Podcasts about otch

Św. Leon IX, Starożytna homilia na Świętą i Wielką Sobotę. Zstąpienie Pana do Otchłani.

Wątpliwości wokół procesu lustracyjnego Kazimierza Kujdy; bezprawne bądź wątpliwe prawnie działania Prokuratury Krajowej. Komentarz obrońcy ks. Michała Olszewskiego.

Nasza drużyna wie, że musi działać szybko, jeśli chce uratować króla przed dyplomatyczną wtopą. Wkrótce okazuje się jednak, że poszukiwanie odpowiednich składników zaprowadzi ich w miejsce, którego bardzo nie chcieli odwiedzać, a przed niektórymi z bohaterów pojawią się niepokojące zapowiedzi emocjonujących wątków drugiego sezonu… -- W odcinku wystąpili: ⭐️ Goście specjalni serii: Ania Janiszewska i Raff Patatyn z ⁠⁠Podsluchane.pl⁠⁠

Jezus zstąpił na ziemię – tę ziemię. W sensie wszedł do MCU, do multiwersum Disneya, do największego bałaganu, jaki mamy w obecnej kulturze popularnej. Czy trzecie dziecko Ryana Reynoldsa dowozi wszystkie dobra i rzeczywiście odświeża taśmową serię filmowo-serialową? A może przepadnie w multiwersalnej Otchłani, jak większość dawnych marek studia Fox?Uwaga: to pełnoprawny spoilercast. Mieliście czas obejrzeć :)

Hejże! Trio Joanna, Marek i Przemek i ich cykliczne wrażenia z rozgrywek

Nie oglądaliśmy od czasów stalinowskich tak totalnego odwrócenia pojęć – ocenia w Poranku Wnet ostatnie wypowiedzi premiera Tuska o Prawie i Sprawiedliwości sowietolog i historyk prof. Andrzej Nowak. Głośną wypowiedź premiera Donalda Tuska, który nawiązując go historycznej frazy Leszka Moczulskiego, nazwał Prawo i Sprawiedliwość „płatnymi zdrajcami, pachołkami Rosji” prof. Andrzej Nowak uznaje nie za zagrywkę polityczną, ale szokującą i podłą próbę narzucenia obywatelom totalnego odwrócenia rzeczywistości. Porównuje ją do metod używanych przez bolszewików. Przytacza w tym kontekście dzieło Józefa Mackiewicza „Droga donikąd”, który użył metafory białego sufitu, który komuniści uparcie nazywali czarnym jak smoła. Jak podkreśla historyk, doświadczenie podpowiedziało komunistom, że rzeczywistość nie jest ważna, bo w odpowiedni sposób można ludziom wmówić wszystko. Swoją ocenę rozmówca Łukasza Jankowskiego uzasadnia przykładami zdarzeń z ostatnich 2 lat. Jak wskazuje Andrzej Nowak, „te >>płatne pachołki Rosji

Dlaczego oczekiwania mogą pozbawić nas radości życia, a święta obojętność jest tak ważna?

W dwudziestym trzecim odcinku Podkastu Zamorskiego rozmawiamy o dwóch powieściach kolumbijskiej pisarki Pilar Quintany: "Suce" (hiszp. "La perra") oraz "Otchłaniach" (hiszp. "Los abismos"). Obie książki ukazały się nakładem Wydawnictwa Mova, a przetłumaczyła je Iwona Michałowska-Gabrych. Usłyszycie: Co łączy "Starego człowieka i morze" Ernesta Hemingwaya i twórczość Pilar Quintany Jak czyta nam się przekład "Suki" i co ma z nim wspólnego James Baldwin oraz Maya Angelou Czy w "Suce" jest "reggaeton" i "bling bling" Jakie są podobieństwa, a jakie różnice między obiema powieściami Quintany Czym wyróżnia się narracja w "Otchłaniach" Jaki element południowoamerykańskiej przyrody chętnie opisuje Pilar Quintana Będziemy wdzięczni, jeśli zasubskrybujecie i pozytywnie ocenicie Zamorski! Wspomniane w podkaście: Recenzja "Otchłani" autorstwa Jarosława Czechowicza (blog Krytycznym okiem) BBC World Book Club - audycja radiowa o "Suce" ("The Bitch" przeł. Lisa Dillman) nagrana na żywo z udziałem autorki; program po angielsku Harvard Review Online - recenzja angielskiego przekładu powieści "The Bitch" "Suka", "Otchłanie" (przeł. Iwona Michałowska-Gabrych) - strona wydawnictwa Mova --- Rozmawiają Olga Godlewska i Bartosz Wójcik.  Podkast powstał przy Zamorskim Klubie Czytelniczym. Zapraszamy do naszej grupy dyskusyjnej na Facebooku: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/groups/zamorskiklubczytelniczy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Znajdziesz nas na ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://zamorskie.pl/⁠⁠⁠⁠ oraz na Instagramie: ⁠⁠⁠ ⁠https://www.instagram.com/podkast.zamorski

Fragmenty "Nad Niemenem" Elizy Orzeszkowej będące inspiracją do powstania obrazów prezentowanych w ramach wystawy „na Niemen może pójdziem?”. Czyta Jerzy Woźniakiewicz.

Fragmenty "Nad Niemenem" Elizy Orzeszkowej będące inspiracją do powstania obrazów prezentowanych w ramach wystawy „na Niemen może pójdziem?”. Czyta Jerzy Woźniakiewicz.

Autor rozważań: ks. Edward Staniek Czyta: kl. Mateusz Michalik Mt 11, 20-24 Jezus począł czynić wyrzuty miastom, w których dokonało się najwięcej Jego cudów, że się nie nawróciły. «Biada tobie, Korozain! Biada tobie, Betsaido! Bo gdyby w Tyrze i Sydonie działy się cuda, które u was się dokonały, już dawno w worze i w popiele by się nawróciły. Toteż powiadam wam: Tyrowi i Sydonowi lżej będzie w dzień sądu niż wam. A ty, Kafarnaum, czy aż do nieba masz być wyniesione? Aż do Otchłani zejdziesz. Bo gdyby w Sodomie działy się cuda, które się w tobie dokonały, przetrwałaby aż do dnia dzisiejszego. Toteż powiadam wam: Ziemi sodomskiej lżej będzie w dzień sądu niż tobie». Jesteśmy również na YouTubie: https://www.youtube.com/@rozwazania

Gabler i Smoleński to dwa różne światy. Ironia losu splata ze sobą ich historie, a dwaj młodzi studenci odegrają w swoim życiu bardzo znaczącą rolę... Materiał ma charakter dokumentalno-historyczny i ma na celu przybliżyć obyczaje oraz prawo panujące w dwudziestoleciu międzywojennym. Wspieranie kanału: https://patronite.pl/ZbrodnieZapomniane Źródła: Express Wieczorny Ilustrowany, 1923 nr 59 Republika, 1923 nr 273 Głos Polski, 1923 nr 282 Express Poranny, 1923 nr 289 Express Poranny, 1925 nr 73 Kurjer Czerwony, 1925 nr 147 Kurjer Informacyjny i Telegraficzny, 1923 nr 235 Kurjer Polski, 1925 nr 73 Kurjer Poranny, 1925 nr 73 Kurjer Wieczorny, 1925 nr 60 Przegląd Wieczorny, 1923 nr 237 Źródła internetowe: https://historia.org.pl/2011/12/27/kodeks-karny-z-r-1903-tagancewa-1903-r/

Autor rozważania: kl. Damian Talowski Czyta: kl. Mateusz Michalik Łk 16, 19-31 Jezus powiedział do faryzeuszów: «Żył pewien człowiek bogaty, który ubierał się w purpurę i bisior i dzień w dzień ucztował wystawnie. U bramy jego pałacu leżał żebrak pokryty wrzodami, imieniem Łazarz. Pragnął on nasycić się odpadkami ze stołu bogacza. A także psy przychodziły i lizały jego wrzody. Umarł żebrak i aniołowie zanieśli go na łono Abrahama. Umarł także bogacz i został pogrzebany. Gdy cierpiąc męki w Otchłani, podniósł oczy, ujrzał z daleka Abrahama i Łazarza na jego łonie. I zawołał: „Ojcze Abrahamie, ulituj się nade mną i przyślij Łazarza, aby koniec swego palca umoczył w wodzie i ochłodził mój język, bo strasznie cierpię w tym płomieniu”. Lecz Abraham odrzekł: „Wspomnij, synu, że za życia otrzymałeś swoje dobra, a Łazarz w podobny sposób – niedolę; teraz on tu doznaje pociechy, a ty męki cierpisz. A ponadto między nami a wami zionie ogromna przepaść, tak że nikt, choćby chciał, stąd do was przejść nie może ani stamtąd nie przedostają się do nas”. Tamten rzekł: „Proszę cię więc, ojcze, poślij go do domu mojego ojca. Mam bowiem pięciu braci: niech ich ostrzeże, żeby i oni nie przyszli na to miejsce męki”. Lecz Abraham odparł: „Mają Mojżesza i Proroków, niechże ich słuchają!” „Nie, ojcze Abrahamie – odrzekł tamten – lecz gdyby ktoś z umarłych poszedł do nich, to się nawrócą”. Odpowiedział mu: „Jeśli Mojżesza i Proroków nie słuchają, to choćby ktoś z umarłych powstał, nie uwierzą”». Jesteśmy również na Youtubie: https://www.youtube.com/@rozwazania

- Hasło "Otchłań przyzywa otchłań" wybraliśmy, nasłuchując też co się wydarzyło w ostatnich latach. Na myśli mam pandemię, która dotknęła nas wszystkich, wpędziła w rodzaj beznadziei i podważyła pewne fundamenty, na których opierał się nasz świat. No i oczywiście wojna, która zaczęła się rok temu i trwa nadal. Mamy wrażenie, że ta otchłań dobrze oddaje nasze nastroje w tym trudnym czasie - mówił w Dwójce Paweł Dobrowolski, dyrektor XIV Festiwalu Nowe Epifanie.

W tym odcinku: - Przyjemność z oglądania telewizji - DOKUMENT: "Ucieczka na Srebrny Glob" i "Val" - Sukces "Wednesday" - Serial "Willow" - pierwsze wrażenia po dwóch odcinkach - "Strażnicy Galaktyki: Holiday (mało) Special" - Mało "Dziwny świat" - Cameron maltretuje aktorów w wodzie, czyli "Otchłań" z 1989

Autor rozważań: Michał Grzesiak Czyta: Mateusz Michalik Łk 10, 13-16 Jezus powiedział: «Biada tobie, Korozain! Biada tobie, Betsaido! Bo gdyby w Tyrze i Sydonie działy się cuda, które u was się dokonały, już dawno by się nawróciły, siedząc w worze i popiele. Toteż Tyrowi i Sydonowi lżej będzie na sądzie niżeli wam. A ty, Kafarnaum, czy aż do nieba masz być wyniesione? Aż do Otchłani zejdziesz! Kto was słucha, Mnie słucha, a kto wami gardzi, Mną gardzi; lecz kto Mną gardzi, gardzi Tym, który mnie posłał».

Autor rozważań: Łukasz Kapica Czyta: Maciej Kawaler Łk 16, 19-31 Jezus powiedział do faryzeuszów: ”Żył pewien człowiek bogaty, który ubierał się w purpurę i bisior i dzień w dzień świetnie się bawił. U bramy jego pałacu leżał żebrak okryty wrzodami, imieniem Łazarz. Pragnął on nasycić się odpadkami ze stołu bogacza; nadto i psy przychodziły i lizały jego wrzody. Umarł żebrak i aniołowie zanieśli go na łono Abrahama. Umarł także bogacz i został pogrzebany. Gdy w Otchłani, pogrążony w mękach, podniósł oczy, ujrzał z daleka Abrahama i Łazarza na jego łonie. I zawołał: »Ojcze Abrahamie, ulituj się nade mną i poślij Łazarza; niech koniec swego palca umoczy w wodzie i ochłodzi mój język, bo strasznie cierpię w tym płomieniu«. Lecz Abraham odrzekł: »Wspomnij, synu, że za życia otrzymałeś swoje dobra, a Łazarz przeciwnie, niedolę; teraz on tu doznaje pociechy, a ty męki cierpisz. A prócz tego między nami a wami zionie ogromna przepaść, tak że nikt, choćby chciał, stąd do was przejść nie może ani stamtąd do nas się przedostać«. Tamten rzekł: »Proszę cię więc, ojcze, poślij go do domu mojego ojca. Mam bowiem pięciu braci: niech ich przestrzeże, żeby i oni nie przyszli na to miejsce męki«. Lecz Abraham odparł: »Mają Mojżesza i Proroków, niechże ich słuchają«. Tamten odrzekł: »Nie, ojcze Abrahamie, lecz gdyby kto z umarłych poszedł do nich, to się nawrócą«. Odpowiedział mu: »Jeśli Mojżesza i Proroków nie słuchają, to choćby kto z umarłych powstał, nie uwierzą«”.

Dzisiejsza Ewangelia przypomina nam, jak ważne jest odczuwanie cierpienia ubogich wśród nas. Oni są słowem i ciałem Boga. Ich ból i wołanie mogą obudzić nas z obojętności, pomóc odnaleźć Boga. Bóg, którego nie ma w bogaczu cieszącym się swoim dostatkiem i ślepym na innych, jest w maluczkim, chorym, poranionym, cudzoziemcu, samotnym. Jest tam, gdzie ja boję się być. Jak dostatek i dążenie do własnego dobrobytu czyni nas obojętnymi na potrzeby drugiego człowieka? Co możemy czynić, aby przywrócić istotne wymiary naszej egzystencji chrześcijańskiej i naszego człowieczeństwa, którym grozi uciszenie w pełnym wygody stylu życia? (Łk 16,19-31) Jezus powiedział do faryzeuszów: ”Żył pewien człowiek bogaty, który ubierał się w purpurę i bisior i dzień w dzień świetnie się bawił. U bramy jego pałacu leżał żebrak okryty wrzodami, imieniem Łazarz. Pragnął on nasycić się odpadkami ze stołu bogacza; nadto i psy przychodziły i lizały jego wrzody. Umarł żebrak i aniołowie zanieśli go na łono Abrahama. Umarł także bogacz i został pogrzebany. Gdy w Otchłani, pogrążony w mękach, podniósł oczy, ujrzał z daleka Abrahama i Łazarza na jego łonie. I zawołał: "Ojcze Abrahamie, ulituj się nade mną i poślij Łazarza; niech koniec swego palca umoczy w wodzie i ochłodzi mój język, bo strasznie cierpię w tym płomieniu". Lecz Abraham odrzekł: "Wspomnij, synu, że za życia otrzymałeś swoje dobra, a Łazarz przeciwnie, niedolę; teraz on tu doznaje pociechy, a ty męki cierpisz. A prócz tego między nami a wami zionie ogromna przepaść, tak że nikt, choćby chciał, stąd do was przejść nie może ani stamtąd do nas się przedostać". Tamten rzekł: "Proszę cię więc, ojcze, poślij go do domu mojego ojca. Mam bowiem pięciu braci: niech ich przestrzeże, żeby i oni nie przyszli na to miejsce męki". Lecz Abraham odparł: "Mają Mojżesza i Proroków, niechże ich słuchają". Tamten odrzekł: "Nie, ojcze Abrahamie, lecz gdyby kto z umarłych poszedł do nich, to się nawrócą". Odpowiedział mu: "Jeśli Mojżesza i Proroków nie słuchają, to choćby kto z umarłych powstał, nie uwierzą”.

Fragment audiobooka "W otchłani strachu" Alexa Finleya w interpretacji Bartosza Kurka. Matt Pine, student Uniwersytetu Nowojorskiego, otrzymuje wstrząsającą wiadomość: prawie cała jego rodzina – matka, ojciec, brat i siostra – została znaleziona martwa w Meksyku, gdzie spędzała wakacje. Miejscowa policja twierdzi, że doszło do nieszczęśliwego wypadku – zatrucia gazem – ale FBI i Departament Stanu mają co do tego wątpliwości. Śmierć amerykańskich turystów trafia na pierwsze strony gazet. To już kolejny raz rodzina Pineʼów wzbudza zainteresowanie mediów. Starszy brat Matta, Danny, odbywający karę dożywocia za zamordowanie swojej dziewczyny, był bohaterem głośnego filmu dokumentalnego, w którym sugerowano, że został niesłusznie skazany. Po powrocie do rodzinnego miasta Matt zmaga się z wrogością mieszkańców i wspomnieniami, o których wolałby zapomnieć. Tymczasem śmierć w Meksyku wydaje się coraz bardziej podejrzana i powiązana ze sprawą Danny'ego. Matt musi odkryć prawdę o zabójstwie, narażając własne życie i spoglądając w otchłań strachu… W otchłani strachu zostało uznane za najbardziej oczekiwany thriller 2021 roku między innymi przez CNN, „Newsweeka” i „Readerʼs Digest”. Redakcja Amazona wyróżniła go tytułem najlepszego thrillera 2021 roku. Całego audiobooka możesz posłuchać tutaj

Autor rozważań: Łukasz Kapica Czyta: Mateusz Michalik Mt 11, 20-24 Jezus począł czynić wyrzuty miastom, w których dokonało się najwięcej Jego cudów, że się nie nawróciły. «Biada tobie, Korozain! Biada tobie, Betsaido! Bo gdyby w Tyrze i Sydonie działy się cuda, które u was się dokonały, już dawno w worze i w popiele by się nawróciły. Toteż powiadam wam: Tyrowi i Sydonowi lżej będzie w dzień sądu niż wam. A ty, Kafarnaum, czy aż do nieba masz być wyniesione? Aż do Otchłani zejdziesz. Bo gdyby w Sodomie działy się cuda, które się w tobie dokonały, przetrwałaby aż do dnia dzisiejszego. Toteż powiadam wam: Ziemi sodomskiej lżej będzie w dzień sądu niż tobie».

Choć Dario Argento zyskał rozgłos jako popularyzator włoskiego kryminału i thrilleru, wkrótce zaczęły pociągać go elementy grozy i fantastyki, które zrodziły jego najsłynniejsze dzieło – Suspirię. Analizując ten film, a także powiązane z nim Inferno, zastanawiamy się nad tym, jaki był autorski pomysł Argento na horror, jak prezentuje się on na tle tego gatunku w niezwykle ciekawej pod tym względem dekadzie lat 70. i jakie elementy zapewniły mu nieśmiertelność.Obejrzyj film „Odgłosy" na FlixClassic - https://flixclassic.pl/movies,1/odglosy-1977,8306Więcej filmowej klasyki znajdziesz na www.flixclassic.pl

Welcome to Season Three of The Bitey End of the Dog! For this season, I will be continuing to have great discussions on helping dogs with aggression with the world's foremost experts, and will be introducing a new exciting format to the show, Fresh Bites which will be shorter episodes on a variety of topics focused on understanding dog behavior from a diverse group of dog trainers and behavior pros from around the world. I'm kicking off this season with none other than Jean Donaldson, who has had a profound influence in so many positive ways in my journey, as well as many others in the dog training world. We chat about her seminal book, The Culture Clash, as well as Mine and Fight, two other well known books, and must haves if you are working aggression cases, and go down many other deep rabbit holes in dog behavior. For additional resources on helping dogs with aggression, visit:https://aggressivedog.comIf you want to take your knowledge and skills for helping dogs with aggression to the next level, check out the Aggression in Dogs Master Course and get a FREE preview here:https://aggressivedog.thinkific.com/courses/aggression-in-dogsDon't miss out on the third annual Aggression in Dogs Conference  9/30-10/2/22:https://aggressivedog.com/conference/Woof Cultr swag!https://woofcultr.com/collections/the-aggression-in-dogs-conferenceAbout Jean Donaldson:The Academy for Dog Trainers was founded in 1999 by Jean Donaldson.She ran it for ten years as a residential program at The San Francisco SPCA before spending a year and a half re-inventing the curriculum in its current form as a two-year e-learning course. The new format broadens the scope and content of the original program, includes the latest research on behavior and training, and allows students a much longer enrollment time so that they may study, “marinate” and integrate concepts and skills, train and fit their course work around their life commitments.Jean is one of the top dog trainers in the world and has lectured extensively in the US, Canada, the UK, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. She is a four-time winner of The Dog Writers' Association of America's Maxwell Award, and her seminal book The Culture Clash was named number one training and behavior book by The Association of Pet Dog Trainers. Her other titles are Mine! A Guide to Resource Guarding in Dogs, Fight! A Guide to Dog-Dog Aggression, Dogs Are From Neptune, and Oh Behave! Dogs From Pavlov to Premack to Pinker.Her most recent book, Train Like a Pro, was her first written training guide for a lay audience. In 2017, Jean authored and instructed Dog Training 101 for The Great Courses.Before transitioning full-time to pet dog training, Jean competed in dog sports with dogs of various breeds, earning numerous titles and wins including OTCh, HIT, TDX, and FDCh, as well as a CGC. She ran a successful training school for fifteen years, and spent six years doing primarily referral aggression cases. She holds a degree in comparative psychology and is a keen student of evolutionary biology.The Academy for Dog Trainershttps://www.academyfordogtrainers.comThe Great Courses - Dog Training 101https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/dog-training-101Support the show

Autor rozważań: Jan Łączak Czyta: Mateusz Michalik Łk 16, 19-31 Jezus powiedział do faryzeuszów: «Żył pewien człowiek bogaty, który ubierał się w purpurę i bisior i dzień w dzień ucztował wystawnie. U bramy jego pałacu leżał żebrak pokryty wrzodami, imieniem Łazarz. Pragnął on nasycić się odpadkami ze stołu bogacza. A także psy przychodziły i lizały jego wrzody. Umarł żebrak i aniołowie zanieśli go na łono Abrahama. Umarł także bogacz i został pogrzebany. Gdy cierpiąc męki w Otchłani, podniósł oczy, ujrzał z daleka Abrahama i Łazarza na jego łonie. I zawołał: „Ojcze Abrahamie, ulituj się nade mną i przyślij Łazarza, aby koniec swego palca umoczył w wodzie i ochłodził mój język, bo strasznie cierpię w tym płomieniu”. Lecz Abraham odrzekł: „Wspomnij, synu, że za życia otrzymałeś swoje dobra, a Łazarz w podobny sposób – niedolę; teraz on tu doznaje pociechy, a ty męki cierpisz. A ponadto między nami a wami zionie ogromna przepaść, tak że nikt, choćby chciał, stąd do was przejść nie może ani stamtąd nie przedostają się do nas”. Tamten rzekł: „Proszę cię więc, ojcze, poślij go do domu mojego ojca. Mam bowiem pięciu braci: niech ich ostrzeże, żeby i oni nie przyszli na to miejsce męki”. Lecz Abraham odparł: „Mają Mojżesza i Proroków, niechże ich słuchają!” „Nie, ojcze Abrahamie – odrzekł tamten – lecz gdyby ktoś z umarłych poszedł do nich, to się nawrócą”. Odpowiedział mu: „Jeśli Mojżesza i Proroków nie słuchają, to choćby ktoś z umarłych powstał, nie uwierzą”».

Chciał, żeby ludzie się go bali i został postrachem na osiedlu. Osiągnął swoje cele, ale czuł pustkę i coraz bardziej oddawał się używkom. Paweł sześć lat temu o ratunek poprosił Pana Boga. Od tego czasu walczy ze złem – za radą św. ojca Maksymiliana – tylko przy pomocy modlitwy różańcowej. Do Studia Świadectw zaprasza Katarzyna Supeł-Zaboklicka. Subskrybuj kanał SalveNET: https://bit.ly/2Aor1FA

Załoga Echo Telamon kontynuuje podróż na stację Szafirowy Grot, jednak nie bez niespodzianek. Po drodze bohaterowie zostają zmuszeni do odbycia niebezpiecznego spaceru kosmicznego. Tymczasem Kadm dostaje szansę, żeby zabłysnąć. Gramy w systemie „Coriolis: The Third Horizon” w naszym autorskim świecie. Krzysiek Ceran – Mistrz gry Anna „Mysza” Piotrowska – Kadm Kamil Borek – Niezłomny Wariant Read more The post Astrofunk #3 – Blask w otchłani first appeared on Sesje na podsłuchu.

Załoga Echo Telamon kontynuuje podróż na stację Szafirowy Grot, jednak nie bez niespodzianek. Po drodze bohaterowie zostają zmuszeni do odbycia niebezpiecznego spaceru kosmicznego. Tymczasem Kadm dostaje szansę, żeby zabłysnąć. Gramy w systemie „Coriolis: The Third Horizon” w naszym autorskim świecie. Krzysiek Ceran – Mistrz gry Anna „Mysza” Piotrowska – Kadm Kamil Borek – Niezłomny Wariant Read more The post Astrofunk #3 – Blask w otchłani first appeared on Sesje na podsłuchu.

Załoga Echo Telamon kontynuuje podróż na stację Szafirowy Grot, jednak nie bez niespodzianek. Po drodze bohaterowie zostają zmuszeni do odbycia niebezpiecznego spaceru kosmicznego. Tymczasem Kadm dostaje szansę, żeby zabłysnąć. Gramy w systemie „Coriolis: The Third Horizon” w naszym autorskim świecie. Krzysiek Ceran – Mistrz gry Anna „Mysza” Piotrowska – Kadm Kamil Borek – Niezłomny Wariant Read more The post Astrofunk #3 – Blask w otchłani first appeared on Sesje na podsłuchu.

Załoga Echo Telamon kontynuuje podróż na stację Szafirowy Grot, jednak nie bez niespodzianek. Po drodze bohaterowie zostają zmuszeni do odbycia niebezpiecznego spaceru kosmicznego. Tymczasem Kadm dostaje szansę, żeby zabłysnąć. Gramy w systemie „Coriolis: The Third Horizon” w naszym autorskim świecie. Krzysiek Ceran – Mistrz gry Anna „Mysza” Piotrowska – Kadm Kamil Borek – Niezłomny Wariant Read more The post Astrofunk #3 – Blask w otchłani first appeared on Sesje na podsłuchu.

Autor rozważań: Paweł Nogala Czytał: Damian Talowski (Łk 10, 13-16) Z Ewangelii wg św. Łukasza Jezus powiedział: «Biada tobie, Korozain! Biada tobie, Betsaido! Bo gdyby w Tyrze i Sydonie działy się cuda, które u was się dokonały, już dawno by się nawróciły, siedząc w worze i popiele. Toteż Tyrowi i Sydonowi lżej będzie na sądzie niżeli wam. A ty, Kafarnaum, czy aż do nieba masz być wyniesione? Aż do Otchłani zejdziesz! Kto was słucha, Mnie słucha, a kto wami gardzi, Mną gardzi; lecz kto Mną gardzi, gardzi Tym, który mnie posłał».

Wstępniakowy materiał do nowego cyklu. Discordy: Arkham Radio https://discord.gg/8yCcexeHMc Klub Cthulhu https://discord.gg/MpFC4ca8FB

Autor rozważań: Piotr Leśniak Czytał: Damian Talowski (Mt 11, 20–24) Z Ewangelii wg św. Mateusza: Jezus począł czynić wyrzuty miastom, w których dokonało się najwięcej Jego cudów, że się nie nawróciły. «Biada tobie, Korozain! Biada tobie, Betsaido! Bo gdyby w Tyrze i Sydonie działy się cuda, które u was się dokonały, już dawno w worze i w popiele by się nawróciły. Toteż powiadam wam: Tyrowi i Sydonowi lżej będzie w dzień sądu niż wam. A ty, Kafarnaum, czy aż do nieba masz być wyniesione? Aż do Otchłani zejdziesz. Bo gdyby w Sodomie działy się cuda, które się w tobie dokonały, przetrwałaby aż do dnia dzisiejszego. Toteż powiadam wam: Ziemi sodomskiej lżej będzie w dzień sądu niż tobie».

O co chodzi z Funduszem Odbudowy? Czy jest tak, jak mówi większość establishmentu - że to wspaniałe, wręcz konieczne rozwiązanie dla krajów Europy po kryzysie COVIDowym? Czy może niekoniecznie...? 0:00 Wstęp 3:03 Czym jest Fundusz Odbudowy? 19:00 Problemy z Funduszem Odbudowy 49:30 Konkluzje i podsumowanie Źródła: Oficjalna unijna strona planu odbudowy:  https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/recovery-plan-europe_pl Artykuły bezpośrednio poświęcone Funduszowi Odbudowy:  https://www.money.pl/gospodarka/kpo-sejm-zdecydowal-ws-funduszu-odbudowy-oto-najwazniejsze-informacje-6635999141600000a.html  https://businessinsider.com.pl/finanse/fundusze/fundusz-odbudowy-i-krajowy-plan-odbudowy-o-tym-warto-wiedziec/tnyk2t5  https://businessinsider.com.pl/finanse/fundusze/budzet-ue-i-fundusz-odbudowy-ile-wyniesie-polska-skladka/509w220  https://businessinsider.com.pl/polityka/budzet-ue-na-lata-2021-2027-glosowanie-w-radzie-ue/g6jz1n1  https://businessinsider.com.pl/wiadomosci/unia-europejska-w-2020-roku-hamiltonowski-moment-europy/5ecsz0s  https://www.rp.pl/Budzet-i-Podatki/305059917-Wzrosnie-skladka-do-UE-bo-rosnie-PKB.html Artykuły pośrednio związane z tematem (np. krytyczna ocena planu Marshalla w ujęciu Henry'ego Hazlitta):  https://mises.pl/blog/2015/11/30/moron/  https://mises.org/library/marshall-plan-myth  https://mises.org/wire/marshall-plan-isnt-success-story-you-think-it  https://mises.pl/blog/2011/07/27/bagus-oficjalny-poczatek-europejskiej-unii-transferowej/  https://mises.pl/blog/2012/04/05/bagus-przyszlosc-euro/  https://mises.pl/blog/2013/04/15/bagus-pokusa-naduzycia-w-strefie-euro/ #FunduszOdbudowy #EU #suwerenność życie | rozum | wolność Słuchaj nas na Spotify i innych platformach streamingowych! http://www.podcast.obiektywizm.pl www.obiektywizm.pl - Polskie centrum sympatyków myśli Ayn Rand --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/laissezfairepl/message

Książka o której dziś opowiemy zatytułowana „ Tyrmand. Pisarz o białych oczach” to literacka podróż śladami Leopolda Tyrmanda i ludzi, których wyobraźnią zawładnął, to scenariusz hollywoodzkiego filmu. Warszawskie zaułki, kalifornijskie bezdroża, nowojorski zgiełk i moskiewskie mrozy. Książkę graficznie wraz z okładką opracowała Anna Pol, a napisał ją Marcel Woźniak pisarz, scenarzysta telewizyjny, dziennikarz, biograf Leopolda Tyrmanda, autor kryminałów Powtórka (2017), Mgnienie (2017) i Otchłań (2018) oraz licznych opowiadań. Związany z Uniwersytetem Mikołaja Kopernika w Toruniu, współpracuje z Instytutem Literatury w Krakowie. Podczas podróży śladami Tyrmanda odwiedził oba wybrzeża USA, Rosję, Litwę i Niemcy. Z autorem rozmawia Hanna Mirska-Grudzińska.

Można ją oglądać w Hugonówce w Konstancinie do 29 listopada. Portret Kaczanowskiego namalował przed laty Pablo Picasso. Malarz przyjaźnił się z Markiem Hłasko. Pracował w Paryżu, tworzył i mieszkał w Stanach. Tematami wielu prac artysty są rzeczywistość, samotność i tajemnica. Nasza dziennikarka Katarzyna Sobiechowska-Szuchta rozmawiała z nim również o muzyce.

"Od człowieka do czarnej otchłani" - taki tytuł nosi wystawa malarstawa Witolda-K (Witolda Kaczanowskiego). Można ją oglądać w galerii Konstancińskiego Domu Kultury Hugonówka do 29 listopada. Tematami wielu prac artysty są rzeczywistość, samotność i tajemnica. Jak podkreśla Witold-K, "klucz do dobrego dzieła to kompozycja! Trzeba wiedzieć, kiedy się zatrzymać".

You can argue that she was the first female serial killer in American history, but many people don’t immediately make that connection. Her actions were a product of the times she lived in, but that in no way excuses them. This week we cover the story of Madame Delphine LaLaurie and her house of horrors. Follow us on social media: Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/chilledandthrilledpodcastFacebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/chilledandthrilledInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/chilledandthrilledpodcastTwitter: https://twitter.com/Thrilled_PodInstacart - Groceries delivered in as little as 1 hour. Free delivery on your first order over $35.Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched! Start for FREEDisclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Ciemność, mrok, szaleństwo i brak nadziei na lepsze jutro. Wakacje roku 2020 pewnie nie przejdą do historii jako te najlepsze i niestety tyczy się to także sposobu zapowiedzi gier. Moglibyśmy omówić pewnie przeszło setkę gier, które w ostatnim miesiącu były … Czytaj dalej →

OH MY DAYS BOOKSHELVERS!Never meet your heroes they say... well Barks from the Bookshelf say a big BOO to that.This episode features the one and only Jean Donaldson. Jean doesn't really require an introduction. She is a burning light in the Dog Training Community. It was our absolute honour to talk with Jean and we really hope you all enjoy it.Jean's BioJean is one of the top dog trainers in the world and has lectured extensively in the US, Canada, the UK, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. She is a four-time winner of The Dog Writers’ Association of America’s Maxwell Award, and her seminal book The Culture Clash was named number one training and behavior book by The Association of Pet Dog Trainers. Her other titles are Mine! A Guide to Resource Guarding in Dogs, Fight! A Guide to Dog-Dog Aggression, Dogs Are From Neptune, and Oh Behave! Dogs From Pavlov to Premack to Pinker.Her most recent book, Train Like a Pro, was her first written training guide for a lay audience. In 2018, Jean authored and instructed Dog Training 101 for The Great Courses, another resource for dog guardians.Before transitioning full-time to pet dog training, Jean competed in dog sports with dogs of various breeds, earning numerous titles and wins including OTCh, HIT, TDX, and FDCh, as well as a CGC. She ran a successful training school for fifteen years, and spent six years doing primarily referral aggression cases. She holds a degree in comparative psychology and is a keen student of evolutionary biology.We recorded this podcast a few weeks ago before the real Covid 19 horror show hit. We sincerely hope everyone is coping out there and doing all they can to keep themselves, their loved ones and the entire planet safe. We hope this goes some way to making these uncertain time a tiny bit easier.Love to you all.Steve and NatLink to Jean Donalsons Animal Teaining Academyhttps://www.animaltrainingacademy.com/podcast/training-tidbits/jean-donaldson/Link to Jean's book 'Mine!'https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0970562942/ref=dbs_a_w_dp_0970562942Link to Jean's book 'Fight!'https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0970562969/ref=dbs_a_w_dp_0970562969Link to Steve & Corrins Goodall Dog Training Facebook pagehttps://www.facebook.com/goodalldogs/Link to Nat's Training & Behaviour facebook pagehttps://www.facebook.com/Natdogs/

Kaaz jest smokiem, manifestacją ostatniego słońca, które chroni Wyspę przed zagładą. Jeśli zostanie strącony do Otchłani przez sługi Sisqosa, wówczas przemieni się w Mrocznego Lorda i wraz z Starożytnym Wężem zniszczy błąd Wzoru Gwiazd. Dlatego, decyduje się na ostateczną ofiarę, umiera jako smok i wraca jak człowiek, aby pokonać wrogów Ojca Wulkanu. Czy mu się to uda? Czy śmiertelni sprzymierzeńcy, nie okażą się zdrajcami? O tym dowiecie się słuchając powieści Gialar! Oby nam się!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!! In this episode we talk about a special little town called Salem and all of it's spooky happenings. Tune in every Thursday for new episodes! Send all corrections/questions/concerns to fakinghistorypodcast@gmail.com

Dziewiąty odc. komediowo-fantastycznego serialu audio “Opowieści z dykty”.Co wspólnego z Otchłanią ma pęknięta siatka jabłek? Ciekawego słuchania życzymy.

Nikczemnicy otchłani Ten odcinek mocno nafaszerowany grami ze średniej półki, ale czy te gry są równie średnio dobre? Na start dwa tematy w sekcji newsowej dotyczące odświeżonej wersji konsoli NintendoShwitch (czy to ma sens?) oraz abonament EAA trafia na PlayStation4 … Czytaj dalej →

Witamy w Przecaście, czyli w przekozackim przeglądzie popkultury z przekazem, tj. w regularnym cyklu luźnych rozmów twórców i przyjaciół Konglomeratu o tym, co aktualnie dzieje się w popkulturze. W tym tygodniu rozmawiamy między innymi o przyszłości wybranych filmów i seriali spod szyldu DC, o wyjątkowych komiksach wydanych przez Egmont z okazji 80-lecia Batmana, o zapowiedziach powrotów, remake'ów i rebootów znanych marek, tj. serialowych wersji „Scream”, „Hellraisera”, „Ju-On” czy „Cobry” oraz o nowych odsłonach „Rambo” czy „Terminatora”. Na koniec wspominamy także o końcu pewnej epoki. Jakiej? Dowiecie się w trakcie odsłuchu. A dokładny spis tematów znajdziecie poniżej: * 00:01:35 – Dziwne decyzje i ich konsekwencje – o niezrozumiałej kasacji serialu „Swamp Thing”* 00:08:16 – Wazzup? What's your favorite shitty movie? – „Scream: Ressurection” jako koniec kultowej serii?* 00:23:27 – To się nie wydarzy – „Hellraiser” jako film i serial* 00:29:07 – Wszyscy sraliśmy po gaciach – „Ju-On” powróci jako serial na Netfliksie* 00:32:34 – Płaskorzeźby nie są złe – Start promocji „Wiedźmina” od Netfliksa* 00:37:05 – Cobrettiego drugie życie na emeryturze – Stallone chce zrobić serialowego „Cobrę”* 00:42:38 – Old Man John: Sam na farmie – zwiastun filmu „Rambo: Ostatnia krew"* 00:51:11 – Mroczny, intensywny, z kategorią R – dalsza promocja filmu „Terminator: Mroczne Przeznaczenie”* 00:54:29 – Historyjki (nie) dla dzieci? – zwiastun filmu „Upiorne opowieści po zmroku”"* 01:03:10 – Obecność 3: Otchłańce – Horrorowy spin-off „Akwamena”* 01:07:53 – IT is Flash – Andy Muschietti wyreżyseruje „Flasha” z Ezrą Millerem?* 01:11:18 – Lustrzane odbicie Kubricka – teaser filmu „Doktor Sen”* 01:17:40 – Nie na naszą kieszeń – kolekcjonerski „Batman Noir”* 01:24:12 – 6800 złotych i koniec pewnej epoki – finał komiksowego „The Walking Dead” i ostatni tom Wielkiej Kolekcji Komiksów Marvela

Jean is the founder and principal instructor of The Academy for Dog Trainers.  The Academy is celebrating its twentieth anniversary in 2019.  She is a four-time winner of The Dog Writers' Association of America's Maxwell Award.  In 2017, Jean was recruited to create Dog Training 101 for The Great Courses. Born in Montreal, Canada, Jean founded the Montreal Flyball Association, and Renaissance Dog Training, the first positive reinforcement-based school, and counseling service in the province.  Her own dogs and dogs she has trained have earned numerous titles and wins in a variety of dog sports, including OTCh, TDX, HIT and FDCh.  While a student, she worked as an adoption counselor at the Montreal SPCA and later served on its Board of Directors.  Before founding The Academy, Jean did exclusively referral aggression cases for six years.  She lives in Oakland, California, with her dog, Brian, adopted in 2015.

Napisy Końcowe to kanał dyskusyjny tworzony przez Łukasza Stelmacha, Oskara Rogowskiego, Radosława Pisulę, Martę Najman i Adama Antolskiego. Znajdziecie tutaj komentarze i dyskusje na temat doniesień ze świata filmu oraz popkultury. Wspieraj Napisy Końcowe: https://napisykoncowe.pl/hajs Zapytania biznesowe: napisyk@gmail.com

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.

Summary: This episode we talked to 3 long-time FDSA students...  Alla Podkopaeva has been taking classes at FDSA since August of 2015, when she took Engagement at bronze for the first time — and last session, Denise asked her to be a Teaching Assistant for that same class! She since has earned her Fenzi Dog Sports Trainer Certificate, and is currently training for all the things… and sharing takeaways from her journey on her new blog, thedognerd.ca. Andrea Woodcock has been taking classes at FDSA since December of 2013, after hearing Denise talk at an APDT conference earlier that year. At that point she had been been training service dogs for about 7 years — and today she continues that work as the training manager at Dogs for Better Lives. Sara Pisani has been taking classes at FDSA since it began offering obedience classes, and has taken a gold class every single session — except for 2 sessions in 2015 when she had both knees replaced. Before finding FDSA, Sara and her first performance dog, Jazz Marie, who she began with in Novice A, knowing nothing about dog sports, went on to earn over 350 OTCH points and a Champion Tracking title. Next Episode: To be released 12/28/2018, with Leslie McDevitt.

