ATTN2

For those of you who weren't here last week, I'm just going to review a little bit. And we're going to review a little bit with the puppy, and then we're going to launch into the next phase of attention as a behavior. So last week, what we showed you was how to teach puppies the core concept that attention is a behavior that they can offer, that they can-- that is rewarding, that they will get reinforcement if they look at us. And then we started working up to distraction, starting introducing distractions and teaching the puppy that ignoring distractions also is a rewarding behavior. And we called it the mother of all behaviors because, as I've said many, many times, and as we all know, it's really not that hard to teach dogs or puppies anything. It's difficult, though, to get them to do it in public on command when we need it. So this is the core concept and the very first step that we start with with tiny baby puppies. Jean is just pottying the first puppy now, but we're going to bring her back and get started. So after we move on to the next level of distraction with the puppies, show you that, then we're also going to do some, I would say, variations that you would want to do if you were going to go into different venues, such as obedience or agility with your dogs. All right, here we are back in business. It's raining outside, took a little extra time. Hi, sweetheart. Are you awake? This is Imogen. So let's review, go back through our old steps because, with baby puppies, especially-- hi. Yes, good girl. I had the wrong end of the clicker. That happens even to me. Yes, good girl. Yes, good girl. So now I'm going to show you guys something. Do you notice how I have my hands behind my back when I'm doing this? And I'm just going to scrunch her up a little bit so she knows that I'm not working her right now. I have my hands behind my back, not because it's impossible for the puppy to understand that they should ignore the food, but because I want to eliminate as many variables as possible in the beginning and just make her world smaller so that it's easy for her to pick the right behavior. Now that she really has this behavior of looking at me, I'm going to go ahead and have the food in front of me. I'm not really teasing her with it, but I think it's really important that-- come here, sweetheart. Come on. I know-- I know-- I know I made you wait a long time. OK, oops. I clicked you a little bit here. She saw my hand move. Good girl. It's really important to me that I should be able to have food in my hand at any time when I'm training. I'm not a fan of bait bags. I just think it's too big a discriminative stimulus for dogs, and I just don't like the way they clunk around. I like to carry food in my hand. Plus, again, a core concept that, just because you see the food there, going for it is not going to-- do you have to offer me a behavior. That's awfully, awfully, awfully good. You do a so, so, so well-- so, so, so well, doing really good. So now we're going to review with Gina again. Come here. Come here, puppy, puppy. So yeah, I'm going to set her up the same way because I think this was a really good-- this worked out great here. So come here, puppy. Are you OK? Hi, how are you doing? Hey, you want to work some more? Yes, good girl. That's awfully good. Again, I don't care about her body position or anything at this point. So wait till she's looking at me. Walk in. Good girl. She actually was not distracted by you. She was distracted by the food in my hand. So start in a little bit closer, OK? So and then just move one foot in toward me. And she's-- no, she wasn't looking at me yet. It's OK because I've added having the hand in the front, so you're going to have to give her a little bit more time to zero in on looking at me. OK. Come here, puppy. Come here. Come here. So now she-- now-- now she had to, like, wait around a bit, so let's just give her a couple clicks just for-- no, stay there. Stay there. I want to keep you in the picture. And I'm just going to give her a couple of clicks to remind her because she wasn't getting reinforced, so she's like, well, I don't-- I guess we're not doing this anymore. So I just want to remind her that we still are. Yes, I see you. You have the hiccups too. Good girl. That's very well done. Give her a couple more, OK, because it's turning-- it's turning out that having my hands in front of me is much more distracting than we originally thought it would be. So let's give her a chance to get solid. And now-- now move your foot. Good girl. Yes, stay right there. The hands are turning out to be a lot more distracting then you would-- oops. You were forced on me. You were forced on me. I clicked you for looking at her. So give her a chance to look at me, and we'll try it. Nice. That's what we wanted. Sometimes even I make a mistake it's very, very difficult to get it right every time. It is. It is very difficult to get it right every time because you have to be quick to click on the upswing of her ignoring Gina. The problem is that, when you're clicking on the upswing, sometimes you are anticipating a little bit, and you will get it wrong sometimes. It happens to everybody. If somebody asks what the upswing is-- come here. Come here. Oh come here, baby, baby. Come here, baby, baby. Yeah, I know. Come on, baby, baby. You're a good girl. You're a good girl. I'm just going to play with my puppy for a minute, just to give her a little break so she knows I'm not ignoring her. OK, so I have a saying in training that you should click the intention. You don't really know what the intention is. You never really know what your dog is thinking, but you have