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 have 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. But we will start today's episode where I'm thrilled to welcome back to the show the awesome Craig Ogilvie. Craig is a highly respected dog trainer and mentor based in the UK.
He owns and operates Ogilvie Dogs, a premium dog training center designed to cater to all dog sport disciplines, including agility, obedience, HTM, flyball, and more. In addition to his training center, Craig runs Big Bark Media, a media agency focused on supporting dog-related businesses. He also offers mentorship to dog business owners internationally, sharing his wealth of knowledge and experience.
Craig is also an author, having written the Interactive Play Guide, where he outlines his successful techniques for creating positive reinforcement strategies using interactive play. His dedication to the dog world has made him a sought-after figure for both training and business mentorship. Craig, thanks so much for coming back to hang out with us again on the Animal Training Academy podcast show. My pleasure.
Craig, recently in our members-only community, we've had a surge of members sharing about the training they're doing using toys and play as reinforcers. After they shared videos and their excitement over exploring this new area for their training, I received requests to find the best person to join us on the ATA podcast to talk about this topic and the role of play. I immediately thought of you, and one of our members specifically requested you.
As it happens, listeners of this show, I even found myself at your training facility in Bourne, UK a few months ago for the PPG British Isles Summit, where I was attending as a participant. Unfortunately, our paths didn't cross, as you were off doing amazing things with dogs in another country, but I was reminded of you once again. On this recent trip, though, I was thrilled to connect in person with Chirag Patel, and in our conversations, he gave you a glowing endorsement.
So I love it when we bring guests onto our show, and it just feels like the timing is perfect, like all the stars are aligned. So here we are, ready for part two of this episode, where we're going to dive into your expertise on play. Now, if you're a regular listener of this show, you're probably sick of me saying, hey, guest, tell us the five most important things about plays. You know that I like my lists, and I like to be super organized. We're not for this episode.
We're just going to see where the conversation takes us. But I thought if we're going to be talking about play, Craig, the best place to start would be with a definition. When we're talking about play with dogs specifically, but feel free to expand beyond dogs if you'd like. When you talk about play, how do you define that word? Absolutely. So do you mean toy play or interpersonal play? You're talking about toy play, like interactive play, like I would do.
I didn't know that you were going to offer me options. So let's go with both. If you think about interpersonal play, I try to split into two very basic groups as a starting point.
It would be interpersonal play, which is basically interaction with dog in absence of toy, manipulating your behavior to encourage play derived behaviors from your dog to the point that it doesn't escalate to mouth contact, skin, teeth to skin, or escalations that could potentially present a problem, which is something that people with dogs that have got like quite a strong tie back to the predatory motor pattern tend to struggle with.
The version of play that I tend to spend a great deal of my training focus on is interactive play or interactive toy play, as I term it.
And that is a capitalization of the predatory motor pattern, particularly up until the grab bite, and then leading into manipulating the process for the dog so that you've got all of the aspects of your interpersonal play and developing a unique experience for the dog, which involves them biting, tugging, pushing, mouthing, whatever their preference is with a toy. So it's really a little bit of a bridge between the two.
But what you're basically doing is facilitating the dog's need and want to bite onto something during play, as well as giving them an outlet for those steps of the predatory motor pattern. Does that make sense? I couldn't say it back to you, but I think it makes sense. I'd love to be able to say it back to you, but I don't think we have time to dive into me trying to learn that. You talked about the predatory motor pattern and put on a couple of different hats for us here.
So let's put on our ethological hat and think about play from how that serves this animal in the wild. Is play a term that you find in ethology? Yeah, 100%. So it's like if you think back to like your ethological hat, you're going to find that typically the predatory motor pattern is going to relate to the dog orientating, chasing, etc., etc. towards prey creatures and basically like the hunting aspect of what they would be doing.
If we think about the way that we are giving domesticated dogs an outlet for that, I am wanting to capitalize on the outlets all of the way up to the grab bite to make sure that we fulfill the dog's requirements or needs, giving them a sustainable outlet for that process. If you think about the other version that would happen with play from an ethological standpoint, it would be the development of predatory motor skills in a litter of puppies and developing their ability and learning.
And that happens, you know, across mammalians or predatory mammalians anyway. Like if you look at a pack of wolves, you will notice when they are playing, they are replicating predatory motor patterns slash fighting skills as babies, all that help them later on in their life when they develop on to hunting. What we're looking to do here is basically facilitate that need for a domestic dog to make sure that they've got all of their outlets and no animals are harmed in the making.
Let's stay there for a second. So when I was thinking about this episode today, this completely unrelated story came to mind where I was doing education in a zoo context and we were training birds to free fly and we used to work with eagles. The particular species of eagle that I'm thinking about with regards to the story we're about to tell was a wedge-tailed eagle in Australia.
