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In this podcast episode, Dr. Jonathan H. Westover talks with Kim Flanery-Rye about IDEA (Inclusion = Diversity + Equity + Accessibility). Kim “Kimfer” Flanery-Rye (https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimflaneryrye/) is the Founder and Principal DEI & Culture Practitioner for Inclusion Equals, a social enterprise focused on the IDEA (Inclusion = Diversity + Equity + Accessibility) to build culture from the inside out. She believes that to address systemic issues in the world, we must tackle the inequities within organizational systems. Kimfer is a seasoned professional with 20+ years of experience in a diverse background from marketing to organizational development. She is also an Adjunct Professor teaching Creativity and Innovation for MBA students and has her MBA in Executive Leadership. She has spoken on local, national, and international stages, including the 2022 and 2023 World Economic Forum, on critical topics such as the importance of women on boards and what it means for women to have power, authority, and agency. Check out all of the podcasts in the HCI Podcast Network! Check out the HCI Academy: Courses, Micro-Credentials, and Certificates to Upskill and Reskill for the Future of Work! Check out the LinkedIn Alchemizing Human Capital Newsletter. Check out Dr. Westover's book, The Future Leader. Check out Dr. Westover's book, 'Bluer than Indigo' Leadership. Check out Dr. Westover's book, The Alchemy of Truly Remarkable Leadership. Check out the latest issue of the Human Capital Leadership magazine. Each HCI Podcast episode (Program, ID No. 655967) has been approved for 0.50 HR (General) recertification credit hours toward aPHR™, aPHRi™, PHR®, PHRca®, SPHR®, GPHR®, PHRi™ and SPHRi™ recertification through HR Certification Institute® (HRCI®). Each HCI Podcast episode (Program ID: 24-DP529) has been approved for 0.50 HR (General) SHRM Professional Development Credits (PDCs) for SHRM-CP and SHRM-SCPHR recertification through SHRM, as part of the knowledge and competency programs related to the SHRM Body of Applied Skills and Knowledge™ (the SHRM BASK™). Human Capital Innovations has been pre-approved by the ATD Certification Institute to offer educational programs that can be used towards initial eligibility and recertification of the Certified Professional in Talent Development (CPTD) and Associate Professional in Talent Development (APTD) credentials. Each HCI Podcast episode qualifies for a maximum of 0.50 points.
Brandon Flanery (he/him) is an ex-pastor, ex-missionary, exvangelical who writes about the intersection of faith, sexuality and their consequences. He has research and writings published with the Colorado Springs Indy, the University of Colorado, and Baptist News Global, and his debut book: Stumbling: a sassy memoir about coming out of evangelicalism debuted last year. Connect with Brandon: Website: BrandonFlanery.com | Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/flanbran/ The Book: https://bookshop.org/p/books/stumbling-a-sassy-memoir-about-coming-out-of-evangelicalism-brandon-flanery/20237753?ean=9781957687278 Audio Version: https://www.audible.com/pd/Stumbling-Audiobook/B0CPTPJBR5?action_code=ASSGB149080119000H&share_location=pdp Connect with Maggie: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hello_deconstructionists/ | Email: hello.decons@gmail.com Learn more about Amy's music: Amy's Website: https://www.amyazzara.com/ | Foray Music: https://www.foraymusic.com/ | Amy's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amyazzara/
In episode 170, Kerel flies solo and has a conversation with Kim "Kimfer" Flanery-Rye, Founder, Principal DEI and Culture Practitioner, owner of Inclusion Equals, a go-to resource for learning and growth around racism, sexism, ageism, ableism and beyond and also the new owner of The F Bomb Breakfast Club, a peer support community for women, femmes, and gentlethems who are company founders and business owners. Kimfer has a passion for philanthropy in many areas including youth, LGBTQIA, and the arts. Born in South Korea, adopted by a family from small farm town Iowa, Kimfer had an anything but easy childhood dealing with food scarcity and general insecurities about being different from everyone around her. Even though times were hard, she had a loving family along with more adopted siblings, learned a lot of skills that help her today and her early years have greatly influenced the work she does and invests in today. Kimfer believes greatly in servant leadership, ethical and authentic DEI practices and efforts, and gives importance to aligning investments with personal values for positive social impact. Timestamps 0:38: Intro to Kim "Kimfer" Flanery-Rye, Founder, Principal DEI and Culture Practitioner 1:14: Kimfer shares the story of her childhood, born in South Korea, adopted by a family from a small farm community in Iowa where she face insecurities related to food and abandonment 3:31: Kimfer credits her ability to navigate these early years to learning how to read the room quickly and avoid potentially harmful situations 4:27: How Kimfer's early years influences the work she does now, what it means to be a servant leader, and why philanthropy is so important to her, emphasizing the importance of lived experience and social justice 12:49: What is fascinating to watch for Kimfer in the DEI space, the pendulum swing coming back around, and making an impact on the people who want to see the change. 17:44: How Kimfer acquired the F Bomb Business Club, a peer support community to support women business owners in a safe space for peer support and networking 24:24: Advice for anyone listening who has been adopted or had a similar background of Kimfer's and how to move forward powerfully in life 25:58: The things Kimfer wishes she were better at - including playing guitar and her curiosity 27:10: Music in Kimfer's current rotation and getting into Korean rap 28:53: Getting in touch with Kimfer on social media Follow Us: Newsletter: bitly.com/2QLEY8U Linkedin: bit.ly/2ZZUBxG Twitter: bit.ly/2Qp0SzK Instagram: bit.ly/2QLfEQc
Coach Flan joins The Grum to talk Women's basketball.
On this weeks episode of the pod we sit down with Brandon Flanery! We are so excited to share this episode with you. Brandon's new book is out now and available everywhere! You can find links to follow Brandon everywhere and get a copy of his book at his website: https://brandonflanery.com/ If you enjoy listening to the show, please consider heading over to apple podcasts to rate and review us. If you really enjoy the show, we would love to see you in our Patreon.com/ThereafterPod! Also, look for us on social media and shoot us a message to say hello, or chat with us in Twitter spaces on Tuesday mornings in deconstruction coffee hour! Twitter: @ThereafterPod, @CortlandCoffey, @ThePursuingLife Instagram: @ThereafterPodcast, @CortlandCoffey, @ThePursuingLife
Our guests this week were featured on the Fall 2023 LAMP cover story, where their special sisterhood story was shared. Lacey Schollenberger and Ashleigh Flanery, both from the Kappa Tau Chapter at Morehead State University in Kentucky, share more than their Delta Zeta sisterhood. This week, they celebrate their 5-year Kidney-versary. When Lacey, who had dealt with the side effects of lupus from an early age, needed a kidney transplant, Ashleigh was there and gave her the gift of a lifetime by donating her own organ. It is obviously an incredible story of friendship, and the connection between the two is inspiring.
We've had DEI 101, can we advance? It's time for 201. Our CEO and Momma Bird, Priscilla McKinney loves advocating for women in business, and brought Kim “Kimfer” Flanery-Rye Founder & DEI and Culture Practitioner for Inclusion Equals to open the conversation for change. Inclusion Equals is a social enterprise focused on the IDEA: Inclusion = Diversity + Equity + Accessibility to build culture from the inside out. Entrepreneurial in spirit, creatively minded, and service at heart, Kimfer is a seasoned professional with 20+ years of experience with a diverse background in design, digital marketing, and organizational and leadership development, just to name a few. She is also an Adjunct Professor teaching Creativity and Innovation for MBA students and has her MBA in Executive Leadership. She speaks locally, nationally, and globally and has most recently spoken at the 2022 and 2023 World Economic Forum regarding the importance of women on boards and what it means for women to have power, authority, and agency. As a spokesperson, Kim has recognized the emotional tension that arises when the topic of DEI is brought up. She notes, if we can tone down the emotional response when DEI is brought up, we can begin to approach the change just like we would an SEO strategy update. An emotional response does no good. Instead, she talks in this podcast about her approach and it's making a difference! Change is not going to happen overnight. Just like an SEO friendly content plan doesn't happen overnight, diversity, equity, and inclusion require WORK and CONSISTENCY. If you're ready to make an impact for real change in the workplace listen to the full conversation and learn how diversity, equity, inclusion, AND accessibility go hand in hand. SPONSORS Don't let the learning stop here. Little Bird Marketing's 12-week social selling course is a practical hands-on experience designed specifically to help you network effectively and at scale, build rapport with targeted audiences, expand your influence, and become the go-to authority in your area of expertise. So this is not a quick “tips and tricks” for LinkedIn's success flash in the pan. It's a commitment to changing the way you show up online and experience career-shifting breakthroughs. This is expert instruction in small cohorts with personalized one-on-one coaching. If you're interested, learn more at https://littlebirdmarketing.com/social-influence-course/ Are you looking for experts and tools to collect research data worldwide? Global sampling, field management and data collection are just some of the services that Gazelle Global provides. Visit gazelleglobal.com to learn more about how our expertise can help you unearth quality data that drives meaningful insights. Get your research done anywhere around the world quickly and efficiently. Visit gazelleglobal.com today.
In this episode, Caleb talks with Brandon about his book, Stumbling, and doing the work of putting his faith and sexuality together.Links MentionedBrandon FlaneryStumbling: A Sassy Memoir about Coming Out of Evangelicalism by Brandon FlaneryCaleb's Substack
Mike'l Severe is joined by Creighton Women's Basketball Coach Jim Flanery and star forward Emma Ronsiek. They discuss this year's team, summer success playing for Team USA 3x3, Big East, the program's growth, Coach Flanery's time at Creighton as a coach and player, and more. Mike'l also gives us his thoughts on the Creighton Men's Basketball win over Florida A&M, his keys to a Nebraska Football win, and a preview of Saturday's game against Maryland.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
My kid brother is here. :) Pick up Stumbling: a sassy memoir about leaving evangelicalism NOW! And follow him @FlanBran BrandonFlanery.comPodcast notes:
This Quoircast episode is brought to you by Augmented: A Science Fiction Anthology, Vol I Edited by Keith Giles. Published by Quoir and available now. In this episode we chat with Brandon FlaneryBRANDON FLANERY is an ex-pastor, ex-missionary, ex-evangelical who writes about the tenuous intersection of faith and sexuality. He's conducted research on why people are leaving Christianity and is published with The Scribe, Baptist News Global, the University of Colorado, and the Colorado Springs Indy. In addition to writing, he co-founded the LGBTQ+ Christian dating app—believr—and lives in Atlanta.You can follow Brandon on:Facebook Twitter Instagram TikTokYou find all things Brandon Flanery on his websiteYou can purchase Stumbling on Amazon.comYou can connect with This Is Not Church on:Facebook Instagram Twitter TikTok YouTubeAlso check out our Linktree for all things This Is Not Church relatedPlease like and follow our Quoircast Partners:Heretic Happy Hour Messy Spirituality Apostates Anonymous Second Cup with Keith The Church Needs TherapyIdeas Digest The New Evangelicals Snarky Faith Podcast Wild Olive Deadly FaithJonathan Foster Sacred Thoughts Holy Heretics Reframing Our StoriesEach episode of This Is Not Church Podcast is expertly engineered by our producer The Podcast Doctor Eric Howell. If you're thinking of starting a podcast you need to connect with Eric!
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This week we welcome Brandon Flanery to the show! Brandon is the REVcovery trifecta (expastor, exmissionary, and exevangelical) and now writes and speaks at the intersection of faith and sexuality. In addition to being an amazing human he is also the founder of the LGBTQ+ dating app, believr. Its a great conversation that we are happy to share with you. Welcome to the REVcovery Room! We now have a Discord now for our Patrons! You can join here: Patreon.com/revcovery This podcast is edited by Elizabeth Nordenholt from Podcat Audio: https://elizabethnordenholt.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Brandon Flanery grew up in fundamentalist evangelical culture, but he knew early on he was gay. This caused him to dig in harder to his faith, leading him to an evangelical school and eventually YWAM. But he eventually discovered that embracing his sexuality gave him a peace and joy about himself, and he has since explored all manner of experiences leading him to better understand himself and the world. Brandon has a new book out now from Lake Drive Books, Stumbling: A Sassy Memoir About Coming Out of Evangelicalism. Chapel Probation is part of the Dauntless Media Collective Join the Dauntless Media Discord for more conversation with all the podcast communities. Scott's book, Asian-American-Apostate- Losing Religion and Finding Myself at an Evangelical University is available now! Music by Scott Okamoto, Jenyi, Azeem Khan, and Shin Kawasaki and Wingo Shackleford Join the Chapel Probation Patreon to support Scott and for bonus content. Join the Chapel Probation Facebook group to continue the conversations. Follow Scott on Instagram and Twitter and Substack You can subscribe to Scott's newsletter and learn more about the book, the blog, and performances at rscottokamoto.com Email Scott at info@rscottokamoto.com --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/scott-okamoto/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/scott-okamoto/support
Brandon Flanery is an ex-pastor, ex-missionary, ex-evangelical who has been writing and researching the intersection of faith and sexuality, most recently why people are leaving Christianity. He's been featured in Baptist News Global, the Colorado Springs Indy, and with the University of Colorado. His new book Stumbling: a sassy memoir about coming out of Evangelicalism debuts August 22 and is available for pre-order. You can learn more about Brandon and his writings by going to BrandonFlanery.com.Order his book: https://brandonflanery.com/book/Linkree: https://brandonflanery.com/link-tree/Andrew's LinksBecome a Patreon member HERE and access all bonus episodes + other benefits. https://www.patreon.com/4ndrewpledgerConnect with Andrew Pledger through social media, and his website. https://andrewpledger.mypixieset.com/links Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Today, we interview writer and author Brandon Flanery who shares his experiences growing up and participating in the church as a gay Christian, and his eventual departure from evangelicalism. Brandon's bright reflections on his journey brings some very welcome hope and levity to some hard subjects.Article: I asked people why they're leaving Christianity, and here's what I heardBook: Stumbling: A Sassy Memoir About Coming Out of Evangelicalism Click the link below for updates on The Deconversion Guide.https://www.thedeconversioncommunity.com/signupClick the link below donate towards The Deconversion Podcast & Guide.https://www.thedeconversioncommunity.com/donate
Julie joins me to talk about the importance of building enthusiasm into your heelwork right from the start, and how to avoid (or overcome!) training plateaus during the process of training your dog a beautiful heel.
Actor Sean Patrick Flanery grew up dreaming about motor racing wins. now he's worried about winning at the box office, especially next Friday when his latest film "Nefarious" opens nationwide. Flanery is fun even when he talks about being a control Freak. Listen...
Coach Flan Joins The Grum after his 400th win!
Julie and I talk about what shaping is, and how to use it effectively and efficiently... including putting behaviors under stimulus control!
From IDEAL22: The Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility for Learning Conference DEI has to be focused on systems change to combat systemic challenges beyond the professional development space. It's a parallel path to personal learning journey but it cannot be done by traditional learning and development alone. Gain insights into how to integrate DEI into business strategy and organizational change through brand, people, and policy, which includes meeting accessibility standards, to create a more diverse, inclusive, and equitable culture from the inside out. See the entire series from IDEAL22 at www.IDEAforLearning.com
BotD after The Grum too!
Creighton Women's Basketball head coach Jim Flanery joined the show to discuss the Breakfast of Champions and his team's summer progression.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Deja Que Dios Camine Sobre La Tierra Otra Vez La Misión de San Lucas (The Mission of St. Luke) was started by Fr. Gene Flanery in 2011 to serve the more than 300,000 Latinos residing in Kansas City. The mission has planted the only Spanish-speaking Anglican church between Chicago and Dallas. Their congregation represents four nations (Honduras, Mexico, El Salvador, and the U.S.) and is transitioning into a bilingual church, offering the Eucharist in a multicultural setting. One of their key ministry focuses is teaching English — the most essential need for virtually all immigrants. Volunteers are needed to help as conversation partners; speaking Spanish is not a requirement to help! Additionally, the mission runs a soccer summer camp for underserved children, represents families at immigration courts, and guides families to appropriate social services in the area. Over 200 Latinos receive services from the mission each year.
Jim Flanery, Why I Coach by Tom Robinson/Bennett Blake/Mandy Billings
Creighton Women's Basketball head coach Jim Flanery joined the show to discuss his team's first two games in the NCAA Tournament and what it means to the program to reach the Sweet 16 for the first time.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Creighton Women's Basketball Jim Flanery joined Nick to break down his team's recent schedule and what he's looking for out of the squad through the rest of the season.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Flan joins The Grum ahead of tomorrow!
