ClickerExpo Nashville and Cadence Turns Three!

Wow, April’s been kind of a blur, and I’m so far behind in documenting our adventures that I’m not sure where to begin.  The biggest event of the last month was our third annual trip to ClickerExpo with Cadence and Maebe, this time held in Nashville, TN.  As always, this long weekend was a wonderful experience filled with learning opportunities, meeting interesting new people, and sharing quality time with the two dogs.

This year as always we attended a wide variety of seminars, on everything from protocols for modifying aggression by Ken Ramirez, to training a formal retrieve with Michele Pouliot.  Cadence and Maebe got to work in a couple Learning Labs, and I was thrilled with how well Cadence is able to work in a distracting environment now.  He was a superstar in both the platform training lab and the retrieve lab.  It helped that I had finally succeeded in teaching him a formal retrieve in the couple months preceding the conference so he was a bit of a ringer, but I was proud nonetheless. 

As always you learn so much at ClickerExpo, it makes your head spin.  Too much to write about in one post, though I am sure the gems of wisdom I picked up over the weekend will influence further musings on this blog. 

We opened each morning with a lovely run along the Cumberland River with the dogs, and a nice multi-purpose trail just a few miles from the hotel. 

And, this year at ClickerExpo we had even more reason to celebrate, as we were there during my “puppy” Cadence’s third birthday.  Three years of being hopelessly smitten for a furry black and white Noodle.  I joke that next time I need to pick the ugliest, plainest, most boring looking dog I can find so I stand half a chance of not being totally wrapped around his little paw every time I look at him.  I was doomed from the start . . .

Clicker Expo 2011

“What the hell is wrong with us anyway?”  Patricia McConnell joked in this, her opening line, as she gave the closing comments at Clicker Expo 2011 on Sunday, wrapping up an amazing three days of top-notch education on animal training, behavior, and cognition.  

Certainly, I’m sure that is what many people wonder about us.  Trying to explain that we are spending good money on travel and registration costs, and taking a vacation to attend an educational conference probably doesn’t make sense to a lot of people.  When I tried to explain to others what Clicker Expo was, I basically just summed it up as another dog training conference, but it is so much more than that.  The faculty at Clicker Expo are leaders in their understanding about training all animals (including humans), and are perhaps the best assembly of presenters and educators I’ve ever seen – and I say this having spend my graduate and undergraduate years at a top-rated university! 

So, what did I learn about this year at Clicker Expo?  In Learning Labs, Cadence and I and Lowell and Maebe heard from Kay Laurence about when and how it can be appropriate to use luring in training, and how to “microshape” behaviors by slicing them down into the finest details, allowing the animal to have higher rates of success throughout the learning process.  We were able to work on training reliable cues with Kathy Sdao, and Lowell and Maebe gave an amazing demonstration of the progress they made just during the course of the lab.  We practiced the mechanics of treat delivery and leash handling skills with Joan Orr and Alexandra Kurland, and learned the “Tai Chi” of leash handling skills.

In lectures, we learned about setting up efficient training sessions with Cecilie Koste, conditioning positive responses to noise and movement (especially good for the agility dog) from Emilie Veigh and Eva Bertlisson, and developing good observation skills from Kathy Sdao.  We heard Karen Pryor talk about changing the public’s view of punishment as a training method, and saw Patricia McConnell talk about animal cognition, and later in the closing comments, about animal emotions.  I took away from every session lots of great notes, and always at least one key “AHA!” point that I know I will carry with me as I continue training my dogs.  The sessions are fascinating, intellectually stimulating, and we left motivated and excited to try out all our new ideas.

In addition to being a great learning experience, the whole weekend was a blast.  Our hotel was located north of Chicago, and bordered a 30+ mile multi-use trail network along a river.  We were able to start every morning with a 4 to 5 mile run with the dogs, and close every evening with a more leisurely walk together along the water.  The dogs were on their best behavior.  It gave Cadence good opportunities to have to think and work with high levels of distraction, and while his brain was usually starting to melt by the end of the learning labs (so were ours, after all!), he always was a perfect gentleman.