And these birds have been observed in the wild to pick up sticks and fly really high up into the sky, drop these sticks, and then swoop down and catch them. Interesting. Very interesting. And some observers commented that this appeared to have no function that was understandable other than the word play. And so I would repeat these observations in my talk talking about, I can't remember how I slotted it in, but I did, and suggest that I was told by someone that came in, no, that's not right.
You have to stop saying that. They were my new manager in this organization. Because animals in the wild do not have enough time to play. Okay. I wish you could all see Craig's face when I said that. Is play, therefore, from an ethological level of analysis, is it based on, when we're talking about predators anyway, which we are because we're talking about dogs predominantly right now, or wedge -tailed eagles in my case, is it focused on that predatory motor pattern?
Is it focused on the parts of that chain, do you think? But also like adaptive learning and the ability to develop social skills inside the group. Because if you think about the format of play, and if you watch two puppies or three puppies engage with each other, you'll notice, for example, if one is excessive with force and hasn't developed the understanding of bite inhibition and another puppy squirrels, typically you'll have a break in the social interaction.
So as well as it tying back to the predatory motor pattern, which it certainly does, it also ties back to the development of dog social skills and how to interact within their social group and how that would be responded or received by the other members of that social group. Because otherwise what you would end up with is a load of puppies with absolutely no bite inhibition, absolutely no ability to interact in any type of social manner. Does that make sense?
Yeah. So its function in terms of how it serves its species, it being a dog, or for the purposes of this conversation, a predator, is to learn the skills required to hunt effectively. And am I understanding from what you've just said, there are social reinforcers there in terms of shaping that behavior? Yes, absolutely, because they're developing social skills through the premise of play.
And if you watch like a group of like, so, for example, when I was younger, I used to spend hours with the litters of Malinois puppies. And you would watch as they develop all of their motor skills and motor patterns, play and engagement starts to pick up. And you get, you know, along with play and engagement, you get competition over resources. You get chasing, you get but you get all of these parts of, you know, the predatory motor pattern, so to speak.
But you get the dogs developing a way of interacting with each other in a reinforcing manner rather than there being consistent conflict. And, you know, seven out of 10 times you see the group develop those skills by themselves for good social interaction. And that follows suit onto the mum, you know, like they're interacting with the mum as they start to get older.
They become a real pain in the mum's bottom, so to speak, as they start to get a little bit older because it becomes too intense for mum. But you can really see not only the time back to the predatory motor pattern, which is one aspect, but also the development of social skills within the group and the ability to interact socially from a play context with inside of the social group. Does that make sense? It does.
And then thinking to now, let's take off our ufology hat, put on our applied behaviour analysis hat and think about the average dog you're working with. I'm sure there's outliers. Is the reinforcer tied to, help me understand this, the reinforcers are meeting the biological needs? What are the reinforcers? Absolutely.
What you're looking to do is to fulfil the dog's biological needs in a means that you can control so that they then don't tie back to hunting, chasing, killing deers, chasing cyclists, chasing other dogs whilst they're out biting humans. Like if you think about, we talked a little bit earlier in the previous podcast about the amount of bull breeds that I've seen that have been often what the people have termed as like agonistic biting in different sets of circumstances.
When from my perspective, looking at the behaviour, it absolutely isn't. The dog is missing the outlet of biting and playing with things. Mum or dad have come home with a big fluffy jacket on. They've jumped up the caregiver. They've tried to push the dog away to try to stop them because they don't know any better. And the dog's gone, oh, wow, look, this is an amazing game. And this person's got this big swinging puffy jacket around. That looks like a great addition to the game.
And they bite onto the puffy jacket. And of course, as they do so, the mum or dad starts to wave and scream around like a big interactive play toy. And then the dog's having like the best time whilst also tearing their mum or dad's jacket to pieces. So it like it fulfils a biological need, depending on the genetic influence on behaviour of the individual.
If you've got a Basset hound, the ability to play and the desire or the time back to that predatory motor pattern in the context of chase and bite may be varied in comparison to what it would be with a Malinois. So it's like the genetic or the lineage of the animal is going to have a great bearing on how you manipulate the game to suit them as an individual. But yes, what you're saying is correct.
And so with the example of the dog biting onto the jacket and thinking about the conversation we've just had about play in young adolescent juvenile predatory animals and the way that that behaviour serves those animals in the wild as they get to learn the skills, they get to learn the social etiquette around specific individual behaviours that we're labelling as play. Our animals that live in our house, our dogs, they're not learning those skills at a young age. Yeah, they are. Yeah. OK.
So if you think about like a group of puppies, I sit with a group of Malinois puppies and I watch them. They are developing all of the social skills within the nest or the litter of the group of puppies. What they're not doing is getting the predatory outlets that a group of young wolf cubs, to use the comparison, would do as they start to develop further and further. Well, they will do. You'll see them stalk and you'll see them hunt and pounce on each other.
