Working On Calm and Observing Behavior Ep2

Working On Calm and Observing Behavior Ep2 You're listening to creating great grooming dogs I'm Chrissy Neumyer Smith I'm a certified professional groomer certified Behavior consultant for k9's and certified professional dog trainer and this my friends and colleagues is the podcast we're grooming and training meet

so continuing on from our last podcast I want you to think about starting today just adding some things to your grooming or to your training but this is more for the groomers right now um but I want you to think about adding calmness and I've broken down calm into three steps so the first step is to start with calm start with what they're comfortable with and then work on expanding their comfort zone it's a different way of looking at it like okay well what are you calm with what can we work on that you are calm with and and be able to backtrack to calm and be able to work on on just being calm together and getting things done

um you know most dogs have a few things that they're just fine with maybe it's brushing on their shoulder you know not brushing all together like brushing a face or brushing their backside might be tricky for them but to figure out what they're come with so that you can backtrack to it throughout a grooming session and you know if the dog is freaking out just walking through the door this isn't going to be a perfect trim day we talked about that in the last podcast that I want you to have a safety policy and have customer expectations in line with we don't do beautiful perfect Trims on dogs with behavior problems instead we work on the behavior problem for the health and happiness of your dog

so if you have a dog who is already not calm then you would work on trying to get them calm and then work on you know just keeping them calm as best we can

so step two is to maintain calm and why that's important is because I want them to have this feeling that nothing pushed past what they could handle and it's not going to be perfect we all have dogs that end up losing their calm I would love to say that it never happens but it does but when they do get scared we're going to return them to calm right like oh okay you got a little bit worked up there let's calm down again

it might seem like it's a whole ton of work to keep a dog calm and you're not getting much grooming done but Circle back to our safety policy I'm going to keep beating you guys over the head with the safety policy that that's when we all get hurt groomers get hurt dogs get hurt equipment gets broken um customers get ticked off because now their dog is hurt and they don't understand why right so we're going to circle back to keeping a dog calm for future groomings being easy future groomings are going to be easy if we take the time to train it

so maintaining calm means to to stop once in a while while they're relaxed stop and backtrack and go to something else else and I know that can be a little bit hard to do sometimes you're like oh shoot did I do his bum you know like I do things in a particular order and it's messing up the order I do things in and that can be tricky I get that you know but this is sort of a training thing so be thinking about all right do I need to have a little chart beside me to check off that you know I did the nails on the right front paw but I haven't done all of the nails yet

um that's how I actually started doing this it's like okay I'm going to lose track of where I am on this dog um trying to maintain their calm and you know not necessarily get that fourth nail cuz that always seems to be the thing it's like you know they're on the last foot and the last nail and they're like I can't handle it anymore nobody's ever made me do something for this long

so when we get them to be calm again um what we've actually done is let them get worked up and then calm down again I would like instead for them to remain calm and we stop and start up um instead of that point where they're like I can't take it right

so if I'm doing a new dog I'm like okay well I'm going to do this paw and I kept your calm great go back to something I know you're comfortable with and I'm going to do this PW and you were able to stay calm great I'll stop there and do something you're good at

um because we don't want it to be I get upset you stop I want them to start thinking if I want them to stop being calm might work oo that's kind of cool right like hey if I'm really calm sometimes they stop and just pet me you know sometimes they stop and just you know go back to something I like or maybe even give treats which we'll talk about in future podcasts but um you know treats can be really awkward to use in a grooming shop many dogs won't take them on the table so I'm not super treat heavy when I'm talking about how to just work on calm

um I know a lot of trainers are like why aren't you using Treats but as groomers we know we have a hand on the dog we have a hand on a tool we don't have extra hands for like Clickers and treats and right so we're going to keep it basic with just using a Grimmer two hands and not Sprout more arms

so when we're working on maintaining calm um then we're getting a dog to think oh that wasn't so bad she never pushes me to the point that I can't handle right that's maintaining calm

and to end on calm doesn't necessarily mean the entire grooming session ends on calm but everything that we do ends on calm right so if a dog is trying to um hold their leg still for me while I'm picking it up to I don't know you know Clipper around a sanitary area right if they're calm that's where we'll end hey that was really good nice job

