I’ve been lucky enough to have two dogs in my adult life live to 17+. I never take tomorrow for granted, and especially so with a dog. In Part 2 of my breakdown of Josh Waitzkin’s book, The Art Of Learning, Josh discusses the importance of depth over breadth when pursuing exceptional performance. A long life does not guarantee a deep life. Nor does a busy life or a life of achievements guarantee a deep life. Only dedication to living deeply guarantees a deep life. So, whatever time you have with your dog, dedicate it to living deeply. You will never regret it.
In this final part of the Waitzkin Way, I’m drawn to Josh’s idea that “the real art in learning takes place as we move beyond proficiency, when our work becomes an expression of our essence.” I know what that means to me. Do you know what it means to you?
Proficiency in scent work is such a nebulous concept. I could take an Elite Champion team and put them in a single hide Level 1 Exterior search and see them fail miserably. I could have a “baby dog” do a 10 minute search with 20 hides and soar through the environment communicating brilliantly. So proficiency is way too subjective in scent work. I believe once you have a strong imprint on odor and a reliable pattern of communication passing back and forth between you and your dog, you should expect “proficiency” to develop over a long time line and to be shaped through a variety of experiences, some that clearly push your team’s limits. Competition searches are okay for gauging proficiency, but they typically test too narrow of a slice of the scent work partnership. I’m not sure you can take your 1 year old dog and get to Detective or Elite before that dog turns 2, and claim you’re a proficient scent work team. There’s a fast track to titles, but not to proficiency.
While I love the idea of moving beyond proficiency, I think most of us need to focus on moving towards proficiency first! Professional competitors spend years to achieve high performance in arenas like chess and martial arts. Scent work is much more open-ended than chess and every bit as dynamic and complex as a martial arts match, so one should expect to invest years in achieving high performance. True proficiency in scent work is manifest through a dog & human’s ability to work together to advance through unexpected and complex search scenarios.
“The Power Of Presence”
Josh dedicates a chapter to presence in his book, The Art Of Learning, but really, his essence is presence – authentic presence. Tony Robbins likes to say, “if you’re in your head, you’re dead.” Presence isn’t a thinking state, it’s a participating state – a feeling and acting state. If you want to become the best teammate you can be for your dog, you should dedicate yourself to improving your presence in all things – especially things related to your dog and to searching with your dog.
Josh tells a story in the chapter, “The Power Of Presence”, a story about an Amazonian jungle hunter who encounters a jaguar after a long day of hunting, entering in to a battle of wills with this almost mythical creature. Presence takes a lot of mental and physical stamina. Modern western humans are so ill-prepared to be present, but this Amazonian was as prepared as they come. As Josh tells it, the man faces down the jaguar for tens of minutes, waving his machete back and forth as the cat paces mere feet away. After some length of time, the man begins to lose his nerve, lose his strength, while the cat remains as focused and ready as ever. A wild animal is so much more present in life than we are, but our canine companions are also so much more present than we are. Without a doubt, we are the catalyst for failed searches where the dog appears to be unable to advance on a complex puzzle, and it typically starts with our inability to be present.
Presence – the participatory and feeling state of being – is about receiving what is happening without disconnecting and living in the past or future. Just as a meditator may experience numerous instances of straying from focus on his breathing when practicing meditation, most scent work humans are straying from focus on their dogs quite frequently. Presence is also about receiving what is happening without overthinking, judging, using confirmation bias, recency bias, and so on. Most scent work humans have a hard time avoiding these and other cognitive traps during a search. Consider that you can positively impact the outcome of your dog’s searching efforts by being present to what he’s really telling you. In a simple search, you won’t notice a difference, in a complex search, presence makes all the difference.
I have experienced a search where I will sense my expectation of what the dog’s behavior means, rather than just being present to the behavior. For example, if the dog pauses at an object, I will sense in my mind an expectation that the dog will advance in a particular direction. A human observer may not see any changes in me that telegraph my thinking, but a dog can sense my thinking. When coaching I will often check in with a human after a complex search has led to a lack of progress – the dog thinking through a way to advance, but not advancing – and the human will confirm for me that she was certain the dog was going to find a hide in a particular place that was not where the hide actually was. It’s a good chance that the dog’s inability to advance on the problem is related to the person’s inability to be present to the true meaning of the dog’s communication.
