Podcasts about nw2

What to listen for:The time has come, once again, for Stupid Question Day! Of course, there are no stupid questions. In fact, The Dames of Detection - Robin Greubel, Stacy Barnett, and Crystal Wing - were very impressed with this round of questions!Key Topics (Questions): How do you guys manage to do everything you do and still train your own dogs? (02:21) If you could do any dog sport you've never trained in before, what would it be? (08:28) Does it affect your dog's scent working, sourcing ability if their whiskers are shaven? (10:52) If you use a trained final response, like a down/sit,  how do dogs indicate a high hide? (14:41) Is there a best practice or pros and cons of single versus dual sent trained canines? (16:58)Pros and Cons of Cross Training Scent Sports. (24:38)Training Considerations for Dogs Who Both Track and Do Nosework (27:12)Can your hunt test dog also be trained and certified in search and rescue? (35:19)Moving Through the Shoulds and Should Nots (38:18)Are there any trainers that you know that do a paid internship? (44:31)Leaving Dogs in Vehicles While at Seminars (45:11)Figuring Out What Boxes We're In, to then Get Out (49:19)Takeaways (51:09)Resources:Kennel Fans: https://relentlessbirddogs.com/collections/kennel-fansStacy's Classes: NW120 Introduction to NW Search Elements: https://www.fenzidogsportsacademy.com/index.php/courses/14306NW230: Polishing Skills for NW2 and NW3: https://www.fenzidogsportsacademy.com/index.php/courses/4843NW445: Rising to the Nosework Challenge: 6 weeks of Setups: https://www.fenzidogsportsacademy.com/index.php/courses/31920We want to hear from you:Check out the K9 Detection Collaborative FB page and comment on the episode post!K9Sensus Foundation can be found on Facebook and Instagram. We have a Trainer's Group on Facebook!Scentsabilities Nosework is also on Facebook. Here is a Facebook group you should join!Crystal Wing K9 Coach can be found here at CB K9 and here at Evolution Working Dog Club. Also, check out her Functional Obedience Class here.You can follow us for notifications of upcoming episodes, find us at k9detectioncollaborative.com to enjoy the freebies, and tell your friends so you can keep the conversations going.Jingle by: www.mavericksings.com Instagram: @mavericktasticAudio editing & other podcast services by: www.thepodcastman.com Instagram: @the_podcast_man

This podcast episode is all about Creative Communities at the New Wolsey Theatre, a place where everyone is given the opportunity to participate in, engage with, and discover the arts, and even potentially learn the best ways to make their passion in the arts a career.We chat to Head of Creative Communities, Tony Casement, and Creative Communities Projects Producer, Rachel Fitzgerald about what their work involves, and about all of the things Creative Communities has to offer, such as various youth theatre groups, the new NW2 accessible space, upcoming projects, and some exciting things coming up in summer!We also spoke to them about how they came to be in their roles, with Rachel reflecting on how much of an impact her youth theatre had on her when she was younger - “I grew up in Clacton, and there wasn't massive amounts for young people to do there. But what I did do was join a youth theatre when I was younger, and that really gave me a space to be myself and meet people outside of school. And that really ignited my passion for performing arts. And that sent me off in my career.”Thank you to Larking Gowan who help support Creative Communities at the New Wolsey TheatreYou're very welcome to ask us questions which we can answer for you in a future episode or  give us your feedback about this or any other episode. Email: shornby@wolseytheatre.co.ukVisit the New Wolsey Theatre website hereThe New Wolsey Theatre is supported by Arts Council England, Suffolk County Council and Ipswich Borough Council.

David from NY calls to talk about his first hair transplant when he was a NW2 and 22 years of age. Three years later he's happy but had a consultation for a second procedure “just to add density”. David admits he doesn't look like he needs another hair transplant but wonders if he'll mess up his result by having a second surgery. Joe and Spencer explain the reality of his position. To contact us and to check out video archives of the show go to http://www.thebaldtruth.com Watch/listen and call in live at:  https://www.youtube.com/hairtransplantmentor Instagram: @spencerkobren

Why, Stacy's Mini Aussie, went from not being able to search 3 boxes in his front yard to earning Overall Pronounced at his NW2.  His transformation is nothing short of amazing, and it's entirely possible to replicate.  In this Podcast, Stacy Barnett will talk about how to instill Confidence in the Nosework dog through careful training and trialing strategies.

With the start of a new year, many of us will begin creating trialing goals, such as our desire to obtain a certain title by a certain date. In this podcast, we discuss the benefit of designing smaller, obtainable goals that are laser focused on building specific skills for both you and your dog, and how these smaller goals will ultimately help you achieve the "big" goal of earning your desired title. ----more---- Want to learn more about Dog Sport University? Check out our website and look over our Dog Sport Skills courses. You may also be interested in our informative webinars as well as the Dog Sport University blog.  Have you heard about Scent Work and want to delve deeper into that activity? Perfect, we have just the thing! Check out our sister online dog training platform, Scent Work University where you will find courses and webinars suited for both those dog owners who simply want to have fun, and those who are seriously competing with their dogs. Maybe you're looking to help your puppy or dog in the manners department. Then your need to check out Family Dog University where we provide a variety of programs to help your dog be the best canine family companion they can be! PODCAST TRANSCRIPT Welcome to the All About Dogs Sports & Training Podcast. In this podcast, we talk about all things dog sports as well as all things dog training. We'll provide you a behind-the-scenes look at what your instructor may be going through, what your trial officials may be going through, provide you some training tips and much more. In this episode, we're gonna be talking about how in a new year, we can start designing some trial end goals and how we have to make certain that those are ideal goals and that we're not setting ourselves up and our dogs up for failure. Before we start diving into the podcast, I'm just going to do a very quick introduction to myself. My name is Dianna Santos. I'm the Owner and Lead Instructor for both Dog Sport University and Scent Work University. Dog Sports University is an online dog training platform where we provide online courses, webinars and seminars covering such topics as dog sports, such as agility, competition obedience, treibball and tricks as well as good manners courses such as our Family Dog Program, our Perfect Puppies Program, Canine Good Citizen Prep, Real Life Skills, Shaping Behavior and much more. In addition to being a professional dog trainer, I'm also an approved trial official and have actually worked with a competition organization. So, now you know a little bit about me, let's dive into the podcast. So, at the start of the new year, it's very common for all of us to start designing some goals, some resolutions, things that we would like to do. And when we're involved in dog sports, one of the most common things that people do is that they will start designing some trial end goals, some things that they want to achieve in that given year in regard to dog sports if they happen to compete. And that may be that they're going to start competing or that if they are competing, they want to obtain a certain goal as far as a certain title. What I'd like to do in this podcast is to really nail down what I would claim would be a better way of designing those goals, so that you can actually achieve them in training and so that you're not setting your dog and yourself up for failure. Because sometimes when we put out a goal post, it's just so incredibly vague such as, "I want to obtain that title," it can be a little difficult in order to put together a plan to actually achieve that goal. So, in this podcast, we just wanna talk about some of the better ways that you may be able to design your new year goals, so that you can maybe ultimately obtain that title, but you're actually working towards very specific goal points instead. I'm going preface this by saying I personally have a love-hate relationship with competition. I personally can take or leave dog sports a lot of the time as far as the competing piece. I really enjoy the activities, I enjoy the training part of it. And there are times when I really enjoy trialing and there are other times where I find it really super stressful. And a lot of that just has to do with the fact that I get stuck in my own head a lot of the time. My dog is brilliant. If he had a better handler, he would have a lot of letters behind his name. By coming at it from that perspective and because the titles themselves don't hold any inherent value all within themselves in that I need to have a title in order to get up the next day. That's just not how I'm wired. I can come to the place of putting together goals a little bit differently than someone who really thinks that having the titles is really, really, really important. And it's not to say that either approach is wrong. It's not. What I'm hoping to do in this podcast is just outline some of the ways that all of us can at least do a better job of our designing our goals so that they can actually be obtained. I have actually done the whole thing of saying, "Oh, well I would like to achieve this title by this date." This has never worked for me. Now, the argument could be made that maybe that's just because I don't have a good approach, maybe it's because I'm competitive enough. Who knows? My guess is going to be that for me personally, and this is probably true for a lot of people is that that goal didn't provide me with a whole lot of information. It was just a date on a calendar that seemed to get closer and closer way too quickly 'til all of a sudden, we were there and there was no way that we were gonna be prepared in order to obtain that goal, in order to do well in whatever sport it may be. Whether it be rally, obedience, barn hunt or scent work. So, what I want do in this podcast is to outline some of the things that I've found to have been successful as far as helping me really design some good goals