to-- like, for instance, if you're training in agility, and this is the jump, you cannot click the dog when they're over the jump here if you're trying to teach the dog to take jumps. You have to click just at the point when they're about to take off. Why? Because if you click here, what are you really clicking? You're clicking the dog for being in the air. But if you click here, you're clicking the decision. So you want to click the decision to ignore someone not when she's actually ignored someone for a while. It won't-- I should say you will move on to duration in ignoring, but in the beginning, you have to find that intention, that moment of decision, where they decide to ignore the person. And again, because you're-- you're working right on the edge like that, it can be very difficult, and you really can get tricked sometimes and think that the dog is going to ignore when they're not. But as long as you're not continually making a mistake, no harm, no foul. But you do want to try and be as quick as possible. Come here. Puppy, puppy, come here, pups. I know. We're talking a lot and making you wait around a lot. So come in-- yeah, come in fairly close, Gina. That's it. That's good right there. Mark, that picture look good? Mhm. So, puppy, you need to look at me. That's a little bit too much for you? This is turning out to be very difficult for you. Good girl. I know. You're rather hungry. Again, we fed them a small breakfast so they would be hungry because, if I fed them a normal breakfast, they would not be this eager. Good girl. We need to get some duration on her looking at me, OK? She's not really giving me enough duration for me to work with this. Good girl. I need, you know, at least three to five seconds. And again, it's turning out to be much more distracting than we thought to have this in front. OK, so the next time, you can start moving a foot in toward her. Good girl. And I'm going to click her for a look and look back because the whole picture is very difficult for her with this food here and you there. So yesterday, we were-- or last session, we were up to ignoring, but we're going to add-- we're going to go back to look and look back because now we have the food in front as well, and it's very difficult for her. Good girl. Very well done. Cheese and hot dogs are pretty-- pretty distracting. Try it. Oh, that was really well done. That was an ignore. That was an ignore. That was good. Now she's not looking at me. Try it. Oh, you were cute. She rolled her eyeballs at you. She rolled her eyeballs at you. It's hard from this angle for me to know if she's looking here or-- Yeah, yeah. Oh, it is difficult. I understand. And her eyes are pretty black, which is a good thing, but-- oh, wow! You see, you got it. You see, you got it. That was good. That was good. That was good. OK, do it. Put your foot back. I want to try for an ignore. Let her Let me. Do it. Nope. I know what's in there. I know. I know. She's pointing at it. Hold on. You've been working a long time, haven't you, little girl? Yeah, it's been a long time. It may be too long. Daddy thinks it's too long. Daddy says a long time. That was a long time. That was a little bit too long, you think? Yeah, that was a little bit too long. That was really, really, really good. That was really, really, really good. OK, here, have a couple more pieces of cheese. So what's that? OK, so you can now bring out Bijoux. All right, so let me just review because it is-- it's really hard to-- I shouldn't say it's hard. It's impossible to actually train and talk at the same time because it does require undivided attention. So just to bring it back, last session, we were up to attention duration three to five seconds, and then we had Gina coming in and doing a distraction. And the first step was the look and look back, where we clicked the look back when she was distracted. And then the second step was we held out for ignoring the distraction. This time, we added having my hands in front of me, which was really, really distracting for her, like way more than it would probably even be for an adult dog just because her tiny baby puppy brain was like, the food is there. The food is there. The food is there. So when we change that, now we're going to have to drop back a little bit. We're going to have to run through our steps again. So again, I took a look and look back, and then I took ignore on the food. And then when Gina came in, I had to go back to look and look back a few times just because adding the food-- that dimension of the food-- was very difficult for the puppy. Every time you change something, in "When Pigs Fly," I talk about the rule of safety in training that acts as an acronym. You can put her down and let her just hang around. The acronym of safety-- and that the Y in safety is yield. So when you raise the criterion in any way-- so a new venue, moving, changing position, changing your hands-- you have to yield on the other criteria if that makes sense. So here, again, we had to yield on the ignore because we had added the hands in front. There is no magic sequence in which you do this. I'm showing you the sequence. It works very well and is a good template for you to use. But hey, you know, you might not put your hands in front of you first. Or you might put them in front of you earlier or later. It doesn't matter. The point is, again, change one thing at a time, and just yield a little bit on the other things at first, and then quickly bring up the criteria on the other things again. Good girl. Good girl. So do you want to work a little because I'm going to have you show something else? What do you think? This is Bijoux. This is Bijoux. She's