Josh draws a parallel between the story of the Amazonian in a fight for his life against a jaguar and two chess competitors fighting for a win. The Amazonian man was in a true life or death scenario, he was exceptionally present and capable of protecting himself in the jungle, yet the jaguar was far more capable of maintaining an intense focus than the man, ultimately bringing the man to the brink of madness. In chess, a similar battle is being fought between two players, and the winner is the one who can endure intense pressure, stay focused, and outlast or overwhelm his opponent. Josh writes, “if one player is serenely present while the other is being ripped apart by internal issues, the outcome is already clear.” So often, people look for a problem outside of themselves (we have issues with containers, my dog loses focus in grassy areas, we struggle with close together hides), and ignore their internal issues. If you have a reliable search dog with a good imprint on odor, it’s likely that any issues your team faces originate within you. No outside fix will bring lasting success, because every time you need to be present to your dog’s behaviors in complexity you will fail.
The Amazonian man in Josh’s story ultimately survived the jaguar, but it broke his spirit. You’re lucky in that when you search with your dog it is not life & death, so a failed search is not a permanent “game over”. However, according to Josh, “the secret is that everything is always on the line. The more present we are at practice, the more present we will be in competition, in the boardroom, at the exam, the operating table, the big stage… Presence must be like breathing.” So, no, you aren’t getting eaten by a jaguar if you miss your master’s buried search, but maybe you should act as if you will, and use every ounce of your being to cultivate not just game-winning presence, but life-winning presence.
“Searching For The Zone”
If the previous chapter was all about awareness and being fully present, the chapter, “Searching For The Zone” is all about sustaining awareness through a process of rest and recovery. On the last page of the chapter Josh writes: “I can’t tell you how liberating it is to know that relaxation is just a blink away from full awareness.” This is what you want, the ability to relax into and out of intense focus, before and during a search so that you and your dog have the best chance to advance through complexity.
Josh reveals some details from his chess journey in this chapter, one being that early on in tournaments his dad would play catch with him or he’d take a nap between matches while other kids were being drilled about their previous game or practicing for their next game. Consistently, Josh would return to the chess board with more stamina than his competitors. Later in his journey, Josh might leave the board to go sprint or splash water on his face – to have a physical state change. Quite often he’d come back to the board with an insight. Note that Josh is not blinking his eyes to relax and return to focus – that comes much later in his martial arts journey. Josh is taking the time needed to relax before returning to focus. He’s building something that can then be compressed for speed, but still retain potency.
Recently, I was coaching a border collie and his human through a complex search – an environment with the dog’s favorite toys – and 1 minute into this single hide search in a large gym I had observed the following: the dog entered the gym, moved to the left with a snaking body and a swimming head, then a tight turn left with a snappy head, then a tight circle and a fast paced straight line move towards the middle of the room. This move shifted to a soft, skimming perimeter search covering the entire back wall of the gym, curving through the back left corner and heading towards the area where I observed the snappy head behavior change. Instead of advancing on odor, the dog dragged his human to a kong toy and began to chew on it intensely. A relaxation break was needed. I sat down on a bench near the dog and scattered some treats for a trade. He wasn’t interested. I could’ve asked for an out, but this dog’s love of kong toys gave him lock jaw. I faced away from him and offered him my relaxed, open hand, to which he brought the toy. I took hold of the toy and just held my position. He tugged and pulled and pushed the toy in my hand. I began to feel him soften his grip on the toy, but not to give it up. I held my position. He tugged and pulled harder, then softened again and he released the toy. I offered him scattered food and tucked the toy under my arm. I stood up, and the dog gave us ready behavior. The dog’s human may have said, “find it”, or not – it would have been a formality. This dog took off with purpose and energy in a tight zig zag to the front corner of the room, did a couple tight turns and closed in on source, then indicated the hide. What we did was took a break and returned to focus with an insight. What we intend to do in the future is hone and refine this communication so we can achieve relaxation – return to focus – insight, in the blink of an eye.
If you believe – and I do – that your dog is motivated to search for and find hides, then you should not see his inability to advance as an avoidance of the work. Especially if you have evidence that your dog attempted to make progress on a problem, then got stuck – the dog’s behaviors should not be categorized as “distracted”. Instead, you can use the terms “thinking” or “processing”. Sometimes the dog will think through the stuckness and advance to sourcing and indicating, sometimes the dog will remain stuck, but keep communicating with his human to explain the cause of the stuckness. If you see the dog’s thinking or processing or stuckness as negative, this makes it near impossible to build problem-solving skills. The very act of thinking and attempting to advance on a complex puzzle is valuable – even if it doesn’t lead to finding. With the border collie and the kong tug, I didn’t know if he’d decide to work again or if he’d find the hide, my primary interest was to relax through the stuckness and create an opportunity to advance.