that can be obtained through training and practice that are all pointing towards ultimately ending up at that title. So, the way that this would work is you, of course, will have a big goal. And the big goal can absolutely be the title. So, for instance, in scent work, one of the goals that I would have for 2019 is that we do go back to trialing. That would be goal number one. And goal number two would be that for one of the competition organizations, which is NACSW, that we would obtain our NW2 title, which is the level two title. So, that is a big goal. But from that, what I need to do is I need to figure out well, why are we obtaining that right now? What is missing? What is missing training-wise? What is missing skill-wise? Why is it that we don't have that already? What is it that we need to do as a team, both on the dog training side and on my skill side together, what is it that we need in order to obtain that title? And this is where I think designing some very specific goals will help, so for instance, for NW2, you're gonna be dealing with more distractors within the search area, so we would need to have a very specific exercise set up where we are working on those kinds of things where now there are distractors within the search area itself. So, then we have a general premise, but now you need to break that down into smaller goals. An example of that would be I would like my dog to work a container search where there is two distractors out within the container search and he successfully finds the hide without hitting on the distractors. Perfect. And then from there, you can start making it a little bit harder. There's going to be five distractors out and there's only going to be one hide. He successfully finds the hide. He does that, great. That goal is checked off. Then, we wanna do it within a time limit, then we wanna do it when he's both on leash and off leash. Then, we wanna do it where the hide is actually blind to me where I don't know where it is. So, I hope you can see that even with this very simple example, that's starting with the big goal of we would like to obtain our NW2, you can then from that, figure out what your actual actionable goals would be. And then, from there, you can make it even more specific where you can actually come up with a game plan of how it is that you're going to be developing your training program so that you can obtain those skills. And the key here is that it shouldn't just be focusing on the dog. Nine times out of 10, with dog sports, it's a team effort. It involves both the dog and the handler. You both have to be showing up and doing well. You have to have good skills. So, you want to make certain that you're focusing on both. You're not putting all of your emphasis on the dog and you're just kinda sitting at the sidelines saying, "Eh, well we'll figure it out." You wanna make certain you're working on both of you. So, to take another dog sport as an example, one of the things that I would like to do this year is to get more involved in our rally and our competition obedience trialing and a lot of that's gonna depend on my body, whether or not it decides to cooperate or not. But instead of just falling back on that excuse, so saying, "Well, there's a really good chance that my body isn't going to cooperate, so we're just not even gonna try." This year, I'm actually going to put a training plan in place where we are going to at least training wise be prepared to go into certain trials. Whether or not we actually make it on trial day is an entirely different question. That all depends on what my body says that day, but it's no longer going to be an excuse of saying, "Well, you know, we don't need to perfect this stuff, because I probably won't be able to do it anyway." Just recognizing that if this is an important goal that we have to work on it and it's going to require work. I'm going to have to make certain that I have a certain period of time of practicing these specific skills that I am videotaping my practice sessions, that I'm seeing where things could be improved, where it is that there are weaknesses either within the training itself or even with my own handling. What am I doing with my body? So, particularly with rally or a competition obedience, one of the things that I tend to do when I'm heeling, is I'll tend to look over my shoulder down at my dog. And what that does, it pushes him back, because I'm looking backwards. The other thing I've had an issue with is having a very good rhythm when I walk and that can make things very difficult for the dog, because they're constantly flowing between a fast walk and a pace and a trot whereas if you can just find a really good rhythm, it makes things a lot easier for them. So, what I would need to do, because we would like to go forward and actually compete in both rally and competition obedience is I need to do two different things: I need to work on my dog skills, so that he understands the various things that he would need to do both at the entry level of that dog sport as well as a level ahead of it, because you never wanna just prepare for the bare minimum. You don't wanna go in there just by the skin of your teeth. You want to be able to go into that trial knowing that your dog could actually enter the level above and do well. That way, it's easy peasy. So, I need to work on those things with him. A lot of it's just cleaning it up and finessing stuff. But a lot of it's gonna be on me, that I need to make sure that my handling skills are up to par, that I'm doing my piece. So, those are the kinds of things that all of us can do where if you have said to yourself, "I want to obtain this title in 2019," that's great, that's fine, but what is it you're actually going to do to obtain that title? And then be really brutally honest about it. Where are you right now? Where will you and your dog be able to go within a reasonable period of time? And it very well may be that you may not be able to obtain that goal within that time frame and that's okay. That's one of the big things that I think a lot of us put way too much pressure on ourselves and our dogs, because we're worried about the calendar and a lot of the calendar stuff is because we're worried about other people. So, we're thinking about what other people would think about us, whether it be our dog's breeder, whether it be our friends, our colleagues, whatever. None of that matters. You wanna make certain that you're doing this in a way that both you and your dog can be successful, you're not biting off more than you can chew and you're designing goals that are actually obtainable. So an example of an unobtainable goal would be if you had just purchased a 12-week-old puppy from a breeder and you wanted to obtain your OTCH or your MACH within that year. That's not going to happen. Now, are there people who have done a MACH in a year? There are. It's really very rare and it's not a really good idea. You're not gonna be able to get your OTCH in a year. It's just not gonna happen. It doesn't mean that you and your dog are bad. It just means that it's gonna take more time to develop those skills. So, make certain that you're being realistic with your goals. Don't shoot yourself in the foot by asking what would take normally two, three, four years of skill building to be jammed all into one for no other reason than to say that you did it in that time frame. You're just gonna drive yourself crazy, you're gonna make it so that your dog hates whatever activity that you're doing and it's probably not gonna work out for the best. Just be realistic with these sorts of things. Design goals with the undercurrent that you're going to enjoy this. The one thing about dog sports is that this entirely elective. You don't have to do any of this. It's supposed to be fun, even for people who do this for a living. They enjoy doing it, even if this is what they do in order to pay the bills. They still like the sport. They still enjoy it. Don't design goals that are basically guaranteed to make you miserable at the end of the day, because they're so incredibly difficult. And that also doesn't mean that your goals should be really gimme, like, "Oh, I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna feed my dog a treat today. Oh, I did my goal." You know, there has to be a balance. But make certain that it's being realistic, you're keeping in mind all the various things that are gonna go into obtaining that goal and then it's not just such a broad thing such as, "I'm going to obtain this title by this date." That's not going to help you. You need to be able to break that down into very specific skill sets that both you and your dog are gonna have to work on and ideally when you're designing your goal, you have an idea of how it is that you can then obtain that goal and you may even wanna break it up into smaller steps. The more short-term goals you can set, the better it is. Because that way, it feels as if you're making progression. If you only have giant goals, it's never going to feel as though you're getting there. It's gonna be like three months down the line, you're gonna be like, "I'm nowhere even close to where I wanna be right now." But if you actually break that up into smaller pieces, you can keep track of it whichever way works best for you, on a piece of paper, on your smartphone, however. But just jotting it down, we've done this, we've done that, we've done the other thing. You know what, we're making pretty darn good progress. But by also keeping track of it, you can see when you're back sliding. You can see when you're not on track. You can see when you veered off the path completely and you ended up in Osh Gosh Land. So, the whole premise behind this is with the start of a new year, a lot of us are gonna start making goals and we're gonna be saying how we would like to do this, that, and the other thing. And there's nothing wrong with that. All I'm suggesting is that we be a little bit more mindful of it, particularly when we're interested in competing. It's great that people do a reset and that people have nice, fresh eyes in the new year and there are things that they would like to try and do with their dog. Maximize on that positivity and this is coming from someone who is a lifelong pessimist, but maximize on the fact that you do feel this sense of revival. Maximize on the fact that you are excited to try these new things. That you are excited to try to obtain these different goals. But set yourself and your dog up to succeed by breaking those up into smaller pieces, so that you can actually obtain them. So, I hope you found this podcast helpful. Thank you so much for listening. Happy training and we look forward to seeing you soon.