In this episode, we discuss the need for all Scent Work enthusiasts - whether they are interested in competition or not - to practice a bit more patience. Doing so will ensure your dog has the skills they need to be successful in this game...and will also ensure that YOU have the skills needed to be the best handler possible! ----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. In this podcast we talk about all things Scent Work which include training tips, what your instructor or trial official may be going through and much more. In this episode we're going to be talking about the importance of being patient when we're training Scent Work whether we're interested in doing it for fun or for if we're interested in doing it for competition. Before we start diving into the episode, let me do a very quick introduction on 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. They are designed to provide high quality instruction as well as flexibility and convenience so that you'll be able to access these dog training resources regardless of where you're located. So without further ado, let's dive into the podcast. In this podcast episode what I'm hoping that we can understand as a community is the importance of being patient as far as it comes to dog training overall, but particularly with Scent Work. I do think that there is a tendency within this one specialty of dog training that tends to force people, or invite people rather, to try to rush. There's a couple of different reasons for that, but within this podcast episode I'm just hoping to outline the importance of actually taking your time, of ensuring that your dog understands some core material, and core skills are mastered, that you have mastered some skills, and how it is you can actually design your training so it's not just a simple rush to the end goal. To start off with I just want to talk about why it is that I think, in my opinion, that Scent Work as an activity invites people to rush, and the reason is that Scent Work as a whole is trying to highlight how amazing our dogs are, and being able to use their nose to find very specific types of odors. For Scent Work as a competition they're going to be finding things such as birch, anise or clove. That within itself is a very sexy and alluring thing that I could take my dog and I can have them go find something that doesn't normally mean anything to them whatsoever, and to most of the public, birch, anise or clove doesn't mean anything either. So you can whip out your little tin that has a scented Q-Tip in, and say, "My dog is going to find this, and I'm going to hide it somewhere in the house. And they go, "Really? Why?" And I go, "Oh, just wait." So you hide it. You have the dog search for it, and then everyone's oohing and aahing because that's pretty impressive. Why on earth would your dog find birch? I don't even know what birch is if I'm not involved in Scent Work. Just by design being able to have that super reinforcing activity of being able to show off how brilliant your dog is, that tends to make people want to rush because you realize how cool that is, to show that off to other people or to just do it yourself, you want to be able to do that right away. There are lots of dogs that would benefit from having a foundation laid out in a different way, or maybe they're only searching for food, and I hate framing it that way because it's the same exact thing. Searching for a hot dog, scenting wise is the same thing as searching for birch, but as human beings we put a lot more weight in searching for birch. One of the things I always try to tell my students whenever they start bringing these things up of, "I've been on primary for a little bit, and now I want to go on to a target odor. I want to do it yesterday. Why can't we go on to a target odor? What's the delay?" Blah, blah, blah. It's okay. I understand what you're saying. I can understand the allure, but are you saying that you think finding a hot dog or a treat is less impressive than finding birch? And they will begrudgingly say yes once you drag it out of them. I say, "Okay, if that's the case, then you should be able to find a hot dog within a space that I've hidden somewhere. So I want you to put a blindfold on, get down on all fours and find that hot dog where I hid it just using your nose." And they look at me like I'm a little crazy, but that's basically what we're saying when we make that argument. They're like, "Oh yes, so my dog can find a hot dog, but they could be finding birch, and birch is so much better." That's not true. The only difference is that we're trying to teach our dog that birch has value. That's the difference between the two, but the actual ability to scent is the same whether or not your dog is finding hot dogs or birch. I'm hoping with this example we can understand that just a premise, as an activity, it's almost baked in from a human perspective that we would tend to rush, because we want to show everyone how brilliant our dog is that they can go out and find these target odors. And there very well may be a situation where your dog would benefit if they were following the K9 Nose Work Training method which I use where they start off with primary, that it would be better for them to find primary for a certain period of time to build up other skills before they ever started finding a target odor. That is again a school of thought as far as how it is that you would train. I would argue there are some dogs, particularly those who are lower on the confidence scale, where you would definitely want to go the primary route because you don't want the dog to potentially be frightened by a particular exercise or something, and then associate that fear with birch. That would be bad. I'm hoping that you can see with just this introductory part of this podcast with how the activity is almost framed and design invites us to rush, and we have to be mindful of that and fight that urge as much as we can. One of the things that I would urge people to do when they're thinking about these kinds of things is how is it that you can develop a solid foundation for your dog so they could actually be successful in Scent Work, and let me just put this out there, not just for competition. I think that it's just as valuable for someone to avoid rushing if they only wanted to play the game for fun as the person who is also interested in doing competition down the line. To me those are exactly the same. Those people should have the same concerns. So with that being said, how is it that you can develop a solid foundation for your dog where you're not rushing them, where you are actually, positively certain that they understand what it is they need to do. And a lot of this is understanding that your dog has to develop skills, but so do you. For myself personally with how I teach Scent Work using the K9 Nose Work Training Method through NACSW is we are designing search areas where we are always manipulating the environment. We're never trying to manipulate the dog. That's never the goal. So you're always changing the picture that you're presenting to present a different skillset for the dog to master. It's understanding that you are not teaching the dog how to sniff. You're not going up to the dog and saying, "Okay, use your nostril in this way, and then process it that way in your brain, and then do this with it." Of course not. That's not what Scent Work is. Scent Work is literally presenting different odor pictures to our dogs, and then giving them the time and the space to work those out, because quite honestly we are only guessing as human beings how these odor trails actually work. Our dogs are the experts. We're just trying to give them an opportunity to say, "Here's a funky odor picture, can you work that out?" That's all this is, but you have to give your dog the opportunity to do that. And there are definitely things you can do to manipulate the environment to make that problem easier in the beginning, and then progressively make it a little bit more complicated, but it's understanding that you can even do that piece. That's very important when you're training. You don't have to present your dog with inaccessible hides the very first time you're ever doing Scent Work with them. That would be unfair. What is the goal in doing that? What are you trying to teach your dog? That they can't get to the thing that you're trying to make rewarding? That doesn't make sense. So for us when we're designing our training plans or our approaches, again, whether we're interested in just doing it for fun or for competition, how is it that we're actually developing the skills for the dog so that they can be successful and they actually understand what it is we want them to do? At the same time understanding that this entire process is not just focused on the dog. You are a very important part of this. The way that I design my training is so that, particularly in the beginning, the handlers are an observer where we're trying to build as much independence and confidence in the dog as possible so they're going out and they are searching. But the handler is still doing an active role of watching, of watching and learning from their own dog. They're picking up on cues that the dog is giving off, when the dog first detects odor, when the dog is chasing odor, and when the dog has found odor, when the dog is actively working, when the dog could be asking for help, when the dog is getting stressed. All that is really important, and if you rush ahead and you have no idea what any of that looks like, and you were interested in competition, that's going to be a really big problem. Then another level to those skills is as far as a handler, obviously handling a long line or a leash is a huge skill that you need to be able to master. Knowing what to do with your own body, even if your dog is working off leash, how are you not inhibiting their search? How are you supporting them throughout the search? How can you remind them to go to different parts of the search area without taking over the search? Because if you do too much, with a lot of dogs, they'll just say, "Okay, you with the thumbs, you go find the hide. Let me know when you found it, and then I'll eat a cookie. That sounds good." So if you're constantly doing check, check, check, check, check, a lot of dogs will just be like, "Okay, just let me know when you find it, and then you can pay me, and then we'll be good." You wouldn't want that. That's not the goal. I'm hoping that we can understand as a community that both you and your dog have to do a tremendous amount of learning in order to do well. You both have to build a lot of skills in order to do well. As a handler you also have to realize how it is you can set these things up. How are you designing your exercises? How are you splitting this up so they are in incremental steps, that you're not throwing your dog into the deep end of the pool, that you're not turning off their excitement and their joy for the game? All of this is actually pretty complicated, and it takes time to do. I hope that makes a little more sense as far as the need for developing these solid foundation behaviors, and that rushing ahead, you could absolutely get a list done in three weeks and enter into a lower level trial and potentially do well. People have done it. I've heard of it. I've also seen those very same people maybe squeak by at the next level, and then fall apart at the higher levels because they don't have the skills. They and their dogs simply don't have the skills that they need, and then they languish at those upper levels. The dog learns to hate the game. The person isn't particularly happy, and it's just a mess. All because they said, "But I wanted to get there within three weeks." Why? What happens in three weeks? Do you turn into a pumpkin and you're not allowed to do Scent Work any more? I understand the allure. I really do, from taking a step back and from listening to my students from over the course of all the years I've been doing Scent Work, on the East Coast of the United States originally, and now on the West Coast of the United States. It's all the same where people want to be able to showcase both themselves and their dogs. They don't want to be wasting time. They don't want to just be spinning their wheels which is completely understandable. I'm not asking that you stay at a given level and don't ever progress. I'm not asking that you don't set goals and try to work towards them. Just the opposite. I'm just asking that those goals be realistic. To use a completely different dog sport analogy, competition obedience. You wouldn't expect a 12 week old puppy that you've been working with for a week to then enter a trial and earn their OTCH which is their highest level of competition obedience title as possible within AKC. That would be ridiculous. No one in their right mind would ever think that that would happen. They also wouldn't think it would be possible in three weeks. A lot of people would argue you wouldn't be able to do that within a year or two or maybe even three. These things take time. These are very specific skills. This is testing both your dog's ability to work with a variety of different factors, not to mention just learning how to work on hides and odor problems, but being able to work within the environment, being able to work with a variety of different stressors. Then you have all of your skills too. A lot of people think that this is just simply dog-centric. That the handler doesn't play a role at all, and that's not true. That's a misnomer. You do have skills that you have to develop. You have to be able to listen to your dog. You have to be able to read what it is that they're doing within that space. You also have to know that you're not frankly, screwing them up, that where you are within the space is not inhibiting them from actually finding the hide, that you're not making it impossible for them to be successful. That's a pretty big involvement. So I hope that we can have a better understanding just as a community that speed should not be the metric. The metric should be whether or not the dog and the handler have obtained the necessarily skills. And I do not think as an instructor myself that I've perfected the way of relaying that to my students. I think it's gotten better over the years, but I don't think that I've perfected it yet, because I'll still get questions from students who say, "Oh, when do we get to do X or Y or Z?" It's like, "You just started this class two weeks ago. It's going to take you time." I try to be as forthcoming as I can where if anyone who takes my Introduction to Scent Work Class, I say, "Look, if you are interested in competition, as a general rule, I try to tell people it's going to take you six to eight months of training to be ready to to into your very first trial," which I would urge people to do an ORT because they can be extraordinarily informational to tell if your dog would be comfortable in a trial environment. Can they actually search within a trial environment? Can you search in a trial environment? It's good information to have, and then you probably would be able to enter into the other levels of competition for the other competition organizations, but you would be ready to do that. You wouldn't just be getting in by the skin of your teeth. You wouldn't just be squeaking by. You would actually be confident in your skills at that time point, and that's generally speaking. Are there people who could do it faster? Sure. Are there people who would take longer? Of course, and it shouldn't matter at the end of the day. But I just try to let people know as a general rule, that the timeframe you should think of, but it's a common question that I still receive. Again, the point is podcast is at least to help people start thinking about the importance of being patient, but I'm not claiming as an instructor that I've found the perfect way of relaying that even to my own students. We try to remind everyone that this will take time and that this is a process and everything else. And again, I think I've improved over time and over the years, but I don't think I've perfected the message just yet. If anyone else has any ideas of how to say stuff, then by all means, please share, but as a general rule, being more patient is extraordinarily helpful, particularly when we're talking about Scent Work. One of the things that a student recently asked me, "When do we get to do target odors?" Because again, I start using primary, and would lay out and, "Okay, this is how we do it. We do it for six weeks for a primary." If your dog has any kind of confidence issues, if they're a little bit on the shyer side, if you've made a lot of adjustments for them in this first foundation class, their first introduction to Scent Work, then I would urge them to stay on the foundation path where we keep them on primary as we continue to introduce them to other skills. If your dog doesn't have any confidence issues, if they're loving the game, they didn't have to make a lot of adjustments, then generally speaking then they can go on to the target odor path. So it's six weeks on primary regardless, and then you figure out which fork in the road you would want to take that would be best for your dog. And they were okay with that for about three weeks and then week four is "Okay, when do we do target odors?" It's like, "Okay, we have to finish this class first, and then we have to assess where your dog is." They finished that first class and it was perfect, and then they went into the birch class and their dog was doing well. Their dog didn't have any confidence issues. They didn't need a lot of adjustments for the exercises. Their dog was actually loving the game, was doing really, really well. So then they went to what I call the Introducing Birch Course, and again, dog was doing great. And the question was, "Okay, when are we going to teach alerts?" Again, we are literally just introducing the concept of birch to this dog. I said, "Okay, the way that I teach this is we will be using pairing, meaning that there will be a hide out within the space, and we're going to have a treat with that hide so the dog can self-reward, and they can make the association that birch is actually valuable." They will then say, "Okay, but when are we going to teach alerts?" It's like, "We have to teach that birch is valuable first, and then we need to introduce them to all these various odor puzzles and odor problems." The way I start is primarily with containers and interior searches first. Then we should introduce them to the other elements, for my purposes, it's exteriors and vehicles. If they were interested in doing things like AKC, then we can talk about buried hides or handler discrimination down the road, but teach your dogs the skills first. Then worry about an alert behavior, even if you need it at that point. I would argue that nine times out of 10 you don't because you can read your dog at that point really well, and your dog probably developed a natural alert behavior that you haven't taught which tends to work out pretty well. Again, that's all about preference and training ideas and schools of thought which is completely fine. It could be a discussion for another time, but that's the way that I train. And this client was like, "Okay." The next week, "When do we teach alert behaviors?" And I was like, "I'm not certain how else to put this to you, that your dog is learning skills right now." So finally the way I framed it was, "Okay, do you have children?" This client said "Yes." I said, "Okay, perfect. How old are they?" "Oh, I have a two year old and I have a six year old." I'm like, "Okay. You think that your two year old is pretty smart, right?" They're like, "Oh they're great, perfect." I'm like, "So can I put them into a college course and expect them to pass a physics' exam?" She said, "No." The client said, "No." I'm like, "Why not?" "Because they're two." And I said, "Exactly, but are you interested in them doing something like physics down the line or some kind of higher science? They would be able to get a really good job, and maybe be a doctor or something." And the client said, "Of course. I would love for them to be a scientist or something, but they're two years old. They're learning walking and talking a small amount. They're not ready for physics." I said, "Exactly, and that's where your dog is too." It seemed to kind of click in the brain like, "Oh I need to take my time with my dog." It's not that I think badly about this client. I don't. I understand the allure of trying to get to the end result now, but it's understanding that the dog actually has to understand the skill. Let me provide you with another example of where in my group classes this would typically be an issue, elevation hides. The way that I teach elevation hides, I actually introduce the concept in my very first class, meaning the very first type of class that someone would take, first timer, so the introduction to Scent Work class. We typically introduce it around week three or four when I was teaching this in person. And the way that I would introduce it is I would have ... Again, we're just using food ... I would have that within a box, and it would be either on top of a empty box, so start off with a very small amount of elevation, or it would be on top of a chair. And there's an empty box facing that item on the floor, so in theory, the odor flows from the elevation hide, collects in the empty box, so the dog can come up and smell the empty box and go, "Ooh, I smell odor, but there's nothing actually in here", and ideally they lift their head up and can catch the odor, kind of work their way back up to that elevated hide. So it seems to work pretty well to introduce the concept of elevated hides to the dogs. However, elevation odor hides are actually pretty tricky. It's a difficult odor problem for dogs to work out. As a general rule for my in-person dog training classes, when I was doing Scent Work, this would be the week that the individual dog runs would take the longest because they'd be trying to work out these elevated hides. And this was also the week where the students would get the most frustrated. It's still early in their process of learning all about Scent Work. They can see, plain as day, where the hide is. They don't understand why it takes the dog so long, and when you are the one on the floor, and everyone else is watching you, 10 seconds feels like 10 hours. So they get fidgety. They get frustrated. They do a lot of huffing and puffing, and not understanding why it is that it's taking so long for their dog to find the hide. So we would always have to have a nice big discussion beforehand. Just know that your dog's may take a little bit more time to do this. All I want you to do is breath, step back, allow your dog to work it out, and I'll be narrating to you the various things that I see. For this one particular client with this one particular dog, came out, dog was working. There was two hides in the search area. They found their other hide very, very easily, and they came up and started working the elevation problem. This dog worked for five minutes straight, and that client, the human client, was beside themselves. They were not a happy camper. They were stressed. They wanted so badly to just step in and tap the box or something. And the only reason I allowed that dog to work that long, because it is a very long time to be working on a problem, is that dog never gave up. They never showed any signs that they were stressed. They were not worried about it at all. They knew roughly where the odor was, but they just could not figure out where it was, but when they did, it was this huge light bulb moment for this dog. At the end of the run everyone gives a nice, big round of applause to the person who ran. They are not happy at all because they're comparing themselves with their other classmates, which they've already forgotten their classmates may have taken a minute and a half or two minutes to find the hide, but they took five whole minutes. It was just, that's a travesty. We wrapped the class up, and that person sent me an email immediately that night. They were very upset. They thought that this was clearly evidence that their dog has no idea what they're doing, and they just don't feel they're progressing as well, and yada, yada, yada. I write back, and I'm like, "Seriously, your dog actually did really well. These are the high points. Your dog never gave up. Your dog was persistent. Your dog was showing persistence while they were doing this. Those are all really great qualities, and they found it out and they figured it out in the end." "These are some adjustments that you can do when you're practicing at home. Definitely keep me posted, and if you have any more questions," and they wrote back, and they weren't having any of it. So then we had a telephone conversation about it, trying to talk this person off the ledge. I said, "Just take tomorrow off from any kind of Scent Work so it's not quite such a thing, and then do some of the adjustments and things we talked about, and by all means, let me know. But again, from my perspective, your dog actually did really well." Fast forward to the following week. We're moving on to different types of skills, but we're going to be folding in our elevation hides as well. A couple of other students went. Their dogs did very nicely. They all did very well. This other student gets her turn. She comes out with her dog. There were three hides within the search area. There was one elevation hide, one typical hide or introductory hide, and then we also had a different problem that we were posing. Her dog had the fastest run out of everyone. And the look on her face was priceless because she was convinced that her dog was the worst of everyone, and she just wanted to get this done, and she wanted to move on, and she just didn't understand, and "Why is this taking so long?" Five days. Five days, she went from her dog is the worst thing ever to her dog was the fastest of that class. The reason I like to share this example is what she had done even though she was upset is she'd taken my advice, and she had broken up the exercises she was doing at home. So it was just about elevation when she was doing one of her repetitions. She started with a smaller elevation, and she immediately followed up with a recovery search. So the dog would figure it out, and then the dog would get a really easy recovery search, and then a really huge party. She got to the point where the elevation was the same height as we had had in class by the end of her practice week. Because she had taken this skill that clearly her dog struggled with, and figuring it out which again is typical, but it could potentially be a weakness for this dog, she broke it up into small pieces. She gave her dog the opportunity and the time to work it out, and sure enough her dog did. Now just suppose that was what she wanted to do, and she kept saying in our conversations before she finally relented and said, "Okay, I'll do it this way, and if it doesn't work, I'm going to do what I want to do." She wanted to go and present the dog the box. She wanted to say, "I'm just going to tap it. I'm just going to point to the box to get him up there so that they find it faster because I can't have them taking five minutes." And my argument was, "Why not?" This is a learning problem. This is a learning moment. Allow your dog to do the learning. I would argue, if she had stepped in every single time to point out to the dog where the box was, the dog wouldn't have developed the skills of figuring out that problem, and sure, if we had developed the class so that we weren't still testing elevation hides, and we had just moved on to the next skill, she could have said, "Oh yep, nope, we've found elevated hides. Everything's fine." And in theory, she could keep going on in her training, potentially could go compete, and then sure enough, her dog doesn't know how to work on elevation hide. Again, I like to include this example because it's a very common theme of I know where the hide is as the handler. I know what the answer is to the question when we're training. It feels like an eternity when my dog is trying to figure that out, and it can be extraordinarily frustrating as the person to take a back seat to the dog, and allow them to do that learning, to allow them to take the lead, and not be quite so involved. In my opinion that's where people start getting into trouble. Allow the dog to do that learning. You can then finesse things once they actually have cemented the skills, but they need the skills first. I hope that makes sense that it's a very common thing that I've seen again across the country on both coasts. When it comes to Scent Work, people tend to rush a lot, and the dogs are actually pretty smart. The dogs are able to kind of put two and two together, but the more complicated you get, the more problematic that becomes because they need to have a foundation, understanding of these skills to be successful. And that will be exponentially more difficult for you and you'll have gaping holes in your training if you rush through. I hope you found this podcast somewhat helpful. If there's anything I would love to see happen within this Scent Work community is just for all of us to take just a little bit of a step back, and to have some more patience with our dogs to really enjoy the journey a bit more, and not be so worried about the end result. And this is not just for people who are interested in competition, this also applies for people who are just looking to do things for fun with their dogs. It's really all about the learning itself. It's about the journey. I know that sounds very cliché, but it is true. All those little practice sessions should be the thing that you look forward to more than anything. And whether or not you're competing or you're showing off for your family and friends, that's the cherry on top, but it's the actual individual training sessions that are important. Thanks so much for joining us. Happy training. We look forward to seeing you soon.  

Grafika: Luke Muehlhauser Z Kamilem Muzyką, pierwszym gościem w historii naszego podcastu, dyskutujemy o transhumanizmie, czyli zestawie poglądów zakładających m.in. racjonalizm, wolność morfologiczną, szacunek dla bytów zdolnych do odczuwania oraz dążenie do wykorzystywania nauki i technologii do przekraczania biologicznych ograniczeń człowieka.Zastanawiamy się czy można być transhumanistą i o tym nie wiedzieć? Czy transhumanizm to faktycznie najniebezpieczniejsza ideologia w historii? W jakie działania transhumanisci mogą angażować się tu i teraz, aby realizować swoje postulaty bez czekania na nastanie osobliwości?Bardzo staraliśmy się nie wybiegać za bardzo w przyszłość, ale momentami mogło nam się zdarzyć odpłynąć w science-fiction.REKLAMABrainSociety to zestawy prokognitywnych suplementów diety. Odwiedź BrainSociety.com i użyj kodu OTWIERACZ.Pierwszych 500 pakietów prokognitywnych 40% taniej.NotatkiTranshumanist declarationF. Fukuyama, TranshumanismTranshumanizm, najgroźniejsza ideologia XXI wiekuKsiążki polecane przez Kamila (nie wszystkie pojawiają się w odcinku)Science fictionJacek Dukaj - ExtensaMarcin Przybyłek - saga GamedecNancy Kress - Hiszpańscy ŻebracyGreg Bear - Pieśń KrwiGreg Egan - DiasporaVernon Vinge - Ogień nad Otchłanią John Varley - Serie Gaia i Osiem SwiatówAntologia HieroglyphAlastair Reynolfds - Blue Remembered EarthIain M. Banks - saga The CultureNeil Ronald Jones - The Jameson Satellite Akademickie i inneMax Urchs - O procesorach i procesach myślowychNatasza Vita More - the transhumanist readerEric K Drexler - Engines of CreationGerard K O'Neill - The High FrontierFM 2030 - Upwingers Timothy Leary - Neuropolitics

Seamus Heaney – Otchłań Wiersze do słuchania. Najlepszą poezję na świecie czyta Marian Czarkowski. Muzyka i produkcja Łukasz Staniszewski.

Summary: Nancy Gagliardi Little has been training dogs since the early 1980s, when she put an OTCH on her Novice A dog, a Labrador Retriever. Since then she has put many advanced obedience titles on her dogs, and multiple championships in herding and agility. Next Episode:  To be released 10/19/2018, an interview with Sara Brueske on bringing an adult dog and/or rescue into your household as a sports prospect. 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 have Nancy Gagliardi Little back on the podcast. Nancy has been training dogs since the early 1980s, when she put an OTCH on her Novice A dog, a Labrador Retriever. Since then she has put many advanced obedience titles on her dogs, and multiple championships in herding and agility. Welcome back to the podcast, Nancy! Nancy Gagliardi Little: Thanks Melissa. It’s great to be here. Melissa Breau: To start us out, can you just remind listeners a little bit about who you are and who the dogs are that you share your life with? Nancy Gagliardi Little: I’m Nancy Little and I live in Minnesota. I train in obedience and agility, but I’m competing most in agility. We have four Border Collies in the house and a Toller. The Toller is my husband’s dog. He’s a 3-year-old dog named Rugby. My dogs are all spanned out from 14 years to 10 months of age. Score is my oldest. He’s retired, obviously, he’s 14 years old. I trialed him in herding and agility. He has his herding … actually he’s very, very close to finishing his herding championship, but I never did finish it. And he has MACH …  I don’t remember how many, I think it was a MACH 2. Schema is my 10-and-a-half-year-old Border Collie, and I’m just blessed that she’s still trialing. She’s still trialing in agility, and she has a MACH 2, a PACH, which is a Preferred Agility Championship, and an ADCH from USDAA. Like I said, she’s running in Preferred. She is qualified for AKC Nationals. This is the sixth year, I think, that she’s qualified, which is amazing. I’m really proud of her accomplishments this past year. Like I say, I’m just blessed that she’s still running. She’s 10-and-a-half years old. She had an injury this year. She was out for three months with a bit of a back strain. She still ended up being the Number 3 Preferred Border Collie in the AKC Invitational rankings, which I had no plan on. I’m not doing anything in terms of Invitational rankings, because with Border Collies it’s just ridiculous. But I got notified that she was the Number 3 Preferred dog, which is amazing since she was out for three months. She’s just very consistent and she’s very fast. She also, for all breeds, there’s another ranking system called the Power 60, which is done by Bad Dog Agility for the year ending in … I guess it was the second quarter. She was the Number 1 All Breed in the 16-inch Preferred. Of course she, in June, brought me back into obedience for a little bit. Our agility club that I was on the trial committee was also hosting, besides an agility trial, we used to have a two-ring agility trial, and we put on an obedience trial as well. She’s trained in obedience, and I brought her out for the first time in Beginner Novice, and that was kind of fun to get two legs. Melissa Breau: That’s awesome. Nancy Gagliardi Little: It was fun to finish that off. Then there’s Lever. He’s 5. He just qualified for the first time for AKC Agility Nationals and he’s working on his MACH in AKC. Then I have my youngest, her name is Pose. She’s Lever’s daughter and she’s 10 months old. So that’s my group. I have a lot of fun with all of them for different reasons. Melissa Breau: It’s neat because you’ve got a wide range of skills and ages and can do lots of different stuff. I’d imagine training day at your house is probably quite the mix of things. Nancy Gagliardi Little: It is, because I still want to work … Score goes out with me and trains. He’s around when I’m training all the time. He just kind of hangs out. It gets him exercise and he enjoys being out with the other dogs. He provides a great distraction because he’s always trying to get in close to me. Melissa Breau: Since you have a young dog, what are you focusing on with her right now? What do you hope to achieve long-term? Nancy Gagliardi Little: Well, I love agility obviously a lot, so my goals are going to be, or hopefully will be, that we compete in agility. But I plan on training her in obedience and herding as well, and time will tell what I decide to do in those areas. But I absolutely love puppy training, so I’m enjoying this time with her. She’s learning lots of very important skills right now. I’m lucky that she’s able to come to work with me when I teach at the training school. Also when I’m at competition, she comes with me. She goes everywhere with me. She’s learned to be relaxed and quiet. I keep her in an X-pen when I’m teaching. Also when I’m competing with Lever and Schema, she’s crated, and she’s learning how to exist among all the chaos at the agility trials and when I’m teaching. She hears my voice and she’s super quiet. So I’m really proud of how she’s adjusted to that. She acclimates nicely when she’s crated at the trials. I really like that. She’s one of the best dogs I’ve had coming up in terms of being able to relax and chill. What she’s learning — there’s nothing really big right now. She’s 10 months old and I feel like she doesn’t know anything, but yet she does know a lot. I’ve focused a lot on toy games, tugging games, some personal play she’s really good at, and food games. We do that in different environments, and I’ve got a lot of opportunities around the school to be able to train around other dogs, also including my own dogs, which are quite the distraction for her because it gets her arousal up and some competitiveness, which is always good. So we work on things like that. I like to move her back and forth between high-arousal and low-arousal behaviors, because that’s an issue with Border Collies is that a lot of times they get that high arousal and they can’t mentally function, so just getting her to shift around from being pretty high to thinking things through has been fun. She’s done really well. She can make that shift really well. In terms of the foundation stuff I’m working on, event markers, do a lot of stuff with that, stationing, just to make sure that I have a place to start and stop and think about things, and then I also work my startlines from stations. I start that initial work, pivots, targeting, wraps around wings or cones, and the beginning of two on, two off. This is funny — I listened to Shade’s podcast, and she was talking about her puppy and the sit, and it’s like, “Oh, that’s exactly what’s going on with Pose.” I just recently started working her on her sit because I didn’t really like the way she was sitting. She was growing fast and her rear feet were all over the place. I mean, she would sit, but she’s so bendy and all over the place that I was like, “Well, I don’t think we’re going to do this right now.” I just started working on it now, and she’s really tightened up everything. It’s interesting how many people ask puppies to sit, and she just looks at them like, “What? I don’t know what that means.” So it’s surprising for them to learn that she doesn’t know how to sit. That’s the big thing we just started working on now, because I wanted to start working on her startline and her different positions — sit and down and those kinds of things. Melissa Breau: You’re talking a little bit about startlines in there. Have you started working on startlines with her yet? Nancy Gagliardi Little: Yes, she does have the beginning of a startline. The sit is not really something that I need before I start working on the beginning of a startline, and as we talk through here, you’ll see that most of it is just for her learning what the release cue is, and you can do that from any position. So she’s actually got a fairly decent and I’ll still call it beginning of a startline, so I’m happy with that. Melissa Breau: I saw a question pop up in one of the Fenzi Facebook groups the other day where a competitor mentioned her dog’s startline had eroded and she was starting to retrain it. What are some of the early signs that a dog’s startline may be beginning to or about to fall apart? Nancy Gagliardi Little: What happens is most people watch for the dog’s feet or body movement as mistakes. By doing that, you’re missing the early signs that there’s issues. So in terms of getting early signs that the startline is about to fall apart, I think it’s more important to pay attention to facial expressions and what’s going on emotionally: what is she looking at, how is she processing, how is she evaluating what’s in front of her, how is she really seeing toys as reinforcement for whatever is happening there, and then just paying attention to how she’s appearing and how she’s responding, I know whether the startline is confident and stable. Those are the early signs, and I don’t think people pay attention to that, that look on the dog’s face of “Huh?” or something’s bothering them, their head dips, there’s lip licking, ears are back, the kind of facial expression that tells you that something’s happening, That’s in the context of the startline, and once that starts happening, you’re going to start to see more movement. So it’s kind of a head issue, a mental issue, it’s just checking their emotional state. Melissa Breau: If somebody does catch it early, or they start to see some of the signs start to creep in, what is the best way to re-establish that strong startline that hopefully they had at one point? Nancy Gagliardi Little: If they had a really good startline and are catching it early, then there’s some things to keep in mind. When there’s mistakes, like I said previously, the focus should be first on the dog’s emotions, because a confident, happy dog is much more likely to be able to understand what’s being asked. It’s also going to make the trainer more aware of frustration or confusion coming from the dog, focusing on that emotional state. Like I said previously, the trainers are relying on the dog’s body movement as an indicator of an issue, and that is always too late, in my opinion. So that’s the most important step in re-establishing or maintaining a startline. The second thing would be teach a reliable release. The release cue is truly the easiest way to get a reliable startline stay. Training a strong release cue. In the world of agility, there’s so much information for the dog to process because of the atmosphere and the energy in the sport. For a dog to have a well-trained startline, the handler needs to eliminate all these extra prompts and movements that are associated with, and they also predict the release cue. Many dogs are breaking the startline because they’re frustrated, or they’re anxious or confused because the actual release cue is different than the handler is intending it to be. The other thing that can happen is the dog just can’t predict when the release cue will be given. There’s all kinds of extra motion, and they’re back there watching the handler and getting all twitchy because they’re not sure when they’re going to turn and give the release. Training a reliable release is another one of the big ones. The third one is — this is another issue, too, that I’m kind of surprised at — is startline behaviors that the dog has, or what you have to train. Make sure that the dog is trained so that they understand the criteria and the dog is in control of it. A big issue is when handlers attempt to control the stay. They physically place the dog into position, or they’re repeating the stay cue over and over, verbal … I’ll say threats like, “You stay, you stay,” or “Hey,” things like that, as the handler leaves. Another thing is facing the dog. As the handler is moving away, they’re facing the dog. All of these behaviors, these are behaviors by the handler. They’re all controlling behaviors, and it’s a sure way to create a frustrated and confused dog. Those are eventually going to break down any trained behaviors, because dogs want to be in control and they like being in control. The funny thing is, I hear this a lot, is that handlers will label their dogs as pushy or naughty, and usually it’s the handler’s fault for not training the behavior so that the dog offers it and maintains it on their own without the handler intervening. The very last thing that is important is handler connection. The dogs do much better with startlines when the handler leads out and is super connected with their dog. Some dogs don’t have issues with a lack of connection with the handler, but lots of times the startline issues are resolved when the handler learns how to lead out and continues to stay connected with the dog. So those are four areas that I keep in mind when there’s mistakes, and those are based on if the dog had a strong startline previously. That way, when some of these things are caught early, it’s really easy to fix. Melissa Breau: I’d imagine, though, that sometimes figuring out what it is, or breaking it down, can be hard, especially if a dog doesn’t maintain their stay and you are getting some movement, and then you let them run anyway, that’s reinforcing that behavior, assuming the dog likes agility, which I think is probably a safe assumption for our audience. And if you don’t let them run, you’re increasing frustration, which might further erode the stay and have other fallout. So can you talk about that a bit, how you handle problems if they do pop up? And maybe what some of the pros and cons are of the options that competitors have in that situation? Nancy Gagliardi Little: You’re right. Every time the dog leaves before the release cue, that behavior gets stronger, and as you said, dogs love doing agility, and so it’s a really strong reinforcement to go and to run. So there’s lots of strong behavior chains that are unintentionally built into the startline routine as the dog starts a set of unwanted behaviors. Those behaviors continue to be reinforced as the handler moves forward in that routine until the dog’s running the course. So problem-solving startlines are kind of complex and they depend on the history of the issue, the dog, and the handler. The cool thing and the reason why I like this so much, this stuff, is there’s never a simple, cookie-cutter approach. But obviously the best scenario is catching it early and not allowing it to occur at the trials. Once it continues at the trials, you get a long history of that behavior, it’s a little more difficult, but you can still fix them. So I like to help handlers develop a plan for their particular situation, and they vary a lot. It would involve a training plan, handling plan or changes, and how to handle mistakes. Those are big ones because every dog is different. It’s going to vary a lot between teams. Regarding the pros and cons, that’s going to vary a lot also, depending on the situation. For instance, there can be both pros and cons leaving the ring if you actually remove a dog. Say if the dog breaks a startline, and you remove the dog or you leave the ring. Some dogs have built up such a strong reinforcement history for going before the release cue that leaving the course without running will eventually get rid of that behavior, and it’s sometimes the best way to do that. It’s also important, when you do that, that you’re not adding any more emotional baggage, that you just leave happy, because those dogs want to run, so even when the handler leaves happy and even reinforces the dog, or rewards the dog, and exits, it’s still going to positively affect that dog’s ability to focus on the release cue in the future, because that’s really what they want to do. But then there’s other dogs that are more sensitive to mistakes, and then if you remove those dogs from the course when a mistake happens, it’s going to cause a lot more anxiety and frustration. So in that situation I’m going to probably suggest running the dog, and then evaluating the training and handling plan to ensure success, because those dogs care a lot about being right, so something probably was amiss in training or handling. Melissa Breau: Let’s say, looking at it from the opposite angle, somebody has a strong startline now, and they realize that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Is simply reinforcing that stay by continuing to release the dog to play agility — is that going to be enough to maintain that behavior? Are there other things they should they be doing to maintain that behavior? Nancy Gagliardi Little: Once the dog has a lot of value for agility obstacles, and a good understanding of handling, and has a well-trained startline, then yes, I strongly believe that releasing that dog from the stay at the startline will reinforce that startline. Most dogs love agility, and they want to go, and they’re much more reinforced by going forward than having the handler return to reward them. So strong startline behaviors, they can deteriorate a lot, and I’ve seen that happen when the dogs, all they want to do, they want to go, and the handler wants to reinforce that or wants to reward that, and the behavior is interrupted by the handler returning to reward. So I really feel that if they have a strong, solid startline and they like agility, they like to play agility, then releasing them forward is a great reinforcer. Melissa Breau: I want to get into — you talked about this a little bit — the emotional component of startlines for a minute. If a dog is breaking their stay, what is that really saying about their emotional state? How does that play into that bigger game of agility? Nancy Gagliardi Little: I believe this is the area, like I said before, that most trainers miss — that emotional component. It’s about recognizing the expressions or behaviors that indicate the dog is frustrated or anxious and confused.   When they miss that, they continue on the same path in their working skills, attempting to address mistakes, and what happens is that the dog’s stress level continues to increase because they’re feeling all these emotions, And as you know, when the dog is stressed, they can be over-aroused, or they can be even under-aroused, and they can’t think or function anymore, and then any of the skills that were taught are going to deteriorate, and there’s going to be bad feelings at that startline. So when there’s a negative emotional issue at the startline, once they go, that’s carried into the performance once the dog starts running. So yeah, it’s a big deal. Melissa Breau: I’d love to talk a little bit about proofing and lead-outs. With the variety of all the different course layouts out there, and all the different options when it comes to course layouts, there’s so many different pictures that the dog has when working on their startline or when they need to maintain their startline. Do handlers … is it really just about training as many of those “pictures” as you can, or is there a better way to help a dog generalize an awesome startline to understand that no matter what obstacle or no matter what layout they see, that it’s still the same behavior? Nancy Gagliardi Little: That’s a really good question, and it might be another thing that is missed a lot. I’m pretty proud of my dogs’ lead-outs, because they’re fast and it’s always such an advantage to start out running a course being fairly far ahead, so I have some pretty nice lead-outs on my dogs. Part of it is practicing all different types of patterns. The first step is to teach them to be able to jump. Most of the startlines are either tunnels or jumps, and I practice a lot of slice jumping, so that the dogs can take a lead-out, but still take a jump at a sliced angle. Even though I’m very much in the picture, they’ll still take the line that I set, and that gives me a lot of options. Basically, you’re going to lead them at a jump at a slice, they might be facing the jump at sideways while you’ve led out. Most people, what they’ll do is they’ll face their dog straight ahead toward the jump, and then they’re at a disadvantage because the dog doesn’t really see Obstacle 1 and 2. If I can put my dog on a slice, then he or she can see Jumps 1 and 2, or Obstacles 1 and 2, and it’s an advantage for me to be able to get out a little bit further, because Jumps 1 and 2 are taken care of. So I do a lot of complicated patterns, mostly with jumps, but then I’ll add some tunnels as well in there. Because tunnels are super arousing. So those patterns are really important. The other thing I’ll work on is long lead-outs. There’s many times it’s a jump to a contact, you jump, dog walk or jump, weave, can you lead way out and way past the beginning of the contact, maybe to the end, and can your dog do that pattern. So patterns are very important, and as long as you’re consistent about the dog’s line and supporting the line, they should be able to handle that. But the other part of that question is that I’m going to also add lots of distractions to startlines because there are distractions at the trials. One way I do that is I’ll use other dogs, or people, or just set it up in a variety of environments, and then what I’ll do is I’ll execute a startline routine, which means just come into the ring, do my setup, lead out, and release, so that’s just basically … not really necessarily running a sequence. I’ll do that starting, like, with dogs maybe standing still at a distance, or then the dog is moving a little bit at a distance, or the dog is running sequences at a distance. The other thing is you add people, because there’s people at trials. They’re everywhere. They’re behind the dog at the startline, getting ready to take the leash, they’re sitting in chairs, sometimes they’re moving to set bars. You just start adding movement, decreasing distance, having a leash runner behind the dog. These are all external distractions. You don’t want to just have them happen once the dog starts trialing. You want the dog to be introduced to those things because they are a big part of the startline, and can the dog focus while those distractions are there, can the dog execute that startline routine. The other distraction I like to add is handler distractions, like, can you hold your stay while I’m disconnected, if I’m a super disconnected handler or a super over-excited handler, or I might pair some movement with a few releases, and then I go back to a clear cue release. They’re just some fun games to ensure that the dog understands the whole startline routine that I’ve set up. Melissa Breau: Of course, we’re talking about startlines because your class on the topic is running this term — so anything that we didn’t get into that might be useful for students to know, if they’re considering the class? Nancy Gagliardi Little: Lots of people ask about what type of dogs are best for this type of class. It’s one of my favorite subjects, so I love doing it because of the variety and creativity. But it’s great for young dogs because the class is basically building that startline behavior, and then also working with handlers so that things are going to be maintained properly. It’s good for dogs learning startline behaviors and it’s also good for dogs that are having issues with their understanding of it at trials. I’m working with the handlers to ensure they’re giving clear information to their dogs, because lots of times they’re not aware that some of that is actually causing the issues. Once they see that, it becomes clear. I help the handlers individually changing their behavior. And then, as I mentioned previously, there’s different strategies to change the dog’s behavior, too, and it’s going to vary with all the different types of dogs. The question, too, people have about taking it at the Bronze level, which you can’t really ask questions. You’re just going to be watching the Gold students and looking at the lectures. I’m really good about explaining to people why I’m giving certain advice for a certain dog, because I realize there are going to be Bronze students out there that are going to be wondering, Is that something I should do with my dog? I want them to understand that this is in particular what I would do with this type of dog. With this particular class, because it started — today is October 1st, so it just started — I do have a very interesting class. There’s a lot of variety in it. There’s some dogs that actually need a little more speed, and then there’s the other typical, lightning-fast dogs that just require a lead-out in the class. So there’s something for everyone. Melissa Breau: That’s awesome. I want to change topics a little bit. I know you have your open and utility problem-solving class on the calendar for December, so I just want to chat a little bit about obedience. What are some of the common problem areas when teams are competing at that level — places where the teams just seem to struggle? Nancy Gagliardi Little: For some reason, the most popular exercises seem to be signals and directed jumping, and specifically go-outs in utility. There’s a lot of that. In open it’s usually a variety of issues, lots of heeling, fronts, finishes, drop on recall, that’s more of a variety of things. But signals and directed jumping are really, really, really popular exercises to work on. That’s where people seem to struggle. Melissa Breau: It’s one of those classes where I’m sure you see the same couple of issues or common issues come up, the same exercises pop up over and over and over again, right? Nancy Gagliardi Little: It does, but interesting enough, there’s always a little bit of a difference between each of the teams because of the dog, or specifically what the issue is in each of the areas. Melissa Breau: Once a handler has identified signals or go-outs or one particular exercise as the sticking point for their particular dog, what’s involved in developing a plan for taking and saying, “OK, this is a problem. How do we improve our dog’s understanding of this exercise so that we can get it right?” Nancy Gagliardi Little: The first thing is figuring out where is the issue within the exercise. Lots of times it’s a little bit different than what might have been explained or noted by the handler. Lots of times they’re dead-on, but I might find a little detail that I think is probably going to be important to work on first. Then we find a plan together to address that particular issue, and then I try to get it so that we build that piece back into the exercise, and that’s assuming that the rest of the exercise is healthy. Making sure that the handling is in place too — that’s super important for all of the obedience exercises is to make sure that the handling is consistent and the dog is not confused. It’s not like I’m proposing certain handling of all exercises, because I’m going to work with whatever they have, and if the dog is confused, then we need to make a change. So depending on the problem, it might be teaching different skills, it might be working on handling, there’s other things too. We create a plan then to move forward. It’s much bigger than that. That’s a pretty simplified version. Melissa Breau: Well, there’s only so much you can do if it’s a six-week class to try to explain in a podcast. Nancy Gagliardi Little: Exactly. Melissa Breau: Would it be helpful to talk through an example? So maybe take one exercise and talk us through an example of a previous dog or a previous issue? Nancy Gagliardi Little: Sure. For example, utility signals seems to be a big thing. Say somebody comes in and they have issues with signals. After I look at the video, I’m going to probably first review the handler signals without the dog, to ensure that they look clear to me and they look different. I’m really picky about signals. I like them to start differently. The sooner the dog knows what that signal is going to be, the faster the response from the dog. If they have to wait until the signal is complete before they recognize a cue, then obviously the signal is going to be … or the response from the dog is going to be super slow. So then I’m going to develop a plan for handling, maybe make some … I’m not going to change everything, just the parts that I think are unclear, and usually the dog’s telling us that anyway. So I look at the dog’s response. I’m going to probably have them do verbal position changes and take a look at those, and see how the dog’s responding to the verbal cues, making sure that there’s no additional prompting occurring from the handler. If the dog can’t respond to the verbal, then I’m going to probably work on that first, rather than the signal, because signals can be a little more complicated. So get that going first, and then we also have to incorporate a good reinforcement strategy for that dog so that we can maintain that distance from the handler. And then gradually, as things improve, we build a distance with the verbal cues, and then I’m going to start to add the signals in with shorter distance, gradually increase that distance. Also, some of this I’m using props to help the dog, depending on the situation. Some dogs don’t need it; they’re doing just fine. Some might need it. The other big thing for me for signals is making sure we’re reinforcing the duration in each of the positions, that it’s not just about changing positions. So there’s a lot of different things to consider and a lot of different tangents that we can go on. Melissa Breau: Certainly makes it easy to see why it’s a sticking point. Lots of different pieces. Nancy Gagliardi Little: Right, right, right. There’s a lot of stuff going on. And the thing, too, about signals is it’s difficult for the dog too. I think one of the reasons why it can be so difficult is they’re heeling and they’re with the handler, and then all of a sudden there’s this transition to this distance work, so I think that’s really hard for some dogs, especially the Utility A dogs, or the new dogs that are trialing. Melissa Breau: Alright Nancy, I’ve got one last question here, and it’s the question I’m asking everyone now when they come on: What’s a lesson you’ve learned or been reminded of recently when it comes to dog training? Nancy Gagliardi Little: All of the podcasts I’m like, “Oh my God, I don’t know how I would answer that question, because there’s so much.” There’s so much stuff out there. But all of a sudden, when I got this question, it was like, bam, I knew exactly what I was going to say. And it might be a bit different, but I attended an event a few weeks ago, it was honoring my dad, and I was reminded of something that’s important in training dogs and life in general. He coached college football pretty successfully for 60 years, over 60 years, and he’s actually the winningest college football coach of all time. He did things unconventionally then, and it’s actually unconventional now, even. He made changes in his own program that built kindness and respect in a pretty violent sport. I think I even talked a little bit about this in the original podcast that I did with you, where he had no hitting or blocking in practice — and that was way back in the late ’50s — because he noticed that some of his best players weren’t playing in the games because they’d get hurt during practice. So instinctively it felt right to not hit in practice. That was 50 years ahead of the game. These are actually practices now that are being looked at and incorporated in some of the pro teams and big college programs today. They’re just looking at that. But he trusted his instincts and he didn’t allow any of the distractions of how things are supposed to be done to guide his decisions. This has kind of always been my thing is I think it’s really important for all of us to focus on what we believe in and to trust our instincts, because if something feels wrong, then don’t do it. If something feels right, do it. Don’t over-analyze why you should or shouldn’t do something. Trust your feelings. I don’t think we really trust our feelings enough. It might be different than what somebody else is doing, but that’s how new ideas are discovered. So you can still make detailed plans, you can still obsess about those plans, and execute those plans, and evaluate the results, and develop more plans based on the results, but be aware of your feelings as you train, and trust them, because if you’re feeling frustrated or there’s negative emotions, then something is wrong, and if you’re feeling great, then keep going, you’re on the right track. I firmly believe that emotions are going to guide you in the right direction, so trust them, and don’t be distracted with what your friends on Facebook are doing. Stay aware of those feelings. They can help you stay on track and move in the right direction, and you might discover something incredibly wonderful and different. Melissa Breau: Right. I like that. I like that a lot. Thank you so much Nancy! This has been great. Nancy Gagliardi Little: Thanks! It’s been great being here. Melissa Breau: And thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in. We’ll be back next week with Sara Brueske to talk about evaluating potential rescues for dog sports, fostering potential sports dogs, and more. Don’t miss it! It 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. Thanks again for tuning in -- and happy training!  

HAHA! You thought it would be another 3 months before we dropped again. GOTHEEEIIIIMMM! This week, we talk about Nike embracing Kaep, Eminem’s new album, Wez’s Made in America recap, Elvin’s day job, the return of the Lightskin Power Rankings, best PS2 games ever, and L’s of the Week. As always, follow the Twitter (@BewareTheLs), subscribe to the pod and give us feedback. Much love! Music: Young Dolph x Key Glock - Major Curren$y - A Sign of Things to Come

Światowa premiera nowego komiksu Roberta Kirkmana (między innymi) w Polsce? Takie cuda serwuje obecnie Non Stop Comics, które wydało u nas w marcu pierwszy album zbiorczy "Pieśni Otchłani". Mando i Jerry postanowili sprawdzić tę świeżynkę i o niej podyskutować. Jak prezentuje się ten miks postapokalipsy, science-fiction oraz obyczajówki? Czy historia nas wciągnęła? Jak oceniamy rysunki, które na pierwszy rzut oka wydają się nieco odstawać od warstwy fabularnej? O tym wszystkim dowiecie się z dzisiejszego odcinka! Komiks kupicie w sklepie wydawnictwa Non Stop Comics.