Jan 2 Seg 3 Jim Flanery Creighton Women's Basketball Coach
You probably know Norman Reedus best from his portrayal of the character, Daryl Dixon on AMC's The Walking Dead. In this episode, Rain gets to speak with Norman about his many current endeavors including photography, acting, writing a book, and his production company, Big Bald Head. Tune in to this episode of LaunchLeft to hear more from Rain and Norman as they chat about life and what the future has in store for him. ----------------- LAUNCHLEFT OFFICIAL WEBSITE https://www.launchleft.com LAUNCHLEFT PATREON https://www.patreon.com/LaunchLeft TWITTER https://twitter.com/LaunchLeft INSTAGRAM https://www.instagram.com/launchleft/ FACEBOOK https://www.facebook.com/LaunchLeft --------------------- LaunchLeft Podcast hosted by Rain Phoenix is an intentional space for Art and Activism where famed creatives launch new artists. LaunchLeft is an alliance of left-of-center artists, a curated ecosystem that includes a podcast, label and NFT gallery. --------------------- IN THIS EPISODE: [01:27] Norman talks about what brings him joy, his early years and current happenings in his life [7:20] Norman talks about writing a book and the production company he started, Big Bald Head [12:30] Norman's experience acting on the hit show, The Walking Dead [22:10] Norman waxes romantic about the burgeoning art scene in Los Angeles in the 90's [42:12] Jake Lamagno closes the show to share a bit about his early entry into art, his sculpture and his work with thehuntnyc.com LINKS: https://www.instagram.com/bigbaldhead/ https://twitter.com/wwwbigbaldhead https://www.normanreedusonline.com https://www.facebook.com/normanreedus https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005342/ Jake Lamagno https://www.instagram.com/instastupid/ Thehuntnyc.com ABOUT NORMAN REEDUS: Norman is perhaps best known for playing the role of Murphy MacManus in the 1999 movie The Boondock Saints (1999) opposite Sean Patrick Flanery and Willem Dafoe. He also starred opposite Flanery in the 2009 sequel The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day (2009). As of 2010 he stars as Daryl Dixon in the AMC television series The Walking Dead (2010). The character was not originally in the comic book series of the same name, but was created specifically for Reedus after his audition for the character of Merle Dixon. The Walking Dead comic creator Robert Kirkman has stated he feels "absolutely blessed [Reedus] has honored the show with his presence, and the way he has come in and taken over that role and defined Daryl Dixon. A lot of Norman's portrayal of the character in the first season inspired all the writers to do what we did with him in the second season. We love writing him and end up doing cool stuff with him." In 2019, Norman founded Big Bald Head, a television and film production company. Big Bald Head is dedicated to quality storytelling at the highest level, with a strong emphasis on shining a light where others don't. They recognize the role of pop culture in fostering progressive change and are deeply committed to making art that makes a difference. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The Creighton women's basketball team is off to a red-hot 4-0 start to Big East play and on this episode, head coach Jim Flanery joins the show to discuss his team's early-season success and a huge weekend of action ahead before getting put on "The Cold Seat"!
It's time for the Comic Talk Headlines with Generally Nerdy! MODOK, Nova, Fantastic Four, Thunderbolts, Okoye, Shang Chi 2... and that's just the Rumor Mill.All that and MORE!! Catch up on all the nerdy headlines in TV and Movies, Wednesdays and Saturdays. Plus, don't forget to subscribe for more fresh content. TV/StreamingFollow-ups/CorrectionsPrimal - Season 2 getting one step closer! Genndy Tartakovsky rocks! His other project Unicorn: Warriors Eternal is also almost out of the story boarding phase. https://www.instagram.com/p/CVlvAzwP63y/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading TrailersMasters Pt 2 - https://youtu.be/zYDjYKk8kf8 Well…Book of Boba Fett - https://youtu.be/BqkWyNlmIi8 MoviesFollow-ups/CorrectionsHocus Pocus 2 - Doug Jones (among others) has been announced as part of the cast for the movie!! Does this mean Billy Butcherson will be back too?TrailersMorbius - https://youtu.be/G_lZnQPVrcg Uncharted - https://youtu.be/eHp3MbsCbMg GarfieldNew animated movie announced with Chris Pratt to voice everyone's favorite grumpy cat.https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/chris-pratt-garfield-animated-feature-1235039314/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social Boondock Saints IIISeriously happening…writer-director Duffy, Reedus, and co-star Sean Patrick Flanery are set to return for a third installment: The Boondock Saints III, according to Deadline. Flanery is also co-writing the script, with input from Reedus, as well. Filming for The Boondock Saints III is set to begin filming next May when Flannery has completed his work on The Boys and Reedus is freed up from The Walking Dead.https://deadline.com/2021/11/boondock-saints-3-norman-reedus-sean-patrick-flanery-troy-duffy-reunite-hot-afm-title-1234865849/ Rumor MillConfirmations/RefutationsMODOKJim Carrey cast as the character. The rumor goes on to say that MODOK will first appear in She-Hulk and then other Disney Plus shows. THEN he will ALSO be in Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania…NOVAJohn Boyega rumored to play NOVA in the still rumored NOVA movie…Marvel 2023ANOTHER “insider” is saying that 2023 is going to see a few projects go into production Thunderbolts movie, Fantastic Four, NOVA, Okoye, Shang Chi 2, WB MultiversusThis screenshot is pretty convincing…Steven Universe (Steven Universe), Batman (DC Comics), Harley Quinn (DC Comics), Finn (Adventure Time), Jake (Adventure Time), Shaggy (Scooy-Doo!), Superman (DC Comics), Wonder Woman (DC Comics), Gandalf the Grey (Lord of the Rings), Rick Sanchez (Rick and Morty), Bugs Bunny (Looney Tunes), Tom & Jerry (Tom & Jerry), and an original character…Darth MaulAnimated series said to be in the works. Supposed to be a prequel to Solo.Donkey KongNEW rumors have it that Seth Rogen IS in fact going to reprise his part as the voice of DK, AND the new movie will be an Illumination Studios project…Moon KnightEthan Hawk reportedly playing Dracula in the show.You can support this show by visiting our merch store, or by leaving us an Apple Podcasts review.
It's time for the Comic Talk Headlines with Generally Nerdy! MODOK, Nova, Fantastic Four, Thunderbolts, Okoye, Shang Chi 2... and that's just the Rumor Mill.All that and MORE!! Catch up on all the nerdy headlines in TV and Movies, Wednesdays and Saturdays. Plus, don't forget to subscribe for more fresh content. TV/StreamingFollow-ups/CorrectionsPrimal - Season 2 getting one step closer! Genndy Tartakovsky rocks! His other project Unicorn: Warriors Eternal is also almost out of the story boarding phase. https://www.instagram.com/p/CVlvAzwP63y/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading TrailersMasters Pt 2 - https://youtu.be/zYDjYKk8kf8 Well…Book of Boba Fett - https://youtu.be/BqkWyNlmIi8 MoviesFollow-ups/CorrectionsHocus Pocus 2 - Doug Jones (among others) has been announced as part of the cast for the movie!! Does this mean Billy Butcherson will be back too?TrailersMorbius - https://youtu.be/G_lZnQPVrcg Uncharted - https://youtu.be/eHp3MbsCbMg GarfieldNew animated movie announced with Chris Pratt to voice everyone's favorite grumpy cat.https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/chris-pratt-garfield-animated-feature-1235039314/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social Boondock Saints IIISeriously happening…writer-director Duffy, Reedus, and co-star Sean Patrick Flanery are set to return for a third installment: The Boondock Saints III, according to Deadline. Flanery is also co-writing the script, with input from Reedus, as well. Filming for The Boondock Saints III is set to begin filming next May when Flannery has completed his work on The Boys and Reedus is freed up from The Walking Dead.https://deadline.com/2021/11/boondock-saints-3-norman-reedus-sean-patrick-flanery-troy-duffy-reunite-hot-afm-title-1234865849/ Rumor MillConfirmations/RefutationsMODOKJim Carrey cast as the character. The rumor goes on to say that MODOK will first appear in She-Hulk and then other Disney Plus shows. THEN he will ALSO be in Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania…NOVAJohn Boyega rumored to play NOVA in the still rumored NOVA movie…Marvel 2023ANOTHER “insider” is saying that 2023 is going to see a few projects go into production Thunderbolts movie, Fantastic Four, NOVA, Okoye, Shang Chi 2, WB MultiversusThis screenshot is pretty convincing…Steven Universe (Steven Universe), Batman (DC Comics), Harley Quinn (DC Comics), Finn (Adventure Time), Jake (Adventure Time), Shaggy (Scooy-Doo!), Superman (DC Comics), Wonder Woman (DC Comics), Gandalf the Grey (Lord of the Rings), Rick Sanchez (Rick and Morty), Bugs Bunny (Looney Tunes), Tom & Jerry (Tom & Jerry), and an original character…Darth MaulAnimated series said to be in the works. Supposed to be a prequel to Solo.Donkey KongNEW rumors have it that Seth Rogen IS in fact going to reprise his part as the voice of DK, AND the new movie will be an Illumination Studios project…Moon KnightEthan Hawk reportedly playing Dracula in the show.You can support this show by visiting our merch store, or by leaving us an Apple Podcasts review.
Fr. Gene Flanery shares his vision for Latino Ministry in Kansas City, Kansas, as part of the mission of his church: THE MISSION OF ST. LUKE - LA MISIÓN DE SAN LUCAS. St. Aidan's partners with LA MISIÓN DE SAN LUCAS in benevolence needs and volunteers for English as a Second Language Classes. If you sense a prompting to help in any way, contact Fr. Gene via their website: https://www.missionofstlukekc.org/
Erin Keam's Conversations about Closets with my Closest 1000 friends.
Entrepreneurial in spirit, creative-minded and service-at-heart, Kim “Kimfer” Flanery-Rye is a seasoned professional with upwards of 20 years of industry experience. She has a rich background in various processes and practices, including marketing, brand, creative and organizational development. She is the Founder and Principal DEI & Culture Consultant for MyKimisms, LLC, a social enterprise with a culture-first approach to providing brand strategy, design thinking, and organizational and leadership development specifically focused on the IDEA: Inclusion = Diversity + Equity + Accessibility to build culture from the inside out. She is also an adjunct professor teaching Creativity and Innovation to MBA students and holds an MBA in executive leadership. Find Kimfer here: Website: https://www.mykimisms.com Instagram and Twitter handle: @mykimisms LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimflaneryrye/ ----- About Erin Female-identifying and want to be a guest? Book here! https://erinkeamlife.as.me/conversationsaboutclosets Erin Keam is a stylist like no other, thanks to her unique The Happy Wardrobe Method. This Method, which provides instant insights and lasting results explores beloved possessions in your home to find personal themes and create a one-of-a-kind Style Statement, transforming your wardrobe and positively impacting your closet, business, career and life. Oh, and she teaches you to look great, get dressed easily and with confidence. Discover your style brand and get to your ideal closet (& life) faster! https://www.erinkeam.com/ Click to book a FREE Wear Happy Consult (she's on PST time) https://WearHappyConsult.as.me/FREE Or to talk about how you look on camera https://WearHappyConsult.as.me/ZoomReady Or to sign up for her FREE Zoom-Ready workshops https://www.thehappywardrobe.com/zoom-ready --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/erin-keam/support
Creighton Women's Basketball Head Coach Jim Flanery joins the show thanks to McGough Law. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
HR2 is focused on some NFL news: Will Phillip Rivers return to the gridiron? He hasn't ruled it out. Also is Andy Dalton giving justin Fields a run for his money? Plus Creighton Women's Basketball Coach Jim Flanery joins the show.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
In Episode 8, we feature Kimfer Flanery-Rye, Founder and Principal DEI & Culture Consultant at MyKimisms, LLC. She talks about human-centered design thinking, how to transform business strategy and culture via DEI, and how to avoid tokenism or simulating otherness. She also shares the importance of allyship and how success can be measured for growth opportunities. Rise Up: AAPI Excellence is a podcast devoted to celebrating the experiences, challenges, and successes of all Asian, Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander community. *Stock music provided by wolfgangwoehrle, from Pond5
BS After Dark - Episode 5 Kirsten Booth Creighton Volleyball Coach And Jim Flanery Creighton Women's Basketball Coach
Description: For this week's show, I brought on 3 freestyle stars to talk about the sport, what got them hooked, and how they approach training.
Creighton women's hoops head coach Jim Flanery hopped on with Jordan and Matt to talk about the season his team just concluded and the run senior guard Temi Carda went on over the last 10 games of her career. He also provided his perspective on how the NCAA handled the organization of the women's tournament, as well helped the guys preview Saturday's highly anticipated showdown between Paige Bueckers and Caitlin Clark and Sunday's matchup between Gonzaga and Creighton.
Sean Patrick Flanery is an American actor, producer, author and martial artist. He is known for his main role in the Boondock Saints and just released his film Born a Champion which is a 2021 American martial arts drama. It stars Flanery, Dennis Quaid and Katrina Bowden. The film also features mixed martial arts fighter Edson Barboza, with appearances by Renzo Gracie and Mickey Gall. I watched Born a Champion with my family and was really moved by the accuracy of the movie and capturing this era of time of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Vale Tudo/Mixed Martial Arts.
Martial Artist and Actor, SEAN PATRICK FLANERY joins me to talk about his passion for martial arts, and pouring his heart and soul into BORN A CHAMPION. Playing American BJJ fighter, Mickey Kelley, Flanery chats about the central themes of the film: family, faith, fatherhood, love, and legacy. We discuss, debate and dissect kung fu movies and martial arts cinema & tv, past, present, and future! SPONSORS: www.tinboxsolutions.com www.wearenotgoodpeople.com OUTRO MUSIC: http://youtu.be/5zeRoGFft2s by Justin H @KingofKungFuAMP
Hey Poison Clan this is a special contest announcement to celebrate the release of the new martial arts action film BORN A CHAMPION starring SEAN PATRICK FLANERY, KATRINA BOWDEN, and DENNIS QUAID. In this film written by and starring Flanery, Sean plays Mickey Kelly, one of the first American black belts in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. But beyond the martial arts, the film is about the love of family, the drive for greatness, and the will of one man to do what it takes and never give up without a fight. BORN A CHAMPION is available RIGHT NOW in select theaters, on Digital, or On Demand BUT for my listeners, I am giving away FIVE digital codes so you can download the film and have it for your very own. If you want your chance at one of the five codes, head over to Twitter and follow me @kungfudrivein, or Instagram and follow me @kungfudriveinpodcast, or Facebook @Kung Fu Drive In Podcast and post your answer to this SIMPLE question about the film. If you actually listened to this promo, you already know the answer. But wherever you post the answer you have to tag me and use the hashtag #BORNACHAMPION or the entry won’t count. The contest ends Sunday January 31st at 12 midnight EST and I’ll announce the winners on social media then. So here’s the very simple question … In the film BORN A CHAMPION, what’s the name of the true life character that Sean Patrick Flanery plays? That’s it. Go post the answer, use the hashtags and if your name gets drawn, the code is yours.
WBR's Matt DeMarinis previews the 2020-21 women's basketball season with Creighton head coach Jim Flanery.
Description: How do YOU choose which technique(s) you'll use for a particular behavior? We do a deep dive into that question with Julie Flanery in this week's podcast.
Our Big East Women's Basketball coaching series resumes this week with Creighton's Jim Flanery. Coach Flanery talks about the growth of the program under his leadership, coaching his alma mater, previews this year's team and more.Note: This episode was recorded prior to announcements about the 2020 season being played.
David Flanery, Former CFO Benihana & Papa John’s, is one of the most respected leaders in the financial industry. He is described as “living at the intersection of super competence, total integrity and always sees the path to a business win”. David believes that problems aren’t Stop Signs, instead, they are guidelines. He enlightens us why we should never let a good problem go waste. He looks at problems and challenges as opportunities, as learning from what does not work is as important as what does work to help move forward. In his mind, curiosity to always dig a little deeper, measuring and being measured are the key to Win Big. Listen to David to hear more about how Leadership starts with acknowledging “We’ve got a problem”. Secrets to Win Big with Arjun Sen brings you leaders from around the world and all walks of life. Join the discussion on this episode on LinkedIn and Facebook Tweet me @ZenMango Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Head Coach Jim Flanery talks about his philosophy on building a good culture and tips on navigating the recruiting process. Full video episode on Youtube: https://youtu.be/9iLesbj-Sxo Visit our site: https://dvlpbasketball.com All socials @dvlpbasketball --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/dvlp-basketball/support
Charleston Home and Design Radio Show Feed
Charleston Home and Design Radio Show Feed
Churchill Downs President Kevin Flanery updates us on all of the changes made this morning to the fan experience for the 146th Kentucky Derby. He discussed why they lowered the number of fans in attendance, how seats/boxes will be socially distanced, the elimination of shuttles and general admission tickets, new procedures for concession stands and betting windows, and more...
