Problem Solving with Kayla Fratt CDBC

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Hey everybody, this is a crossover episode between my podcast, Cog Dog Radio, and Kayla Fratt's podcast, the Canine Conservationist Podcast. I'm Sarah, she, her, certified dog behavior consultant, in case you don't know me, and I'm joined by

So for my PhD, he and I and my younger dog Niffler should be joining us um next year as well. Our finding wolf scats up in southeast Alaska, where we are looking at kind of the diet and movement of these wolves across a huge island archipelago. So we spent a couple months prior to coming up to Alaska training Barley to find wolf scat samples and then also did a little bit of training to ensure that he was not going to find dog scat samples.

And we got up here and everything was going really well. But Barley, as my listeners will know, tends to be what um we call a generalizer, a gambler, a guesser. Um he tends to err on the side once he's trained on um a queue on an olfactory cue to kind of be a little liberal with what that may mean. He will source and alert to a variety of things that might not be exactly what I initially taught.

In a lot of cases, this is really helpful because in a lot of cases we might be training the dogs on like three or four. examples because that's what we're able to get when we're working with threatened or endangered species. And those might not represent the whole breadth of, you know, hormone status, diet, um, decomposition of those scats. So it's nice that he tends to go you know, guess a little bit, um, is helpful. And sometimes he guesses a little bit too much. He can be a little bit

too liberal. Um so when we got up here to Alaska, he was not only finding all of the wolf scat samples, which was great, but he was also finding marten scouts. Um and martens are kind of these little mostly arboreal mustelants. They're super duper cute. think uh they they eat squirrels and kind of look a little bit like squirrels, but in my opinion like a squirrel cat sort of neil.

Um and uh there are a lot more of them on the landscape than there are wolves. So it can be kind of exhausting for him and um and for me if on any given day we're probably walking for three or more hours and doing these big searches, if he's finding all of these other things that we don't really need him to. uh that can be kind of exhausting and frustrating for us. So that's where we were in the first couple of weeks.

So versus the mastelid scats are probably about the same diameter as your pinky. Um and they're really twisty. So it's there are some cases when they're really degraded that it's hard to visually tell the difference, but most of the time it's really

I would use Niffler for that because Niffler tends to err on the side of only taking his training very literally. That's and that's something we've talked about a lot. Before

shows up in big ways in the detection world because of the fact that they know more about this than us. And so we observe these really interesting patterns versus these kind of very contrived things we teach them to do for sports, for instance, are

you you might not actually identify as many of those differences as clearly. And that's something you and I are gonna talk about that later. We're not gonna rabbit hole right now, because we could rabbit hole right now, but let's talk about that at a later date. So

Circling back, here's the text I received from you the other day. You said, Have I told you about Barley's huge milk, not water win? And so I need to explain what that means. Yes. That's about something that I say, which is basically providing a dog with a contingency that is not scary. not the contingency they were seeking. So not scary, not painful.

And the reason it's milk, not water, is because the example that I use is that because everybody's experienced this, is that when you are in a public restroom and you wave your hand under the facet and the water jumps. That's your desired contingency not happening. Nothing is occurring. And that's akin to the way that a lot of trainers respond to unwanted behaviors. They just give not. You try to just ignore.

And just spoiler alert, that doesn't work a lot of the time. Like just we believe that it works and it's fake. Like it just, I don't know about you, Kayla, but like it's never worked. And it could just be that I'm too impatient and so I don't let it work. But we'll we'll just put that aside. If I'm trying to punish the behavior of or extinguish the behavior of you waving your hand under the faucet, if I'm trying to get rid of that. The jargon. If I'm trying to get rid of that.

