Lianne Shinton (00:01)

Hey everybody and welcome. So I'm Lianne Shinton from Automation Dogs. We run a CRM software for dog trainers to help them sell more dog training, be better at getting back to their leads through using automation. My podcast though is about a lot of things, but it's more about the business side of running a dog training business and helping our clients and helping our businesses. But today,

I'm so excited because we're going to shift a little bit. We're still going to focus on talking about helping your business, but we're going to talk about dog training a bit, which I love because we're going to talk a little bit about Mondia ring, which is sort of my one favorite sport. And joining us today is Travis Lloyd. Hi, Travis. Hi, from Ridgeside Canine. Ash to boobler. No.

Travis Lloyd (00:47)

Hi.

Astibula. Astibula. Yep.

Lianne Shinton (01:02)

Okay. I was so close. will. Okay. Now I had Travis on my podcast recently because we were talking about the professional canine development conference that was just held in Ohio, ⁓ that Sam Given put on and professional canine put on. And in that podcast, Travis said something, maybe it was after we were talking after and, man, you said something like the correlation, like the

Travis Lloyd (01:04)

You were very close.

Lianne Shinton (01:32)

what we learned in Mondial Ring and how it helps us train pet dogs, right?

Travis Lloyd (01:38)

Yep. Like being involved in sport, Mondial Ring specifically has there is so much cross pollination between everything else that I do. For me, Mondial Ring is the closest sport to real police work. Like they have very, very similar ⁓ requirements. They have a real area search, sin discrimination.

⁓ Also, if you think about a Mondia ring dog, if you can teach a Mondia ring dog to do XYZ, we'll get into that. You have service dog tasks, right? The retrieve, for example, if you can do a Mondia ring retrieve. You can do a service dog retrieve and then with the generalization that that sport requires ⁓ and the troubleshooting to be able to take that and apply it to pet training has been.

Lianne Shinton (02:15)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Travis Lloyd (02:35)

incredibly helpful. The sport has just made me a well-rounded trainer, not just a sport trainer.

Lianne Shinton (02:48)

I think for me too, the coaches, the mentors in the Mondial Ring world that I was lucky enough to surround myself with were amazing, are amazing. And I'm always wanting to learn more and evolve and be around people that are better than me. And ⁓ man, Mondial Ring, there's some big talent there.

Travis Lloyd (03:16)

Huge, huge. Some of the, I would say some of the most talented trainers, ⁓ I think it's the most difficult sport. It's a trainer sport.

Lianne Shinton (03:17)

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, most of the people that were in my club and that I saw, they were trainers. Like you got to be all in and just to have that mindset of I'm just doing this for fun. Like when you go from level one to level two, it's so much more extreme than going I found from level two to level three. So level one, you know, just kind of like getting a B.H.

It's so different once you get to that level too.

Travis Lloyd (04:02)

So just for everybody that's listening, a BH is like an entrance exam into a sport called Shutzin. It's like a temperament test essentially. So they have those types of things in most sports where PSA, they have something called PDC. That's the entry level to get into that. In French ring and Mondial ring, we have a Brevet, which is the equivalent of RBH or PDC.

Lianne Shinton (04:10)

Mm-hmm.

Travis Lloyd (04:29)

And then, you know, if you were going to get into AKC sports and obedience, things like that, I'd say it's like equivalent to like a CGC for that. ⁓ so for anybody who's listening and doesn't understand the lingo, that's what we're talking about.

Lianne Shinton (04:45)

Thank you, Travis. So I was thinking maybe we could share on and kind of talk about some of the things that we use actionably in Mondial Ring and how they do directly correlate to service dog or pet dog training, police dog work, like some of the specifics, just because I think it's amazing the things that I learned.

Travis Lloyd (04:46)

Yep.

Lianne Shinton (05:15)

I've been training dogs for like 33 years and when I found Mondio Ring, was more recently, like Flirt just turned 10 the other day and she is my Mondio Ring dog. So I've only been doing the Mondio thing for the last 10 years, but it changed my entire way of training fricking dogs. And I got so excited about it too. It was really like refreshing.

Travis Lloyd (05:42)

Mm hmm. Yeah, I I come home from I do lessons with Todd like twice a week private lessons with him outside of club days. And. ⁓ It's it's for my sport dog, but every time I come home from my lesson, especially the way he coaches, he likes to ask you a lot of questions, right? Well, why did the dog do that? Why do you think that happened? Every time I come home from a lesson with him.

I bring something home to pet training. This morning we were just talking about, I have this aggressive Chihuahua here. Like this dog, it's the most aggressive dog that this vet clinic country doctor sees. Like this dog's terrible. ⁓ So today I was telling our trainers, we were talking about an extinction burst, right? And this is something that I've learned through sports.

So what an extinction burst is, is a behavior that we're trying to build so strong that it is almost impossible to break. So for example, if you see a PSA dog healing in the level threes and there is total chaos going around them, the dog is doing that because of a reinforcement schedule that built an extinction burst. Like it is so hard to break that dog out of the heel.

because of the way it's been trained and reinforced in that behavior. ⁓ An extinction burst, the way I can explain it for humans is we've all done this. We're in probably the same generation, grew up in the same era. So with a credit card, if you ran your credit card and it didn't work, you'd be like, run it again. And then you'd run it again. ⁓ it didn't work, run it again. All right, blow it off, wipe it off, run it again. Put a plastic bag on it.

run it again, type the number in. Even after that, it still doesn't work. Well, now I'm gonna call the bank, right? And then they have to reissue me one. I'm not gonna say, well, hey, that's it. I'm never gonna use a credit card again. Like we've probably, I don't know how many times that's happened throughout my life, but that's what an extinction burst is. And I think it's something that everybody can understand if you put it that way. Well, going back to this pet.

we're talking about an extinction burst. And I'm saying like, okay, look how he's improving. Look how he's improving. We're letting him in the crate, out of the crate, in the crate, out of the crate. Well, the thing is like the extinction burst can go the other way as well, right? If the dog has had a self rewarding behavior, it's still being reinforced. Even though you haven't reinforced a heel or a sit that you're trying to create an extinction burst for. This dog,

has created its own extinction burst. Well, we're gaining this progress in this kennel going in and out, in and out with the reactivity, but it's happened for so long, boom, it'll just flare up. That extinction burst will come back and come back. And that's where you have to go into counter conditioning. And that's a very nerdy explanation of sport correlating to training, but that's exactly what we talked about just this morning.

And I'll nerd out and kind of like explain stuff like that to the people I work with just because I love that.

Lianne Shinton (09:05)

Yeah, I'm hoping you can nerd out today because I would love to talk about like things. I've got a few written down here that were very impactful for me. And I started implementing hardcore in my pet dog training, really leaned into it. But if you can nerd out on, you know, these things that I can share on, that would probably be amazing if you see them kind of the same way I do, of course. One is gosh.

Travis Lloyd (09:28)

Yeah, for sure.

Lianne Shinton (09:35)

When I learned about transporting a dog from an exercise, the retrieve to the little wood exercise, I had to get that dog to like calm down. We're going to the next exercise and teaching just a basic walk next to me, not a fancy prancy competition heel that she can only do for like five minutes. I mean, just a calm.

walk next to me, reset, because we're gonna go to the next exercise. And I wanted to talk about that calm leash walking, because when I was taught, it was always like, keep the dog looking happy, keep him happy, keep him focused. And I really think that having calm leash walking is more important to pet dog owners than a dog that's super focused. What's your take on that?

Travis Lloyd (10:32)

man, this is such a good one. I can say so much about this. So that's really good. So for pet dogs, right, we're trying to do the opposite with sport dogs, right? We do, we want them prancing when we're telling them, hey, we're doing our healing, like this is our healing part of the routine. So in Mondial ring, we go from one routine to another, healing jumps, bite, retrieve, whatever.

Well, we build engagement strategies, right? So how we build our engagement is we're telling the dog, hey, when we say this, you engage with us for a certain amount of time. So we're like, ready, you engage with us. When the engagement's over, we need that dog to cap and move to the next thing. We don't want engagement from healing to the little woods, right? I just want you to like stay near me and cap some of that drive.

Lianne Shinton (11:15)

you

Travis Lloyd (11:26)

Well, there's an art to that in Mondia ring and we can go all into that, at least how I've learned it from Todd. But with the pets specifically, there are, there's sport trainers that may not understand that. There's pet trainers that may not understand that. When I first got, was trying to merge the two worlds, I would do the same thing. I would come in here and I'm like, every dog has to do a Schutzen type of heel. And I'm like focused on position and

Lianne Shinton (11:53)

Yeah.

Travis Lloyd (11:55)

energy and enthusiasm where that can be toxic for a pet owner, right? They don't need their dog in that heightened drive state. You have to learn how to cap drive and that's something that you learn through sport as well. So there's things in Mondio Ring where we have exercises where we want the dogs to be flatter and when I say flat, I'm tending to mean like they're...

Lianne Shinton (12:18)

Yes.

Travis Lloyd (12:21)

Energy level or maybe the dopamine production in their brain is just kind of leveled out instead of spiking ⁓ So there's exercises like our change of positions. We don't want the dogs Vibrating and buzzed up in anticipation of what's to come next. We want a more stable dog Versus in a heel. Yeah, maybe we want that dog to be very prancy or in their jump. We want that energy level there ⁓

So there's a time and a place to create that. And especially with pet dogs, can go too far in either direction. So for a pet dog that is flat already, I can take the same stuff that I learned in Mondio Ring, and I know how to bring that dog's emotional state up. So if there's a dog that's like,

Lianne Shinton (13:09)

Mm.

Travis Lloyd (13:21)

asleep, it's not very motivated, it's not very energetic. That is a dog that I would apply some more engagement, some spins, some chase games, right? And try to bring them up and get enthusiastic about what we're doing, where most pets, people don't usually come to us with those dogs. They usually come to us with a dog that's jumping and pulling and already has this high level of energy.

Lianne Shinton (13:48)

You

Travis Lloyd (13:51)

where that's what we want in sport, but if you know how to do that in Mondia ring, you should know how to do the opposite with the pet. You just do the opposite thing. So for the pet, I would probably do some like negative reinforcement training where it was much slower and stiller and calmer and flatter. Like my rewards wouldn't be as exciting with pets. just do a lot of chill.

