog doesn't really have to do much. Just, let's just make it easy for the dog. And when I have these stations set up, I'm doing this for a few different reasons.
So one, I am trying to build this dog skill set and, or practice skills that this dog already knows. And when I'm doing this in a group class, we've got some other dogs there as well. And so the dogs, of course, aren't familiar with one another. They're all reactive to some degree. And I have them start on separate stations and they do this. They do, you know, several repetitions.
For example, if we're going to do the platform, I don't want to say several, because it might just be three or four, for example. Yeah, I would say three or four. Three or four reps of whatever you're doing. And then you're going to switch and you're going to go to the next station. And I usually have them go counterclockwise. I don't know why I just. Now I'm envisioning in my Head.
I'm like clockwise. Everyone's going counterclockwise. Who knows why I chose that? Doesn't matter. They could go either way. And the reason why I started doing this was because, a, I wanted to give them a really clear way to start building their skill set. Two, I wanted the dogs to be able to get information from one another without coming in contact. And I find that when you're doing reactive dog classes, they're always straining, right, because they want to see who the other dog is.
Where are they? And I thought, okay, this is silly. Why don't you just let them sniff where the other dog once was? And that's why I thought, well, what if I just put all these stations in a circle? That way no one's coming head on, no one's coming face to face. And then they get a sniff where that dog once was, and then they get to sniff where all the dogs once were.
Because every dog is rotating through every single station. And as soon as I started doing that, I found, wow, these dogs are actually forgetting about the other dogs way faster than if I didn't allow this to happen. And they're also picking up the scent of the dogs just based on where they're walking. So, you know, they can pick up the scent from where that dog walked and then the station.
They're probably smelling some of the crumbs, maybe even cleaning up some of the crumbs from the last dog. And I found that it just took the, the novelty away from, hey, this dog was just here, and now you're here and you can sniff, and then you're going to learn and train and do this, do this exercise, and then you're to move on. And so I found that in that particular context of using this approach, it became a very easy way to do my group classes.
And I saw way more success with the dogs. They were much more relaxed. I built behaviors much faster. And again, the humans were having a lot of fun with it. And that is something that is important because when you have a reactive dog and you're attending a class with your reactive dog, it is common for the human to want to tighten up the leash, hold your breath. Oh, my gosh.
I don't know if my dog is going to react to this other dog or there's also probably maybe just pressure, right? Oh, gosh, what if my dog's not as good as the dog next to me? What if they can't do it as good as that one? You know, there's just so many feelings of just being Worried about what people are going to think and how my dog is going to act.
And, gosh, my clients, when they do these classes, are just having fun with their dogs. They're relaxed. Maybe not at the very beginning, but I encourage them. And then by the end of the class, they're like, wow, I didn't think my dog was going to be able to do that. And I'm like, yeah, I mean, I knew that they would be able to do that, but it's a very big confidence booster for my human clients as well.
And part of that is also because when you think of the visual elements of these stations, both the human and the dogs know we're always going to be on one of these stations. Like, the other dog isn't going to come at me. It brings some predictability in that sense as well, which I think helps. I think it's also part of the reason why the. The dogs and the humans respond so well to it.
Melissa Breau: I like that. And that's really, really interesting. It sounds like you've maybe incorporated some other techniques. You mentioned, you know, some of Leslie McDevitt stuff kind of into the individual stations, too. So rather than just taking and, you know, throwing out the other things that other people have used, you've kind of incorporated them. It sounds like. Is that. Yeah. Is that kind of a fair. Okay. Because so many great, great approaches out there, and especially with her pattern games.
Jessica Wheatcraft: Yes, I'm gonna use those.
Melissa Breau: Absolutely. Yeah. So what do you think kind of the secret is here? Why do you think that this is working so well with reactive dogs and why it helps so much?
Jessica Wheatcraft: Well, I think it comes down to a few. Well, it comes down to a few things, I think. One, there's. We're essentially creating an environmental cue where the dog knows when I approach this thing, we're going to do this.
So that is very helpful when you have. When the rest of the environment is a park or you're in public somewhere, and then also by having multiple cues, so hence the stations. Right. The dog knows what's going to happen next. Okay, I'm gonna do this one, and then I'm gonna go to that one, and then I'm gonna go to this one, and then I'm gonna go to that one, and then we just keep repeating it, and so it becomes very predictable.
