Does your dog struggle to regulate their own arousal? Join me and Sara for a conversation on how to help them manage things, and then (ultimately) teach them to manage it themselves!  

 Transcription

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 we'll be talking to Sara Brueske about teaching arousal modulation. Hi Sara, welcome back to the podcast.

Sara Brueske: Hi Melissa, thank you for having me. Excited to talk about this.

Melissa Breau: So to start us out, do you want to remind everybody kind of a little bit about you?

Sara Brueske: Yeah, sure. I have a bunch of dogs and I do a bunch of different sports with my dogs. Currently my three dogs in training are two Australian coolies, one is five, one is three, and then a little papillon named Pop Rock who is three as well. We train in Frisbee, dog in agility, dabble in dock diving and scent work.

In the past I have done protection sports with my dogs. I have a Mondioring level three on one of my old Malinois. And then, you know, I used to perform with my dogs for a living for Purina during halftime shows and everything. And yeah, that was my life. So I have currently a bunch of old dogs who used to be workaholics who now just hold the couch down. So I have seven retired dogs in my house and my three young dogs in training. But yeah, that is it. Do you want to, do you want to mention what you spend most of your time work wise on these days? You mentioned happy dogs.

Sara Brueske: Oh, yeah. So my whole, my full time job right now is I own and run a dog training, boarding and grooming facility up here in Minnesota.

And that's pretty good. I get to be able to take a lot of the stuff that we talk about, especially things like arousal modulation, and apply it in the real world to family dogs, which is a lot more applicable than you think it would be. Especially when we end up talking about dogs that, you know, maybe aren't getting quite as much work as they should be in normal average family home.

And so, you know, while I don't get to talk about this stuff as often as I used to in the past, before I had this facility and really focused more on hands on stuff, I am applying it quite a bit.

Melissa Breau: I bet. So maybe let's start with the basics. So what are we talking about? We say arousal modulation. What is it? Why is it important?

Sara Brueske: So arousal modulation is the dog's ability to go from very exciting things to not so exciting things.

Right. So this is really, really applicable when we think about our sport dogs, especially those high energy sports thinking like fast cat or agility or dock diving or Frisbee, where they're really putting everything they have into the sport. But when they're not doing that sport, maybe we're waiting for our turn or their turn has just ended, or we're doing a sport like protection work where we need a high level of obedience and control in conjunction with that high arousal situation.

You know, it's the dog's ability to go from that really exciting thing that they're doing that they love to being a little bit calmer when we don't need that same level of energy. Are some dogs just better at modulating the neuron arousal? What does it, you know, maybe look like there's a dog that's struggling a bit in this arena? Well, I can tell you that based on my.

Two of my dogs, I have currently. So I have Vibrant, an Australian Koolie who is 5 years old, and I have Cake, who is an Australian Koolie who is three years old. One of them is really, really naturally at arousal modulation and being able to control herself and calm herself down and to be able to still be thoughtful and understand cues and execute behaviors as I need her to, even if she is in a very exciting element or her enthusiasm is really, really high, and that would be Cake.

She is really good at that. We do have to put some work into it, but not nearly the level I have to put into it with Vibrant. Vibrant really, really struggles with this to the point of. It was one of the main reasons I kept her from her litter because she just. I could see from a young age that she was really going to struggle with being able to incorporate control and thoughtfulness into her work.

Um, and when you have a dog, like, that takes a front seat in your training, where with a dog like Cake, who doesn't necessarily struggle with that, I get to spend more time on the fun stuff, you know, teaching behaviors and working on the things we're actually gonna be competing with, where Vibrant. We spend a lot of our time just working on getting her into the right mindset to be able to do that work.

Melissa Breau: Do you mind talking just a little more about kind of what that looks like with Vibrant? Like, what are we talking about in terms of, like, what symptoms are we having that maybe say, this is a. This is a red flag area, or maybe you want to pay attention to it with your dog?

Sara Brueske: Yeah. So Vibrant, her ability to listen to cues and to offer focus and engagement with me really, really declines in situations where she is a higher.

In a higher arousal mindset, where when we're away from that, her focus on me is never ending. She loves to work her ab to execute cues, even just on verbal cue alone with no extra help is really, really good and pretty consistent when she's in a correct mindset and not a high arousal mindset. So for her it comes out as kind of franticness. She has a hard time sitting still.

She has a hard time focusing on me. She'd rather focus on the stuff that's going on around her if I give her a cue. So if I give her left versus right cue, spin versus twist, she is likely to get it wrong if her arousal is too high. And so that means that when we go out to do agility, if she has too high of arousal and I give her her left cue versus her right cue or her go, go, go versus a tight wrap cue, she's likely to fail in that situation versus if she's in a low arousal situation.