ready. She's ready. She's a happy girl. She's a very, very happy person. So OK, here's another thing I want to show you. So come here, Bij. Come here. Come here. So for those of you that might want to do obedience with your dogs or any performance-- sport, agility, freestyle-- one of the problems that people run into is getting the dog in heel position and getting the dog to maintain heel position. And I recommend doing this behavior-- this behavior of attention as a behavior does not have to always be done in front of you. It can be done in heel position, and I do recommend it. And it has the double advantage of creating a classically conditioned love for heel position. I'm going to show-- I worked on this a little bit with this puppy last night, so she'll probably be pretty good at it. But I'm going to come back, and I'm going to show you another puppy that I haven't done it with to show you why it's so important to try this with your-- with your performance puppies. Come here, performance puppy. Come here. Puppy, come. Good girl. So do you want to show people how you can sit in heel position? It's really an amazing trick for a tiny puppy. Come here. Sit down. Sit down. Oh, that's awfully good. That's awfully good. All righty then. All right, so we're going to be needing some distraction soon, Gina. We're going to be needing it. Daddy did it last night, but better look at me first. Oh, shoot. That's enough. She's distracted. Come here, puppy. Come here. She has to say hello to you. She's like, what you doing here? So just come over to me, Gina. Just come-- puppy, puppy, pup. Good girl. Good come. That's very good. That's very good. Come close, Gina. Come close because the whole-- sometimes being farther away, ironically, is even more distracting. Can you sit down? Oh, that's very good. And that's very good looking at me. That's very good. Awfully good. Wow, so this time, Gina, try a foot. Wait, wait till she looks at me because she's not. Are you? That's perfect. Yes, that's awfully good. That is exactly what we wanted to see. Do it again. That's perfect. Yay, yay! Yay! Yay! That was so well done! Did you see that little decision in her pea brain, her little pea puppy brain? And I say pea because they are always full of pee. Come here. Sit. attagirl. Oh, well, that's exactly what I wanted to show everyone. And I want you all to-- chitty bitty-- pup. Hey, puppy. Did she pee-pee before? Oh, she didn't pee-pee before. OK, so go ahead pee her-- pee her, and I'll explain about that. Yeah, she needs to pee-pee. OK, so Sparky's already peed, right? Yes. Why don't you just leave her out there, and bring me Sparky? Put her outside, and bring Sparky. So I'll show them this. OK, so did you notice that, when I was standing there, she kept wanting to pop out this way? She doesn't want to sit in this position. Well, why is that? Let's think about this. How do we always feed our dogs? In front of us. We give them treats. We give them love. Everything is done in this position. There is nothing inherently more difficult about heel position than front position. Think about this. If your dog is sitting over there, or it's-- I'm sorry, just standing there, and you say, Fluffy, sit. What is your dog going to do? Your dog is going to run and come in front of you and sit because you have trained that dog that sitting facing you-- this is all-- sit means run from wherever you are, find the front of the human being, and sit in front the human being. That is an amazing feat of training, and you have done that just by purely reinforcing it thousands and thousands and thousands of times. Every pet owner is capable of training this very, when you think about it, complicated behavior. There's a lot of criteria there. And they've done it just through-- you can put him down-- through pure repetition. So how are we going to train heel position? Exactly the same way. And this is the base of it is to just start with reinforcing in that position. You saw Bijoux. She wants to pop out this way. She doesn't want to be in this position because, to her, this is the magic place where she always gets fed, right? So I'm going to show you how you start because we have not done this at all. And this right here is Sparky. He's a happy guy. He's a very happy guy. What are you doing? OK, come on, Sparks. Sparky, come. Sparky, come. Yay, hi! You ready to work? OK, so we'll see if he makes a liar out of me or not. First, he's very excited. He hasn't even done attention as a behavior. So this is going to be an interesting experiment. So all right, come here, buddy. So why don't you sit down? Now, that is awfully good. So we will feed you for that. We're very happy about that sitting. But watch what happens when I try and go in heel-- oh, yes, making-- oh, you caught me. I thought you weren't going to move. But you see how he came around. That's exactly what I'm talking about. Come here, buddy. So what I do here is some shameless luring to get started. I'm going to feed him right here. Just get into position, and then just take my hand away, and just quick. I'm still leaning over. I can't show him the whole picture yet. Just take them away, and click. And now I'm going to stand up a little higher and click. See how I'm just-- I'm just easing into this heel position thing? And I'm going to make sure that, when I finally get to it, see how he's wanting to come in front of me? He doesn't understand. Very nicely done. Very nicely done. Hi, buddy. Now I'm-- see, I'm able to get to show him the entire picture. Good job, buddy. You're a smarty! This guy-- I swear I didn't do this with him before. Wow, you are something! Look at you! Look at you. Come