Are you feeling overwhelmed? ?

As positive reinforcement animal trainers – overwhelm is all around us. We are bombarded by new learning opportunities, by new products to buy, books to read or documentaries to watch – the list goes on and on. We also want to be on top of all new comments and posts within our favourite online communities and we can feel bad when we are not.

We can make promises to ourselves “I won’t buy any more learning opportunities until I finish all the ones I already bought” and in a few weeks or months (if we are lucky) we find ourselves buying 3 more… Does that sound familiar?

We want you to know that you are not alone! Consequently, we have come up with a list of 5 possible ideas to help you overcome overwhelm and stay focused on your animal training objectives:

1) Prioritise your training goals so that you can prioritise your learning!

We can’t engage in every learning opportunity that is out there. By prioritising what you want to achieve with your personal animal training goals – it will be easier for you to let go of the excess of opportunities & just pick ones that will best serve you. To help achieve this, check out this previous ATA blog about prioritising your training goals & setting yourself achievable approximations to accomplish them.

2) Acknowledge FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) and practice gratitude.

FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) refers to the feeling or perception that others might be having better experiences than you. You might have experienced feeling this when via social media you saw people having fun at an event you couldn’t attend. Adding new learning opportunities to our life is great but feeling that we NEED these opportunities and can’t move forward without them can be crippling to our Ripple making abilities.

To try to ease the FOMO, I’m curious if there’s value in reframing it. Could we even be grateful for it? We are lucky to live in times where knowledge is so readily available. This is something I am personally super grateful for.

3) Say ‘NO’ more.

Saying NO can totally be SUPER hard though (remember that FOMO). Check out this previous ATA blog post where we talked specifically about this topic.

4) Consider the opportunity cost of saying yes!

Time is a valuable resource. Many of us are behavior geeks and new learning opportunities are highly reinforcing for us. However, saying “yes” to a new learning opportunity means saying “no”  to something else! For example, developing your own business, spending time with friends and family, your own animals and/or self care.

5) Celebrate your own learning!

Just because someone spends more time engaging in learning opportunities it doesn’t mean that their situation is exactly the same as ours. They might have different commitments or more free time than we do. And even if they don’t – that’s not a reason to expect ourselves to be like them! We might have a tendency to expect much more from ourselves than we would from others.

I personally endeavour to celebrate all the time I spend on my own learning (no matter how small or insignificant it might seem). What about you – think about all that you have learned so far this year (including getting this far in this blog post)! We are celebrating this with you.

There are so many learning opportunities out there that we simply can’t fit them all in. And if we try, we can easily start to feel overwhelmed and our to-do/to-watch list becomes never-ending! We hope the ideas shared in this blog can offer some possible approximations for you to help prioritize your resources and stay focused on your training goals!

Best Regards
Anna Bartosik (Blog Writer & ATA Happiness Engineer) &
Ryan Cartlidge (Blog editor & ATA Founder/Connector/Founder)

PS. This blog was inspired by Ripple Makers extraordinaires in the ATA members only community. To join in on similar discussions and get inspired by other amazing ATA members access your exclusive 30 day ATA membership trial here >>> https://www.animaltrainingacademy.com/trial-21/

We have now been running our free ATA podcast show for 5.5 years! This means in July we will be releasing episode 150 (which will be our third podcast collaboration with the amazing Susan Friedman)! Consequently, to help celebrate all of this I thought I would take some time to look back and reflect on some of the most popular episodes of all time as chosen by you (results taken from download numbers).

We hope you enjoy the top ten ATA podcast episodes of all time!

* Number 10: Laura Ryder – seize the moment

Laura is the Head Dog Trainer at Morley Vet center in Perth, Western Australia. She is a Certified Professional Dog Trainer (CPDT-KA) a Karen Pryor Academy Certified Training Partner (KPA CTP), a Full Member of the Institute of Modern Dog Trainers (IMDT), and is also on the Fear-Free Speakers Bureau.

* Number 9: Dr. Robert Hewings – UK college of scent dogs

Recently retired after 30 years’ exemplary police service with the Metropolitan Police, his dog handling and dog training experience is underpinned by outstanding academic qualifications. Robs’ seven years of doctoral research is set upon using evidence-based practice and humanism within the canine scent detection training environment, discovering ‘There is a better way’. He is the author of the popular book ‘Scent Training for Every Dog’

* Number 8: Leslie McDevitt – control unleashed!

Leslie McDevitt is a certified dog behavior consultant, internationally renowned speaker, and author of the uber-popular control unleashed series.

* Number 7: Dr. Patricia McConnell – The human-animal relationship

Patricia is a Certified Applied Animal Behaviourist Emeritus (CAAB) who has made a lifelong commitment to improving the relationship between people and animals. She is known worldwide as an expert on canine and feline behavior and dog training, and for her engaging and knowledgeable dog training books, DVDs and seminars.

* Number 6: (Episode 100) Dr. Susan Friedman & Ryan Cartlidge – Off the perch

Dr. Susan Friedman is a psychology professor at Utah State University who has pioneered the application of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) to captive and companion animals. With its roots in human learning, ABA offers a scientifically sound teaching technology and ethical standard that can improve the lives of all learners.

* Number 5: Jean Donaldson – Academy for dog trainers

Jean is the founder and principal instructor of The Academy for Dog Trainers, which has been running for over 20 years! ?

