Welcome to the Animal Training Academy podcast show. I'm your host Ryan Carledge and I'm passionate about helping you master your animal training skills using the most positive and least intrusive approaches. Here at ATA we understand that navigating the vast challenges you encounter in training requires a comprehensive base of knowledge and experience. It's common to face obstacles and rough patches on your journey that can leave you feeling overwhelmed and stressed.
Therefore since 2015 we've been on a mission to empower animal training geeks worldwide. We've aided thousands in developing their skills, expanding their knowledge, boosting their confidence and maximizing their positive impact on all the animal and human learners they work with. We are excited to do the same for you. Simply visit www.atamember.com, join our vibrant community and geek out with us.
And of course in the meantime enjoy this free podcast episode as we explore new ways to help you supercharge your training skills, grow your knowledge and build your confidence so that you can craft a life that positively impacts every learner you encounter. We will start today's episode where I'm super excited to welcome back to the show for part two of our conversation Sarah Fisher.
Now before we dive in if you haven't listened to the first part of our conversation you can find it in the previous episode on whatever app you're listening to this show on. In that episode we explored Sarah's journey and getting started from a young age and getting her first dog to what led all the way up to where she currently invests and has been for the last 24 years. Her resources and her time Tilly Farm and ACE aka Animal Care and Education.
It's definitely worth a listen however if you haven't listened to it yet you are of course welcome to start here with part two. You're still going to gain plenty of insights to help you grow your skills, knowledge and confidence in animal training. Let's get straight into it. It's my very great pleasure to welcome Sarah back to the show today. Sarah thank you for taking the time to come and hang out with us again at Animal Training Academy. Thank you for inviting me back Ryan. It's a pleasure.
I can't wait to do this episode. I've been very excited about it because for the listeners and Sarah as you know last year I was fortunate enough to be in the UK for family reasons and I managed to convince my wife to let me slip away from family responsibilities to attend the Pet Professional Guild British Isles Summit at Craig Ogilvie's training facility.
Now I'll be honest Sarah while I was aware of your name I hadn't had the privilege of diving into your work before that and then at the summit when I saw your ACE free work session on the schedule I thought I have no idea what this is but I'm going to attend it and I have to say it was one of the most fascinating live sessions I've seen.
You had the dogs moving around, various items, some items loaded to ground, some higher up, snuffle mats, food here and there and the dog guardians weren't actively engaging with the dogs you were simply observing and pointing out behaviours and things you say like look at how the dog did this or how the dog is doing that and it blew my mind how much you couldn't interpret from their choices, movements and actions.
Then if I remember correctly it was really cold outside and you and Lesley ended up teaming up for a session inside instead of one of you being outside, Lesley McDevitt that is.
Lesley's work is something I've studied for a while and seeing both of you together blending your insights was incredibly insightful and inspiring so for those listening who like me at that time might not be familiar with what you do, can you please dive into what free work is, what was it that you were doing in that session and why it is so important and maybe we can expand from there into how free work fits into your broader scope of your ACE program.
Sure, it was such a pleasure to connect with Lesley and to meet you at that conference, it was such a great event for me. I love doing live stuff, kind of missed that so much moved online obviously from the pandemic but it's great to be reconnecting with people in person again.
So free work is actually quite difficult to describe what it is but basically kind of think enrichment but with really good observations that help us ensure that those sensory experiences are enriching on a physical level as well and as part of my influence from the human field I was highly aware of the power of influencing the tactile system for dogs that were worried about hand contact, find it hard to navigate their environment and going back a few years when we first had Tiddy Farm
I was doing a lot of teaching particularly at animal shelters like Battersea, Battersea is one of our oldest and most famous shelters here in the world, yeah here in the UK and I was teaching a two-day workshop and one of the last dogs that came in for an assessment because I by then was being able to look at coat patterns and say hang on a minute this dog needs a veterinary evaluation because the coat will change direction where there's a loss of mobility
through the skin and that might be because of diseases like arthritis or micro traumas, little muscle tears, it could also be to do with you know the health conditions and issues with the hormone system or all of that so people are asking me to come and teach those observations to staff members and to training clubs and I was getting to share through PowerPoints and stuff and seminars and alongside some amazing people in the world of behavior so again very much learning experience for me.