Summary: Laura Waudby works part-time as a service dog trainer who prepares dogs for different types of service dog work and teaching puppy raiser classes -- plus, she's a new mom. You can find her online at TandemDogSports.com. In her “free time,” Laura trains and competes in obedience, rally, agility, and dabbles in disc dog and trick training. She was halfway to her OTCH with her UDX Corgi, Lance, before his early retirement. She has also competed at the Master's level in agility.   Links Tandemdogsports.com  Next Episode:  To be released 4/20/2018, featuring Eileen Anderson, author of Remember Me? Loving and Caring for a Dog with Canine Cognitive Dysfunction. 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 Laura Waudby. Laura works part-time as a service dog trainer who prepares dogs for different types of service dog work and teaching puppy raiser classes -- plus, she's a new mom. You can find her online at TandemDogSports.com. In her “free time,” Laura trains and competes in obedience, rally, agility, and dabbles in disc dog and trick training. She was halfway to her OTCH with her UDX Corgi, Lance, before his early retirement. She has also competed at the Master's level in agility.   Due to the special behavior needs of one of her Duck Tolling Retrievers, Laura has developed a strong interest in learning how to create motivation and confidence in dogs that struggle, either through genetics or through less than ideal training, to make it into the competition ring. At FDSA, Laura offers classes for the Fenzi TEAM titles program and teaches Ring Confidence and several specialty classes including a class on articles and a class on stand for exam. Hi Laura, welcome to the podcast! Laura Waudby: Hey. I'm glad to be here. Melissa Breau: I'm excited to have you. So, do you mind starting us off by reminding listeners a little bit about who the dogs are that you have and what you're working on with them? Laura Waudby: My first dog is Lance, the Corgi. He is basically retired now due to an injury, but we do some obedience and trick training, and he likes to run around barking quite a bit. Then I have Vito, the Toler, and we mainly compete in agility, where we've worked on a lot of his ring stress issues. We still train in obedience, working on engagement, motivation, being brave. Then I have Zumi the Duck, who is my younger Toler. She's 3 years old right now. We are trialing now in agility, rally, and even obedience. These last few months she's started to awaken, so we're working on a lot of over-arousal issues now in both sports, but it's nice having a completely different set of issues than my other dog Vito. Then I usually have a foster dog or two around the house, service dogs in training. Melissa Breau: Congrats on getting in the ring with the youngster there. I've seen some of the videos. It looks like good stuff. Laura Waudby: Yeah, she's a lot of fun. Melissa Breau: I wanted to start out talking a bit about this idea of ring confidence. I think that most people who have a dog that loves training -- or even those who have worked super-hard to teach a dog to love training -- are often a bit surprised when they go into the ring for the first time and find they have a totally different dog than they're used to. Why is trialing so different from training? Laura Waudby: Everything about a trial is different than training. One of the biggest things is the atmosphere is really charged. There's nervous handlers and excited handlers both at the same time. It's clear that there's something specific about the ring area by the way that people are all crowding around it, everybody's watching. And then in obedience and rally, there's somebody there shouting orders at their mom or dad, so they can see that they're not really in charge. There's also the formality piece, really, even in sports like agility, when you're not really limited to how you praise and interact with your dog. There's still the stress excitement of the trial clams people up and you act really different than you would in a trial. So it doesn't take long for dogs to discover that the ring is very different. There's no food, there's no toys, and the absence of the reward can create a lot of stress too. Melissa Breau: Most people, I think, plan to work on it by taking their dog to lots of fun matches and training there until they think their dog is ready for competition, and while for some dogs, in some instances, maybe that's enough, I think often it's really not. What are some of the pieces that are maybe missing from that plan? Laura Waudby: I tend to find people use their run-throughs as getting that “trial experience.” They show up and their plan is to go through all the exercises or a full sequence of agility obstacles exactly like it was a trial, without rewards and extra praise, and without any support of their dog, who is probably struggling. The whole idea of doing all the exercises formally is really flawed to begin with. It's sometimes OK to test to see where you are and how the exercises hold up under pressure, but I think that should be pretty limited when you go to fun matches, because I don't think trial issues are due to the exercises themselves. It's more everything else I've talked about, with the formality and the pressure and the lack of rewards. So when I go to a fun match, I want to take advantage of that environment and work on showing my dog what the procedures are, things like, this is how we'll wait outside the ring, this is how someone will approach you and they'll take your leash, this is how we'll go to the start line together, or this is how we'll move in-between exercises. But practicing those little tiny things in a trial, I guess that's really where most of the stress issues tend to occur, and my main goal is just having a lot of fun, playing with the dog, helping them out, showing them there's nothing scary about being in the ring, having them feel good with all the pressure surrounding it. That's how I approach fun matches and run-throughs. Melissa Breau: Those are some of the pieces in the Ring Confidence class. Do you mind talking about how you work on that in that class? Laura Waudby: The Ring Confidence class has those two main goals of what we just talked about. The first goal is that ring equals fun. It should be a very happy and safe space for the dog, and that's pretty much through classical conditioning. It's entering the ring and having a party over and over and over again. It can take quite a while for dogs who have already been trialing, because you have to work on going to new places. It doesn't have to be a trial environment, but just going to a park or a shopping area and practicing entering a new spot and having fun. It's forgetting about training the exercises themselves and just playing with your dog, because if they're comfortable enough to play with you and focus on you, then they can work. The second part of Ring Confidence is working on that focus, and teaching the dog what to expect at a trial and what to do with all those little pieces, while turning those previous distractions and previous stressors into actual cues to focus on their partner. So it's mainly about providing that structure to the dog and to the human about what to do, such as how will they warm up the dog, how will they handle those delays in the ring, how will they handle talking to the judge, etc. Melissa Breau: Can you share a little bit more about what some of those aspects are that you look at that come with a trial environment and some of the ways that you train for those? Laura Waudby: When you're starting with a new dog, some of it is trial and error, and guessing how the dog responds to you, because you have to look at what does the dog need when arriving at a trial. Should you crate them inside, should you crate them in your car, how much time do they need to walk around the grounds, how much time works best before going back to the crate and giving them a little bit of a rest, how they need to warm up. So all of that is trial and error. Hopefully, you can get that from going different places with your dog, even if it's going to a park and seeing does your dog connect with really calm petting, do they need more energizing tricks and movement to feel comfortable, figuring out how far away from the ring do you need to be. All those little things are just trial and error as you go, but you can work on training different parts of it. And then looking at all the stuff once you're actually inside the ring, such as the people, pressure, practicing, the leash runner approaching your dog, practicing how you're going to keep that connection, and again, either building energy with a dog who stresses down, or with a dog who gets really over-excited, figuring out how you're going to keep that dog from boiling over as you move to your new setup spots or move between exercises. Melissa Breau: I know the class covers a couple of different sports. Are there differences there in what needs to be taught for the different sports? Laura Waudby: The basic concepts are pretty much the same, whether it's obedience, rally, agility, even we've had some freestyle students in the class. The main difference is that obedience you have a lot more stuff to train because you have a lot more pressure in the ring. You have to train for the judge approaching you, all the people approaching you at different times, and then, of course, the breaks in-between the exercises. In agility you have a lot more freedom of how you actually interact with the dog in the ring, while you work your way to the start line, how you handle delays. Encouraging a lot more active connections, such as jumping up and even barking, is perfectly fine in agility, so you have a lot more stuff you can do. And in obedience you just have a lot more things to train for. Melissa Breau: Fair enough. You mentioned handler nerves a little bit earlier, just the fact that there are excited people and there are nervous people and all the range along that spectrum. How significant of a role is that when it comes to a competition environment? Do you address handler nerves at all in class, or maybe you have recommendations from your own experience? Laura Waudby: Handler nerves are a huge part of trial issues. Dogs definitely sense our stress and this can shut them down or amp them up, depending upon the dog. Unfortunately, handler nerves are not my specialty at all. I still get very nervous before obedience trials. I'm just so focused on how I'm going to handle my dog for every part that I don't think other people can tell. We do a little bit of training in the Ring Confidence class to get the dog used to that picture of a stressed handler. We can work on things like holding our breath to mimic our really tense bodies, heeling to a metronome to mimic that extra concentration we have when listening to somebody else, but in terms of actually teaching the human part how to deal with their own stress and relax, I leave that up to Andrea. Andrea has all the wonderful Mental Management classes, so she is much better at dealing with that than I am. Melissa Breau: Denise taught the class, now you teach the class. As a competitor, are there any skills from this class that have really been game-changers for you and your dogs? I know that part of it's that you implemented the class, so maybe you could talk about that a little bit. Laura Waudby: This class I've already been doing for quite a while with my own dog Vito, because he's been a huge experiment for me in trying to get him happy in the ring. One of the things that Denise introduced me for this class was the idea that squish was having not just a safe place for the dog to be while waiting outside of the ring, but also that idea of teaching that release to be really … well, for Vito, who stresses down, for that release to be really energetic, drivey, focusing on me. I think that “on switch” has helped him quite a bit going into obedience. For agility, probably the biggest success for him in agility in implementing this class was actually teaching him to bark at me when entering the ring. It took a long time to get him to bark at me at the start line, and people don't believe me when I say that anymore, because he's a Toler and he loves Toler screaming, and he will scream a lot now on the start line. What that really did was it helped our connection. He used to stare at the ring crew, the leash runners, the judge, really worry about them, and now that we're entering the ring and he's barking at me, he's focusing a lot more on me and yelling at me, instead of looking around to find where all the scary people are. So that was our game changer for agility. Sadly, obedience does not allow the barking, so we're working on that squish and that release coming out of it, and all that personal play and jumping at me has been a work in progress to work on that motivation. Melissa Breau: For those who don't know what squish is, do you mind briefly describing what that looks like? Laura Waudby: A squish is a waiting position for the dog when you are outside of the ring. It could be when you're right up to the ring gates, if you have to wait close to the ring, or it could be further away from the ring. But it's a place for the dog to relax. They don't have to focus on you. Actually, you don't want them focusing on you. I want my dog to look around, to see the world, to look into the ring, see where the judges are, the stewards are, and just relax. And then we teach a release cue, which is pressure-based. I have a physical hand touch I do with my dogs on their chests, and when I release it, the dog should focus on me, with whatever drive and energy level you need that dog to do. So with my dog who stresses down, I really work … when I release Vito — he stands between my legs for his squish — when I release him, he should turn to me really quickly with a lot of energy. With Zumi, who stresses up a little bit, I work on a little bit of energy coming out, but a thinking type of energy and not just exploding randomly into the world. All my dogs wait between my legs for their squish position, but you could have them — whatever works for you. You could hold them in your arms, you could have them leaning against you. It's a place to feel safe. Melissa Breau: For people who are considering taking the class, could you talk a little about who is a good fit and how someone can decide if it's an appropriate class for them? Laura Waudby: The Ring Confidence class is probably my favorite class of all time. I love teaching it, and I really think it's for anybody who wants to trial or is trialing. The main audience are for dogs, though, who do perfectly fine at trials, they're fine hanging out in the crate area or walking around, but then they walk into the ring entrance, they walk into that ring, and bam, they're a completely different dog. They either stress down and start sniffing everywhere or just disconnect, or they stress up and have some over-arousal issues and really struggle to focus or have that thinking connection with their person. My ideal audience would be dogs who have not started trialing yet. It's kind of, I know, a novel idea to actually prepare your dog what to expect in a trial, but really getting them comfortable with the procedures before actually entering their first trial. Melissa Breau: In addition to the Ring Confidence in April, you're also teaching a TEAM 3 class. I know I've talked about TEAM, for those who are listening, a couple of times now in a few different episodes, but in case there's anyone out there listening for the first time, do you mind briefly sharing what TEAM stands for and what the concept is there? Laura Waudby: TEAM stands for Training Excellence Assessment Modules, and it's an online, video-based titling program. The first three levels were designed to set a very solid foundation for any dog sports. The emphasis is really on excellent training, breaking down exercises into their smallest pieces, and then seeing can the dog do just this little bit but do it very, very well. So it's more of that training title than “can the dog just do it,” because we want to see that they're … we're gradually adding the ideas of precision, reducing reinforcement, adding distractions, and then doing it in different environments. Melissa Breau: If somebody wants to compete in Obedience or Rally specifically, how can TEAM help them get there? Laura Waudby: I think of TEAM as providing a blueprint of how to break down all those advanced exercises into manageable pieces. So instead of spending all your time working just on heeling and recalls, which pretty much makes up most novice obedience organizations, it's like we introduce all the foundations for pretty much every single advanced exercise right from the start. In Level 1 we not only have pivoting, which is a foundation for really great heel work, but we also have backing up and scent articles and going out around a cone, teaching a vertical target for a go out, all these little things, and it builds from there until you … as the levels start to progress, we start to form little chains of those behaviors, so it starts to look more like the advanced exercises and not just those little pieces. Melissa Breau: I've heard a few times, in the Facebook group and talking to folks, that TEAM 3 is where things get fun. So I wanted to ask how TEAM 3 is different from those first two levels, and if you could talk us through a few examples of how it builds on those behaviors from TEAM 1 and 2. Laura Waudby: I agree, I do think of Level 3 as where it does start to get extra-fun. I think it's mainly because it starts to feel real. You're putting more behaviors together so that it actually looks like real obedience training to people who don't necessarily train this way. For example, in Level 1 and Level 2, you're doing all this pivot work with a prop and without a prop, and finally in Level 3, we actually allow you to heel forward, and that starts to look like really pretty heeling. We even test that by doing sidestepping in heel. Can the dog move laterally with their person by keeping their rear end nice and tight? And it looks really cool, but the dog already has the foundations for it from all that pivot training that he did in the earlier levels, so it's actually not that hard when you start to combine it together. With the combined behavior, the chains, it also means that there's also a lot more movement involved, and dogs just love that movement. There's still the technical pieces, but the extra movement they do, the running they get to, now starts to be more naturally rewarding for the dog and that makes it easier to start reducing their reinforcers. So at Level 3 you only get four cookies for the entire test, so it's like a reward every other exercise. It's really good trial preparation to gradually reduce the rewards, and the dog's having a lot of fun by doing all those movement-based exercises. Melissa Breau: In TEAM 3 submissions, are there any places that it's comment to see Not Yets — either because they're particularly tricky to train or because it's easy to misunderstand the rules and miss something when you're reading through? Can you talk us through what happens there? Laura Waudby: Overall, I think the students are doing a really great job with their Level 3 runs. They already have several successful Level 1 and 2 runs under their belts, so they're doing a much better job with remembering what the pieces are, how to handle their dog between exercises, and remembering where the exercises start. So I think there's a lot higher success rate at Level 3 than there are at the earlier levels. But there are two main places I see errors. The first is the heeling, just like Level 1 and Level 2. Level 3, at this point, we require two steps of forward heeling, a 180 pivot left, a 180 pivot right, and then the two feet of sidestepping right. The handlers can get a little bit over excited and forget that the pivots that they worked really hard on at earlier levels still have to be a true pivot in place at Level 3. We like doing really big, wide U-turns sometimes in heeling, but the dog doesn't have to move their rear end nearly as much in a U-turn, and they don't learn to stay parallel to us during the entire turn. The handler just needs to calm down a little bit and remember to do the really precise pivots to the left and to the right when they're doing the heeling work. Same thing with the side steps. Handlers tend to rush that. They get excited; they're a little stressed. I recommend doing several small shuffles sideways instead of trying to do two gigantic steps and leaving the dog in the dust. We want the dog to be parallel with you the entire time, so moving those smaller steps for the two feet tends to help with that. And the second exercise that I see, again, more handler errors than anything else is the directed cone send. This exercise is basically a baby version of a utility go out and directed jumping exercise you see in trials. We just use cones instead of jumps and have a shorter distance. The challenge here is that we also introduce the concept of cuing the dog to return directly to heel versus cuing the dog to come to fronts. They have to find that front from an angle, as the handler is not allowed to move their feet. What I find people are doing when they're practicing this is that they're waiting to cue the dog to find front or to find heel until the dog is all the way to them so they can use their hand signal as a guide. However, for the actual test, the cue to find heel or find front needs to be given when the dog is still at a distance just after they've rounded that correct cone. So this is more of a handler error than a training challenge, but if you look where you want the dog to go and give them the information they need soon enough, the dogs can do a great job of learning the difference when you're cueing them to find heel versus finding front. Melissa Breau: That's an interesting thing to include because — at least, I think — most of the time in the obedience ring they're coming to front, so it really forces some cue discrimination there. Laura Waudby: It's definitely not a skill that we need here in America, where the dog's pretty much always have to find front, except for the utility moving stand exercise. But this is really the first time they're doing it from such a big distance and with a lot of speed. Melissa Breau: This came up on the Facebook page, which is why I want to make sure I include it. Do students need to have their TEAM 2 title to take the TEAM 3 class? If not, how can they decide whether they're ready for it? Laura Waudby: They definitely don't need the TEAM 2 title. We actually encourage students to be looking ahead to the next level, or even further than that, and start training for it, even if they haven't done the lower level test. Dogs always have some behaviors they're really strong with that their handler needs to be raising the difficulty with challenging their dog and not just keep doing the same thing over and over and over again. With the behaviors that are still in progress, it's OK to still work at your lower level, even though you're also working on TEAM 3 or even TEAM 4 stuff with the behaviors the dogs are really good at. And if you're not quite there when you're looking at some of the TEAM 3 lectures, you just may need to add some props in or reduce the difficulty in another way. For example, the Level 2 test looks at getting position changes from 6 feet away with a 5-second pause, and that duration distance takes time to build. You just can't rush it. So it's OK if you want to work on Level 3, which adds in handler distractions, but now you'll just go back to standing right in front of the dog and not working as much duration. So your splitting out the distance and the duration from the idea of the dog listening to their cue, even if the handler is doing something weird, like lying on the floor or turning their back to the dog. That may even help them for the Level 1 and Level 2 test. Melissa Breau: So, I think this question probably applies to both classes. Probably one of the most useful things competitors can do is to really know the rules of whatever venue it is that they're competing in inside and out, so that they know what to expect and so they can train things properly. What kinds of things should people look for as they read through rules for whatever their sport and venue, and do you have any tips on keeping it all straight? Laura Waudby: Probably the biggest help is going to a trial in the sport you're pursuing or a particular organization, or in the case of TEAM is watching all the videos, and not just watching videos from the level you're at, but watching videos of the upper levels so you can see what that final picture is, where all your training is going. You can get a better idea, too, like for agility, what course styles there tend to be out there. For in-person obedience trials, you can also look for the details of where the judges tend to stand, what do the common layouts of the ring look at, just so you're a lot more comfortable with everything and how things tend to be judged. For in-person trials for terms of ring confidence, sometimes the biggest factor you should know before going into a trial is knowing specifically how that trial site is laid out. If you have a special-needs dog, like many of us do, you may need to plan exactly where your dog is going to wait before entering the ring, how you're going to get to that ring entrance with focus. Some trial locations are not easy for the dogs who get over-aroused, reactive, or stress. That's where TEAM is really nice, because everything is online, but there's a lot more pressure on you to remember the order and the precision needed for each test. I recommend that people, besides watching all the videos to know how things should look, I recommend memorizing the exercises in at least in a group of three. If you print out those lists and divide them in three exercises, that will help a lot with your flow. I see a lot of people in the videos stopping to read what the next exercise is, read the rules, and their dog … they're just left hanging out there and not knowing what's going on. So read those rules, memorize a little bit of an order, and plan your flow will help a lot in getting through that exercise with much less stress for you and your dog. Melissa Breau: I think people probably underestimate the value of having watched the videos and attended things in person. I know one of the big conversations constantly on the TEAM Facebook page is being strategic with your locations and where you do your tests, and if you don't think that through, you may use a location that would have been better for a later level early on, and that can make things a little more difficult on yourself. Laura Waudby: Yes. As your level goes up, you definitely need more space, so you don't want to use your biggest space for a Level 1 when you really need that for a Level 3-plus video where you need to go offsite. So definitely start to plan ahead. Melissa Breau: Finally, as somebody who has competed a fair amount, would you be willing to share a little bit of information on how you prep for a competition and what your pre-trial routine looks like with one of your own dogs? Laura Waudby: I don't think I really do any specific prep work before a trial outside of all of the ring confidence work I've done. I don't train differently before a trial than I do on non-trial weekends. The only thing I make sure of is I don't put any extra pressure on specific exercises, meaning that dogs make weird mistakes sometimes. Let's pretend my dog suddenly can't remember at all how to do a scent article, or how to do their weave pole entry, and it's a few days before a trial. I kind of ignore it. I'm not going to do any training to try and fix it, because that's just going to add pressure to it. I really just ignore it and go to trial, don't worry about it. The last thing I want is my dog getting stressed the exercise because I'm suddenly freaking out about it. Chances are the behavior is taught fine, it was just a weird thing that day, and if you don't draw attention to it, then it's not going to stick around. And if it does happen to stick around, then you have to develop a training plan for it anyway, and you freaking out a few days before a trial is not a good time to come up with a new training plan. So I don't really do a whole lot. Melissa Breau: Fair enough. Thank you so much for coming back on the podcast, Laura. This was great. Laura Waudby: Yeah, it was fun. Melissa Breau: And thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in! We'll be back next week with Eileen Anderson, author of Remember Me? Loving and Caring for a Dog with Canine Cognitive Dysfunction. 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.

Note: We've rearranged episodes a bit here to better coordinate with guest schedules, so the names mentioned as next episodes in our last podcast was incorrect. Instead of Debbie Torraca, this week we have Esther Zimmerman -- we'll be back next week with Debbie Torraca.  Summary: Esther Zimmerman is a long-time FDSA student and has been a participant in AKC events for over 40 years. She's been teaching dogs and their people since the early 1980's.   Currently, she is the head competition obedience instructor at MasterPeace Dog Training in Franklin, MA, where she teaches multiple classes at all levels, and coaches many private students. Over the years, Esther has evolved her own special blend of the art and science of dog training, acquired through years of experience, extensive reading, and continuing education at conferences and seminars. She is well known for her patience, compassion, honesty, and humor, along with an unfailingly positive attitude toward both dogs and handlers. She feels it's the trainer's job to have the dogs WANT to play the obedience game, not to make them do it, and that there is no reason to use compulsion for the sake of a ribbon. Her many high-scoring students are proof of this, as they earn advanced titles, many with non-traditional obedience breeds. Esther herself competes with Schipperke, and she has finished the only Champion/Utility Dog Excellent in the history of Schipperke, and three additional Champion/Utility dogs. She also put three UDX legs on Presto, a Golden Retriever, who died of cancer at an early age. Links MasterPeace Dog Training in Franklin, MA Next Episode:  To be released 3/16/2018, featuring Debbie Torraca to talk about exercises, including exercise for puppies! 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 Esther Zimmerman. Esther is a long-time FDSA student and has been a participant in AKC events for over 40 years. She's been teaching dogs and their people since the early 1980's.   Currently, she is the head competition obedience instructor at MasterPeace Dog Training in Franklin, MA, where she teaches multiple classes at all levels, and coaches many private students. Over the years, Esther has evolved her own special blend of the art and science of dog training, acquired through years of experience, extensive reading, and continuing education at conferences and seminars. She is well known for her patience, compassion, honesty, and humor, along with an unfailingly positive attitude toward both dogs and handlers. She feels it's the trainer's job to have the dogs WANT to play the obedience game, not to make them do it, and that there is no reason to use compulsion for the sake of a ribbon. Her many high-scoring students are proof of this, as they earn advanced titles, many with non-traditional obedience breeds. Esther herself competes with Schipperke, and she has finished the only Champion/Utility Dog Excellent in the history of Schipperke, and three additional Champion/Utility dogs. She also put three UDX legs on Presto, a Golden Retriever, who died of cancer at an early age. Hi Esther, welcome to the podcast! Esther Zimmerman: Hi Melissa. I'm really happy to be here. Thanks for asking me to do this. Melissa Breau: I'm excited to chat. To get us started, do you want to briefly just share a little bit about who your dogs are now and what you're working on with them? Esther Zimmerman: I'd love to, but I have to start by talking about Jeeves, my Champion UD Rally X1 NW3 Schipperke, who passed away a few weeks ago at age 14-and-a-half. He was really an amazing ambassador of the breed. He was a perfect gentleman with all people, dogs of all ages and temperaments. He was that priceless known adult dog that we all want our puppies to meet because he's just so good with them. After surviving several serious illnesses as a youngster, he gave me a very profound appreciation of just how much our dogs do for us and with us when playing the games we love. I was grateful every day he was alive and he is really sorely missed. It's very fresh still because it was only a few weeks ago. Melissa Breau: I'm sorry to hear that. Esther Zimmerman: Thank you. Elphaba is my 9-year-old Schipperke. She happens to be Jeeves's niece. She has her CDX, which, when she earned it, included the group out-of-sight stays. Those were a real challenge for her. She doesn't like other dogs looking at her. But we persisted and succeeded. She's almost ready for the utility ring. She's the first and only nosework Elite 2 Schipperke and is a real little hunting machine in that sport. She also has her Fenzi TEAM 1 and TEAM 1 Plus titles. Friday is my 3-year-old Schipperke. His titles at this point are an NW1 and TEAM 1, 1 Plus and 1-H. He just passed his 1-H, which was very exciting. He's teaching me the importance of patience, a trait that I already have an abundance of, but he really requires it in spades. He really does. He can try my patience sometimes, but he keeps me honest as far as that goes. He's got tons of obedience skills under his collar, but there's no way he's ready for AKC competition. I'm hoping maybe by next year. And then I have Taxi, my 17-month-old Golden Retriever. He's had a Gold spot in an Academy class almost every semester since I brought him home as a baby puppy. He's got great potential, like all of our dogs do. I hope that we get to reach the goals I have in mind. He's a typical, happy, fun-loving dog. He's a real joy. And that's the three dogs that I have right now. Melissa Breau: How did you originally get into dog sports? Esther Zimmerman: It's interesting, because back in the beginning I didn't have my own dog. I didn't have my own dog until I was 15, but I've been training dogs since I was 5 years old. I grew up in New York City, and every apartment superintendent had a dog that they were more than willing to let me borrow. I read every dog and dog-training book in the library, much to my mother's dismay, because that's all I read, and with those dogs, I switched what I was doing based on whatever the advice was that the author of that book gave. So I had a real eclectic education as far as training dogs. Not my own dogs, and I did something different all the time. The very first dog show I ever attended was Westminster in 1969. School was closed because we had a snowstorm, but the trains were running. Westminster's on Monday and Tuesday, always has been. So the trains were running and off I went with my tokens, and I went to Westminster. I was in heaven. I had no idea they had 50 percent absenteeism because of the snowstorm, and I thought that the most beautiful dog there was the Basenji. I did not get a Basenji. Melissa Breau: OK. Esther Zimmerman: The very first obedience trial I ever went to was the Bronx County Kennel Club, and there I saw a woman in a wheelchair competing in Open with her Labrador Retriever, which just blew my mind. I couldn't conceive of such a thing, that not only was this dog doing all this amazing stuff, but that his handler was in a wheelchair. She was around for a really, really long time and quite well known on the East Coast and in New England as a competitor. So I got Juno, my first dog, was a German Shepherd. I got him from an ad in the newspaper — the best way to get a dog, right? Melissa Breau: Of course. Esther Zimmerman: She was one of two 10-month-old puppies who were so fearful that they were climbing over each other in their pen, trying to get away from me. So of course I said, “I'll take that one.” That was Juno. I used the same kind of eclectic training with her, doing something different each week based on what book I was reading from the library. It did apparently work, though, because seven years later, after I got married and moved to Massachusetts, I joined the New England Dog Training Club, which is the oldest still-existing dog-training club in the country. That summer we entered our first trial, we earned our first leg, and I got my first high-in-trial on this fearful dog Melissa Breau: Wow. Esther Zimmerman: And that's how somebody gets really hooked on this sport. The first time you go in the ring, you win high-in-trial, you want to do that again. Melissa Breau: Oh yeah. Esther Zimmerman: And coincidentally, my first paying job as a teenager was as kennel help at Captain Haggerty's School For Dogs. He's actually pretty well known. He used to train dogs for movies a lot out in Hollywood. But their training approach was “Break 'em and make 'em.” They would get dogs in there for boarding and training, and they went home trained. They were not happy, but they went home trained. It was absolutely pure compulsion, which as a teenager was really eye-opening and a little bit scary, actually. Melissa Breau: I can imagine. Esther Zimmerman: So that's how I got started in dog sports. Melissa Breau: Wow. You've really been doing it almost your entire life, but in an interesting, different story. Esther Zimmerman: Yes. Yes. Melissa Breau: You mentioned that it's been eclectic, and it's been a little bit here, a little bit there in terms of reading, but what really got you started on your positive training journey? What got you hooked there? Because I certainly know that's where you are now. Esther Zimmerman: I think this is a good time for us to talk about Patty Ruzzo, because she's a big part of that whole journey. In the early 1980s there was a really tight-knit group of us training at Tails-U-Win in Connecticut, and together we had our first exposures to Karen Pryor and Gary Wilkes and John Rogerson and others who totally and completely changed the way we were training and how we even thought about training. We were all attending every seminar we could go to, every clinic we could go to, we were reading dog magazines. I was amassing a huge personal library of dog books. That was all before the Internet, before YouTube, before Facebook. Patty was an interesting person. She was a really quiet force to be reckoned with. She was a great competitor, she had a great rapport with her dogs, anyone who saw her in the ring with her magnificent Terv, Luca, will always remember what that looked like. They had such a presence about them, and it's an image I always aspire to. It's one of those things that if you close your eyes, you can still picture it all these years later. So Patty was my friend, she was my training buddy, she was my coach. We were determined to pursue a force-free, reward-based approach to training. The first thing we eliminated were the leashes and collars. No more leashes, no more collars. We stopped any physical corrections. As our skills and understanding got better, we were able to even avoid applying psychological pressure to the dogs, and that was a big deal. My dog at that time was a Schipperke, Zapper. She was a dog that really pushed us to examine what we had been doing, and to see what we could accomplish with this new — to us — approach. She became my first utility dog. Patty was a really tremendously creative person. She was continually trying and then discarding ideas. It could be dizzying to try and keep up with her, sort of like Denise. Patty passed away twelve years ago. It was a real tragedy for the world of obedience and for me personally. Several of us from that original group have worked to fill the void by becoming instructors and trainers in our own right. We all made that commitment to stay positive, and I think the group of us really has done a good job of that. Melissa Breau: Denise brought up the fact that you knew Patty when she and I were talking about having you on. In case anybody doesn't really know the name, do you mind sharing a just little bit more about the impact she had on the sport in the area, just a little more about her background, or her history, and the role that she played? Esther Zimmerman: She had multiple OTCH dogs, she competed at the games in regionals and did really, really well at those. She had a Sheltie, she had a Border Collie, and then Luca, the incomparable Luca. And then she got a Whippet. It's a dog like that that really tests your mettle and your commitment, and she was totally committed to being positive with this dog. When I tell you that he not able to do a sit-stay of any sort until he was 2-and-a-half, I really mean it, and she just would keep saying, “Don't worry, he'll do it. Don't worry about it, he'll do it,” and that “Don't worry about it” is something that I say all the time to my students. “But my dog's not doing that.” “Don't worry about it. He will. Eventually.” And she was just like that. I'll tell a little anecdote, and this will tell you everything you need to know about Patty and the influence that she had on people. She had two sons. The younger one was about 4 when this happened. They had gone grocery shopping, and they came home and he wanted to help her unload the groceries. So what did he want to carry up the stairs? Take a guess. Melissa Breau: The eggs? Esther Zimmerman: The eggs. The eggs of course. So he goes up the stairs, and of course he trips and falls and drops the eggs. She hollers up the stairs, “Are you OK?” He says, “Yes. Six of the eggs did not break.” So just that switch, six of the eggs broke, six of the eggs did not break — that's how she raised her children to focus on the positive. Melissa Breau: Part of the impressive part is that back then, nobody was doing that. There weren't people achieving those kind of things with positive training, and a lot of people were saying it could not be done. Esther Zimmerman: Right. So the early dogs — it would not be fair to say that she was totally positive with the early dogs. But by the time Luca came along, it was very, very positive, and by the time Flyer, the Whippet, came along, it was totally positive. She didn't get an OTCH on him, things happened, and then she passed away. But there was and she put it out there in the competitive world the way nobody else was at that point in time. Melissa Breau: We've danced around this question a little bit now, but how would you describe your training philosophy now? Esther Zimmerman: That's a good question. My philosophy is fairly simple, actually: Treat the dogs and handlers with kindness and patience. I could probably stop right there, but I won't. But really, kindness and patience. Break things down into manageable pieces for each of them. Use varied approaches to the same exercise because dog training isn't “one size fits all.” The theory, learning theory, applies equally, but not necessarily the specific approach that you use to help them understand. I try to use a lot of humor to diffuse tension in classes, in private lessons. People are a little bit nervous, or a little bit uptight, so I try to make people laugh. If they can laugh, they feel better about themselves, and what just happened isn't nearly as important as they thought it was. I try to be supportive when the dog or person is struggling to learn something. We've all been there, we've all done that, it's not easy. We're trying to teach new mechanical skills to people. They're trying to teach new things to their dogs. That's a hard combination, and I really respect people who make the effort to do that. At the same time I encourage independent thinking and problem-solving for the handler and for the dog. I cannot be there all the time when the handler is working with their dog. No instructor can. Even with the online classes, we can't be there. So if we give the handler the tools to come up with solutions to the problems on their own, now we've really accomplished something. Let them figure out how to solve the problem on their own. That's a big deal to me. I don't want to be spoon-feeding the answer to every little thing that's happened there. So I applaud all their successes, however small. We celebrate everything. My students know that I always advocate for the dog. Whatever the situation is, I'm on the side of the dog, and I urge them to do the same thing when they find themselves in other places, other situations, where perhaps the atmosphere is not quite so positive, or it's stressful for some reason. Advocate for your dog. You're the only one that's looking out for them, and they're counting on us to do that for them. So I really, really urge people to do that. And it's not just about using a clicker and cookies, or any kind of a marker and cookies. It's about having empathy for a creature who is trying to communicate with us while at the same time we are struggling to communicate with them. It's all really very simple, but none of it's very easy. So that's my philosophy. Pretty simple, don't you think? Melissa Breau: Simple but not necessarily easy. Esther Zimmerman: But not easy. But not easy, yeah. Melissa Breau: You mentioned you've been in dog sports in one variety or another for … you said since you were 15, I think. Esther Zimmerman: A long time, a long time. I was 22 years old the first time I set foot in the ring. Melissa Breau: OK. Esther Zimmerman: So now people can do the math so they'll know how old I am. Melissa Breau: As someone who's been in dog sports for that long, what are some of the biggest changes you've seen over the last ten or so years? Esther Zimmerman: Well, for even longer than that, but the sport of AKC obedience has changed dramatically since I started. Classes have been added and deleted, exercises have been added and deleted. The OTCH — the Obedience Trial Championship — was introduced in 1977, and they added the UDX in either 1992 or 1993. I couldn't find the definitive answer for that, and I couldn't remember off the top of my head. The group stays, as of May 1, have been safer in the novice classes and totally eliminated in Open. They've added a new and interesting and challenging exercise to Open. Jump heights have been lowered twice. My little German Shepherd, she jumped 32 inches when we started. Now she would have jumped probably 20 inches. There are tons of exceptions from that, from the … once their jump height now, for the really giant breeds, the heavy-boned breeds, the short-legged breeds, the brachycephalic dogs, they just have to jump three-quarters their height at the shoulder, so that's a big change. Now you've got to remember all of this has been done with the hope of drawing more people into competition. All of it has been done with the accompanying drama, controversy, charges of dumbing-down the sport, nobody's ever happy with whatever the changes are. But we survived all these changes, and as far as what changes do I want to see in the sport, I don't really want to see any more for a little while. I think we need to give things a chance to settle down, I think we need to give people a chance to simmer down, because this was a very controversial thing, getting rid of stays. And then people need time to train the new Open exercise and give that a try. New people coming up will not know that things were different. The command or cue discrimination exercise won't be something that you teach for Open. As opposed to people who are in a little bit of a panic now, if they've got their CDX and they're going on to a UDX, or they've got their UD, they have to go back and teach a new exercise, and not everybody's happy about that. But I think it's all going to shake out in time, as it usually does. People resist change because inertia is really a powerful force, and I think we need to move on. So that's how I see the changes in the sport. I'm very passionate about the sport, or I wouldn't still be doing it, and I try and go with the flow with all these changes that have happened. Melissa Breau: Do you think, or maybe you could talk about, how the addition of other dog sports has changed obedience in particular? I feel like originally it was really conformation and obedience, and now there's nosework and tricks and all sorts of things. Esther Zimmerman: I think that one of the reasons for the decline in obedience entries is the proliferation of alternate sports. When I started, like you said, it was basically confirmation, obedience, tracking, herding, and field. That was pretty much it. Look at what's been added, not only in sports in general, but there are multiple organizations now that offer their own variations on some of these previously existing activities. I'm just going to rattle these off. Besides those we have rally, we have agility with various venues, earthdog, flyball, multiple venues for nosework, lure coursing, barn hunt, dock diving, parkour, freestyle, weight-pulling, Frisbee, carting, sled dog, treibball, tricks, IPO, French ring. That's without even really thinking about it terribly very much I came up with that list. And I'm sure there are ones that I have overlooked. So depending on what part of the country you live in, there are many options to choose from on any weekend. And some of these sports, at the beginner level at least, seem to offer more immediate gratification with a shorter investment of training time than AKC obedience. This can be quite appealing for some competitors. When you get to the upper levels of almost any of these activities, sports, training matters. It really matters. But there's another influence on competition, and I think that's the advent of the private training center. Back in the day, if you wanted to train your dog, you went to a training club. Once you got out of the puppy class you were encouraged to join that club. In order to join that club you had to attend meetings, you had to help out, you set up equipment, you swept the floor, you rolled up mats in the gymnasium, you stewarded the annual trial, and sometimes you became an assistant to a trainer that was already at the club. You became part of something. Now don't get me wrong. Again, training centers like MasterPeace, where I work, offer far more than the clubs ever could. MasterPeace has classes and activities seven days a week, morning, noon, and night. But most of the people come for that class, and turn around and go home, so their exposure to the notion of competition may be more limited than it was when they went to a club. So only AKC clubs can put on an AKC trial. Without the clubs, there are no trials. Several New England clubs no longer exist because of the lack of membership. They had to just fold up and go away. So consider that. Consider … I want people to consider joining their local club. Support them. If you want to be able to compete, there have to be people working to put on the trials. Another thing: I also want to put in a plug for experienced exhibitors to become judges. I don't care what your activity is. I'm an AKC Open provisional judge now. In case anyone has missed the stat, the average age of judges is getting higher and higher. Without new, younger judges in the pipeline, competition will disappear, because sooner or later these judges have to retire. They can't go on forever, and there have to be new people coming up to step up and judge. Competition requires judges. The other thing is that becoming a judge really changes your perspective of your sport. It's so easy to criticize the judge from outside the ring: “He didn't see this,” “He didn't see that, “She missed this,” “She did something wrong.” Yeah, try stepping behind the clipboard and see how hard it really is to keep all the rules and regs in mind, to see everything that's going on, mark it all down. Yeah, it's not that easy, guys. But I encourage everybody to do it, because how else will we go on? The other thing: I can only compete in New England. I go to my national specialty occasionally, not that much anymore, but I have traveled. But in this area there seems to be an improvement in the general competitive environment. Experienced handlers seem to be a little more welcoming of newbies, and more supportive of each other, than maybe five years ago. But those of us in the FDSA world would like to think that training overall is moving in a positive direction. Again, in my area, we have pockets of people devoted to that concept, but we're surrounded by more traditional training. That can feel a bit isolating. But the ripple effect that we talk about is a real thing. We do reach out to support each other, and we have an influence on what other people decide to do when we show how we behave with our dogs when we're in public, when we're at competition. People are watching when you don't think they're watching, and seeing you celebrate with your dog, even if things haven't gone quite well — they don't miss that, and that's an important thing for them to see. So yeah, things have changed a lot. Things have changed a lot. Melissa Breau: Yeah, for sure. Esther Zimmerman: But I'm hopeful for the future, very hopeful for the future. Melissa Breau: You mentioned FDSA in there, and I'm really curious: What led you to the Academy? How did you wind up there? Esther Zimmerman: I first encountered Denise at a seminar, and she's a dynamic presenter. She's got all this energy, talks really fast, is very excited, she's also passionate about what she does, committed to it, and her message just resonated with me in a way that nothing had since Patty. So I started following her blog — there's a lot of information there. Before FDSA, she offered an online course of relationship-building through play through another organization. I thought the idea was intriguing, but was really uncertain of how that could possibly work. So I got a working spot with Elphaba, and as we all know, it works great. It was a fabulous class, and I've been a devotee of the Academy since its inception. So that's how I came to FDSA. Melissa Breau: We talked through and you had a ton of experience before that point, so what is it that keeps you involved in coming back? Esther Zimmerman: This is a really easy one for me. I love dogs. I love dogs, number one. I love training, number two. I personally love how detail-oriented competition obedience is. It's not for everybody, I understand that, but I love that aspect of it. I love every training session, I love every class I teach, I love every lesson that I give, because every single one of them is different. I really love how my classes are a level playing field. Everyone who comes to the sport is a newbie, regardless of their professional and personal fields of expertise. I have doctors, I have veterinarians, I have lawyers, I have chefs, I have people who are really accomplished in their respective fields who are all starting at the same place when they come to dog training. None of that other stuff matters in the least. And I'm dealing with all the different breeds that come to me. That makes me a better instructor and trainer. I think to some degree people like to bring their non-traditional breeds to me since I have Schipperke. I think they think I will have a different sympathy and empathy for the perception of what we can expect from the non-traditional breeds, and to a degree that is correct, because I don't feel, “Oh, it's a terrier, it can't do that.” “It's a sighthound, we can't expect it to be able to do that.” Right? “It's a fill-in-the-blank, and therefore…” Yeah, there are predilections, but we can be successful, if we work at it and if we want it, with most breeds. And with FDSA specifically, I love how we have access to such a wide variety of subjects, world-class instructors from different parts of the world, and we never have to get out of our jammies if we don't want to. Melissa Breau: That makes me think of Sue's competition, her PJ competition, of everybody posting pictures of themselves training in their PJs. Esther Zimmerman: Exactly. And I don't know if you saw it, somebody was talking about FDSA swag that they bought, I think it was a sweatshirt or something, and I said, “How come there are no FDSA pajamas?” Melissa Breau: Yeah, we are looking at that. This is an aside, but I found onesies, pajama onesies, that you can get with your logo on them online somewhere, and I was sharing them with the other instructors, like, “I don't know, I think this should be what we wear to camp.” I think it got vetoed. But I don't know, I still think it's a good idea. Esther Zimmerman: That might be a little small for some of us. Melissa Breau: It's pajamas. Footie pajamas. One-piece footie pajamas. Esther Zimmerman: Hey, why not? You know some people would take you up on that. Melissa Breau: Right. This has been a lot of fun, but since this is your first time here, I want to ask you the three questions that I used to ask on almost every episode, but now that people have been on once or twice, we haven't gone back to them. The first question is simply, What's the dog-related accomplishment that you are proudest of? Esther Zimmerman: I'm not going to limit it to just one. I have a couple of things to say. Melissa Breau: OK. Esther Zimmerman: I'm really proud of the titles that I've earned with my dogs, with the Schipperke. Some of them have been firsts for the breed, which is really a nice thing to be able to say. What I'm most proud of, though, is how much I appreciate the partnership that I develop with my dogs as we go along. I have a bunch of candid photos that people have taken, and almost every one of them shows me looking right into my dog's eyes, and my dog looking right back into my eyes. I cherish those pictures and that feeling that I have. It's so special, and I can conjure that up at a moment's notice. I almost get choked up every time I talk about it, because it's just me and my dog, and everything else just goes away. That is something that I'm proud of, that I have that connection with my dogs. Melissa Breau: That's beautiful. I love that. Esther Zimmerman: Thank you. The second thing is that I love to share in the accomplishments of my students. That brings me so much joy, that they are finding success and happiness in this sport, and I'm just thrilled for all of them, every little thing that they do, and it doesn't always translate to a ribbon. If a person can come out of the ring when they have not qualified, and come to me and say, “Did you see that drop on recall?” or “Did you see how she worked articles?” when maybe that's something they've been struggling with and the dog did it — even if something else went badly, then I've done my job of teaching that person to focus on the positive and not worry about the rest of it, because we can make that better too. Those are the things I'm really proudest. Melissa Breau: I love that. Our second and second-to-last question is, What is the best piece of training advice that you've ever heard? Esther Zimmerman: I've got a couple of things here too. Melissa Breau: OK. Esther Zimmerman: I do like to talk. Melissa Breau: That makes for a good podcast, so we're good! Esther Zimmerman: Patty said, “When in doubt, put a cookie on it.” That's it. That simple statement can address so many issues. When in doubt, put a cookie on it. Sheila Booth said — I don't know if too many people know who she is, but in Schutzhund circles, IPO circles, I think she's a little better known — but Sheila Booth said, “They can do at 4 what they couldn't do before.” So she's saying what they can do at age 4, they couldn't do before then, which again speaks to patience and not showing prematurely. I firmly believe the dogs will tell you when they're ready to show, and don't rush it. There's no rush. Take your time, put in the work, and you'll be way happier. There are Flyers, there are dogs you can take out at 1 or 2 and accomplish great things, but for the most part, not so much. I have a saying that I say to my students, so much that one of them embroidered it on a vest for me. In class it always comes out when someone says, “How come my dog did that?” I always say, “Too far, too fast, too much, too soon.” Don't go too far too fast. Don't do too much too soon. That's how it got embroidered on my vest. That's my biggest piece of training advice to put out there. Don't go too far too fast. Don't do too much too soon. Melissa Breau: I love that. That's awesome. Esther Zimmerman: Thank you. Melissa Breau: It has a certain sing to it. Too far, too fast, too much, too soon. Last question for you: Who is somebody else in the dog world that you look up to? Esther Zimmerman: This is going to sound like a cliché, but I really admire Denise. In addition to being an outstanding dog trainer and instructor, she's a really smart businessperson. She works harder than any five people I know, she's created something unique with FDSA, and surrounds herself with other smart people who help keep it running smoothly and efficiently, specifically you, Melissa, and Teri Martin. Melissa Breau: Yeah, Teri's fantastic. Esther Zimmerman: And then Denise's generosity to the dog training community always impresses me. There's so much free material and information out there, the blog and these podcasts are free, of course, she joins in the conversations on the various Facebook pages and gives training advice there, she does her live Facebook sessions are free. I think the scholarships for free Bronze-level classes and the contests for free Bronze-level classes are amazing at making education available to everybody, even if you have limited means. It's just a wonderful thing to put out there for people. And then of course the inception of TEAM — that was also just brilliant. It's brought high-quality titling opportunities to anyone, anywhere, anytime. It forces people to pay attention to detail. There's a lot of precision required right through from basic foundation skills through the advanced levels. People who do that are pretty well prepared for success in other types of competition. It was a brilliant concept and brilliant in execution. I don't know what Denise has in store for the future, but I know she's been teasing us about something new coming in April, I don't like being teased like that, but I also can't wait to see what it's going to be, because it's going to be great. I know it is. So I have to say it's Denise. Melissa Breau: I will say that she is by far the most productive person I know. She gets more done in a few hours a day than most people do in a week. Esther Zimmerman: I don't know. It boggles my mind. It just boggles my mind. Melissa Breau: You're not the only one. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Esther! This has been great. I really appreciate it. This has been fun. Esther Zimmerman: I know it took us a little bit of time to be able to connect. I had a cold. I hope I sound OK, because my voice was shattered last week. It was worth the wait. It was a lot of fun, and I'm very honored that you decided to ask me to do this. Melissa Breau: Well, I'm definitely glad that you could. And thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in! We'll be back next week, this time with Debbie Torraca, to talk about exercise for puppies. If you enjoyed this episode, I hope you guys will consider hopping over to iTunes and leaving us a review. I know I mentioned this in our last couple of episodes, but reviews really help the show! We've gotten a few new ones since I've started including this request, like this one from Schout: “Melissa does a great job interviewing accomplished guests. Filled with useful insights and funny anecdotes.” Thank you Schout, whoever you are! And, while you're there, if you haven't already, I hope you'll subscribe 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.