I can give those verbal cues and she has no problem with it. And she executes it probably 95% of the time correctly at that point. So for her, it comes out as franticness. She will bark a little bit, she will vocalize a little bit. She wants to pay attention to everything else in the world except for what I'm asking her to do. And her success rate is very, very declined.

Melissa Breau: Fair enough. Are there types of dogs, like kind of a category of dogs maybe, who are more prone to struggle with these skills? And how do you kind of look at a specific dog and say, like, yes, this is a dog who maybe needs some extra help in this area. So I don't know if it's more types of dogs. I would love to be able to say, yeah, these breeds are more likely to be, you know, struggle with this versus others.

But I see across the board, especially now that I work more in the family dog sector and seeing just dogs from all what likes or all types of, you know, families and, and lines and origins and breeds and, you know, everything else come through. It doesn't really. I mean, your higher energy dogs, like your herder dogs and dogs bred for sport, yeah, sure, they're more likely to do that, but it doesn't mean that, you know, the, your neighborhood Vizsla doesn't struggle with it as well or whatever it might be.

It definitely is. There's not breeds that exclude you from having this. What I have found is the dogs that tend to be quicker thinkers, so they process information and execute that information quicker. They're twitchy, they're like me sound like you're describing your favorite type of dog. Exactly. The dogs that are the people that just. You process that information, it comes out really, really fast, and you're onto the next thing right away.

Those are the dogs that I tend to see struggle more with this. So if I have a litter of puppies, I can typically see it pretty quickly that it might be something that the owner will have to put some work into. Doesn't mean it's going to be an issue for the long time, long term, like Vibrant. But I can generally see the dogs that are a little bit more thoughtful might not end up as problematic in this area as the dogs that are quick thinkers onto the next thing. Always looking for that next hit of adrenaline.

Melissa Breau: Yeah, definitely. I kind of have that picture in my head from your description of, like, what we're talking about here and the type of dog. Yeah. Does a dog's ability to modulate their own arousal tend to be context specific? Like, are there specific things or factors that maybe influence these types of things on a regular basis or that you kind of see?

Sara Brueske: I think that's going to be dependent on the dog, and it's going to be dependent on what their favorite things are. So I would say that, you know, vibrant can handle her excitement in a lot of situations. Agility is the most difficult for her. Um, despite having worked on it for, you know, her entire puppyhood, just that context is really, really hard for her. Where even, like, waiting for Frisbee, she.

She'll spin up a little bit, but it's not nearly to the extent that agility does for her for herding. She just doesn't really mind watching the sheep. Yeah. Because she gets excited about it. But again, not nearly the level of agility. And same with dock diving. She tends to not really have a problem watching other dogs dock, dive. Um, and then even on the dock, her ability to hold her stays and everything else is so much stronger in agility any day.

So for her, it's just agility is really, really hard. And that's not saying that, you know, in other contexts, it's not still something we have to work on. But I think depending on the dog, it's going to be dependent on what their favorite things are, how much work you've put on that, what their reinforcement history is, how much, you know, how much they've been able to get away with it in the past.

You know what I mean? Like, how much they've been able to practice and rehearse those feelings in that situation. Over time will definitely impact how difficult it is for them to modulate their arousal.

Melissa Breau: So for those dogs who do struggle with this, dogs like Vibrant, maybe, how do we help them manage that?

Sara Brueske: My favorite thing to do is to create some pattern games and that's what this upcoming class is all about.

I'm going to be teaching. The pattern games are going to be set independent on your dog. So it's going to be different for each dog. But they're all going to have a general theme to them and a general pattern to the pattern of games. So we're going to start with a game that helps release a lot of that energy. It's going to be fun, fast and exciting. It's not going to ask anything of our dogs.

So for Vibrant, her favorite's a treat toss game. Just back and forth, back and forth, treat tosses. It lets her move, which helps release a lot of that energy and frustration and it helps her re-engage with me in a way where she doesn't have to be right or wrong to get the reward. It's fully just a reinforcement based fun game. From there we go into a second game.

The second game is still going to have a little bit of movement, but it's going to have a little bit of a verbal discrimination aspect or a cue discrimination aspect. And this is going to cause my dog to think a little bit. And I can even do this with just markers. So that way, you know, I'm not asking for a behavior and my dog's not able to do it.

