Play with me - “Ready” Find your own fun- “ok” Calm Liberty- “Enough” Work- Any known obedience
Anyone who knows my work knows I am simply obsessed with everything that comes out of Jay Jack’s mouth. He’s an incredible trainer with a genius way of explaining things. This system is not new, but it is illustrated very well. Basically, every dog is born with 3 windows of being/opportunities for activity.
dogs are born with wanting to find their own fun (run around, do zoomies, chase butterflies, dig a hole- don’t need human interaction to take part in it)
fun with you/social connection- have fun and express drive through this social connection (chuck it, tug, fetch)
Calm/ Chill window All dogs have these windows, even if it’s just for 45 seconds before they sleep.
Depressed is not the same as chill
In a well balanced dog, these windows are fluid and easy for the dog.
We (humans) invented a fourth window- the work window (recall, heel, down stay) to help us influence the dogs behavior. We teach them to do unnatural behaviors that they are happy to do if they are reinforced for. The dog is changing his behavior and doing something totally arbitrary because we asked for it.
WE can use the work window to navigate a situation that the dog can’t handle on it’s own. We have to build and install this window- this window doesn’t happen naturally. So we need practice and to show the dog what we need.
Building the work window is not the only important thing although it seems to be the only thing people focus on. When you have control over your other windows, you may not need the work window. If you have a good play window, you may not even need a work window, you can get away with a cue to open the play window
Dogs that are easy to work and live with already seem to know their windows- these are the dogs I rarely see and people who own these dogs think they have a well trained dog- a dog that knows when it’s time to chill and when it’s time to work. These dogs are reading the play correctly and the dogs happen to be in the windows that we are naturally in. IE: we go outside and they read the play and go nuts and have fun outside. And then we say hey wanna play and they do and then we sit down and they lay down next to us. This dog understands the pictures of the windows. The dog is reading the room and guesses correctly and happily complies with the new windows for opportunity.
For the majority of the dogs I work with, these dogs don’t read the plays correctly. IE: you’re on a zoom call and the dog is demanding a play session. These dogs are consistently in the wrong window. It’s not that they don’t have access to these windows, they are just displaying them at the wrong time. The most severely broken dogs simply don’t have those windows (ie the ones that don’t trust humans at all and the play with human window will not open)
Step 1: - diagnosis: are you missing one? Or do you possess all the windows and the dog just doesn’t know when to be in what window? Then we teach windows on cue and teach dogs responsibility to those windows. But trust me, your dog needs all these windows.
Work on the windows that the dog doesn’t have first.
Think about this:
Does your dog know which window he is supposed to be in? AND does he know/have the ability to get into that window?
Name the window, build the fluency-- how often should I be working on the work window? I don’t know! How long do you want this to take?
If the dog is still looking for the toy- you put it in the chill window and hes still in the play window.
BUILD the windows over time
Remember.... All the windows don't have to be on the same timeline. The play window can be in early stages and you can already be on to proofing the chill window. Each one develops at it's own pace. As fast as you can.... As slow as you need.
2. Name the windows
Once you can reliably predict or create a window.... Start naming it. If you see one coming..... steal it's power and tag it with a name before it opens. If you know you can paint the picture you want to see.... Name it and create it. Just make sure that you are consistent. The dog should never hear that word and NOT see the picture you called. Have them decide on "default" windows and where they want contextual cues for windows IF they want that. This is where they begin to paint the picture of life with their dog they're looking for.
3. Build (or re-build) the work window.
This is where you begin to teach the cues into the work window.
Don’t name the cues until they are fluent
4. Develop basic fluency in the transition between windows. There are 12 basic transitions. (4 windows. Each with 3 possible transitions). Work on all of them. This is a simple concept. But.... The MAIN reason most dogs get stuck in forever work windows is because no one practiced the transition from work to chill. Think about it..... You place a dog and they do fine. But.... when it's time to release them..... You KNOW they're gonna go bananas. So...... On place they will stay. They have no fluency in the work-chill transition. There are 12 of those. Don't just do the obvious work-ok switch. True fluency in all 12 is where the true magic is.
5. Proof This is where you really get down to advanced fun. You can work on chains in the work window. You can work on difficult transitions. You can work on proofing commitment to the window. Trying to bait them out of a window etc.... This is also where you will show them the difference between the "inevitable" windows, and the "opportunistic" windows.
Work, and Chill, are "inevitable". They WILL occur. I will just make them happen. Not a big dramatic thing. The dog will just know that all work, and chill cues may as well be followed as they are just gonna happen. It is inevitable. But.... The Play and OK windows.... Those are "opportunities". They are rare and fragile and can disappear if they're not jumped on! I'm not going to FORCE them to take the tug. Or, chase the squirrel..... But..... for sure that opportunity had best be pounced on or it'll vanish.
This process will look very different for all dogs- this is ok!
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