Mm-hmm. I can spew I can make hot oil come out. Now that was very painful, startling, bad. You're not going to do that again. And also, I'm gonna get behavioral fallout. If you know that I did it, we're gonna have a problem. You're gonna maybe be scared of faucets. Like it's you're not gonna wash your hands again, basically, which is that's not the behavior I was. Get rid of right. So that's an option. Or like if I just made milk come out, if milk came out of the

You would go, that's weird. That's not what I wanted. And there wouldn't be behavioral fallout necessarily. And the behavior would And so I refer to this as kind of being the milk. So when your dog is seeking something and you don't like the behavior they're using to Rather than ignoring Deliver on a different This is the human is broken protocol basically. It's the human does not work.

So it's kind of like you know the example I used when I w I recorded this in a podcast years ago and the example I used was my dog Hidgey yelling at me. When she does that, which is not scary to her and not painful to her, and also very much not what she wants in that moment, and is something she wants other times. So it's not flat, it's not universal.

So you texted me and said that Barley had a milk not water win, which means that you kind of used this idea. So now tell me what, tell everybody what.

So I could just collect these Martin scats and then I can have uh my my own baby undergrad and they can process those Martin scats that Barley finds and maybe we figure something interesting out about the distribution or diet or something of these Martins. So that's cool. That was kind of the first step. I was like, okay, great, we'll just keep rewarding him for more.

Well, my very first step was to not reward him at all, was to kind of go with extinction. I tried that for a couple of days and it wasn't really working very quickly. I have done an extinction protocol with detection dogs who are making um incorrect alerts. Um

unproductive alerts, false alerts, whatever you want to call it. Um, but that was like a six week training protocol where we had a ton of known samples. We stopped everything else and just went to the drawing board and did an extinction protocol. I didn't want to have to do that with Barley here. So we first did a little bit of extinction.

Then I was like, well, okay, I guess we just could collect these Martin scats. That's not the end of the world. Um, but that was starting to slow us down quite a bit. Um and one of the other things that we run into is physically, we reward the dogs generally with ball play. Um, in the field, toy play of some sort, sometimes it's tug, sometimes it's a frisbee, whatever it is. Um, that means that if the dogs are finding like

twenty, forty, sixty, eighty scats in a day. Even if you're being pretty conservative with your toy play, that's adding a lot um physically onto their day. When again, Barley's averaging like fourteen ish kilometers a day when we're in the field anyway.

Now I'm actively finding the Martin SCATS for you a lot more. Um, so we kind of had a an increase in response to that, which is fine. And Luckily, Barley and I have worked together enough for long enough that this whole experience and it as far as I could tell was not that frustrating for.

So then what we started was, okay, I am going to start giving him a couple pieces of kibble for every Martin Scout he finds, and then he continues getting his ball like normal for Wolf Scout. And started doing that. Um, and within a couple of days, his response to Martin Scat decreased pretty dramatically.

It has not completely extinguished, which I actually think is really interesting and I actually like, which we can talk about that in a moment. But um that's basically the procedure. That's kind of it, you know? We just swapped out If I identify that he's found a Martin scat, he gets a couple pieces of kibble. If it is a wolf scat, he gets his ball. That's it.

that I couldn't place. He did, um we dropped his Sharpie a couple of weeks ago and when we were going bac backtracking to try to find our Sharpie, he did stop and and alert to that, but I that had our odor all over it. And he's never done that with any other human origin.

like a trophy. People tend So that's just a hit. Okay, so you had two responses and then you started to give two different If you what you have identified as Martin, you will be able to do that. If what you have identified. And you basically right away saw a huge

But yeah, really, really quickly. Um and I think why is because it is just clearer. You know, it is just You know, he is getting a response from me that he understands I am acknowledging what he has done and like interacting with him and then we can restart the search. Versailles kind of trying to pull him up out of an alert and convince him to start searching again without anything is a little bit more of a little bit more of a discussion between the two of us.

And so when that's just not how life works. So yeah, we could say that the addition of kibble was a positive punisher. We could also say, and I I don't think this is true, but I think people would say, the removal of the ball could might be operating as a negative. Um I don't think I don't think that's happening because you're not actually. I think people would think that's a good idea.