Churchill Downs President Kevin Flanery updates us on all of the changes made this morning to the fan experience for the 146th Kentucky Derby. He discussed why they lowered the number of fans in attendance, how seats/boxes will be socially distanced, the elimination of shuttles and general admission tickets, new procedures for concession stands and betting windows, and more...
I have been a long time fan of Reboot Recovery- "REBOOT helps people overcome trauma through faith-based programs. Our courses, training and online community are open to anyone connected to military or first responders. If the same old therapy or medication has left you feeling hopeless, you've come to the right place. At REBOOT, we’re overcoming trauma together and can't wait for you to join us." In this episode, Bryan Flanery a veteran who struggles with TBI, shares his story of trauma, faith, and how the genuine relationships of those behind Reboot changed his life. You will be changed by this episode. Contact Reboot for more on how you can get involved, find a small group and get the support you need as a military or first responder couple. Hear more of Bryan's story here: https://neveralonemilitary.com/stories/view/bryan-flanery Interested in subscribing to the Lifegiver Newsletter? Subscribers get discounts on their first session with Corie and find more information on building a community of Lifegivers. Click here to subscribe. Want to give back? Send a monthly cup of coffee to keep us going by being a supporter on our patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/lifegiver
On today’s program we’re talking with Guthrie Center Area Development Board President Dennis Flanery about the Guthrie Center businesses affected by the upper story building fire that occurred downtown last week.
05.21.20 Thursday - Mary Elliott Flanery by Think Humanities
The Materialists are…. Becky O'Sullivan (Public Archaeology Coordinator, FPAN West Central Region) Nigel Rudolph (Public Archaeology Coordinator, FPAN Central Region) For more info on FPAN please visit http://fpan.us/ We would like to thank…. The Florida Public Archaeology Network, The University of South Florida - Department of Anthropology, and The Crystal River Preserve and Archaeological State Park. For more info on USF Anthro Department please visit their website at https://www.usf.edu/arts-sciences/departments/anthropology/ For More info about the Crystal River Archaeological State Park please visit their website at https://www.floridastateparks.org/parks-and-trails/crystal-river-archaeological-state-park Thank you to the band Have Gun, Will Travel for the use of their song Silver and the Age of Opulence for our intro music. For more information on HGWT please visit their website at http://hgwtmusic.com/ For questions or concerns about the podcast please email us at the materialistspodcast@gmail.com Mini-Episode 3: Story Telling in the Round: Donna Flanery Huge thank you to Donna Flanery for the interview. If you would like more information about Donna please Google Donna Flanery Ceramics or follow one of the links below! https://donna-flanery.squarespace.com/ https://artaxis.org/donna-flanery/ https://www.theclaystudioofmissoula.org/
DESCRIPTION Props are there tot help you TEACH a behavior... but often we get stuck, and continue using them for way too long! Julie shares her method for fading them from your training once they've served their purpose, so you can begin building those final behaviors!
Kim talks to new guest Hannah Keller Flanery. Special Guest: Hannah Keller Flanery..
The films, Powder and The Boy Who Could Fly, first appealed to young audiences in the 1980s and 1990s, because their teenage male protagonists stood out from the rest of the crowd. Both movies feature adolescent heroes with supernatural powers; but that’s where their similarities end. As Karen and Janet work to unravel the differences between these films, a myriad issues begin to emerge, ultimately challenging the ladies' belief that these were ever guilty pleasure movies to begin with.
This episode, I talk with Dr. John Flanery, President of Bishop Heelan Catholic Schools. We discuss the presence and importance of arts in the schools, but we dedicate most of our time to his work with the Missouri River Choral Society. He also drops some knowledge on Handel and Schubert. So listen up.
On the second hour of The Nick Handley Show, Nick is out and we play some of our more recent interviews. FIrst we talk with second time winner PGA Professional of the year Ryan Vermeer. Next, Kendall Rogers of D1baseball.com talks about the MLB draft coming to Omaha. Then Creighton womens head basketball coach Jim Flanery talks about his team. We end the hour with a listener's story on Kobe.
Nick was joined by Head Coach for the Creighton women's basketball team Jim Flanery to talk about his team as they gear up for Xavier on Friday.
On the second hour of The Nick Handley show, Nick and producer TJ talk about more snow coming and Nick talks about the robo umps that will be in place in spring training. Next, Nick does not agree with Pedro Martinez on Mike Fiers. Then Head Coach for Creighton womens hoops team joins the show.
Description: It's fun to start new behaviors - but often we get distracted (or frustrated!) and never take those behaviors through to completion. Julie and I talk about how to avoid that problem and how to actually reach those long-held training goals.
Un simple viaje en familia narrado por la autora, nos hizo cuestionar sobre las relaciones familiares, el bien y el mal e incluso, sobre lo potencialmente peligrosos que podemos ser. ¡Claro! también nos reímos con los sucesos de este libro y disfrutamos un buen café.
"The Boondock Saints" went from the hottest script in Hollywood to a pathetic five-theater release, to one of the biggest cult classics of the late '90s. But does Troy Duffy's underground hit film live up to all the hype, or was it just a weird byproduct of an edgy era? Listener Jim L. from London wired some money across the pond to commission this shoot-em-up episode of Shat The Movies, exposing Big D to his first taste of The Saints in action. Did you know Duffy originally wanted Mark Wahlberg, Kenneth Branagh, and even Robert De Niro in this movie? Gene did. Did you know there's some lovely side dick? Rog did. Did you know "The Boondock Saints" paved the way for "John Wick" to be made? It's not a fact, but Gene's pretty sure of it. Also explore whether "The Boondock Saints" is loosely based on Kevin Smith's "Dogma," what constitutes telegraphing homosexuality, and Duffy's surprisingly artistic use of slow motion. Subscribe & Follow Android: http://shatthemovies.com/android Apple/iTunes: http://shatthemovies.com/itunes Social Media: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat Website: http://shatthemovies.com/ Help Support the Podcast Donate with Paypal: http://shatthemovies.com/paypal Donate With Venmo: https://venmo.com/shatpodcasts Shop Amazon With Our Affiliate Link: https://www.amazon.com/?tag=shatmovies-20 Sponsor's Listener Survey: http://shatthemovies.com/survey Leave an iTunes Review: http://shatthemovies.com/review Vote for our Next Movies: http://shatthemovies.com/vote Feeds & Social Media: http://shatthemovies.com/subscribe-and-follow Leave a Voicemail: (914) 719-SHAT - (914) 719-7428 Email: hosts@shatthemovies.com Listen to our TV Podcasts: https://shatontv.com/shat-on-podcasts Theme Song - Die Hard by Guyz Nite: https://www.facebook.com/guyznite
Description: Julie Flanery joins me to talk about her positions class, clean communication, the importance of good mechanics in getting trained behaviors more quickly, and more.
Fr. Gene Flanery, rector of the Mission of St. Luke in Kansas City, Kansas.
The Movie Men review and critique the flawed but enjoyable cult classic, The Boondock Saints.
In dit nieuwe avontuur gaat Ruud in gesprek met Rob van den Bergh, filmprogrammeur bij Inscience! Voluit: het International Science Film Festival. En Rob heeft zijn zinnen erop gezet om cultklassieker The Boondock Saints (1999) met de grond gelijk te maken. Kan onze presentator daar een stokje voor steken? Natuurlijk kan de documentaire Overnight (2003), die Troy Duffy in een kwaad daglicht stelt, niet onbesproken blijven. En verder hebben we het over de Quentin Tarantino-boom, Harvey Weinstein en dode katten. Irish People Watch The Boondock Saints For the First Time: https://youtu.be/QhwXV75pJGo Cats Die Funny, Dogs Die Sad (Fandor): https://youtu.be/HHqwVhi_JIY
She's been in the biz since she was nine, she's fluent in French, she knows how to swordfight, and she loves "Fight Club." She's also twelve years old. We sat down with the fantastically delightful Lola Flanery on Sunday, for a super fun interview which then got eaten by Skype Recorder (*shakes fist at ALIE*), so we gave it a second try on Wednesday and had even MORE fun. Join us as we plot a prank war against Sachin and Bob, discuss Warrior Cats and My Little Ponies, get the scoop on stunt training and Trigedasleng, hear what it's like to be the kid on set in a room full of grownups, and learn what Lola loves most about playing Madi. TL;DR - THIS KID IS THE BEST AND WE'RE ADOPTING HER NOW
Summary: Julie Flanery has been working professionally with dogs and their handlers since 1993. She focuses on the needs of the dog and helping people form a strong relationship, through clear communication, and positive reinforcement. She has placed Obedience, Freestyle, Rally-Obedience, Rally-FrEe, Parkour, Agility, and Trick Dog titles on her dogs. She began competing in Musical Freestyle in 1999 and was the first to both title and earn a Heelwork to Music Championship on the West coast. In 2001 she was named "Trainer of the Year" by the World Canine Freestyle Organization and has been a competition freestyle judge since 2003. Five years ago Julie developed the sport of Rally-FrEe to help freestylers increase the quality and precision of their performances. It has since become a stand-alone sport enjoyed by dog sport enthusiasts all over the world. Julie has been a workshop and seminar presenter both nationally and internationally. She currently trains and competes with her Tibetan Terrier in both Musical Freestyle and Rally-FrEe. Next Episode: To be released 9/07/2018, featuring Julie Daniels, talking about Building Canine Confidence. TRANSCRIPTION: Melissa Breau: This is Melissa Breau and you're listening to the Fenzi Dog Sports Podcast brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy, an online school dedicated to providing high-quality instruction for competitive dog sports using only the most current and progressive training methods. Today we’ll be talking to Julie Flanery. Julie has been working professionally with dogs and their handlers since 1993. She focuses on the needs of the dog and helping people form a strong relationship through clear communication and positive reinforcement. She has placed Obedience, Freestyle, Rally-Obedience, Rally-FrEe, Parkour, Agility, and Trick Dog titles on her dogs. She began competing in Musical Freestyle in 1999 and was the first to both title and earn a Heelwork to Music Championship on the West Coast. In 2001 she was named "Trainer of the Year" by the World Canine Freestyle Organization and has been a competition freestyle judge since 2003. Five years ago Julie developed the sport of Rally-FrEe to help freestylers increase the quality and precision of their performances. It has since become a stand-alone sport enjoyed by dog sport enthusiasts all over the world. Julie has been a workshop and seminar presenter both nationally and internationally. She currently trains and competes with her Tibetan Terrier in both Musical Freestyle and Rally-FrEe. So welcome back to the podcast Julie! Julie Flanery: Thanks Melissa. Melissa Breau: To start us out, can you just remind everybody a little bit of information about your dog and what you do with her? Julie Flanery: I have Kashi and she is my 8-year-old Tibetan Terrier. She thinks her primary job is to keep our home safe from all of those wild rabbits out there. She will sit forever, just staring at the fence line, waiting for one to pop its head through, or if she sees one on the other side of the fence, she’ll calmly sit and wait until they believe she’s no threat, then she goes into stalk mode. My sweet, little, adorable dog has four kills to her name now. So it’s kind of funny, because despite her breed name, there is no terrier in Tibetan Terriers, so it wasn’t something that I expected in her. But she is really, really fun to train, and I find something enjoyable and fun about her every single day. She makes me laugh every single day. I currently compete with her in Musical Freestyle and Rally FrEe. And maybe in the fall we might be adding a puppy to the family, but I’m not quite sure yet on that. So more news to come, maybe. Melissa Breau: I will be excited to hear that, if it happens. Julie Flanery: I will too. Melissa Breau: I bet. So, I wanted to have you on tonight to talk about something that I think is probably pretty important to a good percentage of our listeners. I want to talk about heeling. Non-freestylers may not realize it, but heelwork is a pretty big part of freestyle, right? Can you just talk a little bit about the role it plays in the sport? Julie Flanery: To anybody that has done obedience, there is nothing more beautiful than a joyful heeling dog. We all have that picture in our head, and what it looks like, and it can take your breath away. The only thing I think might be more beautiful is watching a freestyle routine with a joyful heeling dog, and maybe I’m biased there, but I think that adds a whole ’nother level of animation to heelwork. Heelwork is really what holds a freestyle routine together. We often talk about it’s the glue that holds it together, but I think it’s really so much more than that. In terms of holding the routine together, it’s very easy to get lost in a routine. We have 3 minutes of 50 to 80 cued behaviors, and we don’t always remember our full routine. No matter how much you memorize your routine, and no matter how much you work your routine, it doesn’t always go as planned. I have never met a freestyler that said, “Oh yeah, we went out there and it was perfect.” So you have to be a little prepared for that, and having a dog that understands heelwork, has a strong desire to be in heel, one that defaults to a standing heel position, then your dog is always in a right place where you can make things right again. It also means your dog can maintain a sense of purpose. If he’s not quite sure where he should be, or what he should be doing, either maybe there’s a wrong cue, or I screwed up something in my choreography, he can maintain that level of confidence and joy by defaulting to a heel position, and it gives me the confidence then to pull us out of whatever scrape we’ve gotten into. In freestyle, we train our behaviors, especially behaviors that we use as transitions from a position to a position, so whatever behavior I’m going to include in my freestyle routines, I train it where my dog starts in a heelwork position. In order for that behavior to be completed, she has to come back to a heelwork position, and if she doesn’t understand those positions, then I’m going to lose the accuracy and precision of the behaviors. Those positions give me a stronger execution of all of my freestyle behaviors. So without that understanding, many of my freestyle behaviors are going to degrade, and if the dog isn’t set up correctly, then not only is that behavior not going to be accurate, but my next behavior isn’t going to start in a correct place and it’s going to lose its accuracy and precision. So having a dog that understands their heelwork positions is incredibly important in freestyle, because without it, everything else is going to fall apart, and that’s why we say it’s the glue that holds the routines together. I think that many see freestyle as kind of a loosey-goosey sport, you know, you go out and you move and you dance with your dog, and you have them do some tricks. But if you look at some of the world’s best freestylers, those handlers understand and utilize heelwork to give their routines that polish, that unity, that really make their routines stand out. So I think as we are moving forward in the sport, more freestylers are trying to make heelwork a much more important piece of their training program than maybe it was in the past. Melissa Breau: You mentioned in there that you’re looking for a joyful demeanor in heeling. Can you talk more about that and describe what you’re looking for when you’re training your dog to heel? What does that final picture really look like? Julie Flanery: As you said, first and foremost, I need my dog to learn to love heeling. That’s for the reasons mentioned above, but also I want her both to look and I want her to feel happy when she’s heeling. If heeling allows her to be in a happy emotional state, then she’s more likely to be able to ignore the environment, she’s better able to take and respond to cues, she understands and loves that job of heeling. If she or I get lost in a routine, her default will be to stay in heel, and if she can do that, I can get us through those rough patches. In terms of physical appearance, I like my dog’s head up. I like her looking at my face. That’s both because I think it looks pretty, but that’s kind of my security blanket. I think if she’s looking at me, she must be paying attention. So that’s part of my picture. I want her looking up at my face as part of my training. I like that the front end to be lifted so that the weight is off of the shoulders and you can get more lift to the chest and in the front feet. I like a dog that has a little bit of a prance to it, so I try to work that into my criteria. What people may not know is that in freestyle, the dog and handler team choose their own heelwork position. So if the dog is a little wide, but consistently a little wide, always that distance from the handler, then no points are taken off. Small dogs oftentimes are a little more comfortable not being right under the handler’s feet, so that’s an example where a handler might decide to allow their dog to have a little more distance from them. As long as that distance is consistent, then it doesn’t hurt the score any. I like my dog to forge a little, to show off that little prance that she has. So as long as she is consistent in her position, that she’s always forging that little bit, maybe my leg is closer to her shoulder or rib, and as long as she maintains that position in relation to me, then that’s not going to hurt our score any. And it actually showcases the part of her heelwork which I really love, which is that little foot action that she sometimes has. So in freestyle there’s some leeway. There’s some ability to customize your heelwork position as long as it’s consistent. So you can choose, or use A.K.C’s definition, or whatever organization you show obedience under, or you could vary from that a little bit to either help your dog be more comfortable in heeling or to showcase something that your dog really does well. Melissa Breau: Obviously, heeling is a super-complex thing to train. Just from that description, you talked about all these pieces of that criteria. Different trainers start with different bits and different approaches. I’d love to hear how you approach it. How do you get started? Julie Flanery: Like all training, we have to look at both the physical criteria and the emotional component. Heelwork is physically demanding, so I want to make sure that my dog is getting a really high enough rate of reward and value of reinforcement for all of that hard work, and I want to maintain that high rate of reward for a really long time, probably much longer and with much greater frequency than I do for other behaviors. Hand touches are a huge part of my heelwork. They help me both create position and lift and fun, and I can do all sorts of games with my hand touches. And yes, there is a right way and a wrong way to teach a hand touch, and people will learn that in the class that I’m doing in October. Platforms also, both standing platforms and pivot platforms, are really important in my program. It’s where I start to add the cue. It’s where I know with certainty that I can get my dog to perform that precision criteria that I really want. And the dog learns to use his rear end in a way through the pivot platforms that helps him maintain position. So those are really big tools that I use. Shaping is part of my heelwork training. I think a dog that understands how to offer correct positioning can fix an issue without waiting for the handler to do it for them, and I think in heelwork that’s huge. It also helps to build a desire to get to heel and stay in heel. That shaping includes both finding the position while I’m stationary and also while I’m moving. For example, I really like Dawn Jecs’ Choose To Heel protocol, and that’s all about shaping how to find a moving heel position. Too, with shaping, I don’t necessarily want to use the cue I started to add on the platforms, so I want my dog to understand that she doesn’t have to wait for a cue to give me either some or all of that criteria. So shaping gives the dog control of that reinforcement in a lot of different ways, and if she can offer that heelwork criteria that I’ve been working on at any time, or those things that earn rewards, then that puts me ahead of the game, because I don’t have to work as hard at getting that criteria all the time. And then, of course, there’s fun and games. We don’t want to forget that. Those things are where we don’t really worry about precision or accuracy at all. The rewards come for moving with me or moving to my side with lots of enthusiasm, and it’s that attitude that I want to really create and reinforce through games. So I teach technical aspects and then I also teach the fun and games aspects all in the same timeline. I don’t do one first and then the other. They’re both being played and trained all in the same timeframe. Once the dog has some experience in each of those, I can start to combine those components. But really I find that it’s the dog that starts to combine them. You’ll be playing a game and that promotes those certain attributes, like lift, enthusiasm, and all of a sudden she’ll move into a perfect heel position. Those are the times you want to be really ready and willing to click. It’s those one or two steps in the middle of a game that she’s suddenly offering, and that’s what’s really cool, when the dog says, through their offering of the things you’ve been reinforcing, that doing this precision work is really part of the game. That’s what I think is really, really fun to see. Of course, I use the games to sneak in the different components. So a game of chase could turn into clicking collection as soon as I start to slow down, or a game of “catch me if you can,” where I might use a bit of opposition reflex, will turn into the dog putting some lift and energy into that first step off in heel. So the dog is doing these components as part of that fun game again, and all of the components, whether they’re the game pieces or whether they’re the precision and accuracy pieces, they’re all getting heavily reinforced and rewarded, so I can get both that physical criteria, the technical criteria, and a dog that thinks that this is just all one big game. So that’s how I look at it. Because both of those pieces are super-important, I don’t think I would want one without the other. Certainly you don’t want this enthusiastic, bouncy, out-of-control dog without that precision and accuracy, and that precision and accuracy really just isn’t the picture that I have in my mind of beautiful heelwork without all that enthusiasm and joy. So I want to make sure that in my program I’m bringing them both together, but training them kind of separately. Melissa Breau: That’s interesting. It’s kind of a different approach. Julie Flanery: Yeah. I think a lot of people want both those things, and maybe they’re just putting it together in a slightly different way. But I really like it when