Memory And Repetition Ep172

ep172-memory-and-repetition

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[00:00:00] chrissy neumyer smith: This week we're talking about memory, how we form memory from short-term memory to long-term memory and how repetition plays a part in that. So tune in this week to find out what we can do to help these dogs that are learning how to be good for grooming. You are listening to the Creating Great Grooming Dog Show.

[00:00:19] I'm Chrissy Neumeyer Smith. I'm a master groomer behavior specialist, a certified behavior consultant for Canines, a certified professional dog trainer, a certified professional groomer and instructor at Whole Pet Grooming Academy, and the owner of Happy Critters in Nashua, New Hampshire. And this my friends and colleagues, is the show where grooming and training meet.

[00:00:42] I wanna talk about short-term memory and long-term memory. I think it'll make it easier for us to understand why some dogs have a really hard time learning in between grooming sessions, and there are a number of things that we can do for them, but let's talk about those, the single event learning.

[00:00:59] Alright, we'll start off there. Once in a while, there is gonna be something that a dog learns in one repetition. Just one, but let's talk about what that would take, because that either has to be super awesome, like the best thing that a dog has ever been through, or super scary, the worst thing that a dog has been through for them to instantly realize, I never want to do that again, or I wanna do that every single time.

[00:01:27] That person. Means that great things could happen. All right, so I'm gonna give a couple of examples because I heard this one, uh, another dog trainer talking about this one, that when the dogs come into that house, they go running for the spot where the Thanksgiving Turkey dropped on the floor years ago.

[00:01:44] There, it'll always be a hopeful thing that they just turn return to that spot, because once they ran in, just as the Thanksgiving Turkey hit the floor, and from that point on, they have decided that's always gonna be worth check-in. Okay. One event. Now Thanksgiving, Turkey only dropped on the floor once, but that one single event was so memorable and so filled with awesome sauce that these dogs decided they're gonna do it forever.

[00:02:11] And that's an example of single event learning. Now let's talk about a scary example, because I think this one happens an awful lot too. Let's talk about, um. I know someone who got into a car accident with her dogs in the car, and that was enough for most of her dogs to be like, I never wanna get into a car again.

[00:02:29] And it took a while to get them past that. Think of all the car rides that they had been on, all the awesome places they had been. And these were sport dogs. So like there was Weekends of Awesome all the time. One single event was scary enough that they decided, I just don't think I wanna do it anymore.

[00:02:46] So think about there are times in grooming. When a dog may decide that this one thing is so scary that they may never let us try it again, or they may have it in their head that they're never gonna let us try it again, but I want you to know that, um, that's something that can happen, but it's an extreme.

[00:03:07] All right, and when we talk about dogs learning. For how to be good for grooming. It's gonna take time, it's gonna take repetitions, even if there is no emotional baggage, even if this dog has decided that, you know, um, I've tried this once or twice and you know, eh, I just don't like it. You know, or maybe it's a new puppy or a new dog that has no experience.

[00:03:32] Okay, maybe it's a dog that's never seen a high velocity dryer. Maybe it's a dog that hasn't been dropped off for grooming before. Whatever it is. Maybe they have no experience, which is actually easier to work with than the dog that has had an experience that was not fun or an experience that was scary.

[00:03:48] I want you to know that in grooming, the problem that dogs have with the grooming process is that they find it unpleasant, uncomfortable, and or scary and uncomfortable could actually be painful, but we're adding it as uncomfortable. So take that in for a minute and really think about that. That's why dogs have problems with grooming.

[00:04:12] It's unpleasant. Uncomfortable and or scary. Some combination of the three. And, um, when we think about that. Making repetitions for a dog might still be unpleasant, uncomfortable, and or scary. When we're doing a repetition, when we're repeating stuff, we need to make it more pleasant, more comfortable, less scary.

[00:04:36] In fact, we might wanna call it. Calm, comfortable and cooperative, trying to help this dog feel safe, feel like they can trust us, feel like this is all going to be okay. So it's not simply a matter of repetition. All right. We need to think about why the dog has an issue with it. Why, why, why? I'm always gonna be the 6-year-old girl who asks, why, why, why, why, why, why, why?