People don't really want a, they want their pets to be calm, chill, be able to take them places. So I really try to just slow the pets down with, like I said, like negative reinforcement. I do much slower things. Good. Calm walking. I really don't try to do a lot of play in our obedience.

Lianne Shinton (14:28)

Exactly.

Travis Lloyd (14:47)

like if that makes sense. It's not that I don't play with dogs that I train, I do, but I'm not gonna, you know, play with the prey drive pity with a ball when I'm teaching him to heel because that would be the opposite of what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to teach this dog to be calm, right? Not, hey, I'm in a heel, I'm in a heel, when's the ball gonna come? When is the chase game gonna come? I don't want the dog to think that that's what's gonna happen.

Lianne Shinton (15:16)

duration too. You can practice a calm exercise, like just walk next to me in a calm way for a long period of time to where the dog says, this is so boring. It's like, exactly. That's what I was going for. Versus if you're playing ball with a dog or doing a fancy prancy heel or something like that, you have to keep shorter duration so you can keep the mindset very activated for that shorter duration. But something like a long

just boring. Yep, that's it. You got it now.

Travis Lloyd (15:50)

Exactly. Yes. Very good point. Yeah. Like in sport dogs, it's very, very incremental training. Like my dog that I'm training to heal now, like, I mean, our healing training is like maybe a minute, maybe one minute of teaching this dog to heal. ⁓ and then it's very excited where like this pet that I'm going to pull out this morning.

we're probably gonna heal for like 20 minutes, just walking around the training center, just like you said, until they're basically, I don't wanna say bored, but it's not very exciting. It's just like, hey, just stay next to me and we'll go walk.

Lianne Shinton (16:38)

I think we've been talking too with the word heel. What I just wanted to clarify, like for me, when I ask flirt, we're gonna do some hailing, that's her fancy prancy word. But if I just want her to walk next to me, I use a different word. That's important. Obviously we're not gonna use the same word, but it's the same similar behavior. They're dogs sort of in the same position, but it's a totally different mindset. I use a different word and I know some trainers will actually teach the calm one on the right side.

or the fancy one on the right side and the calm one on the left side just to really maybe be as clear as possible to the dog like this is a calm one.

Travis Lloyd (17:15)

Do you know who Tommy Vershron is? So, my God, I love Tommy so much. Like his dog, so his dog will go from focused heel to flat walk heel to contact heel. And he can channel through all three of them in different commands. And you can see the drive state literally changing and the dog's position changes. Where like my focus heel and my contact heel look very the same.

Lianne Shinton (17:19)

Absolutely. Great decoy.

Travis Lloyd (17:44)

because they just kind of went together. like, even when I tell my dog focus heel, he's like pushing me so hard to the right because of the contact heel, which you see a lot in Mondial ring actually. But I'm so like this puppy that I'm raising. I really want to emulate Tommy's dog. I love the way that guy trains.

Lianne Shinton (17:57)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. And you just brought in another, you know, heel exercise, the contact heel for the defensive handler, I assume you're talking about there. And yeah, yeah, that's where I have a bit of trauma. My dog has put me in the hospital because she's fast and she bites fast. And so I've been bit a couple of times and at the world level,

Travis Lloyd (18:17)

Mm-hmm.

Lianne Shinton (18:35)

I was in Poland and she left me in the contact heel, the defense of Handler. And I can't tell you how relieved I was. I knew that I was going to lose. I was actually though, I had so much PTSD from her. I'm gonna get a face bite. I'm gonna get a face bite that I was like, I just didn't have the guts. So yeah, she's a crazy, crazy girl.

Travis Lloyd (18:57)

⁓ there.

Well, so I started doing the contact heel with my puppy, right? I've been doing it a little bit differently. I just bought Nino's course actually. Just because I really like, I like a lot of his obedience and I want to know some of his tricks. that, obviously I'm going to omit a lot of that stuff from the Monty O'Ring program too, but.

So I've been messing with the contact heel a little bit differently and I'm telling I go to my lesson I'm telling Todd I'm like, yes, I'm working on the contact heel and he's like for what? And I said, well, you know for the defense and he's like, you don't need it and So I came home and I'm talking to Kayla about it too. I'm like, hey Kayla, you know Todd said I don't need the Contact heel and she's like why not and I was like he just

He said, I don't need it. didn't teach it to his dog. I don't need it for the defense. So, ⁓ yeah, I'm contemplating on scrapping it just because with this dog, I'm going to be very ⁓ by the book. Like I'm not deviating. If Todd's telling me to do it, I'm not going to deviate from it. Like I want to get where I'm going. And like, I know this is the fastest route. I've tried to do.

Lianne Shinton (20:10)

Hmm. Yeah.

Travis Lloyd (20:21)

You know, I've tried to take lessons and say, okay, well, I'm going to take that in, but I'm going to go home and kind of do like put my spices in there too. And like do it how I've been taught to do it. Or I think that this is going to be better. Right. I've also watched three dogs now and like, have a good one and I'm not deviating from the program. I'm just not, I'm taking it very seriously.

right, wrong, good, bad, indifferent, I don't care. Like, I am staying the course. Whatever Todd is telling me to do, I'm doing it with my dog. I'm, like...

Lianne Shinton (20:59)

Smart, smart, because he's

one of the goats, know, the greatest of all time. He is one of the goats. When I was in Poland, he was there. I was the chair of the International Committee of the Mondial Ring, USMRA, and he was qualified. We qualified him for the level three and then Basque, you know, he had an injury and it was very, it sucked. So yeah, I never got, I've seen him compete at the national level, but I didn't get to see him play yet.

Travis Lloyd (21:05)

guess.

Lianne Shinton (21:28)

the world level when I was there, sadly.

Travis Lloyd (21:32)

⁓ So back to kind of just speaking about Todd. So we're talking about ⁓ like our recall, our retrieve, ⁓ recall, retrieve and healing, right? So with this dog, what I'm doing is everything is gonna be returned to heal, right? So you retrieve, you return to heal, you heal, you return to heal, I whistle you, you return to heal. So like I'm...

Expenditure of energy, right? Like, so now my dog doesn't have to learn three other things. Right? So now my dog just finds heel, just find heel, always find heel. Now we know there's always pros and cons pitfalls to everything. So I have like showed some foundational stuff in case I need to change it. But going back to pet training, skip steps, man. Work smarter, not harder. Right? Like

Lianne Shinton (22:05)

Hmm.

Yeah.

Travis Lloyd (22:31)

Just that one thing, it's so simple. It's a very simple concept for most trainers to understand. like, I only train one thing. I don't have to train a center, a sit front. I just train a heel. The dog just knows, come back to heel position. Super smart. I would have never put it together. I'm gonna do whistle between my legs, I'm gonna do a sit front, and I'm gonna have a heel position. With this dog, I'm teaching everything back to heel.

Lianne Shinton (22:46)

default. Yep.

I love the keep it simple, keep it simple. That also brings me to something that I don't know if everybody will love, but in pet dog training, I got rid of the auto sit in, yeah, because, okay, because I can work more.

Travis Lloyd (23:16)

In healing? Me too.

Lianne Shinton (23:23)

on my fast slows, my left turns, my right turns. I have more time for that. And I'm not farting around worried about if the dog sits or not. And the clients don't give a crap. They're like, I don't care if he sits. And I'm like, I've heard that enough to know that they don't care if he sits. They can ask him to sit, but they don't need to have it as an auto sit.

Travis Lloyd (23:44)

Right, there's no, so like why add that to your criteria for a pet dog heel? Why? It's just, yeah, it's another step that you have to train. It's another, it's, you have to hold the dog accountable to it now. You have to teach the owners that they have to hold the dog accountable for it too. And then when you go home, when the dog goes home, they're not gonna hold it accountable. So guess what? We've been correcting this dog.

Lianne Shinton (23:49)

Mm-hmm. Don't need it. Never need it.

Travis Lloyd (24:12)

because we've set clear criteria and we're being fair and we're being honest to the dog and not lying to him. So when they're passing and not going to the sit for three or four weeks, I'm going, no, sit, know, he'll sit right for three or four weeks. And then they go home and none of the pet owners are doing that. And I just, and then I was like, man, that kind of hurts my heart a little bit. Like I didn't have to punish a dog for something that we're never going to do after this three weeks.

Lianne Shinton (24:37)

I know.

Travis Lloyd (24:41)

totally scrapped it. I don't care if they sit, they down. Just don't run off in front of me. Just stay next to my side. Easy.

Lianne Shinton (24:49)

Easy, easy, and it's what the clients want. And they can ask them to sit if they want to, but if I'm gonna use sit, it's few and far between. Like, I might use it because I have maybe multiple dogs I wanna give a treat to. Everybody sit, and I don't want mass chaos, here's your treat, here's your treat. Or I might use sit if they get out of the vehicle, sit, while I'm getting my stuff together so I know they're not like moving around and getting hit by traffic, or,

think that's it. That's literally all I would ever use it for, for me.

Travis Lloyd (25:23)

Right? ⁓ So I was just saying about criteria, right? That's something you learn in sport. Criteria. How important is it, right? To understand it and then take it back to the pet world. It's important because we don't want to lie to these dogs, right? How does a dog interpret trust? I would say reliability.

Lianne Shinton (25:39)

Mm-hmm.

Travis Lloyd (25:53)

Right? You have to be reliable in order for a dog to trust you. If you say yes, you have to reward it. If you say no, you have to correct it. Black and white, always. Right? You have to establish clear criteria for the dog and that can't waver. Right? And that's what we learn in sport. Well, you will hear it all the time at training. Well, what's your criteria for the doubt? I'm doing an absence. Watch my dog.

Well, what's your criteria? Where are they at? What is it? Because some people accept a hip roll, right? That's fine. That's part of their criteria. For me, my dog has to stay in a sphinx position. I don't accept a hip roll. know, that might hurt me, you know, and for points, some people say it will, but that's my criteria for my dog. I want that aesthetic. I want him to stay in a sphinx position. Like, it's very clear criteria. My dog knows, like, couche.

means Sphinx position, right? So just understanding how to establish criteria, even though it's for a pet, even though it's simplified, right? Criteria has to be clear. And then you have the ability to explain that to your owners, right? And put it into pet terms. So I talk about criteria with my owners all the time. Let's go to healing, right?