But it's replicating the predatory motor pattern that there is obviously a great deal of sociality or social development involved in that. As we're obviously when these puppies come out of the nest, very quickly they start to develop the ability to hunt in their social structure, which is the outlet that I'm looking to facilitate as we progress on with the dogs that we're working with domestically. But their social skills are certainly developed within the nest.
And then they continue to develop depending on the setting that they're in at home. So like we got a puppy called Chacha a year ago now. So she's just over a year old. So when she comes into our household of now six dogs, at that point five dogs, she's developing her social ability with all of the dogs at home. And what she's learning is social boundaries, different interaction styles, calming signals, all of those things that occur as part of social interactions.
What she's not getting in that setting is her ability or any outlet for the predatory motor pattern in the sense of hunting. And that is manipulated by the training that we're doing and the outlet of reinforcement that we give her. So that ultimately when she was to see a rabbit, the reinforcement that we're offering in that sort of context would overrise out of the rabbit just due to reinforcement history and having more access to what we give in comparison to what the rabbit would give.
Does that make sense? Yes. And for most dogs that don't end up living in Craig's house, they're learning the skills with their littermates. And then they're moving into a different context, which is the house of whatever human family that they end up living with. But they're not learning the skills to, in that context, effectively access those reinforcements. Exactly.
And what they're then having is two different styles of learning, because if they're with like a new set of caregivers that have never had a dog before, they're going to be developing a great deal of their social skills and social ability off of their caregivers.
And if their caregivers don't understand where biting their sleeve goes or the road that that could possibly go down from a reinforcement contingency during the course of interactions, that behavior could quickly build in reinforcement history and very quickly become a problem behavior. As where when they're in a group of dogs, they're learning social skills from the group of dogs that they're with, but they're also learning social skills with the humans that they're with.
So, for example, for the large proportion of my adult life, I've had and trained Malinois and working bred German Shepherds. When they're babies, Ryan, all they want to do is to bite you. Like it's the process all of the time. So if puppies are having some interpersonal play and they haven't got like an alternative and they bite skin, my process has always been lamppost. So just go completely dead like a lamppost. And very quickly, the puppy goes, what's going on?
He's not playing with me anymore. The behavior ceases and there's no active reinforcement behind it. Unfortunately, the puppy's teeth are very sharp. And what most people do is go and offer resistance. And then as the puppy bites the finger, this is an amazing game. And then what they've got to try to do is pick the puppy up and put it somewhere or to separate it.
As where if you can roll with a consistent reinforcement history from a social level of like biting or making skin contact with the human, producing no reinforcement. It gives you like for my big dog, Zen, we can play and have like interpersonal play and his mouth will snort like a pig and roll over. And what he won't do is actively go, I'm going to put my arm, your arm in my mouth. Because since he's been a baby, baby, the parties always stop when that's occurred.
So there's nice consistency with him. But he has all of the outlets for biting stuff like he plays every day. We obviously have lots of working training. So he gets to buy a costume on a relatively regular basis. So is that why play is so interesting to you? Or is it because of what because the need to teach people and put people to learn about it? Or is it because of your experience? It's very interesting to me for a multitude of different reasons. That's one aspect.
And in fact, it's one of the aspects that a lot of people overlook, actually. So I'm really pleased that you've asked all of the questions on it. The reason that it usually fulfills such a great need for people is basically the differentiation in reinforcement that the dogs used to. So, you know, most people, when they go into a training setting, they're thinking about food as like their primary source of reinforcement.
You know, people, as they get further along the line, they start to understand like pre -med principles and such, and they start to give some variation. Or if they understand toy play, they think it's throwing a ball for the dog and just the dog going to retrieve, which is obviously part of the process, but not great for your dog over like time under tension or a long period of time.
As well, like the best thing for me is watching the dog develop this style of play and engagement with a handler that then allows them to come completely out of their box that they're used to with regards to the interaction that you get. Because, you know, a lot of people biting anything is almost like a chastisable behavior.
If you think about like a conventional pet caregiver setting, if a dog bites something, it's not something that they're supposed to be doing, which is completely misconstrued with their understanding. As where once you give the dog an outlet to do that in the correct manner and put all of the parameters in place, you then see the dog's reinforcement structure change.
And then all of the things that the person wants the dog to do get performed at such a higher level because the dog is really, really interested in the reinforcer in that set of circumstances. So, yes, it gives them an outlet. But what it also does is changes the relationship or the dynamic between the caregiver and the dog, because now the caregiver has got an additional reinforcer that the dog is really, really interested in. And it allows them to develop that skill set. Does that make sense?
