Ep. 124: Are We Asking the Right Questions

Why are we doing Scent Work in the first place? What drew us to this activity? We are all so incredibly busy, stretched ridiculously thin, constantly rushing from one thing to next. Why then are we still squeezing searching into our already jam-packed calendars? Is it really all about the titles or ribbons? Or is it something else? Could it be the addictive joy that our dogs exude as they rush around working a space? If so, wouldn't it be a good a idea to identify how to build and maintain that level of joy when training or trialing?

In this episode, we discuss the importance of taking a step back to determine what our focus is when participating in the activity of Scent Work. How asking the right questions, evaluating what is indeed happening and what our true objectives and goals are, then being flexible in the decisions we make, is key.

Additionally, we discuss a variety of offerings recently released through Scent Work University you should check out:

• Helping Your Dog Find That Last Hide: Friend or Foe? Webinar with Sue Sternberg
• Trial Readiness in Training: How to Build Happy Hunters for Trial Webinar with Jill Kovacevich
• Mastering Multiple Hides Webinar with Michael McManus

Speaker:

Dianna L. Santos

TRANSCRIPT

Dianna L. Santos (00:00):
Welcome to the All About Set Work Podcast. In this podcast we talk about all things Scent Work that includes training tips behind scenes look of what your instructor or trial official is going through and much more. In this episode, I wanted to talk about are we asking the right questions. So before we start diving into the episode itself, let me do a very quick introduction of myself. My name is Dianna Santos. I'm the Owner and Lead Instructor of Scent Work University. This is an online dog training platform where you provide online courses, seminars, webinars, and eBooks that are all centered around set. So regardless of where you are in your civic journey, whether you're just getting started, you're looking to develop some more advanced skills, or you're even interested in trialing even in the upper levels, we likely have a trans solution for you. So now to know a little bit more about me, let's dive into the episode itself.

(00:50):
So this episode I wanted to talk about are we asking the right questions when we're training or trialing in set work Like, ugh, Santos. One of these, and the reason why I wanted to talk about this is that our instructors, again, these are very experienced and talented individuals who are sharing their expertise through Scent Work University. They have been just killing it with their presentations as of late, and they always do, but particularly within the last probably month or so, more than that, a lot of them have been highlighting a common theme. And that's how dog training is an evolving art, that there is absolutely science that we should be paying attention to and that we should be applying. But even for these individuals who are extraordinarily experienced, they've been doing this for a long time. They've worked with lots of clients, lots of dogs, lots of handlers.

(01:56):
They themselves have had lots of dogs, they carry many hats. Many of them are instructors, competitors, many of them are trial officials or even trial hosts. They don't just do Scent Work, they do other dog sports as well, other dog training. The point being these people know what they're talking about and they've been around the block a few times. But what is so interesting with all the presentations over the last however long is that there is this theme of every single one of them will bring up how they used to think something or they used to do something, and now they may either do something different or they look at what they were doing before through a different lens or they're just asking different questions. And I think that is wonderful. And you may be saying, that sounds terrible.

(03:00):
How do I know then if I'm getting good advice, if the advice is always changing? And I think personally that being flexible is key When we are working with anything that's alive, whether it's you're working with another person or you're working with a dog, my first career was with horses. It doesn't matter the fact that none of us are static in time, we are changing, we're growing, literally growing older every second. The environment around us is changing. Everything is so dynamic. It would be foolish for us to think that therefore how we interact or how we try to teach or learn would then be static, that it would live in some kind of vacuum. We always do blah, blah, blah, whatever that is. This is magnified when we are trying to figure out the best way to communicate in an effective way with our dogs that are not people. And it's further magnified when we're trying to communicate with this alien species about this thing odor that we as humans are completely clueless about.