* Number 4: Ken Ramirez – Training animal for conservation: Chimpanzees, Elephants, Polar bears & more!

Ken Ramirez is the Executive Vice-President and Chief Training Officer of Karen Pryor Clicker Training where he oversees the vision, development, and implementation of training education programs for the organization, including ClickerExpo, Karen Pryor Academy, and The Ranch. This allows Ken to help bring positive reinforcement training to all corners of the animal training world.

* Number 3: Kathy Sdao – Anything you resist persists (Bright spot dog training!)

Since 1998, Kathy has owned Bright Spot Dog Training. Services include consulting with families about their challenging dogs and mentoring professional trainers who want to maximize the power of positive reinforcement training. Kathy is proud to be an original faculty member for Karen Pryor’s ClickerExpos and has taught at many of these popular conferences.

* Number 2: Chirag Patel – Domesticated Manners (The bucket game)

Chirag entered the animal training field professionally in 2004 and has since become a leading figure in the profession internationally. He is highly sought after for consulting with private clients and organizations as well as running workshops for professionals internationally. Chirag consults on the behavior management and training of domestic animals kept as pets, exotics, zoo, and laboratory animals.

* Number 1: Malena De Martini – Treating Separation Anxiety in dogs

Malena DeMartini-Price is renowned in the dog training world for her expertise in dog separation anxiety issues. She is the author of the book Treating Separation Anxiety in Dogs and has contributed articles on separation anxiety to multiple publications such as the Association of Professional Dog Trainers (APDT) Chronicle of the Dog, Pet Professional Guild’s (PPG) Barks From the Guild, and various national magazines such as The Bark.

Woo Hoo! Also, I would totally love to hear from you! What has been your favorite episode? What Ripples have you taken away from the show? And also who would you like to see in the future?

Please let us know by leaving a comment below! We would LOVE to hear from you.

Best Regards
Ryan Cartlidge
Animal Training Academy

Have you found that there is a big difference between text book learning and contingency based learning?

I understood that having a baby meant I was not going to have much free time… This of course makes sense and I can logically understand that. But that is a very different thing then actually learning that same lesson by actually having a baby lol

Up until this point in my life – I could manage everything pretty well and still make time for self care, however I now discovered that everything that has worked in the past no longer worked! – Wifey & I had 12 days off together in December last year & when we did we learned that our emotional & physical cups were completely drained

Consequently, It was clear that some BIG changes would be required in 2021. I had no idea what these changes were going to be though and therefore I needed to ask for help! So I reached out to Veronica Boutelle from Dog Biz and literally said ‘Veronica HELP!’

BTW If you don’t know Veronica and the great work her and the team are doing at Dog Biz … you can listen to a previous ATA podcast episode with her here ⬇️

Luckily Veronica heeded my call and has (over the last three months) helped guide three BIG changes for me & ATA! In sharing these ideas with the ATA membership I realised they might also be beneficial to share with everyone else so here they are >>>

1) Say NO more!

One thing I have asked Veronica to help with is more effectively managing my input with my output! … OR … in other words my available resources with the amount I try to accomplish!

As R+ trainers, I’m curious if others are challenged here? I.e. taking on more than you have time to accomplish

AND… acknowledging that every time we say YES to something we indirectly say NO to something else!

ONE piece of advice Veronica gave – me when we spoke in December – was that until we implement a couple of her suggestions (which I am implementing over Jan/Feb/March) … that she strongly encourages me to say NO to pretty much ALL of the things lol

Consequently, I have said NO to numerous opportunities over the last few months! This process has been mixed with different feelings! Firstly, FOMO (fear of missing out), secondly – the possibility of letting others down & finally the relief that in saying NO to these opportunities I am saying YES to ATA’s main priorities and saying YES to fatherhood, being a good husband, friend, son, brother and local community member!

I was curious to hear from others who might have gone through something similar at some point? What has your experience been?

How do you find the experience of specifically & intentionally saying NO to opportunities?

Grateful for & appreciative of any/all input!

2) Hire help!

This was a big one – as I #failforward learning about & taking action on steps to help ATA – best continue to achieve it’s ‘WHY’ ⬇️

☆ WHY ATA exists = Improve the lives of animals and their human companions through ethical animal training and behavior management principles (with the main focus being on Applied Behavior Analysis).

We therefore created a new position to hire a personal assistant from within our local community on the Kapiti Coast – in Wellington New Zealand!

This task involved me embracing my growth mindset, speaking with various business mentors, my lawyer, my accountant & recruitment agencies! I’m excited that this month Fibi-dog gave her super official ‘lapsit-of approval ‘ ✅ to ATA’s new team member/Jedi Master Extraordinaire Rose Horne!!! **(Fibi-dog definitely does not bestow this special honour upon many)

**This lapsit commemorates Rose’s first day @ ATA HQ & we wanted to celebrate this Momentous approximation with you all! ?

3) Get scheduling yo!

On our third catch – Veronica & I came up with an approximation towards creating a master schedule for my life! lol

Veronica asked me to plan my weeks out in advance! (Something I have never done before!) And then to collect notes about what I learn! Then her & I will connect again Mid March to plan the subsequent approximation.

This is all towards working smarter – not harder! & putting new behaviours in place, in an attempt to avoid burnout (again) & ensure ATA endures FOREVER muhahahaha ?