So at Battersea this final dog came in on day one of this workshop and he was pulling into his flat collar and his eyes were bulging, pulling into a flat collar can increase the pressure behind the eye and I said I really wanted to transition him to a harness if that was appropriate and the caregiver who had been looking after him only for a few days said yeah I didn't think that was going to be a problem and he went to put a harness on this dog Oscar and Oscar erupted and
I felt awful I had bleed and I had quickly threaded a second knee through the collar and through that thing to an assistant and this person had to back away and did all the right things disengaging and lowering posture and looking away but Oscar was fixated on this caregiver and I just thought oh my gosh this is absolutely horrific because there's a high chance that this dog isn't going to make it through the assessment process because Battersea never refused a dog and they were
always realistic and honest about their euthanasia policy and I said to their head of behavior look I feel that we've blown this we missed the fact that this dog was potentially so stressed and I'd really like to give him a really nice day tomorrow and I also understand why you know he's in for assessment he'd been picked up as a stray he's probably not gonna be successfully rehomed 18 month old big brindle bull breed in London and the head of behavior said yeah yeah
of course he can do part two of the workshop tomorrow I just wanted to give him a bit of peace and I was thinking okay so it was proximity of people but he was okay with us holding the lead was it something novel going to touch his body how can we influence the tactile system and overnight I was thinking you know we've got to do something we've got to do something to give this dog a good experience to help him feel safe and hopefully start to relax a bit in what's obviously
a very stressful environment for him so next morning I got anything we could you know we're talking you know 2000 2001 dog food bags you know the that were going out to the bin the mats from car footwells blankets you know any different texture that we could find because I knew from my human learning that actually putting different textures on the soles of people's feet really had quite a profound impact on the brain particularly where people had disease states that were impairing cognition and
impairing movement and I knew it's very powerful part of therapy for some people and I was thinking why aren't we doing this with dogs why aren't we doing this with dogs so Oscar was the one that just started that whole thing off we got pallets covered them so he didn't get his feet caught between the slats got anything that would just give him a different sensory experience and give him something to feel and think about instead of the stress of being handled by unfamiliar
people in this overwhelming environment and I put two leads on him threaded ones through the collar and asked the caregiver from the day before whether he wants to reconnect with his dog and he did because he felt terrible as well and we just said we're just gonna let him move we've had all this stuff laid out in this concrete paddock it was before this amazing refurb happened at the London site in Battersea and we just let this dog move and we just moved with
him we weren't trying to steer him we weren't trying to lure him we were just moving we had him on the lead for everybody's safety and as he started to touch different things and step onto and off their pallet his whole posture started to change got his head down he was sniffing he really started to become more focused in his movement and he suddenly looked at the caregiver and he started wagging his tail well we all wanted to burst into tears because clearly the
dog had been so stressed yesterday that we completely blown it didn't realize how stressed he'd been coming in maybe we knew he was stressed completely blew it and added more pressure when we were trying to take pressure off him by putting him in a harness getting the pressure off his neck but he hadn't even recognized who that caregiver was in that moment so he was wagging his tail and oh my gosh he was amazing and everything was different in that session it was peaceful
it was incredible and a month or so later I was teaching another workshop there and I said to the head of behavior I said dare I ask what happened to Oscar I get that he was not going to necessarily be an easy dog to re-home particularly as he wasn't able to cope in kennels so she said oh just stick your head out my office and look down that pathway down there and there was Oscar and his caregiver and they were both sitting leaning against the wall and the guy had his
arm over Oscar's back and he was stroking him on the chest and they were just watching dogs coming down from the kennels to the paddocks dogs going from the paddocks back up to the kennels and he got successfully re-homed and that dog is one of those dogs who absolutely was one of the foundation for what is ACE because that started to take me on this whole sensory experience and then I had a foster in 2008 called Cookie Dough I would foster some of
the puppies that were struggling at Battersea and that she was really overwhelmed by anything that touched her any noises visual information and people were saying train more and I was doing a lot of positive teaching obviously teaching her lots of life skills that was much more beneficial to me than having her grab my hair and skin on my neck she could really jump and my clothing when she was overwhelmed but I fell in and I fell into the trap of teaching her lots of
alternative behaviors and she was super smart super clever but I then thankfully realized that actually although I was teaching her some useful skills I wasn't helping her relax I was actually keeping her busy and engaged but just diverting that engagement away from my body and that's when people going train more train more no if something isn't helping there's benefits here but it's not helping her self-regulate and connect and relax in the environment there's something missing
so you don't do more of the same thing you have to start doing something different and I looked online for sensory sensitivity information going to the human field so unless we have to look outside our own industry and I came across the work of Jean Ayers who's an American psychologist and occupational therapist who developed the theory of sensory integration and looking at that relationship between the brain and behavior and recognizing sensory integrative dysfunction and I thought
my gosh this is it anything that any sensory stimuli that is overwhelming is what is driving all the behaviors where cookie does happen to use her teeth and that's something we need to consider in the industry it's a sensory side of biting because we don't and we know that children do it when they're overwhelmed we know that adults who maybe have dementia who are overwhelmed bite and yet with dogs it's not a conversation that I often hear so that's one of my passions discussing