(04:28):
So I know she's like, oh, you talked about this the last episode. Yeah, I get it. That work is hard. Fine. But this is an important thing for us to kind of wrap our heads around that because we as people, as a huge generalization can be so myopic in our focus. We just latch onto something and we become obsessive about it, that we can lose focus on everything else that's affecting whatever that is. Or we may have been so myopically obsessively focused about this tiny little thing that actually wasn't important at the end of the day. And we may have been so emotionally attached to doing whatever that we were blocking ourselves from understanding other options that are possibly out there or that we aren't making the determinations of what's really important. At the end of the day, and this is something that's been rattling my brain for, I think since the beginning I started doing this professionally.

(05:42):
I try to be pretty blunt about how I feel generally speaking about sports, just competitions. It doesn't just have to be a dog, just or cross the board. To me, I have a very natural inclination to not like it a whole lot. I think that it tends to highlight some icky behaviors that it's just not my jam. It's just not my thing. But then I would ask myself, look, but why does that happen? Why is that so common? And it's not just with dog sports, it's not just with people sports, it's any kind of competition kind of thingamajigger. So then more questions should be asked, well, why is that happening? And when I look at that same thing that's been rattling around in my big empty head for so long, and I couple that with this theme that I've been noticing with my colleagues of this evolution, this asking of these different questions, this looking at what clients and dogs and just the community are doing as we are doing this activity, whether it's training or trialing or enrichment, whatever.

(06:57):
It kind of dawned on me that maybe for myself, what I've been struggling with is that the question of what is the point hasn't really been asked, and maybe the obsession with the title or the ribbon is the problem, but we're missing, well, what is really the point of whatever it is that we're doing? And it doesn't just have to be competition. It could be obsessively training like we've got to train today. What's the point of training? Why are we doing this? What is it that we're actually looking for At the end of the day, truly forget odor, forget Birch, Anise, Clove, forget titles, forget ribbons, forget all that stuff. Let's say all that just poof. It just went away.

(07:53):
Why are we doing these things with our dogs? What is the actual point? What are we hoping to achieve? What is it that motivates us? What is it that makes people light up with this activity? Because that it is without a doubt, scent sports, whether you're hunting for Birch or anus or scented articles or rats or shed antlers or whatever. It's exploding in popularity across the globe. There's no doubt about it. You can't dispute this fact. Why is that happening? Is it just because we have lots of different ways to earn titles? I don't think that's true because there's lots of people who are just enthralled when they are at an airport as an example, and they're watching the TSA dogs work. Or people will share videos on social media of their dogs coming across some kind of critter in the backyard and they're trying to figure out where exactly it is inside the stone wall as an example.

(08:58):
These people have no idea what a dog sport even is, but there they are watching it enthralled by it. Why is that happening? This is an important question to ask because it can get to the root and remind us why we're doing this at all doing it. Because we can see our dogs do something that seems so magical and so amazing that they are working in a space doing things that we do not understand that we cannot truly appreciate. We try to, but we cannot see. We cannot comprehend what they are actually doing. And the longer that we do this, the more impressive it seems to become because then we kind of have an appreciation for how hard this stuff can be. But the same is true for very new people. Let's say that you are practicing out in public. You were like, I'm going to do that field trip search stuff.

(10:06):
That's Santos Lady is always talking about field trip searches. I'm going to go do some field trip searches and let's say that you found a nice little empty part of a parking lot. There's still stuff going around, there's people driving around, whatever, but you're a little spot, nice little place for you to practice. I can almost guarantee you they're going to be people who are watching you who would potentially just go from the store to their car. They're not really paying attention to anything, but they happen to see something out of the corner of their eye and they will stop and they will watch and they'll be enthralled. Why? There's no reason this person may not even have a dog. They may not even really like dogs, but there they are watching you and your dog do a vehicle search that to us who've been doing this for any, yeah, okay, it's a vehicle search, who cares?