It makes sense. What you're getting from it is, I mean, give me a ballpark figure. How many dogs do you think you've worked with? Now, I want to frame the question like how many dogs have you worked with in a relationship to play? But I think it's potentially the same question. Thousands, Ryan, at this point. If you think I'm 37 now, I've been training dogs to bite things my whole adult life. So that's 20 years of working through processes like this. So it's thousands of dogs at this point.
If you think on an average play workshop day, it's 18 dogs over the course of like three mini workshops. And I don't know how many hundreds and hundreds of those I've done. And I'm still not bored of it. Ryan, I still get lots of requests. I can't teach as much now because I'm so busy with everything else that I do. But I still enjoy it so much because it's different for the vast majority.
If you're working with a sports dog handler, you can start to work through technicalities, reward specific markers, reward placement, variation to the way the play is adapted.
If you're working with a fresh out of the box caregiver that's struggling with their dog chasing squirrels down the park and they're trying to call it back for a crusty bit of kibble and you introduce like a roadkill extensions or a fluffy chaser toy to them in the correct manner and the dog is now chasing it super enthusiastically and their recall performance goes up by like 200 percent because the dog is so engaged by the reinforcer.
Both of them, for me, they're the same process, but different outcomes. Does that make sense? Yeah, it would make sense if you've worked with thousands and thousands of dogs that for you to be able to leverage your knowledge and your skill to bring about that amount of kind of change in an individual dog and therefore and also the owner and therefore the relationship. Yeah, that completely makes sense, 100 percent.
And it makes sense based on what we've talked about thus far as to why this is so important. And because, Craig, you said in part one, you traveled around the world, you've written a book. There is a huge demand for knowledge and skill development when it comes to play. Am I wrong? Yes. Yes. And it's still I still get so many requests for it.
And it's still for me like a little bit of an untapped subject, because one of the other things that we haven't talked about yet is obviously the correlation with escalating arousal during the course of using a reinforcer such as this, which is another thing that I think is really understood. You know, when I do seminars on communication, arousal and problematic behavior, I always talk through the concept of making friends with the little devil on your dog's shoulder.
And like a lot of the time in, you know, particularly in a behavior setting, I find that arousal is almost like, oh, we've got to be really, really careful with what we do, because what we don't want the dog to do is to get too aroused, because that could potentially present a problem.
And what I always talk to people about is, you know, gauging neuroplasticity, so to speak, and looking to increase the dog's ability to communicate in escalating states of arousal in a controllable setting and ultimately stretch the elastic band out so that the dog has got plentiful experience communicating, engaging, responding to cues in an escalated state of arousal, rather than as so many people do, I find is I usually always use the comparison, trying to teach a
dog to shoot in a gunfight, which means, you know, trying to adopt a high level set of skills in a very stressful environment. So the dog's seeing the squirrel and they're trying to get the dog to regal back to them and engage. The dog is super aroused during the course of a training session. And, you know, they're trying to get them to follow instruction with no previous experience. Well, I love that making friends with the devil on your dog's shoulder.
I heard you say that in another podcast and I was going to bring that up today. And I was thinking, I think I'm real smart because I'm saying something that you beat me to it. But making friends with the devil on your dog's shoulder is saying. The little devil on the dog's shoulder is trying to find an outlet for those aroused interactions that tie both back to the predatory motor pattern and the dog's genetic influence on behavior.
So if somebody says to me, you know, which isn't the right terminology, but they say to me, oh, God, my dog's really naughty. You know, this is a pet caregiver. They're doing this, this and this. And I always say to them, the little devil on the dog's shoulder is finding his own work. Like he's finding things to do to give him an outlet for that as well.
What I want to do is make friends with the little devil, give him all of the outlets that he needs, and then use that little devil to better the relationship and the training process between the dog and the caregiver, because they're not then stop fighting against it. And I find so often the barrier and the understanding of what arousal looks like in a training setting and how it can be really well functionally used for the benefit of both the dog and the caregiver is usually misconstrued.
And it's misconstrued because it hasn't been intentionally addressed in terms of. Yeah, if you think right, and how many times have you heard somebody say, I want to keep the dog calm, I want the dog to be calm, I want the dog to be calm all of the time. And if you think about like a Malinois, like Zen will sleep on the sofa in the office whilst I sit on Zoom calls for three hours back to back, no problems whatsoever. But his needs are completely met. He has an outlet for all of these things.
And during the course of training, he is as far removed from calm as is possible. But it's all concise and controlled because we've got so much time under tension and practice with giving him aroused outlets, practicing his ability to follow instruction based on cues and environmental arrangements, etc, etc. During training, when he is aroused, that his ability to communicate when he's really, really aroused is great.
And his sweet spot for training is actually when he's in quite an aroused state, that he's still able to do everything that we've mapped out through the course of the training session. And that's because practice. But what I'm not doing is exposing him to things that he can't deal with and then expecting him to be like, oh, yeah, I can do that. That's no problem because I can do it in a calmer setting.
