Ever wondered how arousal impacts performance? Debated whether jackpots are worth using? In this episode I ask Petra Ford about both topics — and we do a deep dive on how to keep your dog at an optimal arousal level then chat about the trade offs that come with choosing to use jackpots in training. 

 Transcript

Melissa Breau: This is Melissa Breau and you're listening to the Fenzi Dog Sports Podcast brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy, an online school dedicated to providing high quality instruction for competitive dog sports using only the most current and progressive training methods. Today I'll be talking to Petra Ford about arousal and using jackpots in training. Hi, Petra, welcome back to the podcast.

Petra Ford: Hi, Melissa, thanks for having me back. Always happy to be here.

Melissa Breau: Happy to chat with you. To start us out, do you want to just kind of remind everybody a little bit about you? So I have currently have three dogs. I have Zeal, he's 13 and a half. By some miracle, he still does our. We did like an hour and 20 minute hike today. Still did the whole thing. I don't know how, of course.

Then the rest of the day he's sacked out on his dog bed. But so he's obviously retired. Although he still likes to get his turn. So most of the time when I train, he still wants a turn. He gets his turn. I have Zayna, she's nine. Oh God. She'll be 10 very soon. I don't know how that happens. Still competing. And obedience. She's still liking it. And Zesty is, oh my God, is he five or six somewhere in there. He's my youngster. He's still competing. So we do competition, obedience and yeah, that's what we're doing right now.

Melissa Breau: Awesome. So I mentioned I want to talk about arousal and jackpot. So let's start with the arousal topic. When we're talking about arousal in dogs, what is it we're really referring to? Kind of physiologically and behaviorally.

Petra Ford: So basically I like to look at arousal is I would like my dog to be in an optimal state so they can focus and learn.

So it's not super different than humans. Right. Like if you're laying on the couch relaxed and you're watching Netflix and someone asks you like a complex question, you're going to be like, hold on a minute. Like, I need to shift my mindset and I need to like kind of wake myself up a little bit. Right. And same if you're really excited or really nervous about something, that's not the best time for you to focus on a complex task.

So it's the same with dogs. If dogs are, you know, if I take my dog out of their crate, my dogs are not immediately ready to work. They will all like start stretching and maybe yawning. Or Zayna likes to do like the alligator snap. They do certain behaviors because they're bringing their arousal up. They're bringing their body and mind into an optimal state so they can process the information because they understand, oh, we're training.

I need to think, I need to concentrate, I need to focus. If the dog gets too excited, then too aroused, then it's hard to concentrate, literally, right? They're just. They're hyper alert, they're twitchy. There's chemicals pouring into their brain and body, and it's very hard for them to concentrate. If I, like, tug with my dog and immediately ask them to do behaviors, there's a good chance they're going to make some mistakes or they're going to vocalize because they're just not in that optimal state.

So I like to think of it like a thermostat. So if my dog's optimal temperature for work and focus is 60 to 65, or if you're Zayna 60 to 61 because she has a tiny little window, then if her arousal is too high, I need to bring it down. Right. And if her arousal is too low, I need to bring it up, up so that I have it in that perfect little window.

Melissa Breau: How do we distinguish between. I mean, you're talking about, you do need some. Right. They need to wake up and kind of be alert and stuff. So how do we distinguish between, like, functional arousal like that, you know, the excitement that helps us get good performance and the dysregulated stuff that gets in the way. What does that look like? The differences?

Petra Ford: Yeah. So I think the most important skill that people struggle with is having good observation skills. Right. So observing their dog and saying, okay, when my dog is in an optimal state to perform, what does that literally look like? Like, what does my dog look like? Right. So when Zayna is over aroused, her eyes look like they're going to pop out of her head, literally. And they get really dilated and they literally, like, bug out. Right. Her whole body's tense, her tail standing at attention.