It might be the difference between get it, which means I'm tossing a treat on the ground and catch, which means I want you to catch the treat. And the way my dog responds to those two different markers is going to give me a clue onto where their mindset is. Because if Vibert's really, really excited about something and I say catch and she doesn't just immediately go buggy eyed ready to catch that treat and staring directly at me to catch that treat, then I know that she's not really ready to respond to any cues and that her arousal is still too high to respond to anything I'm asking of her.

For her, we go from the get it, get it, get it to a catch. If she can't do that catch yet, then we are going to do a little bit more work. We're going to increase some distance, make it easier for her and go from there. Then after that, my next game is going to have some behaviors I'm going to ask of my dog. So this is where really?

I'm checking. Are you sure you're able to listen to me? They're gonna be fun, easy behaviors I don't care about. And so for Vibrant, that's spin, twist, and hop. Three behaviors that I can kind of randomly ask for, and I can see if she's able to perform them. They're three behaviors that she loves to do. So these are fun behaviors. They're not control behaviors where I'm asking for a sit, stay, or anything like that.

They still allow for that movement, that energy release. And it's a. A good test for me to see how she is from there. I usually move into something a lot calmer, so something control asking. So this is where I'm really asking the dog to calm down. This isn't the pattern games anymore. Now it's moving into just getting my dog more connected with me. Something like a sit with a slow delivery or even a snuffle mat.

I do a lot of sends to snuffle mats and calling away from snuffle mats, that type of thing. So using those games, not only does it help the dog learn to modulate their own arousal and be able to practice doing that, but it gives me the opportunity to observe them and see where their mind is from that moment in that split second and see how they are being able to respond to my cues as our session goes on.

Melissa Breau: So management and kind of dealing with those pieces is one thing, but is it reasonable to maybe expect it with time and with some skill building? Dogs who struggle with this can actually learn to do it themselves. Or is that maybe, like, too much to hope for?

Sara Brueske: Yes, absolutely. So just like when we're luring a behavior, right? So if we're luring a behavior, we're essentially teaching our dog muscle memory for that behavior.

It's the same thing with these pattern games, especially if we do them consistently in that structure, from going from high arousal to low arousal, my dog is developing that muscle memory of going from high arousal to low arousal. Even though I'm helping them every single step of the way, then what ends up happening is we can start taking out those steps, start decreasing those games a little bit of a time.

Just like when we're luring a behavior, we take that lure away at little bits of the point of that behavior. So my dog starts doing it by themselves. And eventually the goal is, is for them to be able to go from that top game. So if, you know, Vibrant is there, I can say, get it. Get her connected with me, Give her her ready to work cue, and then go right Into a behavior like loose leash walking at my side past the agility ring like that is the ultimate goal.

I will say as a disclaimer that Vibrant is still working on this. We'll be working on it for quite a while with her, and it just is the way it's going to be with her. I am not as diligent as I should be about consistently working on it, but that is the hope. And I will say I was successful with other dogs with this method. Vibrant is just a bit of a special case.

So obviously it does vary on the dog and the reinforcement history for the things, But, I mean, that's the same as anything we're teaching, right? There are some dogs that, you know, the process of teaching behaviors goes so fast, and the process of behavior modification goes so fast. And other dogs, it's going to be something that needs to be maintained throughout the life of the dog. And so it's just like everything else we can put the work in, but ultimately, it's up to our dog to really be able to understand and process that information and execute it by themselves.

Melissa Breau: So I know you mentioned, like, the get it game, and you mentioned some, like, spin and twist and hop stuff. Do you mind just talking a little more about games or exercises that you introduce to help a dog kind of modulate their own arousal?

Sara Brueske: Yeah, I've got so many pattern games, and that's what that class is all about. But one of the big things that I like to do with this type of dog, regardless of the pattern game itself, is to use some sort of distractor.

So a food bowl. I mentioned a snuffle mat earlier. So often I'll have these games that I'm playing with my dog, but I'll also have that food bowl with food sitting in it or that snuffle mat with preloaded with treats as a way for my dog to really hone in their focus on me, because in order to get that thing that they want, they have to work through me, me.

And we are starting to layer on those distractions. So now in order to get the thing that they really want by the agility ring, they have to do these pattern games with me to get that thing. And it really helps them kind of hone that focus in and really creates, like, a laser focus that I really, really like. And so we'll be doing that in that class as well.

But having that extra element of distraction works really, really well for these dogs to be able to really concentrate that focus and that energy. The other cool thing about it is it offers convenient release point from the games and a break for the handler and the dog. So when I sent that food bowl or I sent that snuffle mat, it gives us both of a chance to kind of catch our breath, evaluate what just happened.