By definition, the behavior did decrease with Here's what's more interesting than that, I think, is that if you think of the entire chain. Barley's doing a whole lot of stuff in order to land on the final link. That's the final link in the chain. And when we talk behavior chains, each link is reinforced by the next link. Right. So

So I agree and I think like maybe can I tell a story that I think might illustrate why withholding reinforcement doesn't seem to work super well in this particular Um so our my podcast listeners will um be somewhat familiar with um the great the great Chico Zapote incident of twenty twenty uh twenty twenty two, I think it would have been.

Um, which was Barley um was working with me in Guatemala. Um, and our job there was to find the scat of a bunch of different carnivores there. And this project was a great example of where it was nice to have a dog who generalizes easily because our training samples.

were only from three or four species, but we actually wanted him to find, I think, seven or eight total. So we were hoping that if we trained him on oscelot scats, they're close enough related to Margays that he would also jump over and find Margay scats. And he did. However, then we had a day where our guides out in the forest picked a forest fruit for us called the Chico Zapote and shared it with us. It kind of looks like an apricot, tasted like an apricot.

So we ate a little bit and I give a little slice of it to Barley because he's my buddy. We're in the field and we're all having a snack. Um and then the next day Barley starts finding these things everywhere. It's just one of those like Oh my god, we have like six or eight different field staff with us that are all following Barley around. We are all like just glued to this dog's every move and every change of pace.

um to find what we're looking for and he just kept bringing us to these Chico Sapot. And throughout the day, um, he was getting more and more specific as we were extinguishing the behavior. So I was walking up to him, confirming it was a Chico Sapote, because I often in the undergrowth there couldn't see. what he was alerting to until I was quite close to him, even though obviously these fruits don't look much like

Um, and a lot of times cats will bury their scats under leaf litter. So very hard to see until you're quite close. I was walking up to him, confirming what it was. saying no, search on, which is probably some sort of no reward marker, something, re queuing the behavior. You can we can we can parse that out if we want to. Um and he was over the day getting more and more specific. So he went from finding all of the Chico Sapotes

to only finding open chico sapotes, to only finding ones that had been recently um broken a little bit. It started to look like he was finding the ones that spider monkeys had taken a bite out of and draw. But it wasn't quite going away. And the thing that got it to fully go away was that I started asking my tech Tony and our partner Ellen to walk up to Barley first.

Check whether or not he had a scat, and then I was approaching. So I think what was happening is that my approach with the ball on the pouch, on my was enough of uh like an anticipatory dopamine dump or whatever. I can't say for sure that that's what it was because I wasn't checking his hormones out on a minute by minute basis.

That it was maintaining the behavior. And as soon as someone else was doing the checking, that extinguished it really quickly. We only had one day of this problem, and the next day we were Back in business. Yeah. Does that answer your question? Uh I hope. But I think it's illustrative.

regardless of whether you wanted to or not. And we talk sometimes with these about these dogs being, you know, having that hit of dopamine or whatever it is. occur when that downward slip of the chain starts to occur. Mm-hmm. You know, those dogs, like the dogs that we like for work, they're gonna place a lot of importance on that down. Chain. in such a way that, you know, dogs that we wouldn't necessarily It's almost like their downward slope of the Yeah. These worky individuals.

Um and so the those super worky individuals. have like almost they just have a super long stretch of chain. And so you need to be even more careful about understanding when your reward event has begun because it is this

Wasn't a generalization problem. It was just a I'm finding this too. It was just like, what if I also found these? Yeah. It's almost like the Sharpie find. It's almost like just like this is a really educated guess about the fact that you might like this. Like that's so and again, that's a type of dog we're talking about too, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And So being able to not initiate that downward slope of chain is what let

And yeah, we actually we joke a little bit that our dog union um likes to try, particularly Barley is the head of the dog union, obviously, and that they are constantly trying to add duties for which they should be getting paid as well. And I think That's uh you know, that's what happens when once every six months he finds a dead toad and then maybe he finds three dead toads in one day and he's just like, the union is requesting that this be added to our duties and we get fair pay for fair work.