What I love about Clicker Expo, and clicker training in general, is how beautifully you see that what inherently FEELS right – training with positive reinforcement instead of punishment – is repeatedly backed up by sound scientific evidence.  As a social worker and a researcher, I love to see this harmony: when doing good is backed up with data-driven proof.

Lowell and I are fortunate to say that we are not “cross over” trainers (trainers who previously had been taught to use punishment), as we became dog owners just as the clicker training movement was gaining wider popularity.  When we brought our first dog, Jade, home, we had been reading a Brian Kilcommons book advocating choke chains and collar corrections.  We bought a choke chain, brought Jade home from the rescue organization, set out for a walk together, and realized quickly that we were NOT going to pop our happy, wonderful new companion on the neck with that damn chain.  That isn’t how I treat my friends and family members - there had to be a better way.  We turned around, immediately drove to Borders and sifted through the Monks of New Skete and Barbara Woodhouse books until we found a thin little book on clicker training.  Finally, someone was talking in terms that made sense to us.  We were fortunate to have a good veterinarian who referred us to positive trainers in the area for companion obedience classes, and the rest was history.

At the opening session on Friday, Karen Pryor asked the audience how many people were cross-over trainers.  Many hands went up, as usual, but many did not.  How exciting that we are now seeing a new wave of trainers, a wave who never had our heads filled with nonsense about dominance theory and collar corrections, but have learned how much more fun it is to use scientific principles and positive methods to train our companions!  While they still have a few remaining figureheads, I think the compulsion trainers are losing the debate.

So why do we do this?  Why do some of us spend so much time, energy, and money on these furry family members that can’t talk to us?  How is it that they make us so profoundly happy, and that we mourn their loss so deeply?  These were the questions Dr. McConnell posed in her final comments.  She theorized that there are two types of people in the world: those who are warmed and comforted as we learn how similar and connected humans really are to the rest of the animal world, and those who find that concept terrifying.  And, ironically, many tend to label the first group as being somehow emotionally damaged and unable to connect with other humans and form real relationships.  But what I find is that animals help us learn on a deeper level about empathy and emotion and connections with all living things.  I tend to be introverted by nature, but through my dogs I have met wonderful people and formed great relationships while challenging myself to learn and try new experiences.  My world has expanded exponentially, and I am a very happy person and am never bored.  Jade changed our lives, as I always say.

So, proudly count me in the first category – with those who cherish and celebrate our connection with dogs and all animals, both those who are four-footed and two-footed.  As Dr. McConnell ended her closing remarks on Sunday, she reminded us:

“Don’t ever apologize for how much you love your dogs.” 

Day Three: ClickerExpo

Sunday was the last day of ClickerExpo, so we woke up extra early to pack up the car, check out of the hotel, and head over for our morning park run. There were a couple smaller dogs about Maebe's size in the "small dog" half of the park, so we decided to let them all play. Cadence fell madly in love with a little sheltie mix and was prepared to follow her to the ends of the earth, but we eventually reminded him who he came there with.

Our first seminar of the day was by British trainer Kay Laurence on training self control. It is hard to pick a favorite of the many great lectures we attended this weekend, but Kay's definitely stood out and really resonated with us, as owners of pretty high-drive dogs for whom self-control has not always been a strong point. I know that this has been due to sloppy, novice training on our parts - an issue not helped by the fact that our two most intense dogs, Jade and Tristan, were our two first training experiences.

Kay discussed how we need to be aware of our dog's mental state when we train, because "what you click is what you get." You don't want to start shaping with a dog that is stressed or shutting down, otherwise that stress might become tied to the behavior. Similarly, you don't want too much arousal and lack of control built into the behavior either. This immediately made me think of challenges we have had with Tristan when building new behaviors. Tristan is so smart, picks up on things so fast, and I swear has an understanding of the English language to rival most teenagers. But when working, he can get too high too fast and shaping can turn into a frantic, frenzied mess. I can see now how we need to work with his state of arousal and only reinforce controlled behaviors. She also pointed out how we need to be aware of our emotional state, and what our movements are communicating to the dog.