the sensory side of the bite that led me to integrate even more sensory experiences than the different textures that I'd introduced to Oscar a few years before and I was also we had a sensory barn at Tilly farm for visiting dogs so I recognized dogs found it really difficult in novel environments to settle but the minute we gave them space to move and use their nose they were able to feel much more relaxed more quickly and that of course helped their caregivers relax so
when dogs are coming for one-to-one experiences I was creating more sensory experiences this was pre snuffle mat so we'd have rolled up or bunched up towels in raised boxes and people would say oh my dog's not interested in exploring any puzzle games or anything but the minute I'd lift stuff off the floor dogs could suddenly access items that had food sprinkled on them and I was also using big mats long before looking mats were made that were textured mats to stop food
bowls sliding on kitchen floors I was putting pastes and stuff like that on those to give the dog a different sensory experience with their tongue because that was also something I'd noticed with cookie dough that she didn't lick anything she didn't use her tongue it was all teeth teeth teeth teeth teeth in response to sensory overload which probably included excessive fatigue and potential gut pain as well and so these outcomes were amazing the minute dogs could
access items physically and emotionally because a dog that's not feeling safe isn't going to put their head down either suddenly we were getting completely different outcomes during the one-to-ones and people were sharing more quickly why they'd come to see me instead of just dropping a sort of behavior bomb towards the end of the session you know lots of people that do one-to-one client sessions will have gone through lots of tips and techniques and then just as the sessions coming to
the end the caregiver might go oh and I also need to ask you about something quite you know serious significant and that's quite a common theme that people will share the bigger stuff towards the end as they know that there's going to be a get out and what was happening was that people were sharing more more quickly because their dogs were relaxed dogs were relaxing that had you know really struggled in novel environments the outcomes were amazing and I started to bring all these
sensory experiences together as a separate learning experience for dogs like cookie dough we'd have sensory stations going on on group workshops I was teaching again with amazing outcomes with the caregivers and the dogs just sharing these explorations in a really peaceful way and then Henry arrived in 2017 and brought everything together because he actually started to offer learning behaviors and his the way he navigated the world was very similar to cookie dough who ended up staying
with me and I credit cookie dough and Henry being the two dogs who really are the founders of ACE because without them adding even more amazing nuanced layers to the way I was already exploring connecting with dogs ACE free work wouldn't exist so now we have a range of different what we call stations where we might have a step that we then have a secure snuffle mat on or an IKEA play mat they're great where we'll put three snuffle mats because cookie dough I
gave her one single snuffle mat would just pick it up flick it with a terrier you know brilliant death shake and all the treats be scattered on the floor take me longer to load one then it would take her to dispatch them and I realized I wasn't meeting her DNA needs it was actually not a very enriching experience for her it was a bit boring a bit frustrating maybe and I watched her in the sensory barn where the donkeys would spend the night and I'd watch her scenting through the straw banks
on the trail of rats now she would have been a serial killer had I left her but we have an amazing array of wildlife at the farm and I want everyone to live peacefully together so she would never get over and aroused around excuse me the rat scent excuse me sorry but she really enjoyed pushing her head through the straw banks and I realized that the snuffle mat wasn't facilitating that so I got someone to make lots of thin snuffle mats one of our
ace advanced tutors Sue Williamson who's an amazing groomer well worth exploring how she incorporates ace into the grooming salon to give dogs a break she's amazing so she made me loads of thin snuffle mat put them in a big pile and cookie dough loved pushing her head through each layer to get the treats so we're really looking at what information are we learning from the dog to create an enriching experience and increasing their sensory reference library if you like so initially we put in
the ball pit that cookie inspired in 2008 but actually I discovered that lots of dogs were worried by that noise we don't use cardboard boxes packed with stuff because watching videos of people who've set these kind of games out for their dogs a lot of dogs are actually worried by the noise and the fact that the box moves so you see this body tension and that's why I really encourage people to observe look at what you're actually seeing rather than focus on what you
believe is happening because sometimes in our bid to enrich our dogs lives we inadvertently create more frustration or body tension and nobody means to do that of course so free work is this amazing sensory adventure where we're building at a pace to suit each individual dog for some dogs we might just start with three stations others we might start with five or six and then we build and we add in textures underfoot going back to what Oscar taught me in you know 2000 2001
then we do low level platforms and low level up and over boards and can really start identifying physical challenges and there's something absolutely extraordinary about that free work experience where it really does help to integrate every single part of the dogs amazing body and habits change behavioral habits movement habits postural habits habits in the caregiver changes in this incredible way that really helps dogs connect with self connect with their environment and connect with us in a
really useful and rewarding way so it's about getting the dogs relaxed the owners relaxed and observing picking up things to give us information about the learner in front of us it's giving the dogs a chance to be the pilot of their own learning experiences and we're there as kind of air traffic controllers to guide them back to a safer flight path should the need arise so we'll we'll have for example dog came a few years ago and was introduced as a nine-year-old
dog who had a high fray drive around birds and would chase and hunt birds and would also bark and lunge and spin when on the lead if he saw another dog so he's nine years old he's got well -practiced behavioral responses to very specific stimuli birds and unfamiliar dogs in his free work session I filmed it for the caregiver and we have like amazing layouts but we can also have really simple layouts we could have many versions and combination stations where we put a