So I often think that there's not enough sort of developed understanding or working with dogs that need that type of outlet. And that's something that play also adds into and really gives the person the ability to build a better relationship, particularly during the course of a training in a domestic setting. All right. So the listeners of the show, Craig, mostly professional dog trainers or animal trainers.
A lot of you, no disrespect, I know a lot of you don't work with dogs, but professional trainers. And you mentioned earlier, it's a little bit of an untapped resource. So you're listening to this podcast and you've got your successful dog training business and you're dealing with reactivity and jumping up on visitors when they reach the house and counter surfing or whatever. Or dogs barking excessively at home and in various parts of the house or garden.
And you're hearing Craig talk about these exciting things and you hear him say it's a little bit of an untapped resource. What does that person do with this information? How do they take the next step? Use it from a practical standpoint. So first of all, I'm very big behind developing or adapting the play process to suit the individual.
So the first thing that we need to do is to look at the dogs that we're working with and think, is this part, is this concept being used as part of the dog's fulfillment protocol? So are we using some version of play? And does the dog's behavior profile suit some version of play? Which for the majority of dogs, with a few outliers, you're going to find that it's going to be the case that it certainly does fit. But the adaptability of the process is going to be dependent on the individual.
Then what we need to think about is like structuring the process and how are we going to establish the reinforcer? I'm very big behind establishing a reinforcer before we go and use it in a training setting. So the stepping stones I would follow to do that is, first of all, what is the dog's interest in toys, biting, grabbing or chasing things? If the caregiver says, oh, God, you know, the dog's really interested in play. He's got toys at home.
He picks them up and plays with them on a regular basis. What I'm basically looking for is the dog's favorite items to bite. That is one aspect. The next one is the dog doesn't play. He's not interested whatsoever. That's typically because the process hasn't been adapted to suit the dog. And the person has tried wiggling the toy in the dog's face. The dog doesn't bite onto it. And they go, oh, God, this dog isn't interested in play.
So the questions I would then ask is looking outside of the box a little bit. Does the dog ever bite or destroy anything? Does the dog ever chase anything, pick anything up in its mouth? In the UK, we've got I'm sure you've got in New Zealand as well. But we've got like this bedding substrate called vet bed, which is basically like a woolly. It's often used in veterinary settings, strangely enough, by the name. But it's like a woolly fluffy chaser toy bed, basically.
And a lot of people have lots of issues with the dog sort of tearing those to pieces when they're babies, which means that they're quickly removed and replaced with something that is a little bit more durable. So they may say, you know, they've destroyed vet bed when they're a baby. They may say that, you know, they pick up my fluffy slipper and run around the house. They steal tea towels, whatever it would be.
What I'm looking for is a collation of material that would be similar to the things that they like to bite onto. If they've got no interest in anything whatsoever, what we would then do is go about what I call the choice to chase test, which is a process that you can follow in any low distraction environment. That could be a living room, a garden, obviously, depending on the dog's environmental awareness.
So if you were to do it in a living room, you'd get a couple of the items that the client that the caregiver had mentioned. Or alternatively, you would select a range of smaller material toys like a roadkill toy, you know, like one of the squeaky squirrel type toys. Those work really well. The squeak works fantastically for those. You could also use a tennis ball or a tennis ball type material.
And then you could go with something that would be exuberantly fluffy, like a fluffy chaser toy, as an example. And what we'd basically be looking to do is to have the dog in an open space, make sure that their behavior markers are loose and fluid and they're completely comfortable with the environment. At which point, what I would then do is make a very gentle, low level novel stimulus noise. What I usually use is, which is like a little bird whistle.
And then the dog goes, oh, what's going on over there? As they head check me, I'm then going to throw the item in the opposite direction. What that gives me is a completely free flowing ability for the dog to make the decision to orientate towards the toy with absolutely no inadvertent pressure from the caregiver whatsoever. Heads up on the first repetition, the dog might do absolutely nothing with it. They might go over to it, sniff it.
You might even see some behavior markers that suggest conflict on approach. But what we're not going to do then is to go, OK, that one isn't a winner. We're going to pick the toy up. We're going to orientate away from the dog. And we're going to make sure, again, we repeat the process and throw in the opposite direction, dependent on the dog's behavior markers. I've had so many dogs in that type of setting, whereas they've gone the first repetition.
Everybody goes, oh, they're definitely not interested in that. By the third repetition, the dog picked it up, head shook it and started to run around the training school with it. Which means ultimately we found the reinforcer to suit them. So then what I would do is just automate between the items and see which one we get the dog's most preference with.