SUMMARY: At FDSA, Andrea Harrison teaches classes for the human half of the competitive team. She's an educator who is passionate about all species including dogs and humans. Having lived with dogs her whole life, Andrea was an early convert to positive training. She has taken this message to the media many times including appearances on many TV shows and news programs as well as in print and on the radio. She has explored the science of brain research and worked with people of all ages on being successful and reducing anxiety and stress using her training and counseling, personality typing, and her own experiences.   When it comes to dog sports her competitive addiction is agility. Andrea and her dogs have many titles between them with placements in regional and national competitions. Andrea has experienced animal wrangling for television and more recently has begun to explore scent work. Links Andrea's Website Andrea's Task Cards Next Episode:  To be released 1/05/2018, and I'll be talking to Amy Cook about the science of dog training, so stay tuned! 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 Andrea Harrison. Andrea is the people trainer on the FDSA team, working with dog sports teams to help handlers train themselves for better performance. She teaches classes on unleashing your personal potential, mental management, planning, goal setting, and more... and with the new year right around the corner, she's here today to talk goal setting and dog-related new year's resolutions. Hi Andrea! Welcome to the podcast. Andrea Harrison: Hey Melissa. Thank you so much for the invitation. Great to talk to you. Melissa Breau: I'm excited to chat today. To get us started, do you want to just remind listeners who you are and tell us a little bit about the dogs you share your life with? Andrea Harrison: Sure. I'm Andrea Harrison. I've been doing the mental management stuff in some capacity in my life professionally for nearly 30 years. I can't believe it. The dogs we're currently living with has changed a bit since the last time I was on the podcast, Melissa. We lost two of our older dogs. Melissa Breau: I'm sorry. Andrea Harrison: Yeah, it's hard. It happens to everybody, but it's never easy. Now we're living with Sally and Thea, our senior dogs, and they're the two dogs that have done the most competitively. Sally was in a feature film. They're the dogs who really push my dog training along. Then we have my husband's Golden Retriever, Samson, who is his dog very much. I try to keep hands off, although it's hard sometimes because he's lovely and really athletic, so I sneak out and do some stuff with him sometimes, but he's Tom's dog, I leave him alone as best as I can. He's the farm dog. We also have two younger dogs, Yen, who is a toy American Eskimo, and Dora, who is a feral little Cairn terrier mix. They're both great and lots of fun, and they basically bum around the farm, keeping me company, and I get my eye on them, which we'll chat about in a bit, I think. Melissa Breau: To jump right in, are there benefits to having set goals for our dog sports? Andrea Harrison: There are so many benefits to goal setting, and I think when we're talking about dog sports, one of the really important things to remember is goals can actually give you power. And I don't mean power in a dictator sense in an all-controlling way. I mean power of ourselves. Power of understanding that we are good enough and strong enough and competent enough. So many of us in dog training land look to someone else and admire them, and wish we were them, and perhaps have a little envy or jealousy. The goal setting that we do can give us the strength to do our own thing, to manage our own expectations, to create training plans, to create competitive goals, all of those kinds of things. So when I talk to people about goal setting, I try to remember to focus on goals, and FOCUS is one of my silly acronyms I like to use. The F stands for facing the present. You never want to dwell on the past, and you never want to just dream of the future. Goals give you the opportunity to focus on and face the present moment, because you look at where you are right now and determine what your goals will be. They let you offer a vision, so you decide, are your goals going to be around structure and plans, or are your goals going to be around skills and those sorts of things. So they give you that vision through offering it to you. C I think of as being for clarity. Goals will bring you clarity around what you want to do. If you want to train your dog to do draft titles and you get yourself sucked into doing obedience fronts, that's not going to be that helpful to you. So if you have good goals, you'll find it's easier to find clarity around what to do and those steps to build. I use the U for understanding the choices and priorities that you make. Say you're looking at what class to take next term at Fenzi, as an example. We all know it's hard to pick. There are so many great choices and we get ourselves spun. If you'd taken the time and done some goal setting, you can actually see which of the classes will help you move forward with your goals and which of the classes that you need. So to be able to understand the choices and set your own priorities can be really important too and really beneficial. And then of course when you achieve your goals, you get both success and satisfaction from them. People laugh at me when I say one of the reasons to goal set is to reach success and satisfaction, but it's so important. So many people don't internalize their own worth, and if goals give you a way to internalize your worth and feel better about yourself, that's a really good thing. So I think goal setting is a really important skill to develop, and I think it can add a lot to us as multi-dimensional positive dog trainers. Melissa Breau: To reiterate that acronym one more time: F is facing the present, O is offering vision, C is clarity, U is understanding, S is success and satisfaction. Andrea Harrison: Exactly. Melissa Breau: Excellent. That's great. I think that's really helpful for people to have that to keep in mind as they go through that process. Andrea Harrison: Exactly, and that's the thing. It gives you a way to break it down to remember it, because you're like, “Oh, goal-setting, it's too much work and you have to think too hard.” You know, you wake up in the morning and drive to work, and you start thinking about a goal, and the phone rings or whatever, and you get distracted. Why would you go back to it? Well, focus. Remember FOCUS and focus on those goals. Melissa Breau: Right, right. I think people probably set goals that require their dogs to learn new skills when it comes to dog training, or to achieve specific things, like in their first OTCH or what have you… but since we're relying on another being, our dogs, what special considerations should we be keeping in mind as we set those goals? Andrea Harrison: Such an important question, and I think the thing I want all of my students, and I hope all of the FDSA students and everybody listening, to remember is that the dogs don't get a say in the goals we set for them. My little Chihuahua, Thea, I wanted her to do agility. She's a Chihuahua, she weighs 6 pounds, agility was not really her thing. She's quick, she's a character, she bombs around the field, but every different teeter I put her on dropped at a different rate of speed, even though they're not supposed to, and she had a couple of quite scary fly-offs. What I did was I started running her in classes that didn't have a teeter. My goal maybe was to do some more advanced agility titles with her, but my goal was to enjoy agility with her, and she did very, very well as long as she wasn't getting on strange teeters. Strange teeters were scary for her, and they were dangerous, and because I didn't let my own personal goals supersede her need to be safe, it allowed us to both enjoy a sport I really love. So you've got to remember the dog didn't get a say in your goal. If you would run if you were sore and achy, but your dog is sore and achy, it might not be a good day to run, because your dog doesn't have the same goals as you. When you look at that, you alluded to it earlier, too, this concept I talk about all the time, the difference between a process goal and an outcome goal. The outcome goal is getting the OTCH, it's getting the ribbon, it's going to Nationals, it's coming first at Nationals for on the podium or whatever, it's those big sort of ribbon goals. That's what I think of when I talk about outcome goals. And process goals are all the little steps that get you there. So a process goal might be training at least three times a week, or teaching my dog to find three different scents, or all of this sort of step-building goals. So when you're thinking about dog training, make sure that you're remembering to build more process goals than outcome goals. I'm not opposed to outcome goals, but the process goals will help you and your dog reach the outcome goal anyhow, and they're a little bit fairer for your dog, given that your dog doesn't have a say in the goal setting. The weekend warriors who say, “I'm going to a trial on Sunday, and I'm going to start training Friday night, and training like mad Friday and Saturday,” they're not doing themselves nor their dogs any favors by that kind of goal setting. A systematic method of goal setting that includes process goals as an actually defined piece of the process are going to get you much, much further than just ping-ponging around from outcome goal to outcome goal and getting frustrated when you and your dog aren't achieving them the way you want. Melissa Breau: You mentioned outcome and process goals, and you got a little bit into my next question, which is how can people be smart about the goals they set for themselves and their dogs? Is there more you want to get into there? Andrea Harrison: Well, yeah, because I think you want to remember that process goals allow you to learn. Through the mistakes that you make, through the opportunities that you get through process, through watching what happens, that lets you learn the most from the goal-setting process. Outcome goals are around performance and they're important too, but outcome goals really are an opportunity to perform and show what you know. So when you're thinking about smart training, it's about picking the model goal setting that's going to work best for you. I'm always happy to share, there are hundreds of different kinds of goal setting models, but a really easy one is the smart goal setting. You hear about it all the time, and that's another acronym that's been around forever. There are some issues with it, but for people who have never goal set before, it can be a good place to start. It looks at having specific goals that are measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely, and those are each of the smart: S-M-A-R-T. And so a specific goal would be: I want Dora to do a dog walk. Measurable: Can she do a dog walk when I'm standing behind, at the side, or recalling her over it to me? Is that achievable for her? Yeah, she's confident on all kinds of shaky surfaces, she's absolutely fine with that. Is it relevant? Well, I like agility, so yeah, for me it is. Is it timely? Yeah, she's a mature little dog, she's still young enough to be fit, all of those kinds of things. So smart goals can give you a nice framework. It can be an intelligent way to look at goal setting. You want to make sure that you're making your goals positive, that you can choose to be positive about your goals and make them changing and affirming, as opposed to negative in things that you're likely to fail at. Some people will set a goal of “I don't want my dog to bark at strangers.” That's a good goal: I don't want my dog to bark at strangers. A better goal for many of the goal setting experts would be to frame it as “I want my dog to walk quietly beside me down the street.” So you can take that negative goal and turn it into a positive goal. That's one thing to keep in mind when you're trying to be intelligent about how you goal set. Also think about making intrinsic goals. When we get into goal setting, we often set our goals for someone else. So we might think, Oh the breeder would love it if I had a versatility title on this dog, or My husband says I'm spending so much money on dog training; I really should bring home some ribbons to show for it, or whatever. We intrinsically tend to set our goals, and that's why I like process goals, too — because they remind us to remember to be internal, set our goals in an intrinsic sense. You need to goal set for yourself. Not wholly — balance is OK — but make sure that you've got that balance, that you're remembering that you matter in this goal-setting regime that you're setting up, too. Melissa Breau: So for those out there, it's SMART: specific measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely. Was that it? Andrea Harrison: Correct, yeah. Melissa Breau: All right. I'm taking notes as we go through so I can remember some of the acronyms. Andrea Harrison: You're good! The acronyms — not everybody does them. They may or may not work for you, and that's fine. But I'm finding more and more people the acronyms help them hang on to stuff. That one I did not come up with, but I'm trying to create other ones around some of the work that I do to help people who are figuring that stuff out. Melissa Breau: It helps it stick in your head when you can remember a single word and you go, “Oh wait, I'm missing something, what was the M again, OK.” So, I know that they say something like 80% of New Year's resolutions tend to fail by February – I wanted to address that a little bit. How can people who set a goal for themselves — a good goal for themselves, following the guidelines you laid out — how can they stay motivated past February, hopefully all the way through the year? Andrea Harrison: A few things, and we're lucky with our FDSA community because we've got a natural accountability system, partnership. If you're working on your TEAM titles, you've got the TEAM group. If you're working in a class and working through your bronze, you can post in your local group. There are lots of opportunities for that, and that's a really important thing. People need to remember to do that. But one of the things is to take your time and plan your goal. So here we are sitting on December 26 or whatever, and this will come out at the end of the week with hardly any time before New Year's to do our goal. People will be like, “Oh my god, I didn't goal set yet! I want to goal set!” And they'll jump into it and … don't. Stop, take your time, reflect around what matters to you, talk to an instructor you like or a training buddy already, and figure out what realistic goals are. If we set unrealistic goals, we will fail. We're setting ourselves up to fail when we do that. You're much better to invest the front-end time into making your goals realistic and appropriate for you, and attainable for you in the moment — and we can talk more about that — but make sure that you've got a way to plan those goals that are sensible for you. Then make sure you've got a system to record-keep, so you know if you're meeting those goals or not, or where you've got some holes, the accountability piece. I suggest people take the occasional goals class just to build in a little bit higher degree of accountability. If they haven't tried it yet, it can be a really good thing. An in-person a class, if you're in an area where that's possible. Something to look forward to. For me, I like going to clinics and seminars sometimes just to remind myself. It reminds me to try and make sure I'm ready for it, and I think that can be a helpful thing. Identify and accept your flaws when you're thinking about motivation. Not all of us are equally good at things. If your February's going to be crazy and you get derailed a little bit, that's OK. You don't need to be perfect every day, all the time. If your flaw is that you train in short, intense bursts, make sure your goal reflects that you're better off training intensely six days and then taking four days off, or whatever it is. So know who you are. Spend a little bit of time identifying who you are as well. And then, of course, with motivation you always want to know which of direction, intensity, and persistence are your downfall. Direction is your developing the plan, intensity is how often you'll do it, and persistence is how long you'll stick with it. If you know which of those three things is your biggest issue in motivation, it can help you figure out how to overcome that. Even sometimes knowing just that that's your hole, you can be like, “Ah, I just can't get off the couch tonight. Oh, wait, my direction's failing me and I set those goals on purpose. Let me get up and go to it.” Or “I trained three times last week. I'm not going to train this week at all. Wait a minute. That's persistence. I need to get up and get back to it.” So often, just by understanding ourselves, we set ourselves up to be more successful, in this particular regard, anyways. Melissa Breau: You mentioned setting goals that are attainable for you in the moment. Do you want to go into that just a little bit more, since it came up? Andrea Harrison: Sure. Attainable for you. So what I'm saying is, if you want … you said your OTCH, and that's a huge deal in obedience. I hadn't realized until I started working with somebody who's well on her way to it. She wanted her OTCH, and she and I spent quite a long time figuring out what her realistic timeline was for it, because so much of that is out of your direct control. You can't say you will get that in six shows, because it depends on who else is at your show, or twenty shows or whatever it is from where you start. So you have to make sure you build in a little bit of what I would call a buffer. So you think it would take you twenty trials to get it from where you are right now, I would say to you, “Give yourself thirty shots at it.” If you get there faster than you thought, that's OK. It's good. No problem. You can always adjust a goal. Goals are highly adjustable. They're designed to be adjustable. So if you're reaching it already, that's great. But if you had said to yourself you're going to get your OTCH in fifteen, and you needed every one of those fifteen trials to be completely successful and win the class and all that stuff, then you're going to be really disappointed when you get to trial 14 and you realize you actually still need 13 trials. You're going to feel like a huge failure. So you want to make sure that when you're setting attainable goals, and that's one of the reasons I said talk to your instructors and your friends, because sometimes we get rosy-colored glasses. We're like, “Oh, oh, oh, I can do this! I can do this! This is great!” And then somebody will say, “Mmm, you know, three months isn't a lot of time when you live in a place where …” — well, for me, there's major snow — “ … you might get snowed in and not be able to get to a trial.” “Oh yeah, I hadn't thought of that.” You have to make the whole picture, and the more people you can draw into helping you with that, the easier it's going to be for you in the long run. Melissa Breau: The other thing you mentioned was record keeping, and I know that's a topic that comes up over and over again in the alumni group, that whole tracking your training process, or your training progress, and how to do it, and what are the advantages of it. People share their whiteboards, or their bullet journals, or all sorts of stuff. So I wanted to ask what recommendations do you have for people interested in tracking their progress or coming up with a system? Andrea Harrison: I love this question because it goes right to the heart of me, because my answer is, it depends, and it depends on what works for you. You can set up a really, really simple system that is literally putting a plus, a minus, a plus — it went really well — a minus — it wasn't such a great day — or a big fat zero with a line through it that you didn't train at all that day. You can do that on a calendar on the wall in your kitchen, and that is record keeping. That's legitimate record keeping. You can say to yourself, “I'm going to video every session I do on Friday nights.” And whenever you remember to train on Friday night, you video it. That's record keeping. Those are legitimate forms of record keeping, and they might be what you want to do. That's simple, simple, simple, and it's fine. You might want to do something a little more medium, where you've got a blog going, or you've started a tiny little Facebook group with you and two of your friends and you share your successes, or you write on the backs of agility maps how the run went when you show. I had a book full of maps. I still use them. I still set up training based on my book of maps, and I love them. I remember most of my courses that way. There are so many sorts of medium. You might videotape twice a week, or every time you teach something new, or lots of those sorts of things. And then there are really complex systems, like you mentioned bullet journaling. Bullet journaling's hot, hot, hot. People love it. It's great. It's pretty. Lots of people disappoint themselves because they set up these beautiful bullet journals and then they don't keep them. They're colorful. They're great. If it works for you and you love it, great. If you set it up your own way, set it up your own way. You don't have to do it the way anybody else tells you to. It's for you. It's tracking what you want to track. People get confused, like, “Should I have my grocery lists and my dog training in the same journal?” It's up to you. If you want to have your grocery lists and your dog training in the same journal, go for it. If you want to have every dog having their own separate folder, go for it. If it doesn't work for you, you won't use it. With record keeping, almost more than anything else I teach, it has to work for you. So start simply successfully and build from there. The last chat I saw they weren't sharing them, but people share the most beautiful Excel programs that they've set up with the exercises and the dogs and the colors. We've got some really, really talented people in our group who are happy to share stuff, so I love seeing that conversation come up. I sit back now because people know I've got folders and folders of bookmarks and stuff, but people are all doing all kinds of different things, and if it works for you, great. If it isn't working for you, don't beat yourself up. Stop, think, try something else. There's no failure in not setting up a record-keeping system that works for you the first time you try, or the second time, or the fiftieth time. My record keeping has changed so much over the last 15 years of dog training. I can't even tell you all the different systems I've used, because they're different times in my life. It's busier and less busy, so I work and I do it and it's great, but it has to work for you in that moment. Melissa Breau: You touched on this a little bit in there, but I know for a lot of people, the hardest part of all of that — achieving a goal, tracking it, anything — is when something happens and they miss a day, or life intervenes and maybe they miss a few days… so I wanted to address that too. How can people recover if they do fall off the bandwagon, or if they wake up one morning and realize they have gotten off track and haven't been working on their goal the way they originally envisioned? Andrea Harrison: It's such an important thing. I mean, life happens to us all. No matter how good your goals are, no matter how clear your vision is, life happens. I had a relative diagnosed with cancer, got a call at a trial, left the trial, didn't do competitive agility for four months, that was just my reality. I beat myself up about it — this was a long time ago — I beat myself up about it and was really upset and mad at the money and the training and all of that. At the end of the day, it didn't matter. I went back to agility, loved it, hit my podium finishes, and did just fine. You have to accept that those sort of throwaway days will happen. Sometimes it's a throwaway week or a throwaway month. We do this for fun. The dog sports are about fun, and if we're in a place where it isn't fun, we need to stop and regroup and rethink and plan it out. Imperfect action, though, is better than no action, so if you find that you're stalling out just because you've had a few bad days and you don't know how to get going again, grab a toy and go play, grab a clicker and go teach something, watch a shaping video and try it yourself. Do something. I would rather see someone take imperfect action than just be stalled. If there is a place for that. If there is no place for you mentally, that's OK too, but it's a separate issue right there. There are two reasons life happens to us: one is we can't overcome it, and one is we get so down on ourselves we can't. And when you're that down on yourself, remind yourself of why you're doing it. Put a picture of a ribbon … hang a ribbon on your bathroom door so you'll see the ribbon and be like, “Oh yeah, I want to do that.” Put Denise's book right front and center and think about telling her that what you're actually achieving that day. Jump on the FDSA thing and say, “Hey, I'm feeling down,” and I guarantee you fifty people are going to say, “Hey, it's OK. I've been there too.” We've all been there. Get out there and get training. Have fun with your dog. Use those days to reclaim. I talked a little bit earlier about power, goals giving us power. Those days actually give you a funny sort of backwards opportunity to reclaim that power, because you're busy feeling down about yourself, and if you can get yourself to train for just five minutes … I'm not talking about a great training plan that catches up on all the process goals that you missed last week. I'm saying spend five minutes doing something with your dog. That gives you that little bit of power back, and then you can go on and do a little bit of power again so you can build. Take one tiny, tiny, small, imperfect step forward when it's not working very well, and then you will find that you will be able to make sense of it. If your training is getting derailed, though, and that's why you have stopped, that's OK, and that's important to stop and redress. You want to look at your goals and make sure they are in fact realistic and measurable and achievable for you in that time, and relevant to what you want to do, and you might need to regroup and change your goals a bit. Sometimes when we get stalled out it's because the goals we're working on aren't really the goals we should be working on. So remember that nothing could be a good choice in that situation. So you've gotten really mad at your dog the night before and you've done something you aren't proud of, then you might need to stop and regroup and reassess what your goals are, and that's OK too. Again, you're a human being. We're all human beings. We're not perfect. Melissa Breau: You said something in there that I love, and it's just that idea that we do this to have fun with our dogs, and ultimately if that's not happening, something's wrong, and it's worth taking some time off for rethinking those goals or looking at things again. I just think that's important for people to hear and to recognize. I just like that line. Andrea Harrison: Yeah. It's so important. To me, it's the heart of why I do what I do. My dogs are the good thing in my life, and I know that's true for many of us. So I'm glad it resonated with you. Melissa Breau: Despite our best efforts, sometimes we just don't achieve our goals. It just doesn't happen. Do you have any tips for when that happens, handling it, handling the disappointment and those feelings of having failed, or of failure? Andrea Harrison: Of course I do! This is my bread and butter! This is what I do. And I can hear half my students laughing, going, “Oh, I know what she's going to say.” I've got some new stuff for some of you coming up, I promise. But when that happens to you, I want you to really stop and think, is this goal too much for you right now? And if it is too much for you, that's OK. I often teach people to frame their goals around “at leasts.” Instead of saying, “I'm going to train five times a week,” we'd much rather someone say, “I'm going to train at least four times a week.” You set your goal for what you think it is, and then you backup a step. And then, if you find you're only training three times a week, you say, “I'm going to actually train at least twice a week.” So as soon as you start to feel that sense of disappointment and failure, reword your goal, rework your goal a little bit, and give yourself a bit of a break. I already talked that we are humans. You need to balance that fun in the work piece. You want to make sure that fun and work are in good balance. In my blog you'll see I strike out training and work. Years and years ago I started striking them out and put play, because really that's what I do. I play with my dogs, and we get some training done, and we have lots of fun doing it. That's been a very basic philosophy of mine for a long, long time. So that balance is super-important. Here's a growth mindset. We can have these fixed minds. That's where we think this thing is going to be the way it is forever, and our brains are really very changing, they've got great plasticity, they're very accommodating, so remember that, and remember not yet doesn't mean never. I love that we use “not yet” in the Team stuff, because it's so true in all of life. If you didn't get that cue that you wanted, it doesn't mean you're never going to get that cue. It means you didn't get that cue right then — not yet. So not yet is not never. And mistakes are learning. I say it all the time, and I feel like it's so trite to say it, but it's so true. Look for the learning in the mistake that you make and embrace it. You aren't going to get the opportunity to learn that any other way other than through the mistake you made. If it's an error of enthusiasm, as I like to call them, that's great. Celebrate it. If it's another kind of error, if you over-trained your dog and they're tired at the trial, or you set up beside the wrong dog and your dog snarked at them and you were asked to leave the show — which is terrible, but it happens — then you know, OK, I need to be more careful about where I set up the next time. No matter how big and bad and awful it feels in that moment, Andrea's Rule of Five, kick it in: Is it going to matter in five minutes, five hours, five days, five years? At what point is this thing not going to have such a devastating impact on you? We take things so very, very personally sometimes, and ultimately it really isn't personal. Most of what happens around us is not personal to us. Even our own failures in some way are just circumstances happening to us. Bad things happen to good people, and if it's a bad thing, I'm sorry, and I'll be commiserating, but I'm not going to say to you, “This is the end of the world,” because in all likelihood it probably isn't. Melissa Breau: I think the other piece of goal setting that we haven't touched on is the pressure that sometimes comes with trying to achieve big goals. If someone is feeling stressed out about what they want to achieve, how can they manage that in a way that's healthy and not destructive or beating up on themselves? Andrea Harrison: That's a really good question, and it's so important to access your toolbox Most of my classes talk about a toolbox, and these few things I'm thinking of as we chat are things that try them out, test them, see if they work for you. If they work, put them in the top drawer of your toolbox so you can use them when you feel stressed and pressured. Of course I've talked about breathing before, I think, and there are two easy breathing techniques. I am, where you breath in and you think I am, and as you breathe out, you think the good thought, so I am a good dog trainer, I am confident, I am successful. Whatever any of those things are, that I am breathing is very useful. Count breathing can also calm your nerves because it makes you focus. It's a mindfulness practice. You breathe in for a count of four and breathe out for a count of five, so it goes in, two, three, four, out, six, seven, eight, nine. If you can't breathe for that long, you can do it shorter. Breathe in one count less than you breathe out, so you could breathe in, two, three, out five, six, seven. That can really calm you down quite quickly and give you a thing... Write down what you're worried about. Write it out and then tear it up into tiny little strips of paper, or burn it, gives you great satisfaction sometimes, if it's safe. If you're frustrated or you're angry about something, that can be a very helpful tool. Write it down. Throw a dance party for yourself. You're mad, you're grumpy, you're unhappy, you're sad, whatever. Crank up a tune you love and bop around the house. Your dog will think you're nuts, your spouse might think you're nuts, but get your frustration out. Shake it off. A grounding thing people can try when you're absolutely shaking you're so upset, think about how your feet are touching the ground. Really feel your feet. And in fact you can teach yourself to use that as an anchoring thing when you're standing still and you can't get away. For most of us, movement is a release, just like with our dogs. So if you can move, it's going to help more. You can shake your hands, or push your arms together, or any one of those things. But if you can't do any of that and you have to just stand there, really concentrate on how your toes are touching in your shoes, and your shoes are pressing into the floor, and feel that root to the ground. That can be a really nice tool. I talked briefly about my Rule of Five already. You can strike a pose, very Ann Cuddy, power person. I had lots of fun talking about striking Wonder Woman poses and various poses in mirrors. Go sneak into a bathroom, strike a power pose, and then away you go. That can just root you and reground you a little bit. Another one I like is something I call “traffic light.” When you're getting tense and fried and upset, think about a traffic light. Red: stop. Amber: think about it and make a plan. Green: try your plan. It's a very quick way to just go “traffic light,” and you can actually run through it in, like, 10 seconds sometimes, from red to green, and then reset yourself. It's just a way to reset, and then of course reframe, and whatever's going on can be really helpful, too, when you're feeling really stressed out. I'm stressed, but I'm remembering to do my breathing exercise. I'm stressed, but Andrea would tell me I'm learning from this. Somebody messaged me once, I laughed and said, “Did it work?” And they said, “Yes, it did.” So however you can reframe it. I didn't have a really good show, but I got out of housecleaning today. Whatever it is that will work for you, go ahead and steal it and use it. Reframing can be a very useful tool. But the thing about all of these tools, Melissa, I wouldn't want anyone to forget is they all take practice. You can't just grab one on the fly and go, “Yeah, yeah, I like that ‘feel your feet' thing,” and try to do it only when you're stressed. If it's something that you think might work for you, start trying it now, like any of my tools. I've got hundreds, and I just picked out a few, and I picked out some ones that I hadn't shared in classes very often, if at all, but just to do something a little bit different. But if you don't practice them, they will not work for you in a stressful situation. Melissa Breau: So more to Amy's concept for her management class for managing dogs: you have to practice with the dog so that it becomes second nature before you actually need it in the moment. Same idea. Works on us, too. Andrea Harrison: Exactly, exactly. We're all mammals. Melissa Breau: So I know you touch on a lot of these topics in your “Handle This” class, which is on the calendar for February – and I wanted to ask you to share a little bit about the class and tell students what's in it, tell students what might make them want to take it, that kind of thing. Andrea Harrison: Good question. You know, it's a funny class. When I first developed it, I thought it would be one of the very most popular classes, and it's one of the most intense classes that I teach — and I teach lots of intense classes. People think hard in my classes and I always apologize, “I'm sorry, you're thinking,” and they're always, “No, it's good, it's good.” “But I didn't mean to make you think that hard!” One of the things we get into is creating a master plan, so whatever it is that you've gotten that you want to figure out how to handle. Lots of people come because they're still really nervous in the ring. It was set up to be a follow-up course to All In Your Head, but you don't have to have done All In Your Head anymore to do it. I've figured out how to work through without having to have it. So lots of people who are nervous come into it, or lots of people who are struggling with trial situations, but there are also now lots of people who are just trying to figure out how to get to a show, so they don't even know if they're going to be nervous or not yet because they haven't gone to a show yet. It's become, as well as the nerves piece, it's become setting up a master plan, like, how are you going to get from where you are to where you want to be, applying all of the different things that have come up in Denise's class, and Hannah's class, and all the different classes that you've taken. How are we going to marry them all together into a vision of success for you? There's a lot about change, and being realistic, and adapting to change, and dealing with stressors that come up in your life, but if I was going to give you the one thing, I think it's that ability to create a master plan to bring in lots of different elements. And it's kind of cool because my classes, people come to them from lots of different sports. I have a barn hunt person, a scent work person, an obedience person, an agility person, a drafting person. I usually get lots and lots of variety in the classes, dock diving people have shown up in my classes... so you get to see how all these different sports create these master plans, and sometimes you're able to use ideas from different threads that you can carry over to your sport. So I really like that about my classes. I think it's a quite cool way to do it. The other class I'm running this semester is Unleash Personal Potential, which is the Gold-only class, which is basically whatever people want to do works. The lectures are just around mindfulness, but people do exactly what they want, so we might have somebody trying to peak for performance in March, or somebody who wants to know how to help their boyfriend like their dogs better, or somebody who wants to get a job in a dog-related field. Lots and lots of different things have come up in the class, and it's a lot of fun too. It's Gold only, and you have to have taken some class from me at some level to get into it. Melissa Breau: Alright, I have one final question for you, Andrea… I wanted to ask you if you have any dog-related resolutions or goals that you're planning on trying to achieve in the next year — at least any that you care to share? Andrea Harrison: Great question. I always have goals, and I didn't … I don't think I blogged about it yet this year. If you look at December in my blog, you can see my goals most years. My goal for Sally and Thea is to keep them as healthy and happy as possible. Sally's almost 12 and Thea's 15, and they both have some chronic disease issues that mean they probably shouldn't still be with us. So that's my goal for the old guys. But the cobbler's children, the two young dogs I've got, Dora and Yen, I'm quite determined to get Yen going, and I haven't quite decided whether that means in public doing scent work or agility, or maybe both. She's quite good at both. She's a little flying squirrel, so I've got to figure out how to manage the flying squirrel, but apart from that, that's my goal with her. Dora, I would like very much, because she's feral and quite reactive and quite a character, I'm going to continue working on some of my online stuff. She's working on her trick titles and has been doing quite well at them. I was thinking of adding parkour to it as well. And then personally, because I like agility and she likes agility, we'll do some agility at home, because one of my real goals is to get out and keep doing some personal growth stuff for me, so attending some seminars, attending some workshops. I hope I'm going to be, if I'm invited, driving down to camp for one night, and hanging out for the afternoon and overnight and the morning after. That's my intention, so to get to camp to see everybody. That's actually high on the list of my personal dog goals. And yeah, I think it will be a fun year. I'm looking forward to doing lots of stuff. We're also planning on holding an Iron Dog competition here at the farm. So that will be something new for me. Melissa Breau: Oh, fun! Andrea Harrison: We're going to run one, I think, and a couple of FDSA students have offered to help, and I think it'll be great, so I'm looking forward to setting that up. We have over 200 acres, including a lovely hill that's quite steep, so we're going to have options where you can do the Iron Dog thing or do a training thing. You choose your option, so that people will get different points for doing it, and it'll be a little less of a physical challenge if you choose to do the training options all the way along. A nice walk with some training walks. So there's lots going on in my life I'm looking forward to in a doggy sense for 2018. Melissa Breau: I certainly hope you make it to camp, and do you want to mention where you're located, in case there's anybody listening who's close enough to come out for the dog event? Andrea Harrison: Oh yeah, yeah. I'm in Prince Edward County in Ontario, so in between Ottawa and Toronto, pretty well halfway in between Toronto and Ottawa, so a pretty, pretty part of the world. Lots of wineries and craft breweries and art galleries, and lots of things for spouses to do while you play with your dog in the morning. We're a hotbed of tourism here. Oh, and you know something else I forgot to mention when we were talking about when you're down and out and you can't think of how to get going again, people would be more than welcome to pull one of my task cards out of the deck, so I will make sure I send you a link for how they can get a task card to re-motivate themselves. Melissa Breau: Perfect. And just because I know you mentioned your blog earlier, and I'm assuming that would be the best place to get more info on the Iron Dog stuff, but correct me if I'm wrong, do you want to mention what your website is? Andrea Harrison: It's a blogspot. It's Andrea Agility Addict at blogspot, and you'll find it quickly. It's got really good SEO, despite the fact that I've done no work on it, Melissa, you'd be proud of me. Melissa Breau: Excellent. I will include a link to it in the show notes for anybody who wants to go check that out. Andrea Harrison: Perfect.Melissa Breau: Thank you so much, Andrea. I'm really glad you could come back on, and I honestly couldn't think of a better time to talk goals, so thank you. Andrea Harrison: It's always a pleasure talking to you, Melissa, either on- or offline. I love our conversations, and I always feel like I've learned lots too, so thank you so much. Melissa Breau: And thank you, to all of our listeners for tuning in, both this week and every week this year. We'll be back next week, this time with Amy Cook to talk about the science of dog training. 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. And Happy New Years! 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!

SUMMARY: Mariah Hinds' love affair with dogs and fascination with their behavior began young. She's wanted to be a dog trainer since she was eight years old. She's now been training dogs and teaching people for more than 14 years and is a Certified Professional Dog Trainer. Mariah has broad practical experience in the dog world, volunteering and working in kennels, shelters and veterinary hospitals, dog sitting and walking, fostering rescue dogs, and two years of veterinary technician college. She has a passion for finding the best way to communicate with the human half of the dog handler team, because she knows small changes in the handler and practice can yield big results in the long run. Her specialty at FDSA is teaching skills that require self-control from the dog including proofing, impulse control, stays and greetings while using positive training methodologies. Links Mariah's website Next Episode:  To be released 12/22/2017, and it will be a special anniversary edition of the podcast, so stay tuned! 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 Mariah Hinds. Mariah has been training dogs and teaching people for more than 14 years and is a Certified Professional Dog Trainer (CPDT-KA). She also just recently put a UD on her awesome border collie, Clever. And she's here to today to talk about proofing and what it takes to get ready for competition. Hi Mariah! Welcome to the podcast. Mariah Hinds: Hi. Melissa Breau: Can you just remind listeners a little bit about who you are and who the dogs that you share your life with are? Mariah Hinds: Sure. I have Jada, my Doberman, who is 11-and-a-half years old. I got into competition obedience with her and she's my novice A dog. We started training for the ring at age 4, and she earned her novice, open, and utility titles, and some optional titles as well, between the ages of 4 and 8, and she's the one who taught me that positive training methods are much better for her and they're a lot more fun. Clever is my 5-year-old border collie. She got her novice title with 198 from 199. She won first place in Open against 100 other dogs last year with the 199, and she just got all three of her utility legs for her title a few weekends ago. She also knows a ton of tricks, and we train in agility as well. My goal with her for 2018 is to compete in open utility at all the local trials, and hopefully we'll earn some OTCH points along the way, and hopefully we will compete at the Classic next year and place in the top twenty as well. Those are my goals for her for the next year. And I have Talent, who's the baby dog. Her name is Squishy because she likes to lay on top of me. She's 14 months and we're just building the foundations for precision for obedience, and I hope to earn her MACH as well her OTCH and UDX, so we're doing a lot of agility training right now as well. So that's all about my dogs and a little bit about me. Is there anything else you want to know about me? Melissa Breau: Gee, I don't know. Is there anything else good that I should want to know? Mariah Hinds: Not really. I moved from Orlando to Fort Mill, South Carolina, a year ago, and so I'm just having fun getting to know people around here. Melissa Breau: I know that the core of our conversation today, I'm hoping we'll get really deep on proofing and getting “ring ready,” but before we dive into that stuff, I figure it makes sense to get some terminology stuff straight. So I wanted to ask what proofing means to you, and then maybe a little bit about why it's critical for success in competition. Mariah Hinds: Sure. So for me, proofing means that we're adding achievable challenges to a skill. So once a dog can do a behavior reliably on cue — and it can be a verbal cue or a hand signal as a cue — then we ask the dog to do the behavior in different locations, and perhaps we can ask the dog to do the behavior with other dogs around, and perhaps we can ask the dog to do the behavior in different locations in proximity to us, so “Can you sit in front of me? Can you sit at heel? Can you sit on the right side of my body? Can you sit between my feet?” I really think that proofing is critical to success in competition, because there are tons of distractions at a trial, and although you can't actually train for every single distraction, you can practice adding distractions in training. And if we add distractions in a strategic way so the dog is really successful, then we're really building the dog's confidence, and the dog learns to say, “Yes, I know exactly which behavior you want me to do, and no matter what's going on, no matter how far away I am, or where my handler is, or how quickly I'm moving, I know that this is the behavior that gets me closer to earning my reward.” Melissa Breau: You mentioned your dogs' different ages and different stages. At what age or point in your training journey do you really begin to add proofing, and what does that look like? Mariah Hinds: I think everyone proofs their dog, whether they realize it and they work through the behavior strategically or whether they don't. We work on adding distractions to our heeling, we work on adding distance to our position changes for utility, we work on adding out of motions to our downs for open, we work on adding distractions to our stays, we work on practicing in new locations, and once the dog has a basic understanding of these cues with different locations and durations and distance, we can oftentimes add another layer of understanding with even more distractions and more proofing. Typically, I find that those fall into a few different categories. It hasn't been introduced yet, the skill is just being learned, the dog is more than 50 percent reliable with behavior, we're adding new locations, or we're proofing for duration and stimulus control, we're adding distance or distractions, and so on. Those are all the categories that behavior can really fall into. And when the dog's just learning the skills, we setup the environment so that the dog can be really successful, and if we set it up well, then the dog goes up to being successful with behavior 50 percent of the time or better really quickly. Then we can start practicing in new locations, such as in the bedroom instead of the training room, or on the patio, or at the training building after the dog is acclimated, and we can also work on building duration and putting behavior on stimulus control. Then we can add distance and distractions. So I start adding distractions strategically to my dog's behaviors the moment that the behavior is robust and strong enough that the dog will really likely be successful. And if we practice the skill the same way without building more challenges with the behavior, then our training might just go stagnant and we might not make any real progress toward our goal. Melissa Breau: Is there ever a point when you stop proofing? Mariah Hinds: Not really. When I'm first working on sequencing behaviors together, such as for the retrieve over a jump, that's a behavior sequence, and it starts with the dog sitting in heel position. Then they go over the jump on cue, then they automatically retrieve the item, then they return over the jump, automatically do a front. So when I'm teaching that sequence, then I'm definitely going to start sequencing those things together with much fewer distractions than if I'm just working on one piece of that behavior. But before that, I want my dog to be able to do those behaviors separately with distractions. I want the dog to be able to pick up the dumbbell off the ground with distractions around. I want the dog to be able to go over the jump with my jump cue and take the cookie as the reward for that behavior. I want the dog to be able to set up in heel position and stay while I throw a distraction such as a cookie or a dumbbell or a toy. I want the dog to be able to come over the jump from a sit/stay at any angles with the cue to jump. I find that that's a really overlooked part of that behavior sequence and that falls apart really easily. If the pieces are solved separately before we sequence them together, then sequencing the behaviors together happens really quickly, and if a piece of the sequence falls apart, then we can easily fix that piece of the sequence just by revisiting that piece. And once the behavior sequence or the chain is solid, then we want to go back through and add more layers of understanding, and more layers of confidence, by adding distractions and proofing the entire behavior sequence. For example, with Clever, we're working on adding some distractions to our slow heeling. So at the trial, at our third leg, she really was a little forge-y with the slow heel, and so I really wanted to get that a little more reliable. She's consistent with it until we add distractions, so that's what we're working on. The goal, ultimately, for her will be that my training partner can fling a toy and that she'll remain in heel position while we're walking. Right now we're working on food distractions while she heels, because she finds that a lot easier. She's way more toy motivated than she is food motivated, so I'm building confidence with her with that so that she understands, so then I can add more layers of confidence. The other thing that we're working on proofing is doing a finish with the pressure of a judge, without her squeaking from the stress of the pressure. So at home I'm practicing finishing, having her finish on cue with a dog bone as a distraction, or some other distraction, food or toy distraction. And then, when I have my training friends to help me, then I'll do a few repetitions of what she's been successful with at home, and then I'll replace the distraction with a person and see if she can do that successfully. Melissa Breau: I know that precision and maintaining criteria are super-important to you, so I wanted to delve into that a little bit and ask you what the relationship between proofing and getting really precise, consistent behaviors is, and if you could just talk about that for a minute. Mariah Hinds: Sure. First, we need to add the behavior. We need the behavior to be precise with our desired criteria. So that means that has to happen first, and that needs to happen before we add layers of proofing. And we can certainly use different reinforcement strategies to help maintain the desired criteria without losing attitude, and that's really important to do. I do that a lot with my puppy when I'm building reliability, so she'll get one reward for trying, and she'll get multiple rewards for doing it accurately. We can also think about where we place the reward so that we're getting the most effect for our desired behavior. This is talked about a lot in the Precision Heeling class that Denise does. If a dog is lagging, we want to build more reliability for being in heel position, and then we really want the reward to happen ahead of heel position, and if the dog is heeling too wide, then we want the reward to happen with the dog really close to us, with the rear in as well, because otherwise we'll create crabbing, and if the dog is heeling and they tend to crab out and forge ahead, then we can have the dog spin away from us, which encourages their butt to get in, and then we can reward them from behind heel position, or even from our right hand. The dogs tend to anticipate when a reward will happen, and they will gravitate more to that area. And we do talk a lot about reinforcement strategies in my class, and it really can help a lot with building reliability. Melissa Breau: Do you work precision and consistency separately? It sounds a little bit like they're very closely related. Can you talk about that for a minute? Mariah Hinds: I do think they're closely related. I mean, I think that precision has to happen first, and consistency is really just generalizing the behavior. So first I work on precision. Let's say that I'm working on fronts. The first thing I do is I'm going to help the dog be correct, so I can use a platform to help the dog find front precisely. I can also do step back fronts where I lure the dog into position while I take a step back, and once the dog is precise at finding front from two or three feet away, with the platform or with luring, then I can start fading my lure, so I can ask the dog to find front with my hands pointing at my face instead of luring the dog with my hand. Another reason why I like to do that stuff is because when I'm teaching a dog where I want them to focus when they're finding front, I don't want them to accidentally find front on a stranger or the judge. I do want them to look up at my face, and then I can go to teaching them to find the precise position with my hands at my side. Once the dog can find the position precisely from two to three feet away, then I can start adding different angles to come to front, I can toss a treat from the left or to the right and have the dog find front that way. Again, this is from a very short distance away, and that's quite a challenging thing to do precisely. So once they're precise with that, then I can start adding more speed by tossing the reset cookie further away, I can start weaning off of the platform and going back to an earlier step to help guide them, to help guide the dog to where they should go. I like to do a little bit of pointing to my face as I'm weaning off of the platform, and then I can add in my distractions such as the judge and the pressures of the ring gating and so on. So the dog needs to understand exactly where the position is precisely first before we get consistency with that precision with a lot of variables. Melissa Breau: I think all novice competitors have been at that place where they thought their dog knew something, they show up to compete, and then their dog's carefully trained behaviors fall apart totally in the ring. Where do people go wrong when that happens? And what kind of things can they do to prevent it? Mariah Hinds: I think that's a really common thing that happens, and I think that we all fall into the habit of training at one or two places because it's convenient, and then we expect that is enough to get reliability in a new place, with new dogs, and new people, and a stranger in the room with you. I think that's a lot to ask of our dogs. I find that training at different places is really important, and going to show and gos is a great way to see where your dog is in terms of readiness. If you can't find a show and go, then I think another great option is to go to places where there are other dogs behind a fence or on leash. One option would be going to a big, grassy area outside of a dog park and practicing there, or you can go to a parking lot near the dog beach entrance, or you can go to a parking lot at a really busy veterinary clinic. For me and my dogs, that always tends to give me a really accurate gauge as to where they are with reliability with distractions. For me, I like to combine that with distraction work at home. It just isn't practical for me to go train at a new place more than once a week, but at home I can add challenging distractions that help my dog understand that the way to earn the reward for the cued behavior is really to ignore the distraction. Melissa Breau: I think the other place that a lot of people really struggle is when it comes to cleaning up their own body language as part of proofing. We get all this reinforcement built in from our dog doing the right thing when we include those extra movements! When we lean forward slightly on the down cue, or when we use our hands a little more than we should. I wanted to see if you could talk a little bit about why it's important to get rid of that movement, and then share any tips you have, because I think it's something that you do really well. Mariah Hinds: Well, thanks. I do find that it's really important. I find that especially when we're preparing to go into the novice ring, that we've done a lot of helping the dog set up in heel position by doing certain things with our body, or we help the dog halt when we're heeling by turning our shoulders toward the dog and looking at their rear, or we help the dog find front by always practicing with our hands near the center of our body during practice. And then we go in the ring and we can't help the dog, so we've removed the cues that the dog was familiar with and the dog doesn't know what you want anymore because we removed the cue and there are distractions everywhere. So it really can be challenging for the dog to go in the ring when they really just aren't ready yet. Whereas if we actually prepare the dog, and we show them that the cue for the behavior is in all of this extra body movement, then they're going to be a lot better prepared. As for tips, I think the first thing that's really important is discovering what your body is doing while you say the verbal cue. So the more that you actually video yourself, and then watch those videos back, the more you're going to realize what you're doing with your body while you're saying your cues. So once we realize what the body language cue is that we're doing, then we can start working on fading them. I also think that one of the longstanding myths of dog training, especially in obedience, is that you should be saying the verbal cue while you help the dog do the behavior with your body language. And what we really want to be doing is we want the behavior to be reliable without body language, and start saying the verbal cue without moving, and then following that verbal cue with your old cue, which will be the body language help or the hand signal gesture that you've been using. Melissa Breau: I know, for example, some instructors use the prompt “always return your hands to neutral,” or “always return your hands to the same spot.” Is that helpful? Is that kind of a strategy useful? Mariah Hinds: Yes. We want to practice looking formal, if that's what we're going to do in the ring. So yes. If, for example, you're using pocket hand, or putting your left hand to your side to help the dog actually sit when you stop, then that's fine. But we want to return to formalness when we can to help the dog see that picture as well. Melissa Breau: Beyond simply proofing, what other skills are there that somebody needs to know to get “ring ready?” And I know that you're teaching some classes on this, so I thought it might be a good topic to talk about a little bit. Mariah Hinds: I'm teaching a class on putting the novice exercises together, called Putting It Together, and I'm teaching Proof Positive: Building Reliability. The first thing we cover in Proof Positive: Building Reliability is discussing our reinforcement strategies for the behavior that the student has chosen to work on in the class. We have some people working on fronts, or position changes, or go outs, some heeling, some drop on recalls, some setting up in heel position, some weaves, some running contacts, some freestyle behaviors, and lots and lots of obedience. I really love that variety. It really keeps the class fun and it's fun to follow along with. So the next thing in that class is that we talk about fading our extra body language cues, and we work on actually putting it on a verbal cue, and we work on getting the behavior solid under one set of circumstances, and we work on waiting, and we work on teaching stimulus controls, so helping the dog learn to wait for the cue before doing the behavior, and then we start playing games. This week we're going to work on teaching the dog to ignore our body language and listen to the verbal cue, and we're going to work on doing the behavior in various locations, and in the upcoming weeks we work on adding sound distractions and spatial pressure, which is the amount of things around the dog, like ring gates and judges, although we're not actually going to be working on people, so a trash can can provide spatial pressure, a wall can provide spatial pressure. We're also going to be adding various angles, adding some duration and distance, different locations, adding some out of motion to the behaviors, and we're going to work on building reliability with food, and scent distractions in a few different scenarios. So overall we're playing fun games to build the dog's understandings and reliability with behaviors. In the Putting It Together class we're working on making sure that our behaviors for the novice ring are really solid separately. So we're working on stays, and fronts, and moving in heel position, and setting up in heel position, and stand stays, and our circles for our figure eights, and our complete figure eight exercise, and our turns and change of pace in heeling, taking off the leash, entering the ring, exiting the ring. So first we're doing some problem solving, helping the dogs understand the desired behaviors, then when those pieces are solid, then we're working on sequencing those behaviors together, building confidence by adding realistic ring distractions, weaning off of rewards, and practicing our entire ring performance. So we're looking at all of these pieces in this class, and putting those pieces together when the pieces are ready to come together. So in both classes we're talking about reinforcement strategies, and there are lectures on building reliable, precise fronts. The Putting It Together class covers a lot of topics regarding the novice ring, and polishing those behaviors before sequencing them together and putting them into a ring performance practice. The Building Reliability class covers adding distractions, different locations, spatial pressures, sound distractions, handler body language distractions, and adding those things to our simple behaviors like sit and down. Then we can take those games and practice with our complex behaviors, and we can add duration and out of motion and food distraction to those behaviors as well. Both classes are a lot of fun, and if you do obedience, then both classes can fit your needs. It just depends on where your dog's behaviors are and their understanding of the behaviors. So if you're just starting out, and you're just working on pivots, then Building Reliability would probably be a better fit, versus if your dog is solid with that, and you're really ready to move on and start sequencing a little bit of find heel positions stationary with actually moving in heel position, then the Putting It Together class is a good fit. Melissa Breau: They sound very complementary. Mariah Hinds: They do. Melissa Breau: They sound like they work well together. Mariah Hinds: Yes, definitely. Melissa Breau: Well, thank you so much for coming back on the podcast, Mariah. I appreciate it. I know things are crazy, but I'm glad you could make some time for me. Mariah Hinds: Yeah, it was a lot of fun. Melissa Breau: Awesome. And thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in! We'll be back next week, this time with a special anniversary edition of the podcast… also, just a last-minute reminder that if you want to take a class for the December term, today -- Dec. 15th, the day this episode comes out -- is the absolute last day for registration. So, if you're a procrastinator, it's time…. And, 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!

