Transcript
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 one of the most current and progressive training methods.
Today we're talking to Petra Ford, the 2025 National Obedience Champion, about. About her recent win and what it takes to compete at the top levels of obedience here in the US how she approaches training and more. Hi, Petra. Welcome back to the podcast and congratulations.
Petra Ford: Hi. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank you. I have to actually say I'm not the 2025 National Obedience Champion. Zesty holds that title. I don't get the title. He does. Fair enough. Fair enough. You're the team. Then there you go. He gets the letters in front of his name. I don't get any letters.
Melissa Breau: I feel like that's not fair. I feel like the handler should get some letters too. There's an awful lot of handler work involved here.
Petra Ford: That's okay. He can have it.
Melissa Breau: All right, so just to kind of kick things off, do you want to just remind everybody a little bit about kind of who your crew is and who everybody is and kind of what you're doing with them and where they're at?
Petra Ford: So Zeal is 13, still going strong. Thank goodness. Still loves his hike, still loves to get his turn when I train. He is actually the 2020 or 2021 National Obedience Champion. So it's kind of cool to have two in my house, even though he's obviously retired. Zayna is nine. She's still fit, so she's still competing. She's having a blast. So she'll keep doing obedience until I feel like she's ready to retire. And then I think we're gonna try rally.
Cause Zeal. Zeal loved it. And then Zesty is five. And that's it. That's all I got until I get another one. Baby dog. So speaking of baby dogs. So it has to be absolutely incredible to have gone into this event and had your youngest dog win. It was his first time, right. At an event this big. First time at a tournament.
Melissa Breau: Really?
Petra Ford: Yeah. First time at a big tournament. First time at Nationals. Not very experienced.
Melissa Breau: What were your expectations going into the weekend? Did you have any idea that you were going to be able to, like he's gonna be able to show up and do that?
Petra Ford: Zero. I was. Well, so I know I'm going to jump ahead a little bit to one of your other questions.
Melissa Breau: Go for it.
Petra Ford: So the National Obedience Championship is really, really hard because it's unique in that the dog.
So we started with 130 dogs. On the first day, each dog goes in the ring six times. There's like, three or four exercises in each ring, and they tally up the scores. And out of those 130, the top 50 get to compete again the next day. So if you make it to the next morning, those top 50 dogs go in six rings. Again, kind of rapid fire, not much break in between.
And out of those 50 dogs, they tally up the scores, and the top 20 go to the final rounds, which are after lunch, but same day. And then they go in the ring three more times with two judges in each ring. So that is a lot. And the dogs get no reinforcers in the ring, so they just have to go again and again and again. Plus, typically, a dog at a typical trial these days, they'll have one to two rings.
If we're lucky, a trial will have three rings. So just having six rings in a huge space with that many people milling about, like, the distraction level is extremely hard. It's very unique. It's something the dogs don't see. It's something you can train for in pieces, but you can't really replicate the actual scenario. Um, so realistically, it's kind of funny because I was driving there and I said to myself, okay, like, what's a realistic outcome?
I'm like, well, Zayna is like the. She's happy as a clam, and she can work really, really well, but at any given moment, on any given day, she could just implode on an exercise and fail. So that's who she is. I'm okay with that. As long as she's happy, I'm fine. So I'm like, well, if she's on, I could get her to the second day. If I could get her through the morning and I get her into the finals, she could potentially place, like, the accuracy rate you need in that final ring has to be super high.
When she's been in the ring a bunch of times, being that accurate is hard for her. So realistically, I'm like, yeah, if I get her to the end, that would be really good. But, you know, who knows? I'll just one ring at a time. Zesty. I was like, well, hopefully we make it to Sunday morning. And if he can, if this poor dog can make it through another six rounds by some miracle, I'm like, then we get to the final rounds.
I'm like, yeah, he's gonna be toast. So that's good. If I, you know, I'll just see how far he gets. Cause it's like, it's his first time. So it was my goal for him was an assessment, right? Like, how will he do? How does he handle the environment? What goes well, what doesn't go well? And then that'll just give me information on what I need to work on for the following year. That was kind of realistically what I was looking at.