Strap in and get ready for some real talk! In this episode, we share the confessions of a nervous competitor...who also happens to be a professional trainer and a trial official. "What, they are not perfect?!" Nope. By sharing her story, the hope is this will help fellow competitors who are also nervous about competing. This could be their battle with self-doubt, fears of not being flawless when they compete, or their obsession with outside forces that have nothing to do with the quality of their training (what other people think, etc.). Being open and honest about these things will hopefully be a launching point for future conversations we can all have as a community. ----more---- Scent Work University is an online dog training platform focused on all things Scent Work. SWU courses and webinars are not only for those who are interested in competition, but also for those dog owners who are simply looking for something fun and engaging to do with their dogs. Check out Scent Work University today! Interested in another dog sport, or looking for help getting your dog to learn some manners? Dog Sport University is sister online dog training platform, give it a peek and see what it has to offer you and your dog. PODCAST TRANSCRIPT Welcome to the All About Scent Work Podcast. This is where we're going to be talking about halting Scent Work. We'll be giving you a behind the scenes look as far as what's your instructor or trial officials may be going through giving you training tips and much more. In this episode, we're going to be talking about what it's like to be a nervous competitor, particularly when you're already a professional trainer and you've actually worked for a competition organization before and how that could be a little challenging. Before we start diving into the podcast, allow me to do a very quick introduction of myself. My name is Dianna Santos, I'm the Owner and Lead Instructor for both Scent Work University and Dog Sport University. These are online dog training platforms that are designed to provide outstanding instruction to as many people as possible regardless of whether they're near a dog trainer or not. I've also been a trial official with United States Canine Scent Sports as well as AKC Scent Work. I'm a Certified Nose Work Instructor through the NACSW and I've been teaching group classes since 2011. So now you know a little bit more about me, let's get started in the podcast. Now, I don't think that being nervous when you're competing is a rare thing. I think that a lot of people can relate to the fact that you could become nervous when it's your time to step up to the line. Are you going to do well? Is there something you were going to forget? What about your long line? Are you going to be doing patterns? What if you say something incorrect? There's a lot of reasons why you would be nervous, but when you're an instructor and a trial official, I think there's an added level of stress. So in this podcast, what I wanted to do was just to document how I feel about the whole thing and the challenges that I faced that are all put on by myself, no one is causing this to happen to me. This all a personal thing that I'm going through. But I don't think that it's a strange thing. I don't think that it's an anomaly. I think it's actually fairly common. So my goal is to hopefully help someone else not feel so nervous to realize just how much weight we give to trials and it's not to say the trials aren't important. Is that to say that I'm trying to diminish anyone's training, but at the end of the day, this is a game and if you don't pass a particular trial, it's not the end of the world. Your life is not going to come to an end. It may feel like that at the time, but that's not really the case. So again, the point of this podcast is just to really let you know how I'm dealing with this stuff and try to give you some ideas of how you could avoid some of the pitfalls I've put in for myself because there's no point in me going through stuff and then having you do the same exact thing. So just for full disclosure, I am a professional trainer. I have been for a while. I have worked for a Scent Work Organization. I am an approved official. I have officiated, I've worked in score room, I've done a variety of different things within Scent Work. I do not think that I am the end all and be all of Scent Work, far from it, but I do feel I know my stuff to a certain degree as much as anyone can know anything, especially related to dog training. If you ever hear someone who says, "I know all the answers", you should take that with a grain of salt. With that being said, I have not trialed as much or as often as some. There are some people who you look at their trialing schedule and you're like, "Wow, that's amazing". I have a love/hate relationship with trialing and a lot of it has to do with the fact that quite frankly, I'm a sore loser, I will readily admit. It is not something that I'm proud of, it's something that I've had since I was a child, so I don't like the way that it feels when I lose or I don't get a Q. But is also a lot of judgment that I've placed on myself and again, there's no outside force that's doing this. It's all in my head. But I also tend to believe that I'm not the only one who's going through this. So I'll tell you a little bit about my journey as far as Scent Work trialing and where I am right now. So, my very first trial that I ever did in Scent Work was years and years and years ago, and it was with my first Doberman and it was really my first foray into a dog sport at all. I wasn't a professional dog trainer yet. I was in the process of thinking of becoming one and I had no idea about this whole dogs sport thing. I was completely green, I was like a deer in headlights. So I think I was just so new, I didn't even have an opportunity to be nervous, I was just doing it. I showed up for the ORT with a dog who never should have went to that ORT and I give a lot of props to the people who hosted the trial. They were very welcoming, they were very understanding, they answered a lot of questions, they made sure everything was safe and my dog happened to pass all three ORTs in that day, which was great. Then we determined this is not a good idea. He's not reactive, he's aggressive. It put him back in his training. It was just not a good idea to do. But that was my first taste of actually trialing. Then from there, I started my professional dog training career and I was doing training for Scent Work. But when I started trialing again, it was actually for Barn Hunt with my new Doberman who is very social and very happy and very wonderful. We did very well in Barn Hunt, he just seemed to take to it like a fish to water. So that went nicely, "Oh, Q's are good. Q's are fun. Trialing is fun, the ribbons are fun. Oh look, he has little letters behind his name now. That's exciting". I did an ORT and he missed one odor, which was fine. Then we went back and we did it again, which was perfectly fine. Up to this point I'm feeling okay, I'm not feeling too bad yet. We then do our NW1 and he passes it on his very first go and I was elated. I was so excited and there was a woman sitting next to me in the parking lot and she came out and she was so upset because her dog had missed a hide and she was visibly upset, angry upset. Then she just went into this whole meltdown of first she was angry at life, then she was angry at the officials and then she was angry at herself and she apologized to this dog for the remainder of the day. I think this was her second search that she missed the hide. So basically for a NW1 that means that you're done, you miss a hide, you're all set. That has really seared into my brain that I never wanted to be that person. It's not that I think that she's bad or wrong, I felt bad. I felt really sad for her that she was going through all of this because here I am with my brilliant little dog. We happened to pass everything and we had fun and there she is and she's distraught and I felt awful. It was just gross. It was like, "I hope that that's never me." I hope that I'd never get to that point because in what's the ... Why would I be doing this trialing thing if it made me miserable? Well, fast forward to, I go to my NW2 and in between that time period, I had done trialing with some other organizations and he had done well. There were searches that several USCSS for instance, you're able to keep all the cues that you earn. So if you miss a search is not the end of the world. But if you pass your others, you still walk away with something, which is really great. It's a great confidence booster. It's just a different dynamic. But for NACSW, it's all or nothing. So we go in for our NW2 and at this point my body is already a mess. I can barely walk. I'm a mess and we go to do our exterior search and it's down a couple, maybe three or four steps and then you get to your start line, then you can go. So I hobbled down the steps and then I released him for his start line. My long line is all tangled, so he pulls me a little bit and he is not hunting for odor, but there is probably a lizard or something similar within this little garden area and I'm like, "Oh, dear Lord". Now mind you at this point, I'm a professional trainer, I'm a official with another organization, I'm a CNWI, so I'm a certified instructor with NACSW. The person who is judging me is a co-founder of NACSW. I have photographers that I've seen other trials that I was either officiating or I was working with. I have clients who are sitting there and they are volunteering at this trial. Can we say pressure? It's not pressure that any of these people are putting on me. Not one of these people were looking at me saying, "Well, you had better get that hide or I'm going to hate you." But that's what I'm thinking in my head. So now that he is in lizard mode, I'm thinking "That's it, we're done." So I'm trying to get him to other parts of the search area to make sure at least we covered the whole thing. In my mind, lizard