SUMMARY: Nancy Gagliardi Little comes back on the podcast — Nancy has been training dogs since the early 1980's when she put an OTCH on her Novice A dog, a Labrador Retriever. Since then she has put many advanced obedience titles on her dogs, including 4 AKC OTCH titles, 6 UD titles, 3 UDX titles, and multiple championships in herding and agility. Today, she joins me to talk startline stays in agility. Links Nancy Gigliardi Little's Website Next Episode:  To be released 12/15/2017, featuring Mariah Hinds. We'll be chatting about proofing and building reliably, ring-ready behaviors! 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 have Nancy Gagliardi Little back on the podcast — Nancy has been training dogs since the early 1980's when she put an OTCH on her Novice A dog, a Labrador Retriever. Since then she has put many advanced obedience titles on her dogs, including 4 AKC OTCH titles, 6 UD titles, 3 UDX titles, and multiple championships in herding and agility. Welcome back to the podcast, Nancy! Nancy Gagliardi Little: Thanks, Melissa. Thanks for having me. Melissa Breau: The last time we talked a little bit about obedience. Today we're talking a little bit about agility. To start us out, do you want to just remind listeners who you are and share a little about the dogs you share your life with? Nancy Gagliardi Little: Sure. Who I am … I guess I'm still discovering that, but I live in Minnesota, about 45 minutes north of the Twin Cities, and I compete mostly in agility, AKC mostly, but also USDAA and UKI. I still train my dogs in obedience, I just don't compete in obedience anymore. I have aspirations of doing that again, but we'll see. I teach agility and obedience online classes with FDSA, and I teach agility and obedience lessons and classes at a local center here in Minnesota. I did judge obedience, AKC obedience, for about twenty years, and I judged around the country in all classes and also in some national events. So that's about me. And then my dogs. I've had border collies since the mid-'80s, and I love everything about the breed, including their quirkiness and their sensitivity. My dogs are Score, a border collie, 13. He's retired, obviously. He did agility and herding. And Schema is 9 years old. She's currently my competition dog doing agility. She is competing at AKC Nationals this year in 2018, and I think that's the fifth time she's qualified. She's also competed at Cynosport. And then I have Lever. He's 4, and he is competing in agility. I train him and Schema too, both in obedience. He's kind of the up-and-coming guy, I guess. And then my husband has a toller and his name is Rugby. He's 2, and he trains in agility and obedience. Melissa Breau: That's your crew, and we were talking a little bit before I hit “record” that hopefully there'll be one more joining the family early next year, right? Nancy Gagliardi Little: Correct. I think they're supposed to be born in early December. It's one of Lever's puppies. Melissa Breau: I look forward to lots of puppy pictures. Nancy Gagliardi Little: Yeah. That will be exciting. Melissa Breau: I mentioned in the intro that last time you were on we really talked obedience, but today we're going to talk agility, so specifically we're diving into start line stays. So, I wanted to start with how they're different from a stay in any other sport, something like obedience, for example. Nancy Gagliardi Little: They are quite a bit different in the agility environment. Agility is very high-energy, and the environment itself is fairly unpredictable, and that makes for difficult conditions for dogs that are trying to perform these skills that they learned at home and in class, especially the start lines. That's kind of the transitional exercise into the course. And then of course most dogs love agility, and it's pretty reinforcing for them to go. In obedience the stays are very predictable, well, in actually all the exercises are fairly predictable. They're patterns. Dogs learn those patterns, and that gives them pretty clear information when exercises start and end. Even in obedience, dogs can make mistakes. They might read a pattern and anticipate the finish of an exercise, especially the stay, and it's probably just when the judge says, “Exercise finished,” so they're pretty much done anyway. So it's just much more predictable. Melissa Breau: Why is it so important that people actually have a good start line stay in agility? What benefits does it offer if they put in the work and they get there? Nancy Gagliardi Little: Well, agility is pretty much all about speed, and most people have dogs that are much faster than they can run. I know I do, and most of the people do, and if they don't, they want that. Being able to lead out gives you an advantage, especially with a fast dog, and actually on many courses it can be difficult to start without a lead out with a super-fast dog. Going into the sequence, you just can't get where you need to be to cue something. So yes, it's quite an advantage having that. It gets you ahead. It might even keep you ahead throughout the course. And without that, you're going to be behind, which isn't all that bad if you want to do rear crosses throughout the course. Some people are very good at that. I have some students without start lines just because they came to me after their dog was a little bit older and we just decided we weren't going to teach the dogs the stay. And there are definitely some sequences that they just can't … or courses with starts that they just can't do, or they just have issues with it, so it does put them at a disadvantage. Melissa Breau: You mentioned that you decided just not to bother with it. Why do people struggle with it? Why is it something that's hard to teach? I think a lot of people think a stay is a stay is a stay, right? Nancy Gagliardi Little: Right, right. Well, there's just so many variations, but it could be that there's holes in training or holes in generalization. There's a lot of that that happens. And lots of times handlers try to control the dog's behavior instead of training, so that would be like a hole in training. It could also be the training sessions are handled differently than the handling at the trials, and there's a lot of that that's due to handling. Another thing I see contributing to the start line is — this is interesting — but the handler's own increased arousal level. And this happens in obedience, you see that too, but in agility it's pretty much, it's a big contributing factor where the handlers are too hurried, they're un-confident and disconnected when they enter the ring, and then, at the beginning of the run, they're thinking more about the course and they just don't stay connected and focused on the dog. The dogs sense that, and that can cause — in the dogs we're talking about, probably the dogs that have increased arousal level — that causes stress and also increased arousal, and that's never good at the start line. Especially the dogs start reading a disconnected handler, and they start losing the ability to think, and then you have a break. A lot of times there are small issues that crop up along the way and they aren't noticed by the trainer until it becomes a big problem. And that happens a lot. There's little things, you know, little things that they just aren't seeing, or they aren't aware of, and then they don't know how they got there. Melissa Breau: Do you mean on the day of the trial or do you mean … Nancy Gagliardi Little: I just mean in general kind of building up to that, but it will happen at the trials usually because that's where the ultimate differences are between the training and the trials. Melissa Breau: Little stuff like creeping, or what do you mean? Nancy Gagliardi Little: Well, it would be mostly handling. Some of it would be handling. The dogs start getting a little more and more aroused because they maybe can't predict when the handler's going to release them. That causes … and it depends on the dog. It could be that this dog, this particular dog, responds to arousal and stress by creeping forward, or they stand up, or even just a glazed look in their eyes. It just keeps changing until there's actually just an outright break. And that's when the handler notices that there's an issue, but it's actually happened long before that. Melissa Breau: I know we talked about this a little bit just now, but I think a lot of people attribute start line problems to poor impulse control. The person just didn't work it enough, or didn't do it right, or something. Nancy Gagliardi Little: Right. Melissa Breau: Can you talk a little bit about the role that impulse control actually does play in a good start line stay? Nancy Gagliardi Little: I hear that a lot. People think their dogs are pushy or have impulse control issues. But I've seen more over-arousal issues or frustration issues than impulse control issues. And frustration and over-arousal, they can be caused by lack of clarity, unpredictable cues, and then, like I said before, handlers that aren't connected with their dogs. The dogs really want that. And impulse control skills, they're just a part of the foundation of training a start line, and it should be fun for the dog. Some of the issues with start lines might be due to poor impulse control training, but there's a lot more at play here than that. And actually I've seen plenty of dogs that really have great impulse control, but they can't hold a stay at the start line, and a lot of that is due to just their arousal state. They can't think. People just call that “impulse control issue,” and really it's something quite different. Melissa Breau: That's really interesting. You commented that you've seen a lot of dogs with great impulse control who really struggle with this particular skill. I think that's something a lot of people don't think about. Nancy Gagliardi Little: Yeah, exactly. Melissa Breau: I'd imagine … I don't do agility, but I'd imagine that part of what often goes wrong with a start line is simply that the dog breaks their stay in a trial situation and people just start the run. And they do that over and over again, and the dog figures out, “Well, we're just going to go.” Nancy Gagliardi Little: They're so smart! Melissa Breau: Is there a better way to handle that? Nancy Gagliardi Little: That's a really good question and it's a complicated one, too. I think it's one of those things that's hard to answer, but it's part of what goes wrong. Usually there's an issue, like I said before, that's starting to manifest long before the dog even breaks the start line, and the handler isn't recognizing it until the dog finally leaves before that release cue, and it's actually usually in a really important run for them, so they're like, “Oh my god.” And a lot of times this has been happening for a while. The dog's been breaking it, but the handler doesn't really notice it because they might be just turning back and releasing, and this time they turn back and they don't release and the dog goes. Something like that. And like you say, the more a dog breaks the start line in a trial, the more it becomes a pattern or a habit, and actually it's very, very reinforcing to the dog because they love — most of them love — agility and they want to go. So in terms of a way to handle it once they go, I'm not a big fan of removing the dog for breaking the start line. If you watch some handlers, a lot of times they remove the dog, and the dog's already taken a few obstacles by the time he realizes that he's being taken off course, so he's probably not even going to associate breaking the start line with that removal. And that not understanding why he's being removed is going to cause more stress and frustration for the dog, and that makes the start line area even more frustrating, and then that causes more mistakes, so how do you handle it? Again, it's very complicated, and it also depends on the dog and the handler. Lots of times when we decide this with students, I come up with a plan, depending on the dog, the sensitivity of the dog, the experience of the dog, making sure the handler's being clear, all those things come into play for that. It's mainly just making sure that the handling is clear. I'll give you some examples. Melissa Breau: That would be great. Nancy Gagliardi Little: And I'll just use my own dogs because their start lines are very good, but Schema, both of them, have broken their start lines. Schema, so she's been running about seven-and-a-half years. When she was maybe 4 or 5 years old, it was in a two-ring soccer arena with lots of activity behind and around, and as I'm leading out, I was watching her and she left before I gave her the release cue. But I was watching her, I saw her expression, and she looked the same as she always does. There was no twitching or any odd behavior. I just let her run. I just went on because that's just the way I feel. It's like, I'll look at this later, we'll deal with this later, and one mistake is not going to affect anything. I looked at the video and I obsessed on it, and then I went to the practice jump between runs, and I tested her with some games, and she was solid, like I figured she would be, and she never broke the rest of the weekend or any time after that run. So I suspect she just heard someone else at the practice jump behind her give the same release cue and truly thought I had released her. So if I would have removed her for that, or done anything but just run her, that would have been very confusing to her, so she never really knew. An example I have with Lever is he's got some arousal issues, increased arousal issues, I've been working on a lot over the years. He has some great skills but has issues where he's really gotten, he's really improved, but his start lines were a little … I guess there's lots of arousal there, and they've gotten better. What I do at the start line is I ask him how aroused he is. I know that sounds funny, but I basically just pause briefly before I leave him, and if he can look at me before I lead out — I step lateral and then wait for him to look at me. It just takes a brief moment. If he looks at me, his arousal level is under control. There was a time when he couldn't even look at me, and that told me that his arousal level is high. That didn't mean I was going to do anything different. I just needed to know that. I just would stay super-connected with him as I led out and just be a little bit more focused on him. So about six months ago I waited a little bit too long to see if he could look at me, and that was me trying to control him, a little bit of control. It was too long, and once I decided to leave, he broke. I realized what I was doing at that time and I just went on. I just kept going. And he actually knew right away he made a mistake, and that was not my intention to make him think he made a mistake, because I knew in his case it was arousal. But he did have a really nice run after that. So if I would have pulled him off for that, or handled it in any different way, it would have affected him, and I want him to be very confident in himself at the start line. His start lines have improved dramatically just by me being super-connected to him and just knowing that they're a work in progress. So those are a couple of examples. There's so many different ones, and it really just depends on the team, and the experience of the dog, and what kind of things they're training for start lines, but they are all very different how you would handle it. The main thing is just ensuring that it's handled the same in practice as it would be in trials. Melissa Breau: I was going to say that it sounds like you don't necessarily have to worry about it a ton until it happens that first time, and then after that first time you want a plan in place in case it happens again. Nancy Gagliardi Little: Right, you really do, because the first time it happens, you want to go back and make sure that it's not handling. People don't realize how much in agility people work hard on handling, but there's a lot of handling that goes into start lines and the whole routine with start lines. There's a lot of handling, and if you don't, if your handling's not clear to the dog, there's going to be issues. Melissa Breau: Now that we've talked a little about problem solving, I want to take a little of a step back and talk about how you actually teach a start line stay. Is there anything special you do during the foundation stages? Nancy Gagliardi Little: I probably teach it the same way most people do, but I do a lot of Zen games, I think some people call it “It's your choice.” I do lots of that, and on the flat, and my young dogs wanted to stay by, they make a choice not to go, and then that decision brings reinforcement. I do lots and lots of games away from equipment, starting without handler motion and then adding more and more motion. It's the motion that can really, or even the anticipation of handler motion, that can actually cause issues with the dogs, so adding that is important in agility. And then lots of behaviors to train in the start line routine: entering the ring, moving to the start line area or the area you're going to set them up, the position of the dog, what position are they going to be in, a sit, a down, a stand, whatever, between your legs, setups, or how they're going to line up, and I guess that has more to do with going between your legs, or if they're going to go to the left side, or the right side, or some handlers stand in front of the dog and position them kind of like a front, and the stay, there's an actual stay, which isn't really a big deal, the release is the big deal, there's a lead out, and then there's handling and training involved in all those areas. So all of them are worked on separately, and then we gradually put them together as each area is mastered. So it's like a lot of flat work and fun stuff so dogs don't even know that we're working towards a start line. Melissa Breau: I think that a lot of people probably just think about the stay itself, and they leave out all those other pieces you just mentioned about entering the ring and setting up. Nancy Gagliardi Little: Right. And what happens is then they try to control the behavior instead of asking the dog to do the behavior, and then that creates more stress and more issues there, and the dogs don't want to stay at the start line because they're never right, they're always being controlled. So that contributes to it too. Melissa Breau: So once you've gotten the stay that you want, and the entrance that you want, and you're trialing, what do you do to maintain that stay? How often do you train it, how do you approach it, what do you do to make sure that it doesn't erode or doesn't disappear over time? Nancy Gagliardi Little: I don't think about it that much, but I guess when I think about it, I do it all the time without even thinking. I'm always looking at videos of my runs, or of training, and I'm always checking to see if the dog … how's the start line. It's just maintaining it. It happens by keeping the handling clear and the cues clean. When I talk about the cues clean, I'm talking about making sure that it's not being any of the cues being paired with any extra motion or movement, because that's a big deal in agility. Well, it's a big deal in any sport. And it's also ensuring that my dogs are going to be able to predict when the release is coming. That's what people don't pay attention to, and then the dogs are sitting back there watching the handlers lead out and just arousal level's going up, like, “When are they going to release me?” They don't know, they can't predict, and so I try to create a predictor that is easy for the dog to read. So I'm watching videos of my runs, and I evaluate my dog's start lines just as much as the rest of the run. I'm always looking to see did the dog release on my cue, or was there any twitching, or whatever. It's just really important to know what to look for, and that's I think what people are missing. They don't know what to look for. They're just looking to see if the dog stayed and not looking at a lot of other things, which is a lot of handling. So my start lines are really important to me because my dogs are very fast. But I find them very easy to maintain if my dogs understand the routine. And whenever I lead out, I'm just always checking to see that my dog has made the choice to stay, and if I'm always doing that, then my dog has always made that choice to stay because the release cue is very reinforcing to my dogs. They get to go, and so they learn to choose to stay because that's what leads them to go. They love that. Melissa Breau: For people out there who are listening to this and going, “All right, that's awesome,” but they are in that position where they taught their dog a stay initially and it disappeared after they started running more regularly. How would you handle that? Would you just look at it as a poisoned cue and start over with a new cue? Would you retrain it with their existing cue? How would you approach it? Nancy Gagliardi Little: That's a really good question too. I think the first thing that I'd recommend to people in that situation is to make sure that they're videotaping their training, the dog in training. And also making sure that they're in that videotape as well, and also in the trial, and then really look at those two sessions and see if the handling is identical. It really needs to be. It's important for the dogs. Dogs need to see the same thing. It needs to be clear to the dog. Cues need to be clear and clean. And then also the connection to the dog is super-important to the dog in agility, very, very important, and that's at the start line, not just during the run. So the questions to ask are, does the dog understand all of the little parts of his job at the start line, or is the handler trying to control the dog, like leading out and telling them to stay constantly. That's going to be the beginning of a break because it's going to stress the dog up, and there's many reasons why that's going to cause a break. So any type of controlling rather than training is going to make that experience stressful for the dog, so it's better to take the time to teach those behaviors for the start line routine. So if that's the case, we look at that. You really take a look at that picture of the start line. Are all those behaviors trained, and is the dog confident in all those little areas? That's going to make that whole experience very, very easy for the dog. And then, in terms of whether a new cue or a new setup routine needs to be trained, that just really depends on the dog and the situation. If it's been going on for a long time, it might be wise to change the position. If the dog was doing a sit and he's breaking, maybe you just start him in a down. I don't really think the cue is usually the issue, because probably most likely the dogs are not even reading that cue. They're probably reading some type of incidental cue or signal or motion from the handler that's being paired with that. So it's not even probably an issue, but yet it can make the handler feel better changing the cue, and it might still be the case that we'd want to change it. But it's just one of those, again, creative processes you have to go through with each individual team. It just depends. Melissa Breau: I know that, to mention FDSA, again here at the end, but I know you have a class on this subject running – and it's supposed to start literally the day this airs, but registration is still open! — can you share a little bit about what the class does or doesn't cover, and the kind of dog-handler team that might benefit most from taking it? Nancy Gagliardi Little: Sure. Like I said before, I'm pretty excited about this class. At one time I had another class that was pretty popular that covered agility, start lines, stopped contacts on the table, and that was just filled with a lot of information, probably too much. So I felt it was important to make the subject of start lines into its own class. So this class is perfect for young dogs starting to train or even getting ready to trial. I think that's a perfect area for these type of dogs. But it's also a good class for dogs that are already trialing. I just ask, if they're going to take the class, to make sure that they stop trialing during this retraining period because that's really important for the dogs, because we do really want to make the trial and the training the same, otherwise they just become different. What it's not going to cover is how to address over-arousal issues, or environmental issues at the start line, and that subject's covered in other FDSA classes. So in this class we're going to work extensively on creating handling and training skills that will help predict the release. That's the main thing I want people to be aware of is how much your dogs depend on predictability for start lines. It's amazing, once you clear that up, it just creates a whole different world for the dogs. So with these consistent predictors the dogs are going to get more confident and adapt much easier in different environments, and that's hugely important in agility. Melissa Breau: Awesome. Well, thank you so much Nancy -- it sounds like a great class. Nancy Gagliardi Little: Yeah, I'm really excited. Melissa Breau: I can see why. And thank you again for coming back on the podcast! I'm glad that you did and I'm glad we got a chance to talk about some of this stuff. Nancy Gagliardi Little: It was great. Thanks for having me. Melissa Breau: Absolutely. And thanks to our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week with Mariah Hinds to talk about proofing and building reliable, ring-ready behaviors. Don't miss it! It 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.

SUMMARY: The Fenzi TEAM program is a progression-oriented titling program that emphasizes excellence in training. Each TEAM level adds complexity for the dog-handler team in four areas:  the difficulty of the skills being assessed, the potential challenges in the form of food and toy distractions, the challenge of the actual testing location, and finally the quantity of reinforcement allowed during the test. We invited Denise Fenzi, one of the founders of the program, onto the podcast to talk about creating it and how it all works. Links Recent Team Newsletter Self Study: Precision Heeling Fenziteamtitles.com Fenzi TEAM Players Facebook Group thedogathlete.com Next Episode:  To be released 11/03/2017, featuring Shade Whitesel to talk about toys and common issues, including talking about introducing work to play. 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 have Denise Fenzi with us again, this time to talk through the Fenzi TEAM titling program and then share a little bit about her upcoming book. For those who may not have heard the earlier episodes where I chatted with Denise, she is the founder of the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy and, more recently, the Fenzi Team Titles. Melissa Breau: Welcome back, Denise! Denise Fenzi:Thank you. How are you? Melissa Breau: I'm good. I'm excited to talk about TEAM today. Denise Fenzi: I'm excited about TEAM. Melissa Breau: So to start us out, do you want to tell us what TEAM stands for? Denise Fenzi: Training Excellence Assessment Modules. Melissa Breau: And why did you pick that name? Denise Fenzi: Well, actually, it was crowdsourced, so I just explained the program on a Facebook list and asked people to contribute their ideas. My experience with Facebook and crowdsourcing is I can come up with a really good answer in a lot less time than I could on my own. So, within an hour or two, somebody came up with that, and I thought it very much described what I was interested in, which is a team event between a dog and a handler. And I wanted to emphasize the training aspect of a competition in this case, and so it fit very well. Training, excellence, assessment, and modules works well because they do build on each other. Each level is a module to the next. Melissa Breau: So where did the idea for TEAM come from? What led you to create the program? Denise Fenzi: Well, most people probably know that my interest is competitive obedience, and traditionally I have competed in AKC. And the numbers have fallen off badly over a period of time. So I've been competing since I was a kid, so a long time, and back then we would have so many dogs that they would split Open B into two classes, so you would have 60-odd dogs in one class, so that gives you a sense of the numbers. And a lot of things have happened in the meantime. A lot of new dog sports have come in, and time has gone by, and people have different interests and such. But I hate to see something I love go away, and I think and think about, What was it about the sport that was … why were we suffering so much when other dog sports seem to be doing OK? And as I looked at novice obedience and thought about it, the AKC program was set up a long time ago, when training was done differently, and it was really very logical to start with heeling because of how it was taught. So back then you walked in a circle in a class, or in lines, kind of very military style, up, down, back, forth, run in a circle, and the dog was simply corrected if it went out of position. It was not refined, it was not pretty, it wasn't meant to be. The word obedience had meaning. It meant to be obedient. And the dog did what they were told. And so at the novice level, you really did showcase the dog's ability to walk on a leash, basically what we now call loose-leash walking, except slightly more stylized, right? In heel position. And then eventually you took the leash off, and we had all sorts of ways to do that. And then throw in a recall, because you need a good recall, right? That's obedience. A stand for exam would have imitated either a stranger touching the dog or a veterinary exam. It wasn't meant to be beautiful. It was meant to be practical, and the heeling was not beautiful. So the performances we have now look nothing like the performances of thirty years ago. And as I thought more about it, I think a big part of the problem is we don't train that way anymore, and really beautiful heeling, the kind of heeling that competitive people want to see in the ring today, takes a couple of years to master. It takes a long time to get a dog to work comfortably for a couple of minutes with extreme precision, head up, and we're talking 1 inch, in, out, up, down. It's very minor scoreable issues. Done well, it's beautiful, and in my opinion, I really enjoy teaching heeling. I like teaching all those tiny bits and pieces. But you don't just teach it all at once in one fell swoop. You teach it over time. And neither dogs nor handlers really want to spend 10 minutes at a time — and that would be short; some people train for a lot longer than that — working on this one skill. Yet entry-level people who come in from the outside, they're not thinking utility. They're thinking, Well, I'll try the first level, and if it goes well, I'll try the second level, and if it goes well, I'll try the third level. Competitive people don't train that way. They actually train all the skills usually from the start, and by the time they get into the novice ring, they do have two years of heeling, and they have a lot of other skills that they taught. So if you think about a barrier to entry, when your entry level emphasizes your most difficult skill, you're going to really struggle to bring in new people because there's no motivation. And if you do bring them in, what happens is they bring dogs in the ring that aren't properly prepared. So they may heel, they may get through it, but it's silent for 45 seconds at a stretch, very, very stressful for the dogs. If you compare that to the higher levels opening utility, the exercises generally don't go on that long. There's more going on, there are more cues being given, there's more movement, there's more freedom. I mean, on a recall, at least the dog is running and moving. Heeling is hard. And I thought, Well, if I were going to design a program that was designed to reflect the way we train today, what would that look like? And that was the goal of TEAM was to test the same way that we train, and we do train in small pieces, and it was also designed to teach dogs things like distraction training right from the start. So in our first level we have a stay where there's a cookie present, but it's only 2 seconds, so it's not horrible. But then it's 15 seconds, and then the dog is working and asked to retrieve within 2 feet of a cookie. But that's as you go up through the levels, so as one piece gets a little harder, another piece gets a little easier. The other thing we did is incorporated every skill we could think of in the first level. So you have scent discrimination in the first level. You have pivots in the first level. That's the basis of heeling. You have sit and down in the first level because they matter. And then, as you work your way up, skills are combined, so now you have a sit and a down, but maybe the distance is greater, or maybe there's a distraction, or maybe you're doing it away from home. And it's kind in the sense that expectations rise over time, so if you are training to the test, you can actually end up with a very well trained dog. That is not true in traditional competitive obedience. If you train for the test, you're going to become miserable because you can only do so much heeling and recalls and fronts. And so that's what we were trying to design was a program that reflected excellent training. So do you generalize your behaviors? Take them new places? Can you engage your dog without a cookie? That's important to me. Can you engage your dog without a toy? That's important. Can you end one exercise and go to another one without some kind of external reinforcer besides your voice? Because when I looked around the world at all of the obedience programs, and I looked at a lot of them, what I realized is there's really a fairly small number of core behaviors that they all use and they combine them in different ways. And if you worked your way through all those levels, including things like fluency, can your dog do it, oh, I don't know, can your dog sit on cue 20 feet away when you're laying down on the ground? Well, do you need that? No. But if you can do that, your dog has shown the ability to understand the cue under an unusual circumstance. Well, a dog show is simply one more unusual circumstance. So the goal of TEAM is that if a person trains the TEAM program and trains for the test, that's fine, and gets up through several levels, they should be able to go anywhere in the world, take those pieces, look at the organization they are interested in, put those little building blocks together in new ways, and compete successfully. Melissa Breau: So to dig in a little bit more in the skills specifically, what skills do dogs need in order to compete in the program? Denise Fenzi:Well, let's see. You need to retrieve, you need to be able to do scent work, you need excellent rear end awareness, because heeling is very much about moving your rear end and pivoting. We teach skills that include the mouth, the nose, the feet, the eyes. So can you look at the handler? Good. Can you look straight ahead? Good. You need both of those. Can you go out and come back? So we send the dog around a cone. Can the handler teach the dog using props? So you have to be able to show that your dog can effectively pivot on a disc, for example, or find front, which is a precision behavior using a platform. The first level's actually quite heavy on precision skills, but each one can be done in a matter of seconds, but I need to know that you can teach really high-level precision skills. But I let you keep your cookies, at least at the beginning levels. That gets thinner as you go, but that's appropriate as the challenge goes up, as you become more skilled. Let me think. Scent work, heeling, you need a stay, you'll need a sit or a down/stay. At the second level you need a sit/stay with a cookie behind the dog with your back to the dog at 15 or 20 feet. You need to be able to jump. The dog has to jump. The dog has to be able to retrieve, but at the first level the retrieve is just hold an object in the mouth for 1 second. It's not until you get to the top levels that you actually have movement. Eventually the dog needs to be able to work out of motion. So, for example, the stand out of motion is an AKC utility exercise. We do have that exercise. We do have signals at a distance. We do have go away, so go out to a spot and stay there. We have hold the position for 5 seconds without doing anything, which is shockingly hard for a lot of dogs. They can sit, but if they think you're going to say something else, they get very agitated when they have to just wait, and that is the expectation of the exercise. The dog has to be able to back up because … and that's a first level skill. In my experience, dogs that can back up between cues have many fewer problems with creeping forward on a lot of exercises, so I want to see that you've taught that. And the dog needs to show a front. Now I will say the first three levels were designed to be foundation for all sports, because as I talked to my agility friends and people in other fields, their dogs can do most of those things. We actually … many sports start with the same foundation skills. Many of us do touching an object, retrieving, many of us do pivoting on a disc, many of us do platform work, so those things don't actually change. The really obedient-specific things is probably scent discrimination, and I wanted that in Level 1 because people make it so much harder than it needs to be by waiting. So I think that roughly, I'm sure I left one or two out, but that kind of roughly covers the skills that you work on in TEAM, at progressively more difficult levels as you work your way up. Oh, and behavior chains don't actually come in until the third level. So up till then, everything is a discreet exercise, go out around a cone and come back. At the third level there would be exercises like go out 10 feet and get on a platform, and then the handler will direct you to go on. So it's a go back and field, go on over a jump that's 10 feet beyond, and then go on to a cone, which is 10 more feet. So now the dog demonstrates that it can work at 30 feet and then come back. That would be a behavior chain. So those don't start until the third level. Melissa Breau: At the very least that gives people a pretty good idea of kind of what they're looking at if they're interested in the program. Can you share a little bit more about kind of the logistics of how TEAM works? What is the process for somebody interested in titling their dog through TEAM? What do they do? Denise Fenzi: Well, it is a video submission, so it's pretty convenient. Now in the first three levels you can tape it anywhere you want. If you have room, you can tape it in your house. A lot of people do the very first level in the house. It's hard after that because of space. You do have to have a space large enough that the dog and the handler can be clearly seen and heard throughout the test. You videotape your test, you have to do it in order, you submit it through the TEAM website, and then you timestamp where each exercise is in order so that the judge … basically we do that because people forget exercises, so when they're submitting their video they realize they're missing one and then they don't submit, because we really tell people, “Don't submit a video that's not going to pass.” You have all the rules, you can use a very, very active Facebook discussion group to be sure you've done them correctly, but we don't want you to submit a not passing video, so we try to make sure you actually did do all of the exercises. You have to pass all of them except for one. It is “pass not yet.” It's not fail. It's not yet. You'll make it next time. We do not score it, but it's pretty tight expectations for passing an exercise, so when we say the dog needs to find front, we really do mean front. It needs to be within 30 degrees of front position. Now admittedly we let you have cookies, right, in those first levels, or we let you have a platform, but not always. So you submit your video and then a judge reviews it. The judge will give you comments on it, so it's actually a lot of fun to get your results back, because you'll get all kinds of helpful tips and suggestions. So the judge might say, “You know, you did a really nice job on this. Consider …” and give you a little advice to progress it forward. So people always say they really like getting the feedback from the judge, rather than a score sheet. I know there are more and more people getting together in groups. I know of a seminar in Ohio, for example, that filled very quickly when they offered it. I know there are training groups in the San Francisco Bay Area and also in Portland. Again, they offered a class and filled it that day. It's very popular with students because it's fun. People who are just engaged … people love the idea of coming in and Day 1 their dog is doing cool stuff, not just heeling in a circle. So they love watching their dog do scent discrimination the first week, or get on a disc, or on a platform, and move and do these things. People love that. Plus, playing with your dog is actually a requirement of TEAM, so people think that's very entertaining. I love … I love to see that, that people are doing it in groups. You can test alone. I did a test recently with Lyra. She did her TEAM 3. I just set up a video camera, I marked off my area so I wouldn't walk in and out. You want to think carefully about how you lay it out, because a judge has to be able to judge it, so if they can't see if your sit is correct in front, or whatever you've done, then you won't … you won't be able to pass that exercise. People appreciate it who for whatever reason cannot get to trials, will not get to trials, have test anxiety, whatever the deal might be. It is suitable for more reactive dogs. I will say that all of the levels are off leash, so that is a consideration. You need to be comfortable training your dog off leash, and at some point you have to be able to take your dog to new locations, so that means you either need to feel good enough about your training that your dog is safe off leash in new locations, or that you're able to find a fair number of new locations to perform. And I know for some people that is a challenge, but I would suggest that that is the nature of competition, that you will go to new places and you must prepare your dog for that. So we do expect that. Melissa Breau: I think the only thing that maybe you didn't mention that would be worth bringing up is the idea about questionable exercise. Do you want to talk a little bit about that? Denise Fenzi: Yeah, we try to give super-clear criteria for what it takes to pass, but the reality is when you're looking at somebody's position and you just watched them do a 360-degree pivot, and it's supposed to be smooth and continuous, and the dog should be parallel every step of the way, and we allow a 30-degree out of position, you know, at some point. Well, for a judge to decide if it was 30 degrees or 45 when it took place at one moment, or if the handler did something funny with their shoulder but we can't decide, or, you know, little things like that, we do have the option of giving it a questionable, so that's kind of halfway in between. A questionable is a half point off, so if you think about ten exercises being 10 points, you're allowed one “not yet,” so you need a 9. A questionable is half off, so you can have two questionables and everything else perfect and you will pass. If you have one “not yet” and one questionable, you won't quite make it. But that, actually, it helps the judges. It makes us more comfortable, because it's very hard to not pass somebody who you really thought was, really had the essence of the exercise, but you also felt that you could not say they truly did it correctly. So it very much puts the handler on notice, because everything you do at the first level is going to come back. Nothing goes away. So it just builds on it. So if you got a questionable on your down at the first level, be aware that your down at the second level is at a greater distance and for a longer period of time, so you probably need to go back and look at it. So it helps the trainer do a better job. Melissa Breau: I think you're pretty well known as an advocate for positive training, and I wanted to ask a little bit about how that ties in or doesn't tie in to TEAM. So does someone have to be a positive trainer to compete in TEAM? And is there anything about TEAM that kind of inherently tests the trainer's training philosophy? Denise Fenzi: No and no. We certainly don't ask, and to be kind of brutally honest, I don't even care. You simply have to pass the test. In my opinion, it is easier to pass the test if you are a positive trainer, because it is designed to test clean training that is broken into small pieces, and since it's tested off leash from the first level, I think most people who are interested in TEAM are pretty comfortable training off leash anyway. But we do not, certainly don't ask about it. You do not need to be a student of mine, you don't need to share my philosophy at all. I personally believe that a good trainer of any method can teach most anything, one way or the other, you know, being a good trainer just matters because you communicate well. But no, we don't test it, no, we don't check for your philosophy, and to be honest, we're just pretty welcoming people, so if a person joins the Fenzi TEAM Players List on Facebook and is a balanced trainer, or mixed methods, or whatever, the topic is probably not going to come up. I mean, I don't think it ever has, and I really would be surprised if somebody asked outright about that. Melissa Breau: So if I wanted to put a Level 1 title on my dog, what would that video look like? What skills are at that first level? Denise Fenzi: Well, they do go in order, and now I have to tell you my poor little head is not remembering the exact order. I do know engagement for 15 seconds. That means playing with your dog. Now playing can be as nice as a belly rub. It just needs to show something where the dog is interacting with you and not trying to figure out how they can just get away. That's what I need to see — that your dog will stay with you and follow you, and if you interact or clap or smile, that the dog shows some kind of a connection to you. So we start there. Then the dog goes into using a pivot disc in heel position. So we want to see that the dog can find heel position, and it really needs to be correct heel position, and then show me a 180-degree pivot to the left. Then I want to see your dog show me a front. Most people use a platform in front from several angles, so you throw a cookie off to the left, you throw a cookie straightforward, you give one cue, get the cookie, and then we expect the dog to come back and use that platform to find front. We do the same thing in heel position. You can use a disc or a platform. The dog needs to show the ability to find its way to heel position, even when the cookies are thrown off center. We want to see your dog go over a jump, but you're welcome to go with the jump with the dog, and the jump is very low. We want to see your dog back up 2 feet continuously. We want to see your dog do scent articles. Now how does that look? Well, three scent articles, and you can put food in or on one of them. So talk about stacking the deck, right? We're going to make this work for you. It's going to get harder down the road, but I just need you to start thinking about scent discrimination. Your dog needs to clearly indicate the correct article, does not need to pick it up. As long as the judge can say, “Yes, the dog has clearly indicated,” it might nose touch and it might hold that, it might pick it up, it might lay down, I don't care what the dog does. Just I should be able to tell which one is yours. There is a retrieve — I'm trying to remember, maybe that's second level — where the dog holds an object. The dog has to stay in the presence of a cookie in a bowl for 2 seconds and has to release when said “OK.” So I want to know that your dog knows how to stay, and we want to know that your dog knows how to go. Your dog needs a sit and a down at 5 feet, so that's not so horrible. Your dog needs to go out around a cone and come back, because we want to start that process of showing us that you can get your dog to go away and come back. Am I leaving anything out? I'm sure I'm leaving something out. I believe there are ten exercises in the first level. And in some ways, in my opinion, the first level is the hardest because there are so many things for a new person to look at, and then, over time, it's really a matter of building up skills, so … oh, by the way, that scent discrimination — the handler is sitting next to the article. So they throw a cookie to get the dog moving away, they place their article, and then the dog comes back in. So the dog isn't working by itself at a distance. There's no retrieve, there's no front, there's no formal anything. Those things will come later, but it does get you started on the path. Melissa Breau: I don't think you left anything out. I was checking my little cheat sheet here as you went along, so ... Denise Fenzi: Oh, good for me! Melissa Breau: So now you've kind of walked through the list of skills, so how did you come up with those things, and how did you kind of decide which pieces to include? What was the process like to put all those pieces kind of together into a program? Denise Fenzi: Well, I worked with Deb Jones and Teri Martin to create this one, and I will say it is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. I'm not kidding, actually, and I've done a lot of stuff. The reason it was so difficult, we really did look around the world at what are all of the obedience skills. They are jumping, they are heeling, they are position changes, they are retrieving, there's just a set of things and they come, doesn't matter where you go, they are done, those skills are done. So we had all of those, we broke them all down and said, “What do those all look like?” So that was one side of a spreadsheet. And then we said, “What are all of the elements of great training?” Well, fluency. Can your dog do those behaviors under adversity? OK, we want to test fluency. Formality. Can your dog do those behaviors when you're quiet and still and only one cue? We're kind of particular about that. We don't allow a lot of handler help. You really need to be formal. Can your dog do these behaviors in an unfamiliar environment? I call that generalization. Can your dog generalize the exercise? Can your dog do it under distraction? So if there are toys or food in the area, can your dog still perform correctly? So we had a spreadsheet, which kind of created a matrix, which said, “How can we test all of these things without pounding a person at each level?” Because we don't test everything at every level. We sort of, at one level you'll notice it's more skill based, so the first level is very heavy on skills, and then also can you create behavior chains? We don't even introduce the behavior chains until the third level. I mentioned that. Distraction training does start very, very light in the first level, but it gets harder and harder as you go on, second level, third level. Scent work, we decided first and second level, but you don't even have it at the third level. You have it harder at the fourth level. So we went through, and we had checkmarks here and there, and we tried to figure out by the time the person has done all six levels did I feel confident that they had the skills to go anywhere in the world and compete. Now I'm not saying they wouldn't have to rearrange the exercises, because they would, but that's kind of irrelevant. A person who finishes all six levels, who has also taken me seriously when I said, “Show me these exercises” in whatever, seven new environments or whatever it is, if they did that and they did it within the spirit of the program, i.e., they really did go to new places, they didn't just keep going to their friend's back yard, if they did that and they really did try to show their dog the types of environments that would be involved in competition, then they should be successful, and their dog should be comfortable because they are well trained. So that's how we got there. Where it got quite painful breaking it up into fair chunks, so you want challenge, but you don't want people to give up, because it's kind of hard. Finding the balance between accuracy, which is what we emphasize in the first three levels, and movement, flow, behavior chains, which is what we emphasize in the second three levels. Making decisions about things like a sit at heel. We actually don't require it. You just have to tell us. Your dog either sits at heel or stands at heel. Same as front. I don't care if your dog sits or stands, because again, around the world that varies. So you can pick what is most comfortable for you, or you can pick, like, if you have an older dog, maybe they don't want to sit anymore, so fine, don't have them sit, that's not a problem. But it can't be haphazard. You have to say, “My dog sits in heel,” or “They stand in heel.” So we judge that. That took a lot of thinking, trying to figure out around the world how could we design a program that didn't create active conflict. So I think we did all right, but it did take some thought. The next thing was setting criteria. What is a front? What is a finish? What is a down? It sounds simple until you look at a dog on a down who is one inch from the ground, the elbows aren't down. Now all of a sudden you say, “What is a down anyway? And you realize these things are not simple. So laying out criteria was very challenging. We do have video examples of all the exercises, so you can just look. If you're a reader, you can read through our very detailed descriptions of what we want to see, what it takes to pass, how it should be set up, and then you can look at the video and you'll see an example, “Oh, OK, that's what it should be.” We do say what will cause you not to quite make it, but we don't list everything. It's impossible. There's just too many possibilities. We do list the most common elements. There is a website called fenziteamtitles.com. It's well laid out, so you can just pick a level and look at it. Most of the levels have video runs where you can see a start to a finish. Not the higher levels, because I think we so far only have one or two dogs that have made it to Level 5, so there's just no videos to be had at the higher levels, but they're working on it. The program's only slightly over a year old, and we did change our rules about two months ago at Level 1. We just made it flow a little bit better, so it's possible we don't have up a full Level 1 run with the new rules. We should have one soon. So what a person will want to do is start with the website, start looking at the levels, they may find they already have several of the skills. Watch the videos so they see how it works. Join the Fenzi TEAM Players List, which has become quite active, and get to know your team players, the other people, who are very supportive. Register your dog. I think it's $20 to register your dog. That will put you in the database. The database is searchable. Some people choose to be searchable to the public and some people choose not to. If you are a trainer and if it matters to you, you might want to make sure you're public, because then people can see what titles you accomplish. Your TEAM titles will be listed there for each of your dogs. And a video run costs $29, so remember, you should only have to submit it once and you only have to pass once, so don't submit a video that's not passing, which makes it a very inexpensive titling program if you submit only passing videos. We do have a Plus level. Plus just means the 1 Level you showed in a new location, the 2 Level you showed in a new location. When you get to 3 Plus, then you can go on to the fourth level. The fourth, fifth, and sixth are all new locations. So that's probably how I would start if I was intrigued. I would join the Fenzi TEAM Players, and I would also from there get on the newsletter, you know, because I put out newsletters with tips and videos to kind of help you on your way. Melissa Breau: So you talked a little bit about this. I wanted to see if you'd talk about it a little bit more, kind of the … that the levels build on each other. I know you added a little bit at the end about the Plus titles, but is there anything you kind of want to add to that? Denise Fenzi: So when we designed it, so, like, for example at the first level, where you make your pivot on the pivot disc when the dog stays in heel position, you do have a disc. That would be first level. Second level you also have to show us pivots, but there's no disc this time, so instead of doing 180 degrees to the left, now you're going to do 360 degrees, and you're also going to do it to the right, so that's a little bit harder. When you get to the third level, now I need to see pivot left, pivot right, pull sideways 2 feet and go forward 2 feet. Now that's the first true heeling. But if you can do that, if you can pivot left from Level 1, pivot left and right without a disc from Level 2, and do what I just described at Level 3, then when you get to Level 4 and you're doing true heeling, your dog knows how to heel. There's just no question about it. Or in Level 1 you have to show that your dog can find heel position with a platform, and your dog needs to be able to find front. In Level 2 you need to show me a formal recall without a platform. So did you have the skill to get rid of that platform? And your dog needs to show me a correct finish. That means straight without a disc. So the skills in Level 1 directly influence Level 2. So Level 1 can use props. Level 2 can you get rid of props and maintain precision? So that's what I mean by the levels build on each other. And then once something we feel is mastered, then we let it slide. So Level 4 we no longer judge the quality of your straightness. We figure you've already shown us that you know how to teach straight fronts and finishes. It's totally up to you if you care to maintain them. We don't care anymore. Now we're going to do stuff where your dog runs out 40 feet, goes left around a cone, or maybe over a jump, or maybe gets scent articles, or whatever. Now we're going to look for other things. But the first three levels are precision. After that it's just kind of free fun, interesting ways of combining exercises that people wouldn't have thought of. Melissa Breau: So I wanted to ask a little bit about the tools that are out there if someone is struggling to teach their dog those skills. I know you mentioned the Facebook group, and I will include a link to that in the show notes, for anyone who's interested. Denise Fenzi: We also have at the Academy, Fenzi Dog Sports Academy does teach classes that teach TEAM skills. There's a couple ways you can get it. One is just take a class called TEAM. TEAM 1 is running right now. Now unfortunately, registration is closed, so you cannot join now. TEAM 2 is running in December. So if you look over the skills and you say, “You know what, I have most of TEAM 1,” then feel free to pop into TEAM 2 in December. It's not like you have to have the title to take the class. And since TEAM 2 is building on Level 1, you will be improving your Level 1 skills, so you have that option. You also have the option of when Hannah Branigan teaches her obedience skills series, she teaches obedience very much the way we structure the TEAM program. It's bits and pieces. So while it's not a perfect fit because it wasn't meant to be, many of the skills you would want in TEAM happen to be covered in her Obedience Skillbuilding series. So you can take classes at any given time. There will probably be webinars on the topic. I would guess we will teach webinars on it. There are support groups out there that you can find through the TEAM players list, if you want to hook up with people more locally and see if there's somebody you can work with. Melissa Breau: So far, which skills do people seem to struggle with the most? And then I'd love it if you'd share some tips for problem-solving those skills. Denise Fenzi: Well, the scent discrimination, this is really interesting, almost everybody passes it, but boy do they howl about having to teach it. So if I can get them to believe in themselves, they don't seem to struggle that much. They do teach it, but getting them to start teaching it is very hard because they can't get it out of their heads “This is a hard thing, this is an advanced skill.” No, it's not. It's no harder than anything else. It's just that you make it hard by thinking about it like that. So it's actually almost always, almost always, people pass the scent discrimination, but the getting them to teach it is just misery. I would say where people struggle the most is on the pivots. Staying in heel position accurately is very hard for people. Their dogs have developed all sorts of habits, you know, maybe they start to pivot and the dog jumps around into position, or the dog waits until they've moved 90 degrees before the dog catches up. We score that down, so you cannot pass if your dog does that. And while people gnash their teeth a bit and get very frustrated, the reality is if you ask them again in two weeks if they worked on it, they say, “Thank you for holding your criteria, because, you know what, after I worked on this for two weeks, not only did I do it, but I learned how to do it and my dog got better, but miraculously my dog's heeling has improved dramatically because he no longer bumps me on left turns.” And that's kind of the whole point of TEAM. Like what I tell people if they're struggling with their precision and obedience, I say, “Well, try this. I don't care if you're working on your OTCH. Stop all your obedience for one month and only do TEAM 1. Only TEAM 1 level for one month. Now go back to your obedience and tell me what happened.” And it just never fails. Because they went back and focused on the foundation precision skills, when they go back into their obedience, their dog is that much better. It's a bit of an eye-opener for people. So I would say pivoting on a disc gives people a fair amount of … they stress about it, they worry about it, the pass rate is not as high, I would say, on that exercise than most of the other exercises. Melissa Breau: Any tips for working on it? Denise Fenzi: I just did the last Fenzi TEAM newsletter. It shows a video, I'm working with Lyra on how to keep her in heel position when I do sit, down, stand in position when I'm moving my feet, and if you want to use that, it will also teach your dog how to — it's the same skill, actually — how to keep their rear end in position. So feel free to look at that, and that should help you out. And if you search my blog, I do so much on my blog of obedience. And it has a pretty good search function, so you can put in something like “heeling” or “pivots” or “a disc,” any of those. Or if you want you can buy my self-study program, called Precision Heeling, through FDSA. That is available at any time, not just during terms, so you can buy it today. Tons and tons and tons of video and discussion about pivoting and heel positions, very heavy on that, so you would, in theory, be quite good at it by the time you were done with that course. Melissa Breau: Excellent. And I think that I can share a link to the last TEAM newsletter in the show notes. So if I can do that, I will. Denise Fenzi: Oh, that's awesome. Melissa Breau: You mentioned a little bit earlier that there are places starting to offer some classes. Is there anything that people have to do if they want to offer classes? Is there anything special they have to do to get started? Or kind of how does that work? Denise Fenzi: No, I am not at all proprietary about it. You can use the name of the program in your advertising, you do not have to credit me in any way, shape, or form, you can do what you want, you can teach it how you want. So it's simply there, it's simply available. The Fenzi TEAM Titles is not associated with FDSA, it's not associated with the school. They are two separate things. I have no restrictions whatsoever on how you teach it or anything, really. You can use our logo if you're teaching. Not the FDSA one, but you can use the Fenzi TEAM Titles logo if you're offering classes on Fenzi TEAM Titles. Go to town, have a good time. I think this is good for dogs, I think it's good for dog training, and I think many trainers are finding it to be quite an eye-opener when they realize how effective training this way is. And since it happens to be one of my personal strong goals, anything I can do to make that work makes me happy, and I actually think if people take to this program that it will also improve the status and the wellbeing of obedience as a sport, regardless of what organization you decide you want to compete in or not. It's not really that important. What I do care about is that people do things with their dogs in a kind and friendly manner, and so we have set up a program that allows you to do that. So go to town if it serves you well. I mean, I would personally, if it was me, if I was training dogs for AKC obedience competition, I would from Day 1, after those dogs are done with their pet manners class, if they show any interest in competition, I would start them in TEAM, and then, after getting up through a few levels, they could say, “You know what? And you're ready for your CD,” because they would be, with just a bit of polishing, and the odds that you kept them, and you kept them intrigued and happy. When I talk to people who teach TEAM classes, they say retention is very high because people have a good time, they love coming back, they love seeing, “Look, my dog can find a scent article,” “Look, my dog can retrieve,” “Look, my dog can jump.” After six weeks your dog will, if it's well trained, should be able to go around a cone, get on a platform, pivot in heel position with a disc, hold an object in its mouth. That's cool, that's interesting. Pet people do have the attention span for that for six weeks. They do not have the attention span for heel position walking in a circle. I mean, I don't have the attention span for that. So whether you even want to teach TEAM, I would really suggest that some of these clubs, these AKC clubs that are struggling and that can't find new members, something like this, where people start to play and laugh and engage, because engagement is part of it, and be silly with it, and teach cool things that everybody, “Oh, it's a trick,” OK, well, call it what you want, it's getting to where we need to go, I think that would do wonders for the culture of our sports. So use it as it works for you. Melissa Breau: So I know that TEAM right now seems pretty focused on obedience, and I wanted to ask if you've considered doing TEAM programs for any of the other sports out there. Denise Fenzi: The first three levels of TEAM was never designed to be obedience. I'll just put that out there. It was actually really designed to be a foundation for any performance sport, because it teaches skills that the body awareness, the handler cues, the distraction training, the proofing, all of those things were really meant to cross all sports. So the first three levels is for that. I will say that we have at least considered, contemplated, adding stuff. What we're going to add, I don't know. Like I said, it was hard. It was a hard thing to do, and I don't like to do things that aren't well done, so if we're going to do another level, it has to be done well. But I would say that, like, nose work might be a possibility, so yeah, you know, you never know. You never know. So it's something to keep an eye on. Melissa Breau: Alright, and before we wrap up, I want to ask you about that book. So a new book? Want to share the details? Denise Fenzi: Can you believe that? I know, I just keep writing them. I wrote a book called Beyond The Back Yard: Train Your Dog Anytime, Anywhere, and I wrote it to the pet market. It's a distraction-training book, and it was quite popular. I sold more copies of that book than any other book I've done. And it did not sell to the pet market. It actually sold to the competition market just as heavily, which is great, but I'm sort of intrigued by that market, by the sort of in-between pet trainer, a little bit of competition dog trainer, engaged, I'm going to call it an engaged pet person, I'm very interested in that group because those are the future dog people. I like those people. So this book is called Beyond The Basics: Unlock Your Dog's Behavior, and it is not an obedience book. Actually it's a hard book to explain. It's very, very heavy on understanding the emotional reasons that dogs do things. So, for example, if you have a barking problem, you can have a barking problem because you have a stressed dog, a bored dog, an anxious dog, an under-exercised dog. I mean, there's so many possibilities, and it's actually important to understand that, because the solutions are often diametrically opposed to each other. So the way you handle a bored dog and an anxious dog, you cannot use the same solution. If you do, you will make your problem worse. So the book is very much about understanding the reasons, the underlying reasons, for dog behavior, analyzing your dog from that point of view, and once you understand why your dog is doing the things it's doing, then you can set in place a behavior plan to fix it. And then I give a bunch of case studies using recalls, I think there's seven dogs that all have recall problems, and they all have problems for different reasons. And it discusses the reasons, and then it discusses potential solutions for each of those dogs. So you can pretty quickly see why each dog solution needs to be for that dog and not the next dog. And then barking is also handled, dogs that bark excessively. So maybe seven dogs, and again, many different reasons. So we go through and we look at things like temperament of the dog. We do talk about breed, we talk about health, we talk about general emotional state, we talk about training. It's not a book on training, but in relatively few pages I sort of packed in everything you could ever possibly want to know about what makes good dog training, how to do it, it's all in there. It's just exceptionally condensed. If I was going to say who would get the most bang for the buck out of this book, I would say a dog trainer who specializes in behavior. If they could get their clients that have problem behavior dogs to read this book, they would save themselves an enormous amount of explaining, cajoling, coercing their clients, because the clients would get it. They would get it from the dog's point of view, and I think they would be endlessly more cooperative with the program when they were able to understand why their dogs, because all behavior serves a purpose, and when people take the time to figure out what is the purpose that this problem behavior is solving, now you can address it. So that's what this book is about, and then it also talks about if it doesn't work, what do you do now? If your solution didn't work, how do you go back and evaluate and analyze it? So that book will be available in Europe, because they get published in different places, probably in a day or two, so by the time the podcast comes out, it should certainly be out. In the United States I expect it out November 6, and that would be through my own website, thedogathlete.com. In Canada I would expect it maybe the middle of November. Australia/New Zealand probably closer to the end of November. So the Europeans are they're the lucky ones because it should be out in a day or two. Melissa Breau: Want to repeat the name one more time for folks so they can Google it? Denise Fenzi: Yeah. It's called Beyond The Basics: Unlock Your Dog's Behavior. Melissa Breau: Excellent. Well, thank you so much, Denise, for coming back on the podcast. Denise Fenzi: Thank you for having me, Melissa. Melissa Breau: Absolutely, and thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week with Shade Whitesel to talk about toys and common issues, including talking about introducing work to play. Don't miss it! 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.