Has anyone done anything like this before?

Note: You will see some blue rectangles on the calendar. These are where I have blocked out peoples names.

Seriously – we are going to show ‘burn-out’ the door!!! I can see light at the end of the tunnel with regards to how everything Veronica is suggesting is going to work! This ⬅️ feels so so amazingly good! ?

We’ve all been there! We go to do some training and our animal/learner clearly says NO (via their behaviour)! So what do you do next? & could having a well thought out ‘NO plan/option’ mean your learner might be more likely to say YES in the future?

Below is an offering about how I manage this, with an example from some recent training I’ve been doing with my dog FIbi.

Firstly though, I was SUPER excited that on the 07th of October – & for the first time ever – we used the ‘read deal’ dremel on Fibi’s nails! See video below

​I actually had no initial intention to do this on that day (i.e. the 07th Oct)! It just came over me that we were ready & I trusted that feeling! Last time we attempted doing this was roughly 2 months earlier (& @ this point Fibi very clearly voted NO-WAY)! – However all of the approximations – with the human nail files (see HERE) and human baby dremel (see HERE) – in the interim had seemingly paid off! & the trust Fibi showed with me using the the ‘Real-Deal’ dremel on her nails … meant the world to me!

Two days later though in a similar session – Fibi said NO! However, this was completely fine – as this time we had a solid plan in place!

Fibi’s recent learning history is that – in this context, i.e. sitting down on the mat (when the dremel and/or other nail care equipment is present); is followed by me asking her if we can do some manipulation/’care’ of her nails.

However of course – she has the option to say “No I don’t want to do this right now” (i.e. by not sitting down on the mat but doing something else instead) at absolutely any point in these sessions! And often she will choose this option! See video ⬇️

Saying NO is TOTALLY cool! And I feel having options for her to access food anyway (in this case via a chin rest and/or nose target) is super important, so that – to the best of my ability – training remains fun for her & motivation stays high!

The extra cool thing about this is that historically with Fibi & I … I feel that this has lead to Fibi being more likely to say YES in the future! My understanding being that the control she has to say NO @ any time gives her the ‘confidence & trust’ to say YES more!

Note: After I folded up the mat – we then went outside & worked on some stationing behaviour with lots more access to food!

Also when Fibi & I have done similar training in the past – she might do a session of saying YES ten times in a row, followed by a session of saying NO right from the start, followed by another session of then saying YES again.

Fibi continued on with what she has historically done and after this, she did said yes more… A lot more! – here is another session from 14th oct… ⬇️

What about you? What do you do when your learner says NO? You can let us know by leaving a comment below – We would absolutely love to know!

Best Regards
Ryan Cartlidge
Animal Training Academy

P.s want to see more from our (Fibi & my) journey training this behaviour? You can do so in previous blog posts below >>>

Training Fibi to lie on her side/do the ‘Fibi-Flop’ >>> https://www.animaltrainingacademy.com/fibi-flop/​
9 ideas to help you train for duration >>> https://www.animaltrainingacademy.com/duration/

I’m curious, have you ever started your own Animal Training business? And/or is this something you would like to do? And if so how did you go about choosing the name & designing the logo? … This is a recent conversation that we had within the community areas of the Animal Training Academy membership & it has inspired me to share my personal journey doing these two things;

As with everything within Animal Training Academy though, I totally strive to not be the smartest person in the room lol – but rather surround myself with individuals whom are smarter than I. consequently with business related endeavours my first step is always to direct people to whom I would label as the subject matter experts in our industry. Specifically within the ATA content library this would be Veronica Boutelle and the team @ Dog Biz.

I have learned a tonne from Veronica over the years & you can read about 5 of the biggest things she has taught me in this previous blog post here >>> 5 Animal Training Business Lesson from Veronica Boutelle

All the things I have learned form Veronica definitely played a big part in helping to create my latest logo – One which I intend to use in my local geographical area, specifically for dog training. See below ⬇️

For the actual creation of the logo though – a MASSIVE shout out to the amazing Lili Chin for actualising my ideas.I told Lili what I wanted and she produced this master piece! I do believe that if you are going to get something professionally designed, then choosing the right person is an important part of that process (a lesson I learned the hard way – see below with the ATA logo ⬇️).

I cannot recommend Lili’s wonderfulness enough & you can learn more about Lili & her work in this recent ATA podcast episode here >>> https://bit.ly/ATA_Lili_Chin

What I love about Lili Chin is her ability to (in my opinion) to get so much information across in simple cute drawings! I believe this logo does just that, which is why I wanted her to design it for me. Below – I will also add a photo (featuring my dog Fibi) that I took AFTER she had already finished the design. And you will see she captured what I wanted perfectly!

In choosing the name “Kapiti Dog Trainer” I wanted it to be straightforward. I wanted someone (I.e. a potential client) to know exactly what I was offering them when they looked at that image. Paired with the text I think it’s pretty obvious! I offer dog training in the Kapiti Region lol.

Also, some elements of the design are significant parts of our local geographical area. Both in the actual photo of Fibi and Lili’s design you you can see a native NZ flax plant (on the left) and Kapiti Island in the background. I feel all people that live in this region will immediately know that this business is relevant to their geographical location!

I also thought the name was short & easy to remember (once again for locals in my area).