Melissa Breau: So speaking of, Zayna, if I get my facts right, placed fifth. So not only congratulations for that too. You have to feel so proud. Not only one dog, but two dogs in the top five. That's a whole own challenge, right? Like, what was it like to compete with two different dogs the same weekend at an event like this?
Petra Ford: Well, it was a super challenge because they are absolute polar opposites. And not only are they polar opposites in terms of how I have to handle them, if I handle one dog the way I handle the other dog, that dog is like, whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm out. So with Zayna, I have to be kind of, like, very serious. Because if I'm not serious, she's like, oh, we're playing.
And then she has a party of one, and things go south really quickly. So I just have to be like, Zayna right here. And then she goes, oh, we're working. Okay, mom, I got this. So if I get too light hearted with her, for sure she will make a big mistake. Conversely, with Zesty, if I'm even remotely serious with him, he has, like, a nervous breakdown. If I even think serious thoughts, like, if I smile at him, but I'm thinking serious thoughts, he goes, oh, I don't know.
I don't know. Like, so I have to be all, you know, rainbows and sunshine with him and the complete opposite with her. So in a way, I thought it was gonna be super hard. I'm not saying it was easy, but the good thing about it is I had absolutely no time to think about anything else. So, like, my friend that helped me was like, he was completely stunned.
He's like, you were so relaxed. He says, I don't think I've ever witnessed anything like it. Like, I don't understand how you could have been like that. I said, well, for one, I was like, I didn't have expectations. But the other thing is, like, I knew that all I could control. I just had to really focus hard on controlling myself, right? Doing my job and doing it well, because I knew that if I messed up, it was going to mess my dogs up.
So. So I knew that, like, that was my primary focus was like, I was gonna go in and, you know, I had my notes and everything, just do my job. And, you know, I've also. So, yeah, it was real. It was exhausting. When I got to the. So I think the first day I had like, five or six dogs between my dogs, which isn't a ton of time, but it's plenty.
It's enough. The second morning, I only had two dogs between my dogs. So it was. It got rings, move fast. So there was a time where I, like, came out of the ring, fed Zayna, put her down, handed the leash to my helper, grabbed the other dog, went to the next ring. Didn't even have time to, like, watch the ring procedure, you know. Just had, like, asked someone standing there, I'm like, what are the exercises?
And just, like, winged it. The last round was really hard because I only had one dog between the two of them. So thank goodness for my helpers because without them, it would have. I wouldn't have been able to do it. So it was really hard for me mentally. It was just required a lot of concentration. And so, yeah, I was pretty mentally exhausted at the end.
Melissa Breau: I bet. I bet. Man, this was not your first time winning. If I had it right. Third time?
Petra Ford: Yeah, four. Four.
Petra Ford: All different dogs or three different dogs? No, three different dogs. But I'm the only person that's won it with three different dogs. So Tyler won it twice, Zeal won it once, and Zesty once.
Melissa Breau: So how has your training and prep work kind of evolved between that first time and the most recent one? Do you approach things differently? Do you think about things differently?
Petra Ford: Believe it or not, it's actually relatively similar in the sense that, like, I, you know, I kind of approach my training in a way that's somewhat similar to the way people train for, like, physical events. Right? Like, so, like cycling or running, which I've done both. You don't expect to be peaking or, you know, optimally fit all year round or for every event.
Like, it's impossible. You can't sustain that. And I think it's the same with dogs. Like, especially with focus. Like, if something requires that much effort and that much focus, I can't ask my dog to do that all year round. My dog would be totally burnt out. So I kind of have a system where, like, when I decided to go, when I made the final decision to go, because it was really far, I don't like driving that far anymore.
You know, I wasn't sure if Zesty would be ready. So when I made the decision, I had about three months I pulled from all shows, and I'm like, I'm just gonna train them. And when I train them, I want them to be relaxed, and I want them to be confident. Those are the two most important things. I want them to be really confident, free, and relaxed. Right. I don't want them being worried or, like, uptight or I don't want to put any pressure on them.