It gives me a moment to reload my treats if I need to, or think about how that little session just went. And if I need to adjust anything and it gives that dog that. That break too. Because if your dog is really struggling with focus, even if we're releasing all that energy and we're making tons of fun, they need that little bit of a mental break because they can't stay focused on the entire time, especially if there's something exciting going on.

We're basically giving them that little permission to break that focus too, which helps ultimately with the arousal modulation. It's really interesting to think about it that way, just because if we think about some of the arousal problems we see as split attention, you're essentially introducing a controllable version of split attention to build that skill. That's really a neat way to think about it. Then that way we always talk about Premack principle and being able to release to the thing that they want.

Well, I can't release my dog to. I don't want to release Vibrant to go and stare at the dog doing agility because she just spins right back up with that arousal. Right. But if I can release her to this other thing that she wants in a controlled fashion, her arousal is going to stay low. And so that way I can use a little bit of premack to help reinforce what we're doing without risking that arousal from spiking again and having to start all over again.

Melissa Breau: Yeah. So what role does like clear communication play in building all of this? And maybe kind of what are we considering as part of that heading in your brain?

Sara Brueske: Yeah, clear communication is everything with this, because I've already mentioned that the words are the most important part. Right. So one of the signs that tells me that, you know, my dog is headed into that too high arousal situation for the.

The sport that we're doing is that they're not understanding my verbal cues anymore. So this is especially important when we come to, like, freestyle Frisbee for obedience, for disc, for agility, any of those sports that have that verbal cue aspect. If my dog can't understand my verbal cue, I'm going to see that right away in these games that I'm playing. Because I said if my dog doesn't respond to that catch cue, that marker cue, and the way that they show that they understand it well.

That tells me that she's not in the right mindset to respond to a left versus a right cue or any other verbal cue that I'm giving. That's all part of clear communication is being able to use those multiple markers in a way that gives you a clue into how your dog is, is processing cues right that second. The other thing is, is having a clear, we're working now, we're not working anymore will help a ton.

Especially like you mentioned with the dogs with split focus and they really want to look at something else. Giving them that opportunity even, you know, depends on the situation that we're going to do that. But having that cue that says, yep, all done, go ahead and look at what you want, do what you want is a huge help. And then having something like that food bowl with a clear cue that says you can go to the food bowl or you can't go to the food bowl really helps my dog learn that what I say, one, isn't going to be frustrating, they're going to understand what I'm going to say right away.

And two, it just helps my dog. It helps me be able to read my dog and know where their, their arousal is at any point in time. Is it possible to overdo this kind of work? Is there such a thing as too much? I think where I see people overdo it lately, this might be a little bit of a hot topic is it's become the go to reason for everything.

A lot of people are saying, well, my dog has high arousal. That's why they're not doing XYZ often more than not, I'm seeing that the dog just hasn't generalized the behavior well enough yet. It's not an arousal situation. It's a not well trained enough behavior situation. I think now that we're talking about arousal mobility a lot. I think that is a very convenient excuse for a lot of with people and a really good reason to go to when in reality often we're still just not doing enough generalizing enough proofing of that behavior before introducing those situations that are very exciting.

And so that's where I think that we can overdo it with this because then we're still not coming to the problem. And if we think about dog training, that has always been the major thing. Right. We tried to ask our dogs to do a behavior and then it fails in a trial setting. Well, odds are it just isn't well generalized enough yet, you know, and so that's where I see it. It's not overdoing the work itself. It's overdoing the use of the word and maybe misinterpreting what the dog is giving you in that moment.

Melissa Breau: Is there anything special that you do, you know, with puppies especially or young sports dogs, to proactively, like, build these skills that maybe they don't become an uphill battle later, later in life?

Sara Brueske: Yeah. So typically, if I have a puppy and there's two, two different things I do, one, I'm always teaching these pattern games, regardless if I'm going to have to use them in this way, because they're just good games to teach puppies in general.

They teach really clear communication skills. They teach their puppy that learning's fun. It helps you learn what kind of reinforcement deliveries your puppy likes best. It's just really good to do with puppies, any of these pattern games. So even if you don't, if you have a young dog right now and you're like, I don't know if they're going to have arousal issues or not, still join the class and just teach them these fun games because it teaches you a ton about your puppy in general.

There's that. The second thing is if I have a dog who I'm noticing that maybe they're a little bit calmer, a little bit more, like I'm having to amp them up a little bit in training. So if I have a puppy and I'm having to cheerlead them a little bit, get them a little bit more excited with the training, odds are that puppy's not going to have these issues.