She's almost. She's like, vibrating. And for sure she's going to get vocal. If she's not aroused enough, She'll. My dogs are such good communicators. So funny. She'll, like, start stretching. She'll hesitate if I give her a cue. She. She might even go. She might even go wrong to me. Like, hang on a minute, I'm not ready. Or my dogs will shake. They'll yawn. Zesty will scratch. He'll look like he's scratching.

He's not. He's like, hold on, I'm not ready. Zeal would sneeze. He would sneeze and sneeze and sneeze. And Zayna will do that as well. If she's not ready to work, she'll be like, hold on a minute. And she'll sneeze and sneeze and sneeze. And when she stops sneezing, she's dialed in. It's also how they respond to cues, right? So if I give ask them for some tricks or give them.

Ask for some simple behaviors, if they're slow to respond, then they're usually not quite aroused enough, right. They're still. They're not dialed in. If they're throwing stuff at me, like, if I say spin and they're like, twist, spin, bounce, and they, you know, vocalize. Zayna, then they're too aroused, right? So I want my dogs to be attentive, respond to my cues promptly. Their movement is brisk, but it's accurate, Right.

And they're not throwing things at me. If there's. If it just starts to get very chaotic, they're too aroused. If it's kind of slow and sluggish, they're typically under aroused. And like I said, a big part of that is just observing your dog, right? Like what happens before, what happens after, how are they responding and what does that all look like? Because it will look different for different dogs.

What role does like, anticipation play in all this? So, you know, especially somewhere like a trial where dog maybe knows what's coming, or like, you drive to a new place to train and the dog kind of knows you're going to be there to train, right? Like that anticipation, how does that impact arousal, you know, at trial time or even just in training? So I think arousal, that whether their arousal goes maybe a little bit low because they're a little bit worried or concerned or because they're struggling a little bit because the environment's challenging, and if their attention's a little split, split, a lot of times that'll look like under arousal.

And it's just the dog's kind of like, oh, you know, they're slower because they're trying to process your information while they're distracting things happening, right. So I think that's all kind of established in training. And part of training should be going to different locations, right. So my dogs learn in training. In the past, back in the day, before I understood arousal, the answer to everything was tug more.

So our dogs were chronically over aroused, so they associated training with over arousal. And then if I train them in different locations, it was always like, get there Tug, tug, tug. Till my dog was over generalized. So they would, after a while, kick into over arousal in all those scenarios, right? Because that's what I created. I taught that. So now I'm always from puppyhood on tweaking my dog's arousal in training so that it's in the middle.

So if my dog's a little low, I'm going to do things to bring the arousal up. Tug, play treat, tosses, whatever that means for that particular dog, right? Then if my dog's arousal goes a little too high, let's say just my dog did something. And I'm like, yes. And I'm like, wow, that was brilliant. And we tug. Or with Zesty. Like, he gets easily excited. So if I just go, yes.

And I go, wow, that was amazing. And I give him a cookie. He's already. His arousal is spiking. And then I immediately go, okay, before we continue on, let me bring that back down. And let's put you in the middle. So now my dogs will almost start to put themselves in the middle. So therefore, when I go and I start training them in different places, I'm doing the same thing.

I'm trying to keep their arousal in the middle all the time. And so my dogs will start pulling, putting themselves there, right? So they're in essence, doing what I have trained them to do, right? So they're not. They're putting themselves. They tend to try to put themselves in the middle. Like, one time I was. This was so fascinating. Like, I was at. In a store that I had trained many times, and I was doing something that was hard for him.

And so I was like, well, let me help him by bringing his arousal up. Right? So I would do it. I would say, okay, we're doing signals. And then I go, yes. And I'm like, here, here's your tug. Let's tug. And he looked at me and he's like, no, no, tug. And I'm like, you don't want your tug. That's weird. And I'm like, come on, let's tug. He's like, nope, no tug.

And I'm like, why won't he tug? So I'm like, all right, here's a cookie. But he loves to tug. And then at some point I realized, oh, he's like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don't try and raise my arousal because I need to think really hard. This is hard for me. And I cannot be in a highly aroused state because I can't concentrate well when I'm there.