Now – my next logo design story is not as “classy” as my one above lol. This time we are going back 5-ish years – where I’m going to share with you the original logo I got designed for ATA (Note I’ve barely every used this because I don’t actually like it lol) ⬇️.

I got the logo designed in 2016 via a platform called Fiverr – a platform where you connect with individuals from around the world and whom all have specific skill sets (for example logo design) One of the big advantages of Fiverr is it can be cheap.

I found my experience using Fiverr challenging though. One reason might have been because the designer I chose did not speak English as their first language and I found the communication required more skill then I had to offer lol! The animals look like clip art images and let’s be honest I don’t have that much hair ahahaha

The business name – Animal Training Academy – actually arose because of my friends business. His business is about tuning high performance cars and is called ‘High Performance Academy’. So I just thought about my content ‘Animal Training’ and thought about my friends (High Performance) ‘Academy’ & boom “Animal Training Academy” was born!

I kind of like this story and also feel it’s a little bit unimpressive at the same time! lol

In saying all of this I think choosing a good name is important & at the same time I also feel we don’t always know what is and what is not going to work… we might think something is an awful idea and then our audience loves it! On the other hand we might think our idea is gangbusters and then when we present it to our audience and we get met with *crickets” lol (I have most definitely experienced this before… MANY MANY times ahahaha).

If possible – a great idea might be to talk with your potentail clients and run your ideas past them to get their feedback. I have also found running polls on FaceBook to be a great way of seeing what resonates the most.

Oh and then of course most recently … THIS amazing-ness ⬇️ was (again) created by Lili Chin. I am now very attached to the below image (mainly because it features Lili’s dog Boogie lol).

And there you have it … that’s my story so far, with logo design & business name creation. What about you? How did you come up with your Animal Training logo & business name? I would love to hear from you & for you to share it with me. You can comment directly below this email and let me know! I look forward to hearing from you.

Best Regards
Ryan Cartlidge
Animal Training Academy

P.s. Check out what one of our member Lee Stone recently posted on FaceBook about her membership experience (& apparently my business knowledge)!

​

Do you want help with your personal animal training projects? Feedback on your videos? Answer to your burning questions? The ATA membership exists for you! To help you with your personal animal training & behavior goals! Join now and get the answers/feedback you have been looking for…​

Register for your ATA membership here >>> https://www.animaltrainingacademy.com/membership-2020​​

Last weekend I gathered with 4 other Animal Training Academy premium members to play some PORTL (see below);

We had a tonne of fun and I shared the above image in the Animal Training Academy members only Facebook group. Being in New Zealand I momentarily forgot that the images of us sitting so close to each other – & a busy cafe in the background – is something that is actually surreal for many people around the world at the moment! (& now seemingly us again here in NZ ?)

Haven’t heard of PORTL? Hear it’s co-founder (Mary Hunter) describe it in this free podcast episode: http://bit.ly/ATA_Mary_Hunter​

Additionally this week we had a really ‘long time active ATA member’ have to end their membership, out of necessity of not being able to work due to the global pandemic. All of this made me feel a little bit emotionally drained! Something which I sense many around the word have felt at least some point over the last 6 months!

Consequently as the founder, connector & facilitator of Animal Training Academy & paired with being a brand new dad (of 5 month old Summer – see below) I have acknowledged that to be the best leader, father, husband, friend, family member, pet parent & community contributor I can be … it’s imperative I do what I can do to be on my A game.

This obviously isn’t always easy though and a few weeks ago I did what I would label as burn out. It’s not the first time this has happened – but it’s so unpleasant when it does I’m very motivated to minimise or decrease it happening again. More specifically I realise that when everything gets too much I have – what I would label as – mini panic attacks. Operationalised and for me these can be expressed in terms of tears, hyper-ventilating, dizziness, shortness of breath, unclear/cloudy thoughts, shaking & nausea.

It’s not easy to talk about all of this, but I acknowledge mental health is SO important and I feel it’s not always discussed as much as it possible should be. Therefore I am trying to be brave for myself and also to hopefully help others who might have had similar experiences & either don’t have anyone to share with and/or it’s too challenging to talk about.

Talking about brave learning BTW, I’m going to link to another free podcast where trainer Petra Edwards (bravely) shared her story with us, This podcast really helped me understand what was happening to me and inspired me to reach out for help >>> http://bit.ly/ATA_Petra_Edwards​

And to stay on top of my A game (as I framed it above) there are a number of changes/strategies I have to/do employ. These are what I call my “survival guide” and what I wanted to share them with you today – see below;

A animal trainers survival guide (mental health in a pandemic)

1) Work on improving the quality of sleep

Totally not the easiest thing to do when you have a baby lol … however having recently hosted the amazing Dr. Gregory Hanley for a live ATA web-class on ‘A behavioural approach to improving ones sleep’ I have taken action on some of his suggestions. Here’s four things I have done;

• Removed all screen time (i.e. on my phone) paired with the behaviour of lying down flat in bed. I still look at my phone in bed only I will sit up to do it… Aiming to have my bed supporting my horizontal body be an antecedent to cue the behaviour of sleep.
• intentionally & consistently thinking about my day & the following day to come – whilst I brush my teeth & get ready for bed.
• Using the mobile phone app ‘sleep cycle’ to measure my sleep quality and sound my alarm when I’m in light sleep rather then at a certain set time. https://www.sleepcycle.com/
• If I lie awake for 10-15 minutes and can’t get back to sleep then intentionally sit up and read a book for 10 minutes,
• Have a noise machine on non stop in the background. I use an app on my phone to play ocean wave sounds all night.