time took 15 hours. When you watch the video, it took a whole of like maybe 15 seconds if that, and right next to that garden area, was a garden hose off by itself and that's where the hide was. Do you think that my dog went to that area or tried to multiple times? Of course he did. Do you think that his mother would let him check that out? Of course she didn't. So we looked at all this other stuff and I timed out and then when they told me where the hide was, I honestly never even saw that garden hose. I was so up in my head about all this other stuff that I wasn't even in the moment. I was so concerned about, "Oh, now he's going to be just on the lizards. All these people think I don't know what I'm doing. They're going to take away my instructor status". Like none of this is going to happen, but it's what I thought and "Oh, by the way, it's on video. Awesome, I'll make sure that I buy that". So from there, we then go into our container search. Same judge, same co-founder of NACSW, same photographer, and even more people that I know who are volunteering. I'm like, "Great" and it's in a gymnasium and the containers were a collection of different kinds of boxes, but the things that are the most important to the story, are metal lunchboxes. I set my dog up at the start line, I release him, and he immediately launches himself on top of one the metal lunchboxes and slides down to the very middle part of the gymnasium as he's riding this lunchbox and I know damn well that's not the hide, but I'm so concerned that he's going to destroy this entire search area that I just call it and the judge said "No, but he's having a really great time." So I know I'm done. Like there's no fixing this, we are so not into doing this NW2. But good grief, we then go on because we still have to do everything else. We have an interior search and our interior search is two rooms and I elect to have him off leash for both rooms. So the first room, there's going to be two highs and the second room, there's going to be one hide and they were classroomish kind of things. So I release him to go for the very first room and he buzzes around looking like he's not doing a whole lot of anything. He's just running around, which is a wonderful thing to see. At this point I'm feeling just resigned to the fact that we haven't passed and kind of just enjoying him being joyful. But then he comes up to a garbage can that has wheels and he sniffs that wheel and in my head, I call alert, but my mouth doesn't say anything and he leaves. Now I'm stuck with this debate of, "Oh no, I was supposed to say alert and I didn't. What do I do? How do I get him back and all?" He's just like ... It's just, it's a mess at this point. We then go to the middle of the room and he's able to work on a hide that was on a chair. Brilliant. Actually called alert for that one. Feed him, fabulous. We got back to where the garbage can is. Do you think that I motioned near the garbage candy? Do you think that I did anything to help my dog? Of course I didn't. So now he's like, "Well clearly you didn't like that hide when I told you about last time. I'm going to go bounce around and go see what other stuff I can find". So I called alert on some sink or something where it would never be in a million years and the poor judge was like, "No". You could just like hear it in her voice like "What are you doing?" That was where I had the soul crushing feeling of "They're going to take my official card away. I'm not going to be able to be an instructor anymore. I can't be a trial official anymore. They may take my dog away". I mean, none of this is true at all, but it's everything that you're thinking in the moment. So I collect my dog and was like, "Oh, what a good little honey". Here, that's where it was. Like, "Yeah, I know that's where it was" and we do the second room and I have to say, even though everything has been a mess up to this point, he really rocked that second room. It was an inaccessible hide and he told me that it was inaccessible hide, he was bracketing it like it was crazy. So, wouldn't you know, I actually called it and we got a yes. "Woo, yay". Then we had our vehicle search for our very last search. Once again, our judge is a co-founder for NACSW and there's a bunch of people again that I can recognize who are either filming or they're volunteering. The start line, I believe the vehicle was in something like a tennis court or something similar to that, though was surrounded by fencing. The start line was at the opening of when the gates, but the vehicles are inside. Again, we're in Southern California, it's summertime, so it's hot. Do you think that I would just after they told me that I could go, would walk up to the vehicles and then let him search? Of course not. Why would I do that? That wouldn't make sense. So I released him from the start line, nowhere near the vehicles. Then eventually we got to the vehicles and he told me about the hide pretty quickly. Do you think that I called it? of course I didn't call it. So now my poor black dog in the middle of Southern California summer is in sweltering heat and burning pause and it's just a mess going around and around and around and finally, he shows me again and I say alert and I get the where and I point and I actually get a yes. Now mind you, this is NW2. Do you think that I said finish? I mean, watching the videos from this trial for me personally is hysterical because it's just such a mess. It's just awful. But even so, the world didn't end on that day. It was a learning experience. These are all things that I took away saying, you know what? We probably weren't ready for this trial to begin with. He probably is fine, I need help clearly. But it's not that big of a deal and just because these people are there, I'm sure that they would have been delighted to have celebrated in our success if we were successful and I'm sure that some of them were like, "Oh, that's so sad that it didn't go well". We did get called out during the debriefing of the judge for the interior search. The first search said, "Oh yeah, and the lady with the Doberman. That Doberman, what he likes to do is run around, stir the odor up, and then find where the hides are. It's really interesting and fun to watch". It's like, "Yay...". But the point being is that with that trial, I have not been rushing to go back into another NW2. I've actually been putting it off and putting it off and putting it off and putting it off some more. Well, I finally entered one thinking because it's in the town that I live in, there's no way I'm going to get into it. We did and I'm like, "Oh God, this is going to be a great opportunity for me to show that I don't know what I'm doing again". The thing is that, it's not that I don't know what I'm doing, I do. I have a lot of years under my belt. My dog is really good. I'm not the best handler in the face of the earth, I know that. My body doesn't cooperate really well and my brain, my mind does not help. The lack of self confidence really becomes glaringly obvious and worrying about all these other things. Particularly now that I've launched these two online platforms, my concern is, "What do you mean you don't have your NW2 yet? That's awful. I'm never going to work with you. You have no idea what you're doing, you sucked". It's not true, I actually do know what to do but I am a poster child for what happens when you let all these thoughts get away from you. So I'm hoping with this podcast by sharing and being very open and honest about the stuff, cause I'm not shy about sharing it at all. Then hopefully I can help somebody else realizes that that's all really silly and are there people out there who will say that, who will think that, who will talk among their little circle and say? "Oh, she's such a joke. She can't ... She doesn't even have her NW2 yet. I can't believe that people give her money." Sure, there very well maybe. But that's not the majority of people and even if they do, so what? I don't have someone banging down my door saying "You are no longer allowed to be an instructor. You may not be an official. You're no longer allowed to own your dog because you haven't titled to the level that we think is appropriate". Like it's just ridiculous. But that's exactly what I think a lot of the time, and I don't think that I'm alone. While this is for people who are officials or who are trainers, I think that there are people who also have those issues when they are just competitors. They're worried about the other competitors think, they're worried what their classmates think, they're worried about their instructor thinks. It's a very natural thing for people to go through. But I can tell you it doesn't help you. It's not a motivator. All it does is muddy the picture for you. So again, my NW2 is this weekend and I can quite honestly tell you I'm not looking forward to it, which is silly and I just have to have a really good assessment with myself of why am I doing this? It has nothing to do with the organization because I can tell you I've tried with a number of different organizations and every single time that we trial, it's more stressful than fun and it's just because I'm worried about these other things that no one else cares about. So I need to determine is there a way that I can compartmentalize? Is there a way that I can fix the way that I'm looking at this, so it is actually enjoyable? But if it's not, then we probably shouldn't be trialing. There's no reason to put myself and my dog in that kind of situation and particularly for my fellow super nervous and self conscious competitors, just know that there's no way that you can be there for your dog as a teammate that you need to be if you're not mentally in the game and that's easier said than done. Something that I struggle with clearly and I haven't found the perfect solution to it. I know the things that I should be doing about this as far as how I could change my thinking about it and I just go, "Oh, that's just so hard, we'll