[00:05:02] And, um, that's really at the core of dog training. Dog training is why does he do it? Try to solve the mystery. Why? What's in it for the dog? What, why would he do that? Why is she act like that? Why, why, why? So if we want to change a dog's mind about something during the grooming process, what we really need to do is think about adding some short-term memory, starting off with some short term memory about how this is different than what they thought it was.

[00:05:37] Different than counter two. Oh wait, woo. We're starting to sound like a term that we might know, right? Counter conditioning, counter two opposite of different from what they thought was happening. And when we do stuff like that, we need repetitions. We need repetitions. We need to do it over and over and over again.

[00:05:58] Now. Part of why I am going over the repetition part is because there's a difference between our short-term memory and our long-term memory. So. When we see a dog once every two months, that's not frequent enough repetitions, so we're gonna have to change that a little bit. If I gave you, let's say I taught you how to cast on some knitting stitches and knit in the round, and then I'll show you again in six weeks.

[00:06:28] In six weeks or in two months, I'm gonna hand you a ball of yarn and a couple of sticks and see what you remember. You will not remember much. Now, you might remember if you thought it was frustrating, you might remember if you thought it was pleasant, but you're not gonna remember how to do it. So if we're seeing dogs once every two months, we need to remember that.

[00:06:50] They're not going to pick up on this. They might just pick up on how the mood can change. Now, there are a couple ways we can work around that, and we'll talk about that in the next part, but for now, let's talk about repetition. Okay? Repetition. When we are trying to learn something new, when we wanna learn something new, we just keep repeating it until it becomes easy.

[00:07:15] Repeat it until it becomes easy. What does that mean? All right, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna do double duty on this podcast. I'm gonna teach you something that I want you to be repeating often. So to use calm, comfortable, and cooperative, we have something called Groom smart. Groom Smart, great way to remember how to use calm, comfort, and cooperative.

[00:07:35] And what it means is the S is start with calm. Well, calm, comfortable, and cooperative, but we're gonna, we're gonna narrow that down to just calm. We're gonna start with calm m we're going to maintain calm as best we can. A, we're going to act calm. If we want dogs to be calm, we need to act calm. R we're going to return to calm.

[00:07:58] If they start getting worried, if they start getting silly, we're gonna return them to calm and t we're going to teach. Calm. We're gonna actively encourage them to be calm, so that's groom smart. If I ask you in six weeks, you won't remember that, even though it's pretty simple. Okay, now what if you wanted to learn that right now?

[00:08:20] Well, we would just repeat it a couple times. Start with calm, maintain calm, act calm, return to calm, and teach calm. What Smart S-M-A-R-T start with calm, maintain calm, act, calm, return to calm, and teach calm. You'd repeat it a couple of times now in six weeks. Will you remember? Not really, because now it's just in your short term memory.

[00:08:47] So we repeat. Until it's comfortable, until we can remember it. And then, then what do we do as people? And this is why I want you to relate to this, because this is how we learn stuff. Then in five minutes, try recalling that because now it's not just in the front of your brain, in your short term memory, recall it after five minutes, think about something else, do something else, and then in five minutes try to remember it, and then an hour.

[00:09:17] And then a couple of hours, and then like a day, and then a couple days, and then a week. Okay. That's how it gets put into our long-term memory when we now have to go through a process and try to remember it, but we need that good foundation of repetitions first. So it's been a couple of minutes. What does Groom Smart stand for?

[00:09:39] Go ahead. I'll wait. Think about it. Again, this, this episode's doing double duty. What does Groom Smart stand for? Well, it's a way to use calm, comfortable, and cooperative. 'cause we're gonna start with calm, maintain, calm, act, calm, return to calm and teach calm. So it's still pretty easy to remember. It's been a couple of minutes, but it hasn't been six weeks or even one week.