Sometimes, the stuckness is created by missed communication or miscommunication between the human and dog, resulting in the dog focusing more on the human. If your dog reaches the edge of odor and turns around to face you and moves towards you and your response is to move towards your dog to get behind him, this is a miscommunication. You’re on opposing paths and not in a question and response way, more in a speaking over each other way. Don’t be surprised if your dog changes course to follow you and makes eye contact with you. Then, don’t be surprised if your dog seems unable to advance.
If you decide to hold your dog at a search boundary simply because it feels like your dog shouldn’t need to go that far, this is a miscommunication. Your dog will likely repeat the attempt to push past the boundary, then try to push past the boundary on the opposite side of the search area as a retest of this miscommunication. These types of stuckness can be distressing to some humans. The path to the hide is unclear to either the dog and the human or just to the human (which is when the human creates problems for the dog), causing difficulty in advancing. When the dog is stuck, he carefully weighs every piece of data in the environment (especially his human’s communication) to determine how to advance. An insight is needed for one or both of you.
Some insights happen just by patiently supporting the dog. Some happen after a release of focus, and some happen through careful conversation and partnership. A fair amount of exploration and trial & error is necessary to develop and utilize communication between you and your dog that creates possibilities for insights and advancement. Think of how many times Josh failed in his chess career, and what that taught him. People are so afraid of failure. Some people project their fear of failure onto the dog and claim that the dog can’t fail because that will create bad behavior going forward. Failure is how you will learn to handle complexity and relax into focus. I think your dog already knows how to fail & learn from it, and how to handle complexity, and how to relax into focus – you just might not see his process or be comfortable with it, so you also have to learn how to partner with your dog and find a balanced approach you both can feel good about.
It’s helpful to get comfortable with failure. Get comfortable with the unexpected. Practice relaxing and releasing your focus, then returning to focus and gaining an insight that helps you advance on the puzzle at hand. I was working with a dog having trouble advancing on a hide that was placed within feet of a hide he’d found (now removed) in the previous search. We were not yet ready to take a break, but someone unexpectedly entered the room and gave us a reason to take a break. I called the dog, he sat at my feet, I gave him some chin rubs and some shoulder pets and told him he was a good boy. The visitor left, and the dog went back to work with a renewed focus and energy and went directly to the hide. What a great insight he gained from relaxing and returning to focus.
When your dog is not advancing – when he’s thinking and processing – there is a reason for his inability to advance. That reason is revealed through his communication. If you are able to relax and then return to focus, you may be able to see your dog’s behavior and understand what is preventing him from advancing. Sometimes people will say to me, “he’s not finding anything. He’s not telling me anything.” What they mean is the dog has not indicated a hide. What they also mean is they expect nothing less from the dog even in the midst of complexity. No insight will arrive to you if you think your dog’s behavior is a big fat zero because there’s no indication. So much communication passes back and forth between you and your dog, and all of it is relevant. Insights arrive when you are able to see behaviors clearly. The dog who keeps circling the planter and darting, twirling, snapping his head around in a hosta, then moving on to try and eat some chips off the ground is telling a story. If all the human sees is “nothing” because the dog hasn’t indicated, then the dog will repeat the pattern or shift to thinking/processing and appear to give up. If the human sees the behavior, she might have an insight: my dog exhibits sourcing behavior at the hosta, then tries to self-reward, then repeats the pattern. The hosta has the source, but my dog is experiencing a barrier to advancing from sourcing to indicating. This insight allows for several options, one being to do nothing and continue observing the dog’s problem-solving efforts. Another being to use subtle verbal or physical interactions with the dog to prompt a response when he’s interacting with the chips on the ground. You can do this with subtle leash restraint, your voice, or by other means. You look for a response from your dog – much like the border collie with the toy, perhaps the dog will soften up and then make his own move to leave the food and go search for the hide. So much of the act of advancing through complexity has to do with connection, understanding and agreement. Use relaxation and breaks to ensure that you are committed to these things and insights will flow.