on, buddy. OK, come on. Let's play a little bit. Gina, would you bring me a little toy or something from in there? He just did so well. That's good. That one's good. He just did so well, and he needs a little play break. He needs a little play break. He does. Would you like to play with this-- this toy is not-- yeah, that's really good. That's really good. We have to have some play breaks. In reality, I mean, you know, because we're doing these-- these sessions, and I want to show you things, I tend to just run through the puppies and take them away. In reality, I do play with them a lot in between because, again, no matter what you're going to do, whether it's show or performance, or even just as a pet, having a play drive, having a play relationship with your puppy is very important. This is really part of it. Yeah, this is really part of it. But that's a different broadcast. That would be a different broadcast. You did so well with that attention stuff in heel position-- wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. Did she pee-pee? I don't know because I put her outside. Oh, OK, go get get her. Here, take this one. I'll play with this one while you go get her. Go get her, and then we'll swap. We'll swap then. We will swap. At that point, we will swap. See, this is very important. I know it looks like I'm just playing-- you know, not doing anything, but this is all really part of the game here. This is really part of the game. Do you want to work some more? Come on. Come on. Come here. Come on, puppy, puppy. Come here. So again, I'm not going to worry about putting him into heel position. I'm just going to step in. Attaboy, and I'm going to run through steps again. I wouldn't expect that I could just go into heel position and have him be able to do it right away. Nicely done, buddy. Wow, you are really good at this. Look at that little performance dog. I see your little head bone looking at me. You know, Gina, this one's doing so good. Let's do Bijoux again, and then I think we're going to bring him back out because he's a natural. He's a natural. Look at him. Look at how smart he is! There's a little piece that you missed on the floor here. All right, then. All right, then. Let's swap out. Bijoux was busy using her potty box. Oh, in the-- In the-- in the pen. Oh, she went in the pen? She did. She went in the potty box. OK, it's raining outside, so it's not everyone's favorite time to go outside and pee. They kind of prefer being in the house. They're like, you know what? We think we're not going to use the outhouse. Hi, how are you? Do you want to try it again? Sit. OK, so I'm going to illustrate one more point, which is that I know that a lot of show people are probably like, oh, no, I wouldn't-- you know, I wouldn't want to teach my puppy to sit in heel position. That will mess up their show career. And again, sit versus stand-- not even-- not even an issue. And the-- teaching a dog to look in your face versus looking at your hand-- not an issue. Puppy, puppy, come. So what I will do sometimes, in the same session, once they have all three concepts, I will skip through the three concepts-- the show stack, the sitting in heel position, and the attention as a behavior. But they have to have all three pretty solid before you do it. So here, I'm going to take my hand away and just-- come here. Come on. So yes. So I'm going to do this a couple times-- just attention as a behavior. OK, that was very good. Here you go. Then I'm going to remind her, and we also know this one because we've got this on this cue. That's a girl. Come here. Good girl. So we can switch back and forth between those, and I'm going to put her into heel position. Come here. Sit. Sit. That's very good. I know, it's very difficult. But it's very good. Come here. I know you want to pop out of that heel position. Yes, I know you do. Come here. You're not as clever as your brother, are you? But you don't speak English, so fortunately, you don't know I said that. That's nicely done. That's very nicely done. Wow, all right, Gina, you can come on-- come in. Stop right there because that right there is crazy distracting. Oh, wow, such a good decision! Such a good decision, wow. Go ahead, take a step. Yay! Yay, good decision. Taking another step. Wow, good decision, good decision, good decision. OK, so I'm going to switch her back out in front, and we're going to do the same thing. Because again, for your stand for exams, you want to be able to do that. Diddy, diddy, diddy, dee! And then that's a really long turn for her too. Come here. Come here. Come here, girlfriend. Come here. OK. OK. Mark, are we still good in position? Mhm. Do it, Gina. Wow, I know! That was pretty good. Let her-- OK, do it. No, that was not you that she was-- she's actually-- she's actually-- come here. Come here. I know. I know I have my hand down there. That's very confusing. That's very confusing for you. Good girl. She's actually not looking at me. She's actually not even looking at me. Yeah, because she's not-- she's just a little bit slower than the other ones, but that-- we love her just as much. Now. Good girl. That was very, very good. That was good ignoring and looking at me. You did very, very well. Maybe she can have the toy for a little bit. I think we're going to come-- we're going to bring Sparky out again. He was-- he was pretty hot. He was pretty hot. Do you want to do the play play? Do you want to do the play play? Oh, no, she wants to cuddle. She wants to cuddle. She's a cuddly puppy. These are cuddles. These are cuddles. Just a cuddly puppy. Come on, cuddly puppy. Are there questions, honey? Well, that's what-- I'm going to fix it real