uh or phase of learning, there's no book you're gonna read this in. You have to go out there, get your hands dirty, train some dogs to start to understand these things. And there are dogs For whom the that downward length of chain is so short that withholding reward. would probably get rid of those alerts. But I would argue, Kayla, that for those dogs, they would stop

I don't know if I have ever heard anyone suggest punishing a dog for a false alert. I like I must have, there's gotta be someone out there who says it. But I don't know if I've ever heard it as advice and that is because the potential for fallout where you're teaching the dog not to source odor or not to alert.

rather than the dog learning not to alert to this given thing is so high that it it's just it's not a it's not a smart place for fun punishment, even if punishment is on the table for you as a trainer.

All you do is diminish, I think, their willingness. Mm-hmm. In a way that so withholding from a dog whose downward Isn't gonna do Like it's probably not gonna get rid of that. And it's probably also not gonna damage your searching. But if you walked up there and you like gave him a collar pop. Now what you've done is you've attached potential other contingencies to the

Anticipation. If you've ever been in a situation where you're not sure how it's going to go and it could go great and it could go terrible.

I would I would call it like he continues to ask the question. He's like, Are you sure? And then Niffler, my younger dog, is a little bit more likely to even if it's just a hey bud, nope, not right. Let's let's search on. Um or go search or, you know, whatever it is that I say, he is a little bit more likely to you see a decrease.

you see a decrease in enthusiasm when he goes on he's a little bit more likely to just quote unto quote take that withholding and and you see a decrease in the remainder of

I'm thinking about my Icelandic sheepdog Rhea and the fact that if I withheld For her getting She would be like, Well, I have better things to do. I knew I had better You know, that's why she's not signing up to work for you. it just would not be practical, right?

And he is kind of toggling the martens on and off throughout the search because what we have seen over'cause it's now been about a month that we've been living in this contingency for him, is that generally he finds a couple of Martin scouts early in the day. Um, and then generally if the Wolf Scouts are really thin, so if we're going more than 15 or 30 minutes in between finds.

he's then starting to find Martin Scouts for us again. Um, so I think there's some amount of like a cost benefit analysis going on in his head about whether it's worth it. And if the wolf scats are platinum, then why would he slow down for a Martin Scat? Because he's got a jackpot waiting for him at the Wolf Scat. And I would imagine, I can't say this one for sure, but the Wolf Scouts are also probably a little easier to find. They're bigger.

Um, I would imagine the odor cone is larger and more salient to him. Um, so also why would you work harder for less pay? But at least that contingency is really clear to him so he can make that cost benefit analysis. And the last thing I'll say on that before I know you've got thirty four things running through your head now. is I love this for us because A, I can continue my undergrad project. Now our protocol is we clap we gather the first five.

intact Martin Scats that we find on a given day. Um, so I can still do that if we want. And I know he's still searching. So if we go a half hour without finding a wolf scat, or goodness forbid, like three hours without a wolf scat. But he's continuing to find Martin's cat. I have evidence that he's continuing to work. He is still on task. There's just nothing there. And I love having that data for us.

So helpful. Um So I'm I'm pretty sold on how this has worked for barley. We'll see, you know, going forward how I might do it with other dogs or other

Is huge. And but do not get me wrong, Bartley loves food. Bartley's biggest behavior problem as a person is dumpster diving and trash raiding. Like he is a hog and the ball is 10,000 times better no matter how many times he's had it that day. And that's not the case.

be pretty different for this to pack a punch. Yeah. So when I initially taught this was a protocol, um I called it never wrong, sometimes more right. Basically meaning nothing that you do is going to be wrong. Everything you do is going to get But what I actually want you to do And it does not succeed in punishing those behaviors that are getting the Unless the lesser payment is So if we just kind of keep that in your head as I kind of explain