So just give me my cookie, and let me, you know, work through this. And I don't need my tug. So my other dog, way back in the day, my dogs would have been like, tug, tug. But they also struggled more. Right. I think he would have had a really hard time doing signals, and now he's more comfortable. He's more confident. He doesn't need to think as hard. He understands the behavior.

He's done it many, many times in many different environments. So now when he does that behavior in a store, I can say, mark, and say, here's your tug. And he'll be like, thank you. Let me tug. And he can do that. So it's really. At the end of the day, they're going to do what we put themselves more and more in the state that we put them in.

So if you go somewhere and your dog throws themselves into high arousal, it's more than likely because you are purposefully or inadvertently creating that in training.

Melissa Breau: Interesting. So speaking of kind of managing arousal, you know, how do you try to keep it at kind of that optimal level, you know, either in training or even on a trial day? Right. Like, how do you. What do you assist in versus what is just kind of.

You're talking about kind of the carryover from training for the dog, kind of learning to do it themselves. Where are you at now? I guess, in terms of that, do you mostly think your dog's gonna manage themselves? Do you still do things to bring them up or bring them down on trial days? Like, what does that look like?

Petra Ford: No, I still manipulate it constantly. Like, I help them, right?

So they'll sir it. They don't tend to fluctuate too well. Zayna will tend to throw herself a little bit too high. That's her tendency. So if anything, I'm. I'm constantly reminding her to bring it down. But I'll be in the ring, and I'll. You know, and there will be certain moments where all of a sudden she gets nervous, and I can see it in her face, and she starts to go down.

And in that moment, I'll immediately say. Or, you know, give her a cue or do something that I've taught her that means it's okay. Bring yourself up a little bit. And she'll go, oh, okay. And boom. She. You know, so, yes. And I am constantly reminding her in between at the beginning of exercises, I'm like, okay, calm down. We're gonna do this next. And she's like, okay. So I am still constantly giving them information and helping them, you know, manipulate it for Zesty.

I don't typically have to do as much just because he tends to, you know, be better at. He just has a little better impulse control. He just tends to be more comfortable in the middle than she is. But I am constantly helping them because being in the ring is very dynamic. Right? Like, one minute, like, some things are constantly happening in the environment, things are constantly happening with the judge, where there's a little more pressure, a little less pressure, a little more distraction, something unusual happens, there's an exercise maybe the dog finds a little more exciting, a little less exciting.

So I feel like it's my job, like, I'm steering this theoretically. Right. I'm steering the ship. Like, I'm in charge, and I'm the one that knows what's happening, so I'm there to support my dog. So I am constantly, basically, in the ring, I tell people, all I do is read and react moment by moment by moment. So I'm looking at my dog. I'm reading my dog. Where are you right now?

Are you good? I'm a little worried. Okay, I'm going to help you. I'm going to bring you up. I'm getting a little excited. I'm going to help you. I'm going to bring you down a little bit so that I'm doing that. I'm a little worried. It's okay, buddy. I've got you. You're good. Okay, thanks, Mom. So, um, that's what. It's litter. But it's also literally what I do in training.

Right. I'm very present. And moment by moment by moment, I'm reading my dog. Where are you right now? And I'm reacting to that, and I'm helping them, and I'm supporting them. And so I create this habit and this communication system in training, whether it's in my yard, whether it's, you know, at a store, in a park, or at a trial, and that. That communication is happening constantly.

Melissa Breau: Yeah. So I want to shift gears a little bit and talk about the jackpot piece of the conversation. We'll kind of bring them together here in a second. But I think a lot of trainers talk about jackpots, right? They talk about jackpot reinforcement. But for you, you know, what is it? How do you describe it kind of at its core, beyond just, you know, a big reward? I think, as most people kind of think it.

Petra Ford: Yeah. So when I. When it comes to any type of reward, I always say that there should be a thoughtful purpose behind it. Right. Like, why am I doing this? Right now and what, what am I trying to achieve with it? So for me, a jackpot is something that's very, very, very high value for this dog. And that, again, can vary. You know, for some dogs, it could be a toy for other dogs.