Summary: Sue Yanoff graduated from Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine in Ithaca, New York in 1980. After three years in private practice she joined the US Army Veterinary Corps. While on active duty she completed a three-year residency in small animal surgery at Texas A&M University, and became board certified by the American College of Veterinary Surgeons. She retired from the Army in 2004, after almost 21 years on active duty. After working for a year on a horse farm in Idaho, she returned to Ithaca to join the staff at Cornell Veterinary Hospital as their second surgeon. Sue retired from Cornell in December of 2009. After all her on call schedule was interfering with those dog show weekends. The following month she started working for shelter outreach services. A high quality, high volume spay neuter organization. About the same time Sue joined her colleague, a physical therapist and licensed veterinary technician to start a canine sports medicine practice at the Animal Performance and Therapy Center in Genoa, New York. The practice is limited to performance dogs, and now she's joined the team here at FDSA to teach a class on canine sports medicine for performance dog handlers. Next Episode:  To be released 9/22/2017, featuring Cassia Turcotte — we'll talk about positive gun dog training, and her upcoming class on channeling dog's natural instincts for high level behaviors while they are in drive. 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 Sue Yanoff. Sue graduated from Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine in Ithaca, New York in 1980. After three years in private practice she joined the US Army Veterinary Corps. While on active duty she completed a three-year residency in small animal surgery at Texas A&M University, and became board certified by the American College of Veterinary Surgeons. She retired from the Army in 2004, after almost 21 years on active duty. After working for a year on a horse farm in Idaho, she returned to Ithaca to join the staff at Cornell Veterinary Hospital as their second surgeon. Sue retired from Cornell in December of 2009. After all her on call schedule was interfering with those dog show weekends. The following month she started working for shelter outreach services. A high quality, high volume spay neuter organization. About the same time Sue joined her colleague, a physical therapist and licensed veterinary technician to start a canine sports medicine practice at the Animal Performance and Therapy Center in Genoa, New York. The practice is limited to performance dogs, and now she's joined the team here at FDSA to teach a class on canine sports medicine for performance dog handlers. Hi Sue. Welcome to the podcast. Sue Yanoff: Hi Melissa. Thanks. Melissa Breau: I'm looking forward to chatting. I think that most of the students who have been with FDSA for any period of time have probably seen your dogs in one class or another. But for those that haven't, do you want to just tell us a little bit about the dogs you have now, and what you're working on with them? Sue Yanoff: Sure. My older beagle is Charm. She's 12 years old. She's a breed champion. She has her UD, her rally excellent, MX, MXJ, and TD. She's pretty much retired from performance right now, but I am still doing tracking with her, and would like to get a TDX on her. And then my younger beagle, Ivy, who has been in a lot of Fenzi classes is six years old. She's also breed champion. She finished her mock last year. She has her rally novice title, and a TD, and she has two legs towards her CDX. Melissa Breau: Well congrats. Those are some seriously impressive stats, especially with beagles. Sue Yanoff: Thanks. Melissa Breau: So how did you get your start in dog sports? What got you started there? Sue Yanoff: A beagle. Between my sophomore and junior year as an undergraduate here at Cornell, I went home to visit my parents, and I also went to visit the vet I used to work for when I was in high school, and there was a little beagle puppy with a cast on his hind leg coming out of anesthesia, and I picked him up, and I cuddled him. I said oh I want to take this puppy home, and they said well you can because his owners had him for just a couple of days and then their little boy broke his leg, and they were going to pick him up from the vet that afternoon, and take him to the animal shelter. So some phone calls were made, and I got the puppy and took him back to college with me, and I didn't know anything about dog training. I had never heard of crate training, so I would just leave him in my apartment, that I shared with two roommates, while I went to class, and of course he destroyed things, and did all the naughty things that puppies do. So I thought I need to do something, and I enrolled him in the kindergarten puppy class at the local dog-training club. That's how it got started, and I ended up getting a CDX on that dog while I was in Vet school, and that got me started in dog sports. Melissa Breau: Wow. So to go from, you know, never having done anything dog training wise before, to a CDX. That's pretty impressive Sue. Now I'd imagine being both the sports dog handler and the vet has led to some pretty unique insights into each field. How has being involved in both influenced your views in each of those? Sue Yanoff: Yeah, that's an interesting question. As a dog trainer all my dogs have, at one point in their careers, been injured, and I know what it's like to have to restrict your dog's activity. You can't train them. You can't show them. It's very frustrating, and so as a vet when I have to tell a client okay you can't train, you can't show, you have to restrict your dog for weeks, or months sometimes, I know how frustrating that can be, and how hard it can be, but I also understand where they are coming from so I think I can see it from both sides. Melissa Breau: Is there anything in particular about veterinary medicine that sports handlers often just don't understand? Sue Yanoff: Yeah. I don't think it's just sports handlers. I think it's a lot of people. Veterinary medicine is a science, and the decisions that we make have to be based on science, and not just what people think, or what they heard, and so when you're making a decision about what the best diagnostics are for a condition, or how best to treat the condition, it has to be based on a series of cases, not just on what somebody thinks, and I go a lot based on what I learn at continuing education conferences, and what I read in the veterinary literature. Because papers that are published in peer reviewed journals are scrutinized to make sure that the science behind the conclusions are valid. So while, you know, it's fine for somebody to say well I did this with my dog and he did great. What I want to make my decisions on is what worked well for many dogs, dozens, or hundreds, or thousands of dogs, and not just something that might have worked for your dog where we don't' even know if the diagnosis was the same. So I think I want people to know that veterinary medicine is a science, and we have to make our decisions based on science. Melissa Breau: I think that, you know, especially with the internet these days it's very common for people to turn to their favorite local forum, and be like well what should I do, but… Sue Yanoff: I know like let me get advice from everybody, and I know it's hard to make decisions when it involves your dog and you're emotionally involved, and that's one of the reasons I want to teach this class, to give people information that they can use to make those hard decisions. Melissa Breau: What about the reverse? Are there things about sports that you think most vets just they don't understand? Sue Yanoff: Oh yes. Yes there's a lot. Unless you're a vet who's involved in this thing, most vets don't understand the time and the effort, and the emotion, and the money that goes into the training, and the trialing that we do. They don't understand the special relationship that we have with our dogs when we put the time and effort into training them. I have had dogs that were wonderful pets, and I loved them but I never showed them for one reason or another, and there is a different relationship when you accomplish something special with that dog. So I think that's important thing. The other thing that most vets don't understand, and might not agree with, but I have had some clients where we have diagnosed an injury, and said okay we need to restrict activity, and do the conservative treatment route, and they say I will but my national specialty is next week, and she's entered in whatever class. Or they say I have a herding finals coming up in two weeks, and I really want to run her in those trials, and I'm okay with that if the dog has an injury that I don't think is likely to get much worse by doing a little more training, or trialing, then I'll say okay. Well let's do this in the meantime, and when you're done with your national or with your specialty or whatever, come on back and we'll start treatment. So I think a lot of vets would not understand that point of view, but I'm okay with it as long as I don't think that it's going to do serious harm to the dog, and as long as the owner understands that there's, you know, a slight chance that things could get worse. Melissa Breau: I think it's really kind of interesting that you focused a little bit on performance dogs. So I wanted to ask about what led you to that, I guess, to focus on that. Was it your own interest just in the being involved with sports when you joined the practice in New York? Sue Yanoff: Yeah. No. It's my own interests. I'm mostly retired. I've retired from three different jobs now, so I don't have to do this sports medicine stuff to make a living, and to pay my mortgage. So I became interested in it when I joined the practice at Colonial Veterinary Hospital about the same time my colleague Lynn joined it. She's a physical therapist. She was a physical therapist for people for 20 plus years before she decided she wanted to work on animals, so she went to vet tech school to become a vet tech, and get some animal education. And I remember when I first met her she said to me well what do you think about physical therapy for dogs, and I thought I don't know anything about it. So the more I learned about it, the more I realized how important it is, and I did a lot of reading, and I went to continuing education about sports medicine, and about the same time, like a few years later, the American College of Veterinary Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation was getting going so the whole topic of canine sports medicine was getting more popular and people were learning more about it. So the more I learned about it, the more I liked it and of course since I did dog sports, I understood what's involved in dog sports. So when Lynn and I started this little practice, we did see pets for the first year or two, but then we said you know what, we don't want to deal with people. Performance dog people, in general, their dogs are better trained. They're better behaved, which make it easier to examine them. Not all of them but most of them. They're definitely more committed to doing what needs to be done to get their dog better. So they are more willing to put the time into it, and the work for treating, and rehabbing the dog, and the money that it costs to get their dogs better if the need surgery, or other treatments. So, you know, when Lynn and I started seeing more and more animals we said okay, we're not doing pets any more. We're just going to work on performance dogs. Melissa Breau: Now I want to talk a little bit about your upcoming class. So in some ways it's the first of it's kind here at FDSA. Do you mind sharing a little bit about what students can expect to learn? Sue Yanoff: Well basically the goal of the class is to, in the words of a friend of mine that I was discussing this with, is to make people better consumers of healthcare, for their animals. I want to give them information about the various injuries that the dogs can get, and how they are diagnosed, and what the treatment options are, and what's the best chance to get them back to competition. I want them to understand the importance of a good sports medicine exam. When I was a surgeon when I saw an animal for an injury, or a lameness, I would examine the leg that was lame. Most of the time, we knew which leg was lame and I would examine that leg and tell them what surgery I think the dog needs, and that was that. With a sports medicine exam, I examine the whole dog. At times I don't even know which leg is lame, because the owner doesn't know which leg is lame. We come with a history of knocking bars, or popping weaves, or not being as active, and they think there might be something wrong, but they're not sure. So it's a totally different type of exam from when I just did surgery to now doing sports medicine. So I want people to understand that, and I just want them to be able to make informed decisions if and when they have to deal with an injury. Melissa Breau: I'd imagine it was probably pretty hard to decide what things to fit into the class and what things were kind of beyond the scope of what you could cover in those six weeks. So what are some of the common types of injuries that you'll be discussing in those six weeks? Sue Yanoff: Yeah. It was really tough. When I started writing lectures, I had no idea how much material I was eventually going to cover. So people can go to the website to look at the course summary to see what we cover from week to week. But three of the common injuries that we see in sports medicine are injuries to the muscles and tendons of the shoulder, the biceps and supraspinatus specifically. Injuries to the iliopsoas muscle which ten or so years ago I never heard of, and now it's a very commonly diagnosed injury. And then, also talking about cranial cruciate ligament injuries because just based on a recent thread on the Fenzi Alumni Facebook page, there's a lot of information out there about cranial cruciate ligament injuries, and some misinformation. We have a whole lecture just on cranial cruciate ligament injuries to give people, you know just the basic facts of what's based on science. What's not based on science. What the options are, because there's always options. There's no one best way to treat almost anything. So those are probably the three most common things that people know about that they'll learn. But there's a ton of other stuff in the class. Melissa Breau: Now I know that the syllabus mentions prevention a little bit, and I wanted to know if you could talk for a minute about the role that prevention plays when it comes to these types of injuries. You know, how much should sports handlers focus on preventing problems? If you can, even beyond that, are there skills that they should teach that would make dealing with these kinds of problems, should they occur, easier before there's ever actually a problem for them to be worried about. Sue Yanoff: Yes. Well prevention is always best, and as far as preventing injuries in dogs the bottom line is that we don't know what we can do to prevent injuries. Everything that we know is based on the human literature, and some horse literature, but there are no studies in veterinary medicine for dogs as to anything that's proven to prevent injuries. So we have to just extrapolate from the human literature, but there certainly are lots of things. In fact my sample lecture is my lecture on preventing injuries, and that's a freebie for anybody to go read. But one of the most important things to keep your dog thin and fit, and there's some really good Fenzi classes on canine conditioning. So I think that's important. The other thing that is important that I notice that a lot of handlers don't do because I compete with my clients, I compete with all the people and I can see that they don't' spend enough time warming their dogs up before the competition, and cooling the dog down after the competition. Now for an obedience trial, the warm up is probably not as important as something like field trials, or agility trials, and certainly lure coursing. But I think those three things, conditioning, warm up, and cool down will go a long way to helping to prevent injuries. And then, as far as what they can teach their dog that will help, there's two things. On is to teach your dog to allow a hands on examination, including lying on their side while I examine them. Most of the dogs that I see are pretty good about it. Some of them will, you know, will fuss a little at first, but they pretty much relax into it. But I've had a few dogs where there's no way we can lay them on their side to examine them, and I can barely get in a good standing exam. So it'd be really nice to be able to have your dog do that, and I know that Deb's Cooperative Canine Care class, I'm sure, can help with that. Then the other thing that's important is best gait to diagnose a lameness is a trot, and a lot of my patients either won't trot nicely on a leash. They want to bounce around, or pull, or run. Or they won't trot on a leash next to the owner without looking up at the owner, and that kind of throws the gait off a little. So to teach your dog to have nice straight trot, on leash without looking up at you would be another thing that would make my life a little bit easier. Melissa Breau: I mean I definitely wouldn't have thought of that second one. The first one definitely made sense, having the dog lay on its side and being able to be calm while its examined, but it never would have occurred to me that it would be important to have a forward motion where the dog wasn't looking at you for diagnostic purposes. Sue Yanoff: Right. That's why it's really nice when we get show dogs, confirmation dogs that know this skill. I mean we get the job done, but there are certain things that can make it easier for the dog, the owner, and me. Melissa Breau: Obviously there's a limited amount you can do remotely when it comes to canine medicine, so how are you doing the different levels in the class and what will and won't be covered in class. Sue Yanoff: Right. Well the first thing I want to say is I will not make any diagnoses over the phone or online, and the reason for that is that, you know, in order to give advice on diagnosis and treatment, you have to establish a veterinary client patient relationship, and in most states, at least in New York state, that means you have to see the client, and the dog in person. So while I can answer people's questions, and look at video, and say well you know it could be this, and it might be this, and you might want to get these diagnostic tests, and if it's this then this treatment works, and if it's that, this treatment works. I don't want people to sign up for the class expecting me to diagnose their dog online. So with that said, there's going to be two levels. Bronze which is the typical bronze level, and then silver, and with this new working silver level that Fenzi has, I think that all of the silver spots will be working silver spots because there'll be no gold spots. So it's mainly a discussion class, but I want the silver students to be able to at least post photographs. They can even post radiographs, or x-rays if they want to. If we mutually agree that a video would be helpful they can post a video of their dog, and they can ask any question they want. They can ask general questions about the material. They can ask specific questions about their dog. They don't have to pick one dog. They can ask specific questions about any dog they want to. I want there to be a lot of discussion because I think everybody, me, the silver students, and the bronze students will learn a lot from the discussions, you know as much if not more so than from the lectures. So I'm hoping to have some really active silver students. Melissa Breau: Hopefully, you know, having said that you will now get even more of them, than you would have otherwise. I think that, that will be a real appeal for students to know that you really want an active silver group. Sue Yanoff: Right, and then the other things that they should understand is there's so much material that we could cover, but this class is basically covering injuries, and not specifically hereditary or developmental disorders like hip dysplasia or elbow dysplasia, or OCD. I mean those are common in sports dogs, but that could be a whole class in itself. So I really had to limit some things so we're going to be talking about injuries that they can acquire. Melissa Breau: So maybe in the future if this class does well, huh? Sue Yanoff: Maybe, and when I want to spend another huge amount of time writing these lectures, so. Melissa Breau: You mentioned earlier treatment decisions for dogs can be super hard, you know whether their a performance dog, or just a pet. So I'd imagine that one of the major benefits to this class would be that students will feel significantly more informed when they have those kinds of decisions to make in the future. First of all, would you agree with that? It sounds like from what you said earlier, you would, and then do you have any advice for students who may be facing those kinds of decisions now? Sue Yanoff: Yes. So yes the class will provide a lot of information for the students to help them make better decisions about their dogs medical care, but what they need to know for now, are two things that I think are important. One is to get a diagnosis. It's really hard to make a treatment plan without at least having an idea of what's going on, and general practitioners are great. I have a lot of respect for general practitioners because I was one for five years, but they're not specialists in any one subject. So unless the cause of the lameness is very obvious, you might have to see an expert, and there are two experts that can be used for sports dogs. One is the board certified surgeon, which is what I am, and more, and more board certified surgeons are realizing that sporting dogs, performance dogs, are a little bit different from pets, and so they're dealing with them a little bit better, although there's still some that do what I used to do, just look at the leg. Look at the injury, and not look at anything else. But then this new specialty of sports medicine and rehabilitation, there's more and more vets being trained, and being board certified in that specialty. So that would be another specialist to go see if your general practitioner, you know, is not sure about what might be going on. The other thing is that I'm a big fan of all the therapists that are out there. Massage therapists, and the physical therapists, and the people that do acupuncture, and chiropractic, but if they're not also veterinarians, then they may not be able to make the diagnosis. They could look at things that might be causing the dog pain or discomfort that might be secondary to the diagnosis. But sometimes treating the symptoms is all you need to do, but sometimes treating the symptoms won't cut it. You need to know what the diagnosis is so you know specifically what you have to treat, and we'll discuss all that in the class. Melissa Breau: What I was going to say is that I know this was in the questions I sent over, kind of in advance of our call, but I'm curious…you kind of mentioned some specific certifications. Is there anything out there, or do you have any recommendations if students are trying to find a good specialist or kind of get advice on where to look? Is there any, I guess, any way for them to kind of vet on their own, okay this is a person who really, probably is going to be good for a sports dog versus this is somebody who maybe doesn't have as much of a background in that. Sue Yanoff: Yes. Well I mean both these specialties have websites. American College of Veterinary Surgeons, and American College of Veterinary Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation, and on the websites you can look up to see who in your state is board certified, and you can also look up to see what their special interest is. So, I mean, for the sports medicine and rehab vet's then obviously their specialty is sports medicine and rehab. But for the board certified surgeons some of them are more geared towards, you know, sports medicine versus just plain old surgery. The other thing is, you want to, if you're going to see a board certified surgeon, you want to see somebody that deals with a lot of performance dogs, if possible, and you also want to deal with somebody who understands, and agrees with the importance of physical therapy postoperatively, because there are still some veterinary surgeons out there that don't think dogs need physical therapy post op. They just, you know, restrict the activity until the surgery is healed, and then say okay well gradually get him back to normal, and it's like what does that mean, or what do you do. So I truly believe that the surgery is only half of the story, and that physical therapy, post operative physical therapy, guided by a knowledgeable person, and there are certifications in physical therapy for both veterinarians and technicians, where they can get some, you now, advanced training outside of vet school and tech school, on physical therapy. There's a lot of human physical therapists that are now doing veterinary physical therapy, and you know, while I don't know how good they are, you know the Fenzi alumni Facebook page is a great resource if you say okay I need a physical therapist in this area. Can you recommend somebody, or I need a good sports medicine vet or surgeon in this area, can you recommend somebody. The Fenzi Alumni Facebook page is a great resource, and also just talking to friends, and you know it won't hurt to ask your veterinarian what's your experience with this condition, how many have you done, and what's your success rate? People are a little reluctant to do that, but no good veterinarian is going to be insulted if you ask them that, and they should be able to answer. Melissa Breau: I think that's a great piece of advice, just being comfortable asking that kind of question of your vet, or your veterinary surgeon. I mean if you don't ask, you can't know, right. Sue Yanoff: That's true. Melissa Breau: So I wanted to end with the same few questions that I ask everybody that comes on, at the end of the interview. So the first one is, what is the dog-related accomplishment that you're proudest of? Sue Yanoff: Yeah, I thought about it, and it'd have to be the UD on my older beagle now, Charm because Charm is a dog that switched me from you know traditional training to positive reinforcement training, and I had shown her nine times in utility, and nine times she NQ'ed, and people just kept telling me well she's just not putting in any effort. You need to correct her harder, or you need to make her do it. And so the more times she  NQ'ed, the harder I was on her until the final time in utility, I gave her the hell signal and she just sat there, and she basically said nope. I'm done, not doing it. So I thought to myself, there's got to be a better way, and that led to positive reinforcement training, which led to the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy, and after a few weeks off from training, I retrained Charm pretty much all the utility exercises using positive reinforcement, and about nine months later I showed her in utility again, and she got the UD in four shows. So I am really proud of Charm. I feel bad for all the stuff I did to her before I crossed over, but now that I train with positive reinforcement, there's just no comparison. So I'm very proud of Charm for getting her UD. Melissa Breau: Congrats. Sue Yanoff: Thanks. Melissa Breau: So the second questions that I usually ask is, what is the best piece of training advice that you've ever heard? Sue Yanoff: Yeah. Now this is a hard one, because I've been taking classes at FDSA since pretty much Denise started, and there's so much good information, and great advice. But if I had to pick one I'd say it's acclimation, and that is because I've had people tell me don't ever let your dog sniff. Wherever you go new, don't let them sniff. They have to be paying attention to you, like all the time, and it's like you know what. I've tried that with Ivy for a few weeks, and it almost drove both of us crazy. So when I learned about acclimation I thought, yep. This is it. This is the best piece of advice I've gotten. Melissa Breau: And especially I'd imagine with Beagles, that nose, you know. It's a real thing so. The last question is, who is someone else in the dog world that you look up to? Sue Yanoff: Yeah, well it's not anybody that's known in the dog world, because she doesn't teach classes, and she doesn't have a blog, and she, you know, doesn't do anything online. But she's a friend of mine who I've known since college. We met through dogs. When I was getting a CDX on my first beagle, she was getting a CDX on her first keeshond and since then she has been put multiple notches in herding titles, and some agility titles on her border collies, but she's also put multiple OTCHs on her Keeshonds, and all of her OTCHd kees are also breed champions, some of them bred by her. So there's a lot of, you know, trainers out there who have trained another dog other than a border collie, or a golden, or a sheltie whatever to an OTCH, and they do it once, and they never do it again. But Marian has, I think had, at least four or five, if not six champion OTCH keeshonds, and she's got a young keeshond coming up now that just finished her CD with six scores or 199 or above, and one score of 200. So I'm sure that's a future OTCH. So you know, I don't agree with everything she does in her training, but her dogs are really good, and they are happy in the ring, and they love her, and she gets OTCHs on keeshond's over, and over, and over again. So I admire her. Melissa Breau: That is quite the accomplishment. Well thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Sue. Sue Yanoff: It was fun. Thanks Melissa. Melissa Breau: It was fun, and thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week with somebody that I've gotten lots of requests for. Cassia Turcotte will be here to talk about positive gun dog training, and her upcoming class on channeling dog's natural instincts for high level behaviors while they are in drive. 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.

Summary: Laura Waudby was, until recently, a service dog trainer helping to prepare dogs for different types of service dog work. Now she's a new mom. In her "free time," Laura trains and competes in obedience, rally, agility, and dabbles in disc dog and trick training. She was halfway to her OTCH with her UDX Corgi Lance before his early retirement. She has also competed at the Masters level in agility. Due to the special behavior needs of her Duck Tolling Retriever Vito, Laura has developed a strong interest in learning how to create motivation and confidence in dogs that struggle, either through genetics or through less than ideal training, to make it into the competition ring. At FDSA Laura offers classes through the Fenzi TEAM Titles program and teaches ring confidence and several specialty classes including a class on articles and a class on stand for exam. Links mentioned: The Dogs are Really in Charge Silvia Trkman (lolabuland.com) Next Episode:  To be released 7/14/2017, featuring Denise Fenzi talking about FDSA camp 2017. 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 Laura Waudby. Until recently by day Laura was a service dog trainer to prepare dogs for different types of service dog work. Now she's a new mom. In her free time, and that's in quotes, Laura trains and competes in obedience, rally, agility, and dabbles in disc dog and trick training. She was halfway to her OTCH with her UDX Corgi Lance before his early retirement. She has also competed at the Masters level in agility. Due to the special behavior needs of her Duck Tolling Retriever Vito, Laura has developed a strong interest in learning how to create motivation and confidence in dogs that struggle, either through genetics or through less than ideal training, to make it into the competition ring. At FDSA Laura offers classes through the Fenzi TEAM Titles program and teaches ring confidence and several specialty classes including a class on articles and a class on stand for exam. Hi, Laura. Welcome to the podcast. Laura Waudby: I'm glad to be here. Melissa Breau: So to start us out, do you mind just telling us a little bit about the dogs you have now and what you're working on with them? Laura Waudby: As you already mentioned, I have the Corgi, his name is Lance. He did have to retire due to an injury, so right now he's pretty much just kind of my old dog at home. He's very sassy, pretty much barks his way through life. Occasionally competes at organizations that have a jumper on the ground, but he's my sassy man. Then I have the Toller, his name is Vito and he's my special need dog. He does have a lot of anxiety issues and some pretty severe ones, but luckily I've been able to kind of accommodate him through my lifestyle. Mainly right now we're working a lot on engagement training and choosing to work. He does compete in agility where he's mostly conquered his anxiety issues, but obedience is oh, kind of halfway on hold while we work on attitude, attitude, attitude. And then my youngest dog is the Duck. Her name is Zumi and she's two and a half years old so we're primarily working on foundations for agility, obedience, some disc dog field work, pretty much all the things right now. She did just start to compete in agility this past summer but hasn't really made her way yet into the obedience and rally ring. Melissa Breau: So how did you originally get started in dog sports? Laura Waudby: Well, when I was in high school I saw agility on TV and of course that's the flashy, the fun stuff and it kind of got me hooked on wanting to do that. Obedience, though, I kind of only started taking competition classes when I knew I wanted to become a dog trainer and I thought it would prove my skill, I thought I wouldn't like it very much and it was kind of lame, and then I actually started doing it and I realized how hard it was. and that's really what I came to love about it was trying to get that happy attitude in the ring along with the precision, so pretty soon I was kind of hooked on the sport of obedience which I thought I would hate to begin with. Melissa Breau: It's funny how much, those of us who enjoy dog training just because we enjoy training behaviors to a certain extent, I mean, obedience certainly appeals to that part, right? Laura Waudby: Oh, yeah, and it helps that the Corgi was very easy with me, kind of held my hands as I was learning things and showed me one by one where I kind of sucked in all the training and he eventually helped me fix them. Melissa Breau: So you mentioned you still have your Corgi. Have you always been a positive trainer? Did you start out that way with him? If not, what kind of got you started down that path? Laura Waudby: Yeah, he's always been positive training, at least in the traditional sense. So when I first started training dogs I was doing more pet training route and that was pretty positive, at least at the time, and I was also really lucky that we have one of probably the few, maybe the only I don't know, a positive-trained AKC club in the area, and so that was my introduction for the competition world. It's not very popular in the area because most people want to go to the traditional route, but we exist and we're trying to encourage people to compete positively, so I was really lucky to be pretty much positive straight from the get-go. Melissa Breau: And what area are you in? Laura Waudby: Minneapolis, Minnesota. Melissa Breau: I kind of mentioned in the intro that you were training service dogs full time. How long did you do that for? Laura Waudby: Seven years. Melissa Breau: Wow. So how did you go from training pet dogs to training service dogs? Laura Waudby: Well, my first experience with training service dogs actually was my last year of high school. I was able to do a community service class where we were able to volunteer with whatever we wanted to for basically half the day, and my parents were very generous and they allowed me to puppy raise during that time, so I took a little black lab service puppy home to live with us and I was responsible for all of its training. So that was my kind of my very first experience, and after I kind of graduated from school and their lack of dog training stuff, I went back to volunteer for them and they happened to have a job available at the same time I was volunteering again, so I was very, very lucky in that regard. But I'd say my first experience was as a high school student being a volunteer puppy raiser. Melissa Breau: That's awesome. I think so many people would love to spend all day doing nothing but training dogs. Laura Waudby: It certainly is easier than training people. Melissa Breau: Most of the time I'd go so far as to say, but… Laura Waudby: Yeah, most of the time. Melissa Breau: So I believe, and certainly correct me if I'm wrong, so you trained several different types of service dogs, right? Laura Waudby: Yeah. Another organization up here trains five different types of service dogs, which was actually really nice because allows us to have a very high success rate because the dogs who are lower key might do really well in one type or as the kind of nuttier job might do better at another type of job, so I guess the five types of dogs that we trained were mobility assist dogs. Those are the dogs who retrieve things, tug open doors, tug the laundry basket, help with the laundry. Those are most fun for me to train because kind of all the tricks that you think of in the service dog world. And then we have the hearing alert dogs. Those dogs are trained to alert to sounds in the environment. The diabetic alert dogs who are trained to alert to the smell of low blood sugar, the autism assist dogs who help kids with autism who tend to bolt, and then seizure response dogs who respond once a seizure is happening and help the person get through that seizure. Melissa Breau: That's quite a range of different skills. Laura Waudby: Yeah, it can help break up the day a little bit. Melissa Breau: I would think that the hardest part of teaching all that is really proofing the behavior for all environments. I mean, when you're talking service dogs you really need a dog who's going to do the work kind of no matter what's going on. Is that your perspective, is that really the hardest thing or is there something else that sticks out as maybe more difficult? Laura Waudby: Yeah, the training behaviors are really the easy part of the service dog training. It takes time to train their skills to be pretty solid, but that was great, the fun part. The hard part is that dogs have to focus anywhere and everywhere without any acclimation time. We talk a lot about acclimation time with our competition dog training, but the service dogs don't get that. They might arrive at a store and have to pick up keys at the entrance way, or maybe they just really get out of the car and they have to alert to a low blood sugar, so they kind of have to be ready to focus anywhere no matter what's going on, and that definitely takes quite a bit of training which is why most of the dogs who are two to three years old by the time they're placed with a client and they're still very, very young but definitely no longer puppies at that point. And of course the general public doesn't help, either, with all the I know I shouldn't but as they reach to pet your dog or are barking at your dog and all of the crazy stuff people do in public. Melissa Breau: Do you mind sharing just a little bit about kind of how you teach that so that the dogs can kind of do their work in those types of environments? Laura Waudby: Yeah. I'd say a lot of it is their personality. A lot of dogs simply aren't able to do that, like of the dogs I have now in my house, Lance, like the perfect Corgi, sassy guy, he'd probably be the only one who would make it as a service dog. Vito's anxiety issues, he couldn't do that. My young dog Zumi had a little bit of confidence issues where she's not quite ready to focus all the time. So their natural temperament has a lot to do with whether they make it or not. But past that point I do a lot of choose to working, a lot of distractions out to the side, rewarding focus, and of course we do it all without a command just like we do want the competition dogs to do. We don't want to be saying “Watch me, watch me, watch me,” or “Leave it, leave it, leave it.” We want the dogs, their name if they see something, that means their job is to look back at you. Kind of the exact same stuff we do with our competition dogs, just everywhere. Melissa Breau: And it's really teaching the dogs how to make the choice and think a little more independently at least than most people probably think about, right? Laura Waudby: Oh, yeah. It's a lot of free choice, especially because the clients, they might have limited range of mobility. They can't force the dog to do anything, the dogs have to want to do it, so it's a lot of choice-based training with the service dogs. Melissa Breau: So I want to switch gears a little bit and talk about TEAM. I know Denise and I talked about it briefly the very first episode of the podcast, but for those who aren't familiar with TEAM at all, do you mind just explaining a little about the concept, kind of what it is and how it works? Laura Waudby: Sure. So TEAM is an online video-submitted titling program. There are currently six levels that you can title in, and I think there might be plans to have more, I'm not sure. But the goal of TEAM unlike some other organizations, the emphasis isn't really on finished behavior change whereas I'm teaching the dog and the human each individual piece to get to a really high level of perfection. So basically even if you only get through the first three levels of TEAM, we're working on those foundational pieces being very solid to get you through pretty much any level of obedience training. Melissa Breau: Really kind of the concept, right? Is that if you do TEAM you can probably do almost anything else. Laura Waudby: Oh, yeah. Definitely takes you beyond utility even, I think. Melissa Breau: I don't think there's been an episode of the podcast yet where a guest hasn't talked about how important foundation skills are. I know that that's kind of one of the places where TEAM shines, right? How does it kind of do that, how does it approach teaching a foundation? Laura Waudby: Well, the way that testing is laid out, you're pretty much forced to work in all those little pieces. The first level you use a ton of props in it, throughout the testing so it pretty much guarantees that the dog is learning those little perfect movements. Basically you don't really teach just a sit and just a down, but you use a target to help us. The dog is not learning how to sit and down but they're learning how to do the individual position changes with zero forward movement so by the time you get to 40 feet away, the dog already knows how to do that perfect fold back down, tuck up sit without having any forward motion. It's kind of the little pieces that people tend to skip over if they don't know what the end result should look like. And the levels themselves I think really reward the handler for being patient and not rushing through those foundations because… Melissa Breau: Because they're really easy to rush through. It's easy to overlook kind of the precision that you're going to want later on early when you have a puppy who's eight or ten weeks old and you just want to sit. Laura Waudby: Yeah, definitely. Melissa Breau: So I believe you're teaching TEAM one in August, right? Laura Waudby: Yeah.   Melissa Breau: I know you've taught it once or twice now. Is there a skill that kind of stands out as something that people struggle with a little bit, and do you mind just sharing a couple of tips maybe on how they can approach it? Laura Waudby: Sure. Heel position is probably one that people struggle with the most. Primarily in the TEAM level one and two we're working on the foundational piece of pivoting, teaching the dog exactly what heel position looks like and how to move with the handler to maintain it. And a lot of people who haven't taught it that way before, because it's not the way heeling has been traditionally taught, it's a really hard skill for people to kind of figure out how to hold their hand and how the dog is supposed to move into you. And there are a lot of ways to teach pivoting, there's not. just one way. I tend to use a blend of shaping and luring that's a little bit more lure-based based. And generally probably the biggest tip for people is they want to use a really big arm where they have the dog go really wide, but generally you want the dog's head to be up a little bit more. Turning their head out causes their butt to swing in towards you, and sometimes it's easier to see that using a mirror so you can watch the dog's back legs easier, but generally not having such a big, wide head lure, but really keeping the dog's head nice and close to your body so he can focus on the head turning out and the back legs moving towards you. Melissa Breau: And that's what lets you get those really pretty corners, right? When you're making your turns in heeling? Laura Waudby: Oh, yeah, and makes the heeling look really sexy when you do all the side stepping, the backing up, the pivots, and so by the time you do any forward motion your dog already knows all those really fancy moves. Melissa Breau: I like that, it makes heeling look really sexy. So I want to kind of end things the way I normally end the episode, which is kind of what I guess my three favorite questions, so first, what's the dog-related accomplishment that you're proudest of? Laura Waudby: When I started thinking about that I first thought I would go with some of the service dog teams, but then I realized that's actually pretty self centered, and so definitely has to be about my own dogs. And Vito, my very special boy, we've been through a lot together, and my most proud accomplishment, and no particular trial with him, but just the ones where he's radiating pure joy where he's so happy to be with me and I can just see what the focus he has in me that all of his worries about the people and the stewards have kind of melted. You don't have that every time but the ones that he does do that for me is just really special, that shows all that hard work that we'd done. Melissa Breau: That makes it kind of magical. Laura Waudby: Yeah. Melissa Breau: I think this is probably the question I get told is the hardest question a lot of time, what is the best piece of training advice that you've ever heard? Laura Waudby: There's been a lot of good ones out there already, so I thought I would pick the you don't need to end a session on a good note. Generally if things are going pretty well you should enjoy it, quit before that just one more piece. But when things start going down hill, and they will, just end the session. Quit before you're digging yourself a hole that's even harder to get out of. I also would make sure that neither you or the dog are getting frustrated about it. So I have no problem just going well, I guess we're done for today, or at least done with that exercise, move onto something else before things get worse. Melissa Breau: And finally, who is someone else in the dog world that you look up to? Laura Waudby: One of my favorite trainers is Silvia Trkman, the famous Slovenian agility star, and while she only does agility, she doesn't actually compete in obedience, I really love her philosophy about having fun with the dog, not being afraid to experiment, respecting the dog in front of you. And Silvia is one where I got a really great piece of advice to help me and my Vito, teaching happy tricks to release stress, and that was probably the biggest change to help Vito a couple years ago to get him barking at me on the start line, get him sassy, jumping up, so that even if he doesn't feel brave and happy it forces him to kind of act like it and that has helped him a ton. So I really like Silvia Trkman a lot. Melissa Breau: I love that idea. They kind of have that line for people where if you stand in the Superman pose for two minutes before a talk it makes you feel more confident and like your body chemistry actually changes. It's a similar idea kind of for dogs, right? The idea that if they get happy and bouncy... Laura Waudby: It works a lot with people and I think it helps the dogs, too. Happy-making tricks. Melissa Breau: Yeah. I like that a lot. Thanks so much for coming on the podcast, Laura. Laura Waudby: Well, you're welcome. Melissa Breau: And thanks to our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week with a special episode with Denise Fenzi to discuss the inspiration behind the theme from camp a few weeks ago, and to chat a bit about next year. If you haven't already subscribed 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!