Want to see the whole 2 hour web-class from Dr Hanley on a behavioural approach to improving your sleep. Check it our here via your ATA membership >>> https://www.animaltrainingacademy.com/membership-2020​

2) Focusing on gratitude & love

This is something I can do when out walking my dog Fibi! I intentionally spend 5 minutes focusing on everything I can think of that I am grateful for. Additionally another 5 minutes focusing on all of the people and things that I love in my life. Doing this daily has a profound influence on the rest of my day, how I view things and my interactions with others. Focusing on gratitude has been revolutionary for my mental health.

3) Stop drinking alcohol

During New Zealand’s 1st lockdown I got into a pretty bad habit of finishing the days work and cracking open a beer… and then I might having another one with dinner and sometimes 2! Not so bad if you do it once in a while, but I was doing this numerous times a week. The cumulative effect of this was not only bad for my health but draining on my energy and making me, what I would label as, groggy. So personally I have just gone cold turkey at home. I will still have one if we are out at a restaurant but this one small diet change for me is a small hinge that swings big doors.

4) Doing something for me every week that is not related to Animal Training.

For me this is gardening. Gardening helps me get my hands dirty and be active, I do planting, trimming, building and making our little pocket of land a pleasant, tidy and well groomed place to exist, I really enjoy my time in our garden and look forward to it every week,

This is my current survival guide. What’s yours? I invite you to respond to me via this email & let me know. I won’t share with anyone else but want you to know that If you are having a hard time, feeling lonely in your role or just in the need of support from a group of compassionate people – we are here to help!

Best Regards
Ryan Cartlidge
Animal Training Academy

Having my dog Fibi, scratch the ground with all four paws has been a behaviour I have been working on for a while. It’s one of those behaviours you start to think about, do a couple of sessions and then life gets in the way. However recently I have picked it back up …. & In this blog post I’m going to share with you our journey so far – I hope it might be helpful & fun for others whom want to do something similar. 

The first video below shows where we are currently at & then we will travel back to December 2019 as I will walk you through how we got to our current criteria.

The above video is after we had experimented with lots of different textured surfaces. The end result being Fibi scratching on this relatively firm square piece of carpet. You can also see a white square in the middle and this is my piece of sand paper. The sand paper is p400 (super super fine grit) and stuck on with double sided tape. In this video the piece of sand paper is 10cm squared and I am approximating it bigger and bigger every day in increasing increments of 0.5cm squares.

So how did we get here? One answer might be incredibly slowly hahaha… I’m just joking of course! We have approximated our way here and celebrated each approximation along the way. Although sometimes I wonder if it fits in the “one of those behaviours you wish you never started” bucket! Which is a sentiment we have seen in the ATA blog before with this offering on teaching a open mouth behaviour >>> http://bit.ly/ATA-Open-Mouth 

Although I think this is just a behaviour nerds way of saying it was incredibly fun to train ? … you can follow the rest of our journey below;

This second video (which is actually the first lol) was from December 2019. This was an attempt by me at capturing a scratching behaviour in my home office by burying some smelly food in a container full of sand and seeing if Fibi would dig for it 

Following on from this I decided to shape the front paw scratch instead and explored the idea of putting each paw on a seperate cue. This following video is also from December 2019.

I then pretty much left the behaviour until June this year (basically 6 months lol) but was thrilled to see Fibi remembered it well. Although you can see in the video I played around a bit with the antecedents and my body position to get her to use different feet this time around.

This is all well and good for scratching with the front feet but really I wanted to be able to use the scratch board with all her feet including her back two. And therefore I decided I was going to capture her scratching the ground on our daily one hour-ish long walks. It took nearly 2 weeks to get her doing it consistently and repetitively! But we got there in the end! See the below video of Fibi offering the behaviour out at the park…

Capturing behaviour = Simply ( & consistently) adding positive reinforcement after a behavior your animal already does…

Next step was to then get the same behaviour in our garden at home (and I consider this some very brave learning – sharing videos which subsequently show of my fake yellow/blue crocs lol. My Swedish friends thought I was just trying to support their country whilst training my dog ?) …

Then Fibi & I moved this into our (new) home office. This session below wasn’t a planned one, rather Fibi just started randomly offering the behaviour inside so I quickly turned the camera on and started filming.

I was hoping after this that it would then be as simple as creating a giant scratch board lol … so I made one & started to slowly introduce Fibi to it, although I came to the conclusion at this stage Fibi wasn’t quite ready to start offering the behaviour on hard surfaces…

Which led us to our current stage and the video this blog post started of with where Fibi is scratching on the square piece of paper! We still have numerous approximations to go to get to the stage where she is helping to do her own nail care with this behaviour but I am totally celebrating how far we have already come!

This project has been the most fun & one of the most challenging behaviours I have ever tried to capture. And there were times at the park where I didn’t take my eyes of her for 60 minutes straight. Many questions were raised by me at this stage questioning if we were ever going to get there. But I’m totally thrilled we stuck with it and loving the ongoing learning that training this is providing  ?