deal with that later. I'll go do some other project before I have to worry about that". But if you're finding yourself constantly concerning yourself about what other people think, is going to take away from you building these memories with your dog and from you performing well. Even if performing well doesn't mean a cue, is still means that you and your dog are jelling together as a team. I've seen this happen with other people and I go, "Ugh, if you would just get out of your own way, you would be fine". Then I'm always expecting them to turn around and be like, "Hello, kettle, how are you?" So it's easy for many of us to say to other people, "Oh, this is what you should do", and "Oh, here's a solution to your problem" when really you're struggling with it yourself. As far as some real life tangible things that you could take away from this podcast, just know that for me personally, if I had a client or a colleague who went to a trial and they did not qualify, I do not have a little black book that I'm keeping track of all that stuff. I'm not waiting to pounce on them and say, "Ha ha, you are not as good as you thought you are". That's not what I do. Instead, I would always celebrate the things that they did do and they did well at that trial. Even for my NW2 that I just described, that wasn't really all that great at all. I can still hold on to the fact that while that container search was for all intents and purposes on a professional standpoint could be deemed as a disaster, it was hilarious. That's very funny. He was having a grand ole time. We weren't going to cue, I hope that he doesn't do it again, but it was funny in the moment. That will be a memory that I will hold onto the entire length of time that I am blessed to have him. That's something, so if you're having difficulty finding joy in trialing and you're nervous about it, but you're not nervous about whether or not your training is where it should be, but you're nervous about all these other outside factors. The one thing I can tell you from personal experience, being someone who I honestly an instructor and an official would be more exposed to potential backlash. It's overblown, it's not true, it's not real. It really is all in your head and there will be some people who are detractors. There will be some people who are negative, but the vast majority of people are not. The vast majority of people are very supportive within this community and they understand that you're a person, that you're a human being and you're not a robot. You're not a machine. You're not perfect and neither is your dog. People happen to like humility and they like honesty and being authentic. Being vulnerable is all those things, being where you're admitting to say I'm a little nervous. I'm not nervous that we can do well, if I can just get my head in the right space. If I think about this right then I think we'll be fine. But I get in my own way because I'm worried about all these other things. The key point is that you're not alone. There's a lot of people who think that, particularly if you happen to be a professional trainer and even more so if you also happen to be a trial official. Now that this rambling podcast has gone on, you may be asking yourself, "Okay, well little miss teacher lady, what are you doing to help yourself where that NW2 that is coming up?" The main thing is I'm just trying to not load my schedule up with too much other stuff cause that tends to be what I do when I'm stressed. I try to put on tons and tons of other projects so that I can constantly keep myself busy. But what's going to happen is as that day approaches and then I say, "Oh no, that day is eating into my schedule, maybe I'll just skip it", which would be bad. So I'm trying to keep a balance. We're doing short little training sessions leading up to it. Nothing major, but just making sure we're keeping it really nice and fun and high octane for both of us. I'm just trying to keep my expectations realistic. All I'm looking for going into this is to have a good time and I know that sounds incredibly cliche. "Of course you'll have a good time if you qualify", but I can tell you there have been times that I've gone to trials for other organizations that had nothing to do with the organization per se, but just the way that I was conducting myself at the trial where my dog did great, he would get five out of five or six out of six or whatever the case may be, and I didn't have a good time at all. I was stressed to the nines, I was trying to do too many things at once. I was working at the trial the same time I was running him. I was doing a million things at once and it was miserable. I didn't like it at all. I'm looking to not have that experience again. For this NW2, if we don't pass anything but we together as a team have fun, that's all I care about. I mean sincere, true, real life fun. If he wants to dance on containers without destroying them or whatever else, okay. I not promoting that, but it's the change in mindset of "I'm okay if we don't Q as long as we're having a good time together." But if we can't even do that, then I just don't think that trialing is a good choice for me. That's just got to be a choice that I'd have to make at some point because right now it's ... I'm at a fork in the road where there have been some experiences have been really pleasant. Obviously the ones that you could win, more of those are in that camp. But like I said, there have been times when we've killed it and I didn't have fun at all. It was miserable. So I changed some things so that I'm no longer trying to do 20 million things at once when I'm trialing and I'm hoping that they'll make a difference. But I honestly don't know if it will, because I'm still expecting myself to have this little voice in the back of my head that are saying, "You have to be perfect. How are you not perfect? Now no one's going to listen to you. No one's going to buy your courses. You're going to go out of business, AHHH". What's the joy in that? That's miserable, that's awful. So a lot of this is going to hinge on my ability to quiet those voices that aren't overly helpful, to focus on the training and the knowledge that I have, the amazing ability that my dog has and not get stuck in those circular patterns of thinking that are quite unhelpful. If we're able to do that and we're able to have fun, then we may continue trialing. But if we don't, meaning I'm not able to do that, then we may just need to take a break for awhile and that may include never going for an NW2 again and who knows? He's five, we have plenty of time. What I'm hoping that people can get from this rambling of a podcast, is that there is no absolute way of how you need to do this. I know people personally who have done dog sports for a long time and they just burned out. They took a long break as more talking like 5, 10, 15 years. They didn't do anything and then they came across another dog that they thought would do well and it piqued their interest a little bit. Then maybe try a different dog sport and they take it in stride and they make sure that it's fun and they prepare ahead of time so they're not just winging it. They're going in when they're prepared and they are just coming at it from a better perspective where they're able to go in, realize this is just a game. It's an opportunity to make memories with their dog. They're prepared to do well and they don't Q every time, but they have fun every time and that's something that I aspire to be. I don't know if that's possible for me personally, but I'm hoping that people can understand is that your journey doesn't have to stay linear. You can change your mind at any point. So even if I were to turn around tomorrow and say, "You know what, I don't think this trial thing is for me". That may just be for now, it's not as though I'm handing in some card that says I'm never allowed to trial again. It may just be that I trial at a later date. So if anyone else is battling nerves, self doubt, they're concerned that the world is glaring at them, they're not going up the levels as fast as they thought that they should. Their dog doesn't have as many letters behind their name. They don't have as many accolades, particularly if you're an official or an instructor. Just know that first of all, no one cares. Really, no one's keeping track of these things. The people who are quite honestly, their opinion doesn't really matter at the end of the day. Just don't get bogged down in that stuff. If you're really are struggling, it probably is best to just take a break. Your pocket book will thank you. Trialing is expensive and if you're not having a good time, which is going to translate to your dog not having a good time, it reaches and make a whole lot of sense. So just take a break to reassess and then maybe you only do certain things. Maybe only trial so much, and then maybe we're able to turn a corner and you're just a trialing fanatic and you have fun every single time and that would be great. But the main thing that I'm hoping that everyone can understand is that you don't have to be stuck doing anything. All of this is a choice and it should be a choice you make individualized for you and your dog and that can change over the life of your dog. That can change if you were to get another dog, that can change between having different dogs in your household. But whether or not you trial or not, doesn't define who you are as a person and that's coming from someone who struggles with that very thought. I know intellectually it's true, but it's difficult for you to admit, particularly when you're a professional. So I hope this podcast was able to help anyone else out there who has been described as a nervous competitor because of outside forces. You're not alone, it's actually fairly common. But just try to reassess so you can figure out the best way that you can find, joy again for both you and your dog. I hope you find this podcast helpful. Happy training and we look forward to seeing you soon.