[00:10:04] Okay. If we just said good enough, that was one repetition or two, actually, we actually did about four repetitions of it. But. That's not enough for us to remember in six weeks. We need to think about this when we're working with dogs so that when we're doing grooming process, if we only see them once every six weeks, they're gonna need some owner homework and we can add multiple repetitions.

[00:10:30] During one grooming setting, we can optimize the amount of time that we spend with that dog during one grooming setting. One grooming setting does not necessarily mean one repetition of nail trimming. I know, I know. So in the next part we're gonna discuss that. If you are enjoying this show, please remember to subscribe or follow wherever you follow.

[00:10:52] And that could be the podcast, that could be the YouTube page. But tell all your friends, because this is still the best kept secret around, and we need this message to get out there. Yeah. So how can we add repetitions to our dog grooming? Well, I want you to think about most dogs. If they're, if they're worried about something, there's one or two things that they're really worried about.

[00:11:16] If they're worried about everything, then we need to really backtrack and reintroduce the whole, like, Hey, you are now in a building with strangers. You know, or you're on a table. A lot of the time it's a matter of, um, a dog that doesn't like their tail handled or nails are a classic one, or, you know, he's, um, not great for having a dryer near his head.

[00:11:38] We don't have to do. Everything in one sitting. If we're doing a full grooming, I want you to think about breaking down that task that that dog is worried about in two smaller segments. So if that dog is worried about, let's, let's use brushing ears, maybe that dog has mats in his ears, always has mats in his ears, and, uh, brushing his ears is the thing that's terrifying for him.

[00:12:03] But what if, instead of brushing that ear, start to finish in one sitting. During a grooming session, we start breaking it up. What if we put that dog on the table before the bath? Even if we usually do baths first, put him on the table before the bath and do a little bit of brushing. Keep him in that comfort zone.

[00:12:23] Keep him where he's pretty comfortable, and just do a little bit on both ears. And then he goes into the tub and then Wally's in the tub just a little bit. On both ears and when he gets outta the tub just a little bit and then when we're ting him off just a little bit more. And what if while we're drying, we do just a little bit more each time we're actually making some progress with the brushing, with the amount of mats, but also we get this opportunity to, um, double check that he can be comfortable.

[00:12:55] For some brushing. How many repetitions have we already gone through right there was before the tub. In the tub, after the tub, during toweling, then during drying, right? So that's already a whole bunch of repetitions, and we didn't have to push him to the point that he's scared. Or the point where he reacts if you're doing it right, it's about as interesting as watching paint dry.

[00:13:18] And the dog never becomes upset. The dog never becomes stressed, the dog remains calm, comfortable, and cooperative. Now again, your short term memory. How do we use calm, comfortable, and cooperative? We groom him. Smart. And what does that stand for? That stands for, we're gonna start with calm. If that dog is really, really wiggly, we're not going to try to go for that ear mat.

[00:13:41] We're gonna start with calm. Then we're going to try to maintain calm while we do some brushing. We're gonna act calm while we're doing it, and if he gets worried, we're gonna return him to calm. We don't just give up, we return him to calm. Meanwhile, we're also actively teaching calm. What a good boy you're being.

[00:14:00] Look at you while I brush your ear. So then we have things like, while we're drying, after we're done drying, um, while we're trimming, we can circle back a number of times so that dog isn't getting his ear brushed once in a grooming setting. Right. It makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? This will take more time, but we've talked about this before on the show.

[00:14:23] When you talk to people about behavior being a safety issue and that the time that you spend is something you'll charge for, they are not buying a haircut. They're buying Hairing services and that you're willing to invest time in teaching their dog to be good for their lifetime. And that's an investment.

[00:14:41] It's an investment in time and effort and money, and they'll just pay you for your time. You might make extra time for this dog's appointment that eventually won't take as long, but just think about if we can work on that same little piece of ear. What if there was like 15 minutes of brushing on that ear, but we just spaced out that same 15 minutes, just spacing it out over that one grooming session, right?