the dog says, “Oh, this gets rewarded too,” and “Oh, I really like doing this just as much as I like the game aspect of it.” Because even though they’re rewarded separately, the dog learns to bring those two things together. They say everything bleeds in training. One piece of criteria sometimes will bleed into another piece of criteria. Or one action will bleed into another. One behavior will bleed into another. Those things that are reinforced will bleed into each other. And this is an area where you want that. Some areas you don’t want that. This is an area where you really do want that. Melissa Breau: We talked a little bit in there about obedience versus freestyle. I’m curious, how does the heelwork you want in freestyle compare to what somebody might want for the obedience ring? What are some of the similarities or differences? Julie Flanery: In both sports, obviously, you want that lift, that animation, that focus, the precision. In freestyle, the dog heels on both the right and the left side, so there’s some additional training time that needs to be put into that. Even if you don’t do freestyle, it’s a good idea to train heelwork on both sides to help build symmetry in muscle development, and I think more and more handlers are starting to do that. In freestyle, we teach heelwork as a specific place in relation to the handler while standing. So there are no default sits in freestyle. In obedience, there seems to be a lot of emphasis on the sit in heel. When you think about it, though, when heeling, I would guess that maybe 90 percent of the time the dog is actually on all fours, standing. So I think it’s important in training to separate out the sit-in-heel from the stand-in-heel from the move-in-heel. They’re all very different components with very different criteria. It’s easy to start to lump them together in our training, and I think that’s oftentimes to the detriment of some of the overall wholeness of our heelwork. If we spend too much time on that sit and heel, sit and heel, getting into to sit and heel, we may not be spending an appropriate amount of time on teaching the dog where he should be when he’s standing in relation to our body, and when he’s moving in relation to our body. Does that make sense? Melissa Breau: Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s an interesting point, because you’re right, I see a lot of people practice especially that setup. Julie Flanery: The setup is huge. In freestyle, the other thing is that we heel in a variety of directions, not just forward. We’ll go sideways or laterally, we’ll be backing in heel or backing in right heel. In obedience, the dog generally is always propelling themselves forward, whereas in freestyle the dog learns that the handler may move in any direction, and that their job is to stay in position no matter what that direction is. While we do see more and more obedience handlers seeing the value of that, teaching multidirectional heelwork, it’s not required in the obedience ring the same way it is in freestyle. So it’s something that freestylers spend a lot of time on, whereas I think obedience trainers don’t spend quite the amount of time on it that we have to in freestyle. So I think that gives the dog a much better understanding of where that position is. I train it, I think most freestylers … maybe not all, but I know I train heelwork as a stationary position in relation to the handler. It’s not a moving skill for me to start, for my dog to start. The staying with me is a byproduct of the movement. So if my dog understands that she should be at my left side or at my right side, with her shoulder at my pant seam, then if I take a step backwards and she finds enough value in being there, she’s going to work to get there and stay there. If I step sideways, she’s going to work to get there and stay there. If I step forward, if I pivot, wherever my leg goes, she’s going to work hard to stay there. But I think some handlers skip the step of building value in the position in relation to the handler and spend more time on teaching the setup, the sit, or teaching forward movement. I think they would have those things if the reinforcement, the time, the energy was spent in teaching the dog to find value in just staying in the position stationary before we start adding a lot of movement, and then teaching the dog to move in more than one direction. I think that generalizes what we’re trying to teach them, that this is the place we want you to be, this is Disneyland, this is the sweet spot. Everything good happens here, and you only have to do one thing. You don’t have to think about moving forward, you don’t have to think about moving sideways, you don’t have to think about a pivot. All you have to think about is being right here at my side. I use only a single cue for all of my heelwork, whether I’m going backwards, whether I’m going forwards, or whether I’m doing a lateral side pass or pivoting. It’s all the same cue because it’s all the same behavior to the dog. I think that might be a little bit different than what many obedience handlers train. I think a lot of time is spent on forward-moving heelwork and on the setup. So I think that’s something people will see a little bit differently in freestyle training. Melissa Breau: I could certainly see how teaching the dog the concept of heelwork from that perspective of sticking with the handler rather than necessarily about a specific direction of what have you. I can see how that would be really valuable, regardless of the sport. Julie Flanery: To me, I think it simplifies the skill for the dog. It totally simplifies the skill. And in freestyle, again, we have a lot of cues in freestyle. We’re constantly saying, “Oh my God, I’m running out of cues.” To be able to have all of those behaviors — backing in heel, pivots in heel, side passes in heel, forward in heel, forward 360s — to have all of those behaviors be a single cue, I think that really clarifies it for the dog, and it makes it so much easier on both the dog and the handler. The dog doesn’t have to learn all of these different cues and what are the behaviors that they attach to those. They need to learn one cue and one skill. So I think it really simplifies it and clarifies it for the dog. Melissa Breau: If I understand correctly, one additional piece that maybe you didn’t get into so much is the value that you place on teaching the dog to really listen to a verbal in freestyle and not be cueing so much off your body language. Can you talk a little bit about that, why it’s important and how you work on it? Julie Flanery: No matter what, our dogs are always going to cue off of our bodies to some extent, and even if you have strong verbal cues, they do look to our bodies for information. In freestyle we want our verbal cues to override the value of what’s happening with our bodies. That takes a very strong reinforcement history for verbal cues and it takes a very specific process or protocol to teach those verbal cues. I may want to use my body, my arms, my legs, how I tilt my head, to interpret the music, to basically dance to the music or convey a story through a skit. I want my dog to be able to ignore what I’m doing with my body and favor what I’m cuing verbally. I want to appear as if my dog is performing of her own accord. I don’t want the audience to see my cues, as that can really disrupt the magic that we’re trying to present. We’re trying to show that the dog is not just a willing participant, but is actually initiating parts of this dance. That’s really the magic of freestyle is when those cues are hidden, when you can’t tell that the dog is being cued, and it appears as if he’s initiating these behaviors. That, to me, is really the magic of freestyle. That’s what I want to portray out there. In getting that, if I really want it, if I need my dog to really respond to my verbal cues, I need to count on his response to those verbal cues, I need to follow a specific protocol that’s going to help her truly learn the meaning of those cues. I think that, for the most part, handlers make the assumption that if they’re saying it, the dog is learning it, or if they make their hand cue smaller and smaller, the dog will take the information from what we’re saying, rather than that little bit of a hand cue that’s left, and that’s just often not true. We know that by the number of times we say things and our dog just looks at us like, “What?” It’s not until we provide some measure of body cuing that they say, “Oh, it was this. This is what you wanted.” They’ll certainly pick up meanings of certain words that way and phrases over time, you know, “Are you ready to go for a walk?” “Are you ready to get your ball?” And even obedience cues, yes, they will understand those to a certain degree. But I don’t have the time or luxury to assume that they will learn it, either on their own or using a less efficient method. Like I said, I really need to count on that response in the ring. Otherwise, my performance is just not going to appear polished. If my dog misses a cue in a freestyle routine, the music keeps playing. I can’t give the hand cue then and hope she does it right, because I’ve already lost the opportunity to showcase that behavior. I’ve already lost the opportunity to have it match the phrasing in the music. So having strong verbal cues is imperative to the freestyler, if they want to put out a really polished routine. And again, we want those cues to be hidden. We don’t want it to look like I’m showing my dog that he needs to spin. I want my dog to spin at a point in the music because the music moved him to spin, or it looks like the music moved him to spin, not that I’m actually cuing him to spin. And in that same vein I need to proof my cues against my own body movement, because I might be doing something totally different. I might be moving my arm in an opposite direction of the way I want him to spin. So I’ve got to proof those cues against not only the distractions, like we normally proof in training, but I’m going to have to give my verbal cue and make my body do something weird, and reinforce my dog for choosing what I said over what I did. So that’s a little bit of added training in terms of cueing for freestylers And then as well, freestylers teach choreographed body movements as new cues. If I know I’m going to use my body in a certain way, I’m going to spin a certain direction, I’m going to put my leg up this way or whatever, I can actually teach my dog that that movement, even though it’s not a lure-like or a leading action, that movement means to do something. It is a cue to do something. But it’s not being used as a leading cue, like if I were putting my hand out in a circle to get my dog to spin. But that’s a whole ’nother podcast. That’s freestyle, not heelwork. Melissa Breau: Right, right. I know you have a class coming up on this stuff in October. Can you share a little bit on what you’re planning to cover there? What level of class? Is it foundations? Is it intermediate? Problem solving? And maybe a little bit about what skills someone should have if they’re interested in taking it? Julie Flanery: In a sense, it’s a foundation class. However, it’s going to be most suited to teams where the dog already has some understanding, and has some reinforcement history, of being near or in heel position in relation to the handler. They don’t have to have strong heeling behaviors. They don’t have to have perfect heelwork by any stretch of the imagination. But if they have started on their heelwork skills, and they want to get more out of their training and more out of their dog, they want more joy and lift and precision — we’re going to go over precision and accuracy as well — but if the picture they see in their head of a beautiful heeling dog is not what they’re getting out of their dog in training, then this would be a great class for them. We are going to go over some precision and accuracy. We are going to go through a lot of different ways there are to build joy in our heelwork training. And then we’re going to be using a lot of reinforcement history and value in each of those pieces to allow the dog to bring that together. We’re also going to talk a lot about appropriate expectations in your heelwork. There are certain limitations. If you have a certain picture of what you want, and your dog’s structure dictates that that just isn’t going to happen, we still want to get the prettiest and best performance out of your dog that we can get. The Bulldog is not going to heel the same way that a Border Collie or a Belgian is going to heel, so we do want to take those things into account, but there’s still things that we can do to work towards that picture, or build a more dramatic style of heelwork for your dog. Melissa Breau: You mean a Bulldog can’t get quite that same lift? Julie Flanery: Not quite, not quite. Melissa Breau: Poor guys. Julie Flanery: Doesn’t mean they can’t do beautiful heelwork. I just saw the most gorgeous bulldog — actually it was a mix. I think there was some French bulldog in it, and something else, and oh my gosh, that dog just had such spark in his heelwork, and it was beautiful. It was just gorgeous. No, it wasn’t a Terv and no it wasn’t a border collie. It was just … for that dog, it was just gorgeous heeling, and I enjoy that as much as I enjoy seeing the some of the dogs whose structure is more conducive to the type of heeling that we picture in our heads as being beautiful and joyful. Melissa Breau: One of the things on your syllabus that caught my eye was that you’re planning on including some information on reinforcement strategies. I know that that’s a big topic. What are some of the common reinforcement strategies someone might want to use when working on heeling? And maybe a little on how to decide which ones you want to use and when? Julie Flanery: Something to note about reinforcement strategies that I think people aren’t fully aware of, or don’t fully grasp about why we use different reinforcements strategies: Reinforcement strategies are a way to alter future behavior and not the behavior you are currently rewarding. For example, if I feed with my dog’s head slightly away from me, it’s not an effort to lure her bum in, but rather to get her to start thinking about where reinforcement happens for the next reps. So if I reward the dog — let’s say just for fronts — if I reward the dog for coming into front by tossing between my legs, I’ve already clicked the behavior. I’ve already said, “You are getting a reward for what you just did.” But by tossing the treat or the toy between my legs, she’s more likely to line up straight and in a way that she can efficiently get to reward faster on the next rep, and that benefits future behavior. So if I want my dog, say, to take the weight off of her front and drive from her rear for heelwork, I’m likely going to have her reach up and forward a little for her reward, maybe give a little jump up to get her reward. If she starts thinking about that on the next few steps of heelwork and begins to think of, Reward’s coming, reward’s coming, where is it? Oh, it’s going to be up high, she starts to lift herself in preparation for that, and that gives me something I can click. That bit of lift she’s offering in preparation to take the next reward gives me my criteria shift, lets me click that behavior. Melissa Breau: Even though you designed the class thinking about freestyle, would the class still be a good fit for somebody whose primary interest is obedience or Rally? We talked a little bit about this already, but how would the skills that you value in heeling and in the class for freestyle carry over into those sports? Julie Flanery: Just given the things we’ve talked about, I think that all of those things, any obedience handler or Rally handler would like to have those things. Especially in Rally, the backing up, in backing up we want that skill to be a very thoughtful, deliberate action on the dog’s part, and I think that in Rally sometimes we’ll see handlers Band-Aiding that a little bit by rushing backwards in an effort to use the dog’s wanting to stay with them, but not really working on the precision aspect of that. For Rally skills such as the side pass — they do side passes in Rally, and they do backing up and heel in Rally — absolutely this class is going to benefit those. In obedience, again, freestylers are really looking for the same attributes in heelwork that obedience handlers are looking for. So, in many ways, a lot of these things … as a matter of fact, when I worked in obedience, these are a lot of the same skills that I did when I worked in obedience and Rally. The only place where there may not be carryover, and of course this is always added later anyway, would be the sits in heel, the automatic sits, the setup in a sit. But that’s going to be added later anyway. The way I train heelwork, it’s not something I add at the start. It’s actually going to benefit those obedience folks who maybe have centered their heelwork around that setup or the sit and heel. This is actually going to solidify your dog’s understanding of what it means to keep their body in relation to yours while they’re standing in heel, and while they’re moving forward in heel, and while they’re moving in any direction in heel. So yeah, I think that could definitely benefit obedience and Rally handlers. Melissa Breau: We talked a bunch about the October class, but I think you have a few other things you’re working on, right? Anything you care to mention? Julie Flanery: Yeah, just a few! I’m still working on the heeling class, too. I think I just scheduled to do some webinars. I’m not sure when they’re scheduled for, exactly. There was a lot of interest in the mimicry classes that I did, so we thought we would put that in a nutshell and let people experience what that protocol is all about, and try it a little bit with their dogs. So I’ll be doing a webinar on mimicry. And because my interest is Musical Freestyle and Rally FrEe, and I get a lot of questions from people about “What is it?” “How do you get started?” “How is it different?” So I’m going to do a webinar on Musical Freestyle and Rally FrEe, how they’re related to each other, some of the skills and behaviors that we use, how to start training for that. I’m really looking forward to that one because of course that’s my passion. I have another class, I think it’s in December maybe, a new class for me, also, Mission Accomplished. That class is going to focus on finishing up and completing all of those dozens of behaviors that we all start and never finish. That might be maybe because we’re stuck, we don’t know how to finish it, or maybe it’s just because we love that acquisition phase. We love starting new behaviors, and so we have dozens of new behaviors started, but we can’t seem to complete any of them. So we’ll help you get through and complete some of those. I’m really looking forward to that class, too. I think it will help a lot of people get over some training humps that they might be experiencing with some behaviors, and so they just move on because they don’t know where to go from there. So that’s going to be a really fun class, I think, too. Melissa Breau: Not that I’ve ever done that — had a behavior that I … Julie Flanery: No, none of us! I’m actually pretty good at finishing out behaviors, because in freestyle I have so many behaviors that I could use. Anything I want to train, I could figure out how to use it in freestyle. So I always have a motivation usually to finish out a behavior, or if I’ve got a theme that I want to use, or anything like that. I always have use for the behaviors that I train, and that motivates me to complete them. Melissa Breau: I’m sure that will be a popular class because I’m sure it’s pretty common. To round things out, my last question for everyone these days — what’s something you’ve learned or been reminded of recently when it comes to dog training? Julie Flanery: You know, I’ve heard you ask that question before, and so I knew that was coming up. There was a post, a Facebook post, the other day from one of our Fenzi family members. Esther Zimmerman talked about her Golden, and her Golden starting to refuse some cues, or just not seeming right in training. She talked about some of the steps she went through in her own mind — oh gosh, I’m going to get teary-eyed about this, oh dear — about how her dog’s welfare, and listening to what her dog was telling her, and not assuming that the dog was being stubborn, or blowing her off, or spiteful, or any of those things that we sometimes hear or maybe even sometimes think that in our own training, and that by really considering our dog’s point of view, and why they might not be responding the way they normally do, that really hits home with me. And gosh, this is horrible, Melissa! Melissa Breau: I think I know the post you’re talking about, where she was, like, the first day your dog doesn’t seem quite into training, OK, well, we just won’t do this today, and put them away. The next day, they’re still not quite into training and you’re, like, “Hmm, I wonder if there’s something wrong,” and by the third day it’s, “OK, it’s time to go see a vet.” Julie Flanery: And there really was something wrong, and it was just so kind of her, the way she talked about this. I know we all have that same philosophy, but sometimes we need reminding of that. My dog has had health issues. She’s 8 years old now and she’s had health issues all of her life. It can be difficult for me to sometimes read whether this is due to discomfort, is she not feeling well, but in the end it really doesn’t matter what the reason is. What matters is that we take the dog into account, that we listen to what they’re telling us through their behavior, and that we don’t make assumptions about their motivation. They can’t tell us when they’re feeling not right, not good. And it might just be a little thing, but continuing to train when our animals are not feeling up to par … if you consider how do you feel when you go into work and you woke up with a stuffy nose and a headache or a migraine, you’re not going to be at your best, and you’re likely going to resent that workplace environment because you have to be there. So it just reminded me to take my dog into account and listen more to her when she’s giving me some of these signals. Sorry about that! I didn’t mean to go into soap opera mode! Melissa Breau: No, you’re fine. I think it’s a great reminder. Julie Flanery: I think that’s really, really important, and we can lose sight of that because we have goals in our training. We have goals when we are working in these performance sports. These aren’t our dogs’ goals. These aren’t our dogs’ goals, and thank goodness they’re willing to do this with us. So it’s up to us to protect them in these environments, in these training situations, where they may not be feeling all that well. So thank you, Esther, for reminding me of that fact. Keeping track of my dog, my dog’s health, and how she’s feeling during a training session. Her and Amy Cook. Amy Cook has really changed a lot of my perspectives these last couple of years in training. So a big shout-out to Amy Cook on her work with emotions and training as well. Melissa Breau: Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Julie. I’m so glad you could come back on the podcast. Julie Flanery: I am glad too. It was really, really fun. Thanks for having me. Melissa Breau: Absolutely. And thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in! We’ll be back next week, this time with Julie Daniels to talk building canine confidence. If you haven’t already, subscribe to our podcast in iTunes or the podcast app of your choice to have our next episode automatically downloaded to your phone as soon as it becomes available. CREDITS: Today’s show is brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzi for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty-free by BenSound.com; the track featured here is called “Buddy.” Audio editing provided by Chris Lang and transcription written by CLK Transcription Services. Thanks again for tuning in -- and happy training!