Summary: Stacy Barnett is an active competitor in Nosework, Tracking, Obedience, Rally, Agility and Barn Hunt, but Scent Sports are her primary focus and her first love. She is an AKC Judge and contractor, as well as an instructor at FDSA. She hosts the Scentsabilities podcast and blogs regularly on nosework topics at www.scentsabilitiesnw.com. Links mentioned: FDSA Podcast Group Scentsabilities (Stacy's Site) Next Episode:  To be released 7/20/2018, featuring Deb Jones, talking about teaching people to teach dogs.  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 Stacy Barnett. Stacy is an active competitor in Nosework, Tracking, Obedience, Rally, Agility and Barn Hunt, but Scent Sports are her primary focus and her first love. She is an AKC Judge and contractor, as well as an instructor at FDSA. She hosts the Scentsabilities podcast and blogs regularly on nosework topics at www.scentsabilitiesnw.com — I’ll be sure to include a link in the show notes for anyone who is interested. Hi Stacy, welcome to the podcast. Stacy Barnett: Hi Melissa. Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here. Melissa Breau: I’m excited to chat. To start us out, can you just remind listeners who the dogs are that you share your life with? Stacy Barnett: I have four crazy hooligans who live in my hut. They are; they’re nuts. I’ll start out with my older dogs. I have an almost 11-year-old Standard Poodle named Joey. He’s a brown Standard Poodle. He’s absolutely wonderful. I absolutely love him. I have a 7-year-old miniature American Shepherd, which is, you know, a mini-Aussie, named Why, and Why is actually his name. He came with it. I always have people ask me, “Why is his name Why?” And I always say, “Why not?” So I have Why, and then I have my two Labradors, who I refer to as my Dream Team. My Labradors, I have Judd, who’s almost 9 years old. He is my heart and soul. He’s actually the one that really got me going in nosework and is the reason why I ended up quitting corporate and pursuing a whole job in nosework. He’s my baby, he’s my Labrador, my 9-year-old Labrador. And then I have my youngest, who is a major hooligan. She is about 15 months old and she is a Labrador, a little shrimpy Lab. Her name is Brava, and I absolutely adore her. She’s the only girl in the house, so she’s like my soul sister. Melissa Breau: I’m sure she gets a little spoiled being the only girl in the house. Stacy Barnett: She does, and the boys love her. They absolutely love her. They fawn over her. We all do. We think she’s wonderful. Melissa Breau: Alright, so I know you’ve been on the podcast a few times now to talk about different aspects of nosework, but today I want to focus our conversation on how handlers can tailor nosework training to their specific dog. Is there a particular type of dog or particular skills or maybe a personality type that really lends itself to helping a dog become a strong nosework competitor? Stacy Barnett: There are, but at the same time I also want to emphasize the fact that every dog can do this sport. Maybe not every dog can compete in this sport, it really depends on the dog, but every dog can do this sport. There are certain aspects of the dog’s personality or what is intrinsic to the dog that will help the dog to become a really strong competitor in terms of being very competitive, or a dog that will really gravitate toward the sport and really, really love the sport. In my experience, all dogs do love the sport, but there are some that just seem to live and breathe for it. And the ones that seem to live and breathe for it, there are a couple of different things that contribute to that. Number one, the dog is a little bit more independent. If the dog is more handler-focused, I say if the dog is really into you and really cares what you think, those dogs tend to not be as gung-ho for the sport. The dogs that are a little bit more independent but have a nice balance between environmental and handler focus seem to do a little bit better. Above all, they have to have a natural love of scenting. Now, most dogs do have this natural love, but there are some dogs that just really, really love it. Those are the dogs I would say make the strongest nosework competitors. Melissa Breau: What other factors may influence how well a dog does when it comes to nosework? Stacy Barnett: One of them has to do with how motivated they are for food and toys. We tend to use food and toys as primary reinforcers for nosework. It’s very easy to reinforce with food, for instance, because it’s very fast. This is a timed sport. You have a certain amount of time to do the search, and typically, at least in the U.S., the fastest dog wins. If you can reward very quickly with food, you’re going to be at an advantage. Toys work really well too. Dogs like toys, they tend to work really hard for toys, you can use toys for a reward, but having a motivation for either food or toys is a real advantage. Another thing is the dog’s ability to think on their own and to problem solve. This goes hand-in-hand with dogs being independent, so if you have a more independent dog that can do some problem solving, you can do really well. I look at Brava, for instance. Brava, and I actually put a video of this on my Facebook page, knows how to open doors. She is a problem solver. The latch doors, the lever doors, she knows how to push down on the door and pull on it and open the door, which is really kind of amusing in some respects but kind of scary in other respects. But having that problem-solving ability can really help in nosework. The third thing that is not a requirement but is definitely helpful is physical fitness. Physical fitness is not a requirement. You know, this is a really great sport for older dogs, for infirm dogs, that sort of thing, but having that physical fitness can give you an edge in competition. There’s different sorts of physical fitness. There’s also fitness related to stamina. Stamina is important from both a physical perspective and a mental perspective. If you can have that mental stamina or that physical stamina, and I’m also thinking nasal stamina, dogs that can sniff for a long period of time, can help in competition. Melissa Breau: To dig a little more into it, you were saying about nosework being good for many different types of dogs. Can you talk to that a little bit more? What are some of the benefits of doing nosework? Stacy Barnett: Oh, there are so many benefits of doing nosework, and in fact I think we could do a whole podcast on this. I think we really could. I’m thinking of three different groups of dogs that really benefit from nosework from a therapeutic perspective. One of them is reactive dogs. For a reactive dog, what it can do is you can develop a positive conditioned emotional response to odor, and then if you have very mild triggers while the dog is experiencing — and I’m talking extremely mild, where the dog is under threshold — and the dog has a positive conditioned emotional response to odor, your dog’s reactivity level can actually go down. With my dog Why, for instance, he used to be extremely dog-reactive, and he was dog-reactive out of fear. So I started to train him in nosework, and he started to really enjoy nosework. At the same time, in doing nosework and having fun in doing nosework, he was also exposed to the smell of other dogs, not necessarily dogs in his surroundings, but the smell of other dogs. The end result was actually lowering of his reactivity level, which was really fantastic. So now he can be within about 8 feet of another dog, which is unbelievable. Older dogs. Older dogs are really super. It can keep their mind active. If they can’t physically do all of the things that they used to be able to do, they still have an active mind. They still want to do things. They may not be able to do agility or heavy-duty obedience or IPO or whatever, dock diving, I don’t know, whatever you’re doing. Even barn hunt. Barn hunt requires a certain amount of physical ability because they have to jump up and down hay bales. These are all dogs that when they get older they still want to work, they still want to do stuff. So if you do nosework, it exercises the mind and it keeps them busy because olfaction, the olfactory lobe, is one-eighth of the dog’s brain, so you’re really, really using the dog’s brain and they can stay engaged. I’ve seen it do incredible things for dogs with cognitive dysfunction who have gotten older. We have seen some amazing, amazing things with the older dogs. Then you have the young dogs. Young dogs, their joints are young, you don’t want to stress out their joints, you don’t want to over-exercise them, but yet you