lot of stuff together in one space so you don't need a big space to be able to do this but we were in my indoor arena and it's open on two sides and this dog was off lead and enjoying this beautiful exploration with his caregiver and one of our local Corvids flew down and was first sitting on the low wall because the Corvids know free work means food and then the Corvid flew down and landed on the surface of the arena and was just hopping around on the outskirts of the free
work set up and the dog 100% knew that bird was there and was so engaged and so focused and so peaceful and enjoying that connection with his caregiver that he almost you know if a dog could have shrugged his shoulders like whatever he'd have done that and the caregiver was so amazed she said I cannot believe what I'm seeing this is absolutely extraordinary and we see this over and over again with free work it is mind-blowing she then when she went outside
wanted to see what his response would be to the next dog that was going to come out of their car and come into the free work space so she waited and her dog would have previously lunged and spun and barked on the lead and he just stood on a relaxed lead just watching this other dog go by and we see this over and over again there's something I've got lots of theories I understand a little bit about the nervous system I have a huge passion for it I obviously have information I've
got from human experiences and learning and I'm always reading and all roads kind of keep coming back to free work that it that kind of quiet engagement and navigating easy obstacles it's not a challenge the obstacles is almost the word easy items that are changing the body posture can enhance learning in humans that's 100% what we see with dogs and it's just a really extraordinary way of helping dogs that would normally be scanning the environment
and really worried about unfamiliar people or worried about the horses or needing to carry a toy in their mouth all the time just take that breath and really connect with self and we're influencing you know so many sensory systems through that kind of peaceful engagement it's almost a bit like kind of sensory yoga and we just help dogs sort of engage the parasympathetic nervous system we can also highlight habits in the caregiver as well as the dog and see where that dog may be
in need of additional support first through vet checks and then maybe through a nutritionist and you know a veterinary physio or whatever massage therapist or whatever is going to be of benefit to the dog and it's amazing for dogs of all ages from all backgrounds if dogs have had a deprived start we can start to fill in some of the gaps dogs that might have been born in a sob up sob gosh suboptimal environment and for dogs like cookie dough who just found the
world utterly overwhelming that whole process really helped to give her agency over those sensory experiences and integrate those experiences in a way that made life way more peaceful and rewarding for her and we've also identified some amazing details in the way dogs gather information that I don't know how we've missed it in other contexts and so we have people watching free work sessions we only have a few people we only take five dogs on each workshop
and up to ten spectators but nearly every single dog that I've watched when we give them the opportunity to explore through hopefully rewarding engagements with our ace free work nearly every single dog and I've watched thousands now when they want to gather data from an unfamiliar person they come into that space they glance towards maybe two or three people watching then they go and explore a tub filled with mini snuffle mats at a height that's easy for them to access then they start air
-sensing towards those one or two people and maybe glancing towards another couple of people in the room and then moving and exploring something else in free work then they start this casual walk by of the one or two people they've air-sensed towards and then they go back to free work they never walk by everyone they never air-sense towards all the spectators and then once they've done a walk by they'll come and shoe scent or scent the lower leg of the people they've
walked by and then maybe go and walk by two people on the opposite side of the room and go back to free work this is this amazing sequence and then once they've done lower leg sensing then they'll come and scent from the hip up and then orientate themselves and air-sense the breath and people have got a unique breath just like a fingerprint it's a unique signature and obviously it's not appropriate for dogs to come up and sniff everyone's breath but I actually wonder
if that's why a lot of dogs get anxious and jump up to try and get that sensory information really quickly and I also think how often have we interrupted this beautiful nuanced data gathering process by encouraging puppies to jump up at us leaning over touching them when all they wanted to do was sniff a shoe if a dog's physically uncomfortable if they've got arthritis or emotionally uncomfortable they might not start with that shoe and lower leg scent they might start with that hip and
upper body scenting but from the thousands of dogs I've observed only two dogs have run over to people straight away even though their caregivers will always say oh my dog's gonna come and mug you my dog always jumps up my dog loves people and when I hear people say my dog loves people he's gonna jump all over you my immediate thought is has this dog got body tension this dog is under social pressure and that's often to do with body sensitivity and that's what
I was starting to match with all the observations that I was bringing from my human background to the dog and the horse world seeing these very clear patterns in the way people were describing the animals and behavior that they they were witnessing pairing that with what I was actually seeing in terms of the way the dogs would organize their body and it's the same for humans we have the same patterns of holding and if our faecious muscles very expressive there's an emotional connection to
what we do with our shoulders and it's same for the dogs so watching these dogs do these amazing data-gathering explorations is mind -blowing once you see it you can't unsee it and it's not only in free work that dogs will do this give them the chance they'll do it when you're out and about as well and the other thing that was that's mind-blowing to me is the finished clues and the dogs nearly always explore for around 17 minutes if they're free work aficionados they might go on for 20 but