Might have somebody do this in like a shaping protocol. One of the really good ones this works for is train the dog to back. Yeah. What rather than keep walking backwards. And if you introduce this, you know, say I give you kibble when you turn around and hit the target. Yeah. Still the motivating operations come into play and the dog is fatigued because hint if you're trying to teach

They start to fatigue, they start to turn around more anyway because walking backwards now hard for them. Again, that costs. What the dog is kind of doing on the fly in this exercise in a workshop. A friend of mine who's probably listening and knows who she is was training a Malinois to walk back. She had decided. Treat and she had the very clever idea of using banana

you know, you're not wrong, but here's your here's your consolation prize. And when she gave that Malinois a mount a banana chip, I mean that's all

Um, that could be quite limiting. One of the questions I have for you is do you think that part of why this works is so you know we're talking about this the forking in the behavior change. I wonder if part of that what's happening here is we're just filling in the blank. Hey, so yeah, if you if you want to test this, if you want to do Everything right, but you're ending on a Martin scat instead of ending at a wolf scat.

This is just clearly what's going to happen here and now they understand that. Versus again, when we're kind of giving nothing, dogs like Barley, who tend to guess, and dogs who care. so much about their reinforcers where it makes sense to them to want to continue guessing. Like until there's a clear answer of what happens when you do that, it's really I wonder if it's harder for them to really make the decision about whether or not it's worth it. Does that make sense as a question?

Versus like that isn't the situation here. And so it's more just like no this there are two chains available. And probably you're gonna shoot for the chain that ends in the bone.

Some guesses that he makes get rewarded and I'm like, oh my gosh, you brilliant, perfect boy. Thank you so much for knowing that when I trained you on Ocelette, I also meant Margay.

And maybe if I had been thinking that way I would have introduced Martin much earlier in training back when we were doing lineups and back when he was getting the opportunity to compare between the two and get rewarded for one and extinguished for the I mean it's not even really extinguishing because he's just he's never been rewarded for it. Um, but I wasn't I didn't think of that at the point that I was starting the training for this program um in the way

Maybe now I will. I d and I honestly I didn't think that Martin was gonna be this this much of a problem for him with Wolf. You know, they're they're quite different, um

the compromise of giving of giving me something clear to do made the experience of him making these false alerts or unproductive alerts or whatever less frustrating for me too. Because I could just be like, oh Here's the cable. Great. Now let's go find more, you know? And I knew what to do and I didn't have to be frustrated or like trying to coax him into leaving the Martin and moving.

Finally and so I'm gonna spend more time phase with more options because I know he's a gambler and so I'm going to use more options. To teach him to be more full.

Bobcat and Coyote. And because of who Scotty is, our newer dog, we're going to teach Scotty, yes, Bobcat, no coyote, because those two are almost impossible to identify in the field and tell the difference. So if I had wanted Barley to just find one of the two, I would have needed to spend a lot of time training him to feel confident.

Um and I would have with known samples in like a setup to feel confident that he was actually staying true to um what we needed versus Scotty um doesn't seem to have this same kind of extreme level. Of gambling, guessing, liberation, whatever we want to call it. Um, and it was so cool to be able to take Scotty out on these trails where you could see.

Just bombs of scat everywhere. And Skye was going from one to the next to the next, and then just finding the bobcat and alerting to it. And it would have taken us, even though the scats were visible, it would have taken us so long to try to decide which ones we wanted without him doing. And again, now I keep trying to bring in the different the dog differences and I know that's not the point here, but it's just

fascinating and knowing how that fits with what the project goals are and therefore how that influences your training and what's available. You know, if you don't have all of your discriminatory samples available um because they're a protected species, because they're invasive or, you know, permits, whatever it is.

then it's nice to be able to pick a dog whose tendencies align with what you need the training to do. Or if you're in a perfect world, then you can do all the training you want. And I have confidence that if we needed to, Barley could get there, but it would be a lot harder and would require a lot. samples. Does that I I think that makes sense.