But at the same time, I have to prepare them for something that's going to be extremely difficult. Right. So in terms of how many times they're going to have to go each day, and cumulatively, over two days and the specific challenges. So there's an enormous amount of pressure. Pressure on the dogs. And by pressure, I mean from the environment. Right. Like, if you're. There are six rings going at the same time.
If I sit my dog and walk away from my dog, there's stuff going on behind my dog, there's stuff going on next to my dog, there's stuff going on. When I turn around and dog looks at me, there's stuff going on behind me. Dogs have to, like, run towards one end of the ring, let's say, to pick up a retrieve item. And as they're going to pick it up, another dog could be running, too, to a similar spot or a healing pass there.
And dogs would go like, oh, God, I don't want to go there. So it's a ton of unique challenges, like, loads of them, like, endless number of them. So I just show them all these challenges, set them up so they have to dig a little bit, but so they succeed. Like, I will never say, even if they muck it up, I won't say, oh, no, you're wrong. I'll be like, it's all right, buddy, and I'll help them out.
And then I'm like, yes, that was awesome. And. And so you'll see over the weeks, the things that are initially really hard get easier and easier for them, and they get more and more and more confident. They even start to get a little cocky. Like, you know, if a person's in their way, they're like. They'll literally, like, almost run the person over. Like, get out of my way.
Like, you can't get in my way. I'm going to do my task. So that's really what I'm after, is I'm not looking. I'm not harassing them for precision. I feel like if they're confident and relaxed, that will be there. Not harassing fronts or finishes. As a matter of fact, if they do something really hard and then they come in and their front is crooked, I reward them anyway.
I don't care. I'm like, good job. Like, I don't worry about that. So that's kind of how I approach it with all the dogs. You know, I make sure they're physically fit. I build up their confidence and their mental endurance. I expose them to as much as I can. And then as it gets really close to the event, I just kind of taper. I stop doing the hard things. I make everything just easy so that when they're going in, they're just relaxed and super confident.
Melissa Breau: What does supporting a dog at that level look like? Can you talk us through how you kind of adapt? You know, what that maybe means depending on the dog in question? I know you were talking about how Zesty and Zayna are very different in terms of serious versus in terms of light. So is there more to that?
Petra Ford: Well, Zesty worries, right? He worries because he does not want to be wrong. So he really worries a lot. So I cannot. So I don't let him be wrong, because if he's wrong, he's gonna overthink, right? And get slow and think so hard that I'm like, dude, just relax. So any challenge I set up, I just do whatever I need to to help him be right.
And when he's correct, I have a. I make a big. I build his ego. I'm like, wow, buddy, that's amazing. Look at you. And then we tug, and I tell him how brilliant he is. And that really feeds. That really builds their ego. Like, it's really feeding their ego. So like I said, I build challenges in there, but not so hard that they're gonna fail. And as they get better, I make the challenges a little harder and a little harder.
But I'm always, like, letting him succeed. So even if he. Let's say I throw a dumbbell and there's some toys out there, if he runs to the toy, I'm not gonna say, no, don't get the toy. I'm just going to go, ah, buddy, what are you doing? Get that dumbbell. Get the dumbbell. Then he'll drop the toy, and he's like that. I'm like, yeah, get the dumbbell. He'll get it.
I'll act as if he did it perfectly, and then he's free. So then if I do it again, he goes, oh, ignore the toy and get the dumbbell. Yeah. And so now he's. If he moving forward… If I put something else out there instead of him going, oh, God, oh, God, I have to ignore that. I got to get the dumbbell. And then if dogs are in that state of mind, they're actually more likely to make a mistake.
He's going to go up. Yup. You can't mess. You can't fool me. I'm not going to look at that. I'm getting my dumbbell. I know how this game is played, and I know how to win this game. So that's what I do with him. And a lot of pressure games because there's an enormous amount of pressure, and pressure is hard for him. Zayna doesn't feel pressure, really. Zana is completely different.
She thinks she's innately very confident. Too confident. She just thinks like, yeah, yeah, yeah, like, I can. I'll get the dumbbell. But on my way there, I'm gonna like, let's look around. What's over here, what's over there? And in doing that, she could make a mistake. So with her, I have to be more like, pay attention. Do your work. Stop gaggling around. Right? But again, I don't put a ton of pressure on her.