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SHOW NOTES: Summary: Julie Flanery has been working professionally with dogs and their handlers since 1993. She focuses on the needs of the dog and helping people form a strong relationship, through clear communication, and positive reinforcement. She has placed Obedience, Freestyle, Rally-Obedience, Rally-FrEe, Parkour, Agility, and Trick Dog titles on her dogs. She began competing in Musical Freestyle in 1999 and was the first to both title and earn a Heelwork to Music Championship on the West Coast. In 2001 she was named "Trainer of the Year" by the World Canine Freestyle Organization and has been a competition freestyle judge since 2003. Five years ago Julie developed the sport of Rally-FrEe to help freestylers increase the quality and precision of their performances. It has since become a stand-alone sport enjoyed by dog sport enthusiasts all over the world. Julie has been a workshop and seminar presenter both nationally and internationally. She currently trains and competes with her Tibetan Terrier in both Musical Freestyle and Rally-FrEe. Next Episode: To be released 2/23/2018, featuring Kamal Fernandez, to talk about the benefits of competition and the concept of leadership in dog training. TRANSCRIPTION: Melissa Breau: This is Melissa Breau and you're listening to the Fenzi Dog Sports Podcast brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy, an online school dedicated to providing high-quality instruction for competitive dog sports using only the most current and progressive training methods. Today we'll be talking to Julie Flanery. Julie has been working professionally with dogs and their handlers since 1993. She focuses on the needs of the dog and helping people form a strong relationship, through clear communication, and positive reinforcement. She has placed Obedience, Freestyle, Rally-Obedience, Rally-FrEe, Parkour, Agility, and Trick Dog titles on her dogs. She began competing in Musical Freestyle in 1999 and was the first to both title and earn a Heelwork to Music Championship on the West Coast. In 2001 she was named "Trainer of the Year" by the World Canine Freestyle Organization and has been a competition freestyle judge since 2003. Five years ago Julie developed the sport of Rally-FrEe to help freestylers increase the quality and precision of their performances. It has since become a stand-alone sport enjoyed by dog sport enthusiasts all over the world. Julie has been a workshop and seminar presenter both nationally and internationally. She currently trains and competes with her Tibetan Terrier in both Musical Freestyle and Rally-FrEe. Welcome back to the podcast Julie! Julie Flanery: Thanks. Melissa Breau: To start people out, can you just remind folks a little bit of information about your dog, what you do with her, and who she is? Julie Flanery: Currently I work with my 7-year-old Tibetan Terrier, and we are competing in Musical Freestyle and In Sync, which is a version of Heelwork to Music, and also Rally-FrEe. She's earned her Championships in both Freestyle and in Rally-FrEe, and a Grand Championship in Rally-FrEe, and we're working towards our Grand Championship in Musical Freestyle and our Championship in In Sync. Melissa Breau: Do you want to share her name? Julie Flanery: Kashi. Melissa Breau: Kashi. Excellent. Julie Flanery: Kashi. Like the cereal, you know? Good for you and makes you feel good. Melissa Breau: I like that! So I think we have a pretty fun topic lined up for today. I wanted to talk about the skills that trainers need but they sometimes don't learn until they get pretty into dog sports. To start us out, I wanted to start with talking about shaping. What aspect of shaping do you feel is usually the hardest for new trainers to implement effectively and why? Julie Flanery: I think there are a couple of things that can be really hard for trainers. The first thing, I think there is a very fine line between clicking what you observe and anticipating what the dog will do, so that your click is well timed. There's a tendency to wait until you actually see it, and then in that moment we have to process that information before we can act on it and actually click it. While this happens really quickly in the brain, there's still some latency, and this can actually result in late clicks, so you're giving the dog information that isn't actually what you want to convey. So first, having a picture in your head of the path the dog is likely to take, and shaping that behavior. Let's say you're shaping going under a chair. You can picture the dog's most likely path from where he's starting, as well as from where your reward is placed, and have a sense ahead of time of where your click points will be. You want to anticipate those click points. You at least want to have the precursor to your click points in mind and what they'll look like. This way you're going to be able to anticipate the dog's next likely action, and that's really imperative to good click timing. In a lot of respects this also relates to raising criteria, which is another place that handlers tend to have a lot of difficulty, and they're often getting stuck by clicking the same criteria for longer than is actually beneficial. You can often get stuck by clicking that same criteria for longer than we want, longer than is beneficial, so having that picture ahead of time can actually help the handler move forward in their criteria shifts as well. Melissa Breau: You mentioned the going under a chair example. If you know you're going to have the dog go under the chair, what is it that you're looking for? That first drop of the head? The drop of the shoulders? Am I on the right track? Julie Flanery: Depending on where the dog is starting, you might just be looking for looking at the chair. That might be your first click point. And certainly before the dog can move toward the chair, he's going to look at it. Before the dog can go under it, he's going to move towards it. But before he can move towards it, he needs to look at it. So you're looking at that progression and the behavior to determine where your click points are going to be so you can anticipate those things. If you put your chair out and then you go stand next to the dog and wait for something, you've probably already missed that first click. So setting that chair out, the dog is likely to look at it. That would be your first click. And then moving towards it, we can anticipate he's going to take a step towards the chair if he has any experience interacting with props. So we're anticipating that, and we're looking for it to happen, and we're trying to time our click and mark it just as he's doing that. If we wait until he actually does it, we're probably going to be late in our timing. Melissa Breau: Talking about timing, I know that one of the things you stress in your shaping class is the importance of good handler mechanics. I wanted to get into that a little bit. Can you share what you mean by that and how it's supposed to work? Maybe where folks tend to go wrong when it comes to mechanics? Julie Flanery: Sure. I think that we make it much harder on our dogs to shape than it needs to be sometimes. The dog needs to concentrate on the task, the task of figuring out “How do I earn reinforcement?” Remember, the dog doesn't know we're working toward something specific. He doesn't know there is an end-behavior goal. We know that, but he doesn't. He only knows that if he does certain things, he earns rewards. But I do believe that experienced shaping dogs do learn there is an end result and that they are working toward completion. They learn there is a process being followed and can anticipate the next steps, what we sometimes call “learning to learn.” They can anticipate within the process, once we have allowed them to experience it enough, which I believe is why some dogs seem to be better at getting behaviors on verbal cue while other dogs seem to struggle with that a bit. So the more verbal cues the dog learns, the quicker he learns the next ones, so there's an understanding of the process, what comes next, and the understanding from experience that verbal cues have meaning and value. In terms of clean training, clean training is really about creating the best environment for the dog to concentrate on the task and not be distracted from that. So in shaping, the primary information we want to provide to the dog is the marker and subsequent reinforcement. This is really all he needs within the shaping process in order to progress toward the handler's end goal. Yet we're constantly hindering their ability to do so in a variety of ways. Hovering over the bait bag, hands in pockets, reaching for food, or having food in our hands all indicate reward is imminent. The only thing that should indicate that reward is imminent is the sound of our marker. Anything else is overshadowing and diminishing the meaning and value of that marker: the click. That's our most powerful communication tool while shaping, and yet we're constantly putting in these extraneous movements or chattering to our dogs, and all of this, if done when shaping, can draw their attention away from the task. Think about if you're concentrating on a crossword puzzle and someone keeps interrupting you to ask a question. It's going to take longer to complete your puzzle, as there's all this extraneous stimulus that you keep having to deal with. So in our attempts to help our dog — getting the treat out faster, saying encouraging things, moving in a way that we think will prompt the dog — he's having to filter through what is relevant and what is not, and in our efforts to help, we're actually pulling the dog off task. So let them work. Your job is to provide relevant information and not to cloud the learning process by doing things that distract the dog from working towards that task. Does that make sense? Melissa Breau: Absolutely. Sometimes it just helps to stop and think about, OK, this is the process I'm actually following: it's a click and a pause and then reach for the treat, that piece. Julie Flanery: Right. In terms of mechanical skills, those are the things we're talking about. We're talking about, What is the handler doing with their body? Is their body still and quiet? Are they allowing the dog to focus on what's important, or are they taking the dog's focus away from that because there's something going on with the handler that isn't really adding to the learning process and is actually detracting from it. Melissa Breau: Even knowing all that, people tend to get frustrated when they're trying shaping, especially if they haven't done a lot of it, because they wind up with a dog that does one of two things. They wind up with a dog that stands or sits there and stares at them, especially if they've done a lot of focus work, or they get a dog that is throwing out behavior so fast that they're having trouble targeting one specific thing or getting motion towards the behavior that they're looking for. Any tips for folks struggling with those issues? I don't know if there are generic tips that apply to both, but maybe you could talk to that a little bit. Julie Flanery: That can be a huge deterrent and pretty frustrating to someone that's just starting out in shaping, and I know many, many trainers who gave up or basically said, “It doesn't work.” It's not that the process and protocol don't work. It's that they need to learn how to apply it effectively. So these are two separate issues: the dog that stands still and does nothing, and the dog that just starts frantically throwing behaviors at you. But in general I'd say they have the same solution, and it's a pretty easy mantra to remember: Click for anything but. Anything but standing still and staring earns a click, even if you have to toss a cookie to start them moving and give you an opportunity to click. Anything but standing still. A lot can happen, even in a dog that's standing still, but for a lot of new shapers, the two-legged kind, larger movements are going to be easier for them to see. So getting the dog moving and clicking anything but standing still will help. For those dogs that are frantically throwing things at you, you want to click way early, before they have an opportunity to start throwing behaviors out. You want to be ready before you get the dog out. A lot of dogs, we give these cues that we're about to start shaping. We pick up our clicker, we put the bait bag on, we put our hand in our pocket, we go to a certain place, and our dogs, before we even in our minds are starting to train, are already starting to throw behaviors out at us. All of those “pre-cues” that we're giving are actually cues to the dog to offer. So be ready before you get the dog out. The worst thing you can do with both these kinds of dogs is look at them expectantly, like, “OK, do something,” or “Do something else.” Sometimes we have to create those first few clicks to get the dog on the right path, so setting up our environment or a session to prevent both of those things by creating some type of an effective antecedent. So if a dog is constantly throwing things at me, then I might use a prop to direct his activity. Or I might click upon coming out of the crate and each step forward toward where we want to train. Often, dogs that throw behaviors just aren't being given enough information of what to do, so they're giving you everything they can think of in hopes that one of those will get clicked. So rather than shaping toward something, the handler is waiting for it to occur. I want you to click — again, it's “Click anything but,” so if you can take that moment of behavior — a single step, a single look, coming out of the crate — and click that, that can start to define for the dog the path you're going to lead them onto. It can tell them, “Oh, I don't have to keep throwing all of this stuff, because she's already clicking something. Now what did she click, so that I can repeat it?” The other thing that often happens with these dogs that tend to throw things or push farther in the criteria than we want them to be is although we aren't willing to drop back in the criteria, to move forward again. When the movement gets out of hand and you feel like the dog is pushing, or you're pushing, or you're rushing, it's OK to just stop, breathe, go back earlier in the criteria, click something way less than what you've been clicking, and then build it gradually back up again. So again, I think the answer is the same for both those situations: Click anything but. Melissa Breau: Excellent. I like that. It's nice, short, and easy to remember. This seems like a good point to dig in more a little bit on criteria. You were talking a little bit there about thinking about your criteria maybe a little differently than most people do. Are there general guidelines for how fast to raise criteria? I know you talked a little bit about going backwards in your criteria. When is it a good idea to do that? Julie Flanery: For me, and I think most of the Fenzi instructors, we all have a pretty common idea about raising or lowering criteria, and that is when it's predictable, when you can predict they're going to give you the exact same criteria again. I like to include the word confident, so when it's confident and predictable, then increase criteria, and if you have two incorrect responses in a row, then it's time to lower criteria. For my dog, oftentimes she's ready to raise criteria and looks confident, and for me, it's predictable in her within three repetitions. I can tell whether it's time to raise criteria, stay where I'm at, or lower criteria. A response might be predictable, but I'm not seeing quite the confidence I want to see, and so I might hold off another repetition or two to ensure that she really has some good understanding of that. But certainly if I see two incorrect responses in a row, then I'm going to lower criteria. Now that precludes that you know where your criteria shifts are, because when I say “incorrect responses,” you have to know what that is and what that isn't. Let's say I'm training a bow, and I am watching for the head and shoulder lowering, and she's moving in a progression forward, so I'm clicking the head drop, click the head drop again, then she lowers slightly lower, I click that, and I'm anticipating what her next movement is, so that I can actually see and anticipate, through my click, when she will do that. Let's say, for shaping, an incorrect response might be either less than what I previously clicked or no response whatsoever. She's predictably dropping her head and starting to lower her chest, but maybe her elbows aren't on the ground yet, and she's done that same thing three times in a row, then I'm not going to click that anymore. I'm going to wait, and hopefully she'll give me a little bit more, based on the fact that I've clicked this previously, she knows she's on the right track, and she'll be like, “Hey, did you see this?” and give me a little bit more, and I can click that. So it was predictable that she was going to drop her chest a little bit and her head is lowering. I don't want to keep clicking that because I'm going to get stuck there, because she's going to think, “Oh, this is right, I think I'll keep doing this.” If she is at that point, say, and the next offering, the next rep, her head isn't quite as low, so I don't click that and she just stands up. So she offers again and she still doesn't get as low as the previous one, and she just stands up. Then I'm going to say, “OK, she doesn't have clear enough understanding of what the next step is, so I want to build confidence in the previous.” In that case I'm going to lower my criteria maybe for a couple more reps and then start to build back up again. Does that make sense? Melissa Breau: Absolutely, and that was a great example because it walked us through thinking through the different steps and the bits and pieces there. Julie Flanery: Hopefully you can actually visualize that a little bit so you can actually see and be able to anticipate what that next step is. We all know what it looks like for a dog to bow and bring his chest and elbows down to the ground. You can map that out in your head and be able to anticipate what comes next, and if what you expect to come next isn't happening, you're stagnated, or you're getting lesser responses, then that's showing that the dog doesn't understand what that forward progression is next. Melissa Breau: You said something recently, and I can't remember if I originally heard it in a webinar or if it's from class, but you were talking about “leaps of learning” and how to respond if, while shaping, the dog suddenly makes a big leap in the right direction. Maybe we're trying for four paws on a platform, they've been struggling to give two, and suddenly they step on it with all four paws. Obviously you click it. Do you mind just sharing it here? Because I thought it was really interesting and I hadn't heard that before. Julie Flanery: I don't know if I will say exactly what you remember, but I understand what you're asking, and it did come up recently in the shaping class I'm teaching that you are a student of — and you're doing very well, by the way. Melissa Breau: Thank you. Julie Flanery: So there are times when it seems like our dogs get it right away, like, all of a sudden — what you just described —they were struggling with two and all of a sudden there's four and “Yay!” That doesn't mean you're going to hold out for four feet on the platform now. One correct response doesn't indicate understanding, and yet sometimes we forge ahead as if it does. I want to see not only predictable responses, I want to see confident, predictable responses, so that leap up of four feet on the platform might have looked confident, but we don't really know if it's predictable until we get a few reps. So I want to make sure that I see confident, predictable responses before I increase criteria, even if it appears that they've got it. Now, having said that, I don't want to stay stuck at the same criterion too long, so each handler has to determine what that looks like in their dog. For me, I can recognize confidence in my own dog, in Kashi, and for her, if she provides the same response three to four times in a row, that's predictable, and I'm going to go ahead and raise criteria there. If I made an error in judgment, I can always drop back down, but my goal is still going to be always forward progression. I don't want to stay stuck in any single criterion for too long, and that might be different for each dog, but consider your definition of predictable. For me, again, if she does it three or four times in a row and she looks confident in her actions, I can predict that she'll do it that fourth time or that fifth time. If I can predict it, I don't want to stay there. Kathy Sdao talked about criteria shifts in one of her lectures in relation to a recording being played on a record player, and how the needle can get stuck in a groove and not advance, so the record keeps skipping over the same place in the music. Well, if we click the same criteria for too many reps, the dog will get stuck in that groove, and you risk some increased frustration in working to get out of that groove. Sometimes lowering criteria is the way out. Sometimes withholding the click is the way out. Either way, you need to get out of that groove. Melissa Breau: Frustration on both the dog and the handler's part. Julie Flanery: Exactly, exactly. It's kind of like that dog that stands still and does nothing. You need to get out of that groove. What I talked about earlier about having a picture in your mind of the likely path the dog will take – that will help you not get stuck. I think sometimes people get stuck because they just don't know what to click next. So