situation, the data would kind of point to them being wronged. However, um individual really matters because it you're basically saying what is the search task? And then who are you? And then how am I building Yeah.

pig or something else like that doesn't tend to be, as far as I understand it, nearly as challenging. And you know, if you're employed within a police department or the military, you have these things available and being provided to you in a way that Or not always N like I have more than once have needed to take to Twitter and you know, do like a calling all bear biologists. Does anyone have a freezer full of black bear because I I need some to train on for a

You know, we've we've had to call zoos and try to get our hands on stuff. So sometimes for us, getting those discriminatory stimuli into our possession to actually do the training is a lot harder than we would like. Like the dog training is not always the hardest.

dogs biting. And basically saying if I only have, you know. this often, then I'm needing to basically cut corners. But if you are, you know, I am a trainer who understands the use of punishment protocols. enforcement honestly very very well and could write you a pro

kind of lamenting that they don't have the equipment. Maybe they don't have a dog walk. And so they can't train a running dog walk because they don't Or they can't fix their stop dog walk by. And me kind of saying, Well, then use your ingenuity and your cleverness. And that's where that's what you're talking Is you're saying, okay, we need to train discrimination that we need to get others. Who are we gonna call to get the same?

And if you can't get the sample then what's the next route you're gonna take? Right. And just being clever kind of in the production of your plan and then pivot within the plan. Yeah. Is so important to what you do, is so important to sport training but also what my actual job is which is behavior modification really important right like just not having access not having access And it wouldn't accept. you continuing to try to use a punishment I have

Do and when I looked at it and dug it apart, it all always comes back to the the foundation training is a problem or the conditions So, you know, and then they were saying, well, this is necessary because we sometimes have to search for hours and find nobody. Most of the time we find nobody. And so again, it's conditions and it's cleverness. It's finding utilize either a positive reinforcement contingency or another contingency that that does not produce behavioral.

And so that's just why I appreciate having these conversations with you is the ability to kind of go, okay, I need to solve this problem. This isn't Barley's problem. This is my problem to solve. Right? It's not his problem to solve. It's yours. And so you then you then put putting your brain into it is really and that is really important and really good. And I think that if you were gonna use some kind of or whatever, it would be vital for you to see.

When he decided it was Martin and not Wolf and you can't

Um, he's not necessarily actively scenting'cause he's out there for three hours, his tail's up to a nose hook. So he's kind of sh sharply turning, his mouth will close, goes into active sniffing mode. I've seen him do that several times now and then do it for like two seconds and then go back to normal searching. So he is

His attention is being grabbed by something and then he's dismissing it and going back to work. And then the other thing I have also seen him do with Martin, and I know this one is happening with Martin. I can't say for sure what's going on with the nose hook'cause I don't know what he's doing. But sometimes he will also fully source. To Martin and then stand there instead of performing his alert. Um, and not really quite finish the chain. He'll just kind of like stand there and like.

look at me, sometimes wag his tail a little bit, and if I say, All right, bud, you wanna keep searching? He'll just trot off and keep going. Um, and I've done it enough times where then I've gone back over and seen what it is. And it's usually Martin's. So there is like this point potentially at the nose hook where he's able to figure out, oh, that caught my attention, but it's not what I'm looking for. I'm giving up on it. Or he gets there and he realizes oh

I did it again. It's not what I was looking for really. I don't really want cable but also I've made it all the way here. I don't want to do the core workout of lying down. So I'll just stand here and see whether or not I'm gonna get paid for it. And obviously I'm putting a lot of words in my dog's mouth right now, but I spend a lot of time thinking about what words my dog would say and I think they're relatively

accurate as far as maybe not like he's not necessarily having these spots in his prefrontal cortex the way that we are, but I think like the the cost benefit contingencies, whatever are leading

Reason that our attempts at correction or harshness have failed. They're not failing everywhere. And that's not me endorsing them, but they're not failing everywhere. And they do fail here. We've been talking a while. I think we should wrap it up soon.