I just hold her accountable. I'm like, Zayna, what are you doing? That's all I really have to say. Because she knows. She's just so with her, just exposing her to everything, reminding her, you know, reminding her that when there's chaos going on, pay attention, don't sightsee. Because she's like, oh, look what you're doing. That's entertaining. And I'm like, no, no, no. You're supposed to watch me. So. But again, like, I can't get on our case, because then she's gonna stand there and be like, oh, God.
Oh, God. I'm not supposed to look at anything. So I just have to remind her, pay attention to me. Reward her for watching me. And again, when she does her job well, I make a big deal about it, and then she's super proud, and then she tries much harder the next time. So just different dogs, different strengths and weaknesses, different things that bother them. So I just, you know, you have to know your dog, right? And you have to tailor your training session, the challenges you give the dog and how you help the dog to what that specific dog needs.
Melissa Breau: I think you're talking a little bit about kind of the way that you look at pressure and think about pressure and train for pressure. And you mentioned that you kind of intentionally built their resilience for that and then kind of ease off and do all the easy stuff immediately before trialing for something like this. Can you talk a little bit about how that held up? How you feel that held up kind of in the ring and factored into your performance?
Petra Ford: I mean, honestly, I feel like that's literally one of the primary reasons that Zesty won. Because when he went, as I predicted, just because, you know, I know what's required of the NOC, I know what these dogs have to do. I know how hard it is just because I've done it a bunch of times and I know what his experience level is.
So when I got him out for the first of the final three rings, he was like, literally, he took two front feet and a head came out of the crate and he just stood there, like, dazed. Like, he was like, where am I? What day is it? Is it morning? Is it nighttime? He was. I had nothing. And so literally in the videos, you. I can clear there are a bunch of times in.
In all three rings, but for sure, in that first string, there were a number of times where he was on the verge of making a significant mistake. Like, even if it was three points, it would have knocked us out easily, right? And you can clear as day see him just all of a sudden, like, dig. You can see him make this decision where he goes, no, I'm going to do it this way.
And he digs really hard and he does the right thing. Fronts. Like, I had really not worked his fronts much at all in his preparation, basically because I just ran out of time. Like, there were so many things I had to show him that I kind of ran out of time to, you know, do everything I would have ideally liked to do. And it's kind of fascinating to watch him, like, he comes into front and then in the last second, he goes, like, and fixes it to make it perfect.
And I was like, holy cow. Like, because when it was happening, I was just so focused on my task, I wasn't. I didn't really notice. But I'm like, how the heck did he even do that? Like, how did he dig like that? And I think he dug like that because there wasn't any pressure on him, right? Like, I hadn't pressured him with anything. He had gone in super fresh and he had gone in with me always telling him that he was doing a great job and he was free, right?
Like, I never put pressure him. Like, I was never like, no, come on front or do this or do that or, no, you have to do that. So he was free mentally to just do his job to the best of his ability. Now, is he a special dog? 300%. And again, I'm saying that objectively. Right. For a dog to be that tired and to dig that deep, that's a special animal.
Right. You can be the best trainer on the planet. Some dogs that deep, when under that much, you know, tired and pressure cannot dig that deep. So, yes, he is a special dog. But I for sure also think the fact that, like I said, that he was able. He went in rested, relaxed, confident, no pressure, you know, and none of my warmups had pressure. You know, everything I did, if I did little warm ups or if I had to, if I saw something was slipping and I needed to remind him of something, I did it all by just saying, that's right.
Yes, yes, yes. Feed him. Yes. So, yeah, I think that played a huge part with both dogs, really, because, I mean, Zana was so happy in the final three rings and so confident and full of herself, you know, And I think it's the same thing. She came in confident, she came in rested, she came in without, you know, having had pressure put on her. And so, you know, she was happy. She was just happy.
Melissa Breau: Yeah. So you're talking also about kind of the importance of giving them that confidence boost before the. Before the big event. Right. Just like making things easy and really focusing on making them feel really good and building up their ego. How do you think about that? Not right before a big event like this. Does that make sense? Like, how do you...