Lianne Shinton (27:08)

Mm-hmm.

Travis Lloyd (27:21)

Well, what does heel mean? My criteria is very simple. The dog's right shoulder is attached to my left leg. That's the criteria. No matter where that left leg goes, that right shoulder is in tandem with it. And it's very loose, it's not a contact heel. But there's a line, like right shoulder, left knee. That's it, that's all it means. And once I explain that to people, hey, that's your criteria.

Watch your dog when you stop, watch your dog. If he takes a step forward, he's out of, that is not the criteria, that's not the standard you've set. Like give him a little correction, give him some guidance on the leash. Don't move those feet forward. And teaching them the importance of criteria. Okay, well one foot turns into two feet, turns into a couple steps, turns into you stopping your dogs in a full sit front in front of you. Like we've all seen that with pet dogs.

You're healing and you stop and then the dog's sitting up looking for the cookie, right? And it's just about something as simple as criteria. Like, no, don't let them pass you. The criteria is don't pass this line. Stay aligned with my left leg. Yeah, or down. Like for me with a pet dog, I don't care if they hip roll or anything, but it's elbows to the ground. Like you pick an elbow up, that's correction. Yeah.

Lianne Shinton (28:33)

Keep it simple, but keep it clear.

You're done. You're done. Yeah,

the double horns. I've been there.

Travis Lloyd (28:49)

Right.

Yeah. And it's like, so that's another thing. Like the pet world translates to the sport world too. Todd, I'm having a lesson and Todd's telling me, you know, as I'm learning about this sport, I'm a freshman. Like, I don't know anything about Mondia Ring. I am learning. But he's, he's, we're talking about the absence and he's like, yeah, it's like the, you know, I'm a pet trainer first. He's like, it's like the easiest thing to teach a dog, right? You teach dogs to down all the time.

but you'll lose all your points if your dog doesn't down. And guess what? Teams lose all their points because their dogs don't down. So just understanding like criteria and how to maintain it, you know, because that down is so important for us. And just, you know, one elbow, you're watching it erode right in front of your eyes.

Lianne Shinton (29:42)

You're literally just like poking at my pain right now. I was in Russia and I was like, my gosh, she could do this. And she lifted an elbow, double horn, and I'm like, it's over. It's over. Cause we took fourth place, but if I had had the down, it wouldn't have been fourth place. ⁓ Just quickly on the down, cause it doesn't really relate to pet dog training, but she has an elbow. She's, you know, very activated. So my solution, and I learned this ⁓ from

obedience, AKC obedience, high level, arch level person, Cathy, Cathy Klein, and she told me, teach my dog to put her chin on the ground. So I'm like down, pray. And she prayed, she put her little chin on the ground because you can't lift your elbows if your chin's on the ground. So I had to go one step further. But anyway, back to what you were saying about the criteria for me walking calmly next to me.

Travis Lloyd (30:24)

Mm-hmm.

Lianne Shinton (30:37)

the right shoulder, but also being in a calm state of mind. And if you start to become activated, you're no longer doing the exercise. So I'm gonna get on you for that.

Travis Lloyd (30:49)

Yeah, it's such a Do you know Jess Dillon? She has a dog. She had a dog named Badger that she retired ⁓ He's a pretty he's a pretty well-known dog like this dog has No control like like if you saw it's a spectacle watching them. It's it's amazing that how many Mondial ring threes this dog has

Lianne Shinton (30:49)

That would be.

think so.

Travis Lloyd (31:15)

He is totally reckless. Like, you could have dropped this dog off in Afghanistan with special forces. Like, you're never gonna intimidate him off of an object. You're never gonna run him with accessories. Like, he's a beast. But, exercise to exercise, he is just orbiting her. Like, no conservation of energy whatsoever. And it's not due to a lack of training.

Lianne Shinton (31:21)

Wow.

Travis Lloyd (31:44)

Justalyn is a tier one trainer. ⁓ It's a testament to her that this dog is able to even do that. But like this dog has zero ability to drive channel. He is just turned on for the 45 minute routine. And maybe ⁓ had they known that at an earlier age and tried some different strategies, it would have

Lianne Shinton (32:02)

Mm-hmm.

Travis Lloyd (32:13)

it would have changed, yeah, it caused him to lose lots of points, lots of exercises, blow jumps, because he's just like, he's gassed out. You should, if you later go on TikTok and look up Jess and you'll see her dog, you'll see her dog Badger. I bred to him twice. He's a very impressive dog.

Lianne Shinton (32:26)

Yeah.

When you say gassed out too, I think that's in Mondial Ring why we do an exercise like the little wood, you know, it's methodical and she's sniffing. There's not any impact or anything on her body, but like we need to save our energy because it's a 45 minute routine and there's bite work and there's finding the bad guy can take a lot out of them. So we need to conserve energy too. So as we move from exercise to exercise, it's like calm down, reset.

so that we can save our energy for that bite work at the end.

Travis Lloyd (33:13)

So I just remembered what I was going to say about that. The way that we go from exercise to stable, calm walk to exercise to stable, calm walk. Cause that's how that goes. Right? We're like healing. All right. Walk to little woods. All right. Walk to jumping. Okay. Walk to bite work. The same type of thing is what I do with pets. So, and I got this from Michael Ellis. Like he puts the dogs in.

a heightened arousal state and then puts them back into obedience so that they can focus. When they go home, we've simulated that arousal state that they're seeing around squirrels, kids, other dogs, cats, whatever. So I like to get the dogs up, like chasing the ball, yeah, yeah, playing with them. Okay, sit, heel.

Lianne Shinton (34:09)

Mm-hmm, turn it on and off.

Travis Lloyd (34:10)

BAD

Set, good, good, free, yeah buddy, yeah, set.

heal, you know, and just channeling that from explosive energy back to calm stability. just had a private lesson with a client last night. have this super cute little cattle dog, ⁓ super manipulative. She's so she'll cute her way out of anything that she wants to do. I freaking love that dog, but she's so she's super manipulative.

Lianne Shinton (34:41)

I saw her on Facebook, your video. Yeah.

Travis Lloyd (34:49)

Like if you don't know dogs, you don't know what I'm talking about. Like she'll roll over, she'll puppy dog eye. She can get out of anything. Like she's got me for the first like three days. I was like, okay, I got your number. I see what you're doing. But so she's very, very energetic and she loves to roll over and jump and be held like her reward hierarchy, I would say is affection more than food or toys. So I'm teaching these people like,

Hey, like if you pet her too much when you're doing obedience, like if you tell her down and then you go over and say, good girl, good girl, that's too much, right? Like rewards can cause disobedience. So too much of that type of reward, the dog's gonna roll over onto her back and then she's gonna roll back over and get up. That's what happens every time.

You're gonna go over, you're gonna say, good girl, and pet her, and she's gonna look cute, and then she's gonna get up without you telling her. So I tell them, okay, I teach them how to pet their dog. Okay, like when she's in a down, don't let her roll over, first of all, because I know that's the precursor to all the other disobedience, which is something you have to, again, I learned through sport, like watching what has led up to.

The disobedience like everything that happened before plays a role in it. So anyway, she's rolling over. I'm like we can't have her rolling over and down anymore. Like she's not allowed to do that criteria like you lay down. You do not roll over on your back and offer these some may say it submission. It's not it's straight manipulation like this dog knows how to get out of doing things. So but since she loves it.

Lianne Shinton (36:37)

Hehehehehe

Travis Lloyd (36:43)

And like, I don't want to not pet the dog when she rolls over on her back. I don't want to not hold her. I love this dog. I love petting her belly. I love having her jump in my lap and stuff. It's also a huge reward to her. So we're going to steal it. We're not going to give it to her all the time. We're going to use it to our advantage. It's not like I'm going to tell these people, hey, you don't have, you can never do that to your dog again.

There's a time and a place for it and it's only when you're going to ask for it. So it's the same type of thing of that channeling that energy. Like this dog, you have to be very calm. Heel. Good little pet down. Good little pet. Anything more than that. She's going to freak out. She's going to roll over on her belly. She's going to start wiggle budding and jumping six feet in the air. So what we've been doing with that obedience is kind of like what we've been talking about with the Mondial ring, going.

Exercise to exercise. We're doing the same thing. We're doing a long heel. We're taking her to the bed. Freeing her, taking her to the bed, freeing her, long heel. Okay, now say free and do all the goofy stuff you want to. Tell her she can jump on you, get on the ground, scratch her belly, and then get back up, heel, and go right back into the work. It's no different than what we do.

Lianne Shinton (37:57)

Mm-hmm.

Nice.

Travis Lloyd (38:09)

Mondial rain, you know, I mean it is but not really not training wise

Lianne Shinton (38:11)

Mm-hmm.

That is an awesome story. And I can see that dog in my mind because you shared some pictures of her on your Facebook. So yeah, I could see that. We have a dog like that here at the kennel. helping with my friend and yeah, same thing. Same thing, manipulative little cutie and you touch her and she's just activated. So I love that story. I wanted to shift a bit and talk about another impactful training technique I learned from Mondial Ring.

that I implemented my pet dog training. And that's when I saw how quickly my dog was learning because we do bite work. So I would put her through her paces of like all the, you know, the Mondial ring obedience and everything. When we ended with bite work, we always led up to bite work. And I might be wrong, but I think that whenever we have something very emotional happen, whether it be good or bad, it becomes

a very memorable experience. as an example, I can remember exactly what I was doing when I heard about 9-11. It was a very negative emotion, you know, emotional day, but I remember everything I did that day. It's crazy, but I can't even remember what I had for breakfast this morning. So I think that as we teach a pet dog and ⁓

Travis Lloyd (39:28)

Thank

Mm hmm.

Lianne Shinton (39:44)

We can help it remember things better and retain the information we've taught it instead of putting it in his crate and let him sit on that. And hopefully, you know, he'll remember it better. Take him swimming, play Frisbee. you know, do find out what he really digs and do that. And then hopefully he'll retain this part that you taught him leading up to that fun play.

Travis Lloyd (39:53)

Mm.

Absolutely. Yeah. And it's a puzzle finding what that is for some of the pet dogs. It is. But no, you're absolutely right. Memories come through emotions big time, good or bad. yeah, finding that motivator for the dog, what that is, is monumental. I also

Lianne Shinton (40:16)

Yeah.