most dogs will explore for around 17 minutes and this was a really strong pattern when we start to time these explorations and then I started to look at the neuroscience behind that and TED talks at 18 minutes for a reason because you that's a good time budget for absorbing information and then having a break to process all of that and there was a study done with people who are in some stages of cognitive decline where if they had 17 minutes sitting mindfully paying attention
to what they could feel in terms of their clothing on their skin and paying attention to their heart rate and their breath it had a profound and positive impact on cognition and the researchers didn't know why it was happening but they knew it was happening and what they also discovered was that those people only had to have that experience once and I'm reading that and I'm freaking out because this is exactly what we're seeing in free work profound changes in movement and behavior do
we then go hey we've resolved everything it's not because practice makes perfect we want to keep giving that dog that experience of peace and for many caregivers they've never seen their dog relaxed before and for many dogs they've never felt relaxed before so that's also been a hugely profound experience because the caregivers can recognize what their dog can experience in terms of relaxation and connection to self and therefore identify more quickly when something is starting to
change and in ACE we really focus on that dog's internal environment and the more we focus on well-being in the internal environment for a dog and that might include dietary change absolutely addressing pain so many dogs are living with chronic pain and it's overlooked because people don't recognize what a painful landscape looks like for a dog and that's one of my passions you're pointing out these coat changes changes the spread of the toe that tells
me there's uneven weight bearing through a particular foot and that's why the toes have had to splay on one side of the body for example but giving yeah people that opportunity to see their dogs in a relaxed way and really focusing on that internal environment just means that external environment is just naturally less disruptive for these amazing animals and we really focus on income for the dog and have what I call the no attachment to outcome where we're not focused on outcome we're just
focused on giving that dog a rewarding experience shaping that free work set up to meet their physical and emotional and cognitive needs and letting nature work it's magic and it's a life-changing experience and that's why I give away so much information on it Ryan because I'm so passionate about helping dogs find peace and I think that comes from you're going back to Cynthia and Erin the desire to create peace even in very difficult times and have a really peaceful environment is a huge
part of how I connect with dogs let's help them find that sense of peace so that they can recover more quickly if something does upset or overexcite them you know stress isn't always a negative thing body tensions isn't always a negative thing can come from high excitement joy exuberance but then the body gets stuck in these habits and we need to help the animal learn and experience what true relaxation and true contentment feels like because once the body knows what's available it can find
it again if we create the right environment for them I know what I want to ask you but I don't know what I want to ask you I don't know how to articulate it so gratitude to you in advance for answering whatever comes out of my mouth next okay you said the once you see it you can't answer it and I'm taking myself back to watching the free work sessions that we did in Bourne UK October I think last year yeah and you gave an example there of the spread of the
toe that tells you there's uneven weight-bearing and that's what blew me away so much about it was you know I'm learning a lot now that I didn't that adds to and replaces the layers upon what I learned back then in terms of the relaxation part because the thing that blew me away there was the in the moment awareness of the things that I went I wasn't saying and then thinking as a professional if I'm helping an animal there's so much that I can do in there and it's definitely better without
me and I'm doing a great job but there's so much that I'm not seeing and I can and I can only imagine that it's true for for everyone because everyone has their knowledge and experience that they can only see what they can see and so for me it was just in that in those sessions just so much enjoyment from you going look at that thing I was like didn't see that didn't even know to look there and look at how much information and you said that you're not a you understand a
little bit about the nervous system and I was like well that's not what I took away from watching you do those sessions I guess someone who knows a lot about these things and it was exciting and so much Sarah is yeah I love I love this frequent times doing this podcast show running animal training Academy traveling to conferences where and the lost people say this I know that the listeners of this show can relate to this where you realize how little you know and
you realize how much scope there is to expand and economy and start again from a new learning position but for the listeners of the show and I'm not so before I ask them for I say this this episode and everything you've shared so far has been incredibly helpful and insightful and I think the learners will take away a lot from it but doesn't do justice to being there and watching you work and then seeing them free work in real life but we put people in and also you shared was it with
cookie dough that you can train all these behaviors and show ready new skills but there's something missing there they are and I got that sense as well like okay cool I can teach new skills and I'm good at that and doing maybe season all that kind of stuff but I'm missing this because I don't know this information I'm missing potentially important parts of the Jigsaw puzzle which there's these fleeting feelings of overwhelm we should the listeners of this show start to go okay I
kind of understand free work I probably need to dive into serious content more to understand it more and see the level up and then and then I've got to kind of understand what to look for and what this because because I remember I think I think it was an example Sarah where the dogs were looking and you're like when the dogs looking look at this muscle on this back leg and you'll see it you'll see it flinching and I was up my you know mind-blowing didn't even know that existed so
like there's learning all of those things about what to look for because I imagine likes a freeway what I'm trying to say that a free work set up without that knowledge you know where do we start to get the knowledge to turn the free work session into an opportunity for us to to see what we're not seeing does that make sense yes it does and lots of people will come on it join an online course like that's a really cool thing to start and what I would say is if you're not