So for Zayna, it's her meal. That's her highest value reinforcer. Now that is also going to spike arousal. Now, for a lower arousal dog, that might be a good thing, right? It's going to put them in an optimal state. In Zayna's case, It's a catch 22. She needs the jackpot for a lot of her work because of who she is, right? She is working. She is not working for me.

She does not care if I'm happy or not. That's who she is. And that's fair, right? She is working for her reinforcer. So if the work is very hard, her definition of hard, right. Then it needs to be worth her while. And very high end precision behaviors, especially longer chains. It is not worth her while unless her food is on the table. Right. Which also means she's in a very high state of arousal.

And that's why I said her window is very tiny, right? Like, it's like very challenging. And it's, it's on me to keep her from going over the cliff, but it's the only way I can really get her to do the work that I would like her to do. Because otherwise she's just like, it's not worth it. But that's her. So for other dogs, you know, it's not quite as challenging.

So there are a lot of reasons I would use a jackpot. But again, I'm using it for a very special specific reason. So in her case, I'm using it so that she can do long chains and she can do them very accurately, right? Because she can do long chains for regular cookies, but they're not going to be accurate because it's just not worth it for her.

Right? For. For others, like, for Zesty. He really cares about being right and that's very important to him and he worries. So to make him confident, if I give him something challenging to do, which I think is important to build confidence and resilience, and then he. It's challenging and he's like, oh. And then he does it. Then he put in a lot of effort there. So I want to give him a reward that equals that effort, right?

So he's given me an enormous amount of effort. I'm not just giving him a cookie. I am going to say to Him. Wow, that was amazing. I am so proud of you. And I'm going to build up his ego and I'm going to give him a very high value reinforcer, valuable to him so that he's like, oh, wow, like that was really worth the effort because I think that's fair.

I will also, I will for sure use a jackpot when I'm teaching my dogs how to put together longer chains. Again, they're doing a large number of complex behaviors for no reinforcement right until the very end. And so when they've given me that much effort, for sure, I'm giving them a very high value reinforcer because I just feel like that's fair. You just gave me huge effort. Well, I'm giving you something that's worth that.

Right? Here you go. You're getting something that's very valuable to you. So I use it for a number of different things, but I'm always using it mindfully and for a purpose. I'm not just randomly or all the time or oh, just because you're really cute or because I'm in a good mood today. Like, I'm going to throw this big thing at you. There's a purpose and there's a reason why I'm doing it.

Melissa Breau: So you went into this a little bit when you're talking there about Zayna, but you're generally speaking, how does a jackpot tend to affect arousal? It sounds like it usually spikes it and maybe, yes, it will bring it up. So for dogs that are not as motivated, like, I think it's a great way to increase their motivation. Right. Because it will increase their arousal and their buy in into the whole thing.

Like, okay, this is worth it for me. And oh, I'll give you more effort because you're offering me something that's really valuable, that's worth the effort for me. Right. I mean, it's no different than when I try to hire kids to do my years ago is like I had, I was trying to hire kids to do my lawn and they're like, well, how much are you paying? Well, what do I have to do?

Right. They're deciding if it's worth it or not. And if you don't have a dog that's like Zesty, that's like, I'm going to work just for the sake of working. Which, you know, those dogs are not that common. They're bred that way. That's not a typical dog. Right. And typical dog is going to be like, well, why? Why am I doing this? Like, we would like to think they're just doing it because they love us and because we love them.

But that's not reality. Right. We don't work for free. Right. So why should they? So it has to be worth it for them. So, yeah, it will bring their arousal up. So that's really good. For a lot of dogs that maybe aren't inherently super motivated, it does raise arousal. So in some cases now you have to deal with fallout, and you have to decide, is it worth it for me to do this or not?

