Play Guide

To create funnel frustration into healthy motivation, we will use play—more specifically, structured play, which involves rules and an overall goal. The goal of structured play is not to tire your dog out or to win the game. Instead, the goals are to:

• Create back-and-forth engagement that operates within the rules of the game

• Increase your dog’s arousal level while maintaining control over their energy

• Funnel their unhealthy frustration into the game, creating healthy frustration, and pulling from the bucket in their mind.

So, Why Play?

Your dog is a predator—or at least we can agree that it evolved from one. A dog’s body and mind are designed to hunt, chase, and scavenge, not lie on the couch all day, eat whenever they’re hungry, and go on ten-minute walks. Regardless of how far detached your dog’s breed is from their ancestors, all dogs require some genetic expression, mimicking their primal functions. When hunting, canines move through a sequence of behaviors called the predatory sequence. Essentially, it is the steps from the hunter focusing on prey, all the way through catching and consuming. To favor and manipulate specific parts of the predatory sequence, humans have influenced the evolution of dog breeds through selective breeding. This lead to the creation of dogs with specialized jobs such as retrieving, and herding. Play allows us to tap into our dog’s primal drives and engage with them in a way that allows for genetic expression. In the absence of this expression is frustration and anxiety, which is typically treated with behavioral suppression. An emphasis on play sets your dog up for better choices and healthier learning resulting in better patterns.

A structured play session raises a dog’s arousal level, which in turn leads to changes in their body. In this higher state of arousal, your dog shifts into a foggy or white noise state of mind, making it more challenging for them to focus on anything other than their target or trigger. During your games of play, you can request different obedience behaviors, paired with your conditioned feedback responses (covered later), to teach your dog to think through the white noise instead of getting lost in it. This, combined with how you will end play, will teach your dog to regulate their emotions better, directly benefiting them when they are over-excited, anxious, or recovering from a reaction event.

explain structured play

Play allows your dog to

what is play:

Higher Vibrational Plane

Let’s consider the levels of excitement that your dog typically has. At the bottom, level is resting and the top is when they’re lost in their white noise state. This can also be thought of as how we all exists as vibrations in this universe. Now, when your dog is lighting up, they are existing in the upper levels of their arousal energy. Now consider the levels of energy that your dog sees from you. chaotic

Consider when your dog is able to express their emotion and energy. Typically, dogs can only reach their higher levels of arousal when triggered, leading to reaction events.

Bringing your dog’s energy up and operating at this higher level, is something most of dogs only get to do when they are triggered and reacting to external stimuli. As you bring your dog up to this level, it is important that you

Creating a Window

A ‘window’ of play refers to a period of time wherein your dog is free to express their genetic drives. When starting your play session, you use a specific word of your choice, such as ‘play’ or ‘ready,’ to tell your dog to let loose. At first, this word won’t have any meaning, but over time, it will develop a conditioned response from your dog. After you’re done playing, you will use a different word/phrase, such as ‘all done,’ ‘that’s it,’ or ‘no more,’ to tell your dog that play is over. Once play is ended, your dog is no longer allowed to interact with the toy. The length of time a window is open depends on your dog's energy and their commitment to the game.

Arousal Spike

Your dog’s play engagement goes through several different stages: start, building, peak, spikes, plateau, drop off, and end.

• Start: this is the start of your play session, after you use your conditioned play word to your dog.

• Building: This is the increase of your dog’s energy and arousal level as they engage with the toy.

• Peak: This is the height of your dog’s energy.

• Plateau: This top end of your dog’s energy and effort

• Spikes: These occur during the plateau and refers to moments when your dog gives a extra effort.

• Drop off: This is when your dog has lost interest in play

• End: When the play session is over,

One of the primary goals of your play sessions is to bring up your dog’s arousal level as much as you can. PLa

The more your play, and easier this will become. In the beginning stages of play,

, it may take a considerable amount of time to get your dog excited. Once However, it is crucial to pay attention to their engagement with you and when it starts to drop off and they lose interest. Their can be thought of as this graph: