[00:00:00] Hey there. If you're an agility nerd, you're in the right place. You're listening to fostering excellence in agility. I'm Megan, your resident agility competitor, coach, and mentor. And this podcast is where I break down all things agility and guide you on your path to excellence. Are you ready? Let's go.
Hey there, welcome back. Today I want to talk about leaving the ring early. This can be for a number of reasons, but first I want to talk about leaving the ring early when your dog is opting out of the run. Being able to opt out does mean that your routines allowed the dog to opt in [00:01:00] in the first place.
So when a dog opts out, this can It can look like disengaging from the run to sniff or to visit or to run to the ring side and edges, kind of looking for the gate. Maybe they already know where the exit gate is and they run back there. I've seen dogs run to the entrance gate because they at least know that's where they came in.
So they're guessing that they can get out that way too. Pretty much anything that I would end a training session for. I'm going to end a run for, and this does rely on the communication system that you've built between you and your dog and the expectations you have for each other when it comes to honoring and honoring.
Opting in and opting out because if your routines do allow for the dog to opt in, but [00:02:00] you ignore them when they opt out, that routine, unfortunately, is probably useless and not helping you very much because if you don't honor the opt out, you really can't honor the opt in either. So that's the first reason I would be leaving the ring is if my dog opts out.
And it would just be, Thanks for letting me know that you don't want to be here anymore. Guess what? You don't have to be in here anymore. Let's go get our cookies and cool down, and try again next time. Obviously, if this is happening a lot, I need to be looking at why my dog wants to opt out of competition, and focusing my training on making opting into competition easy for them and what they want to do.
Opting out can also happen before your run even begins. It can maybe look [00:03:00] like a disruption in your typical routine. Like the dog won't connect with you or make eye contact. The dog won't sit at the start line. The dog won't leave the start line when you release them. There's a lot of different ways that even if you haven't specifically given them that language to opt out, that our dogs are trying to tell us that they're not Really all that comfortable with competing in that moment, similar to opting out is if a dog wants to continue, but can't continue.
This shows up in maybe they're a little bit conflicted, they're slowing down. You can tell that they're trying their hardest to do what you're asking, but they have a lot of things going on in their head. I often call this a lot of tabs open. And while they're trying, you can just really clearly see that they don't have enough to give in order to complete this run.[00:04:00]
I'm also very okay with making a quick exit, leashing them up, getting them their cookies, and going for their cool down. Wanting to continue but can't continue can also look like a dog that just can't give you the correct answer. They, you might refer to them as spiraling up, they might look like they're guessing or they're being frantic, they, like, make a mistake and maybe they shoot into a tunnel or, You know, you make a handling mistake and they shoot into a tunnel, uh, or they, they make an uncommon mistake and you ask them for a very simple behavior like a sit or a down or a nose touch and they just can't, they want to be there so badly that they cannot self regulate and give the correct answers.
In these cases, most of the time, I feel like it's just not safe to continue with this dog. They're more susceptible to injury. [00:05:00] And also, our relationship on that course is very fragile in that moment, right? I don't want to be frustrated with them. I don't want them to be frustrated with me, and I don't want either of us to be frustrated with competition.
So a lot of the times, even if they want to keep going. But it's very clearly that they can't right now. It's usually a better bet to just cut your losses, end the run early, get your cookies, your toy, go for your cool down walk. Most commonly, I think leaving the ring early is used when the dog does not meet a specific criteria, generally an obstacle criteria or a start line criteria.
This is not going to be my first choice. Unless a few things have already been proven to me in training and also through the competition history. [00:06:00] So I'm not going to remove access to agility. As a consequence for not meeting criteria, unless I am actively using agility as a reinforcer for the correct criteria in training and in trials.
So this contingency has to have been shown to the dog in training. For example, if you maintain your stop contact and wait for a release, you get to continue on to agility. That needs to be happening in training, and also it needs to have happened in competition so that the dog knows what they are able to earn and how to earn it.
I don't feel comfortable applying a punishment procedure if the dog isn't clear on how to earn the reinforcement.
If the behavior isn't happening at all [00:07:00] in competition. I'm probably going to be looking at using for exhibition only and not for competition in order to produce that behavior so that I can show them the reinforcement contingency of you get to keep going. And then if I'm still not seeing it at all in true competition, I do usually have to escalate to removing the dog from agility as the consequence when they don't meet that requirement.
Of course, it's best if they have seen that contingency in training. I'm also probably going to be forced into this if, for a while, the dog's history has been reinforced for the wrong criteria. This can also be the case when you're introducing [00:08:00] something new that you've retrained. Weeds. Do sometimes have to immediately apply this punishment procedure to the old behavior because we're trying to replace that competition history.
So, like I said, it is not my first go to, but every now and then because of the reinforcement history of the learner, I'm kind of forced to use that procedure. In any situation, If I'm leaving the ring early, that is where it ends. I still exit to my stashed reward, and they still go on their cooldown walk, the same as any other run.
The procedure is not, I'm removing you from agility, and not giving you any of the things that I promised to you before the run. The procedure is, you did not meet criteria, and you are no longer in the run. [00:09:00] Getting access to agility and this obviously isn't going to work for all dogs. Because their access to agility does not hold enough value to effectively produce behavior change.
So you do have to understand your dog's general motivations and their reinforcement history for the correct and the incorrect behavior that you're trying to change. And just how, how things are going in general about why they do agility. And play around with things in training if they've never seen that procedure in training, then it's unlikely to be effective in competition, because I'm of the firm belief that if the problem behavior never shows itself in training, then it.
You probably aren't dealing with a technical skill problem, you're dealing with an environment or a [00:10:00] mindset problem, and that's when we need to dive more into those layers of generalization and thinking about building up the fluency of those behaviors. Then, I should start to see that the correct behavior gets easier and easier for the dog to produce in a competition environment.
Hopefully that clears things up around why I would leave the course early, and I hope it provides some clarity into your own routines and procedures that you use in training and in competition. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, there are several ways you can leave me positive reinforcement.
One, leave me a five star review. Two, share with your fellow agility nerds. Or three, share your thoughts with me on social media. Be sure to follow at fxagility on Facebook [00:11:00] or Instagram.