There's no guessing for the dog. This is what we're gonna do. And I think that is also something because it lends to a lot of predictability, and I think some of it's the information gathering that they get. If they get to do it with the other dogs. Right. You've got a lot of information gathering coming on. And I also think it's because it's a little bit. Part of it is because my goal is that I want to get reactive dogs out of this kind of tunnel vision that they tend to be in when they go out in public.
And I can't really speak to, you know, why this could be. I mean, this is just me kind of guessing, but I tend to see for a lot of reactive dogs, they go out in public. A lot of them are hypervigilant. They also tend to just have tunnel vision, like scanning for things, what's going to come out next, or they. They have a difficult time only, like, kind of deviating from some of that.
Now, when you start getting a dog like that, interacting with the environment differently, like maybe the same environment that the owner might take their dog for a walk in or something that appears very similar. You've got a pathway and some grass on both sides or a sidewalk. I mean, that's kind of what they're used to walking on. And then suddenly you get them climbing on things in that environment, and suddenly they're like, wait a minute, I need a balance on something.
I feel like they're using different parts of their brains and their bodies. And so I feel like it's. It's almost giving them a slightly different context, too, in which they're learning in. And that is something that I really want to explore more and especially get into, you know, a bit more of the. Any sort of research that might be involved in that. But it's about getting them off the ground, too, which is also part of it, because most reactive dogs just walk on the sidewalk all the time or just the grass.
Like, they never get off the ground. They never view their environment from a different vantage point. And so part of why I think this is also, yeah. So powerful for them is that it's. Oh, wait, this. I'm in the environment, but this is actually really different. It feels really different is what I would guess if they could talk, that might be what they're saying.
Melissa Breau: I like that. I think there's something. Right. You mentioned kind of the predictability element, but I think it's interesting because it sounds like it's predictability, but without so much repetition to create boredom. Right. Like, there's a. There's a balancing point there between the two and that it just seems kind of really a neat balance to strike, just hitting a little bit of both of those things.
Jessica Wheatcraft: Yes, yes. And what I will say to lend to that point of.
That, it's not boredom. One of the other things that's really helpful when I do this is that I actually gradually build the behaviors the more rounds we do so think in any given class, I mean, gosh, I don't know, maybe the dogs are rotating through. I'm just going to guess here, because I've never counted, maybe 10 times or something. And so when you think about that dog who's never been on a platform, by the end of the class, they're all sitting on the platform.
Um, it's. It's just, it's super easy. And so what's. What I'm also doing here is teaching my clients how to raise criteria and also how to lower it. Hey, if this is difficult for your dog, here's how we're going to break this behavior down, and here's how we're going to make this easier, you know, for your dog. And then when they're saying, oh, wait, my dog's actually getting better at this, okay, well, now let's start asking for more.
So I do build that in the sense of asking for more behaviors on the stations. And then in a group class, I will also say that, say the vast majority of the time, about halfway through the class, I'm going to make some more changes. And those changes can be one of two things. It can either be that I make the circle smaller, and that's one way to, hey, now the dogs are actually in closer proximity, but it's still a circle, and they're still doing the station.
So it's kind of like, huh, okay, so we're closer. So it is more difficult. But it doesn't appear to be like a huge variant from what we were just doing before. So I might do that. But most of the time what I do is I actually move away from having everything set up in a circle, and I actually start moving the pieces of equipment out. And we get into some things that are more like a more real life setup.
So, for example, if I've got one dog that is sitting on a platform, because they've. They've practiced that many times, then I have the other dog where I've got the cones, which is, hey, that's the leash walking part. I'm then going to pair those two people up and we're going to do some things where one dog is sitting on the platform, the other dog's doing the leash walking past the other dog.
So I'm actually moving towards what would Be more real life setups. I'm still using the equipment though, because again, I have this element of predictability. The dog is, oh, when I see these cones. Okay, we're going to do this behavior dogs on the platform. Okay. So even though I changed it a little bit, it. I'm still keeping some of it to keep that, to keep that predictability. And then eventually I just remove all of the props.
So depends on, you know, depends on the class, depends on the client. Of course, you know, we don't go around, don't have all my clients go out and just buy all this equipment and that's all they do with their dogs. I view this as a process to really help dogs learn and cope in. In environments and. Or around things that they're maybe uncomfortable with. Or for some reactive dogs, they're dying to go see the dog next to them.
So maybe they're just really frustrated that they don't get to go say hi. And. And so I just find it to be a really powerful thing for like beginning to. To middle stages of building behavior. So are there foundation skills you like, like the dogs to have before you introduce circle work? I mean, I know you mentioned you typically, you know, work with Pratt, excuse me, with reactive dogs in private lessons first before the group class situation.