used to looking at animals I was lucky because I grew up riding and we pay attention to what movement sounds like you're hearing for that lameness you're hearing for that toes stuff and so I listened to dogs movement as well but that was never taught in the dog world that's why I'm so passionate about this so I grew up seeing and feeling and hearing things but just because of connecting with horses if you're used to watching animals in any capacity set up free work
and see what you can see as movement slows down it is mind-blowing when a dog stands at a station and as a rule of thumb as a bit of a guide there's no set rules we're working with each individual dog the top of the station shouldn't be any higher than the top of the dog's front leg because we don't want dogs to be stretching stretching creates tension stretching tells the body its limitation and we're always working with the possibility that's a Feldenkrais saying
you know don't show the body its limitation always remind it of its potential so start just putting out some snuffle mats at a height where your dogs can access it and what I'm looking for is can that dog organize their body and have a leg at each corner as I call it and ideally and it's gonna vary slightly to do the confirmation of the dog and also whatever genetic predisposition to a slightly challenged confirmation that dog might have inherited but for the majority of
dogs if you imagine they have paint on their pads and if they're standing at a station licking a sensory mat or a licky mat provided the food's not caught in the squares that just makes dogs bite at the licky mats and can trigger frustration watch to see where those paws are and if they walked away what paw prints would you see would you see a paw print at each corner of a rectangle so your dog's got the front feet parallel the back feet parallel and a lovely length and back because that's
ideally what we're looking to support but we're not luring we're letting nature do its amazing thing and letting the body find that position for itself or is the dog protecting their lumbar spine their hips their knees and are the back legs together but forward further forward underneath the dog's body are those toes in front of the knee and if the dog then walked away would they be leaving four little paw prints at the corner of a square what we want is that rectangle that
longer frame can the dog even stand with four legs in balance or are the wide is there a wide stance in front and back legs really close together because again they're protecting maybe the lower back or have they always got the right hind habitually out to the side perhaps and then maybe we start to recognize oh look there's a coat color change around that right hip and actually the dog when invited to turn to the left struggles because it can't actually lengthen the structures
on the right that's really interesting they're only going around their free work in a clockwise way or maybe only an anti-clockwise way we start to see so much more detail and that also Ryan helps us recognize the difference between reward based training and rewarding education the two are very different if I have a dog that I've discovered cannot for any reason turn to the right let's say you can't turn to the right at all his preference is to move anti-clockwise around my
free work setup and when licking can only flex the head to the left the neck to the left sorry never flexes the neck to the right I can then say oh my and this has happened this is what the details that we see in free work I can then say oh my goodness maybe when I'm out walking this dog on a line and the dog perceives a threat coming towards them or in a field because they've never seen a donkey before if I invite that dog to turn to the right because
I'm habitually handling dogs on my left side it actually doesn't matter how many rewards I pair with that right-handed movement that movement and that invitation to turn away is never going to be a rewarding experience for the dog because it's potentially painful because I'm asking them to move in a direction that's not easy and not only might it be uncomfortable it's going to create more body tension and dogs that are tense in the body and or painful can't scent food so when we
say oh my dog can't eat when they're out why because they're tense because maybe they're painful because maybe we are adding pressure even though we're trying to give them a good experience so that just those details look at the feet what are the ears doing where's the tail is the tail in balance or is the tail off to the right or the left that's really common that one ear will be less mobile the tail be hanging off to one side and how does the dog navigate that space do they go left
and right or do they have a very clear preference and how does that then translate to how we connect with them on the line when we're furthering their education and experiences if that is already making people go that's too much information and I am trying to give you 30 years experience in a you know really tight time frame and I'm so passionate about this I 100% share way too much so apologies if people can't keep up with the you know the information I'm
sharing but that's the joy of recording might get to play it back and back go and look at your photographs that you've got of your dog who shared your life with start looking at the sit look at the sit and puppy hood up to however old your dog might be or photographs that you might have captured over the last few months if your dog's new a new member of your family because lots of dogs with undiagnosed chronic pain will have a sloppy or slouchy sit so they might only sit on one
hip or they might sit with their hind legs past their front legs where they're sort of they've rolled back on their pelvis or maybe they can't sit and maybe when they lie down they only ever lie on their right side and start looking at information of where does your dog choose to rest because quite often we'll create a bed that might actually not be so comfortable for the dog we don't give them as much choice and certainly we want to be mindful of any hard bed that might be forcing the dog
to adopt a position that might not be so comfortable so I go for soft beds with raised sides on maybe a couple or two or three sides so the dog can rest their neck like a pillow but they've also got the option to have a lower side so we've got round beds with sides raised beds with three sides to support the dog, flat beds, chairs, we've got a whole array of different stuff and it's really interesting noting when the dogs choose what type of bed and what positions they sleep in so
I want my dogs to be able to sleep on their back, sleep on their left side, their right side, flat out, curled up and if we don't see that massive range of sleep postures we've got to ask why why is this dog unable to access a variety of sleep positions like we do and then what you see in sleep is often what you'll see when the dogs are awake in movement so what's your dog's dreaming?