still have these energetic young animals who need an outlet. And it tires them out, which is super, because it does use so much of their brain. In AKC, for instance, you can even trial your dog as young as 6 months old. For a lot of dogs that may be too early, based upon their emotional maturity, but you can do this when they’re young and it’s not going to tax their bodies. So you can protect their bodies but you can still get them tired, which is a really, really great thing, trust me. Melissa Breau: Especially when you’ve got a drivey young dog. Stacy Barnett: I do, I do. She’s about 15 months old right now, and I have to tell you, nosework has been amazing for my sanity and for her sanity. Melissa Breau: I think most people probably start out teaching nosework by following a class or they’re using somebody else’s training plan. But at some point, all these different kinds of dogs, handlers need to tailor that training. How can a beginner handler tailor their training based on their dog’s stage of learning and their temperament? Stacy Barnett: You have to be in tune with your dog’s emotions. So whether or not you’re a beginner or not, you can still read your dog. You can still tell if your dog is confident, if they’re feeling motivation for an activity. You have to be able to read that confidence and that motivation because that’s really the core. Those are sacred. Confidence and motivation are sacred in my book. Once those are in place, you can start to build on skills. But you have to always think about having like a little meter on the back of your dog, like a little meter that says how confident they are, how motivated they are. But based upon that confidence and that motivation, you can tailor what you do with your dog. Maybe you want to build the confidence, or your dog is having some confidence issues — and I don’t just mean confidence in the environment, by the way. There are three different kinds of confidence that I talk about. There’s confidence in skills, which is basically does the dog believe in themselves. There’s confidence in the environment. That’s is the dog comfortable in the environment. Is the dog comfortable in new places. And then there’s confidence in the handler, and this is something that I think a lot of people don’t think about. That’s basically does your dog trust you. Does your dog trust that they’re always going to get their reward for the work that they do. Basically you need to evaluate all of these things and always check for that confidence and that motivation. If you have that, then you can work on the skills, because the skills should be secondary to the confidence and motivation. Melissa Breau: I know you’re a fan of Denise’s book, Train the Dog in Front of You. Can you share a little bit about how that concept applies to nosework? Stacey Barnett: Yes, I love that book. I love, love, love, love, love that book, and I’m not just saying that because she’s my boss. No, I really do, and I tell everybody it’s not a nosework book, but that doesn’t matter. It is such a good dog-training book, and especially chapters 2 and 3 — notice I even know the chapters — chapters 2 and 3 are especially applicable to nosework. Those are the chapters that relate to whether or not the dog is cautious or secure, and whether or not the dog is environmental versus handler focused. Because those are two really core things that affect the dog’s ability to do nosework. If the dog is cautious, for instance, you might want to work in a known environment. If the dog is more secure, maybe you want to work in more novel environments. The same thing goes with environmental versus handler focus. You’ve got to think of these things as spectrums. It’s not an either/or, it’s not whether the dog is handler or environmental focused. It’s on the spectrum. So if the dog is more environmentally focused, you might have a slightly different way of handling the dog, where you might be thinking more about distractions and how you’re going to work with distractions, or if the dog is more handler focused, you might want to be thinking about how to build independence. Actually there’s three different kinds of focus, although this is not in the book, this is more my interpretation. There’s environmental, there’s handler, and there’s search focus. So if you can understand where your dog falls on these spectrums that Denise talks about in terms of environmental and handler focus, you can figure out how do you then reorient your dog onto the search focus. Melissa Breau: Denise opens the book by asking handlers if they are handling their dog in a manner that builds on his strengths while also improving his weaknesses. I was hoping we’d get into that a little bit. Can you share some examples of how a dog’s personality or strengths might influence their nosework training? For example, if a dog is super-confident or less confident, how would that impact training? Stacy Barnett: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. I always talk about my pyramid. I have a pyramid of training, and that pyramid of training, there’s confidence on the bottom, then there’s motivation is the next layer, then skills, and then stamina. Basically, if you have a confident and a motivated dog, you can work on harder skills, because confidence and motivation, again, it’s sacred. You can also work on their personality strengths. If your dog is confident and motivated more naturally, maybe you can work on harder skills, or maybe you can work in new environments. The other thing is that it’s also important to really evaluate the dog’s resilience. From a resilience perspective, that will help you to identify whether or not your search is too challenging or not challenging enough. So you need to think about the dog’s natural drive levels, the dog’s resilience, and that can help you to understand how challenging of a search that you can make for your dog in order to keep the dog from … because you don’t want anxiety and you don’t want boredom. You can actually find a sweet spot based upon the dog’s resilience and the dog’s drive levels. But again, the basis, of course, is confidence and motivation. Melissa Breau: Funny enough, I was debating whether or not to announce it here, so I guess I will. We started a new Facebook group specifically for the podcast, and we’re going to encourage people to listen and then ask some questions, so maybe if anybody has a question, I’ll have to tag you.   Stacy Barnett: That sounds great. Melissa Breau: Come dish out a little more. I know you enjoy talking about this stuff. Stacy Barnett: I love this stuff. I love this stuff. I eat, sleep, and breathe this. Melissa Breau: What about natural arousal states? How might a handler tailor training based on those? Stacy Barnett: Arousal is one of those things that … don’t fear arousal. If your dog is high arousal, don’t fear it. Embrace it. Arousal is actually the key to really successful nosework trialing. What’s interesting is that dogs have a natural arousal state, so dogs either have what I call an arousal excess or an arousal gap. If you think about what your dog does when they’re at rest, where that arousal state is compared to their arousal state when they’re in drive, that will tell you whether or not you have an arousal excess or you have an arousal gap. The size of that gap is going to indicate how much work you have to do, because some dogs are a little bit closer to the ideal than other dogs. But what you want to do is when you train them and you’re actually working them, you always want to make sure that your dog is in drive — in drive approaching the start line and in drive while they’re actually searching. You can condition this arousal, because arousal is a habit, and if you can always work your dog in the right arousal state, you’re going to find that your dog is going to come more naturally to the start line and in the right arousal state, and the right arousal state is when the dog is in drive. That’s at the peak arousal. If we think about the Yerkes-Dodson Law, like the curve, it looks like a bell-shaped curve, for dogs who have an arousal gap, we want to increase the arousal to the point that they’re in drive. For dogs who have an arousal excess, we want to decrease the arousal to get the dog into drive, because just because you’re peeling the dog off the ceiling doesn’t mean that they’re in drive. And that’s not what we want. We don’t want the dog that we have to peel off the ceiling. For those dogs, we have to lower the arousal so that they can focus and they can really think. And working in drive really becomes a habit, so you always want to work the dog in drive and always want to work the