(10:58):
But it just seemed so amazing. And I would see this when I was a trial official still before I retired, there were a couple of places that I had officiated for where the trial sites were out in public. So we would have our search areas and people just the public would just walk on by. We would try to have the boundaries and everything else. Let them know, don't walk through our search area please. But without fail, we will get a crowd. And people would just be, and then we have to tell them like, okay, well make sure be quiet. Because they would watch multiple dogs and then they'd be like, oh, that's where it is. And they would get so excited, oh, they're getting close. You can't say that this is a trial, it's a test. Like, shh, be quiet. But that always surprised me.

(11:53):
Why are these people who are just in the middle of their day, the place that this trial is happening? You wouldn't think that you would see dogs at all. Not to mention a whole bunch of dogs doing weird sniffy stuff, and yet it would attract all these people. And when that would happen as a trial official, it would be a little stressful. Now you're trying to juggle even more balls. I would look at it as an opportunity to promote Scent Work and yay for dogs and all that good jazz. So I would tell the crowd like, okay, once I give the okay, you guys can all clap and you can say yay or whatever. And they were totally into it. They thought this was the best thing. They were so excited. And without Philip, if there were multiple people in a group, let's say there was a couple or some friends or whomever, there was always one person that just wanted to stay and watch a lot of dogs go.

(12:50):
And the other people were like, we like this too, but we had things to do today. We've got to go. What is the point in Santos? I think if we start asking these kinds of questions, what is it that makes this so amazing? And I can guarantee you that for those people, they weren't watching the people. They probably didn't even remember that the people were doing anything. They were watching the dogs and they were enthralled by the dogs. Watching a dog be happy and engaged and excited is addictive. We have the Puppy bowl before the Super Bowl here in the United States for a reason. It's been going on for a long time. Happy Dogs is like a universal language. It doesn't matter where you are on planet Earth. It if you were to show a video of a dog who is just having the time of their lives, it will bring a smile to almost anyone's face.

(14:00):
And this is something that Jill Kovacevich was talking about inside of her trial readiness and training webinar, how to build Happy Hunters. And I loved the whole presentation because it came at this whole idea of getting our dogs ready to trial from a very different perspective, which I really think is very important. How can we ensure that our dogs could be successful at trial? They've got to what they're doing. If they are actually engaged and they are enjoying the activity, the other stuff will fall into place, but we can't expect them to do that if their conflict points and we as their handlers and trainers and instructors can be one of those conflict points, which is something that Sue Sternberg was talking about inside of her helping to find the last hide is that friend or foe webinar where we may be trying to quote help, but in actuality we can be making things more complicated for the dogs because now they don't know what is expected of them.

(15:11):
Sometimes when we train, you basically show me where the hide is, even though there wasn't any odor available there. But other times we go to these other places that we've never been to ie trial and you just kind of hang me out to dry and I don't really understand what's going on and you're really upset. Which goes back to what Jill was talking about, that our dogs can detect our emotions and it affects them that there are actual canine cognition studies that are showing that they can be in sync with us. We should be really paying attention to this stuff. Then Michael McManus for his mastery multiple highs webinar was talking about how with how we design our training, what we work on, when, how we progress, the different types of decisions that we make, are we encouraging our dogs to be confident, independent and clear-eyed as far as what is expected of them or are we making it so there's a whole lot of conflict, a whole lot of confusion, and just a lot of how can we expect our dogs to be happy?

(16:24):
And that kind of enthralling exciting. They're just exuberating, oh my God, I'm having the best time ever. If there's all this other yuck going on from us that we're causing, are we doing it on purpose? Of course not. But these are the kinds of questions that we can start evaluating what we're doing in training and trialing, and then we can figure out and truly assess, is what I'm doing right now working? Furthermore, why am I doing what I'm doing now? Is it just because is it someone else is doing it? Is it because someone suggested it? Is it because it worked for dogs one, two, and three, but maybe it's not working for dog number four. Maybe it is working, maybe it's working really, really well, but maybe you can do something else in addition to maybe it works really well in certain circumstances, but it doesn't work so well in others.