quick, so just keep running-- Oh, I guess there must be a problem with the chat. Yeah, I'll save it. That's a good girl! Yes, yes, yes. Yay, the goochie, yay, the goochie, yay, the goochie! Give me this. Give me this. Give me this. Give me this. Yeah, give me this. Give me this. Good girl. Oh, was he sleeping? I don't know. I hear him. He's-- he sounds sleepy. Yeah, come on, buddy. Come on, let's play. You can take her away. Yeah, hi. Hi, Bij. This guy's-- this is a smart guy right here. Come here. OK. Let's do it. Let's do it, buddy. Let's do it. Are you ready? I think you are. I think you are. So come here. Let's just review the attention as a behavior in the front with you while Gina is doing that. OK, you haven't even seen the food down this low, so this is going to be difficult for you. OK, come here. Good boy. It's interesting because last week, mentally, they could not figure out where the food went when I put my hand behind my back. And now they're nine weeks now, and they have that sort of existential ability to understand that, even though they can't see the food, it's still behind me. I mean, this is a great-- that's a great example of, developmentally, how working with puppies from week to week is completely different. Again, like an eight-week-old puppy, if you put your hand behind their-- your back, they're like, no, the food-- it doesn't exist anymore. But these puppies understand it's hidden back there. That's very good. That's very good. Let's put him-- let's do his heel position again, Gina, because he was doing really well with that. Can I see the toy? Yeah. Come here, buddy. Come on, cutie. Now you know that's where the toy went. Come on. Come on, cutie. I know. He knows where everything is now. Sit down. Sit. Good. Good. Nicely done, buddy. All right, Gina, come in. Wow, you are just a-- stay right there. Come in. Nicely done, cute boy! Nicely done. Do it again. You are just a genius. You're just a genius. So what I want you to do now is start to, from there, lean over like you're going to pat him on the head. Stop. Stop, yeah, that was more than you needed, right? Mhm. OK, he might break now because that was a lot. We're still in the running for-- he hears daddy clicking. Yes, good boy! That was very, very, very good. That was very good. I'll give a little extra piece for that. OK, so hold on. Less-- less-- go ahead, Gina. Stop, stop. Yes, good boy! All right, well done. He was thinking. OK, so again-- good boy. OK, come on, buddy. The-- your assistant is going to be as important to these games as-- practically as what you do. In this case, Gina, as soon-- you have to actually be watching the end of his nose, and as soon as it's moving away from me stop whatever it is because those were rather big doses which we gambled on, and it worked. But it was probably 50/50. That was a little bit more than we needed. Here, sit down, buddy. Here, buddy, hold on. Let me get him-- come here. Come here. Sit down. That's very well done. You sit right there. All right, so let's wait till he looks at me again and clicks. Pup, pup, puppy, puppy, pup, good boy. All right, and by the way, if a puppy breaks and walks away, you notice that everything-- nothing happened. We just set him up again. He's a-- he's a tiny baby puppy. He may or may not be able to pay much more attention than he already has. Walk in. That's it. That's it. Good, good, good, good, good puppy. Do it again. That was perfect, Gina. I think you can take one more step in. OK, now, let's work that-- that footstep, OK? So do it one more time. Now, I'm going-- we're going to do it one more time. I want to do this look and look back one more time. See, he already raised his own criteria. Now I want to try leaning over like you're going to pet him a little bit. Perfect. See that? That amount that she just did there was absolutely perfect. That's-- that's the amount of distraction you want to see. Do it again. Good boy. He's already good. He's-- he's hip to the game now. Once they get hip to the game-- good boy. I don't-- try it one more time. Oh, yeah, he may just about be-- OK, wait. I'm going to break him. OK, come on, puppy. Come on, buddy, because that just was a long time for him to concentrate. I think that was well done for him-- very well done for him. Again, with these little puppies, you're not looking to create a finished behavior of attention. You're looking to create a concept, and this has been, I think, an example of just really, really how well each puppy has done with this. Do we have any questions, Mark, that we-- all right, Gina, do you want to take some questions now? Give these puppies a break. We're going to take some questions now. You, by the way, were very, very good. Now I'll play with the toy with you while we're doing it. Come here. Let's play with the toy. So I had to tape-- I had to paste them in, so-- Oh, OK. So-- Your mic is off. Go ahead. OK, so Whitney asked, when you gave her the treat the last time-- so this is an aged question-- she popped out, and you gave her the treat. Was it OK then because then, the next time, she popped out again? Is that why-- because you reinforced the first time, or do they do that all naturally? Do they all just do it naturally? You know, but I have the answer for that because-- Whitney asked-- when she popped out and I treated her anyway. It was a while ago, so I don't exactly remember, but I think I do know the-- I think I remember. And the answer is that probably what I'm looking for this time is still attention. I'm still trying to just get that eye contact attention. So if she didn't break eye contact with me, even if she moved her position, I would still click her. It's