Kay talked a lot about the benefits of play and games, but also how trainers frequently don't have good rules for play. Instead of cooperative playing with a shared toy (that, she encouraged us to remember, belongs to us after all, not the dog), tug games turn into a hyper competition for resources between person and dog.

Having been involved for years in two high-energy dog sports and witnessing the training (or sometimes lack thereof) that goes on at times in the quest for the faster, higher drive dog, this really hit home with me. I have for years been baffled by the pride that handlers take showing off their battle scars after a day of competition - bleeding bit hands, scratched up bodies, torn clothes, etc. I expect my dogs to know the difference between a tug toy and my hand, and to respect me enough to not assault me for the toy.

When they were running, Jade and Tristan had good bite inhibition if they hit your hand, but did get sloppy at times and "miss" the toy. Of course, I believe there is a good argument that these dogs aren't "missing" anything. Jade was an awesome flyball dog, and I loved running him. But he had bad habits, that I know I reinforced when I didn't know any better, and that ultimately affected the pleasure of handling him somewhat. Don't get me wrong - I loved working with him and treasure my memories of his racing days - but how much more fun would it have been to not get dragged to the ring, have to fight him for the tug toy between every race, etc. I don't think these behaviors did anything to particularly enhance our relationship, nor do I believe they made him faster or have more drive (a fallacy I believed in my early days of dog sports).

Kay demonstrated playing tug and chase games with rules that help reinforce self control. Handlers should tug with their dogs, then ask for a release. If the dog does not release, the handler would hold the collar gently, so as to prevent further tugging, and wait for the dog to drop the toy. The mistake many handlers make at this point is to either whip the toy away rapidly (making the toy once again seem like a retreating prey animal) or to immediately allow tugging again. Instead, the dog should choose not to pounce on the toy again, even though it remains in range, and should sit and wait for permission to begin the game again.

This is very similar to Susan Garrett's 1-2-3 Game and Brenda Aloff's switching exercises that I have been doing with Noodle since he was a young pup, and I am pleased that he does show a lot of self-control around play, even when very wound up. The detail Kay emphasized though was that "a sit is not enough." If the dog sits, but is still in a very high state of arousal - barking, trembling, anticipating the release, etc. - you need to wait for a sign of actual relaxation and impulse control before clicking and releasing to play again. I think a lot of times, us handlers reward, and maybe even desire, a sit with the dog trembling in anticipation, as we want to have a high-drive, enthusiastic dog. This reminded me that there is a difference though between drive and arousal, and we don't want to mistake one for the other.

Afterwards we attended Kay's working lab on these exercises as observers. It was great watching Kay's different games and seeing how she worked with the dogs. Her mantra, that I have run through my head a million times already this week while working my dogs, was to ask yourself: "Is the behavior continuing or getting stronger?" It was her way of evaluating whether you were really reinforcing what you thought you were, whether your reward was actually providing reinforcement, or if the activity was self-reinforcing enough to promote it continuing. I have been using this to remind myself to check in and evaluate whether I am actually building a behavior, or just being a treat dispenser.

After lunch, we attended Alexandra Kurland's talk on "loopy training" or building complex behaviors. Among many things, she discussed how cues become reinforcers, and we can begin to build behavior chains by reinforcing one trained behavior with the cue for the next behavior. At the same time, it is important to not lose your criteria for each individual component of the chain.

The most salient part of this presentation, however, were two videos from a scientific research project of a dog responding to a "come" command that had been trained previously. In the first video, the dog had been trained to have a recall to a specific cue word using shaping and positive reinforcement. The dog worked with its tail up and wagging, head up, prancing happily and quickly around. The second video showed a dog who had been trained a recall using compulsion with a different word cue. The compulsion did not involve harsh correction, but rather collar pressure on a line pulling the dog to the trainer if it didn't respond. This dog worked slowly when it heard its cue word, with its head and tail down, looking visibly stressed and demotivated. Both dogs responded to their cue and came when called, but the behavior looked drastically different. The reveal at the end was that it was the same dog. It was a particularly moving example of the real differences between two training practices.