[00:15:08] It's not the way most of us were taught to groom and, um, non groomers might not know this. So if you are a groomer, you probably like me, were taught, try to have some sort of a system because it keeps you from forgetting things and having a system. Most dogs like to know what's coming next. They like having a system in place.

[00:15:29] We kind of have to throw that by the wayside when we have a behavior case because we're, we're adjusting for that individual dog. So if this is an adjustment, this is, I'm going to circle back, circle back, circle back, circle back, and work on this one problem area over and over and over and over again without making it scary.

[00:15:50] Now, if you make it scary, you're actually making your problem worse. Yeah, take that in for a minute because I know that happens an awful lot. They're like, oh, just keep brushing and then it gets to be too much, and we stop. Don't let it get to the dog. Don't let it get them all wound up. Don't let it get them to a point where they tell you to stop work on it.

[00:16:13] Whatever they can handle. Remember groom smart. I know double duty on this, on this episode, but let it work on. Let them work on this piece so that they can feel comfortable with it and just keep circling back. I want that dog to think that wasn't so bad, and then we circle back and do some more. Oh, that wasn't so bad.

[00:16:33] Oh, that wasn't so bad. Because what happens is we are getting repetitions of that not being that bad. How cool is that? Oh, that wasn't so bad. I think I can handle more of that. I think I can handle more of that, and even if it's the same amount of like 15 minutes of brushing to get those, those mats out of those ears spaced out in a different way instead of picking it in ear for 15 minutes.

[00:17:01] So I want you to be open-minded about this idea of circling back and circling back and stopping while the dog is still being great. Stopping. Don't worry about getting the mat out. That's your last step. Work on the brushing, and you might not even worry about getting that mat out entirely. It depends on what kind of training you're doing, where you're at in that training.

[00:17:23] Just brushing through a lot of it is progress, even if there's still a mat there. Now, of course. If you're not a groomer, you might not know just how common it is for things like an ear mat. Um, yeah, so, so, so many dogs are truly, truly matted, and that's part of what frustrates groomers. Um, if at any time you wonder about that, ask your local groomer how many matted dogs they see every week.

[00:17:51] That's one of our biggest, biggest gripes. 'cause we talk about animal welfare an awful lot, and humane treatment and keeping our animals healthy. Yet there are people who still haven't really understood that mats are unhealthy for dog skin and they're uncomfortable for them. They're sometimes painful and they can cause sores.

[00:18:10] So, um, a matted ear could be something that is coming in pretty often on a dog. Okay. So as groomers, we're all like, well, yeah, but if you're not a groomer, you might not know that. You might not know just how widespread the problem is, just how huge the problem is. So, circling back, how many repetitions can we do on ear brushing?

[00:18:32] A lot. A lot. And if we make each one of those repetitions pleasant, then any bad experience they might have had, or scary experience they might have had is now kind of being buried underneath all these fairly good experiences. Like, oh, that wasn't so bad. Notice, I'm not even saying that we need to give cookies or anything.

[00:18:51] Um, just the fact that we're picking at it a little bit and not pushing their boundaries too far and we're repeating that, oh, this is a thing, this is a thing. This is a thing that we do. Everything's fine. And. At the end, you probably will be able to get that mat out. I've done this over and over and over again for lots of dogs, for lots of things.

[00:19:11] We might drop our criteria and that's okay, but repetition during one grooming session is gonna make it easier for that dog to remember for the next grooming session. Different than I brushed my ear, that ear once, or I got my ear brushed once. It's different because now it's, I got, I got it brushed this way and this way, and this way and this way, and we did it a bunch of times.

[00:19:35] It's like in the first part of this one where I repeated a bunch of times what groom smart meant. What does groom smart mean? I repeated it a bunch of times in the first segment. Now you're more comfortable with it here in the second segment. And weeks from now, if I were to quiz you, you might have a better chance of remembering how cool is that.