I’m super keen to know what has been the most challenging behaviour you have ever captured? You can let me know by leaving a comment below! I can’t wait to hear about your animal training adventures!

Ryan Cartlidge
Animal Training Academy

I’m really not proud of it, but recently I pushed a friend – who was staying at our house – off our sofa! Find out why below (as well as how to avoid doing it yourself) …

It’s the festive season and if you are like us you probably have lots of people coming to visit and/or stay. What do you do if these people (who might be strangers to your animals) come in and engage with your animals in ways you don’t want?

Recently this happened to us. A friend who was staying with us pushed our dog, Fibi, off the sofa! This was something we (Wifey and I) had never personally done and/or seen anyone else do before, and I reacted by returning the favour – I pushed our friend of the sofa. I regret doing it, it’s not how I wanted to handle the situation, but at the same time I’m also super grateful, as it taught me a tonne.

Needless to say, they were shocked and confused as to why I would do such a thing … then this was followed by a meaningful conversation about how they had just done the same thing to Fibi-dog!

The reason I feel bad about it, is that in the moment I acted irrationally & out of character, based on my emotions. Even though I did it as a joke – the strategy I employed goes against what I believe in & I definitely wouldn’t do it again! But it did raise some really interesting thoughts for me…

What do you expect from visitors to your house when it comes to your animals and how can you help set your visitors up for success?

Side-note; I get great practice at this over Christmas as we currently have Wifey’s mum and step dad staying with us – you can see Fibi-dog perched beautifully between me and “step father in-law“ in the photo below;

So, as I continue to learn about how to best set everyone up for success, I thought I would compile a list. Below you can see 5 things you can do to help set your visitors up for success – in relation to your animals;

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1) Train desirable behaviours from your animals that will help them be successful.

For example, we have a station for Fibi-dog next to my chair at the dinner table. This way if need be, we can ask Fibi to station in exchange for positive reinforcement at times when visitors might not want her around.

2) Explain how things work to your guests in advance and/or lower the criteria you expect from your guests until you get an opportunity to discuss things through with them and make sure they understand.

I feel we need to practice compassion that others have different experience with animals and don’t share the same knowledge about behavior. What do you think?

3) When you see your visitors engage with your animals in a way that you like ensure to communicate to them that you like what they do and why you like it!

4) Set up some situations where your guests can do some training with you and your animals to help build the relationships on both sides.

For example, we just did some simple training yesterday where my mother in law called Fibi-dog to her station in the front entrance area of our house. My mother in law then slowly closed our entrance door and loaded Fibi in the car. Fibi got lots of chicken and the Mother in-law really enjoyed the interaction!

5) Be vigilant and manage the environment as best you can to help set you, your animals and your guest up as best as possible.

For example, if I see that someone is about to sit at the dining room table with some delicious food… I can be pretty certain T-lo the cat will be quick to investigate. I avoid the cat-face-in-meal problem by giving T-lo alternative activities to do or asking T-lo to move into another area of the house for a short while.

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These are 5 quick ideas I have been implementing, but there are obviously lots more. What are some things you do to prepare your guests to help them be successful with your animals?

Looking forward very much to your thoughts!

Best Regards
Ryan Cartlidge
Animal Training Academy

P.s got some spare travel time over the Christmas holidays! Make sure to stay updated with all the latest & greatest for the ATA podcast show here >>> bit.ly/ATA-podcasts

Steve White was recently in New Zealand doing a three day workshop on tracking and nose/scent work! So as per normal I’ve prepared for you a list of the five biggest things I learned/enjoyed/took away (see below).

Haven’t heard of Steve White before? … Out of 100+ ATA podcast episodes – the episode with him, has definitely been one of my favourites! Listen here >>> http://bit.ly/ATA_Steve_White

1) We learned about Steve White’s HITT (Hydration Intensified Tracking training) system and I even got to help practice with an amazing little Border Terrier! EEEEE! 

The activity we did had us spray a line of water along the ground and then line it with little pieces of high valued food. Our little terrier would then go along with its nose low to the ground, eating all of these little pieces of food accompanied by the odour of the water. In the activity we did each piece of food was only a couple of centimeters apart but over time you would increase the distance between the food whilst maintaining the sprayed line of water on the ground! – I can’t wait to do more of this in the future!

2) Continual reinforcement learning about the absolute sensational sense that is a dog’s olfactory ability! Steve offered new thoughts, science and insights into their sense of smell – an ability I don’t think we can even begin to fully comprehend.

Having worked in Zoos for most of my career I loved watching Snakes stick their forked tongues out to scent the air. Pulling the particles back into their Jacobson’s organ! I didn’t actually know dogs had one in their mouths as well! ARRRRGH! They are so cool!

3) DATA collection! WOOOO! Earlier this year Steve White joined us at ATA for a live web-class where he reviewed  MacKenzie’s eight scent-work indicators (with video examples for all 8);

1. Pull
2. Nose Height
3. Tail Carriage
4. Breathing
5. Cadence 
6. Circling
7. Crabbing
8. * Head swing (Nose anchor)

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Want to watch this web-class from Steve Whtie on this exact topic you can do so with your ten day $1 trial here >>> https://www.animaltrainingacademy.com/2019-membership-trial/

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At the Workshops we got to practice this in real time. As a group we sat down and watched a video we had literally just filmed of some dogs doing nose work activities. Together we then filled out data sheets so that we could all learn to read the dog’s body language better! My god was this fun!