Of course, Karen Pryor was sitting directly behind me and Noodle during this presentation, so I became self-conscious about maintaining his good behavior and looking like I was a halfway competent trainer. :-) Fortunately, he was well mannered and calm again throughout the presentation, so he made me look good. I even got "tagged" (the token reward system used throughout the conference) by a fellow conference attendee for having such good dogs. Not something that I hear, say, when a stranger walks past our backyard fence, but they were pretending to be good fur-kids this weekend and I was very grateful!

As much as we wanted to catch the closing comments, we are also morning people who are at risk of turning into pumpkins before ten o'clock, so we decided to hit the road a little early. We packed into the car, grabbed some Red Bull, and headed home talking the whole way about how much fun we had, how inspired we were, and how excited we were to pursue new goals as trainers and dog owners. I feel new motivation and confidence in working with the dogs - I know I am following scientifically valid principles that not only work but build empathy and strengthen relationships in the process. I am feeling challenged to do my best in working both with the older dogs on some of their "rusty" spots, and in shaping my little Noodle into the best dog he can be. I'm excited and looking forward to the journey ahead.

Day Two: ClickerExpo

On Saturday, we woke early again so we could keep the same morning routine of exercising the dogs. Grabbed our coffee and headed to the park to enjoy another beautiful morning, and were happy to find once again that the dog park was empty. Cadence and Maebe were especially giddy this morning and were running full tilt all around the field. Cadence discovered the joy of herding robins, and was covering ground fast chasing the low-flying birds. It is such a delight to watch them run, just enjoying that simple pleasure. Afterwards we walked for about a half hour down the path and back, and headed over to the conference.

For our first seminar of the day, we attended a lecture by the agility instructors from Friday, Eva Bertilsson and Emelie Johnson Vegh, this time on Good Agility Practices (also bought their new book, Agility Right From the Start, which is wonderful). They discussed the importance of working with focus and intensity, with short, structured sessions. As a trainer, we should plan what we are going to train, practice the steps before getting the dog, and then only when we are prepared should we start working our dogs.

Afterwards, we attended the learning lab with these same instructors. In groups of three, we would choose a behavior we wanted to shape, plan how we would do it, practice the mechanics and timing, then observe each other working with our dogs. It is interesting what you learn when you have observers. Lowell caught me starting to deliver the reward just before the click, and our third group-mate noticed that I was not pulling my hand all the way back into neutral position near my body after delivering the reward, so I was venturing dangerously close to the dreaded "luring" territory.

Cadence did great with this workshop. There was a lot of movement and dogs working simultaneously, but he stayed on task the entire time. I quickly shaped him to perch on a small, wobbly, overturned box with all four feet. I overheard one of the instructors laugh and comment "Look at the smart little Border Collie." Certainly getting a dog on a box would be a relatively easy behavior to lure, but it is so much more interesting, and still quite quick, to shape the action. I love watching them think and figure things out, and they show so much more interest and excitement for the work when they aren't just following a treat at the end of their nose.

Maebe also had fun in this workshop. It was amusing to watch how different methods of transport affected her performance. At first, Lowell took her from crate to work station by the collar, and you could see the opposition reflex from the slight collar pressure build her arousal so quickly, I thought she would start bouncing off the walls when he let go. The woman next to me made a comment that I have heard repeated before about Maebe: "Wow, she's really a spit-fire, isn't she?" Yes, yes she is.

Of course, the spit-fire turned to princess when Lowell attempted the next time to transport her by carrying her to the station. He set her down, and she looked at him with disgust, clearly telling him, "You do NOT carry the baby!" He didn't try that again.