SHOW NOTES:  Summary: Julie Symons has been involved in dog sports for over 20 years. She's competed in flyball, conformation, agility, obedience, herding, tracking and nosework. One of Julie's favorite things is a versatile team! Her first Belgian Tervuren, Rival, was the first of his breed to finish his championship in conformation, obedience, and agility. Julie truly believes that participating in multiple sports is enriching to both person and dog and builds on that mutual partnership and trust. She also blogs at K9 Rivarly.com, for those of you out there like me, who just can't get enough of all this dog stuff. Links mentioned: K9Rivalry.com Next Episode:  To be released 4/28/2017, featuring Julie Symons.  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 Symons. Julie has been involved in dog sports for over 20 years. She's competed in flyball, conformation, agility, obedience, herding, tracking, and Nose work. One of Julie's favorite things is a versatile team. Her first Belgian Tervuren, Rival, was the first of his breed to finish his championship in conformation, obedience, and agility. Julie truly believes that participating in multiple sports is enriching to both the person and the dog and builds on that mutual partnership and trust. She also blogs at k9rivalry.com, for those of you, out there who, like me, just can't get enough of all this dog stuff. Hey, Julie. Welcome to the podcast. Julie Symons: Hi, Melissa. Thanks for having me. This is going to be a lot of fun. Melissa Breau:  Did I totally butcher the Belgian Tervuren there? Julie Symons: Not bad, but I forgot to remind you Rival is a she and not a he. Melissa Breau: Oh, well that makes a difference. Julie Symons: It does. Melissa Breau: So, to start us out, can you tell us a little bit about the dogs you have now? Julie Symons: I have my Belgian Tervuren, Savvy. She's nine years old, so she's my second Terv, and she is, I would not say semi-retirement, but I'm not training her in agility, or showing in agility or obedience anymore. We are focusing on nose work. She has her breed champion, her agility champion. Last year she got her UD and her Nose Work 3, and a couple of years ago she got a Tracking Dog Excellent, and that was really, a really exciting class to title in. It's hard to get into test, and it's challenging to find places to track and train, so she's a Versatility 3 dog, it's a title in AKC, so she's my first Versatility 3 dog, so that's her. My newest dog is a Belgian Malinois, sometimes also hard to pronounce. He is 17 months old, and I love him. I do prefer girl dogs, but I felt that he was a better addition with my current girl, and they do get along great, and he's a very friendly dog, not quite much phases him, so it's been really nice to find that in a Belgian, and it's just fun to train him, and he's different, so every dog I've had is different. He passed his Nose Work ORTs, Order Recognition Test, last fall, and we have his first Nose Work 1 trial next month. He's still a baby dog, you know. I don't like to push them. Nose work is a little different. I know he's ready for that, but I have years for him, really, you know, trialing and anything else, so I'm taking my time with that. Melissa Breau: It's kind of awesome that's he's a Belgian with the ability to kind of hang out. Julie Symons: Yeah. I actually, kind of, joked that he's like a golden in a Malinois suit, and he's gone to a couple of conformation shows, sometimes the only Malinois, and I never even, you know, he just didn't mind people touching him, examining him. I didn't even have to train that. I probably don't even want to admit that, but we'll see. He's a little older now. He might, you know, sometimes they go through different phases, and they go through different periods of time, and we, actually, have a trial next weekend that we're showing in conformation, so I do like to get dogs out early. That's the one thing I do like, conformation is something that you can get them into the ring early, if they're ready, and they can have some really fun time getting lots of steak and liver in the ring, so. Melissa Breau: Hey. Can't beat that. Julie Symons: No. No. Melissa Breau: So, I think, from reading your bio, and stuff, you started out in flyball, right? Julie Symons: Yeah, when I bought my first house, I was an adult, in my 20s, I wanted a dog, so one of the first things I did was I went and got a dog. I went to a shelter and I picked out Dreyfus, really cute dog, kind of a big, you know, 60 pound, 70 pound, you know, Collie mix. We called him the Dick Clark of dogs because he never aged. He lived to 16, almost 16, and except for his physical appearance, you know, he just looked as handsome and young as Dick Clark, I guess. You know, I don't really remember how I got into flyball. I do know that I started out in some local class where you just stood in the room for an hour, and you got one time up, you know, in such ways we don't train anymore. You just don't have your dog, you know, unfocused and sitting there for an hour, you know, while you wait your turn, and I think I started, I got into the Amber mixed breed, it's an American mixed breed organization registry. I don't even think they have it anymore, and I could get like, you know, obedience titles, so I must have been renting, you know, some other training buildings to practice, and there were some people there that were doing flyball, so I must have networked and met them because I once I started going to matches and some UKC trials, and you just started meeting more people, and I got on this flyball team, and it was neat because, you know, I learned how to teach my dog to hit a box and a ball would pop out. He was really good at flyball. He was a big dog, so he was able to jump the little hurdles fast, and he got a run in every heat, at the trials. I remember my team members weren't always happy that he got a run every time, but he was consistent, you know, and you want the time for the flyball, for the speed. I also learned, you know, like doing a Front Cross, you send your dog down one side and you do a Front Cross and you pick your dog up. So, you know, I do look back at that as, you know, I didn't stick with it, I still really like the sport, didn't stay with it, but it was my first time going to, driving a couple of hours to a trial and I remember thinking, well how can a dog stay in the car that long? What if they have to go to the bathroom? It's funny, when you look back and see, we were all newbies, we all started out somewhere, and you know, I remember taking pictures of my dog in the hotel room, like, wow, they can be in the hotel room, with us. So, I did that for about a year, went to about three or four tournaments for flyball. At that same time, I was starting to look for my purebred dogs, and I thought, oh, I like this. There wasn't as many opportunities for mix breeds back then, as it is today. I, actually, was looking at mixed breeds before I got Drac, my Malinois. I was so open to a mixed breed, it didn't really matter because you can do so much with them now, but back then you couldn't, so I definitely wanted a purebred dog. You know, Dreyfus was great, but he really was, you know, not a lot of drive, very distractible. Now I probably have a lot of skills now to deal with that, but you know, he liked to sniff the ground a lot, and he was not the easiest, you know, dog to train, you know, and for being new, you know, it was kind of hard, so I didn't do much with him, past that. So, I started researching, and I was looking for my next dog, and I saw the David Letterman Stupid Pet Tricks on, you know, one night I was watching TV and they had a Belgian Malinois. I really liked that breed, so I was still going to this local obedience class and I mentioned it, to the instructor, and he said, oh, you should really get a Belgian Tervuren instead, so I went to a show, in Syracuse, a conformation show, and I found when the Belgian Tervuren were on, and I loved them. They were so beautiful. I grew up with rust Collies, so they kind of reminded me of that a little bit, so it was so fortunate how I found my next dog. I contacted breeders. They didn't know me from anybody. They had a boy and a girl, and I got the girl, from Missouri, flown to me, sight unseen. Her name was Rival, and she changed my life, and she was just this high drive, just very biteable, bonded to me immediately, and then, I think, I did bring her to that same dog, pet, class trainer, for a little bit, but I didn't stay long because, you know, the methods were much different, and I heard about a local trainer, who had just got her OTCH, on a lab, so I started private lessons with her, and I never, ever, went back to obedience classes, a class environment. Then, so, when I got her, agility was really starting to hit the scene, so I got into an agility class right away. This is when AKC had one class, you would have the standard class, you would run in. We would drive like, you know, four hours, and you would go in the ring for 30 seconds, and you were done, for the day. So that's how I, kind of, went. Then, in obedience, of course, I was continuing with that, and private lessons, and then I added agility. I started, when she was young, I started tracking the pet class that I had gone to was run by some Schutzhund trainers, so I would meet with them, when they would do some tracking, and so I learned a little bit about tracking, but I didn't stay with them long. I would take a lot of breaks on and off from tracking, you know, and of course nose work wasn't around at that point, but that's how I, kind of, just, you know, I got the bug. I got the dog training bug with Dreyfus, got the purebred dog that I had more opportunities, and you know, she just made it so enjoyable and easy for me to pick up new sports, and so that's how I, kind of, you know, you get that first dog, you know… Melissa Breau: You dive in deep, and the world opens up to you. Julie Symons: Yep. Yep. Melissa Breau: So, at what point, I mean, it sounds like you were doing a lot of different things right out of the gate, with Rival. Did you immediately know that versatility was going to be something that was important to you? At what point was that like a conscious thing where that was like something you wanted to focus on? Julie Symons: You know, I do think it was because of her, and just training her in so many sports, her temperament and her drive were superb. She excelled at everything we did, and she was a great teacher. I mean I still consider myself a novice handler, at that time, and I really got addicted. I got addicted to dog training, and I know, any and all of it, so I just, you know, couldn't imagine just doing agility. I just enjoyed the cross training and just teaching such different skills, to my dog. I think I would get bored if I only did one, and I think that my dogs, the dogs I tend to get, to me, you know, I don't want to put human feelings on dogs, but I do think they enjoy the versatility too. I think they like the different skills and the different things they get to do. Melissa Breau: So, in retrospect, what are some of the benefits that you have seen, from competing in multiple sports, with each of your dogs? Julie Symons: Yeah. So, what I just mentioned, I do think there's a cross training aspect to it. I'm not just working on, you know, their muscles for running fast. I'm using their nose, and I'm asking for some precision in other sports, like obedience. It also gives them breaks, you know, instead of working one sport all the time, you know, they take a break from, maybe, some of the more strenuous running and jumping, and then they get to switch to something else. I found that training in the different sports, you just develop and bond and relationship that's different and maybe a little deeper because you have to learn different context of things, you're learning more skills, and it strengthens that relationship that you have, you know, you have this mutual understanding with each other, to go out and do these different sports, and that you have these, you know, cues and things that they understand, and it's just amazing to know that I have…because I train for sports, I don't normally train just to train. I've gotten a little bit more into doing some tricks, I think that's great for dogs, too, so just to think of all the ways I can teach my dog to do different things, and back to, you know, when I had Rival, she really showed me what was possible to do with a dog, and the possible bonds you can have. I just never thought you could do all of this with a dog, and I just think that's what made me like the versatility of it too, it's just a, kind of, challenge to try other sports, you know. So, when nose work came along, I did not need another dog sport, believe me, but her brother had started it, and I saw a video of it, didn't know much about it, and he passed away at a little bit of a young age, so I was, kind of, inspired to say, you know, in his honor I'm going to take this nose work class that I heard about Denise teaching, before Fenzi started, and she was actually in heat, or she was injured, or something, so like the timing was really good, so I used that, my dog is in heat or has a minor injury or it's winter, you know, I think of what else could I do with my dog because I can't do some of the other things, and that's, actually, how I got into nose work. So, you know, it just comes along at the right time, for you, with the dog that you have. Melissa Breau: So, I'd imagine that knowing now, at least, that that's something that's important to you, that you want to do a lot of different things with your dog, when you have a new puppy, which you've been through fairly recently, you might approach, kind of, those early days a little bit differently, do you want to talk a little bit about that? Julie Symons: Yeah. I think it is a little different, knowing what you're going to, you know, train your dog in and compete in, but it's really quite similar because a lot of the same skills that you need across all the sports, like you need your dog to be able to stay, you know, and sit or down, you really do, in every single sport. You need impulse control, you need them to, you know, wait for your cues. They need focus. They need recalls. You know, you just need all of that stuff, so that's what I just start building. I tend to train thoughtful dogs. That's good. I'm thinking like I want more like, almost out of control dogs, but I really don't. I do tend to train, I tend to teach dogs to be very thoughtful, and I do need to balance that with some of that little bit of edge that I do want from them as well. Let's see, what else? But I also, like, approach it by switching on and off. I'm not training every sport all the time, you know, nobody can do that, and even, since training in multiple sports is also a challenge in itself, I also, you know, have a busy day life, day job. I have, you know, a son. I have a husband, so it's hard to fit everything in. So, how I approach it is I just, sometimes, focus on one thing a month, like I need to teach my dog to weave, so just that month, it happened to be summer, I'm going to just, every day, go out there and train my dogs, a couple of times a day, on the weave poles, and I don't really have time for anything else, but that's okay. That's just what I'm doing that month. Then, the next month, I might focus on, I don't know, getting out to new places for obedience, and then the next month I may focus on teeter, you know, get my dog on the teeter and everything, so it just, I don't really have a good, you know, plan around it. I don't write it down, or anything, I just make sure I train my dog on something, most days, and I usually have a focus, so a lot of it depends on what I might be starting to want to compete in first. Melissa Breau: That makes a lot of sense. Julie Symons: Yeah. Yeah. Because you can't, if you try to sit there and say, you'll get overwhelmed. You'll get overwhelmed if you're going to try to say, I want to do all of these six sports, oh my gosh, you know, and you know, I kind of move on. Once Savvy got her MACH 2 to, you now, I didn't need to get a MACH 3 or 4, so I just decided, she could have still kept running, she was seven or eight, or something, but I just had other things to do. I had to go work on her, you know, TDX or her, whatever, nose work, now. I am very goal oriented to the title, so that kind of drives me in the direction that I train. Melissa Breau: Yeah. I feel like that's something that I've definitely struggled with, so it's interesting to hear, kind of, pick one focus. Now, at least, for me, and for my dog, I found that she doesn't always retain the information long term, if we, kind of, leave it alone and come back to it, you know, like months later. Is that something you've had to deal with at all? Julie Symons: Oh, she doesn't. Well, no. Well I do think it depends on what it is, if you hadn't, you know, taught something to kind of fluency, then you're going to lose a little bit, but I also think they remember some of it, at least, so there are some things that I think you do need to, kind of, not drop off, you know, for too long. It depends, you know, it might be stays or recalls, obviously. I do think that, most part, they do remember, so, in that case, if they don't, then, you know, you might have to just decide what's more important that you need, and keep that in because, you know, I could do more than just my weave pole training that month. Obviously, I'm in the catch, and I'll do stays with my dogs. I'll put them in a sit stay, while I'm making something, or you know, sometimes it just takes one minute of training, just one to three minutes of training, a day. Everybody can find that. I started to train a little bit before I went to work. Lately, with Drac, I train when I get home. He is so pumped and into me, that's when I need to train him because he's a young, adolescent boy. He, kind of, like doesn't have a lot of stamina to focus, so I've actually had some really, really wonderful sessions, and it just might be as much as i can train with a handful of food and that's all I do. Now he's 17 months old, and he is like, oh my gosh, I'm like, he is so focused on me, like that didn't happen months ago. So then, because I have that focus and maturity, I'm able to, kind of, progress a little bit further or teach him something new, so it's, kind of, give and take, and you're right, I know some of the stuff I started with him, like backup, I was teaching him backing up, he doesn't know that at all, anymore, so, yeah, that is something that I did lose, but that's not as important to me, to backup, away from me, so I've got to get back to that because I do think it's useful, in some areas, but yeah, I did lose that one on him, by the way. I think what happened was, I was teaching him some other things, like a fold back down, or something else, and he kept backing up, and it wasn't reinforcing it because I was working on something else, so I think that's why I lost it because of the reinforcement, you know, I extinguished it. I extinguished his backing up, accidentally. Melissa Breau: Yeah. Do you have any advice, I guess, for other trainers, who maybe want to intentionally train for multiple sports or approach the idea that if they have a dog, they want to compete in multiple sports, either for getting started or just, kind of, for balancing things? Julie Symons:Yeah. Yes, I do. So, a little bit, what I mentioned earlier, I think if you just don't get overwhelmed and realize that you aren't trialling your new dog, right away. It really is going to be years before you really get them in the ring, and I know, like it's almost like you put a lot of time in those first, you know, two to four years. I didn't bring in my, you know, Rival, who got an Obedience Champion, she didn't enter the obedience ring until she was five. She could have gone in a little earlier, but I wasn't ready, and once I got in and I realized we were ready, but you have time to bring your dog in because once you get them into that ring, at that time, it goes fast after that, so you take that time, you know, I would say two to four years, depending on the sport, and once you get to that point, then it goes really fast. If you start too early, I think you're just setting yourself up to have too many gaps in your training, and then you're going to, probably, struggle, and then it's going to take you longer, so I would, you know, number one, not worry about time. It will come, when ready. Also, a foundation, like I said earlier, just work on the foundation, work on things that you're going to want anyway, you're going to want to save the recalls, the focus, the impulse control, that's going to apply to every sport, and something that's near and dear to Denise's heart, actually, is personal play. I've had to learn that more so in the last nine years because my first dog, Rival, was just naturally into me. I was her world. Honestly, I didn't do anything, to make that happen, and when I got Savvy, and now I have Drac, other things in the world are more interesting, to them, than me, so I have had to think about, wait, I've got to build that personal bond, that personal play, not relying on food so much, or toys, and if you can focus on that, and you can have a dog that's totally into you, that's half the battle, and then the rest is just skill training, it's just skills, and we all know how to trail skills. Seriously, we have all the classes and the tools and the, you know, video examples, and the people's blogs, we all know how to teach skills, some are harder than others, don't get me wrong, but if you have a dog that you have built up this wonderful relationship with, I mean we all have wonderful relationships with our dogs. I'm not even saying that. It's from an interaction, it's a kind of bonded, you know, interaction that you need to build for that personal play around other, you know, interesting things, in the environment. So, I would say, and I had to, really, grow in that area, for me, and I really bring that into my training more where, to me, it's more important that I'm going to interact and play with my dog then teach Drac to backup again. To me I'd rather need him to really want to come to me and to play with me, so that's the things that I would have people to focus on.  Melissa Breau: You know, I've seen, I don't remember if you shared a video or if it's on your Fenzi bio, or what, I mean, I've seen some of your competition videos, and I would never guess that personal play is something you've struggled with. I saw you in between exercises, and on one of the videos you got down on the floor, and you were like very happy to be there. It was really nice. I mean it was… Julie Symons: Yeah. I mean I think one of the videos might have been Rival, and I did make a clip, once, for somebody, to show what I did between the rings with Savvy, and she's a very distractible dog. She'll know the things in her environment, which is typical of Belgians, too, they're very aware of people, there are some people they just don't like, and so I've really had to work on that, so thank you, for that compliment. To be honest, that is why Savvy didn't enter the obedience ring for a while. I can't remember how old she was, when she actually went in for her Novice, CD, but she actually went in for her, you know, Novice CD but she got her Utility title at eight, last year, because I got her, when my son was young, he was only two, so I just didn't have the time. I had three dogs, and I had my older dog, Dreyfus. I had, did I have three dogs? Yeah. Savvy. I still had Rival and Dreyfus, when I got Savvy, and I just couldn't do it all. I, actually, realized I cannot do it all right now, and that was okay. That was okay. If I put pressure on myself then it's just going to carry over to my dogs, so I appreciate that compliment. Melissa Breau: So, you got there, and you got there at your own pace, and you got beautiful results. Julie Symons: Yes. Yes. Melissa Breau: So, I know that, in addition to teaching for FDSA, you also teach in person, right? Julie Symons: Yeah. So, actually, back in the late ‘90s, I started teaching agility, when I was doing well with my dog and it was still new, in this area. I found, you know, that I enjoyed that. I enjoyed helping people, and I was in a dog club, so I started teaching through a dog club, and then, eventually, when we bought our current property, the first thing we built, you know, we have seven open acres, and the first thing we did is we built a hundred by hundred, you know, fence, so the property was, the house hadn't even started building, and I had this hundred by hundred, you know, fence. Melissa Breau: Priorities. Julie Symons: Yeah. Priorities because it was a lot of deer, and everything, and when I first started, without the fence, you know, a couple of dogs to take off, and that was really scary, so we got the fence up. So, I started teaching on my own. That was probably back in 2000, in 1999 or the year 2000, and then I had my son in 2004, and I tried to keep up, you know, and I tried to keep teaching, and I was still showing Rival actively, finishing up some of her big titles. I just had to back off a bit, so I stopped teaching and took a break from that, and then when I got Savvy into nose work, and she got her nose work 1 title, I immediately was like, “I'm going to start teaching.” I just wanted to get that first title and then start bringing it to my area because I could tell it was an up and coming sport. You know, everybody just didn't AKC anymore, you know, there's Barn Hunt, there's a lot of other venues of dog sports. It was about the same time that I started teaching at FDSA, and so it's gone very well, locally. People love the in-person classes because they can have them, you know, from me, so they're spoiled a little bit. So, yeah, really, actually this morning I hosted a little match for some students, and myself, trialing next month, so it's a lot of work. I rented a building and we had a gym area and another room to do hides. It keeps me busy. Melissa Breau: So, just for anybody who may happen to be local to you, do you want to share, kind of, what area you're in? Julie Symons: Yeah. I'm south of Rochester, New York. I'm near the thruway, so I'm actually equal distance between Syracuse and Buffalo. I do have some people that, you know, come about an hour away, but most are local. Ironically some of them are just like within five minutes of my neighborhood, so we all live pretty close, and Rochester, New York, we've heard this for years, we have a really, really big, strong dog community, some really talented people, a lot of people invested in training, you know, competitively with our dogs. You know, I have people, in my classes that, you know, I have few pet people that started with me, people who hadn't done much of the competitive sports, so I have a mix, but I do have a lot of people who have some dog training experience, and it was cool that they, these are people who do Schutzhund, you know, obedience, rally, agility, like they're interested in nose work. Their dogs may be getting a little older, they're retiring form a sport, or they're young dogs who are coming up, and it's, really, taught me that it applies, or interests, a wide range of people, you know, it's not just for certain, you know, demographic of dogs and handlers, so and it's growing. I, actually, can barely keep up. I, just recently, made a job change to go to part time. I work at Xerox. I've been there my whole career, out of college, and I just decided that I want more time to myself, as well as for dog training. So, yeah, I'm actually really excited about that. The hours will change in a couple of weeks, so we'll see. I'm not really sure if I'll get more time to myself. I may just get busier, so we'll see, but I did find that that's what I love. That's what I was passionate about. That's where I was creative, and that wasn't the side of my life that I wanted to cut back on, so I just sat back, looked at our situation, and said, “I can do this,” so, yeah. Melissa Breau: Now you, kind of, mentioned AKC in there, and some of the other Nose work programs, but I know there's been a lot of buzz about the fact that AKC has just recently added a scent work program, right? Julie Symons: Yeah, and that timing came quite at a good time, for some of my latest decisions. Yeah. So AKC rolled out a nose work program, they call it scent work, and you know, I think we all expected it to come at some point. I think a lot of people do like to show in AKC. AKC, you know, is a big organization, and probably going to be able to put on more readily available trials for people to enter. I love the other nose work programs. I think they've done a really great job with them, and I will still trial in them, but there's people that are in some isolated areas that are too far for trials, there's a long waitlist, so I think the AKC program, the reason I'm excited about it, is I think it will get more people into the sport because I really have found that nose work just does something to the dogs. It does something to the handlers. It's not just the dogs that love because they get to use their nose, but just the people, to see their dogs be these little detection dogs, and there's something about it. I haven't quite pinpointed it. I think people like tracking, but tracking, sometimes, is hard to find the field, and there's also limited, you know, tracking tests. There's just something about it, and I think it's just people seeing their dogs, instead of us telling our dogs not to sniff and smell things, we're letting them sniff and smell things, and they're doing it with purpose, and they're doing it, you know, it's a job. I think dogs are, kind of, bred to do jobs, and it's a job that comes naturally to them, but there's still practicing and training and skills that you've got to train to actually compete in that sport, so it's just been something that I'm really excited about with the AKC program. Then they added this handler discrimination class, which existed in a UKC program, so I'm not as familiar with that, from a nose work context, but I've done some articles for 20 years, and you know, I never really had a lot of problem with that, but I understand that it is challenging. I think it's just more of a mindset of people realizing our dogs really can pick up the smallest amount of smell, and it's not even a small amount of smell. I mean we're putting our strong odor on it, compared to anything else, in the environment, so there's a discrimination that they're making between our smell and the steward's, you know, smell, from touching the articles, and in this new AKC program, you actually have your glove, or your sock, that you, you know, scent, and then they're going to have another  person's scented, you know, item in one of the other boxes to start, so it's going to be discrimination, and you know, it's just like with anything,  you train your dog, what was reinforced, what is the value, so I teach my scent is to be reinforced, there's a value to that, and to me discrimination is less of an issue than somebody going, oh, I like the steward's hand smell better. It's just more that they're stressed, or they just pick up any article, so I think that the discrimination part, to me, you know, is very trainable, and it's easy to teach a dog, just like with nose work, we teach our dog these odors, you know, Birch, Anise, Clove, these are odors that we've taught you that are reinforced. Any other novel owner, whether it's a piece of bread or some meat or a toy, or even animal droppings, you know, they may find that self-reinforcing, but if they have the drive for the odors that we have reinforced, then they will seek those out over everything, so. So, yeah, it is pretty exciting, with the AKC program.  Melissa Breau: My understanding is that you're going to be a judge, right?  Julie Symons: Yeah. I did apply, to be a judge, and I was approved. They still have to rollout… Melissa Breau: Congrats. Julie Symons: Yeah. Thanks. I've never entered that arena, of judging, so they still have to rollout like some online training and a test to take, so we're waiting for that to come out, and it's exciting because somebody, locally, is taking nose work classes with me. She said, oh, we're thinking of getting this added to our national breed, coming up, and she said, I know somebody who's a judge, so it will be very nice that I could, you know, maybe for some of the local breed shows, you know, I'll be available to help with that, to get it started. Melissa Breau: Right. Right. Now I want to change gears a little bit because I know you also do the obedience games class, at FDSA, even though it's not in the schedule, until October, I wanted to make sure we had a chance to talk a little bit about some of the obedience stuff you teach too, so do you want to just tell us a little bit about the concept for the class and kind of what you cover? Julie Symons: Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for bringing that up. It's been a very fun class topic for me. It's called obedience games, and we added a starter version, which I just ended last term because I found that my first version got advanced pretty quickly, so I thought, wow, I can really even break this down more, and that was a real hit. It, kind of, you know, took a life of its own, and it was just real exciting. It's about, you know, being informal but still being clear to your dog. It's about adding more movement and less, you know, static, stationary behaviors, and less fiddling with, you know, precision and the front, so we're not even doing fronts, so I'm like, we're not doing fronts in this class. Every time your dog comes here, you're going to pass a treat between your legs, and then that just builds this like, you know, center of position, and your dog is going to continue with speed, and they're just going to know, you know, to like go through you, you know. We're not going to worry about errors. I really emphasize that because we all, you know, we all get a little frustrated or disappointed, and I'm really, really impressed, early on, there are no errors, we're just training, we're learning, we're finding out what gaps we have. We're getting information from our dogs. There's no reason to be, you know, upset, or bothered and we don't want our dogs to ever, you know, we don't want them to have stress, in this game, and I think that I'm seeing some people give me comments that they're seeing some people who took my very first obedience game class, last fall, they said, wow, I very rarely still use the games, it's really helped my dog in the ring. I think it's more that it's helped the human, you know, it's helping humans to, kind of, maybe loosen up a little bit. One of the things that I really was, you know, enforcing was, you know, these daily games that if you just work, just a few minutes, like I said earlier, a few minutes a day, with your dog, there's just something about that because I can go days and days without training my dog, I just get busy, you know, but instead, if I just find one little, kind of, action packed, high reinforcing game, to play with my dog, which with a purpose for obedience skills, for example, it just pays off with even your recalls. It pays off with your dog, you know, your personal bond, and I try to do some personal toy and play before every session. I encourage that for the students to do. Then, because we're all so busy, I'm busy, you know, you can find a couple of minutes every day, and it really will add up and you will find your dog actually learned skills, and they want to work with you more because they look forward to that time of the day, you know, that you train with them. Another thing is, you know, these scores will come eventually. When I entered, you know, my OTCH dog in her first trial, you know, we did get good scores, but they weren't going to be scores that got me placed to get the OTCH points, but I was just in the novice class. I didn't need those points yet, so I wanted her to go in there and know her job and be happy. I just, kind of, worked at those point deductions that I got, I just worked to clean them up, over time. I just said, oh, that's where our gap is. I'm going to clean it up, and I'm going to lose less points, in that exercise, and that's how I got to the higher scores, but not until I was, you know, further along, in my obedience competition trial because you've got to get that experience, and I just think I was trying to bring that thought process to the games classes.  Melissa Breau: Yeah. I mean, I think that even the mindset, right, from competition to thinking about it all as a game, for the person, is such a difference, and it just brings a more relaxed structure and more fun. Julie Symons: Yeah. Yeah. It has. I have been pleasantly surprised with how well it's been received, and I might even have to come up with like a middle level now. We'll see how I can plan that. And what I love about it, too, is it complements all the great skills classes that we have, at the Academy, so people can be working on their retrieves, and you know, whatever, you know, all these other little skilled areas, you know, separately but at the same time, but separate from the quick little three minute games sessions because I'm doing that with Drac. Believe me, I'm working on, you know, his retrieve and his hold, and things like that. I'm working those heavy-duty skill things off on the side as well, so. Melissa Breau: So, to kind of round things out, I want to ask you the three questions that we've asked everybody so far, who's come on the show. Julie Symons: Okay. Melissa Breau: So, first, what's the dog related accomplishment that you are proudest of? Julie Symons: Okay. It has to be just, you know, Rival, my first Terv, she became the first champion OTCH MACH Terv, and just getting that OTCH, actually, in itself, was just a thrill because I just went from the Novice A classes to OTCH, and I learned so much, from her. I, also, had my son, he was a couple of years at that time, and I just needed a couple of more points, and I was going in the ring, and we weren't doing well. I was no longer training in the open class because my dog was now older, she was ten, or nine, or ten, and there was a lot of jumping. I couldn't even train. I didn't have time to train a lot, and I didn't have time to maintain that, so one of my friends, and trainers, said, “You really need to enter the open class.” On a whim, I entered the one day that had spots left, in open, and we went in the ring, and I said, oh, I'm never going to finish my OTCH. I'm never going to finish my OTCH in an open class because all of the points are in utility and you know the scores, people get such great, you know, scores, you know, and it's so hard to get the points in open, if you look at the point schedule. We went in the ring, and that's the one that I show a lot, it's in my obedience games intro, and we went into the ring, and I love to watch it. I watch it, if I'm down, or something, because just I went in there and I think that's a lot, what I process my obedience games class with because I went in the ring not expecting much, and my dog was getting older, I knew she was going to be retired soon, and I have a son. I just can't keep up with everything. I just thought, someday I'm not going to be able to go in the ring with this dog, and so I'm going to go in there and we got like a 199, you know, first place, we got her OTCH from that run. Melissa Breau: That's awesome. Julie Symons: Yeah. Then, you know, to be a first in something is so hard, in a breed like the Belgian Tervuren. Now the MACH was a relatively newer title, so some fabulous dogs, before, obviously didn't have that chance, but yeah, I am, we are the first Belgian Tervuren champion OTCH MACH, so that was very, yeah, special to me. Melissa Breau: That's awesome. Julie Symons: To be honest, that dog was so deserving of that, so. Melissa Breau: Yeah. She really sounds like something special. Julie Symons: Yes. Melissa Breau: So, the second question, I like to ask everybody, and I think this is, honestly, my favorite question of the whole podcast, is what is the best piece of training advice that you have ever heard? Julie Symons: Yeah. I was looking forward to this one. I thought a lot about it, and you know, we all get such great training advice, but there's two that really stuck out to me, and they've been pretty recent ones. I absolutely love Amy Cook's, in one of her classes, but she also said it at camp last year, that, “Every time you train your dog, you're teaching them how to feel,” and that just, you know, goes back to some of my outlook on training, also, is just like that's why I don't want to, if I stress them out, that's how they're going to feel about training, so it's just such a powerful but simple statement that she made, and I really embrace that, and share that as often as I can with my students. Melissa Breau: That's great. Julie Symons: I have a second one too. Can I have two? Melissa Breau: Absolutely. Julie Symons: Okay. Another one that I really liked was one from Bob Bailey. It was, you know, he's big on clicker training, shaping, and he said something that, also, really resonated with me, with, “You better made a decision because the next one is right around the corner.” So, if you think about when you're training a dog, and you're like, oh, was that the right criteria. Was it right enough? You know, your next decision is right up on you. You have to make a decision, and it might not be the best decision, and it might not even be the right decision. You probably made a wrong decision, but you have to make a decision on whether you're going to click something or reinforce something because the next decision is right around the corner, and it's okay, you look at all of us trainers, our timing is off. We accidently click something that we weren't supposed to. Look how resilient our dogs are. They recover. You know, they're fine. So, I just really like that because I think some people, we freeze up, we freeze up in the training, when we don't know what to do. That's okay. Do something because you're going to have to make another decision, like, another second later, so I really pulled that off of a DVD that I was listening to, and I never wrote it down, exactly what he said, but I just remember that concept. So those are my two. Melissa Breau: That's awesome. So, for our last one, who is somebody else, in the dog world, that you look up to? Julie Symons: So, this is, of course, the hardest question, I think, everybody has had, and I thought about it also, so this is obviously tough because I've learned so much from people, local and afar, because I work in so many different sport areas, you know, it just multiplies how many people I've worked with. I think I'm going to say that I do look up to anyone that thinks out of the box and is willing to try something different. I just think that, sometimes, we all get, kind of, stuck in an area, in a way that we do things, and I think somebody who is willing to, you know, just, kind of, maybe work outside their comfort level or just try something new, I just really respect that because you're not going to grow if don't do that. You're not going to change something, and of course, my learning has exponentially grown, being a part of FDSA. I think the whole base of the FDSA instructors are amazing, so I do look up to the Academy and the instructors that we offer such a diversity of people and topics. It's not just performance now, it's from, you know, your mind to cooperative care to competition. There is one name I will mention, if I have to mention one name, if I have time, is I will never forget one person that I worked with, with Rival, my very first high drive performance dog, her name was Patty Hatfield. She's from Florida, and she had a wonderful Malinois named Lily, who was on the US agility world team, back in the ‘90s, and she would come to our area frequently for agility seminars, and she helped me, so much, with how I interacted with my dog. I am a pretty high drive person, myself, high energy, actually, high energy, and so with my dog, so she taught me how to, you know, adjust my energy levels, when she needed to be calmer. She also does just love her dog. She had a great bond with her dog, Lily. She just loved her. She would talk about, you know, when she went home, from a seminar, I know I'm going to do all the wrong things, and I'm going to go hug my dog and just get all crazy when I see her, but you're not supposed to do that because back in that day, you were supposed to ignore your dog, when you got home. You were supposed to not let them run up the stairs, ahead of you. You're not supposed to let your dogs on the furniture, or you're supposed to eat before they ate, all these little, you know, control things that were told to you, and I always remember, because I, kind of, did that stuff too, but I thought, “I'm not going to tell anybody,” but I let my dog up, on my bed, and let my dog run up the stairs, but I always thought I was doing something wrong because that was what you were told back then. I just remember her just saying, “I don't care what I'm doing, or if I'm doing the wrong thing. I love my dog, and I just got to be excited when I see her, when I come home,” so I always, kind of, still just think of those interactions that I had with her, with the advice she gave me. She had a Malinois, and again, I just love the Belgian breeds, and I could relate to that as well, so. Melissa Breau: Thanks, so much, for coming on the podcast, Julie, and thanks, to our listeners, for tuning in. We'll be back in two weeks with Amy Cook, to talk about using play to help dogs cope with fear and reactivity. If you haven't already, subscribe to our podcast in iTunes or the podcast app, of your choice, to have our next 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!

SHOW NOTES:  Summary: Stacey Barnett is an active competitor in nose work, tracking, obedience, rally, agility, and barn hunt and the host of the Scentsabiities podcast, but scent sports are her primary focus and her first love. Links mentioned: www.scentsabilitiesnw.com  Scentsabilities Podcast on iTunes Next Episode:  To be released 4/14/2017, featuring Julie Daniels. 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 nose work, tracking, obedience, rally, agility, and barn hunt and the host of the Scentsabiities podcast, but scent sports are her primary focus and her first love. Welcome to the podcast, Stacy. Stacy Barnett: Hi, Melissa. How are you? Melissa Breau: Good. Good. How are you? Stacy Barnett: I'm doing very good. Thank you so much. Melissa Breau: Yeah, I'm excited to talk today. To start us out, can you just tell us a little bit about the dogs you have now and what you're working on with them? Stacy Barnett: Sure. I have three dogs currently. I have a seven-and-a-half-year-old rescued Labrador-ish dog named Judd. Judd, he's my elite dog, my NACSW. That's National Association of Canine Scent Work. He's my lead dog, and we're competing at that level. He's the one that really kind of got me started in the nose work and really made me very passionate about the sport. I also have Joey. Joey is a nine-year-old standard Poodle, and Joey taught me all about building motivation into my training methods, and Joey is at the NW3 level, and I have Why. Why is a mini Aussie. He is about five years old. He has very, very little confidence. He's a rescue. He's got a lot of baggage, and you know, he's really taught me how to build confidence into the way I teach. Melissa Breau: Did you start out in nose work? How did you originally get into dog sports? Stacy Barnett: So how I got into dog sports, actually, I spent a lot of years...you know, I was a horse trainer for a while. I rode in dressage. Melissa Breau: I Didn't know that. Stacy Barnett: Yeah. Yeah. I was really big into horses. Loved horses. I still love horses, but they're just a little bit too expensive for me, which, I know, they're walking money pits, and so I'm a little bit of a frustrated horse trainer. I've had dogs my whole life, and I love training things. So I'm like, well, if I have a dog, I'm going to train it. Then it just kind of went from there. It just seemed to be a very natural transition. I just love doing it. You know, I love the training aspect, what it does for the relationship that you have with the animal, and I enjoy competing. Melissa Breau: What was the first dog sport you dove into? Stacy Barnett: Oh, the first dog sport, I would say it was probably a little bit of agility. I did start out with a little agility, a little bit of rally, not successfully. I don't have a successful past in any of the sports. You know, nose work's really it for me. Melissa Breau: Well, what led you to specialize in nose work? Obviously, being good in it is a big plus, but what led you down that path? Stacy Barnett: I have to say it was a little bit of a whim. I decided, you know what, hey, I'm going to try nose work, and I tried it with Judd, and he gravitated to it, and I just saw this passion come out of this dog, a dog that...you know, he's got a nickname. I call him fragile little flower. He's a washout, and I'm saying that in a very loving way, but he's a little bit of a washout in a lot of the other sports. I tried all these other sports. He's got some titles, but he was really only doing the sports because I wanted him to, and it was to please me. When we got into nose work, he just kind of was like, wow, I really love doing this, and to see my dog so passionate about a sport and so...you know, this inner drive, this inner excitement, this inner desire to do the sport, it made me passionate about it, and then I saw, with my other dogs, the benefits that nose work provides, and it's just become something that...you know, I eat, sleep, breathe nose work at this point. Melissa Breau: So you kind of mentioned the benefits in there. I know that nose work's often referred to as confidence building. Is that what you're alluding to? Stacy Barnett: Yes. Yes. Nose work is not only a confidence builder. It can also help reactive dogs. Nose work itself is very reactive-dog friendly in those venues because the dog doesn't have to work within eyeshot or earshot of another dog. They get to work on their own. However, it really does help from a confidence perspective. The sense of smell is actually pretty amazing. It goes through the limbic system, which means that it goes through the hippocampus and the amygdala. So the amygdala is kind of the fight or flight area, and the hippocampus is responsible for developing those early memories. So what happens is, is that the dog is scenting, and the dog is using about one-eighth of his brain with scenting, and this is all going through this system that's responsible for emotion and responsible for memory. If we can develop this positive feeling toward sensing and toward scent, we can actually help to put the dog into a really good space so that they can work, and also, you know, as long as you're working the dog under threshold, the dog is able to continue to work and will actually become more confident over time and actually less reactive over time. I saw this particularly with my little dog, Why. When he came to me, he could not work at all away from the house. He was also fairly reactive to other dogs. Had about 100-foot visual threshold to seeing other dogs. Now, through nose work, he has developed a lot of confidence. He's now able to search in novel environments with very little acclimation, and he's also quite a bit less reactive. He's got about an eight-foot visual threshold now to other dogs, which I think is absolutely amazing. So the behavioral benefits, especially for a dog like Why, they're off the charts. Absolutely off the charts. Melissa Breau: I hadn't realized that part of that was tied into the actual areas of the brain and some of the science behind that. That's really kind of neat. Stacy Barnett: Oh, it's fascinating. It's absolutely fascinating, and also, if you have a dog that has a lot of energy or a dog that might be a little bit on the hyper side, it's really a fantastic way to get them a little on the tired side, because they're using so much of their brain. They also have a tendency to be less reactive in the moment because an eighth of the brain of the dog is being used at the time, so they're a little bit less focused on what they see and what they hear. Melissa Breau: I was going to say nose work seems like it's really unique just even in the sense that most sports, we really want the dog focused on what we're telling them to do, and it's really dog led, right? Stacy Barnett: Oh, it is. It is. It is, and you know, when I tell my students when they're handling, I say try to think of it as 80 percent dog / 20 percent handler. You're in there, and you have responsibilities for the search, but the search is really driven by the dog. We use something called scent theory, right? But again, it's just theory. So although we have ideas of what scent does, we really don't have a perfect representation of what scent does except by watching the dog, because dogs are able to... I don't know if you know this, but they're able to scent directionally, which actually means that, you know, with a human, we can hear directionally. So if I'm talking to you, you know if I'm in front of you or behind you. Dogs are able to do this with their nose, so they really have to drive the search. This is something that we're not able to get in there and be involved in this, but at the same time, we have to make sure that we're covering the search area, and we have to interpret our dog's body language, because we have to be able to say is the dog at source and call alert so that we can get credit for that hide. So it does require a lot of teamwork, but it is driven by the dog. Absolutely. Melissa Breau: And you mentioned reading your dog's body language. I feel like that, in and of itself, is such a valuable thing for people who have dogs who are behaviorally challenged in whatever way. Stacy Barnett: Yes. Yes. Melissa Breau: So I don't have official figures, but at least anecdotally, it seems like nose work is one of the fastest-growing dog sports out there. Do you agree with that? Is that accurate from your perspective? Stacy Barnett: It's growing at a pretty good clip, yeah. Last figure I heard with the NACSW, I think there are, like, 15,000 dogs registered at this point. Melissa Breau: That's kind of incredible. I mean, I'm a Treibball competitor, and I can see just, comparatively speaking, nose work has taken off in a huge way. So I was wondering if you could give us a 10,000-foot view for people not involved in the sport, maybe what venues are out there, anything else that people should know if they're just learning about the sport or just starting to become interested? Stacy Barnett: Oh, certainly. Certainly. Essentially, what the dog is looking for is essential oil, and what we typically use, we use scented Q-tips. So the dogs are able to actually source or actually find these scented Q-tips, and they're hidden. We call those hides. They could be hidden in a number of different elements, and depending upon which organization you're competing in, you might have different elements, and these are just basically different searches that the dog has to do. The searches could be inside a building. It could be outside a building. You know, in some venues, you might have to search vehicles, although we never actually search the interior of the vehicles. We're just searching the outside of them, or you can be searching containers. So containers could be boxes. It could be luggage, or in some venues, they're even burying or starting to bury the scent in the ground, and the dog has to be able to locate the source of scent and then to communicate the location of that to the handler. What we do is we train the dogs very similarly to the way like drug detection dogs are trained. So it's kind of like having your very own pet detection dog, which is a lot of fun. It's really a lot of fun. I mean, as an aside, I was driving down the road the other day, and I saw a couple of police cars pulled over, and I saw somebody putting a Labrador into the back of a vehicle or a policeman putting a Labrador into the back of a vehicle, and I'm like, oh, I know what you're doing. It's kind of exciting. Melissa Breau: Right. Right. In terms of venues or organizations, what does that look like right now for the sport? Stacy Barnett: So that's also growing. So probably the largest organization in the United States currently is the National Association of Canine Scent Work, or NACSW. That's a very large organization. I compete a lot in that organization as well. In the United States, we also have the United Kennel Club, or the UKC, that also has their own version of scent work. AKC is coming out with a version. The trial should be available starting in October of this year. We have organizations popping up worldwide. We have an organization in Canada, which is SDDA. They use, you know, some slightly different odors, and there's a handful of other venues. So, basically, if you want to do nose work, there's something out there and available for you, and it's just growing. Melissa Breau: Is there a lot of crossover between the different venues? Like if you train in one, is it possible to compete in others, or is that difficult to do? Stacy Barnett: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I've competed in NACSW. I've gone up to Canada. I've competed in SDDA. I've done a little bit of UKC, and I'm a Performance Scent Dogs judge. That's another organization that's also growing. I compete there. Most of the organizations will use a lot of the same odors. Some of them use slightly different odors, but it's very easy to get your dog onto a new odor. That's a very easy thing to do, but essentially, at the core of it, the dog is still searching. The dog is still identifying, you know, the location of the hide, and it's still communicating that location to the handler. So although there are small nuances between differences between the organizations, they're all pretty much consistent. Melissa Breau: So you mentioned AKC's new program, and congrats. I hear you've been approved as a judge. Stacy Barnett: Thank you. Melissa Breau: What do we know about the program so far? You mentioned they're starting up in October. Stacy Barnett: It's a new program. The preliminary rules and regulations are out there. There's still I think some discussion about the fourth odor, which right now is identified as peppermint, although I think they're still trying to decide, I think, if that's going to be the final odor. I've heard some things that they might be reconsidering that, but otherwise, it's still the same first three odors as a lot of the other organizations, the birch, anise, and clove. The AKC also is going to have buried hides. So this is where, at the novice and at the advanced level, the hides are actually going to be buried in dirt in a container, and the dog has to be able to pick out the right container. At the higher levels, they're going to have a larger area, and it just might be outside, and the hides will be buried up to eight inches deep into the ground for the dogs to be able to find. They have that. They also have, as a part of the AKC program, is handler discrimination, which is, essentially, the dog is looking for the handler's scent, which is, you know, trained very similarly to looking for an essential oil, but it requires some different skills for that, and I think it's going to be a lot of fun. I think it's going to provide a lot more trialing opportunities for folks and open up a lot more doors for a lot of dogs. Melissa Breau: Obviously, just AKC's marketing program, in and of itself, is so much more robust than any individual organization can easily manufacture, so hopefully that'll give the sport an additional boost, too. I heard a rumor that there's a new FDSA class in the works, specifically to prep competitors for the new AKC program. What do you know about that? Stacy Barnett: Well, funny that you ask. I was working on a syllabus for one of them this morning. We're actually taking a look at the whole program, and we think of FDSA nose work as preparing the competitor for nose work regardless of what venue you compete in. So we're not focused on just one specific venue. So in order to prepare our students also for AKC, we're going to be making some key changes to our program and adding material. There are a couple different classes that are in the works for April that people can register for come registration that has to do specifically with AKC. I'm doing one that's going to be Introduction to AKC Scent Work, and in that class, what we're going to be doing is actually practicing each of the different elements and learning how to do buried hides and learning how to really, you know, work the dog using the challenges that AKC is going to provide, and all within the guidelines of AKC, and Julie Simons is going to be doing a really great class on handler discrimination, because she has an OTCH. So she's done a lot of scent discrimination work. So she's able to actually take her obedience side and bring a lot of that experience to the table as well. So we're going to have a class on handler discrimination, and then we're also going to be looking at our core classes and saying what do we need to do to help to make those more applicable to people who want to also trial in AKC? So there's a whole lot of stuff going on with that, and I think it's really going to position our students and really put them into a good position to be able to take advantage of AKC. Melissa Breau: I think Denise had mentioned the goal is to offer enough classes between now and October that, theoretically, FDSA students could be competing when the first trials are available in October. Is that right? Stacy Barnett: Yeah, I think that's about right. Yeah. Melissa Breau: So my understanding now, being a nose work competitor, is that there are very common methods out there for teaching the fundamentals. Just based on my research at FDSA, you guys use operant conditioning. Can you explain a little bit what that means, and maybe what some of the other things are out there, what maybe the advantages are to that method? Stacy Barnett: Yeah. Sure. Certainly. Basically, what I want to do is preface this with all methods work. There are a lot of methods out there for teaching nose work, and I have to say that all the methods I know of are based on caring for the dog, and they're really positive in their approach. So I do want to say that all the methods work, so I'm not one to say, you know, one method works and one doesn't, but I do think that the method that we teach at Fenzi Dog Sports Academy is a fantastic method, and it does use operant conditioning. So, basically, the dog learns clarity at the get-go. They learn kind of a cause and effect relationship. They learn that putting their nose on source or on the source of an essential oil, right, the odor from the essential oil results in a cookie, or I use cookie generically. I use things like hot dog. Exactly, that's still a cookie. A hot dog cookie, but what they learn is that they learn very clear from the get-go that their action results in reward. It's a very, very clear way of teaching nose work. We also introduce hunting very early on, so they understand the discrimination to find odor. So, for instance, we'll start out with containers, and they can actually pick out the correct box with the odor in it, and then we build hunting into that approach so that the dog also learns that they have to search for it, and it's not just selecting one box out of many. One large method uses hunting for food initially, and then they use classical conditioning to pair odor with a food and then wean off the food so that they just have the odor. So all of the methods do work, and they get you to the same place, but I have to say, I think our method, it's very quick, and it's very clear to the dog, and I think, from a clarity perspective, clarity builds confidence. So I really think that the method itself has to build confidence in the dogs. The other nice thing is that, you know, as the dog goes up in levels, food is used as a distraction. So if we start the dog on odor only, the dog never feels that they can self reward on food, right? So food is already out of the equation. We don't have to teach the dog, okay, I know you've been searching for food in the past, but now food is no longer an option. So I think it's a really clear way of the dog being able to understand what's going to result in a reward and understand exactly how to play the game and how to win the game. Melissa Breau: Now, I know that a lot of the questions I came up with, because I don't compete in nose work, were a little bit beginner things. So I wanted to make sure we included something for the people out there, who are probably your number one fans, who are actually actively competing in the sport. I was curious if there's one skill or one problem that you find people having issues with again and again and what you recommend or how you typically suggest they tackle that? Stacy Barnett: So, I don't actually necessarily see a particular skill. Actually, well, I do see a skill that I see that people have a hard time with, but I'm going to talk about this in two stages. So the first thing that people are focused too much on is skills and not enough on the foundational aspects of good training, and this is just what I see in general. It's not focused anywhere specifically, but it's just what I see in general. When I teach, I use a framework, and that framework is built like a pyramid. So, at the bottom of the pyramid, the first layer is confidence. Then on top of that layer is motivation, and then the third layer of that pyramid is skill. So you don't even get to skill until you've built up a good foundation of confidence and motivation, and then the final layer of that pyramid is stamina. So what I like to do, you know, when I'm taking a look at a dog and I want to see does the dog have an issue, and what kind of problems is the dog exhibiting, I try to take a look at this framework of confidence, motivation, and skills, and stamina to try to understand where the breakdowns are occurring. A lot of the time, the breakdowns do occur in confidence or motivation, and it really isn't skills based. So when I see a dog that's struggling in nose work or having a really hard time with one thing or another, what I'm finding is it's not a skill usually. Usually, it's an issue with a motivation issue or it's an issue with the dog's confidence, either the confidence in their skills or the confidence in their environment, and I find that if you remedy these things, that then the dog is able to tap into their skillset, and they're actually able to be a lot more successful. So that's kind of the one side of things, because I like to, again, diagnose based on that framework. The other side of things, if we're going to talk about specific skills, then, that I think a lot of dogs do have a problem with, it's a fundamental skill that I think sometimes we don't pay enough attention to. Is, actually, when the dog is searching at the higher levels, they have to be able to search and source more than one hide. So what I've actually taught my dogs is once they find a hide and they get rewarded for it, that hide is essentially finished. So the dog is able to then work on the next hide, versus if we say find another, the dog might just go back to the previous hide and expect reinforcement. So there's a certain amount of training that has to be put in place so that a dog can effectively search for more than one hide. This is especially important if you're working on converging odor where the scent cones overlap and the dog might have to work for finding multiple hides within a small area. So, by being able to give this dog this skill and if the dog has the skills, they're able to find a hide, search, find another hide, search, find another hide without being enticed back to an original hide, and I find that that's a really core skill that is really essential for being successful at all the levels. Melissa Breau: Well, I'd imagine that's something that's incredibly hard to teach, because you're rewarding the dog for a behavior and then expecting them not to repeat it. Stacy Barnett: It's actually not that hard to teach. Melissa Breau: Really? Stacy Barnett: Yeah, it's really not. Dogs are really smart, and we have to give them a lot of credit. Each hide has a different scent profile. So they're not only looking for birch, anise, or clove, but they also can smell, you know, where the hide is placed. They can smell it's in a tin. How much QuakeHold is used? A magnet, a Q-tip, everything. So there's a whole scent profile associated, and they realize that once they get rewarded at that hide, that hide, yes, it's valuable, but the next hide is even more valuable. So we teach them to actually go to the next hide as being something even more valuable, and then they start to realize through training that a previous hide is no longer valuable. So it's really just working with the value that you place on what's going to be reinforced and what's not going to be reinforced. Melissa Breau: To round things out, there are three questions I've asked everybody who's been on so far. I wanted to make sure we got to them. So, first, what's the dog-related accomplishment that you are proudest of? Stacy Barnett: I have to say, that has got to be quitting my job and doing full time nose work. Melissa Breau: Congratulations. That just happened, right? Stacy Barnett: It is, and I'm completely free of corporate. I just love this sport so much, that now it's my complete...you know, this is what I do for a living. I train dogs in scent detection. That, I have to say, is my biggest dog-related accomplishment because I just finally figured, hey, I have one life to live. I could either be semi miserable in my day-to-day job, or I can really embrace my passion and work on something that I love, where, I know I'm working 24/7 it seems, but I love it, and to me, that's a really big accomplishment because it also means that I can share this passion with other people, and I can share this passion with my dogs. Melissa Breau: So what does that look like? Obviously, you're teaching through FDSA. I know that you're doing some seminar work. Are you teaching locally as well? Stacy Barnett: I do. I do. I have about a dozen live in-person classes. I teach seminars. I do webinars. I write a blog. I do the podcasts. I have to say, though, that the bulk of what I do is teaching with FDSA, but this has just kind of become all encompassing, and it's really what I do, basically, day in and day out, and I absolutely love it. Melissa Breau: So, for those who may be local to you, where are you based? Stacy Barnett: New Jersey. I'm in Northwest New Jersey. Melissa Breau: Okay, and then for those who are not close to you, what's the best place to go to find your webinars, and your blog posts, and all that stuff as they come up? Stacy Barnett: So I have a website. It is www. ScentsabilitiesNW.com. I also list all my online classes there through Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. Those are listed there. My webinars are listed, and my seminars schedule is listed as well. I write a blog. The blog is pretty informative and seems to be well read, and that's on my website as well. So I definitely recommend that, or just contact me. I'm on Facebook. I love chatting with people, so go ahead and reach out to me, and I can point you in the right direction. Melissa Breau: So the next question here is usually my favorite of the whole interview, which is what's the best piece of training advice that you've ever heard? Stacy Barnett: I have to say the most impactful part is, actually, I have to credit Denise with this. It's training the dog in front of you. It is so easy to take a dog and try to apply a recipe to it and try to train each dog the same way, but that's just not going to work. You know, even when I look at my own dogs, each one of my own dogs is such an individual. Judd's kind of a rock star, but he has a little bit of a fragile past. Joey had some motivation issues. I had to really work through some really big motivation issues with him. Why comes to me with a whole history, whole baggage behind him, and he had to really learn how to be confident. So in order to set out the way I was going to train each dog, I had to understand what that dog came to the table with and what kind of history the dog has. So understanding where the dog that you're working with as a starting point can really help you figure out what is the path forward. So I think that that's probably the best piece of training advice I've ever had. Melissa Breau: And our last question, who is someone else in the dog world that you look up to? Stacy Barnett: There are many, many, many people. I have to say, from a detection side of it, I really look up to Randy Hare. He's a professional detection trainer, and I have his DVDs. I watch his DVDs. I've learned a ton from him. At some point, I would love to be able to work with him in person. You know, just learning a lot from him. I look up to him. That's on a detection side. On the other sports, I have to say, every single instructor at Fenzi Dog Sports Academy I look up to, because I started out as a student. I didn't start out as in instructor. So I've learned so much from each and every one of the instructors, and all of that information, all of that knowledge, I've been able to transfer and translate a lot of that into how I teach nose work. So I just find that there's so many people, that I really can't identify just one person, you know, people that I look up to. Melissa Breau: Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Stacy. I really appreciate it. Stacy Barnett: Well, thank you for having me. Melissa Breau: Absolutely. It was great to dig a little bit into nose work, and hopefully we'll do some more nose-work-focused stuff in the future — and for our listeners, thanks for tuning in. We'll be back in two weeks with Julie Daniels, one of the foremost names in dog agility in the US. She was one of the early champions of the sport and helped many clubs throughout the country get up and running. 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!  