Travis Lloyd (40:40)

do the same the other direction, right? There's sometimes that, sometimes when dogs come to us, you know, it's our job to correct them as well. It's easier to find what motivates them with food, toys, running, sniffing. That's easier to find what motivates them. What's harder to find is what

what a motivational correction can be for that dog, to move that needle forward quickly. And this is a little bit taboo. People don't like to talk about corrections. I don't mind. I don't mind talking about it. I'm blunt too. I'm very blunt and transparent with how I do things. I'm not a dictator. I'm not some punitive dog trainer, but...

There's also gonna be, like, for the right dog, there's gonna be a life-altering experience for you if you come to train with me. If you're chasing cars, like, I'm gonna correct you so you'll never wanna chase a car again. Like, if I do not have kids, but if I had to spank my child, I'd only wanna do it once, right? And so, creating that memorable experience and that aversive,

Lianne Shinton (41:54)

Mm-hmm.

Travis Lloyd (42:03)

one time can be so effective ⁓ and you we learned that in sport too right ⁓ and it can be like even dealing with a behavior modification case right that has been ⁓ sport has been very helpful dealing with aggressive dogs because we train aggressive dogs in mondial ring like but controlled aggression right like not as ⁓

a human bite case like I get all the time. yeah, memories and emotions are ⁓ crazy because of those experiences can create such big emotions. So I have a lot of friends that went through that are like in special operations, right? Before in my past life.

And these guys, can tell you, like same thing, right? They can't tell you about like what they did all week at work or what mission they went on. But you know what they can tell you? They can tell you what selection was like, right? When they went through that SEER training or that special force training, right? It wasn't all good. It wasn't all good. It was hard. It was super hard. But these dudes can remember.

every single little detail of it. Like this very, very hard regimented training. Extreme highs, extreme lows, and everything in between. But what came out of that? What came out of that difficult block of training with the highs and the lows? Like these high functioning operators, these very skilled individuals.

So that's a little bit of a tangent, but yeah, you're right. Find what motivates the dog either way, reinforcement or punishment. As a trainer, as a pet trainer, it's my job to find both. And I have trainers that work for me or have come to learn from me. And one thing that I wasn't taught ⁓ is that, like at least it wasn't an emphasis on how I was taught is that

Lianne Shinton (44:12)

Right.

Travis Lloyd (44:28)

It's your job to teach the dog what no means also. Because I've gone the way, way, way other direction too, where we're so consistent with telling the dogs yes. Everybody is, even with my personal support dog. I'm Johnny on the spot when I say yes. Yes, ⁓ gotta get him his food. Yes, I gotta give him his ball. I have to remain consistent. You know how many times I haven't been consistent with yes? Very, very few.

Very few. You know how many times I've been consistent, inconsistent with no? I can tell you. No, uh-uh, hey. The correction doesn't always follow the marker with no. With everybody, pet trainers or sport trainers, right?

Lianne Shinton (45:15)

Mm-hmm.

Travis Lloyd (45:16)

So I don't know, I've just been really kind of down that journey too with like consistency and the, again, I think trust is reliability. It can't just be just yes. The reliability has to come from accountability too. Like you have to know that I'm not gonna lie to you even when I say no. Like if I say no, you did something wrong.

And it's a math equation like 1 plus 1 equals 2. If I say no, it equals something. It can't just be like. You know one day 1 plus 1 is 2 and then another day 1 plus 1 is 0. I don't know.

Lianne Shinton (45:55)

Mm-hmm.

I think that when you get into Mondial Ring and when you start to think about exactly what you were just talking about, it like hurts my heart when I see an owner say, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, but they don't reward. And it's like, no. ⁓ And that's what I really start teaching is to be consistent about that. Yes, don't lie to the dog. You can release them without.

If you don't have food on you or toy, then don't say it. So yeah, that one, it's personal for me. Once I started monitoring, I took that so seriously because I knew, you're lying to the little guy.

Travis Lloyd (46:43)

And it's the same thing with no also. You don't have to say it. I'm not saying, say no to your dog all this sometimes. I give my, there's other ways to get what you want and to get the training done. Do it again. Withhold, right? Cool, let it go. You don't have to always say no. You don't always have to say no and give a correction, right? There's many other things that you can do.

Lianne Shinton (46:46)

Mm-hmm.

Travis Lloyd (47:13)

before that, but if you say yes, you have to give a reward, and if you say no, you have to give a correction. So use those words appropriately, and know that they're a contract.

Lianne Shinton (47:28)

Hmm contract. Yeah, I like that. I'm trying to think of something else that I learned from Mondial Ring that I consider in my pet dog training. I know for the retrieve, I'm like, we're practicing our retrieve. We're practicing our retrieve. I would say to people, practice my retrieve. And they're like, why do you have to practice your retrieve? It's a malinois. You know she's going to retrieve it.

But ⁓ in Mondial Ring, it's very specific. They can't be munching on the retrieve and playing with it. So it's a state of mind again, where she, it's more obedience than fun for that retrieve. So that was something that I find a lot of people like, didn't she retrieve? Malin Lash is going to go get it, bring it back.

Travis Lloyd (48:11)

Thank you.

Man, the retrieve is hard for me. Hard. I really, this guy's doing really well with it, but I like want, I want my Mondio dog to have like an IGP retrieve on anything, you know? That's what I envision. But I mean, the handler absence, the down, there you go. That's like so applicable to pet training. If you can teach the absence down, you can teach a pet dog out.

Lianne Shinton (48:25)

Yeah.

Yeah. Yep. That's to be anything.

Yeah. Yeah.

Travis Lloyd (48:49)

You know, it's the same thing. We're gonna roll balls around, we're gonna ride around on a tricycle, we're gonna honk horns and clap our hands and the dog stays down and you're like, hey, good job. It's no different.

Lianne Shinton (49:01)

Yep, definitely. I think I wrote one down here that ⁓ really taught me a lot about how smart these freaking dogs are and that's object guard and how they can learn. I don't even know. It's just amazing. But they learn the perimeter around the object. And that is so impressive to me because then it rolls out of the circle.

And I don't, I no longer have the visual of where the perimeter is at two meters, I think, but the decoy and the dog are so in sync with that and they don't need the drawn circle on the ground and how that carried over into pet dog training. Like how does object guard carry over to pet dog training? It really showed me that when I have like a six foot leash and I let my dog sniff and explore, but I don't want them like pulling me on it.

He can learn that six foot perimeter around me, flirting super clear on that. I let the line out and she knows to just walk right at like that end threshold without putting pressure on it. Like she knows that perimeter around me, super clear.

Travis Lloyd (50:10)

Mm-hmm. I so the way that I correlate that one for pets for me is ⁓ like rattlesnake aversion or alligator aversion, right? Like there's this thing and it's kind of like it's the same concept of training, right? Except the decoys getting close to you and you bite the decoy versus now there's a rattlesnake as the object. First, we're going to let you get close to the rattlesnake, right? And see what it is. And then boom.

you're going to get an aversive to it. And then you're going to get an aversive to it within a perimeter. Right? So if you even go within your three meter mark, that snake just bit you. And that's pretty much an object guard. You know, same concept. We're talking about like perimeter training, basically.

Lianne Shinton (50:51)

you

Yeah.

Travis Lloyd (51:03)

The send out, go to your bed. If you can teach a send out, you can teach a dog to go to their bed. And you know how fast you can get like distance. And we're looking for precision and distance, like straight, fast, fast there, fast back. If you can do that to a sporting level, how far can you get that dog to run to a Caronda bed in four weeks? Challenge yourself one time.

Lianne Shinton (51:10)

Good point.

Yeah.

Travis Lloyd (51:33)

Like, I don't do it. I haven't done it in a long time, but you know, when the weather gets better, now I kinda wanna see. How far can I get that dog to run out to that Caronda bed in four weeks? I bet you can get pretty far.

Lianne Shinton (51:50)

⁓ For my send away, I love using cheese in a can and I would put a marker on the fence and put cheese on it for a puppy and you know, it sticks really well. I was using that before I even got into Mondial Ring. I would send my dog out to something and I would get him to stick to it by like, you know, eating the cheese in a can.

Travis Lloyd (52:03)

Okay.

people use cat food?

Lianne Shinton (52:18)

⁓ yeah. Yeah, I think the cheese in a can would be a little less messy and easier, you know, and I can put it in my my pouch and pull it out and put the cheese on on the fence or whatever it might be on the target. But yeah, you could use the cheese squirted on the dog bed and start to, you know, get distance and teach us that way. That way. I like that challenge. Maybe people should do like, you know how they do like the

Travis Lloyd (52:19)

I know.

Mm-hmm.

Lianne Shinton (52:45)

challenges on TikTok and stuff, dump a bucket of water on somebody's head or whatever. But yeah, maybe we should do some freaking send away challenges with all sorts of dogs because yeah, you're right. It can be amazingly cool how far you can send a dog to get to their bed. It's cool.

Travis Lloyd (52:48)

Mm-hmm.

Mm hmm. Yeah.

So like even with that, now what I do with the bed is ⁓ in my facility, like I start pattern training. That's another something that you learn in sport, right? Like patterns, patterns and predictability. Like IGP was built on it, right? French ring. It's all patterns. It's all patterns. And the dogs are so precise is because they do pattern training. Like if you see an IGP dog,

Like they come super fast, super straight for that sleeve because it's like always at the same place.

I do tons of pattern training with pets, especially behavior modifications. I do lots of pattern training. I just make the pattern a little bit more elaborate, just like if a dog was searching for IGP blinds, right? They get built further and further and further and you built the pattern. I do the same thing for pets. The pattern just gets a little bit bigger and a little bit more complex. So starting with the bed, I just go like a send out.

We're working very linear. I tell the dog to go free, back up a little further, go free, back up a little further. And then I start teaching them just from north, south, east, west, how to find the bed. And then we start to try to confuse them where I say bed and my trainers are like whipping pool noodles and they have to like go and find the bed through that. Again, all of that stuff.

Lianne Shinton (54:29)

Mm.

Hey, No worries. Did your phone die? Okay. We're still recording. So, ⁓ I think that what you're saying is fantastic about pattern training. And I would like to take a deep dive on that. Is your phone okay? Okay. So yeah, I'm not sure where we kind of left off. yeah. Pivot. Okay.