Petra Ford: Yeah, so pretty much when I…What I was doing with Zesty, I needed like prep wise for those three months, I needed to do that anyway. Right. Because in the old days, we called it proofing. But I'm like, oh, that's a terrible word. Because all obedience people and probably even rally people, like the old way. What's associated with that word? The method is you set up a challenge so the dog fails, and then you tell the dog they're wrong.
Right. Well, that does not work well at all. I've seen it, I've watched it. It has the opposite effect. It stresses a dog out. So I think it was at camp, this past camp, we had a panel and. And I was on it with Denise and a few other people. And Denise is like. Yeah, she says, I think she calls it challenges now. Right. Which I like much better.
So I need to create challenges because in the ring, even at a local trial, the dog's gonna face challenges. Things are going to be hard, and in that moment, the dog has to make a decision. And I can't help the dog, right? And the dog has to make the decision to push through and do their task or not. So I had to do that with Zesty anyway because I hadn't gone through that whole process with him yet.
So I do that with all my dogs, and I continue to do it throughout their career. So I set up a challenge. So let's say a simple dumbbell retrieve, right? So if my dog understands how to do all the pieces and how to do the whole chain correctly, then at that point, I'll add challenges, right? I'll throw the dumbbell, and I'll have the judge walk towards it, walk around it.
I'll have things on the floor. We'll have all different kinds of scenarios to make the retrieve more challenging. And so I send my dog out, and one of my students just did this the other day, right? So she throws. Threw the dumbbell, and there were some toys out. The dog ran and grabbed the toy, right? When that happens, I laugh every time because I think it's kind of funny.
And then, you know, and she did the same thing, and she's just kind of like, leave the toy. Leave the toy. The dumbbell. So she literally had to, like, come all the way up and be like, the dumbbell. And he's like, oh, the dumbbell. And she's like, yes, that's it. Praise the dog for doing. You know. Now, a lot of people would say, but he did the wrong thing.
I'm like, yeah, I know, but he's just figuring it out, right? And so then on the next throw, most dogs will run out, and you'll see them. They're like, toy dumbbell. Okay, right. I'm supposed to ignore the toy and get the dumbbell. Now they make that choice because they're free to problem solve, because they're not like, oh, God. Oh, God. I don't want to be wrong because we didn't make a big deal about it.
Dog makes the right choice. As soon as a dog makes that decision and picks up the dumbbell, I don't worry about the front. I don't worry about the finish. I'm like, yes, and have a big party, right? So now the dog's like, cool. Like, I made that choice, and look what happened. Like, I got this huge event afterwards. So now the dog's going to want to make that choice more and more.
And so that, you know, Zaina thinks doing challenges is the best thing ever. She thinks it's hilarious. Like, the harder you make it, the more she's like, bring it on. You can't mess with me. Her eyes get really big. She gets, like, really hyper. She's like, let me add it. Let me at it. So they'll have, like, people holding cookies right at the dumbbell, calling her name, waving toys.
And she's just like, runs in, grabs a toy, flips around, comes flying back. Because she knows, and she's looking at me like, I did it, that I'm gonna have a huge reward for her after that, which I do. And so she thinks that's really fun. So I think that's important for dogs to be able to have that in all work, right? Like any sport, they do once they know the exercises, once they know the behaviors.
If you add challenges, what it does is it builds confidence in general in the dog. It builds confidence in the exercises. It builds commitment to the exercises. And then when they're in the ring and a unique challenge happens. Cause unique things always happen. Like, we. They can't prepare for everything. It's impossible. So when something weird happens, the dog isn't like, oh, God. Oh, God. The dog's like, I know what to do. I dig. I do. You know, I do the behavior or chain. And they're able to do that.
Melissa Breau: That's awesome. You kind of hinted at something I was going to ask you next, which I was going to ask about handling errors in training. And you just talked about the dumbbell example. Does that change at all depending on the level of training your dog has?