I might not go for the next leg if I know that that's their particular challenge right and not do the other side again a little check sheet did half of the sanitary on the right side go back to the left um now I can keep track of those things because I'm in the habit of keeping track of like the millions of different pauses that I have taken but adding those pauses is really important for helping them maintain calm

all right so the three steps of calm again we're going to start with calm figure out what their comfort zone is figure out what they can handle maintain calm we're going to stop once in a while while they're being calm don't worry about oh it's being so good I've just got to get this done no no no no maintain calm back off move forward back off move forward because it creates multiple repetitions um and we're going to end on calm like dude the last thing you do was calm and that's great

and maybe we'll put you back in the crate take you out again um if you're in a grooming shop as a house call grommer I have no option to do that um I'm pretty much start to finish um once you let a dog on the floor of their house probably not getting them like back focused again it's the it's very very different at home

but you know to be able to end on calm with multiple steps like okay and then I'm going to turn off the dryer or I'm going to turn off the grinder or I'm going to move the brush away from you you can be calm and I'll stop you don't have to freak out you don't have to growl at me you don't have to cry you don't have to jump around

um and while we're doing this too I want you to think about sometimes a dog will throw us very very small subtle skills and and and ask to us to stop right so sometimes they're doing this like um what if I just wiggle a little bit and you know what yeah I reward that I'll stop if they give me something so polite something very very small because in the end they're learning oh she did listen I don't need to do anything dramatic

because some of what we're seeing with dogs that are bad for grooming is drama like I am over the top right if I can get a dog to just give me like a slight little wiggle to tell me uh I'm kind of losing my balance here while you've got my leg up yeah I'm going to encourage that because as they learn more then we say well sorry dude I'm going to keep using I'm going to keep finishing here you know like later when they are more comfortable with the whole process we can teach them more about how much we need to do

but starting with calm maintaining calm ending calm that's the what I'm calling the three steps of calm I know it's going to sound so easy and then we're going to go wait a minute you got to be kidding me that can't possibly work

so will this work on dogs were spoiled rotten at home dogs were really pushy dogs were afraid or had a bad experience or very dominant you know etc etc etc you know the thing is is that um yes yes it will and we're going to get into that stuff in the next part because all of those various things are the stories that we add to behaviors that we observe

so we're going to talk about subjective and objective in the next part let's talk about dogs who are bad for grooming dogs who hate it dogs who are scared of everything dogs who are rescues or abused or had a bad experience or spoiled at home those are all subjective they're all stories based on things that you observed and the observations are really what's important in changing Behavior

so I want to talk to you a little bit about what subjective and objective data are so stories are subjective and that means that they're how an individual interprets what they observe and interpretations can vary wildly one person might see a dog who is nervous and another person might see a dog who is angry or you know that what they're observing is being interpreted through words that they're familiar with or through their own point of view

but the data that we really need if we want to do a training plan if we want to help them be more comfortable with something is we need to know well what are we looking at what did we actually see observations are objective data so they're what an individual can see with their eyes hear with their ears touch with their hands they give us key details about the behaviors so that we can make a plan

and what I mean by that is um is the dog shaking and pulling away way is the dog lunging forward and growling those are behaviors that we observe right or is the dog trying to pull out of my hand is the dog relaxed in my hand those are things that I can feel with my hand I might interpret that as the dog is the dog is happy because he's not trying to pull away and he's calm in my hand but that's still an interpretation right

um it's okay for us to make up interpretations and to use subjective stuff certainly you're going to hear me say things like when a dog freaks out because we we do talk about those we talk in that way that's that's kind of the human dialogue but to be a little bit more scientific is to be objective and say well what did you see all right

um when a customer comes to us and say he hates it when I touch his feet we usually ask well what exactly does he do right and when a groomer tells me that they're working with a dog who is terrible for the drer I also ask what does the dog do because what the dog does is going to lead us to some sort of a solution

does the dog freak out when you turn on the dryer or does the dog freak out when the air blows on their coat or do the dog freak out when the air blows on their coat near their ears those are very very different things if we just say he hates the dryer we might be trying to help him with a problem he doesn't have

so for instance if he doesn't freak out when he hears a dryer turn on then we don't need to work on that part we need to work on the feeling of the dryer in a particular area area so we can be more specific and save ourselves a ton of time and that's really what I'm looking for like let's all just save some time right

trainers do it too so it's not just grimmers doing it but trainers do it too they're like oh yeah it must be the loud noise you know we dogs are afraid of loud noises but I got to say I find that that's an assumption too that's part of a story that we think up because we're thinking well you know what I have observed in the past or what my experience has been or what others have told me

but if we take a look at the face and the body language and what we're actually seeing is sometimes they're not afraid of a noise um many of our house pets I mean these are house pets they my dogs can sit through an Avengers movie in the living room at full volume they're not afraid of sound