SHOW NOTES: Summary: Nancy Gagliardi Little has been training dogs since the early 1980's when she put an Obedience Trial Championship or “OTCH” on her Novice A dog, a Labrador Retriever. Since then she has put many advanced obedience titles on her dogs, including 4 additional AKC OTCH titles and multiple championships in herding and agility. Nancy is also a retired obedience judge; she retired from judging in 2008 to spend more time training and competing with her own dogs. Next Episode:  To be released 2/17/2017, featuring Sue Ailsby. 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 Nancy Gagliardi Little. Nancy has been training dogs since the early 1980's when she put an Obedience Trial Championship or “OTCH” on her Novice A dog, a Labrador Retriever. Since then she has put many advanced obedience titles on her dogs, including 4 additional AKC OTCH titles and multiple championships in herding and agility. Nancy is also a retired obedience judge; she retired from judging in 2008 to spend more time training and competing with her own dogs. Welcome to the podcast Nancy! Nancy Gagliardi Little: Thanks Melissa, it's great being here. Alright, well can you start us off by telling us about the dogs you have now and what you're working on with them? Nancy Gagliardi Little: Sure. I've had border collies since 1986, and i usually have about 3 in training. Score is my 12 year old; he's retired. I actually had to retire him around the age of 8 due to a back issue and he was close to finishing his herding championship; he was one point away from finishing it, had all his majors. He competed at AKC Nationals twice, got his ACK MACH, and he was one snooker Q, actually a super Q, away from ADCH in USDAA.  Schema is my 8 year old border collie. She's a bitch. She's actually a really really nice dog; she really is not a bitch, but she's a girl. We're competing in mostly agility. we do USDA and AKC. She's in the masters USDAA; she's got her ADCH. She competed at USDA nationals, she's got a MACH too, she just finished that recently, and she's competed at AKC nationals for the last 3 years. I think it's going to be her fourth time there coming up in March. I do train obedience with her; she's got lovely heeling on both her right and left side. I actually get a big kick out of training heeling on the right side, it's fun. Most of my training with her is in agility. I sold my sheep about 7 or 8 years ago, so i don't do as much herding as i used to, but she is probably one of my most talented herding dogs. She is amazing. I just haven't had the time to go any further than the training. And then my youngest is a 3 year old border collie named Lever. He was introduced to sheep when he was young. And I did some training with him between a year and two, and he's quite a talented jumper in agility, he's pretty amazing. I can't take any credit for that; I didn't screw it up, but he's just really amazing. He's got the power and speed, and he's just getting used to controlling his body right now. We compete in Master's level in AKC and he just needs one more advanced standard Q to move into Masters USDA. He's doing pretty good. And then last but not least, I figured I'd bring up my husband's dog is a Toller and this is kind of new for us. He's a year and a half; I'm not training him, he's being trained purely by my husband. I just really love this breed; it's new to us, he's the first Toller we've had, we've had other sporting breeds before, but what a cool breed that is. Yeah, so he's a year and a half.  Melissa Breau: So I don't know if you know this, but Tollers are the breed I'm looking at next, so... Nancy Gagliardi Little: Really! Melissa Breau: It's good to hear positive things.  Nancy Gagliardi Little: I'm very impressed with the breed.  Melissa Breau: Obviously, you've achieved a lot in the sport -- even with just the dogs you have now that was a lot of letters and a lot of titles, but how did you originally get into dog sports and those types of games with your dogs?  Nancy Gagliardi Little: My dad actually bought me a shetland pony when I was 5 years old. Can you believe that? He can't believe that he did that, but he just says he'd probably be arrested now a days. I just loved animals, and I did a lot with all of my animals. I taught them things. My horses all had recalls from the pasture and just that love of animals. When I got married my husband and I both loved dogs, and we each got a dog, a Labrador, and we decided to take them to a formal obedience class at a training school here. We were introduced to competitive obedience there. and scent hurdles, and fly ball and it kind of went from there. It was something we could both do together on the weekends; we were both working long weeks at work. So it's not -- it's probably not all that different from a lot of people getting involved in dog sports.  Melissa Breau: So, when you started out, I'm going to guess -- though I could be wrong -- that it was more traditional methods.  Nancy Gagliardi Little: Oh yeah.  Melissa Breau: I'd love to hear -- what got you stared on the journey from that way of training to where you are today, which is much more positive? Nancy Gagliardi Little: That's interesting, because I'm basically a really positive person. I was raised in a positive environment. So throughout my life I've continued to make changes to make live more pleasant and enjoyable. I think everyone does that sort of thing as the years go by.  So yeah, I started training obedience with traditional methods and I think a lot of people have; I was pretty successful using them, but then one of the last conflicts for me in the quest for me to make life more enjoyable was just addressing the way I was training my dogs. So I did lots of experimenting on my own, with my own dogs. I loved what I was seeing and of course it was much more fun for me. I loved getting out and training, instead of just trying to find the time and I got more involved in the sport of agility finally and as I did that I continued to learn about positive training methods since the majority of that sport trains that way.  I'm a really creative person; it's kind of my forte. I love thinking and obsessing over training. So I started breaking things down more and become more aware of arousal levels and stress contributing to it all, and I started using those ideas and incorporating them into lessons with my local obedience students. And they enjoyed training a little differently. So it's kind of been a wonderful transition for me, and I love training more now than ever. Melissa Breau: You mentioned in there that you were raised positively. So Denise and I were chatting about this and the fact that I was going to have you on the podcast, and she mentioned your dad, John Gagliardi, and I'm not a football person, so I had to go look him up. I'd heard of you, but I hadn't heard of him. And he's really really well known as a coach with the most wins in college football history, but beyond that he had a really unique approach to coaching. My understanding is that included things like not letting his players call him coach, not using a whistle or blocking sleds, and he even prohibited tackling in practices -- just kind of a very non-traditional approach, very non-traditional techniques and I'd like to hear how that impacted how you train and your perspective on dogs sports. Nancy Gagliardi Little: Oh yeah, that had a big influence on me. His coaching style was quite a bit different than the norm. It still is. He was ahead of his time by 50 years. By focusing on what he believed in, and not on traditionally what was done. Believe it or not, he actually started coaching when he was 16 years old. His high school coach -- this is actually kind of a cool story -- his high school coach was drafted into the war at that time and they were going to cancel the football program; they were at the bottom of the conference and always loosing, and so he loved football, so he approached the principal and he proposed to take the team over and coach it himself. So kind of a self-coached team. And they decided to give him a chance, and he changed things so he made practices more fun with a lot of things. Apparently at that time they weren't allowed to drink water; they would drink water, they were told they were going to die, they were going to die if they drank water. Interesting. So with all the changes his team went from the bottom of the conference to winning that conference that year. He was successfully just making changes to do things that they enjoyed doing, and so many of the things he did in 63 years of coaching are now being looked at by the NFL and other coaches to help prevent injuries. He never wanted to hit in practice. He wanted to save his players for the game. He didn't like injuries. So his practices were centered around enjoying live, having fun, things like that. And his players absolutely LOVED playing for him. They rarely missed practice; he kept things simple worked on fundamentals, and he only added more difficult techniques when his players had mastered all of those pieces. And then he would break those plays down into small pieces, get those pieces perfected, build those pieces into a lot of complicated plays, and so his team rarely lost games because of the depth of training he put into those kids.  He was a master at analysis, details and creative solutions and i think that's something that I've either inherited or I've learned from him.  Melissa Breau: I was going to say, even just listening to you I can hear the parallels to dog sports; just the idea that he broke things down into pieces and foundation skills. Nancy Gagliardi Little: Exactly. This is the other piece that I think is so cool is he expected them to be X1 players, as well as X1 human beings, and he believes in people, respects people, loves to learn about people. There's so much about coaching that parallels the way I train my dogs because I expect and focus on their excellence too. I believe in my dogs -- I always believe in them. I believe they're right and they're telling me things. I listen to them and try to make changes to my training based on what they need. Those are all things that my dad taught me through the way he coached his players. There are so many parallels between coaching and dog training; just his way of coaching it helped me as a dog trainer.  Melissa Breau: I'd really love to hear how you describe your training philosophy now -- what's really important to you? Or what do you see as the big things that you believe in training when you work with dogs today? Nancy Gagliardi Little: Well, i guess to sum it up, it's not a really long philosophy. What sums it up for me is I just always look at my dogs as my coaches. So the dogs are my coaches, whether they're students' dogs, or my dogs', they're the ones who they're helping me develop a plan, and I like to look at it that way because it keeps me always evaluating and looking at things.  Melissa Breau: I want to make sure we talk a little bit about your experience as an obedience judge. Having had the experience of being a judge, how has it changed how you train and how you prepare yourself for competition? So can you talk a little bit about that?  Nancy Gagliardi Little: I got to watch a lot of dogs over the years -- 20 years, i think I was judging, around there. I don't think judging has really influenced the way I train at all; it's kind of separate. But it has made me aware of handling and timing issues that unknowingly contribute to problems in handlers. It's also helped me develop a system of handling for heeling where there's no footwork involved. That's one of the classes I'm doing right now, and it's really different. I noticed, when I was judging, handlers coming in and -- especially new handlers -- even handlers that've been around for a while that are just struggling with getting on the right foot and that. Those are just a few things.  Timing is another issue. Commands that I give to handlers and handlers quickly giving the cue to the dog, and you start to see anticipation issues; those kinds of things.  Melissa Breau: Like I mentioned, I'm fairly new to obedience, so I've been volunteering to steward every chance I can get just to surround myself with the sport, learn a little more about it, make sure that when I do eventually wind up in the ring I'm not quite as nervous. At the very first trial where I got to steward, the judge said something to his beginner novice handlers -- I don't think I'll ever forget this -- he said, "I'm here to work for you. If you're not ready when I ask, tell me so; I'll wait. Take your time." He really emphasized this idea that they were paying for him to be there, not the other way around. Most handlers probably haven't ever thought about a competition quite that way before, or the judge at least quite that way before, and I was curious if you had any nuggets, things you which handlers had known when you were judging that you wish handlers knew when they walked into a ring from your time being on that side.  Nancy Gagliardi Little: Yeah, that's wonderful advice from the judge. So true. That was one of my biggest... one of the things is I wish people would slow down and just take more time, so that's awesome that he or she brought that up. A couple other things come to mind and one is, I think it's a little better now, but just playing and engagement between exercises. There is countless times when the judge is busy scoring, and you're moving between exercises, when the dog needs a break. And i just wish more people would break the dogs, rather than heeling them, and just play a little bit between exercises. It's fine to do that, if you just don't hold up the ring. Just make sure you're moving between exercises. Another important thing is just to be your own dog's advocate in the ring. Just making sure that if something is going on that you step in and take control. Just because somebody's telling you not to do that -- just make sure you do what's good for your dog. Melissa Breau: I didn't include this in the questions I sent over in advance, but I'm curious, since you've had so much experience with the sport, just what some of the changes that you've seen over the years have been. From what I hear, even the instructions the AKC gives to the judges have changed a little bit. They've become a little more about trying to make the sport more acceptable and more interesting for people maybe new to it --  Nancy Gagliardi Little: Which is awesome.  Melissa Breau: Do you have anything that comes to mind about how the sport has changed and what your thoughts may be? Nancy Gagliardi Little: I don't think the sport has changed too much. I wish it would change more. Some of the exercises have changed; the orders in the B classes at one time there was only one order, and now the open B and utility B exercises have... i think there's 6 different orders. At one point in time you could not excuse yourself from the ring and you can do that now. That's fairly recent to change.  There's lots of little things like that. Utility, a long time ago, utility A and B were split recently but at that point in time they could be combined into just one utility class, and there was also an exercises in utility that was a group stand, where the dogs would all be standing and the judge would go down and examine each. That was before I was judging; I was competing then, but the dogs would all stand and the judge would examine them all 12 of them at the most. Those are some changes; in terms of judging, the judges have changed according to the rules. Basically, I think procedures are pretty similar to what it was... since I haven't been judging since 2008, I can't really say what is going on currently.  Melissa Breau: Well just to round things out, I have 3 more short questions that so far I've asked everybody whose been on the podcast. So the first one might be a little hard to answer, but what's the dog related accomplishment you're proudest of? Nancy Gagliardi Little: Yeah, that can be hard because everyone has that issue, i know for myself, each of my dogs have given me some pretty amazing things to be proud of -- but actually I could think of one thing and I think my proudest accomplishment was that the American Kennel Club's Border Collie Parent club, which is Border Collie Society of America, gave me the 2010 Good Sportsmanship Award, which I was very honored to receive.  Melissa Breau: Congratulations!  Nancy Gagliardi Little: Thanks. Melissa Breau: So the second to last question -- what is the best piece of training advice you've ever heard? Nancy Gagliardi Little: I had one ready for today, and it's not so much training advice buy more life with dogs and that includes training and it's something I love so much I have T-shirts made with it on, and that's "Be the person your dog thinks you are." I just love that slogan or saying. But today Julie Daniels posted a respondences in the instructors' email list, and it was on a discussion we were having and she said something that became my new favorite piece of training advice. So that just happened today, and what she said was, "consequences are not always the enemy, but anger is always our enemy." I just love that.  Melissa Breau: I'm sure she'll be very flattered that that's what you chose.  Nancy Gagliardi Little: Yeah, so that's just awesome.  Melissa Breau: This last question is who else is someone in the dog world that you look up to? Nancy Gagliardi Little: Boy, this is a heard one. There's so many people in the dog world that I admire, there are too many to mention, so I think I'll say the entire group of instructors at FDSA as an entity. It's an incredibly supportive family and Denise is just the best boss that anyone could possibly have.  Melissa Breau: I'll agree with that. Alright, well thank you so much for joining me,  and thanks to our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back in two weeks with Sue Ailsby, the creator of the Levels training program. If you haven't already, subscribe now 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!

SHOW NOTES:  Summary: Competitive sports dog trainer and founder of FDSA Denise Fenzi talks about how she got into dog sports, her journey from traditional training to her current all positive approach, and more.  Links mentioned: Fenzi TEAM Training Site FREE Beyond the Backyard Instructors Guide Denise's other books via her website Next Episode:  To be released 1/6/2017, featuring Sarah Stremming    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 FDSA founder Denise Fenzi. Denise has competed in a wide range of dog sports, titling dogs in obedience, tracking, Schutzhund, Mondioring, herding, conformation, and agility. She is best-known for her flashy and precise obedience work, as demonstrated by two AKC OTCH dogs and perfect scores in both Schutzhund and Mondioring sport obedience. Her specialty is in developing motivation, focus, and relationship in competition dogs, and she has consistently demonstrated the ability to train and compete with dogs using motivational methods in sports where compulsion is the norm. Hi Denise, can you tell us a bit about the dogs you have known and what you're working on with them? Denise Fenzi: Hi Melissa, how are you? Melissa: Good. Denise: Good. I'm excited to do this. Yeah, I'll tell you. Let's see, I have three dogs here now. I have Raika, she's my oldest dog, she's 12½ and she is retired and mostly spends her days hanging out with me and going for long walks. That's what she wants to do now. My two younger dogs are Lyra, she's also a Belgian Tervuren, and Brito, who's a little mixed-breed, and I primarily train them to learn new things. So I do a lot of play skills with them, I do a lot of obedience with them. I just use them as, I want to say sample dogs, that's not quite the word I want. But I like to experiment with them and try out new things. And right now I'm sort of in a coaching phase of my life more than a competitive phase of my life, so I'm not actually sure if or when I'll compete. I have done some of the TEAM obedience levels with both of them, and I think they both have a TEAM Two title, [but] I'd have to look. And at some point if I get inspiration I'm going to keep going. So those are my dogs.   Melissa: So I know it wasn't on the list of questions I sent over, but do you want to briefly just tell us a little bit more about TEAM? Denise: Oh, TEAM is Training Excellence Assessment Modules, and it's the new obedience program that we started for people who want to compete via video and with more emphasis on quality of training and less about the competitive environment. So anybody who wants can look it up at fenziteamtitles.com. It's, in my opinion, an extremely well-designed program and worth taking a look at. Denise: Yeah, my parents showed dogs, and I'm 48, so I was sort of born into it. They actually competed with Lhasa Apsos in obedience, which is _____ (3.23).  I know my parents got a CDX on a Lhasa Apso; it took 23 shows. I think their final show was a 171 1/2, but they did it. So I give them credit for that. It was kind of an ugly way of getting titles back then, it was uglier to watch, but they did it. Melissa: So is that what originally got you into dog sports? Denise: Yes, I guess I inherited it. When I was about 10 I raised a couple of guide dog puppies, and my parents said that if I did that then I could have a dog of my own. So my first dogs were Shelties, because they had to be small dogs. And I just sort of went from there. Melissa: What got you started with positive training? Denise Fenzi: Well, I had been competing in AKC obedience for a long time, and then I decided to try IPO. And when I went over and watched the IPO training at that time, which would have been, I don't know, 20 years ago now I guess I started, I was kind of appalled actually, because they were using so much compulsion and such poor training that my reaction was to go the opposite way. And so I felt obligated to use as little as little as possible and to be successful. But I still absolutely would have called myself a balanced trainer, and I absolutely used compulsion with that dog. He did end up a Schutzhund III. But I did my best to minimize it. And then as time went on I found that I became a better trainer, and I wouldn't say I was trying not to use compulsion so much as just becoming a better trainer and needing less and less. Also, I had some good dogs, that really helps, that were cooperative. And I continued to use compulsion with my student dogs well after I stopped myself. And actually I was thinking about that recently, looking back, why was that? I think I was using it to compensate for my lack of ability to communicate with the humans who owned the dogs how to be better trainers, so it was a bit of an out for me. It's much easier to say, “Correct your dog when the dog sniffs,” than to take the time to try to figure out why the dog is sniffing and then adjust your training, i.e. my training, to get the handler to do it correctly. And so I did use compulsion there, and I can actually look back and see why I did that and also really how under the particular circumstances how unfair it was, because both of those corrections almost certainly were the result of the dog showing displacement behaviors. And then I taught seminars as I traveled; because those weren't my personal students I didn't feel as vested in the same way in the entire process. And so it was pretty obvious when I would walk in that the problems were handler-generated, and so I never got around to correcting the dogs, I was pretty busy correcting the handlers. And after a year of that, seminar after seminar realizing I was never correcting the dogs at all, that I never even got around to the dogs, then it started to be a philosophical thing. And that's when I started looking at it and saying, there's something wrong with holding the dog responsible when in every single case I can look at the situation and see how the handler caused it, and that's when I switched. And that was sort of interesting. Because in terms of solving problems, if you come in with a philosophical point of view and you don't decide that you have the option of reverting to compulsion if you get stuck, I can tell you your ability to problem solve will skyrocket, because it's not sitting there any more as an option. And you get a lot more clever, and you learn to think much more broadly. So it's actually a very good thing for me in my training. Melissa: It always seems easier to train the dog than to train the people. Sometimes the people are definitely the hardest part. Denise: That's true. Melissa: So you kind of mentioned your training philosophy now. Do you want to just describe that a little more for us and tell us kind of how you approach training now? Denise: Well, I think most of us continue to evolve over time, and there's no question that I continue to evolve. Right now I really am looking at dogs a little bit differently. For me it's less than what can the dog do for me to humor me, so I like to do dog sports. So rather than thinking, how can I get the dog to do this for me, I'm more in a place of, how can I get to a point where I can enjoy my time with this dog? And instead of thinking, how can [I set up the] environment so that time spent with me is the best part of their day I'm thinking more, how can I become important to this dog so they want to do things with me? And at first it may sound the same, getting the dog on my team as opposed to me joining their team, but if you think about it you start to realize it's not the same. So I'm perfectly happy to spend time with my young terrier who loves to hunt lizards, and I will sit with him in his little lizard territory telling him, “Did you see that one? Did you look over there?” It's a lot of fun, it really is. It sounds odd, but it's a lot of fun. And I think when I do that with him, I think it creates a really nice place for both of us that makes me appreciate him for who he really is. And then I think he's more willing to play my games. And so it's very much a relationship-based way of thinking about dog training, and sometimes this is hard for people to understand. But I really believe that if your dog genuinely likes you because you are interested in them and because you make their life more interesting, I think that skyrockets what the dog is capable of doing for you. So it's not because the rest of your life is miserable that you want to spend time with me. My dogs have great lives, they have a lot of freedom. I think it's because we just like doing stuff together and it's really fun. So if you can get that relationship down, like I tell people, if you can get your dog to play with you, just run and play and be silly, your dog will start to look at you more, which is really interesting. It's not a trained response at all, it's because we look at others that we enjoy. And that's true with people too. So for example with my older son, he's 16 now, and so he's getting into that, well, independent's not the word I want, but perfectly happy to lock himself in his room sort of phase. And recently he sent me by message text a game, and it's pool, billiards. And he had done a turn, and then says, “Next.” And so when I opened it up it showed me his turn, and then I had a chance to play back. So then I played, and then I sent it back to him. And so we do this, and it's not because I have some great interest in playing pool via text with my son. But what means a lot to me is that he wants me to do that with him. It's something we can do together. So while it would not be my first choice, you bet I respond when he sends me those. And then what I find is, it changes how he interacts with me in general. So that when I need things from him, I think because we have that baseline relationship that we're trying to maintain even as he gets older, I think it allows us to have a better relationship in general, not just about what I want or what he wants. And so I think that dogs are very similar, that if you can find a way to just simply be generically important to them, and accepting, and forgiving, and have a little give and take… You don't always have to get your way. What a concept. It's okay. Your dog does not go through life trying to manipulate you. And I think really internalizing that would sum up where I am right now in terms of how I see training. Melissa: So I know that you kind of touched on this a little bit there with your son, but we've talked before about just the impacts that your training beliefs have had on your other relationships. Do you want to talk a little more about that? I know you've said it's influenced almost all of your relationships, including with your parents and things like that. Denise: It's been probably the most significant thing that's happened in my entire life. When I changed how I trained dogs, you have to be pretty obtuse not to recognize that we all learn the same way. And if you're a positive trainer with dogs and you really emphasize catching what they do right and ignoring what they do wrong, I mean, you really have to choose not to think about it, to realize that exactly the same thing is true with people. So for example both of my kids have very good manners, and I know how that came about in part. One thing is, I'm simply a respectful person and I encourage that. But I remember our first outings to restaurants when they were smaller, and if they would order for themselves, and they would say please and show nice manners, the second that person would walk away from the table I would say to my husband who'd be there, “I am so proud that we have kids who are so respectful and have such good manners. It makes me happy to go places with them.” And you could almost see the difference the next time that opportunity came up again, you could almost see them go just a little bit further with their good manners. And it's not something I comment on any more, because they're older, they're 12 and 16, but they do it by habit. And I know that some part of their brain is always aware of it. So I've never said to them “Say please, say thank you,” I don't tell them what to do, but when it happened I really worked to catch those moments and acknowledge them. And I think dog training is a lot easier than child training, that's just my perspective. But I try to work with that, and I try not to think in terms of getting my kids to go to school and do well because I've restricted the rest of their lives, and I try to think in terms of balance and cooperation. Of course with people you can talk things out more. But at the end of the day if you're having any kind of conflict with another person, whether it's a family member or some random person you see on the street, the question I ask myself now is, do I want to feel better or do I want to change behavior? So if I want to feel better I may well behave badly, I may yell. I do yell, by the way. I do yell at my children, I do yell at my dogs. I know some people say, “That's amazing you do, you're not supposed to do that.” Well that's great, I'm glad you're all there. I'm not, so I will yell, “Get off the couch,” or whatever. I'm not really training, I'm expressing my upsetness. So that's, do I want to feel better? Yes, I'm going to yell. Or somebody irritates me on the street because their dog runs up to mine and is off-leash, and so maybe I'm having a particularly bad day, and I might respond inappropriately. But then the second question is, do I want to change behavior? And I think recognizing that those are different things is really important because never, ever, ever am I yelling if I want to change behavior, and never am I talking to somebody like they're dumb, or ignorant, or anything, because it's all perspective, because they just have a different perspective. So maybe they don't understand that their off-leash dog running up to my old dog is a problem. And the reason it's a problem is, my dog is old and she doesn't like other dogs jumping on her. And I've had much better luck saying, “I know your dog is friendly, but my dog is very old and she has a lot of arthritis. And when your dog comes up like that it really scares her, and it hurts her.” And when I say that, without fail they apologize and they put their dogs on a leash. And I smile, I'm not angry. I might be inside, but I don't show it. The next time I see them we continue with a pleasant set of interactions. And that kind of thinking, do I want to feel better or do I want to change behavior, has been really quite impactful, whether in my family or with people. We often talk about with our dogs, sometimes dog trainers are a lot nicer to their dogs than people. I find that very incongruent, and I don't like to live my life that way. I like my life to make sense. And I think we need to be very aware of not only how we treat our pets but show that same courtesy to each other, and I find that from there I am a happier person. Because when you are kind with people instead of getting your emotions from stewing in your, "oh my God, I can't believe how stupid that person is," that I understand that we take pleasure in those periods of time when we feel superior to other people, because I guess that's where that comes from, I understand that. But it is a short-lived and negative form of emotion, and in the long run it leaves you feeling worse about the world. Whereas when you take the time to think about things from somebody else's point of view, I find that that leads to an understanding, and honestly that makes my life a lot better. It makes me a more pleasant and happy person, so that has a lot of value.   Melissa: That kind of transitions us really nicely into my next question, which was going to be, what led you to start FDSA, the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy? And I want to say kind of before you respond to that, that I think that that's part of the reason that there's been such a fantastic community kind of that's grown up around the school, is just because you have that belief and it spreads through the other teachers and the students. It's really created a really welcoming community for dog sports competitors. Now that I've gotten a little ahead of myself, so what did lead you to start the school? Denise: It was a numbers thing. If I spend a half-hour with one person I can work with one person for half an hour. Online, if I can do it well, then I can spend a half-hour with a much greater number of people. And we each have our own drivers in life, and one of my big drivers is, I want to see change in the dog sports community, and that's very important to me. So to be able to affect a large number of people as opposed to a small number of people was very appealing to me. The school in many ways has just sort of exceeded any expectations I could have possibly had, in many ways. But probably one of the most valuable is, I did not recognize what would happen in terms of the culture, not just with each other. There's a second culture that people wouldn't really know about, and that's the one among the instructors. The way they interact with each other, the way they talk on the mailing list, the support they offer is extraordinary. And I see the same thing with the students, the way they interact. And there really is a sense that your accomplishments mean a lot to you, and everybody else is willing to honor that. So if you figured out how to teach your dog to lay down and it's the first time you ever did that, I find that people are just as excited about that for you as another person who went to a dog show and got maybe a high in trial. Because we're each at a different place in what we value. And I think people have really internalized that, and it is extraordinary. I get a fair number of e-mails from people saying thank you for something or the other, maybe with their dog. But the ones I value the most are the ones where people say, “Over time I started to recognize that the same things we do with our dogs work with each other, and I have become kinder to myself, kinder to people around me, and you know, generally I'm just a much happier person.” That's enormous. And starting an online dog training school I really never saw that one coming. I didn't realize how that could work out like that, and it's been really amazing for me. Melissa: Yeah, I mean, the community's probably one of the few places online where even controversial topics are handled very politely. And people honor each other's opinions and honor each other's thoughts, and they don't break down into insults and arguments, at least not that I've seen yet. Denise: No, it's amazing. I mean, it's not that it's perfect. We have a few thousand members, so you're always going to have differences. But I find that people have become quite good at saying, “This has been my experience, and this is my feelings,” as opposed to, “You're dumb and stupid for thinking that.” And I know that people don't mean to come across that way, but sometimes the online communities, all of them, people simply write and don't think too carefully about how what they just said might be interpreted by another person. And within the alumni group or within the Academy group I find an awareness of considering how you phrase things. And anyway the reality is, if you want to change behavior it's the same thing I said earlier. It may make you feel better to say, “You're dumb to think that way,” but you won't change behavior. If you say, “This has been my experience,” now you might actually change behavior, but you have to give up being self-righteous, and that's not always what people have in mind. Melissa: So I know that we wanted to talk about some of the other stuff you've been working on too. FDSA isn't the only thing you've created in the last few years. So you have another new book coming out. I don't know if you want to take a minute and tell us about some of the books that you already have out and then the new book, or if you just want to talk about the new book. I'll leave that up to you. Denise: Oh, so many. I didn't even know I was such a writer until I started writing, and now I can't stop writing. I've written seven, I'm actually looking at them. Four of them I wrote with Deb Jones, that's the Dog Sports Skills Series. Those are all generic to all dog sports but provide a really nice foundation for dog training. I wrote a book called Beyond the Back Yard, which was targeted at the pet market to help them understand how to get from the point of cookie in the hand in the kitchen and hoping for the best to actually getting some very cooperative real-world obedience. That book has done very well, and a lot of people are using it to teach their classes, which makes me very happy. It does have a free instructor's guide to go with it. And then I wrote Blogger Dog, Brito!, which is about Brito. It's, well, I'm going to say a true story, but keep in mind the dog wrote it, so take that with a grain of salt. And it's designed for about a fourth grade audience to read to themself. And if a person reads it they will learn quite a bit about dog behavior without learning that they learned about dog behavior, which was really what I had in mind. And then my newest book is Train the Dog in Front of You. I would call that my personal pet book, and what I mean is, it is how I feel about training and dogs. I feel that every dog is very unique, and I tried hard to find dimensions that people could work with to say, is your dog more secure, more cautious, more handler-focused, more environmental, and then offered suggestions for how to work with a dog based on those qualities. Actually I'm running a class online right now on that topic. And as you might expect there are many, many nontraditional breeds in that class, and I actually find it extremely interesting to watch different dogs behave in different ways under different circumstances. So you can see some of the dogs do a lot with their eyes. They stare when they go to a park. And other dogs' noses never come off the ground when they go to a park. And other dogs air sniff the whole time they're at the park. And other dogs just jump on their owners. And all of these things are really quite relevant to how you train your dog. So if you understand that your dog's dominant sense is going to be sniffing you might be better off training in a shopping center, whereas another dog that has a lot of pressure issues with people in buildings would be much better off in a big open park than in a shopping center. So thinking that way is very interesting to me. And I hope a lot of dog sports people pick this book up, because I think it has a lot to offer. Melissa: I mean, having had a chance to read an advance copy of the book I think it's a fantastic guide, even just as a thought exercise to think through kind of where your dog falls on some of those different meters, and what they are closer to than other things, and what traits are more true for your personal dog than others. Just to kind of give people a little more sense of what's inside the book, do you mind talking about any one of your dogs that you want, just kind of where they fall on some of those spectrums? Denise: In the first chapter I actually did go through the dogs. Well, Brito is, he's the little terrier dog of mine, he's about 10 pounds. He's a small dog. But he's very terrier, he's classic terrier. He's not handler-focused. So if I take him somewhere his nose goes down, he doesn't do a lot of looking with his eyes, he uses his nose. He does very little air sniffing, it's to the ground. Vegetative surfaces, he will not look back at me, it doesn't cross his mind for 15, 20 minutes. He is not what we'd call naturally handler-focused when he's in a new environment. But there's a piece that goes with that. He's also a very confident and social dog, so he likes people, he's confident with people. He's a little careful with dogs. They're big and that makes him nervous. He's also got a little bit of that terrier behavior, so he can get kind of puffed-up. And if he sees aggression around him he'll go there fast, so I keep an eye on that. And in some ways a dog like that is the polar opposite of Raika, my oldest dog who's here. Raika's always liked to be with me, she just does, it doesn't matter where I go. And actually I had to go to some trouble to teach her to look around, which is something I talk about in the book. Why would I do that? Why would I teach her to stop staring at me? It was a very good decision. And she does get nervous about people and dogs, whereas Brito, it just wouldn't happen to him. And knowing these things about them does make a difference, because Raika, I just take her to a park, I can take her anywhere and work with her, and that's easy and makes sense. But it also means that she needs different sorts of preparations for trial than he does. So if I really want to work him around distractions I would be inclined to go to a shopping center, because then I don't have to deal with grass. But at the same time if I want to compete with him outdoors, knowing who he is allows me to pick a middle environment, maybe not grass but maybe not cement, that allow us to go in that direction. So let's say a parking area, which is cement, near a vegetated area like with a forest or field, so that gives us some in-between. That kind of helps me think that way. I don't sit down and actually consciously go through it any more, it's just something that sort of happens in my head. And in the book I talk about case studies, more so in the online class. I put up case studies of specific dogs that I've worked with. But after a while you start to see packages, you just start to notice that dogs that tend to be a little more insecure are a little more likely to look to their owners. You start looking for stuff like that, and it helps you make a plan about which direction to try with the dog. And it also helps you recognize when you've made a bad decision so that you can back up, turn around, and try something else. Melissa: So to kind of bring things to a little bit of a close I have three last questions, kind of quicker questions. So the first one is, what's the dog-related accomplishment that you're proudest of? Denise: My second OTCH dog had a fairly complete meltdown about a third of the way into her OTCH, and I could not resolve that. I didn't know what to do, so I retired her for about a year-and-a-half. And while she was retired I finished an OTCH on a different dog. So she must have been, I don't know, I want to say eight, maybe nine years old. And I just kept thinking about what I now knew, because I had learned a lot, we're always learning, and I decided to try again. And I thought that we had lots of time to actually pursue the OTCH, because it does take a bit of time, and it helps to have a young and very fit dog. And I just felt that her jumping days were going to be wrapping up soon, and so I decided to go back into competition with a different goal. I simply wanted to see if I could stay connected with her and keep the stress out of the picture just for one exercise, and just for two exercises. Could I do this? And I went in with such a different mindset. It was really no longer about finishing the title, I was no longer frustrated, and she finished her OTCH in two months. So just my changing my way of thinking, and it was really amazing. I will tell you that when you hit about 90 points it gets a little hard to say, “Oh gee, I'm just doing this for fun,” but I managed to keep myself under control with it. I'm very proud of that, because it was hard, and I think hard things are always a bigger accomplishment. Melissa: And what's the best piece of training advice that you've ever heard? Denise: It's just behavior. So there's an expression, it's just behavior. When something is happening in front of you it doesn't mean deep and horrible things, it doesn't mean your dog hates you, it doesn't mean you're never going to be successful, it doesn't mean much of anything. It just means it's behavior. The dog just showed you something, and it has roots from where? Maybe an emotion. But it's not more than that. And that is why most of us when we're training our own dogs, everything is so big and magnified. So your dog goes around the broad jump and, "oh my God." "It's oh my God, what am I going to do? It's over." And we obsess and we stress, and we train and we train on the poor thing and the poor dog, and it's very hard to walk away. Whereas an outsider looks at it and says, “I have no idea what you're getting so worked up about. Your dog went around the jump. It's not a big deal, it's not the end of the world, and it doesn't mean it's going to keep happening.” And I think that expression, it's just behavior, really helps us remember that it's not worth quite that much energy. It just happened, it's okay. Move on, train. Melissa: That in some ways seems to sum up your philosophy almost as well as some of your other answers. Denise: That's true. Melissa: So for our last question, who is somebody else in the dog world that you look up to? Denise: There are actually a lot of trainers out there that I really respect. I've often said I don't think I'm a great dog trainer. I think I'm a pretty good dog trainer. I think what I do well is not dig a grave. I mean, if I see I'm starting a hole I back out of it. Whereas there are a lot of other trainers out there who I think are much better than I am at not starting the hole in the first place. So I can't go with just skills, because there's lots of people who are more skilled. So I think I'm going to say Suzanne Clothier, and the reason is, I have a lot of respect for her ability to look at the situation, the dog, the person, the whole picture, and stand back, and get an overview on what's happening, and then communicate that in a way that people can understand. So I really respect that. And she's been around for a long time, much longer than I would say it's been popular to be a force-free trainer. And she's been at it for really some time, and I appreciate that, and I appreciate her honesty and her ability to communicate what I think sometimes people need to hear that might not be very comfortable without getting stuck in how we're supposed to do things. So I think that's my answer. Melissa: All right. Well, thank you so much, Denise. It's been awesome to chat, it's been a lot of fun. Denise: Thank you. I am excited to see who comes after me. Melissa: Well, let me get to that. So for all of our brand-new listeners, since this is our first official podcast, thank you for tuning in, and we'll be back in two weeks. We'll be back with Sarah Stremming. She's the founder of Cognitive Canine, and we'll be talking about over-arousal in sports dogs. If you haven't already, subscribe now on iTunes or the podcast app of your choice, and you'll have our next episode automatically downloaded to your phone as soon as it becomes available. In the meantime, happy training. 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!

Sześćdziesiąty dziewiąty odcinek Karpiowego Podcastu, a w nim Hubert “Mando” Spandowski opowiada o swoich wrażeniach z lektury “Otchłani” Roberta J. Szmidta.

From New York, London, Paris and Ibiza people will be celebrating what is officially Madonna's birthday month.  In keeping with the Party Favorz tradition, I've put together a brand-spanking-new mix honoring the occasion. I'm always amazed by the number of bootlegs of her material.  Each year I think, what else can there possibly be only to find a whole new crop of songs that dig into her vast catalog and re-interpret the songs for a whole new generation. With the recent release of Rebel Heart, folks have dived in and started serving up their own mixes of the songs.  This set relies heavily on some of the best bootlegs that were lifted from that album, with a heavy focus on the last four albums MDNA, Hard Candy and Confessions On a Dance Floor.  In-between, I sprinkled bootlegs from her 90's output and a few official remixes. Ultimately, I'm quite satisfied with this set as I am pretty damn confident you will be too.  Enough blathering from me, so let's get on to the music. ENJOY! Album : The Diva Series starring Madonna pt. 2 Genre : Circuit, House, EDM Year : 2015 Total Time : 01:07:06 Justify My Love (Luxar Remix) Erotica (Division 4 Remix) Best Night (Maxim Andreev Nu Disco Mix) Give Me All Your Luvin' (Sultan & Ned Shepard Remix) Girl Gone Wild (Offer Nissim Club Mix) Give It To Me (Allan Natal Remix) Miles Away (Cajjmere Wray's Distant Club Mix) Frozen (The TWIX Remix) Living For Love (Taj x JRMX Mashup) Ray of Light (Division 4 Club Mix) Get Into Barbra's Groove (DJ Taj Remix) Inside out (bEWEGUNG DnB Rebel Heart Remix)

From New York, London, Paris and Ibiza people will be celebrating what is officially Madonna's birthday month.  In keeping with the Party Favorz tradition, I've put together a brand-spanking-new mix honoring the occasion. I'm always amazed by the number of bootlegs of her material.  Each year I think, what else can there possibly be only to find a whole new crop of songs that dig into her vast catalog and re-interpret the songs for a whole new generation. With the recent release of Rebel Heart, folks have dived in and started serving up their own mixes of the songs.  This set relies heavily on some of the best bootlegs that were lifted from that album, with a heavy focus on the last four albums MDNA, Hard Candy and Confessions On a Dance Floor.  In-between, I sprinkled bootlegs from her 90's output and a few official remixes. Ultimately, I'm quite satisfied with this set as I am pretty damn confident you will be too.  Enough blathering from me, so let's get on to the music. ENJOY! Album : The Diva Series starring Madonna Genre : Circuit, House, EDM Year : 2015 Total Time : 02:20:13 Wash All Over Me (DJ FmSteff 2014 Totalmix) Heaven (Tommy Marcus Private Bootleg) Sorry (Luis Erre Universal Mix) Holy Water (Max & Sebh Remix) Hung Up (Overwerk 12-30 vs. Mind-Tronic Vocal Edit) Music (Division 4 Club Mix) Addicted (DUDI SHARON Club Mix) Ghosttown (Victor Dinaire & Bissen Remix) Turn Up The Radio (Bit Error Club Mix) Celebration (Ralphi Rosario Extended Edit) Devil Pray (Gustavo Scorpio Private Miix) Bitch I'm Madonna (Backdoor Deluxe Club Mix) Gang Bang (George M. Private Orgy Bootleg)

Na początek rozmawiamy o ostatnim projekcie zmarłego niedawno Philipa Seymoura Hoffmana, “Bardzo poszukiwanym człowieku”. Denis Villeneuve po zaledwie dzisięciu miesiącach od polskiej premiery “Labiryntu” proponuje nam kolejną produkcję. “Wróg” jest ekranizacją powieści Jose Saramago, “Podwojenie”. Patrzyliśmy, analizowaliśmy i doszliśmy do wniosku, że w “Drugim obiegu” nie wydobyliśmy jeszcze żadnego filmu dokumentalnego. Czas naprawić ten błąd, dlatego w tym odcinku przybliżymy Wam dzieło twórcy, którego przedstawiać nie trzeba. “Otchłań. Opowieść o życiu i śmierci” to zapis rozmów Wernera Herzoga z osadzonymi w celach śmierci.

Share Us!Hotch Potch English - The Mega-Minute Vidcast - No.20"Good Enough For Us!"Watch the Mega Minute Vidcast, read the text, and try to understand as much as possible.FREE EXERCISES FROMHOTCH POTCH ENGLISHDon't worry if you don't understand everything - just listening to real English is a FANTASTIC way to improve..!Practise as you listen:do a dictation: write down everything & check belowlisten and repeat: speak until your English accent is perfect!learn by heart: remember everything and impress your friends!Vidcast Script:Intro: Hotch Potch English: The Mega Minute!_______________________________________Kate: "Mmm, delicious!"Cassie: "Really good!"Kate: "And so much cheaper than human food!"Cassie: "Real good bargain... It´s really good for you as well."Kate: "Ahh, yes, very nutritious. Yummy yummy, ????? the cat."[Thumbs up]Kate: "Good enough for the cat..."Kate, Cassie, Sébastien: "Good enough for us!"[Applause]Sébastien: "That was a terrifying experience - we'll never do that to you again Wookie."[General comments, incomprehensible]_______________________________________Outro: Hotch Potch English dot com: The Mega Minute!______________________________________________FREE EXERCISES FROMHOTCH POTCH ENGLISH____________________________________________Vidcast 20 {The Roleplay} ~ 'Good Enough For Us!'Created & written by Sab WillCopyright 2010  Sab Will / Hotch Potch English___________________________________________________Visit Hotch Potch English ~ The Unique English Teaching Websitehttp://www.hotchpotchenglish.com/