After lunch, Lowell and I attended Karen Pryor's talk on "Punishment and the Public." Despite pressure to do so, Pryor chose not to address the Cesar Millan phenomenon directly in her book "Reaching the Animal Mind." But, after encouragement to do so, she put together a presentation about the problems with Millan's methods and how to encourage change. Pryor was very diplomatic, and acknowledged that Millan does show that behavior can be changed, and is a very charismatic performer who she does believe cares about dogs. She also conceded that as a compulsion trainer, his timing and skills are very good. She then described watching him demonstrate his training at a presentation in Boston, which detailed the problems with his outdated methods.

I have seen Millan's show only a handful of times. In general, I find it boring and unimpressive, and have never seen him "fix" anything faster than you could with a clicker. Two clips in particular that I have seen though - straight from the Nat Geo website for the show - absolutely turned my stomach, and I thought they should be evidence in court proceedings, not popular television. One involved him dragging a dog up stairs, with much struggle and drama and stress (again, how very quickly can you shape a dog to go up stairs? I myself have done it in seconds with a pup who was afraid of steps). The second was the infamous episode where he basically hangs a wolf-hybrid, then marvels at his "calm, submissive state" as it lies heaving for breath on the sidewalk afterwards.

Anyway, what disturbs me greatly is that Millan may use methods I object to, but at least he follows the principles of using punishment fairly. His timing is good, he gives verbal warning, etc. However, the viewers who watch him and don't fully understand these principles then may proceed to imitate his methods, and ultimately end up abusing their dogs. It breaks my heart to think of the poor, confused dogs struggling to figure out what their would-be-Cesar owners are trying to convey to them.

But I digress. . . Pryor's presentation was very positive. As she pointed out, change tends to face various waves of resistance. She interprets Millan's success as a sign of the final bit of resistance before clicker training fully takes hold and is accepted as the effective, scientifically valid method that it is.

We decided to skip out on the panel discussion that followed, and took the dogs back to the park to enjoy another beautiful afternoon. We walked for a few miles, and shared exciting discussion about all we were learning and our goals for the dogs and ourselves as trainers. It was a very inspiring and motivating day. I could already see a change coming over the Noodle just in a couple days of intense work. He was more focused on me, less distracted by his environment, and increasingly ready to work despite any distractions. He was connected to me throughout the hike, even though I was not asking anything of him. I have this connection with my heart-dog Django already, and it warms my heart to see the bond getting this strong already with Cade after less than a year together. I know he is going to be a great companion, working partner, and buddy as the years progress.

We grabbed some dinner to eat in the hotel room, then crashed. Well, three of us did. Cade still had energy to burn, but his sister was having none of his attempts to initiate play. Finally he wound down and we rested up for our final day of learning.

ClickerExpo: Day 1

Friday morning we got up early so that we had plenty of time to get ready and to take the dogs for some exercise before a long morning for them of sitting through training lectures. Fortunately across the street there was a nice park with a couple miles of walking paths and two huge dog parks.

I am not a fan of dog parks, and generally will not take my dogs into one. I find that too many owners are not responsible, don't have their dogs under control, don't understand canine body language and communication, and I basically think they are often a disaster waiting to happen. Since we were there early though, no one else was around and we were able to let Maebe and Cade run off leash in the dog park area for a while. They had a blast - Maebe found some nasty chewed frisbee, and Cade just herded her and us as we stolled around. They burned off a lot of pent-up energy, which was a big relief to us.

We returned to the hotel and grabbed some seats in the ballroom for the opening presentation by Karen Pryor. We took seats near the back, at the end of an aisle close to a door, so if anyone got too impatient or fussy we could make a discrete exit. Fortunately, all my concerns were unwarranted, as both dogs settled down on their mats and behaved themselves wonderfully. I was so proud of my Noodle. He isn't a reactive dog in the least, but I figured he would just be SO interested in all the other dogs, other people, things going on. I expected he would be fussy, and might get frustrated. Instead, he mostly sat and looked at me, for which he received the occasional bit of kibble. He would watch passing dogs with moderate interest, but always kept his compusure.