when she actually looks away from me that I would not click her. Now, that's not to say, I mean, you know, you could have a-- oh, ow. That's attached to me. You could have a different session where you were shaping her not to move position. That's a different thing entirely. OK, well, now experiencing a little bit of technical. OK, someone has to retrain a five-year-old dog and believes this will work too. Oh, absolutely. Is he right? Yes, absolutely. This is exactly how you-- again, in my book "When Pigs Fly," I go through the seven pillars of attention, and this is exactly how you start it. With these puppies, because-- I have a question. What's that? Keep talking. With these puppies, because they're so little, we're just doing it only in the living room. But with an older dog, yes. And we give further instructions in "When Pigs Fly" as far as how to-- how to move this behavior forward to different venues. Puppy, puppy, come. I just don't trust him with those wires. Come here, buddy. OK, we have a couple of questions. For conformation dogs that are low riders-- the Cardigan Welsh Corgis-- OK. Would you also train for looking lower so that they don't ruin their profile while the judge is looking at them? And if so, do you introduce a cue? You said not to cue last week. OK, so that's a great question because it-- there's a-- that's why I showed you how I-- I differentiate with the puppies between heel position, attention and front, and show stacking. I have a show stacking cue. So I don't have a short-- a low rider breed, and so-- hi, buddy. Do you want to come here and show this? Come here. So let me just get my clicker. So I do have a show stack, OK? That is mine. Now, if you were to have a short breed, and you either want to hold your hand low or a train something differently, absolutely, but it's a different behavior. The attention as a behavior really comes down to, as a default, if nothing else is going on, they are going to be looking at your face. But if you've cued them to a stack or train them to a-- a stack behavior, absolutely, but it's a discrete behavior. It looks so similar to us because the dog is standing there. But it's miles apart to the dog. This is not even close to this in the dog's mind. He's going to look down. I don't know what exactly what he's-- those two different behaviors-- completely different behaviors. And this behavior, with looking at me-- the reason why we add the distractions is because it teaches them that the distractions are cues for attention. So crazy stuff happens, they'll look at you. Does that make sense? The other thing I want to point out, though-- and this is important distinction-- if I do have a dog destined for the breed ring, I normally don't do this game, where I show them the open hand of food, and they have to look away and ignore it. That's a great game for pets. I do want my show dogs to follow a piece of bait if I want to place their head differently. So I actually-- if I do it, I only do it once or twice just as a game. But I don't really teach them to completely ignore open food in my hand because I do want them to follow-- follow the bait. That that's the only distinction that I really make with a show dog. Yes. OK, we're still-- OK, here we go. Puppy, puppy. Hold on, let's get out of her. OK, do you need to reward in heel position as often or more often than when they are in front? Should you actually start with all the exercises this way and do the work from the front position later? Well, I mean, if you had bought yourself or are breeding a litter that you know they're all going to be obedience dogs, and that's what you're doing with them, I'd start right in heel position. I would. But don't forget, even for an obedience dog, you're going to have a stand for exam, and that is actually how I started learning how to do this was in teaching a dog stand for exam. And the trainer that I was working with did this, and it just was like an epiphany for me that, wow, I mean, we can really just train these dogs as the judge is coming in to touch them to just look at us, to not, never mind not move their feet, that that becomes a cue for them to look at us because they get paid. So in answer to your question, it's probably a good idea to start it in heel position if you have an obedience dog because we don't naturally feed in heel position a lot. But you should really always do both because you need both, right? Right? Oh, coochie, coochie, coochie. Yes. There's another question that they really couldn't see my hand moving. Could we do that behavior again, and could you pull the camera-- oops. Can you pull the camera back to broader view? Do they mean your hand, Gina? Yes, they meant my hands. Oh, when you were leaning over? Who asked that question? No, the previous one that just erased. Oh, OK. OK, so I guess they meant the one where he was in heel position, and you were leaning over? Yeah, yes. OK, so we can-- let's see if we had any dog left. I don't know how much-- oh, you know, bring out Imogen. My hand was very subtle then. Yeah. Let's bring out Imogen because he's had a lot. Come here, buddy. How was she-- She's a squiggler right now. Who's this? Was she awake? Yes. I think-- Who's this? This is Imogen again. Yes, she gets another turn. You ready to do the heel stuff? I can't remember. I don't think we did the heel stuff with you. No, I don't think we did. I don't-- well, she's like I'm sitting now. I'm ready. You ready, tiny baby puppy? You tiny baby puppy, are you ready? I know. Sometimes you have to play with them a little first, and then they bite your shirt, which is awesome. Yeah, come here. Im, come on, baby. I know. There was a piece