Travis Lloyd (57:36)

Sorry. It did.

Let me put this up. Let me fix this for you.

Lianne Shinton (58:05)

We can edit this part out and then we'll just say, technical difficulties.

Travis Lloyd (58:10)

technical difficulties.

Lianne Shinton (58:13)

It doesn't look like it flipped on my screen. There we go. no. Flip it again.

Travis Lloyd (58:16)

Hang on.

Yeah.

Lianne Shinton (58:23)

Sometimes you have to leave and then come back in with it in. Okay.

Travis Lloyd (58:27)

Alright, let me try that.

Lianne Shinton (59:12)

Hey, Okay, perfect. Perfect. Thank you. Okay. So we're still recording. Sorry, technical difficulties, but I really loved where you were going there with pattern training. I want to make sure that we understand what you mean because I think it's very powerful. So ⁓ do you want to kind of keep going where we dropped off or do you want me to ask questions? Okay. Perfect.

Travis Lloyd (59:13)

Hey, got it.

Sure. Sure.

So pattern training is exactly what it sounds like. It is a, it's a pattern of behavior that we're teaching the dog over and over and over. And then with the patterns, we use a progressive elaboration where they say it's say healing. go a hundred paces, turn right for a hundred paces and turn right for another hundred paces.

So that would be your pattern. And then as training goes, you add extra paces. So now instead of 100 paces, it's 105 and then 110, right? And you build this pattern to be more and more elaborate and the dog picks up on the pattern very, very quickly and they can perform these behaviors to a very high level because of memory and pattern training.

Lianne Shinton (1:00:33)

And so in how it relates to what we talked about about teaching, go to your dog bed, maybe share some actionable tips on training patterns around that.

Travis Lloyd (1:00:46)

Sure, so correlates to what we were saying with the send out too, how you can get further and further back. I work on a straight line to the bed, it's me and the bed is directly in front of me. I start at a very short distance, go to your bed, yes and reward them back to me. I take two steps further backwards, go to your bed, yes and reward them back to me. Take two steps backwards,

go to your bed and slowly through the pattern that from me to the bed gets further and further and further and further and further away. And that becomes a pattern. And then as I was saying, we elaborate, we use progressive elaboration to make it ⁓ more complex. Then I may stand to the left of the bed and do the same thing, right? I'm on a different side. The dog is facing a different direction.

Northeast, Southwest. Now the day say the dog is facing East and I do the same thing. Change directions. Now the dog is facing South. I do the same thing. Then the dog is facing West. I do the same thing until it becomes this pattern where I can stand on any of the four sides of that place bed and I can tell the dog go to your place at a distance.

because I've created the pattern of going in each direction of the place at this same distance to going to your bed. So now it's been a pattern that is well understood by the dog. And you can get as creative as you want to. Now hit diagonals, right? Now hit, you know, around a corner to the bed, right? So say I wanted to teach the dog to go around a corner where the bed is unseen.

Right? Where that so if the dog had to make a right hand turn to get to the bed, I would just build a pattern off of it. Right? I put the bed right at the as soon as the dog turned and saw the bed would be right there. Right? And I would do the same thing. I would say go to your bed. I'd pay the dog go to your bed. I'd pay the dog. And so the dog would have to go around the corner to get to its bed. And I would just move further back and further back and further back.

until the dog was flying around that corner going to their bed and I would build a pattern off of it. And then maybe eventually I would turn around another corner and they'd have to make two turns to get to it. ⁓ I don't know much about gun dogs or bird dogs, but I would imagine that it's kind of a similar type of training teaching them directionals. ⁓ So the same thing. So I had this behavior modification case.

His name's Punch, and my friend Jen owns him. Gnarly Malinois. Like, she went and got this dog from Mohawk Malinois. He's a real one. Like, should be on police force. ⁓ This dog, I was in the bite suit for probably the first two or three times. His extreme reactivity. Leash reactive, human aggression, dog aggression. Like, this dog is a lot. So...

I had to start doing pattern training with him. Like he would blow up as soon as he got into the door. And it took me a little while to say, okay, we can't even walk him in the door now. Like this has to start maybe even before we get out of the car. So we built this whole pattern before he even walked in the building. Okay. Open the crate, get him out of the car, put him back in the crate, get him out of the car. So I'd go kennel free, kennel free, kennel.

Kennel kennel free, walk around the car, kennel free, kennel free, walk around the car, kennel free, kennel free, walk around the car, walk to the door, turn, walk around the car, kennel free, right? Do see what I'm saying? Do see how this is a pattern, right? So, this will sound like jibber jabber to people, but it's like kennel free, walk around the car, walk to the door, turn, walk around the car, kennel free, walk to the door.

Lianne Shinton (1:04:49)

Yeah.

Travis Lloyd (1:05:03)

Make a right. So I'm just building this pattern of behavior. You get in the kennel, you get out of the kennel, you walk around the car. Next piece of it, you do that. You walk towards the building, you go back. You do the same thing. Walk towards the building, go back and do the same thing. Until I get step one done, I can't even do anything else. There's no reason to even bring the dog in the building. You know? So we built this whole pattern and sometimes our training would

Lianne Shinton (1:05:28)

Absolutely.

Travis Lloyd (1:05:32)

It literally would be like, get him out the car, walk him around the car, put him in the can, I'll see you next time. Until we got this whole pattern, and then I'd have to open the facility door, and I'd be like, don't walk in the facility door, walk back to the car, walk around, and we just built this whole progression of how to even get this dog in the building. But we had to address it with pattern training.

And even when he came in the building, it'd be like, okay, come in the building, make a right hand turn, go back out, walk around the car, kennel in, kennel out. And it was all from pattern training. And like this dog went from that. I think it was the third time he was here. I recorded the training session. I was in the bite suit. was sweating. It was terrible. It was, it was horrible. And this girl, she didn't know me very well. We're outside of my training center and

I'm crying and she's crying. And I'm like, Jen, we gotta do something. We like, we gotta figure something else out. This isn't working. And ⁓ it was tough. was like, that was very, very hard third lesson for somebody that I just met, right? This girl like stuck with it, stuck with me, trusted me. We figured all this out through pattern training.

That dog, if you go on my social media, his name's Puncher, his name's Jen McFarlane, we got him doing the whole Mondial ring routine. He's doing jumps, he's doing healing, he's doing position changes, he's doing bite work with me. Now, he will never be a sport dog because he will nuke a judge. He's still who he is. But we took that dog from that to this with pattern training. Pattern training.

Lianne Shinton (1:07:26)

That's cool. Wow. Have you, you know how in Mindyoring, we prep the dog for an exercise? I'm sure Todd and you do that as well. We come up to, you're gonna do the retrieve now, buddy. Like, know, retrieving, retrieving. And then we come up and then the dog's kind of like, all right, I know what we're doing. We're doing the send away, send away. So they know what they're moving into next.

Travis Lloyd (1:07:27)

Mm-hmm.

Lianne Shinton (1:07:54)

I've never really used that prep in pet dog training. just am like, I guess in certain environments, like if you're in the house, you're calm. If you're at the pool, you're activated. But I feel like that prep training, you're activating a certain mindset, like chill out, get excited, we're doing bite work. And I like that prep, but I've never really thought about using it in pet dog training. Have you incorporated it in any way?

Travis Lloyd (1:08:20)

⁓

Like.

Maybe inadvertently, you know, there's been like rituals created we didn't think about but I the only way I could really see it is like equipment going on like equipment goes on means we're doing something right ⁓ Like that's the only real way I can I do it with pet dog training. Honestly is like Conditioning the e-collar of the prong collar. It's like prong collar comes out. Yeah food buddy prong collar comes out. Yeah food, buddy right? It's not like

Lianne Shinton (1:08:49)

Yeah, me too.

Travis Lloyd (1:09:00)

It's not like prong collar comes out. Now you're going to have to like get corrected or go like lay on your bed, right? But equipment means good stuff, right? And it's the same thing we do with the sport dogs, but I know I don't, unless it's a owner who's like interested in dog training or wants like that dog that does more advanced things, then absolutely. Then I'll teach them like, okay, this is how we're going to start queuing engagement. Are you ready? You know, it happens all done. It stops. ⁓

Lianne Shinton (1:09:08)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Travis Lloyd (1:09:30)

So I have used that with like this girl, Jen, you know, we had to teach her engagement. Like she's like, she's fricking awesome. I mean, awesome. Like I'm like, Hey Jen, you need this the next day. She's got her, she's got a training vest on, right? She comes with her training vest. Hey Jen, you need this ball. Hey Jen, his equipment goes on, your vest goes on. Like she's with her, we did all of that, you know, ⁓ I guess with service dogs.

Not really pet training, but the vest becomes contextual for sure. It's your uniform, you behave. ⁓ Like I have a Malinois who's a service dog. She's also my demo dog. So she like bites equipment for breed fulfillment. She's not like a real dog, you know? She's pet that bites equipment. ⁓ But like she's a fun, energetic Malinois.

Lianne Shinton (1:10:00)

Mm.

Yeah, definitely.

Travis Lloyd (1:10:27)

When you put her vest on, she's walking through the airport flat. You know, she's not excited, she's not aroused, her tail isn't going a million miles an hour. Like as soon as the vest goes on, even in the car, she gets in the car, boom, she lays right down. As soon as the vest goes on, it's totally contextual to ⁓ like a state of mind for sure.

Lianne Shinton (1:10:54)

Yeah, that's a very good point. Awesome. Is there anything else? Because I can't believe we're at the top of an hour already. Is there anything else that you can think of in Mondial Ring that we might want to share today and how it correlates into our pet dog training or service dog work or such?

Travis Lloyd (1:11:10)

I think like a big thing with Mondia ring or any sport really is just like opposite behaviors. Like everything in dog training is you can really create a well rounded dog that really understands things by just teaching opposite behaviors. It's all go and come, right? Like go to your bed, come to me. If you can teach a go to your bed, you can teach a come to me. It's the same thing, right? If you can teach a sit, you can teach a down. ⁓

You know, I think that.