So once we've got that preference, what I'm then looking for is to establish or build into the dog being able to chase that item with an extension. So I always think of toys in the form of laws and extensions. So we've got this law, which is a smaller toy that the dogs chased and showed some interest in. Then what we're looking to do is to build up a sustainable amount of reinforcement history. So the dog's happily chasing it, picking it up, head shaking it.
If they're happy to bring it to you, you can start to eke into a little bit of a tug, which we'll talk about in more of a structured manner in a moment. So once the dog's got really good reinforcement history of that singular item, then I'm going to attach a bit of cord, which would be no less than three millimeters in diameter to make sure if the dog was to bite it, it's not going to hook in between their teeth or damage their mouth. And it needs to be approximately 1.5 to 2 meters long.
What we're then going to do, just being mindful that when you attach an extension to like that, it can become a complete novel stimulus for the dog, even though they've just been biting the toy two or three times back to back. So I would always wrap a little bit of rope up in my hand with the toy visually hanging from the hand.
Throw the toy and the bit of string together, making sure that you throw it low and not overhead, because what you don't want the string to do is to extend over the dog's head, because with dogs that are potentially a little bit more sensitive, what you might find is that cause again conflict and may inhibit their ability to chase after the toy. What I'm looking for at that process is the dog's ability to then move over and bite onto the toy in the same manner.
As they start to do that, what I'm then going to do is to work my way towards holding the bit of string and throwing the toy so that it's hitting the ground with me holding the extension. Once we've got that and the dog's orientating towards it, what we're going to start to do is to move in a circular motion so that the toy starts to trail along the floor with the replication of the movement of a prey creature.
So when you're moving it, you want to try to make sure that your wrist is wriggling and that portrays the end part of the toy, not the rope, so that you've got a little bit of wiggle in motion. The type of movement that you need here is challenging but achievable. So as it's moving along the ground, it mustn't go super slowly and it mustn't just move like a pencil case being dragged along the floor with no movement.
There needs to be that wiggle or that predatory, that prey creature movement pattern. So what you're then going to find is the dog starts to move towards it. Usually they do what I call the Snow Fox Pounce, which is basically orientation with the front paws to try to stop it. What we're going to start to do is to build towards the dog, incrementally chasing the item, which will then lead into the grab bite on the move.
We want the dog, from a reinforcement contingency standpoint, to believe that their action on trying to bite the toy on the move is the one that catches the toy, not you pausing the toy and waiting for them to bite it, because otherwise what they'll start to do very quickly as part of the process is herd the toy as it's moving, wait for it to pause and then bite onto it to move, which can be beneficial for dogs that are very strongly tied back to herding, such as Border Collies, etc.
But for the process, if we can get them chasing and biting, that tends to work quite well. So dog bites onto the toy, our attachment point is 1.5 to 2 metres away from the dog. What most people do at this point is they go into an overzealous manner of tugging. They pull in at their elbows and jerk up and down. We do not want to do that. What we want to do instead is to hold the toy with a nice straight arm.
You're going to move two steps left so that you've got a nice, what I call it is like tactical tension. You want enough tension on the toy so that it's creating resistance, but not so much that you're pulling it out of the dog's mouth. So you take two steps left and two steps right so that you've got like a nice swaying motion of the toy having just enough tension for the dog to start to create resistance. As the dog starts to create resistance, they're going to do one of three things.
They're either going to tug and resist back, which is perfect. They're going to hold strong and start to sort of double down on the toy, or they're going to start to move towards you. What we're aiming for is to manipulate the play style to suit the dog. The movement during the game tends to be beneficial for the tugging process. So by keeping that lateral motion of two steps left, two steps right, what we're going to encourage is a little bit more movement during the course of the tug.
And typically, as the dogs start to feel the pushback producing reinforcement, which is them tugging the toy with you, the pullback of the toy starts to become a more and more prominent part of the process. So as we're doing these steps left to right, you're going to switch hands as you're doing so. But what I want then the person to do is typically sort of overhand grab the rope so that they're getting incrementally closer to the dog's contact point as they're tugging.
Typically, somewhere around about four to 600 millimeters away from where the dog is biting is a good starting point for you to be holding where the dog is tugging. And what we're looking to do then is as they start to resist back, we want to give the dog the inclination that they are winning on a regular basis. What does a win look like? For me, it's a drop in tension in pairing with a behavior action from the dog.
So if the dog has got a really solid grip or is pulling back, you've got a long extension. You can let the toy go dead and then start the game again, which usually causes more intensity in the actions that are occurring at that point in time. What we would want that to build towards is letting the dog win the toy completely and returning, which depending on the dog and their reinforcement history, there's multiple ways to do.
We may have to shape it at the beginning and then sort of merge it into the play process, which I can talk through. But for most people, the fundamental mistake that they make with the win is that the dog is at six o'clock, they're at 12 o'clock. As they let the dog win, they stutter or shuffle forward, which usually causes reflective action from the dog's perspective. And they say, mom, dad, chase me and sort of run off across the training center or the room away from them.