of cheese on the ground there. I know. Come here. It's-- it's awfully exciting. No wonder she was squiggling. Puppy, puppy, come here. Come on. Come here. No, here it is. They don't know how to follow food, contrary to what the-- the animal cognition people will tell you. They have no idea. That's awfully good. So here, now I'm going to plug you in here. I don't care if she's sloppy sitting. That's really good. Wow, that's really good. You are so, so good. Nicely done. Nicely done. Gina start in a little closer. Start in right next to her because they want to see the hand coming down, so we're going to-- we're going to use this-- somebody is drinking water, and that's very distracting. She hears it. But this is a good example of the environment raising the criteria on you. So what did you say, babe? No, it's OK. It's all right. First of all, I'm not really in heel position. Let me now get back into heel position. There's a lot of stuff going on in this house right now, and she's very tempted to move. So if she will look back at me, first of all, it would be a miracle. Second of all-- yes, good girl! Even though, again, I was maybe at a higher level as far as not-- just give her a chance-- as far as not just clicking her for looking at me. There are so many things happening around here that-- somebody was making noise in the other room. Daddy was walking around slamming-- not slamming doors, but clicking open and closed doors. There's a lot of things to pay attention to, but you can see that she's back on track. See, she's not being distracted by you. She's being-- she's much more environmentally tuned in than she is tuned in to you. So I'm not sure if-- good girl. And it's interesting to see, with the different puppies-- go ahead. Nicely done. I love her little noises. Yeah, I know. She's great. Do it again. Nicely done, girly girl. Try it again. That's good. That's good. I- I'm going to go to ignore on that. No, stay there, babe. Stay there. Do the same one again. Good girly. Very well done. OK. OK, that was really good. So it's interesting to watch the three puppies and see how-- how environmentally sensitive this-- and I don't mean sensitive in a bad way. Thank you. Is there a clean toy that they can play with? This one's kind of been around. Yeah, I was looking for a squeaky. It's much loved, but it's a little dirty. There's nothing like a dirty pink sheep. Come here. I'm going to get it. So you know, she was much more in tune to the sounds and the clicks and the things going on, whereas I would say Sparky was much more actually looking at the people, looking at Gina. It's very interesting. It's very interesting. Oh, this is a clean one. Look at this one. Look at this one. This is a sunny because she's a sunny girl, because she's a sunny girl, because she's a happy girl. There we go. So what that would tell me, with these two puppies, is this puppy-- I would, going forward, work more on sounds as distractions, more on just people closing things-- distant doors or crumpling paper-- things like that, that may be sound and environment are going to be more distracting for this puppy, whereas the other-- come here. Sparky is going to probably be more distracted by people, which would be more typical for other dogs. How much more time do we have? Ten minutes. We have right now two more questions. And one may have been answered the other week, but you use a clicker in conformation ring, or graduate past the clicker eventually? That's great question, and you cannot use the clicker in the conformation ring. And the clicker is used to train the behavior. Once I have the behavior, I use a verbal marker. I no longer use the clicker. I could actually train this-- give me this. Give me this. I could actually train this without a clicker at all, just using a verbal marker. And you should have a verbal marker just precisely for that reason. But again, the shaping of a behavior is a very specific scientific process that, if you read my book "When Pigs Fly," I go into all the science behind it, involving reaching a level, getting a CER, and then having an extinction burst, working an extinction burst, going to the next level. You don't do that all the time. I mean, that's just done in the beginning to teach the behavior. Then the whole-- there's a whole other field of thinning the ratio and bringing it on the road and proofing it and all that stuff. And you don't really need the clicker for that. And do your puppies know their names yet? Nope. No, because, you know, we're not-- until they're all placed, and we've decided who we're keeping and everything, it's not-- not, you know-- ow. No, that is not-- that is not part of the game. That tastes all the better. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, we don't do that. We don't do that. That's not happening. That's why we spend $5 on our shirts. That's why we get them on sale for five bucks because they can tend to get holes in them spontaneously. They spring leaks. Yeah, no, we don't. If we had one puppy, and we knew that, if-- like our pet people, absolutely. And then once we-- once we-- no, I think we're good. OK, you have about six minutes left and no questions at the present time. Well, let's just bring out the three puppies and let them play out here so people can see them. I think that's a good idea. What's that? You have a novice dog in there. You can show her. You already did that? I think I already did that. Do you think there's something else that we should show? I think we kind of showed a pretty good progression. I think that's very good. I think that's very good. The question thing is kind of screwed up. Yeah. So people have to click on