Yeah, just teaching dogs like opposite behaviors. Like some things are go away from me. Some things are come to me and then balancing it out. If you have a dog that's a little bit aloof and is more independent and a pet that goes away from you, then work on doing a lot of reinforcement things on you. The go away will always be there because it's your dog's personality. Like an independent dog, I'm going to spend less time teaching independence. I'm going to spend a lot more time.

teaching recall and teaching heal and making the value be more about me than something else and vice versa. If you have a dog that's very codependent and maybe a little bit fearful and lacking confidence, well, you probably don't want to spend as much time reinforcing behaviors on with you and on you because it could be creating some of that.

unhealthy codependency, separation, anxiety for a dog like that. Maybe you want to do the opposite and teach them to go away from you. Go away from me. Go to your bed, go explore, go sniff and do some tracking. Go get that ball that I threw. Go away from me. And we see that in Mondia ring too, like the balance with the sendaways, right? Like I don't want my dog. I don't want to tell my dog go. And he's like,

looking back at me as he's going like, oh, okay, buddy, I'm not gonna reward you on me for a while, you know? So, man, there's so many things. We could spend hours just coming up with things.

Lianne Shinton (1:13:13)

Yeah.

I know.

think you hit on something big though. Like for me, my dog is kind of like a wild one. She has a lot of energy. And so there were certain exercises maybe we all do in Mondial ring, like the long down. I would never be like over here and be like, you can break. You know, I will always go back to her, get in position, just like in trial, and then release her. But there would never be an instant where she would be in a stationary position like that. And I'd be like, come.

Travis Lloyd (1:13:43)

Mm-hmm.

Lianne Shinton (1:13:50)

because I need to reinforce like this is where you get paid. This you never actually get up from here. While I'm over there, I always come back to you. So maybe in pet dog training, if you had a dog that doesn't hold their place very often, if you're practicing, come or, you know, break and you're making that part, like you said, making this part, the fun part, maybe back up a little bit and make the place the fun part and just go up to your dog and

Travis Lloyd (1:13:58)

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Lianne Shinton (1:14:20)

make the release kind of boring, like you can write, job buddy.

Travis Lloyd (1:14:24)

Right. Yep. Actually, that's exactly what we do with our downs with pets. Pets never get recalled from downs. Never. It's always returned to your dog. It's a safety feature. And actually, in the Tar Heel K9 training manual, it teaches you from your pet training that you put... It's because it's very sport derivative too.

Lianne Shinton (1:14:37)

Yeah.

Travis Lloyd (1:14:50)

Tar Heel was created from PSA, right? From Jerry Bradshaw. It's the same thing though, but like dog goes into a down, return to the dog, or they're going to anticipate getting up and going and breaking that down. Most of the behaviors in pet training, most of them are going to be stability. Like I don't really have dogs flying off the place bed. I don't really have dogs flying out of the sit or the down.

Very little do I do that in training. And then when I start start teaching recall, I don't do any of the other stuff, right? I do a lot of distracted recalls so that they're not. Have you ever seen like when you're doing, if you're working on a bunch of stability, like my dogs, if I try to recall them off the bed, they're like, are you trying to trick me? Right? Like I have to put the beds away. Like I can't do downs and then recall cause the dogs like, no, I'm staying in the down.

Lianne Shinton (1:15:39)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Travis Lloyd (1:15:50)

Have you ever seen that?

So it's deep.

Lianne Shinton (1:15:54)

It's good,

it's a happy problem because they're committed. Yeah.

Travis Lloyd (1:15:56)

Yeah, champagne problems, right? ⁓

but. So, but that also does create sometimes problems with the recall. Now you're like, now the dog just wants to lay there or, you know, lay on the bed. So I have to pick those things up and I work on recall outside of those, you know, outside of those other things, because.

Lianne Shinton (1:16:18)

Yeah.

Travis Lloyd (1:16:20)

I don't teach owners to ⁓ recall their dogs off the place bed. I don't teach owners to recall their dogs from downs. It's always go get your dog.

Lianne Shinton (1:16:29)

Because the owners can be a big part of that problem too, because they're like, this is the fun part. I'm gonna put them on his bed, I'm gonna walk away and I'm gonna call him every single fricking time. And we're like, no. And they're like, see how great we are? We're like, no, we don't.

Travis Lloyd (1:16:45)

Yeah, like just leave him there, please.

Lianne Shinton (1:16:48)

Leave them there. Yeah, so I like just not even showing the owner that. That's not something we want to reinforce the owner for.

Travis Lloyd (1:16:56)

But so in pet training too, you do use a lot of the, so the terminal marker, right? Yes to me, right? I teach dogs, pet dogs that too. Yes means you can come get food, good means you stay. I teach them terminal and continuation markers. But when I first start teaching a behavior for, I would say most of the dogs, I do terminal, right? Like bed, yes, bed, yes, bed, yes.

And, once I have predictability, I go into continuation very quickly. like to, maybe I'll go back to some termination terminal markers. If I'm losing some of the umph, some of the speed, because that's what those terminal markers do. They create that, that emotion. They create the drive, they create the speed, they create the energy. Right? So maybe if a dog's slowing down, then I might go back to bed. Yes. Bed. Yes.

Bed, good. Good. Good. And again, it just goes back to what we were talking about with Millie. Like it's the same thing, right? Like you can get, you can get fast, fast, fast. Now chill. You can jump on me and play and play. Now heal.

Lianne Shinton (1:18:14)

With my pet dog markers, I had trouble when I first, I was like, Mondial rings awesome, the good and the yes. And trying to explain that the dog comes and gets the reward, yes, food. They were like, but then I free him, you can break free. They were like, I don't understand. So it's kind of the same thing. And I'm like, my gosh. So what I did for my pet dog people, I just used one marker.

for the positive, like a clicker. So it would just be like, click, go up and reward them on the bed. You know, they come, click, reward them with the food. But we just simplified it and we just said yes, instead of the clicker, because ain't nobody got enough hands for all of the things. So say yes, and then bring them the food. But maybe the tonality might be different. Like, yes, if it's something here versus there, be calm, yes, yes.

Travis Lloyd (1:18:45)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Lianne Shinton (1:19:12)

and bring them the food. But that's what I did because I found that my pet dog clients, it was a lot. And I'm sure you've seen that before.

Travis Lloyd (1:19:12)

Mm-hmm.

⁓

I agree. And so as the trainer, I do, I know a ton of people that do the same thing and you're totally right. You know, like as, as a trainer, I do it because of, I know it's creating clarity when I'm training the dog, but I also know when they go home, they're going to be saying yes and bringing the treat to the dog and

Lianne Shinton (1:19:30)

Okay.

Travis Lloyd (1:19:45)

and whatever, right? But I do, just tell them like, listen, if you say yes and the dog gets up, like I taught them to do that. They're not being bad. So if you say yes and they get up, this is why, but I don't, I don't disagree with you. I don't disagree with you. Some people really take to it and some people it's, yeah, it's just another thing to remember.

Lianne Shinton (1:20:09)

Yeah,

yeah. So we are definitely into a good hour here. ⁓ This has been such a fun conversation. Is there anything else you'd like to share, Travis?

Travis Lloyd (1:20:21)

No, this was awesome. Thanks for having me on. feel like I just ramble and I don't know why you would want to listen to me.

Lianne Shinton (1:20:28)

No.

Well, I like to listen. I like to talk about Mondia Ring. It's been a while. So Flirty's been retired. She's 10 years old now, so she's been retired for a while. So yeah, this was...

Travis Lloyd (1:20:40)

Are you gonna

do it again? Are you gonna get another dog? Do you think you'll continue?

Lianne Shinton (1:20:46)

well, I did have where I got bit by her and that kind of made Mario ring a little scary for me. ⁓ I don't know. There's, I'm not like, bro, like I'm kind of a sissy. So, ⁓ I worry about my dog, her teeth are all worn down and she's a fast dog. So when she hits the decoy, like you, she's a small, she could get hurt.

So you hear what I'm saying, I'm a wuss. And it takes grit. ⁓

Travis Lloyd (1:21:16)

Bye.

Yeah, it does. It does.

Lianne Shinton (1:21:21)

Yeah, both ends for the handler and for the dog. So yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I love it. But yeah, I don't know. It's a risky game. And I think with Malinois, if it's not risky, it's not fun. So I love that for her.

Travis Lloyd (1:21:26)

Yeah.

Yeah, I have the puppy I have now, man. He's, from what I've seen, he's a year old now and he is like the one. I definitely treat him differently than I've treated any of my other dogs. He's a working dog, you know? Like I treat him like a working dog. And I think that...

for people that don't know or in the pet world and they hear that maybe that sounds cold or something. But for me, it's actually a deeper form of love and admiration for what this dog is because he is a working dog. So I definitely mold and shape who he is very differently. He is a tough dog. He is going to be a tough dog. He lives in a kennel. He does work. Not that he doesn't come home. He does come home. He does have a house life.

He does do all of that stuff, but the balance to that is very different than any other dog I've had. don't, you know, I want a working dog. I don't want a pet that bites. I have a pet that bites. She's great. I love her. She cuddles in bed with me, but you know, for him, he's a, I'm being very methodical and thoughtful about everything that I do with him. I don't want a dog that I take to a kennel.

and they get nervous and spin because they've never been conditioned how to be calm in a kennel. Like he goes down here with all the pet dogs and I've taught him how to chill on his bed no matter what they're doing. He doesn't rush the gate. He doesn't come out of the gate when I open it. When I open the guillotine door, he doesn't fly out. He goes out when I tell him. When I open the guillotine door, he doesn't come flying in. He comes in when I tell him. I'm like very, very, very thoughtful about everything that I'm doing with this dog.

You know, first huge snowstorm, like it's a blizzard outside. We're putting on all of our stuff and we're going out and we're going to train like fun train. Like my dog is going to be very hardy to the weather, the rain, the snow. ⁓ yeah, he's got pet insurance because yeah, but I'm also doing a lot of more like, I'm way more into canine husbandry than I

Lianne Shinton (1:23:32)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Travis Lloyd (1:24:01)

too. Like he brushes his teeth, I do his nails, he gets brushed, he gets groomed. Like, I don't know. I just love him. He's a put-

Lianne Shinton (1:24:11)

He's a good,

yeah, he sounds perfect. That's how I saw Flirty. And when I was like, what sport do I wanna do with this dog? Because I have had great dogs before and I was his young trainer and I'm like, I'm gonna learn all of the sports, but I had this dog that could have gone all the way in hunting.