So you were talking about it, you know, with a dog who already knows all the behaviors. And you're kind of at that phase where you're adding challenges. When a puppy makes a mistake versus your active competition dog, like, how do you approach that? Is it. Is it the same thing? Is it different?
Petra Ford: Well, I mean, I can't. If a puppy. A puppy isn't really making mistakes, because in order to make a mistake, you have to know you're doing something wrong, right? So they don't.
They don't even know what they're doing. Like, they don't. So if I'm teaching my dog something, like, if I'm teaching, right. If a dog makes a mistake, I'm not gonna say to the dog, dude, that's wrong, because the dog's just trying to figure it out, right? It's no different than a kid. If a kid's learning a task and it messes up, are you going to say to the kid, no, don't do that.
No. You're going to be like, nice try, buddy. Good try. All right, now you're going to give the kid a little information on how to do it, you know, maybe how they can have a little more success. Go ahead, try it again. Kid tries it again. Maybe kid does a little better. Good job. Nice. But maybe it's still not what you want. Give the kid more information or do something to help the kid succeed.
So it's the same with a dog that's learning, right? Like, I want the dog to keep trying, right? I don't. So if my dog's trying but he does the wrong thing, I'm not going to fault them for that. If I do, the dog's going to quit. The dog's going to give up after a while. Dog's going to be so worried about being wrong, it's not going to want to keep doing it.
I wouldn't want to keep doing it. I feel like if my dog fully understands something, like, if my dog's old enough, where I've taught the dog, like, you can't just walk away and leave me, right? And go visit somebody, for example. Or if I've taught the dog that when I do a recall, if I call you for a straight recall, you can't run over and visit the judge.
Well, in that case, I might say to the dog, hey, no, no, no, you can't do that. Now sit there. You come when I say come. Like, that would be the extent of what I would do, right? But that's a dog that three. So there's so many. I mean, I have a webinar on this coming in a couple weeks. Because there are so many reasons, like, night. 90% of the mistakes dogs are making are because of us, right?
Like, I interviewed Denise. I once, like, had a conversation with Denise on my podcast, and one of the things she said, which was so. Which I was like, oh, this is so good, was that when she first started teaching people, this was talking about, you know, handling errors. She started to realize that she was never telling the dogs they were wrong. She was only ever telling the people.
Like, your handling could be better. Your reward delivery could be better. Your communication could be better. All those things could be better. So in all those cases, are we going to tell the dog they're wrong? That wouldn't be fair because it's our fault. They're making the mistake because of us. So you have to make sure all those other things are in place. You have to make sure the dog really and truly knows what you're asking them to do, like inside, outside, backwards, forwards, and that there are no other mitigating factors like distractions or pressure from a judge that are contributing to the mistake.
Right. So it's not that often that my dogs make an actual mistake where I would say, okay, dog, don't do that. It does happen sometimes. And then all I need to do is just say, don't do that. And they're like, okay, cool, you know? But, yeah, like, you typically don't have to, you know, I think that's just a really old belief. It's for sure, ingrained in the culture of competition.
Obedience, for sure. Still to this day, unfortunately, you know, the old belief that you have to let the dog know they're wrong or else they're going to keep doing it and it's the dog's fault, the dog's not trying, the dog's blowing you off. All those things are. It's the old way, you know, and it just does not work as well. It really just doesn't, you know, and because at the end of the day, I don't care what anyone says to me, I have yet to have someone actually convince me that their dog truly is not trying.
They're all trying. And if they're trying, I have to reward them for trying. And then I just have to teach them well. And if I teach them well, then their accuracy, then their error rate will be pretty low. So obviously, an obedience. A big part of the sport is that precision. And we talked a whole bunch about attitude and about confidence and about teaching a dog to hold up to pressure.
How do you still aim for those precise behaviors? How do you ensure that you're still getting precision in your training approach? And how do you balance that with all the rest of it? So the first thing is, like, I think precision tends to be. Have, like, a little bit of a negative connotation to it, right? Like, yeah. So I don't look at it like that. Right? They're all just behaviors.