dog in the right arousal state. Melissa Breau: Of course, if handlers are doing this well, as training progresses their dog will improve; but I think it’s common for trainers in all sports to find they are training the dog they used to have instead of the one that’s in front of them right now. How can handlers evaluate their dogs as they go along and avoid that misstep? Stacy Barnett: That’s really interesting, and I refer to something called typecasting. If you’re familiar with typecasting and you think about the movies, there are a couple movie stars that I can think of off the top of my head that definitely get typecasted. Typecasting is something where you have an actor who might be casted in a very similar role, regardless of the movie that they’re in. Two of the major type-casted actors that I can think of are Christopher Walken and Jim Carrey. Christopher Walken, he’s always kind of that creepy, funny dude. He’s always kind of creepy, he’s always kind of funny, he’s always in those creepy roles, he’s always in just this weird role, and then Jim Carrey is always in the role he’s very kind of a slapstick, silly, funny, not very serious role. And for type-casted actors, it’s very difficult for those actors to break out into another type of role. So it’s very possible that you have type-casted your own dog. If you think about Judd, he used to have a nickname. I used to call him Fragile Little Flower. He was my fragile little flower, and he had a hard time in obedience and rally and agility. He’d be the dog stuck at the top of the A-frame and that kind of thing, just very nervous, very shut down. He is no longer that dog, so I had to divorce that typecast of his. Now he is “I am Judd, hear me roar.” He’s this really great search dog. So I had to break that typecast, because if you have a preconceived notion about your dog, you can train to that preconceived notion and you can actually impose restrictions on your dog. So think about whether or not you can break that typecast. The other thing is have a framework. I suggest my pyramid, and I mentioned my pyramid before, earlier, where you have confidence, motivation, skills, and stamina. So always reevaluate your dog in every search session. Every time you do a search, is your dog confident, is your dog motivated, that sort of thing, especially confidence and motivation, what is the dog’s right arousal state. And sometimes recognize that your dog is going to have an off day. So reevaluate your dog with every search, but also, if you have an off day and all of a sudden your dog doesn’t seem very motivated, there could be something else that’s going on. Maybe say, “All right, today is not our day, and tomorrow’s a different day.” Those are the things I would do to make sure that from a handling perspective you’re always reevaluating your dog and you’re always training the dog in front of you. Melissa Breau: I’m not sure who said it, but somebody at one point mentioned if the dog doesn’t do something you’re pretty sure they’ve been trained to do, let it go. Happened once, don’t worry about it. If it happens two or three times, then it’s time to start thinking about how you can change your training. Stacy Barnett: Absolutely. Absolutely. Whoever said that is a genius. Melissa Breau: Are there any dead giveaways — or even something maybe a little more subtle — that indicate it’s time to go through that process in your own head and reevaluate the dog that you have and maybe your training plan a little bit? Stacy Barnett: Absolutely, absolutely. Things like if your dog is bored, or if your dog is anxious, these are the things where perhaps you’re not evaluating your dog’s resilience level or your dog’s drive level well enough. Because depending upon the dog’s drive level and the dog’s resilience level, you could easily put your dog into an anxious situation. Or if the dog is bored, then you need to reevaluate and say maybe you’re making your searches a little bit too hard, or maybe you’re making them a little bit too easy. Maybe the challenge level isn’t right compared to the dog’s skill level. The other thing is look for changes in the dog’s attitude, and whether or not they’re positive or negative, and then modify your approach based upon that, because you always want the dog to come thinking, This is the most fun part of my day, and if your dog isn’t having fun, you need to reevaluate what you’re doing, and maybe you need to reevaluate what your dog needs, so maybe your dog needs something different from you. Melissa Breau: To round things out, I want to give you a little bit of time to talk about some of the exciting things on the calendar. I know you’ve got a webinar next week on Setting Meaningful Scent Puzzles for Your Dog. Can you share a little bit about it, what the premise is? Stacy Barnett: Oh, absolutely. I can’t wait for that one. The keyword is meaningful. Because it’s not just about setting scent puzzles. We can all set scent puzzles. Scent puzzles are basically our way of creating problems for our dogs to solve so they can learn and build skills, and it’s all about skill building. However, it’s really, really important that we think about the word meaningful, and meaningful really refers to the resilience and the drive of the dog. For instance, I’m not a big fan of … sometimes we see this in seminars and it actually bothers me, where a clinician may set out a really, really hard hide and have green dogs work the hard hide. What you end up with is a dog that might lose their confidence or lose their motivation. So it’s really important that you set the right challenge and right challenge level for your dog, based upon the dog’s resilience and natural drive levels. That’s really what I want to talk about is based upon the dog’s natural drive levels and resilience, how do you know you’re setting a meaningful scent puzzle that’s going to build the skills at the same time as caring for the dog’s confidence and motivation. So it’s not just about building the skills, but rather it’s about how you build the skills so that you can preserve that. Melissa Breau: What about for August, what classes do you have coming up? Anything you want to mention? Stacy Barnett: Oh, I have three classes coming up. I’m teaching 101, so if you want to get into nosework and you haven’t started nosework, join me in NW101, that’s Introduction to Nosework. I’m also teaching NW230, which is polishing skills for NW2 and NW3. And the one that I want to mention today and talk a little bit about is Nosework Challenges. That’s NW240. That’s a series that I haven’t taught in a while, and I’m going to bring that series back. NW240 is Nosework Challenges. It’s a lot of fun. It’s going to be focused on skills, but at the same time what I’m going to do is I’m going to add in elements of this discussion around resilience and drive, so that we can make sure that we’re doing the puzzles in the right way. Melissa Breau: One last question for you. It’s my new ending question for people when they come on. What’s a lesson you’ve learned or been reminded of recently when it comes to dog training? Stacy Barnett: You have to actually train, which sounds kind of funny, but nosework can seem so natural, so it can be like, well, the dog is just scenting, they know how to find the hide, they have value for the odor, so they go out and they find the target odor. Well, that sounds great and all, but you really have to train, because it’s very possible now, with nosework being a lot more popular than it used to be, now with the addition of AKC out there and some other venues, there’s a lot of trialing opportunities and it’s very possible to get into a situation where you’re trialing more than you’re training. If that’s the case, that’s going to have a negative impact on your trialing. You’re going to find that having that competitive mindset instead of the evaluative context is going to be a detriment to your training. So it’s really important to work your dog while you’re evaluative versus competitive, if that makes sense. Melissa Breau: Absolutely. That’s great. I like that a lot. Thank you so much for coming back on the podcast Stacy! I really appreciate it. Stacy Barnett: I’ve had so much fun with this. This is a really great topic, a really, really great topic, and I really enjoyed this. Thank you so much for having me on. Melissa Breau: Absolutely, and I hope some folks come and join you for the webinars. Thank you to our listeners for tuning in! We’ll be back next week, this time we’ll be back with Deb Jones to talk about becoming a better teacher for the human half of the dog-handler team. 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!