And of course, the handler then goes, oh, god, I need to get to the dog. And that becomes the game. As where on so many occasions with people that have retrieving issues, I've said to them, let go of the toy at six o 'clock and run to 12. And all of a sudden the dog goes, this is a completely different contingency. I need to get off the mom or dad. And then they chase after and you're able to catch the toy.
You can add, as I do with everybody that I work with, clinicality to the retrieve, because I think it's an important part of the game to make sure that everything flows and the person basically doesn't get into conflict with training. When we start to develop the tug and the dog is offering a good amount of resistance, the bit that is like magical for me, so to speak, is they're manipulating the tug to suit the dog as an individual.
So what I always say to people is the toy is just an extension to the experience that you create. So you're creating an experience with your dog. The toy is just a bridge to creating that experience. And what we want to try to do now is to consider all of the sort of interpersonal play aspects that you carry out with your dog.
So if you think about everybody, regardless of what they say, when we're alone with our dogs, like we do things that are goofy and stupid, we make stupid noises, we blow raspberries, we run around, we share tactile affection in a particular way. Adding those bits into the game are the bit that makes the game special for you and your dog because you're adapting the process in a way that nobody else can do.
I've got a massive amount of experience in teaching dogs to bite stuff, and I'm very, very fortunate to have that experience. But if I've got somebody that's been playing with their dog every two days for the last two years, they've got an immense amount of time under tension playing with this dog as an individual, and they understand what makes their dog tick.
And that's where sort of the speciality comes into place for me because you can really adapt the play process to suit the dog as an individual. Does that make sense? Yeah, I like your phrasing of it. It's challenging but achievable. I mean, it all makes sense. And for the listeners of the show and for myself and for people wanting to implement this, obviously, you're going to have to put that into practice and get some repetitions under your belt to build that skill set.
Now, then I'm assuming once you have that tug and you have that play, then you can use it as a reinforcer to shape behaviors and so you're contributing that. This is what I'm taking away. So to feedback to me if I'm missing anything and build on what I'm saying and so you're meeting those needs of the dog.
So therefore that's going to flow over if you're working with your clients into whatever behavior challenges they're calling you up about because having met your dog's needs in this way is going to create happiness as we talked about in part one. Absolutely. But if we dig in like a tiny little bit deeper, if you think about the – we've established play as a reinforcer. What I'm looking for is sustainability with the dog's response in an average of five sessions.
So if we were to go into the garden where we'd set the session up and we were to follow the antecedent that would suggest toy play is going to be available and we get the same response, same engagement back-to-back, that's indicative to me that in this setting, in this learning environment, the dog is quite happy with play as a reinforcer.
Now if we was thinking about from an outlet perspective, a dog that was potentially struggling with mouthing, et cetera, at home, what we would start to do then is manipulate the reinforcer into some parameters that give the dog clarity with their availability of biting the object and the limited availability of biting the person. So that may be stop games as I call them. So one of the things that I'll do as a foundation game is I'll have a little bit of food in hand.
I'll start off with a low-level food follow. I'll move off, pause with dynamic movement, which body language markers suggest to the dog that I want them to stop. They stop and I mark and reward them with food. And then I would elevate the process of doing the same thing with toy play. The only difference being is as the dog offers a dead-fix stand or a sit or whatever behaviour we're working on, then the toy becomes accessible.
So you're developing almost what I would call an unreasonable set of circumstances if somebody was looking. They'd say, well, you're running from the dog with a toy in your hand. It's inevitable that they're going to bite you. It's not if you follow the steps leading up to the dog going. The contingency here is keeping paws on floor.
When mum or dad freezes, I offer X behaviour, which produces the reinforcer that I want, which then gives you so much benefit of being able to, again, develop the dog's ability to think when they're in a slightly more aroused state, which again, I've done this with so many different dogs for rescue settings, behaviour clients, et cetera, et cetera. And it works really, really well, as long as you adjust the process to suit the individual. So you're giving them an outlet.
But what you're also doing, Ryan, is helping them develop the ability to think when they're a little bit more aroused or when they get into these aroused states, so that then you've got like the two peaks of the mountain coming together, which ultimately, as long as applied correctly, give the dog a sustainable outlet for their needs, but also help them develop the ability to think when they're a little bit more aroused, which is beneficial for everything that we do.
And then looking at the time, we don't have time for too much more, even though I feel like we're just scratching the surface. But share with everyone before we finish, we'll make sure to mention your book and places where they can go to if they have liked what they've heard today, learn more from you, Craig. So this is, my question was, this is beneficial for all the dogs, right? Because all of the dogs are dogs. And so they have that predatory motor sequence.