You know, can you talk us through what you maybe like to teach before you introduce that environment? Yeah. Well, let's see. Whenever I do this with my group classes with my clients, they all have a variety of skills under their belt. So they have some sort of what I describe as an in motion behavior. And in motion means we need to be in motion to get past another dog.
So again, just, we'll. We'll lump that under the leash skills. It could just be loose leash walking. It could be the 1, 2, 3, game. It could be a treat magnet, whatever it is. That's your in motion behavior. Then we've got some sort of stationary behavior. Most, I mean, I don't know any client who showed up and the dog doesn't know how to sit. Sit her down or something.
Right. I mean, they all know that. So then we've got that trying to think if there's really anything else that they would need to know. Because I could really go on a whole tangent about all the things I teach my clients, but I know we're gonna split topic, so we're gonna stick with this. But really, it really comes down to more that they know they can eat, they can eat treats in public.
That's a big one. Can you Take food. Can. Can you do something that's kind of easy and feel comfortable with other dogs within a certain proximity? Because, again, these are some classes. And so I would say if I was going to, like, guesstimate. Okay, how far am I keeping these dogs apart? It could be anywhere between, like, 30 to 40ft at first and then moving them closer together.
So if a dog's needed to have more distance than that, I think it'd be a little tricky in a group class setting. But you could do that with two dogs, which I can. I can reference later. Um, so essentially I just need them to eat. Um, and a lot of times it's really helpful if they understand the concept of luring, because we are right. If with the. With the platform or even doing some of the body awareness exercises, it does mean that we're luring the dogs onto these pieces of equipment.
So having some knowledge of luring is helpful. But most of my clients, even if they don't have knowledge of luring, the. These dogs have been doing private lessons. They understand, you know, marker word. They understand how to eat food in a variety of circumstances. So it's really not that big of a stretch to. To lure them onto something. Okay, so here's the big one, right? Like, do you see this work for all dogs?
Are there dogs you don't recommend? Do circle work? You know, feel free to go in some nuance here if you'd like. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Because I think it comes down to how prepared are they. So I will say the vast majority of dogs that I've done this with have some sort of training underneath their. Under their belt, but it doesn't have to be very advanced. And as another example, I did this with a shelter.
I was brought in to help them with some of their reactive dogs, and we decided to do this at a park across the street from them. Now, these are dogs that, because this is a very progressive shelter, they. They understood marker words, they understood, you know, treats and how to do some things. But I wouldn't say that their skill set was particularly high. And I would also say particularly their thresholds were very low, which is why they felt like, well, we can't work on the reactivity because we can't find a way to present another dog without this one dog freaking out.
And so I said, all right, well, let's just go across to this park. I'm going to set this up. And I made it. It was a big circle. It was very, very big. And because I didn't. I didn't know These dogs, thresholds. I just started with one dog on the course, and the other dog was watching from a distance, and then we switched and then eventually had both dogs on the course.
So that's how I did it. So if. If a dog's thresholds are one where they need more space from this, that could be another option. But I do find, because we are actively building behavior here, that's part of the goal. And I think that's perhaps something that's. That. Yeah, that I should really drive home, that when I'm practicing with dogs, with these reactive dogs in public, it's a lot of building behavior.
It's not just exposing them like, hey, let's just. Just notice the dog, or just being exposed. I'm really focused on what is this dog learning in this moment, and can we build their skill set more? Because I would love it for, you know, this team to be able to walk past another dog at a closer proximity, or can you call your dog away from another dog if it notices one?
So I really am also focused on skill building while also mixing in some easier things, some fun things. So it's not all, you know, of course, these are all skills, but I don't want it to be where it's also not fun for the dog and the person. So dogs, where this would be more challenging is if. If they can't eat outside, if they're so stressed that they can't even eat outside, you could do this indoors first and then move it outside a little bit.
That's actually one of the ways that I can help dogs who have a very difficult time learning the second that front door opens is I just do the same thing indoors, get them really used to it. And then I just put one little station right at the door, and then we keep on going to the other stations. And then I slowly, like, move it a little out the door.
And then eventually maybe you've got two stations on the driveway, and then two are in inside, and we're just going around. So. So that could be an option. It could be an option, I guess, for any dog. But I think the. The better question is the application of it, because what I was referring to initially of these group classes that I'm doing, and here's what we're doing with the dogs.