(17:24):
Why do we understand the why behind what we do? Do we know what it is that we actually want to do? Do we know what the point is? Do we know what our goal is? Or are we just kind of blindly saying, ah, put a hide out and maybe my dog finds it and then I give them a cookie? What happens in between? Who knows? This is the stuff that is just highlighted to me how important this stuff is with every presentation that we've been hosting that yes, this builds off of the last webinar. Scent Work is hard. Scent Work is involved. There's a lot of the moving pieces, but if we can't ask the right questions, if we aren't asking questions, if we're just blindly going along, that's a problem. If we aren't getting outside opinions from trusted sources, reputable instructors and trainers and colleagues, we can get stuck in a rut.

(18:23):
We can just start. We put on blinders, we start obsessing about that little detail and we forget the totality of the picture. So I think I've talked about this metaphor before, but I'll say it again. When I was growing up, I was very much into drawing. I don't consider myself to be an artist by any stretch, but I did a lot of art. I did a lot of drawing and things, and my biggest flaw, or I have many, but when it came to actually trying to draw something, I could have a very large canvas. Basically. I could take up the whole art table in class and I would start pretty big and I would just start getting in closer and closer and closer and closer. And without fail, I would be doing the most intricate details in a tiny little itty bitty corner of this enormous canvas.

(19:17):
And I would work very hard on that tiny little corner and that tiny little corner when you quite literally would have to be on top of it to see anything would look pretty cool. But then as soon as you step back, the rest of the art, whatever I was making, made no sense. It was bad, it wasn't finished. The perspective changed like 15 times and I hated it. It wasn't at all what I wanted it to be, and it's because I just got more and more and more myopic into this tiny little itty bitty corner to the point where I hated drawing because it's like I live fighting myself badly with myself.

(20:03):
The only way I can kind of wrap my brain around it now is that I wanted this one little corner to be so perfect, but I spent too much time on it and I wasn't giving myself the opportunity to step back and to appreciate the rest of the page, the rest of the canvas. And even in the time that I was using to create whatever it was, it could be a day, it could be a couple of days for some of these projects. There were a couple of weeks. My perspective had indeed changed. The idea of what it was that I was making had shifted where my interest was, had completely morphed. So the initial idea could have been whatever we'll say, it never was any of this, but just to try help it make sense, could have been dandelions, and by the time it was done, it was like a burning, apocalyptic abyss is completely different.

(21:05):
It didn't make any sense. It's like, Santos, you are not making any sense. By being unable to recognize in myself that over time my perspective was changing, my focus was changing and I was losing sight of the bigger picture because I was so focused on this tiny little thing, whatever it was that wasn't helping me, then the whole thing was a mess. I might as well just throw the whole thing out, and I did many times could I salvage it? But it took work and it was never where I wanted it to be. It was always far, far removed from what the initial hope was. The point being is that if we aren't asking the right questions and we aren't being flexible enough to recognize that every piece of information that you and I take in every interaction, every podcast you listen to, every blog you read, every class you go to, every dog you watch, that all is affecting you and you have to give yourself time to sit and percolate and think about it.

(22:24):
And then you also have to be able to apply that to every time you work with your dog, every time you go up to the line, every single search is going to give you new information and it may give you a new perspective. You may see something different. I never realized I did blah, blah, blah, whatever. That's important because then you may need to shift. You may recognize that, you know what? I really like these treats. My dog doesn't want me to give them a whole lot of them though. They only want for a lot of hides. They just want one or two, and then they want to get back to work. But I'm sitting there trying to feed 'em a whole lot. I'm trying to tell 'em what a great job they did. But then that doesn't mean that then from that realization, we're supposed to be jipping our dog.

(23:18):
Other times our dog may say, I put in a lot of effort and I would like 15 treats. Please, by all means, let me make sure that I'm giving you what you need. So basically what I'm trying to get across here is that being more flexible and taking in all this information, being nimble with it, it's a difference between being on the balls of your feet ready to pivot and turn and twist and turn and take a step as opposed to planting your feet and almost locking your knees. I would rather be on the balls of my feet ready to make a change, but at the same point recognizing where is it actually that I want to go? Because just running around crazy doesn't do anything. I should have a reasoning behind what I'm doing and also be secure enough to say, okay, I have a reason why I want to maybe change something or I want to add in something, or I want to try something out.