Yep. And so it's going to be beneficial for all the dogs or? So I gave the example of the dog that we were meeting their need with regards to play. And then we've obviously got like the sporting aspect that I just talked through, whereas you would establish the reinforcer without being elongated, because we've not got lots of time.
But what you would then start to do is to use that as a reinforcer for previously trained behaviors, typically, or you could use the toy as part of the shaping process, which is a long conversation, which we can, I'm sure, talk for another time. But ultimately, it is beneficial for the large majority of dogs in some aspect. But the way that a particular genetic group will play in comparison to the other, there will be some similarities.
But it's very, very important to adapt the process for the individual. Example, I've worked with lots of dogs that have come from like foreign rescue dogs that have come from different countries. And they've landed themselves in a house in the UK somewhere. And the person contacts me and says, oh, you know, really struggling with this doggy that we've got. He's been hidden under the kitchen table for the last however long.
And we go ahead with the behavior mod plan, which starts to work fantastically. And then what it also introduces a version of play. Now, for that dog, Ryan, in that setting, introducing conventional toy play, as we've just talked through. Typically, the dog isn't in a stable or comfortable enough state as their baseline, which we work on developing to get there immediately. So what I'll introduce is a food-derived toy.
And follow a variation of the same steps that we've just talked through, but you're basically forming or making the toy a secondary reinforcer because of the correlation with food. And you watch these little dogs like come out of their box over the case of a short session. They start off with just simple targeting where they're sort of still and they reach their neck to get a little bit of food out of there.
And then by the end of the session, they're pouncing across the living room and opening up the fluffy ball to get the food out, which then later on leads to food. Because there is a process that we're following, but we're not like, if I was training a leased dog, for example, I need the dogs to do things in a very particular way in a very particular sequence. I'm looking for clinicality all of the time. This is literally establishment of reinforcement.
So the way that the dog does it is only important that the dog is reinforced by it. So if the dog chases it, does a roly-poly and opens it, laying on its back on the side to do it, it doesn't matter to start with because the dog is seeking reinforcement from the activity, which again is one of the other magic parts of it. Magic is science, but it works really well. Nice. I think that's a good place to end. But for those listening, they have been inspired today. They want to learn more.
They can see you in some random country around the world, Switzerland or Australia, potentially. Already you have done those by the time this is released, but they can read your book. Where else can they go? What are their opportunities to learn more from you specifically about this topic? If anybody's got any questions whatsoever, it's Craig Ogilvie Dogs on Instagram. That's the best place to reach out and contact me.
I'll happily have conversations and sort of chop it up with people if they want to message me on there. The website is OgilvieDogs.com, and my handle is Craig Ogilvie Dogs on all of the platforms. So feel free to drop me a message anywhere. And, Craig, moving forward, we do ask this of everyone. And I forgot to mention that to you earlier. Sorry. But what do you want to see happen with regards to this? Because you said it's an untapped – I can't remember the words you used.
I wrote it down somewhere. An untapped resource, I think, was what you said earlier. And that aligns with the excitement, I would say, shared by members of our community when they're coming into our community areas within our membership and sharing their newfound love for using toys and play as reinforcers. What do you want to see happen over the next five to ten years in terms of play?
But if you want to answer for the broader animal training, dog training world as well, where do you want to see this go? From a play perspective. I've been, again, doing this for a really good period of time. And in a sports and working setting, play is something that is very, very prominent. I think in the wider expanse of the animal training community, I'd just like to see it spread.
I'd like to see dogs being able to express the outlets that are needed to fulfill their needs and it to be used as a positive rather than oh-so-often. The downside is people see the side effects as a negative because the people aren't having those needs met. And again, it's so super popular as an outlet. Even 20 years ago, Brian, like play was used regularly during the course of training working dogs, certainly in the circles that I've mixed in and had exposure to.
But it's just if we could see that expand and people develop as much of an open mind with regards to using it. And also, because I think the correlation with arousal is the thing that often puts a lot of people off. And developing an understanding of diagnostically where a dog's baseline is, the point that they're able to bridge to and still communicate effectively, how to bring them back down, how to work through a session using play and increased reinforcement.
It will do for the better for the animal training community and animal caregivers or pet dog caregivers over the world. Amazing. Well, thank you for all that you do to share that information and to build our capacity and skill and knowledge in this area. And you listeners are probably excited like me, realizing how much there is to learn when it comes to animal training and behavior and that never stops.
Craig, we will link to everything we've mentioned social media wise that Craig mentioned earlier in books, et cetera, in the show notes for that. For this episode, we will officially now wrap up part two, though. This has been a ton of fun, Craig. So from myself and everyone listening, thank you so much for making time for us. Thank you very much for having me, my man. It's been an absolute pleasure. And thank you, everybody, for listening. 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 trainer's 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 or 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.