But I was like, fly ball, dock dogs, everything, AKC, ready, know, everything. And it spread too thin. So when I got flirty, I was like, I am going all the way to the world level with this dog, which sports it gonna be. And I learned early on, even though I showed her water and dock diving, cause it's hot and I want her to cool off and I want her to be confident in, she started to get too cracked out. And I didn't like seeing her like that because she's my prospect for my world dog.

And so I actually stopped doing dock diving with her early on because I'm like, it's not good when you're that crazy. We need to channel that and be more focused because yeah, I don't like seeing her like that. She's so hard to control around water. And I was like, this hurts me because I feel like it's gonna hurt my Mondial Ring plans for her. So I got very specific, sounds like with you.

Travis Lloyd (1:25:08)

Okay. ⁓

Okay.

Lianne Shinton (1:25:24)

where I was like,

I'm not gonna do these fun things because I really wanna go all in on this fun thing.

Travis Lloyd (1:25:30)

It's a like, it's a balance. I know I said like, I'm going to be very. Stringent and follow the program with what Todd is telling me to do. I, and I am, I do everything methodically to what he says to do. But there's also like these parts of me where I'm like, this dog is like, he is going to be my, my show piece. He's like my masterpiece. This is the.

Lianne Shinton (1:25:38)

Mm-hmm.

Travis Lloyd (1:25:57)

This is going to be the best dog that I've ever trained. Right. And so I do have to ask Todd, Hey, is it okay if I do this or do that? ⁓ you know, is it going to hurt? Is it going to help? Because there are all these other things I want my dog to do. I want him to do hard surface tracking, right? Like I want him to do urban tracking. have like a, it's got Eric good who teaches it and I want my dog to do that, but I don't want him to do it if it's going to mess up Mondia.

Lianne Shinton (1:26:06)

Yeah.

Travis Lloyd (1:26:27)

You know, I want my dog to do like orbits and weaves and all of that stuff, right? I want to be able to show all the cool parlor tricks and the set pretties, you know? And then Todd's like, yeah, until you tell him to, you know, Coucher and he goes into a set pretty in your change of positions. And I'm like, know, you know,

Lianne Shinton (1:26:46)

Yup, yup, yup, yup, yup, definitely.

I even didn't teach Flirty to go to her place because she can move her feet when she's on her place. She can stand up, she can sit down, she can do what she wants, but I wanted to make sure that it was very specific and if I put you in a position, you didn't move your feet. So she really, I mean, she learned place probably when she was eight years old, because I was like, I don't really need it around the house. She's just a good girl. ⁓

Travis Lloyd (1:27:03)

you

Lianne Shinton (1:27:12)

But yeah, that was something else that I guess I sacrificed, but it wasn't a big deal.

Travis Lloyd (1:27:17)

Mm-hmm like ⁓ There's another thing I'd never done with a dog I'm doing with him So the very first time I ever put him on a treadmill, it's he walks backwards on it I never even showed him how to walk forward He goes he walks backwards on the first time I put him on a treadmill It's walk backwards and now he walks backwards on the treadmill. So

Like, so what I did now, have Kayla, I have Kayla on the leash and I can move away from him so he can just go backwards, backwards, backwards and I can get further from him. And then I had Kayla starting to get further back on the leash too. So she's far back behind him. I'm far in front of him and he's just like walking backwards, walking backwards. And I actually did it in mind for positions, right? Like, you know what I mean?

Lianne Shinton (1:28:07)

Yeah, I got you.

yeah.

Travis Lloyd (1:28:10)

⁓ and I saw with the dogs that I washed, we had done that at Todd's, but without the precision, right? Not to say like, there's no precision in the training that happens at club or in my lessons, but like, it's not on a treadmill on a straight line, like making sure this looks good too. So I do, I'd watched other dogs that I know, Hey, we're putting on a back line and Todd's going to have me feed and have this dog walk backwards.

for position. So for him, the very first time I put him on a treadmill, I'm like, you're walking backwards. And I think it's just great mental stimulation. I think it's awesome. Like, yeah, and he's just like, he's

Lianne Shinton (1:28:50)

Good exercise.

Okay, I gotta

see a video of that please, because I'm trying to wrap my head around it, but I totally get it. I just want to share too, in real life, when we were in Poland, the level three positions was on a hill. So the dog, you know, was like trying to back up on the hill and hold position because, you know, just the physics is pulling them forward and their rear is up on that hill. we had never seen that before. We'd never really tried.

Travis Lloyd (1:29:22)

Hmm.

Lianne Shinton (1:29:23)

And so we

Travis Lloyd (1:29:24)

I'm glad you just told me that.

Lianne Shinton (1:29:26)

had to go around in Poland, drive around and try and find ditches because, you know, or hills, because we had never really trained for that. you know, all of the dogs on the U S team, Patty, Jean, like all of the dogs did fantastic with the positions on the hill. We, I think we overthought it like we always do in Mondial ring. We over train it, but we were, that was creative.

Travis Lloyd (1:29:53)

Yeah. Well, um, so what I also started doing is like now when he's doing it, he's walking backwards. I now I also have the, I put the roll behind me and I like release him. I'm like, get it. And he'll fly off and run between my legs to get it. So he'll be walking backwards and then I'll release him forwards. My friend, I got it from my friend. His dog will flip positions while the treadmill is going.

So he'll tell him backwards and the dog will turn and start walking backwards on it.

Lianne Shinton (1:30:29)

That's cool because the treadmill is so freaking boring. I love that because flirty gets on it and she's like, this is so boring. Can you speed it up? And then she's like, okay, this is good. But she's still trying to kind of maybe nibble on the side things like, can I bite something? And I'm like, this is boring. I like doing something fun with it.

Travis Lloyd (1:30:32)

Mm-hmm.

Teaching don't.

Yeah, try to teach her to walk backwards on it. See if you can. It's not like, you know you can, it's not super difficult, but I wanted this dog, like we're gonna do the most difficult one first. You know, if you can walk backwards, you'll be able to walk forwards.

Lianne Shinton (1:30:52)

Okay.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I think I might struggle with it. It's just like teaching a dog to walk on my right side. Like my body has been, you know, muscle memory of teaching a dog and rewarding a dog and everything from the left for 33 years. That whenever I have to teach a dog on the right for a certain client, maybe, you know, they're paralyzed on one side and this is what we're doing. And it's like, it's so awkward. I suck at it. It's like I'm not even a dog trainer.

Travis Lloyd (1:31:14)

Hmm.

Yeah, you're familiar with ⁓ Nate, the Napo Po school, right? Like Bart Bellin. So they're very big on like opposite behaviors and all Napo Po really is is Belgian derivative training, right? It's just Belgian dog training. Well, what it really connected pieces for me, like with these opposite behaviors and teaching dogs to do every everything and opposite. So with him,

Lianne Shinton (1:31:37)

Yes, Bart. yeah.

Travis Lloyd (1:32:00)

Left side healing, right side healing. In focus, both ways. Contact, both ways. Walking between my legs forward, walking between my legs backwards. Healing backwards, healing forwards. Both directions. Like you can be facing behind me and we walk backwards. Like I'm trying to get him to do everything in opposites. So whistle, come back by my left leg. Whistle, come back by my right leg.

You know, like I don't want any choice paralysis to happen because Kayla's dog, Melee, like ⁓ a judge will put you up against a wall where the dog can't get by your left leg. And he did it. And like Melee is like, I can't get to the center of your leg. And it's like, yo, the right leg's wide open, like just come around this one. So for him, I'm super obsessed with.

Lianne Shinton (1:32:40)

This is so true.

Wow.

Travis Lloyd (1:32:54)

Okay, you can walk backwards on a treadmill, you can walk forwards. Like how can I get you to do it the other direction? ⁓ You should interview Kashi. ⁓ I'll butcher his last name. He's this Indian dog trainer. Brilliant, brilliant. I'll send you the link to his profile. Brilliant trainer. He is the king of opposite behaviors.

Lianne Shinton (1:33:01)

Yeah.

I want to see

this, yeah.

Travis Lloyd (1:33:24)

I mean,

like, the king and...

He's just phenomenal. You should interview him. ⁓ He's like I met him through Not through Napo Po I followed him on social media and when I took a trip to India for decoy work I hit him up and I was like, hey, I'm gonna be there. There's any chance we could meet I would love to meet you in person and he was like, no, I'm gonna be at the PSA trial like I'll see you there and

I met him in India and it just like evolved into this friendship. He's been to the States a few times, but when I tell you this guy is brilliant, he is brilliant in dog training. we do the dopamine box. Like we're learning how to do the dopamine box. I really like that. I use it for, uh, I'm using it for Jack's too. My Mondia ring dog. I use it for like accessories and the E-collar.

Lianne Shinton (1:34:09)

love to talk to him.

Travis Lloyd (1:34:24)

to start that stuff out, but, so Kashi is asking me this question. He's like, okay, so say you have your dog in a Skinner box and you have a dopamine box in there and you can only free shape, you can only free shape, you can only use positive reinforcement. That's your only tool here to get the dog to go in the box, right? He's like, so the dog's not going in the box, what do you do? And I'm like, wait.

Lianne Shinton (1:34:27)

Great.

Travis Lloyd (1:34:53)

And he's like, okay, well, that doesn't work. What do you do next? Like you can only use free shaping to get this dog's head in the box. And I'm like, shrink the room, shrink, you know, shrink the skinner box, right? Shrink it down. it's, there's, he only has one direction and I can start free shaping it. No, you're not allowed to do that. What would you do? Right? So he's just giving me all these like traits. He's like, no, you're not allowed to shrink the room.

It has to stay the same size with the box in it. And so I'm just like trying to go through all of these things and figure it out. And he's like, how many directions are there? And I said, he's like, there's four. There's north, east, south, and west, right? And he's like, why don't you just add three more dopamine boxes? like, so now, right? So now you have any option that the dog turns.

You can click and reward. just things like that. We would have these conversations and he like, he just comes up with like creative solutions and like all the things I were saying, they weren't wrong, but he was trying to get me to think about like, you know, you can fill the room more to make it smaller to get what you want. Also, you don't have to shrink the room. You can add more to the room to get what you want. ⁓ so.