having a picture in your head, thinking ahead of time, “What is this process going to look like?” will help you anticipate that and will help you move forward in the process, to progress in the process, and not get stuck at any one point. Melissa Breau: What about duration? First of all, is it possible to actually shape duration, and then if so, how is shaping duration different than shaping more active behaviors? Julie Flanery: That's a really interesting question, and it's interesting because of the way you framed it. You said, “Is it actually possible to shape duration?” and that surprised me because yes, it's totally possible to shape duration, and I think really in general all duration is shaped in that we are marking and rewarding in small increments towards that end behavior, towards that extended duration of behavior. Shaping duration is like shaping any other skill, though your increments need to be sliced very thin in order to not get some other behavior in there. You're still withholding the click for a little more, and for most dogs withholding the click means do something else or push ahead. Duration needs to be more finely sliced so that we don't get some of that junk behavior in there. But that little bit, little generally less than what you might hold out for in a moving behavior, so you're not waiting long chunks of time, too, what we have to measure can be more difficult, so it's not as difficult to measure movement, as there is time and space, you can see a dog's action and how it carries him forward. So clicking movement, marking movement, in increments is not too difficult for the observer. In building duration, there's only time, there's no space, and we aren't very good at keeping track of time. If I paused here, then I asked three different people how many seconds did I pause, they would all have a different answer. So I often either count in my head or out loud to measure the advancement of my duration criteria. In appropriate criteria shifts for duration, especially since they should be sliced thin, we often aren't very consistent in our forward progression of time, and that can lead to inconsistency and a lack of understanding in the dog. I think that the reason people have difficulty shaping duration is because they aren't slicing those increments of time small enough. They're thinking of it like they would shape movement and larger pieces of behavior, and in shaping duration you can't do that because the dog is going to pull off. Let's take for example a sustained nose target. We want the dog to hold that nose target for — let's say our goal is three seconds. Four seconds, three seconds. Initially we click the act of pressing the nose and we click immediately. That tells the dog what the intended behavior is to which we're now going to start to attach duration. Once the dog presses the nose and expects a click and it doesn't come, he's likely to pull off, which is not going to get clicked either. Often when we withhold a click, which is what just happened here, on the next rep we will see a slightly higher-energy behavior, a little bit more, a little bit stronger, again it's like that “Hey, didn't you see this? Look, I'm going to do it a little bit more so you can see it.” In that moment of that second offering after the withheld click, you're likely to see a little more pressure — and I know it's hard to see, and this is why hand touches are a good thing for this, because you'll feel that pressure — and in that moment of more pressure, that takes a slightly longer amount of time. The time it takes for your dog to just touch something, and the time it takes a dog to touch something and put a little pressure, is slightly longer, and that's what you're clicking. That pressure is also criteria of sustained nose target, because they're going to have to put a little pressure there in order to keep their nose there. So that slice right there is super-thin, and once the dog pushes on again, you may have to go through a couple of clicks of he pushes, or, I'm sorry, he touches, it's not sustained even for a fraction of a second, you wait, that second one is sustained a fraction of a second, you click. Then you can start to extend by not seconds but almost fractions of seconds. So you're not counting one-one-thousand. You're counting one, click, one two, click, one two, click. If the dog pulls off, there's no click. So the dog is starting to understand, through both the withheld click for when he comes off and the click for continued small slivers of duration, that by keeping the nose to the hand, or the wall, or wherever you wanted the target, that's what he's building toward. But as soon as you start to increase that too far, too fast, you're going to get frustration, you're going to get poking at the wall, which is not what you want, and so the key to duration, to shaping duration, is really making sure that, number one, you are slicing those increments very small, and that those increments are very consistent, that you're not going all over the place with your duration, and that's where the counting or doing something that helps you measure that passing of time so that you have appropriate clicks will help. I'm not going to deny that it's a harder concept for some people to get, or it's a harder skill for some people to get, but if you understand the concept of shaping, and progressing through a behavior through small increments, it's just a matter of how finely you slice it for duration. That's all. Melissa Breau: That's really interesting, because typically you think of it's always easier to teach a dog to do something in the absence of a behavior. Julie Flanery: Correct. But you have to think of duration as a behavior. Does that make sense? Duration isn't the absence of a behavior. It's the continuation of a behavior. It's the absence of movement, and we've always been taught “Click for movement, feed for position” — still a very, very good rule. But in duration it seems as if it's the absence of a behavior, when in actuality it's the extension of a behavior. Melissa Breau: That gives me a lot to think on. Julie Flanery: Yeah, I'm sure. Melissa Breau: Hopefully it gives a lot for everybody to think on. But I want to shift gears a little bit and talk about training in general. I think you gave a great webinar last year on verbal cues, and it's part of what inspired the topic for today, the idea of what you didn't learn in puppy class. I feel like the concept of when to add a cue and how to go about it sometimes gets glossed over for a number of reasons, obviously, when dog owners are first learning to train. So when do you typically add a cue to behavior and how do you go about it? Julie Flanery: For me, something that I touched on earlier, I like the dog to have confident, predictable, correct responses that include the majority if not all of my criteria for that behavior. I say majority because there are some times, or some things, that I can add later, and the cue actually helps me draw that base behavior out of the dog. So, for example, duration or distance may be something I don't have yet, but will go ahead and put it on cue and build those in later. The behavior may or may not be fully generalized when I put it on cue, depending on the behavior. I may use cue discrimination as part of my generalization process. For me, the criteria, the majority of the criteria, needs to be predictable and confident and I'm certain that I'm going to get correct responses. As soon as I have that, I will start the process of putting the behavior on cue. Now, having said that, that will fluctuate, so I might have predictable, confident, correct responses in a session in the morning, and so partway through that session I start to add the cue. But maybe that afternoon or the next day, when I start my session, I'm not seeing the same confidence or the same predictability, and in that case I'm not going to continue to use the cue or add the cue in that session. There's kind of an ebb and flow to our dogs' ability to maintain predictability when they're first learning behaviors. It has to do with that leap of learning we were talking about earlier, about not assuming that because the dog does it correct once that they have understanding, and it's the same with adding the cue. I do want to take advantage of my dog's predictable responses in any given session, those predictable responses that again that are confident and contain the majority of my criteria. But just because I've started putting the behavior on cue doesn't mean that that next session, or that next location that I might work the behavior, that my dog is ready then to put it on cue. It's kind of like Denise's “Work the dog in front of you.” That dog changes from session to session, and so my training strategies have to change session to session, depending on what he's giving me at the start of that session. So again: predictable, I'm going to insert the cue; not predictable, I'm going to hold off a little bit. And that may all very well be with the exact same behaviors over different sessions. I think you are right in using the term “glossed over.” It's a part of the process that few spend very much time planning or implementing. It's either almost like an afterthought — “Oh yeah, now I need to put the cue on” — or they make the assumption that if they just start using the cue while training, the dog will get it somehow. So that process they apply is often random and very inefficient. Overlapping the behavior and the cue is a really common thing that I see. Cues should always precede behaviors with nothing in between, no junk behavior in between the cue and the behavior. You want it to have meaning for them. In putting behaviors on cue or transferring the cue, you really need to set that up. So if you're shaping, you first need a predictable, correct response. Are you noticing a theme here, Melissa? A predictable, correct response with confidence — that's really key to the dog's understanding. If the response is confident and correct and predictable, then we can start to assume some understanding. Until that happens, though, we're still working towards that. Once you have that, you insert your cue just prior to the dog either offering the behavior or the behavior being prompted. For example, we might have used a hand signal, we might not be shaping, we might have used a hand signal, or we might be prompting the dog in some other way, a visual cue or a prop might prompt the dog to interact with it. So just before the key phrase is, just prior to the dog offering the behavior or performing the behavior, that's when you insert the cue. Not as the dog is doing the behavior. Cues always precede behavior. It's why they're called antecedents. It's that old ABC: the cue is the antecedent, then behavior, then consequence. So when putting a cue to shape behavior, where people tend to shoot themselves in the foot is continuing to reward offered behavior. They might have started to put the behavior on cue, great, the dog is predictable, the dog is consistent, you're doing the correct thing by inserting the cue before the behavior, but unfortunately, you might be continuing to reward that offered behavior. So once you start to put the behavior on cue, execution on cue is the only thing that gets rewarded. Otherwise there's no value in the cue to the dog. If he can offer and get rewarded, or if he can get rewarded for doing it on cue, you're not going to get stimulus control because there's no value in the cue. Now there's a caveat to that. Melissa Breau: Of course. Julie Flanery: Yeah, and you'll learn about it next week in class, but there are times when you have a behavior that's on cue and you're going to want to remove the cue and encourage the dog to offer it again so that you can either fix or improve on the behavior. Maybe something's gone a little bit wrong, or you're not getting the criteria you used to have with it. It's gone a bit south. Then you want to remove that cue so that you can refine or improve the behavior, and then put that cue back on. That's a little more advanced process that is an important process too. Cues are cool. To me, putting the behavior on cue is the most important part of training the behavior, if you ever want to be able to draw it out of your dog. If you want the dog to respond reliably, then you have to really apply that process of putting it on cue very succinctly and very deliberately and not in a random fashion. We don't need cues if we don't care when the dog performs the behavior. But we do care. That's why we train. So cues should be a priority, and understanding how to put behaviors on cue should be a priority in any handler's learning. Melissa Breau: I think a lot of people struggle with that concept: the idea of getting something on stimulus control, getting a behavior to the point where it is reliable but also only actually happens on cue. Julie Flanery: And the reason is exactly that, because we have a tendency to still click off the behavior when it's offered. We love it, we like it, it's cute, I mean, “Oh, look at you, you did it again. How great,” and we have been patterned to click that offered behavior. We have to get ourselves out of that pattern. The rule is: Once you start putting the behavior on cue, you only click it when you cue it. That's what builds stimulus control. Melissa Breau: Let's say that you like to train, and you often get behaviors to that point where they're reliable enough for a cue. Is there any downside to having a bunch of half-trained behaviors that you never actually attach a cue to? … Julie Flanery: Well, that depends a little on your goals. If your goal is to compete and you need those behaviors, well, that's a really obvious detriment. But even more than that, in leaving behaviors what we're calling “half-trained,” you're denying your dog the opportunity and the experience to learn how to learn, how to learn a behavior to completion, and how to understand when you want him to perform that said behavior. Like most trainers, I love the acquisition stage. I love shaping, I love developing a behavior, but I also need my dog to understand the whole process if I ever want those behaviors to be of any use to me. I need my dog to learn how the process of adding a cue works so that he can also anticipate what comes next in the process. The more experience I give him at learning the whole process complete through generalization, adding the cue, and fluency, the faster and easier it is to train the next behavior, because it becomes something we are both working through the pieces to completion. The dog can help drive the process forward. That not only builds stronger behaviors, that builds faster behaviors, and that builds truly greater teamwork, in my mind, because you both are on the same path. You both have the same type of goal. But if we have a lot of half-trained behaviors, and only some of our behaviors are trained through completion, the dog just doesn't have enough experience to understand the full process and help drive that process to completion. Melissa Breau: A little birdie told me that maybe you're working on a class on that topic. Julie Flanery: I was asking the other instructors if they thought a class on finishing up all those half-trained behaviors would be a good idea, and they all jumped on it. So I'm planning to call it Mission Accomplished, and in effect you'll be providing your dog lots of opportunity and experience at learning how to learn. I think, for some, the reason that they haven't finished these behaviors is because they and their dog just need more experience at how to do it effectively and efficiently. People can get stuck in the process, just like dogs, and oftentimes that's why we have those half-trained behaviors. Maybe we don't know what we should do next, how to get it on cue, how to generalize it — all of those things that are involved in having a completed, reliable behavior. So hopefully that class will help some people. I think it will be a really fun class, and I'm just starting to develop it, but you've given me a lot of ideas in this podcast now that I can include in there, so that's super. Melissa Breau: Awesome. Do you have any idea yet when it's going to show up on the schedule? Julie Flanery: Oh my gosh, I have no idea. I'm just trying to get through this session. But I am keeping some notes and have some ideas floating around in my brain, and the schedule is a little bit set, but every now and then I'll add in a class if it's ready to go, so hopefully within the next few sessions it will be up on the schedule. Melissa Breau: Awesome. I'm looking forward to it, I will tell you that. Julie Flanery: Good. Melissa Breau: I think the other topic that gets overlooked — for lack of a better word — in pet training classes where most of us start out is fading treats from the training picture, so how to start reducing reinforcement. At what point in the process do you feel like a behavior is well enough established that you can start that process, and how do you usually tend to go about that? Julie Flanery: First thing somebody said is, I don't want the behavior well established before I take food out of my hand. That's personally for me. My rule of thumb for luring and removing the food from my hand is really first session, three to five reps, then present the hand cue, it needs to look exactly like my active lure, and I use it as a test. In general, especially dogs that have gone through this process, most dogs can do at least one correct response, or a partial response, without the food in your hand, due to the perception that the food is actually there, and you can build on that. Again, this is kind of important in terms of what we just talked about, about dogs learning the process. If a dog has gone through lure reward training and understands that at a point early in the process the food will no longer be an active lure, but that doesn't mean you won't be rewarded for following the hand signal, then that's a much easier leap for them than the dog that has an expectation of having food in the hand all the time, and really the only time he gets rewarded is when there is food in the hand. So that's one of the issues is we tend to reward less if we don't have the food right in our hand. But really it goes back to that teaching the dog the process so he has an appropriate expectation, and so it's not difficult to make those criteria shifts. The criteria shift of having food in the hand to having no food in the hand — that's criteria shift that the dog and handler go through. So three to five reps, and then I will remove the food from my hand and I will click early. I won't wait for the full behavior. I will click the dog following an empty hand cue on the path to the end behavior. I don't need to have the full behavior before I click the first time I take food out of my hand. If you tend to lure, if you use the lure for several sessions, then that's what your dog is going to expect. Lures are really effective for showing criteria, I do use lures on occasion, they're very effective at building patterns for the dog, but the sooner the dog learns to offer the criteria without food in your hand, the faster you're on your way to a more robust behavior, one that's going to, in my mind, have more strength and more longevity. So when I use lures, it's as a means to jumpstart my dog's understanding of what they should be offering. I think lures are an important tool, and I don't think we need to remove them from our toolbox, but I do think that people tend to keep food in their hand for far too long, far too deep into the process, so it becomes too much of an expectation for the dog, too much of a prompt, certainly. I hate to use the word “crutch,” but in a way it is, because really, until the food is gone, they're just following food. I don't believe that that stronger learning process starts to take place until the dog is initiating the behavior without prompts. Melissa Breau: That certainly matched my experience. Julie Flanery: I think that's why so many trainers now are really delving into shaping and are really starting to use that more as a primary tool than luring. Melissa Breau: Thank you so much for coming back on the podcast, Julie! I really appreciate it. Julie Flanery: I had a great time. I hope I get to come back again. I'm sorry I took so long. I get excited about this stuff and I love sharing it, and I want to share that with people, so I really appreciate you having me back here. Melissa Breau: Absolutely. I think folks are going to take a ton out of this. There's a lot of great information here, so thank you, seriously. Julie Flanery: Super. Melissa Breau: And thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in! We'll be back next week, this time with Kamal Fernandez to talk about the benefits of competition and the concept of leadership in dog training. And guys, this week I want to repeat my special request from the last few episodes. If you listen to podcasts, I'm sure you've heard other people say this, but reviews in iTunes have a HUGE impact on helping new people find the show and in letting iTunes know that our show is worth listening to. It helps us get recommended and it helps us get more eyeballs on the podcast and ears. So if you've enjoyed this episode or any of the previous ones, I'd really appreciate it if you could take a moment and leave us a review over in iTunes. And if you haven't already, subscribe while you're there to have our next episode automatically downloaded to your phone as soon as it becomes available. CREDITS: Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzi for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty-free by BenSound.com; the track featured here is called “Buddy.” Audio editing provided by Chris Lang.