Do they go into REM sleep, rapid eye movement sleep and when they are dreaming what parts of their body are twitching because when Henry came to me it was evident he's got some damage or maybe was born with a problem with the right side of his neck so his right ear doesn't or didn't move as much, it's much better now as his left and even when he was dreaming his left ear would twitch and his right ear wouldn't and we've had dogs with hip dysplasia whose front legs twitch but their back
legs don't until they were on pain relief and everything relaxed and then the back legs were twitching in the sleep as well there's so much information as I say everything you could want to know about your companion is there in front of you we've just got to start observing it so I run an online course called Ace Dog Detective and I'll put one on probably towards the end of the year it's one of my favorite full courses to teach three weeks online going through
photographs people setting up free work uploading the videos we give feedback and a dedicated Facebook group it's such a fun course and it's a life-changing course for dogs and people and I can't guarantee what people will learn from any experience but I can guarantee one thing if you do the Ace Dog Detective course or you come on a free work workshop or you connect with some of our amazing ace tutors who will do one-to -ones online I guarantee you will never look
at your dog in the same way again and it's really exciting but comes with a health warning too because you may discover things that are uncomfortable and guilt is a unfortunate and unavoidable part of learning because when we learn something new that's when we can have regret and I look back at photographs and I think how did I miss that but I I see things in a different way and I still miss stuff but like you were saying it's exciting it's exciting when I
watch this data gathering pattern it's exciting when we recognize the finished clues dogs start counter -surfing they start staring at treat pouches that's not them saying I want to learn more that's often around that 17 minute mark where they default to a well-practiced behavior that requires no more thinking or processing because they need a break from all the new experiences and it's overwhelming and I look back at my older photos of companions that we've had and I just go I'm so sorry I
missed that but as we learn more we're going to look back and realized how far we've come because as you said you can't know what you don't know you can't see what you can't see and we have to be mindful of the fact that any animal is blessed to share their life with a canine guardian or equine guardian or feline guardian that is open to learning is a lucky animal and we are blessed to have these forgiving and giving souls in our life to further our knowledge to everything they have to share.
I remember before I went to your free work session Leslie McDivitt said to me everyone needs to do free work and I was like well I'm definitely gonna go so I am excited to hopefully have time to do that with you in the next week in the future that would be amazing I know and I'm sold. You are welcome anytime. I'm sold from what I've seen and what I've learned from you that what you're saying is 100% true.
I think we've over complicated a lot of stuff when it comes to canine education and just stripping everything back just gives us permission to sweat the small stuff and I say we must sweat the small stuff and sweat is stand back, watch, engage, acknowledge and teach sweat. We do need to sweat the small stuff because all that information is there.
I used to do court case assessments for section one and three of the Dangerous Dogs Act and I'd see coat patterns and I'd feel temperature changes and we'd get dogs reassessed by vets really pinpointing where we could get these dogs x-rayed or whatever to save their lives in court and there was always a reason why that bite had occurred.