They're all just tricks. They're all just bunch of little tricks strung together. So I take what most people will consider a precision behavior, like fronts, right? And I shape them now I just shape them. And by definition of shaping, it means my dog does not go from not knowing it to being accurate immediately. Right. It takes years. And because I don't want to be like, you must be right.
I'm like, little by little, bit by bit, piece by piece, we're going to get this closer and closer to what we want. But in the process, I'm going to keep it fun. So my dogs think that, like, I warm up with fronts, my Dogs will do front after front after front, and they're bouncing up and down, and they think it's the most fun thing ever. Same with finishes.
Same with pieces within an exercise that need to be perhaps, like, a certain way. I just take that piece out, and a lot of times I'll shape it. Because if I shape it, my dog just thinks it's a fun trick, and my dog has those same feelings about it. Or if I can't shape it, if it's something like, I have to leave my dog, and the judge is there, and there's stuff going on behind the dog, my dog's uncomfortable.
I'm going to come up with games and tricks and props that change my dog's feelings and turn that. Oh, God, I'm sitting here. You're leaving me. This is terrible to. I know. I know the game. You're walking away, but it's okay. And my dog's happy and in a positive state of mind. So that's how I get precision, is by breaking everything into tiny pieces, shaping it, making each piece super fun, and the dog really loves it.
And then slowly, bit by bit, over time, I put the pieces together. And then when you put a chain together over time, pieces of the chain get weak, right? They lose their quote, unquote accuracy or precision. I just pull that piece out of the chain, go back, revisit that piece, right? So let's say on a drop, on recall, if my dog's drop gets low, I'll just go in my sunroom and I'll just be like, down.
And my dog. And as soon as my dog goes down, throw him a cookie. And then I'll say, ready? Ready. Ready? Down. Throw him another cookie and make it so fun. And then my dog starts throwing himself down. I'm like, yeah, that's what I want. That's it. And then I might add some backwards motion. And then slowly, after a few sessions, I'll add a tiny little bit of distance, and by the time I put it back in the exercise, my dog's, like, loving going down.
He runs in, I give him the signal, he throws himself down. He's like, I'm happy as a clam to do it. So that's kind of how I keep the precision, rather than being like, no, you didn't doubt. And giving them a hard time. So precision doesn't. And I think the other piece is. I'm very good with criteria and communication, right? I give my dogs very good, clean, clear information.
I think a lot of times people are muddy, like, they're like, oh. They give the dog conflicting, inconsistent information. It's not always clear. Then the dog gets, like, insecure because the dog's like, I'm not sure exactly what you want. And then things get messy. And then when people ask the dog for quote, unquote precision, the dog looks slow or unhappy because the dog's unsure. Right. So I think it's a lot of times we need to look at our criteria and our communication system. A lot of times if we just click clean that up, the dogs get way more confident and then their accuracy goes up.
Melissa Breau: So you've got a ton of things on the schedule right now at FDSA, and all of it kind of ties into bits and pieces of this. So you're teaching three classes in the August session. You're Thriving under Pressure, your Competition, Healing Part 1, and the Open Obedience fun class.
And then you have a workshop on fronts and a webinar on rewarding mistakes. And that's all this month? That's all this month. And I think I had it right before, right before that workshop, I think a week or two prior. I think it's this month, too, at a workshop on games for heel position. Yeah. So I have a lot. Yeah. So if people kind of are trying to decide what they might want to do to work with you or, like, what option to kind of pick out of the multitude here. Can you talk us through what the different various options are, kind of what. What's covered in each of those little bits, and then maybe he should join us.
Petra Ford: Yes. So the thriving under pressure class is any dogs of any sport can take that. And I've historically, and I have now people in my classes that do not do obedience. They do other sports. There's pressure in every sport. Pressure on the dog feels negative.
Pressure comes in the form of, like, judges, barriers, the environment. Sometimes dogs feel pressure from a handler. So all these things are pressure, and the dog has a negative reaction to it. So in that class, what we work on is changing that 180 degrees so that pressure cues positive feelings. And once people kind of get the hang of it, there are a number of games in there. You can kind of take those games and morph them and apply them to a whole host of different scenarios.