what they've asked. Oh, dear. That happens sometimes. Here, have this. What about the next-- what's coming up next, and what's-- What's coming up next is we're going to-- Can you train an older dog to do these things? Yes, absolutely. This is absolutely how you train an older dog to do these things. Absolutely. It's the same-- it's the same exact process. It's a little bit more rapid with an older dog because their brains are a little more developed. Who is here? Do we have all three of our workers? No, I can only handle one at a time. Wow, here we go. Here's one right here. Let's-- come on, guys. Who wants to-- see, we can also play attention in groups. Come here. Puppy, puppy, puppy, puppy, come. Puppy, come. What are you doing? Oh, where is he? Right here in the kitchen. Puppy, come. Puppy, yay, good puppies. Good puppies. So who wants to look at me? Come here. Come here. Let's do some group sessions. Who wants to look at me? Who wants to look at me? So this is where I'm not going to use a clicker because I have to just get the one that's looking at me, look at them, and tell them how good they are. Come here. Come here. Who wants to look me? Who wants to look at me? Yes, good girly. That's very good. Yes, good girly. Where is she, Bijoux? Here she comes. Mimimi, hi! Hi. Hi, Brinderella. Hey, are you here too? What would you like? Would you like a cookie? Here, pups. No. Come here. Who's back here getting into trouble? Would you like a cookie? Who did that? It's a-- it's a-- Puppy, puppy, puppies, come here, puppy, puppies. Silly-- you're silly. Where are you going? Does she have her bally back there? No, it's right there-- the bally. Do you send a scent, like a blanket, home with new owners to help transition? It doesn't seem to help if you do. Somebody said-- Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. What are they-- what are they doing? The wire. Oh, just unplug the wire. Here, we'll just unplug that. Unfortunately, the plug is over there. Come here. Oh, you guys are crazy. Here you go. You are crazy. Woof, woof. Come here, puppy, puppies. Come here. You teach attention in front of a seated position. With an-- Why not teach the heel position while you're kneeling or sitting? There hasn't been any more questions going up online. Gina, can you-- can you get that question? Come here. Give me this. Give me this. I didn't hear-- I didn't even really hear what he said. Come here. Give me this toy. Give me this-- let me just-- oh, you want the cookies? This one right here? That one down there. You teach attention in front as a seated position. Why not teach in heel position while you're kneeling or sitting? Yeah, that's a great question. The reason being that, with the heel position, it's actually a cue. I mean, it is a true cue that that whole picture of me being standing there and having my arm in that position and standing up and being parallel to the dog and the dog's actual position in relationship to my legs-- that is the cue. The truth of the matter is, on a younger puppy-- a little puppy-- you know, you absolutely might start sitting down. These puppies are nine weeks old. They're bull terrier puppies. They're-- they're ready for me to stand up like that. But you know, if you were going to start at very, very young age-- four or five weeks-- you might kneel down. I start the attention as a behavior kneeling in front of them for the very first iteration because, again, I want to make their world small when I'm first teaching them the attention as a behavior. But once they have the idea that looking at me is-- is something that they can get paid for, it's not a problem. It's not a problem. Sometimes also-- again, I mean, I know it's a long, long answer to that question. But there really are a lot of variables. She's going through those wires, Gina. On a younger puppy, they maybe can't see that well or that high. Again, nine-week-old puppies-- you probably could even start attention as a behavior standing up because they-- they can see your face. They can definitely focus on your face, and they can focus on whether you're in heel position or standing. I started sitting down because we started this with them much younger. Wendy asks if you've sent a scent bundling at all with the new owners? I mean, I don't. Reread the question. Oh, somebody asked if I sent-- send a scent, like a blanket, home with the new owners. I mean, I really-- I really don't. I've never had a problem. But again, I mean, I'm dealing with a breed that has about zero problem ever transitioning. You guys, please don't chew the wires. Also, someone asked, what age do you see-- what age do you say you start to recommend the puppies with attention behaviors? That entirely-- you know, the answers-- The question. OK, oh, somebody says, at what age do I recommend starting attention as a behavior? The answer to that question depends entirely on the puppy. You need-- the puppy needs to want food or something. I mean, it could be affection, but the-- the puppy has to have a motivation that you can control. And some puppies just really don't at a very young age. I mean, these puppies-- we can do it at five weeks, four weeks even sometimes. But that would-- you-- it-- the puppy is really going to control when you can start it. At the point, I would say, typically, six weeks would be a good time to start this. I would say, typically, that would be a pretty good time to start attention as a behavior, but again, provided the puppy has a motivation that you can control and give them in exchange for attention. I hear people-- We're missing somebody. Oh, we'll find him now. Thanks for-- thanks for joining us. Bye-bye. Goodbye! Goodbye.