There was a dog who when I was watching him couldn't flex his neck to the left and his left ear was really rigid and I said and what when I was assessing I never wanted to read any of the reports I didn't want to read anything from the police or witness reports I didn't want to know anything about the dog I didn't even want to talk to the guardian I just wanted to assess the dog either at Tinney Farm if they'd come to me or in the kennels if they'd been seized
because I didn't want any voice in my head other than the voice of that dog and I could write down pretty well what had happened because of all the little fun things I would do I wouldn't provoke the dogs and we can look at levels of arousal through the provision of different toys and food you have to provoke them we really don't and it was amazing being able to find all these details and realizing why the dog had reacted when they were touched in a very specific place and I feel very
lucky as well that I had all that as a learning experience because literally every dog could tell me the truth of their story and then of course we could make sure those dogs were pain-free that maybe their diet was changed if they had dietary sensitivities that can trigger behaviors that actually look like it could be a hip issue but actually it can be linked to discomfort in the lower back because of the dietary sensitivity that's my experience too so yeah all this information
is there and all this detail is there and it's just amazing when we really do sweat the small stuff and practice looking we need to practice observing we're such a busy species that we've forgotten that are looking with peripheral vision we're so busy with central vision focused and it's difficult when you're looking using your central vision because actually your peripheral vision is what is mainly designed to pick up movement so we can actually see more detail
more relaxed we are and the more we use all aspects of our visual system and free work gives you the opportunity to be relaxed and stand back and watch or join your dog at the stations because then we add learning layers we can teach all sorts of skills in free work we join the dog at their favorite station we include cheer rags the counting game but very modified version because we never need to count beyond one so we teach all sorts of life skills on the foundation of free work and it
says emerging evidence that it actually speeds up learning improves recall it is mind-blowing and I say this not because I came up with it I don't think I came up with it cookie dough and Henry and dogs like Oscar and dogs like Sandy at the RSPCA that switched me on to coat changes linked with discomfort they're all the ones that have created ace and cookie dough and Henry are the ones that have really developed ace free work so I promote it not because
it's my finding it's not I've just interpreted what these amazing dogs have been sharing for so many years it's their work and that's why I'm happy to share it and give it away because it was developed by dogs for dogs and it needs to go back to the dogs yeah and Sarah if I could have cookie dough and Henry on the podcast would but we have to invite you to offer that interpretation hey I could keep asking questions but I realize you know I laughed or laughed internally or maybe when hmm
when when you see TED talks are intentionally 18 minutes so we appreciate you listening to this podcast as a listener for the good hours that we dive into these topics thank you very much we've talked about ace online and where people can go to Tilly farm and some of the great learning opportunities that you provide I just wanted to shout out as well to an upcoming trip you have to the US of a to speak at yeah aggression and dogs conference do you want to share a little bit more about it
yes I'm doing a presentation on yeah free work and sensory side of the bite helping to build dogs you know sensory reference library and observations because in my experience dogs that are really sensitive to the presence of unfamiliar people and unfamiliar animals are really tight in their body and just saying discomfort restricts and comfort expands so I'm very lucky very honored that Michael Cascio has invited me to share some of that at the conference in September
and I can't wait amazing and that will be yes September 26 to 28 you can attend in person or live stream and we'll put a link to that in the show notes for this episode because if you can I would highly encourage you to get along to see Sarah at that event and just as an added bonus you get a bunch of other amazing speakers and presentations there as well Michael Cascio is doing an amazing job of putting that event on we're asking people go online Sarah to do some of the
learning opportunities that you've mentioned animalcentrededucation.com but also look at the Tiddy Farm website tiddyfarm .org.uk because we have amazing ace tutors some of whom started saying I'm not an observant person but I love free work does it matter that I haven't got very good observations and I say if you recognize that dog's a black sighthound that's your first observation and all my amazing tutors are incredible with observations now because we don't push people we
let people find their own learning style we have the same principles with people that we do with animals so we have amazing tutors though they also run online courses and they're listed on the Tiddy Farm website so please you know visit that as well there's that's an old website needs a lot of updating actually but yeah my amazing certified tutors and instructors run online courses on and off through the year as well so there's nothing on my platform that appeals please check out some
of the amazing offerings from the ACE teaching team. Fantastic and we will of course link to all of us in the show notes as well Sarah this has been so much fun I'm so grateful that you said yes to jumping on this show with me so thank you from myself and on behalf of everyone listening we really appreciate you taking the time to come and hang out with us thank you so much. Thank you so much Ryan it's been an absolute pleasure.
And thank you so much for listening as well this is your host Ryan Cartlidge signing off from this episode of the Animal Training Academy podcast show we hope today's conversation inspired you and equipped you with new tools for your trainers toolbox remember every challenge in training is an opportunity to learn and sharpen your animal training geekery embrace the rough patches learn from them and keep improving and don't forget the path to growing your skills and expanding
your knowledge continues beyond this episode visit www .atamember.com to join our supportive membership where you will find a community of trainers just like you together we're making a huge positive difference in the lives of animal and human learners worldwide until next time keep honing your skills stay awesome and remember every interaction with an animal human learner is your opportunity to create ripples we're here cheering you on every step of the way see you at the next episode