And. But, you know, in, like, in Zayna's case, yes, there was a lot of fallout. It got. It got. And it can at times still get really messy. Like, she'll. Typical Zayna. Right? Okay, Zayna, let's do signals. And she gets to the sit signal. And then she comes. She decides on her own, she's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what's next. She comes flying in fronts all on her own, jumps into finish, bites my arm, looks at the food, looks at me and goes, get me my dish now.

And I'm like, okay, you just skipped, like, three steps. That's not how this works. Right? Yeah. So. But I work through that. And I was. And I was able to explain to her, okay, that's. I get it. I know you know how to get to the end, but you have to wait for me. So let's do this again. And she understands. Now. I was able to teach her that anticipation does not get you to the reinforcer.

Right. Same with vocalization. She loves to, because that's who she is in life. She loves to yell at me and give her opinion all the time. So in training, she'll say, like, hurry up and give me my food. And I'll be like, no, no, no, you have to wait. That's not part of the sequence. So she was able to learn all that. And she absolutely understands it.

And she absolutely understands that the path to the reinforcers, to do it a certain way. So I. That can be taught. Right. You just have to be patient, and you have to be willing to work through that. In her case, for me, it was worth the effort to do that. I do it with all my dogs. With some dogs, it takes a little more work than with others because, like I said, I do like to use the jackpot for sure.

For chaining, if for nothing else. So I do have to work through anticipation, and I do have to work through vocalization. With some dogs, that's a challenge. With other dogs, it's not that hard. It's relatively easy. But yes, it does spike arousal and various challenges depending on how much it spikes it. You know, I think we talk about. I also am offering a webinar workshop later in the month on raising arousal because I feel like there's so much talk about arousal as a thing where dogs are over aroused.

I feel like, is that really the majority of dogs? Because my guess is that if we really looked at the majority of dogs, there's probably way more dogs that are on the lower end of arousal than on the high end. That would be an interesting thing to like ask in the Fenzi alumni group or something and just kind of see what's how students reply about their own dogs.

You know, be fun pole to run. Because my guess is there's going to be way more that are under aroused. Maybe it appears like there's more that are over. Because I think that for a very long time there weren't many resources on how to manage that. If you had a dog that tended towards over arousal, it was like, ah, I'm stuck. I don't know how to deal with this.

Right. But my guess is that there are probably more dogs that are on the lower end of arousal. So a jackpot will raise their arousal and that won't even be a problem. Right. It'll be just net benefit all around with very little fallout from that. But yeah, you're right. That would be an interesting question on the alumni page.

Melissa Breau: Yeah. So you're talking about this kind of as part of the last answer, but how do you decide when a moment deserves a jackpot versus a standard reinforcement? How do you make that choice when creating your plan?

Petra Ford: I think really it comes down to effort, not. I shouldn't say effort. If my dog does a simple behavior right. Like that, they know really well I'm just going to give them a cookie. Right. Or some behaviors. You're not going to get anything because at this point it's just a habit. It's easy for them. It's not that hard.

I think it's if something is really hard or challenging, then they're going to get a higher value reinforcer. May not be a jackpot, may just be higher value. Right. On the scale of the hierarchy, if something's really hard, then that's where they're more than they're likely to get a jackpot. It would. It has to be challenging. So again, the reward should equal effort. Right. How hard is this?

Right. You shouldn't get paid a bonus if you're just doing the bare minimum of work. That's not how bonuses work for us typically. Right. Bonuses are you put in extra effort, you put in extra work. I appreciate that. Here, I'm going to give you a bonus. So that's sort of how I look at it. Right. My dog just gave me super huge effort, pushed through, did something really hard, did something.

Oh, that was a long sustained effort. Yeah. I'm going to say, hey, you know what? Here, I'm going to give you this huge jackpot. And then my dogs go, oh, okay. So Zayna will literally give me an entire class which is and competition obedience, like a full utility class. Full obedience class, like seven to nine minutes of complex behaviors that are typically not really inherently self reinforcing and super challenging environments where there's tons of distractions and a lot of pressure.