“Triggering Greatness”
In the chapter, “Building Your Trigger” Josh tells the story of a businessman who approached him looking for a way to improve his performance in meetings and get better at meeting deadlines. Josh discovered that the businessman loved playing catch with his son more than anything, so he built a multi-step trigger using this blissful activity. He had the man eat a snack, meditate, stretch, listen to a favorite song, then play ball with his son. Total time in preparation to play ball: 45 minutes. After many repetitions, Josh had the man shorten the time spent on each step, then after many more repetitions he had the man condense the routine down to just 12 minutes of stretching, meditating, and listening to music before playing ball with his son. What Josh had helped the man create was a trigger: the blissful state the man entered when playing ball with his son could now be activated through the 12 minute routine, allowing the man to be in a meeting or work on a project with the same blissful presence as when he plays ball with his son.
In scent work, you will hear a lot of talk about gear and routines. Some people swear by a specific style of harness, some people have to have a certain type of leash, or a particular kind of treat. Many people have a “start line routine”, or a search cue. Using Josh’s approach, whatever steps you incorporate into your dog’s trigger should be followed by engaging in a blissful activity. Take a retriever and time spent playing fetch. It’s pretty much like the man and his son playing ball. Maybe before playing fetch, you and your dog have a small snack, take a short walk, maybe you brush or pet your dog and focus on him in a meditative way (just watch him breath and if your mind wanders, bring it back to his breathing), then you go play fetch. After some time, you can use a short version of this routine to trigger that blissful state before a scent work practice or competition.
Some dogs & humans build these triggers serendipitously. If your dog rides with you to the pet supply store and always gets treats and love from the person working the counter, the car ride can put him in a very positive state of being. This can transfer to the car ride you take to the trial site for a scent work competition. Without consciously planning it, I would run to and from search areas with my dog. Running was our blissful activity. We would run 10 miles a day 4-5 days a week. A short burst of running from the car to the staging area was probably the trigger that put us in the “soft zone” as Josh calls it.
Some humans want very badly to have the dog enter a ready state of being and search joyfully when the human is ready. This can lead to disconnected searching, or avoidance of searching, or it can lead to the human taking over the search. Make sure you think like Josh and consider building a routine that is linked to a blissful activity for you and your dog (or focus on each of your needs separately), so that you can condense that routine into a powerful trigger to be used before searches.
Josh talks about how much time the businessman put into building his routine and creating his trigger – basically an hour every day for months. The man wasn’t using this hour every day for months to directly address improving at his job. He was already a top producer at his job, he was just getting stuck and feeling disconnected, stressed and ineffective. So, Josh had this man practice building a trigger that would address the stuckness. This trigger would put the man in a state of being where he could effectively access his top producer abilities and creatively solve problems.
There is immense value for you and your dog in building your trigger(s). This is especially true for people experiencing poor performance at trials. If you made it all the way to Elite or Detective, your scent work skills are probably good to go, when your team fails it’s likely that you just couldn’t focus, or you were too stressed, or too amped, or letting pressure get to you, or overthinking, or slipping into bad habits from the past. All of these problems can be minimized if your team is able to reliably enter the “soft zone” or flow state, and blissfully meet the challenges that come your way.
Searching With Intention
The remainder of Josh’s book is a chapter diving more deeply into the concept we covered in Part 1: “Making Sandals”; a chapter called “Bringing It All Together”; and a chapter titled “Taiwan”. At this point, I hope you can understand that Josh values presence above all. Presence is living life in full awareness, it’s living authentically, it’s expressing your essence. Full awareness doesn’t happen because you decide to be fully aware, it happens through intentional effort and practice. Authentic living is highly personal, you don’t live authentically by living someone else’s version of your experiences. Expressing your essence can only happen if you are connected to the core of who you are, which requires authentic living and full awareness. Which brings us back to intentional effort as the means through which you achieve deep connection to yourself and to your dog.
Searching with intention means that you approach each search as if your dog is indispensable, and understanding his communication is the only path you can take for survival. This leads to you practicing searches with your dog where you raise your awareness to everything he does. This leads to you finding ways to learn your dog’s behaviors and patterns, and his communication style. This leads to you and your dog developing a language, and using that language to converse and to face complex challenges in a deeply connected partnership. Searching with intention means participating in the search with your dog, feeling the search, partnering together in living conversation.
Early in “The Art Of Learning” Josh wrote about a concept called “numbers to leave numbers”, it’s similar to Bruce Lee’s “formless form”. In scent work, we could think of it as “source to leave source.” What does that mean to you? Hopefully, Josh will inspire you to take your own inner journey to optimal scent work performance, like he inspired me.
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Happy Sniffing!
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