Lianne Shinton (1:35:51)

Wow, yeah.

Yeah.

Travis Lloyd (1:36:19)

One day I'm talking to him about the dopamine box. I'm like, hey, Kashi, well, have you ever had the dopamine box turned upside down where the dog had to go put its head up in it? And he sends me a video as soon as I said it. He's like, done it. I'll send you a link to this guy. You will love him. You'll love him, the nicest person in the

Lianne Shinton (1:36:36)

Please.

Yeah, that would be great. And then if anyone is curious about the dopamine box, I did have Jessica Koch from Professional Canine on recently and she talks about the dopamine box and Travis and Jessica spoke together at the conference. I don't think you guys had even met and you were teaching together on the dopamine box.

Travis Lloyd (1:37:03)

Yeah, yeah, that's right. It's a it takes a long time to use to do it right. ⁓ But you can you can do some really, really cool things with it. Like my cousin's Dutch Shepherd, like you would like a bomb could go off in this dog will not come out of the dopamine box. What's interesting, like I'll go off on a tangent again. The dopamine box can also correlate with the object guard because

Lianne Shinton (1:37:11)

could imagine.

Travis Lloyd (1:37:32)

In the dopamine box, if you look at it from a trainer standpoint, you're also creating some resource guarding. As a matter of fact, with, and same thing with the object guard, like what are we doing with a little bit of resource guarding? Like don't touch this thing. Don't take it away from me. And with a certain dog with certain personality type, like the dog can be intense, right? Like.

Lianne Shinton (1:37:41)

Mmm.

Yeah.

Travis Lloyd (1:37:59)

It may be hard to get that dog off the object without getting bit sometimes. Same thing with the dopamine box. Like it's great for a lot of things. It can help with some resource guarding, but you can also create resource guarding, right? And in like sport dogs, we kind of want what we call it possession. What is possession? It's kind of resource guarding. So the dopamine box, like his dog.

She's not aggressive, but she does guard it where like we'll put a rope on it and like pull it and she'll like wrap it and like won't let you pull it away from her with her head in it. Like we can clatter stick her. mean really clatter stick her. That dog won't go off, won't come off like the gun right next pop, pop, pop. She will not come out. You can pick her up by her flanks. She won't bring her head out of it. She is.

glued into it glued and the other thing with that is the dopamine box is so crazy. So that dog has the best article indication of any dog I've ever met and it's because I think he trained her so much in that dopamine box that she's already got like this intensive stare that when we taught her an article that it was

Like she's like, cool, I stare at things all day in anticipation of reward, where it's the same thing. We can like throw, put a fishing string on the article and like pull it across the room and she'll like chase it to get back to the down. But yeah.

Lianne Shinton (1:39:41)

Yeah,

some to think about. I'd be curious to see what Todd would say about incorporating dopamine box technique into the object guard, because that would be probably outside of something that he's done. So I'd be curious to see what his take on it would be.

Travis Lloyd (1:39:58)

I talked to him about it. He's not, you know, he'll just, he's kind of the same of like, oh, that's just Belgian training, you know? But yeah, I asked him about like using the treat and train for the send out. He's like, yeah, do that. Great. Use it. He's not like, he's a very creative person and outside the box, but he'll also be like, but why? Like waste of energy, just,

Lianne Shinton (1:40:11)

Yeah.

Yes, yeah.

Yeah.

Travis Lloyd (1:40:27)

just do this, you know, like free shaping too. Like I like free shaping. Todd uses free shaping, right? But like one time, ⁓ so I'm trying to get an operant behavior from Jax, right? He's biting Todd. I'm like, Jax here, right? And I'm waiting for Jax to go look at me and mark that behavior. And Todd's like, no, we're not creating an operant behavior. We're creating classical conditioning.

Lianne Shinton (1:40:28)

Yep.

Travis Lloyd (1:40:57)

I want you to say his name and then be like here and like get him to hear that word. Follow the response, not an operant behavior. And I, so like free shaping too. He was like, yeah, free shape a little bit, but you don't want a dog that is so much of a problem solver. Like my cousin's dutchie has been free shaped so much that the dog creates its own problems and own solutions. Like,

It's not, it's never finished, right? You tell the dog to do something and you're like, Hey, orbit. And she starts orbiting both directions. Cush like she throws every single free-shaped behavior she has because like everything pays anything that she did for so long. Got paid like anything she did. He would just free shape everything. So now this dog is like essentially like.

Lianne Shinton (1:41:35)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Travis Lloyd (1:41:55)

she free shapes her own things. The dog is brilliant, she's incredible, like this dog can do so much, but she is a perfect example of how free shaping can have gone too far. Like she's a dog for sure, if you told her if she was in positions, one time you're gonna say, couche, and that dog is gonna start spinning in circles or something, you know?

Lianne Shinton (1:42:09)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. But I do think that you're you've hit on something that's really smart is free shape a little bit because I've definitely had judges push this up against the wall. And my dog had to figure it out because she couldn't get around me. So having them figure out, hey, I can't enter from this way to go under. I'll go this way. And my dog's pretty good at the search for the bad guy.

⁓ she will find her way in. She's got a good nose too. But I think that may be something where they're kind of, they're left to figure it out to some degree. And there's some maybe free shaping element there to some degree ⁓ or some figuring out independently of me, you know, helping her. Cause I just stand there. So.

Travis Lloyd (1:43:08)

Well, I I essentially, yeah, I essentially like free shaped the search, cause like it started where I'd go out and I'd just make a little scent pad and put food down. And like, again, I just kind of created the search pattern like that until we started adding the people to it. And that's just Todd and Tommy showed me how to do that. But I usually do like some, I'll do a little bit of free shaping.

Lianne Shinton (1:43:23)

Mmm, smart.

Travis Lloyd (1:43:37)

as puppies, because I want the dogs to have like creativity and like some ownership of things, like empower them a little bit. And I still use free shaping now. Like if I'm in the training room and my dog sees the dowel that I left out and he ran over and just grabbed it. I'm like, yes, cool. Like I need you to do that anyway. Right. So I'll like, I'll still capture some things, but

Lianne Shinton (1:43:41)

Yeah.

Travis Lloyd (1:44:06)

⁓ yeah, I'm really big on like these opposite behaviors with him.

Lianne Shinton (1:44:12)

You know, in the escort, we're going to be making this two parts because this has gone really long, but I was just thinking in the escort, I mean, it's constant where the dog has to try and stay with the decoy. ⁓ and they're con the decoy is constantly trying to squish them up against a barrel or a tire or something to try and lose them so that they can get some meters on them. I don't know, but I just thought as we're talking, like, it'd be kind of cool to like.

try and throw like a healing exercise where you're up against a wall and the dog is like trying to find that default position. you know, how we're always kind of as trainers, we're always offering that left-hand side, like here it is buddy. It's making it too easy. Sometimes maybe standing the wrong way so that it's harder. Not that we would ever be calling like pet dogs to heal and all that fancy shit, but just a thought that I'm like.

I wonder how my, cause I've never really challenged my doctor to like find this position if I'm like up against a wall. It's just been thrown at me once in a while at a, in a trial. And I'm like, I didn't train for this. hope for the best.

Travis Lloyd (1:45:15)

Well,

that's like I see Todd like I just like watching him train his dog too Like I like to get there where I can see what he's doing with his dog Because there's nobody like really talking to him or help. I'm just like watching what he's doing. I'm like, ⁓ I need to do that too like just Just little things I see him do I'm like, ⁓ man, why don't I do that with my dog?

Lianne Shinton (1:45:21)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Travis Lloyd (1:45:41)

⁓ And Tommy so we're I'm doing a decoy seminar at Tommy's I've gone to a few of them and like He's like that dude is fucking brilliant too like as far as not just decoy work but trainer as a trainer his obedience is Crazy, and that's why he's such a good decoy Because he's not just a decoy like dude is a dog trainer in a bite suit. You know what I mean?

Lianne Shinton (1:45:57)

Yeah.

yeah.

Travis Lloyd (1:46:11)

In and out of the suit, like incredible trainer. So we're at the, we're at a seminar and like we all know, Mondia Ring, okay, the dog's bite here, here, here, here, front of the legs, above knee, below knee, both sides. So we're doing the escort and Tommy's, he's like, yeah, but at some point he's like, the dog's following him on the side. He's like, you gotta teach the dog to bite ⁓ here too. And like has him tag him on the side.

And I'm like, ⁓ man, like so true, but nobody has ever told me that, especially in PSA. Right. And then to show me that too, where he's like, has to walk like this between a fence and whatever else and go to get away from the dog. Like, yeah, why wouldn't we teach the dog to like bite you on the ribs or on the side of your legs too? You know, it's just the.

Lianne Shinton (1:46:44)

Yeah.

Yes.

Travis Lloyd (1:47:11)

Training in Mondial Ring is infinite to what you can come up with and what you have to think about. Well, I got to teach the dog to do this too. You know, it would have never even, it would have never even clicked to me to be like, yeah, at some point I should probably teach my dog how to like bite the decoy in the rib cage if he needs to, you know. You got to get down to, you should have Tommy on here too.

Lianne Shinton (1:47:15)

huh.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, yeah, he's great. I've worked with Tommy. So awesome. Okay, well, I will definitely be reaching out to those folks that you mentioned. So maybe just share where folks can find you and do you have like a club where people can join and participate?

Travis Lloyd (1:47:58)

No,

no, we just friends that train together. I'm on social media. My personal is Travy Canines on Instagram, Travis Lloyd on Facebook. My business is Ridgeside Canine Ash Debula. You can find us on social media. Yeah.

Lianne Shinton (1:48:01)

Got it, okay.

Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Travis. And thank you everyone for listening. It was a unique conversation today and I really enjoyed it because I normally talk more about the business side of things. This is super fun. So I like both, but obviously I like dog training because that's been my jam for a long time. So fun, fun, fun.

Travis Lloyd (1:48:35)

Yeah.

Lianne Shinton (1:48:39)

So thank you everybody for listening again. I'm Lianne Shinton. If you would like to hear more conversations like this, please be sure to click the subscribe, follow, like, so that you can stay up-bridge to any new conversations that are popping up like this. And have a great day. Thanks, Travis.

Travis Lloyd (1:48:54)

Thanks again.