[00:19:56] So our long-term memory is different than our short term memory and repetition really, really helps. Now I'm gonna give a couple of other examples because I think that, um. Sometimes we, we relate better if we hear some human examples. If I were to pick up my ukulele, which I enjoy playing, but never really learned how to play well, not my primary instrument, and practice some chord changes if I practice them a lot over the next couple of days.

[00:20:29] I could probably remember how to do them in the next couple of months. Would I remember how to do them in six months? Well, that depends on if I keep practicing. Now, as another example, I have played flute since the fourth grade. I don't, I, I like to practice, but I don't need the practice anymore. My fingers know where those notes are.

[00:20:51] They know it. I've done it so many times that my fingers know where the notes are. I don't have to think about that. I read sheet music, think flute, and my fingers know where to go. That took a long time. That took many, many years, many, many, many years. Now there are still reasons to practice, but um, I don't have to do that to keep the knowledge fresh.

[00:21:15] Now let's talk about another example As a groomer, if you have a particular breed that you wanna learn how to do really nice trims on, sometimes if you can book yourself a full day of dogs of that breed in the same haircut or similar haircuts, it's like you, you are able to book yourself this whole like one day workshop, right?

[00:21:37] I remember a couple of times where, um, I worked someplace and we booked like all of the cocker spaniels we could find. In like that same day. And some of them were retired show dogs with some really nice clips and it was like, this is great. 'cause we were like, you know what, let's go ahead and just do like a cocker spaniel time and, and just kind of work on our cock cocker spaniels today.

[00:22:00] Right? Repetition, repetition, repetition in one day. Made a lot of difference. But then we also, those were all regular dogs that would come in, so as they kept coming in on their regular schedules different times now and spaced out differently, we were still working on cocker spaniels often enough for a lot of that work to stay in your head.

[00:22:24] Right. So be thinking there are lots of ways that we practice stuff. We create these repetitions and that short term memory becomes longer term memory. But you gotta use it. Remember the term, use it or lose it. You gotta use it. So when we talk to our owners, sometimes we have to send them home with some homework.

[00:22:43] Sometimes we have to tell them, I need this dog to come in more often while we teach your dog. Not forever, but if we can do a little bit. Every week for four or five weeks, and then start in on regular grooming intervals, whatever that interval may be for that individual dog. Sometimes that's what the owners are gonna need to commit to so that their dog can get the repetitions and kind of bury the old feelings.

[00:23:11] So I'm gonna give you one last example in this episode. Um, I used to, um, say this with my dog training customers. Imagine you have a vase. And you have white marbles and red marbles. White marbles are times when it went great. Everything was perfect, everything went great. Red marbles are times when maybe it was unpleasant, uncomfortable, or scary.

[00:23:31] Now imagine some of our dogs come in with no experience at all, and that's an empty vase. And our goal is to put in layers of white marbles. Times where it just went fine. Once in a while, something's gonna get a little scary or a little uncomfortable or unpleasant, and then we drop a red marble in there and we're like, oh, gotta bury that under some good experiences.

[00:23:53] Now, what if it's a dog who has a lot of unpleasant experiences before they came to us, and that vase is mostly filled with red marbles. What do we need to do to bury those red marbles? We need a whole bunch of pleasant experiences on top of it. That's what works. Repetition, repetition, repetition. If we can just keep giving these repetitions of this pleasant experience, pleasant experience, until the top of that vase is covered in white marbles.

[00:24:20] And I've had a couple of customers that got really competitive about this with each other. One married couple that was very competitive in how many white marbles they could get on a walk. But whatever the case may be. We want those pleasant experiences, and why wouldn't we try to collect as many white marble experiences during one grooming session as possible?

[00:24:41] That's repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, and it adds to our short-term memory that will build toward our long-term memory. If you want more information, you can find me at creating great grooming dogs.com, creating great grooming dogs Facebook page and creating great grooming dogs. Facebook group, whole Pet Grooming Academy, that's whole pet nh.com, where I teach the Master Groomer Behavior Specialist Program, and I would love to hear from you and give me any ideas you have for episodes and talk to you next week.