(24:28):
Giving you and your dog enough time to actually give it a try to see whether or not this is going to be worthwhile. And then the important piece is seeing, you know what? Maybe that's not for us. Maybe that's just not for me. Maybe my dog likes something, but I can't do it. Maybe I need to work more on my mechanical skills separate from working with my dog, and maybe I need to work on that like a lot, but maybe I can't fit that into my schedule. Or maybe I just emotionally can't do that right now. I don't need more reminders of how I'm not as good as I wish I could be. So maybe I'm going to shelf that and maybe I can try something else. So what I'm trying to get across here is that asking these kinds of questions and asking the right kind of questions, evaluating what we're doing, why we're doing it, what could we potentially change, what could we improve? We don't have to throw everything out. We don't have to blow everything up. We don't have to take everything hook, line and sinker, and we don't need to demonize anything. Everything should be on the table for us to evaluate. It doesn't mean we try everything, but we should be evaluating everything and asking questions about it. Is this worthwhile? Why is this a thing? What is the point? Could this be helpful? If it's not, no problem, just push it aside and do something else.

(26:03):
And I know that this is so frustrating for people because we want, again, huge generalization, but when people learn, I do it myself. Okay, I need to do something technology wise. I need to figure out something, programming to fix something with the business, one of the sites or something. I'm going to go to YouTube. I'm going to put in a couple of search terms and okay, just tell me what to do. There are videos that exist like that that will get me right to what it is that I need. And yes, I will tell you that I really like those without fail every single time. That can get me to a solution that then more often than not will lead to more problems. I didn't understand why. I didn't understand why I had the problem to begin with, or I hadn't actually learned anything. I had just done what they told me to do.

(27:06):
So if it happened to break again or I needed to do it again, I had no idea how, because I didn't actually do any learning. I was just parroting back what someone had shown me. But the other videos that actually walk through this is what this is, this is what this other thing is, this is what they represent, this is what they do, this is why they do what they do. This is the procedure we want to follow. And this is why those tutorials, are they longer? Yes. Am I saying I just need to fix this right now? Yes, but I will tell you that those tutorials stick and they provide better solutions, and they get you to think even when I'm sitting there at 2, 3, 4 o'clock in the morning with my hair being ripped out, be like, why is it broken? I can take a breath and be okay.

(27:59):
I can actually evaluate this even though I'm not a professional programmer or developer or anything like that, and I can figure out why and I can try to figure out some potential solutions. The same thing applies when we're talking about Scent Work. And to wrap this up with how I began, we can take it all the way back to why are we doing this Scent Work thing, doing it because it's so addictive to watch because our dogs love it, because we love watching our dogs play. How can we keep that the focus? What do I need to do to keep it so that this is awesome for my dog and therefore also for me? There's lots of different ways of doing that, but if you just keep asking that question, I think it could really help.

(28:56):
So that was on my mind. So what kind of questions do you guys think would be helpful for us to ask ourselves when we're doing set training or trialing or anything else? Feel free to comment. We'll be posting this podcast episode up on our website and social medias, so you're always more than welcome to post any comments you have there. I also want to thank everyone. It got some very nice messages from people coming back from our hiatus, like, oh, yay for the podcast. Yes, we will be having outside speakers. So it won't just me be me pontificating. I know you're very excited to hear about somebody else. Expect that soon. We are going to be continuing our Spotlight series. So as always, if you have someone who is giving back to the set community, either an individual or a business, please let me know about them. Contact me with their information. I'll happily reach out. We want to highlight people who are giving back. But I want to thank you all for listening. Please make certain that you give a cookie to your puppies for us happy training, and we look forward to seeing you soon.