AG475: Big Feelings: Building the Ideal Brain State for Agility

Let’s talk reset stations! They are one of my favorite things to use with dogs who have a lot of feelings about agility training or any aspect of agility, including the environment.

What are they exactly? Essentially a place that you can cue your dog to go (or they can eventually choose to go) when feelings start to build, an error occurs, or something causes one or both of you need a moment to think/regulate. At the same time, they act as a way to get your dog to reinforcement outside of what you are currently working on. I also love to use reset stations for dogs to struggle with repetition as a way to normalize it or break up training for them. And most importantly, they serve as a way for your dog to stay in a good brain state and engaged with your training session no matter what is going on.

We will be using reset stations in a few different manners throughout class and build several different skills upon them. But note that these are not the same as opt out/end of session stations, which we will be working on separately. When using a reset station, work is always going to occur afterwards in some form. Work or the training structure should ideally never end with your reset station.

For reset stations, we will be using an exercise dot. My preference for this type is to use round, flat, grippy exercise dots. We want our dogs to be able to see them easily and we also want our dogs to be able to move over our dots as needed without tripping etc. They should look something like these: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSCWDS38?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title&th=1

We will be using dots for other patterning purposes in class so if you would prefer that your dog understands the difference between a reset dot and just a dot used in other circumstances visually, it can be helpful to use a different object shape like a star: https://www.amazon.com/Unixing-Markers-Classroom-Preschool-Kindergarten/dp/B07W39XVPY/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1Y9ELZ5H6UPD0&dib=ehttps://www.amazon.com/Unixing-Markers-Classroom-Preschool-Kindergarten/dp/B07W39XVPY/ref=sr_1_1?th=1 

You can also just put one of your dots into another shape!

We want your dog to be able to easily identify their reset station as much as possible, so having an object only used for that purpose can be helpful for some dogs. For some dogs, it won’t matter as long as the structure of where the reset station dot is placed is clear and they know at any given time which dot is meant for resetting purposes and which dots are being used for other things. But if you have a dog with a lot of feelings who really thrives on clarity, I would stick with a shape used only for reset station purposes.

No matter which you choose, we will be starting everything the same way!

• Begin by standing directly in front of one dot with your dog.
• Say your dot cue, then place a piece of food on the dot.
• Let your dog eat the food off of the dot.
• After they finish eating, wait until your dog looks up at you.
• When they do, repeat.
• When that’s easy, try the same thing with two dots.
• Repeat the same process each time where you pause after they give you eye contact, say your dot cue, then move onto the next dot and place food on that dot.
• As soon as the food is placed on the dot each time, the food should be readily available to eat every time and your dog should go to immediately eat it.
• Now continue adding dots like this until you can get up to four dots.

Once your dog is very comfortable with their dots, we’re going to add our first easy reset station exercise:

PART ONE:

• Stand next to your reset station dot with your dog.
• Cue a very easy behavior for your dog, slight pause, cue your reset station, then immediately move to it and reward dog on the dot.
  • I like to do a cue transfer here for the reset station. We will be using your “dot” cue as a general dot cue throughout class, so we want your reset station to have its own unique cue.
  • To do this, say your reset station cue first, then your dot.
  • So this could be “reset, dot.”
  • Do this for the first couple of repetitions, then drop saying “dot” and your dog should be predicting going there on the “reset” cue at this point.
• Now take one step away and repeat.
• Continue to add distance, always adding in repetitions where you move back in closer to the reset station to make sure you are not just continuing to add difficulty to this.

A few reps example here:

PART TWO:

• Now go back to standing directly next to your reset station dot.
• Cue two easy behaviors, followed by cueing your reset station.
  • By this point, you should have completed your cue transfer and just being using your “reset” cue.
• Add distance as we did above with the two behaviors.
• Go back to standing directly next to the reset station again and cue three known behaviors.
• Once again, work at increasing distance as we did above.

A few reps example here:

PART THREE:

• Now we are going to work on training something new with our station.
• Have your reset station set out about five feet away.
• Take a leash or any kind of string that your dog can easily see and place that in a line on the ground between you and your dog.
• Throw a treat behind your dog for them to get if needed to create space.
• As soon as your dog makes any motion back towards your leash/string, mark and reward with a tossed treat behind them.
• Our goal is going to eventually be to get your dog to stop with their front feet just over the leash/string.
• After three repetitions, cue your reset station and run over to it, rewarding your dog there several times.
• After your dog looks to you at the end of three rewards, cue a treat away back behind the leash/string.
• Continue like this, marking and rewarding for approximations of your dog initially getting to the point of having both front feet over the leash/string and eventually pausing there.
• Stop every three repetitions to go to your reset station, then begin again.
• If your dog is showing any signs of feelings increasing at any time or if anything goes wrong, immediately cue your reset station even if you have not done three repetitions yet. Then go back to your session!

A few reps example here:

That’s it for reset stations! Just so you can see where we’re going, here’s an example of how we might use reset stations down the line:

Now moving on…