SHOW NOTES: Summary: Julie Flanery has been working professionally with dogs and their handlers since 1993. She focuses on the needs of the dog and helping people form a strong relationship through clear communication and positive reinforcement. She has placed Obedience, Freestyle, Rally-Obedience, Rally-FrEe, and Agility titles on her dogs. She began competing in Musical Freestyle in 1999 and was the first to both title and earn a Heelwork to Music Championship on the West Coast. In 2001 she was named Trainer of the Year by the World Canine Freestyle Organization and has been a competition freestyle judge since 2003. Five years ago Julie developed the sport of Rally-FrEe to help freestylers increase the quality and precision of their performances. It has since become a standalone sport enjoyed by dog sports enthusiasts all over the world. Julie has been a workshop and seminar presenter both nationally and internationally. She currently trains and competes with her Tibetan Terrier in both Musical Freestyle and Rally-FrEe. Links mentioned: www.wonderdogsonline.com VIDEO: Examples from Imitation and Mimicry VIDEO: More examples from Imitation and Mimicry VIDEO: Rally FrEe Compilation / Class Trailer Next Episode: To be released 6/2/2017, featuring Mariah Hinds. TRANSCRIPTION: Melissa Breau: This is Melissa Breau and you're listening to the Fenzi Dog Sports podcast, brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy, an online school dedicated to providing high quality instruction for competitive dog sports using only the most current and progressive training methods. Today we'll be talking to Julie Flanery. Julie has been working professionally with dogs and their handlers since 1993. She focuses on the needs of the dog and helping people form a strong relationship through clear communication and positive reinforcement. She has placed Obedience, Freestyle, Rally-Obedience, Rally-FrEe, and Agility titles on her dogs. She began competing in Musical Freestyle in 1999 and was the first to both title and earn a Heelwork to Music Championship on the West Coast. In 2001 she was named Trainer of the Year by the World Canine Freestyle Organization and has been a competition freestyle judge since 2003. Five years ago Julie developed the sport of Rally-FrEe to help freestylers increase the quality and precision of their performances. It has since become a standalone sport enjoyed by dog sports enthusiasts all over the world. Julie has been a workshop and seminar presenter both nationally and internationally. She currently trains and competes with her Tibetan Terrier in both Musical Freestyle and Rally-FrEe. Hi, Julie. Welcome to the podcast. Julie Flanery: Hey, Melissa, thanks for having me. Melissa Breau: So excited to have you on. This is going to be a lot of fun. Julie Flanery: Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Melissa Breau: So to start us out, do you want to just tell us a little bit about the dog or dogs you have now and what you're working on? Julie Flanery: Yeah. I'm actually down to one dog now. I've lost three dogs in the last couple of years, which has been a little bit hard, but all of them were about 15 years old so I'm down to just Kashi, and Kashi is my 6-year-old Tibetan Terrier. She is a great little worker, in spite of some severe food allergies she's had since she was a puppy and that kind of limits our training with food rewards a little bit, so we've really had to work hard to come up with some ways that she really enjoys her training and make every reward count. We do show, as you said, in Freestyle and Rally-FrEe, and we just showed our intermediate Heelwork routine last weekend and started work on putting together our new routine. It's a kind of a Las Vegas show-style illusionist routine, I'm kind of excited about it and Kashi plays my disappearing assistant and we just moved into... Melissa Breau: Sounds so fun. Julie Flanery: Yeah, it is, it is. I have the ideas kind of swirling around in my brain, nothing complete yet, but that's kind of where you start with freestyle is with an idea or some type of inspiration and you go from there. And then we also just moved into the Elite Division for Rally-FrEe after completing our Grand Championship last year. That was really exciting for me as well. Melissa Breau: That's awesome. Julie Flanery: Yeah. Melissa Breau:So I want to start kind of at the beginning. You know, I talked a lot about your history there and you've accomplished a lot, but how did you originally get into dog sports? Julie Flanery: That was a long time ago. If I'm really honest I would say it was about 25 years ago when I took my 5-month-old Border Collie to a pet class. I was a new pet dog owner, and I watched one of the instructors do a demo of how many tricks his 5-month-old Border Collie could do in a minute and I thought, wow, I want to do that with my dog. I mean I'm just a pet person here, but I saw that and I was so impressed and so intrigued at what training could do, that and having a great dog to start with got me really immersed into training, and my competitive nature kind of kicked in a little bit. And I didn't really start competing until probably a couple years in agility to start and then obedience, and both of those were rather short-lived due to my discovery of freestyle I'd say probably in the...oh, I don't know, mid-90s at an APDT conference after seeing a freestyle demo and again I thought, wow, I want to do that with my dog. And unfortunately, there was no freestyle available in the Pacific Northwest, or much really anywhere in the country at that time. It was just a fairly new sport then and there wasn't really the luxury of any online training back then, so if I wanted to do this I was going to have to learn this on my own, and because I didn't really want to do it alone I dragged a few of my students along with me, and today we have one of the largest freestyle clubs in the country and those first few students are still competing, are active members in the club today. So, that's kind of how I got started competing in general, first with obedience and agility and then really became enamored with freestyle, but I competed off and on in a variety of dog sports, as you said, so I think I have a little bit of a competitive nature at heart. Melissa Breau: Well, that's awesome. It's kind of cool that you managed to really...I guess you could almost start a movement in that area, right, like for the sport. Julie Flanery: I don't want to take that kind of credit, but I knew I wanted to do it, and I knew it was not going to be something I could probably do alone. Freestyle's not an easy sport to stick with and it really takes some perseverance to stay involved in it, and I just felt very passionate about it, and so anytime anybody would listen or anytime anybody wanted me to give a workshop on it I would go and I would oftentimes...early on with the club I would give free workshops just to get people interested and involved in it so that we could have a group that could put on competitions here. Melissa Breau: Well, I wanted to make sure that I told you, you know, I watched some of the videos of you and I think most of them actually you're working with Kashi on the FDSA website. Consistently she looks so happy to be working with you, and even the other dogs that you have in the videos, they all look so thrilled to be there and to be performing. So I really was curious what it is, or what you attribute it to in terms of how you train or the sport specifically that leads to that. Julie Flanery: Oh, I love...I love that that is what you noticed. So to me there really isn't much point in training unless you have a willing and happy partner, and in freestyle it's a sport where emotion shows through and emotion is something that you want to convey, and for most of us we want our dogs to be happy out there working, and as I said earlier, it's a very difficult sport and if you don't have a dog that's really enjoying it, it can be very, very difficult to progress in the sport. For me really, the shift to really wanting a happy, joyful dog out there came about when I started using operant conditioning and shaping specifically with al clicker. I'd always used treats in my training. I primarily have always been a positive reinforcement trainer early on in obedience. I did learn how to use a choke chain and I was quite skilled at that, but I did train with rewards and mostly the reward training, but when I started using a clicker and shaping it became a much more reciprocal learning process where both the dog and the handler have a vested interest in listening to each other and that that outcome includes a sense of enjoyment and a desire to keep going, and I think for me having that experience of learning about shaping and clicker training and really listening to the other dogs was very impactful for me and impactful about how I structured my sessions and what I wanted out of those sessions in terms of emotional fulfillment for both me and the dog and I think the most effective way to build that is through positive reinforcement training and really important is clear communication, with that communication being a two-way street. For years training has always been about the dog listening to the handler and I think it's just as important, even more so, that the handler learn to listen to the dog. So, I think just making sure you're paying attention to how the dog is feeling and responding in a session makes a huge difference in the outcome of that session and whether there is mutual enjoyment in that session. So, I think it's a combination of both the sport that I chose and the techniques and methods that I choose to apply in my training. Melissa Breau: That's really interesting. I mean I'd imagine in something that's typically set to music where really part of it is a performance aspect, like in obedience precision is precision and it's possible to a fairly precise performance, even if you're not super positive in your training, and I imagine it's much, much more difficult in a sport where the goal is really to have it look joyful and to have it look really pretty. Julie Flanery: Yeah, it certainly can be, and that's not to say that there aren't freestylers that use or have used aversive techniques, and to be quite honest you can't always tell, the dog's being just as happy out there. But for me personally, I really enjoy the fact that I know that what I see in my training is what I see in the ring, and that's all about that enjoyment of working together and bringing that joy to the audience as well because you're right, freestyle is an audience participation sport, so to speak. It's a sport that they're not only for competition but for entertainment as well. Melissa Breau: You kind of mentioned shaping and luring in there, but you wrapped up a class on Imitation and Mimicry and I have to say that's like such a fascinating concept. If you could start by just kind of explaining what that is for the listeners in case they're not aware of it, and just kind of sharing how you got into that, that would be great. Julie Flanery: Yeah. No, I'd love to. Imitation and Mimicry is a form of social learning or learning through observation, and we've long known it to be effective in human learning, but it wasn't until probably the last 10 years or so that we've really seen any studies on its use in dog training. I first heard about it at a ClickerExpo, a talk that Ken Ramirez gave on concept training in dogs, and then further researched Dr. Claudia Fugazza's study that she did, and in 2006 she created a protocol that showed that dogs can learn these new skills and behaviors by mimicking their owners and it's her protocol that we use in class. Also what's fascinating is that Ken Ramirez has developed a protocol for a dog-dog imitation and mimicry, and some of the videos I've seen on that are just truly, truly amazing. So, things that we didn't think were possible now we know are and we're actually able to bring to more people now. The class was really quite inspirational for me because my experience of course had been limited with it in working with it with my own dog and then some of my live classes, my students there in my live classes, we work through it, and when Denise asked me to do a class on it I was really excited, but I wasn't quite sure what to expect and I have to say my students in that class are just amazing. They have really shown me what this protocol can do and how truly capable our dogs are of learning some of these concepts, so it's been a really exciting class for me. And matter of fact, I'm going to go ahead and put it back on...I think it is already...Terry's added it to the schedule for August, and so I'm really excited about doing it all over again. Melissa Breau: It's so cool to watch. Julie Flanery: Yeah. I think you've seen some of the videos that were on the alumni page, and they've really drawn a really great response, so it is very exciting for me and I hope for the students too that are taking the class. Melissa Breau: Other than just being an additional tool in the toolbox, and of course we all want as many of those as possible, right, what are some advantages to using that as a technique? Julie Flanery: Well, first off, mimicry is not necessarily suited to all behavior training. It's really best used for broad or more general behaviors, behaviors that require a high degree of accuracy or precision may be better learned through shaping or some other method or reward, however mimicry can be quite useful and at least one study has shown that behaviors learned through mimicry were learned as quickly as they were through shaping which really surprised me. I was quite surprised by that. Some service dog work for example, retrieving items, turning on lights, opening drawers or cabinets, not only can the dog learn these skills very quickly through mimicry, but once the mimic cue is in place, even inexperienced handlers can teach the dog these behaviors with very little training themselves, so it allows inexperienced handlers to train these more complex behaviors much more quickly which I think is really quite cool. It can also give the dog the big picture, so to speak. So in most training the dog has no idea of what the end result is, only we know what that looks like and the dog needs to muddle along, and he may not even know that when we reach the end result that is the end result. So, mimicry allows the dog to know what he's working toward and may even help him to better able to guess steps toward that end result, so it could very easily shorten that training process, at least the big picture, at least the broad strokes of that behavior. I think too it forces us to look at the dog's perspective in how or what we are communicating. In mimicry the only information you're giving the dog is your demonstration of the behavior. If your demonstration doesn't make sense to the dog, he won't possibly be able to perform it. It's really no different than other forms of training. If we aren't giving the dog the information he needs then it's not that he's unwilling to do the behavior, it's that he's unable, and unfortunately all too often errors are blamed on the dog rather than our inability to communicate, so to me this really gives us that perspective from the dog's viewpoint. What am I communicating to the dog, and how can I make this more clear, and we learn that through our demonstrations in the mimic protocol and how we actually demonstrate these behaviors. I think it's been very fun to see some of the students realize, oh, wow, that demonstration couldn't possibly make sense to my dog, how could he possibly do that? So, I think that's a really interesting thing is that we gain a new perspective on the dog. I've also had several students tell me their dogs are more attentive to them, they appear more relaxed in training. The process itself, the protocol itself, is very predictable and so it sets the dog up to succeed. For me though I think it really comes down to a connection. I think I have a pretty good relationship with my dog, but the emotion I felt...the first time she truly mimicked the behavior that I had demonstrated was unlike anything I had ever felt before. Not only did I feel a different kind of connection with her, but I think she felt a different connection with me as well, or at least I'd like to believe that was what I was seeing. So, it's an amazing feeling that first time your dog mimics something that all you've done is demonstrated for them and then asked them to repeat it and like I said, for me it comes down to a different...maybe a deeper connection with my dog. Melissa Breau: Do you remember what that first behavior was for you? Julie Flanery: I do. It was a spin. Melissa Breau: That's awesome. Julie Flanery: It was amazing. I taught her...went through the protocol of teaching her the mimic cue, and then I did my spin and I told her “do it” and she glanced at me for a second and she did it and I was like, oh, my God. It was really quite exciting for her. I get a little teary thinking of it right now. I know that sounds kind of weird, but it really is such an amazing feeling. It's a different feeling than what I felt...I can't say that. You know it's funny. The first time I used shaping and had my dog offer something that I did not command him to do because that's the term we used then, “give your dog a command,” the first time my dog offered something just because I had clicked and rewarded it, that to me was almost the same kind of feeling, it showed me the power that that technique and method had and I felt that same way with the mimicry too. It really showed me the power this method could have. Melissa Breau: I just think it's so interesting, the different ways our dogs are really capable of learning if we take the time to teach them how. Julie Flanery: It is. It's amazing. It's really amazing. It reminds me, Ken Ramirez once said in a lecture and it's actually one of my favorite mantras, I keep it on my monitor. He says, “We limit ourselves and our animals by assuming things aren't possible” and that is so true I think. It's so important that we keep an open mind to some of these techniques and methods because we don't know what we don't know, and it's up to us to explore these techniques that can really bring out the best in our dogs and our relationships with our dogs. Melissa Breau: Now this session you're offering Rally-FrEe class, right? Julie Flanery: Yes. Melissa Breau: So, I want to make sure we talk a little bit about that too. In the class description you explain it as a combination of Rally and Freestyle. My understanding is you're the founder of Rally-FrEe so I'd love to hear what led you to develop the program and why those two sports? Why did you choose to combine them? Julie Flanery: Right. Originally I wanted to develop a structured way for freestyle teams to focus on their foundation skills and build their heel work and transition skills primarily to better their performances and really to increase their longevity in the sport, and then ultimately improve the quality of the sport. Since I've been involved in freestyle I compete, I'm a judge, I've been teaching it for almost 20 years now, and I was seeing a lot of attrition in the sport. Freestyle is not easy. I would say it's probably one of the more difficult sports out there. There's a lot more involved in freestyle than just training behaviors. Teams would get through the novice level and then they would really struggle