4) A recurring take away from attending any workshop is a greater appreciation of the awesomeness of the ATA tribe! I had so much fun hanging out with the attending members. (Note I had to photoshop Karen Drummond in as I was silly and forgot to collect her for this photo!)

5) And finally I gained a greater appreciation for the work that the police dogs and their humans do! We were so lucky to watch videos of both police dogs in training and doing real live searches! The skill of both dog and handler blew my mind.

I hope you have enjoyed this and am excited to let you know that last weekend I attended a dog training business seminar with DogBiz founder Veronica Boutelle! Look forward for more workshop updates coming your way soon 🙂

Best Regards
Ryan Cartlidge
Animal Training Academy

P.s Want EVEN more from Steve – earlier this year he joined us AGAIN at ATA for a 6 person panel discussion with himself, hannah branigan, Eva, Bertilsson, Agnieszka Janarek, Carrie Kish and myself… this was for ATA premium members only however you can see a full replay via your exclusive $1 ten day ATA trial here >>>  https://www.animaltrainingacademy.com/2019-membership-trial/

My first home consult (circa 2016) was terrible.

I met someone out on a walk with my dog and they expressed some challenges they were having at home. I actually offered to go for free to their house because I wasn’t in the game of doing home consults and I wanted to get some experience.

To cut a long story short it went awfully! ?I knew I could help the people and their dog, but I didn’t know how to meet them where they were!

They were an elderly couple, no idea about using technology (the reason I add this will become important soon) and zero cares about how behavior worked other than wanting to stop their dog from doing the “annoying” thing without having to do any work! Ha, I’m joking they weren’t that bad …

So anyway, I go in trying to sell them on my model of helping people online and the virtues of positive reinforcement training and how/why it works. The old man literally fell asleep in his chair (in all seriousness though – I think this was due to factors outside of me i.e. health). And his wife was not resonating with what I was saying at all! But ON I went … blah blah blah!

She offered to pay me at the end of this visit, but I didn’t accept any money and really just wanted to help her and her dog! Next time I saw her though was out walking the dogs not doing another consult!

Over the last three years I’ve worked hard at learning to meet our human learners where they’re at, and recently, this was really put to the test.

This time I went to a local dog groomer to observe how things were being done for a current paying client of mine (of whom I am working with them and their dog!)

Unfortunately I feel this particular experience was quite unpleasant for the dog involved. If I had done this a few years ago I don’t think I could have even sat through that two hour session. Back then I lacked compassion for the human. Now, I am convinced they were doing the absolute best they could with the information & experience they had.

So I could meet them where they were at, I worked really hard to identify a number of things that they did that I really liked! And here are two of them!

1. At one point, non contingent high value food was offered to the dog! Boom LOVE it! The dog readily ate it and I commented on the value I thought this brought to this particular grooming session
2. The groomer consistently told me about how they thought the animals learning history played a big role in the behaviors that they saw in their business! I commended them on this insight and agreed on the importance of this.

Other then that I just sat silently and watched …

That is UNTIL the groomer asked me a question about their horse’s behaviour! And boy did I do my absolute best to reinforce that curiosity! This lead to me having an opportunity to offer some thoughts and send links to free resources where they could learn more.

Part of my approach here was greatly influenced by what Ken Ramirez taught me in a recent podcast episode we did together where Ken shared five things people can do when working with others to move them toward better use of positive reinforcement tools in order to make their training more effective. You can listen to the podcast episode here >>> http://bit.ly/ATA_Ken_Ramirez

And watch a video link of the specific part of the podcast where Ken talks about this below;

Want more Ken … ?!? Register for your $1 ten day trial ATA membership today to gain access to more exclusive premium members content form Ken Ramirez & other industry leading experts ACCESS HERE

See the full list of ATA premium members only live training replays here >>> https://www.animaltrainingacademy.com/members-only/

Will the human learner mentioned above check out the resources I sent them? I don’t know! I have not been able to get this experience out of my head though! The biggest question I have is how could I have done more. How can I train myself to focus even more on reinforceable behaviors from others and meet them where they are (rather than where my expectations might be). Who knows, maybe in three years I will be sending you an email about how silly I was in this situation – much like my original experience with the home consult.

What about you? How do you develop compassion for your learners? How can we better meet our learners where they are? I look forward to you hearing your thoughts and can you let me know by leaving them in the comments section below.

Best Regards
Ryan Cartlidge
Animal Training Academy

P.s This is also something I am also really taking away from a current endeavour doing my KPA (Karen Pryor Academy) professional dog training certification. We have to do written assignments tailoring our messages to different audiences and I am learning a lot! It’s been an amazing one month journey so far and I am looking forward to the next five months!

Animal Training Academy premium members are super heroes! I am constantly inspired by the videos that get shared in the ATA membership Community areas and so this week I thought I would share my top ten from 2019! (Offered in no particular order);

Video # 10

The first video is a favourite from my time doing nose work with my dog Fibi – working on stimulus control.

Video # 9

As animal training geeks I think it’s fair to say we want to train pretty much any animal/species we can get our hands on lol … ATA member Lisa Tuthill had only had these chickens for 4 days at the point of sharing this video. In her words; “Just wanted to share because my my heart is bursting with joy and excitement of what we can do together!!”