But I do have what the F is an NRM in the notes. Because that kind of came up in our text conversation. And so I just want to give kind of my take on what that is. Cause I think a lot of people would say, well, I'm not going to be harsh. I am gonna indicate to the dog that Mm-hmm. When dog trainers say no reward marker, which by the way, so NRM It's kind of a dog trainery jargony term. But it's supposed to be a signal that tells the dog they lost.

My perception of it is that it is either a conditioned person. Which is what that is. Tells the dog. Or it's actually aversive in and of itself, which it usually is if it's uh- or like any noise like that. Yeah. Neither do we. That's why that scary game operation like buzzes when you touch the wrong side, right? Dating.

But yeah, I I think it ca I I I could see a world in which it could actually be cue transferred into no becomes the cue for the dog to continue searching and go find something else. Absolutely. Um but that would require me being careful about not saying it in a way that causes it to become a a punisher um or become aversive and it would probably require almost intentionally performing a Q.

Because I would probably too, because that's how I am. I'm always like, Oh, n you dummy, don't do that. Okay, come over here. Now so all right. And then I like give the real cue, right? Like I I'm exactly like that. So I think it's fine.

a scat that is under like two inches of moss. Like the moss has grown up and around this scat and completely obscured it. Um so I think if I were clear about this, and I'm not sure I am, There could be a difference between I see what you have found. I would like you to go find something else. And I don't anything so if you're really, really sure you can try

convince me. But if you're not sure, then like let's keep going. And he does seem to insist when there is something there. And if I say no search and there isn't anything there, he will leave. And I will then reinforce him. for not going on and searching for not leaving it when he was right and I was wrong. Um and it just gets really complicated. I have no idea. I would have to sit down with a big like diagram.

Having a hard time with it. And what it comes down to, and why I think that exercise is hard, is because my scent is on everything. What we're trying to teach him is to find the highest. Yeah. Because there's all these successful obedience dogs doing it and also your dogs doing it. how to do it. If you had you know if there's a pile of sketch

hairs with, you know, molecules like every like he's not alerting on those. He's alerting on the biggest amount. And when he finds the biggest amount, he will double down until you know I'm sure. Yeah. And it's about it's about reinforcement history. Odor SQs is still about. Yeah. It's about right attaching reinforcement to odor. And then if your goal is to have them alert only on certain volumes, then that has to be part.

Discriminate between. You know, don't tell me about that tube in the scent wheel that has a Tell me about this too. Right. So it's like deliberately teaching them that piece too is possible.

Dogs were consistently being trained on I, you know, say two kilograms, because that was what was issued from the military store when you were going out and training with your dogs. And the dogs were not spontaneously generalized. Between and maybe actually the problem was that it was like two gram. And then they had a training protocol where they put like two kilograms out.

And the dogs were not alerting to it. And they were like, Oh, you know, that's a problem, because we've trained them to find this low concentration, and they were not spontaneously generalized. to the much larger odor concentration. And then again, these same scientists and I can find this and send it to you. It's actually a pretty readable paper.

um then showed that I believe it was about a tenfold volume discrepancy that the dogs did not seem to spontaneously generalize between. And I'm sure that varies a lot based on like odor dynamics and volatility and surface area and all sorts of other things.

There there has been a little bit of research into this and it's really cool that like to some degree the discrimination happens with your training if you're consistent about your volumes. But if you wanted to be sure about it, you probably would. As well.

world for sure and definitely in the behavior mod world. But it's respecting that like their response didn't come out of the blue. One of my my training partner, agility coach Megan Foster, loves to say nobody gets it wrong.

All to round it out, have cool conversations like this with your friends who are training dogs to do cool stuff that's not the stuff you train. Like I don't train anything like that.

Except for you have to consider the individual who's gonna be too harmed by you not letting them finish the entire set. And then also like if Reya misses the entry but finishes the entire set, I have to pay her or she's just not gonna weave next time. Like it's yes, it's a lot.