in the intermediate class and they'd end up leaving the sport. In freestyle you can train any behavior you want. You have a lot of options and so you do, you train anything you want and mostly that's the really fun, cool, complex sexy tricks, and generally they didn't train any foundation in to support the complexity of the tricks they were training. So like any sport, freestyle has a specific set of foundation skills, but these skills, these foundation skills, I know when I first started in freestyle nobody told me what they were, I'm not sure anybody knew what they were, it was such a new sport back then, and even if we knew what they were freestylers were so spread out around the country and there was no real instruction available to it, the information just wasn't accessible, and the information wasn't really given the importance and value I think. You know, having foundation skills didn't seem as important because of the perception that freestyle was free and you could do anything you wanted. And I remember...I remember one of the reasons I wanted to do freestyle was I didn't want to teach my dog to heel anymore, you know, heeling was, oh, my God, I don't want to teach my dog to heel, it's so awful. Of course heeling was taught quite a bit differently than we do now, but I didn't really understand at that time how important heel work and positions really are for freestyle. Melissa Breau: When you say foundation behaviors, is that what you're referring to is kind of the positions and... Julie Flanery: Yeah, the positions, the transitions, yeah. Those are considered foundation skills, and then there are certain foundation tricks in which all of the other more difficult, more complex tricks are more easily built off of as you know that anytime we start building a skill without a foundation it can be really easy to get frustrated in the training because it's not built on the foundation skill. The dog doesn't have any support for that skill, and so the skill tends to fall apart a little bit, and so as teams were moving up both the dog and the handler would start to get frustrated and not have that foundation to support the more difficult criteria and those routines would start to fall apart, and when they fall apart and it gets frustrating it's no longer enjoyable, and so as a result the quality of freestyle wasn't really getting any better and we were losing a lot of competitors. So, Rally-FrEe was a way for freestylers to build skill in their foundation and heel work so that they could be more successful in the sport and find more enjoyment in competing in freestyle, and in the long run improve the quality of freestyle that we were seeing in the ring. What I didn't realize is that teams from other dog sports Rally-Obedience, Agility, they were starting to participate. I didn't realize that this was going to become a worldwide competitive dog sport with participants in over seven countries, I mean I was like, wow. I was like wow. I remember one morning waking up and going how did this happen? I don't understand how this happened. This was supposed to be a fun little game for me and my students, and I'm not the first one that has put together these two sports in an effort to help freestylers or have more fun with Rally. There are many instructors that have done this. Somehow I was able to and I had the support of many, many people to have this grow into a worldwide competitive dog sport, so I'm very thankful for that happening, but really I have no idea how that happened. Melissa Breau: Hey, it was a lucky break, right? Julie Flanery: I guess. I guess. I'm sure glad it did though. It truly has met some of my goals. We are seeing a much better quality of freestyle. We are seeing teams coming into it with a stronger foundation, and we're seeing much more skilled teams staying in it longer, so for that I'm really thankful. And we're seeing new people coming into the sport, coming into freestyle that maybe never would have considered it partly because of the choreography and dance aspect to it, and partly because it is a difficult sport to understand the foundation for how to start training, and Rally-FrEe really allows the new exhibitor, the person that just is considering wanting to get their feet wet in freestyle but really don't know much about it, Rally-FrEe is the perfect sport to learn the foundation skills and then maybe ease into freestyle if you find you enjoy that. So, I've really actually been quite pleased at where we've gone in the last five years and how a lot of my goals have already been met with it. Melissa Breau: That's awesome. Hey, good ideas catch on, right? Julie Flanery: Yeah, I guess so. Melissa Breau: So I did want to ask you, you mentioned kind of in there something about novice and intermediate levels, and as somebody who hasn't competed in the sport. I was just kind of curious what some of the different things are I guess that they look at in the competition. Julie Flanery: Yeah. So for most freestyle organizations the scoring or the judging is broken down into several categories, one would be content and execution. So, content and execution would be what do you put into your routine? What is the variety of behaviors and how well are those behaviors executed? What is the accuracy and precision of those behaviors? Another thing that is looked at would be difficulty or creativity. How difficult are the behaviors that you're including in your routine? Are you using hand signals because hand signals indicate lesser difficulty than behaviors that are solely on verbal cues? Another aspect of it would be musicality and interpretation. How well do your behaviors and your sequences match the phrasing in the music? What is your attire, does it match the genre of the music? We also look at transitions and flow, and transitions are behaviors that allow the dog and/or handler to change position and/or direction in a way that creates ease of movement and a visual aesthetic or flow to the routine. And then Rally-FrEe Elements, which is the organization that I created that also conveys titles in freestyle, we also look at the teamwork and engagement between the dog and handler team. How well do they enjoy working together? How well does the handler support the dog? And I think we're probably the only organization that actually looks at teamwork as a judged criteria, so that's something that's a little bit different from most other dog sports. Melissa Breau: That's really interesting, and you kind of mentioned something about the verbals and the visuals in there. I was really curious how much of the cueing is verbal versus visual and what the role of each is in the sport, so do you mind just talking a little more about that? Julie Flanery: Sure. So in freestyle we use three different kinds of cues. We use verbal cues and generally we like those verbal cues to be not loud and obtrusive, but loud enough for the dog to hear them but not so loud that they are disruptive to the routine or distract from the enjoyment of the routine. In using those verbal cues we're aloud to talk to our dogs through the whole routine. There's nothing like in obedience where you need to give one cue. In freestyle you may give multiple cues. Obviously, you don't want your dog refusing cues or not responding to cues, but we are allowed to talk to our dogs the whole time, and so oftentimes we are giving our cues continually throughout a routine. We also use subtle physical cues. So my sweeping arm might mean for the dog to back around me or go out to a distance, but we want those cues to be hidden somewhat within the choreography, we don't want them to be very obvious like what a lure-like hand signal would look like. And then we also use something called choreography cues, and choreography cues allow us to teach new physical cues that we can then use within the routine as our choreography, so they are physical cues that appear counter to a hand signal. So for example, I can teach my dog that when I throw both my arms up into the air that's actually a cue to spin or to take a bow or whatever behavior I attach to it through training, and I can change those choreography cues for each routine as long as I understand and apply correctly the process for putting new cues onto behaviors. But truly, verbal cues are extremely important in musical freestyle and they're probably the most important cues in musical freestyle. It's those strong verbal cues that allow the handler to include their movement and their interpretation into the ring. If you're tired to hand cutes then you're really restricted in how you can interpret the music and that's part of what you're scored on, but having those verbal cues doesn't mean that we don't use some visual or body cues. We just really want those to be subtle and portrayed as part of the choreography. The goal in freestyle is to make it appear as if the dog is not being cued, that he or she is in total sync with the handler, and while the handler is leading the dance the dog is a voluntary partner. We want to create that illusion I guess, that illusion of dance partners, not one of telling the other what to do. If you've ever watched ballroom dance, even though you know one is leading it's really hard to tell because they're both so engaged in that process. So yeah, we have a lot of options in terms of cueing, but we work hard to avoid cues that appear lure-like or showing the dog or leading the dog into what to do. Melissa Breau: How long is your average performance? I mean it seems like...in agility even you have signs out to help you and I mean you kind of have to memorize the whole thing in a freestyle routine. Julie Flanery: Right. Yeah. For beginners, generally a routine is going to be about a minute and a half to two minutes. As you get up into the upper levels they're going to go three minutes plus, and these are routines that you choreograph, so you're actually memorizing them as you choreograph them. But make no mistake, it's not an easy task to choreograph two minutes of behaviors. You're probably looking at anywhere from I would say 30 to 80 cued behaviors in a two to three minutes period. Not only are these cued behaviors, but the dog needs to perform them in a timely manner with the music, so your timing of your cues is actually well before you need the dog to perform it so that he can actually perform it at the point in the music where it makes sense. So there's a lot to cueing in musical freestyle, and so it's something that I've had to learn an awful lot about and it's something that once you get involved in freestyle it becomes a really important part of your success. Melissa Breau: It seems like that would be a really interesting thing, even for somebody who wasn't interested in freestyle, to take a class on just because it feels like there's so much carryover there. Julie Flanery: Yeah. And I think actually, is it Mariah? One of the instructors I think is doing a class on cueing. Melissa Breau: Yeah, I think it's Mariah. Julie Flanery: Yeah. It's an amazing concept in and of itself and all of the different ways that we can teach our dogs to take our cues and all of the different ways that they can read our cues, so yeah, I think it's fascinating and I've spent a lot of time in my own personal training development learning how to do that and what's the most effective and efficient means of doing that. Melissa Breau: So, I wanted to kind of round things out with the three questions I ask everybody who comes on the show. So first up, what's the dog-related accomplishment that you're proudest of? Julie Flanery: Well, that's easy. Creating a venue that allows teams to really succeed and enjoy a sport that I love, but if you're talking personally I'd say that earning our Rally-FrEe Grand Champion MCL title. I really did not realize how hard that accomplishment would be and how fulfilling it was to get there. I created it and I didn't realize how hard that would be, I mean, I had to work hard for that title and it was very, very satisfying to be able to accomplish that. Melissa Breau: Well, congratulations. That's awesome. Julie Flanery: Thanks. Thank you. Melissa Breau: So possibly my favorite question every single episode, what is the best piece of training advice that you've ever heard? Julie Flanery: The best? Oh, wow. So I've heard tons of great training advice. Certainly something we all do, which is to make our training sessions enjoyable for all involved, that learning doesn't really happen under duress and to keep it fun and light and amusing and enjoyable and amazing. I don't remember where I heard it, but a quote that always stuck with me is that “criteria is joy” and if we don't have that within our sessions then it's really all for naught. That and what I talked about earlier, Ken Ramirez who said that we limit ourselves and our animals by assuming things aren't possible. That hangs in my office because so many of the things that I'm doing with my dog now that I would have said weren't possible just a few years ago, so staying open to that. But I think the one piece of advice that has really benefited me the most as a trainer, I heard from Hannah Branigan. I bet she gets this a lot that she's responsible for most people's success in their training, but for me really she talked about being aware of when and where our peak in a training session and not letting them slide down that backside of the bell curve. I am the queen of just one more, and that little lesson from Hannah has made me so much more aware of when it's time to end a session and how much that really impacts the success of that session. So that's probably one that I have benefited the most from, most recently and that sticks with me. I try to remember that every single session, all right, where's my peak? Don't want to go down the backside of that bell curve. Melissa Breau: So that's three, but I think they were three excellent ones. That's awesome. Julie Flanery: Yeah. Sorry, sorry. Melissa Breau: No, that's okay. They were worth it. Julie Flanery: There's just so much training advice out there, you know? Melissa Breau: That's awesome. No, it's my favorite question for exactly that reason because I feel like It's solid takeaways and you kind of walk away with a really solid reminder of something, and I think those three tie together nicely too. Julie Flanery: Yeah. Melissa Breau: So, my final question is who is someone else in the dog world that you look up to? Julie Flanery: You mean aside from all the great instructors at FDSA? Melissa Breau: Preferably, I mean, they're all awesome. Julie Flanery: Yeah. That's right. They really are so passionate, so compassionate about what they do. I couldn't say goodbye without saying it's a real honor to work with them all and learn from them all, but outside of Fenzi, boy, the list is almost as long. I think probably Kathy Sadao has had the most long-term impact on me starting from probably about 15 years ago. Diane Valkavitch, my hero in freestyle, who taught me everything I know about transitions. I can't leave out Michelle Pouliot who inspires and pushes me to do better every single day really. And Cassandra Hartman, she's another really fabulous freestyler who is...she's like the complete package when it comes to training, performance, relationships with her dogs. She's just a real inspiration...all of them, super inspirational trainers and I'm really, really honored to learn from all of them. Melissa Breau: That's awesome because there are some new names in that list, so that's super exciting. Julie Flanery: Yeah. Melissa Breau: I'm always interested in more trainers that I can go out and look up and read about and see what they have out there in the world, so that's awesome. Thank you. Julie Flanery: Oh, yeah. They are great, and they all compete in various dog sports as well, so in spite of their current interest in freestyle and them being such great freestyle trainers they really have a wealth of information in regards to all different dog sports and training in general, you know, training is training is training and these folks have really impacted how I train and who I am as a trainer today. Melissa Breau: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Julie. Julie Flanery: Thank you so much. It was really fun. Melissa Breau: It was really fun, and thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in. We have a super special announcement this week. You'll no longer have to wait two weeks between episodes. That's right. We're taking the podcast weekly. That means we'll be back next Friday, this time with Mariah Hinds, who Julie mentioned there in the podcast, to talk impulse control, positive proofing, and competitive obedience. If you haven't already, please subscribe to our podcast in iTunes or the podcast app of your choice to have your episode automatically download to your phone as soon as it becomes available. CREDITS: Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzi for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty-free by BenSound.com; the track featured here is called “Buddy.” Audio editing provided by Chris Lang and transcription written by CLK Transcription Services. Thanks again for tuning in -- and happy training!
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A mesmerizing novel about memory, privacy, fear, and what happens when our past catches up with us. After a decade living in England, Jeremy O'Keefe returns to New York, where he has been hired as a professor of German history at New York University. Though comfortable in his new life, and happy to be near his daughter once again, Jeremy continues to feel the quiet pangs of loneliness. Walking through the city at night, it's as though he could disappear and no one would even notice. But soon, Jeremy's life begins taking strange turns: boxes containing records of his online activity are delivered to his apartment, a young man seems to be following him, and his elderly mother receives anonymous phone calls slandering her son. Why, he wonders, would anyone want to watch him so closely, and, even more upsetting, why would they alert him to the fact that he was being watched? - Amazon The Avid Reader Show is sponsored and produced by Wellington Square Bookshop in Chester County, PA. The Show airs on Mondays at 5PM on WCHE AM 1520. Please visit our website at www.wellingtonsquarebooks.com
Mariella Frostrup talks to Patrick Flanery about I Am No One
Microblogger Interviews: Online business, blogging, entrepreneurship and wealth building
Say what you will about the value of a Like on Facebook, especially with Facebook controlling how many of your followers get to see your posts, but you can’t deny that more Likes is better. Today’s episode is with Taylor Flanery, the founder of three home management sites that have an incredible reach. So incredible […] The post MBP #28 – How Taylor Flanery Got 125,000 Facebook Fan Page Likes in 2 Months Without Paying a Cent appeared first on Microblogger.
Howdy folks and welcome back to Mancave Movie Review Episode 108. Today we will be talking about . This great and fantastic film stars Norman Reedus, Sean Patrick Flanery and Willem Dafoe So kick back with some fine Irish whiskey or beer while Steve, Mark and Jeff talk about Irish vigilantes, riverdancing and crossdressing FBI agents. Hope you enjoyed the show and we hope you visit us on our page and give us a like and share us with your friends. You can listen to us on and and follow us on .
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