so I can tell you that you know many of our dogs are okay with watching a football game and can hear noises and not freak out so for us to assume is bad too or to assume that because this dog is a rescue and afraid that he must have had a bad EXP experience that means that um we don't have any data yet we're making an assumption

but if we look at what he does because it could be that a rescue dog doesn't have any experience they're totally overwhelmed which is actually more often the case they're like what is happening here I've never been around this atmosphere you know um so we need to know what it is that we're seeing and be better at picking out those details right like what did You observe

groomers um I find observe things that others don't necessarily see your grooming eye is really really strong trainers in fact I I talked to trainers about you should probably if you want to learn more about body language see about helping out at a grooming shop a little bit because groomers get that faster because we're actually reaching into crates to put leashes on dogs that we don't know that we really don't have much of a history on we're taking an owner's word for it like oh yeah they said at the last grooming shop he was always good you know when we moved and blah blah blah

you know we don't know that dog and we're going to touch him all over and as groomers we see those little signs the sharpness in an eye a little bit of a body stiffen that that are very subtle that we're catching on to and if we keep in mind that those are observations those are objective data that we can really use to say okay well what exactly is this dog worried about what exactly is this dog calm with

then we can work on helping a dog become more comfortable with something that they're uncomfortable with instead of going through you know I often hear people saying oh yeah you need to counter condition desensitize them to dryers but that's still too vague for me which part of drying or counter condition and desensitization to nail trimming but which part of nail trimming we can have more accurate accy and save ourselves a whole lot of time a whole lot of time it's all about the time right

and make faster progress if we take the time to observe what we are seeing what exactly are we seeing what did I see with my eyes what did we all in the room look at and see with our eyes what did we feel in our hands what did we smell what did we hear because those details um are are real those are concrete details and then the subjective data is interpretations of those

so the interpretations can be useful I often use them to help relay information to say customers you know the owner like well you know he was a little bit fidgety about this because I think he was worried but I'm basing it on he started to get a little bit um Wiggly when I was turning on the dryer so I backed off and I turned it off you know like I'm basing it on here was Wiggly he started to pant or he started to circle on the table

where we have a variety of ways that we can look at those behaviors but let's backtrack and think about what do we actually see so when they say a dog hates it when what does he do what does he do that's very important is he trying to get away is he trying to attack is he um willing to fling himself off the table to his death what is the dog doing right what do we observe and how long does it take him to calm down if something does freak them out

those things are important too you know um so objective and subjective data are part of more of a behaviorist training point of view but I think that it's very very useful for everybody it's something that I teach my training customers about I'm in a customer's home with the average dog owner and I'm teaching them that too like what exactly did the dog do when you left like what exactly does he do

because then you can also track progress what exactly did he do when you left today versus what he was doing last week because tracking progress also requires an objective point of view instead of well he's still really spoiled at home what does that mean right that could mean a million things to a million different people

so when we want to be accurate and we want to be able to really look at the behavior in front of us because that's what we're working on is the behavior in front of us on the dog we have today um then we can track how well they're doing if they're making progress if they're not making progress and those are all for future episodes

there are lots of ways to track that but I want you to be thinking about the times that you describe a behavior through a subjective Story versus the times when you're really observing it and taking a look at what you see

so i' would love to get some feedback from you guys um in fact this is something that I find takes a while for us to wrap our minds around it took a while for me and so give me examples if you'd like or maybe I can post something on the on the Facebook group for creating great grooming dogs on Facebook and just come up with some examples for us to go hey which one of those are subjective and which ones are objective so that we can hone our skills even more

because I know you dog people are seeing stuff hearing stuff touching stuff feeling stuff that you're interpreting sometimes inaccurately so it is very very common in training to have to really work on your skills for being an observer and to watch behavior and I know you've got it in you and you can do it and it's going to be so helpful for you when you're able to recognize when you've created a story versus when you have um looked at something kind of in a more scientific way when you have observed it and you know I saw this

and then think how can I help the dog with the thing that I saw for any of you out there who are looking for some some one-on-one help we have these wonderful devices in our pockets these phones that we can do live video with each other I can definitely definitely set up a lesson with with you with the dog that you're having trouble with right there on your table and be able to guide you through some of this stuff

um definitely reach out and let me know I'm at Chrissy happy critters.com dogs um Facebook group and we can definitely set up times to work on these things together because you might be surprised how much I can do for you um live where we're actually looking at each other being able to observe what you're seeing helping guide you or even showing you on a dog over here on this end of video so there are ways for us to help each other there are ways to learn this from a distance