Right. It's up to you how creative you want to be. Once you get the techniques and kind of get the concept and how to apply it, you can use it for pretty much anything. And it's been a game changer for my dogs. Like Zeal only won the NOC. The Year he did because of these games. My competition heeling is the foundation heeling class. So it's for competition heeling.
You don't have to be a, you know, like, oh, I want to, you know, you can be a beginner, beginner perfectly fine. Your goals can be not super lofty. It doesn't matter. It's just. It's a foundation heeling class. We break everything into tiny little pieces so that the dog can be successful and confident. The open class is more of an, like, intermediate class, so. But again, I have people at very, very, like, a wide range of levels in my classes all the time, which I'm fine with.
I'll work with anybody. But they should have like a basic foundation pieces of most of the open exercises for this class to make the most sense for them. The errors webinar that's in. I think it's in two weeks. That's rewarding errors for confidence. So it's. It goes into depth about like all the scenarios where a dog might do something and it's not perfect, it might even be quote, unquote wrong, but I might reward it anyway with a goal of making the dog more confident.
And that can be applicable to any sport. That's a webinar. My workshop. Oh, my workshop on fronts. This is so. This workshop on fronts. I have not done this before. It's shaping fronts. So in the past, I've used, like, props and different and broken it into a bunch of different pieces. Here I'm just shaping it and I'm just using body motion to shape fronts. And that's what I do with my dogs now.
And I think my dogs are better at fronts than any dogs I've had in the past. And I kind of go through the whole procedure beginning to end. So whether you're just starting to teach fronts or whether you're already doing fronts, but you'd like your fronts to be better, you can always go back and revisit fronts doing this method. And the dogs think it's super fun. So that's shaping fronts.
What was the other one? Oh, games. Games for heel position. They're just same thing. It's like I want my dog to want to be in heel position. So when my dogs are in front of me and I say to my dog, offer behaviors. Offer whatever you want. So they could offer twist, spin, bounce, wave, down, stand. My dogs, 89% of 90% of the time, they're going to jump into heel position.
That's one of their favorite tricks. And I want that because I want my dog to want to be there and to be happy there. And so I have a bunch of games that I do with my dogs to create that both for them to want to be in heel position when I'm stationary and to want to be in heel position when I'm in motion.
Melissa Breau: Yeah. Awesome. That is quite a few options for people to pick from. It's a lot. All right, before we go, any final thoughts or maybe key points you kind of want to leave folks with?
Petra Ford: I think the most, I think key points, like, more and more and more, I'm leaning towards, you know, errors are not the dog's fault. They're out. We created them. We caused them. We should not hold the dogs accountable to that. We should hold ourselves accountable. Dogs are trying, so we should reward effort.
We shouldn't be so worried about, oh, God, I'm rewarding the wrong thing. A lot of times if I reward the fact that they tried, they keep trying, and then very quickly, they get to the correct behavior. And I also think, yeah, in every sport, it's important to not just teach the dog the behaviors and then go trial. I think it's super important to also show them some challenges and really build your dog's confidence.
And at first, a lot. I have. I think I have a class on this at some point. But anyway, when people start doing this, at first they're like, oh, I don't know if my dog can do that. And once they start doing it, they have so much fun. Their dogs have so much fun. And then it's almost like they're a runaway freight train. I can't stop them. They're, like, coming up with their own ideas, which is.
And, like, they're just like, they're just every day more and more things, and that makes me super happy because they're having a blast. The dogs are having a blast. The dogs are getting more confident, and then the handlers are going to be more confident, especially in competition. And that is going to convey down to the dog. Right? Because when people compete, they're nervous, they're worried, and then that conveys to the dog.
I want to go in the ring. I know my dog can do it, you know, so I'm going to walk in going, come on, buddy. You can do this. I know you can. And the dog's going to be like, okay, mom, I believe you. And that. That's really going to bode well for both you and the dog in the ring.
Melissa Breau: Awesome. All right, I think that's a great note for us to wrap things up on, so thank you so much for coming back on the podcast.
Petra Ford: Thank you so much. Thank you for doing this and thank you for having me again. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Always a pleasure. And thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week. 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 and as soon as it becomes available, 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.
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!