Those are dogs whose skill set. I've worked with them for quite some time. They have the skills to be able to do this and do it in a public park. So. So I would say that would be it. But I have had a variety of dogs and even dogs who. There's a little long haired dachshund who of course is not going to like leap all the way up on, you know, something like a huge bench or something.
I mean, there's certain things that, you know, we can make modifications, you know, depending. Depending on the dog. But I don't know that I could really think of a dog that wouldn't necessarily benefit from it, or at least the concept of it. Because after I started teaching this to my own students, I had some of them take this and apply it to their group classes. And one of them came up with so many creative things for her.
She had a, like just maybe we'll call it a regular manners class. And she had one station that was a crate and hey, we're going to work on running in the crate. And then she had another station that had a muzzle. Hey, we're going to focus on a little bit of just dunking your nose in a muzzle and then you're going to go to the next station, work on something else.
And I thought, oh dang, that's a good idea. I didn't even think about that one. But that's the fun of it, is that you can just come up with any behavior you want. It's just the idea of having it set up in stations and having the dogs rotate through and then gradually asking more and more as the dogs become comfortable.
Melissa Breau: Awesome. So part of the reason that we were introduced is that you've got a webinar coming up on circle work at FDSA. Do you want to talk a little bit about that? Kind of what you're planning to cover and maybe who should consider joining us?
Jessica Wheatcraft: Absolutely. In the webinar, I'm going to discuss a little bit more about ideas of equipment. Like how do you even set this up? You know, what equipment might you use? Which behaviors would you consider assigning at the stations and why? I think that was also a really common question, you know, that I get.
And then I'm going to go over some different examples. So I have a lot of videos from my group classes that I've done. I have some videos from the shelter work, actually that I referenced with those two dogs. I've got videos of that. How do we teach this with dogs whose thresholds are much lower? And then I also have some videos of a private client of mine where we didn't have any other dogs on the course at all.
We just used it because this dog had gotten attacked by another dog when they were out on a walk. And then didn't want to leave the gate. And if she did leave the gate, her tail was tucked, she was scanning the whole time. She was so uncomfortable. And so I used this process with that client to feel really comfortable starting to leave home. And so I'm just going to.
I'm giving some different examples of how this can be applied for various. You can even kind of describe it as maybe various types of behavior issues and different types of environments, you know, whether the home or the park and so forth. And so I'm giving. I really wanted to give different applications of it. And in terms of who this could be useful for, I mean, certainly, you know, any sort of dog professionals, so behavior consultants, trainers, you know, rescue people, people that work in shelters, that sort of stuff.
But I would also say for some of those behavior enthusiast, which I know you have a lot of at FDSA, is I could also see some of these processes being helpful for them because maybe they have a dog who, you know, they get it out of the car at an event and the dog falls apart. Like, they have a really, really difficult time getting the dog to engage with them or even just stay calm while they're in that type of environment.
So I could also see this as being something that could be helpful for a dog like that in terms of helping them get more comfortable in that type of. Super interesting. I think that's fantastic.
Melissa Breau: All right, so before I let you go, any final thoughts or maybe key points you kind of just want to leave listeners with?
Jessica Wheatcraft: Ooh. I think really the thing that I love about this the most is when, and I'll actually give the example of you're taking a dog to a dog sport event and you're getting him out of the car and holy smokes, you've got the parking lot full.
You've got the event, all the dogs are crated over there and they're yelling and okay, right. That's a really, really busy and loud environment. And I think so much of the time we tend to feel overwhelmed, even as the handlers overwhelmed by the environment and we don't know what to do. And I think the reason why I love this so much is because I wanted to come up with ways of what could we add to the environment to make it more.
To make it easier for the dog, to make it more predictable to the dog, because that's always a big hang up for us trainers when we're trying to build behavior in different environments, is that we don't have control over the environment or what shows up or this or that. So really, what. What I started to think about with this is, well, what do we have control over? What could I add to this environment to make it different for my dog?
And that's also kind of what, you know, just drove. Drove this. I don't know, this whole. And it's still an evolving idea of mine, of this, this whole approach. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome.
Melissa Breau: All right, well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Jessica.
Jessica Wheatcraft: Thank you so much for having me.
Melissa Breau: And thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week, this time with Deb Jones to talk about making hard choices when it comes to behavior issues.
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 Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzi for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty for you by BenSound.com the track featured here is called Buddy. Audio editing provided by Chris Lang.
Thanks again for tuning in. 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!