Video #8

It will be easy to see why I like this next video so much! ATA member Josefine Linderström decided to see if this horse would prompt more scratches. Read her own words below:

Josefin: ‘For me this was such a lovely experience. It continues to blow my mind, that I can meet an individual for the first time and within minutes I can ask questions (would you like more scratches?) and get answers (yes, I would!) in such a simple, straight forward way … The best thing is I don’t need to have mind reading skills, or some super advanced technology, or make guesses. I just need to observe behavior. ♥️’

Video #7

Anything from Swedish trainer Eva Bertilsson is set to be pure gold for us animal training nerds! This next video takes a snippet out of a previous podcast episode we did together talking about flowcharts! Enjoy …

Video #6

And then what’s possibly even more fun is when you get to see ATA members put all of this amazing knowledge shared by podcast guests into action! Check out this from ATA premium member Emma Almquist who continually spoils us with her training videos/flowchart combinations!

Video #5

Within the ATA membership I find myself consistently surrounded by people with different knowledge, experience and training know how then myself (more often then not at a much higher lever then me!) It’s this constant inspiration that pushes me to continue to learn! For this reason I am extremely grateful for trainers like Vidhyalakshmi Karthikeyan who are always pushing the boundaries and demonstrating skilful application of advanced concepts. For example this training on the concept of size, with her dog Beanie:

Video #4

Chin rests behaviours are super common as the ‘go to behavior’ for doing cooperative care with dogs! So I just get really excited to see this done, with such a high level of skill, with felines! Check out Elvis the cat & ATA premium member Ayoe Hoff – showing us all how it’s done 🙂

Video #3

And more cats! I love Vidhyalakshmi’s training so much I just had to include a second video from her! Training our animals to voluntarily enter their crates (& giving them as much control as possible) is a fundamental behavior we should ideally train with all animals.

Here’s Vidhyalakshmi handing back control with one cool cat – closing it’s own crate door!

Video #2

It is with great Joy that I get to call Peggy Hogan a friend & ATA tribe member! In the ATA community areas we get constant updates of her and McKee. There were many Mckee videos to choose from but this was definitely one of my favourites – demonstrating some fun liberty training. We love how much of an ambassador McKee is for positive reinforcement training!

Video #1

This last video was shared by ATA premium member Aileen Stevenson. It is one of my favourites and I will let you read why in Aileen’s own words below

Well there you have it – ten of my favourite videos shared from within the ATA premium members community areas in 2019! And this is really only the tip of the ice berg with regards to the world changing work the ATA tribe is doing! If you would like to see more subscribe for your ATA trial membership today >>> https://www.animaltrainingacademy.com/2019-membership-trial/

Best Regards
Ryan Cartlidge
Animal Training Academy

Ripples = Small things that make big changes in spreading the message of positive reinforcement animal training. ​

Every week Animal Training Academy premium members share remarkable things within the membership community areas. These members are superheroes/Rockstars, I’m so so proud of them and the following posts are two of my favourites from the last month! (beware you might get goosebumps and a bit teary eyed when reading these).

Both of the following posts are ripples involving challenging but important conversations in a way that spreads the message of positive reinforcement animal training.

And then ATA premium member Anna Bartosik shared the following piece of amazingness.

You would have seen the book Crucial Conversations (Authors – Kerry Patterson, Joseph Greeny, Ron McMillan & Al Switzler) mentioned in both of these posts! It is something we discuss and utilise a lot within Animal Training Academy and I highly encourage you to check it out if you haven’t already done so! 

You can listen to an ATA podcasts episode on Crucial conversations here >>> http://bit.ly/Crucial_conversations

Have you read the book? Do you have some experiences of how this has helped you out in challenging conversations. If so I would love to hear your story, you can leave a comment below.

Best Regards
Ryan Cartlidge
Animal Training Academy

P.s want to get access to the exclusive ATA premium members community areas? (FaceBook group and ATA website forums). Register for your trial membership today! >>> https://www.animaltrainingacademy.com/2019-membership-trial/

Have you ever been asked – What is your WHY? 

If so – what did you say? If not – what do you think you might say?

Recently, I was interviewed for an event here in New Zealand organised by a colleague of mine & NZ based Positive Reinforcement Horse trainer – Bex Tasker! In this interview, I was asked what is the WHY of Animal Training Academy?

I didn’t articulate it so well in the interview but here is an offering (prepared when I have much more time to carefully choose my words lol) about the why of ATA.

* The WHY of Animal Training Academy

ATA exists to help improve the lives of animals and their human companions through ethical animal training and behavior management principles (with the main focus being on Applied Behavior Analysis). World leading professionals share their knowledge through our podcasts, blog, web-classes and the ATA membership.And then we build a tribe around that knowledge to help develop trainers competencies, orientation & growth. Our online communities help support and encourage our members as they put this knowledge into practise.

You can see my ACTUAL answer (basically the same thing just not as succinct lol) and the entire rest of the interview in the following video …

Once again I’m curious what your WHY is? Leave your comments below & let me know.

Best Regards
Ryan Cartlidge
Animal Training Academy

P.s a MASSIVE thank you to Lisa Whiteman who recorded the actual interview and whose voice you can hear asking the questions.