The opening comments by Aaron Clayton and Karen Pryor got us excited for the great seminars to come, and it was a thrill seeing Karen Pryor talk after being such a fan of her work. I spotted other training gurus and authors in the audience as well, and felt kind of like a teenage fan-girl at a boy band concert. :-)

From there, we went to a seminar on agility foundation training, which was wonderful. I was pleased that the presenters also follow the handling systems, jump training methods, and agility practices that I am using with Cadence, and their presentation gave me lots of great ideas of more ways to build foundation skills with him. An intriguing concept they mentioned was using "tranports" in between exercises, and always paying attention to how your training interacts with your handling system. Rather than letting your dog bounce around you, spin circles, zoom around, etc. in between exercises, they suggested using "tranports" such as tugging, carrying, holidng the collar, etc. until you are ready to start working. These are all trained as specific behaviors, and don't allow the dog to develop sloppy habits that will interfere with the handling system. Lowell and I immediately recognized how Maebe will walk backwards in front of him and bark as he walks to a start line, and how then if she gets frustrated on course, she also resorts to that default behavior. It made perfect sense to not let these default behaviors get muddied up in the handling system.

We let the dogs take a break in their crates in the hotel room (still being good dogs, they remained quiet), while we ate lunch then attended a Shaping seminar by Joan Orr and Helix Fairweather. The content was very much Shaping 101, so a bit basic for us, but it is always good to review. Plus, both presenters gave shaping demos with audience dogs, and it is always impressive and informative to watch an expert at work. I find I can learn a lot about timing and breaking behaviors down into their core parts by watching someone who is very skilled at this.

Afterwards, we got the dogs again and went to the learning lab, where we got to practice some of these shaping exercises with Joan, Helix, and other Academy grads assisting. Most of the exercises were things I had already started to shape with Cade: eye contact, targeting, going to a mat, etc. But, this was a highly distracting environment, and I was pleased by his ability to focus and work for me even with all the commotion.

Our first day over, we went back to the park and took a lovely walk for about an hour. It was a gorgeous day, we were full of excitement about all we were learning and practicing, and delighted that the dogs were doing so well and having so much fun. When we returned to the hotel, we met up with some other dog trainer friends who were at the Expo and went out to a fun dinner together. We returned exhausted and excited for another day of learning on Saturday!

Travel Log: Lexington, KY ClickerExpo

Last weekend, Lowell, Maebe, Cadence and I loaded up the car and headed to Lexington, KY for Karen Pryor's ClickerExpo, a three-day conference on clicker training. Since the weekend was filled with so many wonderful experiences, I am going to have to recap a day at a time.

Thursday: Hitting the Road

Thursday morning we packed up, and made the always sad trip to drop the dogs who were not coming with us off at our friend's house for the weekend. Jade has stayed there many times and pretty much forgets about us immediately, though he did watch us through the fence as we drove off which was a little heart-rending. Tristan just takes things as they come, but Django was a bit clingy at first. Nevertheless, I know they are cared for well there, and do just fine.

We hit the road and made the 5 1/2 hour trip to Lexington in the afternoon. It was a fairly entertaining car ride as Lowell, who usually falls asleep immediately when a passenger in a car, forgot that he had taken a No-Doze and drank a large Red Bull, then wondered why he felt like he was on speed or something. He made for a much more animated road buddy as a result.

We rolled in to the Lexington Marriott around 4:00, checked in, unpacked the car, and took Cade and Maebe out for a stroll. Honestly, I was quite anxious about what I had gotten into by bringing a not-yet 12-month-old pup to a training conference with 400+ people and hundreds of well-trained dogs. There would be hours of lecture, busy training workshops, lots of distractions - I wondered how he would handle it all. He's a very even-tempered guy who tries so hard to be good, but is still a distractable adolescent with a lot of energy. I figured worst case scenario would be me hanging out at the park across the street a lot while Lowell told me what I was missing in the seminars.

We picked up our registration materials and cruised quickly through the store with the dogs. They handled all the crowd and commotion in stride, though they were really excited and interested in everything.

In the hotel room, they wrestled a little bit, but were quiet and on their best behavior. We looked over the agenda for the next day, and all got to bed early.