She'll give me a whole class of effort because she knows at the end of that she'll get her, you know, jackpot. So that's pretty powerful. And I feel like my dogs should get a huge reward for putting in that much effort. Right. Like, I think it's fair. I know everybody doesn't do that, but I do.

Melissa breau: Fair enough. So we're talking about these because you have two workshops this month. You have Harnessing High Arousal for Optimal Focus. That's the conversation about arousal and jackpot reinforcement, a powerful training tool. So do you want to just talk a little more about kind of what's in in each workshop and maybe who might want to sign up for which.

Petra Ford: Yeah, so for the Harnessing High Arousal, I really talk about it not just in the exact, like, look, addressing it from all angles.

Right. So I was really fortunate that back in the day when I had my first super high drive field lab that I was taught, you know, you have to manage this in life and you have to manage this when you're moving from the car to where you're training. And you have to manage it during reinforcement and after reinforcement and while you're training. So I look at it from like the whole gamut of all the different areas where you need to work on managing this high arousal so that your dog is in optimal arousal.

Because if you just, if you're trying to just do it in training and then your dog's like in high rise, overly aroused in life and in different aspects, that's going to absolutely spill into your training. So we look at, you know, kind of everything in that workshop so that you can address high arousal and manage it from kind of a whole bunch of different come in at it from a bunch of different aspects.

And then the Jackpot. I kind of go through all the different areas where I use it, where you could potentially use it, all the reasons you could use it. Again, a bunch of those that I mentioned in this podcast, and then I look at all the potential fallout and how you can address it so that it's not a problem. Right. Your dog vocalizes. Okay. It's okay. We can explain to the dog not to do that.

Right. And here are all the different ways you can do it. Your dog's anticipating, throwing a bunch of behaviors at you. Okay. No problem. Like, this is. Here are a bunch of different ways that we can address this and handle it and manage it so that your dog can understand it and that you can use the jackpot, even if your dog tends to get a little bit over aroused or overexcited.

Melissa breau: Yeah. Any final thoughts or maybe key points you kind of want to leave folks with? Final thoughts?

Petra Ford: So I work on both of these things with my dogs when they're really young. So this way it's kind of incorporated into their training, and those skills are things we work on and maintain throughout their career. So you can start it when a dog is really young, but you can also introduce it later.

Like, to be honest, when Zayna was younger, I introduced the jackpot, and it went. It was such an absolute mess that I was like, oh, my gosh. Like, I can't. I can't even deal with this. Like, it's such a disaster. Like, she's screaming. She's, like, going off the rails. I'm not even gonna use, like, a jackpot. And then in hindsight, I should have just worked through it because I spent years trying to figure out, you know, what's the right recipe to get her invested, to get.

And way down the road, I realized, oh, the answer is the jackpot. And I spent all these years, like, because I bailed on it, so I really didn't teach it to her until way later. And it was okay because I took my time, I worked through it, and it ended up being a very valuable tool. So I think whether you start these things early or late, they can still be beneficial.

Melissa Breau: Awesome. What's a great thought to kind of end things on so that folks kind of know that you can, you know, whether you've got a puppy or whether you've got your, you know, advanced training dog, it's worth kind of starting jumping in and working on this stuff. Yeah. Awesome. All right, well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Petra.

Petra Ford: Thanks for having me, as always.

Petra Ford: Absolutely.

Melissa Breau: And thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in. We will be back next week, this time with Kim Palermo to talk about ace animal centered education and free work. If you haven't already, subscribe to the podcast in itunes or the podcast app of your choice, our next episode automatically downloaded to your phone as soon as it becomes available. Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy.

Special thanks to Denise Fenzi for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty free by BenSound.com the track featured here is called Buddy. Audio Editing provided by Chris Lang. Thanks again for tuning in. Happy training.

 Credits

Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzi for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty-free by BenSound.com; the track featured here is called "Buddy." Audio editing provided by Chris Lang.

Thanks again for tuning in -- and happy training!