But if I have a puppy who is just kind of all over the place and I'm working hard keeping their focus on me and their attention and energy directed to me, I'm going to say that puppy probably will need some of this stuff. And so with those young dogs, I typically, if I have one of the latter, so Vibrant. Right where just sitting still was a struggle for her as a young puppy.

I focus more on teaching calm still behaviors and calm still games than the fun stuff because I knew she was going to bring that enthusiasm and that fun and speed later on. So I didn't need to teach that. I didn't need to focus on it. It was going to come. But with the puppies I've had in the past that have been a little bit more thoughtful, those are the puppies where I do all the fun stuff right away.

I am tossing treats, I am running with them, I am having a blast with them. And then we focus on calm stuff later because I'd rather bring their enthusiasm up a little bit versus the other puppies.

Melissa Breau: Fair enough. You mentioned the class. We're talking about this because you're offering a new class, Arousal Mobility Pattern Games for managing arousal in the brand new three week class format through FDSA. I have two questions on that for you. First, do you want to just share a little more about what the class is and maybe who might want to sign up?

Sara Brueske: Yeah, it is a longer version. I've taught arousal mobility in this way through workshops in the past and that's worked really well. But it only gives me a little bit of time to really see what's going on. I can't really custom make the pattern games for the people in the workshops as well as I'd like.

And so I really like this three week format because it gives me a chance to kind of get to know the students. Go, yes, your dog would benefit from this game. Oh, let's tweak it this way. Let's order it in this way, which, you know, doesn't, you know, doesn't work so well in the workshops. I can do a little bit, but not as much as I can. A little bit longer of a class and then it gives me that additional week then to see how those results are playing out.

Are we seeing progress with it or not? It also gives everybody a chance to get out and about and try them out in the real world and see what sticks and what doesn't stick with this class. We will be talking about the concept behind arousal mobility. There'll be lectures on the topic itself, what to look for, everything we've talked about in this podcast, but more in depth. I even have a little bit of a graph, and I'm not a graph person, so that's in there.

And then a whole bunch of different games that you can pick and choose on. Or you can bring your own games and say, hey, we do this as warm ups already and I can try to, you know, manipulate those in to fit what we're going to be working on. But yeah, that's the goal is to come up with a nice little training plan that when you go into those high arousal situations with your dog dog, you're able to go through those steps, like I mentioned at the beginning of this podcast, that will be made just for your dog and then that will help them learn to modulate their arousal and they'll be able to start taking out steps over time.

Melissa Breau: Awesome. So registration for the three week classes, for folks who haven't heard about these before this podcast, because they're fairly new, opens December 22. So the Monday after this will be released and then classes start January 1st. I know you're talking a little bit about kind of the benefit to doing it this way versus the workshops. Was that kind of the reason for trying the new format? Are you thinking that there'll be other things that are different about the three week format that maybe made this class a particularly good fit for it or.

Sara Brueske: I think the availability of showing a few different pattern games. So with the workshop, it's just, you know, here are the three games that I want you guys to do. And it's really not catered to each individual student. They're just. It's kind of like a cookie cutter. This is kind of what we start with and kind of go from there. The sixth week, I don't know that we'd get.

But I think once the pattern is set from. For each dog, at that point it's just getting out and using it and doing it and it's just repetition after repetition after repetition. And so there's not a lot of extra feedback I can give at that point. Right. It's just using it and getting those reps in and getting that conditioning down. So a six week class isn't real ideal for this and doesn't let me really focus solely on this.

We do talk about this in one of my other longer classes, Bomb Proof Behaviors. And in that class, like, we have a lot of different things that we're working on and we can apply it in different ways. So if distractions are more the issue, Bomb Proof Behaviors is the way to go. And we do mention how arousal is a distraction issue and we incorporate that as one of the distractions that we work on one of the weeks in that class. But this three week class really lets me just really, really focus on this particular distraction, this particular issue with each student.

Melissa Breau: Awesome. Any final thoughts or key points you kind of want to leave folks with?

Sara Brueske: No, I think it's just a really good even. Like I said, even if you don't have arousal issues with your dog, it's still a good class to take because it does teach you so much about your dog.

Melissa Breau: Awesome. All right, well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Sara.

Sara Brueske: Thank you so much for having me.

Melissa Breau: Absolutely. And thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week, this time with Denise Fenzi to talk about engagement and dog sports, just in time for the new year. If you haven't already, subscribe to our podcast in itunes or the podcast app of your choice to have 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 and 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!