[00:00:00] If you train, compete, or teach dog agility, you're in the right place. Hey there, I'm Megan Foster, creator of Fostering Excellence and Agility. Join me as I share key insights on all things related to dog agility and help find your team's path to excellence and unlock your best year yet. Let's get started.
This is episode 42 and today I want to talk about using props in our training. It comes up a lot in my coaching program about if we should use a prop or how should we fade a prop and my answers are usually the same and there's a lot of [00:01:00] generalizations that I have when it comes to props but really what it comes down to is understanding.
your dog's learning history, with and without that prop, to fully develop a plan that's likely going to work for reducing the use of that prop. But I'll go ahead and tell you my generalizations so that hopefully you can go forth and evaluate how you want to use props and make a plan for how to fade that prop.
So, first and foremost, I am way more likely to use a prop to teach a behavior than to fix a behavior. And this is only because I believe that it's easier to fade a prop if the prop was there to help develop the behavior and the dog truly learns how to develop the behavior eventually on their own. [00:02:00] But when we already have a behavior that's developed that we don't like and we're using the prop to force a different behavior, it's often more difficult to fade that prop because the prop becomes such a huge part of the cue picture that is getting the behavior that we want.
So if I think I'm going to need a prop ever in training that behavior, I'm going to introduce it early, even if I don't use it for every training session. So an example of that is wires or gates on weave poles. If I even think that one day I'm going to put a wire on a difficult weep hole entry to help my dog be successful, I'm going to show them wires in the training process.
That way, they're not alarmed when they see them later on. And also, if the [00:03:00] dog is used to that prop, it's unlikely to change their general behavior. It will strictly just help them get the correct answer. So, in the case of using a wire on the weave pole like that, if I've used them in the training process, the dog is used to them, but he has also done weave poles without that prop, now the prop can just be added later to eliminate the wrong choice.
So, generally speaking, fading that type of prop is pretty easy. Because the dog already knows how to do the behavior without it, and the behavior isn't changed significantly with it. But what if you do train weave poles with wires from the very beginning on all of the poles, and your dog learns to weave with wires?
Now we do have to talk about a fading process [00:04:00] in that situation, because the wires have been a part of the cue picture the entire time during their training. So just taking them off probably isn't going to work.
So when we are talking about fading, there's a lot of different ways that we can fade a prop that was used to teach something. We can make the prop smaller or lower. So when we're talking about weave pull wires, we can't really make the wire smaller. But we can lower the wire so that it's less in the dog's eye level view.
We can also raise it up so that it becomes high above the dog's head. We can play around with the different things. But we can move them over time so that they are less and less in the dog's cue picture. If we're using something like gates, we can sometimes make those smaller. Like if they [00:05:00] fold up, we can, and they are like, um, Kind of like three squares long, we can fold them to two and then to one and then it's gone.
We can also move them farther away. So if it's a gate, they don't have to physically be touching the poles, we can put an inch between the poles and the gates, and then six inches, and then a foot, and then they're gone. Obviously, make different splits depending on the dog's success rate.
A good way that I like to use a lot is to randomly remove part or all of the prop, but not completely get rid of it. So, if I'm going out and I'm doing six reps of something, I will randomly choose one of those reps to remove the prop and then put it back for the rest of the reps. So that it's not always the first one, it's not always in the middle, and it's not always at the end.
So that the dog's expectation is still that the prop will be there. [00:06:00] But I can see what it's like before and after I remove the prop to see if there's any change in the behavior. Usually if there's change in the behavior without the prop and then also in the next rep, where the prop is back but the dog might be expecting it to be gone, that usually tells me that the dog is still relying on the prop for the behavior.
And I may not be ready to fade that prop yet.
One way that I like to use props, especially if I believe that I will be using a prop long term, is to use a variety of props that help the dog in the same way. So for instance, if I use a prop for helping my dog collect or stay in collection on a turn, I want to change what that prop is frequently, so that the [00:07:00] prop doesn't become part of the cue picture.
And a behavior like turns and keeping collection, that is something that I might want to bring the prop back to help a dog be successful throughout their entire career. Just depends on the dog. But if I use the same prop every time for years with a dog, it is more likely that the dog will attach the behavior to that prop, making it harder for the dog to produce the desired behavior without it.
So with the example of. Getting a tight turn or keeping collection on a tight turn. I might teach it with a gate, but then I'll fade it to the side of a tunnel or a cone or my water bottle or my backpack. Similar can be said to things like stride regulators if you're going to be using them long term. So [00:08:00] in long term, in my, in my mind is beyond the teaching.
phases, or more than two years, is something, so stride regulators, try to make those different. Can it be a little, can it be a different color, can it be a different size? Um, if you're using stride regulators on the ground for jumping, does it have to be a stride regulator, or can it be a leash on the ground, or a string?
Thinking about changing the prop and still getting the correct behavior is going to allow you to use props. for a longer period of time and also having some ring sustainability.
Finally, when is removing a prop cold turkey actually going to work? In my experience, the only time this works is if the prop is not [00:09:00] invasive and doesn't impact the dog's natural behavior too much. It provides a clear criteria for the dog and a clear criteria for the handler to mark and reinforce, but it doesn't.
It doesn't invade the dog's space, it doesn't make the dog change a whole lot. So I've had a lot of success with my running A Frame program being able to just remove the PVC box off of the A Frame and rarely using it because I don't believe that forces the dog into an unnatural behavior. For some dogs, it absolutely does and we do take a slower process with fading.
the box off, but for many dogs, that process is pretty easy and the PVC box just provides clear criteria for both the dog and the handler, but doesn't [00:10:00] change the dog's body movements significantly. In those cases, removing that prop. and only bringing it back if there's a problem in the training or in the competition works beautifully.
But, if the prop really has to force the dog to change what they naturally want to do, you're most likely going to have to fade that prop over time versus just removing it one day and bringing it back as needed. So those are my general thoughts on using props. Hopefully it can get you thinking about how you use props and how you fade props now and in the future.
Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, I really appreciate some feedback. You can leave me a review, engage on social media, or share this with a friend. I hope you'll be back to listen to my next episode. In the meantime, you can find all of my offers on my [00:11:00] website, fxagility. com. Happy training.
